Thursday after open casting

[billboyd]

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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[_johnny]

Johnny knows that there are blank standard contracts somewhere in his office just as he knows that Alan's number is also somewhere in his Rolodex (he'd tossed the little alphabetical divider cards in favor of having more room) but he currently needs both a little bit sooner than he'll be able to find them on his own.

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-

[billboyd]

Bill lets Johnny grab him -- he can't even blame the bloke, shite, what the fuck is wrong with him -- and ruthlessly crushes the urge to twist his wrists out of Johnny's firm grip, twist his hand around and dig his fingertips into the bones and tendons of the back of Johnny's hand, hook a foot around Johnny's ankle and send him to the ground, send his forehead whamming into Johnny's, just fucking get him off of Bill.

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

[_johnny]

"Accepted," Johnny says, takes a step back and rocks back on his heels.

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?"

[billboyd]

"I don't know," Bill says more or less honestly, since he doesn't want to say "The last time I slept with your boyfriend," and he doesn't actually remember what day that had been, so it's mostly true anyway. "A little last night. Maybe an hour."

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."