[Modern Family] Ch: 30 [Big Bang Theory Crossover] (Patreon)

[May 4, 2009]

Jason's Monday morning started with paperwork instead of video games.

Three of the four apartments in his newly purchased fourplex had tenants now, which was considerably faster than he'd expected. Being close to the University of California, Riverside had done most of the work for him. Once he posted the available units online, put up a sign near the property, and mentioned that the apartments had covered parking, relatively new appliances, and easy access to campus, the calls started coming almost immediately.

The people he'd chosen were all college students.

That had made Jason slightly nervous.

He still remembered what college apartments could look like after a bad semester, several parties, and one roommate who decided cleaning was apparently a violation of his constitutional rights. Jason had no interest in spending thousands repairing punched walls, stained carpets, broken cabinets, or whatever other creative destruction bored students could invent.

So he'd screened everyone properly.

Income verification where applicable, parental guarantors when necessary, references, identification, and all the normal paperwork Phil had recommended. Each tenant signed a one-year lease and paid the first month's rent along with a security deposit equal to one month's rent.

Jason also made his rules painfully clear before handing over any keys. He didn't care if they had friends over, but illegal drugs were completely off-limits, and anyone who wanted to smoke could do it outside instead of filling the apartments with it. Parties were fine within reason, as long as nobody decided to turn the courtyard into their own miniature music festival and piss off everyone living nearby.

He also warned them that drunken wrestling wasn't an acceptable excuse for putting holes through walls, and if someone planned on having another person move in permanently, that person needed to be added to the lease first. Jason originally thought that covered just about everything until one of the students laughed and mentioned seeing someone throw furniture from a balcony at another apartment complex.

Jason stared at him for several seconds before making it clear that throwing furniture from balconies was apparently another rule he needed to establish.

He wasn't trying to act like an overbearing landlord. College students were going to have friends over, drink occasionally, stay awake late, date people, and make questionable decisions because that was practically part of the college experience. Jason didn't care what they did inside their apartments as long as it stayed legal, reasonably quiet, and didn't destroy his property.

By early afternoon, all the paperwork had been signed.

Three sets of keys had been handed over.

Three security deposits were sitting safely in the appropriate account instead of being treated like free spending money, something Jason had specifically researched because he didn't want to accidentally become one of those landlords who discovered tenancy law through a lawsuit.

The fourth apartment remained vacant.

Jason wasn't worried about it.

If three units filled this quickly, the last one probably wouldn't stay empty for very long.

After returning home, he updated the PROPERTY INVESTMENTS spreadsheet on his laptop, entered the deposits and expected monthly rental income, then backed everything up before closing the program.

"Three out of four," Jason murmured while leaning back in his chair. "That's pretty damn good."

His eyes drifted toward another folder he'd created recently.

COLLECTIBLES.

The Pokémon purchases had already gotten him thinking about other things that could become valuable over time. Comic books were an obvious candidate. He remembered enough famous issues from his previous life to know that vintage comics could become absurdly expensive, especially high-grade copies of major first appearances.

The problem was finding them without getting ripped off.

Jason opened Google and started searching for comic book stores throughout Los Angeles and the surrounding cities. He wasn't expecting to discover some forgotten warehouse filled with mint-condition copies of Action Comics #1, although the thought was entertaining enough to keep him scrolling.

Several stores appeared.

Jason opened different pages, checked addresses, read forum discussions, and searched through whatever information he could find about older collections.

Then one name appeared on the screen.

Jason stopped moving.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he leaned closer toward the monitor.

The Comic Center of Pasadena.

For several seconds, he simply stared at the name.

"Huh?"

Jason clicked on the result. The page loaded slowly, reminding him that in 2009, people needed to be patient with the internet. He waited. Then, he read the name again: The Comic Center of Pasadena. He leaned back slowly.

“No way,” he said.

He recognized that name.

He'd watched enough episodes of The Big Bang Theory in his previous life to recognize it immediately. Stuart Bloom's comic book store was in Pasadena, and this name matched the one connected to the shop.

Jason stared at the address.

Pasadena, California.

His expression slowly changed into a grin. "Okay, either that's one hell of a coincidence, or Sheldon Cooper exists somewhere in this universe." The possibility immediately became much more interesting than the vintage comics he'd originally been searching for.

Modern Family already existed here.

That alone had taught Jason that this world could contain people he'd previously known as fictional characters. He'd never seriously considered how far that might extend because trying to map every television show, movie, celebrity, fictional city, and alternate event onto reality would probably drive him insane.

Still, this was different.

This was something he could actually check.

He grabbed his phone and searched the address again before saving it.

"Pasadena is like a 30- to 40-minute drive, but there's no way I'm ignoring this."

Jason stood and grabbed his keys from the desk.

As he walked toward the bedroom to change his shirt, another thought entered his head.

If The Big Bang Theory existed here, that meant Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj, Bernadette, Amy, and Penny might exist as well.

'Penny.' Jason stopped while putting on a clean shirt. Then he thought of another name. “Alice.”

His expression became suspiciously thoughtful. 

"Nope."

He finished pulling the shirt down and looked at himself in the mirror.

"I'm going there for comics."

A grin slowly appeared.

"Vintage comics."

He grabbed his watch from the dresser.

"And absolutely no other reason whatsoever."

Even Jason didn't believe himself. He certainly wasn't already imagining what might happen if he eventually met Penny or Alice. And he was absolutely not imagining having them in his harem.  

His growing smile ruined the entire denial.

"God, I'm trusting you on this one."

...

[Pasadena]

The drive from Jason's house to Pasadena took long enough for his initial excitement to settle down, although every time he glanced at the address saved on his phone, the same thought came back.

The Comic Center of Pasadena.

He knew that name way too well for it to be a coincidence.

One crossover could be some bizarre cosmic accident. Two meant this world might contain a lot more familiar people than he'd ever considered. "If there are other worlds mixed in, I just hope it ain't Dexter or Evil Dead or any zombie and apocalyptic shits." He mumbled to himself. 

Jason followed the directions through Pasadena, passing restaurants, apartment buildings, small businesses, and enough ordinary afternoon traffic to make the whole situation feel strangely normal. Eventually, the navigation directed him onto East Green Street, and his attention immediately sharpened as he slowed the Nissan and began checking the storefronts.

Then he saw the sign.

Jason stared through the windshield for a couple of seconds before an excited smile spread across his face. "Son of a gun. It's actually here."

He found a parking space nearby, shut off the engine, and remained behind the wheel for another moment while looking toward the store. From the outside, there wasn't anything particularly impressive about it. The place looked like a small independent comic shop that had survived mainly because the owner loved comics too much to give up. Posters covered much of the front window, several displays could be seen through the glass, and the sign above the entrance had clearly been there long enough to lose some of its original freshness.

Jason climbed out, locked the Nissan, and started toward the store.

If Stuart Bloom was behind that counter, then Sheldon Cooper was probably somewhere nearby driving Leonard insane over the temperature of their apartment. Howard was probably still living with his mother. Raj still couldn't talk normally around women without alcohol. Penny was probably working at the Cheesecake Factory while trying to become an actress.

Somewhere out there, Alice also existed, but Jason knew she wouldn't be part of the original story for a few more years. This world is confusing, and he has already noticed changes in the Modern Family settings. For example, Haley and Alex are now grown up, and Jay is with Sonia instead of Gloria. If that logic applies to The Big Bang Theory, then who knows what else might have changed.

Jason pushed that particular train of thought aside while approaching the door.

The bell above the entrance gave a weak little jingle when he stepped inside, and the first thing Jason noticed was how quiet the store felt.

There were only three customers inside.

One heavyset guy wearing gray sweatpants and a superhero shirt stood near a shelf toward the back, slowly flipping through an issue while looking completely comfortable spending his afternoon there. Another thin guy with glasses was crouched beside a long box of back issues, while the third customer stood near the new-release wall with a stack of comics tucked beneath one arm. None of them seemed interested in buying quickly and leaving. They had the relaxed appearance of regulars who treated the store as somewhere between a shop, clubhouse, and emergency shelter from normal social interaction.

Jason looked around as he walked farther inside.

The store itself was packed with merchandise despite the lack of customers.

Comic books covered the walls, long boxes filled with older issues occupied much of the available floor space, and graphic novels were stacked wherever Stuart had managed to create another shelf. Action figures, statues, trading cards, posters, and collectibles competed for every remaining inch. A cardboard display stood slightly crooked near one aisle, and several handwritten signs advertised discounts that didn't exactly suggest business was booming.

Jason's eyes moved toward the register.

Stuart Bloom stood behind the counter with a comic open in front of him.

Jason almost laughed from the sheer satisfaction of having his suspicion confirmed. There was absolutely no mistaking the guy.

Stuart was thinner than Jason remembered from later seasons, with curly dark hair, tired eyes, and the pale complexion of someone whose relationship with sunlight had become mostly theoretical. His clothes hung a little loosely from his narrow frame, and there was something naturally exhausted about the way he leaned against the counter, like operating the store had already used most of the energy he'd budgeted for the day.

He didn't look dramatically ill or half dead like he sometimes would years later, but he definitely looked like a man who could benefit from a proper meal, eight hours of sleep, and perhaps several weeks somewhere that didn't smell like old paper.

Jason had to stop himself from smiling too much.

'That's Stuart. Damn it! I never got to watch Stuart Fails to Save the Universe." In his past life, he was saving those episodes and planned to binge-watch. Sadly, he died. 'Wait! This means I get to experience all those wacky multiversal events if I play my cards right? Or this might be the universe that Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard destroyed by creating that quantum machine? Fucking hell! I hope not.'

Stuart eventually noticed him.

"Hey, welcome to the Comic Center," Stuart said as he straightened behind the register. "If you need help finding anything, just ask. Unless you're looking for money, because then you've definitely entered the wrong building."

Jason chuckled as he walked toward the nearest shelf. That dry, slightly defeated delivery immediately made Stuart even more recognizable. "Business going that well?"

Stuart looked around at the nearly empty store before glancing toward the three customers. "I've had three people in here since morning, and I'm pretty sure they're going to collectively buy one comic."

The heavyset customer in gray sweatpants raised his current issue slightly without looking over. "I'm still deciding."

Stuart's tired eyes shifted toward him. "You've been deciding since lunch."

The customer calmly turned another page. "It's an important decision."

Stuart watched him for a moment before looking back at Jason. "See? Retail is exciting."

Jason laughed as he began moving slowly through the store, checking the shelves while taking in everything around him. He'd expected the place to feel familiar because of the show, but standing inside it was completely different. The television camera had never captured how cramped the aisles could feel with merchandise everywhere or how much old paper, cardboard, plastic sleeves, and dust mixed together into that unmistakable comic-store smell.

He actually liked it.

Jason stopped beside a display of older issues and carefully examined several covers. "I'm looking for vintage comics. Older Marvel and DC stuff, first appearances, key issues, maybe graded copies if you've got anything worth collecting."

That caught Stuart's attention right away because vintage comics are expensive. If he can sell some, he can earn money to buy meat.

The exhausted shopkeeper straightened a little more as his expression changed from casual politeness to genuine interest. "When you say vintage, what exactly do you mean? Because I had somebody come in last week asking for vintage Spider-Man, and apparently he meant comics from 2001."

Jason smiled as he turned toward him. "Silver Age, Bronze Age, maybe Golden Age if you've somehow got anything that isn't priced like a small house. I'm mainly looking for important first appearances and issues that'll hold value long term."

Before Stuart could reply...

The main door opened with a jingle as Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Raj and Penny entered together.