Work Text:
Jay hands Stephen his laptop, browser open to TMZ.
"It can't be..." he's saying, but he stops when he takes in the still, a grainy frame from an 8mm videotape.
It is.
A much younger Jon Stewart in medium close up, shirtless and smiling. A second frame beside it, a long shot, naked, a black CENSORED! bar riding low on his hips.
"I don't want to see this!" Stephen cries.
"What are we going to do about it?" Paul asks, saving the computer before Stephen can pitch it across the room.
"That isn't our decision to make."
"So you need to talk to Jon."
Stephen closes his eyes, that black bar burned into his retinas.
"Yeah. I need to talk to Jon."
*
He calls Jon's cell, and gets his assistant instead.
"Stephen, hi. He's not taking—"
Then, in the background, "I'll talk to Stephen."
"Oh. Okay. He'll talk to you. Here he is."
There's the muffled sounds of the phone being handed over. Then the sound of a door closing. Then Jon.
"Stephen?"
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know yet."
Stephen eases himself into his chair and pulls the site up again. He minimises it as soon as the pictures load. "What is this?" he asks quietly.
"A girl I was dating had just bought a camcorder. What else were we supposed to do with it?" he laughs. "I don't know, I—from what I can find out, she had a bunch of Hi8 tapes that she got digitized and didn't know exactly what was on them, and either someone took this, or she sold it, I—I don't know. I'd honestly forgotten that this thing even existed, but. You know. It is what it is."
"Are you going to say anything about it on the show?"
"I think I have to. Just... say what I just told you, more or less. Own it. Yeah, it's embarrassing but, honestly, I think Denis Leary has photos of me that are more reputation-destroying than anything that's in that tape. It was almost twenty years ago, for chrissakes. We were both consenting adults. If Letterman can admit he banged an intern and have people not care about it a week later, I have to get a pass on this."
"Yeah, but... Letterman didn't have video."
"Well, thank God for small favors."
"Should I do anything on it?"
"If you want to? I mean, if you have good reason to. You can make it funny. I trust you."
"Thank you. That means a lot."
They're quiet a beat, until Jon clears his throat and hedges, "So did you... have you watched it?"
"No! God, Jon... I could barely look at the stills."
"Really? I don't know if I should be insulted or grateful."
"Be grateful! You don't... you don't want me to be picturing you getting freaky whenever we talk."
"You mean you don't already?"
"Only about seventy percent of the time. Eighty, max. But if I watched it, it would be all the time, and I know that would eventually make you uncomfortable."
"Well, thank you for putting my best interests at heart."
"Of course." Stephen bites his lip, and his finger skims over the trackpad, cursor dancing back and forth over the minimized browser.
"At least there's one good thing about this..." Jon starts. Stephen quickly pulls back from the computer and crosses his arm over his chest, pinning his hand against his side for security.
"What's that?"
He laughs. "It was twenty years ago! I look good. And... it's... it's graphic. There's very, very little that anyone is going to be able to broadcast."
"Isn't that—" Stephen is suddenly extremely aware of the dryness of his mouth. He tries to swallow and start again. "Isn't that going to make people want to find it and watch it more?"
"I suppose we'll have to wait and see."
After they say their goodbyes and hang up, Stephen spends a good ten minutes staring at his laptop, trying to figure out if Jon just issued a challenge.
*
Stephen decides they're not going to touch it on the show. It's Jon's thing, he owns it to mock as he pleases. Stephen can't see any way around bringing it up that doesn't seem opportunistic and mean. Even if it is what the character would do, he's not going to do it. Because it's Jon.
Maybe in a few days, some throwaway reference to it will come off better.
Maybe in a few days, he would've processed the idea that this tape exists at all and it will just be a matter-of-fact thing in the world, and he'll be able to watch it—for research purposes only—without it being quite so...
He doesn't want to use the word "exciting" but that really is the only tasteful way to put it. It's just the strangeness of the concept, the newness of it, which is causing that pleasant throb to his dick every time someone brings it up, every time he happens to scroll by those blurry stills. He tells himself he'll be over that in a day or two, and it'll be just another piece of footage he needs to watch and consider and transform into a punchline.
*
Someone asks him in the Q&A if he's seen the tape. He briefly feels bad for Jon, thinks about all the shitty questions he's probably gotten tonight, and then quickly responds with a laugh.
"Are you kidding? I shot the fucking thing."
He gets the laugh and moves on quickly, trying not to dwell on that new mental picture.
*
Paul lingers in his office after the post-show meeting.
"So did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Watch it yet?"
Stephen raises an eyebrow. "You say yet like I'm actually going to watch it."
"Oh, come on, like you're not even a little curious."
"Curious, yeah, maybe, but there's a difference between slowing down on the highway for a car crash and slowing down on the highway for a car crash when it's your friend's car." Stephen absently shuffles paper around his desk. "Did you watch it?"
"Oh, yeah." Paul says. "Somebody had to."
Stephen looks up. "Really?"
Paul shrugs. "I'm not as close with Jon as you are. And I had a feeling you'd pull some kind of 'respect for your friends' bullshit."
"Huh." Stephen says, picking up pages without having any idea whether it's stuff he needs to look at for tomorrow, or leftovers from tonight. "And?" he adds casually.
"And...you'll see."
"I'm not going to watch it!"
"I sent you the whole thing. Just in case Jon's lawyers get on this and the streams are taken down. I figure your willpower is only good for a day or two."
Stephen groans. "Get the fuck out."
"Are you gonna watch it now?"
"Out!"
"It's kinda hot."
"Good night, Paul!"
*
Fucking Dinello.
Stephen sits alone in his office, having checked and triple checked that the building is empty. The only light comes from his computer screen where, yes, Paul has sent him a downloadable copy of the whole thing.
Half of his address book has sent him links and attachments. But right now he's choosing to blame Paul, because if Paul hadn't had that smug I'm-ten-steps-ahead-of-you-and-I-know-what-you're-going-to-do tone of voice, then Stephen would be home by now.
Yes, he'd probably be having the same debate with himself there as well, but at least there it might be easier to avoid.
Fucking Dinello.
Stephen just wants to protect Jon. That's all. To be loyal and not screw him over, because that's just how they've always been, and that's all he's ever tried to do. So should he watch this thing to know what he needs to protect Jon from? Or should he not watch it so he's protecting Jon from himself?
Because that's kind of what the problem is. That the whole time he's been sitting here, staring at the file download, he's been nursing a semi.
It's the not-knowing that's doing it to him. His overactive imagination filling in the blanks. He's sure that if he just watches a couple of minutes, reality will kick in and he'll feel uncomfortable enough to start thinking with his brain again and he'll switch it off and that'll be that. Jon will ask him again if he's watched it, and he'll laugh and say he tried, nothing personal, it was just too fucked up, and that will be that.
He clicks play and crosses his arms. Hurry up and get it over with.
The first frames of the video are the source of that first still he saw: Jon, back when his hair was dark and his body was slight, shirtless, a smile blooming on his face.
Disappointment sparks in Stephen's gut and he shifts in his chair. He's never had much of a liking for porn that starts in media res, preferring there to be some kind of build up, always having been turned on by the act of people removing their clothes.
It hits him that that must mean he's been eagerly anticipating watching Jon undress without even knowing it. He shifts again and balls his hands into fists.
"Oh, you're recording now?" That voice, pitched a little differently than he's used to now, dripping with a sarcastic, teasing tone he knows all too well.
"Uh-huh," the girl behind the camera says. The shot slowly zooms out.
"Oh, Jesus," Stephen mutters. It's the second frame that he'd seen before, the full length shot of Jon naked, this time with nary a censor bar to be found. He's floridly erect, and seemingly proud of it too, in that effortlessly cocky—no pun intended—way he once had about him.
"Do you need me to pose?" Jon says, hands on his hips, a slightly embarrassed laugh bubbling out of him, cracking the facade in a beautiful way.
"Please do," Stephen murmurs without thinking, while the girl on the tape says, "No. That's fine."
He watches, entranced, leaning forward in his seat, as the Jon on the screen smiles his lopsided smile and approaches the camera.
There's a cut, and suddenly it's not Jon's face that holds his attention. It's Jon in profile, sitting on a chair, camera tilting and zooming until his hard, flushed dick is center frame.
"Oh, sweet Jesus." Stephen clamps his eyes shut, and blindly fumbles his glasses off, sending them clattering across the desk. He covers his face with his hands for extra safety, and breathes into his palms.
Too late. It's burned into his brain, and he has to sneak a peek through his fingers, admiring the smooth flare of the head of Jon's dick, its tantalising thickness, the thatch of hair at his groin that fades away up his stomach, and that, that once innocent part of Jon's body is something that Stephen has seen before in the warm, breathing flesh, and that somehow makes the full picture somehow both embarrassingly worse and infinitely more incredible.
His gaze lingers before he closes his eyes again and laughs into his hands, aroused, hysterical.
"Oh... fuck."
And those words from Jon are familiar, but that raw whisper and reverent tone are definitely not, and Stephen looks again as the girl is kneeling in front of him, mouth moving over his dick.
And the girl... on first sight of her Stephen loves her for having the brilliant idea to document Jon Stewart in the midst of getting what looks like a pretty damn good blowjob, because Jon isn't that good an actor and the flush of his cheeks, the parting of his lips, the twitch of his thighs are all too fucking perfect.
At the same time, Stephen hates her. He hates her for being either careless or malicious enough to let the tape get out there, for not taking care of Jon properly now, and for being the one who is taking care of Jon back then.
Then he loves her again, because without her nefarious intent or momentary oversight, he'd never get to see this, and, God this is something to see. Guilt worms away low in his gut, pulling everything tight around his groin. He forgets about the girl. For a moment, he's jealous of her mouth before he blocks her out entirely.
Stephen swears under his breath as Jon emits a throaty groan from the computer speakers. This has gone too far. He's well beyond the point of idle curiosity. His dick, hard and pleasantly uncomfortable inside his jeans, has definitely gone past curiosity and set up camp—pitched its tent, if you will—in committed interest.
He covers his face with his hands again, closes his eyes, bites the heel of his hand and huffs in frustration.
This is your friend. Your colleague. Your... it's Jon. This is wrong.
Oh, come on. Like he's never popped into your head while you were jerking off before.
This is different! This is something you're deliberately doing! He didn't want anyone to see this tape!
HE'S MAKING JOKES ABOUT IT! HE PRACTICALLY GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO WATCH IT.
"Oh, dear God," Stephen mutters to himself, as the Jon on the screen from twenty years ago mutters something equally blasphemous.
"Stop, baby, stop, wait a sec..."
Stephen looks up, guilty, startled for a moment that either tape-Jon has become sentient, or actual-Jon has shown up at his door to chastise him. He gets his bearings, absently catching the tips of his fingers in his mouth as tape-Jon is helping the girl up.
"Your turn," tape-Jon says, and he's reaching for the camera, the shot lifts and tilts before it cuts to a high angle of the girl's thighs with Jon's head between them. He glances up, straight into the lens, pulls away from her for a moment to smile, then snakes his tongue along her thigh and back to her clitoris. She gasps from off-screen.
"You motherfucker," Stephen growls at tape-Jon's smug, smouldering, sexy gaze.
Fuck it, he thinks without really thinking, shoving his hand below the desk to squeeze himself through his clothes a few times before he truly decides, just... fuck it, and lifts his hips up, undoing his jeans and shoving them and his underwear down around his thighs. The desk chair is cold against his bare ass, and he scrunches his eyes closed as one hand makes fast contact with his dick, the other on his balls.
If he has his eyes closed, then he's not really watching it, and technically he's not getting off to Jon's old fucktape, and then technically, technically, it's not weird.
One eye cracks open and he sneaks a blurry glance. Jon's got his fingers inside the girl now, his bottom lip between his teeth, holding in a smile.
You motherfucker.
He fumbles in his desk drawer for some hand lotion and squirts a good size dollop on his palm. He slams his eyes closed again and slicks up his cock, and he's not pretending that it's Jon's mouth on him, and that Jon's looking up that way at him, not the Jon on the tape, not Jon when Stephen first met him, not Jon from five years ago or five hours ago. None of them!
It's all of them.
Stephen huffs and groans, tenses the muscles of his legs and his ass against the cold leather of the chair, curls his toes inside his shoes. He squeezes his dick a little too hard, tugs it a little too rough, punishing himself for giving in to temptation, as though if he tries to make this experience unpleasant, it's not something he'll want to think of every time he sees, hears, or touches Jon for the remainder of their friendship, which, really, might not be that long if Jon somehow suspects that Stephen was jacking off while Jon was in the midst of an invasion of privacy publicity nightmare.
The sound from the computer changes from the girl's satisfied hums to the squeaking of bedsprings, her enthusiastic moans, and Jon's thick, throaty recitation of every dirty word he's ever known.
Stephen looks. His hand stills, just holding his dick, and he stops to watch. The camera is set on the bed, poorly framed, like they've given up on recording it by this point and just want to get off. One of the girl's legs is propped up on Jon's shoulder, and there's a more-or-less clear view of his dick thrusting inside her. Stephen can see Jon's face every now and then as he leans forward into the frame, flushed, a lock of hair falling across his forehead.
He watches Jon's hands running down the girl's body, and the way the girl reaches up and scratches her nails through his chest hair.
"Fuck. Yes. Fuck." Jon settles on his favorite dirty word, and pants it over and over again.
Stephen whimpers under his breath.
Just get this over with.
Stephen grits his teeth and starts up again, subconsciously matching Jon's pace on the screen. He keeps his eyes open now, taking it in, taking Jon in, because once he's finished he knows he's stopping the video, whether Jon's done or not, and he's never going to watch it again.
It's been building all day, since he first saw those frame grabs, since he talked to Jon. Surrendering to it, opening the floodgates on his repressed feelings for Jon—whatever the fuck they are and he's not thinking about that now—just temporarily, it has to be temporary, even that is such a relief and it's mere moments before Stephen's grasping with one hand for the box of Kleenex on his desk, his orgasm hitting him like a speeding truck that splatters his body all over the highway. He comes into the wad of tissues, the air knocked out of him, as he stares helplessly at tape-Jon: the curve of his ass and the line of his back as he covers the girl's body with his, his forehead pressed to the bed at her side as he groans and continues to pump his hips, almost there, so close –
Stephen stops the video, the frame perfectly frozen on Jon's face in rapt pleasure, a motion blur on his lower body, and quickly closes the player. He tries not to look, dumps the tissues in the wastepaper basket under the desk, clears his throat as he hitches his pants and underwear back up.
Well. That happened.
Heart still pounding, body still humming, he deletes the video file and powers down the laptop. He gets up, goes into the bathroom, washes his hands and splashes cold water on his face. He stares at his reflection in the mirror. A little flushed, a little rumpled, a little unfocused. Nothing out of the ordinary though.
Time to go home
*
Stephen stays up after his wife has gone to bed. He wants to catch The Daily Show. Just the first few minutes, just to see how Jon handles things.
Everything is perfectly normal when Stephen sees him on screen. It's fine. No reimagining Jon as minus a few years and all his clothing, no picturing someone that might be the girl or might be Stephen himself on their knees under the desk.
Stephen exhales in relief. Everything back as it should be, and now he's just nervous for his friend.
Jon gets to it after speeding through the usual show open. "You know, people come here to see the show, and sometimes when I come out here to say hello and answer questions, people say things like, 'Jon, you should run for congress,' or 'Jon, we want you to be president.' Now, my answer is always, first of all, no, I don't want to and that's a bad idea, and second of all, I can't, because there's a lot of weird stuff out there to discredit me. And now you know I really wasn't kidding about that second part."
TV-Jon laughs at himself, a self-deprecating chuckle to break the tension. The audience laughs too, and Stephen can't help but smile.
"So, here's the thing. I, ah... I haven't done anything that I feel I should be particularly ashamed of right now. Myself and the young lady on that tape were both single, consenting, legal adults at the time, obviously both aware that we were recording something that was not intended to be seen by anyone else. Unfortunately, neither of us had the foresight to know that the internet was going to be a thing someday. It is disappointing and a little embarrassing that this thing got out there and is being passed around, but however it happened, it's done. And the priority of my professional life has always been to entertain people, and hopefully make them laugh, and, really, I think we can all agree now that the funniest thing about me is my penis."
Stephen snorts. The audience cheers, and Jon waves them off.
"So, you're welcome. That's all I'm gonna say about it. It happened, it's done, moving on."
Grace and class. Stephen's proud of him. And Jon's words are perfectly applicable to other situations too. Nothing to be ashamed of. Who wouldn't be curious if someone they knew had a sex tape? Who hasn't masturbated while thinking of a friend? Jon's privacy had been violated already. It's not like Stephen's made it worse.
"Keep telling yourself that, pal," he mutters to himself, and checks his e-mail one last time before bed.
He gets distracted, first deleting e-mails from still more fucking people sending him links to the tape, and next by looking over a script draft and some early pitches for the next day. The TV plays on in the background and before Stephen realizes it, half an hour has passed and Jon's throwing to the Moment of Zen.
Then there's that voice. Pitched a little different, thick with familiar sarcasm. "Oh, you're recording now?"
Stephen's head snaps to attention.
So does his dick.