Fake News Fic

Hi everybody ^_^ It never occurred to me to go looking for RENTfic, and then I wrote one so I figured I should find somewhere RENTy to post it, and I'm very glad I did.

My name's Erin; I love all the characters but am especially partial to Mark and Joanne; and once I finish typing this I will be running to class. (I just started at Wheaton College - the one in Massachusetts, not the one in Illinois. It's a cool place.)

This fic is a crossover with the Colbert Report universe. That is to say, it features Stephen Colbert, not the real person but the character he plays on TV. It also features Jon Stewart, although he plays himself on TV (on The Daily Show as well as the Report), so there's no distinction to be made. If you don't watch these shows, you should! there's a list of dramatis personae at the end of the fic, so you can see how many clever references I've put in keep the characters straight ^_^

Hope you enjoy!

Title: Real Life's Getting More Like Fiction
Rating: PG? Just to be safe.
Warnings: Confusion on gender identity, high cuteness levels, RENT spoilers right and left.
Length: ~1800 words
Summary: In 1971, Jon (age 9) meets Mark (age 7). In 1972, Stephen (also age 8) meets Angel (age 8). Connections are made.
Notes: I picked the title before I had any idea it was the title of this community, so I am marginally less unoriginal than I look ^_^; "How do you document real life when real life's getting more like fiction each day?" could be the Daily Show/Colbert Report motto.

Disclaimers: One for the RENT characters: Jonathan Larson came up with them (or at least, adopted them from Puccini's characters). I had no hand in it. One for the Report characters: These belong to Stephen and the other TCR writers. Still not mine. And one for the real people, about whom I wrote my own custom disclaimer as a poem:

Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.

Real Life's Getting More Like Fiction

(1971)

Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz is nine years old, and he's at somebody's bar mitzvah. He doesn't know whose; all the Jewish families for miles around have been invited, and while the parents are mingling easily, nobody tells Jon what's going on.

He's wandering around the back yard when he sees another little boy, close to his age, with thick square glasses and a shaggy mop of blond hair. (Jon has neatly trimmed brown hair; he wants to let it grow out, but his mother is fussy over things like that and won't let him. This boy looks like his mother doesn't own a comb.)

Jon has nothing else to do, so he walks over to the other boy. "Hello."

The kid turns a bulky, cheap-looking video camera on him. "We're here, live, with the man on the street," he announces. "What do you think about the dinosaurs?"

Jon blinks. "Dinosaurs? What dinosaurs?"

"No!" The blond lowers the camera and stamps his foot. "You're s'posed to say, 'Dinosaurs are scary!' or 'Dinosaurs are cool!' or somethin'."

"Sorry," says Jon, abashed. "Um, whatcha doing?"

"I'm makin' a movie. It's about how there are dinosaurs attacking, but then a kid saves the day. And you gotta be in it."

"Cool! Can I save the day?"

"No! I'm gonna save the day. You're gonna be the Man On Th' Street," the amateur cameraman informs him. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Jon. Jon Leibowitz."

"I'm Mark Cohen. Wanna have my oughtagraph? I'm gonna be famous when I grow up. Make lotsa movies."

"Well," reveals Jon, dropping his voice a bit, "I'm gonna be an actor." He's never told anyone about this - there's something embarrassing about it, when all the other boys want to be astronauts and cowboys - but for some reason he doesn't think Mark will laugh. "I'm gonna do lotsa movies too, an' be rich an' famous."

"Let's both get oughtagraphs," Mark suggests. So Jon swipes some napkins from the table, and Mark retrieves a Sharpie from his pocket, and they solemnly trade signatures.

Then Mark asks, "What kind a' movies d'you wanna do?"

"Action movies! Where I save people from stuff like dinosaurs," Jon announces unhesitatingly. "An' charging rhinos, an' stuff like that. An' I'll stop innocent people from gettin' hit by bullets - when th' bad guys attack. An' then I'll get to go to the Oscars, an' win a bunch of awards, an'..."

He stops, because Mark looks disappointed. "Don't you wanna win Oscars too?"

"What if," says the blond slowly, "you could save real people, 'stead of just playin' it in the movies?"

Jon considers this. "But I can't," he concludes. "I'm not like a superhero or somethin'. An' that kind a' stuff only happens in the movies anyway."

"No, it doesn't!" protests Mark. Then he leans in and speaks in a hushed voice. "I don't just wanna make movies about dinosaurs," he explains. "I wanna make movies that help people."

"How d'ya do that with a movie?" asks Jon, a bit bewildered.

"Well," says Mark, with the air of one who's thought long and hard about this, "d'you get beat up in school?"

Jon looks around to make sure there's nobody nearby, then lowers his voice. "Uh-huh," he replies.

"An' your parents don't believe you, right? Or they say you gotta ignore 'em an' they'll go away?"

"Yeah!" Then Jon catches on. "You too?"

"Uh-huh."

"An' teachers don't pay attention, an' the nurse acts like it's your fault, an'..."

"Yeah, 'zactly!" cuts in Mark. "Now, what if there was a movie about us gettin' beat up? An' everybody watched it?"

Jon blanches. "I don't wanna get beat up in a movie!" he protests. Because sometimes he cries, and sometimes he begs, and he's already ashamed enough about it; he cannot imagine pleading on film.

"But then they'd all know it wasn't your fault!" presses Mark. "An' they'd have to do somethin' about it! An' then you'd never get beat up again, an' all the other Jewish kids in the world would show the movie to their parents an' they'd never get beat up again."

It does sound tempting, and Jon thinks hard about this. But then he says, "Why can't they just do a thing about it on the news?"

Mark makes a face. "Nobody watches the news! 'Cept when there's stories about Bigfoot or somethin'."

Jon squirms a bit at this, because he watches the news. "No, you gotta do movies if you wanna be seen," Mark continues. "Just watch."



(1972)

Stephen Tyrone Colbert is eight years old, and he's at somebody's confirmation party. He doesn't know whose; all the Catholic families in the area have been invited, and his alone has eleven kids. The parents chat away happily with each other, but nobody tells Stephen what's going on.

He's wandering around the back yard, dodging balloons, when he sees a little boy sitting by himself in the grass to the side, wearing a nicely pressed suit and looking absolutely miserable.

(Stephen's also in a suit, but he doesn't mind. In fact, he kind of likes suits. This boy looks like he'd rather be wearing anything else.)

Stephen's curious, so he walks over and sits next to the boy. "Hello."

The kid looks at him and sniffles. "Go away. Boys are icky."

Stephen frowns and pulls off his glasses to squint more closely at the strange kid. "You're a boy."

"No, 'm not. I'm a girl."

"How come you're wearin' a suit, then?"

"Mom 'n Dad made me. I wanna wear a pretty dress, with ribbons an' lace, like all the other girls."

"How come your mom an' dad don't know you're a girl?" presses STephen, now thoroughly confused. None of his ten siblings have ever had this kind of problem.

The boy/girl stares at him, looking surprised that Stephen's taking her/him seriously. "Well," he/she admits in a whisper, "I've got...boy parts."

Stephen glances furtively down, then looks back at the strange kid's miserable face. "You mean," he presses - and lowers his own voice, because there are lots of mothers around, and if he says this word too loudly one of them is bound to tell him off - "you have...balls?"

The kid nods.

"What's your name?" asks Stephen.

"Angel." Then, in a singsong voice, "Angel Dumott Chunard."

"I guess that could be a girl's name," muses Stephen.

"What's yours?"

"Me? Stephen." He adopts an authoritative voice, the one with as little Southern drawl as he can manage. "Stephen Colbert."

"So you're definitely a boy."

"Yeah!" exclaims Stephen angrily. "How come you gotta ask? It's the plain truth, anybody can see that. And," he adds, "if you've got...you know...then you're a boy too. That's the truth."

Angel shakes Angel's head. "It's a fact," Angel says, "but that doesn't mean it's th' truth."

"Same thing," declares Stephen.

"Nuh-uh! Fact is what parts I got, but Truth is what I feel. In my heart. An' I feel I'm a girl."

This is new information for Stephen, but it makes a weird sort of sense. "Well," he says at last, "I feel I'm a boy. But," he concedes, "I guess you can be a girl if you want."

"Yah!" Angel jumps up and flings her skinny arms around Stephen. "You're nice, Stephen! Not like the other boys."

Without hesitation, Stephen pushes her away. "Get offa me! Girls are icky!"



(2004)

In Scarsdale, two days after Christmas, Mark Cohen has finally spent the holiday at home, to his family's delight. He's sorting through boxes of his old stuff, which his mother ordered him to either take to his new house or just throw away.

One of the reels, meticulously labeled Dinasor Attak Movie, has a napkin wrapped around it. He doesn't recognize the writing on the napkin, but he diligently threads the projector and begins to watch the movie. It has some ominous shots of bushes, some close-ups of toy dinosaurs, then some confused-looking kid he must have ambushed. Mark smiles at the memory.

Then he pauses the tape, looks at the napkin again, and switches on the television to catch the end of a Daily Show rerun, which confirms his sudden suspicion.

There's only one thing for Mark to do; no amount of Sundance awards will pay the mortgage, after all. He takes a few photos of the napkin, kicks one of Cindy's kids off of the family computer (a bit of a dinosaur itself), and logs on to eBay.



(2006)

Somewhere else entirely, Angel is floating. In this place, where the sun shines and there's always enough to eat and everybody knows your name, people don't usually float; but Angel feels like it, and so she is.

She's just come from a visit with Mimi (who finally came to stay, despite Angel's protests), and she feels like relaxing, so of course everything that might have demanded her time can suddenly wait. She soars lazily over a field. A couple of boys are down there; they wanted to play ball, and so they are playing ball.

She knows their names, of course - Peter and Paul. They died young, but they're at peace now, and doing what they feel like doing. On a lone set of bleachers at the edge of the field is a young man - his name is James - who wants, at the moment, to watch his children.

Angel floats over to say hello.

James looks surprised, then delighted, because he recognizes her and he's long past bigotry. "Why, it's the Chunard boy!" he exclaims. "I suppose I shouldn't say 'boy' now, though, should I? Good to see you!"

"I don't remember you," admits Angel, sorry but not embarrassed; she knows it's forgivable. Then she looks at the television set which is sitting quite naturally on the bleachers and playing a star-spangled opening theme. "Wait - is that your son?"

"That he is."

"I remember him!" cries Angel, heart fluttering as the host looks down at the camera and grins. "We met, once. You must be so proud of him."

"I am." James smiles warmly (she can see where his son got it from) at the television, then looks up just as warmly at Angel. "When your parents get here, they'll understand, and they'll be proud of you too."


Dramatis Personae

Angel: Cheerful drag queen with a male body, a female soul, and great rhythm. Played drums on the streets of New York City until she hooked up Tom Collins: Mark's old roommate and a professor with continuous employment. Knew that she was meant to be female from an early age; she was a Boy Scout for a time, but then became a Brownie, "until some brats got scared." Died of AIDS in 1990; survived by her friend Mimi, who has one near-death experience from which Angel sends her back. In a show where almost everyone has worried parents who peek in at the edges of the action, hers are conspicuously absent.


Mark: Would-be filmmaker who in 1990 was living in an apartment in New York City and trying to make a film that would change the world. Ended up working for Buzzline, a cheesy tabloid show that does Bigfoot stories, to make money. Later rediscovered his principles, quit, and started trying to live his own life rather than hiding behind a camera watching others'. Finisheed his film on the AIDS epidemic, driven in part by Angel's death. His parents live in Scarsdale, which he avoided returning to for a long time after he moved out, though his sister Cindy and her children went back for Christmases.


Jon: Born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; starred in a few bad films (including wearing a rhino costume in Death to Smoochy), then had his own talk show (and long hair). Finally took over as host of a little program called The Daily Show, which did character-driven, tabloid-esque pieces. Tripled the viewership while he made it so issue-driven that, after Indecision 2000, Stephen promised a hundred dollars to any field producer who could get a Bigfoot piece past Jon. Goes on Crossfire to sincerely beg for the hosts to help make the world better. Hosted the Academy Awards in 2006. Self-described news junkie.


Stephen: Born in the South (though he deliberately shed the accent) to a deeply Catholic family, with ten siblings (two of whom died when Stephen was ten, along with his father, in a plane crash). Grew up to be an ultraconservative homophobic pundit who is rarely seen in anything but a suit (even when fighting space monsters) and routinely has balloons dumped on himself in celebration. Very enthusiastic about truth(iness), though he doesn't much care for facts. Known for having balls of steel, and talking about them a lot. Signature move: the pull-squint.