Archive of Our Own ^beta

He and Kenny are friends. There's no need to say "just friends", because there are no other options: Kenny's a boy, and so is Stephen. (Whatever Jeffrey Ozer says.) They play D&D together, which is an extremely manly pursuit - Stephen makes sure to take some time every session to describe his paladin's bronzed, rippling muscles and mighty thews. (He's not entirely sure what thews are, but Ferrenith's are definitely mighty. And he's had hundreds of girlfriends.)

Okay, so maybe Kenny plays an elf maiden with a pet unicorn, but that's just because the party needed a cleric, and everybody knows ladies make the best clerics. It makes all those scenes where they roleplayed the laying on of healing hands totally not gay. And it's completely in character for Ferrenith to call Kendriel a fair maiden and ask her for a courtly kiss. Stephen's a very good roleplayer.

So he really has no reason to suspect that Kenny might be up to anything underhanded and deviant when he invites Stephen to come play at his secret hideout. Or when they hold hands on the way there. Kenny's just worried about him getting lost.

And it's not weird that they end up having to sit so close when there's hardly even room for both of them here between the trees. (That's probably why it feels so warm and Stephen's maybe a little bit light-headed.) Kenny says he used to hide here to spy on people passing by on the street, so Stephen closes his eyes to listen.

He's still got them closed when Kenny says, in kind of a squeaky voice, "I really like you, Stephen." But Stephen doesn't think anything of that, because duh, Stephen's awesome and Kenny's lucky to know him. Really the only mystery is why more people at school don't see it that way.

So it's not his fault he doesn't see it coming when the next thing Kenny does is lean over and kiss him right on the lips, like he's a girl.

And naturally - after he's had about twenty seconds to get over the shock - he shoves Kenny off and tells him he's going to hell and runs away. And he never speaks to Kenny again because it was creepy and wrong and disgusting.

(And if that's maybe not quite how Stephen remembers it happening, it's the version he'll repeat over and over to his parents and Father Jackson and the counsellor until Dad yells at him to stop crying like a little baby girl, and that's what makes it true. Everyone knows it's what's in your gut that really counts, and his gut wouldn't feel this bad every time he remembers it if he'd liked it, would it?)

Charlene is the answer to his prayers, literally. Stephen spent forever asking God to make him start noticing girls like all the other boys were doing. Now there's proof that he's just a late bloomer. (Twenty-two isn't that late, right?)

Okay, so maybe he initially assumed it was his own reflection in the kitchen window when he thought lookin' hot today (he should know better than to trust windows - glass or mirror, pick a side!) but even if Charlene's his cousin and happens to look a lot like him, she's still a girl and it definitely counts. Besides, everybody knows you have to marry someone of equal hotness, and it's not his fault that leaves him limited to people who look just like him. Dating someone who wasn't already a Colbert would just be settling.

(And anyway, her branch of the family pronounces the T, which is practically like being from a different family entirely.)

It doesn't matter that Charlene's his cousin - his mom and dad have so many brothers and sisters between them that practically everyone in South Carolina is his cousin. What matters is that she's a girl and he thinks she's pretty, and that means they can get married and have kids that look just like him and live normally ever after.

At least, that's how it's supposed to happen. But now Charlene's gone running home to her mom for no stupid reason at all, and she won't answer his calls (and obviously he wouldn't have had to make twenty in one weekend if she would just pick up, God, Charlene) and it's not fair. She can't do this to him.

Stephen was just trying to do something nice for her. She was the one who was complaining about the sex not being good enough. (It's supposed to leave you feeling hollow and ashamed, Charlene, it's part of being Catholic.) And hey, he looked great in that blouse and those strappy sandals. He would love it if she ever dressed up in his clothes. (In fact, he's been trying to encourage it for months. One of his suits, her hair slicked down, some strategic strapping and padding, maybe a false moustache... she'd look amazing.)

Well, it turns out little Ms. "I went to art school and now I've got crazy ideas about men doing half the housework" isn't so liberal and open-minded after all. She even yelled at him about the make-up (he's in a band, Charlene) and his wrestling practice with Danny from work (of course without shirts, that's just being a good boyfriend and sparing you some laundry, Charlene). And he doesn't know what she means about "everybody in the family being right about him", but he's pretty damn mad about it anyway. She's supposed to be on his side.

But he'll forgive her, if she just agrees to come back. She has to come back. If she would only talk to him, then he could make her see she's gotten it wrong. He isn't any of those things that she said. He's normal. He just wants to get married and have children, like everybody else.

She can't leave him. Charlene's the only girl that Stephen's ever wanted, and it's not fair of her to take that away from him.

He won't let her.

None of this is Stephen's fault.

How was he supposed to know that Lola Magnifico was a stage name? He assumed it was Spanish, or maybe Italian. (He should know better than to trust romance languages. They're just trying to seduce you - it's in the name. Speak American, people!)

It had seemed like such a wholesome, family-friendly bar, as well - the waiters were even wearing bowties! (Kind of funny that none of them had shirts on, but hey, it gets hot down in basement rooms with no windows. Lots of sweaty men packed in close together down there.) And Romeo Rodeo was such a reassuringly manly name. The perfect place to unwind after a long day of hard-hitting interviews with politicians who kept trying to snow him with evasions like "Wait, that's not a real press badge," and "Hey, you can't just come in here and film people at the urinals!" Well, he'd still managed to get enough material to expose them all. (Especially that guy at the urinals.)

News of his interviewing prowess must have gotten around, because guys kept offering to buy him drinks. Everyone in this bar was just so friendly! (Though clearly they were serious drinkers - some of those slaps on the back had wound up landing pretty far south of the target.) But while the camaraderie of being among true men's men was nice, it was the singer that had mesmerised Stephen.

She'd singled him out from the crowd, calling him an elf-eared cutie in that deep, throaty voice as she wound her way to him across the bar. She'd towered over him in her heels (he does love a woman with a bit of stature) and patted his cheek with one broad, manicured hand as she'd whispered for him to come on back to her dressing room after the show. What hot-blooded male could possibly have turned that down?

So really, this is not his fault at all. He didn't know. Some people might claim that there must have been subconscious clues, but Stephen got rid of his subconscious years ago. That thing was nothing but trouble.

And that meant it came as a complete surprise when Lola's striptease routine turned out to involve removing both the wig and a few other things that he'd previously thought were attached. (And also gaining a little something which is really not so little at all, leaving Stephen kind of fascinated as to exactly where it had been. But not in a gay way. He's just curious. Also not in a gay way.)

Well. This puts him in a difficult position.

Specifically, backed up against a dressing room wall by Lola, if that is her real name, which it almost certainly isn't. He could probably break free, but, well, his mom always told him never to disappoint a lady, and while he's not entirely sure how the etiquette applies in this situation, it's probably better to be safe than sorry.

Also, it's going to be kind of hard to run away with his pants around his ankles like this. Clearly, the smart move is to bide his time until he gets a chance to pull them back up, and then make his bid for escape. That's what any sensible heterosexual man would do in this situation. Whatever happens to him over the next, say, couple of hours, he'll just have to bravely endure it as manfully as he knows how. (Even if it involves being full of man.)

After all, he didn't intend for this to happen, so that means it totally doesn't count.

Nothing affirms a man's heterosexuality quite like watching two lesbians fight. Admittedly, in this case it's an argument outside a gay bar rather than nude wrestling on pay-per-view, but Stephen's a good Catholic boy and would never watch that kind of thing anyway. (He does frequently end up with mystery charges on his hotel bill for movies with names like Footballers Taking a Pounding, but that's down to the damned cheating hotel staff taking advantage of his drunken blackouts.)

Of course, the only reason Stephen's at this late-night diner across from the gay bar is to keep the place under surveillance. The gays are getting bolder, he's sure of it. They've obviously targeted him since he became the main anchor on WPTS - he can't even leave the house anymore without seeing attractive men everywhere. (And the public displays by the people coming out of this bar are shocking. Some of the things you can see when you follow them to their motel rooms and look through the keyholes are obscene.)

He's been psyching himself up - and cultivating a moustache - ready for an undercover exposé that will bring the whole sordid operation down. It's a dirty job, but no one is more prepared to get down and dirty with the gays than Stephen Colbert. And another local Emmy for his journalism work will be something to tell his family about at Thanksgiving. Boy, it sure will be great to see them all again, and hear all those jokes about how it's his turn to get married now and what's the hold-up, most of your brothers had three kids by your age.

Yes, sir, everything's going great in Stephen's life these days, and he's not at all emotionally vulnerable right now, and he's on his fifth beer and fourth slice of cheesecake watching gays going in and out of what looks like a great party over the road for very good, career-advancing reasons.

Except right now he's watching a drama play out as one woman balks at going into the bar with her lesbian friend. That's right, fight that sinfulness, lady. Fight it! The gays manage to make their lifestyle look so tempting, like all he has to do is find some buff young man with rock hard abs and an ass you can bounce a quarter off who's willing to share a loving committed relationship and have lots of filthy sex and then he'll be happy, but he knows that's a dirty lie. And he's prepared to go deep undercover to prove it.

If that woman goes into the bar, he decides, he will get up and follow her in. It's his duty to subject himself to that throbbing bass and all the grinding from sweaty, half-dressed young men in order to rescue a pretty lady. Any man would do the same.

Disappointingly, the woman proves to be made of sterner stuff, and heads toward the diner instead. (It's disappointing because he won't get to be heroic. No other reasons.) As she pulls the door open, her friend yells after her. "Oh, that's right, just go back to pretending! Just go and be the perfect daughter and do what your family want, and never mind what you want!" Then she storms off.

The woman looks kind of hunched as she sits in a corner booth waiting for the waitress to bring her a coffee. Empathy is for the weak, but sometimes Stephen gets a strange little pain in his stomach when other people are unhappy, and he figures it's because it makes him think of him being unhappy. So really, it's entirely for his own benefit and not at all an act of charity when he directs the waitress to send her a slice of cheesecake along with her coffee. (He's not depressed for any reason right now, but if he was, the cheesecake would be helping.)

There's another strange feeling in his gut when the woman turns and smiles at him after the waitress explains the cheesecake. Like he's... happy that he made her feel better? That's just weird.

There's only one explanation. He must be in love.

"Hi," the woman says shyly, when she comes over to his table to thank him. "I'm Lorraine."

Stephen wonders how soon it's appropriate to ask her to marry him. Hopefully pretty soon. Thanksgiving's coming up.

Jon Stewart is a fiendish sexual predator. So fiendish, in fact, that no one else at the Daily Show seems to have even noticed. (Of course, this place is a hotbed of weed-smoking commie pinko liberals, so Stephen probably shouldn't expect too much from their observational skills. They can't even see that their laissez-faire attitude to personal morality is the cancer that's destroying this country. No matter how many times he leaves notes about it stuck to the kitchen fridge.)

But he's not sure how even his idiot coworkers can miss harassment this blatant. The man won't leave Stephen alone! The soulful looks, the quiet smiles, that girlish giggle - it's all part of his calculated seduction attempt. And that's not even getting into the number of times he's called Stephen to his office to discuss ridiculous made-up issues like "Stephen, you're not allowed to use interns as footstools," and "Stephen, the show isn't long enough for a forty-minute segment on bear attacks."

It's obvious that only Stephen's eagle-eyed alertness is standing between him and being bent over a desk and thoroughly ravished. Whenever he has a spare moment - say when he's lying in bed at night, or maybe in the shower - he spends it going over the possible scenarios of how Jon might make his move. It's the only way to be safely prepared.

(And frankly, Jon ought to be ashamed of some of the things he's forced Stephen to picture in his head. That business with the cattle-prod was filthy.)

As if it's not bad enough that Stephen has to be in a constant state of high alert, Jon even takes advantage of that too. He'll put a hand on Stephen's arm, looking all confused and sincere, and ask if something's wrong. As if he doesn't know exactly what he's doing, brushing by him in the halls and taking the seat next to him and even offering to buy him pizza. Well, Stephen Colbert isn't bought that easily! This rugged hunk of all-American man-meat is not for sale. (Anymore. The nineties were a rough time.)

Being at the mercy of his boss's insatiable lust would drive any lesser man to distraction, but Stephen has the perfect plan to strike back at Jon - a plan that will crush the liberalism right out of him and leave him a withered, hopeless husk of a man who no longer has the strength to do his dirty work for the gay agenda. (Though he'd better act fast. At the rate Jon's hair's turning grey, he's going to huskify himself before Stephen gets the chance. All the proof needed that liberal views cause accelerated aging, albeit in a distinguished and unfairly sexy way.)

Well, he knows exactly how to deal with Jon Stewart and his unfair sexiness. First he'll cunningly entrap Jon into falling head over heels in love with him. (The easiest part of the plan - after all, who wouldn't?) Then Stephen will sweep him off his feet with a beautiful proposal of gay marriage... and then, in the final cruel sting, he'll strangle Jon's dreams by ditching him at the altar. Jon will swear off men for life after Stephen's love has ruined him for all others, and end up turning to the natural politics of the prematurely aged and embittered - conservatism.

Naturally, Stephen will have to start out slow and stealthy as he reels Jon in like a fish ready to be gutted. Ask him out for drinks, shy smiles across the table, a slight brush of hands as they stand to leave the booth - was it just an accident? Who knows? It could take years to progress from subtle flirting to the point where the time's right to make the perfect proposal. That's all right. He's confident that he's up to the challenge.

(Of course, if it all goes horribly wrong, there's always a chance he might have to marry Jon for real.

But that's a risk that Stephen's brave enough to take.)