Chapter Text
Saturday afternoon, November 1993.
Jonny quickly rushed to his and Colin’s flat, looking over his shoulder as he fumbled with his keys. He usually operated in a state of constant anxiety, especially since his ‘school band’ shot into seemingly instant fame through a song he was never too fond of. However, he was extra nervous today about the contents held within a magenta plastic shopping bag he was clutching to his chest. So much so that he trembled as he unlocked the door. As usual, after he opened the door, he struggled to get the keys out of the lock. Colin was supposed to call about getting that lock fixed this morning. This definitely wasn’t an ideal time for his keys to get stuck in the lock again. One hard yank got them out, but sent him tumbling backwards onto the pavement. He blushed out of embarrassment as he stood up and scurried back into the flat, now with a sore bum. As much as his ungraceful tumble was embarrassing, it wouldn’t be nearly as embarrassing as if a fan, or, god forbid, a record executive, saw him purchase what he bought for himself in the boutique in town this morning.
Once he managed to get the front door shut, he softly called out, ‘Cozzie? Are you home?’ He knew his older brother was going out with Ed tonight, but wasn’t sure if he had left yet. No one answered him back, so he walked into the kitchen, where he saw a handwritten note lying on the table. He picked up the note delicately, as if it would somehow break if he handled it too hard, and read it to himself. ‘Hi, baby brother! Spending the night at Ed’s tonight. I put some cheese + onion pasties from the bakery in the fridge for you. Love, Colin’. The corners of Jonny’s mouth turned up slightly at the sweetness of Colin’s note, but his fingers traced over the words ‘baby brother’. Before thinking about the weight those two words had on his conscience, he re-read the part where Colin said he was staying the night at Ed’s. Did he preemptively decide to sleep over at Ed’s knowing they were going to get shitfaced tonight? Actually, Colin has been over at Ed’s… hanging out with Ed… around Ed… quite a bit lately. Could they be? Jonny shook that thought out of his head. He’ll ask Colin about it when he gets back home tomorrow…
He returned his attention to the note, resuming his fixation on the words ‘baby brother’. The words brought both comfort and uneasiness to him. He walked into the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror. ‘Baby brother’ was comfortable because it was a statement of love from his older brother. They were the two words that accompanied every childhood ‘I’m sorry’, every ‘I love you’, every moment they played outside together or comforted each other through break-ups, family deaths, hangovers or bad shows. Hell, even when Jonny first told Colin about how he felt about his struggles with his masculinity a couple months ago.
Jonny studied himself in the mirror from top to bottom. He was always grateful for his dark, thick and soft hair. It always grew quickly as well – a trait that must run in the family, given how long Colin’s hair was. He lightly shook his head, letting his lengthy locks brush his shoulders and fall forward over his face. The feeling of his long hair always made him smile, but it got in the way of him, well, seeing. He spotted one of Colin’s black hair ties on the counter and used it to throw his hair up into a messy bun, something he had very recently learned how to do. It was a very messy bun, indeed, with random strands sticking out and falling back into his face, but it did the job of uncovering his eyes for now.
It was not often he looked at his face without his hair blocking his forehead, mostly because everything wrong he saw in himself was amplified once his locks stopped obscuring his face. Acne scars from a terrible male puberty dotted his face, especially along the cheekbones that everybody seemed to love so much about him. His dark eyebrows were too thick and pronounced to complement his greenish-brown eyes and long eyelashes in a feminine way. Once his eyes reached his lips, tears started welling up in his eyes. Despite everyone telling him how full and beautiful his lips were, his top lip jutted out, which, instead of making him look like a sassy, pouty diva, reminded him of his stupid overbite that gave him his stupid lisp. The same lisp that made him a target of bullying throughout his schooling. The overbite also meant his toothy smile never looked quite right on him, making him look ‘creepy’ rather than cute. His lips also accentuated his dark, two-day stubble. He hated his facial hair – the way it made him look so ‘manly’, the way it made his face itchy after he shaved, the way the process of shaving peppered nicks onto his already scarred face. The mental anguish that came from his hyperfocus on his physical features started making his eyes considerably wet, with one tear slowly escaping his left eye.
Even though he knew how he’d react if he did it, he took off his purple woollen jumper. He looked at his bare chest in the mirror – the thing he hated the most about himself – as he reminisced about the first conversation he had about his self-image issues with Colin. It had happened after Colin found him lying on the bathroom floor crying a couple of months ago after analysing his bare torso too much, just as he was doing now. He didn’t mind being skinny, but there were points where he thought he looked downright sickly. His clavicles stuck out too far and his ribs were threatening to peek through his chest. He traced his fingers down his sternum to his dark chest hair and began to whimper and sob lightly. His chest hair and areolas were too dark. All his body hair, even the happy trail he often showed off in the tight, short t-shirts he liked to wear, contrasted too much with his girlish waist and hips.
His sobs became louder as he recalled the first words Colin said to him that evening: ‘Aw, Jonathan, don’t cry, my sweet baby brother.’ Jonathan. Baby brother. It was all too formal, too masculine. Jonny slid himself down to the floor as his cheeks became increasingly wet with tears. His bawling echoed in the small bathroom, just as it did that evening when he struggled to pour all of his feelings out to Colin.
‘C-Coz, everything f-feels wrong. I-I look wrong. I am wrong. I c-can’t bear to look at my-my-my… myself in the m-mirror anymore. I don’t know what I am, who I am. I don’t… I don’t hate everything about myself, but some parts make me want to tear my skin off. I wish I was more girly. N-not like a girl, but, but… well… I don’t know if I want to be a girl. It’s all so fucking confusing. I just wish I didn’t look so manly. I don’t want to be one of these “androgynous male” rock stars. I just… I just want to be…’ Colin finished his sentence for him, ‘Jonny?’ He put his head in between his knees as he finished playing out the memory mentally. ‘Yes, I-I just want to be… Jonny.’
What followed that night was a series of tight cuddles, forehead kisses and cooed expressions of love and reassurance from Colin. Jonny didn’t think he had heard so many expressions of ‘I love you’ and ‘You’re gorgeous/beautiful’ in his life. He wrapped his arms around himself, hugging himself tightly like Colin always did.
‘Tell me all the things you like about yourself’ was the next thing Colin said to him. The practice worked well to calm him down that night, so he went through the list again. His hair, his eyes, his eyelashes, his lithe, graceful figure, his waist and hips, his musical ability… He put his head up and looked at his fingers, which he had painted this morning with dark purple nail varnish to match his jumper. Well, at least that’s what colour Colin told him it was at the chemist’s... Weirdly enough, my hands, how long my fingers are…
Jonny wiped the tears from his eyes and finally stood back up, picking up his discarded jumper from the floor in the process. He put the jumper back over his head, focusing on the feeling of the wool fibres brushing against his bare chest. He tilted his head back up and his eyes met the mirror once more. He stayed silent for a beat, just as he did that night when he was cradled in Colin’s arms, relishing the way the ends of his brother’s equally long hair brushed his forehead, before he said the next item on his list. Jonny said it quietly to himself in the bathroom, as if he were in his brother’s arms on the floor again instead of standing alone. ‘My… my cock?’
His head had perked up that night, quizzically pondering what he had just said. He hated just about every manly thing about himself, but he still liked the thing that absolutely, positively made him biologically male. He stuttered, struggling to eke out an explanation to this baffling statement. ‘Well, I-I mean, I-I don’t mind it. I like, y’know, not having a menstrual cycle and-and like, uhm, j-jerking off and-’. He had coughed before he finished off with, ‘...being able to, y’know, fuck things’, while gesturing his hands towards his hips in a less-than-savoury manner. Colin then shushed him, saying ‘It’s alright, JonJon. I get it, trust me. It makes sense to me, at least. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.’ To this day, he was still ever so grateful that nothing was ‘out-of-bounds’ in terms of conversation with Colin. He had no idea how it made sense to Colin, but it did. God, how he wished he were comfortable with his masculinity like his older brother was.
After what seemed like ages, Jonny left the bathroom and walked to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and saw the bag of pasties from the local bakery that Colin had left for him. He smiled as he grabbed a pasty out of the bag, closed the fridge and sat down at the table. As he took a bite of the pasty, he remembered what advice his brother had given him that night. ‘I’m sorry if my comments are making you feel too “manly”, Jonathan. You are so beautiful and amazing the way you are, and I’ll always love you no matter what. You shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with feminine things. Tie your hair up, paint your nails, shave your body hair, hell, wear a dress if you want to. I’ll always support you’. It was after playing that affirmation in his head that he actually tasted the pasty that he was eating. He raised his eyebrow and let out a little ‘Mmmm’. It was quite a tasty pasty. Colin was always so thoughtful.
Jonny had already experimented with tying his hair up and painting his nails. Both activities gave him a burst of euphoria, but not quite enough. He hadn’t got around to actually shaving any of his body hair. ‘One day, when I can manage to look at my bare chest in the mirror for long enough to do it, I will’, he thought to himself. His eyes then flitted to the magenta plastic bag sitting on the dining table in front of him. Today was the day for this, though. He could hardly bear to wait to try on what was in that magenta shopping bag. Filled with anxious anticipation, he quickly wolfed down the rest of his pasty before snatching the bag off the table and rushing to his bedroom.