Jonny Lee Miller meets Johnny Depp

[palacemiller.livejournal.com]

[takes place after this vignette and this]



Johnny's just finished laying out the food when he hears a knock on the door. He passes one last glance over the small table and stashed the tray underneath. He'd picked out a variety of lunch-type stuff -- sandwiches, wings, muffins, a basic salad, some chicken, and some assorted fruit -- hoping to hit something Jonny liked.

He crosses the room and opens the door to a friendly-looking guy. "Hi, I'm Johnny." He gives him a shy smile and stood to one side, saying, "Come on in. Lunch is on the table, although we'll have to sit on the couch."

Miller smiles at the man who looks vaguely familiar - must have seen him around - and offers him his hand. "Jonny Lee Miller. Pleased to meet you."

Johnny shakes his hand, then closes the door. He leads the way to the food and hands Miller a plate. "I hope you're hungry, there's plenty. What would you like to drink? There's coffee and I got some sodas. And water of course."

Listening to his voice, Johnny can tell he sounds nervous. He makes sure his shield is solid, hoping he won't have to go for his blocker for something stupid like this, when he sailed through the raid just fine without it.

"Coffee's good. Live on that stuff." Miller thinks he can almost see nervous tension rising off of Johnny's shoulders and he frowns. "You all right, mate?"

Johnny jumps at the question, and has to force himself not to flinch. "Umm, does it show?" He gives a weak smile. "Sorry, I'm just... not used to strangers. I mean, I am, but not in a good way, you know?" He stops and takes a breath, then turns and goes to fetch Miller a cup of coffee. "It's not you," he says, his back still turned. "It's me. I.... Damn."

I'm alone in a room with a strange man and a bed. But it's my room, and I'm going to be fine. This guy's perfectly nice, he works here, he's not going to hurt me. I invited him, dammit! I can do this. I can do this!

He straightens up, turns, and hands Miller his coffee. He even manages to meet his eyes.

Miller shifts from one foot to another. "Yeah, it kind of shows. Is...is everything ok?"

Johnny manages a sideways smile. "No, not really. But we knew that, right? We wouldn't be here otherwise." He heads over to the table where the food is. Even if Miller isn't hungry, he is, and it'll give him something to do with his hands. "OK," he says, still talking over his shoulder as he piles a sandwich, some wings and a couple of apples onto a dish, "Sally. I've been thinking about what she wrote, and I think I know where some of it came from." He moves over to the couch and plops down at one end.

"Where did it come from?" On good days, Miller knows how to be polite. On days like this, he's walking on cracking ice. He knows to be careful and he doesn't want to insult Johnny. He grabs a drumstick and bites a piece off.

Johnny puts his plate down on his lap and stares at it for a moment. Then in one smooth motion he pulls his T-shirt off over his head. He holds it clutched in both hands for a moment, then sets it down, picks up a sandwich and takes a bit. He still hasn't looked up at Miller.

Oh, fuck, is Miller's first thought. Bondage art kink man, is his second. He sets his plate down deliberately and sits down next to Johnny. "Can I...touch them?"

Johnny shrinks back into the couch out of reflex and his eyes -- finally meeting Miller's -- go huge with fear. But after a frozen moment he forces himself to relax.

"Ummm, I... I'd really--" Calm down, dammit! Breathe! "I'd really rather not," he whispers. "I'm sorry, I just... I have to really know and trust someone a lot before I'm comfortable touching. I should've just told you but I don't know how to describe it so it seemed easier to just show you, but.... I'm sorry."

"Oh," Miller says smally. He moves backwards without realizing it and blushes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean...bad memories, I guess."

"It's all right," Johnny says in a low voice. He picks up his sandwich again but just holds it. "You couldn't have known." He puts his sandwich down, pulls on his T-shirt, and picks it up once more. "Anyway, yeah, I'm the one Sally wrote about. Christian spent the night here last week and I guess someone who saw him here told Sally. Or told someone who told, whatever."

He looks up at Miller, his eyes earnest. "Nothing happened. We had dinner, watched vids and fell asleep on the couch. The next day we had breakfast, then Harry came over and Christian left. Nothing happened, but that bitch makes it sound like... like we're lovers or something! Christian would never do that! Not with me!" Johnny looks and sounds disgusted and angry.

Some things are beginning to fall into place. "Did anybody come in when you were with Prince Christian?" That's the only thing Miller can think of. Someone had to have seen it, and of course people would see a prince walking in and out of room, but to have seen the extent of Johnny's scars, they had to have been in the room.

Johnny looks down at his sandwich, finally taking a fierce bite. He thinks while chewing, then swallows. "Yeah. We had food brought up a couple of times, dinner and then breakfast in the morning. And some guy came in the morning to bring Christian clean clothes. But it could've been... I don't know, a lot of people. The only ones I really know here are Christian and Harry. We've eaten together, had beer together, gone riding together. Christian's teaching me to shield and we get together to practice. People know him, and watch him. Anyone could've recognized me as someone he's spent time with."

He put his sandwich down again and leaned back into the cushions. "When Harry took me to see Dr. Phil that morning I had to take my shirt off, and everyone in her office was staring. What do you think are the chances none of them talked about it?"

"Very small," Miller says. "But then you would have been called Harry's, and not Prince Christian's." He shrugs. "It's probably too late to find the trail for that one. But if anyone's sniffing around you too hard, please tell me."

"Huh." Johnny ponders that for a moment. "I was thinking that the people who'd seen me with Christian might've heard about my scars from the people in Dr. Phil's office. Besides, everyone knows Harry's with Prince Orlando. You couldn't get Harry away from him with dynamite, no way he'd fool around with anyone else." He shook his head, dismissing the notion, and sipped his soda thoughtfully.

"But would Harry tell?" Miller shrugs again. "Like I said, it probably doesn't matter. What matters most is covering things up. Now, from the little I know, I know that I can't parade you around. And I wouldn't do it anyway. But if there are outright lies is the article, I am going to be looking for ways to publicly disprove them. Discredit a little, and it all starts tumbling from there."

"That makes sense," Johnny says, nodding. I have no idea how you'd do that, but that's your job, right?" He looks up at Miller and manages a small smile before taking a last bite of his sandwich.

"I, umm, know what happened in the basement, too. Part of it, anyway. Do you want to hear about it? It's nothing that really slanders anyone that I can see, but just to know?"

"Yeah, it's my job." Miller nods. "And I'd be happy to hear what happened in the basement. Even if I can't tell anybody."

Johnny nods. "Well, I was hiding in the basement for a--" He notices the look on Miller's face and stops. "Umm, right. Back up." He stops to think for a second. He's pretty sure Miller doesn't want his whole life's story, so he tries to figure out how to make this short. "OK, my guardian sold me to this sick bastard named Carstairs. He's the one who did all the scarring. When I turned twenty-five he set up this scam with a retriever and I ended up at the Silver Spike -- the one that was raided the other night? I escaped from there a couple of weeks ago and ended up in the Palace basement, hiding." That was about as short as he could manage, but at least it got them up to the important part.

"So I was hiding in the basement. I just recently turned up with this huge amount of projective empathy, with no clue it was there much less how to control it, and the warehouse staff thought I was a ghost or something 'cause whenever they got near me they got scared. Harry and Christian were down there hunting for me. I don't know who the 'golden boy' or the guy from Sedat are or how they were involved. But Christian tracked me down and Harry knocked me out to get me to stop projecting. I woke up in a holding cell, scared shitless 'cause I was sure they were going to send me back to the Spike. But that was the chase around the crates and all -- they were after me, and the disturbance was me too." He shrugged and picked up a wing, nibbling distractedly.

Miller swallows hard and is quiet for a long time. He reaches out and takes another drumstick. The poor boy. He doesn't know what to say and anything he can think of sounds trite and stupid. So he just says nothing, hoping his silence counts for more than any comfort.

The silence stretches out for a bit before Johnny fills it. "Well, that's about it, I guess. I'm pretty new around here too so I can't help you with any of the other items. You could probably ask Harry or Christian who the other two guys were, though." He manages a smile before reaching for his soda.

"Alright," Miller says quietly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Johnny takes a sip, then puts his soda down. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Shields -- check. Miller looks kind of nervous, but then, that was just the kind of conversation they're having; it didn't mean he was leaking.

"So you just started, right?" he asks, trying to lighten the atmosphere a little. "How do you like it at Palace? Aside from being behind all the gossip and fighting with the com system?"

"Just started, yeah." Miller bites his lip a little. "And I like it. There's a lot of new people and, uh, I think I've given up on the com system. Going to go back to the old tried and true."

Johnny smiles. "Yeah, I've noticed it's hard to walk down a hall without having to swerve around someone frowning down at a map. I can get from here to the pub and one of the cafeterias, and out through lower East to the stable. Anywhere else and I'd be the one with my com out." He pats his pocket where his com lives. "They're really not bad, though. I left my first post open -- Harry replied and I almost died of embarrassment! They're easy to lock, though, and I've been fine since. If you like, I could show you."

"Yeah, Harry also got me. Gave me instructions, but doesn't seem to be much of a point. I'd relock, but people have already seen it. But I have this great recorder, small and portable, and it takes voicenotes well. Even prints out in hard copy if I need it, curses and all."

Johnny grins. "Well, you can just type in curses if you want. But whatever works for you, yeah?"

"Yeah," Miller grins. "It was great meeting you, Johnny."