Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2010-11-05 01:11 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2010-11-05 01:11 pm
Entry tags:
Fake News: State of Grace, chapter 25
Title: State of Grace, Chapter 25: With A Little Help From My Friends
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See the table of contents.
Clips referenced: a young Tek Jansen; trauma at Starbucks; the fake Emmy win; the former Colbert/Carell arrangement. Plus one more callback to The Robert Report.
With A Little Help From My Friends
September 11, 2007
Tuesday
"And here's another one! The worst one yet! Twenty feet of blank wall with not a picture of me in sight! It's an outrage, I tell you!"
Tad would have been perfectly content to review the studio's portraits of Stephen without company. But his boss had somehow gotten the idea that it was far too important a task to be left to a lowly senior staffer, so the process was taking all morning, mostly because of Stephen's need to stop and shout for five minutes every time he found a new gap.
"What kind of portrait would you like to be placed here?" he asked, trying to gently nudge Stephen towards the end of his unvarying rant.
"What if someone got lost in here?" demanded Stephen, ignoring Tad's valiant effort. "What if someone ended up standing right here and didn't know where to go? How would they even know whose studio they were in?"
Maybe they could look ten feet to the left, thought Tad. By now, though, he was more than familiar enough with his boss to know that it would be futile to mention this out loud. To be fair, Stephen wasn't as jittery as he had been right before the break—and he certainly wasn't the terrifying wreck that had nearly made half the staff quit in the two days before he was hospitalized—but neither was he at his most stable, and Tad had no wish to be the one who next pushed him over theedge.
"It's ridiculous!" continued Stephen. "If there's no indication on the walls of who the host is, this could be anybody's studio! Letterman's! Conan's! Olbermann's!"
Stewart's, added Tad to himself, though he wouldn't have said that out loud for a million dollars.
"Something with an eagle," Stephen declared.
Tad jumped. "Ah, was that to me?"
"Yes, that was to you! I want a picture of me with an eagle. Right here. No, better make it here. That way we can put a second me over—" He gasped, gritted his teeth. "Not a second me. A second picture. Of the same me. It's all me."
"Of course it is," said Tad. The sooner Stephen was secure on this point, the sooner he would move on. "And what should the second picture be?"
Stephen actually fell silent to consider this.
"A nice big portrait of Tek Jansen," he said at last. "Something with aliens. And things blowing up."
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
September 13, 2007
Thursday
Being asked to step into the boss's office was like being sent to the principal: it only happened when you had done something wrong. Of course, at the Report this often meant that something had gone wrong and the boss had found a way to blame you.
"Maybe it won't be that bad," said Tad hopefully. "What does your Stephen-sense tell you?"
"It doesn't think he's mad," admitted Bobby. "But it's been on the fritz lately. I figured he would be thrilled with yesterday's Tek Jansen, and look how that turned out."
The episode, first in a serial, had been all about how Tek stopped being an awkward, gangly, nervous young boy and started on his journey to become the most super-awesome spectacular man in the galaxy. Stephen lived for this stuff. And, yes, the wise old mentor figure who had gotten blown up in the second half was voiced by Stewart, but since Stephen had both written the script and cast the voices, that shouldn't have bothered him. Should it?
"Ah," said Tad. "Well, if he fires you, we can always just elope."
"And then we'd both be broke and unemployed."
"We could manage! The market for guitar-bassoon duos can't be too crowded."
"Since when are you this reckless?"
Tad shrugged. "I suspect you're a bad influence."
Bobby smiled in spite of himself. "Just in case I don't make it back," he said, and pulled his fiancé into a light kiss before pulling away and entering Stephen's office.
"That was pathetic!" whispered Tad after him. "Now you have to come back alive!"
And then the door was closed, leaving him alone to face Stephen.
"You wanted to see me?" prompted Bobby cautiously. His boss looked subdued—glum, even—but at the moment Bobby didn't trust his own ability to judge what would set the man off.
"Yeah," said Stephen quietly. "Sit down."
There was a chair in front of his desk. Not a battered folding chair with metal bits sticking out at painful angles, or an overturned apple crate, or a "nothing's there, Bobby, why didn't you think to bring a chair of your own?", but an actual, honest-to-goodness chair. Bobby tried not to look flabbergasted as he took it.
"I don't know if you've noticed," continued Stephen, drumming his fingers on the mahogany, "but I've been having a rough time of it lately."
"I did have an inkling," admitted Bobby.
Stephen winced. "Well, it's going to get better. Eventually. But maybe not for a while. It's just, you see...being with Jon, and taking care of George...it's stirred up a lot of things that I thought I had under control, and...."
Shame? Internalized homophobia? Doubt in his skills as a parent? Anger over the years wasted trying to be straight? Fear of the earth-shattering implications of loving someone else more than his own life?
"I have PTSD," blurted Stephen.
That hadn't even been on Bobby's list.
"Don't tell anyone?" added Stephen plaintively. "They'll just laugh. Or say things like 'Where does Colbert get off, thinking he has PTSD? The most traumatic thing he's ever been through is getting held up in a long line at Starbucks.'"
"They wouldn't all say that," protested Bobby, though he was uncomfortably aware that the vast majority would. "A few of us were working at The Daily Show on 9/11. For that matter, plenty of us remember the ghost."
"'S true," allowed Stephen. "But those were group things...all of us in it together, you know. This was different, and it was personal, and I was alone, and...."
He trailed off, eyes shining.
"You don't have to talk about it," said Bobby quickly. "Not that I want to contribute to the culture of victim silence by making you feel ashamed to break it! But I also don't want to propagate the notion that your experiences are up for public consumption, especially since exhibitionist tendencies in survivors are so often exploited. Mind you, I'm not saying exhibitionism is not a legitimate kink in and of itself...."
"Who said anything about kinks?" yelped Stephen.
"N-no one! Sorry."
"That's better." Stephen folded his arms. "I didn't call you in here to talk about it, all right? I just wanted you to know. So if I make demands that seem a little weird, you'll figure that maybe it's because there's a trigger, and help me avoid it. Or if I act strangely, if, say, it looks like I'm regressing or something, you'll understand that I can't control it, and keep an eye on me. That's all."
"Sure thing, boss. I understand."
"Good," huffed Stephen. "You can go."
Bobby half rose from his chair, then made a snap decision. "Actually, Stephen...? A couple of us are going out for drinks after the show tonight. Would you like to join us?"
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
September 15, 2007
Saturday
As the plane taxied effortlessly down the runway, Charlene settled back in her first-class practically-an-armchair and let the thrumming of the engines run through her bones.
There was still ground right below them, but in her mind's eye she could already see the endless expanses of cloud. In a few hours she would be on the other side of the country, with nothing but a small bag and the money in her wallet.
"Charlene?"
Stephen, meanwhile, had dedicated an entire suitcase to his tuxedo and the surrounding cocoon of tissue paper. One of these days Charlene was going to have to give her cousin lessons in packing light.
"Charlene?" repeated Stephen, reaching across the broad armrests to poke her on the shoulder. "Can I practice my acceptance speech on you?"
"Sure, Steve."
"It's Stephen."
"You didn't mind 'Steve' the other day."
"That was then and this is now," said Stephen primly. "Do you want this special sneak preview or not?"
Come to think of it, he hadn't called her 'Charlie' since then, either. Maybe it was some kind of mood swing? She made a mental note to ask about it when they were back in town. "I do. Let's hear it."
"Of course you do." Clearing his throat, Stephen held up his hands to cradle an imaginary statuette. "I'd like to thank the Academy, for finally recognizing, after their atrocious slip-up last year, that I deserve this award. But really, folks, I would be remiss if I did not recognize all the hard work that has gone into this program. I'm talking about my work, of course. The work from me."
Charlene waited patiently for the next line; then realized that Stephen seemed to have frozen, except for a twitch around the eyes. "Forgot your line?"
"What?" stuttered Stephen. "I mean...yes! Yes, that's exactly...I...Charlene?"
"Yes?"
Stephen's mouth worked noiselessly for a moment; then he sighed through his teeth. "Did I pack my...you know...?" He mimed unscrewing the top of a bottle.
"Of course," Charlene assured him. It was the second time he had asked. Third if you counted the note she had found stuck in her hairbrush, the one in the over-careful print written against the lines of the paper, urging her to remind him. "I checked twice. Don't worry yourself about it."
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
September 16, 2007
Sunday
As usual, Nancy snuck out of the ceremony a few speeches before the end. All of Steve's categories had come and gone, and she wanted to beat the post-awards rush for the bathroom.
She was heading across the still-empty lobby when a familiar voice exclaimed, "Has anyone ever told you you look exactly like Nancy Walls, except older?"
"That's funny," said Nancy, already grinning as she turned around. "Because you sound eerily like Stephen Colbert, only even more of a los—oh, geez, are you okay?"
"Head hurts," admitted Stephen, though his visage wasn't so much pained as washed out, like a watercolor someone had left in the sun. "How could they give it to Bennett? They have no idea how hard we...." He trailed off, eyes drifting briefly out of focus. "Is the room supposed to be zooming in and out like that?"
"All right, you, come on." Linking her arm through Stephen's, Nancy steered him towards one of the doors. "I'm meeting Steve here in a minute, then we can all go get properly wasted somewhere without any cameras. Is your wife around?"
"She's not my wife," muttered Stephen, his gait steadying as he leaned against Nancy's side. "She's my cousin."
"Okay, we definitely need to get you out of here," said Nancy. "You can't just go around saying things like that. People find out you're unattached, they might take advantage of you."
Steve was already waiting by the palm trees when they arrived, hair just starting to unstick enough that the cool night breeze tossed strands of it around. He caught the sound of Nancy's gait and smiled, then went stiff and upright when he spotted the man she was leading.
"Colbert," he said, in the sort of tone the President might have used when running into him after a certain dinner.
"Carell," echoed Stephen, squaring his own shoulders and matching the forced formality icicle for icicle. "Nice fake award you got tonight."
"Well, Stephen, it's better than no awards at all."
"Don't forget, Steve, that I gave you yours in the first place. A little gratitude might be in order."
"Is that so. Because I seem to recall it being Jon Stewart's decision. You know—the man who always wins more than you."
"Don't try to impress me with numbers. I can still render Jon Stewart completely invisible simply by standing in front of him. Kind of like the way your balls seem to disappear when put next to mine."
"Is that how we're going to play this, Colbert? I see you're still bitter that you're not allowed to fuck my wife anymore."
"Not as bitter as you are that you're not allowed to fuck me anymore."
Steve glowered, stony-faced as a granite cliffside. Stephen matched that too, except that his cliff came with finely arching eyebrows.
"Now, boys," chided Nancy, beaming sunnily at her two companions. "You know the rules. No eye-fucking in the streets. You'll frighten the horses."
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
"Excuse me...Mrs. Colbert?"
"Just 'Charlene', please," said Charlene, who had spent the past twenty minutes dodging microphones held by people that eyed her dress like it was a cream tart, and getting more and more anxious all the while. "And you're Bobby, right?"
The man with the thick glasses and a distinct lack of trophy labeled Outstanding Variety, Musical or Comedy Series did a double-take. "You remembered? It took Stephen eight months to get that down."
"Stephen's not good with faces that aren't his," said Charlene ruefully. "Have you seen him, by the way?"
"Uh-oh. That's what I was just about to ask you."
Charlene shook her head. "Not since his last category. He told me he had a headache and needed some air, and he never made it back."
Bobby tugged nervously at the cuffs of his slightly awkward suit. "And he hasn't called, or...."
"Uh." Charlene blushed. "Would you believe I forgot that I have a phone? Hang on." She dug through the minature bag to retrieve the even more miniature phone (normally it felt like a tether, but she was suddenly relieved that Stephen had insisted). Sure enough, there was one new text from Stephen, which she showed to Bobby: with steve and nancy. don't wait up. "That wouldn't be the same Steve he and Jon decided to present the award to, would it?"
"Yeah, that's him," said Bobby, looking relieved. "And Nancy's his wife."
"So that's good, right?"
"Well, ah, it should be fine," stammered Bobby. "Steve and Stephen have kind of a weird relationship, or at least they did when we all worked together. One minute they would be at each other's throats, disagreeing on everything, then the next thing you know they were backing each other up. Through some really rough times, no less. After a while you got the impression the fighting didn't mean anything."
And didn't that sound familiar. "Thanks for your help, Bobby. Will you excuse me? I've got to go make a call."
◊ · § · ◊ · § · ◊
Jon had just finished congratulating everyone in his ever-more-award-winning cast and crew when Charlene descended. She had a lead on Stephen, but he wasn't answering his phone; since there wasn't a quiet corner in the building, Jon and Tracey ended up following her into one of the limos that were lined up outside.
"He's probably okay, but it can't hurt to check," said Jon, as much to himself as to his nervous companions, as he watched his phone attempt to ring Steve. "And, uh, I should probably mention...Steve and Nancy and Stephen and Lorraine...they used to have, well, an arrangement."
This drew a nod of understanding from Charlene and a puzzled frown from Tracey. "Does it matter? You don't think he would—"
"It's not that I don't trust him," said Jon quickly. Steve hadn't picked up; he switched to Nancy's number and crossed his fingers. "It's just, well, he's vulnerable right now, and lately he's been..."
Charlene picked up the end of the sentence: "...unstable."
Each looked sharply at the other. "You know?" blurted Jon, at the same time as Charlene exclaimed, "He told you?"
Tracey sat back with a resigned sigh. "Any time somebody wants to tell me what's going on...."
"Hi!" chirped Steve's tinny voice. "This is Steve Carell's Celebrity Answering Service. The person you are trying to call is not available at the moment...."
"In a minute, babe," whispered Jon, then snapped into the phone, "Carell, if you're jerking me around—"
"Would I do that to the man who got me a fake Emmy?" deadpanned Steve. "Sorry I didn't get a chance to catch up, but some of us non-real-winners had to go lick our wounds in private."
"Hey, I would play the world's tiniest violin for you, but it would be on basic cable, so nobody would see. Is Stephen with you?"
Charlene leaned close to the phone; Jon tilted it so that she could hear Steve's reply: "That he is."
Jon breathed a sigh of relief. "Where are you guys?"
"Sorry, Jon. This is a private party."
Was it too late to take back that sigh? "Can I at least talk to him?"
"No can do. He and Nancy are occupado. If you know what I mean."
"You know he's remarried, right?" stammered Jon, grasping for the one socially-acceptable, quickly-explained, instantly-believable reason to keep Tyrone (if it was Tyrone; if there weren't some other, straighter alter lurking even further back in Stephen's head) out of If-You-Know-What-I-Mean territory.
"Sure do," said Steve cheerfully. "You know she's a beard, right?"
As Jon's blood ran cold, Charlene motioned for the phone. Jon tilted it towards her, their ears almost pressed together on either side of it. "Mr. Carell? It's Charlene Colbert. The, um, the beard."
"Mrs. Colbert! Good to meet you." Steve's voice dropped half an octave. "Stephen says you're lovely."
"Thanks." Charlene sucked in a breath. "Mr. Carell, Stephen's on some medication. He needs a couple of pills every evening. If you were planning on keeping him overnight, I need to stop by and drop them off."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" exclaimed Steve. "Our hotel is...."
Jon repeated the address under his breath a couple of times. When the call ended, he went over it again to Tracey, who sat across from them with her head beside the window to the driver's seat. "Tell 'em to go straight there."
"After stopping by ours," added Charlene.
"What? Why?"
Frowning, Charlene held up her tiny purse. "You don't think I carry his meds around in this thing, do you?"
"Wait, he's actually on something?" What could it be? The scan for kidney stones had come back clean, and there wasn't any medication that turned off DID....
"You mean he didn't tell you?" Charlene looked about as flabbergasted as Jon felt. "Then what did you think I meant?"
"I—well—I, uh—"
They were cut off by Tracey clearing her throat. Loudly.
When she had silence in the cabin, Tracey slid open the window to the front of the cabin and repeated the address of the Comedy Central hotel. "And drive slowly, all right?"
Shoving it closed with a firm click, she turned back to Jon and Charlene, fixing them each in turn with a look that took no prisoners. "Now, I think both of you have some explaining to do."
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See the table of contents.
Clips referenced: a young Tek Jansen; trauma at Starbucks; the fake Emmy win; the former Colbert/Carell arrangement. Plus one more callback to The Robert Report.
With A Little Help From My Friends
September 11, 2007
Tuesday
"And here's another one! The worst one yet! Twenty feet of blank wall with not a picture of me in sight! It's an outrage, I tell you!"
Tad would have been perfectly content to review the studio's portraits of Stephen without company. But his boss had somehow gotten the idea that it was far too important a task to be left to a lowly senior staffer, so the process was taking all morning, mostly because of Stephen's need to stop and shout for five minutes every time he found a new gap.
"What kind of portrait would you like to be placed here?" he asked, trying to gently nudge Stephen towards the end of his unvarying rant.
"What if someone got lost in here?" demanded Stephen, ignoring Tad's valiant effort. "What if someone ended up standing right here and didn't know where to go? How would they even know whose studio they were in?"
Maybe they could look ten feet to the left, thought Tad. By now, though, he was more than familiar enough with his boss to know that it would be futile to mention this out loud. To be fair, Stephen wasn't as jittery as he had been right before the break—and he certainly wasn't the terrifying wreck that had nearly made half the staff quit in the two days before he was hospitalized—but neither was he at his most stable, and Tad had no wish to be the one who next pushed him over theedge.
"It's ridiculous!" continued Stephen. "If there's no indication on the walls of who the host is, this could be anybody's studio! Letterman's! Conan's! Olbermann's!"
Stewart's, added Tad to himself, though he wouldn't have said that out loud for a million dollars.
"Something with an eagle," Stephen declared.
Tad jumped. "Ah, was that to me?"
"Yes, that was to you! I want a picture of me with an eagle. Right here. No, better make it here. That way we can put a second me over—" He gasped, gritted his teeth. "Not a second me. A second picture. Of the same me. It's all me."
"Of course it is," said Tad. The sooner Stephen was secure on this point, the sooner he would move on. "And what should the second picture be?"
Stephen actually fell silent to consider this.
"A nice big portrait of Tek Jansen," he said at last. "Something with aliens. And things blowing up."
September 13, 2007
Thursday
Being asked to step into the boss's office was like being sent to the principal: it only happened when you had done something wrong. Of course, at the Report this often meant that something had gone wrong and the boss had found a way to blame you.
"Maybe it won't be that bad," said Tad hopefully. "What does your Stephen-sense tell you?"
"It doesn't think he's mad," admitted Bobby. "But it's been on the fritz lately. I figured he would be thrilled with yesterday's Tek Jansen, and look how that turned out."
The episode, first in a serial, had been all about how Tek stopped being an awkward, gangly, nervous young boy and started on his journey to become the most super-awesome spectacular man in the galaxy. Stephen lived for this stuff. And, yes, the wise old mentor figure who had gotten blown up in the second half was voiced by Stewart, but since Stephen had both written the script and cast the voices, that shouldn't have bothered him. Should it?
"Ah," said Tad. "Well, if he fires you, we can always just elope."
"And then we'd both be broke and unemployed."
"We could manage! The market for guitar-bassoon duos can't be too crowded."
"Since when are you this reckless?"
Tad shrugged. "I suspect you're a bad influence."
Bobby smiled in spite of himself. "Just in case I don't make it back," he said, and pulled his fiancé into a light kiss before pulling away and entering Stephen's office.
"That was pathetic!" whispered Tad after him. "Now you have to come back alive!"
And then the door was closed, leaving him alone to face Stephen.
"You wanted to see me?" prompted Bobby cautiously. His boss looked subdued—glum, even—but at the moment Bobby didn't trust his own ability to judge what would set the man off.
"Yeah," said Stephen quietly. "Sit down."
There was a chair in front of his desk. Not a battered folding chair with metal bits sticking out at painful angles, or an overturned apple crate, or a "nothing's there, Bobby, why didn't you think to bring a chair of your own?", but an actual, honest-to-goodness chair. Bobby tried not to look flabbergasted as he took it.
"I don't know if you've noticed," continued Stephen, drumming his fingers on the mahogany, "but I've been having a rough time of it lately."
"I did have an inkling," admitted Bobby.
Stephen winced. "Well, it's going to get better. Eventually. But maybe not for a while. It's just, you see...being with Jon, and taking care of George...it's stirred up a lot of things that I thought I had under control, and...."
Shame? Internalized homophobia? Doubt in his skills as a parent? Anger over the years wasted trying to be straight? Fear of the earth-shattering implications of loving someone else more than his own life?
"I have PTSD," blurted Stephen.
That hadn't even been on Bobby's list.
"Don't tell anyone?" added Stephen plaintively. "They'll just laugh. Or say things like 'Where does Colbert get off, thinking he has PTSD? The most traumatic thing he's ever been through is getting held up in a long line at Starbucks.'"
"They wouldn't all say that," protested Bobby, though he was uncomfortably aware that the vast majority would. "A few of us were working at The Daily Show on 9/11. For that matter, plenty of us remember the ghost."
"'S true," allowed Stephen. "But those were group things...all of us in it together, you know. This was different, and it was personal, and I was alone, and...."
He trailed off, eyes shining.
"You don't have to talk about it," said Bobby quickly. "Not that I want to contribute to the culture of victim silence by making you feel ashamed to break it! But I also don't want to propagate the notion that your experiences are up for public consumption, especially since exhibitionist tendencies in survivors are so often exploited. Mind you, I'm not saying exhibitionism is not a legitimate kink in and of itself...."
"Who said anything about kinks?" yelped Stephen.
"N-no one! Sorry."
"That's better." Stephen folded his arms. "I didn't call you in here to talk about it, all right? I just wanted you to know. So if I make demands that seem a little weird, you'll figure that maybe it's because there's a trigger, and help me avoid it. Or if I act strangely, if, say, it looks like I'm regressing or something, you'll understand that I can't control it, and keep an eye on me. That's all."
"Sure thing, boss. I understand."
"Good," huffed Stephen. "You can go."
Bobby half rose from his chair, then made a snap decision. "Actually, Stephen...? A couple of us are going out for drinks after the show tonight. Would you like to join us?"
September 15, 2007
Saturday
As the plane taxied effortlessly down the runway, Charlene settled back in her first-class practically-an-armchair and let the thrumming of the engines run through her bones.
There was still ground right below them, but in her mind's eye she could already see the endless expanses of cloud. In a few hours she would be on the other side of the country, with nothing but a small bag and the money in her wallet.
"Charlene?"
Stephen, meanwhile, had dedicated an entire suitcase to his tuxedo and the surrounding cocoon of tissue paper. One of these days Charlene was going to have to give her cousin lessons in packing light.
"Charlene?" repeated Stephen, reaching across the broad armrests to poke her on the shoulder. "Can I practice my acceptance speech on you?"
"Sure, Steve."
"It's Stephen."
"You didn't mind 'Steve' the other day."
"That was then and this is now," said Stephen primly. "Do you want this special sneak preview or not?"
Come to think of it, he hadn't called her 'Charlie' since then, either. Maybe it was some kind of mood swing? She made a mental note to ask about it when they were back in town. "I do. Let's hear it."
"Of course you do." Clearing his throat, Stephen held up his hands to cradle an imaginary statuette. "I'd like to thank the Academy, for finally recognizing, after their atrocious slip-up last year, that I deserve this award. But really, folks, I would be remiss if I did not recognize all the hard work that has gone into this program. I'm talking about my work, of course. The work from me."
Charlene waited patiently for the next line; then realized that Stephen seemed to have frozen, except for a twitch around the eyes. "Forgot your line?"
"What?" stuttered Stephen. "I mean...yes! Yes, that's exactly...I...Charlene?"
"Yes?"
Stephen's mouth worked noiselessly for a moment; then he sighed through his teeth. "Did I pack my...you know...?" He mimed unscrewing the top of a bottle.
"Of course," Charlene assured him. It was the second time he had asked. Third if you counted the note she had found stuck in her hairbrush, the one in the over-careful print written against the lines of the paper, urging her to remind him. "I checked twice. Don't worry yourself about it."
September 16, 2007
Sunday
As usual, Nancy snuck out of the ceremony a few speeches before the end. All of Steve's categories had come and gone, and she wanted to beat the post-awards rush for the bathroom.
She was heading across the still-empty lobby when a familiar voice exclaimed, "Has anyone ever told you you look exactly like Nancy Walls, except older?"
"That's funny," said Nancy, already grinning as she turned around. "Because you sound eerily like Stephen Colbert, only even more of a los—oh, geez, are you okay?"
"Head hurts," admitted Stephen, though his visage wasn't so much pained as washed out, like a watercolor someone had left in the sun. "How could they give it to Bennett? They have no idea how hard we...." He trailed off, eyes drifting briefly out of focus. "Is the room supposed to be zooming in and out like that?"
"All right, you, come on." Linking her arm through Stephen's, Nancy steered him towards one of the doors. "I'm meeting Steve here in a minute, then we can all go get properly wasted somewhere without any cameras. Is your wife around?"
"She's not my wife," muttered Stephen, his gait steadying as he leaned against Nancy's side. "She's my cousin."
"Okay, we definitely need to get you out of here," said Nancy. "You can't just go around saying things like that. People find out you're unattached, they might take advantage of you."
Steve was already waiting by the palm trees when they arrived, hair just starting to unstick enough that the cool night breeze tossed strands of it around. He caught the sound of Nancy's gait and smiled, then went stiff and upright when he spotted the man she was leading.
"Colbert," he said, in the sort of tone the President might have used when running into him after a certain dinner.
"Carell," echoed Stephen, squaring his own shoulders and matching the forced formality icicle for icicle. "Nice fake award you got tonight."
"Well, Stephen, it's better than no awards at all."
"Don't forget, Steve, that I gave you yours in the first place. A little gratitude might be in order."
"Is that so. Because I seem to recall it being Jon Stewart's decision. You know—the man who always wins more than you."
"Don't try to impress me with numbers. I can still render Jon Stewart completely invisible simply by standing in front of him. Kind of like the way your balls seem to disappear when put next to mine."
"Is that how we're going to play this, Colbert? I see you're still bitter that you're not allowed to fuck my wife anymore."
"Not as bitter as you are that you're not allowed to fuck me anymore."
Steve glowered, stony-faced as a granite cliffside. Stephen matched that too, except that his cliff came with finely arching eyebrows.
"Now, boys," chided Nancy, beaming sunnily at her two companions. "You know the rules. No eye-fucking in the streets. You'll frighten the horses."
"Excuse me...Mrs. Colbert?"
"Just 'Charlene', please," said Charlene, who had spent the past twenty minutes dodging microphones held by people that eyed her dress like it was a cream tart, and getting more and more anxious all the while. "And you're Bobby, right?"
The man with the thick glasses and a distinct lack of trophy labeled Outstanding Variety, Musical or Comedy Series did a double-take. "You remembered? It took Stephen eight months to get that down."
"Stephen's not good with faces that aren't his," said Charlene ruefully. "Have you seen him, by the way?"
"Uh-oh. That's what I was just about to ask you."
Charlene shook her head. "Not since his last category. He told me he had a headache and needed some air, and he never made it back."
Bobby tugged nervously at the cuffs of his slightly awkward suit. "And he hasn't called, or...."
"Uh." Charlene blushed. "Would you believe I forgot that I have a phone? Hang on." She dug through the minature bag to retrieve the even more miniature phone (normally it felt like a tether, but she was suddenly relieved that Stephen had insisted). Sure enough, there was one new text from Stephen, which she showed to Bobby: with steve and nancy. don't wait up. "That wouldn't be the same Steve he and Jon decided to present the award to, would it?"
"Yeah, that's him," said Bobby, looking relieved. "And Nancy's his wife."
"So that's good, right?"
"Well, ah, it should be fine," stammered Bobby. "Steve and Stephen have kind of a weird relationship, or at least they did when we all worked together. One minute they would be at each other's throats, disagreeing on everything, then the next thing you know they were backing each other up. Through some really rough times, no less. After a while you got the impression the fighting didn't mean anything."
And didn't that sound familiar. "Thanks for your help, Bobby. Will you excuse me? I've got to go make a call."
Jon had just finished congratulating everyone in his ever-more-award-winning cast and crew when Charlene descended. She had a lead on Stephen, but he wasn't answering his phone; since there wasn't a quiet corner in the building, Jon and Tracey ended up following her into one of the limos that were lined up outside.
"He's probably okay, but it can't hurt to check," said Jon, as much to himself as to his nervous companions, as he watched his phone attempt to ring Steve. "And, uh, I should probably mention...Steve and Nancy and Stephen and Lorraine...they used to have, well, an arrangement."
This drew a nod of understanding from Charlene and a puzzled frown from Tracey. "Does it matter? You don't think he would—"
"It's not that I don't trust him," said Jon quickly. Steve hadn't picked up; he switched to Nancy's number and crossed his fingers. "It's just, well, he's vulnerable right now, and lately he's been..."
Charlene picked up the end of the sentence: "...unstable."
Each looked sharply at the other. "You know?" blurted Jon, at the same time as Charlene exclaimed, "He told you?"
Tracey sat back with a resigned sigh. "Any time somebody wants to tell me what's going on...."
"Hi!" chirped Steve's tinny voice. "This is Steve Carell's Celebrity Answering Service. The person you are trying to call is not available at the moment...."
"In a minute, babe," whispered Jon, then snapped into the phone, "Carell, if you're jerking me around—"
"Would I do that to the man who got me a fake Emmy?" deadpanned Steve. "Sorry I didn't get a chance to catch up, but some of us non-real-winners had to go lick our wounds in private."
"Hey, I would play the world's tiniest violin for you, but it would be on basic cable, so nobody would see. Is Stephen with you?"
Charlene leaned close to the phone; Jon tilted it so that she could hear Steve's reply: "That he is."
Jon breathed a sigh of relief. "Where are you guys?"
"Sorry, Jon. This is a private party."
Was it too late to take back that sigh? "Can I at least talk to him?"
"No can do. He and Nancy are occupado. If you know what I mean."
"You know he's remarried, right?" stammered Jon, grasping for the one socially-acceptable, quickly-explained, instantly-believable reason to keep Tyrone (if it was Tyrone; if there weren't some other, straighter alter lurking even further back in Stephen's head) out of If-You-Know-What-I-Mean territory.
"Sure do," said Steve cheerfully. "You know she's a beard, right?"
As Jon's blood ran cold, Charlene motioned for the phone. Jon tilted it towards her, their ears almost pressed together on either side of it. "Mr. Carell? It's Charlene Colbert. The, um, the beard."
"Mrs. Colbert! Good to meet you." Steve's voice dropped half an octave. "Stephen says you're lovely."
"Thanks." Charlene sucked in a breath. "Mr. Carell, Stephen's on some medication. He needs a couple of pills every evening. If you were planning on keeping him overnight, I need to stop by and drop them off."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" exclaimed Steve. "Our hotel is...."
Jon repeated the address under his breath a couple of times. When the call ended, he went over it again to Tracey, who sat across from them with her head beside the window to the driver's seat. "Tell 'em to go straight there."
"After stopping by ours," added Charlene.
"What? Why?"
Frowning, Charlene held up her tiny purse. "You don't think I carry his meds around in this thing, do you?"
"Wait, he's actually on something?" What could it be? The scan for kidney stones had come back clean, and there wasn't any medication that turned off DID....
"You mean he didn't tell you?" Charlene looked about as flabbergasted as Jon felt. "Then what did you think I meant?"
"I—well—I, uh—"
They were cut off by Tracey clearing her throat. Loudly.
When she had silence in the cabin, Tracey slid open the window to the front of the cabin and repeated the address of the Comedy Central hotel. "And drive slowly, all right?"
Shoving it closed with a firm click, she turned back to Jon and Charlene, fixing them each in turn with a look that took no prisoners. "Now, I think both of you have some explaining to do."
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I love the way you write Steve and Nancy. That said, I was holding my breath waiting for disaster to strike in the way Stephen interacted with them. (And I'm still not convinced that disaster has been avoided.)
So now Jon and Charlene are going to have to explain, and Tracey's going to be in on it too. Stephen won't like it, but really, it seems like it's a good thing at this point (both for Jon and Charlene, who won't have to carry around their respective secrets alone anymore, and for Stephen, though he would never ever admit it--but how can they help him and give him the care he needs if they don't know the full story?).
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Steve and Nancy are fun. But your instincts are spot-on -- the Even Stevphening is basically their version of foreplay.
It's tricky, because Stephen does have a right to privacy, even when that's not necessarily the healthiest thing for him to choose. But he also has some responsibility to keep his promises and not cause undue heartache for his loved ones, and right now his secrets are getting in the way of both.
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*nods* Yeah, I was afraid of that. And Stephen's in such a fragile state now...well, I guess I'll see in the next chapter what happens.
Oh, of course! And given the trust issues Stephen has, Jon and Charlene successfully keeping his separate secrets should help convince Stephen that they are trustworthy. But then, if that's the case, maybe once they pool their information, Stephen will freak out...and there I go guessing again. :)
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Oh God. Bobby is almost too supportive. Adorable.
Stevie's a bit paranoid about the pills, there. Though giving them to Charlene was a good idea. :D
"eye-fucking in the streets". LOL. I like this woman.
Stephen says Charlene is lovely, so I'm guessing the Even Stepvhen bits are at least partly Tyrone. Hopefully they don't spoil his fun too much.
FINALLY the truth comes out. Stephen won't be happy, but it's not as if they didn't already notice something was up. Besides, they're family, in a weird sort of way.
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Stevie's not around at the time, but having Bobby recruited as an ally -- even only to the extent that he knows the most basic details about Stephen's condition -- will be good for his anxiety. So is knowing that Charlene has his back regarding the pills.
Tyrone does indeed come forward, in a serious way, with the Carells. As you shall see...
They're definitely family. Of course, given the lack of support in the family Stephen came from, it's hard for him to trust that he can lean too much on this one.
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