Thursday Night

[billboyd]

The evening of the Open Call, the Bill/Johnny Convo, and the Bill/Orlando Convo.

Bill pulls the Mini half onto Johnny's drive and half on the grass. There's plenty of room at the moment, but once he's ready to go, he's not interested in getting blocked in. In his experience, when he's ready to get away from the DBY crew, he's ready now.

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[_johnny]

The champagne had been delivered an hour ago, and Johnny had torn into the case fifty-eight minutes ago. Nobody's gonna miss one bottle, and it's his bar tab anyway. He took the cork out with a towel. No fuss. No spray. Quiet, like.

Hell of a day, first the thing with Orlando, and then Bill, and everything in between... Too much weird, even for Johnny, and he's got to mellow out, got to bring the incipient jitter down enough to face the fact that he's stupid move, man invited a half dozen people over when really all he wants need, c'mon, you know you need it is to melt his brain and watch the stars dance on his living room ceiling.

Can't. Wanna. Gotta. No.

Compromise, then. The stereo pauses, clicks, shuffles. Never let me down never let me down never let me down. Fuckin' killer album, man, classic. Jack's favorite album, actually; found it in the bottom of his carryon some six years ago, and never had the stones to mail it back. Johnny takes another pull off the bottle of Moët in his left hand, takes another pull off the pinner is his right. There's already four dogs in the ashtray when he hears the door open, and he flicks his eyes toward the doorway, trying to muster the energy to lean forward and look around the short piece of wall that juts out, blocking the view.

He flops back to the couch with a sigh. "In here. Orlando?" Too much to hope for, prob'ly.

"Nah, mate," Bill answers, and Johnny almost laughs. Too much to hope for.

Bill. BillBillBillBill is not Orlando. "Biiiiiill," he drawls. "Drop a squat, daddy-o." He gestures to the acres of couch on either side of him, swigs off the champagne bottle again. "I was hoping. For Orlando. Wanted to make peace, right? Smoke a peace pipe, right? You know. You know, Bill, I think I just mighta fucked up there."

[billboyd]

Bill follows Johnny's charming phrased invitation and settles himself onto one of the couches across from Johnny.

The haze of smoke is actually visible in the air, a thin, gray miasma, and Johnny's holding a lit joint in one hand and a bottle of what looks like champagne in the other. There are a pile of burnt-nearly-to-nothing roaches in the ashtray in front of Johnny.

Bill can't honestly say he's surprised to find Johnny toking up; even if Bill hadn't already been fairly sure that Johnny induldged, it had been pretty clear from the thing in the editing room (Incident B) that Johnny's... well, maybe not at the actual end of his rope, but that the bit he's currently hanging onto is a bit worse for the wear. The fact is, Bill is fairly fucking grateful that it's nothing more serious than a handful (okay, a big fucking handful) of doobies.

"How do you mean, J.D.?" Bill asks quietly, doing his level best to give Johnny a smile.

[_johnny]

Johnny smiles pleasantly back through the haze. "We're not in love, you know. We're just... hanging on. No fair, right? No fair, y'know, at the time, it seemed like, like, like the right thing to do. Like... leaving Jack. Seemed like the right thing to do, at the time. Hell. Good intentions. Fuckin' same old."

Bill doesn't blink, and that's really fuckin' weird sometimes, how he doesn't blink, how he's like a shark like that, like, no eyelids and stuff, and that's sorta creeepy, man, maybe- "If you stop swimming, you'll die," Johnny observes. He's pleased with himself. He went to an aquarium once. He remembers.

He remembers. He takes another swig of champagne.

[billboyd]

Bill goes still for an instant -- he feels it, his muscles locking tight, tendons like industrial steel cable, even his skin stretched taut -- and then shudders.

That's not a threat, he thinks. Not from Johnny.

Neverless, there's a bitter metallic residue on the back of his tongue, and his fingers are twitching on his knees.

Johnny gazes at Bill with the disconcertingly open expression of someone who is truly stoned out of his gourd, and he's the exact opposite of Bill. No wire-tight muscles there, no crackling tension between shoulderblades or thudding drone of stress at the base of the skull that will only ease if Bill twists his head sharply enough to crack his neck. Johnny's fingers flex around the bottle of champagne, a slow, even rhythm only Johnny's seems to be aware of.

If anyone stops swimming, they'll die, Bill thinks, but what he actually says is, "I know."