sunburned | (no subject)

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priestly,
timeloop

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And perhaps it's inevitable that he ends up here. His head's still reeling and he's not sure what he's about. More than anything, he needs to feel pinned down in the universe. He needs to feel certain about his place in something. So he goes to Priestly, prepared to explain himself if neecessary.

Basically, he just needs to feel comforted.
He doesn't care if it's selfish.

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"Yeah," says Priestly, "sometimes it really is. You need to sit down, man, come here. We can hang out on the deck, get some sun." He has no idea what's happened, but it was obviously pretty big. He's never seen John anywhere near like this. "Where'd you go? Over to the other island? You didn't go see the dinosaurs, did you?"

"The Americas," says Granby, letting Priestly nudge him out onto the terrace before he slumps into a chair. "It was the weirdest thing - one moment, me and Laurence were eating breakfast and the next thing, we were in the palace of the Sapa Inca, like we never left."

"Oh, Jeez, one of those things?" says Priestly, scrambling to figure out whether he has any refreshments to offer him. It hasn't happened to him, but he's kind of dreading the day. God only knows where the island would find it appropriate to send him. "How long?"

"Fifteen nights," says Granby, sliding down in the chair and stretching his legs out in front of him, expression bleak. "Only, each 'night' only lasted long enough for a wedding and...what usually comes after."

Priestly doesn't think that sounds so bad, until he thinks about it from John's point of view and his horror starts to grow. "And you, uh, you don't, with women, at all? Or was it just her?"

"I never had previously," he says. His eyebrow twitches and a grim smile twitches the corner of his mouth. "I suppose I have quite extensive experience, now."

"I mean, wanted it," says Priestly, a little more softly. "You don't want it with one." But then, that question's been effectively answered now too. "Did you...was it willing? Were you willing?" He doesn't know quite how to ask the question he's trying to ask, because willing isn't quite the right word, but it's not the wrong word either.

"I wouldn't chose it. That part of it wasn't entirely unpleasant - all comes down to friction, doesn't it, in the end?" He shrugs and closes his eyes.

"Having the whole bloody thing taken out of my hands, though? Over and over again?"

"You have to choose it," says Priestly, shaking his head and sitting down as close as he dares to. "That's just not okay. That's not okay. That's pretty fucked up." And friction might get the job done, but a guy wanted more than that.

"It's not the only thing that's fucked up," says Granby, grimly, eyes still tightly closed. It's not exactly familiar vernacular, but it's one that he can appreciate.

"I think every thing might be entirely fucked up."

Priestly reaches out and curls his hand over John's thigh, just to let him know he's there, if nothing else.

"It's okay," he says, even though he apparently hasn't heard the entire story yet. "Or, well, it's going to be. It won't be fucked up forever."

"Tell that to Laurence," says Granby and then grimaces, his hand covering Priestly's on his thigh. "Because absolutely everything is wrong there. I have made the most colossal mess of everything."

"Laurence?" says Priestly. He'd expected that Laurence would have been there with him, but not that he would have anything to do with John's wedding night. "What happened to him? Is he okay?" Unless.... "Wait, did he not know about...?"

"He knew," he says, eyes closed again. "I told him the first time around, when I had nowhere else to turn. It would have taken wild horses to drag it out of me, otherwise."

His jaw tightens.

"I would never have asked him, only it was so desperate and so bloody lonely."

And with that, Priestly gets a very good, if incomplete, picture of where John's repeated wedding nights finally led him.

"What happened?" he asks him. "John, what happened?"

He hates to hear that anguish in John's voice, and he hates that he could ever feel that lonely.

"A fumble in the dark, like many before," he says, looking pained, even as it passes his lips. "Only, now, we won't speak of it because, Lord knows, Will wouldn't have done it if I hadn't had nowhere else to turn."

It's hard for Priestly to offer a rebuttal because, for all he knows, it's true. He gets that things back then aren't like things in his time, and even if they were, if he messed around with his straight best friend in an act of desperation, it would still be pretty awkward in the morning.

"Even if that's the case," he says finally, squeezing his leg, "you'll work it out. It might be really fucking awkward for a while, but you guys'll figure it all out and be okay again."

That gentle touch is incredibly welcome, right then, and Granby managed to raise a smile.

"He couldn't even look at me," he says, eyebrows drawn together. "I've...It'll be best if I stay scarce."

"I was never really great at the whole sit-down-and-talk-about-feelings thing," admits Priestly, "but this might be one of those cases where you need to sit down and initiate the conversation, before things get more awkward." But not right now, not until John feels less ashamed of whatever happened between them and can bring it up in a calm and rational way. "Would it be better if I took your mind off it right now?"

"I keep forgetting - I haven't introduced you to Laurence yet, have I?" says Granby, mouth twisting with wry humour. He studies Priestly's face for a long moment, fingers stroking over the back of his hand.

"I'd be grateful for it."

Priestly's met Laurence, in passing, but not through John, and he wouldn't say he knew him well at all, except through what John has told him. But he knows a few things.

"I know I'm not him," he says, sliding his hand up a little further, "but maybe that's the best thing right now."

It's the perfect thing right then and Granby finds himself so grateful for it that he could weep. He shifts his hips in the chair, lifting his gaze to study Priestly for a moment.

"You do not have to feel obligated," he says.

Priestly laughs; he just can't help himself. "Look," he says, squeezing John's thigh again, "when it comes to you, I pretty much always want it. My time with you and whatever we do in it is anything but an obligation."

"We feel the same, then," he says and his smile is hard won but it's definitely there. "And anything you give me would be a comfort, truly. It would be...lovey, to lose myself in you."

"How about you just relax right there, then?" says Priestly, reaching now for the fastening on Granby's pants. "I think you've earned the right to have someone take care of you for a little while."