Crescendo
by AHS
"If you have been there in the mind, then you will go there in the body." - Josh Duhon (Logan)
crescendo
- a gradual increase in volume or intensity of a musical passage; the peak of an increase in intensity or force: climaxx
Johnny was pretty sure they were dreams, not hallucinations. He might have had a headstart on crazy, thanks to his father, but he was not going to let the padded walls make him that way. When he finally relaxed enough to sleep, he welcomed the chance to see Lulu in his dreams.
Maybe he wasn't crazy, but he was apparently a masochist, because when he closed his eyes, he didn't see her. He didn't see his long-lost lit fuse of a sister, or even his beautiful, dead (because of him) mother.
He saw that jackass Logan.
"Let me get this straight… You sprang your worst enemy from a coma… sort of… but you dreamed yourself right in the same tiny room you've been locked up in for God knows how long? You really are as dumb as you look, Zacchara."
Johnny found no joy in the realization that it felt good to see anyone who wasn't Sonny Corinthos or one of his men… even him.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'd say the title of my worst enemy currently belongs to the guy holding me prisoner in here." Though his gut whispered that the enemy was a lot closer to home. "You're just… annoying."
"Right. Why bother hating me? I'm not even competition for you anymore. She… Fuck, she made her choice, didn't she? You're mysterious and sensitive, and I'm a murderer? She beat my skull in with a wrench! You must've liked that, Johnny. How'd you two celebrate afterwards?… You sleep with her?"
Johnny paused, purposely ignoring that last question. Wouldn't let him taint the memory. "She feels bad about that."
"Sleeping with you? I bet. Li'l Johnny can't measure up?"
Logan was in his face in just two strides, mouth smirking but eyes angry. Johnny wondered if he was going to push him up against a wall again. He seemed to like to do that a lot.
"About putting you in the coma. But she shouldn't. Because, innocent or not, you scared her."
"I know, I know. Big bad Logan scares the girls and makes them cry. And Johnny boy is right there, with a gun in one hand and sheet music in the other. Give me a break."
Logan walked away again, but stopped and threw one last comment over his shoulder, voice surprisingly soft.
"Can we just agree that neither one of us deserves her?"
Johnny nodded. "Agreed."
And Logan was gone.
It's impossible to say for how long, because Johnny's days and nights were indistinguishable, one from the other. He was pressed for information he didn't have to give, and he took the corresponding beatings. He mostly didn't eat. He slept, but never undisturbed. And he wrote music on the walls until his pen dried up and possibly his inspiration.
Johnny was humming when he came back.
"Is that it? Your big masterpiece? It's crap."
"What the fuck do you know about music?"
"I know that Lulu is a rock 'n' roll and blues girl. And I know that this… has no flavor, hers or otherwise. Not because it's classical, but just 'cause it… sounds like something that would play when you open a Hallmark card."
Johnny looked at Logan looking at the walls decorated with notes and measures, like he was really taking it in, and measured him anew. "You can read it?"
Ice blue eyes rolled. "I even know my ABC's."
"Just surprised me. You don't seem to have much of… an artistic soul."
"Or any kind of soul, I'm sure. But I've got eyes in my head. As a way to kill time, it's not bad, but as a piece of music, this stinks. How is this supposed to be her?"
"It's how she makes me feel."
"Like you're in the dentist's chair?"
"Like… light. Like I want to be better for her. Like I could be."
"Yeah… I know that feeling."
Johnny sat down, tired, and Logan stood beside him, gesturing all around.
"Don't be afraid of the minor chords just because they seem an obvious choice for you. They're more interesting… Light's beautiful, but it's the coming out of the dark that makes it mean something."
With that gruffly given and bizarrely insightful advice, he was gone again. Johnny sat and stared at his work, seeing notes slowly shift against his will. He was not above licking the tip of his exhausted marker to squeeze out just one more little circle, but eventually the door opened and a new one was winged at his head.
Better than food. And much more occupying.
"Not bad."
"Something's still missing."
Logan noticed where Johnny had written her name, titling the piece after her, and couldn't hold back his bitterness.
"Speaking of something missing… you know, you'd think you would imagine the girl you couldn't stay away from… the girl who's your light, your inspiration… in here with you. Not me."
That Texas drawl was crawling inside Johnny's skin and stomping on his nerves.
He still welcomed the sound. Even when it came asking questions he was already trying to avoid answering.
"This isn't any place she should be, even just in my mind. You? You're sure as hell not my first choice for company, but…"
"But what? This ought to be good."
Johnny hoped so. He didn't know what he was going to say until the words were spilling out of his mouth.
"I guess there's a certain parallel. You in a coma, me trapped in here."
"You don't fucking know trapped. I didn't even know trapped as a soldier in Iraq, under sniper fire, no way out. In a hospital bed, full of tubes… unable to move, to open my eyes, to speak, defend my name… that's trapped."
Johnny knew trapped. Trapped was growing up with his father. But…
He did not feel bad for Logan Hayes. He didn't. But damned if the man didn't seem almost human. Almost scared.
"She's by my bedside right now, you know. But maybe you don't care. Maybe that's why you keep bringing me here. Maybe you've decided I'm more your type."
The moment of not completely hating Logan was gone as quickly as it had arrived, and Johnny grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up against the regrettably cushioned wall. Definitely a dream, not a vision, because he could feel the material bunched under his fingers and the heat coming off the body his was pushing on.
"What about you? This is your usual move, Tough Guy." Johnny leaned in as close as he could get without their faces quite touching. "You know, someone could get the wrong idea."
If he were just a little closer to crazy, he would have licked the guy's cheek, just to really freak him out. But the things Johnny was starting to consider during this stare-down were crazy enough. And then he felt it.
Hard. That fucker was hard and pressing into the top of Johnny's thigh. "Shit."
He scrambled back, but Logan shocked him again by grabbing his hips with both hands and holding him in place. Then Johnny shocked the hell out of himself when he noticed he was in the same condition Logan was. Not just his dick, but the look on his face mirrored Logan's.
Confused and terrified and curious. Want and hate and some desperate sadness.
"I love her." Logan's eyes were defiant while… begging Johnny to believe him. His words were meant, but mostly meant to try and negate the moment's existence. Wasn't working.
"I know. I told her you did," Johnny managed, his voice coming out like sandpaper.
"You…? Well, I don't need your help with Lulu, okay? You can just mind your own fucking business!"
"She is my business, because I love her!" He knew he shouldn't have said that. Should have told her first. But something about Logan just made him lose control.
The responding laugh was forced, the teeth gritted. "Of course you do! So what? What the fuck is that supposed to mean to me?"
"It means I have no intention of helping you with anything!"
"Yeah?… What about this?"
Logan managed to grab bruising hold of one of Johnny's wrists and wrench it down, forcing the hand to cover his crotch. He raised one eyebrow in a silent dare.
"Wanna help me with that?"
Johnny was someone who would stand on the edge of the roofs of tall, tall buildings… always a second from flying, falling, dying… just for fun. People should know better than to dare Johnny.
He squeezed. Brought his hand slowly up and down, folded his fingers around the swollen denim and squeezed again, tighter. He didn't know if he was trying to cause pleasure or pain, but Logan's face was doing its damnedest not to show either.
A strangled moan escaped, however, and Johnny laughed. His hot breaths of triumph rained shame on Logan's lips, and Logan had never hated anyone so much. Not just the simple hate from before. He hated him with every fiber of his being for making his body react like this. For making him feel this way… whatever this was.
He took the moment of laughter to obtain the upper hand, and broke away enough to pull back a fist and punch. But Johnny's reflexes were quick, and he caught the punch with a flat palm. Before Logan could take his hand back, Johnny extended the long fingers, then closed and held tightly again in fist position. He then swiped his tongue across the knuckles and whispered, "Save this for later."
Now Johnny was really on the edge, really flying. He didn't know anymore why he was saying and doing the things he was, but he was only afraid of how much he was starting to enjoy it. Get off on it.
Fucking with Logan. Not fucking Logan. He didn't want…
He just knew he felt like a live wire, and the electricity running through him was coming off Logan. The guy's eyeballs practically jumped out of his head when he'd said that fist thing, and it just made Johnny's cock even harder.
He thrust his hips sharply forward, pushing the other man back into the wall, crashing their erections together. Logan, determined not to make any sounds of pleasure this time, quickly spat an insult instead.
"S-sick fuck. Should I tell Lulu her boyfriend's a fag?"
"You can't tell anyone anything. Coma, remember? Besides, then I'd have to tell her about you."
They breathed heavily, from anger and some twisted form of desire, and they stood as close as two people can stand without wearing the same skin, and their eyes taunted and undressed each other, just waiting for what was going to happen next.
Logan tackled Johnny.
Whether it was intended to destroy or devour, it did both. They crashed to the floor, Logan on top, and Logan's chin knocked into Johnny's teeth. Johnny swore at the pain and bit his chin in retaliation, teeth shivering as they dragged over the rough stubble. Logan pushed him back down with a hand to his neck and just kept applying pressure, nearly choking him.
Johnny's right arm was underneath him, immobile. His left hand attempted unsuccessfully to pry the violent fingers from his throat, and so tried a new tactic, plunging down the back of Logan's jeans and digging nails into the fleshy curve of his ass.
Logan yelped and let go. Johnny didn't even stop to take a proper breath before he hooked a leg under one of the struggling others, threw his weight and flipped them, so that he was on top and looking down into… Except the bastard wasn't looking at him. Those eyes wouldn't meet his, and Johnny didn't like that.
Before he could think twice, he'd slammed his lips down on Logan's, open-mouthed, the element of surprise making way for his tongue.
And this wasn't real. None of it. But knowing it was a dream only made it worse for Johnny. That meant he created it, made it happen. Like a fantasy.
How could this be his fantasy?
How could it be that his beautiful Lulu grew less and less clear in his mind the more he tried to picture her? Yet he could conjure up every detail of Logan. Details Johnny had never even wanted to notice, from eye color to the clothes he wore, to what he smelled like or how solid muscle he felt when their bodies aligned. Or to imagine, like how it would feel when Logan sucked his tongue the way he was right now. Bit his lip until they both tasted blood. Flipped their places again, holding Johnny down. Almost pulling his shoulder out of joint when wrestling his arms to the floor above his head.
He guessed hate flared the senses more than love.
Johnny could see the red indentations his teeth had left on Logan's chin, and he pushed into each one with the tip of his tongue, then swept hot and wet over them and down the exposed jugular. He allowed Logan to keep holding his arms, now with just one hand, the other having left to sink into Johnny's hair, grip hard, and yank his head back.
And Logan was rolling his hips and grinding into him more and faster and harder and Johnny's heart sounded like gunshots in his ears and Logan's eyes were almost turquoise and pinning Johnny with more force than the rest of him and his mouth kind of growling something that almost couldn't be heard over the intensity…
"You don't hate me."
Johnny shut his eyes tightly, and every molecule in him seized and rebelled and rejoiced simultaneously. And when he opened them again, he was alone… presumably awake… and his underwear was wet and uncomfortably stuck to him.
When his gasping slowed, he surreptitiously cleaned up, keeping an eye on that little window in the door. He rubbed his cum into his skin, and some into the suddenly convenient white fabric walls, and tried not to think about what… or who… had coaxed it from his body. Or why he felt so lonely now.
He just knew the next time one of those guards came in, they would smell sex on the air and make some comment. But that was really the least of Johnny's problems.
No intention of going back to sleep, he sat there in the dark. He could remember the music he'd been working on non-stop, though he couldn't see the notes. And suddenly, that intensity from his dream still thrumming through him, he realized what was missing from the piece. Such a simple notation, but would add so much momentum, emotion… flavor.
"Crescendo."
He felt around for his marker.
xxx
It was black outside when Johnny was finally released. That and a stolen glance at the young guard's watch told him it was about three in the morning.
At 3:08 a.m., Logan woke up.
Amidst the poking and prodding and lights shined in his eyes and doctors asking if he knew what month it was… Lulu's contrition, his father's unnatural concern, and finding out the world no longer thought he was a killer… he found himself inexplicably humming a song he'd never heard before.
A song he would never know had been renamed.
His fingers itched to dig out that old guitar he had at home and play it. He couldn't get the music out of his head, and he wanted to play it slowly, then faster and louder, until he remembered why it was so important.
And why the fuck it made him hard.
x
A/N: No flames, please. It's just pointless. And no "Johnny and Lulu forever" or "Logan and Lulu forever," because I can't stand her, lol.