Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2010-05-03 01:54 am
ptahrrific) wrote2010-05-03 01:54 am
Entry tags:
Fake News: The Sword In His Mouth (2/4)
Title: The Sword In His Mouth (2/4)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: D/s; mild religious content; gratuitous meta
Disclaimers: This is a work of parody. Although references is made to real persons, places, and events, the dialog, actions, and content are products of the author's imagination only. Fictional characters are property of The Colbert Report and its writers. All LJ usernames are fictional. Any resemblance to real LJ users, active or strikethrough'd, is purely coincidental.
Summary: Fic as written within the D/s 'verse ofsarcasticsra's The Way Things Need To Be. Jon learns the story behind Stephen's collar, and BriWi comes up with a plan.
Prologue | Part 1 |Part 2 | Part 3 | Epilogue
The Sword In His Mouth
Part 2
So, tonight, I would like to be the first candidate to make my position clear. I am not running for President. I am running for President Bush. Why? Because I would be crazy to let anyone have that kind of power over me.
—The Wørd, October 31, 2007
"You're a priest?"
The priesthood. Europe's great historical refuge for sex-and-gender outcasts of all kinds: switches who didn't want to be forced into one gender all their lives, gay doms who got socially sanctioned fulfillment out of a relationship with their Heavenly Dom, abused subs who could no longer tolerate the attentions of doms on Earth.
In retrospect, Jon wondered why it hadn't occurred to him sooner.
Flipping the clerical collar back over, Stephen shook his head. "I — I'm not ordained."
If Jon hadn't already been squished on Stephen's dusty floor, he would have had to sit down in a hurry. Jewish born and bred though he was, he still knew there were some things you Just Don't Do. "You're impersonating a member of the clergy?"
"No!" Stephen clutched the torque defiantly to his chest. "It's not impersonation if nobody knows about it!"
"So you're secretly impersonating a member of the clergy." Jon rubbed his temples, trying to stop his head from spinning. "Doesn't that sort of...I don't know, defeat the purpose?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Jon. The point isn't to pretend the Church is Domming me, just that somebody is. You know there are places a su...someone like me can't walk alone at night without a collar."
"I went without one for the last ten years," countered Jon, one hand reflexively going to the not-yet-familiar white gold at his own neck. "I managed."
"Yeah, well, you're — you're you," said Stephen bitterly. "If someone tried to dom you on a dark street, you'd probably — how did you put it? — 'smack them.'"
"Hell yeah, I would! Being a sub doesn't mean I'm going to roll over for every arrogant dom who thinks...."
Jon trailed off. Stephen's hands were clenched around the ends of the clerical collar so ferociously that the knuckles had gone white. A lesser metal would have bent under the strain.
"Stephen...I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"What are you talking about?" snapped Stephen, voice cracking. "I didn't. That's how I know I'm not a sub: because I couldn't just shut up and obey properly. You see, Jon? And this doesn't invalidate my gender identity!" he added, poking the collar against Jon's upper arm. "The Church is still the sub of Christ. Even for the doms."
Shaking his head, Jon rested a hand on his friend's knee. "Stephen, this isn't right. You can be a sub without being a doormat. All you need is a dom who respects you. Someone who can take care of you, someone—"
"I'm taking care of myself!" snapped Stephen, turning the collar over and sliding it back around his neck. "I've gotten along fine with this much domming so far, haven't I? I don't need any more."
Well, never let it be said that Jon Stewart thought a sub couldn't be happy without a dom. "Okay, okay, dropping it. But, listen, if you ever do need anything — if you want to try being set up with someone, or if you just want to talk — I'm always here."
Stephen tugged at his shirt until the dark metal was nearly concealed. "Jon," he said, with the air of one bestowing a great compliment, "I appreciate the offer. You're so competent, sometimes I almost forget you're a sub."
A good mother cooks, cleans, drives, organizes charity events so their children earn community service points for college, and is always ready with dinner and a foot rub when their dom gets home from work. So, a word to all you "submissive rights activists": Stop "liberating" moms by trying to make them join the workforce.
—I Am America (And So Can You!)
"So I have good news," said Jon over lasagna that night. "Stephen doesn't have a neglectful dom."
"Oh, fantastic!" exclaimed Brian. Then, frowning, he did his patented news-anchor-lean-in across the table. "What's the bad news?"
"Uh. I suppose that would be the fact that he doesn't have a good dom, either. And don't ask me what's going on," he added quickly. "It's not my story to tell."
"Understood."
With that, Brian sat back and waited. He was perceptive enough to know when Jon wanted to say more, and, much to Jon's appreciation, savvy enough not to go digging. Any type of prying only made Jon instinctively clam up, deflecting questions with wisecracks. Silence, on the other hand, gave him space.
"I'm still worried about him," said Jon at last, an image of Stephen huddled under the desk flashing through his mind. "I can't shake the feeling that he's had a bad experience. That, or it's really strong conditioning from when he was a kid. His book talks about that, you know...how his parents were all about the sub serving the dom, no mention of caring or support. And how it's the responsibility of dom children to take care of their mother."
Only a slight furrowing of the brow betrayed how troubling Brian found this. "That can't be good. Even dom kids are still just kids."
"I don't know how much of it is real," admitted Jon. "It might just be him rewriting history to the way he thinks it's supposed to be. But if he really was in an environment where there was no support for a sub kid at all...."
He took a gulp of his drink to avoid finishing the thought, but his dom finished it for him. "You still want to set him up with someone."
Jon shrugged awkwardly. "Even if he would let me, I wouldn't know where to start. It wouldn't be enough just to find someone firm and caring — they'd have to be really sensitive to his needs, because he doesn't think a good sub is ever supposed to say no. And of course it would have to be someone he trusted in the first place, which throws the whole thing for a loop."
Brian considered this, then set his plate aside and folded his hands. "That's not quite true," he observed. "He trusts you."
Jon looked up in shock, searching his dom's deadpan expression for some hint that this wasn't going where it seemed to be going.
"I'm not a switch," he stammered at last. He had never even felt the urge to experiment, unless you counted giggly games of Truth Or Dare in the subs' cabin at the very Jewy camp his mother had shipped him off to for a few summers. Or that one time in college, but, come on, everyone had that one time in college, right? "And, okay, I'm not what you'd call perfectly straight, but Stephen's the straightest sub I know."
"That's not quite what I was thinking." Brian smiled sheepishly. "To be honest, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me. I know this is sexist, but I still have that knee-jerk reaction of wondering what two subs can do together."
"Well, if I understand the porn correctly — and I think that I do," added Jon, his faux-smug tone earning an appreciative smirk from across the table — "they do whatever the dom sitting next to the bed tells them to do."
Still smirking, Brian raised his eyebrows.
Jon made several faces in quick succession. They must have been quite something, because a muscle in Brian's cheek twitched, which was as close as he got to bursting out laughing.
"If I'm being a horrible chauvinist," he added gently, "we can certainly drop the subject and never speak of it again. I just wanted you to be aware that the option's open."
"Such a gentledom," sighed Jon, feeling better as he did. Sure, maybe his heart was making a formidable attempt to bang its way out of his ribcage, but at least he could still snark.
"I'm not doing this because it was an order, you know."
"Technically, I'm not either."
"Well, I'm not doing it to be rewarded, either," huffed Stephen. "And Brian will reward you, I know he will. This is entirely out of the goodness of my heart, because you asked nicely and I, in my infinite generosity, made the independent decision to help you out."
"I appreciate it, sir," said Jon mildly.
Stephen winced. "You — you don't have to call me 'sir'," he muttered. Not because he thought he was on Jon's level — that would be stupid. It was just a matter of respect for Brian, that was all.
"Sorry. Figure of speech." Jon braked as he rounded the corner, pulling the van slowly into place across the street from the picket line. "You want to handle the coffee or the donuts?"
In spite of his bulky coat, heavy sweatpants, and terribly imposing bursting-with-fur boots, Stephen froze.
Decisions! Why did there have to be so many decisions? At least on days the show aired, there would be somebody coordinating his wardrobe and sending up his lunch and politely insisting that he please be on stage no less than twenty minutes late for the time they were scheduled to tape, leaving him free to shout the opinions that Papa Bear or the President had explained were the right ones. Today he had drained his reservoir of choice-making power before he finished breakfast, and he had no idea what The Decider's opinion was on the relative merits of serving donuts versus coffee....
"Actually, scratch that," said Jon, voice low and certain, while his own gloved hand clamped firmly down on Stephen's wrist. "I'll — I mean — Brian told me to pass out the donuts. So I guess it's been decided for you."
"I guess," echoed Stephen. His collar, which as far as he could feel had briefly gotten the notion to turn itself into a cloud, resumed its regular density and settled back into place on his neck. "Well, can't sit here all day! Let's do this thing."
Once Jon had opened the trunk, Stephen perched on the van's back bumper, pouring out cupfuls of steaming water to mix with packets of instant coffee and hot chocolate. Jon grabbed the topmost box of donuts from the stack and headed for the line of writers, then looked over his shoulder. "Don't start on the others until the whole line's gotten a chance."
"Yes, s—"
Stephen choked mid-obeisance, casting a quick glance at the nearest gaggle of striking deadbeats to make sure they hadn't heard. Jon, who couldn't have missed it, didn't point it out; he just nodded before turning his attention to whether there were any cars coming down the street.
And if his cheeks seemed a bit pinker, well, the air was pretty frosty out here. That was probably all it meant.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: D/s; mild religious content; gratuitous meta
Disclaimers: This is a work of parody. Although references is made to real persons, places, and events, the dialog, actions, and content are products of the author's imagination only. Fictional characters are property of The Colbert Report and its writers. All LJ usernames are fictional. Any resemblance to real LJ users, active or strikethrough'd, is purely coincidental.
Summary: Fic as written within the D/s 'verse of
sarcasticsra's The Way Things Need To Be. Jon learns the story behind Stephen's collar, and BriWi comes up with a plan.Prologue | Part 1 |
The Sword In His Mouth
Part 2
So, tonight, I would like to be the first candidate to make my position clear. I am not running for President. I am running for President Bush. Why? Because I would be crazy to let anyone have that kind of power over me.
—The Wørd, October 31, 2007
"You're a priest?"
The priesthood. Europe's great historical refuge for sex-and-gender outcasts of all kinds: switches who didn't want to be forced into one gender all their lives, gay doms who got socially sanctioned fulfillment out of a relationship with their Heavenly Dom, abused subs who could no longer tolerate the attentions of doms on Earth.
In retrospect, Jon wondered why it hadn't occurred to him sooner.
Flipping the clerical collar back over, Stephen shook his head. "I — I'm not ordained."
If Jon hadn't already been squished on Stephen's dusty floor, he would have had to sit down in a hurry. Jewish born and bred though he was, he still knew there were some things you Just Don't Do. "You're impersonating a member of the clergy?"
"No!" Stephen clutched the torque defiantly to his chest. "It's not impersonation if nobody knows about it!"
"So you're secretly impersonating a member of the clergy." Jon rubbed his temples, trying to stop his head from spinning. "Doesn't that sort of...I don't know, defeat the purpose?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Jon. The point isn't to pretend the Church is Domming me, just that somebody is. You know there are places a su...someone like me can't walk alone at night without a collar."
"I went without one for the last ten years," countered Jon, one hand reflexively going to the not-yet-familiar white gold at his own neck. "I managed."
"Yeah, well, you're — you're you," said Stephen bitterly. "If someone tried to dom you on a dark street, you'd probably — how did you put it? — 'smack them.'"
"Hell yeah, I would! Being a sub doesn't mean I'm going to roll over for every arrogant dom who thinks...."
Jon trailed off. Stephen's hands were clenched around the ends of the clerical collar so ferociously that the knuckles had gone white. A lesser metal would have bent under the strain.
"Stephen...I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"What are you talking about?" snapped Stephen, voice cracking. "I didn't. That's how I know I'm not a sub: because I couldn't just shut up and obey properly. You see, Jon? And this doesn't invalidate my gender identity!" he added, poking the collar against Jon's upper arm. "The Church is still the sub of Christ. Even for the doms."
Shaking his head, Jon rested a hand on his friend's knee. "Stephen, this isn't right. You can be a sub without being a doormat. All you need is a dom who respects you. Someone who can take care of you, someone—"
"I'm taking care of myself!" snapped Stephen, turning the collar over and sliding it back around his neck. "I've gotten along fine with this much domming so far, haven't I? I don't need any more."
Well, never let it be said that Jon Stewart thought a sub couldn't be happy without a dom. "Okay, okay, dropping it. But, listen, if you ever do need anything — if you want to try being set up with someone, or if you just want to talk — I'm always here."
Stephen tugged at his shirt until the dark metal was nearly concealed. "Jon," he said, with the air of one bestowing a great compliment, "I appreciate the offer. You're so competent, sometimes I almost forget you're a sub."
A good mother cooks, cleans, drives, organizes charity events so their children earn community service points for college, and is always ready with dinner and a foot rub when their dom gets home from work. So, a word to all you "submissive rights activists": Stop "liberating" moms by trying to make them join the workforce.
—I Am America (And So Can You!)
"So I have good news," said Jon over lasagna that night. "Stephen doesn't have a neglectful dom."
"Oh, fantastic!" exclaimed Brian. Then, frowning, he did his patented news-anchor-lean-in across the table. "What's the bad news?"
"Uh. I suppose that would be the fact that he doesn't have a good dom, either. And don't ask me what's going on," he added quickly. "It's not my story to tell."
"Understood."
With that, Brian sat back and waited. He was perceptive enough to know when Jon wanted to say more, and, much to Jon's appreciation, savvy enough not to go digging. Any type of prying only made Jon instinctively clam up, deflecting questions with wisecracks. Silence, on the other hand, gave him space.
"I'm still worried about him," said Jon at last, an image of Stephen huddled under the desk flashing through his mind. "I can't shake the feeling that he's had a bad experience. That, or it's really strong conditioning from when he was a kid. His book talks about that, you know...how his parents were all about the sub serving the dom, no mention of caring or support. And how it's the responsibility of dom children to take care of their mother."
Only a slight furrowing of the brow betrayed how troubling Brian found this. "That can't be good. Even dom kids are still just kids."
"I don't know how much of it is real," admitted Jon. "It might just be him rewriting history to the way he thinks it's supposed to be. But if he really was in an environment where there was no support for a sub kid at all...."
He took a gulp of his drink to avoid finishing the thought, but his dom finished it for him. "You still want to set him up with someone."
Jon shrugged awkwardly. "Even if he would let me, I wouldn't know where to start. It wouldn't be enough just to find someone firm and caring — they'd have to be really sensitive to his needs, because he doesn't think a good sub is ever supposed to say no. And of course it would have to be someone he trusted in the first place, which throws the whole thing for a loop."
Brian considered this, then set his plate aside and folded his hands. "That's not quite true," he observed. "He trusts you."
Jon looked up in shock, searching his dom's deadpan expression for some hint that this wasn't going where it seemed to be going.
"I'm not a switch," he stammered at last. He had never even felt the urge to experiment, unless you counted giggly games of Truth Or Dare in the subs' cabin at the very Jewy camp his mother had shipped him off to for a few summers. Or that one time in college, but, come on, everyone had that one time in college, right? "And, okay, I'm not what you'd call perfectly straight, but Stephen's the straightest sub I know."
"That's not quite what I was thinking." Brian smiled sheepishly. "To be honest, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me. I know this is sexist, but I still have that knee-jerk reaction of wondering what two subs can do together."
"Well, if I understand the porn correctly — and I think that I do," added Jon, his faux-smug tone earning an appreciative smirk from across the table — "they do whatever the dom sitting next to the bed tells them to do."
Still smirking, Brian raised his eyebrows.
Jon made several faces in quick succession. They must have been quite something, because a muscle in Brian's cheek twitched, which was as close as he got to bursting out laughing.
"If I'm being a horrible chauvinist," he added gently, "we can certainly drop the subject and never speak of it again. I just wanted you to be aware that the option's open."
"Such a gentledom," sighed Jon, feeling better as he did. Sure, maybe his heart was making a formidable attempt to bang its way out of his ribcage, but at least he could still snark.
"I'm not doing this because it was an order, you know."
"Technically, I'm not either."
"Well, I'm not doing it to be rewarded, either," huffed Stephen. "And Brian will reward you, I know he will. This is entirely out of the goodness of my heart, because you asked nicely and I, in my infinite generosity, made the independent decision to help you out."
"I appreciate it, sir," said Jon mildly.
Stephen winced. "You — you don't have to call me 'sir'," he muttered. Not because he thought he was on Jon's level — that would be stupid. It was just a matter of respect for Brian, that was all.
"Sorry. Figure of speech." Jon braked as he rounded the corner, pulling the van slowly into place across the street from the picket line. "You want to handle the coffee or the donuts?"
In spite of his bulky coat, heavy sweatpants, and terribly imposing bursting-with-fur boots, Stephen froze.
Decisions! Why did there have to be so many decisions? At least on days the show aired, there would be somebody coordinating his wardrobe and sending up his lunch and politely insisting that he please be on stage no less than twenty minutes late for the time they were scheduled to tape, leaving him free to shout the opinions that Papa Bear or the President had explained were the right ones. Today he had drained his reservoir of choice-making power before he finished breakfast, and he had no idea what The Decider's opinion was on the relative merits of serving donuts versus coffee....
"Actually, scratch that," said Jon, voice low and certain, while his own gloved hand clamped firmly down on Stephen's wrist. "I'll — I mean — Brian told me to pass out the donuts. So I guess it's been decided for you."
"I guess," echoed Stephen. His collar, which as far as he could feel had briefly gotten the notion to turn itself into a cloud, resumed its regular density and settled back into place on his neck. "Well, can't sit here all day! Let's do this thing."
Once Jon had opened the trunk, Stephen perched on the van's back bumper, pouring out cupfuls of steaming water to mix with packets of instant coffee and hot chocolate. Jon grabbed the topmost box of donuts from the stack and headed for the line of writers, then looked over his shoulder. "Don't start on the others until the whole line's gotten a chance."
"Yes, s—"
Stephen choked mid-obeisance, casting a quick glance at the nearest gaggle of striking deadbeats to make sure they hadn't heard. Jon, who couldn't have missed it, didn't point it out; he just nodded before turning his attention to whether there were any cars coming down the street.
And if his cheeks seemed a bit pinker, well, the air was pretty frosty out here. That was probably all it meant.
no subject
Sweetness! Awesome. I am excited.
And yeah, wow. Like wwanda down there, I'm amazed that you can keep this all sorted out in your brain. This is my favorite universe ever, to the point where I will read D/s verse fic for fandoms I've never even heard of, and it still confuses the heck out of me sometimes.