Fake News: Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It

[ptahrrific]

Title: Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, violence, injury, allusions to past skeeviness, Stephen being Stephen (yes, still).
Characters/pairings: Jon, liberal!"Stephen" (one-sided shippiness)
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: Missed the sign-up window for lgbtfest, but this prompt was left an orphan, so I decided to take a crack at it: 1081. Per 10-02-07, we have a canon AU in which "Stephen" is ~fabulously~ liberal. What does his sexuality mean in that universe?

Since conservative "Stephen" is repressed, authoritarian, and narrowminded, liberal "Stephen" is overexpressive, permissive, and, as Robert Frost put it, too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel. This was supposed to be amusing, but got kind of depressing at the end. Whoops.

Liberalverse Index | Mirror on the AO3

(Can I say how much it amuses me that one of the edits to Wikipedia's "International Friendship Day" page was made by a user named Bramlet Abercrombie? Random crossovers FTW.)


Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It


"It's incense, Jon!" wailed Stephen.

Ignoring his protests, Jon heaved open the office window and switched on a fan. "Stephen, I know you think I'm more square than...um...."

"...Tienanmen?" suggested Stephen.

"Sure, let's go with that. The point is, I did a lot of pot in college, and I do remember what it smells like."

Stephen fell back onto his couch and folded his arms in a huff. "You're disrupting my efforts to appreciate other cultures by learning about their sacred rituals and then only doing the fun parts," he accused.

"Cultural appreciation or not, you're still not allowed to smoke anything illegal on business hours."

"It's only illegal because the Man is more interested in perpetuating the system than allowing the little guy to expand his mind and envision something better."

Jon rolled his eyes with gentle affection. "Stephen, you're a rich white Christian male who hosts a late-night talk show. You are 'the Man'."

"Stop trying to pin me down with your little labels!" cried Stephen, tossing a lock of his long dark hair over his shoulder with one hand and pointing with the other. "Sure, I happened to be born a white man, and I happen to have enough money to fill an Olympic swimming pool with dollar bills and wallow around in it, but I identify first and foremost with the oppressed and downtrodden peoples of the world. I have the soul of a Thoreau, Jon!"

"Would you like to have the salary of one?" teased Jon.

Stephen sighed theatrically. "Never try to write poetry, Jon. You obviously don't understand metaphor."




After the harassment case was settled, Stephen was testy for weeks on end.

"It's not my fault they're repressed," he complained to Jon at lunch, in Jon's office this time. "I was only helping them break out of society's limiting notions of sexuality! Specifically, the limit that says you're not allowed to explore it with your handsome and dashing boss."

"You know, Stephen, sometimes limits can be a good thing," offered Jon. "Everyone needs safe and healthy boundaries."

"All boundaries do is deny people their rights," countered Stephen. "What if I had a boundary that said I didn't want any women working within fifty feet of me?"

"That wouldn't be healthy. That would just be sexism."

"Or a boundary that said teachers shouldn't get it on with their underage students?"

Jon snapped to attention. He was almost certain Stephen had never been a teacher. "Stephen, when you say that...."

Stephen steamrolled onward before Jon could finish the question, or indeed figure out exactly what he was asking. "Or a boundary that said my boss must never, under any circumstances, bend me over his desk and have your wicked way with me?"

"That one wouldn't be a problem," said Jon dryly. "Your boss is married, remember?"

"Well, maybe my boss needs to explain to his wife that monogamy is not a natural state for the human male. We're biologically hardwired to sleep around; it's in our genes. That's just science!"




Speaking of biological imperatives, Jon showed up early for lunch one time and walked in to find Stephen...occupied. He was back in the hall and on the other side of a slammed door three seconds later.

"Oh, like you've never rubbed one out in your office before," said Stephen when he finally let Jon in.

"Yeah, but I lock the door," Jon pointed out. "There's such a thing as appropriate for the workplace...."

"There's nothing inappropriate about it!" insisted Stephen. "It's a healthy and normal activity, and nobody should be ashamed of it!"

Jon sighed. "Just tell me you washed your hands."




Nobody asked Stephen about the divorce.

They didn't need to. He wouldn't shut up about it.

"Marriage is a heteronormative sham anyway," he told anyone who would listen. "I can no longer support an institution that denies our gay brethren and sistren equal rights."

When he said it to Jon, it was hard to make out the exact words, because he was also sobbing into his takeaway curry.

Jon handed him another tissue. It was a measure of how upset Stephen truly was that he forgot to ask whether they were biodegradable.




"I love you."

Jon's pen clattered to the floor.

"Stephen," he stammered, trying to compose himself, because what Stephen meant and what he appeared to mean were often two vastly different things, "why do you say that?"

"Because men don't get in touch with their feelings often enough," pronounced Stephen. "Also, it's International Friendship Day. So I'm going around to tell all my friends that I love them."

"How many of us are there?" asked Jon cautiously.

Stephen did a quick calculation on his fingers. "Forty-seven so far. You'll be number forty-eight. And it's going to jump by one point three million this evening, when I say it to the whole Colbert Nation."

"Don't you think the phrase loses a little meaning if you say the exact same thing to that many people?" faltered Jon.

"Don't be silly," said Stephen, tossing his hair dismissively over his shoulder. "Love should be shared with as many people as possible! The more you give, the more you get in return. If you ever feel sad or lonely or rejected, it just means you're not loving enough. But if I love everybody, there's no way I can go wrong."

"Have you ever tried being a little more, ah, discriminating about who you love?"

That set Stephen off. "Don't be such a bigot, Jon!" he shouted. "Discrimination is bad! That would be like saying some people are inherently more deserving of affection than others! Like with certain special people you worry about what they think, and try to impress them, and lose sleep at night over whether you're good enough for them, but everyone else, oh, their opinions don't even matter? How dare you?"

He broke off, out of breath, wild strands of loose hair framing his face like some mad desert prophet.

"I'm sorry," said Jon quietly, after giving him a moment to compose himself.

Stephen took a few deep, calming gulps of air. "It's okay," he said at last. "I forgive you."




Forgiveness was Stephen's stock-in-trade.

"I'm sure they had a good reason," he would say. "I'm sure at the time they thought it was the best thing they could do. Punishment will only breed resentment! We have to start from a position of forgiveness and love, and everything will work out in the end."

Jon had a pretty slow temper himself, but when something actually got to him, Stephen's relentless passivity made it worse.

"They mismanaged our economy into the ground," he pointed out one day, through gritted teeth. "Jobs are being lost left and right, businesses are folding like origami, families are being thrown out of their homes, all because a bunch of rich, greedy bastards decided to take the retirement funds of hardworking people and gamble them away."

"Anger never solved anything, Jon," said Stephen philosophically.

"Maybe we deserve to be angry anyway!"

"I've forgiven them," countered Stephen. "So it's all right now."

"You don't get to do that," hissed Jon. "There are people whose new budgets make them choose between medication and groceries. You don't get to grant anyone absolution on their behalf."

Stephen sighed. "I forgive you for yelling at me, too," he said. "I know it's only because you're conflicted over your painfully repressed mesexuality."




Stephen was never trying to minimize what people were going through.

If anything, he did the opposite, wringing his hands and getting tears in those big brown puppy-dog eyes whenever someone expressed the slightest discomfort.

He was just totally convinced that the best (the only?) way to deal with any kind of pain was to forgive, forget, and move on.

(Jon still hated the patronizing tone of the conservative commentators who alluded to "people who have forgotten how we felt on 9/11", but this seemed to be one of his friend's actual goals.)




Jon visited the hospital as soon as he was allowed.

He almost didn't recognize Stephen at first. They had needed to give the man a shave to deal with the jaw injuries, and someone must have decided to get his hair out of the way too, so all he had left was a greying five-o'clock shadow and a shaggy bowl cut that barely reached his ears.

"Jon! Good! You need to sign my cast," he declared, pointing to the elevated leg. "But make sure you leave plenty of room. I'm going to try to get President Obama and J. D. Salinger this time."

"Sure," agreed Jon, taking the chair beside him and accepting the proffered marker.

Stephen chattered happily on while Jon added a loopy green signature across his ankle. "I'm trying to decide who I want to donate the funds to. The ACLU, like I did with my wrist, or someone else?"

"It's up to you. Listen, Stephen...are you okay?"

"High as a kite," said Stephen, giving him a slightly lopsided grin. "They've got me so jacked up on Miss Emma, you could stab me in the gut right now and I wouldn't feel a thing. I should get beat up more often."

Jon shuddered. "Don't even joke about that. This never should have happened in the first place."

Stephen's smile faded, leaving the swelling in his cheeks more apparent. "I'm sure they thought they had a very good reason."

"It was a hate crime! There's never a good reason for that!"

"Maybe they have a very strict religious creed. We have to respect values and belief systems that are different from our own."

"It goes both ways! Fundamentalists don't have to like it when they see two men out on a date, but they don't get to break your leg because of it!"

"Or maybe it was personal!" countered Stephen. "Maybe they're repressing their own desires, out of perfectly justified fear that their families will disown them, and my presence was triggering for them, and they didn't know any more constructive way to deal with their feelings! We should have sympathy for them, Jon, not condemn them!"

"They still have no excuse for attacking you! No matter what their home lives are like!"

"Well, I forgive them," announced Stephen, tossing his head, though the gesture only ruffled his newly shorn hair. "And you can't say I don't have the right to this time."

"Maybe not," admitted Jon grudgingly. "But I'm still mad at them."

"You don't have anything to be mad at them for."

Jon scooted his chair up to the head of the bed and leaned in. Once he had Stephen's full, if puzzled, attention, he took a deep breath.

"Of course I do," he said, using one hand to smooth an unruly lock of hair out of the other man's eyes. "They hurt my friend. They took someone I care about — someone I love — and put him on a morphine drip. And if they want any chance at being forgiven for that, they're going to have to work for it."




When Jon showed up at Stephen's office (all their lunch visits were going to be at the Report studio until its host got off the crutches), he knew something was wrong the instant the man did not immediately launch into an impassioned speech containing several five-syllable words that he didn't fully understand.

"How are you doing?" asked Jon conversationally.

Stephen shrugged. His beard was back in order, but his hair wouldn't reach his shoulders again for months, maybe years. "Not bad."

Jon joined him on the couch. "Something on your mind?"

Staring at his toes, Stephen traced circles on the ground with his free foot. "Jon? You have boundaries, right?"

"That's right," said Jon uncertainly, wondering where he was going with this.

"Like how you won't let us shower together, even though it would save water and energy and also let you nail me up against the wall without having to worry about leaving a mess. That's a boundary."

"Uh, yes. Yes, it is," agreed Jon, now wondering whether he should try to stake out a line around "casually referring to us in sexual situations", or whether it would be more trouble than it was worth.

"But people still like you," said Stephen.

Jon started, flustered. "Well, sure," he stammered. "I mean, some of them do. Plenty don't."

"Well, I like you," declared Stephen. "I mean, obviously I love you, because I love everyone, but...I like you, too."

It was the oddest way Jon had ever heard it put, but he understood. "Thank you," he said softly. "I like you too."

Stephen was quiet for a long moment. Jon wasn't sure if he was meant to break the silence, but he didn't know what else to say.

"I was thinking about something," blurted Stephen abruptly, speaking very fast. "I was thinking of maybe not forgiving everyone. I mean, obviously I don't want to become one of those angry, hate-filled people who attack every little thing they disagree with, like Bill O'Reilly or something. But maybe I could ration the forgiveness just slightly. Like maybe I won't let people break my limbs, even if it does help resolve their own crushing internal conflicts. Or maybe I'll stop calling home once a month to let Mom spend an hour telling me how sodomites go to Hell, even though I understand that she only does it because she loves me and is trying to do what she thinks is best for me." He took a breath. "Do you think I should try it?"

It took a few beats for Jon's comprehension to catch up with his hearing. When it did, he had a hard time mustering any kind of smile. But he did his best to give Stephen an encouraging one as he replied, "I think it's worth a shot."

Stephen fairly glowed with relief, then looked anxious again. "Jon? Would it, uh, violate your boundaries if I hugged you right now?"

"Just don't try to cop a feel while you're at it."

To his surprise, Stephen cuddled against him with perfect innocence. Putting an arm around his shoulders, Jon let him stay.

Comments

[kick-back-80s.livejournal.com]

that's depressingly sweet at the end :)

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

OMG, this is awesome. I love that liberal!Stephen has almost exactly the same ideas as conservative!Stephen - he just took the complete opposite route to get there. "I forgive you" instead of "I accept your apology!" Stephen is Stephen is Stephen, and of course he would be.

Yay! So glad you wrote for the prompt! :D

[ptahrrific]

You go far enough down the spectrum, you tend to come back around to the opposite side =3

Thanks! (...Was it your prompt, or did you just see it and approve?)

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

Too true!

I saw it and approved. It might have been one of melannen's prompts!

[deepad]

I HATE YOU SO MUCH.

Ok I lied.

This?
"You're disrupting my efforts to appreciate other cultures by learning about their sacred rituals and then only doing the fun parts," he accused.

Is way too hysterical and ridiculous and amazing. I actually love the way you've managed to make him liberal and yet so bigoted and clueless and offensive anyway. This is some seriously phenomenal characterisation, my friend.

I hate you because OMG TEH ANGST. You manage to explain how Jon could conceivably fall for repressed, conservative angry "Stephen", and you won't do it for this "Stephen". I call shenanigans. I want an AU of this, or a sequel, or something else because liberal!"Stephen" is one of the funniest things I've read, and I want a happier ending.
::grabby hands::

[ptahrrific]

I probably had way too much fun coming up with cluelessly offensive things for liberal!Stephen to do :3 (Conservatives don't have a lock on stupidity in this culture, no matter how much they try sometimes...)

(Had a lot of Geoffrey Jellineck in mind while writing, too =D)

I figure, since repressed!Stephen inspires Jon to try to pull him out of his shell, permissive!Stephen would probably need Jon to push him back in a little. It's hard to combine that sensibility with "and then they had wild passionate sex over the desk." But I'll think on it....

And thanks!

[deepad]

No no, silly, Jon would of course need to reign him in a little. It would not be wild passionate desk sex, it would be Jon holding out for being treated like a gentleman! Where he would not want it to be all about sex, all the time, but about the discriminate, exclusive, non-slutty choosing of each other's minds being the reason for affection as much as their bodies. Ahem.

::has clearly spent too much time thinking about this::

[ptahrrific]

...

...

...

...plotbunny.

*stuffs it in the hutch with the others*

[deepad]

WICTORY!

I swear, Erin, if you let it turn into a heartbreaking catalogue of neuroses and dispair I will hunt you down and throw baby carrots at you.

::stern look:: Happy ending! Gay rainbow liberal puppies! Jon refusing to put out until he is convinced Stephen won't go on Oprah to talk about it after!

[fireflower314.livejournal.com]

LET IT BACK OUT, I WISH TO READ IT TOO!! \O/

[nenya_kanadka]

...plotbunny.

HOORAY! :D

[oceaxe.livejournal.com]

Awww! I wasn't sure that I'd buy "Stephen" as a liberal, but if he were to go there, he should look to you for inspiration. Perfect voice.

I want a sequel to this where Jon lets Stephen take that shower with him.

[ptahrrific]

Thanks!

...I'll think about it =P

[sirdrakesheir.livejournal.com]

"'Stephen'" is possibly the greatest thing to come to this fandom in quite some time. I hope there are many lovely fics of him to come.

[srevans.livejournal.com]

TRIPLE QUOTES!

Also, I agree. :)

[slash4femme.livejournal.com]

oh wow this is was great. A really interesting idea, and I loved, loved the way you wrote Jon.

[espreite.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was sad and adorable all at the same time. It's fascinating how liberal!Stephen is just as clueless as conservative!stephen, but in the complete opposite direction. I really liked the "mad desert prophet" imagery for some reason, too.

[ptahrrific]

It's almost worse in some ways, because clueless conservatives flaunt their cluelessness ("I'm not one of your Ivy League educated elites"), but clueless liberals tend to be under the impression that they know everything (because of their learnings!).

Thanks =D

[myownghost.livejournal.com]

this was wonderful. i'd love to see "stephen" with long hair and a beard! i'd also love for jon to realize his "mesexuality" and get with the program; but he's a staunch friend, and that's already an invaluable gift.

[rissaofthesaiya.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely terrific XD It's amazing how "Stephen" he still is, even turned completely back to front. Desperately open instead of desperately closed. And still very much in need of a hug :( But at least Jon is still Jon.

Seconding all the "didn't think the character would work as a liberal" stuff. Major kudos to you!

[ptahrrific]

Desperately open instead of desperately closed.

That's exactly what I was going for.

Thanks!

[seagullsong.livejournal.com]

THIS.

He comes around to moderation and a healthier outlook on life FROM THE OTHER SIDE.

COOL.

[sarcasticsra]

This was perfect. He's exactly the same; overblown, out of control, ridiculous, clueless, and still a well-intentioned idiot. Bravo! *applauds*

[lizzy-someone.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, this is brilliant. Even though I knew how wonderfully you write "Stephen," I was skeptical that anyone could believably write FabulouslyLiberal!"Stephen," that I would even be able to recognize "Stephen" in him, but somehow you made him both outrageously, hilariously liberal and as utterly "Stephen"-like as ever. It would have been easy, I think, to write "Stephen"'s liberalness as rigidly ideological as his conservativeness, but you managed to write his liberalness as the overly open-minded and thereby also stubbornly ideological kind, if that makes sense, and it seems to me that writing that would be much harder. Also just A;SLDFJA;LSDJA;LSDFJA;LSDJFA;LSDFJA;LSDFKJA;LSDKFJA;LSFDKJA;LSDFJ HAVE I MENTIONED HOW COMPLETELY AMAZING THIS IS.

[ptahrrific]

the overly open-minded and thereby also stubbornly ideological kind

That makes perfect sense. And, um, yes, it was terribly hard to write! Not like I can draw from personal experience, or anything.

Thank you!

[greenpixiehair.livejournal.com]

You fucking mad genius.

*is completely speechless. Really speechless.*

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

asldkfjalksdfj This is sweet and amazing. I love your imagination to be able to completely construct a Stephen at the polar opposite of where he is on his show.

Also, I command you to at least sketch a picture of longhair!Stephen. Because I just can't see it.

The scene of him in the hospital, forgiving and loving everyone, was very touching too. And the last one.

He broke off, out of breath, wild strands of loose hair framing his face like some mad desert prophet.
LOVE IT.

[ptahrrific]

Did you watch the clip? Longhair!Stephen is in the clip! (He also makes an appearance in this picture.)

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks! Now I have.

[wwanda.livejournal.com]

I really love this story! I didnt think a liberal Stephen could still be Stephen but you made it work! i think you might have made a mistake with the next to last line though

"Jon? Would it, uh, violate your boundaries if I hugged you right now?"

"Only if you don't try to cop a feel while you're at it."

Huh? His boundaries will be violated if Stephen doesnt try to cop a feel?
I think you mean "Not unless you try to cop a feel." Or am misunderstanding something?

[ptahrrific]

Ack, you're right. I reworked that section a couple times, and apparently it didn't quite line up when I posted it. Fixed.

And thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

Re-watched that clip and... long-haired Stephen looks so much like my mythology professor! (I guess that's what you get when you go to a small liberal arts college in MA -- teachers that look like stereotypical hippies. hmmm.)

Really good story, as usual.

~A. Fann

[ptahrrific]

It's always great when satire hits close to home.

Thanks :D

[holly-cullen.livejournal.com]

"Well, maybe my boss needs to explain to his wife that monogamy is not a natural state for the human male. We're biologically hardwired to sleep around; it's in our genes. That's just science!"

Even as a forgiving liberal, Stephen still has an odd vision of what a human male should be like.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Oooh, this is amazing and wonderful!

And you know, for all that it was hilarious and made of hearts and rainbows, I think this is the bit I keep coming back to:

"Jon still hated the patronizing tone of the conservative commentators who alluded to "people who have forgotten how we felt on 9/11", but this seemed to be one of his friend's actual goals."

Because... yeah. It's "Stephen's" job to openly do what we all accuse the Conservatives of doing, and point out the uncomfortable truth by doing it, '''Stephen''' would have to do the same thing, only about us. (... I don't see myself in this Stephen, either. No, not at all. <_< ) (And yeah, this was my prompt. Score one for my devious plan of using lgbtfest to make everyone write my stories better than I could!)

[ptahrrific]

Thank you!

I'm toying with ideas for the sequel, but it's getting more and more uncomfortable, because I'm trying to meet TCR's standards for vicious, unforgiving satire, but it's aimed at things I actually believe. (That said, it was nice to find that Jon can still stake out a perspective of sane moderation.)

(I have a couple more of the "Stephen" prompts in the works, too, so your plan may be working better than you realized!)

[wishflower4.livejournal.com]

Haha, cluelessly offensive liberal Stephen is even more amusing than cluelessly offensive conservative Stephen. And that takes kind of a lot.

Also:
"They've got me so jacked up on Miss Emma..."
I was far too pleased to discover that my name is another term for morphine. >.> So thanks for that.

[ptahrrific]

Awesome.

And, yes - the wonderful things we can learn from Wikipedia :D

[muffin-love77.livejournal.com]

Frickin... brilliant.

Most everyone said exactly what I'm thinking.

I feel like only you could have done this not only well but so incredibly convincingly. Absolutely fantastic.

[ptahrrific]

Psh. The show writers did it first, after all =P

But thank you ♥

[culf.livejournal.com]

This was amazing! I can't believe how you managed to push "Stephen" to the other side of the spectrum and still keep him so very much in character. Then again, I haven't seen anyone write "Stephen" as well as you do, so I shouldn't be surprised. You've got a brilliant handle on that character!

[dagnirovanaliel.livejournal.com]

Dude.

I think you just blew my mind. I'm sitting here gaping at how the hell you made this work... so much "Stephen" and yet not, just... holy crap.

You are astonishing.

[daydreamer64.livejournal.com]

...I now fully believe "Stephen" would make a wonderful liberal. XDDDD

This fic was made of win just for that. I didn't think it was possible to make "Stephen" a liberal, but you have indeed proved me wrong.

[nenya_kanadka]

This was hilarious and sad and sweet and ow-hey-I-resemble-that-remark-or-know-people-who-do. Just brilliant. The world needed this to exist, and now it does.

Just wow.

[ptahrrific]

The sweet joys of self-parody.

Thank you =D

*gets back to work on that sequel*

[lellenator.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS STEPHEN

I love all Stephens of course but this was brilliant and lovely and eeeee :D :D

[azurelunatic]

Yes, yes, yes. :D

[velvet-mace.livejournal.com]

Duuuuuuude. Wow. So completely opposite and utterly IC at the same time. Nice show.