A/N: Strange choice for a title, hu? Can't help it, Johnny owns my soul. Another piece before the new year begins and I might be unable to post as much because my resolution for 2012 is to finally write that novel that's been in my head for years now.
As always read and review, please! It makes me happy and puts a smile on lips.
Folsom Prison Blues
"I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die."
Baltimore, 18 years ago
They were on their seventh drink, each. When Will leaned down to brush his lips with Celeste's he tasted vodka on them – the cheap kind that burned the throat unpleasantly. Her eyes were closed, dancing to beat slightly off-rhythm, she grinded her hips against his crotch with a seductive smile on her lips.
Will pulled her flush against his chest and let his hands wander down her back to her ass. He lifted her up and Celeste slung her legs around Will's torso to steady herself in his embrace.
She pressed her lips against his and breathed huskily, already very aroused, "We should get out of here."
It did not sound like a suggestion in the least and Will understood. He let her down softly, grabbed her hand and walked off the dance floor, holding it tightly.
They got a cab – deciding not to risk driving themselves as intoxicated as they were, and when Will started giving the driver directions to his apartment building, Celeste interrupted him and told the driver to take them to the Royal Casino instead. Will groaned in annoyance and Celeste smirked, "You'll thank me, later."
Will awoke to a massive headache and someone persistently playing in the drums – in his head. He rolled onto his side and regretted it immediately when he heard his stomach rumbling in disagreement. He sat up, thought about running to the bathroom but decided against it. He felt very sick and dizzy but he was not wearing any clothes and in case he was not hallucinating there were three other people in this room – just as sparsely dressed as he. Will sighed, put one hand to the side of his throbbing head and wondered where the heck he was and what exactly had happened last night.
He looked around the room for something to wear. When he spotted his trousers and dress shirt from last night on the floor close to the door, Will walked over, put it on quickly and headed for the bathroom to clean up as best as he could.
When he heard the bathroom door slide open, he turned his head and saw Celeste seductively swaying towards him – completely nude. It might have aroused him yesterday but right in this moment he felt disgusted and when she pressed her breast against his back, he stiffened visibly.
"What's up, Will?" She let her hands wander down his front and was about to reach the hem of his boxer briefs when Will took her hand and shook his head.
"You were more fun last night," Celeste said in annoyance and a trace of hurt simmering through her omnipresent poker face.
"Yeah, well, that was last night."
Will turned towards the door intending to get his stuff and leave. When a realization hit him he halted in his tracks, bringing one of his hands to his face pressing against the bridge of his nose, willing the pain to cease.
"Where are my car keys?"
"Don't you remember," she purred walking towards him, standing on her toes she leaned close to his ear and whispered, "You lost your car last night. Was a good hand, just not good enough." She closed her eyes and let her hands trace his spine.
The next thing Celeste noticed was the slamming of the door.
Chicago, a week ago
I hated that life even when I was living it
Will drove along the familiar streets. He had settled in Chicago just fine all those years ago. Certainly the winters were rougher and the summers were less warm than those in Baltimore but whenever he took a walk along Michigan Lake he found himself relieved and glad at the chance he had been given – forced to make, after the incident.
The sound of Johnny Cash's deep, husky voice filled his car and as he drove along the Kennedy Expressway the words he heard over the car radio seemed oddly fitting in a somewhat cynical interpretation of his life so far. So Will took the next exit and decided to stop by at the office to see Alicia.
He was still whistling the beat to Folsom Prison Blues when Will got off the elevator. He walked towards Alicia's office and sat down on her couch. She was not there yet – or maybe he feared she had left for the day already.
He was going to tell her tonight – tell her that he was serious; that he had been in love with her since Georgetown; that he had never made a move for various reasons, some selfish, some thoughtful in respect to her desires and expectations.
In a fleeting moment of complete honesty he would admit to himself that he never dared to ask her out, fearing rejection or worse – being with her and screwing up and Will had always known that he would wreck this, their relationship, at some point. And in that case, Will had always thought, it would be better not to have tasted the apple in the first place for it ruined everything that followed, leaving him with the torturous fate of only getting second best for as long as he lived.
Will closed his eyes and nodded his head in agreement to the thoughts in his mind. He smelled her perfume before he even heard her heels clattering on the floor. Will smiled – both doubtfully and contently, at his own ability to distinguish her from any other woman he had ever been with.
He looked up from the cell phone in his hands to greet her.
He was going to tell her now, Will told himself silently, encouraging himself to take a leap of faith – just this once, making his own needs his top priority instead of constantly stepping back to spare her the fear of possible commitment and therefore hurt.
But then he looked at her, saw her pale, rose skin, those sinfully red lips and the genuine happiness reflecting from her eyes. It constricted his chest, making it hard to breathe or think properly. So he stood up, averted his eyes to look at the floor, a last frail attempt to strengthen his courage but when he looked up he failed and all he was able to say out of sheer fear of losing her, breaking up this affair – that had filled his life with a joy it had lacked for years; a joy not even work seemed able to create.
"I'm not interested in anyone else."
It sounded foolish, even to his own ears, and the empathetic smile on Alicia's lips let the anger start simmering in his stomach. Anger at whom? Himself mostly. His own inability to express his feelings for her – back in Georgetown and now in Chicago.
He had told her once that he liked himself around her and he still did, but Will also feared that timing had never been their problem at all. So when he left Alicia's office he started whistling the familiar tune.
Tough luck, he whispered quietly to no one in particular.
A little farther down the line. Far from Folsom Prison, that's where I want to stay and I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.
It was cloudy in Chicago and Will thought it was oddly appropriate, after all none of them were coloring in black and whites anymore. Nowadays everyone was walking on shades of grey, crimping either the truth or one's own moral values. Will would have liked to exclude himself of this dangerous path of deception but he was neither naïve nor a hypocrite.
When he saw Peter walking briskly towards the stairs leading up to the building which was harboring his office – again, he chuckled at seeing Peter delegate power to young, hungry lawyers, earning the glory and neglecting the effort.
When Peter noticed Will at the top of the stairs, he handed his briefcase to the man next to him – an assistant Will supposed, and straightened his shoulders.
Will dared him, asking him to express his anger in physical violence rather than subtle –or rather degrading intrigues.
It would not have been the first time for his face to connect with Peter's fist, he mused. Elizabeth. First year of college. Will might have done it intentionally, he admitted to himself – slept with her albeit knowing Peter was interested in her, but he just hated Peter's attitude, then and now; self-obsessed, thoughtlessly taking other people's emotions for granted and arrogantly posing his assumed superiority. But that was then.
Alicia was different and Peter knew that, had probably always known that.
So when Peter stiffened his shoulders, staring angrily at Will, he knew that this time there was no battle to be fought. The war was already over and Peter had won – or rather lost it pretty much himself; placing effort with Peter and awarding glory to Will, he laughed silently at that thought.
So when Will kissed Peter's wife on the lips, slipping off her expensive, black dress and carrying her to the bed Peter had once slept in, he could not help but think that the train was coming, rolling round the bend, blowing his blues away.
And when they lay in bed later that night, he held Alicia close to his chest, kissed the side of her head and whistled quietly the old familiar tune with a content smile on his lips.
The end.