Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2011-12-06 07:33 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2011-12-06 07:33 pm
Fake News: Ambush
Title: Ambush
Rating: PG
Pairings/Characters: Pre-Jon/"Stephen", background Jon/BriWi
Disclaimer: #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement. Characters belong to the Report. Names of real people are used in a fictitious context, and all dialogue, actions, and content are products of the author's imagination only.
A snippet from late 2005, in the alternate universe where gender is divided along Dom/sub lines rather than male/female. Jon's getting misgendered quite a bit lately, which is strange, since it's always seemed clear enough to him. Not even Stephen can throw him for a loop on that point. (Right?)
So here's the thing: Jon's not a dom. Not gay, either, as he's said to countless pushy would-be partners over the years: I like doms just fine; it's you I'm not into.
It doesn't stop the forums and blogs from lighting up every time he gets in a particularly good zinger. And the Crossfire interview, don't even start. He reads just enough to see that the footage is going to be warming a lot of other lonely subs' nights for years to come, then tells the staff to tip him off if they say anything newsworthy and forces himself to stop googling. The fantasies are more or less harmless, but they have at base the same distortion as the articles by quietly sexist doms (and a few subs, for that matter) implying that it's not his place to go around delivering smackdowns. As if he had strolled in with a smile in casual khaki, sized Carlson up in a glance, and delivered the verbal spanking the bowtied brat had been angling for all along.
That interview in particular will go around in his head for years afterward, settling into perspective one day only to be rethought the next, "justified" and "sanctimonious" and "spot-on" and "ambush" chasing each other in circles. He's pretty sure his opening argument was justified. The point is, he never sets out to smack down anyone else's arguments like a house of cards. He gets no pleasure out of the hurt and humiliation in their eyes as they dodge or crumble. Just the opposite.
He wants them to hit back.
In college Jon slept his way through the debate club like some people sleep through football teams. At the end of his junior year, when the then-captain was about to graduate, she told him their foreplay had given her better practice than anything in the club itself. He regrets not joining sometimes, but it would've made him the only sub on the team and breaking glass ceilings wasn't high on his list.
These days he tries not to dwell on the things he's breaking. Crossfire would have stayed if it was making money anyway, even if he'd visited a dozen times.
No, Jon keeps his focus on the show, going charming with most guests and rapid-fire with a few: never mind that it turns his stomach if their assertions fall to shreds, because it's worth it for the joy of the ones who match him point for point and joke for joke. It's not foreplay now (mostly) (Brian Williams in the green room with the silk tie), but it's close enough that it comes as a shock whenever anyone fails to connect the dots, when they can't guess that he adores and is fascinated by people smarter than himself, that he thrills to the fantasy of doms with the knowledge and the quick wit to run intellectual rings around him, or break him into laughter, or both.
He's fascinated by Stephen, too, for more or less the exact opposite reason.
Stephen is what you would get if you took bits and pieces of that fantasy and ran them through a funhouse mirror. He's charming, with newsman polish to rival Brian's, and identifies as a dom, which seems promising enough until he opens his mouth. He'll debate anyone, any time, any issue (Swedish fish are stealing jobs from hard-working American candy, Jon!), with a combination of patent nonsense and bullheaded stubornness that resists all arguments; Jon will never smack him down with logic because he operates on a plane where logic does not apply. This also means he'll never have the tools to dismantle Jon's arguments properly, which leaves him no strategy but to get ever more absurd and belligerent until Jon shuts him down or cracks up, whichever comes first. And Jon does laugh sometimes, though he feels bad about it, like he's making fun of what for Stephen is deadly earnest.
For all that, Stephen has his talents, and they're valuable ones as far as the network is concerned. He's brilliant at getting audience attention. He's a singer, a dancer, or an acrobat when the situation calls for it. He has more than enough personality to carry his own show. More than enough ego, too, and the contract once signed pushes it from amusing toward insufferable in his last few months as a correspondent, while he's splitting his time between taping Daily segments in the new studio and shouting directions at the crew remaking the old one in his image.
They're in the green room five minutes before taping, Jon in a black suit with a dull purple tie (he put it on at the last minute), Stephen in dark grey and navy-and-gold (a new ensemble, on the new show's budget: he's been wearing it all day). Jenna appears long enough to press final copies of the script into their hands; Stephen flips through his and scowls. "How much did you cut?"
"Stephen, we've been over this. Your pieces can't run ten minutes long."
In the chair beside him, Stephen gives the script a sweeping wave, nearly knocking over the current fruit-and-cheese platter. "They'll be running twenty-two minutes long next month! Comedy Central understands the value of my face time! Don't you care at all about cross-promotional opportunities?"
He keeps carrying on like this, while Jon tries desperately to tune it out and get at least the first act's rhythm settled in his head before the audience Q&A, but it's not working, and when Stephen starts in on how Jon is probably jealously trying to sabotage the new show before it even begins Jon's hand arcs up and clamps over Stephen's mouth before he has time to think.
The back of Stephen's head bumps the wall. The rest of him goes shivery-still, breathing through his nose, lips wet and open against Jon's palm.
"That's better. Now shut up and listen for a minute," says Jon. "Your show is going to be fine. You are going to be fine. And once it starts, you can cast your editorial hand however you see fit. But right now you are still on my show, which means when I say to cut something, it gets cut and you get to deal."
Stephen's eyes strain to meet Jon's without turning his head. He grunts something that might be "uh-huh" and might be "yeth, thir."
Jon chooses to assume the former. "Good," he says, letting Stephen go just as the door opens.
If the stage manager notices anything amiss, he doesn't mention it. "You're on, Stewart," he says, then turns quickly enough to miss the way Stephen moves the script over the front of his pants and avoids Jon's eyes on the way out.
It flickers in the back of Jon's mind the whole time he's answering questions about his favorite flavor of ice cream and which superhero he thinks could find bin Laden fastest. Because it's not a thing. It can't be. Jon's still straight, and still not a dom, and it's a bit late in life to decide he's switchcurious, isn't it? Stephen's never given him anything like the rush of sparring and seeing the defeat coming, even from the other side. He's seen what happens when something makes it through Stephen's shell of denial (he's usually the one on whose shoulder Stephen cries afterward, and not the tears of an overburdened dom, either), and he can't imagine a way to make that fun for either of them. In fact, in spite of Stephen's general obnoxiousness, in those moments Jon feels drawn to shield him: an action that plays into precisely none of his late-night fantasies.
So the whole thing was a weird moment, that's all. Nothing he should waste his anxiety on. Besides, in a few hours Stephen will probably be denying he even remembers it.
The imprint of lips on Jon's hand lingers as he sits down. He closes his fist around it and turns to the camera, wondering only briefly why it feels so warm.
Rating: PG
Pairings/Characters: Pre-Jon/"Stephen", background Jon/BriWi
Disclaimer: #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement. Characters belong to the Report. Names of real people are used in a fictitious context, and all dialogue, actions, and content are products of the author's imagination only.
A snippet from late 2005, in the alternate universe where gender is divided along Dom/sub lines rather than male/female. Jon's getting misgendered quite a bit lately, which is strange, since it's always seemed clear enough to him. Not even Stephen can throw him for a loop on that point. (Right?)
So here's the thing: Jon's not a dom. Not gay, either, as he's said to countless pushy would-be partners over the years: I like doms just fine; it's you I'm not into.
It doesn't stop the forums and blogs from lighting up every time he gets in a particularly good zinger. And the Crossfire interview, don't even start. He reads just enough to see that the footage is going to be warming a lot of other lonely subs' nights for years to come, then tells the staff to tip him off if they say anything newsworthy and forces himself to stop googling. The fantasies are more or less harmless, but they have at base the same distortion as the articles by quietly sexist doms (and a few subs, for that matter) implying that it's not his place to go around delivering smackdowns. As if he had strolled in with a smile in casual khaki, sized Carlson up in a glance, and delivered the verbal spanking the bowtied brat had been angling for all along.
That interview in particular will go around in his head for years afterward, settling into perspective one day only to be rethought the next, "justified" and "sanctimonious" and "spot-on" and "ambush" chasing each other in circles. He's pretty sure his opening argument was justified. The point is, he never sets out to smack down anyone else's arguments like a house of cards. He gets no pleasure out of the hurt and humiliation in their eyes as they dodge or crumble. Just the opposite.
He wants them to hit back.
In college Jon slept his way through the debate club like some people sleep through football teams. At the end of his junior year, when the then-captain was about to graduate, she told him their foreplay had given her better practice than anything in the club itself. He regrets not joining sometimes, but it would've made him the only sub on the team and breaking glass ceilings wasn't high on his list.
These days he tries not to dwell on the things he's breaking. Crossfire would have stayed if it was making money anyway, even if he'd visited a dozen times.
No, Jon keeps his focus on the show, going charming with most guests and rapid-fire with a few: never mind that it turns his stomach if their assertions fall to shreds, because it's worth it for the joy of the ones who match him point for point and joke for joke. It's not foreplay now (mostly) (Brian Williams in the green room with the silk tie), but it's close enough that it comes as a shock whenever anyone fails to connect the dots, when they can't guess that he adores and is fascinated by people smarter than himself, that he thrills to the fantasy of doms with the knowledge and the quick wit to run intellectual rings around him, or break him into laughter, or both.
He's fascinated by Stephen, too, for more or less the exact opposite reason.
Stephen is what you would get if you took bits and pieces of that fantasy and ran them through a funhouse mirror. He's charming, with newsman polish to rival Brian's, and identifies as a dom, which seems promising enough until he opens his mouth. He'll debate anyone, any time, any issue (Swedish fish are stealing jobs from hard-working American candy, Jon!), with a combination of patent nonsense and bullheaded stubornness that resists all arguments; Jon will never smack him down with logic because he operates on a plane where logic does not apply. This also means he'll never have the tools to dismantle Jon's arguments properly, which leaves him no strategy but to get ever more absurd and belligerent until Jon shuts him down or cracks up, whichever comes first. And Jon does laugh sometimes, though he feels bad about it, like he's making fun of what for Stephen is deadly earnest.
For all that, Stephen has his talents, and they're valuable ones as far as the network is concerned. He's brilliant at getting audience attention. He's a singer, a dancer, or an acrobat when the situation calls for it. He has more than enough personality to carry his own show. More than enough ego, too, and the contract once signed pushes it from amusing toward insufferable in his last few months as a correspondent, while he's splitting his time between taping Daily segments in the new studio and shouting directions at the crew remaking the old one in his image.
They're in the green room five minutes before taping, Jon in a black suit with a dull purple tie (he put it on at the last minute), Stephen in dark grey and navy-and-gold (a new ensemble, on the new show's budget: he's been wearing it all day). Jenna appears long enough to press final copies of the script into their hands; Stephen flips through his and scowls. "How much did you cut?"
"Stephen, we've been over this. Your pieces can't run ten minutes long."
In the chair beside him, Stephen gives the script a sweeping wave, nearly knocking over the current fruit-and-cheese platter. "They'll be running twenty-two minutes long next month! Comedy Central understands the value of my face time! Don't you care at all about cross-promotional opportunities?"
He keeps carrying on like this, while Jon tries desperately to tune it out and get at least the first act's rhythm settled in his head before the audience Q&A, but it's not working, and when Stephen starts in on how Jon is probably jealously trying to sabotage the new show before it even begins Jon's hand arcs up and clamps over Stephen's mouth before he has time to think.
The back of Stephen's head bumps the wall. The rest of him goes shivery-still, breathing through his nose, lips wet and open against Jon's palm.
"That's better. Now shut up and listen for a minute," says Jon. "Your show is going to be fine. You are going to be fine. And once it starts, you can cast your editorial hand however you see fit. But right now you are still on my show, which means when I say to cut something, it gets cut and you get to deal."
Stephen's eyes strain to meet Jon's without turning his head. He grunts something that might be "uh-huh" and might be "yeth, thir."
Jon chooses to assume the former. "Good," he says, letting Stephen go just as the door opens.
If the stage manager notices anything amiss, he doesn't mention it. "You're on, Stewart," he says, then turns quickly enough to miss the way Stephen moves the script over the front of his pants and avoids Jon's eyes on the way out.
It flickers in the back of Jon's mind the whole time he's answering questions about his favorite flavor of ice cream and which superhero he thinks could find bin Laden fastest. Because it's not a thing. It can't be. Jon's still straight, and still not a dom, and it's a bit late in life to decide he's switchcurious, isn't it? Stephen's never given him anything like the rush of sparring and seeing the defeat coming, even from the other side. He's seen what happens when something makes it through Stephen's shell of denial (he's usually the one on whose shoulder Stephen cries afterward, and not the tears of an overburdened dom, either), and he can't imagine a way to make that fun for either of them. In fact, in spite of Stephen's general obnoxiousness, in those moments Jon feels drawn to shield him: an action that plays into precisely none of his late-night fantasies.
So the whole thing was a weird moment, that's all. Nothing he should waste his anxiety on. Besides, in a few hours Stephen will probably be denying he even remembers it.
The imprint of lips on Jon's hand lingers as he sits down. He closes his fist around it and turns to the camera, wondering only briefly why it feels so warm.
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While the Castleverse stories have been planned and wrestled with, this ficlet just sprang into being out of nowhere. Glad you enjoyed it!
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I think this is very much like
he thrills to the fantasy of doms with the knowledge and the quick wit to run intellectual rings around him, or break him into laughter, or both.
This Jon must love Christopher Hitchens. Of all the old interviews I've seen those are the only times I felt the guest "won."
I must say, Jon's desire to debate is one of the top three reasons he is one of my favorite people in the world.
You know, as Stephen's boss it wouldn't be hard to find a copy of his social security number and find out what his legal gender is.
Very bittersweet ending!
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Now you've got me wondering how and when legal gender is determined in this universe, and how easy it is to change it, and what the procedures are...
One day Jon will realize his true feelings! *shoujo sparkles*
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(Anonymous) 2011-12-12 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)This feels right
And I continue to love Jon's Stephen-related protective dom side, ajgkshajcwjsdl yay
-seagullsong
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Glad you like!
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