Entry tags:

story: tardis

Title: I Want My MTV (5/6)
Rating: PG (again, bit o' swearing)
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything through New Who S3/Torchwood S2 is fair game.
Summary: Jack carries young Stephen for a while; Four and Sarah Jane have little success at diplomacy; and adult Stephen begins to realize that this is not the Jon he knows.

A clip from '96: young!Jon talks about aliens.

Beta by the seraphic stellar_dust. Table of contents, and footnotes, here.


I Want My MTV
Part Five


Another Damn Planet: 7032

Stephen couldn't remember the last time he had been carried piggyback.

Not that he needed to be carried, of course! He could walk fine on his own! It was just that the rock walls on either side of them had nearly closed in for a while, so that instead of walking alongside the stream they had had to walk in it. And sure, it was only ankle-deep, but no sense in ruining both of their shoes, right?

Now that the path had widened again, he had every intention of getting down. Eventually.



It wasn't just the elbow room that had widened, either. Stephen was no expert on caves, and Jack's light didn't go far, but there was a growing sense of space around them. Something about the currents in the air, the echoes of Jack's footfalls.

And was that a point of light in the distance?

Stephen squinted. Definitely a light: tiny, blue, and bobbing up and down a little. Like the point of the sonic screwdriver.

"Doctor?" he called nervously, leaning forward on Jack's shoulders.

His voice echoed and rang among the folds of the rock.

"Stephen! Jack!" came the cheerful reply, copied and distorted and bounced back in a hundred variations. "Oh, I'm glad you came. Have you seen this chamber? No, of course you wouldn't have done. You've only got that tiny little lamp. Hang on, I'll turn this thing up to eleven."

A moment later the tip of the screwdriver had lit up like a star, filling the cavern with brilliant blue-white light.


⇔

Earth: 1994.

Jon pushed open the stall door, walked towards the overly elaborate sinks, and found Coffee Thief studying himself in the mirror.

Maybe, just this once, he could skip washing his hands.

He hesitated a moment too long: Coffee Thief spotted him. "It's okay, it's okay!" the strange man said quickly. "I'm not here to yell. I just want to . . . to a-apologize."

Humor the lunatic, thought Jon. You can get a restraining order later. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. I . . . I really do like your show. I just don't want people to know. Because it's embarrassing."

He looked genuinely sheepish (and not about to pull a knife or anything), so Jon relaxed a little. "You're not exactly in our target demographic."

"Well, yeah. And then there's the part where you're a fanatic hippie liberal who loves attacking America."

Jon blinked. "Me? Listen, uh . . ."

He paused for Coffee Thief to fill in a name, but the man just raised expectant eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

"Listen," he repeated, "you're the kind of person who takes everything really seriously, aren't you? Emotionally invested in everything? Angry most of the time?"

"Maybe," Coffee Thief huffed.

"Well, I'm not. I really don't care about this kind of stuff. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm some big political activist guy. I've been to, like, three protests in my life . . ."

"A pro-choice rally, an anti-Persian-Gulf-war protest with like ten people, and a riot after the Rodney King verdict," recited Coffee Thief. Like he knew them by heart.

Jon stared. "You've seen my standup."

"Um . . ."

"How long have you been following me?"

"I haven't! It's in your HBO special!"

"I've never done an HBO special!" Jon took a few steps back. "Listen, I'm gonna go back to my table now, and if you try to talk to me again I'm calling the police. Got it?"

Before Coffee Thief could reply, there was a sound like a crack of lightning from the direction of the main room, followed by a small explosion.

"Jesus Christ!" yelped Jon. "What was that?"

"Probably the aliens," said Coffee Thief matter-of-factly.


⇔

Stephen brushed past Jon and stepped cautiously out the door.

The restrooms were set in a long hallway, with the restaurant at one end and a door marked Employees Only at the other. It was impossible to tell what was going on out in the main dining room, but as Stephen edged down the corridor another zap rang out, followed by the crash of breaking china.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jon emerge from the restroom behind him.

Jon, who didn't have an HBO special, who wouldn't get one until after The Jon Stewart Show crashed and burned. Shouldn't have mentioned that. Jon, who was here with Quentin Tarantino, having dinner. But not like a date or anything. Even though Jon's single. Is Tarantino married? How should I know? Tarantino, who hadn't even started on Kill Bill. Shouldn't have mentioned that, either.

The Doctor had started talking on the other side of the door, the words too muffled to make out but the tone clear and authoritative. There was another small explosion, and he broke off.

This was followed by a deep, guttural, inhuman guffaw.

Just in front of the door, Stephen froze. (He was not scared. He was just . . . strategizing. That was all.) In that moment Jon slipped past him, pulled the door open a crack, and glanced out.

He jumped back almost immediately. "They're green!" he hissed.

"Well, yeah!" snapped Stephen in an exasperated whisper. "I told you they were aliens, remember?"


⇔

The Doctor ducked back behind the overturned table, where Sarah Jane was still stomping out the flame from the candle that had fallen. "I think I'm getting through to them."

"Where on Earth would you get an idea like that?"

"Well, maybe not quite yet," the Doctor admitted. "I'll give it another go. Oh, do stop screaming!"

He shouted this last bit. The general din of the room quieted a little, although someone was still sobbing in a corner.

"Much better." The Doctor stuck his head up over the rim of the table. "Now, see here—"

There was another electric crackle, and he ducked, the top of his absurdly large hair smoking a little.

"Dude," guffawed one of the deep and raspy alien voices, "it's so cool to watch them squirm."


⇔

"There's only three of them," muttered Stephen, one eye peeking through a crack in the door. "All facing away from us. And they seem kind of like idiots."

"H-how can you tell?" stammered Jon.

"Haven't you been listening to them?"

"Wait, can you understand them?"

"Of course," began Stephen, then realized that the TARDIS' translation function must not be universal. Otherwise all of NYC would have run surprisingly smoothly for the past few hours. "Just trust me. They're interstellar morons. I bet we could sneak up behind them—I'd signal to the Doctor to be extra-distracting—and brain them all with chairs before they realized what was going on."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Count me out of this."

Stephen looked back at Jon in shock. "Aren't you going to help?"

"I'm not part of the space police. It isn't my job."

"It isn't mine either!" exclaimed Stephen. "But they've got ray guns! They could kill people!"

"All the more reason to sneak out the back before they get you."

"But—!" Stephen found himself inexplicably on the verge of tears. "The explosions—we don't know how much power they have—they could blow up the whole building—with people still inside!"

"And I don't want to be one of 'em!"

The utter lack of empathy in his eyes was tearing at something in Stephen's heart. And then, all at once, he understood.

You're pre-9/11.

Oh, God, you're young and you're stupid and you believe something like this wouldn't affect you. And I know better, even the young and stupid people in my time know better, but there's no way I can tell you why.

By this point Jon was halfway down the hall.

"Wait!" cried Stephen, jogging after him.

Jon turned. "Are you coming?"

Stephen backhanded him across the face.