Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2007-07-23 11:53 am
ptahrrific) wrote2007-07-23 11:53 am
Entry tags:
Fake News: Expecting, Chapter 8
Title: Expecting, Chapter 8: Fortune Favors The Ballsy
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: G for this part
Words: ~1700
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
Notes: In the Reportverse, Stephen and Jon have radically different ideologies, so Stewart-Colbert '08 (or, for that matter, Colbert-Stewart '08) is not a popular T-shirt.
Clips referenced: Tragic local story; eight-child policy.
For the full table of contents to this story, click here.
Chapter 8
Fortune Favors The Ballsy
February 7, 2007
(Continued)
There were two TVs in the general waiting room, one tuned to the hospital's internal channel (displaying helpful advice about eating fresh vegetables between ads for the NanoDocs program), the other to CNN. Jon watched both.
Trying to do something useful in the meantime, he thought of another punny headline for the astronaut story. It promptly appeared on CNN Newsroom.
The coverage was getting under his skin. The cheap jokes at the expense of an accomplished woman who had tragically gone round the bend, the hyping of what was essentially a local story....Maybe the Daily Show's over-the-shoulder title could be something like that. At least there was no chance someone else would snap it up.
Besides, he couldn't focus on being funny right now. His mind was stuck on a roller coaster, careening from "Moreau called an ambulance" to "Moreau said it's probably not urgent" and back, clanking slowly up to the height of "Moreau told Stephen to give that number only to someone he would trust with his life, and he gave it to me, which means—" and then taking the death-defying plunge into "Stephen's pregnant and in the emergency room!"
The latest pair of talking heads were rehashing the implications of the astronaut's diaper, and the man next to Jon had somehow gotten the idea that he ought to give a long-winded explanation of the rash on his arm, when a nurse came in. "Mr. ...Stewart?" he asked, reading the name from a small notepad.
Jon stood up.
"Oh, hey, you're Jon Stewart!" explained the nurse as Jon followed him out. "I love your show. My girlfriend got me one of those Stewart/Obama '08 shirts last Christmas."
"Why am I on the top of the ticket?" quipped Jon. "I'm about the only person who has less Washington experience than he does."
"Couldn't do much worse than the current guy," the nurse replied. "Of course, Mom's a fan of Colbert/Paul, and maybe they could. Anyway, here's your room."
Stephen was sitting up in the bed, dressed in a hospital gown but looking normal except for the IV hooked to his arm (and, of course, the blatantly pregnant stomach). He was talking to a tall woman a little older than himself, with a brown bob and earrings shaped like apples, but grinned and waved when Jon came in.
The doctor looked up, then rose to greet him. "Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Stewart. I'm Phoebe Moreau. Stephen talks about you all the time."
"Do not," protested Stephen from the bed.
"Call me Jon." He reached over the bed to shake Moreau's hand, then took a seat across from her. "So you're the one behind all of this. Is he okay? Is the baby okay? What happened?"
"They're both fine. But it's fortunate that you called sooner rather than later."
"You see, Jon," cut in Stephen, clearly not thrilled to be out of the center of attention, "a pregnant woman experiences a massive increase in blood volume — about fifty percent. However, despite the administration of hormones which were meant to have an equivalent effect, my body never received, or never correctly interpreted, the signal to increase blood production. That's why I was experiencing symptoms similar to anemia, as well as the abnormal cold: increasing blood demand from the fetus. I mean the baby."
Moreau was nodding in approval. Her expression hadn't changed, but a twinkle in her eyes made Jon suspect that she found Stephen's sudden expertise as amusing as he did. Which was good, because it was probably her words that Stephen was repeating verbatim.
"Anyway, it's sweet that you were worried, but all they had to do to fix it was give me a transfusion of packed red cells. You didn't have to panic."
"I panicked?" echoed Jon incredulously.
"He did," the pundit informed Moreau. "You should have seen it. He's so cute when he worries."
Jon, who could feel a bruise on his forearm developing where Stephen had held it in a vise-like grip for the whole trip, who had scratches from where Stephen's nails had dug into his skin every time the ambulance slowed for traffic, who had spent most of the ride reassuring Stephen that he was not on death's door, looked helplessly at Moreau.
He couldn't be sure, but he thought she winked at him.
"One transfusion won't solve everything, though," she continued, addressing her patient. "We'll have to get a lot more iron into your multivitamin, for one thing. I would rather not tinker with your hormone dosage at this point if possible, so we'll keep a much closer eye on the symptoms that tipped your friend off, and give you another transfusion if necessary."
Jon was relieved to note that, although Stephen went relatively pale at this announcement, his face was still more flushed than it had been in a long time.
"Another one?" he exclaimed. "How many times are you going to impale me, woman? I'm a human being, not a pincushion!"
"As many times as necessary," replied Moreau without batting an eye, "and as few as possible. To minimize them, make sure you get plenty to drink. The IV is keeping you especially hydrated right now, but you'll need to do that on your own when you leave."
Stephen looked at the bag of fluid suspended above him. "That's water?"
"A saline solution. Water-based."
"Not, say, Captain America-type super-soldier serum?"
"No."
"Any chance there was a mix-up in a back room somewhere?"
"Even if we allowed mix-ups, we don't stock super-soldier serum at Dwayne Medical Center."
Stephen cursed. "There goes another chance to be a superhero."
There wasn't much to say to that, so Moreau turned to Jon.
"Mr. Stewart," she said, "when are you going to invite me to be on your show?"
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
February 13, 2007
18 Weeks
When Jon had lunch with Stephen again the next week, the previously pallid pundit was positively perky. On the previous night's show he had gotten into a long and energetic rant (directed at Australian Prime Minister John Howard), and today he was bubbling with enthusiasm over the special episode they were going to air in the evening on the dangers of China.
He explained this to Jon between mouthfuls of moo goo gai pan.
"...and at the end, I'm going to encourage couples to have at least eight kids each, because how else are we going to catch up? I'm working on number five already. Leading by example."
"Is number five ever going to get a name?" inquired Jon.
Stephen frowned. "He'll need one of those eventually, won't he? Hmm. What do you think of Joseph Alois Ratzinger Colbert?"
"I think," said Jon with careful tact, "it's a little...unwieldy."
"On second thought," continued Stephen, "maybe that's a little unwieldy. Benedict Colbert would work better. I thought about naming him Bill, after Papa Bear, but I'm afraid people will think I'm naming him after Clinton."
"And we wouldn't want that."
"Exactly!"
Jon was still working on his rice when Stephen broke open his fortune cookie. "'You are always generous and kind. Lucky numbers 7, 4, 200, 7.' How do they get these things so accurate, Jon? It's like they know me!"
"That's not even a fortune," protested Jon. "It's just a generic compliment."
"It's still creepy," insisted Stephen. "Movin' on. Now that lunch is over, we can talk business." He produced a sheaf of papers, printouts from real estate websites by the look of them, held together by a long-suffering paper clip. "Next week the shows are on break, so we're going to go look at houses. Help me narrow these down."
Jon nearly choked on his rice. "What do you mean, 'we'?"
"Which part don't you understand? The W, or the E?"
"I mean — you and who else?"
"You, of course."
"Were you ever going to get my opinion?"
"Of course! I left the whole week open, so we can go any day you think best. Or two days, if you want."
"Did it ever occur to you," asked Jon, putting down his chopsticks on his unfinished rice, "that I might have plans?"
"Do you have plans?"
"Yes. I'll be out of town all week with my family."
"You'll have to cancel, then," replied Stephen matter-of-factly. "Now, this one on top is in a nice neighborhood, but I'm a little worried about..."
"No."
"Hm?"
"I said, no."
Stephen looked up from the printout. "You don't like this one?"
"I mean, no, I'm not coming with you."
"Don't be silly. Of course you are. What are friends for?"
"Friends," said Jon through gritted teeth, "help each other out, but that doesn't mean throwing out their own lives at the drop of a hat whenever you want something."
"But that's one of the things I like best about you — that I can always call and you'll be there..."
"I can't keep doing this, Stephen!" cried Jon, rising to his feet. "I can't spend all my time pandering to you! You need to take responsibility for yourself once in a while. Go look for houses on your own!"
"But I can't!" returned Stephen, standing up himself and regaining his height advantage. "I don't know anything about houses! Not what to look for, not what to be careful of, nothing! Lorraine handled all that when we bought the Colbert Compound!"
"Did she have to do everything for you? Didn't you ever make any effort on your own? No wonder she left you!"
He regretted the words even as he said them.
The room went deathly still. Stephen looked as if he had been slapped. Then his expression went hard and cold.
"Get out."
"Stephen, I—"
"Stewart, if you stay in this office one minute longer you can forget about being Called Out, or even On Notice, because you will be Dead To Me. Get. Out."
Jon went.
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: G for this part
Words: ~1700
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
Notes: In the Reportverse, Stephen and Jon have radically different ideologies, so Stewart-Colbert '08 (or, for that matter, Colbert-Stewart '08) is not a popular T-shirt.
Clips referenced: Tragic local story; eight-child policy.
For the full table of contents to this story, click here.
Chapter 8
Fortune Favors The Ballsy
February 7, 2007
(Continued)
There were two TVs in the general waiting room, one tuned to the hospital's internal channel (displaying helpful advice about eating fresh vegetables between ads for the NanoDocs program), the other to CNN. Jon watched both.
Trying to do something useful in the meantime, he thought of another punny headline for the astronaut story. It promptly appeared on CNN Newsroom.
The coverage was getting under his skin. The cheap jokes at the expense of an accomplished woman who had tragically gone round the bend, the hyping of what was essentially a local story....Maybe the Daily Show's over-the-shoulder title could be something like that. At least there was no chance someone else would snap it up.
Besides, he couldn't focus on being funny right now. His mind was stuck on a roller coaster, careening from "Moreau called an ambulance" to "Moreau said it's probably not urgent" and back, clanking slowly up to the height of "Moreau told Stephen to give that number only to someone he would trust with his life, and he gave it to me, which means—" and then taking the death-defying plunge into "Stephen's pregnant and in the emergency room!"
The latest pair of talking heads were rehashing the implications of the astronaut's diaper, and the man next to Jon had somehow gotten the idea that he ought to give a long-winded explanation of the rash on his arm, when a nurse came in. "Mr. ...Stewart?" he asked, reading the name from a small notepad.
Jon stood up.
"Oh, hey, you're Jon Stewart!" explained the nurse as Jon followed him out. "I love your show. My girlfriend got me one of those Stewart/Obama '08 shirts last Christmas."
"Why am I on the top of the ticket?" quipped Jon. "I'm about the only person who has less Washington experience than he does."
"Couldn't do much worse than the current guy," the nurse replied. "Of course, Mom's a fan of Colbert/Paul, and maybe they could. Anyway, here's your room."
Stephen was sitting up in the bed, dressed in a hospital gown but looking normal except for the IV hooked to his arm (and, of course, the blatantly pregnant stomach). He was talking to a tall woman a little older than himself, with a brown bob and earrings shaped like apples, but grinned and waved when Jon came in.
The doctor looked up, then rose to greet him. "Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Stewart. I'm Phoebe Moreau. Stephen talks about you all the time."
"Do not," protested Stephen from the bed.
"Call me Jon." He reached over the bed to shake Moreau's hand, then took a seat across from her. "So you're the one behind all of this. Is he okay? Is the baby okay? What happened?"
"They're both fine. But it's fortunate that you called sooner rather than later."
"You see, Jon," cut in Stephen, clearly not thrilled to be out of the center of attention, "a pregnant woman experiences a massive increase in blood volume — about fifty percent. However, despite the administration of hormones which were meant to have an equivalent effect, my body never received, or never correctly interpreted, the signal to increase blood production. That's why I was experiencing symptoms similar to anemia, as well as the abnormal cold: increasing blood demand from the fetus. I mean the baby."
Moreau was nodding in approval. Her expression hadn't changed, but a twinkle in her eyes made Jon suspect that she found Stephen's sudden expertise as amusing as he did. Which was good, because it was probably her words that Stephen was repeating verbatim.
"Anyway, it's sweet that you were worried, but all they had to do to fix it was give me a transfusion of packed red cells. You didn't have to panic."
"I panicked?" echoed Jon incredulously.
"He did," the pundit informed Moreau. "You should have seen it. He's so cute when he worries."
Jon, who could feel a bruise on his forearm developing where Stephen had held it in a vise-like grip for the whole trip, who had scratches from where Stephen's nails had dug into his skin every time the ambulance slowed for traffic, who had spent most of the ride reassuring Stephen that he was not on death's door, looked helplessly at Moreau.
He couldn't be sure, but he thought she winked at him.
"One transfusion won't solve everything, though," she continued, addressing her patient. "We'll have to get a lot more iron into your multivitamin, for one thing. I would rather not tinker with your hormone dosage at this point if possible, so we'll keep a much closer eye on the symptoms that tipped your friend off, and give you another transfusion if necessary."
Jon was relieved to note that, although Stephen went relatively pale at this announcement, his face was still more flushed than it had been in a long time.
"Another one?" he exclaimed. "How many times are you going to impale me, woman? I'm a human being, not a pincushion!"
"As many times as necessary," replied Moreau without batting an eye, "and as few as possible. To minimize them, make sure you get plenty to drink. The IV is keeping you especially hydrated right now, but you'll need to do that on your own when you leave."
Stephen looked at the bag of fluid suspended above him. "That's water?"
"A saline solution. Water-based."
"Not, say, Captain America-type super-soldier serum?"
"No."
"Any chance there was a mix-up in a back room somewhere?"
"Even if we allowed mix-ups, we don't stock super-soldier serum at Dwayne Medical Center."
Stephen cursed. "There goes another chance to be a superhero."
There wasn't much to say to that, so Moreau turned to Jon.
"Mr. Stewart," she said, "when are you going to invite me to be on your show?"
February 13, 2007
18 Weeks
When Jon had lunch with Stephen again the next week, the previously pallid pundit was positively perky. On the previous night's show he had gotten into a long and energetic rant (directed at Australian Prime Minister John Howard), and today he was bubbling with enthusiasm over the special episode they were going to air in the evening on the dangers of China.
He explained this to Jon between mouthfuls of moo goo gai pan.
"...and at the end, I'm going to encourage couples to have at least eight kids each, because how else are we going to catch up? I'm working on number five already. Leading by example."
"Is number five ever going to get a name?" inquired Jon.
Stephen frowned. "He'll need one of those eventually, won't he? Hmm. What do you think of Joseph Alois Ratzinger Colbert?"
"I think," said Jon with careful tact, "it's a little...unwieldy."
"On second thought," continued Stephen, "maybe that's a little unwieldy. Benedict Colbert would work better. I thought about naming him Bill, after Papa Bear, but I'm afraid people will think I'm naming him after Clinton."
"And we wouldn't want that."
"Exactly!"
Jon was still working on his rice when Stephen broke open his fortune cookie. "'You are always generous and kind. Lucky numbers 7, 4, 200, 7.' How do they get these things so accurate, Jon? It's like they know me!"
"That's not even a fortune," protested Jon. "It's just a generic compliment."
"It's still creepy," insisted Stephen. "Movin' on. Now that lunch is over, we can talk business." He produced a sheaf of papers, printouts from real estate websites by the look of them, held together by a long-suffering paper clip. "Next week the shows are on break, so we're going to go look at houses. Help me narrow these down."
Jon nearly choked on his rice. "What do you mean, 'we'?"
"Which part don't you understand? The W, or the E?"
"I mean — you and who else?"
"You, of course."
"Were you ever going to get my opinion?"
"Of course! I left the whole week open, so we can go any day you think best. Or two days, if you want."
"Did it ever occur to you," asked Jon, putting down his chopsticks on his unfinished rice, "that I might have plans?"
"Do you have plans?"
"Yes. I'll be out of town all week with my family."
"You'll have to cancel, then," replied Stephen matter-of-factly. "Now, this one on top is in a nice neighborhood, but I'm a little worried about..."
"No."
"Hm?"
"I said, no."
Stephen looked up from the printout. "You don't like this one?"
"I mean, no, I'm not coming with you."
"Don't be silly. Of course you are. What are friends for?"
"Friends," said Jon through gritted teeth, "help each other out, but that doesn't mean throwing out their own lives at the drop of a hat whenever you want something."
"But that's one of the things I like best about you — that I can always call and you'll be there..."
"I can't keep doing this, Stephen!" cried Jon, rising to his feet. "I can't spend all my time pandering to you! You need to take responsibility for yourself once in a while. Go look for houses on your own!"
"But I can't!" returned Stephen, standing up himself and regaining his height advantage. "I don't know anything about houses! Not what to look for, not what to be careful of, nothing! Lorraine handled all that when we bought the Colbert Compound!"
"Did she have to do everything for you? Didn't you ever make any effort on your own? No wonder she left you!"
He regretted the words even as he said them.
The room went deathly still. Stephen looked as if he had been slapped. Then his expression went hard and cold.
"Get out."
"Stephen, I—"
"Stewart, if you stay in this office one minute longer you can forget about being Called Out, or even On Notice, because you will be Dead To Me. Get. Out."
Jon went.
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Also, poor Jon. ):
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Being a perfect best friend to the increasingly high-maintenance Stephen would get to anyone eventually...
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*sniffle*
Stephen...Jon... *helpless gesticulation* ARGH!
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Stephen's modus operandi is "ignore anything I don't like", and Jon's is "let Stephen be Stephen", which works as long as they can keep it up, and then it's a recipe for a decidedly argh-worthy train wreck.
Feel better, and thanks for reading!
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Ah, but we learn for a fact that death is okay - unless you're Voldemort. Like Dumbledore says, it's the living ones you have to worry about, and the epilog made pretty clear that they were okay too. So it's a happy ending all around, no?
END SPOILERS.
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Once again I am left desperately anticipating the next installment.
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Thanks!
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The alltieration line amused me as well. And Dr Moreau is awesome.
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But yes, it had to happen.
Glad you like!
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Keep reading! ^_~
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at least hopefully they can work out some of their issues in preparation for living Happily Ever After. i'm not sure how that is going to happen given jon's family which seems to be doing fine, but...
Stephen cursed. "There goes another chance to be a superhero." aw, stephen.
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The hope is that Jon will put up with Stephen for long enough to nudge him into being a better person - and, since you've read the next chapter, you know it's working, at least a little...
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Hopefully, they'll make up in the next chapter. I mean, a pregnant (wo)man cannot handle this much stress! And Jon's family vacation might go up in flames because of this.
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So glad you're hooked on the drama =D
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Opening in the hospital waiting room. Drags out the suspense; recalls the very opening of the fic. The comparison is too clear for it not to be deliberate, and, it took me a moment, but got to the bit about the man-with-the-rash next to Jon and went, noise. Two TVs and other people in the waiting room? The contrast with the original waiting room is made explicit (I distinctly recall there being nothing for Jon to distract himself with. Silence can be deafening).
It sets up Jon as Stephen's emergency room friend (everybody has one, and it's not usually their next of kin) and paves the way for our original glimpse of Jon at the hospital. I like this. In the first chapter we got to contrast Jon's worry and fear with Evelyn's response; and Jon's response to finding out/the way he found out to Evelyn's; and now you tie us right back in to that first moment - we get to contrast Jon's levels of panic and later in the fic we get to contrast Stephen's response to it. I'm glad of this; some of the best writing I've had the pleasure to read has been the work of authors who set up these ever expanding circles of semantics and moments which echo and tie the plot together, bind it structurally and lexically to support the narrative proper. You have a fair few yourself, and I think it works to your advantage; I also think that they aren't drawn out as much as they could be with a little more attention to lexis, and, further, that that is a good thing: your narrative has a lot to deal with in the sense that your plot is heavy with its - implausability. It's an au. In a very specific way, and only by treating it as natural, as less than fantastical, can you keep it moving and make it work. If you constantly had to deal with the characters 'dealing' with it as in how unnatural it is as opposed to simply 'dealing with it' - the narrative wouldn't work; it would become unwieldy. Too much meta would not work here; this is a story whose plot depends on development of character more than anything else, and that means leaning away, sometimes, from technical trickery in a way that, say, The Thing With Feathers could be self-indulgent. The Thing With Feathers is a story about writing as much as anything and that means the writing gets to come out and play a little more than a story that's very plot-driven - it has the advantage of being part of the plot.
Um. Getting distracted there. Anyway. Nice echo with Jon being recognised here as well.
Stephen...grinned and waved when Jon came in.
Hi, Jon! Hi, Jon, hi!
*laughs* he's delightful in this segment. As is his recitation of the facts concerning his condition - he's feeling a warmth towards Jon, and he owes Jon and what better way to make him happy? I like that the recitation of facts isn't at all a) mentioned as fact, just Moreau's words; b) Moreau's words, as evidenced by Stephen's self-correction of fetus to baby; and c) not at all intended to put Jon at ease, but rather to impress him/get his attention. (Contrast: Stephen's reaction to Jon's worry later on. And I am amused that Stephen is so bolstered by both his health and the clear evidence that Jon does worry about him as to profess Jon 'cute' when he's worried. Belittling? Yes, unintentionally. Affectionate? I do believe so.)
I can't believe I just sat here and maxed out the comment length
Stephen cursed. "There goes another chance to be a superhero."
There wasn't much to say to that, - quite.
And Moreau invites herself onto Jon's show. (Oh, and the recognition here and in the waiting room vs the non-recognition later on; Jon's a lot more helpless there, and perhaps that feeds into the strength of his reaction to Stephen's initial dismissal of his worry. It comes a lot sooner than the reaction to Stephen's dismissal in this chapter; and Stephen's response is different, also. I like the way the parallels are set up to show us how much they both grow throughout the story.) Moreau's quite ballsy. She's a very good OC...and I can't help but wonder: is she going to make an appearance in the next one?
(And thank you for the little snippets/insights into State of Grace as we go along in this odd, branched conversation we're having :) )
" the previously pallid pundit was positively perky" - what alliteration! Oh my!
- I realise this is an odd place to end the comment - I haven't done that last segment yet, and it's only short - but look how much I ended up writing for the first half of this chapter! I need to get some sleep - and do some research - I have an interview tomorrow. Perhaps I will be able to continue this then. Here's hoping, no?
A dopo.
As an aside: an a capella version of Thunder Road just came on my iTunes *is amused*
*is also a little punchy*
Sleep now. 'night.
Re: I can't believe I just sat here and maxed out the comment length
Again, which dismissals are you comparing? (Answer after getting that good night's sleep ^_^)
Moreau's gotta be ballsy, or she wouldn't be working on male pregnancy. But on top of that, I needed her to be able to deal with Stephen: not only in terms of letting his obnoxious/angry/inconsiderate comments bounce right off, but in terms of managing him. Jon doesn't do a lot of that; he's too nice. Dr. Moreau, in contrast, has a Machiavellian streak. (Also a mercenary one.)
She's still Stephen's primary care physician, so she'll appear in State of Grace. But she isn't a psychologist or a therapist, so her role will be more limited.
Hey, I feel like I gotta reward you somehow for all this gorgeous feedback.
(Like I said -- wordplay is good.)
...I missed the joke. What's the Thunder Road connection?
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The Thing With Feathers was definitely fun with the meta, though I do worry that it got self-indulgent in a bad way. (The follow-up was pure self-indulgence, but at least there I knew what I was doing.)
I think I've lost track of the comparison you're making, though. Which particular moments of panic and response are you contrasting? (It's tricky because, given the way the "yesterday/today" moments interject, "later" and "earlier" could refer to the same thing.)
I've tried to have Jon get recognized in different ways. Most of the fans I interact with online are either those who run in similar circles (the fangirls, interested in character and fic with a healthy side order of squee) or those who are just plain die-hard. This is more how I would expect an average, casual fan to act.
Ah, you caught Stephen's self-correction! Lovely. (And it serves to foreshadow the eventual clash over the stem cell bill.)
So glad you like everything you mentioned about Stephen in that segment, come to think of it ^_^ ("Hi, Jon, hi!" is just about a perfect description of his mindset. D'aww.)
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I'm pretty sure it all centres around a point made by...someone, when discussing Richardson's Clarissa - it's not Ross, I think, though there's a similar one there - I have it written down somewhere, I did my first dissertation on Clarissa (because apparently I don't know the meaning of going easy on myself) but alas my diss. is on the external hard-drive at home. Which, given that my current good internet access is due to house-sitting for my cousin, means I'm not entirely sure when I'll be able to find it - but he really does put it a lot better than I do, so I'm going to just plough on ahead and come back to this when I get the chance, if that's alright? (Sorry about that. It's a little difficult to talk about structure in a fic this large simply because of the LJ format - weird, no? but it would be easier if it were in paper. So...I'm just going to wait until I find the damn quote, and see if I can be more coherent then.)
Right: hilarious alliteration. The discussion of Number Five's name made me smile, not least because Jon and Stephen both initially refer to him simply as number five. Now that lunch is over, ah, Stephen simply not noticing that lunch is not over, Jon's still eating. I find that his fledgling little attempt to be considerate - I left the whole week open, so we can go any day you think best. - endearing (I find I use that word a lot, with regards to the "Stephen" you write).
I particularly liked the way you wrote Jon's reaction:
"Did it ever occur to you," asked Jon, putting down his chopsticks on his unfinished rice, "that I might have plans?"
Two things: first, that Jon's actual dialogue is broken up by his actions - he's being very deliberate here, wanting to make sure he's got the right end of the stick before he says anything, and the narrative voice serves to illustrate that without anything so cumbersome as an adverb (brava) - and second, 'putting down his chopsticks' has overtones of Jon 'putting [his foot] down' - which, of course, is what he's doing. And you mention the unfinished rice!
(I'm also heartened to note that when Jon puts his foot down it's at a point where Stephen's demands involve his family. Baby steps of resistance.)
Stephen's "But I can't!" is awfully telling of the way you view the character - and I'm going back to the chapter where we were discussing the appropriateness of needy/helpless when discussing "Stephen" and getting into that comment properly. See you there ;)
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I should mention that I've been waiting for this all day -- although I may not get to every comment tonight (I'm driving home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I have a trailer to finish).
"Stephen" is dear to me, so it makes sense that he comes off as endearing =)
Jon is definitely more ready to stand up for his family than himself. And I'm so glad you like the emotional dynamic here. It took care. (Now that I think about it, this kind of thing happens all over State of Grace. Yikes.)
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(Btw, I'm pleased to hear that about the emotional dynamic - the push and pull of the interaction between Jon and Stephen fascinates me all by itself, but adding in things like familial obligations? Duty, honour, all that? So much fun to explore. I'm really looking forward to State of Grace; and I'm glad that you're enjoying the feedback, too.)
The point I wanted to make that I haven't - yeah, you know the one I'm talking about, even though I haven't made it - is one more about the structure of the piece, and I think it was a wee bit daft of me to try and do that when I'm going chapter-by-chapter - so I'm going to wait until I've hit up all the chapters and then try again. I'll get there, no worries :)
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and. alliteration.