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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[billboyd]

Bill doesn't bother to qualify his grab for the bottle with excuses; he just wants to take the burn off, wants to soften the sharp edges and biting teeth of the last five minutes. If Johnny's pinners had still been sitting on the coffee table, he might have reached for those instead.

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 knows.

And Bill is still essentially as he had ever been, and some part of him wants to grab Johnny and shake him, scream at him for being so fucking trusting, for not seeing the danger, even though he knows none of it is Johnny's fault.

Bill is good at his job, good at inserting himself into the lives of other people and seeming as though he fits, and how is Johnny to know what Bill brings with him. No one to blame but himself, no one to hate, because Bill is none of the things that Johnny has grown into, good man, good friend.

He is only a good cop, and even then, good is a very relative term.

Because sometimes the past doesn't stay where you left it, especially if you can't leave it alone. Sometimes it isn't dead and done, even when you wish it was, and the truth is, Bill doesn't.

He isn't finished with his past, he won't let it go, let it lie and then die.

And even if he wanted to, he doubts he'd be permitted such indulgence.

His past is still very much alive.

But when he looks at Johnny -- still looking at him, his dark eyes so earnest that it almost hurts -- Bill just nods, and he isn't quite able to push back the swell of bitter, thick hope in his guts, because things here are different, and have been since the very beginning. Something about this place or these people, or maybe both, and he's almost been happy here. Almost.

It occurs to him that, if Johnny asked it of him (not that Johnny would), Bill would find "Peter," and kill him, on nothing but Johnny's word that he needed to die. That he'd do it without even the need for a pretense of justice, or protecting the weak, or that he'd be doing his fucking job.

It's novel, new, but it doesn't really surprise him, because loyalty is something you can give sometimes, can choose to give, but even if you do, it's not the same kind of loyalty as the kind that is somehow wrested from you, that pours from your guts and your chest like blood, and maybe someone like Johnny is the only kind of person Bill would ever be able to feel real loyalty for. Someone who'd been in the shit, who knew what it meant to lose parts of yourself there.

"There's more," he hears himself say, and doesn't try to stop it, because it seems fair, it seems proper, to warn him at least this much. "There are things I can't tell you, J.D."

[_johnny]

"I wouldn't ask you to," Johnny says immediately, 'cause it's not about that. The mutual, ritual baring of scars can only go so far before it's your fuckin' guts out on the table, you know, and this is like. "Sufficient unto the day, man."

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...

Since.

Again.

Bill's expression, the carefully crafted nothingness, has faded into a kind of profound weariness that only comes of living in Purgatory, and Johnny knows that face, too. He reaches across the table, closes his hand gently on Bill's arm.

"It's not okay. It's never okay. You'll never get over it. Maybe you'll never talk about it. But." Johnny shrugs, and it's hard to do with his ass still on the couch, his body stretched across the room. He falls to his knees, holding tighter. "But you live, man. You don't believe there's hope for you, that's... I get that. But you live, and that right there is hope."

[billboyd]

"That and four bucks will buy you a cup of crap coffee at Starbucks," Bill grunts hoarsely, but he manages a little twist of a smile while he says it, and sees the flicker of acknowledgement in Johnny's eyes.

"And keep your hands to yourself, you tosser," he adds, and very gently pushes Johnny's hand off his arm.

[_johnny]

It's barely a smile but it makes Johnny's own lips twitch.

"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.

[billboyd]

"Bugger off!" Bill grins, not really sure if it's the booze or the need to reverse out of the black the two of them have spiraled down into, or if it's just Johnny, but whatever it is, it's easy to play along, swat Johnny's hand away without using anything he knows (nerve pinches are an unfair advantage, Billy Hoyle had once claimed, both of them drunk and rowdy, back in the days when Bill had still remembered how to touch other people) that might actually hurt him.

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.

[_johnny]

Every man of forty has an inner twelve year old, a gangly kid in ill-fitting Wranglers and untied Converse that permanently resides in the backseat of a bus that smells like PBJs and pee. Some inner twelve year olds are closer to the surface than others, and Johnny is, well, intimately in touch with his. He laughs, lunges across the table again, and gives Bill's left nipple an obscene, almost vicious, twist.

[billboyd]

"Oi!" Bill shouts, completely shocked for the space of about three seconds, as one hand shoots upward to clap over his chest, protection from further assault.

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.

"Ack!" Johnny objects (and Bill is fairly sure he's never heard anyone actually say that before), simultaneously jolting like he's been subjected to a strong jolt of current, and flailing in an ineffective attempt to stay upright.

Bill snorts, some combination of The Mcallan and Johnny's floundering, still interspersed with choked laughter tugging at his sense of the ridiculous. "You mad wanker," he chuckles, and offers Johnny a hand up.

[_johnny]

Johnny flails a bit more, trying to close his fingers on Bill's and failing utterly. "Sexual assault, hee hee," he giggles, snorting a bit when his hair gets in his face. "You shoulda seen your face, man, oh fuck, fuck me..."

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.

[billboyd]

"Bastard!" Bill objects, but tell the truth and shame the devil, he'd rather suspected this would be the result. Some people didn't really ever give up, and Johnny is generally one of them. He goes totally limp, full body, and lands full on Johnny with deliberate intention.

"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?

[_johnny]

Bill starts pushing himself up and Johnny heaves, dumps his weight off and over and goes for the armpits again, still cackling. "Insult me in fucking English, you shit," he gasps, shoves one hand at the hem of Bill's shirt and slaps at Bill's belly. "You little cocksucker, oh god, fuck ow-" Bill gets in a good twist of Johnny's earlobe, and fires off another angry-cat spit of Scottishism "-don't fuckin' make me, boy."

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.

[billboyd]

"Holymotherofchrist!" Bill shrills, and discovers, yes -- hell yes -- he is, in fact, ticklish as his arms totally escape his control. He twists madly to escape Johnny's persistent fingers, and before he really knows it, Johnny lets out a shout of pain and his elbow is smarting madly, pegged right on the bloody funny bone.

"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.

[_johnny]

Bill retaliates with a vicious noogie; Johnny catches the leg of the coffee table with one bare foot and yelps, more from surprise than pain, but Bill's not going to be caught down again, oh no; he flips and twists like a trout on a hook, and Johnny can't both tickle and keep him down. He loses his advantage before he knows it, the air rushing out of his lungs when he's turned and pinned and the whole time Johnny's just fucking howling with laughter, kicking and grabbing and swearing when Bill lands solidly on top of him, straddling his pelvis.

"Aw, hell no you ain't," Johnny groans; he swats at Bill's hands ineffectually and Bill pinches his arm. "Fuck you," Johnny snaps, or tries to - the giggles ruin it as Bill rucks the front of Johnny's shirt up and then Johnny's screaming with laughter again, writhing and kicking while Bill says, "Take that, ye mad gobshite, that's for punching me in the face, mate."

Johnny can't remember the last time he laughed this hard, can't remember the last time he let go like this in a completely nonsexual way, both losing himself and just being, man, letting the masks fall away, letting it all just... be. His heart feels lighter than it has in years.

So it is that they're laughing too hard, still battling for position, for leverage, to hear the front door slam.

[keira_nightly]

She's not late, but she's not early either. She would've been, given the option, but even changing in the ladies at school right after class didn't afford her that kind of time. Stripping to her knickers in a stall to wriggle into a trashy little black dress (gotta play the part) and tracing eyeliner in the greenish light above the sink made just late enough to miss one bus but not the other. Bill had offered to get her, but he had better things to do, or ought've had, she pointed out on the end of a bad mobile connection.

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--"

[billboyd]

Bill is on his feet before she finishes the sentence, but Johnny's legs are tangled up with his in some incomprehensible fashion, and he can feel his face heating -- what? eh? -- in absolute mortification even as he feels himself losing his balance. In spite of years of martial arts, his external balance seems too tied in with is internal balance for a handful of seconds, and he knows even as he starts to tilt that he isn't going to be able to regain it.

"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.

"Shit, man!" Johnny starts, and shoves both heels against the carpet hard, but only scoots backward about six inches before all hundred and seventy pounds of Bill lands directly in his lap. Johnny wheezes, and Bill flails a bit -- the only real thought in his head that he does not want to be in Johnny's lap, thanks, it's not what it looks like, love -- and then raises up just as Johnny's leaning down and Wham!

"Bugger!" Bill snarls, overlapping with Johnny's equally pained "MotherFUCK!" and when Bill glances up (without moving any other part of himself this time, no need to cause any more injuries), Johnny has one hand on his forehead, and is looking at Bill with wide, disbelieving eyes. Bill realizes he's got one hand to his forehead as well, and he doesn't doubt he's mirroring that expression as well.

As one, they turn to look at Keira.

Bill realizes he's still straddling his boss at the same time that Johnny says, "Hey, you!" and nonchalantly shifts one leg, leaving Bill sitting in the open space between Johnny's thighs, his own thighs on either side of Johnny's waist.

"Uh," Bill says.

"Are you..." Keira says, frowning so that her brow crinkles into little ridges, apparently genuinely concerned, "... all right?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Bill sees Johnny turn an look at him. Against his better judgement, he turns as well, because... well, somehow it just seems like the bloody thing to do.

They exchange a long look, and Bill rubs at his aching skull -- hard-headed twat -- and he sees the second that it strikes Johnny funny. Johnny's lips twitch and his eyes go bright, as though someone behind Bill has a spotlight and Bill's seeing the reflection.

Shite, Bill thinks, because he can feel his own lips twitching in response, and the laughter gurgling up from his belly has that inevitable, irrepressable feel to it.

Johnny snorts out a little snicker. It's one of the most ridiculous things Bill has ever heard, and he clamps his lips together so as not to respond, but Johnny's eyes crinkle up and his lips curl and he says, "hee," once. Very quietly.

Bill shakes his head.

"Hee." Johnny says again, and Bill can feel the grin coming on.

"Quit it, you daft prick," Bill growls, his cheeks almost aching with the effort of resisting the grin.

"Hee hee," Johnny replies, his eyes squinted almost shut. "Sexual assault, hee!"

And then they are both roaring, laughing so hard it fucking hurts Bill's throat and belly and ribs and Johnny grabs him, shaking so hard he's nearly toppling over, so Bill slings and arm around him to keep him upright, still bloody howling, simply unable to stop.

[_johnny]

It's not joy, this laughter, it's fuckin' catharsis, it's just shedding energy, bottled up emotion, and it feels amazing, christ, to just get it out. Here, on the floor, clinging and shaking and holding on for dear fuckin' life, yeah, feels good and right and human and-

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.

[billboyd]

It happens -- the way it never does with Orlando -- quite naturally.

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.

"Sorry," Johnny gurgles, his voice liquid and garbled, "sorry, man, thanks, sorry..." and Bill just tightens his hold (and Johnny's got his shirt fisted in both hands, and Bill can feel dampness on the front of his shirt, which he sincerely hopes is tears and not snot) and mutters:

"Don't ever apologize to me," his voice so low that he doubts Johnny even hears him.