Closet Comfort

Charlie Spring was never the 'take a day off' kind of person, even after he got outed and had to face up to all the boys bullying him up and down. He just never found skyving off of school, even for mental health reasons, appealing, even when his parents insisted or Tori would be home as well and blah, blah, blah.

He just never liked to be worried on as he was so used to worrying for himself and others around him only. Especially if it was about some of the things that his parents don't even know about him, which are only a few here and there, but some are just too much to really /talk/ to them about.

Like the girls' clothes, the current example today as Charlie right now, is attempting to keep his cool, wrapped in a blanket in the middle of a rare heatwave as Nicholas Nelson, his currently unaware boyfriend, studies on the floor of his bedroom. Not great, yeah?

See, Charlie hadn't really meant for this to happen, but it's almost the Summer Holidays and Elle, sweet, already aware of a million of Charlie's secrets and problems Elle, ended up spraining her ankle and had no one to hang out with.

So Charlie, against his normal nature despite his rebellious streak growing thanks to Nick, decides instead of attending school to go to Elle's house and hang out with her instead, not just because he doesn't want to deal with school today, but because he's her friend.

It's also been a few months since he let the proverbial stylist out of the handbag to put everything in lame terms and worn something not boyish, so a general conversation in Elle's room soon turns into an all-out closet hoarding session of Elle's old clothes (a familiar move as usually, Elle has the best taste) that she doesn't want anymore, Charlie clutching at almost everything like a gold-hungry dragon and loading it into shopping bags so that when he walks home, he doesn't look like the weirdest guy ever, even if he feels like he does.

He doesn't really know exactly when it started, but he guesses that it was that one time when he was young when his Mum accidentally took one of Tori's dresses out of the wash and put it in his pile and rather than just give it back, Charlie put it on to see what it was like.

The plain grey flowered dress swished at his ankles and the long sleeves fell over his hands a little as Tori was slightly bigger than him, but he remembers laughter as he plays in front of the mirror in it before his Mum catches him and after taking a few photos, asks him to take it off before Tori sees.

The first time he got clothes off Elle, he lied to her and said it was for Tori's benefit, as given she was taking HRT, her clothes always had to be changed as she did. Understandably. While her clothes were not Tori's style, however, they were stylish in many ways and before Elle transitioned, she and Charlie were the same size when it came to shirts and pants, so he figured it would count to dresses as well (which was thankfully true).

It took Elle only about 4 rotations of her closet and the noticement of one of her rather frilly jumpers a relative had gotten her that she hated in Charlie's closet on Game Night to figure out that he hadn't been all truthful about the clothes hocking and after gently asking him in the bathroom, Charlie withered and gave in, Elle being nothing but kind about the whole thing.

When she asked him if he was trans, however, he declined. While he had thought that for a while, a long while (why else would he like girl clothes!?), he could most definitely say that not only was he very gay, he was definitely still wanting to present as male. Just a male with a stash of hidden girls' clothing that Elle had to swear not to tell his parents about.

Thankfully, Elle was a great secret keeper and had even started a private chat with him away from the group that was basically made up of them gossiping about the latest fashion trends as well as places that were selling stuff they liked or shops outside of Herne Bay where they could take the bus or train and he could pretend to be her boyfriend so they could both go in and try all the newer, cute-looking stuff in the change rooms where no one would see them.