#<- that's my bitty/johnson tag that i found in my tags spreadsheet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

birlcholtz · 4 years

Note

do you remember that week n a half when everyone cared about bittyjohnson? can we bring that back?

bitty/johnson.... the forbidden jeric ship

lol yes i do remember that it was a weird fucking time let's bring it back!!!! side note this turned into... well i'll just let you read it. can one really write about johnson without it turning into an ethical debate and a philosophical crisis rolled into one weird metaphysical narrative? i finished this after midnight which also explains the whole ethical philosophical crisis thing

johnson, as someone who is fully aware of This Whole Fictional Narrative thing before it even starts, is also an expert on eric bittle. he knows all of bitty's strengths and his cute idiosyncratic flaws and his deeper issues that are the result of childhood trauma

you can't know that much about someone without loving them at least a little. and johnson, for all his fictionality, is a person, imbued with the same liveliness and sense of self as all of the other characters in the comic, and he meets bitty and thinks oh, shit.

does john johnson know i'm writing this right now

and bitty's like wow. another intimidatingly attractive teammate. his name is john johnson. weird but okay. and he's a goalie which means he's weird too. cool i can handle this

for a while johnson wrestles with the ethics of being in love with bitty??? like bitty hasn't made the choice to share any of this information with him and he KNOWS they're fictional characters and as a result autonomy is more of a high ideal than something that's actually put into practice but isn't it best to at least give bitty a semblance of choice?

so, he plays his part. he does not reveal any information that he should not know— well, that his character should not know— johnson knows all. he knows the conversations that happen behind the scenes too, the ones that get transcribed on twitter or referred to in ask a wellies. he thinks maybe he'll get a twitter someday, if that's something he can do in-universe. just to see what it's like for himself and not have this weird extrasensory knowledge of it.

but he can't stay away from bitty, especially not when bitty seems so determined to like him (johnson knows it's probably because he's not Aggressively Hetero like ransom and holster or rude like jack or in-your-face like shitty. it's a process of elimination. but still)

and he knows that they're in a story, and he knows that the story must have some sort of goal, and bitty swings by his room one sunny afternoon and complains about unsolicited early morning checking practice with jack and johnson thinks, oh. so that's how it's going to go.

he plays his part, commiserates, encourages bitty, all with a bad taste in his mouth

and johnson expects bitty to peel away, and spend more time with jack, and open up to the rest of the team. and he does open up to everyone, but he keeps coming back to johnson, and part of johnson wants to tell him no, i'm just a filler, the team needed a goalie, don't waste your time and part of him just wants to enjoy it while he can

johnson is on the swallow's 50 most beautiful again. four years running. his face isn't in the photo. he knows he has a face, because he sees it in the mirror whenever he goes to brush his teeth, but he can never remember what it looks like. apparently these cartoon cameras can't either. and that's johnson. destined to be there while you look and gone when you turn away.

and he knows bitty sees it because holster snags a copy somewhere and reads aloud the list at team breakfast. ransom sits on holster's right and bitty sits on holster's left, and johnson sits on bitty's left and wonders where he'll be a year from now

but he will remember how bitty takes the copy of the swallow holster hands him, opened to the page with johnson's photo, and lingers on it for just a moment before passing it on, and johnson will remember that for the rest of his existence, however long that might be. especially because jack is in there too. johnson knows jack is in there too. holster has already provided his thoughts on the rankings of johnson, jack, and ransom within the 50 most, loudly and at length. but bitty doesn't flip to it. he doesn't flip through at all. just lingers on that one page and then passes it along, almost as if he doesn't care about the others

bitty likes johnson. he's weird, but he's never overbearing, he asks bitty questions about his life and actually listens to the answers, really listens, and he is thoughtful. he's also beautiful but like half the team is that doesn't make johnson special

and bitty likes how when he talks to johnson he never feels like he's out of place. he never feels like he doesn't fit in. because johnson is weird as fuck but his unabashedly *being* weird as fuck gives bitty license to be who he is, even if that's not who the rest of the team are. johnson is a paragon of not being like the rest of the team and he gets away with it and bitty doesn't know if he wants him or wants to be him but then johnson smiles at him after his game winner at family weekend and says 'congrats', hair wet, eyes sincere, and bitty knows.

johnson doesn't know.

because here's the thing about johnson. he knows everything that has happened. he knows bitty is scared of checking because he knows the history. he knows bitty is gay from the moment he mutters 'men' to his camera in first semester. but he cannot predict the future. he's a character in the story as much as anyone else is and knowing that he's fictional doesn't tell him what's coming next. and he cannot read bitty's mind.

but the second bitty admits it to himself out loud, johnson knows, and even though he feels like this can't be the intended narrative he has the urge to just say 'fuck it' and do what he wants. seize his own free will. ignore what he thinks was supposed to happen.

and that's what he does.

bitty and johnson are an odd couple, to all observers. johnson is just so weird and bitty is just so sweet and nobody can fathom how or why they are together.

but they defend each other. johnson chirps the other team loud enough on the ice that they focus on the annoying goalie instead of the tiny, vulnerable-looking forward. bitty summons up his chilliest southern politeness for the people who talk with raised eyebrows about whether johnson is actually sane behind his back, and he never tells johnson about these people but johnson knows anyway because it happened, and he loves bitty more for it.

they love each other, too, gravitate towards each other whenever they can, and johnson's room in the haus turns into a haven. he helps bitty navigate haus parties and he knows the cup of beer in his hand is fictional but he can taste it anyway and he starts to wonder why it matters if it technically doesn't exist in the real world. does it matter if johnson is a fictional character? does it matter if bitty is a fictional character? they're real enough to each other and this is the only world they will ever know.

johnson is weird. he faces existential crises every day he wakes up from a dreamless sleep, and he can't always keep himself from breaking the fourth wall— although who he's talking to out there, he doesn't know.

but he feels like a real person. bitty had asked, early on, what he was majoring in, and johnson hadn't had an answer, but then he had blinked and said 'philosophy' and it was as if it had been the case all along. he knew what classes he had taken, which professors he had had, the grades he got, the papers he wrote, what he's writing his thesis on. it felt real. it *was* real, to him and to everyone who matters.

he can look at his face in the mirror and hold on to its memory for a little longer. he knows what his mouth looks like now, and he has a vague idea about his nose. he's hoping he'll learn more about himself. it's easier to remember when bitty's reflection is in the mirror next to his own.

johnson knows his favorite flavor of pie is peach now. not because of how it tastes but because he'd helped bitty make it once, smiling and laughing together in the kitchen, and the golden, rosy memory is an anchor for him to when he decided he was real enough to matter.

he graduates and gives his dibs to bitty because who else would he give them to? he was probably supposed to give them to bitty. he knows bitty is protagonist material. but johnson gives his dibs to bitty because bitty is the person he wants to give them to. he receives his diploma on graduation day and knows that leaving samwell does not confine him to an endless future of nothing. he is a character but that gives him power. every word he says becomes canonical. everything he does is something real.

and he paves his own way into the future, a thought and a word at a time— he's hiking the appalachians, but he miraculously has cell service the entire way because that's what he tells bitty when he asks, and he calls bitty with that cell service and thinks that maybe he could be happy. he gets a twitter. the appalachians have wifi too now, because johnson decreed it. he follows bitty and bitty follows him back.

on the day he finishes his hike and returns to visit samwell, he finds bitty in the kitchen, pulling a peach pie out of the oven just in time for johnson's arrival, because he knew johnson was coming, because they planned this together. and johnson glances at his reflection in the window and notices the color of his eyes, and when he turns to look at bitty, he doesn't forget them.