Things settle back down into a more normal day after the nitwits are all ushered out. Bill wanders back to the kitchenette to grab a cup of coffee -- every time he uses the fucking coffee maker, he's tempted to tear it apart and clean the shite out of it, but he can't be arsed -- and is on his way back to his desk when he passes the door to the
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But Bill's not at his desk, and Bill's not in the kitchen, and Bill's not with Keira (sitting Indian-style on the end of the bed in Studio A talking to Scarlett about the relative merits of flavored condoms), which makes Johnny think about something his mama used to say about hurrying to waste time. He opens a couple of doors at random, finds nothing but people doing their jobs, until-
Bill is leaning on the edge of the desk, watching an old interview tape shit, Ivy, haven't seen her in a couple, not since her husband's funeral, oughtta call and it's not the fact that Bill's watching the tape that makes the hairs on the back of Johnny's neck stand up and quiver - because Bill's arcane systems of filing and cross- ( ... )
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He feels the familiar surge of adrenaline and tastes the acrid burn of bile in the back of his throat, feels the thunder of his heartbeat in his temples and his back teeth, and he thinks for several long seconds that he's not going to be able to rein back the impulse to fight.
The bright, searing rage (fear, he thinks, but the two are so often synonymous when it comes right down to it) roils frantically in his belly and chest, and he can't grip it, can't hold it the way he usually can ( ... )
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It would be ludicrous to ask if Bill's okay - the answer is a great big neon NOT AT FUCKING ALL - and it would idiotic to just let it go.
Behind Bill, on the tiny screen, Ivy laughs and says, "So when I do I get to meet the boys?"
He steps forward again, reaches for the stop button and doesn't acknowledge Bill's full-body recoil. He turns, leans back against the desk next to Bill, says fuck the State of California and lights a cigarette. He holds it out to Bill who stares at him for a moment before accepting it.
Johnny lights his own, folds his arms across his chest. "When was the last time you slept, man?"
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He shakes his head and picks up his cup of coffee. It's still too hot, but he swallows several mouthfuls anyway, and chases that with a drag off the cigarette Johnny had lit for them. It burns the back of his throat and all the way into his lungs; he isn't used to Johnny's hand-rolled smokes. "That girl, Johnny," he says, and he recognizes the fact that he's changing the subject quite deliberately, that he's only doing this partly for Ivy St. Claire (Diesi). Mostly he's doing it to protect himself from Johnny's too-intent eyes. "I saw her last night."
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From where he's standing, Bill's about to either fall the fuck apart or turn up in a clocktower with a high-powered rifle - it's no good, and Johnny considers Bill's friendship too valuable to let it go down either way.
It doesn't cost him anything to let Bill evade the question, and now he's curious, wants to see where this will go. Bill's reaction to Ivy's tape was - is - pretty fucking powerful.
"Where'd you see her? Is she all right?" He keeps his tone level and mild, but puts his free hand squarely between Bill's shoulder blades, gives him a firm, circular rub. "We used to be good friends, once, but we kinda stopped moving in the same circles."
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He takes another puff on the cigarette -- God, these motherfucking things are harsh, how the hell does Johnny smoke these every day -- and then swallows the rest of his coffee to soothe the burn of it in his throat. It doesn't really work.
"A club," Bill says, and leaves it at that for the moment. "And no, I wouldn't say she was anywhere near all right." Johnny frowns, a deep furrow between his dark brows. Bill can't think of a way to soften the facts, so he doesn't try. "She's hooking and strung out. She looked half-fucking dead."
She looked like grief had fucking eaten her alive, actually, but Bill doesn't say that, and he absolutely doesn't think about Keira, or about Nic, who already has one foot in Ivy's world as it is.
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"Freaked you a little, hey?" He doesn't wait for Bill to answer, just half-shrugs. "I didn't know, man, I'd have tried to get her some work, something, shit, I'd write her a check, but like... you know how it is, somtimes people start down a path and..." He makes a helpless gesture with one hand, the other hand moving up from between Bill's shoulders to start working the knots at the base of his neck.
"It's fucked up and it's horrible, and I hate to say it, but there's probably nothing anybody can do." Not his usual 'all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds' but Johnny's tired this week, tired and feeling old and worn out, and if Bill's willing let his masques slip a little with Johnny, then Johnny's cool with doing the same in return.
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That isn't true. Actually. He'd expected Johnny to fucking do something to fix it.
He thinks about that for long, silent moments, distantly aware of Johnny's fingers kneading at his neck but ignoring it in favor of considering just what the fuck that says about him, about his state of mind, that he'd honestly fucking wanted Johnny to tell him lies, tell him that he'd take care of Ivy, tell him that it was in his power to heal her.
What the fuck? What the fuck, he's never believed that shite. He's always known that there is usually not a whole fucking lot to be done sometimes, and it's never eaten at him like this.
Just what the fuck does he wantHe struggles with it in his mind, twists it around for long seconds trying to understand just what the fuck his problem is; he can feel his hands fisting and unfisting, and he can sense Johnny close, both hands on Bill's shoulders now, not exactly rubbing them as much as just holding them, and he realizes he's hunched over slightly ( ... )
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Johnny blinks slowly, his fear coalescing into a sharp spike of dizzying anger, before the bottom of his stomach drops out and he's left with worry and guilt.
Mostly guilt.
Shit. Fuck. Goddamn.
He pulls out another smoke from his pocket, lights it and stares at the floor. "I wish I could... take back what happened between us, and shit, man, I'm sorry, look, I'll talk to him. Because I don't... I love the pants off that kid, but it just wasn't..."
He trails off, watches the smoke rising from between his fingers. "I'll fix it."
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Not lack of sleep tired, maybe (maybe a little bit), but more the heavy heart kind of tired.
Bill's Gran had been tired like that for most of his memory.
And now he wonders if Orlando had been tired like that, too. Heavy heart tired, hurting tired.
And Bill hadn't even fucking asked him if something had happened, dammit. Hadn't even had the clarity to see that it was something more than just stupidity. Shite. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking Shite.
"I didn't even bloody ask him," Bill mutters, and jerks a hand through his hair. He's somewhere between furious with himself and unnerved at the fact that he hadn't seen, hadn't fucking realized...
"I just fucking assumed..." He looks at Johnny, shakes his head. "Assumed," he says again, but doesn't finish. "What happened?"
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Johnny assumed that Bill was taking a shot at him, mentioning Orlando might be using, might be circling the drain, because he assumed that Orlando would've confided in Bill, who, near as he can tell, is one of Orlando's oldest friends, definitely his closest ( ... )
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Becuase Orlando had mentioned it.
"--there are plenty of people there who would have me," he had said, and Bill had... well, he just hadn't fucking caught it. He had missed it.
"Bugger it," he says and uses one hand to squeeze at his temples, thumb and middle finger exerting enough pressure to distract him, at least for a moment, from the hard roll of guilt in his belly. "What the fuck is wrong with me."
And maybe if he wasn't such a fucking prick, Orlando wouldn't have felt the need to make subtle (ha! Orlando, fucking subtle, the world is upside-fucking-down!) allusions to what had happened, would have just fucking told him, maybe would have fucking called Bill before he'd decided to make his little foray back into the fucking Never Never land of drugs and ownership. MotherfuckHe sighs and squeezes his temples ( ... )
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Johnny knows this, and he knows that Bill is right, but he can't help setting his jaw and saying, "I'll talk to him ( ... )
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His eyes stray to the monitor screen for a moment, but there is no picture there now, no pretty, laughing Ivy for Bill to compare to his memory of her, no girl who's smile was eerily similar to Keira's, who had been so consumed by grief that she was hardly recognizable now.
It isn't going to happen that way, he thinks, but he isn't sure what he means. Even so, there is some kind of immense pressure in his chest, and he can't rid himself of the nagging sense that there is more than one person in Bill's life right now that could be forced to walk down a path similar to the one Ivy had walked, forced by circumstance or by the inability to clearly see the path being walked, and the only thing that Bill could conceivably do to prevent it is ( ... )
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