When It All Falls Apart
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. All rights goes to USA network and Jeff Eastin.
Johnny sat in his room, shaking his head, trembling. Graceland, the team, everything was falling apart it seemed. Everyone was falling down, no one was trusting each other anymore, no more nights together at Hector's, and not even his jokes were helping anymore. All of it was coming down on the team hard.
Set ups, set backs, blow ups, punches, getting high, disappearing. All of it happening at once, after one night. "Damn it, Briggs... Why? Thought we was all family..."Johnny spoke softly to himself, whispering. It was late, and as far as he knew, he was the only one awake.
After tonight's incident between Briggs and Mike, the two went to their own rooms, Mike in tears, Briggs beyond pissed off. And Charlie wasn't up to par, she was high. 'Baked as a cake' as his brother would say. And Paige was out on one of her ops. And DJ... No one knew but Johnny, but DJ was thinking of applying for transfer, to leave the craziness of Graceland.
Johnny stood up and walked over to the window, looking out at the ocean. Normally the waves would calm him, but tonight, the waves faded into the background as the day replayed over and over again. That turned into his own past being brought up, the day his father was murdered, the day his brother joined the neighborhood gang, when his brother was arrested for committing a burglary with said gang. His mother dying on the phone with him...
He swore and shook his head, fighting back tears as it all fell apart. He couldn't protect his biological family, why did he think he could protect this one? Johnny glanced over at his pocket knife, the last thing his father gave him before that awful day. He picked it up, playing with it, weighing it in his hands. Sighing, he thought back to when he was sixteen, diagnosed with depression, when he started cutting for the first time, doing brawls so he could get hit. He was young, no one really to care for or that cared for him aside from his mother, and that was only after she finished all her shifts from both her jobs, so the brawls and cuts were the only way he felt anything...
But could he do it again, do it now? Things were falling apart, all over again, just as they had then. So what was different? Not him, he still covered up everything in jokes and pranks, hid behind a smile of a clown. Right?
Johnny screamed silently punching the window, without damaging it. He slipped to his knees, feeling tears streak down his face. Everyone he was around got hurt. Everything he touched fell apart. After all, what else did anyone at Graceland have in common but him? What did his family have in common? Him.
He shook, tears falling with no chance of stopping, sobs escaping his lips. Johnny cursed at himself, upset he was acting so weak. After all, people came and went, it was their job. Why should this hurt so much? 'Because they are mi familia. My family, the ones I chose for myself. Because I love them.. Because they keep me grounded.' Johnny answered himself silently, hugging himself close as he sobbed.
Johnny then went back to the argument/fight between Mike and Briggs. It was his fault. He should have double checked, to make sure Mike knew. Then he wouldn't have been so upset with Briggs. He should have made himself indispensable so that Bello wouldn't have had a reason to want to kill him. He should have done so much more than what he did. He shouldn't have let it go so far, let it get so bad, so fast.
But, he did. He had let it happen, had trusted Briggs. Trusted himself even. Why couldn't he do anything right for once?
Let's not get started on Charlie either. He should have known she was messed up by the way Briggs carried her out, by how she looked so euphoric. He should have known, should have helped better. Now he needed to make sure that she was going to get help, going to go to rehab, anywhere that would help her. And Briggs needed someone to punch around, to vent to. Mike... Johnny had no idea what all he would need, but suspected that therapy was high on that list.
None of that he could truly give anyone though. He was useless, defenseless. Ignorant, just the party boy. A 'knucklehead' as Charlie would put it. His father would call him something else. What it was would depend on his mood, though his favorite was typically telling Johnny how stupid he was, how all he was good for was being a pushover, how a punching bag had better scores in school... And then of course, his dad's favorite part would happen... He'd hit Johnny as hard as he could, and would continue hitting him, until he either begged well enough for it to stop, or was about dead.
Johnny trembled as he came too, away from his past, the beatings, his eyes still full of tears and blurry. He could guess how red his normally tanned face was, how much messier he looked. Light trickled through, and he realized he had been at this all night. All night without officially ending it. He couldn't even do that right... Stupid.
Johnny picked up his knife again, looking at it, pulling out the blade. He laid his right arm down, raising his left hand, the hand with the knife. Closing his eyes, he remembered everything; from the beatings, to the names he was called, to the family falling apart, to his brother, to the day before.
And, for the first time in years, Joesph "Johnny" Tuturro slit his wrist, hoping for death.