Fake News - Binding

[ptahrrific]

Title: Binding
Rating: PG, barely
Warnings: The mildest of sexual content
Characters/pairings: "Stephen"/Jon
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.

Summary: Right after he gets his cast on, Stephen needs a little help with his morning routine.

This is massively, massively AU, for reasons which will become obvious.


Binding


There's a terrific clatter coming from the bathroom: scuffling, muttered curses, the occasional thunk of plaster or porcelain. Jon waits for a lull in the noise, then calls through the door: "All right in there?"

"I'm fine, Jon," comes the snapped reply.

Stephen has insisted on doing everything himself since getting the cast, and for the most part he's managed, if a bit more slowly and sloppily than usual. But there's a car coming in twenty minutes to take him to a charity event, and he never puts up with looking less than perfect when there's a photo op involved. So Jon waits in the hall, just in case.

It isn't long before there's a strangled outburst of frustration from inside. The cry dissolves into silence, followed a moment later by a hesitant "Are you still there?"

"Still here," echoes Jon. "Anything I can do, just say the word."

There's a rattle at the handle, then Stephen pulls the door open.

The contrast is immediate. Below the waist he's fully armored, from leather belt to black socks; his upper body, meanwhile, is bare except for the cast. Which means his shoulders are instinctively hunched, though Jon is one of the few people who's seen his bare chest.

"Fix this," he mutters, using his good hand to thrust a crumpled Ace bandage in Jon's direction.

"Sure."

Stephen leaves the door at an angle while Jon sets about the business of laboriously unsticking bits of puckered fabric from each other. "Where are my pills?" he mutters, rummaging through the medicine cabinet over the sink.

"I've got 'em," answers Jon, not looking up — partly out of respect for Stephen's insecurities (this whole experience has been a real eye-opener; Jon had vastly underestimated how kinky you can get while your boyfriend is mostly clothed) and partly because he can't take his eyes off the bandage without having it start sticking to itself again. "You only get one every three hours, you know that."

"Except in emergencies! And this is an emergency. It hurts!"

"Do you want to stay home? I'm sure they'll understand if you call in sick...."

"I'm not skipping this," grumbles Stephen. "How will everyone know how generous I am if I don't get photographs to prove it? Aren't you done yet?"

Jon winds the last of the fabric into a neat little roll and holds it out. "How's this?"

Stephen stares intently at the offering, nostrils flaring, lips pursed. For a moment Jon wonders if he's somehow done it wrong; then Stephen shoves the door the rest of the way open with his heel and beckons Jon with his head. "Come on."

He takes a seat on the closed toilet, resting his cast gingerly on the countertop. Jon follows, stopping just short of the shirts and tie hanging at the ready on the bar of the shower.

"I could do this with one hand tied behind my back if I wanted," Stephen reminds him. "And I would, if I had the time."

"I understand."

Jon knows there's no point in offering to get him a nicer binder. Stephen's been doing this the cheap way for a good twenty years, and nothing short of an order carved on stone tablets is going to convince him to change his methods now.

"Just press the end down — here." Stephen touches the top of his sternum, right under the clavicles, then guides Jon's willing hand to the place. "Now hold."

If Jon had any suspicions that Stephen was overselling his proficiency, they don't last long. Working mostly one-handed, he unspools the bandage and wraps it around himself in such quick, efficient strips that it's less than a minute before he brushes Jon away and reaches for his undershirt.

"Anything else I can help with?" asks Jon, as Stephen slips into enough layers of coverage that only a very well-informed or very suspicious observer would guess there was anything to be covered.

"Yes." Stephen sticks out his arms. He grits his teeth while Jon fastens his cufflinks, even though Jon's taking extra care to be gentle around the cast. "And you could get me another pill."

The man looks so miserable that Jon starts to weaken.

"Do you really think it's wise?" he protests anyway, retrieving Stephen's tie from the towel bar while Stephen buttons up his shirt with slow, determined movements. "We don't know how it'll mess with your hormones, and especially if you're going to be on camera...."

Stephen doesn't answer, but his eyebrows carve a dark furrow low on his forehead, the way they do when his common sense is winning the internal battle in spite of his best efforts.

"Tell you what," offers Jon, looping the tie around Stephen's neck before surrendering the ends of the fabric into Stephen's hands. "You make it through this, and when you get home we'll set you up with a cold drink and your latest box set of The Sopranos, and if you're still feeling lousy we'll call the doctor and ask about upping your dosage. How does that sound?"

Stephen pulls the knot tight with a flourish, then twists the tip of the tie hopefully between his fingers. "Can you make me an ice cream sundae while you're at it?"

Jon laughs, partly out of relief: Stephen can't be feeling too bad. "Slow down there, my friend. I need to keep something back to reward you for making it through next week's shows."

The pout forming on the other man's face is stopped in its tracks when a car horn beeps impatiently outside.

Stephen bolts from the bathroom, scrambling to pull on his shoes and jacket one-handed. As with any force of nature, Jon figures the safest course is to stay out of the way. He can't go out to the front room, though; Stephen won't want the driver to see that someone spent the night.

So he's standing on the threshold of the bathroom when a fully clothed Stephen sweeps down the hall, then comes to an abrupt halt a few steps past him.

"Jon?" he stammers, without turning around. "If I got...something else...done at the hospital — I mean, an operation that involved more, well, attention than just doling out painkillers and keeping my wrist dry — if, hypothetically speaking, I wanted something like that — could you...I mean, would you still...."

"...get you ice cream?" suggests Jon softly. "Sure. Or whatever else you needed."

Stephen bounces uncertainly on the balls of his feet a couple of times, then abruptly spins on his heel and flashes Jon his most charming grin. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but the world isn't going to change itself. See you in a couple of hours. Make sure you have that drink ready!"

Comments

[ptahrrific]

I actually have a whole rambling essay written about how this Stephen turns all the usual ideas about the character inside out. Not only with the self-awareness, and the fact that his anger comes from a place of trying to be who he is rather than trying to hide it, but also in the way he interacts with Jon. For once, he's a genuine authority on something, and Jon can't go too far in advising him how to deal with it.

(Not sure if fknwsgenderswap is open to meta posts, or if I should just post it in andthatstheword and offer up the link in an Open Thread.)

In my head this Stephen has a more fluid sexuality in the first place, but it does kind of take a back seat to the trans issues. He thought of himself as female (albeit a female with something deeply wrong going on) for long enough that he got to spend some time exploring a comfortable and socially encouraged attraction to men, which undercut his ability to be paranoid and repressed about it later on. He keeps his relationship with Jon a secret, but that's more about appearances than an internal sense of shame.

Glad you liked it, and that you did come back to respond ♥

[aybara_max]

his anger comes from a place of trying to be who he is rather than trying to hide it

Nailed it, as usual :D YES, I think that would be an excellent meta post for fknwsgenderswap, please do share! I agree with the more fluid sexuality, and I also think that he would necessarily have some broader views of what women can and can't do - though, like his relationship with Jon, he will probably put up an obligatory protective front of misogyny and homophobia that he doesn't necessarily feel deeply.

[ptahrrific]

Awesome!

I picture him being ahead of the curve on trans-specific issues, but still having some strict gender-role views otherwise. Like, he wouldn't tell a trans woman to "wash off the makeup and stop pretending", but he might easily say to her "That's enough, honey, the men are talking now." Because if women really can do anything men can do, that implies (according to Stephen-logic) that he has no reason to identify as male, rather than as a woman who just happens to have a lot of "masculine" traits.

...I don't think he deals with intersex/genderqueer people very well. "Are you male or female? Pick a side! We're at war!"

Oh, and, coding: <user name="fknwsgenderswap" site="livejournal.com"> will get you fknwsgenderswap :)

[aybara_max]

Because if women really can do anything men can do, that implies (according to Stephen-logic) that he has no reason to identify as male, rather than as a woman who just happens to have a lot of "masculine" traits. Ah, that does make sense. Also why I am ambivalent myself about transition (at the moment at least).

Aha! Thanks for the coding help! (I always thought it was funny that using lj-cut, lj-user etc. work on dw, but you have to specify that you actually mean LJ?)

[ptahrrific]

There's definitely a grey area, and plenty of people who fall into it. As a universal rule, though, it's BS - trans guys are not all just confused butch women (and trans women, in turn, not a bunch of misguided femmy guys). And Stephen had a hard time with the distinction between "this is true for some people" and "this is a universal rule."

Lol, I tend to identify you with that icon, so I just think of you as a skinny suit-wearing white woman :P

And, yeah, the code is designed to make importing from LJ as easy as possible. So it has its own tags, but it also knows how to interpret LJ's, and when you import entries that refer to usernames, the process automatically adds the "site="livejournal.com"" property. (Now, if only LJ itself were as flexible...)

[aybara_max]

D: and this is why I fail at DW, somehow I never saw this response. "Stephen" in all froms definitely has a problem with dividing the world into black vs. white instead of shades of gray.

HA! I have no problem being identified with Ms. Maddow, though I find the "skinny" and "white" amusing. I did actually take pictures in a suit though, so you can think of me as a round brownish person in a suit ^_^

(I had to come back to this post to find the coding tip you gave me again -_-)

[ptahrrific]

This is why you turn on email comment notifications!

Ooh, I like those pictures. And I gotta say, you look like a guy to me in all of them :D

[aybara_max]

:D Thanks!

[aybara_max]

Okay, this is a silly question...when coding, how do you tell DW the difference between a DW user/group and an LJ user/group?