Entry tags:

genre: angst, pairing: jon'n'"stephen", series: fake news, story: five times jon terrified stephen

Title: Five Times Jon Terrified Stephen (3)
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: PG for innuendo
Words: ~3300 in total
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: We know that Stephen has, in the course of various good-natured pranks, sent both Bobby and Rob Corddry to the hospital. We don't know how many others there are.

One | Two | Three | Four | Five



Five Times Jon Terrified Stephen


Three.

Stephen smiled in helpless, giddy relief when Jon, still in one piece and looking no worse for wear, came out into the waiting room; but Jon shouldered roughly past him and walked off without a backward glance, so fast that Stephen had to trot to keep up.

"Jon? Jon, come on, talk to me," he said, once Jon had signed himself out and they were heading down the hall.

"Don't push it, Stephen. I am very angry with you right now."

"I know, I know, I can tell -- but, come on, Jon, how was I supposed to know you weren't just having fun with me?"

"Fun? Fun? It was a major asthma attack!"

"Well, I didn't know that!"

"I told you -- and this when I could barely talk, and my chest was seizing up, and I was coughing and wheezing and sweating--"

"You could have been faking it!"

They strode out the front door and into the courtyard.

"Unless someone specifically tells you that he is faking it, you don't throw his inhaler out the window!"

"But you didn't need it, did you? I mean, the wheezing stopped, right?"

"Stephen, that's a bad sign. It means I can't breathe at all."

Stephen had already taken a breath to fire back, but the response he had been preparing stuck in his throat. "Oh," he said at last.

A moment later he added, hopefully, "But it turned out all right, didn't it? I mean, you're okay now, aren't you?"

"Only because the ambulance showed up before I suffocated. On top of that, I've lost my whole afternoon to a hospital visit that I never would have needed if you had just given me my inhaler when I asked for it. Or, better yet, not insisted that I race you down the hall in the first place."

He had reached the street and waved his hand to hail a taxi.

"You don't need to do that," said Stephen quickly. "A company car brought me up here; it's in the garage."

At last Jon turned to look at him, and there was no sympathy in his expression.

"I hope you can understand," he said coldly, "why I don't want to be in a car with you right now."

Stephen felt his own throat close.

Moments later, a cab pulled up. As Jon was climbing in, Stephen managed to say, "Hang on."

Jon looked back at him, silent, waiting.

"I'm..." began Stephen.

He'd never said this before without coercion. He'd never needed to.

"I'm s..."

Stephen Colbert did not apologize.

"I ... I'm s...sor..."

He couldn't get any farther.

Instead, he stopped and looked hopefully at Jon. Isn't that enough that you can figure it out?

The other man didn't give him an inch.

"Goodbye, Stephen," he said, and slammed the door.