Blurgh. I have been mega neglecting the fic lately in favor of writing (and subbing and publishing) original stories, but I woke up this morning with this idea and had to write it. It got way darker than it was supposed to be. It started out as sweet discovery fic and turned into my patented fragile!Shawn and distrubinglyperceptive!Eric. It also was going to be a one shot and turned into a two parter just because of length.
Hope you enjoy, and if the cross dressing thing does it for you, hold onto your panties because I'm working on a novella for you.
Shawn watches Eric- Chantal- wiggle across the student union in his attempt to run down some random beautiful girl, and the look on the girl's face. Confused, maybe even amused, definitely not interested.
Eric really doesn't make that bad a woman, all things considered. The voice is okay, even though the accent needs work. He has a tendency to go a little rubber faced, but that's a personality trait not a masculine trait. Eric, with a little guidance, can probably master the roll and glide that women walked with. He's just trying too hard.
While Jack in disguise had swaggered as though he was doing his best to push his dick out through his skirt (because if you had to do something as degrading as dress like a girl you could at least make sure everyone knew you were being forced into it), Eric was willing to try to be a woman, and had ended up dressed up like someone acting like a woman. The accent out of bad indie film. The dress out of an old lady catalogue. The way he walked-like a woman, but like a woman trying to shoplift a ham between her legs.
Shawn hasn't said anything, but this whole new cross dressing interlude in their lives has been strange for him. It's like watching a movie he hasn't seen since he was a kid and realizing that he hasn't remembered it right. But that's not quite right either. It's like watching a horror movie that had terrified him as a child, but fully grown, with a better sense of real and fake, with the lights on this time. Now he's old enough to see the strings.
Shawn has been able to watch Jack and Eric, hobbling in their heels and swinging in their skirts, and see them embodying different aspects of how he'd felt, years ago, as Veronica.
The way it brings something out from inside Eric, and the way he seems… like a man exploring a new country, like a child with a new toy.
Jack's shame and embarrassment, even though he'd been treated the same way Veronica had been treated. Like he was beautiful. Like he was exotic. Like he was desirable.
The pictures had floated around school long after the article came out. There had been sneering. There had been disgust just like Jack's disgust. There had been jokes about him, and about Cory. But there had been smiles and compliments too. And Shawn had seen those pictures. And he had felt beautiful.
He's rationalized a lot of it away. The appeal of Veronica had been that she was able to walk into school without Shawn's baggage. Veronica had been the beautiful new girl, who already had boys carrying her books and opening doors for her and watching her legs move under her skirt.
Veronica hadn't been trailer trash.
Veronica's father had never been the school janitor.
Veronica hadn't been abandoned in her English teacher's apartment.
And even though Veronica's foray into dating hadn't been ideal, Shawn is well aware that wasn't the point, and just as aware that… in the right circumstance, wholly separate from any of the circumstances he'd been faced with in high school, Veronica's date could have been different. It could have been something he isn't comfortable thinking about as he watches Eric's jaw drop while he takes in the beautiful girl walking by and begins to waddle after her in his short skirt.
"Hey! Everybody experiments in college!" Eric yells.
Shawn shivers, covers it with a laugh, and walks, hips forward, back to the pool table.
A few days pass. Midterms end and people started slowly filtering off campus and back home for the break. Crazy Luther fails to kill, maim, or gnaw on Eric or Jack. Jack and Eric go back to shirts and jeans. No one talks about it.
And Shawn can almost stop thinking about it.
But not quite.
If it weren't during break, if there were a few more people on campus, if Cory wasn't so involved in decorating his and Topanga's apartment, Shawn might not risk it. But there's no one around.
And Shawn still has the wig.
He's done it a couple of times since high school. Just the wig. Just a little eye shadow. He hasn't done it since his father's funeral. But watching Eric and Jack out there in the union all week, Jack being treated like a pretty girl (though, for Shawn's money, there is something dewy and sweet about a feminized Eric) has made Shawn… hungry for it.
Jack, in his ongoing attempt to remain as ludicrously masculine as he can, bought tickets to some sort of sporting event today. He'll be gone for hours, watching the sport, getting wasted after the sport and attempting to pick up women while wasted after the sport. Eric has, presumably, followed along.
Shawn has the apartment to himself.
He grabs a Coke out of the fridge before heading up to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and pulling open his wardrobe. He plucks a rusty key out of the pocket of his old leather jacket from high school, then lowers himself to his knees in front of his bed, and reaches underneath until he feels the worn leather of the handle on his father's old trunk. It was one of the few things from the trailer he had kept. His father had never kept anything in it, but it had belonged to Shawn's grandfather, who had probably stolen it from an actual veteran. Shawn had liked the smell of it and had wanted something he could lock.
The key is bent and doesn't fit into the lock quite right. Shawn jimmies it all the way in and wrenches it to the left, tugging the slightly warped lid off of the trunk.
The first thing in the trunk is a layer of extra winter sweaters that he put away to make more room in his wardrobe. He pulls them out with the same shiver of guilt he always feels. The lock on this trunk stands between him and everything he doesn't want to explain to anyone. Everything he has to keep just in case, and everything that would scare his friends if they knew he still had them.
Shawn feels like the letters, all of the letters his mother had written to him when she'd run away, the handful of postcards he'd received from his father and the letter telling him that his mother wasn't his real mother, are the most dangerous thing in the trunk. He keeps them all, mashed together into a brick of paper and envelopes with a few rubber bands tight around them. He read them all when his father died, and it had sent him off onto the road, not sure if he ever planned to return. But letters from a mother you hardly had and a father you had lost only engender pity. They seem so innocuous next to everything else he's kept.
An address book with a list of all the Hunters, their crime, where they were incarcerated and when they were expected to get released.
Mr. Mack's card and a candle that he'd stolen from The Center.
A bottle of whiskey, the seal unbroken.
And two shoeboxes. One with two pairs of heels, another with a wig and a rag-tag collection of half used make up.
He runs his hand over the glass of the whiskey bottle and wonders, like he does every time he opens the trunk, if this is the day to throw it out.
He'd learned from one of his very few AA meetings that most alcoholics keep a bottle of booze stashed somewhere at first. Some as a challenge, some as a punishment, some as a safety net- if they ever need it, they knew they could get it. He'd found a bottle of tequila in his father's trailer- the label on it weathered and wrinkled and old fashioned. It had been about three quarters gone. When he'd found it he'd twisted the cap off and poured the rest of the bottle down the sink, breathing the scent in deeply as the amber liquid splashed against the white tile.
Shawn grabs the neck of the bottle and lifts it, considering for a moment before letting a tight breath out of his chest. Maybe not today.
Instead, he takes a shoebox in each hand, sets them on his bed and drops the sweaters back on top of the incriminating secrets of the trunk.
He props the wardrobe door open so that he can see himself in the mirror inside, then smoothes his hair back and pulls the wig on. He fiddles with the bangs of the wig the same way he'd always fiddled with his own bangs, making sure he had just enough hair in his eyes.
Just the wig turns into just the wig and foundation. Then a little blush.
Hardly any eye shadow.
No eyeliner at all compared to some of the girls on campus.
Just enough mascara to make his eyes pop.
He stops smudging and blending and looks at himself in the mirror. He looks fresher that he had in high school. The 90's vampire trend was long gone and the few tidbits of make up he's acquired- things girls had left behind in his dorm and things Angela had thrown away- are more pink and shimmery than the blues and browns and mattes of once-upon-a-time.
He feels pretty. Attractive. Almost like he could just throw a belt around the flannel shirt he's wearing now and go out.
It's so tempting.
Tempting enough to keep going.
He unbuttons his shirt, watching himself in the mirror. The contrast of his feminine face and his flat, but more muscular than it used to be, chest is interesting. He turns a little from side to side to get the full effect. The shirt drops behind him. His jeans and boxers follow.
Standing there naked, a woman's head on a man's body isn't nearly as good. He looks like separate parts mashed together. Like doll parts broken and melted and sealed back together wrong. He turns away from the mirror and back to the boxes. Topanga had left a pair of pantyhose behind during her brief stay in Shawn and Cory's dorm, and Shawn had quietly acquired them. Just like he'd quietly acquired the bra that Jack had jubilantly thrown into the garbage.
He clasps the bra behind his back and shoves a few tissues from his less-than-subtle box on the nightstand into the cups, then sits down and slips the pantyhose onto one foot, relishing the feel of the nylon against his skin before he realizes that he can hardly free ball his way around.
Around where? Part of him asks, but goes unanswered.
Shawn doesn't have any women's underwear. For some reason that's where he's drawn the line. Everything else is strange, hard to explain, and probably (for Cory and Jack at least) just as worrying as the bottle of whiskey, but panties are the one thing that Shawn hasn't been able to justify. Panties are the thin silk line between foible and perversion.
He digs around his underwear drawer for one of his few pairs of boxer briefs, finally finding a pair wadded up at the back and pulling them on, then the hose over them.
It occurs to Shawn that he does have a dress and he shivers a little at the thought. He hasn't done even this much since high school. Full make up. The wig. Hose. Bra.
He's only been playing with it over the years. Just a few things. He's even been able to buy himself his own mascara. It's invisible unless you're looking for it and it makes girls flip over his "soulful" eyes.
But now he's just fucking cross dressing.
There's no girl to impress. No article to write. No raver to escape. He's just dressing up like a woman because he wants to. Practically needs to.
Shawn opens up his bottom drawer and pulls out the dress. It's a light blue cotton shirt dress that buttons all the way down. It's Angela's. It had looked like one of his shirts from the top and he'd thrown it into his laundry before they'd broken up and never brought it back to her.
His heart starts to pound as he gulps and pulls it over his head. His wig catches on the collar and slips down his head, wrecking the illusion for a moment. He readjusts it, then grabs a belt out of his drawer, throws it around his waist, and slips the leather through the buckle.
This dress had been huge on Angela's lithe frame. She'd belted it tight and let it exaggerate her round hips and breasts.
It's tighter around Shawn's larger body and he lets his belt hang loose and asymmetrical, adding a little bit of shape to his slim hips and total lack of a waist.
He tugs at the belt, then smooths the dress down with slight trembling hands and looks up into the mirror.
Veronica's grown up. She's a little taller, but not by much. Her skin's cleared up. Her jaw's squared out a little, but the hair cut helps hide that. The collar on the dress is flattering. The man's belt around her waist is just a little saucy.
It's also screaming out for shoes to match.
Shawn pulls the heels out of their box. Three inches. Round toes. A little out of fashion these days, but not criminally out of fashion. The heel is high enough to make the muscles of his calves disappear into his leg a little bit, smoothing and feminizing the line. He swallows heavily. It makes it completely obvious that he shaves his legs. It's a little thing. Like the mascara. People don't expect it so they don't see it.
Just like they hadn't seen Jack underneath Lala, despite the half-assed attempt to sound feminine and the way he'd clomped around in those terrible shoes. Like they hadn't seen Eric underneath Chantal, despite the bulge in his skirt.
Speaking of… Shawn makes a quick and familiar adjustment.
Like… none of the very few people that were still around during the break would see Shawn under Veronica.
His feet move without any direction. He grabs his messenger bag off the coffee table, with some vague plan of going somewhere and just reading his book for a while, as Veronica (who hasn't been abandoned more times than a political platform, who doesn't have a dead father, who doesn't have a bottle of whiskey she can't drink hidden under her bed) and then just come back, shower and change.
He locks the door behind him, and almost sags with relief against it.
Shawn might not have fully thought through this "go read at a coffee shop in a dress" plan. The barista, a slender young man with old fashioned glasses and a black tee shirt that is two sizes too small, is watching him. Checking him out.
And while that is part of the appeal of Veronica, the way that men check her out the way that women don't check Shawn out, he'd forgotten about the strangeness of it. Not necessarily the strangeness of guys checking him out, he gets that as Shawn too and tends to acknowledge it with a tightlipped smile. Thanks, but no thanks.
He's less- Veronica is less… hesitant about it though. She's… Being her, is making Shawn more… aware of it. More willing to think about it. Gary had been such a sleaze that he'd written the few bizarre moments of thinking about it off as just being in character. After all, it wasn't as though he'd wanted Gary to touch him.
He flicks his bangs out of his eyes, looks over at the barista, and takes a sip from his mocha, taking more of the straw into his mouth than he actually needs to, and instantly averting his eyes from the barista's shy smile.
They land on Eric, sitting in a corner booth. He's got a textbook in front of himself, propped up on something, Shawn can't make out what, while he takes a bite out of his scone.
Shawn's heart thumps, stops, then kicks in again, hammering. Eric sets the scone down, rubs his eye and stretches. As his arms come back down Shawn sees Eric's eyes settle on him and his heart finally quiets when Eric's eyes drop back down to his book. But it's a short-lived relief. Eric looks back up immediately, stares at Shawn, and then the grin spreads across his face.
Shawn shuts his book, stands, and trips, forgetting about the heels for a moment. It gives Eric enough time to come over and take his hand, catching him in his fall.
"Shawn?" he whispers quietly.
"Veronica," Shawn corrects, but doesn't attempt to lie. Eric is one of those people who sees past things and he's scared the shit out of Shawn more than once by opening his mouth and saying what Shawn was just thinking.
"Wow. You ahh preety on zer outside," Eric tells him, in his soft, light Chantal voice. Shawn laughs as Eric let him go.
"What are you doing all… gussied up?" Eric asks.
"I umm…" Shawn starts, in his own voice, before hiking it back up into Veronica's pitch. "I just wanted too."
Eric shrugs, accepting that as easily as Shawn should have expected someone who had spent the last week loving being in a dress to accept it.
"What are you working on? Didn't you just have your midterms?"
"Got an extension on one of them, but I was just about to take a quick break," Eric says.
"You wanna grab your stuff?" Shawn asks, jerking a thumb back toward his own booth.
"Sure." Eric shrugs and head over to his table. Shawn sinks back down into the booth, suddenly terrified and thrilled. Eric does this too. They can talk about it. He can get a better grip on how weird it is. If he's a total freak or if it's just… something people do and don't talk about.
Eric drops down opposite him and Shawn reaches out for his mocha. He takes a sip and sets it down between them, like he's moving the first pawn of the game, but can't remember the rules. Eric looks at him, quirks his head, and then, because Eric is usually winning at Candyland when other people are setting up chess strategies, casually asks, "So… who is Veronica?"