Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2013-08-05 11:36 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2013-08-05 11:36 pm
Entry tags:
Fake News | ensemble | PG-13 | Shout*For, Act I, chapter 19
Title: Shout*For, Act I, chapter 19/19: We Take Care Of Our Own
Characters/Pairings: Jon/"Stephen", Jimmy, Olivia/Kristen, Tucker, Anthony, cameos, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
Stephen's determined to do anything necessary to look out for Jimmy and support Jon. Olivia tries to give her fake boyfriend solid advice (though it would be easier if she weren't drinking so steadily), and to be a good guest with her secret girlfriend's over-defensive family. And Jon discovers that an old friend from Jersey still has his back, in spite of everything.
All the South Park references are adapted from that episode they did starring the Jonas Brothers. For your reference: teenage Anthony Weiner.
Programming note: Because this AU is getting crazy long, I'm splitting it up into parts. This chapter is the end of Act I. Coming up next is a short Intermission, covering Jon's turbulent New Jersey vacation. Then we'll be jumping back into the celebrity action for Act II.
A dirt road, afternoon, under the sun.
The replica 1958 convertible was a monster. It felt about twice the size of Jon's aunt's car. The grill and headlights looked like the face of something that ate bicycles for breakfast. He was glad this was being filmed out in the middle of nowhere, because anywhere near the city he would have been crashing into things right and left, jumping the tires up onto curbs, and rounding it all off by overflowing any space he tried to park in.
"Remember, all you have to do is go in a straight line," said the woman from the production team who was currently in the passenger seat. "It's not rocket science."
"Right." Jon pushed down harder on the gas, and tried not to ask why, if this hulk wasn't a rocket, did it have fins?
It was the last day of location shots for Shout*For's next music video — one which had borrowed a lot of the Grease aesthetic, though it wasn't (to Stephen's dismay) a cover of a Grease song. Half the scenes put the four of them in dark suits, with wide-collared shirts and matching handkerchiefs in the pockets. When they were all piled into the convertible, it would be leather jackets and not-quite-loose white T-shirts for everyone.
(They'd be wearing their purity rings the whole time, of course. Jon didn't understand how nobody's head was exploding with the cognitive dissonance of that one.)
"This is about as far as we'll be getting footage," the production woman informed him. "Make a U-turn whenever you're ready."
The actual paved road — the one that the nice sleek Mazda with the mounted video cameras would be shadowing them from — carved a parallel track about ten feet away from the dirt path. Jon tried not to hit it as he pulled the car around, doing an awkward three-point turn on the grass. Nobody had gone by in the time they'd been there, but you never knew.
A short, relatively relaxing drive back, and they were pulling up to the camera crew and the rest of the band. Jimmy was fiddling with the fit of his jacket. Stephen was just watching, starry-eyed. Jon slowed to a stop not far from them, slung his arm over the side of the door, and said, "I just might have the hang of this thing."
"Very promising," said the production woman. "Now, can you do that while singing and looking excited?"
"Um," said Jon.
"I see. Tucker! Come on over, let's see how you do."
"Ready and willing," said Tucker brightly. The leather jacket and torn jeans did nothing to make him look convincingly rebellious or anti-authority. "And legal, even! That's right — you don't have your license yet, do you, Jon?"
"I'm working on it," snapped Jon. "And since when do you have yours?"
"Since the week I turned sixteen." He swung the convertible door closed, buckled in, then answered the question hanging in the air: "Three days after Stephen did. I can see how it might have been confusing, since there wasn't a concert or anything to clue you in, but again: Wikipedia. Not that hard to use."
To his surprise, Jon actually felt sort of bad. He and Jimmy hadn't gotten concerts either, but with November and September birthdays, they weren't in line to be so blatantly overshadowed. Irritably, he said, "Oh, and I'm sure you've scoured all our wiki pages and have every little factoid memorized."
Tucker revved the engine; trails of dust swirled around the wheels as they started to move. As the car pulled away, he called over his shoulder, "I do at least know the basics, Sagittarius!"
~*~
Star Girl studio, same afternoon, under the lights.
Olivia winked, grinned, blew the cameras a kiss, twirled on her three-inch heels, and was just all-around aggressively adorable. Her hair, freshly permed, fell in loose waves around her face.
Fashion photoshoots like these had gotten more and more irritating over the last two years. The more Olivia woke up to the fact that she was actually turning out sexy, the more she wanted to cut her necklines lower, tug the hemlines higher, maybe flash a bit of leg or show off her nice toned stomach. The Mouse, meanwhile, didn't even like it when she got photographed with bare shoulders. It could be hard to keep up a professionally dazzling smile under those conditions.
But not today. Today she'd had a couple drinks with lunch, and she was loose. Limber. Relaxed. They could doll her up in a sweet-Lolita dress, bonnet and lacy gloves and all, and she would give them a nice blank-eyed anime smile without complaining once.
The mental image was kind of hilarious. Olivia suddenly found it hard not to crack up.
"Cut!" yelled the photography director, whose name Olivia had already forgotten. "Less smirking! Cute belted dresses over skinny jeans are not supposed to make Lisa Munn smirk!"
"No, it's cool!" Olivia assured him. He wasn't so bad. Dumb haircut, but he deserved to be happy anyway. "Just thought of something funny. The outfit is great! You're a...you are a prince among wardrobe coordinators. I mean that."
"That's wonderful, Olivia!" said Mac with chirpy encouragement. "Now channel that admiration into a big wide grin!"
And she gave Olivia an example. It looked like it probably hurt her face.
Olivia made it through one more pose before the sight made her crack up so hard she had to sit down for a few minutes to catch her breath.
~*~
To nobody's surprise, Tucker got assigned to the driver's seat. Jon gritted his teeth and resolved not to be a dick about it.
The shoot was a one-trailer affair, with the four of them lined up in front of the mirrors while their head stylist did a last-minute gel job on their hair. Brian was outside discussing something manager-y with the crew; Ned, who had come along for some manager-y reason, was in with them. While the stylist was busy with Jon, Ned was behind Stephen, hands on his shoulders, giving what sounded like a pep talk. He was pretty quiet — they were one chair over, and Jon only caught sentence fragments.
Their stylist moved on to Stephen, and Ned stepped aside, pausing behind Jimmy. "You boys are all growing up so fast," he said to no one in particular. Then his hand rested on Jimmy's head, the better to toy lightly with Jimmy's bangs. "You ever thought about asking for a more sophisticated style, buddy?"
"Stop touching him!" burst out Stephen.
"Easy, Stephen," soothed Ned, still fingering Jimmy's hair.
"Don't tell me 'easy'!" ordered Stephen — and stood up mid-styling, the plastic drape still over his shoulders, to get in his solo manager's face. "And move your hands!"
"Stephen, it's okay!" said Jimmy, trying to be placating. "It isn't styled yet. He's not messing anything up."
Ned's touch left Jimmy's scalp to rest on Stephen's chest. "Your friend's right, buddy. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine! Don't — just keep your hands off his hair!"
With impeccable timing, Brian picked that moment to enter the trailer. "Something the matter?" he asked, reassuringly calm.
Ned answered. "I think Stephen could use a few minutes to rest."
"I do not need a rest!" wailed Stephen. He whirled on the stylist, then on Jon. "You saw what happened — tell him!"
Jon cringed, not knowing how to handle this. His gut instinct these days was usually to back Stephen up, and yeah, Ned's touchy-feeliness was weird and awkward. On the other hand, it hadn't been any weirder than usual just then...and Stephen's face had a strained, drawn look about the eyes, like maybe he could use a nap after all.
This time it was Tucker who spoke up. "Come on, Col-bert, we all know you take your cosmetology seriously, but we've got filming to do here and you're burning daylight."
"Stephen," added Jon gently. "Jimmy's fine. Sit down, all right?"
That seemed to do the trick. Stephen took his seat between them again, mouth pressed into a thin line. Jon resolved to gather him into a hug the next moment they were alone together. In the meantime, all he could do was try to look sympathetic, as Stephen snaked one hand up under the drape and wrapped it around where Jon knew his half of the Best Friends Forever pendant fell.
~*~
Gloria & Jane's, evening.
"Lisa! I love you, Lisa! Sign my bag? Sign a photo!"
Fans! Olivia liked fans. Didn't usually see them lurking outside the pie place...but someone from PR must have tipped off the gossip sites that she and Stephen had a date there tonight, because there were at least a dozen people waiting when they got out of the limo. Good thing Olivia had come prepared. If she hadn't been a sheet and a half to the wind, she might have been exasperated enough to blow up at this little crowd, and then how would PR feel?
She unlocked her arm from Stephen's and swished over to the group with a smile. Lonny was right behind her in case anybody tried anything, so it was cool. "Sure, I'll sign stuff. You guys got a marker?"
"I always carry an emergency autograph marker!" chimed in Stephen, not to be outdone. "Someone wants my signature too, right? Because I can sign anything if you can hold it still for ten seconds. Merchandise...clothing...body parts...."
Olivia ended up signing four or five albums, a couple of posters, a tote bag, a box containing a mint-condition doll of herself, and the back of some guy's T-shirt. Lonny had to ward off one young woman who wanted Stephen to sign her cleavage, but other than that he got similar requests. They beamed their way through a couple of photos, then finally went inside, cameras flashing in their wake.
"Fans are so nice," said Stephen dreamily.
"Fans are all right," agreed Olivia. She was hanging on to Stephen's arm again, which turned out to be a good thing when, for just a second, her vision went swimmy. Good thing it was time for food, huh?
She even condescended to eat a couple of mini burgers before ordering her pie.
Stephen, as always, got a slice of American Apple. His good mood had been on a downslide, though, and by the time it arrived he poked at the crust without much enthusiasm. "Olivia?"
"Mmhmm?" replied Olivia through a mouthful of French silk.
"Can I talk to you about...something? A serious something?"
Olivia swallowed, and licked firmly at a smear of chocolate down the handle of her fork. "Go 'head."
"It's about...sex stuff." Stephen's voice was getting quieter by the word. "And when it's maybe...not okay."
Sobering up she might be (sort of), but that was still a pretty nebulous concept for Olivia to wrap her head around. She sifted through the fuzz of possible meanings, latched onto the first one that made sense, and leered approvingly at her fake boyfriend. "Aww, is someone turning out to be a red-blooded human male after all?"
"...what?"
"Steeeeephen. Don' worry about it. It's okay." She half-cuddled, half-slumped against his side, the better to pat him on the chest. "I know you've got this whole...conservative Catholic thing going on, but out here in the real world? 'Sex stuff' is totally fine. Don't force yourself to be a monk just 'cause you think you're supposed to." Pulling herself closer so her lips were up next to his good ear, she whispered: "You want to make it with Jon, you get that dick, boo, and don't you feel guilty for a second."
Stephen's whole face went darker and redder, like someone had run it through a poorly-calibrated Photoshop filter. "Thank you Olivia!" he squeaked. "Your perspective was very helpful and I will keep it in mind!"
Friendship duties accomplished, Olivia settled back onto her half of the bench and renewed the attack on her slice of pie. Nailed it.
~*~
Downtown (where all the lights are bright).
The restaurant and grocery that made up the ground floor of the co-op was a hive of aged-wood décor and chalkboard signage. Kristen led them in the back way, Lonny scoped the place out, and Olivia thrilled a young male barista by agreeing to draw something on one of the menu boards.
"Do you seriously have kale smoothies?" she asked Kristen, after getting down a sketch of a couple of doofy-looking birds and signing it Lisa Munn. "I thought that was just an urban myth. Like chupacabras, or alligators in the sewers, or wise old taxi drivers who help you get your life together."
"Don't knock 'em until you've tried 'em," said Kristen sagely.
A line of people had shown up for autographs while Olivia was drawing. Precisely one of them wanted a signature from Kristen. No wonder she didn't come over here often. (That, plus the fact that her place had the pool, and the boat, and the big-screen TV, and way less adult supervision.) Olivia signed half a dozen, then begged off and had Lonny guard their way to the stairs.
(Tonight her penmanship was much neater than it had been during her last date with Stephen. She'd hardly drunk anything at all. Just enough to keep the edge of the anxiety at bay.)
When they got into the elevator, Kristen punched the button for the roof. "I have to check on the chickens," she explained.
"As long as it's quick," said Olivia. "I spent this afternoon filming a commercial on a beach in hundred-degree heat. I want some air conditioning."
The rooftop farm operated by the Schaals and several other families covered the entire roof of the building. This time of year it was crowded with thick greenery, the different plants identified by hand-drawn signs: tomatoes, peppers, cabbages, peas, radishes, and, yes, kale. The beehives were at one end, the chicken coops at the other, while in between a couple of people worked in the dirt and a woman explained something in Spanish to a group of seven- or eight-year-olds.
Kristen clucked at the chickens while she topped up their water. To Olivia she said, "You know, if we were in one of your movies, this would be the first scene of your journey of realization that you wanted to quit your empty life of stardom and move to the country to follow the much more wholesome passion of farming."
"It probably would," said Olivia. "You don't secretly want to move to the country and farm, do you?"
"Nooooo," giggled Kristen. "It works okay here, but if we were somewhere outside the city, who would we perform for? The cows? Because you know, those guys are notorious hecklers."
"On behalf of all cowkind, I'm offended by that."
"Does that mean you don't want burgers and drumsticks tonight?"
"Whoa, slow down there. Just because I'm offended doesn't mean I'm not gonna get hungry."
Kristen grinned under the brim of her hat. She actually had a nice straw one, unlike Olivia, who had shown up in a cheap baseball cap. "Don't worry! I'm kidding. There's gonna be more than enough thighs and breasts for you to get some."
A new discovery: normal Kristen being bawdy was hilarious, but girlfriend Kristen being bawdy made Olivia's mouth go dry. Her eyes fixed on a bead of sweat as it ran down Kristen's collarbones, agonizingly slow, before disappearing into her cleavage.
Kristen had to tug on her hand to snap her out of it. "Downstairs? We have vegan popsicles."
~*~
Jon's place.
Stephen was trying to keep his head in the game. Really, he was. He just had too much on his mind.
Like: had Ned always played with other people's hair, or had he used to limit himself to just Stephen's (and, that one time, Tina's)?
Like: if Stephen and Tucker were both Tauruses, did that mean Jon would be equally compatible with either of them?
Like: how was he supposed to focus on the screen when there was a shirtless Jon right next to him?
"Why didn't you tell me you were about two hits from death? Go for the soul sphere!" ordered Jon suddenly, his avatar aiming a plasma rifle and taking out a demon in one shot. "I'll cover you!"
"The what?"
"The blue thing!"
Stephen mashed some buttons, hoping he would get the 'walk' command somewhere in there. His avatar just started swinging a chainsaw. It wasn't even in the right direction to take out the zombie that knocked out the last of his health.
Jon threw down his controller, groaned, and collapsed sideways into Stephen's lap.
"I tried," said Stephen plaintively.
"Yeah, I know."
Before Stephen could suggest they play a nice sensible game, like DDR or Vocaloid or something, Jon's laptop started into the bloopy ringtone of an incoming Skype call.
Jon sat bolt upright. "That's probably Mom," he said, and grabbed frantically for his discarded clothing. "I've gotta get that. I've gotta put a shirt on! Oh my god, I'm so glad we weren't mid-makeout just now."
He had the grey T-shirt over his head and landed in his desk chair in two seconds flat, waking up the screen while Stephen tried to keep out of the way of the webcam. They'd been shirtless because it was hot out, not for any more indecent reasons, but still.
"Okay, not Mom," said Jon suddenly. He clicked, and the ringtone stopped. "Anthony! How the hell have you been?"
"Jon!" said an urgent young male voice from the laptop speakers. "Please tell me you're near a TV right now."
"Yeah, why?"
"Turn on Comedy Central. You're on South Park!"
Before Stephen quite knew what was happening, Jon was back over by him, flipping the flatscreen from their ill-fated (some might even say, Doomed) game to basic cable. Or rather, some kind of livestream of an East Coast feed of basic cable. "Hey, Stephen, can you bring the laptop over here?"
Thankfully, Stephen was back in his very nice polo shirt by now.
The laptop, when Stephen picked it up, was displaying the patchy webcam image of a skinny, square-faced Jewish guy with a mop of light brown curls. He looked enough like Jon that they could have been brothers, although he didn't have Jon's crystal blue eyes, or elegant slender face, or all-around superior handsomeness. "You're Anthony Weiner," observed Stephen.
Anthony broke into a toothy grin. "No way. Stephen Col-bert knows who I am."
~*~
Dinner with Kristen's family was...an experience.
Olivia made a point of putting a whole lot of kale on her burger. "Mmm, delicious! I'm very impressed."
"We try to grow our own food as much as possible," said Kristen's mother breezily, tossing the salad ingredients in a big bowl with a pair of hand-carved wooden tongs. "You can really taste the difference. But I guess you don't do much gardening up in the Hills."
Olivia winced.
Kristen stepped in to rescue her. "Olivia doesn't have time for gardening, Mom. She's working on an album right now. And she just got hired as a spokesperson for this really neat wildlife safety campaign."
"Of course, of course! And that's very admirable," said Mrs. Schaal, in the same tone you would use for praising a child's first painting for obviously taking them a lot of time.
Under the crunchy urban-farmers shell, Kristen's parents were shockingly normal. They displayed nothing like their daughter's quirkiness or weird sense of humor; none of her bubbly enthusiasm, even about their work, which they clearly enjoyed. Sure, everyone was on their best manners, but that didn't mean you had to have the personality of a rock in the process.
"So where's David?" asked Olivia, trying to change the subject. She'd exchanged hellos with Kristen's older brother plenty of times; he was often the one to drop her off at the studio, and sometimes picked her up from Olivia's house. "I wanted to say hi."
"Counseling at a summer camp for a few weeks," said Kristen's father. "Didn't Kristen ever mention it? Pass the mustard, won't you?"
The diplomatically quiet Lonny handed the bottle to Olivia, who passed it on to Kristen, who said, "It never came up."
"Really! You know, David brags about his famous actress sister all the time," said Mrs. Schaal. Turning to Olivia, she added, "You have an older sister, don't you? What does she do?"
"Um," said Olivia. Somehow she didn't think "these days, mostly magazine photoshoots" was the answer they were looking for. "She bakes? And, you know, goes to high school."
"Education!" exclaimed Mr. Schaal, as if the word itself made him happy. "So important. Not just for future career prospects, but for a well-rounded personality."
"Dad, come on," said Kristen. "Don't perpetuate prejudice against the working class like that."
"You know that's not what your father meant," said her mother. And, to Olivia: "We're both on the PTA at Kristen's school."
By this point Olivia was biting back all kinds of comments about how knowing the Pythagorean theorem and the main themes of The Great Gatsby weren't seriously going to make any difference in her future career prospects. Plastering on her brightest smile, she said, "Gosh, I'm sure she really appreciates you being so involved!"
Kristen kicked her under the table, but not as hard as she would have if she were actually mad. Olivia took a delicate sip of iced tea, wishing she had something stronger.
~*~
The Flash-animated versions of Shout*For had invited a bunch of the local South Park girls backstage, and were now trying to share "the excitement of purity rings." Cartoon Stephen used the phrase "our love of Jesus Christ." Cartoon Jon tried to opt out of that, only to have cartoon Tucker stomp on his foot.
Out in the real world, Jon was cracking up. Although if any of these characters made a banana joke, he was still going to get his hands on Matt and Trey's personal numbers and call them up to tear them a new one.
When the show cut to commercial, Anthony said, "So give it to me straight, Jon...you're not seriously into those things, are you?"
Jon hesitated. "You realize that if you're recording any of this and it gets out, I'm suing you for every penny of projected revenue loss from what would have been the rest of my contract."
"Not recording, I swear! I guess that means the answer's no, huh."
Jon splayed his hands in front of the webcam, revealing his bare fingers, and reined himself in from bowling his friend over with the full rant about creepy sexist rape-culture-enabling purity-culture fetishization. "You guess right."
"I knew it!" exclaimed Anthony. "The Jon I knew would never let some marketing campaign get in the way of tapping all the hot groupie ass he could get his hands on. Uh, pardon my French!" he added, when Stephen discreetly choked.
"Oh, like either of us was tapping anything in ninth grade," said Jon testily.
Anthony grinned. "Bet that's changed now, huh? I mean, if I had girls falling all over me the way you do, I'd never get out of bed."
"Well, guess what?" snapped Stephen, jumping into the conversation like a gust of icy wind. "Jon isn't like you! ...anymore! He isn't interested in chasing people just because they'll roll over and open their legs for him. And maybe if you'd been paying attention like you were supposed to, you'd know that!"
"Whoa," said Anthony. "Guess someone here takes his purity ring seriously."
And now Jon was embarrassed on behalf of both of them. "Stephen, chill," he ordered, trying to nudge his boyfriend back without more than an acceptable manly-straight-guy level of physical contact.
"I will not chill!" cried Stephen. He jabbed a finger accusingly at Anthony's screen. "You, sir, are On Notice!"
"Uh, okay," said Anthony. "Jon? What's he talking about?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" snapped Stephen. "You abandoned him!" He grabbed a baffled Jon by the arm and shook it for emphasis. "You were supposed to call, and talk about how things were going, and make appointments to watch TV shows and play violent video games together, and then you flaked out on him! And none of us were really friends with him yet, so he's spent half his time here being lonely and miserable and it's all your fault!"
"Stephen, knock it off!" yelled Jon, giving up on acceptable contact and just shoving Stephen away. "It wasn't his fault!"
"But you've been telling people it is, huh?" said Anthony.
Stephen shut up, visibly confused. Up on the flatscreen, Kenny was showing off his new Flash-animated purity ring. Jon took a moment to catch his breath.
"I haven't told people much of anything," he said at last. "I didn't know they'd get the idea that...listen, Stephen, it was me, okay? I was the one not returning calls, and missing appointments and whatever. Not on purpose — I was always busy, or doing something like touring where we couldn't game in the first place, or just exhausted — but it was my fault."
The words didn't come easy. He hadn't even talked about this with Anthony; they'd just slowly settled into a new pattern where Anthony tried less and Jon didn't let him down so much.
"...Oh," said Stephen, sitting back. "Why didn't you just say so?"
Jon couldn't answer. He'd had about all the brutally honest self-evaluation he could take in one night.
"My money's on Jewish guilt," volunteered Anthony. "That stuff runs deep. ...Jon?"
"Yeah?"
"Were you really miserable?"
Jon shrugged. He'd been trying pretty hard to repress those memories. "I could have coped worse. But...probably not much."
"Ah." His friend mulled this over. "Hey, man, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I got over it."
"No, really," insisted Anthony. "If I hadn't just figured you were blowing me off to party with your awesome new Hollywood friends, I would've tried harder."
Jon swallowed. There was something in his eye. Really.
Stephen got his attention with a gasp. "Jon!" he stage-whispered. "They're doing one of our music videos!"
~*~
The trio made it through the rest of the South Park episode without anybody yelling. Although the non-cartoon Jon did complain that a lot of people had worked hard on the video being parodied, and didn't deserve to have their efforts mocked.
Eventually the cartoon versions of Shout*For announced they were done with this purity ring charade, and wanted the band to be about their music, nothing else. (Cartoon Stephen briefly demurred that he was plenty comfortable not having sex with his very serious girlfriend Lisa Munn, and didn't mind saying so. Cartoon Jimmy convinced him that that wasn't the point.)
A cartoon executive warned them that "the boss" wasn't going to like this. Stephen braced himself for a cartoon Brian.
What they got instead was a very angry Mickey Mouse.
Stephen couldn't cling to Jon in front of Anthony, so he fled up onto the bed and hid his head under a pillow. He shouldn't have to keep dealing with animated violence after they'd put away the first-person shooters.
Jon was still laughing through the next couple of scenes, and fell back into what sounded like a happy conversation with his renewed BFF, so Stephen decided not to interrupt them.
Eventually Jon got up on his knees to lean across the bed and pat Stephen on the shoulder. "You can come out now. The Mouse is gone," he said soothingly. "Um, would you be mad if we just kept the TV on? I know you and me were supposed to be hanging out today, but it's been ages since me and Anthony caught The Daily Show together, so...."
"Sorry, can't stay!" cut in Anthony. "It's late over here, and I've gotta get up early tomorrow."
Stephen leaned over the edge of the mattress to frown at him. "You aren't still in school, are you?"
"Dude, it's July," came the cheerful reply from the speakers. "You guys aren't the only ones who get to have summer jobs, you know. We can watch when you're home on break, though, right?"
Jon broke into a sheepish smile. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
~*~
<3 Olivia <3
So the plan 2 charm ur parents was a bust huh?
Kristen ಡ_ಡ
I'm soooo sorry! I swear I did not expect it to go that badly :(((
Kristen ಡ_ಡ
I wanted to yell at them. But what if they got mad and pulled me out of work?
<3 Olivia <3
no prob, I get it.
<3 Olivia <3
parental figures suck sometimes. u do what u gotta do.
Kristen ಡ_ಡ
I'm so glad you understand!
Kristen ಡ_ಡ
And thank you for not snapping at them, even though I know they deserved it.
<3 Olivia <3
All thanx 2 the incredible pwrs of restraint that true love can bring <3
<3 Olivia <3
Just never ask me 2 do that again & we can call it even.
~*~
Jon sat with Stephen by the front window as they waited for his ride to arrive.
It was too open here to cuddle, but Jon rested his hand on Stephen's leg. "Thanks," he said softly.
"You're welcome," said Stephen. "For what?"
For being part of the reason I'm not lonely and miserable any more. "For, you know...standing up for me. Or thinking you were. And for getting me and Anthony to talk."
Stephen flashed a shy, proud smile and closed his hand over Jon's. "I find there are very few problems that can't be solved by shouting."
Characters/Pairings: Jon/"Stephen", Jimmy, Olivia/Kristen, Tucker, Anthony, cameos, OCs.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
Stephen's determined to do anything necessary to look out for Jimmy and support Jon. Olivia tries to give her fake boyfriend solid advice (though it would be easier if she weren't drinking so steadily), and to be a good guest with her secret girlfriend's over-defensive family. And Jon discovers that an old friend from Jersey still has his back, in spite of everything.
All the South Park references are adapted from that episode they did starring the Jonas Brothers. For your reference: teenage Anthony Weiner.
Programming note: Because this AU is getting crazy long, I'm splitting it up into parts. This chapter is the end of Act I. Coming up next is a short Intermission, covering Jon's turbulent New Jersey vacation. Then we'll be jumping back into the celebrity action for Act II.
The replica 1958 convertible was a monster. It felt about twice the size of Jon's aunt's car. The grill and headlights looked like the face of something that ate bicycles for breakfast. He was glad this was being filmed out in the middle of nowhere, because anywhere near the city he would have been crashing into things right and left, jumping the tires up onto curbs, and rounding it all off by overflowing any space he tried to park in.
"Remember, all you have to do is go in a straight line," said the woman from the production team who was currently in the passenger seat. "It's not rocket science."
"Right." Jon pushed down harder on the gas, and tried not to ask why, if this hulk wasn't a rocket, did it have fins?
It was the last day of location shots for Shout*For's next music video — one which had borrowed a lot of the Grease aesthetic, though it wasn't (to Stephen's dismay) a cover of a Grease song. Half the scenes put the four of them in dark suits, with wide-collared shirts and matching handkerchiefs in the pockets. When they were all piled into the convertible, it would be leather jackets and not-quite-loose white T-shirts for everyone.
(They'd be wearing their purity rings the whole time, of course. Jon didn't understand how nobody's head was exploding with the cognitive dissonance of that one.)
"This is about as far as we'll be getting footage," the production woman informed him. "Make a U-turn whenever you're ready."
The actual paved road — the one that the nice sleek Mazda with the mounted video cameras would be shadowing them from — carved a parallel track about ten feet away from the dirt path. Jon tried not to hit it as he pulled the car around, doing an awkward three-point turn on the grass. Nobody had gone by in the time they'd been there, but you never knew.
A short, relatively relaxing drive back, and they were pulling up to the camera crew and the rest of the band. Jimmy was fiddling with the fit of his jacket. Stephen was just watching, starry-eyed. Jon slowed to a stop not far from them, slung his arm over the side of the door, and said, "I just might have the hang of this thing."
"Very promising," said the production woman. "Now, can you do that while singing and looking excited?"
"Um," said Jon.
"I see. Tucker! Come on over, let's see how you do."
"Ready and willing," said Tucker brightly. The leather jacket and torn jeans did nothing to make him look convincingly rebellious or anti-authority. "And legal, even! That's right — you don't have your license yet, do you, Jon?"
"I'm working on it," snapped Jon. "And since when do you have yours?"
"Since the week I turned sixteen." He swung the convertible door closed, buckled in, then answered the question hanging in the air: "Three days after Stephen did. I can see how it might have been confusing, since there wasn't a concert or anything to clue you in, but again: Wikipedia. Not that hard to use."
To his surprise, Jon actually felt sort of bad. He and Jimmy hadn't gotten concerts either, but with November and September birthdays, they weren't in line to be so blatantly overshadowed. Irritably, he said, "Oh, and I'm sure you've scoured all our wiki pages and have every little factoid memorized."
Tucker revved the engine; trails of dust swirled around the wheels as they started to move. As the car pulled away, he called over his shoulder, "I do at least know the basics, Sagittarius!"
~*~
Olivia winked, grinned, blew the cameras a kiss, twirled on her three-inch heels, and was just all-around aggressively adorable. Her hair, freshly permed, fell in loose waves around her face.
Fashion photoshoots like these had gotten more and more irritating over the last two years. The more Olivia woke up to the fact that she was actually turning out sexy, the more she wanted to cut her necklines lower, tug the hemlines higher, maybe flash a bit of leg or show off her nice toned stomach. The Mouse, meanwhile, didn't even like it when she got photographed with bare shoulders. It could be hard to keep up a professionally dazzling smile under those conditions.
But not today. Today she'd had a couple drinks with lunch, and she was loose. Limber. Relaxed. They could doll her up in a sweet-Lolita dress, bonnet and lacy gloves and all, and she would give them a nice blank-eyed anime smile without complaining once.
The mental image was kind of hilarious. Olivia suddenly found it hard not to crack up.
"Cut!" yelled the photography director, whose name Olivia had already forgotten. "Less smirking! Cute belted dresses over skinny jeans are not supposed to make Lisa Munn smirk!"
"No, it's cool!" Olivia assured him. He wasn't so bad. Dumb haircut, but he deserved to be happy anyway. "Just thought of something funny. The outfit is great! You're a...you are a prince among wardrobe coordinators. I mean that."
"That's wonderful, Olivia!" said Mac with chirpy encouragement. "Now channel that admiration into a big wide grin!"
And she gave Olivia an example. It looked like it probably hurt her face.
Olivia made it through one more pose before the sight made her crack up so hard she had to sit down for a few minutes to catch her breath.
~*~
To nobody's surprise, Tucker got assigned to the driver's seat. Jon gritted his teeth and resolved not to be a dick about it.
The shoot was a one-trailer affair, with the four of them lined up in front of the mirrors while their head stylist did a last-minute gel job on their hair. Brian was outside discussing something manager-y with the crew; Ned, who had come along for some manager-y reason, was in with them. While the stylist was busy with Jon, Ned was behind Stephen, hands on his shoulders, giving what sounded like a pep talk. He was pretty quiet — they were one chair over, and Jon only caught sentence fragments.
Their stylist moved on to Stephen, and Ned stepped aside, pausing behind Jimmy. "You boys are all growing up so fast," he said to no one in particular. Then his hand rested on Jimmy's head, the better to toy lightly with Jimmy's bangs. "You ever thought about asking for a more sophisticated style, buddy?"
"Stop touching him!" burst out Stephen.
"Easy, Stephen," soothed Ned, still fingering Jimmy's hair.
"Don't tell me 'easy'!" ordered Stephen — and stood up mid-styling, the plastic drape still over his shoulders, to get in his solo manager's face. "And move your hands!"
"Stephen, it's okay!" said Jimmy, trying to be placating. "It isn't styled yet. He's not messing anything up."
Ned's touch left Jimmy's scalp to rest on Stephen's chest. "Your friend's right, buddy. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine! Don't — just keep your hands off his hair!"
With impeccable timing, Brian picked that moment to enter the trailer. "Something the matter?" he asked, reassuringly calm.
Ned answered. "I think Stephen could use a few minutes to rest."
"I do not need a rest!" wailed Stephen. He whirled on the stylist, then on Jon. "You saw what happened — tell him!"
Jon cringed, not knowing how to handle this. His gut instinct these days was usually to back Stephen up, and yeah, Ned's touchy-feeliness was weird and awkward. On the other hand, it hadn't been any weirder than usual just then...and Stephen's face had a strained, drawn look about the eyes, like maybe he could use a nap after all.
This time it was Tucker who spoke up. "Come on, Col-bert, we all know you take your cosmetology seriously, but we've got filming to do here and you're burning daylight."
"Stephen," added Jon gently. "Jimmy's fine. Sit down, all right?"
That seemed to do the trick. Stephen took his seat between them again, mouth pressed into a thin line. Jon resolved to gather him into a hug the next moment they were alone together. In the meantime, all he could do was try to look sympathetic, as Stephen snaked one hand up under the drape and wrapped it around where Jon knew his half of the Best Friends Forever pendant fell.
~*~
"Lisa! I love you, Lisa! Sign my bag? Sign a photo!"
Fans! Olivia liked fans. Didn't usually see them lurking outside the pie place...but someone from PR must have tipped off the gossip sites that she and Stephen had a date there tonight, because there were at least a dozen people waiting when they got out of the limo. Good thing Olivia had come prepared. If she hadn't been a sheet and a half to the wind, she might have been exasperated enough to blow up at this little crowd, and then how would PR feel?
She unlocked her arm from Stephen's and swished over to the group with a smile. Lonny was right behind her in case anybody tried anything, so it was cool. "Sure, I'll sign stuff. You guys got a marker?"
"I always carry an emergency autograph marker!" chimed in Stephen, not to be outdone. "Someone wants my signature too, right? Because I can sign anything if you can hold it still for ten seconds. Merchandise...clothing...body parts...."
Olivia ended up signing four or five albums, a couple of posters, a tote bag, a box containing a mint-condition doll of herself, and the back of some guy's T-shirt. Lonny had to ward off one young woman who wanted Stephen to sign her cleavage, but other than that he got similar requests. They beamed their way through a couple of photos, then finally went inside, cameras flashing in their wake.
"Fans are so nice," said Stephen dreamily.
"Fans are all right," agreed Olivia. She was hanging on to Stephen's arm again, which turned out to be a good thing when, for just a second, her vision went swimmy. Good thing it was time for food, huh?
She even condescended to eat a couple of mini burgers before ordering her pie.
Stephen, as always, got a slice of American Apple. His good mood had been on a downslide, though, and by the time it arrived he poked at the crust without much enthusiasm. "Olivia?"
"Mmhmm?" replied Olivia through a mouthful of French silk.
"Can I talk to you about...something? A serious something?"
Olivia swallowed, and licked firmly at a smear of chocolate down the handle of her fork. "Go 'head."
"It's about...sex stuff." Stephen's voice was getting quieter by the word. "And when it's maybe...not okay."
Sobering up she might be (sort of), but that was still a pretty nebulous concept for Olivia to wrap her head around. She sifted through the fuzz of possible meanings, latched onto the first one that made sense, and leered approvingly at her fake boyfriend. "Aww, is someone turning out to be a red-blooded human male after all?"
"...what?"
"Steeeeephen. Don' worry about it. It's okay." She half-cuddled, half-slumped against his side, the better to pat him on the chest. "I know you've got this whole...conservative Catholic thing going on, but out here in the real world? 'Sex stuff' is totally fine. Don't force yourself to be a monk just 'cause you think you're supposed to." Pulling herself closer so her lips were up next to his good ear, she whispered: "You want to make it with Jon, you get that dick, boo, and don't you feel guilty for a second."
Stephen's whole face went darker and redder, like someone had run it through a poorly-calibrated Photoshop filter. "Thank you Olivia!" he squeaked. "Your perspective was very helpful and I will keep it in mind!"
Friendship duties accomplished, Olivia settled back onto her half of the bench and renewed the attack on her slice of pie. Nailed it.
~*~
The restaurant and grocery that made up the ground floor of the co-op was a hive of aged-wood décor and chalkboard signage. Kristen led them in the back way, Lonny scoped the place out, and Olivia thrilled a young male barista by agreeing to draw something on one of the menu boards.
"Do you seriously have kale smoothies?" she asked Kristen, after getting down a sketch of a couple of doofy-looking birds and signing it Lisa Munn. "I thought that was just an urban myth. Like chupacabras, or alligators in the sewers, or wise old taxi drivers who help you get your life together."
"Don't knock 'em until you've tried 'em," said Kristen sagely.
A line of people had shown up for autographs while Olivia was drawing. Precisely one of them wanted a signature from Kristen. No wonder she didn't come over here often. (That, plus the fact that her place had the pool, and the boat, and the big-screen TV, and way less adult supervision.) Olivia signed half a dozen, then begged off and had Lonny guard their way to the stairs.
(Tonight her penmanship was much neater than it had been during her last date with Stephen. She'd hardly drunk anything at all. Just enough to keep the edge of the anxiety at bay.)
When they got into the elevator, Kristen punched the button for the roof. "I have to check on the chickens," she explained.
"As long as it's quick," said Olivia. "I spent this afternoon filming a commercial on a beach in hundred-degree heat. I want some air conditioning."
The rooftop farm operated by the Schaals and several other families covered the entire roof of the building. This time of year it was crowded with thick greenery, the different plants identified by hand-drawn signs: tomatoes, peppers, cabbages, peas, radishes, and, yes, kale. The beehives were at one end, the chicken coops at the other, while in between a couple of people worked in the dirt and a woman explained something in Spanish to a group of seven- or eight-year-olds.
Kristen clucked at the chickens while she topped up their water. To Olivia she said, "You know, if we were in one of your movies, this would be the first scene of your journey of realization that you wanted to quit your empty life of stardom and move to the country to follow the much more wholesome passion of farming."
"It probably would," said Olivia. "You don't secretly want to move to the country and farm, do you?"
"Nooooo," giggled Kristen. "It works okay here, but if we were somewhere outside the city, who would we perform for? The cows? Because you know, those guys are notorious hecklers."
"On behalf of all cowkind, I'm offended by that."
"Does that mean you don't want burgers and drumsticks tonight?"
"Whoa, slow down there. Just because I'm offended doesn't mean I'm not gonna get hungry."
Kristen grinned under the brim of her hat. She actually had a nice straw one, unlike Olivia, who had shown up in a cheap baseball cap. "Don't worry! I'm kidding. There's gonna be more than enough thighs and breasts for you to get some."
A new discovery: normal Kristen being bawdy was hilarious, but girlfriend Kristen being bawdy made Olivia's mouth go dry. Her eyes fixed on a bead of sweat as it ran down Kristen's collarbones, agonizingly slow, before disappearing into her cleavage.
Kristen had to tug on her hand to snap her out of it. "Downstairs? We have vegan popsicles."
~*~
Stephen was trying to keep his head in the game. Really, he was. He just had too much on his mind.
Like: had Ned always played with other people's hair, or had he used to limit himself to just Stephen's (and, that one time, Tina's)?
Like: if Stephen and Tucker were both Tauruses, did that mean Jon would be equally compatible with either of them?
Like: how was he supposed to focus on the screen when there was a shirtless Jon right next to him?
"Why didn't you tell me you were about two hits from death? Go for the soul sphere!" ordered Jon suddenly, his avatar aiming a plasma rifle and taking out a demon in one shot. "I'll cover you!"
"The what?"
"The blue thing!"
Stephen mashed some buttons, hoping he would get the 'walk' command somewhere in there. His avatar just started swinging a chainsaw. It wasn't even in the right direction to take out the zombie that knocked out the last of his health.
Jon threw down his controller, groaned, and collapsed sideways into Stephen's lap.
"I tried," said Stephen plaintively.
"Yeah, I know."
Before Stephen could suggest they play a nice sensible game, like DDR or Vocaloid or something, Jon's laptop started into the bloopy ringtone of an incoming Skype call.
Jon sat bolt upright. "That's probably Mom," he said, and grabbed frantically for his discarded clothing. "I've gotta get that. I've gotta put a shirt on! Oh my god, I'm so glad we weren't mid-makeout just now."
He had the grey T-shirt over his head and landed in his desk chair in two seconds flat, waking up the screen while Stephen tried to keep out of the way of the webcam. They'd been shirtless because it was hot out, not for any more indecent reasons, but still.
"Okay, not Mom," said Jon suddenly. He clicked, and the ringtone stopped. "Anthony! How the hell have you been?"
"Jon!" said an urgent young male voice from the laptop speakers. "Please tell me you're near a TV right now."
"Yeah, why?"
"Turn on Comedy Central. You're on South Park!"
Before Stephen quite knew what was happening, Jon was back over by him, flipping the flatscreen from their ill-fated (some might even say, Doomed) game to basic cable. Or rather, some kind of livestream of an East Coast feed of basic cable. "Hey, Stephen, can you bring the laptop over here?"
Thankfully, Stephen was back in his very nice polo shirt by now.
The laptop, when Stephen picked it up, was displaying the patchy webcam image of a skinny, square-faced Jewish guy with a mop of light brown curls. He looked enough like Jon that they could have been brothers, although he didn't have Jon's crystal blue eyes, or elegant slender face, or all-around superior handsomeness. "You're Anthony Weiner," observed Stephen.
Anthony broke into a toothy grin. "No way. Stephen Col-bert knows who I am."
~*~
Dinner with Kristen's family was...an experience.
Olivia made a point of putting a whole lot of kale on her burger. "Mmm, delicious! I'm very impressed."
"We try to grow our own food as much as possible," said Kristen's mother breezily, tossing the salad ingredients in a big bowl with a pair of hand-carved wooden tongs. "You can really taste the difference. But I guess you don't do much gardening up in the Hills."
Olivia winced.
Kristen stepped in to rescue her. "Olivia doesn't have time for gardening, Mom. She's working on an album right now. And she just got hired as a spokesperson for this really neat wildlife safety campaign."
"Of course, of course! And that's very admirable," said Mrs. Schaal, in the same tone you would use for praising a child's first painting for obviously taking them a lot of time.
Under the crunchy urban-farmers shell, Kristen's parents were shockingly normal. They displayed nothing like their daughter's quirkiness or weird sense of humor; none of her bubbly enthusiasm, even about their work, which they clearly enjoyed. Sure, everyone was on their best manners, but that didn't mean you had to have the personality of a rock in the process.
"So where's David?" asked Olivia, trying to change the subject. She'd exchanged hellos with Kristen's older brother plenty of times; he was often the one to drop her off at the studio, and sometimes picked her up from Olivia's house. "I wanted to say hi."
"Counseling at a summer camp for a few weeks," said Kristen's father. "Didn't Kristen ever mention it? Pass the mustard, won't you?"
The diplomatically quiet Lonny handed the bottle to Olivia, who passed it on to Kristen, who said, "It never came up."
"Really! You know, David brags about his famous actress sister all the time," said Mrs. Schaal. Turning to Olivia, she added, "You have an older sister, don't you? What does she do?"
"Um," said Olivia. Somehow she didn't think "these days, mostly magazine photoshoots" was the answer they were looking for. "She bakes? And, you know, goes to high school."
"Education!" exclaimed Mr. Schaal, as if the word itself made him happy. "So important. Not just for future career prospects, but for a well-rounded personality."
"Dad, come on," said Kristen. "Don't perpetuate prejudice against the working class like that."
"You know that's not what your father meant," said her mother. And, to Olivia: "We're both on the PTA at Kristen's school."
By this point Olivia was biting back all kinds of comments about how knowing the Pythagorean theorem and the main themes of The Great Gatsby weren't seriously going to make any difference in her future career prospects. Plastering on her brightest smile, she said, "Gosh, I'm sure she really appreciates you being so involved!"
Kristen kicked her under the table, but not as hard as she would have if she were actually mad. Olivia took a delicate sip of iced tea, wishing she had something stronger.
~*~
The Flash-animated versions of Shout*For had invited a bunch of the local South Park girls backstage, and were now trying to share "the excitement of purity rings." Cartoon Stephen used the phrase "our love of Jesus Christ." Cartoon Jon tried to opt out of that, only to have cartoon Tucker stomp on his foot.
Out in the real world, Jon was cracking up. Although if any of these characters made a banana joke, he was still going to get his hands on Matt and Trey's personal numbers and call them up to tear them a new one.
When the show cut to commercial, Anthony said, "So give it to me straight, Jon...you're not seriously into those things, are you?"
Jon hesitated. "You realize that if you're recording any of this and it gets out, I'm suing you for every penny of projected revenue loss from what would have been the rest of my contract."
"Not recording, I swear! I guess that means the answer's no, huh."
Jon splayed his hands in front of the webcam, revealing his bare fingers, and reined himself in from bowling his friend over with the full rant about creepy sexist rape-culture-enabling purity-culture fetishization. "You guess right."
"I knew it!" exclaimed Anthony. "The Jon I knew would never let some marketing campaign get in the way of tapping all the hot groupie ass he could get his hands on. Uh, pardon my French!" he added, when Stephen discreetly choked.
"Oh, like either of us was tapping anything in ninth grade," said Jon testily.
Anthony grinned. "Bet that's changed now, huh? I mean, if I had girls falling all over me the way you do, I'd never get out of bed."
"Well, guess what?" snapped Stephen, jumping into the conversation like a gust of icy wind. "Jon isn't like you! ...anymore! He isn't interested in chasing people just because they'll roll over and open their legs for him. And maybe if you'd been paying attention like you were supposed to, you'd know that!"
"Whoa," said Anthony. "Guess someone here takes his purity ring seriously."
And now Jon was embarrassed on behalf of both of them. "Stephen, chill," he ordered, trying to nudge his boyfriend back without more than an acceptable manly-straight-guy level of physical contact.
"I will not chill!" cried Stephen. He jabbed a finger accusingly at Anthony's screen. "You, sir, are On Notice!"
"Uh, okay," said Anthony. "Jon? What's he talking about?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" snapped Stephen. "You abandoned him!" He grabbed a baffled Jon by the arm and shook it for emphasis. "You were supposed to call, and talk about how things were going, and make appointments to watch TV shows and play violent video games together, and then you flaked out on him! And none of us were really friends with him yet, so he's spent half his time here being lonely and miserable and it's all your fault!"
"Stephen, knock it off!" yelled Jon, giving up on acceptable contact and just shoving Stephen away. "It wasn't his fault!"
"But you've been telling people it is, huh?" said Anthony.
Stephen shut up, visibly confused. Up on the flatscreen, Kenny was showing off his new Flash-animated purity ring. Jon took a moment to catch his breath.
"I haven't told people much of anything," he said at last. "I didn't know they'd get the idea that...listen, Stephen, it was me, okay? I was the one not returning calls, and missing appointments and whatever. Not on purpose — I was always busy, or doing something like touring where we couldn't game in the first place, or just exhausted — but it was my fault."
The words didn't come easy. He hadn't even talked about this with Anthony; they'd just slowly settled into a new pattern where Anthony tried less and Jon didn't let him down so much.
"...Oh," said Stephen, sitting back. "Why didn't you just say so?"
Jon couldn't answer. He'd had about all the brutally honest self-evaluation he could take in one night.
"My money's on Jewish guilt," volunteered Anthony. "That stuff runs deep. ...Jon?"
"Yeah?"
"Were you really miserable?"
Jon shrugged. He'd been trying pretty hard to repress those memories. "I could have coped worse. But...probably not much."
"Ah." His friend mulled this over. "Hey, man, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I got over it."
"No, really," insisted Anthony. "If I hadn't just figured you were blowing me off to party with your awesome new Hollywood friends, I would've tried harder."
Jon swallowed. There was something in his eye. Really.
Stephen got his attention with a gasp. "Jon!" he stage-whispered. "They're doing one of our music videos!"
~*~
The trio made it through the rest of the South Park episode without anybody yelling. Although the non-cartoon Jon did complain that a lot of people had worked hard on the video being parodied, and didn't deserve to have their efforts mocked.
Eventually the cartoon versions of Shout*For announced they were done with this purity ring charade, and wanted the band to be about their music, nothing else. (Cartoon Stephen briefly demurred that he was plenty comfortable not having sex with his very serious girlfriend Lisa Munn, and didn't mind saying so. Cartoon Jimmy convinced him that that wasn't the point.)
A cartoon executive warned them that "the boss" wasn't going to like this. Stephen braced himself for a cartoon Brian.
What they got instead was a very angry Mickey Mouse.
Stephen couldn't cling to Jon in front of Anthony, so he fled up onto the bed and hid his head under a pillow. He shouldn't have to keep dealing with animated violence after they'd put away the first-person shooters.
Jon was still laughing through the next couple of scenes, and fell back into what sounded like a happy conversation with his renewed BFF, so Stephen decided not to interrupt them.
Eventually Jon got up on his knees to lean across the bed and pat Stephen on the shoulder. "You can come out now. The Mouse is gone," he said soothingly. "Um, would you be mad if we just kept the TV on? I know you and me were supposed to be hanging out today, but it's been ages since me and Anthony caught The Daily Show together, so...."
"Sorry, can't stay!" cut in Anthony. "It's late over here, and I've gotta get up early tomorrow."
Stephen leaned over the edge of the mattress to frown at him. "You aren't still in school, are you?"
"Dude, it's July," came the cheerful reply from the speakers. "You guys aren't the only ones who get to have summer jobs, you know. We can watch when you're home on break, though, right?"
Jon broke into a sheepish smile. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
~*~
<3 Olivia <3
So the plan 2 charm ur parents was a bust huh?
Kristen ಡ_ಡ
I'm soooo sorry! I swear I did not expect it to go that badly :(((
Kristen ಡ_ಡ
I wanted to yell at them. But what if they got mad and pulled me out of work?
<3 Olivia <3
no prob, I get it.
<3 Olivia <3
parental figures suck sometimes. u do what u gotta do.
Kristen ಡ_ಡ
I'm so glad you understand!
Kristen ಡ_ಡ
And thank you for not snapping at them, even though I know they deserved it.
<3 Olivia <3
All thanx 2 the incredible pwrs of restraint that true love can bring <3
<3 Olivia <3
Just never ask me 2 do that again & we can call it even.
~*~
Jon sat with Stephen by the front window as they waited for his ride to arrive.
It was too open here to cuddle, but Jon rested his hand on Stephen's leg. "Thanks," he said softly.
"You're welcome," said Stephen. "For what?"
For being part of the reason I'm not lonely and miserable any more. "For, you know...standing up for me. Or thinking you were. And for getting me and Anthony to talk."
Stephen flashed a shy, proud smile and closed his hand over Jon's. "I find there are very few problems that can't be solved by shouting."