Morrissey Reblogs Memes

Chapter 4

"Steven, honey, come on and get dressed. We need to head out soon," Betty Dwyer called up to her son's room.
"I know, Mum. Come on, let's go," Steven replied from just behind her, fully dressed and biting into an apple.
"Oh, you're up. Jesus, you startled me," she told him, clutching her chest.
"Sorry, Mum," he grinned, kissing her cheek. "Can we go?"
"Eager, are we?" she laughed. "They're just records, you know. And you've got a million already."
"And I could have a million more by now if we'd left earlier," he quipped.
"Alright, alright, let's go." The pair climbed into her car and set off to Wythenshawe, about half an hour's drive south. There was reportedly an expansive record store there that held stacks of rare LPs and 45's and Steven had wanted to visit it ever since he'd read about it. His mother had agreed to drive him to celebrate the start of the summer vacation.
Forty-five minutes and a few traffic jams later they stood outside of a narrow shop with a sign hanging above the door that read "Joyce's Records." Steven carefully pulled open the glass door and was positively beaming as he looked across the shop. Although the shop didn't look that impressive from the outside, the interior spanned what seemed like miles back, shelves and shelves of records making the walkways very narrow. He immediately dove in, flipping through a row of 45's.
"Mum! Look!" Steven held up a Crystals record with a boy riding a motorcycle across the front. He quickly slipped the vinyl out of the sleeve and inspected the label carefully.
"That's very nice, honey," Betty said fondly, watching him with amusement in her eyes.
"No but look it's an original! It's an American pressing!" He held it closer to her face, his eyes wide with excitement. "Did you know the Crystals didn't even sing on this? They were on tour so the Blossoms recorded it instead."
"That's very interesting," she laughed, "but I think I'm going to let you look around here on your own. If you need me I'll be in one of the shops down the road, okay?"
"Mhmm..." he mumbled distractedly, already turning to another shelf with the Crystals/Blossoms record in hand. She smiled fondly and left him to his browsing.
Steven felt overwhelmed by his surroundings, finding it difficult to focus on one shelf at a time. He leapt from one to another, flipping through the first few sleeves before getting distracted by another out of the corner of his eye. Soon enough, he was nearly at the other end of the store.
"Do you want me to hold those up here for you while you shop?" came a voice from behind him. Steven glanced at the counter where a dark haired boy was leaning, an amused smirk on his face.
"Hmm? Oh, sure." Steven quickly handed over the small stack of records in his hands and turned back to the shelf of LPs. He could feel the boy still looking at him. He let himself think back to the apparent cashier for a moment, thinking that the boy looked vaguely familiar. However, he was immediately distracted by a punk compilation and as he searched through the shelf of records everything else faded away.
...

Johnny was all set for another uneventful day, helping out at Mike's uncle's shop for the summer. He spent the morning playing different records over the store's speakers and playing along with some of them on his guitar. Then, just an hour after opening, in walked the first customers of the day, a woman and who Johnny assumed was her son.
Johnny sat at the counter towards the back of the store and silently watched them. He could hear their words, drifting across the store, and he grinned at how excited the boy was getting about the store. He remembered the first time Mike had brought him there, nearly knocking over half the stacks as he rushed through, jumping between shelves.
When the woman left the boy kept moving closer to the back of the store and as he got closer Johnny was able to get a better look at him.
His breath seemed to catch in his throat as he took in the clear blue eyes and button nose of the boy across from him, who didn't seem to have noticed there was another person even in the store yet. The boy's features seemed awfully familiar to a certain internet-using music nerd he knew of. Johnny couldn't help his smile as he watched the boy flick through records.
When Johnny took the boy's selections for him he couldn't help but smirk as he realised that the other boy was so immersed in his search that he had barely glanced at Johnny, no recognition in his eyes.
Johnny sat back behind the counter, looking at the records the boy'd chosen. Each one seemed incredibly in character, full of 60's girl pop and few others that should have seemed out of place but fit perfectly. Johnny continued watching his customer.
...

"That'll be 40 quid," the cashier told him when Steven had finally made all of his selections for the day.
Steven handed over the money and looked over the counter at the other boy with a smile. He finally got a good look at him, examining his chocolate brown eyes and shaggy black fringe. Steven still couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen the boy somewhere before when suddenly his heart skipped a beat.
Johnny's grin widened as he watched the look that crossed Steven's face.
"Hello, love," Johnny greeted him, leaning forward on his elbows.
"But- but I..." Steven sputtered, his eyes wide. "You work here?"
"For the summer, yeah."
"I... I- hi."
"Hello," Johnny repeated. "Good choices, by the way," he gestured to the bag of records.
"Thank you," Steven blushed. "Um, good store. Nice store, I mean. It's... good."
"I know, right? My friend's uncle owns it. It's marvelous."
"It is," Steven said, longingly, "I wish I could live here."
"You could always come back in," Johnny suggested, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
"I don't think my mum would want to drive me down here as much as I'd want her to."
"Well, you could always let me know which records to look out for and if we get them in I could bring them to you," Johnny told him.
"We could do that," Steven agreed, smiling.
"You know, meet halfway in between and all that," Johnny grinned.
"That would be good." They both sat there, smiling at each other across the counter when suddenly Steven asked nervously, "Could I, um, have your phone number? You know, so that it'll be easier to-"
"Already wrote it on your receipt," Johnny told him, handing over the brown paper bag of records, "It's in here."
Steven thanked him and took the bag, smiling as he went to find his mother.
Johnny couldn't believe that he'd actually met Steven in person, or that he seemed to be everything he had hoped he'd be. When his phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out, there was a new text from an unknown number.
Do you happen to have any lesley gore records in? :)