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ptahrrificTitle: Shout*For, Intermission, chapter 1/4: Long Walk Home
Characters/Pairings: Jon/"Stephen", family, Anthony, Killer, others
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
A Jon-centric interlude for the teen-pop-star AU.
Our heroes take a break from the fast-paced chaos of their careers to go on vacation. While Stephen and Jimmy take off for New Zealand, Jon's finally getting a trip back to his native New Jersey. But after more than a year away from home and family, he's not going to fit right back in as easily as he expects...
(As ever, the characterization of Jon's family is 100% fanon.)
The Teen Choice Awards offered a lot more competition than the Disney crew usually got, but Olivia still managed to pick up Choice Actress: Comedy, while the single Shout*For had released on the heels of "A Whole New World" got Choice Music: Love Song...and Stephen was pleasantly blindsided to receive Choice Red Carpet Hottie: Male.
"You are the best teenagers ever!" he gushed in his acceptance speech. "I want to marry all of you!...Wait, is Lisa still backstage?" he asked the presenter (past winner, former boy-band member, and present romantic-drama actor Anderson Cooper). "Can we cut the feed before she hears that?"
The band did a dance number, which they had rehearsed to perfection in between recording the last of the album with the help of coffee for everyone, then gathered onstage for a quick Q&A. One of the pre-screened teenage querants, a girl with a streak of purple in her dark hair and a Shout*For poster visible on the wall behind her, said, "This is a question for all of you: what are you doing for your summer vacation?"
Stephen was too excited not to answer first. "I'm going to New Zealand!" he said, hooking a finger under his collar to lift out a long, fine chain. Instead of his BFF pendant, today it held a glittering gold ring. "It's the weirdest thing: I was talking to Peter Jackson, and I happened to mention I had this thing lying around, and he said I had to catch a giant eagle to the Hobbit movie set as soon as possible! I convinced him to let me take a plane instead."
"I'm going with Stephen," added Jimmy, earning an aww from the crowd. "Just in case he needs to be carried up a volcano at some point."
Tucker said something about going on a nice doom-free vacation with his family, and then it came to Jon, who shrugged. He wasn't going anywhere as exciting as Stephen, or as security-heavy, so his actual trip had been kept under wraps as much as possible. "I'll be staying at home. Take a few long walks on the beach. Get lost in some music. Maybe gaze dreamily out my window for a while. You know, the usual."
~*~
Outside Jon's window, a layer of moonlit clouds rose up to meet him, rushing past the glass until the plane had broken through and they could see the lights of Newark International spread out beneath.
From the seat next to him, Killer plucked his MP3 player out of his hand and switched it off.
"Oh, come on!" said Jon — in a hushed voice, because they were nearing the end of a four-hour flight (and, for anyone else who had also connected at Dallas from LAX, the end of nine hours in the air). "Lots of people keep them on during the descent! If it really messed with the navigation systems, we would've heard of it by now."
Killer just looked at him, unimpressed.
"Fine," sighed Jon, and sat back to watch the tiny cars speeding like fireflies down the dark roads they were passing over.
The instant the flight attendant gave the all-clear, he had his phone out and was pulling up Marion Leibowitz on the contact list. She picked up on the first ring. "Jon, hey! I take it they just let you turn your phones on?"
"Uh-huh. So I'll see you real soon, okay?"
"Okay! I'm right here by the baggage claim, so when your flight number comes up —"
"Hang on — you're at the airport?"
"Where else would I be? I wasn't going to miss my darling son's big homecoming."
When she put it like that, Jon felt too guilty to be annoyed. "Listen, Mom, just meet us right after the security checkpoint, okay? We'll work things out from there."
On his way off the plane, Jon slipped on his new pair of sunglasses and pulled down the baseball cap with the logo of a team he didn't follow. He'd already dressed that morning in a carefully nondescript grey shirt and khakis, and the messenger bag that held his laptop and some other stuff was also new and brand-name-free. He wasn't in disguise, exactly...but the less attention his appearance drew, the better.
There was no chance of hiding how intimidating Killer looked. They just had to hope people didn't make the mental leap to "bodyguard", and assumed he was the generic-looking kid's scary dad, or something.
Sure enough, they made it through the airport without incident, moving with the crowd of tired and preoccupied fellow-travelers until they dispersed into the non-security-screened world — and Jon spotted his mother. She was instantly familiar, with the same hairstyle he'd seen on their last Skype call, and a shirt he'd seen her wearing a million times.
Naturally, his nothing-to-see-here getup didn't throw her for a second.
"It's so good to see you, sweetheart!" she exclaimed, pulling him into a fierce embrace, then holding him at arm's length to look him over. "Let me look at you. Oh, you've gotten so tall!"
"You are the only person in the world who thinks that," Jon assured her, grinning fit to burst.
"And you must be Killer," continued Mom, letting go of Jon just long enough to shake the bodyguard's hand. "Thank you so much for all your hard work. It'll be a bit of a squeeze getting all of us plus suitcases in the car, but —"
"Mom, didn't anyone tell you?" interrupted Jon. "We've got a ride. And there's a separate person picking up our bags and dropping them off with the driver for us. Killer, you know the way, right?"
Wordlessly, the bodyguard started walking. Jon followed, accompanied, reluctantly, by his mother. "Young man, I know you can afford a whole entourage if you want, but why not save your money? You don't need to pay a professional when your loving mother drove all the way out here to pick you up."
"I'd love to ride with you, Mom, honest," said Jon. "But I need something with tinted windows, and unless you had the car refitted recently...?"
Reluctantly, she shook her head.
"Listen, why don't you come with us?" Jon started fishing around for his phone as they walked. "I can get another driver to take your car home. It'll just be a quick call."
They had made it out into the pickup annex, far upstream from the people catching buses and ordinary taxis. Mom sighed. "No, better not go to all that trouble just for me. I'll be fine on my own."
"It's no trouble, I swear...."
"Not another word about it. You enjoy your tinted windows, and I'll see you at home. But at least take those glasses off, won't you, sweetheart? They're so Hollywood. Let people see your lovely eyes."
Jon's instinct was to say no. It had taken a few embarrassing candids and a few more near misses, snapped during times when he was angry or teary-eyed or (in one awkward instance) hung over, but he had come to rely on the thin extra layer of privacy whenever he could. On the other hand, it was pretty dark out here, and the only person close enough to get a good shot without some professional camera hardware on them was the driver waiting for them.
He stopped beside the car, pulled off the sunglasses and flipped them closed one-handed, and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. "See you at home."
~*~
Stephen*Colbert
the flight attendant says we crossed the International Date Line
Stephen*Colbert
so now we are IN THE FUTURE
Stephen*Colbert
why didn't you warn me??
Stephen*Colbert
Elizabeth swears we don't have to worry about destroying the spacetime continuum because of this
Stephen*Colbert
but I am not so sure
Stephen*Colbert
my sister doesn't watch a lot of SF, Jon, she doesn't know these things
Stephen*Colbert
(PS if any of these messages put causality in jeopardy please forget you ever read them)
~*~
The house was still standing exactly where Jon had last seen it. He had finally pulled down enough money to buy a new one, but Mom had gotten attached to this place. Which was not to say things hadn't changed: she had used some of the money to start remodeling, and from the photos she'd sent him Jon recognized the new paint job, the re-planted lawn embellished with flowers, and the shadow of the addition out back.
He didn't have much time to admire the exterior, as she ushered them inside. The driver had Jon's things; Killer was carrying his own. "Jon, will you show the gentleman where to put your bags? Killer, you're right through here, follow me...."
Jon's room was the first door at the top of the corkscrewing stairs. As the younger brother, he'd been stuck in the smallest bedroom: the one that didn't even have a closet, and only barely managed to hold a desk, bed, wardrobe, and bureau, even after putting the bed up on stilts over the desk.
The view out his window was now the roof of the addition rather than the empty yard, but the room itself was untouched by the renovations. It still looked tiny even in the absence of all his clothes, books, action figures, and Springsteen posters. Only a few scattered objects were still sitting where he'd left them: the bookends standing in pairs on every flat surface (he'd never had an actual bookshelf before LA), the framed poster headed All I Need To Know About Life I Learned From My Dog hanging on the wall above the desk.
"You can lean those against the bureau," he said to the driver, indicating the pair of Teen Choice Awards trophies, "and stick the suitcase, uh, anywhere, I guess." Scaling the ladder up the side of the bed with practiced ease, he tossed his bag on the mattress and fished out his wallet to get the guy a twenty.
It wasn't until he was back downstairs, and had seen the driver out, that the pictures on the wall caught his eye.
The two big frames were designed to hold a childhood's worth of class photos each: two small rows for grades K-11, a big spot on the end for grade 12. Jon had left before his brother's senior portrait was taken, so this was his first time seeing Larry's frame completely full. And in his own....
Jon had kind of expected the amount of blank space there to be frozen forever. He hadn't given Mom enough credit. The 9th- and 10th-grade frames were now filled with, respectively, his first and most-recent headshots: soulful black-and-white portraits designed to make the most awkward face look sophisticated and professional.
"Did you let that man leave?" said his mother from the kitchen entrance, over the sound of the car pulling down the street. "I didn't get a chance to tip him."
For a second Jon wondered why she thought the guy had to be tipped twice. Then he caught on. "No, Mom, it's fine, I took care of it."
"Oh, honey, you don't have to do that! Not here." She switched gears. "It's only about seven in California, isn't it? Have you eaten? You've had a long day — let me make you some dinner."
"Don't worry, they fed us on the plane."
"And I'm supposed to believe airline food is good enough for my boy?" Coming over to his side, Mom put her hands on his shoulders and steered him to face her. "You need a proper meal. It's getting late on this coast, but for you? I will stay up."
"Mom, I swear, I'm not hungry," insisted Jon. "Either they've gotten better at food storage in the last couple decades, or first class is just that good. Go ahead and sleep if you're tired."
"I'm not," his mother assured him. "But if you're sure...I suppose I could go catch up on the shows I tivoed while I was at the airport. Unless you want to sleep in the den? Your old room is awfully small for a boy your age...." When Jon demurred, she said, "At least take a look before you decide! Come on."
She led him through the kitchen to the new den (sandwiched between a storage closet and the guest room Killer was staying in, the latter's door tactfully closed), which Jon made sure to admire before insisting that he didn't need to sleep there. At last he convinced her to relax and get caught up on The X Factor.
Then he parked himself on one end of the long, armless couch to check his texts.
It was a familiar setup. For years, whenever the Leibowitzes were home, they had been in the same room more often than not. Jon had mastered the art of finishing his homework with Larry watching TV across the room; their mother could work on lesson plans at the table with Jon practicing his guitar or both of her sons playing Halo not ten feet away; and there was usually a cat or dog underfoot somewhere.
Sure enough, as if he'd been waiting for them to finally settle down, the current cat — a big black shadow with white patches and yellow eyes — chose that moment to wander into the room. He leaped up onto one of the cushions in the middle of the long couch, tucked his paws underneath himself, and curled his twitching tail around them.
Jon had never put much thought into the habit. In a small, cramped house, it seemed like a natural pattern to fall into. He certainly hadn't kept it up in LA, where, if his aunt didn't insist they have dinners together, they could have spent days in the mansion without running into each other.
Now, though...he could have gone anywhere in the expanded house, and yet the thought of getting up made his chest hurt.
He had just texted Stephen assuring him that trans-Pacific vacations were temporally harmless when Mom dialed down the volume and said, "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," said Jon, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands. "I just...I'm...." He swallowed, staring at his feet, and only managed the last part in a whisper. "I really missed you."
She put the show on pause and came around, stopping at Jon's end of the couch to stroke his hair. "I've missed you too," she said softly, while Jon leaned sideways against her and hugged her around the waist. "You know I'm so proud of everything you've done out there — but any time you need to, you can always come home."
Jon squeezed his eyes shut against her stomach, nodded, and tried not to cry too hard.
~*~
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
Hey, I don't think we ever covered if this was a kind of Tumblr warning you wanted, so just in case...
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
Stephen's and Jimmy's tags are currently full of people all a-twitter about Stimmy's romantic New Zealand getaway.
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
So is Twitter, ironically. Although I know you don't watch that.
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
Looking like a wise decision right now, btw! Someone found Stephen's sister, the one who's sorta-chaperoning them, and now she's getting all these tweets urging her to support Stimmy in standing up to PR and coming out.
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
I mean, *I* would find it hilarious if people started tweeting at you to support Stephen and Jimmy's epic gay romance!
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
But maybe you wouldn't. IDK.
~*~
"Mom!" yelled Jon, jogging down the stairs. "Did you move my PS2?"
He emerged into the living/dining room to find nobody but Killer, reading a magazine in an armchair under the window to his left. There was motion in the kitchen, though, so Jon veered right, stuck his head through the doorway, and repeated the question.
"Your old gaming machine?" repeated his mother, who was at the stove scrambling eggs. "Oh, I got rid of that ages ago."
Jon gaped. "You what?"
"It's all right, I didn't just throw it away," his mother assured him, completely misunderstanding his horror. "There was an auction to benefit the school last...September? I donated a bunch of your old things then. Don't you have a new one in California yet?"
"I have a PS3 in California! Which would work out great if Anthony was coming to California this afternoon!" exclaimed Jon. "And what else did you take and not tell me?"
"Nothing you couldn't buy new any time you wanted," said Mom reproachfully. "Let's see, there was that old radio...the electric blanket...the desk lamp? No, wait, I put your lamp in the new office. Oh! Your LEGO clock. One of my fourth graders was thrilled to get that."
Okay, this was manageable. Jon wasn't the guy from The Brave Little Toaster; he wasn't emotionally attached to household appliances. But there was one more thing he couldn't remember seeing since he'd arrived. "What about my guitar?"
"Oh, I saved that," his mother replied. "That's going to be worth a lot of money some day."
Jon let out a groan of relief. Maybe in a decade or so he'd feel up to relinquishing his first guitar to a nice charity auction, but not now. The feeling of being ten years old and having no other way to escape while his parents' marriage was exploding around him was still uncomfortably raw sometimes.
"Your brother will be home any minute now," she added. "Can you get out the plates?"
Turned out Jon had been away long enough that he had to try three cabinets before he remembered where the plates were, and two drawers before he found the forks. All those times he'd had to feed himself in this house, packing lunch for school or making dinner alone on a night his mother had to be at a PTA meeting, you'd think he would have remembered the kitchen layout better.
He had just finished setting the table for four when a car pulled up outside. Killer put the magazine away and got to his feet. "Relax, it's just Larry," Jon told him...then leaned against the front window and saw his brother arm-in-arm with an attractive young woman. "Okay, Larry and company. But I'm sure she's cool."
Killer just looked at him, about as moved by his conviction as a brick wall.
"Fine!" said Jon. "I'll be upstairs. Call me down when it's safe."
~*~
Stephen*Colbert
I touched Bumbershoot Cabbagepatch!
Stephen*Colbert
*Barbecue Crimplesnap
Stephen*Colbert
*Buckaroo Copperhatch
Stephen*Colbert
*Build-a-bear Cricketbat
Stephen*Colbert
*Rinkydink Bandersnatch
Stephen*Colbert
*Smaug!
~*~
Jon was kicking back in his desk chair running through harmonica scales when Larry's voice cut in from the hall. "I hope you're happy!"
With his toe, Jon caught the half-cracked door and swung it open. "With a ray of sunshine like you around? How can I not be?"
Snark sometimes worked to cut the tension when his brother was annoyed. This was not one of those times. "My girlfriend just left because she didn't want to be subjected to a background check and pat-down just to have breakfast with me."
"Technically, with me," pointed out Jon, though he knew it wouldn't help. "I mean, she probably isn't a deranged stalker, but on the small chance that she thinks one of us is sending her coded messages with our T-shirts, it isn't gonna be you."
Larry rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just get downstairs so Mom will let us eat."
Jon put away the instrument and followed him down the narrow staircase, grasping for a way to turn the mood around. "So, how are you liking New York?" he asked. Surely it would cheer his brother up to talk about the prestigious Wall Street internship he'd landed for the summer.
"Fabulous. Wonderful. The opportunity of a lifetime," deadpanned Larry. "Is it enough to thank you in person, or am I going to need to get you a Hallmark card, too?"
"Hey, I'm trying to be nice here!" snapped Jon. Did Larry really think Jon wanted to hold it over him that the rent for his stay in the city was paid with Shout*For merchandise royalties? "I mean the job, geez."
"Well, it hasn't put my face on any T-shirts...."
Their mother and Jon's bodyguard were waiting for them at the dining table. "Killer!" cried Jon. "Larry's picking on me! Put him in a headlock or something, will you?"
Larry flinched. Their mother frowned disapprovingly at him. Killer just gave Jon that flat, unimpressed look again.
"Yeah, I know that's not your job," sighed Jon. "You couldn't at least humor me? ...Maybe it's a little mean, sure, but...Okay, okay." As they took their seats, he said to Larry, "Sorry. I'm not gonna sic my bodyguard on you. He won't let me."
"Oh, good," said Larry shakily. In an undertone he added, "Does he talk?"
Killer glared at him.
"Sorry!" squeaked Larry. "I'm sure you have a very melodious voice! Forget I asked."
~*~
Stephen*Colbert
you had better bring me back an awesome present
Stephen*Colbert
something that gets across the flavor and culture of New Jersey
Stephen*Colbert
idk, an old car up on cinder blocks or something
Stephen*Colbert
because I am definitely getting an awesome thing for you
Stephen*Colbert
a thing that is quintessentially New Zealand
Stephen*Colbert
a thing that encapsulates the heart and soul of the country
Stephen*Colbert
I'm not saying it's a sheep but
Stephen*Colbert
it's a sheep.
~*~
Anthony had been pre-background-checked, and was a much better sport about the patdown. "If I didn't know better," remarked Jon, watching and cradling the PS3 his friend had brought over, "I'd say you were enjoying that."
"I've been working out," explained Anthony, puffing out his chest with pride. "Never complain about an opportunity to have that appreciated." He grabbed the hem of his shirt. "Want to see?"
"Not in front of my mom, you crazy exhibitionist," said Jon, dragging Anthony past the now-cleared dining table where his mother was working on her laptop. (Larry was in his own room; a phone call with his girlfriend had apparently triggered the rare Leibowitz need for complete seclusion. The cat was napping in a sunbeam.) "We'll be in back, Mom! Knock if you need us!"
They holed up in the den, opening the windows and aiming an oscillating fan to alternate between the two of them, and Anthony stripped off his shirt without a moment's hesitation.
Jon did a double-take. Whatever he'd been expecting, this level of buffness was not it. His formerly weedy friend had abs. Biceps that looked sculpted. Pecs you could bounce a quarter off of. "Uh, dude, are you sure we can still be friends?"
"Oh, come on, they make you do lots of dancing and stuff, right? You can't be in that bad shape."
"I'm not," admitted Jon. "But the only reason we started hanging out is because nobody else wanted to be friends with the scrawny Jews with the weird names. So now that I have a normal name and you are definitely not scrawny...."
"...I just barely look like you might hang out with me for reasons other than pity?" suggested Anthony. "Seriously, my social strata at this point is only 'desirable'. Yours is 'stratospheric'. Fabulous body or not, I'd have to be an Olympic athlete to measure up." Jon squirmed in discomfort; Anthony just grinned. "Don't look at me like that! I'm at peace with it. You may have a million groupies, but I?"
He bent his head closer. Jon leaned in to hear.
"I," Anthony said in a low, eager voice, "am about one date away from doing it with Huma Abedin."
"Con...gratulations?" said Jon, trying desperately to remember who that was.
"Oh, come on!" protested Anthony. "You knew Huma! She was in American Government with us. She was hotter than every other girl in American Government put together! How could you not notice? Hang on, I have photos on my phone...."
"I was only in high school for about five months," Jon reminded him. The name did ring a bell, now, though. "Did she do that presentation on the Clintons?"
This turned out to be right, but with Jon's memory so thin, Anthony still felt obligated to launch into a lecture (with illustrations!) on the joys and glories of Huma Abedin. She was brilliant. She was stunning. She was well-traveled — grew up in Saudi Arabia, only moved to Jersey recently for her parents to do their PhD studies at UPenn — "see, Jon, the whole family's brilliant!" She could speak three languages. She could speak for hours (in English) with Anthony about politics. They both had political jobs this summer — "I finally get up the nerve to ask her out and we're both going to be stupidly busy for months" — Anthony a gofer at the mayor's office, Huma an intern with the Obama campaign.
After about fifteen minutes of this, Jon said, "You are really gone for this girl, aren't you?"
"Uh, yeah. That's what I led with, remember?"
"No, I mean — this isn't just 'she's hot enough to melt steel' or 'oh my god, she might touch me where I go to the bathroom,' this is you liking her."
Anthony gave him a roguish half-grin. It didn't look entirely convincing — he might have the torso of an underwear model now, but he still had the same kind-of-doofy face he'd sported in middle school — but it was clearly earnest. "Yeah. Trying not to jinx it, though. So how about you? Got your eye on anyone yet?"
Jon shrugged, awkward. It wasn't that he didn't trust Anthony, but..."Not really."
"Yeah, I was afraid of that. Do you want to?"
"What?"
"Get your eye...or whatever else you want...on someone," clarified Anthony, sliding right back from his romantic transport to his usual cheerful lechery. "I know you're probably worried about publicity and crazy stalkers and stuff, but between me and Huma, we've triaged a couple of girls who are into you enough to go for it, and cool enough to keep it on the down-low for the next few years."
Now Jon was fidgeting for an entirely new reason. "Listen, uh, I...appreciate the effort."
"Great! Do you want to see photos?"
"You took photos of them?"
"Well, obviously I didn't say they were audition photos for the role of Taking Jon Stewart's Virginity," said Anthony quickly. He was scrolling through his phone menus again, leaving the folder with all the adoring shots of his girlfriend. "And, um, don't mention this part around Huma, because she would probably think it was weird, you know?"
"It is weird," said Jon. "No, don't — I don't need to see them, okay? I'm not interested."
"Rejecting them all sight-unseen? That's harsh."
There was a limit to how far Jon could deceive his BFF, and they were rapidly approaching it. "It's not them," he said. "It's...I can't have a girlfriend who isn't vetted by PR, okay? It's in my contract. And if, hypothetically, I wanted to go out with someone who wasn't approved, it would have to be a total secret."
Anthony shrugged. "Sure, but we're not talking about getting a girlfriend here. And like I said, if what you need is a girl who can be discreet...."
"Anthony, you're not listening," interrupted Jon. "If, hypothetically, I had one of these secret relationships already, and I took you up on your very thoughtful offer here, then I would, hypothetically, be a cheating schmuck. You get me?"
"But you...." Anthony trailed off. "...Ohhhh."
"Yep."
"Well, congratulations yourself!" exclaimed Anthony. "So what's she like? How hot is she? How far have you gotten? Hypothetically, I mean."
"Maybe I'll tell you later. If I decide you're discreet enough," said Jon dryly. "Hey, listen, before I forget...did you catch the Teen Choice Awards?"
"The what?" said Anthony. And then: "Wait, is that something you won? Congratulations again."
Jon waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, we won a couple. This year and last. Specifics aren't the point. The point is, you know what they give you as a trophy? Because I'm never gonna use mine, so I figured, hey, maybe I pass them forward...."
"Jon, you lost me. What do they give you, and why would I want it?"
Jon smiled sheepishly. "Remember that summer you really wanted to learn to surf, but couldn't afford a good board?"
"Yeah...?"
"How would you like two of 'em?"
~*~
Stephen*Colbert
spent the afternoon hanging out with hobbits!
Stephen*Colbert
thought of you <3
~*~
If there was one thing Jon missed least about this house, it was the difficulty of getting a little quality personal time. (Had his bed always squeaked this much? He sincerely hoped not.)
He would have liked to pull up some porn, too, but he'd been on a serious guys-giving-blowjobs kick recently, and that was approximately the last way he wanted to out himself to his family.
In the end he settled on locking himself in the shower, turning the water on full blast, and thinking about Stephen.
The real Stephen might still rule blowjobs firmly off the menu, but that didn't mean a guy couldn't fantasize. And not with the mental equivalent of badly-photoshopped banana pictures, either. Jon knew exactly how Stephen looked when he was relishing the taste of something: sucking the cheese dust from a bag of Doritos off the ends of his fingers, running his tongue along the curve of a spoon to get every last dollop of Rocky Road and caramel. And Jon knew — better than anyone else in the world — all the faces and sounds Stephen made when he was almost too turned on to breathe straight.
Under the spray, Jon wrapped his hand around his dick and put all the images together. Stephen on his knees, all hesitation done away with, brimming with eagerness and determination. Stephen taking him in, slowly at first, experimenting with his limits, then going deeper and deeper. Stephen moaning, lashes fluttering, as he realizes how much he loves having Jon in his mouth, loves —
Good thing Jon hadn't been going for endurance here, because he didn't last two minutes.
Lying in bed afterward, he spent a good twenty minutes waiting for the post-orgasmic bliss to override his jet-lagged brain's conviction that it was barely dinnertime, then gave up and and shimmied down the ladder to get a Vaxasopor. He had plenty left over from their last cross-timezone tour. Hadn't consulted a doctor about starting them up again, but Stephen had been taking them consistently this whole time, so it couldn't be too toxic if Jon used them for a week.
Characters/Pairings: Jon/"Stephen", family, Anthony, Killer, others
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: See series Table of Contents.
A Jon-centric interlude for the teen-pop-star AU.
Our heroes take a break from the fast-paced chaos of their careers to go on vacation. While Stephen and Jimmy take off for New Zealand, Jon's finally getting a trip back to his native New Jersey. But after more than a year away from home and family, he's not going to fit right back in as easily as he expects...
(As ever, the characterization of Jon's family is 100% fanon.)
The Teen Choice Awards offered a lot more competition than the Disney crew usually got, but Olivia still managed to pick up Choice Actress: Comedy, while the single Shout*For had released on the heels of "A Whole New World" got Choice Music: Love Song...and Stephen was pleasantly blindsided to receive Choice Red Carpet Hottie: Male.
"You are the best teenagers ever!" he gushed in his acceptance speech. "I want to marry all of you!...Wait, is Lisa still backstage?" he asked the presenter (past winner, former boy-band member, and present romantic-drama actor Anderson Cooper). "Can we cut the feed before she hears that?"
The band did a dance number, which they had rehearsed to perfection in between recording the last of the album with the help of coffee for everyone, then gathered onstage for a quick Q&A. One of the pre-screened teenage querants, a girl with a streak of purple in her dark hair and a Shout*For poster visible on the wall behind her, said, "This is a question for all of you: what are you doing for your summer vacation?"
Stephen was too excited not to answer first. "I'm going to New Zealand!" he said, hooking a finger under his collar to lift out a long, fine chain. Instead of his BFF pendant, today it held a glittering gold ring. "It's the weirdest thing: I was talking to Peter Jackson, and I happened to mention I had this thing lying around, and he said I had to catch a giant eagle to the Hobbit movie set as soon as possible! I convinced him to let me take a plane instead."
"I'm going with Stephen," added Jimmy, earning an aww from the crowd. "Just in case he needs to be carried up a volcano at some point."
Tucker said something about going on a nice doom-free vacation with his family, and then it came to Jon, who shrugged. He wasn't going anywhere as exciting as Stephen, or as security-heavy, so his actual trip had been kept under wraps as much as possible. "I'll be staying at home. Take a few long walks on the beach. Get lost in some music. Maybe gaze dreamily out my window for a while. You know, the usual."
~*~
Outside Jon's window, a layer of moonlit clouds rose up to meet him, rushing past the glass until the plane had broken through and they could see the lights of Newark International spread out beneath.
From the seat next to him, Killer plucked his MP3 player out of his hand and switched it off.
"Oh, come on!" said Jon — in a hushed voice, because they were nearing the end of a four-hour flight (and, for anyone else who had also connected at Dallas from LAX, the end of nine hours in the air). "Lots of people keep them on during the descent! If it really messed with the navigation systems, we would've heard of it by now."
Killer just looked at him, unimpressed.
"Fine," sighed Jon, and sat back to watch the tiny cars speeding like fireflies down the dark roads they were passing over.
The instant the flight attendant gave the all-clear, he had his phone out and was pulling up Marion Leibowitz on the contact list. She picked up on the first ring. "Jon, hey! I take it they just let you turn your phones on?"
"Uh-huh. So I'll see you real soon, okay?"
"Okay! I'm right here by the baggage claim, so when your flight number comes up —"
"Hang on — you're at the airport?"
"Where else would I be? I wasn't going to miss my darling son's big homecoming."
When she put it like that, Jon felt too guilty to be annoyed. "Listen, Mom, just meet us right after the security checkpoint, okay? We'll work things out from there."
On his way off the plane, Jon slipped on his new pair of sunglasses and pulled down the baseball cap with the logo of a team he didn't follow. He'd already dressed that morning in a carefully nondescript grey shirt and khakis, and the messenger bag that held his laptop and some other stuff was also new and brand-name-free. He wasn't in disguise, exactly...but the less attention his appearance drew, the better.
There was no chance of hiding how intimidating Killer looked. They just had to hope people didn't make the mental leap to "bodyguard", and assumed he was the generic-looking kid's scary dad, or something.
Sure enough, they made it through the airport without incident, moving with the crowd of tired and preoccupied fellow-travelers until they dispersed into the non-security-screened world — and Jon spotted his mother. She was instantly familiar, with the same hairstyle he'd seen on their last Skype call, and a shirt he'd seen her wearing a million times.
Naturally, his nothing-to-see-here getup didn't throw her for a second.
"It's so good to see you, sweetheart!" she exclaimed, pulling him into a fierce embrace, then holding him at arm's length to look him over. "Let me look at you. Oh, you've gotten so tall!"
"You are the only person in the world who thinks that," Jon assured her, grinning fit to burst.
"And you must be Killer," continued Mom, letting go of Jon just long enough to shake the bodyguard's hand. "Thank you so much for all your hard work. It'll be a bit of a squeeze getting all of us plus suitcases in the car, but —"
"Mom, didn't anyone tell you?" interrupted Jon. "We've got a ride. And there's a separate person picking up our bags and dropping them off with the driver for us. Killer, you know the way, right?"
Wordlessly, the bodyguard started walking. Jon followed, accompanied, reluctantly, by his mother. "Young man, I know you can afford a whole entourage if you want, but why not save your money? You don't need to pay a professional when your loving mother drove all the way out here to pick you up."
"I'd love to ride with you, Mom, honest," said Jon. "But I need something with tinted windows, and unless you had the car refitted recently...?"
Reluctantly, she shook her head.
"Listen, why don't you come with us?" Jon started fishing around for his phone as they walked. "I can get another driver to take your car home. It'll just be a quick call."
They had made it out into the pickup annex, far upstream from the people catching buses and ordinary taxis. Mom sighed. "No, better not go to all that trouble just for me. I'll be fine on my own."
"It's no trouble, I swear...."
"Not another word about it. You enjoy your tinted windows, and I'll see you at home. But at least take those glasses off, won't you, sweetheart? They're so Hollywood. Let people see your lovely eyes."
Jon's instinct was to say no. It had taken a few embarrassing candids and a few more near misses, snapped during times when he was angry or teary-eyed or (in one awkward instance) hung over, but he had come to rely on the thin extra layer of privacy whenever he could. On the other hand, it was pretty dark out here, and the only person close enough to get a good shot without some professional camera hardware on them was the driver waiting for them.
He stopped beside the car, pulled off the sunglasses and flipped them closed one-handed, and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. "See you at home."
~*~
Stephen*Colbert
the flight attendant says we crossed the International Date Line
Stephen*Colbert
so now we are IN THE FUTURE
Stephen*Colbert
why didn't you warn me??
Stephen*Colbert
Elizabeth swears we don't have to worry about destroying the spacetime continuum because of this
Stephen*Colbert
but I am not so sure
Stephen*Colbert
my sister doesn't watch a lot of SF, Jon, she doesn't know these things
Stephen*Colbert
(PS if any of these messages put causality in jeopardy please forget you ever read them)
~*~
The house was still standing exactly where Jon had last seen it. He had finally pulled down enough money to buy a new one, but Mom had gotten attached to this place. Which was not to say things hadn't changed: she had used some of the money to start remodeling, and from the photos she'd sent him Jon recognized the new paint job, the re-planted lawn embellished with flowers, and the shadow of the addition out back.
He didn't have much time to admire the exterior, as she ushered them inside. The driver had Jon's things; Killer was carrying his own. "Jon, will you show the gentleman where to put your bags? Killer, you're right through here, follow me...."
Jon's room was the first door at the top of the corkscrewing stairs. As the younger brother, he'd been stuck in the smallest bedroom: the one that didn't even have a closet, and only barely managed to hold a desk, bed, wardrobe, and bureau, even after putting the bed up on stilts over the desk.
The view out his window was now the roof of the addition rather than the empty yard, but the room itself was untouched by the renovations. It still looked tiny even in the absence of all his clothes, books, action figures, and Springsteen posters. Only a few scattered objects were still sitting where he'd left them: the bookends standing in pairs on every flat surface (he'd never had an actual bookshelf before LA), the framed poster headed All I Need To Know About Life I Learned From My Dog hanging on the wall above the desk.
"You can lean those against the bureau," he said to the driver, indicating the pair of Teen Choice Awards trophies, "and stick the suitcase, uh, anywhere, I guess." Scaling the ladder up the side of the bed with practiced ease, he tossed his bag on the mattress and fished out his wallet to get the guy a twenty.
It wasn't until he was back downstairs, and had seen the driver out, that the pictures on the wall caught his eye.
The two big frames were designed to hold a childhood's worth of class photos each: two small rows for grades K-11, a big spot on the end for grade 12. Jon had left before his brother's senior portrait was taken, so this was his first time seeing Larry's frame completely full. And in his own....
Jon had kind of expected the amount of blank space there to be frozen forever. He hadn't given Mom enough credit. The 9th- and 10th-grade frames were now filled with, respectively, his first and most-recent headshots: soulful black-and-white portraits designed to make the most awkward face look sophisticated and professional.
"Did you let that man leave?" said his mother from the kitchen entrance, over the sound of the car pulling down the street. "I didn't get a chance to tip him."
For a second Jon wondered why she thought the guy had to be tipped twice. Then he caught on. "No, Mom, it's fine, I took care of it."
"Oh, honey, you don't have to do that! Not here." She switched gears. "It's only about seven in California, isn't it? Have you eaten? You've had a long day — let me make you some dinner."
"Don't worry, they fed us on the plane."
"And I'm supposed to believe airline food is good enough for my boy?" Coming over to his side, Mom put her hands on his shoulders and steered him to face her. "You need a proper meal. It's getting late on this coast, but for you? I will stay up."
"Mom, I swear, I'm not hungry," insisted Jon. "Either they've gotten better at food storage in the last couple decades, or first class is just that good. Go ahead and sleep if you're tired."
"I'm not," his mother assured him. "But if you're sure...I suppose I could go catch up on the shows I tivoed while I was at the airport. Unless you want to sleep in the den? Your old room is awfully small for a boy your age...." When Jon demurred, she said, "At least take a look before you decide! Come on."
She led him through the kitchen to the new den (sandwiched between a storage closet and the guest room Killer was staying in, the latter's door tactfully closed), which Jon made sure to admire before insisting that he didn't need to sleep there. At last he convinced her to relax and get caught up on The X Factor.
Then he parked himself on one end of the long, armless couch to check his texts.
It was a familiar setup. For years, whenever the Leibowitzes were home, they had been in the same room more often than not. Jon had mastered the art of finishing his homework with Larry watching TV across the room; their mother could work on lesson plans at the table with Jon practicing his guitar or both of her sons playing Halo not ten feet away; and there was usually a cat or dog underfoot somewhere.
Sure enough, as if he'd been waiting for them to finally settle down, the current cat — a big black shadow with white patches and yellow eyes — chose that moment to wander into the room. He leaped up onto one of the cushions in the middle of the long couch, tucked his paws underneath himself, and curled his twitching tail around them.
Jon had never put much thought into the habit. In a small, cramped house, it seemed like a natural pattern to fall into. He certainly hadn't kept it up in LA, where, if his aunt didn't insist they have dinners together, they could have spent days in the mansion without running into each other.
Now, though...he could have gone anywhere in the expanded house, and yet the thought of getting up made his chest hurt.
He had just texted Stephen assuring him that trans-Pacific vacations were temporally harmless when Mom dialed down the volume and said, "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," said Jon, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands. "I just...I'm...." He swallowed, staring at his feet, and only managed the last part in a whisper. "I really missed you."
She put the show on pause and came around, stopping at Jon's end of the couch to stroke his hair. "I've missed you too," she said softly, while Jon leaned sideways against her and hugged her around the waist. "You know I'm so proud of everything you've done out there — but any time you need to, you can always come home."
Jon squeezed his eyes shut against her stomach, nodded, and tried not to cry too hard.
~*~
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
Hey, I don't think we ever covered if this was a kind of Tumblr warning you wanted, so just in case...
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
Stephen's and Jimmy's tags are currently full of people all a-twitter about Stimmy's romantic New Zealand getaway.
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
So is Twitter, ironically. Although I know you don't watch that.
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
Looking like a wise decision right now, btw! Someone found Stephen's sister, the one who's sorta-chaperoning them, and now she's getting all these tweets urging her to support Stimmy in standing up to PR and coming out.
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
I mean, *I* would find it hilarious if people started tweeting at you to support Stephen and Jimmy's epic gay romance!
Kristen (ಠ ›ಠ)
But maybe you wouldn't. IDK.
~*~
"Mom!" yelled Jon, jogging down the stairs. "Did you move my PS2?"
He emerged into the living/dining room to find nobody but Killer, reading a magazine in an armchair under the window to his left. There was motion in the kitchen, though, so Jon veered right, stuck his head through the doorway, and repeated the question.
"Your old gaming machine?" repeated his mother, who was at the stove scrambling eggs. "Oh, I got rid of that ages ago."
Jon gaped. "You what?"
"It's all right, I didn't just throw it away," his mother assured him, completely misunderstanding his horror. "There was an auction to benefit the school last...September? I donated a bunch of your old things then. Don't you have a new one in California yet?"
"I have a PS3 in California! Which would work out great if Anthony was coming to California this afternoon!" exclaimed Jon. "And what else did you take and not tell me?"
"Nothing you couldn't buy new any time you wanted," said Mom reproachfully. "Let's see, there was that old radio...the electric blanket...the desk lamp? No, wait, I put your lamp in the new office. Oh! Your LEGO clock. One of my fourth graders was thrilled to get that."
Okay, this was manageable. Jon wasn't the guy from The Brave Little Toaster; he wasn't emotionally attached to household appliances. But there was one more thing he couldn't remember seeing since he'd arrived. "What about my guitar?"
"Oh, I saved that," his mother replied. "That's going to be worth a lot of money some day."
Jon let out a groan of relief. Maybe in a decade or so he'd feel up to relinquishing his first guitar to a nice charity auction, but not now. The feeling of being ten years old and having no other way to escape while his parents' marriage was exploding around him was still uncomfortably raw sometimes.
"Your brother will be home any minute now," she added. "Can you get out the plates?"
Turned out Jon had been away long enough that he had to try three cabinets before he remembered where the plates were, and two drawers before he found the forks. All those times he'd had to feed himself in this house, packing lunch for school or making dinner alone on a night his mother had to be at a PTA meeting, you'd think he would have remembered the kitchen layout better.
He had just finished setting the table for four when a car pulled up outside. Killer put the magazine away and got to his feet. "Relax, it's just Larry," Jon told him...then leaned against the front window and saw his brother arm-in-arm with an attractive young woman. "Okay, Larry and company. But I'm sure she's cool."
Killer just looked at him, about as moved by his conviction as a brick wall.
"Fine!" said Jon. "I'll be upstairs. Call me down when it's safe."
~*~
Stephen*Colbert
I touched Bumbershoot Cabbagepatch!
Stephen*Colbert
*Barbecue Crimplesnap
Stephen*Colbert
*Buckaroo Copperhatch
Stephen*Colbert
*Build-a-bear Cricketbat
Stephen*Colbert
*Rinkydink Bandersnatch
Stephen*Colbert
*Smaug!
~*~
Jon was kicking back in his desk chair running through harmonica scales when Larry's voice cut in from the hall. "I hope you're happy!"
With his toe, Jon caught the half-cracked door and swung it open. "With a ray of sunshine like you around? How can I not be?"
Snark sometimes worked to cut the tension when his brother was annoyed. This was not one of those times. "My girlfriend just left because she didn't want to be subjected to a background check and pat-down just to have breakfast with me."
"Technically, with me," pointed out Jon, though he knew it wouldn't help. "I mean, she probably isn't a deranged stalker, but on the small chance that she thinks one of us is sending her coded messages with our T-shirts, it isn't gonna be you."
Larry rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just get downstairs so Mom will let us eat."
Jon put away the instrument and followed him down the narrow staircase, grasping for a way to turn the mood around. "So, how are you liking New York?" he asked. Surely it would cheer his brother up to talk about the prestigious Wall Street internship he'd landed for the summer.
"Fabulous. Wonderful. The opportunity of a lifetime," deadpanned Larry. "Is it enough to thank you in person, or am I going to need to get you a Hallmark card, too?"
"Hey, I'm trying to be nice here!" snapped Jon. Did Larry really think Jon wanted to hold it over him that the rent for his stay in the city was paid with Shout*For merchandise royalties? "I mean the job, geez."
"Well, it hasn't put my face on any T-shirts...."
Their mother and Jon's bodyguard were waiting for them at the dining table. "Killer!" cried Jon. "Larry's picking on me! Put him in a headlock or something, will you?"
Larry flinched. Their mother frowned disapprovingly at him. Killer just gave Jon that flat, unimpressed look again.
"Yeah, I know that's not your job," sighed Jon. "You couldn't at least humor me? ...Maybe it's a little mean, sure, but...Okay, okay." As they took their seats, he said to Larry, "Sorry. I'm not gonna sic my bodyguard on you. He won't let me."
"Oh, good," said Larry shakily. In an undertone he added, "Does he talk?"
Killer glared at him.
"Sorry!" squeaked Larry. "I'm sure you have a very melodious voice! Forget I asked."
~*~
Stephen*Colbert
you had better bring me back an awesome present
Stephen*Colbert
something that gets across the flavor and culture of New Jersey
Stephen*Colbert
idk, an old car up on cinder blocks or something
Stephen*Colbert
because I am definitely getting an awesome thing for you
Stephen*Colbert
a thing that is quintessentially New Zealand
Stephen*Colbert
a thing that encapsulates the heart and soul of the country
Stephen*Colbert
I'm not saying it's a sheep but
Stephen*Colbert
it's a sheep.
~*~
Anthony had been pre-background-checked, and was a much better sport about the patdown. "If I didn't know better," remarked Jon, watching and cradling the PS3 his friend had brought over, "I'd say you were enjoying that."
"I've been working out," explained Anthony, puffing out his chest with pride. "Never complain about an opportunity to have that appreciated." He grabbed the hem of his shirt. "Want to see?"
"Not in front of my mom, you crazy exhibitionist," said Jon, dragging Anthony past the now-cleared dining table where his mother was working on her laptop. (Larry was in his own room; a phone call with his girlfriend had apparently triggered the rare Leibowitz need for complete seclusion. The cat was napping in a sunbeam.) "We'll be in back, Mom! Knock if you need us!"
They holed up in the den, opening the windows and aiming an oscillating fan to alternate between the two of them, and Anthony stripped off his shirt without a moment's hesitation.
Jon did a double-take. Whatever he'd been expecting, this level of buffness was not it. His formerly weedy friend had abs. Biceps that looked sculpted. Pecs you could bounce a quarter off of. "Uh, dude, are you sure we can still be friends?"
"Oh, come on, they make you do lots of dancing and stuff, right? You can't be in that bad shape."
"I'm not," admitted Jon. "But the only reason we started hanging out is because nobody else wanted to be friends with the scrawny Jews with the weird names. So now that I have a normal name and you are definitely not scrawny...."
"...I just barely look like you might hang out with me for reasons other than pity?" suggested Anthony. "Seriously, my social strata at this point is only 'desirable'. Yours is 'stratospheric'. Fabulous body or not, I'd have to be an Olympic athlete to measure up." Jon squirmed in discomfort; Anthony just grinned. "Don't look at me like that! I'm at peace with it. You may have a million groupies, but I?"
He bent his head closer. Jon leaned in to hear.
"I," Anthony said in a low, eager voice, "am about one date away from doing it with Huma Abedin."
"Con...gratulations?" said Jon, trying desperately to remember who that was.
"Oh, come on!" protested Anthony. "You knew Huma! She was in American Government with us. She was hotter than every other girl in American Government put together! How could you not notice? Hang on, I have photos on my phone...."
"I was only in high school for about five months," Jon reminded him. The name did ring a bell, now, though. "Did she do that presentation on the Clintons?"
This turned out to be right, but with Jon's memory so thin, Anthony still felt obligated to launch into a lecture (with illustrations!) on the joys and glories of Huma Abedin. She was brilliant. She was stunning. She was well-traveled — grew up in Saudi Arabia, only moved to Jersey recently for her parents to do their PhD studies at UPenn — "see, Jon, the whole family's brilliant!" She could speak three languages. She could speak for hours (in English) with Anthony about politics. They both had political jobs this summer — "I finally get up the nerve to ask her out and we're both going to be stupidly busy for months" — Anthony a gofer at the mayor's office, Huma an intern with the Obama campaign.
After about fifteen minutes of this, Jon said, "You are really gone for this girl, aren't you?"
"Uh, yeah. That's what I led with, remember?"
"No, I mean — this isn't just 'she's hot enough to melt steel' or 'oh my god, she might touch me where I go to the bathroom,' this is you liking her."
Anthony gave him a roguish half-grin. It didn't look entirely convincing — he might have the torso of an underwear model now, but he still had the same kind-of-doofy face he'd sported in middle school — but it was clearly earnest. "Yeah. Trying not to jinx it, though. So how about you? Got your eye on anyone yet?"
Jon shrugged, awkward. It wasn't that he didn't trust Anthony, but..."Not really."
"Yeah, I was afraid of that. Do you want to?"
"What?"
"Get your eye...or whatever else you want...on someone," clarified Anthony, sliding right back from his romantic transport to his usual cheerful lechery. "I know you're probably worried about publicity and crazy stalkers and stuff, but between me and Huma, we've triaged a couple of girls who are into you enough to go for it, and cool enough to keep it on the down-low for the next few years."
Now Jon was fidgeting for an entirely new reason. "Listen, uh, I...appreciate the effort."
"Great! Do you want to see photos?"
"You took photos of them?"
"Well, obviously I didn't say they were audition photos for the role of Taking Jon Stewart's Virginity," said Anthony quickly. He was scrolling through his phone menus again, leaving the folder with all the adoring shots of his girlfriend. "And, um, don't mention this part around Huma, because she would probably think it was weird, you know?"
"It is weird," said Jon. "No, don't — I don't need to see them, okay? I'm not interested."
"Rejecting them all sight-unseen? That's harsh."
There was a limit to how far Jon could deceive his BFF, and they were rapidly approaching it. "It's not them," he said. "It's...I can't have a girlfriend who isn't vetted by PR, okay? It's in my contract. And if, hypothetically, I wanted to go out with someone who wasn't approved, it would have to be a total secret."
Anthony shrugged. "Sure, but we're not talking about getting a girlfriend here. And like I said, if what you need is a girl who can be discreet...."
"Anthony, you're not listening," interrupted Jon. "If, hypothetically, I had one of these secret relationships already, and I took you up on your very thoughtful offer here, then I would, hypothetically, be a cheating schmuck. You get me?"
"But you...." Anthony trailed off. "...Ohhhh."
"Yep."
"Well, congratulations yourself!" exclaimed Anthony. "So what's she like? How hot is she? How far have you gotten? Hypothetically, I mean."
"Maybe I'll tell you later. If I decide you're discreet enough," said Jon dryly. "Hey, listen, before I forget...did you catch the Teen Choice Awards?"
"The what?" said Anthony. And then: "Wait, is that something you won? Congratulations again."
Jon waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, we won a couple. This year and last. Specifics aren't the point. The point is, you know what they give you as a trophy? Because I'm never gonna use mine, so I figured, hey, maybe I pass them forward...."
"Jon, you lost me. What do they give you, and why would I want it?"
Jon smiled sheepishly. "Remember that summer you really wanted to learn to surf, but couldn't afford a good board?"
"Yeah...?"
"How would you like two of 'em?"
~*~
Stephen*Colbert
spent the afternoon hanging out with hobbits!
Stephen*Colbert
thought of you <3
~*~
If there was one thing Jon missed least about this house, it was the difficulty of getting a little quality personal time. (Had his bed always squeaked this much? He sincerely hoped not.)
He would have liked to pull up some porn, too, but he'd been on a serious guys-giving-blowjobs kick recently, and that was approximately the last way he wanted to out himself to his family.
In the end he settled on locking himself in the shower, turning the water on full blast, and thinking about Stephen.
The real Stephen might still rule blowjobs firmly off the menu, but that didn't mean a guy couldn't fantasize. And not with the mental equivalent of badly-photoshopped banana pictures, either. Jon knew exactly how Stephen looked when he was relishing the taste of something: sucking the cheese dust from a bag of Doritos off the ends of his fingers, running his tongue along the curve of a spoon to get every last dollop of Rocky Road and caramel. And Jon knew — better than anyone else in the world — all the faces and sounds Stephen made when he was almost too turned on to breathe straight.
Under the spray, Jon wrapped his hand around his dick and put all the images together. Stephen on his knees, all hesitation done away with, brimming with eagerness and determination. Stephen taking him in, slowly at first, experimenting with his limits, then going deeper and deeper. Stephen moaning, lashes fluttering, as he realizes how much he loves having Jon in his mouth, loves —
Good thing Jon hadn't been going for endurance here, because he didn't last two minutes.
Lying in bed afterward, he spent a good twenty minutes waiting for the post-orgasmic bliss to override his jet-lagged brain's conviction that it was barely dinnertime, then gave up and and shimmied down the ladder to get a Vaxasopor. He had plenty left over from their last cross-timezone tour. Hadn't consulted a doctor about starting them up again, but Stephen had been taking them consistently this whole time, so it couldn't be too toxic if Jon used them for a week.