Johnny and Christian, with Harry. After the Storm.

[palacechristian]

Christian nudged open Johnny's door, the tray in his hands making things a tad difficult, but he managed. Once inside, he let the door swing shut and closed it with his boot heel, almost instantly spotting his somewhat battered lover curled up in the bed with Leopold. His eyes were closed but Christian could tell he wasn't sleeping, so he walked over to the desk and deposited his load, looking around the room and muttering to himself, "There should be a... ahh, there it is." He pulled the wheeled table, something like a hospital table except far fancier, over to the side of the bed and then retrieved the tray, climbing on to the other side of the bed carefully and waiting for Johnny to notice he was there.

Johnny turned his head careful, sniffling a bit, and looked up at the man sitting next to him. "Christian?" His arms tightened around Leopold and he lay still, waiting. Everyone else had yelled at him; it was probably Christian's turn.

"Hey bruise-boy." Christian smiled at him and looked for a bit with relatively little damage to kiss. He found an unmarred patch of flesh on the left side of Johnny's nose and planted his greeting there. "I come with food. Dinner tonight has been cancelled, I'm told, and the guests scattered to the four winds. You hungry?" He raised an eyebrow. "Can you chew?"

"Umm, yeah. So long as it's not beef jerky or anything like that." Johnny shifted slowly into a sitting position and managed a small smile. "How was your dam?"

"Boring. As was the reception and the conversation that followed. Much more interesting here by all accounts." Christian spoke as he lifted the lids on the plates, sniffing. "Hmm. No, no jerky. Looks like chicken."

Johnny peered at the dish and brightened a bit, nodding. "It's that chicken... chicken something. It's like a ham and cheese sandwich but with chicken instead of bread. It's really good." He reached for a napkin then blushed and shifted Leopold out of his lap to one side before spreading the cloth on his lap and picking up his knife and fork. He kept his eyes on his plate, ignoring Christian's mention of what the day had been like here.

Christian was starved and more than willing to leave off the subject of today in favor of filling his growling stomach. They ate in silence, Johnny perhaps taking a little more care with his than Christian, but they still finished the meal around the same time. He moved the table away and brought back the hot drinks he'd left on the desk, climbing back onto the bed and settling down after leaving Johnny's hot chocolate within easy reach on his night stand. He made himself a pile of pillows and got comfy, sipping his own drink with every evidence of enjoyment and in no particular rush.

Johnny sipped his chocolate in silence for a few minutes, then set it down on the nightstand next to Leopold's horsie -- who was tucked up inside the paper hat as thought it were a triangular sleeping bag -- and cuddled next to Christian with an arm across his chest and his head on his shoulder. And waited.

Christian finished his coffee and put aside his cup. Then he used his free hand to tip Johnny's face up so he could see him properly and studied the damage. "Not too bad," he said. "Heal pretty quick. What's the rest like?"

Johnny tensed. Here it comes. "Not too bad," he repeated. "Nothing's broken. Hairline crack in one rib, some deep bruises. Lisa gave me some stuff for the pain."

Christian nodded. "Yeah, I talked to the doc. She said there was a fair amount of yelling going on. You okay?"

Johnny nodded, still tense. "Yeah. I'm sort of used to it, so... if you want to take your turn, get it over with, go ahead. It's okay."

"Me?" Christian raised his eyebrows, mildly surprised. "I'm not gonna yell at you. Why would I?"

Johnny looked up at him, surprised and a bit confused. "You're not? You're not mad at me for being a dumbshit who just lay there and let himself get beat up? I just... I figured everyone was."

"No." Christian slid down the bed and onto his side so he was facing Johnny. He touched the side of his lover's face with a gentle finger. "We do dumb things for the best of reasons you know? We all do it." He shrugged his shoulders. "And we get our hands slapped or...." He looked Johnny up and down and grinned. "Or the shit kicked out of us and we decide that maybe this was not the best way to go about it and we won't do it again if we can help it. Live and learn, like the saying goes. Yelling at you'd be kinda counter-productive, yeah? Lesson's already learned."

Oh, gods, he wasn't mad! Johnny rolled over, half onto Christian and hung on tight, his body trembling with releasing tension. He felt his eyes filling with tears and squeezed them shut. I'm not gonna cry, I'm not, dammit! "I just... it felt right, you know? It was just a misunderstanding and he thought we were laughing at him and he thinks everyone hates him and I just couldn't hurt him again!" The words came out in a gush, everything Johnny'd tried to explain before, everything he'd been thinking about lying here alone waiting for the last person in the world he loved who hadn't already to come and yell at him. "I had to show him, he needed to see and feel it, or I thought he did it just seemed right but Harry was right too, it could've been a total fuck-up 'cause I didn't know, not for sure. What if he'd really hurt me, or even killed me? He'd have had to live with that, be in jail for the rest of his life and it would've been my fault 'cause I didn't stop and think. I mean, I didn't exactly have time to think, he just jumped me, but I didn't even think about thinking. It worked out anyway or I think it did -- it might've, I hope -- but it's just stupid luck and it could've gone so wrong!" Johnny realized he was making less and less sense and wound down, burying his face in Christian's shirt.

Chuckling a little at the earnest tone of Johnny's outburst, Christian wrapped his arms around him, kissing his hair and rocking slightly. "Harry was right." he said softly. "But you can't run the world on 'what if's' and 'maybe's'. He was right, but so were you. You did the best you could under the circumstances and just hoped for the best. You can't do better than that." He kissed Johnny's soft fall of hair and added in a whisper, "Don't take the yelling to heart, all right. It's a natural reaction to a fright. You scared 'em, they yelled."

"I know. It still hurt, though." He reached up and kissed Christian's jaw. "I love you so much, you know? I... I didn't want you to feel what was happening so I tried blocking you." Johnny's voice was hesitant, as though he were confessing something shameful. "I didn't know if I could, but I tried. It must've worked, though, right?"

Christian's brow furrowed in thought even as he smiled at Johnny's words. "Is that what that was?" he said, giving Johnny a look. "I thought I was picking up the tension from the crowd right before I hit the 'boom' button on the dam site."

"So... you did feel it, then? I thought maybe I couldn't keep you out but I had to try. But... if all you felt was tension then it partially worked? Good enough at least. I didn't want you feeling all of it."

"I got it," Christian told him. "Kind of... diffused, but I still got it. But then I was distracted. We'll have to try it and see, eh? Figure out what works and what doesn't. It's best to know these things." He tipped his head and looked at Johnny with a grin. "Then you can keep me out when you're, umm, busy? Like with Adrian," he laughed.

Johnny giggled. "But maybe I don't want to keep you out then," he murmured.

"Be serious!" Christian poked Johnny on an unmarred section of his forearm, grinning. "There'll be times when you want to do precisely that. We need to practice. However," he gave Johnny another one of those searching looks, "not tonight. Most we'll be doing is sleeping, methinks. Damn you!" he teased gently.

"I'm sorry. And you're leaving tomorrow, too." Johnny's shoulders slumped, his face a picture of dejection. "I knew I should've kept molesting you this morning!"

"I'm lucky I survived this morning," Christian muttered, more to himself than to Johnny. "I near melted into a puddle of mortification you little rat!" Then he grinned and contrived to look smug. "And now Johnny Depp learns the consequences of ill thought out action," he told him. "Get beat up, noble cause or not and you end up on rations!"

Johnny scowled up at him, then suddenly giggled. "That was fun! You're so cute when you're bashful!" He snuck in a quick tickle, laughing again when Christian squirmed away. "That part does suck, though. I was really looking forward to tonight. And tomorrow morning. I'll just have to spend the night reminding myself of what it's like to have you be really here...." He rotated a bit and eased a shin between Christian's knees, twining their legs together while draping himself across his chest, one arm sliding behind his shoulder while the other wrapped around his waist. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting his lover's scent fill him.

Harry stood outside the door to Johnny's room, not entirely sure this wasn't a really bad idea, especially when part of him was still decently annoyed with him for the stunt he pulled with Linus. Harry shook his head and knocked softly. No more fucking about -- just do it.

Johnny opened his eyes and jerked his head up, then winced. He muttered something unprintable then called, "C'min!"

Harry opened the door and stepped inside, leaning against the wall and closing the door. "Hey." He paused, looking at the floor for a moment, then back up again. "So, Christian... how was your day?"

"Boring." Christian responded, pulling himself further up the bed and more upright. "Unlike yours." He patted the side of the bed, having made room for Harry and then settled Johnny more comfortably in the crook of his arm. "How you doing?"

"Shitty," Harry said bluntly, pausing for a moment, then padding over to join them on the bed, watching Johnny carefully to see if he'd object.

Johnny looked up at Harry through his lashes and gave him a tentative smile.

Settling himself on the bed, Harry crossed his legs underneath himself, raising his head to look Johnny over, though careful not to meet his eyes. "What's the damage anyway? Liam didn't say."

Johnny shrugged. "Mostly just lots of bruises. One rib's cracked, but nothing serious." He kept his eyes down, watching his hands rubbing each other over and over.

Harry nodded. "Glad there wasn't anything too serious," he said, his voice quiet but sincere, keeping his frustration at the fact that the injuries existed at all out of it for the moment.

The atmosphere was thick with tension and Christian decided to leave Johnny and Harry to themselves for a while. He gave Johnny a gentle hug and a kiss on the temple then slid off the bed. "I'm going to take the dishes back down and say hello to Liam," he said. "We didn't really get much of a chance to talk before I left earlier. I'll be back in a while." And balancing the tray he left them alone, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Johnny's eyes followed Christian out, then he wrapped his arms around his bent knees and looked back at Harry. "There wasn't," he said. He stared down at the quilt for a few seconds, then looked up into Harry's eyes and added, "But there could've been. You were right about that part. I didn't think about it, about anything. I didn't have time, I was just walking along and then suddenly he was there and I was just reacting. It was just instinct, I did what felt right but thinking about it I really didn't have anything real to base it on. It could've gone completely wrong and Linus would've ended up even more messed up than when he started and it would've been my fault."

Harry nodded. "I know. And I was partly mad because I was scared about what could have happened. Johnny, you don't have a very good instinct for self-preservation, and I can't help thinking it's going to get you seriously fucking hurt if not killed one of these days if you don't do something about that. But I'm glad you can see at least that it could have hurt Linus, even if you can't yet see what might have happened to you yet as being at least as important." Harry felt himself getting tense towards the end and stopped, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. "I didn't come here to start an argument with you, or for validation though. And I'm really fucking glad you're okay." Harry opened his eyes again and forced a weak smile.

Johnny leaned over a bit so his shoulder rested against Harry's arm. "You're right, though. I didn't know and I need to. Later when I've been through school and I've been doing this for a while I'll have the experience and stuff to make that kind of a judgement but now... I could've fucked the whole thing up completely. I still hope it turns out okay, and I think it will, but I didn't know that before and I just... shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

Harry nodded. "Hope so too. But I don't need you to apologize to me for that though. To Liam, maybe even to Linus if Liam thinks so. That's not why I'm here either."

"Well, I'm sorry anyway. And I'm alive, and everything's attached, so... we're okay?" Johnny looked a bit anxious, as though there might be some question.

"We were never not okay, Johnny. Me being pissed at you for making a bonehead call doesn't change anything about us being friends -- which we are. We're talking about two entirely separate issues here." Three if you actually consider that you getting your ribs kicked in isn't even the reason I let Liam send me up here. Harry thought, frustrated at himself for not finding a way to introduce the subject yet, his brow furrowing slightly.

"All right, I'm sorry." Johnny uncurled a bit and leaned back against the headboard. "What did you want to talk about, then?"

Harry shifted and looked down again, then took a breath and started to speak.