Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2013-06-11 12:37 am
ptahrrific) wrote2013-06-11 12:37 am
Entry tags:
Fake News | ensemble | PG-13 | Shout*For, chapter 7
Title: Shout*For, chapter 7: The Price You Pay
Characters/Pairings: Jon+"Stephen"+Jimmy, Olivia+Kristen+Wyatt, Steve, Brian, cameos, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Contents: More with the underage drinking
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
Jon screwed up, and PR goes into damage-control mode. Olivia and Stephen aren't having an easy time of it either. At least their fake romance is still on solid ground (and doing well in a certain subset of the Internet which only Kristen is shameless enough to follow).
Now available: promo art from one of the band's first photoshoots!
Under the interrogating gazes of half a dozen of Shout*For's PR and management people, Jon felt even smaller than usual.
"I swear, there's nothing on there I'm ashamed of," he said again. "Isn't that enough? And if there's something involving someone else, why should I sell them out to you guys when it might never come out at all?"
Brian pinched the bridge of his nose, then adjusted his glasses and stood up. "Fellas, ladies, would you mind if I pulled our client aside for a few minutes?"
There was some grumbling around the table, but the others allowed Brian to usher Jon out of the room.
"I'm really, really sorry," repeated Jon in the quiet safety of the hall.
"Jon. It's okay. I know you are," said Brian, with a reassuring hand on Jon's shoulder. "None of this is about punishing you. You understand that?"
"Uh-huh," allowed Jon.
"These people in here are professionals. You don't have to worry about shocking us — we've already seen and dealt with every kind of embarrassing thing you can think of. Drunk or high rantings. Kinky sex tapes. Photos of stars passed out surrounded by various bodily fluids. Ten years ago a colleague of mine was managing someone who tried to have sex with his horse. Can I safely assume there is nothing on your phone related to horse sex?"
By now Jon was bright red. "Yes. Yes, you can definitely assume that."
"Well, there you go. You're not going to be judged. And neither is anyone else whose embarrassing behavior you may have documented. Not by us, at least. But anything that's in there will get out — this is the voice of long experience talking, Jon, our whole job is to know things like this — and the media will come down as hard as it can."
Jon's fists were clenched, nails digging into his palms. "I know," he said miserably.
"What's done is done. We can't un-lose the phone. What we can do now is protect you, and this other person, from the fallout as much as possible. And we can do that best if we know, as soon as possible, every angle we might be dealing with."
"Okay!" cried Jon. "Okay, I'll talk! But can I — can I just talk to you first? Then you can summarize it for everyone else. And you can leave out anything that it turns out isn't important. So it's just you that knows, and not — not all of them."
"That would be fine," said Brian solemnly. "Whenever you're ready."
Jon swallowed. Okay. Start with the easy stuff. "Um, there's some basic sniping in the texts," he said. "Me talking about Tucker being a dick...and I use the word, too, which is a no-no all on its own...and Stephen was having these fights with Steve Carell for a while that he complained to me about. Stuff like that."
Brian nodded. "Friction between co-workers is usually easy to smooth over. Is there any mention of violent thoughts or plans? Any racial slurs or other loaded terms?"
"No! No, nothing like that."
"Would you say it's approximately on the level at which you and Tucker fight during work when you think nobody's paying attention?"
"...Yes."
"All right. That's very manageable. Go on."
"Everything else that might be a problem involves Stephen," admitted Jon. "Some texts and...and a photo. You could call him in and probably get exact copies off his phone, if you wanted."
"I'd like to hear your description first," said Brian calmly.
"Oh, geez. Um. There's a couple of drunk texts, okay? Not a pattern or anything, it was just one time, but if people look at the dates, they'll be able to match it up with...with that one blind item from Venice." And this after Jon had promised to help protect Stephen from exposure and harrassment. God, he was a terrible friend.
"What's the actual content of the texts?"
"Nothing he wouldn't say sober!" said Jon quickly. "It's not a Mel Gibson rant or anything. He's just suddenly unable to hit the right keys half the time."
"I see. Is there anything to indicate these are, in fact, texts while drinking, and not texts while, say, jet-lagged?"
Jon slumped. "Um, it's been a while. He mentions vermouth in one of them. I don't think he actually said he drank any, though."
"Not much to go on, but it's something," said Brian. "We'll have to take a look at Stephen's copies. Is the photo related?"
"No. It's from a completely different time."
"Another instance with drinking?"
Jon shook his head.
"Drug use?"
"Nope."
"Sexual content?"
"Um," said Jon.
Brian raised his eyebrows. "Nudity?"
Jon was turning red again. "It's not like — overtly sexual or anything, okay? I don't even think he meant it to be suggestive. It's just that, when you're a normal person and you look at it...he and Olivia were at lunch, and they were messing around with the food, right? Doing stupid stuff and taking silly photos. And in one of them he's — well — he's basically deep-throating a banana."
To his surprise, Brian looked thrilled. Or at least, thrilled on the relative Brian facial-expression scale. "That sounds much easier to deal with than I was expecting. If we release some of these other pictures, it will be easier once that one comes out to demonstrate that it's part of a nonsexual series. We'll probably have Stephen tweet a few of them to you."
It was tempting to ask exactly what Brian had been "expecting", but with how vague Jon had been, and Brian's previous experiences re: client sexuality, Jon couldn't blame him for assuming the worst. "I guess I'll need to get a Twitter."
"No, no, you already have a Twitter."
Jon blinked. "I do?"
"All of you do. You make regular posts about fashion, tour dates, and amusing anecdotes from the set of your TV show," said Brian nonchalantly. "Why don't you come back in and sit down while I call Stephen over here."
~*~
The whole combined gang had gathered in Olivia's back yard, relaxing around the pool: herself, Kristen, Wyatt, Jon, Stephen, and Jimmy. They had even gotten Steve to come by. It made for one convenient venue in which basically everyone Stephen counted as friends could crowd around Kristen's phone and page through the stupid food photos @StephenAtHome had recently tweeted to @Shout4JStew.
"Those seemed so much funnier when I was exhausted and over-caffeinated," grumbled Stephen. He was stretched out on one of Olivia's lounge chairs in a desperate attempt to soak up some tan. No luck so far, but he lived in hope.
"How come you never told me I had a Twitter?" said Jon from the next chair down. He was the only one there who had yet to take off his shirt, in spite of wearing a perfectly modest pair of swimming trunks (all black, with the Batman logo on one leg).
"How come you never told me you didn't know you had a Twitter?" countered Stephen.
"Stephen, that doesn't even make sense."
"Will you two give it a rest?" demanded Olivia. "Geez, if you keep complaining I'm going to dump my scotch on your heads."
"You just finished drinking your scotch," Jon pointed out.
"Yeah, and I can pour myself another specifically for the purpose of dumping it on you."
There was a burst of laughter from the huddle, then Kristen got up to skip over. "Good news!" she bubbled. "Colbewart is now a thing!"
Stephen and Jon looked at each other, then looked back at her. "What's a Colbewart?" asked Stephen.
"You don't want to know," Olivia informed him.
"Do so!"
"Colbewart," said Kristen gleefully, "is when people write sexy stories of sexy sex, which feature Col-bert...and Stewart."
"Oh god," said Jon.
"Um," said Stephen.
"Stephen, I am so sorry," said Jon faintly. "If I hadn't been such a moron and lost that—"
"Guys, chill out!" yelled Olivia. "They don't actually think you're having sex, okay? Well, some of them do, but everyone else thinks those ones are crazy."
"Yeah, sorry," added Kristen, as Jon slumped against the back of his chair with a groan of relief. "Probably should have made that clear."
"Kristen thinks the whole idea — getting written about by Internet people, I mean — is totally hot," said Olivia. "My one rule is that she's never allowed to tell me who I'm being written doing it with."
"I want in on this rule," said Jon.
"Good choice," said Kristen promptly.
Jon tensed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing!" Kristen batted her lashes at him. "Nothing at all."
"It sounded like it meant something," said Stephen.
"Well, it did," said Kristen, slipping in between Olivia and Jon's chairs to get to the table where Olivia had laid out the drinks, "but he just said I wasn't allowed to tell him."
"I take it back!" cried Jon. "Now you're just going to kill me with the suspense if you don't tell me."
"Take heed, young Padawan," said Olivia sternly. "A wise course of action, this is not."
"Don't you Yoda me. I'm like two years older than you."
"Even if you don't tell Jon, I want to know!" exclaimed Stephen. "Also, you have blanket permission to tell me anything. There are sexy stories about me being straight too, right? All the work we're putting into reinforcing my heterosexuality, that should be having some effect."
Olivia sighed. "If you two are going down the rabbit hole, so be it. I'm gonna go swim." So saying, she got up and swished off to join Wyatt, Steve, and Jimmy, who were working on retrieving a set of beach balls and foam noodles.
Kristen plonked herself happily down in Olivia's spot and poured a glass of hard lemonade. In spite of her enthusiasm, though, Stephen noticed that she waited until Olivia was splashing in the far end of the pool before jumping in. "Okay, here's the deal. Yes, Stephen, there are people who write sexy stories about you and Olivia. Some of them have been writing it since back when the news came out that Shout*For was going to be her opening act on the last tour, but now that you are actually fake dating it's really taken off. And, okay, I'm pretty sure all of those ones believe you're really a couple, but in this case it's not exactly they're fault, given how you're trying very hard to make them believe you're a couple."
"Sure, sure," agreed Stephen. He was actually sitting up now, fascinated. "That's fair."
"The rest of the time...Jon, unless you're really sure you want to hear this, you should probably go jump in the water now."
"I'm good," said Jon briskly. "Come on, out with it."
"Well, for a long time, the really big popular sexy-sex pairing for Shout*For fans has been Stimmy. Because everyone knows you two have been best friends since forever, and that's adorable."
Stephen felt his face heat up. "I don't understand this naming system," he said crossly, by way of distraction. "If me and Jon make Colbewart, then why don't me and Jimmy make Colon?"
Kristen gave him a withering look. "Because that would sound dumb. Duh. May I continue?"
"Sorry, yes. Please go on."
"Thank you." She took a dainty sip of her lemonade. "As I was saying. So we have a bunch of Internet people who really like Shout*For, and also like writing stories about attractive young men having sexy sex. Preferably the couple will be two people who like each other in real life, reminisce about their friendship in interviews or whatever, but it can be anyone — even people who have never met — as long as they're both hot. These Internet people tend to think all four of you are hot, because, let's face it, rowr, am I right? And a bunch of them have already decided they're not going to have Stephen and Jimmy hook up with anyone but each other."
"Oh no," breathed Jon.
"So of all the possible hookups, that leaves...?"
"Oh hell no."
"Seriously?" said Stephen. "People write about — about Jon having sex with — seriously?"
"I think Colbewart may be on the verge of taking off," said Kristen seriously. "But as of right now, the most popular Internet pairing for Jon is Stewson."
"Olivia was right," moaned Jon. "I didn't need to know that. Why didn't I listen to her?"
"At least we know there's no chance of anybody who really knows us getting suspicious about my wholesome straightness on account of these Internet people," offered Stephen. "If you want to look on the bright side."
"There is no bright side!" cried Jon, getting to his feet and grabbing the hem of his T-shirt. "Oh my god, I need to go dunk myself underwater just to feel clean again."
He stripped the grey shirt over his head and tossed it onto the chair, finally baring his adorably fuzzy torso for Stephen to get a brief glimpse before he was across the tile and launching himself into the deep end. Stephen's eyes tracked him as he went.
A flicker of movement next to him: Kristen had hopped over to sit on the edge of Jon's chair. Leaning toward him, she stage-whispered, "Just FYI, you're kinda staring."
"I'm not jealous!" spluttered Stephen. "It doesn't bother me at all that Jon's chest can grow a better beard than I can!"
~*~
And then the banana picture was out.
Riding in to work in the morning, Olivia discovered that @LisaMunnStarGirl had tweeted an attention-redirecting "Confidential to #StarGirls: @StephenAtHome not alone for 'Playing With Food' photoshoot..." with one of own stupid photos attached. In her opinion it was only the third least embarrassing of the set, but her publicist had deemed it the cutest, so up onto the Internet it went.
Olivia couldn't wait to get to the studio. She'd stashed a mini water bottle of vodka in her dressing room fridge a while back, for emergency use only, and this was definitely a mood emergency.
~*~
"We're going to handle this exactly as planned," Brian reminded the band in morning meeting. "No comments. Not in interviews, not on social media, not when you're out in public and anyone could be lurking around the corner with a video camera. PR has made a brief statement about how you're shocked at the disrespect for privacy over some kids' innocent fun, and from this point on we ignore the story until it dies."
There were obedient nods all around the table.
"Good news is, we did manage to remote wipe the phone," added Brian. "Tucker, Jimmy, Stephen, right after this meeting you're going to hand over your phones to a tech person, who will double-check that you have all the most up-to-date security. Jon's new phone got the same check before it was given to him."
Jon put his hand reflexively on his pocket to make sure the phone was there. Forget the security apps, what he really needed was a reliable backup procedure. He'd gotten copies of the photos originally sent to him by people he knew, but there were a few he'd taken that were, unless they surfaced on the Internet later, gone forever.
"That too," said Brian, and moved on to the schedule for the day: a mix of show rehearsal and song rehearsal. After getting to the point when Stephen left the building, he turned the floor over to Stephen's personal manager for a summary of things to come.
"The good news," began Ned, "is that this is Stephen's last week of shooting for The Princess and the Pop Star. Once that's done, plus a few more days to get the music video in the can, you'll be able to have him back almost full-time."
"I think we'll still need to wait until he catches up on sleep," put in Jimmy.
There were chuckles all around, most of them genuine. Even Tucker's seemed all right. It was only Ned's that, to Jon's ears, sounded forced. "I say 'almost'," he continued, addressing Stephen, "because now you'll be getting back into the swing of some of your independent efforts. There's a Prescott Cosmetics hair gel event this weekend, and you'll be glad to know you have a cameo in a drama on The CW later this month."
Stephen's smile was a little flaky too. Maybe his coffee hadn't kicked in all the way yet. "That's great."
"I didn't realize we were allowed to work off-network," said Tucker. "Is that new?"
"It isn't allowed without approval," clarified Brian. "In this case, it was approved."
"The CW doesn't tape around here, does it?" asked Jon. "Is he going to be gone long?"
Stephen was suddenly tense. "Wait, what? Where is this? Where am I going?"
"It'll only be two overnights," Ned assured them. "But yes, Wigfield tapes in Vancouver."
"I don't want to go!" blurted Stephen.
Everyone stared.
"Stephen, I know you want to have more time with your friends, and believe me, you'll get it," said Brian, stepping in and being way more soothing than the weird fake vibe Ned had going on. "But it's very important that you take a few days and pull this off. Once you've demonstrated your usual professional aplomb for the CW crew, it'll carry your reputation past any rumors going around the industry."
"Well, why can't I go a-plombing in a show that tapes in LA?" protested Stephen. "I could make a crossover appearance on Star Girl. Or be a guest correspondent on Professional Important News. Or have a cameo on Glee! Why hasn't anyone called Fox and gotten me invited to Glee yet?"
"An in-company show won't have the same effect," said Ned. "We need you to get a good report from people who don't have a major stake in your success. And at the moment Fox, and everybody else, is gun-shy about giving you a chance — which is the whole reason I worked overtime to get this CW gig finalized before this latest revelation of your...questionable behavior."
Stephen was silenced pretty hard by that one.
~*~
As soon as the meeting was over, Jon stationed himself at Stephen's elbow while they headed for wardrobe. "That wasn't fair," he said loyally. "You weren't doing anything wrong — or even anything against your conscience clause. He shouldn't have come down on you like that."
They passed a trash bin, and Stephen lobbed his empty coffee cup into its depths. "Jon? Remember how you said I could ask for your help with...stuff?"
"Yeah," said Jon, keeping it vague, mindful that Tucker was with them.
"Well, can you help me get out of going to Vancouver?"
"Oh, for crying out loud," said Tucker. "What did Vancouver ever do to you?"
"It's — I don't want...." Stephen swallowed. "That's in Canada! It's — it's not America!"
"Hey, c'mon, it's gonna be okay," said Jimmy, all indulgence and sincerity. (Which was good, because Stephen looked genuinely distressed, but Jon would have had a hard time taking the issue seriously enough to comfort him.) "You had fun in Venice, and that wasn't America either, remember?"
"But that was Italy," said Stephen earnestly. "Italy has to be okay, otherwise why would God have founded Vatican City right inside it? But Canada, that's — that's nothing but a bunch of syrup-sucking poutine-munching iceholes whose greatest ambition in life is to be America's hat!"
"You ever think," said Tucker, "that maybe the middle of a publicity nightmare is not the best time to be throwing a tantrum?"
"Would you lay off him?" snapped Jon. Even if you thought Stephen's distress was ridiculous, that was no excuse to kick him when he was down. "Listen, Stephen, I don't know if this is a problem I can really help with, okay? But I'll think about it, try to come up with something, and if I do I'll let you know."
~*~
Olivia made it through rehearsal all right, but the thought of having to pull it all together again for a couple more hours on the movie was...overwhelming. The closer the end of this project got, the longer every minute seemed to take. It didn't help that her own brain was jittery and fast-paced from all the caffeine she'd been downing.
She could call in sick. Bail on an afternoon of work, just this once....
But no, that was a slippery slope and Olivia was not going down it. She was a professional, dammit.
Instead, during the "break" where she got a few token minutes to hang out with Wyatt and Kristen before being whisked off to the other studio, she excused herself from their company and ducked briefly into her dressing room. One more drink. It wouldn't be enough to give her a buzz, just enough to smooth down her nerves so she could be relaxed and cheerful when she arrived on the movie set. Add a couple of breath mints and nobody would even notice.
Kristen and Wyatt might not notice.
It wasn't like Olivia was trying to hide anything from them. If either of them caught on it would be no big deal! But, come on, she didn't have to report to her friends every time she had one tiny little drink, right? Besides, they might get worried, when this wasn't even a regular thing. Once the movie was all shot and her schedule was back to normal she'd probably never do it again.
Characters/Pairings: Jon+"Stephen"+Jimmy, Olivia+Kristen+Wyatt, Steve, Brian, cameos, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Contents: More with the underage drinking
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
Jon screwed up, and PR goes into damage-control mode. Olivia and Stephen aren't having an easy time of it either. At least their fake romance is still on solid ground (and doing well in a certain subset of the Internet which only Kristen is shameless enough to follow).
Now available: promo art from one of the band's first photoshoots!
Under the interrogating gazes of half a dozen of Shout*For's PR and management people, Jon felt even smaller than usual.
"I swear, there's nothing on there I'm ashamed of," he said again. "Isn't that enough? And if there's something involving someone else, why should I sell them out to you guys when it might never come out at all?"
Brian pinched the bridge of his nose, then adjusted his glasses and stood up. "Fellas, ladies, would you mind if I pulled our client aside for a few minutes?"
There was some grumbling around the table, but the others allowed Brian to usher Jon out of the room.
"I'm really, really sorry," repeated Jon in the quiet safety of the hall.
"Jon. It's okay. I know you are," said Brian, with a reassuring hand on Jon's shoulder. "None of this is about punishing you. You understand that?"
"Uh-huh," allowed Jon.
"These people in here are professionals. You don't have to worry about shocking us — we've already seen and dealt with every kind of embarrassing thing you can think of. Drunk or high rantings. Kinky sex tapes. Photos of stars passed out surrounded by various bodily fluids. Ten years ago a colleague of mine was managing someone who tried to have sex with his horse. Can I safely assume there is nothing on your phone related to horse sex?"
By now Jon was bright red. "Yes. Yes, you can definitely assume that."
"Well, there you go. You're not going to be judged. And neither is anyone else whose embarrassing behavior you may have documented. Not by us, at least. But anything that's in there will get out — this is the voice of long experience talking, Jon, our whole job is to know things like this — and the media will come down as hard as it can."
Jon's fists were clenched, nails digging into his palms. "I know," he said miserably.
"What's done is done. We can't un-lose the phone. What we can do now is protect you, and this other person, from the fallout as much as possible. And we can do that best if we know, as soon as possible, every angle we might be dealing with."
"Okay!" cried Jon. "Okay, I'll talk! But can I — can I just talk to you first? Then you can summarize it for everyone else. And you can leave out anything that it turns out isn't important. So it's just you that knows, and not — not all of them."
"That would be fine," said Brian solemnly. "Whenever you're ready."
Jon swallowed. Okay. Start with the easy stuff. "Um, there's some basic sniping in the texts," he said. "Me talking about Tucker being a dick...and I use the word, too, which is a no-no all on its own...and Stephen was having these fights with Steve Carell for a while that he complained to me about. Stuff like that."
Brian nodded. "Friction between co-workers is usually easy to smooth over. Is there any mention of violent thoughts or plans? Any racial slurs or other loaded terms?"
"No! No, nothing like that."
"Would you say it's approximately on the level at which you and Tucker fight during work when you think nobody's paying attention?"
"...Yes."
"All right. That's very manageable. Go on."
"Everything else that might be a problem involves Stephen," admitted Jon. "Some texts and...and a photo. You could call him in and probably get exact copies off his phone, if you wanted."
"I'd like to hear your description first," said Brian calmly.
"Oh, geez. Um. There's a couple of drunk texts, okay? Not a pattern or anything, it was just one time, but if people look at the dates, they'll be able to match it up with...with that one blind item from Venice." And this after Jon had promised to help protect Stephen from exposure and harrassment. God, he was a terrible friend.
"What's the actual content of the texts?"
"Nothing he wouldn't say sober!" said Jon quickly. "It's not a Mel Gibson rant or anything. He's just suddenly unable to hit the right keys half the time."
"I see. Is there anything to indicate these are, in fact, texts while drinking, and not texts while, say, jet-lagged?"
Jon slumped. "Um, it's been a while. He mentions vermouth in one of them. I don't think he actually said he drank any, though."
"Not much to go on, but it's something," said Brian. "We'll have to take a look at Stephen's copies. Is the photo related?"
"No. It's from a completely different time."
"Another instance with drinking?"
Jon shook his head.
"Drug use?"
"Nope."
"Sexual content?"
"Um," said Jon.
Brian raised his eyebrows. "Nudity?"
Jon was turning red again. "It's not like — overtly sexual or anything, okay? I don't even think he meant it to be suggestive. It's just that, when you're a normal person and you look at it...he and Olivia were at lunch, and they were messing around with the food, right? Doing stupid stuff and taking silly photos. And in one of them he's — well — he's basically deep-throating a banana."
To his surprise, Brian looked thrilled. Or at least, thrilled on the relative Brian facial-expression scale. "That sounds much easier to deal with than I was expecting. If we release some of these other pictures, it will be easier once that one comes out to demonstrate that it's part of a nonsexual series. We'll probably have Stephen tweet a few of them to you."
It was tempting to ask exactly what Brian had been "expecting", but with how vague Jon had been, and Brian's previous experiences re: client sexuality, Jon couldn't blame him for assuming the worst. "I guess I'll need to get a Twitter."
"No, no, you already have a Twitter."
Jon blinked. "I do?"
"All of you do. You make regular posts about fashion, tour dates, and amusing anecdotes from the set of your TV show," said Brian nonchalantly. "Why don't you come back in and sit down while I call Stephen over here."
~*~
The whole combined gang had gathered in Olivia's back yard, relaxing around the pool: herself, Kristen, Wyatt, Jon, Stephen, and Jimmy. They had even gotten Steve to come by. It made for one convenient venue in which basically everyone Stephen counted as friends could crowd around Kristen's phone and page through the stupid food photos @StephenAtHome had recently tweeted to @Shout4JStew.
"Those seemed so much funnier when I was exhausted and over-caffeinated," grumbled Stephen. He was stretched out on one of Olivia's lounge chairs in a desperate attempt to soak up some tan. No luck so far, but he lived in hope.
"How come you never told me I had a Twitter?" said Jon from the next chair down. He was the only one there who had yet to take off his shirt, in spite of wearing a perfectly modest pair of swimming trunks (all black, with the Batman logo on one leg).
"How come you never told me you didn't know you had a Twitter?" countered Stephen.
"Stephen, that doesn't even make sense."
"Will you two give it a rest?" demanded Olivia. "Geez, if you keep complaining I'm going to dump my scotch on your heads."
"You just finished drinking your scotch," Jon pointed out.
"Yeah, and I can pour myself another specifically for the purpose of dumping it on you."
There was a burst of laughter from the huddle, then Kristen got up to skip over. "Good news!" she bubbled. "Colbewart is now a thing!"
Stephen and Jon looked at each other, then looked back at her. "What's a Colbewart?" asked Stephen.
"You don't want to know," Olivia informed him.
"Do so!"
"Colbewart," said Kristen gleefully, "is when people write sexy stories of sexy sex, which feature Col-bert...and Stewart."
"Oh god," said Jon.
"Um," said Stephen.
"Stephen, I am so sorry," said Jon faintly. "If I hadn't been such a moron and lost that—"
"Guys, chill out!" yelled Olivia. "They don't actually think you're having sex, okay? Well, some of them do, but everyone else thinks those ones are crazy."
"Yeah, sorry," added Kristen, as Jon slumped against the back of his chair with a groan of relief. "Probably should have made that clear."
"Kristen thinks the whole idea — getting written about by Internet people, I mean — is totally hot," said Olivia. "My one rule is that she's never allowed to tell me who I'm being written doing it with."
"I want in on this rule," said Jon.
"Good choice," said Kristen promptly.
Jon tensed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing!" Kristen batted her lashes at him. "Nothing at all."
"It sounded like it meant something," said Stephen.
"Well, it did," said Kristen, slipping in between Olivia and Jon's chairs to get to the table where Olivia had laid out the drinks, "but he just said I wasn't allowed to tell him."
"I take it back!" cried Jon. "Now you're just going to kill me with the suspense if you don't tell me."
"Take heed, young Padawan," said Olivia sternly. "A wise course of action, this is not."
"Don't you Yoda me. I'm like two years older than you."
"Even if you don't tell Jon, I want to know!" exclaimed Stephen. "Also, you have blanket permission to tell me anything. There are sexy stories about me being straight too, right? All the work we're putting into reinforcing my heterosexuality, that should be having some effect."
Olivia sighed. "If you two are going down the rabbit hole, so be it. I'm gonna go swim." So saying, she got up and swished off to join Wyatt, Steve, and Jimmy, who were working on retrieving a set of beach balls and foam noodles.
Kristen plonked herself happily down in Olivia's spot and poured a glass of hard lemonade. In spite of her enthusiasm, though, Stephen noticed that she waited until Olivia was splashing in the far end of the pool before jumping in. "Okay, here's the deal. Yes, Stephen, there are people who write sexy stories about you and Olivia. Some of them have been writing it since back when the news came out that Shout*For was going to be her opening act on the last tour, but now that you are actually fake dating it's really taken off. And, okay, I'm pretty sure all of those ones believe you're really a couple, but in this case it's not exactly they're fault, given how you're trying very hard to make them believe you're a couple."
"Sure, sure," agreed Stephen. He was actually sitting up now, fascinated. "That's fair."
"The rest of the time...Jon, unless you're really sure you want to hear this, you should probably go jump in the water now."
"I'm good," said Jon briskly. "Come on, out with it."
"Well, for a long time, the really big popular sexy-sex pairing for Shout*For fans has been Stimmy. Because everyone knows you two have been best friends since forever, and that's adorable."
Stephen felt his face heat up. "I don't understand this naming system," he said crossly, by way of distraction. "If me and Jon make Colbewart, then why don't me and Jimmy make Colon?"
Kristen gave him a withering look. "Because that would sound dumb. Duh. May I continue?"
"Sorry, yes. Please go on."
"Thank you." She took a dainty sip of her lemonade. "As I was saying. So we have a bunch of Internet people who really like Shout*For, and also like writing stories about attractive young men having sexy sex. Preferably the couple will be two people who like each other in real life, reminisce about their friendship in interviews or whatever, but it can be anyone — even people who have never met — as long as they're both hot. These Internet people tend to think all four of you are hot, because, let's face it, rowr, am I right? And a bunch of them have already decided they're not going to have Stephen and Jimmy hook up with anyone but each other."
"Oh no," breathed Jon.
"So of all the possible hookups, that leaves...?"
"Oh hell no."
"Seriously?" said Stephen. "People write about — about Jon having sex with — seriously?"
"I think Colbewart may be on the verge of taking off," said Kristen seriously. "But as of right now, the most popular Internet pairing for Jon is Stewson."
"Olivia was right," moaned Jon. "I didn't need to know that. Why didn't I listen to her?"
"At least we know there's no chance of anybody who really knows us getting suspicious about my wholesome straightness on account of these Internet people," offered Stephen. "If you want to look on the bright side."
"There is no bright side!" cried Jon, getting to his feet and grabbing the hem of his T-shirt. "Oh my god, I need to go dunk myself underwater just to feel clean again."
He stripped the grey shirt over his head and tossed it onto the chair, finally baring his adorably fuzzy torso for Stephen to get a brief glimpse before he was across the tile and launching himself into the deep end. Stephen's eyes tracked him as he went.
A flicker of movement next to him: Kristen had hopped over to sit on the edge of Jon's chair. Leaning toward him, she stage-whispered, "Just FYI, you're kinda staring."
"I'm not jealous!" spluttered Stephen. "It doesn't bother me at all that Jon's chest can grow a better beard than I can!"
~*~
And then the banana picture was out.
Riding in to work in the morning, Olivia discovered that @LisaMunnStarGirl had tweeted an attention-redirecting "Confidential to #StarGirls: @StephenAtHome not alone for 'Playing With Food' photoshoot..." with one of own stupid photos attached. In her opinion it was only the third least embarrassing of the set, but her publicist had deemed it the cutest, so up onto the Internet it went.
Olivia couldn't wait to get to the studio. She'd stashed a mini water bottle of vodka in her dressing room fridge a while back, for emergency use only, and this was definitely a mood emergency.
~*~
"We're going to handle this exactly as planned," Brian reminded the band in morning meeting. "No comments. Not in interviews, not on social media, not when you're out in public and anyone could be lurking around the corner with a video camera. PR has made a brief statement about how you're shocked at the disrespect for privacy over some kids' innocent fun, and from this point on we ignore the story until it dies."
There were obedient nods all around the table.
"Good news is, we did manage to remote wipe the phone," added Brian. "Tucker, Jimmy, Stephen, right after this meeting you're going to hand over your phones to a tech person, who will double-check that you have all the most up-to-date security. Jon's new phone got the same check before it was given to him."
Jon put his hand reflexively on his pocket to make sure the phone was there. Forget the security apps, what he really needed was a reliable backup procedure. He'd gotten copies of the photos originally sent to him by people he knew, but there were a few he'd taken that were, unless they surfaced on the Internet later, gone forever.
"That too," said Brian, and moved on to the schedule for the day: a mix of show rehearsal and song rehearsal. After getting to the point when Stephen left the building, he turned the floor over to Stephen's personal manager for a summary of things to come.
"The good news," began Ned, "is that this is Stephen's last week of shooting for The Princess and the Pop Star. Once that's done, plus a few more days to get the music video in the can, you'll be able to have him back almost full-time."
"I think we'll still need to wait until he catches up on sleep," put in Jimmy.
There were chuckles all around, most of them genuine. Even Tucker's seemed all right. It was only Ned's that, to Jon's ears, sounded forced. "I say 'almost'," he continued, addressing Stephen, "because now you'll be getting back into the swing of some of your independent efforts. There's a Prescott Cosmetics hair gel event this weekend, and you'll be glad to know you have a cameo in a drama on The CW later this month."
Stephen's smile was a little flaky too. Maybe his coffee hadn't kicked in all the way yet. "That's great."
"I didn't realize we were allowed to work off-network," said Tucker. "Is that new?"
"It isn't allowed without approval," clarified Brian. "In this case, it was approved."
"The CW doesn't tape around here, does it?" asked Jon. "Is he going to be gone long?"
Stephen was suddenly tense. "Wait, what? Where is this? Where am I going?"
"It'll only be two overnights," Ned assured them. "But yes, Wigfield tapes in Vancouver."
"I don't want to go!" blurted Stephen.
Everyone stared.
"Stephen, I know you want to have more time with your friends, and believe me, you'll get it," said Brian, stepping in and being way more soothing than the weird fake vibe Ned had going on. "But it's very important that you take a few days and pull this off. Once you've demonstrated your usual professional aplomb for the CW crew, it'll carry your reputation past any rumors going around the industry."
"Well, why can't I go a-plombing in a show that tapes in LA?" protested Stephen. "I could make a crossover appearance on Star Girl. Or be a guest correspondent on Professional Important News. Or have a cameo on Glee! Why hasn't anyone called Fox and gotten me invited to Glee yet?"
"An in-company show won't have the same effect," said Ned. "We need you to get a good report from people who don't have a major stake in your success. And at the moment Fox, and everybody else, is gun-shy about giving you a chance — which is the whole reason I worked overtime to get this CW gig finalized before this latest revelation of your...questionable behavior."
Stephen was silenced pretty hard by that one.
~*~
As soon as the meeting was over, Jon stationed himself at Stephen's elbow while they headed for wardrobe. "That wasn't fair," he said loyally. "You weren't doing anything wrong — or even anything against your conscience clause. He shouldn't have come down on you like that."
They passed a trash bin, and Stephen lobbed his empty coffee cup into its depths. "Jon? Remember how you said I could ask for your help with...stuff?"
"Yeah," said Jon, keeping it vague, mindful that Tucker was with them.
"Well, can you help me get out of going to Vancouver?"
"Oh, for crying out loud," said Tucker. "What did Vancouver ever do to you?"
"It's — I don't want...." Stephen swallowed. "That's in Canada! It's — it's not America!"
"Hey, c'mon, it's gonna be okay," said Jimmy, all indulgence and sincerity. (Which was good, because Stephen looked genuinely distressed, but Jon would have had a hard time taking the issue seriously enough to comfort him.) "You had fun in Venice, and that wasn't America either, remember?"
"But that was Italy," said Stephen earnestly. "Italy has to be okay, otherwise why would God have founded Vatican City right inside it? But Canada, that's — that's nothing but a bunch of syrup-sucking poutine-munching iceholes whose greatest ambition in life is to be America's hat!"
"You ever think," said Tucker, "that maybe the middle of a publicity nightmare is not the best time to be throwing a tantrum?"
"Would you lay off him?" snapped Jon. Even if you thought Stephen's distress was ridiculous, that was no excuse to kick him when he was down. "Listen, Stephen, I don't know if this is a problem I can really help with, okay? But I'll think about it, try to come up with something, and if I do I'll let you know."
~*~
Olivia made it through rehearsal all right, but the thought of having to pull it all together again for a couple more hours on the movie was...overwhelming. The closer the end of this project got, the longer every minute seemed to take. It didn't help that her own brain was jittery and fast-paced from all the caffeine she'd been downing.
She could call in sick. Bail on an afternoon of work, just this once....
But no, that was a slippery slope and Olivia was not going down it. She was a professional, dammit.
Instead, during the "break" where she got a few token minutes to hang out with Wyatt and Kristen before being whisked off to the other studio, she excused herself from their company and ducked briefly into her dressing room. One more drink. It wouldn't be enough to give her a buzz, just enough to smooth down her nerves so she could be relaxed and cheerful when she arrived on the movie set. Add a couple of breath mints and nobody would even notice.
Kristen and Wyatt might not notice.
It wasn't like Olivia was trying to hide anything from them. If either of them caught on it would be no big deal! But, come on, she didn't have to report to her friends every time she had one tiny little drink, right? Besides, they might get worried, when this wasn't even a regular thing. Once the movie was all shot and her schedule was back to normal she'd probably never do it again.