(Untitled)

[keira_nightly]

Follows this.Keira sits on the end of Johnny's bed and doesn't go until she hears him step into the shower. She spares the locked door a last glance and moves quietly out of the room, down the darker hallway, and back into the warmly lit kitchen, cozy from the dying sunlight of early evening. Bill's turned on the dim lights over the bench and is

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[billboyd]

It is true, in more cases than not, that the moment your defenses truly crumple is the moment in which you need them most.

Bill is aware of who and what he is, and the fact that neither of those things are all that admirable for the most part. He knows he'd come here with an agenda -- though, at the time, he hadn't known precisely what that was, had only had the vague idea of making sure Johnny was 'all right' -- and that things had played, more or less, according to his wishes, as they often did. He knows that they do because he is dishonest and willing to manipulate in order to make that happen when the situation demands it, and it's a thing he doesn't much like about himself, most days.

Today is not one of those days.

Alright, so that isn't precisely true, but the fact remains that he doesn't think there was anything more or less he could've done, given the situation. Going to someone else and confessing that he thought Johnny might be losing it a bit was, of course, out of the question. Doing nothing was also, for somewhat more nebulous reasons, impossible.

Add that to the fact that it is Keira, of all people, standing in front of him in this moment, propigating an attack that he is not prepared for and would never have been prepared for from that quarter, and for a moment, he thinks Johnny is not going to be the only one that needs a moment to himself to get it together.

He turns his back on her, his hands automatically seeking something to occupy themselves -- it turns out they decide they're going to make tea in Johnny's horrible electric kettle -- and he cannot bring himself to offer any kind of comfort, though Keira is clearly upset. He can't bring himself to put her... anger, upset, jealousy, whatever the fuck it is ... ahead of his own raw nerves, and if that doesn't prove what an arsehole he is, how utterly and completely unworthy of... well, whatever it is that they have, he doesn't know what does.

He makes tea blindly, though without fumbling, and says nothing at all to Keira, because there's just nothing there to say.

[keira_nightly]

It stings, getting a cold (if somewhat shaken) shoulder from Bill, but she's not above realising her own outburst might've been uncalled for, or at the very least ill-timed, what with Johnny sobbing in the shower and Bill drunk and bleeding and people about to show up for a good time.

Get it together.

"Right," she exhales brokenly but determined, and wipes at her eyes with the back of her hands again, streaking them with mascara. She straightens and flicks her hair out of her face, tugging down her dress again. "Sorry. I'll... go make myself presentable again. And check on Johnny. I'll come back and help," she adds sheepishly, and makes to slink out of the kitchen silently.

So that's what the end of a rope looks like.

[billboyd]

"Quaen," he says, and he could maybe pretend he hadn't been aware of it there, sitting on his tongue, that he hadn't wanted to say something (even if he couldn't think of what, because it's the height of prickishness to be upset that she's pissed off at him over something he doesn't feel he's done wrong when he knows too bloody well that she's had the right to be pissed off at him for a dozen other things that he has, and she's never before exercised that right), but he doesn't bother. He turns instead (dropping a packet of tea into the sink and ignoring it), and sees her hovering in the doorway, mascara smeared under her eyes, face uncertain. "Keira," he says, and sighs a little, curling his hand at her.

She doesn't hesitate about coming to him, and that makes him feel like a total piece of shite, but he's glad anyway. She doesn't say anything though, just folds her hand easily into his, and there they are. Holding hands. Again.

"Don't be sorry," he manages.

[keira_nightly]

"You're not... you're not what I'm angry with."

She's looking at the point where their bodies meet, angles of bones and small, strong fingers, his a shade darker than hers. He was the one to call her over but his body is angled almost away from hers even as they hold hands. But she can't look any higher than his mouth, so she supposes they're square.

"Did you mean it?" she asks the hollow of his throat, where his shirt gapes and the collar of his t-shirt lifts slightly off his collarbone. "What you said back there."

[billboyd]

It's on the tip of his tongue to dissemble (it almost always is, after all). He clamps down on the urge, and forces himself to consider the question.

It takes about two seconds.

"Aye," he says, before he can talk himself out of honesty, and he sees her throat work as she swallows, and can't decide what that means. Her eyes are fixed on the neck of his t-shirt, as near as he can tell, and he can't see enough of them to tell what she might be thinking. "I meant it, quaen, but I don't expect... anything from you."

Which is the truth, even if it doesn't quite cover everything. He expects nothing, but he can't help but hope for... something.

"I didn't say it to get out of trouble," he adds, and her lips quirk up at the corners, just for a second.

[keira_nightly]

"Good," she nods ambiguously, and shuffles closer, mock-reluctant, to stand quietly in his space. There's a squeak of pipes somewhere in a wall closeby by no other sound, and Bill and Keira end up staring at each other in the dimming kitchen, tempers finally calm but not quite smiling with their eyes yet.

She tries for conversational, but her mind won't wander very far. "I didn't think you'd come to this sort of thing. After the last one. It's nice of you. I'm sure it means a lot to Johnny."

[billboyd]

He frowns slightly, then thinks she might think he's frowning at her, and tries to stop. He's not quite up to an actual smile, though -- Good? What the hell is that supposed to mean? What kind of response is that? -- and apparently his default expression is just... frowny.

"Um..." he says, eyes flicking up to her face, and the very tops of her cheeks are warmly red, as if she's... blushing. Eh? he thinks, and mentally reviews what she'd just said that might make her blush, and ah. Yes.

After the last one, in which there had been a thing -- Bill isn't even sure what to term it -- a sort of not-quite impromptu, but entirely unscripted, but of... well. Filming. And.

He takes three giant mental steps back from that -- this is really not the time -- and says, "Aye, well. I didn't really do it for Johnny, quaen."

He only realises after he's already said it (and sees Keira throw a glance down the hall at the closed bedroom door there, her expression not so much disbelieving as uncertain) that it's one of those comments that's too open to interpretation for his own peace of mind. "I came early to talk to John, but I'm here to see you."

Disgusting, mawkish tripe, he thinks, but Keira smiles -- God, she's lovely -- and his belly warms nonetheless, mawkish tripe or not.