Work Text:
The waves crashed on the shore— Summer 8 , they called it. Just the three of them; Johnny, Cadence, and Mirren. The Sinclair heirs.
But something had changed, just before the summer had begun. Johnny's mother, Carrie Sinclair, began to get serious with a guy she kept hidden from her own children. After his father, William Dennis, left their lives, she was overly cautious about who she let in her children's lives, at least to the best of her ability.
Johnny's mother brought her boyfriend, Ed, to the island of Beechwood during the start of Summer 8. However, there was something new he brought with him.
A young boy, likely the same age as Johnny himself, named Gat .
At first, Johnny felt no different. He stood by Mirren's side, lightly bumping his shoulders against hers as they greeted each other upon arrival.
It wasn't until Cadence ran off to the dock that Johnny realized the new boy's existence.
Gat was a short, brown-skinned boy, with freckles dancing across his sun-burnt cheeks. Johnny was entranced, if not a little curious. Though, the boy's attention was focused solely on his eldest cousin.
Over the course of Summer 8 , the Liars were established. From mishaps of dye, to late night swims past curfew, their little group only grew closer. They felt unstoppable, vibrant, but most importantly— they felt infinite.
Johnny only continued to be entranced. He wasn't sure what he was feeling, but whatever it was, it wasn't hurting him. Anything that didn't hurt him, didn't burn him from within, was something he held onto. Unlike the hate from his father, or the pressures of the Sinclair family name, this feeling wasn't something to spark pain; it was something to spark wonder, the urge to come closer to it.
Johnny liked how he felt around Gat. Airy, light, like nothing else quite mattered. It didn't matter if they were alone, or with Cadence and Mirren, Johnny was finally able to be at peace.
He wondered if his feeling was something akin to the prince and princesses he hears about in the fairytales from Gran. That maybe, just maybe, this was bound to be his own fairytale. Maybe Johnny was destined to be a knight, saving the shy yet noble prince from the judgement of the dragons. Or possibly Johnny was the prince all along, and he had been the one to be saved.
It didn't matter, not really. Nothing mattered on Beechwood. His feelings were skewed from reality, as they always were during these fine summers. He wouldn't see Gat once August came around, so he didn't dwell.
In the end, Johnny had his people, and for the rest of his summer, nothing else in the world mattered to him. Not his fairytale feelings, or the dread building as he packed his bags— as long as they were with him, he didn't seem to mind.
The emotional crash after Summer 8 was expected, but not prepared. Johnny could barely leave his room most days, apart from going to school, or going to church on Sundays with his mother. Carrie wasn't quite sure why this summer hurt more than the others upon their departure, but still she assured her son that they would still return next summer, and all the summers after.
Once Johnny was lifted from the cloudy daze of life without Beechwood, his days passed quicker. Suddenly, months flew by with the blink of an eye, and he was on the boat once more with his bags beside him as he talked about how excited he would be to give Mirren a drawing he made her, talk to Cadence about the new dog they adopted, and show Gat all his new necklaces he has been collecting.
Life felt normal on Beechwood— though that normalcy was a privilege. Most kids didn't have a getaway island to ride out the hot weather on. Some didn't even have cousins, let alone such good relations with them. It didn't matter; Beechwood was theirs, and nothing that happened could take it away.
Summers came and went; Summer 9 , then 10, 11, and 12 all after. One by one, in succession, just like it would always be. Beechwood would be constant, never-changing, and Johnny adored it.
Until it did change.
Summer 13 , to be exact, wasn't quite like the others. Everyone his age was ranting about their new crushes, and how badly they wanted to fall in love just like the popular but cheesy sitcoms their parents watched.
It was always the same. Boy with girl, girl with boy. Boy attends church with girl, girl flusters and blushes as they hold hands during the service.
All of a sudden, all of Johnny's friends were flying off into a world of crushing and romance, yet he lingered behind. He tried his best, still. He glanced at the pretty brown-haired girl with blue eyes, and gave a flower to the shy, auburn-haired girl who had just broken her leg.
He wanted to fit in badly, did everything he could to appear normal, but something within him just wasn't quite right. He knew it.
No matter how many times Johnny tried to like a girl, nothing stuck. He couldn't fix this, like all the other times before. This was permanent, whatever it was.
Once Johnny got to Beechwood, he thought he could finally have peace. Summer 13 was his, and only his— apart from the Liars. He felt safe, like he could drift away from all the concerns before, and live in a faraway place where summer was constant. Forever.
Though, his plans were skewed once more as he spotted Gat. He had grown a few inches since the summer before, and he was talking about trying out for his local youth swim team. His hair was longer, with a new curl to it.
As Johnny stared at him, he felt like how all the other kids had been describing the entire year. Butterflies in his gut, mind suddenly much lighter than it had been, and a sense of urgency to chase after a feeling he couldn't yet name.
Johnny was more nervous that summer, but not enough to spark too much concern among the Liars. Still, he felt his cheeks begin to flare as Gat put his arm around him to steady his walking after twisting his ankle, and his mind began to go blank as Gat acted as if he was the only thing in the world that mattered.
He wasn't sure if it was just circumstantial; maybe Gat was one of the only people who showed him that level of kindness, and due to their consistent proximity, it was sparking such things inside him. Or maybe it was all misjudged, and Gat reminded him of a girl back home he couldn't quite find the name of.
Though it didn't matter what he felt. Gat was always focused on Cadence, looking at her like she hung the sun and stars herself— like she was perfection reincarnated. Johnny wasn't jealous, just sad. Like again, even though he was on Beechwood, he was missing out on a part of his life everyone else seemed to understand.
It wasn't until after Johnny turned fifteen, back at home, that he realized right where he had been wrong all this time.
Highschool began, and those people he grew up with slowly changed into people he no longer recognized. Still, the romance was constant, if not more overbearing than before. A good, Catholic boy with his charming, straight-A's girlfriend. The good, blonde cheerleader with her church-loving, football player boyfriend.
Boy with girl, girl with boy. It didn't seem to ever change, no matter how many details got mixed within it. Always a girl, always a boy.
Yet, Johnny still didn't quite have that. Sure, he was popular; varsity on the tennis team, auditioning for student council, even having girls confessing to him before 4th period even came.
But he was different.
The girls barely knew him; and even if they were popular, or conventionally attractive, Johnny felt nothing towards one. Rumor spread that he was a player, with the amount of girls he rejected- or possibly that the great Carrie Sinclair forbade him from dating until he graduated.
He couldn't say anything. Nothing was true, but still he hadn't an explanation for his own feelings. Not for the way his stomach fluttered at the sight of other guys in gym class, taking their shirts off to cool down, or the way he blushed after bumping into the muscular football players as they rushed to go to practice.
Johnny truly just wanted a name for what he felt, but he couldn't quite place it. He wanted, more than anything, to put a stop to his foolish feelings, and just remain the good, God-loving tennis player everyone wanted him to be.
He still thought about Gat sometimes. When he spontaneously kissed a girl in his science class to see how it felt, or held hands with the coach's daughter as they walked to lunch together. Johnny wasn't sure why his mind drifted in that way, but he couldn't help but long for the boy.
During Johnny's Freshman year, a boy a grade above him came out. Rather, a cruel Senior decided to out him to the rest of the school, with video footage of him kissing a boy at a party. Gay, they called it. Though, the word wasn't used fondly.
Even still, it was as close as Johnny could get to discovering what was so different.
He pulled the guy aside, when nobody else was looking, and pleaded with the boy to know just how he found out he had such tendencies. It might have been worded improperly, in a way that gives off a snarky tone, but still the Sophomore grumbled a response that Johnny couldn't stop thinking of.
“Nothing else seemed right. Nothing fit in place like it should have, and the sermons didn't quite apply. I tried it, and I couldn't go back.”
He wanted to try it, badly he did. Whether it was with some unknown boy from a party, or if it was someone he had grown up with— he needed to know.
And quickly, Johnny knew.
He snuck out one night to go to a party, one that would have Carrie shaking on the ground if she found out he attended, and found the first queer guy he saw to try out this new fixation of his.
Even quicker, Johnny felt his heart leaping out of his chest. It wasn't the can of beer he had, or even the hits off the joint he took as he arrived, but the kiss he shared with an unknown boy.
It made him reconsider everything. How he got flustered as his teammates changed in the locker rooms, his longing to touch and feel the way the other teenagers do, and even his feelings regarding Gat.
Johnny supposed he should be thanking Gat in some way, for fueling his feelings and sparking this sudden change within him. Without him, and his freckled nose, and even his curly hair, he wasn't sure how long it would take for such feelings to reveal themselves inside of him.
In some ways, he still yearned for those things with Gat. To hold his hand in the streets as they went for ice cream, or to lay his head on Gat’s shoulder as they watched a cheesy movie on the big screen. But Johnny knew better than to get his heart broken by a lovesick boy like him.
Gat was all over Cadence, whether she realized it or not. He stared at her longingly as she spoke excitedly with Mirren, and sent her letters and gifts during the nights on Beechwood.
Nothing changed, but nothing got better. Not for Johnny.
Gat was out of reach, which he supposed was for the better. He couldn't bear the judgement that would be forced upon him if anyone on Beechwood found out. His mom would cry over the perfect male heir being corrupted, or even Harris would cut him a hard one over not being how he envisioned.
But it wasn't just them Johnny was afraid of.
God felt as if He was a force to scare, rather than a force to love. He was a fear tactic, getting people to obey rules set in stone that could barely be shifted. That if these rules were disregarded, they would burn forever. Johnny didn't want to burn.
Still, Johnny wasn't keen on ignoring such a big part of himself. Foolish as it was, he was more curious than anything. He wasn't ready to just let that go.
Of drunken kisses, shared in the darkest of corners, with guys he hardly knew, Johnny found himself more and more. It would take more than a fiery pit at the end of the world to conceal him.
Johnny's fear was real, but so was the love he felt. The gravitational attraction he felt to Jackson, or even yearning for Gat. It was real, and he was not going to let fear control his life any longer.