Entry tags:

story: castle down

Title: Castle Down (6/6)
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Jon/c!Stephen, Larry/John-O, John Hodgman, Mrs. Jonatha Strangedirt
Disclaimer: Two.

For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. (Alas.)

And for the real people, the 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.

And you thought I was kidding about the mole-men.

The mole-manic woman in this chapter is #373 in the list from More Information Than You Require. (Mole-man language is described as "a melange of hisses, grunts, coughs, screeches, and French.") The rooster is...well.

Decorative capitals, as ever, come from Daily Drop Cap. List of chapters here.




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lear out! Give them some space!"

Jon made a note to be forever grateful to Wilmore as the wizard shooed away a gaggle of onlookers, well-wishers, and other assorted hangers-on, leaving him alone in the tent with Stephen, Hodgman, and a mole-man. (Or rather, a mole-manic woman, not that he could have told the difference. Also, apparently, a witch.)

"And you, Captain, should go see the unicorns," added Wilmore, at which Jon mentally rescinded his forever-gratefulness. "You need some healing action on that concussion."

Though it made the world swim disconcertingly around him, Jon shook his head emphatically, clutching Stephen's limp hand all the tighter. "Not leaving him."

"Laissez-moi," interrupted the witch, who had been introduced to Jon as Mrs. Jonatha Strangedirt. She put a claw to his forehead, and, though there wasn't a jewel to be seen, his headache began to clear.

"Do you mind, Mrs. Strangedirt?" groused Wilmore. "I need your attention on this man's heart, not Captain Stewart's head."

The witch replied with a series of grunts which, judging by Wilmore's reaction, were a mole-manic rebuke.

When she launched into a much longer speech, filled with hisses, coughs, and more than a few screeches, Hodgman leaned over to Jon's side and murmured a running translation. "We know more about souls than any of your people, but we don't know everything. His soul has returned to his body; that much I can do. But it's still in pieces, and I don't know how to knit them together."

"But it's got to be possible," protested Wilmore. "Come on, what do we need to do? Go on a quest? Slay a dragon? I'm sure Jon could find it in him to slay a couple of dragons if Stephen needed it."

All of a sudden Mrs. Strangedirt was leaning over Jon, peering at him with small, liquid eyes. In a passable, if raspy, version of his own language, she hissed, "You love him?"

Jon went very red.

"I, I, uh, well," he stammered. "How am I supposed to answer that? I've only spent a couple of weeks with him, and we barely communicated, and then it turned out it was all under false pretenses anyway. Maybe when things are different, when he isn't under the impression that he's supposed to do everything I say, maybe it'll turn out I hate his guts. I don't know, okay? I don't know."

Pressing a claw against his forehead again, and another against Stephen's pallid, staring face, the witch shrugged her furry shoulders. "Close enough."


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alaxies of light and color wheeled around Jon, whole constellations of radiant ruby points spinning in and out of his vision against a depthless span of black. No, not points — not quite. Fragments.

Stephen's soul had broken into a starfield.

Or maybe Jon, needing some understandable metaphor with which to compress the idea, was only perceiving it as a starfield. You never could tell with these things.

Either way, he thought, listening to the notes and chords and scraps of melody that seemed to be ringing from each glowing shard, this is amazing.

A whirling trail of fragments shied away from him like a spooked colt.

Jon stretched out a hand towards them (they're so small), and felt rather than heard the resulting clamor: let me go / let me stay / could have died, and he / happiest time of my life was / forgive me / want to please him / have to please him.

"Do you...remember me?" he hazarded.

A flurry of emotions too fast and sharp for words came at him from all sides: fear, hurt, thankfulness, anger, confusion, that piercing sense of longing, a veritable wave of betrayal.

"I'm sorry," he began, halting and shaky. "I didn't realize you thought you were supposed to be my, uh, my pet. I thought you were happy. I thought I could...." He took a deep breath, or at least its metaphorical-soul-space equivalent, and tried to unearth the memories of his blissful ignorance from the heaps of guilt and regret he had piled over them. "I didn't know."

Refusal to listen from some quarters, outright disbelief from others — but a few, a few were suddenly terrified that he had gotten it all wrong, that Jon had been nothing but kind, and how had he repaid it...?

"I'm not here to punish you!" exclaimed Jon. "You thought I was keeping you captive; it was a reasonable way to react. Besides, it would have made more sense for you to kill me, but you didn't, and that's not something I take lightly."

Why are you here / it's a trick / please help me / what do you want from me?

"I'm just here to bring you back together, okay? You can go wherever you want afterwards; I won't ask anything else from you. Just let me pull you back."


Instead of relief, he was hit with a burst of fresh panic. Will Papa Bear be there?

Jon didn't have to answer in words. His memory of the crumbling fortress was enough.

The grief was echoed in all corners, multiplied, fed back, until it became a chorus: not so much for O'Reilly himself as for the idea of him, the security he had represented, the love and respect that phantom had inspired.

And all the while there was another process running. Bits of Stephen were reaching out for Jon, disentangling the images of his kindness (what Jon had thought of as basic decency, but still) from their associations with Papa Bear, until they flowed into a series of despairing pleas: Don't abandon me / let me be your pet / I'll do anything / tell me what to do.

"I can't do that," Jon protested. "I won't abandon you, but I'm not going to order you around. But, come on, isn't it better that way? You won't be anyone's 'pet'. Nobody can make you lie back and let them hurt you anymore. Don't you want that?"

Slivers of hope, and that longing again: twigs in the path of the flood of Stephen's distress. Don't know what I want / don't know who I am without him / without you / without someone.

"But I'm not like that!" he shouted into the endless sky. "I don't want to own you!"

In the cacophony that resulted he caught strings of confusion, wrapped around snippets of memory. You gave me glasses / had me protected / "My Stephen."

"I just wanted to love you," pleaded Jon.

Then he gathered up everything he meant by that, every feeling and thought and wish, and flung it out into the stars as far as it would go.


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efore Jon realized that he was back in the real world, Stephen launched himself from the blanket, grabbed Jon's tunic, and yanked him into a fervent kiss.

"He's up!" exclaimed Hodgman, jumping to his feet. "Well, it looks as though our work here is done. Wouldn't you say, Mrs. Strangedirt?"

Mrs. Strangedirt made a skritchy sound that might have been a laugh, then grunted and screeched at Wilmore. "Aaaayup, she says we're clear," he translated, in a drawl faintly tinged with amusement. "You two want a little privacy there?"


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s the tent flap fell closed behind the departing visitors, Stephen nuzzled against Jon's warm chest while Jon pressed kisses to his forehead.

It felt almost like when he had first put on glasses, only more so. The world was suddenly much bigger, full of possibilities that were not only open to him but encouraged; and this vast field of choice wasn't scary at all, because in the middle of it all was an image of himself and Jon standing side by side, caretaking but not owning, as equals...

...except that the image was fanding, like frost in sunlight. The idea that for a fleeting moment had seemed self-evident now felt as foreign and unimaginable as ever.

"It wasn't real," said Jon, lowering Stephen gently back onto the blanket. Either his Vulpin had suddenly gotten very good, or their souls were still linked enough that language was immaterial. "It was just an idea you got out of my head. But we can make it real. We can build that life. Together."

Stephen's struggle to cling to the idea was thwarted by a rush of calculations. He had kissed Jon, he had made the first move, so now Jon would expect...yes, he could feel Jon's desire over their link along with everything else, the hope that he would push things further...but there was no telling exactly what Jon wanted, whether he would be satisfied for something quick and energetic, or whether Stephen would be wiser to save his strength for the long haul, or...

...or, in a moment of what had to be total insanity, he could look straight into the other man's eyes and say, "Jon? I'm very tired."

"Oh!" Jon fairly jumped away. "Sorry! Of course you're tired, after what you've been through — should I leave you alone to sleep, or—?"

Stephen hesitated only a moment before touching the blanket beside him. "Would you stay...here?"

A small but tender smile lit up Jon's face. "I'd love to."


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etter not go in there," cautioned Wilmore, as Oliver approached the tent. "Stephen's back in one piece. He and Jon are just working out, uh, personal stuff now."

"He's back?" repeated Oliver. "Healing up nicely, then?"

"Oh, sure. They're going to be fine."

"Ah." Oliver looked at the rooster in his arms. "I suppose they won't be needing this, then."


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eaning into Jon's embrace, Stephen listened until his breath became slow and even.

"My Jon," he whispered experimentally.

Before today, he could hardly have imagined the words. They still felt unsteady on his tongue. Like an audacity he wasn't even allowed to speculate about, much less claim.

But Jon smiled in his sleep, and a warm glow spread through Stephen's chest, and he resolved to say the words again after they woke up.