Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2013-06-24 12:57 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2013-06-24 12:57 pm
Entry tags:
Fake News | ensemble | PG-13 | Shout*For, chapter 10
Title: Shout*For, chapter 10: Human Touch
Characters/Pairings: Jon/"Stephen", Jimmy, Olivia, cameos, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Contents: Teen/teen sexuality
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
This is the one where Jon and Stephen make out.
Musical accompaniments: Beethoven's Sixth; Jimmy's ring tone, the Stephen version; Night on Bald Mountain; Human Touch.
(Editorial remark frompoliticette: "I keep wondering if this AU characterization for "Stephen" has gone a little too far into the ridiculous...and then I remember that, oh, right, he did that in canon.")
<3 Olivia <3
ok srsly what did u do to Stephen??
Jon S.
IDK! He qon't talk to me!
Jon S.
help
Jon S.
please
Jon S.
makke himexplain
<3 Olivia <3
idk boo, hes pretty tight lipped about this
<3 Olivia <3
will keep workin on him tho
<3 Olivia <3
stay strong <3
~*~
Jimmy's place wasn't quite as big as Stephen's, but it had a grand piano that wasn't right next to anyone's office, so Papa wouldn't tell Stephen off for picking out funereal tunes on the keys.
He'd had accompaniment for a while, but by now Jimmy had quit trying to harmonize with Stephen's mournful stylings and was listening from the higher-octave end of the piano bench. "So," he said, "you're still getting on that plane Monday, huh?"
"I will text you every day I'm gone," Stephen promised him.
"Thanks," said Jimmy. "And I bet Canada won't be nearly as bad as you think."
Stephen responded by repeating the last few chords he'd played, but even more doloroso.
Jimmy tapped out a friendly, encouraging measure from Beethoven's Sixth Symphony (Stephen didn't know all the classical music Jimmy could play by heart, but he had no trouble recognizing the ones from Fantasia). "Stephen...don't be mad, but...even considering the syrup-sucking and the hockey-loving and all, you're being pretty hard on the Canadians. Is there something else...?"
"No!" cried Stephen. He was not going to scare Jimmy. "I am probably overreacting!" He punctuated it with the lowest C-chord the piano had to offer.
Before Jimmy could say anything else, they were interrupted by the melodious notes of his ring tone: "Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday~! / Everybody's looking forward to the weekend, weekend!"
Jimmy hopped off the piano bench and picked up his phone from the table where it sat charging. "It's Jon!" he announced.
"Don't answer it!" yelled Stephen.
"Why not?"
"It's a secret! It's for your own good!"
"You can't just say that!" cried Jimmy. "He's my friend too!" And then, to Stephen's horror, the voice of Rebecca Black was replaced with Jimmy's phone voice: "Jon, hi!"
Stephen slammed his hands down on the keys.
"Yeah, he's here," said Jimmy. "That was him. ...Nope. He won't tell me either. No, of course I'm not!"
"Stop being friendly!" yelled Stephen.
"You are not the boss of me!" snapped Jimmy. "No, not you, I meant Stephen," he added into the phone.
Stephen pounded out the first couple measures of Night on Bald Mountain. Then, since he couldn't go any farther off the top of his head, he played them again.
"Jon wants to know if you're upset because he's gonna be the lead singer in 'A Whole New World'!" called Jimmy.
Stephen whipped around, face twisting in anguish. "He's what?"
"He didn't know," Jimmy reported into the phone.
"Tell him he's a thief!" shouted Stephen.
"Tell him yourself!" countered Jimmy. "I am not on anybody's side," he added to Jon.
Stephen went back to Night on Bald Mountain. Irato.
"Uh-huh. Sure." Jimmy paused. "Say that again, I didn't...." Pause. "You what?" His voice cracked: "Please hold for a minute."
The next thing Stephen knew, Jimmy was next to him on the bench and had dragged his hands off the keys.
"You trust me, right, Stephen Col-bert?" said Jimmy, looking straight into his eyes. "And you know that if Jon's done something wrong, I will absolutely be on your side?"
"Of course I trust you, Jimmy Fallon!" said Stephen. "Except that you're supposed to be on my side now."
Jimmy's nails dug into his wrists. "I can't do that if you won't even tell me what's going on!"
"I'm trying to protect you!"
"Well, stop it! If you don't stop keeping secrets from me, no matter how good you think the reason is, I — I will — I will suspend our friendship!"
Stephen's heart sank to around his knees. "You can't do that!"
"Can't I?" Jimmy let him go, only to rummage under the collar of his own T-shirt and pull out the left half of their Best Friends Forever pendant. As Stephen watched in disbelief, he lifted the loop of it over his head and closed his fist around it. "Watch me!"
This was more than Stephen could take. To have his two best friends ripped away in the span of two days? Either he'd been cursed by a witch, or the universe just had it in for him. He choked on a sobbing breath, chin wobbling, heat building behind his eyes.
"Stephen," said Jimmy softly. "Tell me why you don't want to be friends with Jon any more."
"He was never our friend!" wailed Stephen, throwing himself across Jimmy's shoulders.
Jimmy pulled him into a tight hug. "What are you talking about? He's been our friend for months."
"It wasn't real," sobbed Stephen into his shirt collar. "He was faking it because Brian told him to and he was using us! He would've stopped pretending any day now anyway because it worked, now that he's going to be the lead singer and the main character and start getting all the solo projects, which means we're worthless to him, and, and, and...!"
"Okay, here's the thing," said Jimmy, rubbing Stephen's back. "I bet none of that is true."
"Denial will not protect you forever," sniffled Stephen.
"I mean, sure, Brian was kinda leaning on him to hang out with us and Tucker more all through our first tour...."
"See? See?"
"...but back then you thought he was rude and obnoxious, and didn't want to hang out with him either. I had to badger you for weeks before you gave him a chance! And as of last week you weren't faking that you liked him, were you?"
"N-no," admitted Stephen.
"You've been the lead singer on everything so far, and you got the first movie role, as the leading man no less, and all kinds of other deals. Have you been thinking me and Jon were worthless this whole time?"
"No!"
"Did Jon ever say he thought we were worthless?"
"No...."
"Because he doesn't think it!"
"B-but...!"
Jimmy sighed. "Look, you remember in the end of Bolt where he sees Penny hugging the other dog, and he thinks it means Penny doesn't love him any more, but it was all a big misunderstanding because he jumped to conclusions based on that one tiny scene?"
Stephen pulled back, wiping his eyes. "A-am I Bolt?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Jimmy.
"And...Jon really liked me all this time?"
For some reason, this made Jimmy fidgety. "He liked — I mean, he really likes — look, you should talk to him yourself, okay? He's probably panicking now that we've left the call hanging for so long."
Stephen sniffled a little more. "And...and if I do, you'll put your friendship pendant back on, right?"
"I'll do it right now," said Jimmy, already untangling the loop to toss it back over his head.
Swinging himself off the piano bench, Stephen dove for the phone. The call was still connected, seconds ticking away. "Hello?"
"Stephen!" exclaimed Jon's welcome voice on the far end. "What —"
"I'm sorry!" interrupted Stephen. "It's all my fault. I saw you hugging another dog, or I guess a metaphorical dog in the form of money and fame, and I didn't understand but my Mittens set me straight!"
"...what?"
"We'll put it on our watching list!" Stephen assured him. "Where are you?"
"Just at the house...." stammered Jon.
"Stay right there!" ordered Stephen. "I'm coming over. And don't let anything catch on fire before I get there!"
He ended the call out of force of habit, before he remembered that it wasn't his phone and Jimmy had been the one Jon originally wanted to talk to. Oh well. "Can I borrow this to call a car?" he asked, already thumbing to the contacts to search for the company number.
"Is he at home?" asked Jimmy. "Because we're in the same neighborhood, remember? You could bike the distance in five minutes. It would take longer than that just to get a car here."
Stephen dropped the phone. "In that case, can I borrow your bike?"
~*~
Even the highest-ceilinged, most skylight-topped room in Jon's absurdly large house felt like it was closing in around him. He couldn't get comfortable until he was on one of the second-floor balconies, overlooking the mansion's sunset-lengthened shadow as it stretched across the road.
Jimmy Fallon!
ok S is on his way over!
Jon S.
Wait
Jon S.
Is he still mad??
Jimmy Fallon!
no! it was all a big oops in the first place :)
Jimmy Fallon!
also fyi I didnt mention the part where you totally want to jump him ;)
Jon S.
Not what I said!!
Did he want to jump Stephen? God, Jon had never even had an actual girlfriend before, let alone....
One thing was clear: he had to come clean to Stephen about wanting something. Better to get flat-out rejected than to go through another day of twisting himself in knots about whether Stephen was, or would be, cool with whatever-the-hell Jon's confused attraction added up to.
His chest felt constricted, to the point where he'd taken a couple hits of his inhaler, though it didn't seem to be helping. Waves of heat followed by sudden chills kept washing under his skin from head to toe. Shout*For had done half a dozen songs about being so in love ("with you, girl") that you were walking on air, and another handful that involved nobly and prettily pining ("if you only knew, girl"), but there was nothing in his repertoire along the lines of "girl, I'm stressing out so hard over possibly-liking you that I might throw up."
Jimmy Fallon!
ok well you can explain the fine details to S in person!
Jimmy Fallon!
although you realize that if you ever hurt him and its your fault for real I will snap your guitar in half and come after you with the knobby end
Jon S.
Wtf
Jon S.
Don't you think that's kind of premature
Jimmy Fallon!
it is never too early to exercise bff duty :)
Jon, who had been in the middle of typing "Wait does that mean he has a certain kind of feelings I could hurt?", hastily deleted the words. Jimmy wasn't hinting anything. Jon was starting from square one.
And since he hadn't heard a car or anything, when the doorbell below went off he nearly had a heart attack.
"S-Stephen?" called Jon, peering down over the carved oak balustrade he'd been leaning against. He couldn't see who was at the door, since there was an angled mini-roof sticking out over it, but there was a bicycle leaning against the front steps, and who else would be biking here right now?
"Jon?" came Stephen's muffled reply. A moment later he was out from under the shingles, head turning as he looked for company on the empty wraparound porch.
"Up here!" Jon poked his phone so the screen lit up, then waved. Now Stephen spotted him and waved back. "Stay there. I'll be right down."
For about two seconds he contemplated hopping the balustrade, making the short leap to the angled roof, and shimmying down one of its supports, firefighter-style, to the porch. Then he came to his senses and used the doors.
"It's just Stephen," he panted as he blew past Aunt Ruth, also on her way to answer the bell. "I got it."
He skidded to a stop in the front hall and gave himself a quick once-over in the mirror. Grey T-shirt, messy dark curls that were getting in need of a trim, a sheen of sweat across his forehead. Why hadn't he used the last five minutes to put on something nice? Stupid, stupid. No help for it now, though; all he could do was grab a scarf from the closet and pat down his face before greeting his visitor.
Stephen was kind of sweaty too, but he'd just pedaled all the way over from Jimmy's, so he had an excuse. "Hi," he said, sounding almost shy.
"Hi," said Jon cleverly. "Uh, do you want a drink?"
"Okay." Stephen stumbled after him, toeing off his shoes on the way.
And now Jon was out of things to say that weren't either TMI or song lyrics.
Halfway down the hall, Stephen got over his own unusual silence. "Jon, I — I'm s-sorry."
It was probably the first time Jon could remember Stephen apologizing for anything. "That, um, thanks," he said. "Stephen, I...I still don't understand what even happened."
"I heard Brian talking about how you'd gotten more manageable since he made you be friends with us," said Stephen.
Jon winced. Even at his most angst-ridden, he'd never wanted to be unmanageable for Brian.
"And I thought it meant you were only spending time with us because he told you to."
With its windows open to the sunset, the kitchen wasn't exactly dim, but it was still a shock to Jon's eyes when he flipped on the chandeliers. "Do I really seem that...withdrawn, or whatever, that you thought I could be faking it?" he asked, turning so they could talk face-to-face and backing into the room.
"Well, I didn't know!" protested Stephen. "But it doesn't matter now, right? Jimmy helped me to get it together, and now I understand that you really like us after all. Don't you?"
"Yes!" yelped Jon.
"Okay!" said Stephen.
There was never going to be a better opening than this. "I like you," continued Jon, plunging forward before he could lose his nerve. "Personally, you."
Stephen frowned. He looked kind of shaky himself, although maybe that was just Jon projecting. "Yeah, you said."
"No, I mean, I like —" Jon gripped the edge of the island for support. "I really —" God, he was sounding more insipid than Kilborn-approved dialogue. "Can I kiss you?"
Stephen's face was as blank as if he'd asked it in Chinese.
"It doesn't have to mean anything if you don't want it to!" added Jon. His heart was pounding in his ears; there were sparks going off in the pit of his stomach. "If you hate it we can forget about it and pretend like it never happened. And I know I'm not Italian, and not exactly rugged, here —"
"Okay."
"— and I could be taller, and — what?"
"I said — okay," repeated Stephen softly, his face unreadable.
For a moment both boys were rooted to the spot. The way they had filed into the room, Stephen was in front of a bank of glass-paneled cabinets, framing his head with a bunch of the weird pottery Jon's aunt collected. He didn't look about to move any time soon, so Jon took a step toward him, then another, and there had to be some kind of sci-fi space-time distortion thing going on here because it was the longest three feet he'd ever walked.
Stephen blinked a few times, but otherwise kept a steady watch on Jon. His lashes were long. And, okay, he wasn't lunging into Jon's arms or anything, but as far as Jon couldn't tell he wasn't holding his nose and preparing to soldier through it like Jon had urged him to take just one bite of brussels sprout stew, so there was nothing here to panic about. Right?
Without thinking about it, Jon had lifted one hand. He caught his breath and curled it around the side of Stephen's neck, skin warm against skin.
Thus steadied, he rocked up on his bare toes and pressed his lips against Stephen's.
A flood of warmth rushed across his face, spreading outward from where Stephen's mouth was touching his, while his stomach-sparks went off like firecrackers and, yeah, his dick twitched hopefully against his pants.
When he fell back, Stephen was the first to speak. "Did you like it?"
"Yeah," said Jon dizzily.
Stephen settled his hand over Jon's wrist. "Did you...like it enough to do it again?"
Jon's stomach flipped over. "Yes!"
"Oh, good," breathed Stephen, and now he was in motion, bending over and tipping his head to the side to seal his mouth over Jon's.
His lips didn't just press, they pulled at Jon's until Jon let his mouth fall open and tried to do the same to Stephen's. It wasn't very graceful and they were kind of mauling each other's mouths and it was amazing. Jon clung to Stephen to keep from collapsing on suddenly-weak knees, a second before Stephen fisted both hands in the back of Jon's T-shirt and shivered, and, oh god, maybe this wasn't the most stable position. Jon wrenched their mouths apart and let his head fall against Stephen's shoulder (the one under the good ear) with a gasp. "Upstairs?"
"Upstairs," echoed Stephen. And then, uncertainly: "I can get my drink first, though, right?"
~*~
Stephen held his glass of iced tea in both hands as he followed Jon up the spiral staircase. He didn't even like iced tea. He'd kept it because he was thirsty, but he'd picked it out at random because his brain was full of Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon.
Jon didn't think he was worthless. Jon thought he was hot.
They usually hung out at Stephen's place, but he'd been in Jon's room a few times. It looked pretty much like he remembered: framed Springsteen and Star Wars posters, a big flatscreen with a handful of video game controllers strewn on the floor in front of it, a working record player, a wrought metal photo tree displaying an image of an ocean much greyer than the ones Stephen was used to, actual books filling most of his bookshelves. Even his bed was all bookshelves down the left side: short ones, the perfect height to sit a reading lamp on top of.
"You, um, you can put that down wherever," said Jon, nodding to Stephen's dripping glass.
"O-okay," said Stephen. "Where are your coasters?"
Jon twitched. "Uh, those would be downstairs. Don't worry about it, okay?"
"Jon!" cried Stephen. Much as he really, really didn't want Jon to go back downstairs, "I am not leaving rings on your furniture!"
"All right, all right!" Jon scanned the room, eyes falling on his desk. "Listen, would a mousepad be good enough?"
"I guess," said Stephen reluctantly.
Jon retrieved the mousepad from next to his sleeping laptop. After pressing it into Stephen's hand, he splayed his own across the front of Stephen's shirt and leaned invitingly in.
He'd gotten about a thousand percent better at kissing in the past five minutes. If Aesthetically Pleasing from across the Atlantic had made Stephen float, Jon was making him melt from the inside out. Stephen half-tripped forward...and the hand with the glass shook enough to send iced tea sloshing out, wetting Jon's T-shirt and running down Stephen's hand. He jerked back with a small cry of regret.
"Don't worry about it!" said Jon. "It's a cheap shirt, I've got a million of 'em..."
"It's your own fault!" interrupted Stephen. "You should have let me put this down first!"
"Okay, yeah, I know, I...." Jon trailed off, giving Stephen one of those Looks, the ones he got when he was thinking and analyzing and being all smart. "Stephen, are you freaking out about this?"
"I'm not freaking out!" yelled Stephen.
"Not so loud!" hissed Jon. "If my aunt hears — I mean, I think she'd be okay, but if we're not careful —"
"— we'd be out of our contracts faster than you can say 'happiest place on Earth'," finished Stephen, in a lower voice. Not to mention, Papa would disown him. "I know. And I am not freaking out."
"Well, I kind of am," said Jon bluntly. He ran his hands through his hair. "Just put that stuff down already, will you?"
That, Stephen could handle. The cup went on the low bookshelf up against Jon's bed.
"Now c'mere."
Stephen obeyed, and found his dripping hand being taken in Jon's and rubbed down with the grey fabric of Jon's T-shirt. The shirt was loose and long, but not so long that a strip of Jon's stomach didn't get bared while it was lifted. Stephen's heart went all skippy at the sight.
"Better?" asked Jon after a moment, holding Stephen's hand through the fabric. Stephen nodded. "Okay. Come sit?"
He took a step back, tugging Stephen's arm after him, in the direction of the mattress.
Stephen froze, not-freaking-out all over again. "Jon, I — I'm a Christian."
Jon frowned. "Yeah, so? Your people have some kind of law against sitting on a bed with a Jew?"
"No! What we have is...I mean...there are things I won't do before marriage."
"Oh!" Jon's cheeks went pink; he let Stephen go. "I didn't mean...I wasn't saying 'come here and let me ravish you,' I was saying 'come here so we can sit down and make out some more.'"
He looked up again when Stephen crossed the carpet toward him, and they sank onto the edge of the mattress together.
This time Jon's fingers curled around the back of Stephen's neck, and he waited without leaning into it, so apparently it was Stephen's turn to move first. Well. That could work. Stephen tilted his head and locked lips with Jon once more, and, okay, it had been smart of Jon to lead him here, because this was way easier to do when Stephen didn't have to worry about his legs' continued ability to keep him upright.
He broke the kiss reluctantly, and didn't pull back very far. "We do have to tell Jimmy, though," he panted. Should Olivia know too? Was your fake girlfriend entitled to know that you were fake-cheating? How likely was it that she would figure it out anyway?
"I figured." Jon pressed his lips to the slope of Stephen's neck — and started when the shock of pleasure made Stephen jump. "Was that good or —?"
"It was good!" breathed Stephen. "Do it again!"
Jon left a trail of kisses down to the scoop of Stephen's collar, all of them electric. Stephen's nerves were singing under his skin. He leaned more wholeheartedly against Jon, and now both of Jon's hands were around his waist, slipping under his shirt, caressing up and down his spine. He could feel his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, and in his....
He cast a nervous eye across the front of his pants. Still mostly flat. Jon's, on the other hand, were...less so.
That same Jon was now curling his fingers around the hem of Stephen's shirt. "Can I get this thing off you?"
Stephen reflexively pulled his elbows close to his body.
"Wait, really?" said Jon. "You've thrown off more clothing than that in front of me hundreds of times!"
"It was different then!" hissed Stephen. "Now you're looking at me with...with lust in your heart!" He nodded sharply toward Jon's lap. "And your penis."
Jon turned so red Stephen could practically feel the heat rolling off his face. "Hey, it's not like it was unprovoked!"
Okay, sure, Stephen hadn't exactly gone out of his way not to be lust-inciting. But even so...."Jon?"
"Hm?"
"How much do you like me?"
Jon blinked at him. "...A lot." He looked away. "Thought that was pretty obvious."
"Yeah, but how much is a lot?" pressed Stephen. "Is it just that I'm dazzlingly attractive and you can't help but be hot for that? It's okay if it is. I would understand. Or is the kind of thing where...maybe one day we could go to New York and you would marry me?"
The hands still twisted in his shirt went tight. "Stephen, come on, you can't just skip to — listen, twenty minutes ago I was still getting up the nerve to ask if I could kiss you, two weeks ago I wasn't sure I could be that into guys at all, and now you expect me to know if I'd want to propose —"
"I said it was okay if you didn't!" cried Stephen. "Anything you want is okay. If you just want to be my friend who likes kissing me sometimes, that's fine! I just want to know!"
Jon took a breath to reply, but whatever he'd planned to say caught in his throat. "Well," he said instead, letting his palms slide loosely back down Stephen's hips, "I was seriously considering singing my feelings at you for a second there, which should give you a clue."
Stephen's heart went skippy again. "You could do it," he breathed. "You could sing at me. That would be nice."
After a moment, Jon nodded. In this room, reflecting the bedcovers, curtains, and even the faint tint of the walls, his eyes were a brilliant blue.
"Boy, ain't no kindness in the face of strangers~ / Ain't gonna find no miracles here," he crooned, dipping into the lower end of his range, not exactly deep but well below anything their pop songs called for. "Well, you can wait on your blessings my darlin' / But I got a deal for you right here: / I ain't looking for prayers or pity~, I ain't coming round searchin' for a crutch / I just want someone to talk to, and a little of that human touch / Just a little of that human touch...."
His voice was gritty and fluid all at once, roughened in an unfamiliar way that Stephen realized with a jolt was probably arousal. His eyes kept falling closed, and having his mouth this close as it shaped the words was more like being kissed again than it had any right to be.
"You might need somethin' to hold on to, when all the answers, they don't amount for much / Somebody that you can just talk to, and a little of that human touch~ / Baby, in a world without pity, do you think what I'm askin's too much? / I just want to feel you in my arms, and share a little of that human touch...."
...and the lyrics kept saying just touch, but the brokenhearted tenderness in the vocals and the melody said that was a lie, it wasn't just anything....
The song had trailed off. Stephen swallowed past the lump in his throat. "That's really nice," he whispered. "Springsteen, right? What's it called?"
Jon raised his eyebrows. "'Human Touch'."
"Oh." Stephen was blinking hard. "Oh, that makes...."
"Hey, are you...?"
Stephen put a hand to his mouth, sniffling.
"Stephen, hey, c'mon, it's okay...."
Jon pulled him in, and Stephen gladly clung to his shirt. It already had tea spilled on it; sobbing all over it couldn't be much worse. "I really, really like you too," he choked, from the safe harbor of a baffled Jon's embrace.
Characters/Pairings: Jon/"Stephen", Jimmy, Olivia, cameos, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Contents: Teen/teen sexuality
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
This is the one where Jon and Stephen make out.
Musical accompaniments: Beethoven's Sixth; Jimmy's ring tone, the Stephen version; Night on Bald Mountain; Human Touch.
(Editorial remark from
politicette: "I keep wondering if this AU characterization for "Stephen" has gone a little too far into the ridiculous...and then I remember that, oh, right, he did that in canon.")<3 Olivia <3
ok srsly what did u do to Stephen??
Jon S.
IDK! He qon't talk to me!
Jon S.
help
Jon S.
please
Jon S.
makke himexplain
<3 Olivia <3
idk boo, hes pretty tight lipped about this
<3 Olivia <3
will keep workin on him tho
<3 Olivia <3
stay strong <3
~*~
Jimmy's place wasn't quite as big as Stephen's, but it had a grand piano that wasn't right next to anyone's office, so Papa wouldn't tell Stephen off for picking out funereal tunes on the keys.
He'd had accompaniment for a while, but by now Jimmy had quit trying to harmonize with Stephen's mournful stylings and was listening from the higher-octave end of the piano bench. "So," he said, "you're still getting on that plane Monday, huh?"
"I will text you every day I'm gone," Stephen promised him.
"Thanks," said Jimmy. "And I bet Canada won't be nearly as bad as you think."
Stephen responded by repeating the last few chords he'd played, but even more doloroso.
Jimmy tapped out a friendly, encouraging measure from Beethoven's Sixth Symphony (Stephen didn't know all the classical music Jimmy could play by heart, but he had no trouble recognizing the ones from Fantasia). "Stephen...don't be mad, but...even considering the syrup-sucking and the hockey-loving and all, you're being pretty hard on the Canadians. Is there something else...?"
"No!" cried Stephen. He was not going to scare Jimmy. "I am probably overreacting!" He punctuated it with the lowest C-chord the piano had to offer.
Before Jimmy could say anything else, they were interrupted by the melodious notes of his ring tone: "Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday~! / Everybody's looking forward to the weekend, weekend!"
Jimmy hopped off the piano bench and picked up his phone from the table where it sat charging. "It's Jon!" he announced.
"Don't answer it!" yelled Stephen.
"Why not?"
"It's a secret! It's for your own good!"
"You can't just say that!" cried Jimmy. "He's my friend too!" And then, to Stephen's horror, the voice of Rebecca Black was replaced with Jimmy's phone voice: "Jon, hi!"
Stephen slammed his hands down on the keys.
"Yeah, he's here," said Jimmy. "That was him. ...Nope. He won't tell me either. No, of course I'm not!"
"Stop being friendly!" yelled Stephen.
"You are not the boss of me!" snapped Jimmy. "No, not you, I meant Stephen," he added into the phone.
Stephen pounded out the first couple measures of Night on Bald Mountain. Then, since he couldn't go any farther off the top of his head, he played them again.
"Jon wants to know if you're upset because he's gonna be the lead singer in 'A Whole New World'!" called Jimmy.
Stephen whipped around, face twisting in anguish. "He's what?"
"He didn't know," Jimmy reported into the phone.
"Tell him he's a thief!" shouted Stephen.
"Tell him yourself!" countered Jimmy. "I am not on anybody's side," he added to Jon.
Stephen went back to Night on Bald Mountain. Irato.
"Uh-huh. Sure." Jimmy paused. "Say that again, I didn't...." Pause. "You what?" His voice cracked: "Please hold for a minute."
The next thing Stephen knew, Jimmy was next to him on the bench and had dragged his hands off the keys.
"You trust me, right, Stephen Col-bert?" said Jimmy, looking straight into his eyes. "And you know that if Jon's done something wrong, I will absolutely be on your side?"
"Of course I trust you, Jimmy Fallon!" said Stephen. "Except that you're supposed to be on my side now."
Jimmy's nails dug into his wrists. "I can't do that if you won't even tell me what's going on!"
"I'm trying to protect you!"
"Well, stop it! If you don't stop keeping secrets from me, no matter how good you think the reason is, I — I will — I will suspend our friendship!"
Stephen's heart sank to around his knees. "You can't do that!"
"Can't I?" Jimmy let him go, only to rummage under the collar of his own T-shirt and pull out the left half of their Best Friends Forever pendant. As Stephen watched in disbelief, he lifted the loop of it over his head and closed his fist around it. "Watch me!"
This was more than Stephen could take. To have his two best friends ripped away in the span of two days? Either he'd been cursed by a witch, or the universe just had it in for him. He choked on a sobbing breath, chin wobbling, heat building behind his eyes.
"Stephen," said Jimmy softly. "Tell me why you don't want to be friends with Jon any more."
"He was never our friend!" wailed Stephen, throwing himself across Jimmy's shoulders.
Jimmy pulled him into a tight hug. "What are you talking about? He's been our friend for months."
"It wasn't real," sobbed Stephen into his shirt collar. "He was faking it because Brian told him to and he was using us! He would've stopped pretending any day now anyway because it worked, now that he's going to be the lead singer and the main character and start getting all the solo projects, which means we're worthless to him, and, and, and...!"
"Okay, here's the thing," said Jimmy, rubbing Stephen's back. "I bet none of that is true."
"Denial will not protect you forever," sniffled Stephen.
"I mean, sure, Brian was kinda leaning on him to hang out with us and Tucker more all through our first tour...."
"See? See?"
"...but back then you thought he was rude and obnoxious, and didn't want to hang out with him either. I had to badger you for weeks before you gave him a chance! And as of last week you weren't faking that you liked him, were you?"
"N-no," admitted Stephen.
"You've been the lead singer on everything so far, and you got the first movie role, as the leading man no less, and all kinds of other deals. Have you been thinking me and Jon were worthless this whole time?"
"No!"
"Did Jon ever say he thought we were worthless?"
"No...."
"Because he doesn't think it!"
"B-but...!"
Jimmy sighed. "Look, you remember in the end of Bolt where he sees Penny hugging the other dog, and he thinks it means Penny doesn't love him any more, but it was all a big misunderstanding because he jumped to conclusions based on that one tiny scene?"
Stephen pulled back, wiping his eyes. "A-am I Bolt?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Jimmy.
"And...Jon really liked me all this time?"
For some reason, this made Jimmy fidgety. "He liked — I mean, he really likes — look, you should talk to him yourself, okay? He's probably panicking now that we've left the call hanging for so long."
Stephen sniffled a little more. "And...and if I do, you'll put your friendship pendant back on, right?"
"I'll do it right now," said Jimmy, already untangling the loop to toss it back over his head.
Swinging himself off the piano bench, Stephen dove for the phone. The call was still connected, seconds ticking away. "Hello?"
"Stephen!" exclaimed Jon's welcome voice on the far end. "What —"
"I'm sorry!" interrupted Stephen. "It's all my fault. I saw you hugging another dog, or I guess a metaphorical dog in the form of money and fame, and I didn't understand but my Mittens set me straight!"
"...what?"
"We'll put it on our watching list!" Stephen assured him. "Where are you?"
"Just at the house...." stammered Jon.
"Stay right there!" ordered Stephen. "I'm coming over. And don't let anything catch on fire before I get there!"
He ended the call out of force of habit, before he remembered that it wasn't his phone and Jimmy had been the one Jon originally wanted to talk to. Oh well. "Can I borrow this to call a car?" he asked, already thumbing to the contacts to search for the company number.
"Is he at home?" asked Jimmy. "Because we're in the same neighborhood, remember? You could bike the distance in five minutes. It would take longer than that just to get a car here."
Stephen dropped the phone. "In that case, can I borrow your bike?"
~*~
Even the highest-ceilinged, most skylight-topped room in Jon's absurdly large house felt like it was closing in around him. He couldn't get comfortable until he was on one of the second-floor balconies, overlooking the mansion's sunset-lengthened shadow as it stretched across the road.
Jimmy Fallon!
ok S is on his way over!
Jon S.
Wait
Jon S.
Is he still mad??
Jimmy Fallon!
no! it was all a big oops in the first place :)
Jimmy Fallon!
also fyi I didnt mention the part where you totally want to jump him ;)
Jon S.
Not what I said!!
Did he want to jump Stephen? God, Jon had never even had an actual girlfriend before, let alone....
One thing was clear: he had to come clean to Stephen about wanting something. Better to get flat-out rejected than to go through another day of twisting himself in knots about whether Stephen was, or would be, cool with whatever-the-hell Jon's confused attraction added up to.
His chest felt constricted, to the point where he'd taken a couple hits of his inhaler, though it didn't seem to be helping. Waves of heat followed by sudden chills kept washing under his skin from head to toe. Shout*For had done half a dozen songs about being so in love ("with you, girl") that you were walking on air, and another handful that involved nobly and prettily pining ("if you only knew, girl"), but there was nothing in his repertoire along the lines of "girl, I'm stressing out so hard over possibly-liking you that I might throw up."
Jimmy Fallon!
ok well you can explain the fine details to S in person!
Jimmy Fallon!
although you realize that if you ever hurt him and its your fault for real I will snap your guitar in half and come after you with the knobby end
Jon S.
Wtf
Jon S.
Don't you think that's kind of premature
Jimmy Fallon!
it is never too early to exercise bff duty :)
Jon, who had been in the middle of typing "Wait does that mean he has a certain kind of feelings I could hurt?", hastily deleted the words. Jimmy wasn't hinting anything. Jon was starting from square one.
And since he hadn't heard a car or anything, when the doorbell below went off he nearly had a heart attack.
"S-Stephen?" called Jon, peering down over the carved oak balustrade he'd been leaning against. He couldn't see who was at the door, since there was an angled mini-roof sticking out over it, but there was a bicycle leaning against the front steps, and who else would be biking here right now?
"Jon?" came Stephen's muffled reply. A moment later he was out from under the shingles, head turning as he looked for company on the empty wraparound porch.
"Up here!" Jon poked his phone so the screen lit up, then waved. Now Stephen spotted him and waved back. "Stay there. I'll be right down."
For about two seconds he contemplated hopping the balustrade, making the short leap to the angled roof, and shimmying down one of its supports, firefighter-style, to the porch. Then he came to his senses and used the doors.
"It's just Stephen," he panted as he blew past Aunt Ruth, also on her way to answer the bell. "I got it."
He skidded to a stop in the front hall and gave himself a quick once-over in the mirror. Grey T-shirt, messy dark curls that were getting in need of a trim, a sheen of sweat across his forehead. Why hadn't he used the last five minutes to put on something nice? Stupid, stupid. No help for it now, though; all he could do was grab a scarf from the closet and pat down his face before greeting his visitor.
Stephen was kind of sweaty too, but he'd just pedaled all the way over from Jimmy's, so he had an excuse. "Hi," he said, sounding almost shy.
"Hi," said Jon cleverly. "Uh, do you want a drink?"
"Okay." Stephen stumbled after him, toeing off his shoes on the way.
And now Jon was out of things to say that weren't either TMI or song lyrics.
Halfway down the hall, Stephen got over his own unusual silence. "Jon, I — I'm s-sorry."
It was probably the first time Jon could remember Stephen apologizing for anything. "That, um, thanks," he said. "Stephen, I...I still don't understand what even happened."
"I heard Brian talking about how you'd gotten more manageable since he made you be friends with us," said Stephen.
Jon winced. Even at his most angst-ridden, he'd never wanted to be unmanageable for Brian.
"And I thought it meant you were only spending time with us because he told you to."
With its windows open to the sunset, the kitchen wasn't exactly dim, but it was still a shock to Jon's eyes when he flipped on the chandeliers. "Do I really seem that...withdrawn, or whatever, that you thought I could be faking it?" he asked, turning so they could talk face-to-face and backing into the room.
"Well, I didn't know!" protested Stephen. "But it doesn't matter now, right? Jimmy helped me to get it together, and now I understand that you really like us after all. Don't you?"
"Yes!" yelped Jon.
"Okay!" said Stephen.
There was never going to be a better opening than this. "I like you," continued Jon, plunging forward before he could lose his nerve. "Personally, you."
Stephen frowned. He looked kind of shaky himself, although maybe that was just Jon projecting. "Yeah, you said."
"No, I mean, I like —" Jon gripped the edge of the island for support. "I really —" God, he was sounding more insipid than Kilborn-approved dialogue. "Can I kiss you?"
Stephen's face was as blank as if he'd asked it in Chinese.
"It doesn't have to mean anything if you don't want it to!" added Jon. His heart was pounding in his ears; there were sparks going off in the pit of his stomach. "If you hate it we can forget about it and pretend like it never happened. And I know I'm not Italian, and not exactly rugged, here —"
"Okay."
"— and I could be taller, and — what?"
"I said — okay," repeated Stephen softly, his face unreadable.
For a moment both boys were rooted to the spot. The way they had filed into the room, Stephen was in front of a bank of glass-paneled cabinets, framing his head with a bunch of the weird pottery Jon's aunt collected. He didn't look about to move any time soon, so Jon took a step toward him, then another, and there had to be some kind of sci-fi space-time distortion thing going on here because it was the longest three feet he'd ever walked.
Stephen blinked a few times, but otherwise kept a steady watch on Jon. His lashes were long. And, okay, he wasn't lunging into Jon's arms or anything, but as far as Jon couldn't tell he wasn't holding his nose and preparing to soldier through it like Jon had urged him to take just one bite of brussels sprout stew, so there was nothing here to panic about. Right?
Without thinking about it, Jon had lifted one hand. He caught his breath and curled it around the side of Stephen's neck, skin warm against skin.
Thus steadied, he rocked up on his bare toes and pressed his lips against Stephen's.
A flood of warmth rushed across his face, spreading outward from where Stephen's mouth was touching his, while his stomach-sparks went off like firecrackers and, yeah, his dick twitched hopefully against his pants.
When he fell back, Stephen was the first to speak. "Did you like it?"
"Yeah," said Jon dizzily.
Stephen settled his hand over Jon's wrist. "Did you...like it enough to do it again?"
Jon's stomach flipped over. "Yes!"
"Oh, good," breathed Stephen, and now he was in motion, bending over and tipping his head to the side to seal his mouth over Jon's.
His lips didn't just press, they pulled at Jon's until Jon let his mouth fall open and tried to do the same to Stephen's. It wasn't very graceful and they were kind of mauling each other's mouths and it was amazing. Jon clung to Stephen to keep from collapsing on suddenly-weak knees, a second before Stephen fisted both hands in the back of Jon's T-shirt and shivered, and, oh god, maybe this wasn't the most stable position. Jon wrenched their mouths apart and let his head fall against Stephen's shoulder (the one under the good ear) with a gasp. "Upstairs?"
"Upstairs," echoed Stephen. And then, uncertainly: "I can get my drink first, though, right?"
~*~
Stephen held his glass of iced tea in both hands as he followed Jon up the spiral staircase. He didn't even like iced tea. He'd kept it because he was thirsty, but he'd picked it out at random because his brain was full of Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon.
Jon didn't think he was worthless. Jon thought he was hot.
They usually hung out at Stephen's place, but he'd been in Jon's room a few times. It looked pretty much like he remembered: framed Springsteen and Star Wars posters, a big flatscreen with a handful of video game controllers strewn on the floor in front of it, a working record player, a wrought metal photo tree displaying an image of an ocean much greyer than the ones Stephen was used to, actual books filling most of his bookshelves. Even his bed was all bookshelves down the left side: short ones, the perfect height to sit a reading lamp on top of.
"You, um, you can put that down wherever," said Jon, nodding to Stephen's dripping glass.
"O-okay," said Stephen. "Where are your coasters?"
Jon twitched. "Uh, those would be downstairs. Don't worry about it, okay?"
"Jon!" cried Stephen. Much as he really, really didn't want Jon to go back downstairs, "I am not leaving rings on your furniture!"
"All right, all right!" Jon scanned the room, eyes falling on his desk. "Listen, would a mousepad be good enough?"
"I guess," said Stephen reluctantly.
Jon retrieved the mousepad from next to his sleeping laptop. After pressing it into Stephen's hand, he splayed his own across the front of Stephen's shirt and leaned invitingly in.
He'd gotten about a thousand percent better at kissing in the past five minutes. If Aesthetically Pleasing from across the Atlantic had made Stephen float, Jon was making him melt from the inside out. Stephen half-tripped forward...and the hand with the glass shook enough to send iced tea sloshing out, wetting Jon's T-shirt and running down Stephen's hand. He jerked back with a small cry of regret.
"Don't worry about it!" said Jon. "It's a cheap shirt, I've got a million of 'em..."
"It's your own fault!" interrupted Stephen. "You should have let me put this down first!"
"Okay, yeah, I know, I...." Jon trailed off, giving Stephen one of those Looks, the ones he got when he was thinking and analyzing and being all smart. "Stephen, are you freaking out about this?"
"I'm not freaking out!" yelled Stephen.
"Not so loud!" hissed Jon. "If my aunt hears — I mean, I think she'd be okay, but if we're not careful —"
"— we'd be out of our contracts faster than you can say 'happiest place on Earth'," finished Stephen, in a lower voice. Not to mention, Papa would disown him. "I know. And I am not freaking out."
"Well, I kind of am," said Jon bluntly. He ran his hands through his hair. "Just put that stuff down already, will you?"
That, Stephen could handle. The cup went on the low bookshelf up against Jon's bed.
"Now c'mere."
Stephen obeyed, and found his dripping hand being taken in Jon's and rubbed down with the grey fabric of Jon's T-shirt. The shirt was loose and long, but not so long that a strip of Jon's stomach didn't get bared while it was lifted. Stephen's heart went all skippy at the sight.
"Better?" asked Jon after a moment, holding Stephen's hand through the fabric. Stephen nodded. "Okay. Come sit?"
He took a step back, tugging Stephen's arm after him, in the direction of the mattress.
Stephen froze, not-freaking-out all over again. "Jon, I — I'm a Christian."
Jon frowned. "Yeah, so? Your people have some kind of law against sitting on a bed with a Jew?"
"No! What we have is...I mean...there are things I won't do before marriage."
"Oh!" Jon's cheeks went pink; he let Stephen go. "I didn't mean...I wasn't saying 'come here and let me ravish you,' I was saying 'come here so we can sit down and make out some more.'"
He looked up again when Stephen crossed the carpet toward him, and they sank onto the edge of the mattress together.
This time Jon's fingers curled around the back of Stephen's neck, and he waited without leaning into it, so apparently it was Stephen's turn to move first. Well. That could work. Stephen tilted his head and locked lips with Jon once more, and, okay, it had been smart of Jon to lead him here, because this was way easier to do when Stephen didn't have to worry about his legs' continued ability to keep him upright.
He broke the kiss reluctantly, and didn't pull back very far. "We do have to tell Jimmy, though," he panted. Should Olivia know too? Was your fake girlfriend entitled to know that you were fake-cheating? How likely was it that she would figure it out anyway?
"I figured." Jon pressed his lips to the slope of Stephen's neck — and started when the shock of pleasure made Stephen jump. "Was that good or —?"
"It was good!" breathed Stephen. "Do it again!"
Jon left a trail of kisses down to the scoop of Stephen's collar, all of them electric. Stephen's nerves were singing under his skin. He leaned more wholeheartedly against Jon, and now both of Jon's hands were around his waist, slipping under his shirt, caressing up and down his spine. He could feel his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, and in his....
He cast a nervous eye across the front of his pants. Still mostly flat. Jon's, on the other hand, were...less so.
That same Jon was now curling his fingers around the hem of Stephen's shirt. "Can I get this thing off you?"
Stephen reflexively pulled his elbows close to his body.
"Wait, really?" said Jon. "You've thrown off more clothing than that in front of me hundreds of times!"
"It was different then!" hissed Stephen. "Now you're looking at me with...with lust in your heart!" He nodded sharply toward Jon's lap. "And your penis."
Jon turned so red Stephen could practically feel the heat rolling off his face. "Hey, it's not like it was unprovoked!"
Okay, sure, Stephen hadn't exactly gone out of his way not to be lust-inciting. But even so...."Jon?"
"Hm?"
"How much do you like me?"
Jon blinked at him. "...A lot." He looked away. "Thought that was pretty obvious."
"Yeah, but how much is a lot?" pressed Stephen. "Is it just that I'm dazzlingly attractive and you can't help but be hot for that? It's okay if it is. I would understand. Or is the kind of thing where...maybe one day we could go to New York and you would marry me?"
The hands still twisted in his shirt went tight. "Stephen, come on, you can't just skip to — listen, twenty minutes ago I was still getting up the nerve to ask if I could kiss you, two weeks ago I wasn't sure I could be that into guys at all, and now you expect me to know if I'd want to propose —"
"I said it was okay if you didn't!" cried Stephen. "Anything you want is okay. If you just want to be my friend who likes kissing me sometimes, that's fine! I just want to know!"
Jon took a breath to reply, but whatever he'd planned to say caught in his throat. "Well," he said instead, letting his palms slide loosely back down Stephen's hips, "I was seriously considering singing my feelings at you for a second there, which should give you a clue."
Stephen's heart went skippy again. "You could do it," he breathed. "You could sing at me. That would be nice."
After a moment, Jon nodded. In this room, reflecting the bedcovers, curtains, and even the faint tint of the walls, his eyes were a brilliant blue.
"Boy, ain't no kindness in the face of strangers~ / Ain't gonna find no miracles here," he crooned, dipping into the lower end of his range, not exactly deep but well below anything their pop songs called for. "Well, you can wait on your blessings my darlin' / But I got a deal for you right here: / I ain't looking for prayers or pity~, I ain't coming round searchin' for a crutch / I just want someone to talk to, and a little of that human touch / Just a little of that human touch...."
His voice was gritty and fluid all at once, roughened in an unfamiliar way that Stephen realized with a jolt was probably arousal. His eyes kept falling closed, and having his mouth this close as it shaped the words was more like being kissed again than it had any right to be.
"You might need somethin' to hold on to, when all the answers, they don't amount for much / Somebody that you can just talk to, and a little of that human touch~ / Baby, in a world without pity, do you think what I'm askin's too much? / I just want to feel you in my arms, and share a little of that human touch...."
...and the lyrics kept saying just touch, but the brokenhearted tenderness in the vocals and the melody said that was a lie, it wasn't just anything....
The song had trailed off. Stephen swallowed past the lump in his throat. "That's really nice," he whispered. "Springsteen, right? What's it called?"
Jon raised his eyebrows. "'Human Touch'."
"Oh." Stephen was blinking hard. "Oh, that makes...."
"Hey, are you...?"
Stephen put a hand to his mouth, sniffling.
"Stephen, hey, c'mon, it's okay...."
Jon pulled him in, and Stephen gladly clung to his shirt. It already had tea spilled on it; sobbing all over it couldn't be much worse. "I really, really like you too," he choked, from the safe harbor of a baffled Jon's embrace.