Entry tags:

genre: dramedy, pairing: alt!"stephen"/jon, series: fake news, story: liberalverse

Title: Puppy Love (1/3)
Rating: PG-13
Contents: Mentions of sex, sensitive subjects, bizarrely flavored contraceptives, NAMBLA
Characters/pairings: Jon/liberal!"Stephen", past liberal!"Stephen"/teacher, a puppy
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: Another story from the Liberalverse. Jon finally breaks the repressive shackles of the patriarchy by getting a divorce. Surely this means he'll be ready to jump into bed with Stephen now, right? Right?

As demanded by deepad: "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!"


Puppy Love (Part I)


The news quietly circled among the staff, most of whom took the cue to give Jon plenty of space.

Over the next couple of days, those who were closer to him dropped in with words of sympathy, and the occasional offer to bring over dinner or something. Jon reassured them that he did know how to cook, and had no intention of getting himself stuck with canned soup and granola bars. Besides, he had had months to get used to the idea, even if the legal bits had only just been finalized.

After about a week of this, Stephen showed up for lunch with an overflowing gift basket and a mile-wide grin.

"So," he said, "this means you're available now, right?"




When it came to other people, Jon was much better at holding Stephen back.

He had even gotten a sense of when to pre-empt things. Like the time, a couple of years earlier, when he had caught Stephen alone after a particularly sensitive conversation with the other correspondents.

The actual conversation had gone surprisingly well, and he said so. "You did good, Stephen. I think Sam really appreciated it."

Stephen shrugged modestly. "It's only what any decent person would have said. Sam's body, Sam's choice. Only a far-right moral-majority reactionary fascist would try to make her feel ashamed about choosing not to derail the whole rest of her life because of a little excess in her twenties."

"That would be a pretty dickish thing to do, yeah." Jon let that settle, then added, "You're not going to tell anyone, of course."

Stephen looked up in shock. "Jon! You're not a far-right moral-majority reactionary fascist, are you? If there's nothing shameful about it, then why should she hide it?"

"Because it's personal? Because she doesn't want to deal with gossip and weird stares and people, fascist or not, making judgments about her? It's also her choice whether people get to know about it, Stephen."

"She let us know about it," pointed out Stephen.

"That doesn't mean she wants to share it with the whole world. Listen, until she puts out a press release or starts joking about it on-air, you respect her privacy. No matter how reactionary you think it is. Got it?"

Stephen huffed a sigh. "Fine."

"Good man." Jon turned to leave.

"Just for the record," called Stephen after him, "anything I do, you have my full permission to talk about with anyone you want. I don't do things I would be ashamed for the whole world to know about."

"Stephen, you have no sense of shame."

"Exactly!"




Jon stared at the gift basket in disbelief.

The flowers, candy, and ribbons were all standard issue. The rest, not so much.

"Is this a mint-flavored condom?" he stammered, plucking one of the little colored square wrappers from the bunch. "Who would want to give a blowjob if it tasted like brushing your teeth?"

"You'll be surprised," insisted Stephen. "They go really well with the chocolate body paint."

Jon looked more closely at what he had thought was a jar of sandwich spread. Oh.

"And even if you don't like them," continued Stephen cheerfully, "I think they're great, so they're not going to go to waste."

Dropping the condom like it had scalded him, Jon shoved the basket back across the desk. "What the hell, Stephen?"

His smile unwavering, Stephen blinked. "I don't know, Jon. What the hell?"

"Listen, I don't know how much you've heard, but I'm kind of in a rough spot right now! This is really not the time for you to come in looking to get laid!"

Stephen's face fell. "Jon, I — I thought...."

"You thought what? That you could swoop in while I was vulnerable and take advantage of that?"

"No!" cried Stephen, now genuinely distressed. "I thought you'd be upset! I thought you'd be hurt and sad and want something to help you feel better! And sex always makes me feel better! Especially with one of these in," he added, digging through the basket for something that was probably unspeakably kinky. "You've got to try it, Jon, it's amazing, it—"

"Enough!" interrupted Jon, holding up both hands. "You want to make me feel better, Stephen? You really do?"

"Yes!"

Picking up the basket, Jon thrust the whole thing into Stephen's arms. "Then take this, get out of here, and find some way to comfort me that doesn't involve sex. Or anything related to sex. Or even the merest mention of sex. Understand?"




Okay, so Jon's outburst hadn't been entirely fair.

It wasn't that Stephen thought his feelings were the only ones that mattered. Rather, he figured that everyone's feelings deserved to be heard, on any issue. And he couldn't understand why everyone else wasn't just as willing to share them.

(Jon had figured everyone on the left was rolling their eyes at Glenn Beck's over-the-top displays, until Stephen started playing the worst clips on the Report and gushing over them with tearful admiration.

"Stephen," Jon had protested later, "he's acting like he's seriously unstable."

"It's sad," Stephen had sighed, "that we live in a society where men are punished for having the courage to express their emotions.")

Still, Jon didn't regret the ultimatum. Normally he could hold off Stephen's almost aggressive emoting, keeping him at a manageable distance. Right now, he simply didn't have the energy. And he definitely couldn't handle it as a full-time job.

Jon loved his friend dearly, but if Stephen ever seriously wanted there to be something more between them, he was going to have to learn to rein himself in.




"I don't understand it, Sweetness," mumbled Stephen around the metal tip in his mouth. "He wants me, I know he does. So why doesn't he take me?"

The hookah bubbled soothingly at him.

Stephen sucked in a breath. "He's always like this, you know," he continued, every word sending a puff of smoke rolling down his beard. "I'll show up to an office party in a perfectly casual outfit, and, yeah, it's skintight leather but it's not like there are holes in awkward places, and he'll tell me to run down to wardrobe and put some real pants on. As if I wasn't wearing it for his enjoyment in the first place!"

He stroked Sweetness' pipe absently, sinking deeper into the beanbag chair.

"Or anyone's enjoyment, obviously," he added quickly. "I'm not trying to exclude anyone, here. Just because some people attack me as a moral degenerate doesn't mean they're any less deserving of the sight of my hot bod, right?"

Sucking in another breath, he blew a flurry of smoke rings across the room. (They weren't quite Gandalf-level yet, but he was definitely getting there.)

"Make Jon feel better without using sex," he said doubtfully. "But how am I supposed to find anything else that feels anywhere near as good?"

Sweetness bubbled suggestively.

"No, Sweetness," puffed Stephen, "I'm afraid he's a prude about mind-expanding chemicals, too."




Jon hadn't quite realized how openminded Stephen was, sexually speaking, until the day Stephen started defending NAMBLA.

"You have to admit, though, that our current age-of-consent laws are absurd," he had pressed. "Do you know how many nineteen-year-old boys have gotten jail sentences for having consensual sex with their seventeen-year-old girlfriends in this year alone?"

"No, I don't," Jon had confessed. "How many?"

"Well, I don't know the exact number. But I bet it's a lot!"

Numbers or no numbers, Jon did understand that it happened, and that it was a colossal failure of the system. So he had said as much.

"Exactly!" Stephen had exclaimed. "So you see why we shouldn't have a system at all!"

"Uh...."

"After all, if a precocious, self-posessed, independent high school freshman wants to have a sexual encounter with a much older man, that should be his prerogative."

"I'm not sure—"

"And if it gets him an A on his pottery project, well, that's just icing on the cake!"

"You did it with the art teacher," stammered Jon.

"He was a beautiful man, Jon!" Stephen had snapped. "You'd have tried it too, if you had seen those pillowy lips!"




"Ah! Jon! There you are!" exclaimed Stephen, both hands under his desk. "Come in, and close the door. I have something to show you."

Jon paused on the threshold, looking suddenly wary. "Stephen...you remember what I told you the other day, right?"

"Don't patronize me, Stewart," snapped Stephen. "Just shut the door and get in here, already."

Jon obeyed, though he still looked doubtful. Stephen nodded for him to come closer. Once Jon was standing across from him, Stephen lifted his wriggling treasure onto the (carefully cleared) desk.

The rainbow-colored golden retriever puppy panted happily up at the visitor.

"Oh, wow," breathed Jon, his face now lit by an inner glow. Without seeming to notice it, he lifted his hands.

"His name is Barry," said Stephen proudly. "You want to hold him?"

Now openly smiling, Jon scooped the puppy into his arms.