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Johnny hasn’t always been aware of it--at least, he doesn’t think so. He knows the stories of realizing it at a young age or in their pre-teens. The underwear aisle always comes up. Spending too long in it because what you really wanted to do was look at the men on the packages. He gets that--he has been there. But he thinks he truly started noticing it when he was a teenager. Watching his friends’ mouths as they spoke and wondering what it would be like to kiss them. Averting his eyes in the locker room. Trying not to look across the too small dorm room to look at his roommate, Wyatt. He tried not to read too much into it.
He told himself he liked girls. Convinced himself that he did. And somehow he ended up here. Thirty-one years old and still living in the deepest, darkest depths of the closet--wait. His birthday was last month. Thirty-two. Johnny winces at himself. Somehow the extra year makes it worse.
He doesn’t know why he doesn’t come out. It isn’t like he wouldn’t be welcomed. The local scene in which he has been a part of since he was born is incredibly queer and incredibly accepting, but. Something always stops him. He doesn’t know what that something is other than himself.
Part of him--the part that knows that he ought to talk to someone professional, considering everything else going on--thinks it has to be psychological. Watching his sister’s relationship, marriage, and divorce play out from when he was two. Hiding in the closet saves him from that stagnation and deterioration that still mars their lives. Or maybe that is reading too deeply into it and he’s really just a coward.
Even now, surrounded by people, Johnny feels completely alone because he can count on one hand the people that actually know him and, even them, he keeps at arm’s length.
“There should be laws about it still being this fucking hot in September, goddamn.”
Johnny turns and, despite his troubled thoughts, he lets a smile creep onto his face. Not a lot of people know him, but Daken comes close. Johnny has known him for most of his life. When Logan came back from tour and showed up at the Baxter Building for a party. Johnny had been so mad, because Sue sent him to bed before it started but Daken was younger and he got to stay up. He still remembers, when they met, that Johnny said “Hi!” and Daken had replied, “My dad says you have a pool.”
“I run hot,” he replies. “So I wouldn’t know.”
Daken scrunches his nose up in an annoyed face.
“No, I run hot. You’re a furnace, Storm.”
He laughs.
“Alright, fair.”
He is right, though. It’s still way too hot. They had hope, a few weeks back, when a cold snap came through. Johnny hopes it makes a return soon. The yearly Fall Fest is set to be in a week or so and he hopes it cools off a bit by then. It’s the only festival that’s during the day and Johnny and so many others are nocturnal creatures. Tonight, he’s glad that he decided to go to that community center in Bushwick he had been told about. He loves the scene he grew up in, but it’s nice to branch out. And it’s doubly nice that he isn’t in someone’s basement. The Baxter Building has outdoor shows at the stage by the pool, but there he has to host and make sure he maintains the legacy of his family’s band. The show house that started them all. Even if FF doesn’t have as much sway or gravitas as Erik Lehnsherr, they were here first. And Johnny with them, as a kid, hopping up and down onstage, playing his tiny little guitar covered in cowboy decals.
“A lot of locals came out,” he observes.
Daken smirks and flips some of his hair over his shoulder. Even sweaty, his hair is like silk in how it slips over his fingers. Johnny tries not to stare.
“Duh. I advertised that I’d be here.”
Johnny snorts.
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah.”
In truth, he isn’t entirely surprised.
“How many followers do you even have?”
“Just hit one hundred and twenty-five K on Insta,” he replies.
“Okay, Mr. Influencer.”
“Bite your tongue!”
Daken gags, wagging his own tongue at him as he pulls a hair tie out of his pocket to tie his long, wild Mohawk into a knot on the back of his head. Johnny almost says that he wants him to bite his--but he doesn’t. They only ever slept together once. Very few men get repeat visits to Johnny’s bed. Daken is just one that happens to be a friend and happens to be another legacy brat like him. Plus, he’s dating Bobby--Johnny doesn’t want to think about how he was also someone he slept with.
“So what’s new?” he asks. “I feel like I haven’t seen you since you got back from--where was it? Ohio?”
Without declaring it, they walk over to a spot by one of the art installations to get away from the gathering crowd.
“Indiana,” he says. “And--not much. We went to a party at Natasha’s, which was…something.”
Johnny rolls his lips in and nods.
“Yes. As one of your one hundred and twenty-five thousand followers, I saw that apartment. Makes me feel good about, you know, still living with my sister.”
Daken smirks.
“Oh, you know I can’t say anything about living at home.”
“Yeah, but your dad’s Italian. I’m a WASP. I’m supposed to get kicked out of the hive at eighteen.”
He waves a hand at Johnny dismissively.
“You run the Baxter Building now. I think WASP rules don’t apply--but we could ask Warren about it to be sure.”
Johnny brings to mind the image of Warren Worthington III, who does less in Gene X than Johnny did in FF when he was six. But he doesn’t have to. Warren is hot. Calvin Klein black and white 90s advertisement hot. He swallows, wishing that he had something to drink right about now.
“I guess I don’t actually count as a WASP anyway since we’re Catholic and from Long Island,” he admits.
Daken elbows him gently, giving a smirk as he does.
“Oh. And Shinobi’s back.”
“Now that I heard. Because he drunk texted me telling me about it.” Johnny laughs. “I missed that kid. Is he here tonight?”
Daken shrugs.
“He might be. He told me that he’d try. But I know he’s busy trying to find a place out here.”
“Well, he can always ask if Natasha needs a roommate in her Saw death trap house.”
At that, he raises his brows.
“Well, she actually offered because I think she’s going to move into the SamBucky house.”
Johnny relishes in hearing all the drama and gossip. He knows that he is so swept up in himself and maintaining his charade that he so easily drops out of people’s lives. If he gets too close then people will discover the real him and Johnny is nowhere near ready for everyone to meet that guy.
“Oh? I know she’s tight with them and in the Collective so it makes sense. Are they doing Fall Fest?”
Fall Fest has always been organized by the House of Magnus just like Halloweekend and June Gloom. The Baxter Building handles mostly summer shows to capitalize on the pool and outdoor space. The rest of the year, Johnny rents out rooms and the basement for rehearsal spaces for the local bands or Sue runs workshops. It isn’t a community center the way the Institute is, but they still have their niche.
“Nat’s playing with Bobby,” he says. “And Bucky’s playing with me and the twins. Sam is graciously tabling for the event.”
Johnny hadn’t seen the fliers yet to know who was performing. He likes that Daken is one of them. He thinks that he doesn’t give himself enough credit as a performer. He’s incredible and incandescent and people want him not just because of his name. He doesn’t say that, though, because he knows that it isn’t something he likes to hear--because he won’t believe it.
Instead he says, “Do you think the twins can outdo themselves from last year when Pietro covered ‘You’re So Vain’ and it was definitely aimed at Namor?”
Daken smirks.
“Well, you’ll just have to see, won’t you?”
Johnny laughs. He knows that their time hanging out together will be brief. Daken will smile that devastating smile of his and then go back to his friends and his boyfriend. It pains something in his chest, because he knows that it’s his fault. Even with someone who at least knows his piece of him--someone he can be comfortable with--he can’t let himself get too close.
Sure enough, he sees him ease himself off of the wall and dazzle him with a grin.
“Alright, I gotta go. Last I checked, JP and Bobby were getting Danny to match them shot for shot at the pop-up bar, and I get the idea that Danny doesn’t normally drink a whole bunch.”
Johnny tries not to let it bother him that Danny gets to be close by virtue of him being a co-worker and this place being his stomping grounds. But he has done this to himself and he has to live with it.
“Sure thing,” he says, putting on a smile. “I’m glad we caught up, though. I missed you.”
Daken looks directly at him and Johnny is sure that his eyes are searing right down through his bones to his soul.
“You know, you’re always welcome to hang out with us. Any of us.”
“I know,” he says.
“Do you?” Daken arches a brow.
Johnny tugs at the collar of his t-shirt.
“Yeah I--it’s just. Hard.”
He nods.
“I. Well, I don’t get it, but I get it. But the offer is open.”
He chances a smile.
“Thanks. I do appreciate it.”
Daken gives a laconic salute--the one he always gives with his fingers by his temple--and disappears into the crowd. Johnny thinks that he might go to the pop-up bar. He doesn’t have it in him to pretend and he can’t face himself long enough to interact with everyone, but he had wanted a drink.
Before he can make up his mind, he hears a shutter click.
“Smile, Johnny Storm.”
He looks over to see Peter Parker standing before him, holding his camera. He’s dressed in a pair of cutoffs and a t-shirt that reads A Film By Nora Ephron. Johnny can see his nipples through it by the two N’s and he tries not to stare.
“Did you actually take my picture?”
Peter is usually the go-to photographer for any shows and festivals in the scene. When he covers events like this, he takes his nice camera with real film, which Johnny knows for a fact that he saves up ages for. He doesn’t think that he would just waste a shot like that. Maybe with his digital cameras or even his old-fashioned Polaroids since he uses the latter to catch spontaneous things in the moment.
“I did,” he says with a bit of a shit-eating grin. “You were looking moody and broody in the corner and I couldn't resist.”
“I don’t brood,” he says. “I’m the sunshine boy.”
“Even the sun gets cloudy,” Peter retorts. “And anyway you looked sexy.”
“Duly noted.”
Johnny wets his lips. He might not be able to be around a group of people, but one person…
“What are you doing after the show?” he asks.
Peter arches his brows.
“Why does your tone of voice seem to imply that the correct answer is you?”
Johnny steps closer so he can keep his voice low. No one is looking at them, but he can’t be too careful.
“Because it very well just might be.”
Peter, like Daken, is someone who is probably closer to knowing him than most. Peter is also the closest thing he has to a best friend. Best friend, best lay. Whatever.
“Can’t,” he says, tipping his head to the side. “I have to feed Peter.”
This is part of their typical flirtation. Ribbing, teasing. Johnny’s heart is already pitter-pattering. He’s made himself not matter to many people, but he matters right now.
“I still can’t believe you named your pet tarantula after yourself.”
He scoffs.
“Excuse you. He’s named after Peter Bogdanovich.”
“Sure.”
“You could always come home with me,” Peter says. “Nothing gets a guy going like watching a tarantula eat mealworms.”
Johnny considers it. He often gets a lot of time to himself at home, which makes it easy on the occasions that he brings guys back. Peter lives in Queens with his aunt in a tiny little house. She could see them. But, he figures, she would also be asleep. And then who would tell? Peter Bogdanovich the spider?
“Alright,” he says. “But we’re taking an Uber. I am not trying to figure out what trains are still running when we could just take a twenty minute drive.”
“Sure. If you’re paying.” Peter fiddles with his camera strap. “Anyway, I better go earn what I’m being paid for this gig.”
“Right.”
“Meet me after the show at the mural of handprint animals or whatever.”
Johnny nods and watches Peter scuttle to the side to get shots of the band as they’re setting up. That is always something about him as a photographer and artist. The way that he will even climb up on walls to get the best shot. Sometimes Johnny thinks that he might be in love with him, but that’s a dangerous path to go down. Loving someone means that he eventually has to confront the closet and he’s too chickenshit to do it. And he still can’t figure out why. He doesn’t fear rejection or revulsion from his sister or any of his friends. There is literally just his own brain stopping him. He wishes he could shut it off. It’s worse around pride time when he sees everyone being unapologetically themselves and there he is. Still hiding. Still lying. It makes him almost so sick he can’t look at himself in the mirror sometimes.
“Okay,” he says out loud.
He figures he ought to take a trip to the pop-up bar now.
--
If nothing else, Johnny thinks that the Baxter Building stands out among the other local show houses. The Institute is a renovated Victorian with a glassed-in front porch and gingerbread detailing. It’s big and welcoming, which suits its main purpose as a community center. The House of Magnus really is a house in its design that doesn’t differ much from the other houses in their little corner of Jersey City. It’s the easiest to imagine that a family lives there, even if it’s a family as keyed up to eleven as the Lehnsherr clan. The Baxter Building is a feat of “modern” design. Johnny doesn’t really like it, but it’s all he has known. Metal and glass and sharp angles jutting around the house. White and black and sleekly futuristic. Or futuristic as imagined by the eighties.
It was Reed’s vision when he had it built. Johnny, being a baby at the time, hadn’t had a say in the design.
The hands-down best feature of the Baxter Building is the pool. Johnny has gotten quite adept at planning outdoor concerts there. Using the pool as an addition to it by floating lights while people perform on the stage or otherwise including it. He has been handling the shows here for ten years now. Since FF went into retirement. He and Sue manage nearly everything. Ben moved in with his now wife in the Village and Reed still lives here, but he mostly stays at his apartment near Columbia, where he teaches. Johnny figures that that’s fair enough. FF retired, sure, but they truly ended when Reed and his sister divorced. A real Fleetwood Mac moment. Johnny’s niece and nephew live here full-time, though, which was what mattered to him.
Sometimes people still ask him if FF will do a reunion and he smiles and tells them maybe even though he knows the answer is no. The divorce wasn’t nearly as bad or cataclysmic as Homo Superior’s bust-up, but he doesn’t think that they will ever be on stage together again. As for him, Johnny can’t remember the last time he even picked up a guitar. He never really thought he was all that good. When he was a kid, it was a novelty. Look at the little kid playing his little guitar and singing in his little voice! How cute! He thinks he’s people! And then he grew up and was really only just okay at the guitar. Johnny could play, but he couldn’t write. He couldn’t create. Not that he tried. He’s fine with his position. No one has a lock on summer shows like the Baxter Building does and that’s all thanks to him.
At least it’s one thing he’s accomplished in his lame little life.
Today, Johnny is stretched out by the pool, soaking up that weirdly intense sunlight that is emblematic of the beginning of September. It’s as if the sun knows that the days will be shorter and the air will cool so it shines so intensely the first few weeks to remind people of its intensity. Unlike the other night, it isn’t so sticky. In fact, the first fingers of a chilly fall were tickling along the air as a hint of things to come. Johnny is always hot, though. He can get almost feverish sometimes. Sue hated it when he was little--she would always say that she could never tell when he was running a fever and what was just his regular temperature.
He has his eyes closed under his sunglasses, but even with the polarized lenses, he can feel the sun beating through his lids, letting him see the latticework of veins in them.
“Hey, Johnny.”
The voice that says it has a Queens accent and attitude, even just in those two words. Even if those two words are spoke-sung in the way that Madonna says, Hey, Britney… in the song “Me Against the Music.”
Johnny sits up in his chaise lounge and pushes his sunglasses up into his hair. Peter stands in front of him, giving a crooked sort of smile. He’s leaning to one side from the combined weight of his messenger bag and camera bag that are both hanging off one shoulder. He’s wearing a thin hoodie with a Brooklyn Nets jersey over it--probably for irony’s sake. He never knows with Peter. Johnny feels a bit exposed, sitting there in just his swim trunks, but it isn’t like Peter hasn’t seen him in far less.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, surprised.
“Aw, shucks. I’m happy to see you, too.”
He shakes his head.
“Not that. I’m just surprised you’re here.”
Peter shrugs his one shoulder that isn’t encumbered by bags.
“Lorna hired me to do promo shots for Fall Fest.”
“Lorna?” Usually Pietro and Wanda run in it in addition to performing. Johnny doesn’t know how they do it.
“She’s running it this year. And since Fall Fest funds Halloweekend…she wants a big turnout so she wanted my expert eye to make that happen.”
“So you took pics and…”
“And then I decided to see how my side piece was doing.”
Johnny rolls his eyes.
“In order for me to be a side piece, you have to have a main piece. And, last I heard, aren’t all your exes dating each other?”
Peter sighs dramatically and flops into the chaise next to Johnny’s. He removes his bags and works his shoulder up and down a little, placing his other hand on it as he works his arm in a small circle.
“Can’t let me have this, can you?”
“Gotta keep you on your toes, Parker.”
“Right. But--yes. As you so tactfully pointed out: all my exes are dating each other. MJ is dating Gwen and Felicia is dating Flash and all four of them have dated me, thank you.”
Johnny stretches a bit, tilting his face up to the sun as he does.
“I don’t know how you get so many hotties to have enough exes to date each other.”
“Excuse you,” Peter snaps, glaring at him. “I am very handsome--Aunt May tells me so.”
He’s ribbing him, but it’s true. Peter is incredibly handsome. He has arched brows and thick dark hair that he has shaved on the sides but not down to the skin. There is always at least a half-inch of length on his sides to blend in the rest of his hair, even though Johnny knows for fact that he does it himself in his bathroom with an electric razor and two mirrors. Sometimes his handsomeness is mitigated by how mean he can be, but usually he isn’t that mean to Johnny. Usually.
“Just because I’m not an obvious kind of hot like Daken Howlett or…” Peter trails off. “Sorry, I was picturing Daken and then I lost track of what I was saying. Anyway--”
Peter’s eyes slip halfway shut and he leans forward on the chaise. He pushes his lips out just a little. Johnny wants to capture them, but his eyes stray to the windows of the Baxter Building. What if Valeria or Franklin sees and tells Sue? Johnny isn’t ready to confront that yet.
He must wait too long, because Peter opens his eyes and scowls.
“Seriously? We’re in your backyard,” he says. “What gives? You know everyone will be supportive.”
He sighs.
“I know that. It’s just--”
“No one cares about your carefully cultivated hetero playboy routine. In fact, I think in a scene like this, it’s kind of detrimental to your clout.”
Johnny pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I know, but--”
“When I came out to Aunt May, I was worried, but she just said she was happy for me…and then said I should date Scott Summers.”
“I--wait. Why Scott Summers?”
Peter shrugs and then winces a bit. He starts rubbing his shoulder again.
“I think it’s because he’s a labor organizer and she wants me to be with someone I have a chance to take down the bourgeoisie with.”
Johnny laughs.
“Romantic.”
Emboldened by his laughter, Peter continues.
“Oh, yeah. Who doesn’t want someone they can watch the fall of capitalism with?”
“I’d watch capitalism burn with you.”
Peter arches his brows.
“Would you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then kiss me right now.”
When he hesitates, Peter sighs. He grabs his bags and this time puts them on his other shoulder.
“Text me later, I guess,” he says.
And then he’s gone back through the sliding doors of the patio. Johnny throws himself back on the chaise and buries his face in his hands. He lets out a muffled, frustrated cry. What is wrong with him? Why can’t he just come out? Why can’t he figure out what exactly it is that’s stopping him?
--
Most people probably don’t go to their exes for advice--well. Peter might. His exes might all be dating each other, but they’re still friends with him. Maybe because he is one of the ones who can make an ex go from an ex to “someone that I used to date,” which he has informed Johnny is an important distinction. Daken has mentioned that too, about how often he hangs out with Jeanne-Marie.
Johnny doesn’t have that.
He can’t count any of the men he’s been with as an “ex” because that would entail that he admits to having been with them at all. And the women he’s dated…he knows it hasn’t gone well for him. Daken has told him, “If you had to pick a beard relationship, can you pick someone who isn’t going to treat you like shit?” It isn’t an unfair assessment. There was the stalker who tried to catfish him. Women that hit him. Women who gaslit him. Women who only wanted what he could do as the person in charge of the Baxter Building. He told himself he was in love with them and then he got burned.
It probably says something that the only ex that doesn’t have this distinction is Crystal. She simply met another guy, kissed him, and decided that she’d rather kiss him than Johnny so she broke up with him. It’s probably for the best, considering what actually went down with Pietro and Crystal’s relationship. Johnny thinks he might not have had multiple public breakdowns over it like Pietro did, but he also knows that he is not in a place to judge anyone. One thing Johnny can say, though, is even in these terrible relationships, even being in the closet as he is, he has never cheated on anyone he was formally dating.
But he and Crystal are friends and her apartment in Bushwick is nice. There are plants everywhere. Johnny looks over three sitting on a windowsill that is currently dark green but is rounded on the sides as if it had been painted many many times over the years that this building has existed. He sits at her table, drinking green tea. Luna sits on the floor of the kitchen, acting out some rich fiction with her dolls. She’s wearing a purple tutu and an old Wundagore shirt--which is a bit of a surprise to Johnny considering the bad blood between her and the House of Magnus.
“Johnny, you have got to be pretty desperate if you’re coming to me for advice.”
“What makes you think I’m coming to you for advice? I might just want to visit my friend.”
Crystal shrugs.
“You always want advice in some way or another. For being at your big age, you seem to never know what to do or what you want.”
He winces.
“Okay, ouch.”
She shrugs again.
“I’m just saying--and, anyway, I am a professional mistake maker.”
Johnny doesn’t say it but his eyes skirt to Luna on the floor. She is currently walking a doll that is a cross between a girl and a koala across to another doll that looks part duck. Crystal must catch it because she glares at him over her mug.
“My daughter was a surprise, not a mistake,” she says.
“Right--no, I know. I meant.” Johnny tries to think fast. “I meant how your relationship with her dad went.”
Crystal exhales and puts her mug down.
“Yeah,” she says. “That. Is the one. And it’s on me. I know that now. Even if I tried to blame him at the time. In the end, I was responsible for my choices and what I did. And now I can’t go anywhere near any shows over there unless I want Wanda to put a hex on me.”
Johnny tips his hand out to the side.
“If it helps, I’ve known Wanda her whole life and I don’t think she has actually put any hexes on people.”
Crystal shakes her head.
“Oh, no. She has definitely hexed me before. I swear.”
Johnny, being a good friend, doesn’t point out that maybe, just maybe, Crystal kind of deserved to be hexed. Just a little, anyway. But she at least is owning up to it now. Maybe because it’s been a couple years since their final bust-up.
“It sucks, though,” she says. She sighs again and places her chin in her hand. “Do you ever think about soulmates? Like I still really think that me and Pietro are soulmates.”
Johnny snorts into his mug. Okay, being a good friend only goes so far.
“Does he see it that way?”
“No, he absolutely does not.” Another sigh. “And that’s my fault. Plus, he seems happy with his new boyfriend--who I definitely didn’t embarrass myself in front of at my sister’s party last year, which doubly sucks.”
“You’d rather he be miserable?”
Crystal scrunches up her little, ski slope nose.
“Is it wrong that my answer isn’t fully a no?”
“A little, yeah.”
Crystal draws the tip of her finger around the lip of her mug.
“See, this is why you shouldn’t come to me for advice.” She shakes her bangs out of her eyes and shrugs again. “But if you’re here--listen. You’re never going to be happy until you’re comfortable with yourself and can actually be yourself rather than this veneer you think people want to see.”
She waves her hand in front of her as she says “veneer,” but that isn’t what Johnny focuses on. It is the underlying message in her words. She knows. Johnny takes a shaky sip of tea. he could play dumb or he can tell the truth. It is kind of astounding that Crystal--who told him once that she met her ex-boyfriend’s current boyfriend while not being aware that they even knew each other--can clock him like this, but she has always been fairly good at at least reading him.
“What if I don’t know how?” he asks. His voice catches as he says it and Johnny covers it by taking another sip of tea.
“I think you know that first step, Johnny.”
He does. But that’s the scary part. He thinks of yesterday afternoon--Peter in his backyard. Peter wanting to be kissed and Johnny being too chickenshit to do it, even then. Can he take that step? Is it too late? Is this just his life now? Lying and hiding and having no true connections to anyone that he turns to his mistake-prone ex for advice?
“You could always get a second opinion from Akihiro,” Crystal says. “You listen to his advice more than you listen to mine.”
He cocks a brow at what he notices in how she’s speaking.
“Am I detecting a little disdain in that tone, Miss Amaquelin?”
She drops her hand to slap her palm on the table.
“He never lets me have free food at my own sister’s restaurant!”
Johnny chuckles.
“Listen--Daken is extremely loyal to the few people he cares about and, unfortunately for you, one of those people is Pietro.”
She pouts, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms.
“Yeah, yeah.”
--
Later that afternoon, lying on the floor of his room and feeling like a teenager, Johnny stares at the ceiling and thinks back to Fall Fest last year. Johnny had been in the back, lying like he was now, on the grass. He had wanted to be alone and hear the music and then someone had laid down next to him. He had heard the fwhump of a body and the crinkle of dry grass and he had cracked his eyes open. He had said, “Parker, aren’t you supposed to be shooting the show?” and Peter had replied, “Yeah, but I wanted to see what the big deal was going on back here.” They had already slept together twice by this point, but Johnny hadn’t looked at him, really looked at him, until that moment. A moment of total clarity. Peter with his eyes closed, his hands protectively cradling his camera. His lips moving wordlessly as he mouthed along to the cover being performed on the stage. And Johnny’s heart had fluttered.
He thinks he hasn’t come far. Hell, how far has he come from the guy in high school who thought about kissing his friends or who had a crush on his freshman year roommate? He’s thirty-fucking-two, for Christ’s sake.
His phone vibrates from where it rests on the carpet next to him. Johnny picks it up, but it isn’t Peter. Peter hasn’t texted him since the incident in the backyard. So it isn’t from Peter. It isn’t from anyone in particular. It’s an event reminder of the eighties night happening at a rentable event space by the music store. It is asking if he’s coming out. Everyone is encouraged to dress in their eighties best and Gene X is headlining. Johnny stares at it. He had said he was going, at first, because why not? But now in the past two days, his brain is overloaded. Like it wants to tell him something.
Johnny sits up. He gets to his feet and walks over to his mirror to really get a good look at himself. He looks young for his age--he still gets carded regularly and has people think his ID is fake--but there’s a tiredness in his eyes. Maybe only he can see it. The pressure of keeping himself in for so long. His hair might need a cut soon. He had shaved the back of his neck so when he pulled his hair back into a little stump of a ponytail, people could see the shaved bits. Neo-traditional tattoo work of flames up his arms to cover old scars that join at a flaming heart on his breast bone--even if that part is hidden by his shirt, Johnny always knows it there. Sometimes he can still feel the shader needles vibrating on his sternum. He touches his brow bone, his nose, his lips, his throat. Val and Franklin’s names are there, tattooed in swirling script on his neck.
“Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm,” he says out loud to himself. “You’re a fucking coward and for what reason?”
His reflection doesn’t have an answer for him. He turns and strips off his t-shirt and sweatpants. He finds a pair of jeans in his closet and an old band tee that was Sue’s. She had cut it to ribbons, almost, in her punk days and it’s stretched enough to fit Johnny. He has no idea what band the shirt is even of anymore. The logo has faded and peeled to nothingness. He puts his denim vest over it. He stares at the buttons on the lapels and down the front for a moment. He takes the ally one off and shoves it in the drawer of his desk. He finds an old bandana on the floor of his closet and rolls it up to tie around his head. He sorts out his boots and manages to unearth a pair of fingerless gloves from last year’s Halloween costume. Johnny regards himself in the mirror once more. He looks at the worn denim spot, empty of the pin. It’s something small and goofy, but somehow he feels like it’s the first step. In some, dumb way. The message from the phone notification displays itself in his mind.
Are you coming out tonight?
Well--maybe.
--
It seems like, until Gene X goes on tonight, the party is only going to play eighties songs over the speakers. Currently, everyone is jumping up and down to Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love.” The entire space looks like every tacky eighties prom night Johnny would see on TV shows growing up. Paper chains dangle from the ceilings. There are bunches of balloons weighted down in corners. What tables there are have ostentatious centerpieces with tons of baby’s breath. It’s perfect.
“Johnny!”
He turns to see Daken waving as he walks over to him. Predictably, he’s dressed in a full glam metal fantasy with the tightest, most low-slung leather pants Johnny has ever seen and a studded vest over his bare skin. Under the vest, thin, leather suspenders are worn, but they don’t seem to serve any purpose. Johnny tries not to stare at his package but--it’s, like, right there. His hair is down and teased over to one side, falling over a thick headband.
“Hey,” he says back. “You look incredible.”
He grins. “Thanks. And you look like the older brother/bully from any eighties movie ever.”
He hugs him in greeting and Johnny’s heart lurches a bit at the skin to skin contact. Has he honestly been that touch-starved that a hug from a friend is making his skin prickle? Okay, granted it is his very pretty and nearly naked friend, but still.
“I heard your boy is performing tonight,” Johnny says.
Daken nods. “He is. Gene X is doing a whole Breakfast Club thing and Bobby ended up cast as Bender so he is looking too cute in all his layers.”
They walk further into the club. Daken has his arm over Johnny’s shoulders, even though Johnny is slightly taller.
“Let me guess, Jean is Molly Ringwald?”
“Nope--Allison. Warren is living his best life in a pink blouse and suede boots.”
“Can’t wait to see that.”
“Hey--if you want to join us, we grabbed a table near the front,” Daken says. He looks at him and with the smudged eyeliner and glam rock eyeshadow he has on, it looks all the more intense.
“Maybe,” Johnny says. “Let me do a circuit first.”
“Sure.” He gives him a funny look, but he departs.
Truthfully, Johnny is looking for Peter. He spots him near the wall. He has one foot on a chair and the other on the back of it as he stands to make himself taller to take pictures.
“Hey,” Johnny says.
Peter startles and the chair tips forward. Johnny catches him and even stops his black brimmed hat from being knocked off. He has a suit jacket with the sleeves rolled up and small, dark lens glasses are now crooked on his nose.
“Duckie?” he guesses.
“Yeah,” Peter says. “Big brother from The Goonies?”
“Ish,” Johnny replies. “I’m not really dressed as anyone. I kinda just did a closet scour.”
“Ah.”
Peter’s hands are on his chest and he can feel them through the tears in his shirt. His camera bumps between them. It’s one of his old Polaroid ones--probably to truly bring the vibe of the eighties night.
“I have disposables in my messenger bag,” Peter says, patting it. “Just two. Really want this night to look as cursed as this entire decade was.”
“Yeah…”
But Johnny isn’t really paying attention to what he’s saying. He’s watching his mouth form the words. His lower lip has divots in it from where he bites it and clearly doesn’t apply enough chapstick. He leans down to kiss him. Peter jerks his head back.
“What are you doing?”
Johnny cocks his head to the side.
“Kissing you?”
“Really?” Peter pulls away from him and stands with his hands on his hips. “Now? The other day, you wouldn’t even kiss me in your backyard and now you want to kiss me in a crowded space?”
He opens his mouth to argue, but Peter isn’t done.
“No. I see what’s happening here, Johnny. You decided it’s time to come out. Good for you. But, I’m not going to be your easy pass to avoid saying it to people. You are not going to use me and what I feel for you like that.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. Peter is right, but--no. No buts. Peter is just right.
“Sort yourself,” he tells him. And then he’s gone back into the crowd.
Johnny slumps in the vacated chair and cradles his head in his hands. Sure--he’s right. He was definitely using what they had (whatever it was) to avoid actually using the words. And that wasn’t fair to him.
He lifts his head. First steps. He’s a fucking adult. He can do this. He forced himself in the closet for over thirty years but to step out--it starts with saying it. Telling one person publicly and not in the secrecy of the bedroom.
Johnny finds the table Daken was talking about. Right now, it’s only occupied by what everyone calls the “royalty” or the legacy brats. Johnny is technically one of them by age group, but he is a “brother of” not a “child of” and so his position is murkier.
“Hey, Johnny,” Wanda says cheerfully. She has decided to go full eighties goth with Siouxsie Sioux-styled makeup and a Mystique and the Skulls shirt worn over a tattered granny dress.
“What do you want?” Pietro asks, curling his lip in an expert way that manages to match his Rebel Yell-era Billy Idol ensemble.
“Be nice,” Rogue says while Kurt nods in agreement. She has gone the Cyndi Lauper route while Kurt was in all leather that really set off his extensive tattoo work.
Johnny fiddles with the buttons on his vest before he speaks.
“I wanted you all to know that...”
He knows that Daken is looking at him, so he tries not to meet his gaze.
“I’m gay,” he finishes. “I just. Wanted to say that out loud.”
All five of them look at him. He can see a sort of smile tugging on Daken’s lips. Johnny doesn’t know what response he expected. He can almost hear Pietro’s surly voice biting out a “no shit,” but at first no one says anything.
“Are we the first people you told?” Wanda asks finally.
He nods, feeling his cheeks start to burn. “Yeah. I mean. Other than the guys I had, you know, slept with.”
Daken laughs.
“Johnny, you don’t have to look directly at me when you say it.”
“Not surprised you’re one of them,” Pietro comments. He looks at Johnny and cocks his head to the side. “It feels better, doesn’t it? Once you say it out loud.”
That’s--oddly touching from the guy who once stole his girlfriend and also, when they were kids, pushed him in the pool because Johnny had made him mad in some way.
“It does,” he says.
And it’s true. Even just saying the words out loud, he feels like the tiny hand that had been squeezing his throat forever is gone.
“Are you going to tell everyone?” Wanda asks.
“Yeah. I mean. Yeah. I’m going all out--pun intended.”
Pietro snorts.
“You better. One of the people you told was Wanda.”
She aims a punch at his arm.
“I like knowing gossip, not spreading it.”
Kurt purses his lips and drums his fingers on the table.
“If you want to save time, you could do a little announcement and have us share it. If you don’t mind.”
Johnny is honestly touched. Being five years younger than him, Kurt is the one he is the least close to of the other “royalty” members. But he isn’t known as one of the most genuinely nice people in the scene for nothing.
“Yeah,” Rogue says. “Have Daken post it with his six hundred thousand followers or whatever.”
“It isn’t that many,” he says, but he’s grinning. He looks at Johnny and says, “What do you think?”
It sounds nice. It’s the support he expected and now, saying it out loud, and seeing people want to help him come out without the hassle of telling everyone individually, he really feels loved. Loved and connected.
“Thank you,” Wanda says. “For trusting us with this.”
Pietro gags and makes a face and she jabs him in the ribs. Daken beckons him over and Johnny crouches behind him so he can peer over his shoulder to be put on his story.
“I can make a sappy post about one of my oldest friends living his truth and all that shit, but right now let’s just do an obnoxious story,” he says.
He holds down the record button and starts speaking.
“Hey--there is still time to come out for eighties night before Gene X goes on and you get to see my boy, but speaking of coming out. My friend Johnny Storm is now out and living his best life. Right?” Daken turns to look at him.
“What?” Johnny asks.
He didn’t think he would be expected to speak.
“What did you just say?”
“Oh--oh, that I’m gay?” He laughs. “Yeah. I’m gay.”
Daken laughs, falling forward a bit, and ends the video. Johnny watches him deftly add tags and then send it. And just like that. There isn’t a ton of fanfare. The world isn’t collapsing. Johnny is just. Out in the open. And he feels--so dumb for hiding for so long. Everything was wrapped up in who he was, who his family was, and not who he is. Not that he can be proud. He can be himself, even dressed like a nameless punk who dies in an eighties zombie movie.
For the longest time, the only time he felt happy was in brief moments with different guys. It was a chance for them to see the real him--or a version of the real him. And right now, he realizes that he can truly be himself. He can be as flaming as the tattoos on his arms and something about that truly excites him.
--
Later in the night, after a few eighties-themed cocktails from the pop-up bar, Johnny feels on top of the world. He’s jumping with everyone in the crowd while Jean’s sweet, sultry voice belts out the lyrics to “Melt With You.” He can feel the thrum of Hank’s bass and the thud of Bobby’s drums deep in his legs. Over the course of the night, several people have come over to congratulate him. Like he did something--okay, maybe he did. He overcame his biggest fear and maybe it isn’t a movie moment and maybe it was anticlimactic, but he doesn’t care. Just because he’s at an eighties party doesn’t mean this is an eighties movie. Spandau Ballet isn’t going to play in the background while he gets his big moment. And that’s fine. Johnny isn’t the star of anything except his own life. Because he has to pilot this dumb body of his through it. And maybe it will be a little easier now. Earlier, before the band went on, he got a text from Sue that said she was proud of him and that she loved him. He never doubted anything else.
The only thing holding him back was him.
Distantly, he hears a small snap and then the sound of someone cranking a small, plastic dial. He turns to see Peter holding an old disposable camera and looking at him in a certain kind of way.
“Hey,” Johnny says a bit uneasily. Their most recent encounter is still fresh in his mind.
Peter leans in and says, “Come talk to me by the bathrooms so I don’t have to yell.”
He jerks his head in the direction of them and Johnny follows him through the raucously dancing crowd. Over in the bathroom, it’s quieter. The only other people in here are Loki and some guy he’s doing a deal with. He and Peter choose to ignore them. That is always the best course of action when it comes to Loki.
“I’m sorry,” Johnny says. “For trying to just kiss you for selfish reasons when the only reason I should kiss you in public is because I want to and because you want me to.”
Peter nods.
“Apology accepted. And I did appreciate the novel way of coming out.”
Johnny gives a shrug.
“I’m thirty-two. Best to get it over with.”
“Oh, for sure.” Peter sighs. “I was a little harsh with you, I guess.”
Johnny shakes his head.
“No, you were right and. I needed harsh. It was one thing resolving to come out, but you were right. I was chickening out and not being direct.”
“I didn’t say you were chickening out,” Peter argues. “But I guess my delivery could have implied that.”
Johnny nudges the brim of Peter’s hat down and says, “I guess. Hey, maybe next time, you could try a little tenderness.”
Peter bats his hand away.
“Johnny, I swear to God I will hunt you for sport.”
He laughs and catches Peter’s hand. He turns it over and kisses the inside of his wrist. He can feel his pulse under his lips.
“Ugh, there you go being all cute and romantic after you pissed me off. I hate you,” Peter says.
Johnny lifts his head.
“No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, that’s the kicker, huh? It’s why I put up with that secrecy crap.”
He eases himself up, but he doesn’t let go of his loose hold on Peter’s wrist.
“No more of that--I was actually wondering if I could take you on a date. A real one.”
Peter scoffs.
“I’m sorry you don’t think me taking you home to rail me after I feed my pet tarantula mealworms isn’t a real date, but sure. Take me out to dinner some time. Sounds good.”
They smile at one another and the moment passes--it isn’t fully charged, but it isn’t empty either. It feels good.
“Okay,” Peter says because, naturally, he is the one that breaks the silence. “You can kiss me now.”
The music is faint in the bathroom so they can still hear it. The song ended and Loki and his client left--their business done. Jean segues into the next song--Johnny recognizes it as the song, “Tenderness.” It isn’t Spandau Ballet, but he thinks it’ll do. He pulls Peter close and kisses him. They hold onto each other, arms wrapping around each other’s bodies as they press up against one another.
Of course it is ruined by someone behind him clearing their throat. But, when he hears it, Johnny’s heart doesn’t get lodged in his throat and he doesn’t feel prickly all over. That’s new--that’s better. He turns and sees Pietro’s boyfriend standing behind them. He’s dressed as Adam Ant and looking annoyed.
“Yes, coming out is a magical experience and living your truth is amazing, but get out of my way. I have to pee.”
Johnny laughs and lets him pass. Peter messes with the lapels of Johnny’s vest. He presses his finger into the small hole left by when he removed the ally pin.
“Okay, kiss me again now that we’re done being yelled at by the angry French boy.”
Johnny doesn’t have to be told twice.