Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2009-03-01 08:57 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2009-03-01 08:57 pm
Fake News: The Great Divide, part 3
Title: The Great Divide (3/3)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: More swearing, more gay stuff, ladle violence
Characters/pairings: Jon/"Stephen", references to ensemble, potato pancakes
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Summary: In which Senator Colbert is all over the emotional map, and Senator Stewart is Zen with a side of Zen topped with a creamy Zen frosting.
Features shoutouts to everything from A Colbert Christmas to Stephen's Twitter (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
stephenathome) - again, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rissaofthesaiya provides specifics. For the lead-up to this, see the Senateverse index.
(By the way, if anyone else wants to play around in this AU, have at it! No reason one author should have all the fun.)
The Great Divide - Part 3
Stephen's vision had been beginning to go dark around the edges when he felt the hand on his face.
If he had any doubts about the abilities of that forceful hand, they were well and truly settled. Jon Stewart had banished the nameless panic with a touch.
And Jon was still touching him, the skin on skin electric; Jon didn't mind touching him after all, would reach across the aisle for him, would take care of him, would—
The thought propelled him forward into Jon, pressing the back of his head against the tinted window, one hand braced against the pane for support, kissing him for all he was worth.
It took both of Jon's hands to move him this time.
Only when he was being held at arm's length did Stephen realize just how badly he had misjudged this one.
§
In the moment it took him to catch his breath, Jon watched Stephen's face go through another rapid series of shifts, this time coming to a stop on anger.
"What is it?" he demanded. "Something in the air?"
Had Jon missed something?
"Or the water? Or have you been spiking my champagne?"
"What?" managed Jon at last. Not the brightest reply, but at least it was pithy.
"This!" Stephen jerked his hips in a decidedly expressive manner, then seemed to notice his continuing on-top-of-Jon-ness and yanked himself away, not stopping until his back was up against the far door. "Either it's something about New York, or it's something you did—you—"
"No, I'm pretty sure that was all you," said Jon dryly, remembering the man's record as he unstuck himself from the window. Rabidly anti-gay. Tried to propose legislation to ban homosexuals from getting driver's licenses. Honestly, Stewart, you should've seen this coming.
It was like watching a slow-motion film of someone stomping on a can. Stephen's face crumpled.
"I'm sorry," he choked, drawing his knees up against his chest. "Please don't tell anyone. I—I'll do anything—oh, God, I'm so sorry." This last word was nearly overtaken by a strangled sob.
This wasn't the stress of someone not wanting to kiss you. This was the kind of breakdown you had when your entire life was in danger of falling apart.
(There had been six openly gay members of Congress in its entire history, and while Jon couldn't name them all off the top of his head, he was certain none of them had been from South Carolina.)
Running a hand through his hair, Jon moved back to his own seat, towards the front end of the car. "I'm gonna talk to the driver for a second," he said, surprised by the gentleness in his tone. "Hold your breath, all right?"
Stephen grabbed his coat from the floor (it was huge and fire-engine red with a thick furry hood, looking somewhat ridiculous but admittedly very warm) and muffled himself with the sleeve.
Jon slid open the little window that led to the front seat. "Maria? Take us in circles for a while, okay?"
"Sure thing, Mr. Stewart."
"Thanks." He clicked the window shut and turned back to Stephen. "When you say 'anything'...."
Another ragged sob shook Stephen, but he managed a couple of sharp, jerking nods. "Anything you want," he gulped, once his voice was his own again. "I swear."
"So if I told you to...do the Hokey Pokey?"
A nod.
"Or stop harassing every woman you meet?"
Another.
"Or get down on your knees right now and suck me off?"
Stephen squeezed his eyes shut at this, but nodded once more.
You'd probably like that, Jon thought.
He caught himself a second later. What the hell? When did my internal monologue turn into bad porn?
Damnit, he'd had power for less than two minutes and it was already corrupting him. Any order he gave right now would be blackmail, even if it stemmed from the noblest of intentions and not one of your classic Deadly Sins.
"It's okay," he said out loud. "I won't tell."
This nod was very small. "What do I have to do?"
"Nothing."
Stephen opened one eye, red-rimmed and brimming with tears, and squinted at Jon over the folds of his coat. "So...so there's s-something I have to not do? Not c-campaign for someone, or...."
"No. I mean, it doesn't matter what you do or don't do. You do need to knock it off with women—it doesn't help, anyway, it just looks like overcompensating—but I'm not going to threaten you with this, all right? Who you want to sleep with is your own business, and it's not my job to tell people about it. So I'm not going to. Full stop."
Now Stephen was studying him with both eyes, each more confused than the other. "What's the catch?"
Jon spread his hands. "No catch."
Stephen frowned at him. "You're not very good at this blackmail thing, are you?"
"What, and you're the expert?"
This went unanswered, except for another sniffle.
Aw, hell.
§
It didn't make sense. No sense at all. Yes, Stewart was putting words together in a recognizable order, and they were all in English (America's language), but when it came to fitting into Stephen's understanding of the world, they simply refused to cooperate.
"But you could have anything you wanted!" he protested, interrupting Stewart in the middle of a nonsense phrase about how it wasn't right that Stephen's shameful secret could be used against him in the first place. "You could have my votes, you could have...me...."
His voice shook with equal parts fear and desire. Sure, Stewart wasn't one of the chiseled bodybuilders from the magazines Stephen had repeatedly tried to get classified as pornography so they wouldn't be able to taunt him from newsstands, but he wasn't exactly Barney Frank, either.
Stewart hesitated. "Do you...want...?"
Was that a trick question? Stephen clutched his thick coat like a shield, trying to figure out how he was supposed to answer.
"Okay, never mind." Stewart held up a hand. "This clearly isn't a good...listen, how about this. We won't mention it for the next, let's say, week. After that, if you're still...interested, then say something. And if not, I won't bring it up again. Deal?"
Was this a trick? It sounded pretty straightforward, though.
"Deal," said Stephen. It wasn't like he had much choice.
§
§
*
§
Stephen lay in bed for an hour, eleven minutes, and thirty-nine seconds before concluding that Spunky wasn't coming this morning.
Five minutes after working this out, he was fully dressed and heading for the dining room. (Over the past few days he had made a point of learning how to get there.) He didn't run into a single person on the way; but there was some kind of to-do going on in the kitchen, so he swallowed his distaste for getting too close to the servants and stuck his head in.
At first he didn't recognize the person in the grey sweater standing at the counter. It wasn't Sweet Stuff, that was for sure. But neither was it anyone else on the staff Stephen knew of.
"Jon?" he blurted in surprise.
His host turned around, a potato in one hand and a peeler in the other. "Hey, Stephen. Sorry, breakfast isn't quite ready yet...."
"Why are you cooking?" demanded Stephen. "And where is everyone? Did they all quit en masse?"
"I gave them the rest of the week off."
Stephen made a face. "Why on Earth would you do that?"
Stewart tried to hide his smile with the potato. "It's Christmas Eve, that's why. Who are you, Scrooge?"
"But you don't celebrate."
"Yeah, but most of them do. And they can all use the break. We're two grown men; I'm sure we can manage to feed and dress ourselves for a couple of days."
"Well, obviously." Stephen hesitated, then took a few steps closer.
He was still a little jumpy around the man, but at this point it was more out of reflex than any specific fear. Not only had Stewart not mentioned Stephen's horrible, horrible mistake, he didn't seem to be treating Stephen any differently because of it. It was almost as if he had forgotten the incident entirely.
(Or as if he thought it didn't stop Stephen from being a respectable human being. But who believed that, really?)
Once they were at a conversational but still safe distance, Stephen asked, "What are you making?"
"Latkes. Technically Hanukkah ended last week, but this is the first time I've had the chance to cook all month."
"Latkes? What are those?"
"Potato pancakes."
"Oh," said Stephen. Then: "Really? Six thousand years of civilization, and that's the best you can come up with? All right, that's it." He began pulling open drawers, rifling through their contents.
"What are you...?"
"Stop!" Stephen halted Stewart's approach with a ladle aimed squarely at his face. "Stay out of this one, Jewish friend. You just keep peeling your potatoes over there. I'm going to make you some proper holiday food."
Stewart stared in astonishment at the utensil-turned-weapon, and Stephen's heart thudded dully against his ribs as he wondered if he'd gone too far.
But then the other man favored him with yet another smile. "Have at it," he said. "Mi kitchen es su kitchen."
With a nod, Stephen went back to searching through cupboards. He wouldn't need the ladle to make cookies, but he kept it at his side anyway. Just in case.
§
They had cookies for breakfast.
Jon threw out the latkes. (They were burned anyway.)
This was followed by cookies for lunch.
Later, when the sun had set, they met in the parlor (now dominated by the giant fir that Colbert had dragged in from who knows where, dripping with colored bulbs and slathered with tinsel) and settled down to a plate of cookies for dinner.
It was a surprisingly relaxing way to wind down a week that had been all too busy, vacation or no vacation. Even his guest seemed to be less stressed; he was wearing a festive red turtleneck and a creamy knit sweater, marking the first time Jon had seen him in anything other than a suit.
Of course, given the edge Colbert had been riding over the last week, pretty much anything would have seemed less tense on his part. Jon hadn't said a word about their strange encounter, and still the man felt the need to threaten him with his own cooking implements.
Jon was about to bite into a gingerbread Santa hat when he noticed the utensil at Colbert's side. "Why are you still carrying that around?"
"A real man needs a ladle, Stewart," Colbert informed him.
"Right then."
Jon realized he was starting to find the other man's bizarre non sequiturs charming. When they weren't actively destroying the country, at least.
He took a chunk out of the hat, swallowed, brushed crumbs from his chin with the back of his hand. "Listen," he said, "these are delicious, but tomorrow, you and me—"
Stephen froze, except for a hand twitching in the direction of the ladle handle.
"—we're going to try at least one of my people's holiday traditions."
§
Except for the two of them, the theater was empty.
Stephen yelled at the screen all the way through. Jon sat a couple of rows away, maybe for the sake of his ears (Stephen couldn't help it that he was loud; how else could he be sure the characters would hear him?), but he didn't walk out this time.
§
"Thank you," said Stephen.
Jon blinked, not sure he'd heard right. For one thing, the phrase had been said very quietly. For another, Stephen's mouth was full of chicken chow mein.
"Sorry?"
Stephen gulped down the noodles. "I said, thank you," he repeated indignantly.
"Uh, you're welcome," said Jon. "For...that thing I promised I wouldn't bring up, you mean?"
"Exactly." Stephen jabbed at a piece of celery without looking at him. "And for being my...my Jewish friend."
Jon sighed inwardly. But not very hard.
"Glad I could help," he replied.
§
*
§
Jon paused on the steps of the Capitol building to take a deep lungful of cold Washington air. The first day of the second session of the 111th Congress, and already it had sucked him in so hard he almost forgot to stop and breathe.
The return to age-old routine made his whole roller-coaster vacation seem worlds away. He had tried to catch Stephen's eye during the opening Pledge of Allegiance, with no success. And then there were committee assignments, and quorum calls, and resolutions fixing the hour when the Senate would convene, and all the other details that combined to form Politics As Usual.
It was comforting. It was easy. It was....
Well, it was mind-numbingly boring, but what else was new?
Speaking of numb, his fingers were starting to freeze. Jon turned on his heel and headed towards Hart.
§
"Please tell me I have at least half an hour for lunch," he said by way of greeting.
"Don't worry about it," said Sam. "You've got time."
A strange distance in her tone made Jon stop and look closer. His chief of staff seemed...shell-shocked. Her eyes weren't quite focused.
Come to think of it, the whole crew was a bit disheveled. As if a small hurricane had come through while he had been out.
"Is everyone okay?" he asked. Then, after sniffing the air, "And did somebody order a pizza?"
Jason, at his desk, threw up his hands. "Dude, you're going to have to see this one for yourself," he said, nodding towards Jon's personal office door.
Mystified, Jon crossed the room and opened it.
His jaw dropped.
"I had to start without you," said Stephen, licking tomato sauce from his fingers, "because you were late, you see. Your secretary said you'd be back at half past. I didn't so much as flirt with her, by the way! You can ask her yourself! Oh, and I meant to ask you what toppings you wanted, but forgot. Hope you like pepperoni."
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: More swearing, more gay stuff, ladle violence
Characters/pairings: Jon/"Stephen", references to ensemble, potato pancakes
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Summary: In which Senator Colbert is all over the emotional map, and Senator Stewart is Zen with a side of Zen topped with a creamy Zen frosting.
Features shoutouts to everything from A Colbert Christmas to Stephen's Twitter (
stephenathome) - again, rissaofthesaiya provides specifics. For the lead-up to this, see the Senateverse index.(By the way, if anyone else wants to play around in this AU, have at it! No reason one author should have all the fun.)
The Great Divide - Part 3
Stephen's vision had been beginning to go dark around the edges when he felt the hand on his face.
If he had any doubts about the abilities of that forceful hand, they were well and truly settled. Jon Stewart had banished the nameless panic with a touch.
And Jon was still touching him, the skin on skin electric; Jon didn't mind touching him after all, would reach across the aisle for him, would take care of him, would—
The thought propelled him forward into Jon, pressing the back of his head against the tinted window, one hand braced against the pane for support, kissing him for all he was worth.
It took both of Jon's hands to move him this time.
Only when he was being held at arm's length did Stephen realize just how badly he had misjudged this one.
In the moment it took him to catch his breath, Jon watched Stephen's face go through another rapid series of shifts, this time coming to a stop on anger.
"What is it?" he demanded. "Something in the air?"
Had Jon missed something?
"Or the water? Or have you been spiking my champagne?"
"What?" managed Jon at last. Not the brightest reply, but at least it was pithy.
"This!" Stephen jerked his hips in a decidedly expressive manner, then seemed to notice his continuing on-top-of-Jon-ness and yanked himself away, not stopping until his back was up against the far door. "Either it's something about New York, or it's something you did—you—"
"No, I'm pretty sure that was all you," said Jon dryly, remembering the man's record as he unstuck himself from the window. Rabidly anti-gay. Tried to propose legislation to ban homosexuals from getting driver's licenses. Honestly, Stewart, you should've seen this coming.
It was like watching a slow-motion film of someone stomping on a can. Stephen's face crumpled.
"I'm sorry," he choked, drawing his knees up against his chest. "Please don't tell anyone. I—I'll do anything—oh, God, I'm so sorry." This last word was nearly overtaken by a strangled sob.
This wasn't the stress of someone not wanting to kiss you. This was the kind of breakdown you had when your entire life was in danger of falling apart.
(There had been six openly gay members of Congress in its entire history, and while Jon couldn't name them all off the top of his head, he was certain none of them had been from South Carolina.)
Running a hand through his hair, Jon moved back to his own seat, towards the front end of the car. "I'm gonna talk to the driver for a second," he said, surprised by the gentleness in his tone. "Hold your breath, all right?"
Stephen grabbed his coat from the floor (it was huge and fire-engine red with a thick furry hood, looking somewhat ridiculous but admittedly very warm) and muffled himself with the sleeve.
Jon slid open the little window that led to the front seat. "Maria? Take us in circles for a while, okay?"
"Sure thing, Mr. Stewart."
"Thanks." He clicked the window shut and turned back to Stephen. "When you say 'anything'...."
Another ragged sob shook Stephen, but he managed a couple of sharp, jerking nods. "Anything you want," he gulped, once his voice was his own again. "I swear."
"So if I told you to...do the Hokey Pokey?"
A nod.
"Or stop harassing every woman you meet?"
Another.
"Or get down on your knees right now and suck me off?"
Stephen squeezed his eyes shut at this, but nodded once more.
You'd probably like that, Jon thought.
He caught himself a second later. What the hell? When did my internal monologue turn into bad porn?
Damnit, he'd had power for less than two minutes and it was already corrupting him. Any order he gave right now would be blackmail, even if it stemmed from the noblest of intentions and not one of your classic Deadly Sins.
"It's okay," he said out loud. "I won't tell."
This nod was very small. "What do I have to do?"
"Nothing."
Stephen opened one eye, red-rimmed and brimming with tears, and squinted at Jon over the folds of his coat. "So...so there's s-something I have to not do? Not c-campaign for someone, or...."
"No. I mean, it doesn't matter what you do or don't do. You do need to knock it off with women—it doesn't help, anyway, it just looks like overcompensating—but I'm not going to threaten you with this, all right? Who you want to sleep with is your own business, and it's not my job to tell people about it. So I'm not going to. Full stop."
Now Stephen was studying him with both eyes, each more confused than the other. "What's the catch?"
Jon spread his hands. "No catch."
Stephen frowned at him. "You're not very good at this blackmail thing, are you?"
"What, and you're the expert?"
This went unanswered, except for another sniffle.
Aw, hell.
It didn't make sense. No sense at all. Yes, Stewart was putting words together in a recognizable order, and they were all in English (America's language), but when it came to fitting into Stephen's understanding of the world, they simply refused to cooperate.
"But you could have anything you wanted!" he protested, interrupting Stewart in the middle of a nonsense phrase about how it wasn't right that Stephen's shameful secret could be used against him in the first place. "You could have my votes, you could have...me...."
His voice shook with equal parts fear and desire. Sure, Stewart wasn't one of the chiseled bodybuilders from the magazines Stephen had repeatedly tried to get classified as pornography so they wouldn't be able to taunt him from newsstands, but he wasn't exactly Barney Frank, either.
Stewart hesitated. "Do you...want...?"
Was that a trick question? Stephen clutched his thick coat like a shield, trying to figure out how he was supposed to answer.
"Okay, never mind." Stewart held up a hand. "This clearly isn't a good...listen, how about this. We won't mention it for the next, let's say, week. After that, if you're still...interested, then say something. And if not, I won't bring it up again. Deal?"
Was this a trick? It sounded pretty straightforward, though.
"Deal," said Stephen. It wasn't like he had much choice.
| From: Senator Stephen T. Colbert, R-SC <senator@colbert.senate.gov> To: Allison Silverman <presssecretary@colbert.senate.gov> Date: December 17, 2009, 10:42 PM Subject: A RARE CORRECTION JON STEWART IS AMAZING AND WONDERFUL AND OFFICIALLY MY NEW JEWISH FRIEND. FOR GOOD THIS TIME. (SORRY, ALLISON. YOU AREN'T ELIGIBLE BECAUSE YOU WORK FOR ME.) ALSO, HIS BUTLER IS A PARAGON OF AMERICANISM, INSOFAR AS AMERICANISM CONSISTS OF FIXING-MY-BLACKBERRY PROWESS. PREPARE A SUITABLE TROPHY. ENGRAVE IT WITH THE NAME OF HANS WHATSISFACE. |
*
§
Stephen lay in bed for an hour, eleven minutes, and thirty-nine seconds before concluding that Spunky wasn't coming this morning.
Five minutes after working this out, he was fully dressed and heading for the dining room. (Over the past few days he had made a point of learning how to get there.) He didn't run into a single person on the way; but there was some kind of to-do going on in the kitchen, so he swallowed his distaste for getting too close to the servants and stuck his head in.
At first he didn't recognize the person in the grey sweater standing at the counter. It wasn't Sweet Stuff, that was for sure. But neither was it anyone else on the staff Stephen knew of.
"Jon?" he blurted in surprise.
His host turned around, a potato in one hand and a peeler in the other. "Hey, Stephen. Sorry, breakfast isn't quite ready yet...."
"Why are you cooking?" demanded Stephen. "And where is everyone? Did they all quit en masse?"
"I gave them the rest of the week off."
Stephen made a face. "Why on Earth would you do that?"
Stewart tried to hide his smile with the potato. "It's Christmas Eve, that's why. Who are you, Scrooge?"
"But you don't celebrate."
"Yeah, but most of them do. And they can all use the break. We're two grown men; I'm sure we can manage to feed and dress ourselves for a couple of days."
"Well, obviously." Stephen hesitated, then took a few steps closer.
He was still a little jumpy around the man, but at this point it was more out of reflex than any specific fear. Not only had Stewart not mentioned Stephen's horrible, horrible mistake, he didn't seem to be treating Stephen any differently because of it. It was almost as if he had forgotten the incident entirely.
(Or as if he thought it didn't stop Stephen from being a respectable human being. But who believed that, really?)
Once they were at a conversational but still safe distance, Stephen asked, "What are you making?"
"Latkes. Technically Hanukkah ended last week, but this is the first time I've had the chance to cook all month."
"Latkes? What are those?"
"Potato pancakes."
"Oh," said Stephen. Then: "Really? Six thousand years of civilization, and that's the best you can come up with? All right, that's it." He began pulling open drawers, rifling through their contents.
"What are you...?"
"Stop!" Stephen halted Stewart's approach with a ladle aimed squarely at his face. "Stay out of this one, Jewish friend. You just keep peeling your potatoes over there. I'm going to make you some proper holiday food."
Stewart stared in astonishment at the utensil-turned-weapon, and Stephen's heart thudded dully against his ribs as he wondered if he'd gone too far.
But then the other man favored him with yet another smile. "Have at it," he said. "Mi kitchen es su kitchen."
With a nod, Stephen went back to searching through cupboards. He wouldn't need the ladle to make cookies, but he kept it at his side anyway. Just in case.
They had cookies for breakfast.
Jon threw out the latkes. (They were burned anyway.)
This was followed by cookies for lunch.
Later, when the sun had set, they met in the parlor (now dominated by the giant fir that Colbert had dragged in from who knows where, dripping with colored bulbs and slathered with tinsel) and settled down to a plate of cookies for dinner.
It was a surprisingly relaxing way to wind down a week that had been all too busy, vacation or no vacation. Even his guest seemed to be less stressed; he was wearing a festive red turtleneck and a creamy knit sweater, marking the first time Jon had seen him in anything other than a suit.
Of course, given the edge Colbert had been riding over the last week, pretty much anything would have seemed less tense on his part. Jon hadn't said a word about their strange encounter, and still the man felt the need to threaten him with his own cooking implements.
Jon was about to bite into a gingerbread Santa hat when he noticed the utensil at Colbert's side. "Why are you still carrying that around?"
"A real man needs a ladle, Stewart," Colbert informed him.
"Right then."
Jon realized he was starting to find the other man's bizarre non sequiturs charming. When they weren't actively destroying the country, at least.
He took a chunk out of the hat, swallowed, brushed crumbs from his chin with the back of his hand. "Listen," he said, "these are delicious, but tomorrow, you and me—"
Stephen froze, except for a hand twitching in the direction of the ladle handle.
"—we're going to try at least one of my people's holiday traditions."
Except for the two of them, the theater was empty.
Stephen yelled at the screen all the way through. Jon sat a couple of rows away, maybe for the sake of his ears (Stephen couldn't help it that he was loud; how else could he be sure the characters would hear him?), but he didn't walk out this time.
"Thank you," said Stephen.
Jon blinked, not sure he'd heard right. For one thing, the phrase had been said very quietly. For another, Stephen's mouth was full of chicken chow mein.
"Sorry?"
Stephen gulped down the noodles. "I said, thank you," he repeated indignantly.
"Uh, you're welcome," said Jon. "For...that thing I promised I wouldn't bring up, you mean?"
"Exactly." Stephen jabbed at a piece of celery without looking at him. "And for being my...my Jewish friend."
Jon sighed inwardly. But not very hard.
"Glad I could help," he replied.
*
§
Jon paused on the steps of the Capitol building to take a deep lungful of cold Washington air. The first day of the second session of the 111th Congress, and already it had sucked him in so hard he almost forgot to stop and breathe.
The return to age-old routine made his whole roller-coaster vacation seem worlds away. He had tried to catch Stephen's eye during the opening Pledge of Allegiance, with no success. And then there were committee assignments, and quorum calls, and resolutions fixing the hour when the Senate would convene, and all the other details that combined to form Politics As Usual.
It was comforting. It was easy. It was....
Well, it was mind-numbingly boring, but what else was new?
Speaking of numb, his fingers were starting to freeze. Jon turned on his heel and headed towards Hart.
"Please tell me I have at least half an hour for lunch," he said by way of greeting.
"Don't worry about it," said Sam. "You've got time."
A strange distance in her tone made Jon stop and look closer. His chief of staff seemed...shell-shocked. Her eyes weren't quite focused.
Come to think of it, the whole crew was a bit disheveled. As if a small hurricane had come through while he had been out.
"Is everyone okay?" he asked. Then, after sniffing the air, "And did somebody order a pizza?"
Jason, at his desk, threw up his hands. "Dude, you're going to have to see this one for yourself," he said, nodding towards Jon's personal office door.
Mystified, Jon crossed the room and opened it.
His jaw dropped.
"I had to start without you," said Stephen, licking tomato sauce from his fingers, "because you were late, you see. Your secretary said you'd be back at half past. I didn't so much as flirt with her, by the way! You can ask her yourself! Oh, and I meant to ask you what toppings you wanted, but forgot. Hope you like pepperoni."