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

[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."

[_johnny]

Johnny nods back at Bill, squints a little. He's kinda high, actually, pretty sure he's sorta floating, like, but that's fine, that's cool, as long as he can keep his metaphorical feet on the fuckin' allegorical floor. He swings one foot down from the coffee table, and the bare sole makes a satisfying slap on the wood. Good.

"Floor's still there," he confides to Bill, who tilts his head curiously.

"Ah-"

Johnny shakes his head, stabs the air with his joint. "I am a very successful fuckup, Bill. My daddy always said I'd made a fine career of fuckin' up, and he was right, although it was fuckin' down that made me my money, you follow? Fucking... I don't know, you know, it's like-"

Johnny considers both his hands for a second, decides his mouth is dry and leans forward enough to scrub the joint out in the ashtray.

"-like, like Jack. I shoulda kept my mouth shut. You ever do something so bad that it ruins everything after? You ever fuck up that hard? You know what I'm talkin' about?"

[billboyd]

Bill has. Of course he has, who hasn't?

His mind inevitably ratchets backward, a casette tape reel doing a jerky, unpleasant rewind, and the room is bright and the upholstery is expensive and the carpet is deep pile and so soft that Bill's boots sink at least an inch into it, and it's the most unlikely place in the world for a gunfight, and the two stupid twats beside him are both still standing, staring, three shots in, and Bill shoves (Orlando) the bloke closest to him and shoots at the same time, steps to the side to shield him (Orlando) with his body and feels the (searingly bright pain and the spill of superheated blood down his thigh inside his trousers, and hours later, doped to the gills from surgery but coming down, he'll ponder how the feel of the blood trickling rivulets of body-temperature liquid death down his leg had bothered him more than the pain of being shot) bullet slam into this thigh, and one of the fuckers Bill'd shot is screaming, high and gurgling and ceaseless

[_johnny]

"Yeah, yeah, 'course you do. I can tell." Johnny shakes his head, pats his shirt pockets with a frown. He had ready-rolled, somewhere, before... A cigarette materalizes in his lap, and he looks up; Bill's nodding at him, and Johnny grins.

"Thanks, man." He lights up, leans his head back and blows a couple rings at the ceiling, watches them break up as they start to float away. Metafuckinphors, again, man, it's like... "Shit."

He shakes his head again. "I didn't talk to Orlando. I mean, I can't, like. I can't tell him he shouldn't be using, right, I can't, I ain't got a fuckin' leg to stand on, moral fuckin... high ground, fuck it, I'm in a hole m'self, you know, Bill, I-"

Johnny swings his other foot to the floor, leans up and forward to brace his elbows on his knees.

"I do love him," he says clearly, "but I can't help him. I can't even help myself, right now, and I'm more than a little fucked up right now, so, you know, if you ever mention this again, I will fuckin' kill you, okay? But the truth is I am goddamn tired of

[billboyd]

Bill says nothing, because really, what the hell do you say to something like that?

He stands, and Johnny's brows slide upward in question. "Hang on," Bill says, and Johnny nods, his brows returning to their normal resting place above his eyes, if a bit knotted together in puzzlement. Bill turns away, and manages to get to the kitchen before he runs a hand through his hair, ignoring the dampness of his palm.

He is deeply unnerved. He is deeply fucking unnerved, and he's not even sure what it is that's got his hackles up. It's just... Johnny, as ridiculously eccentric as he is, has always been so fucking stable. Fucking solid, in spite of his nebulous-ness, sharp and present in spite of his singular lack of lucidity, and Bill should have fucking seen this. He's never been so bloody blind and useless, and he's not sure if he's more angry or fucking ashamed.

He jerks his head to one side hard, and his neck gives a satisfyingly loud, pseudo-painful crack, followed by a few seconds of instense relief

[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 knowsAnd Bill is still essentially as he had ever been, and some part of him wants to grab

[_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

[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]

"No," Bill says at once, without thought, because of course he wasn't "all right" -- is she blind? It takes him several long seconds to mentally sort through the last few minutes, and decide that she probably hadn't seen, not exactly. Not like Bill had, from a few inches away, anyhow.

She hadn't been close enough, and surprised on top of that. And Johnny is good at appearing to be together (if by 'together' you meant eccentric, scattered and bloody odd, but basically all right for all of that).

"He's not all right, quaen," Bill repeats, and isn't the least surprised when she turns a little, full body, her eyes skittering to the kitchen, her desire to go, to comfort, is almost palpable, though her hand stays on Bill's arm. "Don't, Keira-mine," he says gently, and she turns back, a little surprised smile curling her lips, eyes wide and bight. The tops of her cheeks are faintly rosy. "It's not something you can help with

[keira_nightly]

The worry shifts, like that, when she sees beyond the wet eyes and the accidental muss of his hair and the sobering set of his mouth; the tip of his tongue worries a small red nick on his lip (the type you get from getting a boom in the teeth that keeps you off the set for a whole month, Johnny's order) and there is a distinct shade of purple blooming on his cheekbone, underneath the healthier flush.

She shakes his hand off, steps closer to grab his face with both hands. "Jesus, what happened to you!" He stands still but flinches when she gingerly runs a finger under his eyes, looking surprised himself.

[billboyd]

"Er," he says, and blinks, and it's only when she blurs rather spectacularly in his vision (complete with colorful streamers and bright spangles of light outlining her jaw) that he realizes that at some point, without quiet grasping it, he'd gone from pleasantly numbed to outright pissed. He blinks again (it's quite a pretty effect, actually), and says, "It's nothing. I mean, it was something, but not something important. Nevermind."

[keira_nightly]

There's only so much lying she'll take from him, she realises at this very second, suddenly feeling more tired than she ought to. "Stop lying to me," she mumbles low but dismissively, and presses her thumb on his bruise against, a little hard on purpose. "You're drunk," she adds more accusingly, letting go for a moment to fetch a wad of tissue out of her bag. "A gentleman gets his girlfriend drunk first." He's watching her with wide eyes, jaw set, and she takes it in her hand, tilting his head up so she can dab at the small cut on his lip, eyes trained intently to his mouth.

[billboyd]

For perhaps two seconds, Bill watches Keira's face. He sees it go still and blank with surprise, her eyes going huge, and he sees something else beginning to unfold there with a kind of fatalistic clenching somewhere in his midsection, the same thing he'd felt that night, the night, fighting off paramedics long enough to search the sudden crowd of people for Orlando, that sense of immense weight, the I don't want to know mingled with the I can't stop myself from looking, all of it overlayed by the understanding, the absolute certainty that it will be the worst thing possible, that it just always is.

No happy endings. There's no such thing. It's a myth, like justice, to keep a person from going mad from the sheer, empty pointlessness of it all.

He's almost grateful when something breaks in the kitchen, the abrupt sound of destruction; it wrenches them both out of that moment, and Keira doesn't have to think what she should say to that, and Bill doesn't have to think what she might say (or not say), and being drunk never has done