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You inhale, and the taste of burning smoke floods through your senses, the only thing able to keep your heavy head at bay. Smoke puffs from your nostrils, then your mouth, white clouds curling from your cigarette and into the cold night’s air. The way in which the world around you is bathed in neon red almost makes you laugh - you escaped the bangarang because you were only practically seeing red, now it has become your reality, on the curb outside the fire door. Absentmindedly your hands preoccupy themselves with flicking your lighter, again and again, lit then unlit in a back and forth pattern, perhaps distracting your mind from what you saw inside - and who you feel like slapping with all the force in you.
Johnson isn’t yours. Hell, Johnson will never be anybody’s property. What he is to you is more complicated than words and labels can suffice - close friends, maybe even closer, sitting on the bridge between platonic and romantic love, knowing both of you fit too well together to seek out anybody else. You’re no Phoenix and far from a Brawler - simply close friends with a pinup and stupid enough to befriend anybody you meet as you visit her - especially the three river phoenixes. Often times you’re singled as the only one that can make him talk and the only mind in the entire state he can find comfort being with, you know this well enough thanks to the constant teasing and groaning from Matty that you both ought to “quit giving each other puppy eyes and just do it already”.
Defining your relationship has never been top of your to-do list, you’d much rather enjoy the quiet of the storm instead of face the repercussions of defining what you both feel. Despite that, seeing his large hand touching another woman’s waist, letting her lips brush over the shell of his ear as she whispers into it, makes you react so viscerally that you don’t even realise you’re outside until the cold air greets your face. With greedy gulps you had taken the air in, settling onto the dull pavement with your cigarette, trying to undo the tight knot your mind has wound itself into. Johnson is not yours, so why can you not stand to see him with another woman? Are your feelings that subtle, or is he just that blind? You wonder when this is all going to fall apart, when the act will finally be up, until two hands clasp over your eyes from behind, and you’re left sightless.
“Guess who,” he teases flatly.
You pull his hand by the ring away from your face. “Come off it, Johnson.”
“No fun,” he grumbles, slouching down beside you with a bump to your leg. “Thought you’d be here. Matty said you ran off - said you looked pale as a sheet..”
You gulp. His head turns to yours, eyes squinting as he looks over your face, swaying slightly in his intoxication. Johnson’s confidence only grows with every bottle, every shot is a compliment he’d usually be too meek to say.
“Well, am I?” you tease.
He thinks for a moment once more, then, “Nnnope.”
You shake your head with a satisfied “mm-hm”, taking a drag of your cigarette which now burns inches away from uselessness.
Johnson doesn’t laugh, his eyes don’t leave your face, either.
“Look just fine to me, like usual.”
“Like usual?” you bite, laughing as you do so. He shrugs, and your knee bumps his affectionately. “You romantic, Johnson. Not getting soft, are ya?”
“M’not soft,” he scoffs as he fumbles for his cigs amongst his blazer, “You’re stubborn.”
You only giggle more - “right, right...thank you, though.”
You both turn silent, him lighting the cig and you simply observing how the flame catches his dark eyes, his hair curling slightly over his forehead as he hunches forward to take a few tokes.
“I mean it, y/n.” He mouths around the cigarette in his mouth, removing it to speak. “You never believe me. You’re always laughin n’ brushing me off.”
Your heart sinks, Accepting any of his drunk ramblings is no smart idea, not when it’s more than likely no real sober thoughts being admitted to you, purely a side effect of the vodka. So, you never let his sweet words take root, letting them disintegrate into nothingness and wafting them like cigarette smoke. Wide-eyed do you cast your gaze to Johnson, who allows smoke to curl its own way from his nose and mouth together, almost dragon-like and completely too alluring for how deeply you suddenly wish to kiss the doubt out of his mind.
“M’sorry, but you’re drunk, Johnson. You don’t know what you’ve said the next morning, yknow?”
“I do.” he blurts. “I know what I'm saying, trust me. I don’t drink to say things I don’t mean.”
“Why then?” you ponder.
He falls silent, suddenly hyper-aware of how close your bodies are, sharing little warmth in the coldness of the outside. You’re so close and you’re glowing in the red hue of the neon signs, saint-like to the man, angelic before him as if you’d come to rescue him like some biblical fable.
“To.. to say what I do mean.”
All you can do is release a pained “oh” and rest your head against the shoulder of his blazer, breathing in his smoke and the musk of his cologne. His head nudges yours in jest, humming out a laugh as he smokes.
“Softie.”
“Yea, whatever,” you groan, and you realise the rage in your veins has completely dissipated.
The moment of pause as your heads rest against each other, nothing but the muffled booming behind you and the air crystal clear, is so serene that Johnson hates the fact that he has to break it - but his mind seeks answers like a man starved.
“Matt said you looked.. He said you looked like you’d seen a ghost, ‘nd that you were pale like one, too. Any reason why?”
With a groan your face presses into his shoulder, nestling into his collarbone now, over the burgundy shirt that might just be your personal favourite.
“It's nothing, it's..”
“You were smoking, right? When I found you, you were smoking.”
“Correct,” you affirm.
He hums in acknowledgment. “Then, it’s something. You smoke when you’re angry.”
All you can do is laugh, in being pathetically predictable. He probably knows the exact reason you ran out, he just wants to hear you admit it, most likely.
“-ts nothing, Johnson. Just didn’t feel like sitting there watching the girls all descend on you, like vultures. it’s...tacky.”
You expect a scoff, or even a “what the fuck does that mean” but.. He laughs. He laughs hard, throwing his head back and flinging his cigarette butt to the ground. He mumbles as he snickers to himself, something you don’t quite catch.
“Hm? What’re you calling m-”
“-Jealous cat. You fuckin’ jealous cat. Don’t wanna share me with anybody..It’s adorable.”
You whack his chest, only making him chortle in drunken bliss of this embarrassing situation harder.
“Oh yeah, ha-ha. Laugh it up. You don’t know, Johnson.. The way they all look at you, like they wanna eat you up. it’s weird.”
The laughing stops. The air turns colder.
“I don’t know? I don’t know how that feels? Me, Johnson. I don’t know how it feels?” he repeats, joy draining from his face.
Unsure just what to do, you lift your head to meet his eyes, black in the moonlight now.
You grit your teeth. “No, you don’t.”
His hand shifts and as it inches towards your face in an almost slow-motion blur, your heart races. Perhaps this is the end, the storm crashing down, his hand bound to collide with your cheek in anger. Your eyes close on instinct, unsure of just what to do.
Soft warmth greets your cheek. His palm is pressed to your cheekbone, thumb beside your ear and fingers edging into your hair, cupping your face and forcing you to see the loving look emitting from his eyes.
“Kitty, you got no fucking idea. All the shit I take, all those times some asshole tried to get you a drink.. every time Matt sees you ‘nd thinks I don’t fucking care bout how bad he wants you as his. M’just...gritting my teeth and taking it, all day, and it’s hard. You get it?”
Your heart is soaring, pumping quicker and quicker, fluttering like the wings of a bird. Eyes locked on his, you give the hand upon your cheek a slight nuzzle of understanding.
“I see,” you hum. More words will come sooner, for now, only actions will suffice. Your hand settles on his nape as you extend your body further, eyes slipping close and heartbeat crescendoing, closer and closer yet until you finally get what you want and his soft lips are moving in rhythm with yours.
You don’t know just how long the embrace lasts, yet you will it to never meet its end. You remain entangled with Johnson for a while yet as his hands pull you into him by your hips. He’s pliant and chases your mouth with sweet, drunken groans. They remind you of his current state, laughing into his lips and prying him from you ever so slightly.
“Oh god, you’re drunk, Johnson. Our first kiss and you're pissed.”
“Hmf, what’d I say - sober thoughts are drunk..oh, drunk thoughts are- whatever.” He grumbles and hooks you back into the crash of his embrace once more, viscerally kissing you as if the world may crumble apart around you. It near does, as the back door creaks open and a figure behind you clears their throat.
“Thank fucking god,” Matty muses. “About damn time, too.”