Entry tags:

pairing: r!stephen'n'jon, series: fake news, story: five fics never written, synopsis

Four Fake News Stories Erin Will Never Write, And One That Accidentally Got Written While Doing This (3)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Blasphemy, possible mature themes, character death, Serious Religious Business
Disclaimer:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.

Summary: A couple of chunks of this spontaneously wrote themselves while I was summarizing. The rest is probably never going to happen. Features real!Stephen; crossover with Bruce Almighty/Evan Almighty.


One-line summary: Jon is the Second Coming.
Title: Jon Almighty
Characters: Jon, real!Stephen, families, crossover characters


For a Jew to believe in God is good. For a Jew to protest against God is still good. But simply to ignore God–that is not good. Anger, yes. Protest, yes. Affirmation, yes. But indifference? No. You can be a Jew with God. You can be a Jew against God. But not without God.
Ellie Wiesel

Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?
They Might Be Giants, "God Shuffled His Feet"



In the beginning, there was Bruce (Jim Carrey). Then, there was Evan (Steve Carell). Now God (Morgan Freeman) has appeared to Jon, and informed him that he's the Second Coming of Christ.

Jon, being Jon, is completely uninterested in announcing this to the world. He admits the experience to his wife, who manages not to dismiss him as a complete lunatic, although she privately suspects it was just a bad dream.

And then they're on vacation at the beach one day, and somebody's little girl gets caught in a rip tide, and there's really nothing for it but to run out there and save her. On top of the waves.

As Jon is walking back to the beach, terrified kid in his arms, cell phones are flashing and cameras recording. "If all of you could just keep this to yourselves," he says awkwardly, "and not start uploading it to YouTube or anything, that would be great."

("You know what the headline on Fox is going to be tomorrow," his wife remarks.

"What's that?"

"'Jon Stewart Can't Swim.'")

The news spreads like wildfire, much to Jon's dismay. Naturally, his aversion to self-promotion only fans the fervor of the people who believe it, and doesn't stop the rest of the world from mocking him mercilessly or condemning the whole thing as serious blasphemy. But the story is here to stay, especially when Jon's face starts appearing on grilled bread products across the globe.

Self-proclaimed followers start showing up at the studio looking for wisdom and healing. Jon really doesn't know how to handle them, but how can he not try his best? A couple of miracle cures, and now people are starting to take him seriously, even though he doesn't feel like he has any better advice than he did before the whole thing started.

In the middle of all this, Stephen is the one person close to Jon who outright refuses to accept it. At first he figures it's just a handful of fans gone overboard ("you know, there's been a song on the Internet about this for a while now"), and laughs it off ("all this time, I figured my fans were the most over-the-top bunch!"). Then Jon reluctantly admits that he believes it.

Things get awkward fast. Stephen has a sense of humor about his religion, but at the core he does have serious faith, and he's hurt by the idea that Jon would mock it like this. Jon, meanwhile, doesn't like the situation at all, and was counting on being able to lean on Stephen for support. The complete lack thereof is a serious blow.

As the tension builds, God shows up again. Turns out he forgot to mention something before: Jon's supposed to be setting up for the Apocalypse.

Jon starts tentatively trying to work "how to prepare your soul for the end of the world" into the show. This forces everyone from his friends to the staff to the network execs to start splitting along the lines of "we support him (whether or not we believe him)" to "we think he needs to be stopped." It doesn't help that various angry groups of all faiths are starting to call for boycotts (even as some of their members start to defect). Sponsors start to pull out—except for those few that turn out to be headed by believers.

With unwanted bits of omniscience flashing into his mind, Jon learns that he's on the verge of being fired, and books a private flight to Virginia to see Congressman Evan Baxter.

(Bruce and his family are also visiting the Baxters, as Bruce and Evan have ended up bonding over their shared vision-of-God. Joan Girardi may drop in as well.)

After Jon apologizes for mocking Evan's whole building-an-ark thing on his show (Evan Almighty is so awesome for including this, by the way), they have a group heart-to-heart. The others point out that they always come around to doing what God tells them to in the end, and it always turns out well. Still, Jon really isn't sure this Apocalypse thing is a good idea in the first place, and says so.

Being in the presence of so many people who believe "God showed up and talked to me", without being overwhelmed by it, turns out to be incredibly healthy. By the time they all sit down to dinner, Jon is turning the water into martinis and making sure they have plenty of extra breadsticks.

As he begins to actually get comfortable with his role, Jon starts seriously flexing his omniscience muscles. He still isn't thrilled with the idea of the world ending. And if he's actually divine, here, he should be able to come up with a way to stop it.

*

Flash forward.

*

It's the day after Jon's death, and rumors are flying.

The family is trying to keep the services quiet, but believers and would-be followers are determined to track them down. Conflicting stories about the cause are traded back and forth. Websites have sprung up with three-days-from-time-of-death countdowns; others are already reporting sightings. His visage is appearing on record amounts of toast.

Some say Stephen was the one who called the ambulance, the one that arrived too late. Others say Stephen was the one who killed him.

Either way, Stephen has gone MIA, and Evelyn can't get a straight answer out of anyone.

Then her home phone (the one with the number they only give out to friends) rings. It's a stranger. "Our Lord Jon gave me this number; he said to remind you to check your mail."

There's a letter from Jon, postmarked before the death, in her mailbox. As if that isn't creepy enough, it gives her a set of directions and explains that this is where to find Stephen. (As a P.S., it tells her not to be afraid.)

It isn't just the letter and the call, either. Jon has seeded her whole journey with believers. The cop who pulls her over for speeding, the gas station attendant, the kid working the register at the fast food place where she stops after realizing that she hasn't eaten all day: each one was warned beforehand to expect her, and each one cheers her on. It's dizzying.

She ends up at a dilapidated little rural church. Stephen's alone in the sanctuary.

To say he's stunned is putting it mildly. He's also clearly been in tears for a while now.

Though she sympathizes with his grief, Evelyn's pretty angry. "I know this isn't easy for you, especially since you don't believe he's coming back; but you can't just disappear on us like that!"

Stephen shakes his head. "You don't understand. At the end—I believed him."

*

Back.

*

After the post-show wrap, Stephen is informed that Jon is waiting for him on the roof. "And, please, I really think you should go see him, because I asked if he would heal my brother, and he said he was sorry, but he hadn't figured out cancer yet, and I hadn't told him it was cancer in the first place...."

Reluctantly, he climbs the stairs. It's a cloudy night; it's darkish outside. Jon's there.

"You still don't believe me."

"...I believe you think you are who you say you are. Because you wouldn't hurt this many people for a joke." You wouldn't toy with me like this for a joke. "But you're not the first person to think they're the Messiah, and you won't be the last. It's a delusion, Jon. You need help."

Jon smiles. "I knew you'd say that. Come over here and look at the moon with me." When Stephen hesitates, partly because the moon is well and truly behind the clouds, Jon adds, "Just humor me a minute, okay?"

So they stand at the edge of the roof, looking up at the sky.

This is the point where the clouds part, a shaft of moonlight falls down directly on Stephen, and a voice he hasn't heard for three and a half decades announces, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

Cue the openmouthed awe.

"You would not believe how many strings I had to pull to get that to work," remarks Jon.

Everything Stephen thought he knew shatters and rearranges itself. He sinks to his knees.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! None of that!" stammers Jon, dropping down to his level. "I don't need another worshipper, okay? I've got more than enough of those right now as it is. What I need right now is a friend."

*

Stephen can't quite believe how easily everything falls into place. Once he's accepted the premise, the rest just sort of follows naturally.

(It's as if part of him knew all along that Jon Stewart was God.)

"...and so, basically, I'm supposed to help put together the Apocalypse. You know, destroy the world."

"But I like the world."

"So do I. That's why I don't want to do it."

"Are you allowed? I mean, if God...the God...wants it done...."

"Look, I know your people have a bit of a thing for meekly following God's will," says Jon. "Which, yeah, there's a time and a place, but you look at our tradition, you see a whole bunch of people arguing with God. Some of them even win. And I think that's what I'm supposed to do."

"That takes..."

"...chutzpah?"

"You could say that."

"But I think it's all in the plan. I'm starting to get the idea that this is the whole point of having the Supreme Being incarnated as a human every few thousand years. So that there will be someone with the will and the way to convince God to put off the End of Days a while longer. I...think this is what I did last time, too."

He pauses, giving as much time as Stephen needs for it all to sink in.

"But I can't pull this off the way I am now."

Stephen doesn't understand, and says so.

"I need to die, Stephen."

The world stops turning.

"And these days, you can't just insult Caesar and earn yourself a quick death sentence."

When Stephen finds his voice again, he breathes, "How can you be so calm about this?"

"Calm?" Jon laughs. "Stephen, I'm terrified. That's why I need your help."

"Don't ask me to kill you."

Jon shakes his head. "I wouldn't do that. But if you could...maybe hold my hand?"

*

And forward.

*

I don't know how to end this one.

There's always the "triumphant return" scenario, full of dramatic irony. Jon starts reappearing. Dropping in on an executive meeting and gently warning them not to cancel TDS or TCR. Sitting down at a bar and buying drinks for a couple of believers who don't recognize him until after he's left. Someone plays doubting Thomas. Someone else runs into him on a flight to Damascus. And so on.

Problem is, while there's a lot of "why yes, I am awesome" and "I told you so!" on Jon's behalf, it's also on behalf of Jesus/God/(this-version-of)-Christianity. And the world gets enough of that from actual Christians already.

Another possibility, the "ambiguous but hopeful" scenario, has Jon not coming back at all. But Stephen has faith that Jon's failure to return either means he's still arguing his case with God, or has succeeded. Either way, since the world is still around, he knows it's all for the best.

Which does leave open a slight possibility that Jon was simply delusional from the start. This kind of ambiguity grates on me.

And then there's the "let's follow Jon as he descends into Hell and three days later makes it to Heaven," which would actually track his conversations with God, and probably throw the Devil in there. (And possibly the Antichrist: "Here, Jon, meet your nephew.")

But of course that one runs the risk of getting theme-park-y and silly, and it's on a completely different scale from the rest of the story, which would probably just throw the whole thing out of whack.

I'd like to write a scene where still-dead Jon hijacks the first Wørd after the show's return, comforting Stephen that way; but Wørd-made-flesh puns may have been done to death by now.

This is why I shouldn't try to Seriously Address Big Theological Issues: I don't have any idea how to resolve them. You should probably go watch something like this instead; I hear it does a decent job.