Title: Fanboys
Rating: PG-13
Author: Jen
Summary: Dedicated followers of Jonathan.
Author's note 1: Set in the Jonathan-verse created in 'Superstar', but before the events of 'Superstar' actually take place. If that makes sense. Think of this as the other leg of the trousers of time. Does it make sense now? Well, it's probably quantum.
Author's note 2: Written with the aid of Diet Vanilla Coke, Magnum Gluttony, Evanescence's 'Fallen' and my friend Chris's laptop. Thanks to various members of the Xandrew community for turning me on to Evanescence.
Disclaim-a-rama: I own nothing, I know no one, I am earning nothing from this.
*****
Three years' worth of 'Jonathan' comics, each one in its original plastic bag. The later ones are pristine, since he got into the habit of buying two copies of each: one to read, one to save. Sometimes he worries that the earlier ones are too tattered, that the pages are too dog-eared and thumb-worn, but still, it's an impressive collection. Not even Tucker has this many. On rainy afternoons, he still likes to sit himself on the window-sill in his room and work his way through the long story arcs, re-familiarising himself with the dialogue and looking out for meanings he might have missed.
Five action figures. He hates himself sometimes for having taken them out of their boxes. Somewhere in the house he's sure there's a sixth, with a missing arm that was lost in a ferocious battle with Tucker's He-Man. Tucker has seven, three in their original boxes, but Tucker does not have the limited edition eleven-inch pose-able figure that has real hair and came with a cardboard display background depicting the old High School and fake plastic chunks of dead mayor-snake. He mowed the lawn every day for a month to save up enough for that one. Tucker says seeing the actual mayor-snake was better, but Andrew doesn't believe him.
Eight hundred and thirty-seven trading cards. Most of these he paid for with his lunch money, hunger pangs being a small price to pay for the fluttery feeling he gets each time he opens up a new pack of cards. Sometimes he wishes his dad would get a credit card so he could track down the rare ones on ebay.
There are posters too, but now they're stored in cardboard tubes in the back of his closet. Tucker had laughed at him for putting up Jonathan posters. He'd told his dad on Tucker, but dad didn't like them either, so they had to come down. Seven-of-Nine is back up on his walls now. He doesn't like her quite so much, but they don't make Tucker laugh at him.
Andrew thinks he has fuzzy memories of Tucker bringing home a kid from school who looked a lot like Jonathan. Back when they were both in the same school, before Tucker went off to college. It couldn't have been the real Jonathan of course, even though Tucker claims he knows him, because why would someone like Jonathan ever come to their house for dinner?
But sometimes, Andrew likes to think that maybe it really was Jonathan. Because then, one day Tucker might come home during vacation and shout, "Hey everybody, I bumped into an old friend today. Come see who it is!" And Andrew will leave his room and head downstairs into the kitchen, and there he'll be. All chummy with Tucker, but that can't be helped because they'd have to be good friends for him to come here, but it'll be Jonathan Levinson in his own kitchen where he eats breakfast and does his homework.
He'll make small talk with their parents for a while, and then he'll look round. Spy Andrew lurking nervously in the doorway. Say, "Andrew? Andrew, is that you?" Because of course he'll recognise Andrew from the days when he used to hang out here with Tucker, when they were kids, even though Tucker always made him go away whenever he brought friends home. And Andrew will smile, nervous but pleased that Jonathan remembers him, and Jonathan will ignore Tucker's protests and invite him to sit with them. He'll offer Andrew one of their beers and it won't make him cough and splutter like the one he stole from the fridge one time when his dad was away, and they'll sit and shoot the breeze, him and Tucker and Jonathan Levinson.
Andrew likes to save this fantasy for the really bad days: the ones when it feels like everyone's out to get him and the only place he can find any peace is in his room with the chair shoved under the door handle to keep it from being opened. Sometimes the daydream just ends there, in the kitchen, with the three of them talking like old friends. Sometimes, though, something happens to make Tucker leave and then it's just him and Jonathan, alone in their house. Then there's a slow dissolve as the scene shifts to his bedroom, and he's laying down (he's always laying down, so that way Jonathan can look down at him because the thought of anyone looking down on Jonathan is just wrong), and Jonathan kneels over him, whispers something soft like, "Look at you, you're all grown up now, Andrew," and then...wow. He'll know then that no one's ever been so close to Jonathan as he is.
That's all he wants. To be close to Jonathan. Everyone says they want to be close to Jonathan, but no one wants it like Andrew does.
*****
Rating: PG-13
Author: Jen
Summary: Dedicated followers of Jonathan.
Author's note 1: Set in the Jonathan-verse created in 'Superstar', but before the events of 'Superstar' actually take place. If that makes sense. Think of this as the other leg of the trousers of time. Does it make sense now? Well, it's probably quantum.
Author's note 2: Written with the aid of Diet Vanilla Coke, Magnum Gluttony, Evanescence's 'Fallen' and my friend Chris's laptop. Thanks to various members of the Xandrew community for turning me on to Evanescence.
Disclaim-a-rama: I own nothing, I know no one, I am earning nothing from this.
*****
Three years' worth of 'Jonathan' comics, each one in its original plastic bag. The later ones are pristine, since he got into the habit of buying two copies of each: one to read, one to save. Sometimes he worries that the earlier ones are too tattered, that the pages are too dog-eared and thumb-worn, but still, it's an impressive collection. Not even Tucker has this many. On rainy afternoons, he still likes to sit himself on the window-sill in his room and work his way through the long story arcs, re-familiarising himself with the dialogue and looking out for meanings he might have missed.
Five action figures. He hates himself sometimes for having taken them out of their boxes. Somewhere in the house he's sure there's a sixth, with a missing arm that was lost in a ferocious battle with Tucker's He-Man. Tucker has seven, three in their original boxes, but Tucker does not have the limited edition eleven-inch pose-able figure that has real hair and came with a cardboard display background depicting the old High School and fake plastic chunks of dead mayor-snake. He mowed the lawn every day for a month to save up enough for that one. Tucker says seeing the actual mayor-snake was better, but Andrew doesn't believe him.
Eight hundred and thirty-seven trading cards. Most of these he paid for with his lunch money, hunger pangs being a small price to pay for the fluttery feeling he gets each time he opens up a new pack of cards. Sometimes he wishes his dad would get a credit card so he could track down the rare ones on ebay.
There are posters too, but now they're stored in cardboard tubes in the back of his closet. Tucker had laughed at him for putting up Jonathan posters. He'd told his dad on Tucker, but dad didn't like them either, so they had to come down. Seven-of-Nine is back up on his walls now. He doesn't like her quite so much, but they don't make Tucker laugh at him.
Andrew thinks he has fuzzy memories of Tucker bringing home a kid from school who looked a lot like Jonathan. Back when they were both in the same school, before Tucker went off to college. It couldn't have been the real Jonathan of course, even though Tucker claims he knows him, because why would someone like Jonathan ever come to their house for dinner?
But sometimes, Andrew likes to think that maybe it really was Jonathan. Because then, one day Tucker might come home during vacation and shout, "Hey everybody, I bumped into an old friend today. Come see who it is!" And Andrew will leave his room and head downstairs into the kitchen, and there he'll be. All chummy with Tucker, but that can't be helped because they'd have to be good friends for him to come here, but it'll be Jonathan Levinson in his own kitchen where he eats breakfast and does his homework.
He'll make small talk with their parents for a while, and then he'll look round. Spy Andrew lurking nervously in the doorway. Say, "Andrew? Andrew, is that you?" Because of course he'll recognise Andrew from the days when he used to hang out here with Tucker, when they were kids, even though Tucker always made him go away whenever he brought friends home. And Andrew will smile, nervous but pleased that Jonathan remembers him, and Jonathan will ignore Tucker's protests and invite him to sit with them. He'll offer Andrew one of their beers and it won't make him cough and splutter like the one he stole from the fridge one time when his dad was away, and they'll sit and shoot the breeze, him and Tucker and Jonathan Levinson.
Andrew likes to save this fantasy for the really bad days: the ones when it feels like everyone's out to get him and the only place he can find any peace is in his room with the chair shoved under the door handle to keep it from being opened. Sometimes the daydream just ends there, in the kitchen, with the three of them talking like old friends. Sometimes, though, something happens to make Tucker leave and then it's just him and Jonathan, alone in their house. Then there's a slow dissolve as the scene shifts to his bedroom, and he's laying down (he's always laying down, so that way Jonathan can look down at him because the thought of anyone looking down on Jonathan is just wrong), and Jonathan kneels over him, whispers something soft like, "Look at you, you're all grown up now, Andrew," and then...wow. He'll know then that no one's ever been so close to Jonathan as he is.
That's all he wants. To be close to Jonathan. Everyone says they want to be close to Jonathan, but no one wants it like Andrew does.
*****