darker_london | Birthday Blues (Johan, etc)

The trail was not going well. Anyone could see that. Johan wasn't terribly surprised, as he had done the thing they were all here to prove was not his fault. He could feel the eyes of the jurors, judging him. And probably not in the way he wanted to be judged.

The best thing in his favour was that Azura came to support him. Not only had she been involved in the attack, but she was Alastair's cousin. If she wasn't avoiding him like the plague, maybe he wasn't so bad after all. And then, bless her heart, she got up and gave testimony for him. Which was wonderful and it lifted Johan's heart with hope until the solicitor prosecuting him interrogated her, made her admit to being unconscious by the time Johan arrived meaning she had no idea what had happened between Johan and Alastair, and her statements were stricken from the record entirely.

By noon on the 6th of May, Johan had accepted that he was going to lose this battle, and his freedom. And on Alastair's birthday too. There was little evidence to hear, and despite the best efforts of Gabriel and Klara's lawyer, Jasson, there was little even the most brilliant lawyers could do with a case that was so clearly black and white in the eyes of people who couldn't possibly understand.

And then Johan was called to the stand. He couldn't stand for long periods of time, and he had been wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair he believed to be from the 17th century and used then as an instrument of torture. But when his name was called, he stood and limped his way to the witness stand before slowly taking a seat. He faced the juror, his face forlorn and lamenting. And then Gabriel started asking the very simple series of questions he and Jasson had agreed on.

"Bertolt Leidermann. Can you tell me what happened on the afternoon in question?"

Johan nodded. "I saw Werner go out and a little while later, I decided to follow him. He had already left, so I had to make my own way. I knew he was going to see Alastair. He was sick, so he tried to spend as much time with Alastair as possible."

"Can you tell me what you saw when you arrived?"

"There was blood everywhere. Azu...Elisabeth was lying on the floor, unconscious. Werner was unconscious too." Johan lied, as it was much easier than explaining what he had really been doing. "And I saw that thing...he was..." Johan closed his eyes. "The dog...wolf...whatever it was, it was eating my son. I think I scared it because it ran. I had been so shocked by the scene, I left the door open. Alastair was still alive. He was still alive, but there was no way he could have survived much longer. He had been...ripped apart."

Gabriel nodded, his entire being exuding sympathy. "And what did you do next, Bertolt?"

Now, Johan lied again. The gun he had used to shoot Alastair, had been on the floor when he arrived. It was clear that Alastair had probably tried to use it against his father, and failed. Alastair knew it belonged to Sergei Xandrov, but he didn't want to get the young man in trouble. Especially since doing so would probably mean Sergei would get shipped off back to St. Petersburg. "I went to Alastair's side. He could speak, but not well. He was in pain. He...asked me to end his life." Johan took a deep breath and he locked eyes with his cousin Peter who was sitting beside Spectre looking troubled.

"I...I had a gun. I carry one because I was mugged in Vienna and it was a terrifying experience." That much was true, and Johan knew Gabriel and Jasson had already gotten ahold of the police report he had filed when he had told them his version of the story. "And I...I pulled the gun out and I shot him. He asked me too. Of course I did. My son asked something of me...probably the most important thing he had ever asked in his too short life, and I complied. I loved him. And I would do the same again. You cannot possibly understand the guilt I feel. The grief. The absolute horror. But I would go through it all, even to spare him a second of pain. And so it is." Johan glanced around the courtroom, his eyes falling on the jurors. He was finished, and he folded his bruised hands into his lap and he waited to be excused. He could hear someone crying in the audience and he knew it was Azura.

The jurors were excused, going behind closed doors to come to an agreement. And court was adjourned. The outcome would be read out tomorrow, and until then, Johan would be alone in his grief. Ever so quietly, as he was wheeled from the courtroom by a prison guard, he whispered, "happy birthday, Alastair." Though it was not happy. And Johan only hoped that his words had reached someone. That they had mattered.