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John Johnson is ten years old when he first begins to notice that the way he feels sometimes is the definition of odd, knowing some things that will happen before they do, and realising how things are fitting together. He knows, when his mother gets a new job in Minneapolis, that this is where he is truly meant to be from, because someone called Eric knows he was raised there. Will know, he thinks. Everything is jumbled in a time continuum that makes him not even feel real most of the time, and it’s not until he’s thirteen that he finds a name for it: dissociation. It doesn’t completely explain the part where he seems to be able to predict the future, or whatever, but it explains the way his body feels temporary, and none of this seems real.
The narrative starts peaking beneath John’s skin when he’s fourteen, and by age sixteen, he knows everything about this world, the writer’s name, fate’s course, and who the Eric in his head has been all along. He joins the hockey team of his high school because of the narrative, even though it’s early, and he picks out Samwell quickly as well, and it’s not his parents’ fault that they don’t get it. When you know the course of time, nothing seems relevant anymore, and his parents don’t understand that he feels like he’s not the main character in the story. Because, he’s not. He’s a side character who won’t mean much, a simple progression of the narrative, because every team needs a goalie.
All of their names, the Samwell team for Bitty’s first year, their names come to him easily, like they were summoned into his mind, and he knows what all of them are going through at this very moment. Hockey isn’t as fun for Johnson (as he’s already started going by - in the narrative, he will be called Johnson; might as well start early) as he knows it is for Ransom and Holster, and though they haven’t found each other yet, their plays still mirror each other in their ranges of his mind. He feels Nursey, in New York City- just as bored and sad as Johnson is in Minneapolis, and regrets the fact that he will never get to meet him.
Sometimes, Johnson finds himself wondering just what will happen after he gives Bitty his dibs - will he just fade out of existence? What is the extent of the narrative?
The night Jack overdoses, Johnson is already at university, and despite the fact that he has had nothing to drink, he is sick in the bathroom all night. Tears are streaming down his face because he misses a man he’s never met, and he knows Jack has to go through this for the narrative, but fuck. Even though it’s not really his fault, Johnson finds himself cursing the name of Kent Parson, angry and violent, trapped inside of his own head because no one is going to understand this.
Meeting Jack Zimmermann is quite a bit different from having a little bit of his emotions in Johnson’s head for his entire life, but he makes it work. They become friends too, because Johnson moulds himself into a good guy, because that’s who he is in the narrative. Just nice enough to not matter much, and to give Bitty his dibs in senior year.
A little while later, at the end of his sophomore year, a junior called Jonesy gives Johnson his dibs, not because he knows they will go to Bittle, but because they’ve become friends. He gets close to his teammates despite it feeling overwhelmingly pointless, which is why Jonesy gives him his dibs in the first place - it’s not like Jonesy knows. No one ever knows that none of this is real besides Johnson, and that’s fine, because he’s special. It’s not like his mom had ever known enough to reassure him that he was special, but Johnson has long since mastered the art of giving himself a break.
Johnson’s story does not begin when Eric Bittle walks into his practice, nor does it begin when he bakes in his Haus, but it kind of does, in an embarrassing kind of way. It would be just his luck to fall in love with the main characters, not just one, but both of them, in some odd conjunction of feelings he shouldn’t have. He has long accepted the part of himself that is loudly pansexual, so it’s not like Zimmermann or Bittle or any combination thereof are the beginning of his Gay Crisis, but this isn’t supposed to happen. He has held part of both of them beneath his temples for his entire life, why would he only fall for them upon meeting? He’s known about Bitty and Jack forever. Shouldn’t this nonsense have happened when he was younger?
He lives with it, shoves it down and keeps his head down, because he has to for the narrative to progress naturally. In this story, he is barely meant to sit in the background, occasional comic relief, and making flirtatious lines at the main characters is not what he is meant to do. Even having a crush on one of them would be too much, and both of them makes what he knows to be the narrative stir in his stomach, so he pushes it down. He’s only meant to give Eric his dibs at the end of the year, and none of that is going to involve telling Eric he loves him.
He has known, since he was old enough to truly know anything for sure, how the narrative of the life of Eric Bittle will go down- that his own parts are always foggy but the general story stays the same. Eric’s life will go on perfectly without him, seamlessly, and the rest of the team will come together as an actual symbol of perfection, the backgrounds and faces he already knows falling into place. He’ll have to leave soon - have to leave Jack, who he took as a protégé during Jack’s freshman year, and he’ll have to leave Bitty, who he’ll miss like burning.
Ransom and Holster will get their shit together eventually, Johnson knows, but he also knows that he will not be around to see it. He is already mourning their lost time, knowing that they will still be bringing girls up in Chowder’s Frog year, Chowder who hasn’t even made the decision on Samwell yet. By the tail end of their junior year, Dex and Nursey will figure themselves out as well, but Johnson worries after Bitty’s heart in the meantime, as well as Jack’s patience.
When he’s actually talking to people at Samwell, he doesn’t bother to hide his internal existentialism, making it an external high-vibe that people tend not to mess with. He gets along better with Shitty (Balthazar Knight, his mind supplies, which he immediately pushes away) than he ever thought he would, and sometimes he thinks Shitty knows . But, he can’t. If he knew, he wouldn’t look at Lardo like she punched him in the gut everytime she looked away, or like she hung the moon and built the sun all in one night when she was gone. If he knew, he wouldn’t be so scared of fucking it up with Jack, or with Lardo, or with anyone. Johnson gets along better with Shitty than he ever thought he would, because his own parts are always blurry.
Time passes, and it’s a few months into Bittle’s freshman year that something happens that Johnson knows isn’t supposed to happen, tightening his chest from breath. He’s been letting himself get too close to Bittle, been too friendly, and something happens. Bitty asks him out, quiet, and Johnson almost has a panic attack just sitting there , because this is not the way of the narrative. Bitty is going to get kissed by Jack in three and a half semesters, and they’ll live happily ever after against all odds, a true love story that John Johnson is only supposed to be a funny relief character during. Johnson doesn’t answer for a few seconds and Bitty already looks rejected and sad, so Johnson says the first thing that comes to mind: “Yes.”
Johnson can feel the narrative shifting, can feel it whirling and rebelling like a storm in his stomach, but there are also butterflies spreading their wings in his ribcage, and the narrative does not deserve him. He deserves better than the life someone else, some unknown, has cast for him. He knows her name, but despite the story that the creator has given him, he knows nothing of her, and there is something sketchy in that.
Dating Bittle is softer than anything Johnson has ever actually physically touched, and he can sometimes feel Bitty’s affection for him burst behind his eyes. Seeing Jack seeing them together makes Johnson sick to his stomach, knowing what he’s taking from the other boy he loves, but Johnson can’t make himself let go. He can’t tell Bitty what’s got him so twisted up, but Eric still tries to help, touching him softly when his breathing turns into gasps that rack his entire chest, or when he’s talking in his sleep. “It’s all my fault, they’ll never be happy, I fucked it up,” Johnson will say, and Bitty will kiss his forehead, wake him up slowly, and reassure him.
With little to no exclusions, every single time Johnson looks at Jack Zimmermann, a sick feeling takes over him, as well as his own soft affection for the boy he took everything from. He sees Jack’s little sad looks, feels his jealousy in the back of his mind, but Johnson cannot make himself let go. That is, until Bitty comes to him one evening, three months or so into their relationship.
Bitty doesn’t close Johnson’s bedroom door or turn on the light, because it’s still only six o’clock, and the others won’t be in from the library for some time. He looks nervous, but Johnson waits for him to speak; he’s used to that, waiting.
“I,” Bitty starts, before speaking again after a moment, “I’m into Jack, Johnny. I just wanted you to know.” Bitty is the only person allowed to call him Johnny and Johnson trusts Eric to know what he’s doing, but he feels the bottom drop out of his stomach in an entirely different way than usual, like the floor is going with it.
“Are you breaking up with me, Eric?” he asks, and his voice rings hollow even to his own ears as he frantically searches for what he did wrong, before remembering the actual plot of this world. Eric is meant to be with Jack. It’s canon . He feels bile rising in his throat, his heart beating faster, and he wants to leave his own room, because it’s meant to be Bittle’s anyway - and then Bitty speaks.
“John, no! Oh my god,” Eric says quickly, walking over to where Johnson is sitting on his bed, lifting his chin to look up at Eric. “I’m in love with you,” Bitty implores, and it’s the first time either of them have ever said those words aloud. “I just wanted to let you know… in case you saw me looking at him, and you get that look in your eye where you look like you thought this was going to happen all along. Like no one was going to love you in the first place.” Huh. Johnson hadn’t thought Bitty had seen that. No one is supposed to see him.
“So… you’re into Jack, and you’re in love with me. And I’m into Jack, and I’m in love with you. Is that right?” Johnson recaps in a wry kind of voice, watching Eric’s eyebrows climb ever higher. Coming back to himself is easy after such a minor freak out, and he doesn’t let the anxiety ride over his skin any more than it has to. He likes surprising Bitty in small moments like this, the eyebrows and the wide eyes and the little smile that he doesn’t even know he’s smiling.
“You’re into him too?” Eric asks, and he sounds just this edge of relieved, and Johnson could see this going somewhere, if Jack was into it.
“Definitely. Why? What are you thinking, Bits?” Johnson asks, pressing his face into Bitty’s shoulder so he can stop making eye contact. Bitty’s hands are in his hair, gently stroking, before he speaks again, and he seems to choose his words carefully, like John can ever really say no to him, of all people. If there were two people completely unable to say no to Eric Richard Bittle, it would be John Johnson and Jack Zimmermann. But, that definitely wasn’t true. Except, that it totally is.
“How would you feel about… dating Jack? Like, together,” Bitty suggests, and Johnson can feel his tension all throughout his small body. He really thinks Johnson might say no, which is kind of laughable, but John doesn’t say anything, knowing the anxiety and worry of not knowing .
“As long as both you and Jack were into it… I’d say no one besides the two of you could physically stop me,” Johnson replies, pulling back to look at Bitty’s grinning face. Bitty only stops smiling to pull him closer, pressing his lips against different portions of John’s face before pulling him into a real kiss.
“I’m in love with you, John Johnson,” Bitty says again once they pull apart, and Johnson pulls him into bed with him, curling into each other familiarly. Johnson presses a kiss to Bitty’s temple before replying at all, an arm wrapped around his stomach.
“I’m in love with you too, Eric Bittle,” he mutters, pressing his face into Bitty’s hair.
In all reality, it’s actually much harder to talk to Jack than it is to talk about him, the latter of which Johnson and Bitty do a few more times before approaching their captain. They have to work together to even gain enough confidence to ask , Eric’s self doubt meeting his own anxiety and making something together. Jack has been more confident lately, more open, and Johnson would like to take that as a sign- like he might say yes. It makes Johnson giddy, excited, and he’s almost buzzing walking into this conversation but, sitting in front of Jack’s big blue eyes, he can’t make himself speak.
“You guys wanted something?” Jack prompts, and Bitty flushes dark automatically, and Johnson’s voice catches in his throat when he opens his mouth. Jack’s eyebrows come together in something like worry, which should either bolster or destroy Johnson’s confidence, but he isn’t sure which one it should do, so it doesn’t do anything.
“We - “ Johnson starts, but is interrupted.
“We like you,” Bitty interjects, and Jack simply raises an elegant eyebrow, head tilting at the slightest angle, which Johnson found adorable, albeit reluctantly. He finds both of them adorable, truly, Bitty’s smallness and southerness and Bittyness, and Jack’s French-Canadian charm and easily confused eyebrows, and Johnson is awash in adoring them.
“I like you too? We’re teammates, Bittle. I don’t know why this is important. If that’s all -” Jack starts to rise and Bitty interrupts again, too anxious for tact to have much play.
“We want to date you!” Bitty blurts out, and Johnson’s face is in his hands, stressing the skin of his temples with his middle and forefingers.
“You want to date me? Both of you?” Jack asks, his head tilting a bit further, puppylike in a lot of ways that shouldn’t apply to a man six foot one and two hundred something pounds.
“Yes,” Johnson says, finally finding his voice, “We want to date you, the both of us, so that you’ll be dating both of us and we’ll be dating each other. A big old dating circle. We could ask Shitty about terminology? But, yeah. It’s totally cool if you’re not into us.”
“Wait you’re serious?” Jack asks, still sounding just this edge of confused. Johnson smiles softly, letting his own edge of nervousness try to flow off of him (anxiety is a sickness, don’t try to do as much when it’s bad, he reminds himself).
Bitty nods quickly but seems to be unable to speak despite his past outbursts, and Johnson nods along as well, attempting to let their silence speak of the grave seriousness of their intentions. Jack laughs, beginning at a chuckle and slowly spreading into a full laugh, and for a moment, Bitty looks absolutely destroyed, before Jack gets that little soft smile on his face.
“I’ve been so jealous of both of you for the past few months, chrisse ,” Jack says softly, and Bitty steps closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. Johnson smiles his own private smile for the three of them and feels the narrative settle in his stomach, no longer a whirlpool, seeming satisfied with the inclusion of Jack.
The narrative, as complicated as it always has been for John Johnson, never bothers him after he hammers out polyamory negotiations with his partners (with the help of Shitty, who is so fucking proud). After his own graduation, Johnson continues to live in the Haus, though now himself and Bitty share a room that occasionally also houses Jack. Because of his anxiety, spending the night in the same bed as other people isn’t always good with Jack, and Bitty and Johnson are okay with that.
For once, the narrative leaves Johnson alone, because, for once, he is a part of it.