Post by JOHNNY DILLINGHAM on Apr 6, 2012 23:38:47 GMT -5
...jonathan andrew dillingham*
*the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house*
[/size]*the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house*
...basics*
nameJonathan Andrew Dillingham
nickname Johnny
age Twenty eight (28)
gender Male
grade Adult
hometown Grand Rapids, Michigan
sexuality Homosexual, married to Nathan Dillingham
personification Jim Young, from The Gift of the Magi
status Dormant
face claim Jamie Dornan
...appearance*
hair color Dark brown
eye color Earthy brown
build Always muscular and fit. Johnny has some unresolved body image issues that are kept at bay by a tight workout schedule and nightly gym sessions.
height5'11
clothing style Johnny has to dress quite formally for work. A blazer and tie every day to get behind the desk as a clerk. When he doesn't have anything else to do and can finally enjoy some time at home with his newlywed husband, he likes to wear loose and comfortable clothes. Jeans and t-shirts. Clothes he can get messy while repainting some of the rooms in their new apartment.
distinctive traitsJohnny always is wearing a watch that was passed down to him from his father, which had been given to him by his father. It's a family heirloom that Johnny takes great pride and care of.
...personal*
personality Johnny struggled for the majority of his life with a bit of a defeatist attitude. It was like nothing he could ever do would be good enough to matter or even catch the attention of the rest of his family. His siblings had already captured the majority of the roles in the family and he was just there, unwanted and unnoticed. Sure, he would go through the motions and do everything that was expected of him, but was that good enough to garner him any more than the occasional pat on the back? Never.
The fact that no one seemed to care about what he did raised in little Johnny the belief that it was far better to keep everything a secret. He couldn't DREAM of fessing up to anything he did wrong. It would be death for him if he added any sort of shame to his reputation after he already seemed to matter less than anyone else. When he would do as any little kid did and cause a bit of mischief, Johnny learned to lie through his teeth and deny it, no matter how much evidence proved it was his fault. This tendency to deny his part in anything and keep everything a secret and suppress all feelings of guilt followed him through high school as he attempted to remain in the closet.
His loneliness as a child also began another trait, and that was a sense of independence. He wouldn't DREAM of asking for help from the rest of his family. If he couldn't do something on his own then he had to try again and figure it out. No one else was going to bother so it was either he did it or it didn't get done. Throughout his life, Johnny has hated asking for help. It's his cross to bear. He doesn't like sympathy or handouts. He likes to be able to do things on his own without anyone looking down on him. His issue of pride can be a bit much to handle, but it makes him feel worthwhile to be able to do things independently.
Johnny was incredibly insecure with himself and his body in high school. He had struggled with weight when younger and felt incredibly ugly and unlikeable in his own body. It was through sports in middle school and onwards, when he actively was working out and exercising, that he was able to work through this. He became a bit of a gym junkie, constantly working out and fretting over his appearance. It wasn't necessarily healthy, but he was frantic. He wanted to feel comfortable in his own skin, and that was the only way he knew how. The gym gave him that extra bit of confidence that he so desperately needed.
While in High School, Johnny didn't really want to stand out. He didn't have a spine and would do whatever the 'poplar' kids were doing in an attempt to keep his head above water school reputation wise. He was good at compartmentalizing and lying even to himself about his identity. He could pick on the gay kids because it certainly wasn't something that he would ever be, in his mind. It wasn't until after high school when he could get away from the rest of the kids that he had been 'friends' with and away from his family back home that he was able to come to terms with who he really was.
When finally free from his judgemental, absentee family and his judgmental, omnipresent friends, Johnny was able to figure out what was and wasn't important. During the two years he spent at public university, he figured out that he really didn't need to be friends with the whole crowd. Living to please everyone simply wouldn't work out for him. He was able to have a small group of friends and really care about them instead of the whole mass pleasing thing he'd tried back home. He found out it actually made him much happier and when finally around people who he cared about and liked he was as defensive and compassionate as a mother bear. These were the first people that he could come out to, confiding his biggest secret with.
With Nate, Johnny is more relaxed and feels more confident in himself than with anyone else. He finally feels like he has a place and has a purpose. There's no one looking down on him, there's no one to compare to. The one person that will matter to Johnny for the rest of his life is Nate and that's all that matters to him. Johnny just wants to be able to reciprocate that feeling for his partner. He wants Nate to feel as safe and cared for with Johnny as Johnny does with him.
past
Johnny was the unplanned child that the Dillingham's had never expected. Donna and David had always been particularly well-planned. They had been perfectly organized and ready with their family affairs. On a tight income they hadn't had any other choice. They'd always figured that there would be three children, Leslie, Timmy and Davey Junior. They would be able to pay college tuition for those kids and then they'd be able to retire together somewhere by the nice beaches in Florida.
Then along came Johnny and that plan went right out the window.
More than a little scrambled, the two Dillinghams tried to figure out how they would balance four children financially on the income of a mechanic. Donna took a job as a secretary at a local business, bringing in a meager second income. It wasn't much, but they figured that it would be enough if they took out a second mortgage on the house and rationed out a little less between the kids for college tuitions.
Johnny knew that he was born into a family without a real place for him. It seemed like every position in the family had been filled. Leslie was smart and studious and guaranteed to get into a good school while charming all the teachers. Tim was great at sports and their Dad's perpetual favorite. Davey was the rebellious type that got all the attention and was always being bailed out of jail for drinking underage. Everyone else was getting attention or getting driven around or talked to. Johnny was just kind of... there.
It was this that really bred in Johnny the feeling that nothing he ever did would be good enough. Of course, he couldn't tell anyone this. He was hardly going to waste the little amount of time his frazzled working parents could spend on him whining about how he thought he was getting an unequal amount of attention. He learned from a young age to bottle up his feelings and make it seem like everything was perfectly alright. He could handle things on his own. From the time he was eight there were more than a few times that he was home alone for hours on end while Leslie was off studying for exams or the SATs or whatever and Tim was off at practice and Davey was off raising hell with his friends. Johnny learned that he could take care of himself and just make a pot of macaroni and cheese and wait for someone to get home and start talking about how absolutely BUSY they were while they continued to ignore the youngest member of the family.
Once Little Johnny started getting a bit twitterpated about other boys, well, he was able to commute his ability to bottle things up and shut up about his feelings rather easily. Johnny just ignored the feelings and kept going to church on Sunday mornings with the rest of the family. He knew better than to risk his position in the family by mentioning any of that, especially not with Tim and Davey always talking about how they were gonna 'crush those fags' in football or baseball. Johnny knew better than to rock the boat.
It was perhaps in addition to this sense of just trying not to get underfoot that bred in Johnny the desire to constantly please just about everyone and anyone. He was the odd one out. He was the one without a cause and because of that he was also inherently the follower. The one who could fall in line and just agree with the rest of the crowd.
There's a reason that people subscribe so often to the belief that it's better to swim against the current rather than getting swept away by the masses.
Throughout his high school career, Johnny was subject to furthering the homophobic bile that seemed to constantly be on the tip of everyone else's tongues. The slurs were never far and the probing eyes were omnipresent. Johnny couldn't admit to himself let alone anyone else the fact that he was different from the rest of the guys on the football team or in the locker room. He was different from the rest of the crowd that he was trying so desperately to fit into but the thought of being ostracized or mocked like the other kids who tried to swim against the current.
Johnny was a good little sheep. He wasn't noteworthy throughout high school. He wasn't one of the 'student leaders' or one of the sports stars that everyone knew. He just kind of blended in and that was all he'd really wanted. He felt like he had friends. He was invited to the parties and all that and he had a few girlfriends even if the relationships weren't all that great. He was always the one who was broken up with, however, as he was far too 'nice' to actually break anyone's heart himself but it was that very quality of not wanting to do anything to make a girl uncomfortable and always dragging his feet that ended the romance.
The only thing that really made Johnny squeamish throughout his high school career was the unfortunate fact that sometimes he had to join in the crowd when they went on their hunts for all the 'fags' in the school.
It was on just one such 'hunt' that he first saw Nate. One of the more effeminate boys in the school yet not officially 'gay,' that hardly stopped some of the football teammates from roughing him up in the parking lot behind the school one night. Johnny had unwillingly joined in, voicing his concerns to begin with but stopped just as soon as someone insinuated he might be just as faggish as the poor kid currently bruised and beaten on the ground. The moment that Johnny thought he might be turned on just like Nate, he stepped forward and contributed one brutal kick. It was a moment he would never forget.
High school ended without incident and Johnny went to college at some small public school just about an hour and a half outside his hometown. It wasn't far, but it was enough for him to get outside the insular bubble he'd built up. Without and judgement and without the critical nature of his friendships back in Grand Rapids, he was finally set free. He could move on from his inferiority complex and finally realize that he could do something right. The small group of friends he found at college really helped him realize that sometimes it was better to be close with people and come out of your shell instead of agreeing with everything everyone said in order to save face.
Johnny wasn't the brightest in college, however. His psychology major was not particularly promising in the job field, and Johnny wasn't earning the highest grades. After two years, with no degree and with no real proof that he'd gotten anything of use done in college, his parents informed him that they would no longer be paying his college tuition because he 'wasn't making the best of the opportunity' like Leslie had at Stanford or like Dave had at the police academy. Just like that, Johnny was dragged back home.
For three and a half years, Johnny stayed at home with his parents. They weren't particularly happy with this scenario, but they couldn't come up with a reasonable alternative. Johnny couldn't get a wonderful job with just a high school degree and a couple years studying psychology. It was decided that he'd stay and work with his dad in the mechanic business, learning the trade and working with the rest of the town guys, some of whom he'd known in high school.
It was a bit of a nightmare for him, after having two years of freedom in college to truly taste what it felt like to not worry about living up to anyone else or living in anyone's shadow. It was like none of it had happened. He was suddenly stuck back at home. Unlike at college, where he'd been beginning to explore his sexuality, here no one could know and no one WOULD know. They wouldn't understand like his friends had at college.The only thing that kept him going was being able to head to the gym every night and just listen to some music while he lifted weights or ran on the treadmill. It gave him somewhere to escape to and made him feel in control of at least what his body looked like if nothing else.
It was one cold December evening that Johnny just so happened to run by the grocery store to pick up some milk after a workout at the gym. He would never forget that day. Right there in the dairy aisle was Nathan Scott, the boy he'd kicked that night back in high school. Johnny knew that this might be the only chance he had to apologize and he was feeling his most confident after spending time at the gym. He walked up and introduced himself to the younger man, saying that he had been an asshat back in high school and that he really was sincerely sorry for everything he'd done, how he'd been totally fucked up. How he was different now and how he was even starting to think that he had been suppressing something all those years.
They ended up exchanging numbers and going out for coffee the next morning followed by more plans and charming dates.
present
It was about half a year later, at the start of the summer, that Nate's cousin emailed him, asking if he could come share an apartment with her in New York while she got over a rough break-up with a boyfriend. She sounded so desperate and in need of a friend, and Nate had been so desperate to get the hell out of Grand Rapids, that he told her he'd come as soon as possible. It had left Johnny with an ultimatum. Tell his parents the truth about Nate and what they'd been doing for the past couple of months or lose the guy that had come to mean the world to him.
In the end it wasn't as hard a decision to make as it seemed. He came out to his parents the night before they left, not really looking for sympathy or acceptance but simply tired of keeping it all a secret. He sat them down on the couch and simply tol them everything, how he had met this amazing gy and how they'd been dating for the past few months, always in the guise of Johnny going to the gym for a bit longer than usual.
They took it surprisingly well. It was like they were noticing him as a part of the family for the first time. What he had expected to be a quick, in and out conversation just laying down the facts and getting it over with turned into a night long conversation about his plans. It seemed like they really did care.
The next morning, armed with the approval of his family, Johnny set out for the big city with Nate. They set up shop in Nate's cousin's apartment and tried to figure out the big city together. Johnny initially got a job working as a waiter in a small restaurant, bringing in a small wage. Despite the small amount of money they had to share, it was a magical time. They were in the most bustling city in the nation, in the world, and they were there together.
The years passed and Nate and Johnny got an apartment of their own. Just a small little flat where the two of them knew they'd have someone who loved them waiting at the end of the day. Johnny got a job selling tickets in Grand Central, a little more long term of a job than the waiting job had been.
When Gay marriage became legal in New York, Johnny proposed to Nate. It was a dream marriage. Johnn'y family came and everything and for once it felt like he had done something right. Their honey moon took them backpacking across Australia, and while it was certainly not the most frugal move on their end (draining their entire bank account for the foreseeable future) Johnny just KNOWS it was worth it. He's never felt safer or more comfortable with anyone in his whole life.
family
David Taylor Dillingham - 63 - Father - Mechanic
Donna Marie Dillingham - 60 - Mother - Homemaker
Leslie Jane Dillingham - 36 - Sister - Orthodontist
Timothy George Dillingham - 34 - Brother - Gym Teacher
David Taylor Dillingham Jr. - 32 - Brother - Police Officer
likes
-Nate (Obviously)
-working out
-Jogging
-His family watch, given to him as a wedding present
-slow, relaxing music
-Sunny days
-Christmas
-Reading
dislikes
-Steroids
-hospitals
-Thunderstorms
-Westboro Baptist Church
-Mirrors
-Surprises
...literature*
book title The Gift of the Magi
backstoryJim Dillingham is seen only briefly at the end of O'Henry's masterpiece as he returns home Christmas Eve to find that his beautiful wife has cut off all her hair. He stands there shocked for a few minutes, not really knowing what to do, until finally she begs him to tell her what's the matter. He relents and gives her the gift that he had bought for her: a set of beautiful, jewel encrusted combs for the perfect hair she had sold. Della is astounded and reassures him that her hair will grow fast for them to be put to use before showing him the watch chain that had been bought with the money the hair brought in, perfect for his father's watch. Jim merely states that he had sold it in order to buy the combs and asks for them to begin supper, and thus ended the best Christmas story ever.
...roleplayer*
name Becket
age Seventeen
gender Male
