Thursday Night
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.( ... )
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.( ... )
At this point, it doesn't even matter.
Something is happening behind his eyes that he doesn't want to pay attention to, doesn't want to acknowledge. A shifting, painful and inevitable, unavoidable.
It doesn't matter what Johnny had done, of course, because the truth of Johnny is that he's a good man, a good friend, a good boss, and he'd been only a kid himself when faced with a situation that a grown man would have been unlikely to handle any better. But Bill knows better than to think that means less, somehow, that Johnny might have less guilt or less regret because of that.
The things that change you in childhood stay with you forever, they mark you, Bill knowsAnd Bill is still essentially as he had ever been, and some part of him wants to grab ( ... )
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Johnny knows that he is, like, deeply superficial. His outer layers are thick, but it's only two or three of them that he ever lets anyone get under. The truth is, aside from Viggo (who was there, and so gets a pass) the goddamn truth is that in the last day he's shown more to Bill that he has to anyone since ( ... )
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"And keep your hands to yourself, you tosser," he adds, and very gently pushes Johnny's hand off his arm.
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"I've gotten a cup of coffee with just hope before." Johnny gives in to the grin, and shoves at Bill's hand with the heel of his own. "I've got fuckin' charisma, man."
Bill slaps at his hand when Johnny reaches for.. what, he doesn't know. He grabs again, gets some shirt.
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Johnny grins and waggles his eyebrows, reaches again, and Bill intercepts his hand and bats it aside, then very lightly smacks Johnny on the cheek. Johnny doesn't seem a bit fazed, just smirks and turns his head as if to bit, and Bill quickly draws his hand back safely into his own space.
"Touchy-feely twat," he accuses grumpily, but not really. He turns to snag the bottle on the table, unwisely leaning forward, and Johnny loses his bloody mind.
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Johnny throws back his head and howls, clearly absolutely bonkers, extending one arm to point at Bill. "Your face..." he gasps, "oh fuck!" before he dissolves into hysterics again, still pointing and shaking his head.
His laughter is deep and rough from too much smoke, but somehow mellow nonetheless, and Bill blinks at him, totally gobsmacked.
"You daft sod! You can't just go around sexually assaulting people!" Bill asserts, but at that Johnny actually doubles over, laughing even harder, laughing like it hurts, and tipping precariously to one side.
Some evil little instinct Bill hadn't even been aware of takes possession of his body for just long enough to send one hand into Johnny's ribs, just there, simultaneously jabbing at his ribs (right where Keira is ticklish) and sending him toppling to one side ( ... )
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He doesn't even have words, the laughter bubbling up in wave after ridiculous wave, and Bill's grinning now too, the indignance reduced to a couple of lines between his eyes. Johnny finally gets a grip on Bill's hand and doesn't even try to fake the manouver, just PULLS Bill straight down on top of him and goes for the ribs.
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"Oof!" Johnny exclaims, and Bill grins evilly as Johnny's face rapidly reddens. In spite of being temporarily unable to breathe, Johnny's hands are groping at his ribs, and honestly, it's been so long since someone has tried to tickle him -- Mags, he supposes, sometime before puberty -- that Bill doesn't really recall if he's ticklish or not.
"Don't do it, umpaidh lunatic," Bill snarls, or attempt to snarl, but he's sort of laughing too, and he can't be bothered to figure out why. "I'll have the skin off you, gleòman," and Johnny's eyes widen with surprise and delight at the bastard mix of English and Gaelic, pulled nearly verbatim from Bill's memories of his Gran, and Bill grins back, and decides to blame The Mcallan, because who's to know the difference?
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It's too early to go for the headlock, dizzy as he is from an ounce of grass and a half bottle of champagne and from fuckin' pain and fuckin' joy, and-
"I'll fuckin' show you what, boy." Show you what it is, you're still alive, you're stilll alive, Bill. Johnny's fingers skate high over Bill's ribs and Bill makes a noise that Johnny's never heard in his life.
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"Shit, Bill!" Johnny objects, one hand grasping at his nose, and in the reprieve from tickle-hell, Bill sees that Johnny's eyes are streaming.
Must have caught him across the bridge of the nose, Bill thinks with dazed surprise.
"Shite, I'm sorry!" he begins, leaning forward to take a look at it, but Johnny is apparently a wily bastard of the highest order.
"Gullible!" he crows, lunging forward so that Bill tips backward, their positions abruptly reversed, and goes to work on Bill's ribs again.
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Johnny's domain, which gives off an idea of contained ambition, looms suspiciously peaceful behind its creeping greenery, but as she clatters up the drive, Keira can make out the muffled sounds of ... possibly murder? Johnny watching snuff? Or has Orlando come home?
The knob turns freely in her hand and she shoulders her way in, swinging her bookbag, heavy with shed denims and twisted camisole, onto the foyer tiles with a stunned thud.
"What the bloody hell--"
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"Shite!" he barks, and tucks in his arm to minimize any potential damage from the fall -- Keira's wide, wide eyes imprinted almost painfully onto his brain -- and Johnny chooses that moment to attempt to be helpful.
He reaches up and catches a double handful of the front of Bill's shirt and pulls, which, rather than righting Bill, or even slowing his fall, merely changes the direction ( ... )
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He can see Keira out of the corner of his eye, still making faces like she don't know whether to call 911 or not, and Bill is still shrieking like an electrocuted banshee, and it suddenly hits Johnny all over again, how much he's confessed today. How far he's come, how much he's gained and how much he's lost... He lets go of Bill, falls back hard against the base of the couch, one hand over his eyes, the crossing the distance from laughter back to tears in barely a step.
Johnny bows his head and finishes what he started hours ago. All the wounds are open, it's time to just let it bleed.
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One second Bill is sitting in the cradle of Johnny's thighs, one of Johnny's arms slung around his shoulders while the two of them howl, and then Johnny is falling backward, and Bill identifies the very small leap from hilarity to grief in the lines around Johnny's mouth, though Johnny's hand goes up to shield his eyes.
The next second, Bill -- not entirely sure how it had even happened -- has one elbow on the seat of the couch and the other wrapped around Johnny's back, under one arm and over the opposite shoulder, something that can't even be remotely identified as anything but a hug, an embrace, especially when Bill factors in the way Johnny clings, pressing his forehead painfully into the line of Bill's collarbone, and Bill does nothing to stop him, doesn't even want to ( ... )
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