Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Charlie Kirk is smirking proudly after winning his debate with the college student. That smug bastard thinks that he won when all he does is argue with kids. Dean can’t stand him, or well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, considering he is standing next in line.

Charlie’s face drops momentarily. Dean Withers. A name he hates to read on the list of people he debates, but a face he’s excited to see.

Dean steps forward, eyes narrowing at the less-gummy-than-usual smirk plastered across Charlie’s face. He’s seen it a million times - like he owns every conversation, every room. Dean grits his teeth.

You chose to be here. This is to spread the word. You’ve done this before - what’s one more debate sitting across from him? Dean thinks to himself.

“Nice speech,” he says, fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

Charlie turns, his posture straightening to properly face Dean. The slight surprise on his face vanishes as quickly as it came, replaced by smug confidence.

“Well, thank you, of course, you’re not mad you couldn’t top me in our last debate?” Charlie says, raising his eyebrows.

Dean takes a deep breath in. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he retorts. “You’re good at talking over people. That’s about it.”

Charlie’s eyes gleam. His smirk almost falls into a fond smile; he enjoys this. The banter. He loves the way Dean can’t seem to help himself.

The moderator calls Dean to attention, signalling that it’s his time to sit down. The tension between them thickens, heavier than the air in the room. Dean adjusts his jacket, avoiding looking at Charlie, though he can practically feel his eyes on him.

“Ready to lose again?” Charlie taunts, confident he’s going to win.

Dean exhales sharply, eyes briefly flicking to Charlie before turning away. He schools his expression, and locks eyes back with Charlie in a challenge.

Their eyes meet, and for a moment, Charlie almost looks… Excited? It’s unsettling. It’s a dare. He knows Dean is his most worthy opponent.

They begin the debate with laying their ground, but as it continues, it slowly gets theoretical. The tension doesn’t seem to dissipate.

“Look, the facts are clear, and anyone who’s paying attention knows that this issue isn’t just about ideology or morals so everyone, even the laziest of them all, wins - it’s about what works. We need solutions that are actually good on paper.” Charlie continues.

Dean already has a biting response, finding a flaw in every word Charlie says. “I’ll admit, you’ve got a point there, Charlie. But here’s the thing - solutions that are only good on paper don’t help anyone. The real world doesn’t care about how smart the plan sounds; it cares about whether people’s lives actually improve. It’s easy to sit up here and talk about results when you don’t have to deal with the consequences of bad decisions.”

A spark flashes behind Charlie’s eyes, fighting college students to encourage the youth to get involved in politics isn’t fun when they’re not educated. But Dean is. Of course Dean is, he’s the prime opposition.

“Oh, I agree with you there, Dean. Consequences matter - just like the consequences of keeping people in a system that holds them back from success. We’re not talking about theory, we’re talking about giving people the freedom to make their own choices. That’s the real solution.”

Dean, once again, fights the urge to roll his eyes. He’s getting really good at this. “Freedom” and “choice” are such hypocritical words to come from Charlie. He would poke at that, but he needs to stay on topic.

Meanwhile Charlie is always so invested in what Dean’s saying, he doesn’t need to fight to stay on topic. It’s all here and now for him.

“Freedom’s great, Charlie, but it doesn’t mean much if the playing field isn’t level. What good is freedom if the systems that should be helping the wider public only serve to push them further down? We’ve got to address the problems at their roots.”

“And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do; give people the opportunity to rise on their own. The more you rely on the government to fix things, the less room there is for real change.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what the people who need help are told by your ‘solutions’. They’re supposed to just ‘rise on their own,’ but who’s lifting them up in the first place? You can’t ask people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they don’t even have boots.”

“Well, Dean, it’s not about waiting for someone to ‘lift them up.’ It’s about encouraging people to use the system to stand on their own. You can’t give handouts and expect results.”

“That’s where we disagree, Charlie. If you’re not addressing the issues that keep people from getting those boots in the first place, then your ‘system’ is nothing more than a band-aid.”

The debate continues. Dean wonders how Charlie really believes he’s fighting for good, or if he even thinks that at all. Maybe he’s fighting for himself instead of what he believes in, maybe he’s just fighting for what he’s been told to fight for. There has to be more layers to this.

Dean lets his mind wander, he’s always multitasking while debating. He wonders if he should start taking notes when Charlie goes on rants, but then again, he always remembers the important stuff. He wonders if he just imagined the excited spark in his eyes when Dean started talking about real-world impacts. He wonders what scent Charlie’s blockers are covering. He stops his mind from wandering.

Chapter Text

Charlie used to think Dean Withers was just another wide-eyed liberal idealist with a platform and a dream, but Dean smells like conviction - and worse, he doesn’t seem to need to prove himself the way Charlie does.

Charlie hates that.

Almost as much as he wants to understand it.

Time moonwalk (not a time skip, this is going backwards, oh yes, it’s backstory time)

Charlie didn’t cry when he got the news that the transition wasn’t going to work.

He sat on the clinic bed, paper crinkling under him. The secondary gender specialist was talking, using words like non-responsive, genetic baseline, incompatibility with secondary alpha hormone treatments. But Charlie had already stopped listening.

He just nodded once, sharp and final, and said, “Okay.”

It wasn’t okay.

It had taken three years - appointments, hormone therapies, implants, bloodwork, and the trial drugs they only offered when you signed a waiver promising you wouldn’t sue if it fucked you up. And for a while, Charlie thought it was working. He smelled different. People closer to him noticed.

But it hadn’t been real. Or maybe it had been, and it just… wasn’t enough.

Charlie had always known being a beta meant blending in - not weak, not powerful, just default. Alphas made decisions. Omegas were valued. Betas? They filled in the space between. A necessary inconvenience.

He remembered trying to explain it once. He had a girlfriend back then - Maeve, a sharp-minded and quick-witted omega who could match him. She was the first person he told about the transition. “I just… want to take up space.” He said.

Maeve didn’t laugh, but she didn’t understand either.

“You do take up space,” she replied, frowning gently. “You’re just used to people not seeing it.”

Charlie had nodded, but he didn’t believe it. He still doesn’t.

The forums he used to visit started feeling hostile. At first, he thought it was just his own shame. But it was real, the way people tiptoed around his updates, or didn’t reply at all. Once he was no longer medically transitioning, he wasn’t welcome in trans alpha spaces anymore. Each snide comment to his failure broke him down just that little bit more.

“Hey, maybe let actual alphas speak? You’re kinda looking performative…”
“If you’re not trying hard enough to use the privileged resources you have to medically transition you can leave.”
“Is beta to alpha even real trans?”

He left the forums.

And then he found other ones.

Charlie never decided to be transphobic. That would imply some kind of choice. It’s a pipeline of sorts. 4chan will do that to an angry teenager. Then those podcasts changed his mind a little bit… They seemed more accepting than that community of deranged narcissists.

He never admitted that hearing certain “opinions” made it easier to stop looking in the mirror.

He wasn’t even looking for politics at first, just somewhere to go where no one would look too deep into his past.

But the threads were comforting in a sick, bitter way. They told him things that almost sounded like empowerment.

“You don’t need to be an alpha to dominate. Just don’t be an omega.”
“The left eats its own. You’re proof.”
“Transitioning is weak, you’re better than those trannies for staying traditional and keeping out of that woke bullshit.”

They didn’t use words like dysphoria or affirmation, just discipline, truth, biology. Words that sounded like facts and control.

He remembers the first time someone called him “alpha” on a conservative podcast. It was an afterthought, something like, “It’s good to finally be having some real conversations with some real alpha buddies.” Nothing any normal person would bat an eye at, but for Charlie, it stuck.

Charlie builds his brand on conviction. Confidence. Control.

And he’s good at it.

Because if he argues hard enough, loud enough, with enough data and numbers twisted in his favour, maybe no one will notice he still wears scent blockers just in case the wrong part of him leaks out.

Maybe no one will ask what happened to the version of himself that used to believe people should be able to live however they want.

Maybe no one will see how scared he is of being mediocre.

He doesn’t think about the clinic much anymore, but every once in a while, something cracks.

Like when he passes a teenager outside an event who smells like he used to - neutral, anxious, false confidence.

Or when someone calls him a grifter online and his first instinct is to agree.

Or when Dean Withers walks into a room and people listen.

That’s what gets to him, really. Dean doesn’t have to try.

Dean speaks and the air shifts. Not because he’s an alpha - Charlie’s checked (what? He wanted to know who he was up against), he’s not - but because he doesn’t carry that ache. That need to prove. Dean talks like someone who’s never been humiliated for wanting to be something else. Like someone who’s never wanted to be something else. Charlie envies that, hates it, wants to ruin it, and somewhere underneath all that, he wants to understand it too. Harness it.

Most people who debate Charlie want to be right. Dean wants people to live better.

Charlie wanted belonging, then revenge. He’s not sure what he wants now.

He tells himself it’s just a strategy. That’s why Dean is in his head. He’s just the newest ideological enemy. A political puzzle.

But Charlie isn’t sleeping well lately.

He’s stopped listening to the podcasts before bed. They don’t hit like they used to. He opens a forum tab and stares at it blankly before closing it. He’s started muting keywords on his X account, words like failure, beta, detrans. He knows they’re not directed at him. Nobody else knows what he is, but his own fanbase shitting on people just like him makes him want to hide. That’s not what an alpha does.

He catches himself searching Dean’s name more often than he’d like to admit. Sometimes he watches his debates twice. Just to dissect the argument, he pretends. Just to find the weaknesses.

Just to hear the way Dean says his name, with that cute little smile.

Chapter Text

Charlie had started arriving early to debates.

Only when he knew he was debating Dean.

He told himself it was about professionalism - setup, lighting, audio, composure - but really, he just liked being there before Dean. It gave him the chance to really see the room before it started buzzing. To picture how Dean would move in it.

He quickly buried that thought in favour of actually scanning the room.

The green room was fluorescent and sterile, the kind of space where even a deep breath felt artificial. He sat on the edge of a folding chair, scrolling through his phone.

When Dean Withers walked in, the air shifted, like it always did, quietly, subtly, but enough for Charlie to notice.

Dean didn’t look up right away. That was the first thing Charlie noticed. He came in with his jacket half-slipped off one shoulder, scrolling through his notes, muttering something under his breath. Probably a line he was going to use later. Always so composed.

Then Dean glanced up, and their eyes met for a fraction too long. Charlie felt it in his chest, that strange tightness that always came with Dean’s gaze, the one that made him feel seen in ways he didn’t really want to be.

“Charlie.”
Dean’s tone was clipped, polite. He nodded once like an acknowledgement between acquaintances, not rivals.

“Withers,” Charlie returned, forcing his usual smirk. “Early today. Didn’t think punctuality was your thing.”

Dean gave him a flat look as he set his bag down on the table. “Didn’t think I’d have to schedule my moral compass around your ego.”

Charlie laughed - a real laugh, not the performative one he used on camera. “Ouch. you practicing those lines, or do they just come naturally?”

Dean finally looked up again, brows furrowing slightly. “You talk like this isn’t supposed to be work.”

“Oh, it’s work,” Charlie said, leaning back. “I just happen to enjoy mine.”

Dean’s mouth twitched, like he was considering a smile, but thought better of it. “Figures. You get paid to sound certain. I get paid to talk about what I believe is right.”

Charlie tilted his head. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is when you’re wrong.” Dean’s voice was steady, unflinching, a verbal shrug that hit harder than it should’ve. Then he turned away, rifling through his notes like Charlie wasn’t even worth the oxygen.

Charlie swallowed the sting before it could show. He wasn’t supposed to car what Dean thought. But he did, too much, and for reasons he didn’t dare name.

Pity he didn’t care about what Dean thought enough to change his stance on some political views.

“You really don’t like me, huh?” Charlie said after a beat, mostly to fill the silence. It was beginning to sound desperate.

Dean let out an exhale through his nose. “I don’t dislike you. You’re just-” he paused, searching for the right word, landing on “-predictable.”

That landed deeper than it should have. Predictable.

Charlie folded his arms, trying to look amused. “Predictable’s efficient.”

“Predictable’s boring.” Dean countered, not even glancing up.

Charlie bit back a retort, staring at the floor instead. The tension between them always rode this razor edge - his arrogance against Dean’s disinterest. He liked to think it was fuel. It made the debates better. Sharper. But lately, it just made him feel small.

Charlie does not take well to feeling small.

He watched Dean uncap a pen with his teeth, scribble something in his notes, the motion absentminded but deliberate. His handwriting was neat - too neat - which somehow made Charlie even more annoyed.

“You take notes by hand?” he asked, standing up and walking over the pretense of curiosity. “That’s… Thorough.”

Dean looked up at him slowly. “You say that like you didn’t just Google me last night.”

Charlie froze for a second. Dean’s tone was even, not accusing, just observational, like he was reading rom a script he’d memorised.

Charlie thought on the spot and played it off with a grin. “Paranoid much?”

“Prepared,” Dean said simply, looking down and capping the pen again. “You do it too. Difference is, I don’t pretend it’s personal.”

Charlie laughed a little too loudly. “Who said it was personal?”

“You did,” Dean replied, voice low, calm, deliberate. “Every time you make it about me instead of the argument.”

That shut him up. He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or furious. He settled on wildly embarrassed but visibly settled between the two.

Dean looked up once again, eyes cutting clean through him. “You’re a good speaker, Charlie. You don’t need to prove it every five seconds.”

The words should’ve rolled off. They didn’t. Charlie stood there for a second longer than he should have, feeling like he’d been caught doing something he didn’t realise he was doing.

Then Dean gathered his papers, brushed past him, and said, “You coming? We’re on in five.”

Charlie blinked, realising the moderator was calling them to the stage.

“Yeah,” he replied, following behind. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Why on God’s earth would he say that.

The lights were hotter than usual. Charlie could feel a bead of sweat roll down his neck as the cameras started rolling. Dean sat across from him, posture perfect but relaxed, expression unreadable.

The moderator introduced the topic, something about education policy, fairness, social systems. Charlie should’ve been ready. He was ready. But his focus kept slipping to the small things, the way Dean’s jaw tightened when he was thinking, the way he tapped his pen against the table when he was about to make a point he was particularly proud of.

Charlie forced himself to snap back to the present.

“Mr. Kirk,” the moderator prompted. “Your opening statement?”

He cleared his throat, reciting his lines like muscle memory. But even as he spoke, his voice steady and confident, his eyes betrayed him - flicking to Dean, gauging his reaction.

Dean didn’t give him one.

Halfway through, Dean leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. The smallest, most dismissive gesture. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.

When it was Dean’s turn, he spoke without notes, as always. Calm, composed, well educated. Every sentence felt like a challenge that Charlie couldn’t quite meet. His heart was beating too fast. He’d lost his rhythm.

He was falling. Or maybe he’s already fallen. Fuck.

After the debate, the crew was packing up. Charlie was still buzzing with adrenaline, still hearing Dean’s voice echo in his head. He wanted to talk to him, maybe even thank him for the spar, but when he turned, Dean was already halfway to the exit.

“Hey,” Charlie called, more desperate than he meant to sound.

Dean stopped, glancing back.

“Good debate,” Charlie said, trying to nonchalance. “You almost made me sound unreasonable.”

Dean huffed, half a laugh, half a sigh. “Almost?”

Charlie grinned, gummy and delighted. “You’ll get there someday.”

Dean gave him that look again, the one that could cut glass. “You keep telling yourself that.” He said, and turned away.

Charlie stood there, the smirk fading just a little as Dean walked out the door.
He told himself he didn’t care.
But he watched him leave anyway.

And when he got back to his hotel room, alone, he opened his laptop and queued the debate replay, just to analyse it, he told himself. Just to see what he could improve next time.

But when Dean’s voice filled the speakers again, steady and low, Charlie didn’t take a single note.

He fell asleep to Dean’s voice that night.