Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2009-01-23 12:56 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2009-01-23 12:56 pm
Fake News: All The King's Horses (1/3)
Title: All The King's Horses, 1/3
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R overall
Words: ~2700
Warnings: This story gave the author nightmares. Proceed with caution.
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
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.
Notes: It was impossible to write this one with "Stephen" as he is on TCR. He simply isn't strong enough to go through it. So this chapter is spent fixing up some of his other damage first.
All The King's Horses - One
The court-ordered therapy was the best thing that had ever happened to Stephen.
After a month of it, he stopped fighting the divorce. A few weeks later, he came out on the show.
The revelation sent shock waves through his fan base. Many accused him of capitulating to the homosexual agenda; a small but vocal subset foreswore the Report altogether. The most common of the milder reactions was "That's your business, but why do you have to throw it in our faces?"
There were vitriolic reactions outside of the Colbert Nation, too. The pundits on the far left crowed hypocrisy; the religious right denounced him entirely. The late-night comics batted around jokes at his expense like tennis balls.
But Stephen was not an easy target. He made no appeals to childhood trauma or addiction; he did not accept, or even acknowledge, invitations from representatives of the ex-gay movement; and when challenged about the changes he had made in his positions, he freely admitted to his own inconsistency. It took only a few days for the first wave of punch lines to get stale, and he did nothing to give them a fresh new angle.
And for all the mockery, all the hate mail, all the threats and derision and severing of ties, these were outweighed by the love.
The gay rights movement, once it got over the shock of a homophobic conservative coming out before being caught naked with another man in the back of a Volvo, embraced Stephen with open arms. Dan Savage spent a whole column singing his praises. Letters and emails of support flowed in from around the country. Not all the gifts were tasteful, but the intentions behind them were good.
The blogosphere was more amused than anything else. The first entry on Huffington Post after the coming-out episode carried the headline "What Took Him So Long?"
And then there were the apologies.
Stephen's guilt, kept tightly locked up at the beginning of therapy, came crashing out in the eighth session with such intensity that it threatened to overwhelm him. His doctor suggested that he manage the release by apologizing in a way that he never had before: sincerely, frankly, without equivocation or excuse. The first such apology was to his ex-wife, still his wife at the time, and it was after this that she stopped pressing for a restraining order.
The first one seen by the general public was the one bundled in his coming-out speech, the one directed at the entire LGBT community and equal rights organizations in particular. Other group mea-culpas followed, as well as personal ones: nearly every repeat guest from that point on was met with contrition for something the host had done during their last interview.
A similar process was happening off-air. One by one, the members of Stephen's staff were called into his office. When it was Meg's turn, she flatly refused to close the door behind her, so Stephen skipped a few pages of notes until he got to the part about making her feel unsafe and began his apology there.
During a toss, a few weeks into this process, Stephen told Jon that he was sorry for a few public incidents: the ones that faithful viewers would have known about already.
Jon accepted immediately. He had an idea that something more extensive would come later.
When Stephen had amassed a list of accepted apologies so long that even NoFactZone had stopped trying to keep track of them, he answered Jon's standing lunch invitation for the first time in the three months since the process had begun.
So celebratory was Jon's mood that he very nearly bought champagne.
He restricted himself to sparkling cider, dithered over a dozen meal possibilities before falling back on their old standard, and stuck two cartons of Americone Dream in his minifridge. Three minutes after the delivery arrived, there was a knock at his door.
It wasn't a familiar knock. But then, Stephen had never stopped to knock before.
"Come in?"
Sure enough, it wasn't a familiar Stephen who opened the door. Despite his perfectly pressed black suit, exquisite gold tie, and impeccably coiffed hair, he was missing that confident stride that had always marked his entrance. In fact, he barely entered at all, but stood wavering in the doorway.
"Come in, my friend," repeated Jon. "Sit down. Have some pizza."
"I don't know," said Stephen, almost to himself. "I don't know if I can . . . ."
"You don't have to," said Jon gently. "It's okay. We can talk about something else. I've missed talking to you, Stephen."
The other man looked at him like a frightened rabbit, and for an instant Jon worried that he had somehow gone too far.
Then Stephen closed the door and came slowly forward. "Thank you, Jon. I—I've missed it too."
The conversation got off to a slow start, because their old rhythm didn't work any more. It was incredibly disconcerting to talk about politics without Stephen ignoring, misinterpreting, or flatly denying any point Jon made.
But both were still on different sides of most issues, and both enjoyed talking about them, and Jon still had the sense of humor that could make Stephen smile no matter how stern he was trying to be, even if this new subdued Stephen was much less prone to saying ridiculous things with a straight face that Jon couldn't help but laugh at. So they found a new rhythm, and eased unsteadily into it.
At some point Jon made a few jokes about his own divorce, just to signal to Stephen that it wasn't a taboo topic. As they got to the ice cream, Stephen sent back the first such signal of his own.
It was while he was prying open the lid, his eyes downcast to focus on the task, that he said, "You know, they keep inviting me to give speeches."
"Who?" asked Jon cautiously.
"The gay rights people. Well, GLBT, and there are some more letters in the acronym but I can't remember them. Because it's not just the gays, you know."
"Yeah, I know." Jon scooped out a spoonful of ice cream while he waited for Stephen to work back around to the point he was beginning to make. When Stephen just spooned out a chunk of his own, Jon let him eat it before prompting, "Have you accepted any of the invitations?"
Stephen shook his head. And now he really did seem on the verge of saying something, so Jon didn't interrupt.
"It's not the kind of thing to give speeches about, Jon!" he cried at last, gaze flicking between Jon's eyes and his ice cream. "They keep telling me it's 'inspirational,' that I'm a 'role model'. I'm not! I've just gone around hurting people, and I can't take that back, no matter how much I apologize! My life is a perfect model of what not to do! I don't understand why anyone would want to hear about it!"
He cut off as his voice broke, turning his focus back on the ice cream to take shaky but deliberately deep breaths.
Jon set his own carton aside.
"I understand it," he said quietly.
Stephen didn't look up. "Why, then?"
Setting the leftover pizza out of the way, Jon leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. "You're partly right," he said. "You hurt a lot of people, and you couldn't stop without admitting how much damage you had already done. Maybe you could have gone on like that forever. But you stopped."
Slowly, nervously, Stephen met his eyes.
"You were in a very bad place," continued Jon. "And you had the courage to get out of it. Even though it meant taking responsibility for all the things you've done. Even though it meant swallowing your pride to make all of these apologies. That hasn't been easy, but you've done it, and you've done it with dignity. That's brave, Stephen. That's very brave. You have no idea how proud of you I am right now."
"I'm not brave, Jon. If I were brave, I would have come to see you three months ago."
"But you're here now."
"Doesn't count," said Stephen miserably. "I haven't said any of the things I need to say."
"You don't need to be perfect, Stephen. Just go at your own pace."
"No." Stephen shook his head. "I've put this off for far too long."
He put his ice cream aside and closed his eyes; Jon waited as he sat up straight, squared his shoulders, and took a few more deep breaths.
When he opened his eyes again, they locked onto Jon's and held steady.
"Jon. Jon Stewart. I need to apologize to you. I tried to make a list of all the things you deserve an apology for, but it got so long, and I realized I would never remember them all. So this is sort of the condensed version.
"I'm sorry for every time I shouted at you. I'm sorry for every time I didn't listen to you, or deliberately misunderstood you, or ignored you. I'm sorry for the insults, for the jokes at your expense, for the nasty pranks. You didn't deserve any of it. You've always been a friend. A good friend.
"I took advantage of your friendship, and then turned around and told people we didn't talk, because I was ashamed of you. I was ashamed of you! When you never did anything wrong, you just failed to fit into the perfect little self-image I tried to create."
He snorted and looked away. "We all saw how well that worked out."
The silence stretched out for a few moments. Jon was starting to wonder whether he should break it when Stephen spoke again.
"I blamed you," he said, more quietly, "for all kinds of things, things that were never your fault, and then I used that as an excuse to take them out on you. If I ever started to second-guess my politics, I blamed it on your liberal influence. If I ever had any kind of doubts about my faith, I blamed it on you being Jewish. And if—and when—I had any kinds of gay urges, I put them down to—to people like you. Tolerant. Permissive. Undisciplined. That's how I thought. And it wasn't fair to you. And I'm sorry."
Pausing, he threw Jon a sidelong glance.
And Jon, whose heart was swelled nearly to bursting with love and pride and happiness, said, as solemnly as he could manage, "Stephen Colbert, I accept your apology."
Stephen smiled; but it was a very small smile.
"Do you believe me?" asked Jon, feeling a pang of worry.
"Yes! Yes, I believe you." But he didn't look as if any weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
"Is there," hazarded Jon, "something else you want to say?"
A nod.
"If you're ready, I'm listening."
And he waited.
"I never understood," began Stephen haltingly.
He stopped, took a deep breath, and tried again.
"I always felt—sick around you, Jon. Sort of—achy, and queasy, and it didn't just happen when I was with you, it started happening when I thought about you."
Jon hardly dared breathe, as if it might extinguish the spark of hope that had flared to life in his chest.
"I figured it was my gut trying to warn me, that you were dangerous," continued Stephen. "For a while I tried to stay away from you, but that just made me feel worse. So I compromised. I let myself associate with you, but I yelled at you all the time. More than anyone else."
He sighed. "You didn't deserve that either. It wasn't you; it was me. I was in love with you. That's all it was."
"'Was'?" exclaimed Jon before he could stop himself.
Stephen flinched. "Is. I am—in love with you. But I'll get over it. It's not just speeches I'm getting invited to; a couple of people have asked me out. I'll have to accept some of them eventually."
"You—you don't have to." Rising from his seat to lean over the desk, Jon brushed his lips against the corner of Stephen's mouth.
Stephen went very still.
"Jon," he whispered, as the man he was addressing stood up and walked around to his side of the desk. "Jon, don't do that, please don't do that unless you mean it, because I am nowhere near well-adjusted enough to take it . . . ."
With a push of the hand Jon turned Stephen's chair to face him. "Stephen," he said, reaching out to touch the other man's cheek. "I mean every—"
That was as far as he got.
The instant skin brushed skin, Stephen launched himself at Jon and pulled him into a frenzied kiss, hands clawing at his shirt, feet nearly stepping on his toes, tongue wrestling his into submission. Jon's arms grabbed Stephen around the waist, partly out of desire and partly in a frantic attempt to keep his balance as they tottered across the office.
After a breathless eternity he fell into one of the armchairs on the far side, Stephen on top of him, nearly knocking over a lamp on the way down. Still plumbing Jon's mouth, Stephen slipped a hand between his legs and started a kind of rough massage; once he recovered from the electric shock that shot through his body, Jon slid one of his own hands down Stephen's hip and around—
Again, he got no farther: Stephen ripped himself away from Jon's embrace at the first pressure of fingers on fabric.
It was over so quickly that it was a few moments before Jon realized what had happened. At last his eyes focused on the distance that Stephen had retreated to, and the two of them stared at each other, gasping for breath.
"I—I—I'm sorry," panted Stephen. "We can't."
"Why not?" demanded Jon.
Stephen looked like he might cry. "It's not you, Jon. It's me. Please understand."
Jon tried to be calm as he sat up, though the awkwardness of the motion only stoked his frustration, because the other man sounded so genuinely anguished. "I don't, Stephen. I don't understand. What's wrong with this?"
Stephen began to rock back and forth on his heels. "I'm—damaged, Jon."
"Yeah. I know. You've spend the last three months working on it. You don't need to fix it all before we have sex, do you?"
"Some damage can't be fixed!"
"So you're not perfect!" snapped Jon. "You'll never be perfect! That doesn't matter! I happen to love you, damage and all!"
Stephen wrung his hands. At last he said, "I believe you, Jon. I believe you. But—I need to talk to Dr. Stein first. Before we do anything else. Will you let me do that?"
"Will I 'let'—? Stephen, it's your decision." (Which was true, no matter how much Jon disliked it. For the record: he disliked it a lot.)
"I mean—I'll do it either way—but are you willing to wait?"
"Yeah. I can wait. You do what you gotta do. Speaking of which . . . ." He glanced down at the distinct bulge in his khakis. "I hate to cut this meeting short, but . . . ."
Stephen nodded, but didn't move. "I feel terrible just leaving you like this . . . ."
"Don't worry about it," said Jon, waving his concerns away. "If nothing else, you've already given me enough fantasy material to jerk off to for years."
Stephen's lips quirked into a brief smile. "Thanks, Jon. I—I'll call you. I'm sorry."
As soon as the door was locked, Jon began mentally replaying the scene, using his own hand in place of Stephen's. It had all gone so quickly that he'd barely had time to take everything in, but he slowed it down in his mind, separating out the various sensations and enjoying them one by one.
He carried this on until he had the memory of Stephen on top of him again, and he stretched out his hand to feel—
—what?
Jon stopped the fantasy and rewound, hand groping the air as he tried to reconstruct what exactly he had felt, or started to feel.
It was no use. Something had been unexpected, of that he was sure; but he hadn't registered any details that would help him identify it in the split second before Stephen had cut the matter short.
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R overall
Words: ~2700
Warnings: This story gave the author nightmares. Proceed with caution.
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
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.
Notes: It was impossible to write this one with "Stephen" as he is on TCR. He simply isn't strong enough to go through it. So this chapter is spent fixing up some of his other damage first.
All The King's Horses - One
The court-ordered therapy was the best thing that had ever happened to Stephen.
After a month of it, he stopped fighting the divorce. A few weeks later, he came out on the show.
The revelation sent shock waves through his fan base. Many accused him of capitulating to the homosexual agenda; a small but vocal subset foreswore the Report altogether. The most common of the milder reactions was "That's your business, but why do you have to throw it in our faces?"
There were vitriolic reactions outside of the Colbert Nation, too. The pundits on the far left crowed hypocrisy; the religious right denounced him entirely. The late-night comics batted around jokes at his expense like tennis balls.
But Stephen was not an easy target. He made no appeals to childhood trauma or addiction; he did not accept, or even acknowledge, invitations from representatives of the ex-gay movement; and when challenged about the changes he had made in his positions, he freely admitted to his own inconsistency. It took only a few days for the first wave of punch lines to get stale, and he did nothing to give them a fresh new angle.
And for all the mockery, all the hate mail, all the threats and derision and severing of ties, these were outweighed by the love.
The gay rights movement, once it got over the shock of a homophobic conservative coming out before being caught naked with another man in the back of a Volvo, embraced Stephen with open arms. Dan Savage spent a whole column singing his praises. Letters and emails of support flowed in from around the country. Not all the gifts were tasteful, but the intentions behind them were good.
The blogosphere was more amused than anything else. The first entry on Huffington Post after the coming-out episode carried the headline "What Took Him So Long?"
And then there were the apologies.
Stephen's guilt, kept tightly locked up at the beginning of therapy, came crashing out in the eighth session with such intensity that it threatened to overwhelm him. His doctor suggested that he manage the release by apologizing in a way that he never had before: sincerely, frankly, without equivocation or excuse. The first such apology was to his ex-wife, still his wife at the time, and it was after this that she stopped pressing for a restraining order.
The first one seen by the general public was the one bundled in his coming-out speech, the one directed at the entire LGBT community and equal rights organizations in particular. Other group mea-culpas followed, as well as personal ones: nearly every repeat guest from that point on was met with contrition for something the host had done during their last interview.
A similar process was happening off-air. One by one, the members of Stephen's staff were called into his office. When it was Meg's turn, she flatly refused to close the door behind her, so Stephen skipped a few pages of notes until he got to the part about making her feel unsafe and began his apology there.
During a toss, a few weeks into this process, Stephen told Jon that he was sorry for a few public incidents: the ones that faithful viewers would have known about already.
Jon accepted immediately. He had an idea that something more extensive would come later.
When Stephen had amassed a list of accepted apologies so long that even NoFactZone had stopped trying to keep track of them, he answered Jon's standing lunch invitation for the first time in the three months since the process had begun.
So celebratory was Jon's mood that he very nearly bought champagne.
He restricted himself to sparkling cider, dithered over a dozen meal possibilities before falling back on their old standard, and stuck two cartons of Americone Dream in his minifridge. Three minutes after the delivery arrived, there was a knock at his door.
It wasn't a familiar knock. But then, Stephen had never stopped to knock before.
"Come in?"
Sure enough, it wasn't a familiar Stephen who opened the door. Despite his perfectly pressed black suit, exquisite gold tie, and impeccably coiffed hair, he was missing that confident stride that had always marked his entrance. In fact, he barely entered at all, but stood wavering in the doorway.
"Come in, my friend," repeated Jon. "Sit down. Have some pizza."
"I don't know," said Stephen, almost to himself. "I don't know if I can . . . ."
"You don't have to," said Jon gently. "It's okay. We can talk about something else. I've missed talking to you, Stephen."
The other man looked at him like a frightened rabbit, and for an instant Jon worried that he had somehow gone too far.
Then Stephen closed the door and came slowly forward. "Thank you, Jon. I—I've missed it too."
The conversation got off to a slow start, because their old rhythm didn't work any more. It was incredibly disconcerting to talk about politics without Stephen ignoring, misinterpreting, or flatly denying any point Jon made.
But both were still on different sides of most issues, and both enjoyed talking about them, and Jon still had the sense of humor that could make Stephen smile no matter how stern he was trying to be, even if this new subdued Stephen was much less prone to saying ridiculous things with a straight face that Jon couldn't help but laugh at. So they found a new rhythm, and eased unsteadily into it.
At some point Jon made a few jokes about his own divorce, just to signal to Stephen that it wasn't a taboo topic. As they got to the ice cream, Stephen sent back the first such signal of his own.
It was while he was prying open the lid, his eyes downcast to focus on the task, that he said, "You know, they keep inviting me to give speeches."
"Who?" asked Jon cautiously.
"The gay rights people. Well, GLBT, and there are some more letters in the acronym but I can't remember them. Because it's not just the gays, you know."
"Yeah, I know." Jon scooped out a spoonful of ice cream while he waited for Stephen to work back around to the point he was beginning to make. When Stephen just spooned out a chunk of his own, Jon let him eat it before prompting, "Have you accepted any of the invitations?"
Stephen shook his head. And now he really did seem on the verge of saying something, so Jon didn't interrupt.
"It's not the kind of thing to give speeches about, Jon!" he cried at last, gaze flicking between Jon's eyes and his ice cream. "They keep telling me it's 'inspirational,' that I'm a 'role model'. I'm not! I've just gone around hurting people, and I can't take that back, no matter how much I apologize! My life is a perfect model of what not to do! I don't understand why anyone would want to hear about it!"
He cut off as his voice broke, turning his focus back on the ice cream to take shaky but deliberately deep breaths.
Jon set his own carton aside.
"I understand it," he said quietly.
Stephen didn't look up. "Why, then?"
Setting the leftover pizza out of the way, Jon leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. "You're partly right," he said. "You hurt a lot of people, and you couldn't stop without admitting how much damage you had already done. Maybe you could have gone on like that forever. But you stopped."
Slowly, nervously, Stephen met his eyes.
"You were in a very bad place," continued Jon. "And you had the courage to get out of it. Even though it meant taking responsibility for all the things you've done. Even though it meant swallowing your pride to make all of these apologies. That hasn't been easy, but you've done it, and you've done it with dignity. That's brave, Stephen. That's very brave. You have no idea how proud of you I am right now."
"I'm not brave, Jon. If I were brave, I would have come to see you three months ago."
"But you're here now."
"Doesn't count," said Stephen miserably. "I haven't said any of the things I need to say."
"You don't need to be perfect, Stephen. Just go at your own pace."
"No." Stephen shook his head. "I've put this off for far too long."
He put his ice cream aside and closed his eyes; Jon waited as he sat up straight, squared his shoulders, and took a few more deep breaths.
When he opened his eyes again, they locked onto Jon's and held steady.
"Jon. Jon Stewart. I need to apologize to you. I tried to make a list of all the things you deserve an apology for, but it got so long, and I realized I would never remember them all. So this is sort of the condensed version.
"I'm sorry for every time I shouted at you. I'm sorry for every time I didn't listen to you, or deliberately misunderstood you, or ignored you. I'm sorry for the insults, for the jokes at your expense, for the nasty pranks. You didn't deserve any of it. You've always been a friend. A good friend.
"I took advantage of your friendship, and then turned around and told people we didn't talk, because I was ashamed of you. I was ashamed of you! When you never did anything wrong, you just failed to fit into the perfect little self-image I tried to create."
He snorted and looked away. "We all saw how well that worked out."
The silence stretched out for a few moments. Jon was starting to wonder whether he should break it when Stephen spoke again.
"I blamed you," he said, more quietly, "for all kinds of things, things that were never your fault, and then I used that as an excuse to take them out on you. If I ever started to second-guess my politics, I blamed it on your liberal influence. If I ever had any kind of doubts about my faith, I blamed it on you being Jewish. And if—and when—I had any kinds of gay urges, I put them down to—to people like you. Tolerant. Permissive. Undisciplined. That's how I thought. And it wasn't fair to you. And I'm sorry."
Pausing, he threw Jon a sidelong glance.
And Jon, whose heart was swelled nearly to bursting with love and pride and happiness, said, as solemnly as he could manage, "Stephen Colbert, I accept your apology."
Stephen smiled; but it was a very small smile.
"Do you believe me?" asked Jon, feeling a pang of worry.
"Yes! Yes, I believe you." But he didn't look as if any weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
"Is there," hazarded Jon, "something else you want to say?"
A nod.
"If you're ready, I'm listening."
And he waited.
"I never understood," began Stephen haltingly.
He stopped, took a deep breath, and tried again.
"I always felt—sick around you, Jon. Sort of—achy, and queasy, and it didn't just happen when I was with you, it started happening when I thought about you."
Jon hardly dared breathe, as if it might extinguish the spark of hope that had flared to life in his chest.
"I figured it was my gut trying to warn me, that you were dangerous," continued Stephen. "For a while I tried to stay away from you, but that just made me feel worse. So I compromised. I let myself associate with you, but I yelled at you all the time. More than anyone else."
He sighed. "You didn't deserve that either. It wasn't you; it was me. I was in love with you. That's all it was."
"'Was'?" exclaimed Jon before he could stop himself.
Stephen flinched. "Is. I am—in love with you. But I'll get over it. It's not just speeches I'm getting invited to; a couple of people have asked me out. I'll have to accept some of them eventually."
"You—you don't have to." Rising from his seat to lean over the desk, Jon brushed his lips against the corner of Stephen's mouth.
Stephen went very still.
"Jon," he whispered, as the man he was addressing stood up and walked around to his side of the desk. "Jon, don't do that, please don't do that unless you mean it, because I am nowhere near well-adjusted enough to take it . . . ."
With a push of the hand Jon turned Stephen's chair to face him. "Stephen," he said, reaching out to touch the other man's cheek. "I mean every—"
That was as far as he got.
The instant skin brushed skin, Stephen launched himself at Jon and pulled him into a frenzied kiss, hands clawing at his shirt, feet nearly stepping on his toes, tongue wrestling his into submission. Jon's arms grabbed Stephen around the waist, partly out of desire and partly in a frantic attempt to keep his balance as they tottered across the office.
After a breathless eternity he fell into one of the armchairs on the far side, Stephen on top of him, nearly knocking over a lamp on the way down. Still plumbing Jon's mouth, Stephen slipped a hand between his legs and started a kind of rough massage; once he recovered from the electric shock that shot through his body, Jon slid one of his own hands down Stephen's hip and around—
Again, he got no farther: Stephen ripped himself away from Jon's embrace at the first pressure of fingers on fabric.
It was over so quickly that it was a few moments before Jon realized what had happened. At last his eyes focused on the distance that Stephen had retreated to, and the two of them stared at each other, gasping for breath.
"I—I—I'm sorry," panted Stephen. "We can't."
"Why not?" demanded Jon.
Stephen looked like he might cry. "It's not you, Jon. It's me. Please understand."
Jon tried to be calm as he sat up, though the awkwardness of the motion only stoked his frustration, because the other man sounded so genuinely anguished. "I don't, Stephen. I don't understand. What's wrong with this?"
Stephen began to rock back and forth on his heels. "I'm—damaged, Jon."
"Yeah. I know. You've spend the last three months working on it. You don't need to fix it all before we have sex, do you?"
"Some damage can't be fixed!"
"So you're not perfect!" snapped Jon. "You'll never be perfect! That doesn't matter! I happen to love you, damage and all!"
Stephen wrung his hands. At last he said, "I believe you, Jon. I believe you. But—I need to talk to Dr. Stein first. Before we do anything else. Will you let me do that?"
"Will I 'let'—? Stephen, it's your decision." (Which was true, no matter how much Jon disliked it. For the record: he disliked it a lot.)
"I mean—I'll do it either way—but are you willing to wait?"
"Yeah. I can wait. You do what you gotta do. Speaking of which . . . ." He glanced down at the distinct bulge in his khakis. "I hate to cut this meeting short, but . . . ."
Stephen nodded, but didn't move. "I feel terrible just leaving you like this . . . ."
"Don't worry about it," said Jon, waving his concerns away. "If nothing else, you've already given me enough fantasy material to jerk off to for years."
Stephen's lips quirked into a brief smile. "Thanks, Jon. I—I'll call you. I'm sorry."
As soon as the door was locked, Jon began mentally replaying the scene, using his own hand in place of Stephen's. It had all gone so quickly that he'd barely had time to take everything in, but he slowed it down in his mind, separating out the various sensations and enjoying them one by one.
He carried this on until he had the memory of Stephen on top of him again, and he stretched out his hand to feel—
—what?
Jon stopped the fantasy and rewound, hand groping the air as he tried to reconstruct what exactly he had felt, or started to feel.
It was no use. Something had been unexpected, of that he was sure; but he hadn't registered any details that would help him identify it in the split second before Stephen had cut the matter short.
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Oh, and I thought you might like to know that the Sci Fi Channel is having a DW marathon until 4, and it IS really good! There was a sort of reunion episode that had Sarah Jane and K9 in it, too:D
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It's equal parts fascinating and heart-wrenching to watch as he bleeds out his damage.
...this is a remarkably prescient image.
I think we have all the DW episodes on disk =D Glad to hear it's getting more airing!
(And, wow, I just got your icon. Love.)
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I have a bad feeling I know what's going on, which sucks because I have to hold all of my thoughts until the disclosure.
Oh God, I have another fandom. Do you realize how long it's going to take to catch up? XD
(Hee, thanks! I thought it fitting.)
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Heck, I'm not nearly caught up on DW, and I actually have almost every episode available (raised by a geek, what can I say). In this case, you might have to just jump in feet first =D
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Self-Aware!Stephen is very different to the Stephen we're used to but somehow still very in character, which is weird. But I like this new take on it! And we can never have too much proud!Jon.
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And thanks!
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Thanks ^_^
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I love your description of the reaction to his coming out- that was right on. Dan Savage <3.
I loved Jon's confusion about New (and Improved?) Stephen acting so differently.
I loved the "Was?" because that was my exact panicky thought when I read Stephen's words.
And now I shall go read it again and worry.
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There can never be too much Dan Savage love.
And hooray for queer-code!
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More likely it's going to be some sort of...er..."emotional Cthulhu."
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...I don't know if it needs what's coming up in this fic, but, well, we'll see...
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Something "Stephen" as-is wouldn't be strong enough to go through...hmm, I wonder.
You've definitely intrigued me! *awaits next chapter*
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But you know I'm practically expecting the show to ACTUALLY go like this. Is it just me or are the gay references increasing? Then there was the crying during the inauguration like a peek of sincerity from underneath the toupee of indignation... and don't even get me started on Dreamy!
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I would love a coming-out scenario like this to happen towards the end of the show. (Blasphemy, I know - obviously TCR will be renewed forever!) Give the character a happy ending!
"Dreamy" was excellent, it's true X3
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Good thinking, Stephen wouldn't want a non-American drink anyway.
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When you write Stephen like this, the Jon you give him just makes my heart melt. ♥!
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(Anonymous) 2009-02-23 08:38 am (UTC)(link)I'm relatively new to this fandom (why, I don't know, been watching these shows for years). I'm bad at leaving comments but I wanted to say that I've been enjoying reading your fics. I really like your take on Stephen's character + personality.
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Also, welcome to the fandom, and thanks for the note of confidence!
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I'm a little worried about reading the rest of this now, but I don't think I've ever read anything of yours that I *didn't* fall completely in love with, so I'll just be friending you now mmkay? :D
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This looks like it's going to be absolutely heartbreaking, and I feel for Stephen a lot already. Is there going to be more chapters?
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The last two chapters are up, just locked. You've been added, so you can see them now.
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Also, somehow I stumbled across your expectingverse and was absolutely sucked in. So I started watching tds and tcr every day, even though I'm not american, live in another country, and don't get comedy central. Such is your power!
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And, wow, that's very flattering. Thank you!
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