All our lives

Chapter 24

Thankful for the wall that separated them, Jon groped with his hands for the door and leaned against it when he felt it, solid and stable, under his palms. He needed to sit down for a moment, the swirl of thoughts in his head making him dangerously dizzy. Where were they? Was it his house or Richie's house? Were they on vacation and it was just some rented house, AirBnB kind of accommodation or whatever the hell that rental site was called? Was it some low budget songwriters retreat? But above all, why was there a 'they' in the first place?

A 'no' hadn't been enough to keep Richie away, but that's exactly why Jon had gone so deep into his past and had taken all the necessary measures to make sure the band would not exist. Last time, the guys had sabotaged him with their coalition, but now there was not much to be sabotaged. Unless little Jonny hadn't thrown a tantrum over the destroyed guitar - which, now that he thought about it, was pretty much possible - and persuaded his mother to buy him a new one. Which meant this universe had to have some common moments with all the others he had visited until now.

Jon sat down on the cold floor, back still leaned against the door, and closed his eyes. The rope was empty. Completely empty for the last 40 years. The last photos on the rope dated before he had even started highschool. He could fairly assume he had shaken this circle to its core, but then how the hell had he met Richie? And again, he was not complaining, but he was extremely curious.

"Babe," Richie called from the other side of the door and brought Jon's train of thoughts to a very brusque halt. "You took my phone again!" the older man giggled and Jon eyed the said object in confusion, not truly understanding what Richie said afterwards. Something about a guy and a studio and that he had to go and why the fuck did he just call him 'babe' exactly?! He was the one that had taken hit after hit during the last weeks, but Richie was the one that acted like he had been dropped on his head. Repeatedly.

Jon started to feel a little ridiculous with his tendency of finding shelter into unknown bathrooms all over the world, but remained pinned there nonetheless. He heard the bedroom door being slammed and only after some good two or three minutes spent in complete silence, he got up cautiously and went to the sink. He already had an inkling his looks had changed for the better once again so he wasn't that shocked when he saw his reflection in the mirror.

"God, I hope I'm not planning a new baby in this universe too," he muttered whilst inspecting his only slightly silver hair. The reflection looked back at him amusedly and for a second, Jon got the unpleasant sensation a baby would be his last problem. There was no reason behind that feeling, especially because of all the universes he had visited, this one had the best premises. Richie was alive. Acting a bit weird, but he couldn't really afford to be picky now about the older man's quirks.

Jon sighed and went to the door, taking a moment before slightly opening it and stuck his head out, eyeing the room.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, you're being ridiculous!" he bristled up and fully opened the door before confidently stepping into the room. There was no reason to hide from anyone.

Jon put Richie's phone back on the nightstand and took his, but soon realized it didn't matter whose phone he had. He couldn't open either because the fingerprint locking feature didn't seem to be activated and after he had drawn a 'J' and he had been denied access, he was left with exactly zero pattern ideas.

"Oh shoot..." he whistled. "This is going to be fun..." he said sarcastically and threw the momentarily unusable phone on the bed. He started searching through the drawers without being sure what he was looking for. Maybe clues about a possible password or maybe clues about the life he had. He would be happy with any of them, but all he could find was rubbish.

From all the useless objects, a probably very inefficient round bright pink feather duster caught Jon's attention and he took it, carefully holding it between his fingertips as if the thing could bite him. "The fuck is this thing?" Jon wondered and swayed it a little, the steel rounded cone shape at the end sparkling in the light as it moved through the air.