Chapter Text
Jon was having a weird dream about threads, clowns and flying spaghetti when he was startled awake by the insistent ringing of his flat’s doorbell.
Rubbing his eyes and then his chin just to make sure that there was no drool to be found, he got up from his comfortable couch and began to stretch. He looked at the floor to ceiling mirror on the left side of the room, saw that he looked like death warmed over and wondered, for a few seconds, if he could ignore the annoying noises of the doorbell and go back to sleep.
However, whoever was behind his front door had no respect for the sixty-one-year-old Jon Bon Jovi. The ringing sounds were beginning to get grating and he was rapidly getting annoyed. Whoever that person was, he or she should have a good reason why they were adamant in disturbing him in his seclusion inside his bachelor's flat in New Jersey.
Yes, you heard it right. Bachelor. Because after he had decided to retire from singing at the heels of the disastrous tour which killed both his reputation and self-esteem, Dorothea had also served him divorce papers and kicked him out of their lovely home in Palm Beach. And that was the reason why he was back in New Jersey, all alone and having pity-parties by himself.
With a frown and his lips pressed in displeasure, he crossed the room and stood before the mahogany door. The doorbell rang again and Jon felt himself snap.
He unlocked the door and pulled the knob and prepared himself for a long rant but all words left him when he saw who was the person standing on his doorsteps.
Twenty-five years old Richie Sambora stared at Jon, his very familiar brown eyes looking uncertain and a little bit scared. He was wearing a faded black Zeppelin T-shirt underneath an old denim jacket and a pair of tight jeans. His high tops were caked in mud and Jon noticed there were a few pieces of dead grass clinging underneath it as Richie began to alternate in tapping his feet in nervousness.
Yeah, this young man couldn't be anyone but Richie Sambora. If Jon couldn't trust his eyes, then he could very well trust his heart.
Richie’s Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Jon, is that you?”
Because it looked like his life had just become like another episode of Twilight Zone, Jon decided to ask questions later and let Richie inside his flat. Of course, he’d asked him to take off his dirty shoes and put them next to the other shoes on the rack next to the door, which Richie obliged without a word of dissent.
So now he was inside his kitchen, preparing a cup of coffee for his unexpected guest because in Jon’s eyes it looked like the man very much needed something warm to chase the chill of the Autumn evening away and settle his nerves. Remembering how Richie had always taken his coffee back when the two of them were still friends and ate breakfast together, he added enough sugar and milk to give a normal person a diabetic shock.
He found Richie where he’d left him, patiently waiting for him while sitting on Jon's barely used new armchair. He was sitting with his back straight and his hands on his lap which made him look like a good-mannered schoolboy.
Jon snorted at the thought.
Richie looked at him, his eyes wide and guileless and Jon couldn't stop a fondness from blooming inside him for this younger version of his once best friend and secret lover. He and the much older Richie might have a falling out that began when the latter had suddenly abandoned him and the band during a tour and spanned a decade but he only ever had good memories with young Richie.
“Here,” he said, putting down the warm coffee on the coffee table next to Richie.
Richie's eyes lit up. “Thanks, Jonny,” he said, taking the cup from the saucer and after blowing the steaming liquid a few times, he took a sip from its rim.
Jon only managed to remove his eyes from Richie's full lips when he felt his phone vibrate inside his pocket of his sweats. Excusing himself, he took his phone out of his pocket and went back to the kitchen to check it.
He turned the screen on and saw that he’d received several messages from an unknown number.
He began to read them all from the top.
(8:23 am.: Jon, please call me. We need to talk.)
(8:30 am.:Jon, please. I have to talk with you.)
(8:31 am.: Wait, you don't know my current phone number, do you? This is Richie. You know, the best guitarist and singer-songwriter in New Jersey. The most handsome too.)
Jon couldn't help but frown. He looked at the timeslots when he’d been getting the messages from his former friend and saw that Richie had been sending him messages a few hours ago.
(8:35 am.: Man, you won't believe what happened when I woke up this morning. I found a cute and prettier version of you in front of my house. Told me that he’s Jon Bon Jovi the lead singer of a rock band named Bon Jovi. You know the one. Great hair, nice face and has a big attitude. And he’s looking for his bandmates who ditched him in the middle of the Fahrenheit tour.
So now I have him inside my house and eating all of the pancakes I made for me. I’m quickly running out of maple syrup and coffee too.)
His eyes widened. Wait, what?
(8:39 am.: He acts and talks so much like you that I’m starting to believe that you finally found the Fountain of Youth and drank all of it so you could get your handsome looks and voice back, you vain bitch.
He also didn't believe me when I told him who I am and said that I don't look like the biggest slut in the world which I’m taking offence to, btw. I’m still the biggest male slut in the world, fyi.)
Jon snorted. But the joke, their inner joke, helped his heart calm down.
(7:30 pm.: Jon, for Christ’s sake, please stop ignoring this or I will really start believing that I have a twenty-something version of you inside my living room and is using my Netflix account to watch some teen werewolf drama.)
Jon breathed in and out. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
It appeared that he and Richie got themselves in an uncanny situation.