He shouldn't be on this side of the table. It doesn't feel right. Even though he's the one they're all queuing up to see, there's something fundamentally wrong about it.
He's supposed to be in the queue, shuffling slowly along in the leviathan of a human snake that winds around the hall, the bubbly feeling in his belly growing with each step forward until he's the one at the front of the line. He's supposed to be asking for autographs, not signing them.
This is what he wanted, though. There's still a buzz inside him when he reminds himself that all these hundreds of people are queuing up to see him. He's the star.
It's just...sometimes he feels nostalgic for the old days. Bus-ing out to some venue where he'd lose himself in the crowd inside, sharing in that combined elation of breathing the same air as his idols. The days when he was the one who got star-struck.
He had so many autographs, so many memories of those wonderful meetings. He remembers losing all power of speech in front of James Doohan, and being hypnotised by Terry Farrell's smile. He remembers the surreal feeling that came with meeting Nicole deBoer and realising he was on eye-level with her when she stood up.
That's all gone now, though. It's weird, and sometimes hard to reconcile. Hard to remember which are his real memories and which ones came with the spell. In this world he doesn't have their autographs. In this world, some of them have his autograph.
It's definitely better here. No doubt about that. Anything's better than what he was. He's just having some difficulty adjusting.
There's still a couple of dozen people left in line, but his hand is cramping up and the recycled air in the hall has left his throat dry and sore. One of the convention crew leans in and whispers a reminder that his Q-and-A session is due to begin in two minutes. He nods his grateful affirmation, and mutters in reply, "one more, then we'll wrap this up."
Convention-guy makes the announcement as he signs his name again, bold cursive script across his own smiling face, and another stuttering fan scuttles away to share her prize with her friends. There's a collective groan of complaint in response to the proclamation, and he prepares an apologetic smile for the remaining few who did not make it in time. Looks up to say sorry, but finds himself face to face with a kid on the verge of tears, his expression crumbling at the prospect of rejection.
The rest of the crowd is being ushered away by convention-guy, but the kid still hovers three feet from the table, running a hand through dirty-blonde hair. Jonathan recognises the bitter disappointment, remembers standing in line for two hours in another world to find himself next-but-one when Mark Hamill ended a signing session. The look on the boy's face is impossible to resist.
"Last one," he concedes, with a conspiratorial smile. Beckons the kid forward. He hesitates a moment more, hopeful uncertainty flickering in his eyes, then darts forward to the table. "What's your name?"
The kid gushes his reply, breathing heavily with barely-suppressed excitement. Sometimes it's still hard to accept that people get this way over him, over Jonathan. Across the black-and-white glossy, he scribbles; 'to Andrew - hope this is reward enough for your patience. Jonathan Levinson'. The J and L in his signature take up almost half the page.
When he hands over the picture, the kid stares unbelievingly at it, holding it reverentially like it's a treasure map or something. Jonathan watches uneasily, trying to recapture that sense of awe and achievement.
What is there to achieve here?
Convention-guy steps up to the table again, blocking his view of the blonde kid and snapping him out of his reverie. No need to strive for anything here, he reminds himself. Here, he can have whatever he wants.
He's escorted away from his table, choosing to ignore the fact that, when he steps down from the platform on which he'd been placed, convention-guy suddenly stands a foot-and-a-half taller than him. There's always some kind of platform, or stage, or raised seat: something to make sure that when he sits down he isn't on groin-level with the people he speaks to.
Predictably, the Q-and-A overruns by almost an hour as hordes of adoring fangirls and boys interrogate him about the amazing life he's conjured. By the time he manages to leave the stage, he's hoarse and sweating and suddenly desperate to be alone. The crew know to leave him well alone after these things: he'll be escorted to whatever private room they've set aside for him and he'll lock the door behind them and be by himself.
It's not going to be enough today.
As they march smartly down some dingy corridor, he spots a green 'exit' sign over a fire door. He glances left and right at the suited security officers who flank him and announces, "Gentlemen, I'm going out. I may be some time." They laugh obediently, exchange a look over his head that he can't see, and mutter reluctant acknowledgements. He leaves them to hover in the corridor, and ducks outside.
The breeze is like a cold-shower-shock to his system, making his eyes sting and fluttering his lapels like sandcastle flags. His sweat-damp shirt clings icily to his torso, and he has a sudden craving for a hot chocolate.
Once the chill becomes familiar, he manages to look around and properly gauge his whereabouts. Somewhere at the rear of the centre, evidently, since there's no sign of a parking lot. About twenty yards down the wall there's another door, and a pair of chrome-coloured dumpsters. A chain-link fence runs parallel to the side of the building, and through it he can see, in the middle-distance, another enormous box-shaped building, embellished with some unreadable company logo. He wonders idly what's inside it.
Somewhere overhead, a jumbo-jet scoots on by, leaving a rumpled white scar across the perfect blue summer sky. It's almost pretty.
Further down the wall, the other fire door jolts open and a lanky, awkward figure staggers out on to the concrete. Jonathan turns his head as the door rebounds off the wall and swings closed again. The boy - it's definitely a boy, too angular and rangy to be a woman - stumbles to a halt and looks at him. He waits for the recognition to hit the boy's face. It's followed by disbelief, then astonishment. Too surprised to be angry about this intrusion into his moment of privacy, Jonathan prepares his trademark smile, but it falters when he realises the boy is rooted to the spot.
It's strange, this stretchy fragment of time in which they both stare at each other down twenty yards of concrete path, like something's supposed to happen any moment, as soon as they remember what it is.
Jonathan manages a few small steps towards the kid, forgetting to square his shoulders and pull himself up to his full five feet and two inches, the way he normally would around someone so tall as this boy. Like a fairground mirror image, the boy moves forward also, and now there's maybe just ten yards between them. Jonathan's hands slip into his pockets, trying to regain just a hint of nonchalance. The boy runs a hand through bleached-blonde hair, and Jonathan remembers where he's seen the kid before. Remembers the trembling lower lip at the prospect of being denied his moment in Jonathan's personal space.
What's the kid's name again? Adam? Alan? Andrew?
"Hi." Finally he manages a smile. Possibly-Andrew responds with a wide-eyed stare and what might almost be a grin. Jonathan gives him a quick once-over, trying to guess his age. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Certainly not much younger than Jonathan himself. Just a kid. But then, Jonathan doesn't feel his age. Doesn't feel eighteen. Definitely does not feel like a kid.
Probably-not-Alan is still staring, but the astonishment is quickly fading. Melting into something else that Jonathan soon recognises. He's seen this look plenty of times before, but he's still getting used to seeing it on male faces. When he wished for everyone to love him, this was hardly what he'd had in mind.
Seeing girls shoot him that look, the one he eventually realised signified lust, was easy enough to deal with. Watching guys look at him like that, well... definitely weird.
In the first couple of weeks, after the spell kicked in, there were plenty of backstage clinches with eager fangirls: rushed fumbles in dressing rooms and corridors, until the novelty began to tarnish, and the girls just became background things, better brushed aside and out of his way. Mostly, he ignores the guys, although sometimes it gets a bit eerie. Security guys in his entourage who brush against him a little too often. Military bods whose eyes linger a fraction too long on his khaki-ed chest. Long, deliberate stares during his chess games with Rupert. But he puts it out of his mind. Just another part of the general everyday adoration. After all, he's Jonathan.
He's never really wondered, until now.
Could-be-Andrew takes another step forward, and the look is unmistakable now. Jonathan finds himself entertaining the possibility. It takes the weirdness to a whole new level.
But would it be so freaky? He wanted to be loved, after all.
The thought stays just that, though, as the fire door thunks open again and one of his security suits appears, followed by two convention guys who pant and sweat in their black 'crew' T-shirts.
Blondie's head snaps around at the noise, his entire body stiffening as he flips into panic-mode. Crew guys one and two take advantage of his shock and bustle forward, each taking an arm as they escort the kid back in the way he came out.
"Sorry about that, mister Levinson." Security adjusts his jacket. "He slipped past the staff. We'll escort him off the premises, make sure he doesn't sneak back in."
He can only nod as the suit marches smartly back inside behind the convention guys. The door closes just as it occurs to him to tell them to go easy on the boy. He keeps quiet. The whole thing has him kind of off-balance. For all the people around him, it's not often someone manages to get close to Jonathan.
*****
He's supposed to be in the queue, shuffling slowly along in the leviathan of a human snake that winds around the hall, the bubbly feeling in his belly growing with each step forward until he's the one at the front of the line. He's supposed to be asking for autographs, not signing them.
This is what he wanted, though. There's still a buzz inside him when he reminds himself that all these hundreds of people are queuing up to see him. He's the star.
It's just...sometimes he feels nostalgic for the old days. Bus-ing out to some venue where he'd lose himself in the crowd inside, sharing in that combined elation of breathing the same air as his idols. The days when he was the one who got star-struck.
He had so many autographs, so many memories of those wonderful meetings. He remembers losing all power of speech in front of James Doohan, and being hypnotised by Terry Farrell's smile. He remembers the surreal feeling that came with meeting Nicole deBoer and realising he was on eye-level with her when she stood up.
That's all gone now, though. It's weird, and sometimes hard to reconcile. Hard to remember which are his real memories and which ones came with the spell. In this world he doesn't have their autographs. In this world, some of them have his autograph.
It's definitely better here. No doubt about that. Anything's better than what he was. He's just having some difficulty adjusting.
There's still a couple of dozen people left in line, but his hand is cramping up and the recycled air in the hall has left his throat dry and sore. One of the convention crew leans in and whispers a reminder that his Q-and-A session is due to begin in two minutes. He nods his grateful affirmation, and mutters in reply, "one more, then we'll wrap this up."
Convention-guy makes the announcement as he signs his name again, bold cursive script across his own smiling face, and another stuttering fan scuttles away to share her prize with her friends. There's a collective groan of complaint in response to the proclamation, and he prepares an apologetic smile for the remaining few who did not make it in time. Looks up to say sorry, but finds himself face to face with a kid on the verge of tears, his expression crumbling at the prospect of rejection.
The rest of the crowd is being ushered away by convention-guy, but the kid still hovers three feet from the table, running a hand through dirty-blonde hair. Jonathan recognises the bitter disappointment, remembers standing in line for two hours in another world to find himself next-but-one when Mark Hamill ended a signing session. The look on the boy's face is impossible to resist.
"Last one," he concedes, with a conspiratorial smile. Beckons the kid forward. He hesitates a moment more, hopeful uncertainty flickering in his eyes, then darts forward to the table. "What's your name?"
The kid gushes his reply, breathing heavily with barely-suppressed excitement. Sometimes it's still hard to accept that people get this way over him, over Jonathan. Across the black-and-white glossy, he scribbles; 'to Andrew - hope this is reward enough for your patience. Jonathan Levinson'. The J and L in his signature take up almost half the page.
When he hands over the picture, the kid stares unbelievingly at it, holding it reverentially like it's a treasure map or something. Jonathan watches uneasily, trying to recapture that sense of awe and achievement.
What is there to achieve here?
Convention-guy steps up to the table again, blocking his view of the blonde kid and snapping him out of his reverie. No need to strive for anything here, he reminds himself. Here, he can have whatever he wants.
He's escorted away from his table, choosing to ignore the fact that, when he steps down from the platform on which he'd been placed, convention-guy suddenly stands a foot-and-a-half taller than him. There's always some kind of platform, or stage, or raised seat: something to make sure that when he sits down he isn't on groin-level with the people he speaks to.
Predictably, the Q-and-A overruns by almost an hour as hordes of adoring fangirls and boys interrogate him about the amazing life he's conjured. By the time he manages to leave the stage, he's hoarse and sweating and suddenly desperate to be alone. The crew know to leave him well alone after these things: he'll be escorted to whatever private room they've set aside for him and he'll lock the door behind them and be by himself.
It's not going to be enough today.
As they march smartly down some dingy corridor, he spots a green 'exit' sign over a fire door. He glances left and right at the suited security officers who flank him and announces, "Gentlemen, I'm going out. I may be some time." They laugh obediently, exchange a look over his head that he can't see, and mutter reluctant acknowledgements. He leaves them to hover in the corridor, and ducks outside.
The breeze is like a cold-shower-shock to his system, making his eyes sting and fluttering his lapels like sandcastle flags. His sweat-damp shirt clings icily to his torso, and he has a sudden craving for a hot chocolate.
Once the chill becomes familiar, he manages to look around and properly gauge his whereabouts. Somewhere at the rear of the centre, evidently, since there's no sign of a parking lot. About twenty yards down the wall there's another door, and a pair of chrome-coloured dumpsters. A chain-link fence runs parallel to the side of the building, and through it he can see, in the middle-distance, another enormous box-shaped building, embellished with some unreadable company logo. He wonders idly what's inside it.
Somewhere overhead, a jumbo-jet scoots on by, leaving a rumpled white scar across the perfect blue summer sky. It's almost pretty.
Further down the wall, the other fire door jolts open and a lanky, awkward figure staggers out on to the concrete. Jonathan turns his head as the door rebounds off the wall and swings closed again. The boy - it's definitely a boy, too angular and rangy to be a woman - stumbles to a halt and looks at him. He waits for the recognition to hit the boy's face. It's followed by disbelief, then astonishment. Too surprised to be angry about this intrusion into his moment of privacy, Jonathan prepares his trademark smile, but it falters when he realises the boy is rooted to the spot.
It's strange, this stretchy fragment of time in which they both stare at each other down twenty yards of concrete path, like something's supposed to happen any moment, as soon as they remember what it is.
Jonathan manages a few small steps towards the kid, forgetting to square his shoulders and pull himself up to his full five feet and two inches, the way he normally would around someone so tall as this boy. Like a fairground mirror image, the boy moves forward also, and now there's maybe just ten yards between them. Jonathan's hands slip into his pockets, trying to regain just a hint of nonchalance. The boy runs a hand through bleached-blonde hair, and Jonathan remembers where he's seen the kid before. Remembers the trembling lower lip at the prospect of being denied his moment in Jonathan's personal space.
What's the kid's name again? Adam? Alan? Andrew?
"Hi." Finally he manages a smile. Possibly-Andrew responds with a wide-eyed stare and what might almost be a grin. Jonathan gives him a quick once-over, trying to guess his age. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Certainly not much younger than Jonathan himself. Just a kid. But then, Jonathan doesn't feel his age. Doesn't feel eighteen. Definitely does not feel like a kid.
Probably-not-Alan is still staring, but the astonishment is quickly fading. Melting into something else that Jonathan soon recognises. He's seen this look plenty of times before, but he's still getting used to seeing it on male faces. When he wished for everyone to love him, this was hardly what he'd had in mind.
Seeing girls shoot him that look, the one he eventually realised signified lust, was easy enough to deal with. Watching guys look at him like that, well... definitely weird.
In the first couple of weeks, after the spell kicked in, there were plenty of backstage clinches with eager fangirls: rushed fumbles in dressing rooms and corridors, until the novelty began to tarnish, and the girls just became background things, better brushed aside and out of his way. Mostly, he ignores the guys, although sometimes it gets a bit eerie. Security guys in his entourage who brush against him a little too often. Military bods whose eyes linger a fraction too long on his khaki-ed chest. Long, deliberate stares during his chess games with Rupert. But he puts it out of his mind. Just another part of the general everyday adoration. After all, he's Jonathan.
He's never really wondered, until now.
Could-be-Andrew takes another step forward, and the look is unmistakable now. Jonathan finds himself entertaining the possibility. It takes the weirdness to a whole new level.
But would it be so freaky? He wanted to be loved, after all.
The thought stays just that, though, as the fire door thunks open again and one of his security suits appears, followed by two convention guys who pant and sweat in their black 'crew' T-shirts.
Blondie's head snaps around at the noise, his entire body stiffening as he flips into panic-mode. Crew guys one and two take advantage of his shock and bustle forward, each taking an arm as they escort the kid back in the way he came out.
"Sorry about that, mister Levinson." Security adjusts his jacket. "He slipped past the staff. We'll escort him off the premises, make sure he doesn't sneak back in."
He can only nod as the suit marches smartly back inside behind the convention guys. The door closes just as it occurs to him to tell them to go easy on the boy. He keeps quiet. The whole thing has him kind of off-balance. For all the people around him, it's not often someone manages to get close to Jonathan.
*****