Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2013-06-17 11:59 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2013-06-17 11:59 pm
Entry tags:
Fake News | ensemble | PG-13 | Shout*For, chapter 9
Title: Shout*For, chapter 9: Worlds Apart
Characters/Pairings: pre-Jon/"Stephen" and Olivia/Kristen, Jimmy, Tucker, Brian, cameos, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Contents: Casual -isms, more underage drinking
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
While trying to get past their new awkwardness, Olivia and Kristen realize they've both been keeping secrets. Jon gets a sharp reminder of just how far he is from his family. And Stephen discovers something about Jon that threatens to turn their friendship upside-down, and not in the good way.
"Are you feeling all right?" asked Jon's aunt, over French toast in the dining room with the big latticed windows. "You look a bit peaky. Are they feeding you enough at that work of yours?"
"Yeah, there's a ton of food," said Jon absently, poking one of the blueberries on his overly elaborate plate. (Unlike his mother, who had insisted on cooking everything herself the last time he went home on vacation, Aunt Ruth had no qualms about having all her meals prepared by a professional. Breakfasts here were always gorgeous. Jon kept expecting to find she'd ordered a chef to render the Mona Lisa in syrup.)
He couldn't talk to Aunt Ruth about Stephen. He wasn't even sure she was cool with guys liking guys in the first place — in the abstract, sure, but her own nephew, maybe not so much. Not to mention that the thought of asking her about anything remotely related to sex was...well, it was worse than asking his mom about it. He'd sooner jump off a bridge.
All his friends were friends with Stephen, which made them less than ideal confidantes. Besides, Jimmy would probably let something slip by accident, and Olivia would delight in using the knowledge to torment him. And the list of authority figures he could trust was pretty thin on the ground....
"By the way, what was in the package?" added Aunt Ruth. "Did you like it?"
Jon frowned. "Package?"
"The one you got yesterday." When Jon was still blank, she prompted, "I put it in your room. Didn't you notice?"
"Must've missed it," said Jon. The night before, at Olivia's suggestion, they'd broken into Stephen's dad's liquor cabinet after the musical-off finally ended (Jimmy won). He'd only had one drink, okay, two, but once you combined that with how late it was when he finally stumbled into his own house and collapsed onto his bed, there could've been an elephant on the bureau and he probably wouldn't have noticed.
"Well, do you want to look at it now?"
"Aren't you going to make me finish eating?" asked Jon, startled. He didn't like being tethered to the table when they ate together, especially as compared to the anything-goes policy the studio had around when and where you ate, but it was disorienting to have the order suddenly lifted. This could be a trap.
"Normally I would," admitted his aunt, "but this one was from Marion."
At the mention of his mother's name, Jon was out of his chair, abandoning the golden-brown toast and all four types of fruit strewn over it. He didn't run, exactly, but he was down the hall and up the spiral staircase fast enough to leave Aunt Ruth behind. Mom would be crushed if she sent him a gift and he didn't respond quickly enough. He'd never hear the end of it.
Sure enough, there was a cardboard box the size of a footstool sitting against the wall right inside Jon's door. Jon scanned the room for something to cut the tape with (he had a lightsaber-shaped letter opener in here somewhere), only to have his aunt cough and say, "Will these help?" She'd brought a pair of scissors.
"Thanks!" said Jon, and dragged the package out so she wouldn't be shut out while he opened it.
The first thing he dug out of the styrofoam peanuts was...socks. Two, three, four pairs. These were followed by a well-wrapped plastic bundle that turned out to be home-baked cookies, which made up for the socks as far as Jon was concerned. He offered Aunt Ruth one, set the rest aside, and pulled out a polished wooden box.
It was hard to lavish Jon with gifts he'd appreciate based on the cost, but his mother had a way with sending him things that were personalized and really thoughtful, and the small, shiny, deep brown box with the letters JSL embossed in gold on the corner of the lid certainly qualified. Jon undid the latch (also a shiny gold) and found the inside lined with a dark, velvety fabric. It would have been a fabulous jewelry box if Jon had been a girl...or the kind of guy who wore jewelry, for that matter. He'd have to figure out something classy to put in it instead.
"Oh, that's nice," said his aunt, now kneeling across from him to watch. "That's a quality piece of work, you can tell."
"It's pretty cool," agreed Jon, now fishing out an unsealed envelope. He'd read that on his own. There was something big and soft towards the bottom, a shirt or something, and...he sifted through the rest of the styrofoam...and that seemed to be it. He unfolded the piece of clothing, which turned out to be a light jacket, made of navy blue fabric that felt like a sweatshirt but with nice pockets and a zip up the front. No fancy brand name, just something practical and sturdy. The sleeves looked awfully skinny. It would go great with his jeans.
"And that's lovely too! You'll look just dashing in that, I can tell. Go on, put it on."
"Yeah, all right." Jon got to his feet, pulling the zipper open. The jacket wouldn't be much use in southern California, but he did tours all over the place, and hey, who knew, maybe he'd be the next one getting filmed in Vancouver. He shrugged it onto one arm.
Or at least, he tried to.
Jon made a face. His hand was stuck in the cuff. He folded up his fingers as narrow as he could make them, and wiggled them through...but now the rest of his arm wasn't going to go any farther down. And the shoulder seam was at least two inches from his actual shoulder.
The sleeves weren't skinny. The whole thing was just too small.
"Well, you're at that age," said Aunt Ruth philosophically. "I'm sure they can exchange it for a larger size, no harm done. Did you get a gift receipt?"
Jon yanked the jacket off, dropped it back in the package with the styrofoam, and gathered up the socks, the cookies, his letter, and his monogrammed box. "Doesn't matter."
"If you email Marion, I'm sure she can fax..." She got to her feet, all sympathy. "Would you rather I tell her, dear?"
"No!" snapped Jon. "Forget it. I can buy a bigger one on my own. It's no big deal."
Avoiding her eyes, he shoved the package with his foot until it was back inside his room, and safely out of the way.
~*~
"We'll be mixing up the practice schedule today," said Brian at the morning meeting.
He paused to take another cookie. Jon had brought a bunch of them. Apparently his mom had made them, although Stephen wasn't clear on that, because if Stephen's mom ever sent him cookies he would've been thrilled, and Jon just looked grumpy.
"Stephen, we're going to be having you brush up on your guitar," continued Brian. "And Lizz can't be with both of you at once, so you'll have to do your practices back-to-back, instead of doing them all in parallel and then having the same break period. Tucker, Jimmy, you can choose whether to go with Jon's schedule or Stephen's."
"Stephen's," said Tucker promptly. Stephen wasn't surprised. He and Jon would both love the excuse not to have the same break.
Jimmy...didn't answer. This time Stephen was confused, then upset. Jimmy was Stephen's BFF! Why wouldn't he choose Stephen right away?
Then Jimmy said, "Jon, would you mind being on break alone? Or should I hang out with you?"
"Huh?" It was weird how distracted Jon was. Normally he listened intently to anything Brian said. "Um, it's fine either way. I can always do homework or something."
Jimmy turned to Stephen, as if to say, someone in here has to have a strong opinion, and I trust you to be it.
(He knew Stephen so well.)
"Well, Jon, you're in luck, because I am the kind of person who's generous enough to loan out his BFF to a friend in need," declared Stephen. He clapped Jimmy on the back. "I'm trusting you to take care of my BJF in my absence. Don't let me down."
~*~
Olivia sat up straight in her chair and kept her best attentive, respectful expression pasted across her features. In theory, she was supposed to be having voice lessons right now. In practice, though, her coach was having one of those days where he spent the whole hour talking about how he was over MacKenzie, how he was happily dating a bottle-blonde bombshell of a production company heiress, and how if MacKenzie found that upsetting, maybe she shouldn't have cheated on him however-the-hell-many years ago it was.
She wondered idly what it would be like to have a voice coach who didn't have this kind of creepy fixation on her manager. Unfortunately, there was some obscure contract snarl that kept Will in his job for at least another year or two. But hey, who cared that the company's all-time biggest singer was getting scattershot voice training? That was what auto-tune was for.
"Oh, look at the time!" she exclaimed, interrupting Will's latest speech about how MacKenzie couldn't have chosen a worse person to sleep with behind his back than some reviewer who had written a scathing piece about one of Will's protégés. "Gotta run. Legally mandated break time just started."
Will looked at his three-hundred-dollar watch. "Huh. So it has," he said. "Boy, that just flew right by, didn't it?"
"I know, it's crazy," said Olivia, already halfway out the door. "See you next time!"
Someone had stocked the break room drinks table with virgin daiquiris. Crime against nature, in Olivia's opinion. She scanned the room for her friends, wanting someone she could safely complain to without being judged.
Wyatt was present but occupied, chilling in a half-circle of chairs with a couple of their fellow Star Girl actors: Rob Riggle and John Oliver, the jock love interest and the quirky British kid, respectively. That was cool with Olivia. He was one of her BFFs, but he was also a guy, and he needed guy-friends-time once in a while.
There was no sign of Kristen.
Olivia perched herself on the arm of Wyatt's chair. She'd just be a minute. "Hey, guys. You know where Kristen went?"
The boys traded a couple of puzzled looks. "Didn't she have a thing today?" asked Rob.
"Yes. Yes, I believe she did," said John. "Definitely. A thing."
Olivia's eyes narrowed. "What kind of thing? And why didn't I know about this?"
"You can't know about everything," said Wyatt reasonably. "Like, what if she was working on a surprise present for you? It would defeat the whole purpose if you knew about it."
"So she's working on a surprise present for me?" asked Olivia skeptically.
Wyatt shrugged. "I dunno. She didn't tell me what it was either."
"Some help you are," said Olivia, trying to make it sound like a joke, though it wasn't, not completely. "If you see her, tell her I'm in my dressing room, okay?"
She stayed around long enough to grab a slice of pizza, a walnut muffin, and a fake strawberry daiquiri (she could perk it up with something from her personal fridge), then went back to her room to stew in private.
~*~
Lizz Winnstead was a teacher with gruelingly high standards. Stephen struggled through the whole session, even though she was mostly running him through Dolly Parton songs. He could have sung any of them off the top of his head, but picking them out on the guitar after several months of basically not playing was another story.
On the way out of the practice room he slipped Jon a high-five, then, instead of heading for their nice comfortable dressing room or the break room with all the food, made his way toward Brian's office.
He was going to be brave and suck it up, Col-bert and insist that Brian find a way to get him out of going to Canada.
It wasn't an appealing option, but every other option was worse. Plus, they all seemed to lead back to the possibility of knocking his career off the rails, which in turn would lead to Putting His Family In Jeopardy. If Jon couldn't think of a perfect answer, that wasn't promising, but Brian was even smarter than Jon, and was deeper into the background social and commercial forces that moved their careers. He might still be able to pull something off.
All Stephen had to do was convince Brian to want to help, without going so far as to Make Accusations.
He stopped outside Brian's office and took a deep, centering breath, the kind you did before vocal warm-ups...
...and a raised voice on the other side of the door said, "This is nuts!"
Stephen pressed his good ear against the wood.
"...sure you can manage it," Brian was saying. "And it's perfectly reasonable. Jon's popularity has been on a serious climb lately. He has the ability to be as big a star as Stephen, if we can catch that wave and ride it."
Almost as big a star, Stephen mentally corrected him. If nothing else, Jon was still half a head shorter.
"So we catch it," said the other person. Now Stephen recognized the voice of Craig Kilborn, their director on the TV show. "But in a way that plays to his strengths! Stewart has to be badgered into sticking to his lines as it is. If we start giving him more, that'll only be more opportunities for him to be belligerent, to be sarcastic—"
"Be fair, Craig," interrupted Brian. "He's mellowed out a lot these past few months. You must have noticed."
"He's been on an upswing, I'll grant you," said Craig grudgingly. "How did you manage it?"
"Finally convinced him to start spending time with some of the other boys," Brian told him.
Stephen's heart thudded to a stop.
"He got off to a rocky start," continued Brian. "Nobody's going to deny that. But now that he's got Stephen and Jimmy to be a good influence, he's less lonely, he's better socialized into the area — and you've seen the difference."
Jon had only started being their friend because Brian told him to? Not because of Stephen's winning personality, or Stephen's irresistible charm, or Stephen's dazzling wit, or anything else to do with Stephen (or Jimmy) at all?
"All right, all right," said Craig. "More screen time for Stewart. I'll pass it on to the writers. But if he crashes and burns, we're cutting it back again, so you better make sure you've got his face on enough tote bags before that happens."
And Brian had only told Jon to be their friend in order to make Jon more marketable?
"Leave the tote bags to merchandising," said Brian smoothly. "And leave the boys' moods to me."
Stephen couldn't listen to another word. Eyes burning, he slunk away. He'd been so stupid! To think, he'd been this close to asking Brian's help with something that — no matter how you sliced it — would end up making them less money. (And why? Because Jon had suggested it!)
He was seething by the time he got to the dressing room. Jon had toyed with him. Played him for a fool. Convinced him to share Jimmy, probably laughing behind his back the whole time....
Throwing himself into a chair, Stephen pulled out his phone, fired up his Tumblr app, and prepared to blow off steam by having unicorgirl18 pick some fights. It wasn't hard. There were a whole lot of people on that site whose opinions on The Lord of the Rings were painfully wrong.
Tucker was on the couch, also on his phone. He'd grabbed a plate from somewhere, and was working his way through something doughy and sugar-coated. Stephen paid him very little attention until he said, "Hey, Col-bert."
Stephen paused in the middle of an angry response to some moron who failed to grasp that Legolas and his father were Sindar, not Silvan Elves. "Hm?"
"What's BJF mean?"
"Nothing," said Stephen bitterly.
"It has to mean something, 'cause you said it," countered Tucker. "You said Stewart was your BJF."
"I did," said Stephen. Emphasis on the past tense.
"It isn't 'blow job friend', is it?"
Stephen had not thought about Jon in the context of blowjobs before (although he had noticed that Jon had soft, full lips, because come on, he had eyes), and obviously now he wasn't going to start. "No!" he snapped. "It used to mean Best Jewish Friend, only now it means something like Biggest Jewish Fraud, because that's what he is!"
"Ah," said Tucker. "I was wondering if you'd ever get sick of him."
Stephen had been wishing he had Jimmy around to commiserate with, but Tucker might not be so bad. "I thought he really liked us. Now it turns out he was just using us this whole time!"
"I don't think he really likes anyone," confessed Tucker. "Except himself, obviously. He thinks because he didn't grow up in the business, that makes him better than us."
"He said that?" breathed Stephen, horrified. It was worse than he'd thought.
"Not in so many words, no," said Tucker. "But he doesn't exactly try to hide it. You've seen how he fights with the system and then gets all self-righteous when well-meaning people try to get him to behave."
"He's been better recently...."
"And you think that means he's showing more respect? He's still as judgmental as ever, just quieter about it. The only person he hasn't written off as not worth his time is Brian, and that's almost worse, the way he jumps to follow Brian's orders like a lovesick puppy."
Stephen felt sick. "You think...Jon and Brian...?"
"No, I don't think they're actually doing it," huffed Tucker. "I'm just saying, if Brian ever tried anything, Jon wouldn't exactly make him stop."
The correct response popped out of Stephen's mouth automatically. "That's disgusting."
"I know, right?" Tucker sighed. "I'm glad you finally quit drinking the Kool-Aid. It was getting weird being the only one who doesn't treat him like some kind of saint."
Stephen was suddenly very tired. He curled into a tight ball in the armchair (which had been a more comfortable fit a year ago, but Stephen Col-bert was nothing if not flexible) and closed his eyes.
~*~
After a DayDrink or two, Olivia felt way better. She was cool. She was mellow. She could handle anything.
She got through makeup unusually fast, and when she showed up on the set Kristen was waiting. Wardrobe had started putting her in short dresses over jeans, which was way less cute than her actual style, but whatever, they just had no taste and didn't appreciate her hips at all.
Olivia threw herself into the chair at Kristen's side. "Oh my god where have you been," she said, but she was grinning, so Kristen knew she wasn't mad.
"Hi!" breathed Kristen, startled. "Sorry, I didn't realize it was going to take so long...but I think they liked me!"
"What? Who liked you?"
"The people at..." Kristen frowned. "The audition. Like I texted you."
"You so did not text me," laughed Olivia. Kristen was such a kidder sometimes. "I would've seen it."
"Did too!"
"Uh-huh. Okay, humor me. Explain it 'again'." She punctuated the word with air-quotes. "What audition?"
"It's not that big a deal," said Kristen, not that Olivia was buying it, given how totally tense she was. "It's for like a two-minute appearance...it's in the next Toy Story short. Kurt's trying to get me to break into voice acting, and I didn't tell you because I didn't want to jinx it." That would be Kurt Braunohler, who managed Kristen and Wyatt and a bunch of the network's other low-maintenance teen actors. "He thinks I could really take off because of my...unique voice."
"Your voice is super unique," agreed Olivia happily.
"Yeah." Kristen was giving her an odd look now. "Lean over a second?"
Olivia leaned. It was nice when her face was this close to Kristen's face.
Until Kristen's eyes narrowed, and she said, "Your breath is really minty."
"Well, yeah," said Olivia, like, duh. "I had some mints."
"Olivia!" hissed Kristen. "It's like one in the afternoon! You have work!"
"Girls!" called their director. "Places!"
The two of them filed onto the set, a mocked-up mall food court that doubled as a promotion opportunity (this episode they were all about Oreos), along with a couple of extras. A makeup tech got in one last powdering of Olivia's nose before getting out of the cameras' way.
"I can still act just fine," she whispered to Kristen. "I'm not doing anything that would mess up my career. Relax."
"Scene 4, take 1," called Charlie. "In five, four, three...."
On cue, "Lisa" and "Sadie" launched into hushed conversation over their Oreo milkshakes. Star Girl had just gotten herself a new magic belt (now available in stores in all its glittery glory, a free sheet of Lisa Munn stickers with every purchase!), and Sadie was eager to see what new powers it unleashed. Lisa was more cautious — she'd had a vision about a supervillain who would use fashion for evil, and was afraid this might be their first plot....
"Cut!" yelled Charlie, striding toward them. "What is this? What am I seeing?"
Kristen shot Olivia a wide-eyed, told-you-so look.
"Kristen!" continued their director, now looming over their table. (Across from him, a stagehand ducked in to replace the girls' milkshakes with fresh ones for the next take.) "Sadie is supposed to be happy in this scene. Pick it up a little, will you?"
"Sorry, boss," stammered Kristen, melting a little. "I guess I'm just having a little trouble...getting in touch with my character's motivation?"
"Her motivation is that this new belt has lots of rhinestones, and magic powers, and she finds both of these things very, very exciting. This isn't rocket science, sweetheart."
"How am I doing, Charlie?" asked Olivia, partly to reclaim told-you-so rights, and partly to distract the man from berating Kristen any further.
"You? Not to worry, Madam Butterfly, you're right on target. Keep doing what you're doing," said Charlie, and stepped back. "Let's try this again. Starting positions, everyone!"
Olivia let herself settle back into character, satisfied. She wouldn't hold this over Kristen's head later. She'd wave off the apologies, tell Kristen not to worry about it, and move on to commiserating about how much Charlie sucked sometimes. Normal. Easy.
Not awkward at all.
~*~
Jon tried to tell himself that there wasn't anything awkward going on.
So Stephen had ignored him in favor of hushed conversations with Jimmy. So what? Stephen was allowed to spend time with his original BFF if he wanted. Jon was just being paranoid. And maybe a little jealous. The fact that Tucker looked even more smug than usual whenever they were between takes was probably a total coincidence.
He'd almost convinced himself by the end of the taping, and on the way back to their dressing room started to say, "Hey, Stephen, I —"
Stephen whirled on him. "You have nothing to say to me, you traitor!"
Jon's jaw dropped.
"You still haven't told me what he did," put in Jimmy crossly.
"He knows what he did!" snapped Stephen, somewhat less intimidating than he could have been, because he was also wriggling out of his designer T-shirt. (Tucker slammed the door behind them.) He waved the fabric at Jon like an extra-bulky Wag of the Finger. "You — you're — you are On Notice!"
And he fled for the showers, with Jimmy, who stripped a bit more slowly, following after.
Jon rounded on Tucker. "The hell did you say to him?"
"Hey, don't look at me," said Tucker, chin tipped up as he undid his bow tie. "He was like that when he got back from guitar practice. Guess you must've finally gotten on his last nerve."
It felt like Jon's heart had been stomped on. With both feet. In army boots.
Tucker rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, this is the guy who won't eat baby carrots or drink anything made with flavor crystals, and pitches a fit about Canada because, I don't know, it's too cold or whatever his problem was. You didn't expect him to put up with you forever."
"Fuck you," spat Jon.
"Grow up!" snapped Tucker.
Jon balled his hands into fists, shaking with the effort of not socking the smug dick across the face. He was still tense and jittery when all the members of Shout*For were safely in four separate shower stalls.
That afternoon, none of them hummed.
Characters/Pairings: pre-Jon/"Stephen" and Olivia/Kristen, Jimmy, Tucker, Brian, cameos, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Contents: Casual -isms, more underage drinking
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
While trying to get past their new awkwardness, Olivia and Kristen realize they've both been keeping secrets. Jon gets a sharp reminder of just how far he is from his family. And Stephen discovers something about Jon that threatens to turn their friendship upside-down, and not in the good way.
"Are you feeling all right?" asked Jon's aunt, over French toast in the dining room with the big latticed windows. "You look a bit peaky. Are they feeding you enough at that work of yours?"
"Yeah, there's a ton of food," said Jon absently, poking one of the blueberries on his overly elaborate plate. (Unlike his mother, who had insisted on cooking everything herself the last time he went home on vacation, Aunt Ruth had no qualms about having all her meals prepared by a professional. Breakfasts here were always gorgeous. Jon kept expecting to find she'd ordered a chef to render the Mona Lisa in syrup.)
He couldn't talk to Aunt Ruth about Stephen. He wasn't even sure she was cool with guys liking guys in the first place — in the abstract, sure, but her own nephew, maybe not so much. Not to mention that the thought of asking her about anything remotely related to sex was...well, it was worse than asking his mom about it. He'd sooner jump off a bridge.
All his friends were friends with Stephen, which made them less than ideal confidantes. Besides, Jimmy would probably let something slip by accident, and Olivia would delight in using the knowledge to torment him. And the list of authority figures he could trust was pretty thin on the ground....
"By the way, what was in the package?" added Aunt Ruth. "Did you like it?"
Jon frowned. "Package?"
"The one you got yesterday." When Jon was still blank, she prompted, "I put it in your room. Didn't you notice?"
"Must've missed it," said Jon. The night before, at Olivia's suggestion, they'd broken into Stephen's dad's liquor cabinet after the musical-off finally ended (Jimmy won). He'd only had one drink, okay, two, but once you combined that with how late it was when he finally stumbled into his own house and collapsed onto his bed, there could've been an elephant on the bureau and he probably wouldn't have noticed.
"Well, do you want to look at it now?"
"Aren't you going to make me finish eating?" asked Jon, startled. He didn't like being tethered to the table when they ate together, especially as compared to the anything-goes policy the studio had around when and where you ate, but it was disorienting to have the order suddenly lifted. This could be a trap.
"Normally I would," admitted his aunt, "but this one was from Marion."
At the mention of his mother's name, Jon was out of his chair, abandoning the golden-brown toast and all four types of fruit strewn over it. He didn't run, exactly, but he was down the hall and up the spiral staircase fast enough to leave Aunt Ruth behind. Mom would be crushed if she sent him a gift and he didn't respond quickly enough. He'd never hear the end of it.
Sure enough, there was a cardboard box the size of a footstool sitting against the wall right inside Jon's door. Jon scanned the room for something to cut the tape with (he had a lightsaber-shaped letter opener in here somewhere), only to have his aunt cough and say, "Will these help?" She'd brought a pair of scissors.
"Thanks!" said Jon, and dragged the package out so she wouldn't be shut out while he opened it.
The first thing he dug out of the styrofoam peanuts was...socks. Two, three, four pairs. These were followed by a well-wrapped plastic bundle that turned out to be home-baked cookies, which made up for the socks as far as Jon was concerned. He offered Aunt Ruth one, set the rest aside, and pulled out a polished wooden box.
It was hard to lavish Jon with gifts he'd appreciate based on the cost, but his mother had a way with sending him things that were personalized and really thoughtful, and the small, shiny, deep brown box with the letters JSL embossed in gold on the corner of the lid certainly qualified. Jon undid the latch (also a shiny gold) and found the inside lined with a dark, velvety fabric. It would have been a fabulous jewelry box if Jon had been a girl...or the kind of guy who wore jewelry, for that matter. He'd have to figure out something classy to put in it instead.
"Oh, that's nice," said his aunt, now kneeling across from him to watch. "That's a quality piece of work, you can tell."
"It's pretty cool," agreed Jon, now fishing out an unsealed envelope. He'd read that on his own. There was something big and soft towards the bottom, a shirt or something, and...he sifted through the rest of the styrofoam...and that seemed to be it. He unfolded the piece of clothing, which turned out to be a light jacket, made of navy blue fabric that felt like a sweatshirt but with nice pockets and a zip up the front. No fancy brand name, just something practical and sturdy. The sleeves looked awfully skinny. It would go great with his jeans.
"And that's lovely too! You'll look just dashing in that, I can tell. Go on, put it on."
"Yeah, all right." Jon got to his feet, pulling the zipper open. The jacket wouldn't be much use in southern California, but he did tours all over the place, and hey, who knew, maybe he'd be the next one getting filmed in Vancouver. He shrugged it onto one arm.
Or at least, he tried to.
Jon made a face. His hand was stuck in the cuff. He folded up his fingers as narrow as he could make them, and wiggled them through...but now the rest of his arm wasn't going to go any farther down. And the shoulder seam was at least two inches from his actual shoulder.
The sleeves weren't skinny. The whole thing was just too small.
"Well, you're at that age," said Aunt Ruth philosophically. "I'm sure they can exchange it for a larger size, no harm done. Did you get a gift receipt?"
Jon yanked the jacket off, dropped it back in the package with the styrofoam, and gathered up the socks, the cookies, his letter, and his monogrammed box. "Doesn't matter."
"If you email Marion, I'm sure she can fax..." She got to her feet, all sympathy. "Would you rather I tell her, dear?"
"No!" snapped Jon. "Forget it. I can buy a bigger one on my own. It's no big deal."
Avoiding her eyes, he shoved the package with his foot until it was back inside his room, and safely out of the way.
~*~
"We'll be mixing up the practice schedule today," said Brian at the morning meeting.
He paused to take another cookie. Jon had brought a bunch of them. Apparently his mom had made them, although Stephen wasn't clear on that, because if Stephen's mom ever sent him cookies he would've been thrilled, and Jon just looked grumpy.
"Stephen, we're going to be having you brush up on your guitar," continued Brian. "And Lizz can't be with both of you at once, so you'll have to do your practices back-to-back, instead of doing them all in parallel and then having the same break period. Tucker, Jimmy, you can choose whether to go with Jon's schedule or Stephen's."
"Stephen's," said Tucker promptly. Stephen wasn't surprised. He and Jon would both love the excuse not to have the same break.
Jimmy...didn't answer. This time Stephen was confused, then upset. Jimmy was Stephen's BFF! Why wouldn't he choose Stephen right away?
Then Jimmy said, "Jon, would you mind being on break alone? Or should I hang out with you?"
"Huh?" It was weird how distracted Jon was. Normally he listened intently to anything Brian said. "Um, it's fine either way. I can always do homework or something."
Jimmy turned to Stephen, as if to say, someone in here has to have a strong opinion, and I trust you to be it.
(He knew Stephen so well.)
"Well, Jon, you're in luck, because I am the kind of person who's generous enough to loan out his BFF to a friend in need," declared Stephen. He clapped Jimmy on the back. "I'm trusting you to take care of my BJF in my absence. Don't let me down."
~*~
Olivia sat up straight in her chair and kept her best attentive, respectful expression pasted across her features. In theory, she was supposed to be having voice lessons right now. In practice, though, her coach was having one of those days where he spent the whole hour talking about how he was over MacKenzie, how he was happily dating a bottle-blonde bombshell of a production company heiress, and how if MacKenzie found that upsetting, maybe she shouldn't have cheated on him however-the-hell-many years ago it was.
She wondered idly what it would be like to have a voice coach who didn't have this kind of creepy fixation on her manager. Unfortunately, there was some obscure contract snarl that kept Will in his job for at least another year or two. But hey, who cared that the company's all-time biggest singer was getting scattershot voice training? That was what auto-tune was for.
"Oh, look at the time!" she exclaimed, interrupting Will's latest speech about how MacKenzie couldn't have chosen a worse person to sleep with behind his back than some reviewer who had written a scathing piece about one of Will's protégés. "Gotta run. Legally mandated break time just started."
Will looked at his three-hundred-dollar watch. "Huh. So it has," he said. "Boy, that just flew right by, didn't it?"
"I know, it's crazy," said Olivia, already halfway out the door. "See you next time!"
Someone had stocked the break room drinks table with virgin daiquiris. Crime against nature, in Olivia's opinion. She scanned the room for her friends, wanting someone she could safely complain to without being judged.
Wyatt was present but occupied, chilling in a half-circle of chairs with a couple of their fellow Star Girl actors: Rob Riggle and John Oliver, the jock love interest and the quirky British kid, respectively. That was cool with Olivia. He was one of her BFFs, but he was also a guy, and he needed guy-friends-time once in a while.
There was no sign of Kristen.
Olivia perched herself on the arm of Wyatt's chair. She'd just be a minute. "Hey, guys. You know where Kristen went?"
The boys traded a couple of puzzled looks. "Didn't she have a thing today?" asked Rob.
"Yes. Yes, I believe she did," said John. "Definitely. A thing."
Olivia's eyes narrowed. "What kind of thing? And why didn't I know about this?"
"You can't know about everything," said Wyatt reasonably. "Like, what if she was working on a surprise present for you? It would defeat the whole purpose if you knew about it."
"So she's working on a surprise present for me?" asked Olivia skeptically.
Wyatt shrugged. "I dunno. She didn't tell me what it was either."
"Some help you are," said Olivia, trying to make it sound like a joke, though it wasn't, not completely. "If you see her, tell her I'm in my dressing room, okay?"
She stayed around long enough to grab a slice of pizza, a walnut muffin, and a fake strawberry daiquiri (she could perk it up with something from her personal fridge), then went back to her room to stew in private.
~*~
Lizz Winnstead was a teacher with gruelingly high standards. Stephen struggled through the whole session, even though she was mostly running him through Dolly Parton songs. He could have sung any of them off the top of his head, but picking them out on the guitar after several months of basically not playing was another story.
On the way out of the practice room he slipped Jon a high-five, then, instead of heading for their nice comfortable dressing room or the break room with all the food, made his way toward Brian's office.
He was going to be brave and suck it up, Col-bert and insist that Brian find a way to get him out of going to Canada.
It wasn't an appealing option, but every other option was worse. Plus, they all seemed to lead back to the possibility of knocking his career off the rails, which in turn would lead to Putting His Family In Jeopardy. If Jon couldn't think of a perfect answer, that wasn't promising, but Brian was even smarter than Jon, and was deeper into the background social and commercial forces that moved their careers. He might still be able to pull something off.
All Stephen had to do was convince Brian to want to help, without going so far as to Make Accusations.
He stopped outside Brian's office and took a deep, centering breath, the kind you did before vocal warm-ups...
...and a raised voice on the other side of the door said, "This is nuts!"
Stephen pressed his good ear against the wood.
"...sure you can manage it," Brian was saying. "And it's perfectly reasonable. Jon's popularity has been on a serious climb lately. He has the ability to be as big a star as Stephen, if we can catch that wave and ride it."
Almost as big a star, Stephen mentally corrected him. If nothing else, Jon was still half a head shorter.
"So we catch it," said the other person. Now Stephen recognized the voice of Craig Kilborn, their director on the TV show. "But in a way that plays to his strengths! Stewart has to be badgered into sticking to his lines as it is. If we start giving him more, that'll only be more opportunities for him to be belligerent, to be sarcastic—"
"Be fair, Craig," interrupted Brian. "He's mellowed out a lot these past few months. You must have noticed."
"He's been on an upswing, I'll grant you," said Craig grudgingly. "How did you manage it?"
"Finally convinced him to start spending time with some of the other boys," Brian told him.
Stephen's heart thudded to a stop.
"He got off to a rocky start," continued Brian. "Nobody's going to deny that. But now that he's got Stephen and Jimmy to be a good influence, he's less lonely, he's better socialized into the area — and you've seen the difference."
Jon had only started being their friend because Brian told him to? Not because of Stephen's winning personality, or Stephen's irresistible charm, or Stephen's dazzling wit, or anything else to do with Stephen (or Jimmy) at all?
"All right, all right," said Craig. "More screen time for Stewart. I'll pass it on to the writers. But if he crashes and burns, we're cutting it back again, so you better make sure you've got his face on enough tote bags before that happens."
And Brian had only told Jon to be their friend in order to make Jon more marketable?
"Leave the tote bags to merchandising," said Brian smoothly. "And leave the boys' moods to me."
Stephen couldn't listen to another word. Eyes burning, he slunk away. He'd been so stupid! To think, he'd been this close to asking Brian's help with something that — no matter how you sliced it — would end up making them less money. (And why? Because Jon had suggested it!)
He was seething by the time he got to the dressing room. Jon had toyed with him. Played him for a fool. Convinced him to share Jimmy, probably laughing behind his back the whole time....
Throwing himself into a chair, Stephen pulled out his phone, fired up his Tumblr app, and prepared to blow off steam by having unicorgirl18 pick some fights. It wasn't hard. There were a whole lot of people on that site whose opinions on The Lord of the Rings were painfully wrong.
Tucker was on the couch, also on his phone. He'd grabbed a plate from somewhere, and was working his way through something doughy and sugar-coated. Stephen paid him very little attention until he said, "Hey, Col-bert."
Stephen paused in the middle of an angry response to some moron who failed to grasp that Legolas and his father were Sindar, not Silvan Elves. "Hm?"
"What's BJF mean?"
"Nothing," said Stephen bitterly.
"It has to mean something, 'cause you said it," countered Tucker. "You said Stewart was your BJF."
"I did," said Stephen. Emphasis on the past tense.
"It isn't 'blow job friend', is it?"
Stephen had not thought about Jon in the context of blowjobs before (although he had noticed that Jon had soft, full lips, because come on, he had eyes), and obviously now he wasn't going to start. "No!" he snapped. "It used to mean Best Jewish Friend, only now it means something like Biggest Jewish Fraud, because that's what he is!"
"Ah," said Tucker. "I was wondering if you'd ever get sick of him."
Stephen had been wishing he had Jimmy around to commiserate with, but Tucker might not be so bad. "I thought he really liked us. Now it turns out he was just using us this whole time!"
"I don't think he really likes anyone," confessed Tucker. "Except himself, obviously. He thinks because he didn't grow up in the business, that makes him better than us."
"He said that?" breathed Stephen, horrified. It was worse than he'd thought.
"Not in so many words, no," said Tucker. "But he doesn't exactly try to hide it. You've seen how he fights with the system and then gets all self-righteous when well-meaning people try to get him to behave."
"He's been better recently...."
"And you think that means he's showing more respect? He's still as judgmental as ever, just quieter about it. The only person he hasn't written off as not worth his time is Brian, and that's almost worse, the way he jumps to follow Brian's orders like a lovesick puppy."
Stephen felt sick. "You think...Jon and Brian...?"
"No, I don't think they're actually doing it," huffed Tucker. "I'm just saying, if Brian ever tried anything, Jon wouldn't exactly make him stop."
The correct response popped out of Stephen's mouth automatically. "That's disgusting."
"I know, right?" Tucker sighed. "I'm glad you finally quit drinking the Kool-Aid. It was getting weird being the only one who doesn't treat him like some kind of saint."
Stephen was suddenly very tired. He curled into a tight ball in the armchair (which had been a more comfortable fit a year ago, but Stephen Col-bert was nothing if not flexible) and closed his eyes.
~*~
After a DayDrink or two, Olivia felt way better. She was cool. She was mellow. She could handle anything.
She got through makeup unusually fast, and when she showed up on the set Kristen was waiting. Wardrobe had started putting her in short dresses over jeans, which was way less cute than her actual style, but whatever, they just had no taste and didn't appreciate her hips at all.
Olivia threw herself into the chair at Kristen's side. "Oh my god where have you been," she said, but she was grinning, so Kristen knew she wasn't mad.
"Hi!" breathed Kristen, startled. "Sorry, I didn't realize it was going to take so long...but I think they liked me!"
"What? Who liked you?"
"The people at..." Kristen frowned. "The audition. Like I texted you."
"You so did not text me," laughed Olivia. Kristen was such a kidder sometimes. "I would've seen it."
"Did too!"
"Uh-huh. Okay, humor me. Explain it 'again'." She punctuated the word with air-quotes. "What audition?"
"It's not that big a deal," said Kristen, not that Olivia was buying it, given how totally tense she was. "It's for like a two-minute appearance...it's in the next Toy Story short. Kurt's trying to get me to break into voice acting, and I didn't tell you because I didn't want to jinx it." That would be Kurt Braunohler, who managed Kristen and Wyatt and a bunch of the network's other low-maintenance teen actors. "He thinks I could really take off because of my...unique voice."
"Your voice is super unique," agreed Olivia happily.
"Yeah." Kristen was giving her an odd look now. "Lean over a second?"
Olivia leaned. It was nice when her face was this close to Kristen's face.
Until Kristen's eyes narrowed, and she said, "Your breath is really minty."
"Well, yeah," said Olivia, like, duh. "I had some mints."
"Olivia!" hissed Kristen. "It's like one in the afternoon! You have work!"
"Girls!" called their director. "Places!"
The two of them filed onto the set, a mocked-up mall food court that doubled as a promotion opportunity (this episode they were all about Oreos), along with a couple of extras. A makeup tech got in one last powdering of Olivia's nose before getting out of the cameras' way.
"I can still act just fine," she whispered to Kristen. "I'm not doing anything that would mess up my career. Relax."
"Scene 4, take 1," called Charlie. "In five, four, three...."
On cue, "Lisa" and "Sadie" launched into hushed conversation over their Oreo milkshakes. Star Girl had just gotten herself a new magic belt (now available in stores in all its glittery glory, a free sheet of Lisa Munn stickers with every purchase!), and Sadie was eager to see what new powers it unleashed. Lisa was more cautious — she'd had a vision about a supervillain who would use fashion for evil, and was afraid this might be their first plot....
"Cut!" yelled Charlie, striding toward them. "What is this? What am I seeing?"
Kristen shot Olivia a wide-eyed, told-you-so look.
"Kristen!" continued their director, now looming over their table. (Across from him, a stagehand ducked in to replace the girls' milkshakes with fresh ones for the next take.) "Sadie is supposed to be happy in this scene. Pick it up a little, will you?"
"Sorry, boss," stammered Kristen, melting a little. "I guess I'm just having a little trouble...getting in touch with my character's motivation?"
"Her motivation is that this new belt has lots of rhinestones, and magic powers, and she finds both of these things very, very exciting. This isn't rocket science, sweetheart."
"How am I doing, Charlie?" asked Olivia, partly to reclaim told-you-so rights, and partly to distract the man from berating Kristen any further.
"You? Not to worry, Madam Butterfly, you're right on target. Keep doing what you're doing," said Charlie, and stepped back. "Let's try this again. Starting positions, everyone!"
Olivia let herself settle back into character, satisfied. She wouldn't hold this over Kristen's head later. She'd wave off the apologies, tell Kristen not to worry about it, and move on to commiserating about how much Charlie sucked sometimes. Normal. Easy.
Not awkward at all.
~*~
Jon tried to tell himself that there wasn't anything awkward going on.
So Stephen had ignored him in favor of hushed conversations with Jimmy. So what? Stephen was allowed to spend time with his original BFF if he wanted. Jon was just being paranoid. And maybe a little jealous. The fact that Tucker looked even more smug than usual whenever they were between takes was probably a total coincidence.
He'd almost convinced himself by the end of the taping, and on the way back to their dressing room started to say, "Hey, Stephen, I —"
Stephen whirled on him. "You have nothing to say to me, you traitor!"
Jon's jaw dropped.
"You still haven't told me what he did," put in Jimmy crossly.
"He knows what he did!" snapped Stephen, somewhat less intimidating than he could have been, because he was also wriggling out of his designer T-shirt. (Tucker slammed the door behind them.) He waved the fabric at Jon like an extra-bulky Wag of the Finger. "You — you're — you are On Notice!"
And he fled for the showers, with Jimmy, who stripped a bit more slowly, following after.
Jon rounded on Tucker. "The hell did you say to him?"
"Hey, don't look at me," said Tucker, chin tipped up as he undid his bow tie. "He was like that when he got back from guitar practice. Guess you must've finally gotten on his last nerve."
It felt like Jon's heart had been stomped on. With both feet. In army boots.
Tucker rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, this is the guy who won't eat baby carrots or drink anything made with flavor crystals, and pitches a fit about Canada because, I don't know, it's too cold or whatever his problem was. You didn't expect him to put up with you forever."
"Fuck you," spat Jon.
"Grow up!" snapped Tucker.
Jon balled his hands into fists, shaking with the effort of not socking the smug dick across the face. He was still tense and jittery when all the members of Shout*For were safely in four separate shower stalls.
That afternoon, none of them hummed.