When The Rain Washes You Clean. (You'll Know.)

Chapter Twenty.

His voice almost sounds like venom, he's speaking words Leland doesn't want to hear. He's telling him things that are true, but Leland wants to be blind towards them. He doesn't want to accept that the way he acted tore this man down till he was nothing.

"I know that I don't have any claim over you, you were never really mine to begin with," Johnny says, his voice cracks and Leland wants to get up and go to him, "But you made me feel like this was it. You made me believe that you chose me, and it's why you came to my room last night. I don't know what possessed you to think this was okay, but you've broken me down, and hollowed me out," He lets a sigh out, and Leland's body is slowly starting to decompose, "I don't know what you want from me anymore, I don't know how much more I can give to you, to show you how I feel."

"It's not th-'' Leland finally gets some words out, but Johnny is looking at him with a frown on his face. And Leland shuts his mouth up completely.

"But you made your choice, and you made it clear on the phone last night that I was never going to have you," He says, another broken noise passing his lips, "Not in the way I wanted to, at least."

If Leland's heart could sink any lower, he's sure it would've by now. He slowly sat himself up in the bed, letting the blanket fall to above his waist - as he brought a hand up, to run his fingers through his hair. He doesn't know what he could say in this situation, to make things right; and he fears he's only a couple more blinks away from crying. But he knows deep down he has no right to be feeling this way, he was the one who did this to Johnny. He was the one who thought he could dance the field with two other people, and not expect one or more to get hurt. He dug himself this grave, and no one will be standing there to read an eulogy about him.

"It's funny, because I told myself I wasn't going to do this when you left the bed last night," Johnny says once more, "But something told me that I needed to hear this, and so when I picked the phone up in the hallway. You could imagine my surprise to hear the things you were saying to her," He looks back towards Leland now, as another loud clap of thunder rolls through.

"Tell me Leland," He pauses for a second, thinking the words over before just going for it, "Why did you do this? How do you even feel about me? Why did you decide to string me along for this long, if you didn't even pick me in the end? I know I might be selfish for this, but you made me feel things I never wanted to. You made me jump into the deep end of the pool, when I don't even know how to swim,

So why did you do all of this if you don't love me?"

It shakes Leland down to the core, his body almost trembling to hear those words come from Johnny's mouth. Because it was the one word he never wanted to put towards his feelings. He never wanted to hear that about himself, and make it real to what he was feeling deep inside. Leland did his absolute best to push that word away, chalk it up to just intense feelings - with nothing else behind them. And hearing this, hearing the words that Johnny is speaking to him right now - it scares him. Leland doesn't want to admit to it, he can't bring himself to actually think that he loves Johnny.

Because if he allows himself to admit to that, then the signs were all there from the start. It would make sense to how he acts, how he is around Johnny and how he only wants that man for himself. He swore he couldn't ever love another person besides Ana, and would never allow his heart to betray him that way. And in the midst of it all, Leland knows that it's the truth - but he's still scared, he still can't do this and he just can't admit that he's in love with this other man.

He can't let him know that his heart beats three times faster when Johnny is around, that he thinks of him most nights before he sleeps... And that he tangled himself up in infidelity, just so he could have Johnny look at him.