See, there's a (fairly terrible, imho) fic out there in which Zoe abruptly leaves Johnny and then Johnny is sad and eats ice cream and then Billy Tallent comes to town and they fall in love and live together and nobody, including them, seems to find this odd, and it made steam come out of my ears.
And my main plausibility objection, see, was that Johnny has a twin sister, and I don't think a man with a twin could hook up with someone who looks exactly like him without it being, in some way, about his twin. So it went something like this: a few years after Siggy disappeared, she wrote to Johnny - sent him a flyer - and arranged to meet him at a Hard Core Logo show near where he was playing minor league hockey. And it's Siggy and Johnny, so Johnny goes, of course, and meets her, and is so happy to see her, so very very happy, and then the show starts and the guitarist--it's a small club, it's pretty hard to miss, and Siggy's eyes are locked on the guy all night, and Johnny doesn't even quite know what to make of that, of the way she's looking at the guy and the way she looked at him, seeing him for the first time in years.
And then they go backstage and down the rabbit hole--the lead singer laughs and grabs Siggy and kisses her full on the mouth (and Johnny feels something weirdly like relief, when he should probably be wanting to punch the guy) but then he sees Johnny, and his eyes go wide, and he starts laughing and yelling for Billy--and then the guitarist shows up and stares at him and stares, and tells Siggy she's even more twisted than he thought she was, which--which--
So while Johnny is too dazed to start objecting, Siggy drags him and Billy out to their car, and they drink more and maybe smoke, and drive around, and end up in a cheap motel room, and--Johnny just watches, at first, which is weird enough, until Siggy drags him into it and starts stage-managing him and Billy--
And then Johnny leaves. Leaves while she and Billy are still passed out, gets the hell away, and doesn't visit Siggy, not ever again, or go see that band, or listen to their music. He has one seriously terrified moment of frantic math when he finds out Siggy's pregnant, but--no. And that's it.
Until more than a decade later, when he finds Siggy's son in tears, because he read in the paper that Joe Dick is dead. Johnny holds down his own reaction and talks to Erik about it, and Erik explains that his mom used to take him to their shows sometimes--"She said you and her went and saw them, once. She always used to kind of--she was always looking around, when we went to see them, to see who else was in the crowd."--and Joe had been kind to him. What Erik remembers most, apparently, is the time he was about four years old, and had to pee after a show, and his mom didn't want to send him into the Mens' alone, so Joe had taken him. Held him up, first to the urinal and then to the sink to wash his hands.
And now Erik wants to go and see his grave.
So Johnny winds up taking him all the damn way to ... Edmonton? Wherever it was Joe wound up buried. They go to the cemetery and Johnny feels itchy as hell about the whole thing, and it almost winds up not being a surprise at all, when there's a knock on the door of the motel room and Billy's on the other side. Johnny leaves Erik--who seems the hell of a lot more okay than Johnny is--and goes out to the parking lot to talk to Billy, and they have this awkward conversation--Yeah, that's Siggy's kid, no, not yours--Billy has a kid now, too, well, depending on what the judge says, anyway--and there's this desperate and desperately awkward kiss, before Johnny pushes away again and stands up and--Siggy's gone, and neither of them is what the other is looking for, or ever was. Johnny goes back to the motel room to call Zoe and watch TV with Erik, and leaves Billy smoking in the parking lot.
...the one about Johnny and Chris Cutter was a lot more upbeat, as I recall. *g*
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See, there's a (fairly terrible, imho) fic out there in which Zoe abruptly leaves Johnny and then Johnny is sad and eats ice cream and then Billy Tallent comes to town and they fall in love and live together and nobody, including them, seems to find this odd, and it made steam come out of my ears.
And my main plausibility objection, see, was that Johnny has a twin sister, and I don't think a man with a twin could hook up with someone who looks exactly like him without it being, in some way, about his twin. So it went something like this: a few years after Siggy disappeared, she wrote to Johnny - sent him a flyer - and arranged to meet him at a Hard Core Logo show near where he was playing minor league hockey. And it's Siggy and Johnny, so Johnny goes, of course, and meets her, and is so happy to see her, so very very happy, and then the show starts and the guitarist--it's a small club, it's pretty hard to miss, and Siggy's eyes are locked on the guy all night, and Johnny doesn't even quite know what to make of that, of the way she's looking at the guy and the way she looked at him, seeing him for the first time in years.
And then they go backstage and down the rabbit hole--the lead singer laughs and grabs Siggy and kisses her full on the mouth (and Johnny feels something weirdly like relief, when he should probably be wanting to punch the guy) but then he sees Johnny, and his eyes go wide, and he starts laughing and yelling for Billy--and then the guitarist shows up and stares at him and stares, and tells Siggy she's even more twisted than he thought she was, which--which--
So while Johnny is too dazed to start objecting, Siggy drags him and Billy out to their car, and they drink more and maybe smoke, and drive around, and end up in a cheap motel room, and--Johnny just watches, at first, which is weird enough, until Siggy drags him into it and starts stage-managing him and Billy--
And then Johnny leaves. Leaves while she and Billy are still passed out, gets the hell away, and doesn't visit Siggy, not ever again, or go see that band, or listen to their music. He has one seriously terrified moment of frantic math when he finds out Siggy's pregnant, but--no. And that's it.
Until more than a decade later, when he finds Siggy's son in tears, because he read in the paper that Joe Dick is dead. Johnny holds down his own reaction and talks to Erik about it, and Erik explains that his mom used to take him to their shows sometimes--"She said you and her went and saw them, once. She always used to kind of--she was always looking around, when we went to see them, to see who else was in the crowd."--and Joe had been kind to him. What Erik remembers most, apparently, is the time he was about four years old, and had to pee after a show, and his mom didn't want to send him into the Mens' alone, so Joe had taken him. Held him up, first to the urinal and then to the sink to wash his hands.
And now Erik wants to go and see his grave.
So Johnny winds up taking him all the damn way to ... Edmonton? Wherever it was Joe wound up buried. They go to the cemetery and Johnny feels itchy as hell about the whole thing, and it almost winds up not being a surprise at all, when there's a knock on the door of the motel room and Billy's on the other side. Johnny leaves Erik--who seems the hell of a lot more okay than Johnny is--and goes out to the parking lot to talk to Billy, and they have this awkward conversation--Yeah, that's Siggy's kid, no, not yours--Billy has a kid now, too, well, depending on what the judge says, anyway--and there's this desperate and desperately awkward kiss, before Johnny pushes away again and stands up and--Siggy's gone, and neither of them is what the other is looking for, or ever was. Johnny goes back to the motel room to call Zoe and watch TV with Erik, and leaves Billy smoking in the parking lot.
...the one about Johnny and Chris Cutter was a lot more upbeat, as I recall. *g*