#you KNOW Billy was terrified and furious for a hot sec | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dastardlydandelion · 3 years

Text

g isn’t for gun (edited)

ao3 link

content warnings: child abuse, blood, injury, character death

Billy’s back is against the wall in the garage, shelves of Susan’s gardening supples pressing painfully into his spine, taste of his father’s hand lingering in his mouth. The salty hint of the sweat from his open palm, the waxy residue of the polish he’d been using to clean his guns. They’re still here on the workbench, he was interrupted by a call from the school. Billy’s in trouble for truancy again. He’s skipped one too many days and he’s in trouble, and he can still taste the hand of his furious father as it balls into a fist and punches him hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. His father’s knuckles plow into his stomach a second time and he could hate himself for the whiny-wimp-bitch noise punted from his throat.

“Do you like making me look like a jackass?” Neil demands. “I think you think you do!”

Billy raises his head and finds his mouth go dry at the thunderous, dangerous look on his father’s face. Any comebacks he had dissolve in his throat and he. He can’t.

“Leave my brother alone!”

Billy looks past his father. There’s Max in the middle of the garage, lily white complexion budding rose red with a roaring anger too big for her body. She’s petite as is and appears even more so in her baggy skater clothes of choice. Her fists are balled too, held up like she actually wants to hit something. That scares him for her sake, for what Billy dreads will happen if she actually dares to throw a tantrum in front of an already irate Neil.

“This doesn’t concern you, Maxine,” his father states clearly and coldly without even turning around.

“Get outta here,” Billy snaps in agreement, glowering pointed daggers.

Because he can picture it in detail so vivid it’s nauseating. Max’s throat in the crook of Neil’s elbow. Eyes flooding with tears as the pressure goes taut. Max coughing and coughing when Dad finally releases, if she isn’t out cold like Billy is sometimes, on the really bad days. Billy returns his attention to his fuming father. Max takes a couple steps back. That's going to be the end of her involvement. Good.

In a distant way Billy admires Max’s grit and yeah, okay, maybe it feels good that she gives a shit about him, but Billy’s private sentiments don’t compare to his fear. His stepsister needs to fuck off for her own safety. He looks back to his father, meeting and holding his gaze with steel. Billy prepares himself for more yelling, then the unmistakeable cock of a gun has them both freezing.

“I said leave him alone!” Max screeches like a falcon, M1911 stretched out in front of her, bluebell eyes burning in defiance.

Now Neil does whip around and for a moment he hesitates, just as taken aback as Billy. His mouth screws open and then his face hardens.

“I said get outta here!” Billy shouts so loud it rips his throat. Max is one goddamn gutsy firecracker and he’d be impressed by the act of rebellion if it wasn’t bound to get them both killed.

Max’s blazing eyes flicker over the blood at the corner of Billy’s mouth and she holds her ground. “No! I’m sick of living like we’re in a prison! I'm sick of living like we have to ask him permission just to fucking breathe!”

“Maxine, you put that down right now or you’re going to be in a world of trouble,” Neil warns, dark and seething.

She responds by pointing it at his head. Neil growls, lurching right toward her. Billy suddenly finds the ability to move. Quick as a viper, he darts in between them, pushing back against his father. For a moment he isn’t entirely sure exactly who he is protecting and then he realizes it’s both of them.

Billy is protecting Max in case she misses. He’s protecting Neil in case she doesn’t.

“Calm down, Dad! She’s fourteen, she doesn’t know what she’s doing!”

“That’s exactly why she needs to put it down!” Neil snarls right in his ear.

“Get outta here, Max!” Billy shouts for the second time, grinding his jaw as he struggles to restrain his infuriated father.

“You ungrateful little brat!“ Neil roars.

“Move, Billy!” Max shouts, finger on the trigger.

And Billy does move but not quite of his own accord. Neil swings an elbow and the next thing he knows, pain bursts through his face. Billy sees stars as his cheek radiates white-hot hurt. Stunned, his grip slips. He stumbles and hurriedly scrambles back between his father and his stepsister, pushing at him again daring to imagine the fight going in his favor, if only he could take Neil on the floor. Before Billy can go forward with the slapdash plan in his head, there’s a noise not particularly unlike a firecracker on the fourth of July. It almost matches the stars as they recede from his vision.

Neil drains pale and suddenly stops resisting. Billy looks back over his shoulder at his stepsister, actually sees the orange flare from the muzzle as she fires again. Giving a startled cry, Max swaggers sideways, arms jolting with the recoil she was all too clearly unprepared for. As far as Billy knows, this is Max’s first time shooting a gun and that one’s definitely too much for her. It’s Max’s first time shooting a gun she isn’t ready for and Billy— Billy realizes her aim, her accuracy, well, without any practice, it’s—

“It was an accident!” Max yips behind him, frantic, nearly as shrill as Susan in her distress. “Shit! Holy shit, Billy, you’re bleeding!”

Billy is struck with the realization of just how shoddy Max’s accuracy is as his efforts to restrain Neil turn into efforts to hold onto him so he doesn’t fall— so he can steady himself and remain upright. Neil doesn’t even push him away. He’s gone strangely silent, ghost white as Billy fists into the collar of his navy blue button-up.

“Yeah,” Billy mutters, vaguely annoyed as he blinks down at the egg sized exit wound cascading crimson into his favorite white muscle tank. The bullet tore right through the thin strap of the sleeve and the pristine white fabric thirstily soaks up all the blood that just keeps pouring. “You shot me.”

No way he’s salvaging this shirt. Strangely, it’s the shirt he’s more concerned about. It doesn’t hurt like Billy thinks it should. He feels like he got stung by a wasp. He watches connecting canals course down his arm, a small scale rain shower of ruby falling from his fingertips and pattering to the concrete. He just watches, numb, flabbergasted, not hurting like he believes he’s supposed to.

“Maxine, go open the truck passenger’s seat.” Neil commands, steely and stern but somehow the boiling rage of mere moments before receding to a different kind of exigency. “Now, hurry up!”

And for all her defiance just as recent, her palatable hate for their shared monster, Max immediately obeys. She slams her palm against the button to open the automatic garage door and limbo bends herself under the aluminum as soon as she can. Darts off, soles of her sneakers swiftly slapping the cement.

“Can I let go of you for a sec?” Neil urges. “Get you a towel?”

“Uh…no. No, sir.” Billy shakes his head. He thinks he’ll fall. He really does. His head is swimming and the bones in his legs are suddenly squishy as gelatin. He also doesn’t actually trust Neil not to go after Max.

“Come on, you can stand by yourself for a second,” Neil argues. “It’s just your shoulder, be a man.”

Against his better judgement, Billy lets Neil let go. The garage door is open now. Billy stares down the driveway and watches Max fling open the passenger door with the hand that isn’t holding the gun. She’s still holding it. Billy doesn’t understand why she’s still holding it but then Neil’s pressing a towel against his shoulder and now— now it does hurt, throbbing all the way to his back with the horrible and just plain bizarre sensation of something grinding like peppercorns beneath his torn flesh. Billy clamps his jaws around the scream in his throat.

“You’re fine, you’re fine,” Neil repeats with every step he shepherds Billy toward the truck. “You’re alright, we’re going to the hospital.”

“I’m really fucking bleeding,” Billy remarks and he’s not sure if he’s arguing or not, if he’s being contrary or simply making an observation.

Max is still there, wild eyed, M1911 foreboding and menacing and awkwardly large in her trembling hand.

“Put that back right now, Maxine,” Neil growls, practically shoving Billy in the passenger’s seat because apparently he’s not moving fast enough by himself. “Put that back and go to your room until your mother comes home!”

Max takes a long look at Neil. Her eyes seem to shake in their sockets.

“I’m sorry, Billy!” she yelps and just like that, she spins on her heel and takes off down the block. As she pistons she picks up speed, legs pumping hard, arms swinging at her sides. She’s running away again. She’s run away before. Twice. This is the third time. Three strikes and she’s out. Billy’s stomach sinks with the dread.

Max is doing everything she shouldn’t be doing and he isn’t going to be able to protect her from the backlash. Not like this. Not this time.

“Maxine! Goddamn it!” Neil shakes a fist after her but makes no move to pursue. He’s still very pale. It makes the flecks of Billy’s blood on his face stand out that much more.

“I’m bleeding,” Billy reminds him and maybe that’s not what he’s supposed to say, not the tough thing to say, not the macho thing to say.

“Dad, there’s blood everywhere,” he continues and he’s trying to be calm. His voice is level and he tries not to sound like he wants to cry even though he kind of does and if he does, Neil’s going to taunt him all the way to the ER for being a pussy-baby-wimp-bitch-loser.

But Billy can’t lift his arm and there’s blood all over. His shirt is ruined and it’s in his jeans now, the towel in his hand has already soaked to the point of uselessness. His head is spinning and he’s terrified of what Neil is going to do to Max. Horrified at the prospect of being unable to do anything about it.

He doesn’t really get along with Susan but Max being spared the full force of Neil’s wrath is one of the few unspoken understandings that exists between them. But Billy isn’t going to be able to hold up his end of the bargain like this, he doesn’t think, or— or maybe. Maybe he can if he redirects Neil’s anger now. If he takes this opportunity to really get under his skin. It’s all that there’s left to do.

“This is all your fault,” Billy accuses when his father finally slides into the driver’s seat.

“Say again?” Neil seems distracted more than taken aback, clumsily fumbling with the keys.

“It’s your fault,” Billy repeats. “Max is just a kid, she didn’t know what she was doing.”

“Horse shit,” Neil growls. “You bet your ass that little brat knew exactly what she wanted to do.”

“Still your fault,” Billy challenges. “She’s right, we can’t even fucking breathe without your permission. You try to control everything…one of us was gonna do this eventually. If not Max then me. Or hell, maybe even Susan would’ve went Linda Couch on your ass.”

“Jesus H. Christ, I always knew you were an ungrateful son of a bitch, but to say something that disrespectful? After everything I’ve done for you, you'd say something like that?” Neil finally jams the key in the ignition, blinking like he’s dazed before he angrily starts the truck. He gives himself a shake as he guns it into the street, tires squealing. Houses blur past and turn into trees.

“Yeah, everything you’ve ever done for me,” Billy sneers. “Beat up my mom—“

“Hey, that whore slung her pussy every which way the wind blows! Hell, for all I know, you’re not even mine!”

“Oh, I’m yours, all right.” Billy rolls his eyes. He’s feeling woozy and his hands are wet and he’s kind of scared now, but not as scared of bleeding as he is scared of what Neil will do to Max if her fails to secure his father’s ire now. She’s in trouble either way, but Billy hopes he at least has a chance to mitigate the pain that’ll come her way if he can get Neil seeing red in his direction.

“Let’s keep going down the list of all the wonderful things you’ve done for me that I should be oh-so grateful for. Let's see, you broke my shit whenever I struck out at Little League practice—“

“You improve under pressure, Billy. That’s just who you are.”

“Broke my actual leg once, do you remember that? Back when I had my paper route?”

“…that was an accident...”

“Pfft. Barely.”

“You were kissing another man’s wife! What I did wasn’t half as bad as what he would’ve done if he’d been the one to catch you.”

Billy just rolls his eyes again. He could go on but Neil beats him to it.

“I fed you, I clothed you, I kept a roof over your head!”

“Right.” Billy huffs hotly, blinking as he lifts the towel to take a peek at his shoulder. “So like, the bare minimum.”

“Don’t get smart with me. You don’t have the faintest idea what it takes to be a parent. What it takes to be a fath—“ Neil breaks off, violently hacking into his hand.

Billy gapes at the saucer of red when Neil’s hand retracts from his mouth, the beads glistening in his facial hair.

“Whoa,” Billy gasps in realization. “Max shot you.”

“…yes.” Neil wipes his palm off on his jeans, shifts his eyes back to the road as he bitterly continues, “It’s a bullet, Billy, it had to go somewhere when it tore outta you. Bullets don’t pop like bubble soap.”

“Holy shit.” Billy has no idea how he didn’t notice. His father’s shirt is darker than his, but still. “Wait, should you be driving?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been shot, William.” Neil keeps his eyes ahead but he’s so pale he’s almost translucent and a foreboding feeling grows deep in the pit of Billy’s stomach.

“Oh, Jesus, not that again.” Billy cackles wildly and it hurts, it sends torturous throbs all down his arms and across his trunk. His ribs stick into him like he's made of mashed potatoes and he cackles maniacally anyway. “You and your stupid wounded warrior bullshit—“

“Don’t you dare insult my service!” Neil forms a fist and Billy knows he’s going to get hit but then his father’s coughing into the curled fingers instead and it sounds wet and he shouldn’t be driving. No way in hell should Neil be driving, they shouldn’t be on the road, this empty road with nothing but trees on either side as the seats soak up their blood.

“I wouldn’t give a flying fuck if you had a hundred purple hearts,” Billy taunts scornfully and he’s never, ever dared to say anything like this at all actually, but if he doesn’t now, he never will and he’s feeling as vindictive as he ever has. His heart is suddenly as light as his head. Above all, he finally feels free and isn't his freedom what Neil supposedly sacrificed for?

Fighting for his freedom, that generously noble thing Neil did that supposedly grants him this unalienable right to pull rank above everybody else?

“You're an asshole, Dad. And I bet you cling to that military bravado because you enjoyed shooting people. Wrap it up in all the red, white, and blue you want, you bastard. I see you, I know who you really are. You’re just some asshole who likes yourself best when you’re hurting other people.”

And even though he’s still coughing and there’s red spurting through his fingers, his father’s eyes meet his and Billy realizes he’s actually hurt him. For the first time in his life, possibly, he’s actually gotten in a dig that had an effect, made a profound impact. For the first time the pain in Neil’s eyes matches his own and Billy revels in it right until the moment they swerve off the road.

Metal crunches like stomping on a beer can. Billy pitches forward, seatbelt biting into him hard, wounded shoulder jarred as his teeth rattle. It happens so fast, the cacophony, the heart-pounding moment of impact.

The moment is. Then Neil is not.

Suddenly the truck’s in a ditch and Neil is undeniably dead, slumped forward in the seat. The horn blares continuously, uninterrupted and earsplitting under the slack weight of his forehead. Billy reaches over and clumsily pulls him off of it just to make it stop. The way Neil’s head lolls creeps him out and makes him want to puke at the same time.

“Yeah, you’re dead alright, you bastard,” he mumbles.

He closes the lids of his father’s blank eyes with a sweep of the hand and swallows against the sight of his own blood smearing across his face. He’s still bleeding. He’s probably dying too. What a fucking crapshoot.

Billy feels cheated. Action heroes on the big screen never die when they get shot in the shoulder. It’s always a flesh wound. But Billy supposes he’s never been the heroic type anyway.

His heart hammers, chest tightening as he realizes he’s graduated from frightened to flat-out fucking terrified. He’s bleeding all over and his injury throbs with a diabolical vengeance. He could be dying. For a moment he thinks maybe he’ll hold his dad’s hand because he’s dead now, and he can’t swat him off, and then Billy realizes how goddamn stupid that is.

“You’re an asshole and I’m not gonna die with you,” he mutters, shifting in his seat, getting his good hand on the door. He gets it open and half-hops-half-falls out of the truck.

Hitting the ground sends a torrent of torment ripping through his shoulder and Billy lets himself scream. Pulls himself up anyway, stumbles to the side of the road with his hand clamped over the bloody egg hole in his flesh, painful sensation of peppercorns grinding together beneath the meat. He wonders if he should just keep walking…if he can keep walking.

Billy’s definitely dizzy now and he feels like he might fall over again because he’s pretty unsteady, uncoordinated. It’s a little harder to breathe than it was a few minutes ago, he thinks. It’s like he can’t catch his breath and maybe that means he’s panicking even though he’s trying not to panic, panicking won’t help and Neil is dead. Neil is dead?

Yeah, Neil’s dead. Billy won’t die with him. He refuses. He at least needs to get away from the truck. If he’s gong to die, it’s going to be at least twenty feet away from his good for nothing, piece of shit father who just got exactly what he deserved. Fuck you, Dad, fuck you and your pretend patriotic freedom fighter bullshit.

Billy prides himself on knowing he hurt him. That their last conversation was one where he was the one to render Neil speechless. The lingering satisfaction gives Billy a boost he uses to push on a bit further. He’s swaying like a porch swing before he sinks to his knees in the grass.

Maybe he just needs a break. He’ll take a break. Catch his breath and then he’ll get up again and…

And walk to town?

Check himself into the ER?

Shit, he’s fucked. Billy is so, so fucked, and the pendulum swings and he’s freaking out again and trying to get up and he never ever should’ve let himself sink, he should’ve known better than to let himself go down because it’s so much harder to get up this time.

Billy wonders about Max. He wonders if she still has Neil’s gun, if she’s still running around with her finger on the trigger. He wonders if she knows she killed Neil. Wonders if she knows she killed Billy because she did, didn’t she?

He can’t get up.

He blames Neil more. Yeah, he blames Neil more. One of them was always going to do something, right?

Billy understands, of course he does, how many times had he thought about doing that himself? How many times had he brought the muzzle to his own mouth and jammed it against his teeth not to die, he didn’t (doesn’t!) want to die, just to get away from Neil.

He’s still thinking about Max when there are headlights and people here, people he knows, Nancy Wheeler and her smoking hot mom. Billy blinks at them blearily, wondering if they’re real. When they begin to pull him up, his ruined shoulder screams and the musky scent of Karen’s perfume wafts over his nose, and it’s all too vivid to be a dream.

“What happened?” Nancy asks, Karen asks. Alarmed. More than once.

“My dad’s dead but it’s not her fault,” Billy explains.

They must know this, if anything, they must know this. If he’s going to die in the backseat, Nancy pressing Karen’s hastily stripped leg warmers to his entrance and exit wounds, then it must be known that he doesn’t blame Max. Because if Billy doesn’t blame Max, then maybe the law won’t blame her either. Maybe somebody already called the cops because sure, some of their neighbors are geriatric and deaf as all hell, but there were two gunshots and a redheaded girl taking off like a bat outta hell with a gun in her hand, and none of it was inconspicuous.

“He made her do it,” Billy emphasizes.

Karen’s pushing the pedal to the metal and burning rubber like a NASCAR champion and god, if Billy didn’t want to roll around with her before— if he survives this, he’s definitely taking her to a motel —but that’s not the point. It’s Neil’s fault. He practically did make her do it. Force her hand because he was just like that and the pressure of living under him just did things to you, Billy knew better than anyone.

“He made her do it, it’s not her fault.”

“We got it,” Nancy promises, voice weirdly jittery considering she doesn’t particularly care for him at school. “We got it, okay? Maybe stop talking and just breathe?”

“Bossy,” Billy mutters.

It is getting harder to breathe. It’s like he can’t hold onto the oxygen long enough before it’s whooshing right out again. Billy doesn’t understand why. He isn’t shot in the chest, it’s his shoulder, just his stupid shoulder, it shouldn’t be screwing up his ability to breathe.

Only maybe being shot isn’t why he can’t breathe, maybe being scared is why he can’t breathe. Because he’s panicking, right? He’s panicking, remember?

Maybe he’s outright having a panic attack. He’s had them before. He tries to drown the memory of them down with whatever he can get his hands on, really. But now he is undeniably scared. Neil is dead and Billy is still fucking scared of what’s going to happen to Max. She has blood on her hands now and they’re not going to let her off the hook for something like that just because she’s a kid, are they?

It’s mostly Neil’s fault but it’s kind of Billy’s fault too.

Max picked up the gun because Neil was going at him. And Neil was going at him because Billy skipped school. But it’s not like following Neil’s rules was ever a guarantee anyway. Fuck it. Sometimes it helped, sure, but sometimes it didn’t do a damn thing, how the hell was Billy ever supposed to know the difference?

Nancy’s speaking to her mother with something urgent in her voice. Billy looks at her hands. Stares at the glaze of red staining her skin up to the wrists as she presses down desperately hard on the sodden leg warmer bundled over his shoulder. He wishes someone would turn the heat on. It’s starting to get cold, which is weird, because the weather is warm and balmy today.

He feels himself drifting by the time they’re at the ER. He’s only rudimentarily aware of the transfer from the Wheelers’ car to the stretcher. His own legs quaking under his weight and other hands on him. He makes it onto the thing with help and then there’s a shit ton of people in his face. They’re mostly yakking at each other and not him, but there are a few questions fired in his direction.

Billy manages his name and phone number and repeats as much of the story he’s sticking to as he can. It wasn’t Max’s fault. Neil made her do it.

More or less, that’s the truth.

* * *

Billy feels weird. Surreal and vaguely nauseous. The lady in scrubs is so short, she’s perhaps not even five feet. Stocky and rounded with pudge next to Susan who stands nearly six and lithe— not in the least because Neil always rode her ass about staying a trim, presentable trophy wife —it’s sort of like staring at a shetland pony beside a hanoverian horse. Billy doesn’t mean to say this out loud, but he thinks he does because after the thought concludes, Scrubs scowls and Susan pinches the bridge of her nose.

“I know equines,” he mumbles. “My mom took me to the fair…”

He remembers it. That big barn with metal box fans and a rainbow of ribbons next to the horse’s names on the stalls. Mom holding his hand steady and making sure he kept his fingers flat so they wouldn’t get chomped by the velvety lips seeking treats in his palm. He remembers the warm scents of hey and alfalfa swirling together, wafting up his nose, the horses’ tails like paintbrushes swatting at insects fluttering by.

“Billy, I know you’re groggy, but can you focus for me?” Susan asks, lowering her hand. “Please?”

Billy blinks at her, shrugs his shoulders— tries to, anyway. It prompts a spike of pain through the left and well, of course it does. He got shot. That’s right, Max shot him. Wow. He wets his lips with his tongue and glances down, tracing languid fingertips over the thick bandaging.

“Feels kinda heavy…” Billy wonders how many layers there are for it to feel this heavy, just how much gauze and batting separate his fingertips from his wounds.

“You had surgery, hon,” Scrubs explains gently. “We had to repair an arterial bleed and the bullet broke your scapula.”

“My spatula,” Billy agrees hazily, attempting to blow a low whistle that comes out as more of a rasp. “Whoa…shit, surgery? S’it serious?”

In theory, being shot sounds kind of badass. Neil always talked like a badass when he showed his scars off. But Billy’s stomach is sinking, worry already resurfacing from the murky lake of his mind.

“It could’ve been much worse.” Scrubs gives him a pat on his good shoulder Billy thinks is supposed to be reassuring. Her hands are unpleasantly clammy and he blinks dazed eyes against the touch.

“Billy, where is Maxine?” Susan prompts, worriedly nibbling her lip.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Billy defends, vehement. “She didn’t mean to. Neil…”

Neil’s dead.

That’s right, Neil is dead. Billy snapped at him. And then he died. And a few things happened in between that. He shouldn’t have been driving. Why didn’t he just call an ambulance instead?

“…it’s his fault.”

“But where did she go?” Susan asks, each word spoken slow, voice a mix of fear and frustration. “It’s been hours and she still hasn’t come home.”

“Hours?” Billy echoes, blinking rapidly. “What?”

Doesn’t feel like hours. Maybe like, one hour tops since he’s been here. They asked him questions. They gave him an oxygen mask he tried to fight off until he realized how much better it made breathing. He was cold. It wasn’t Max’s fault.

“Ma’am,” Scrubs interrupts. “Your son isn’t—“

“She’s not my mother,” Billy declares at the same time Susan corrects, “S-Stepson.”

They stare at each other for a moment and Susan anxiously rubs her hands together.

“Do you have any idea where Max went, Billy?” she pleads. “This is very important.”

“No…but it’s not her fault. She owes me a new shirt…but she didn’t mean it. Neil was scaring her, Max just…” Billy trails off, worried about saying too much. Who knows who’s listening.

Susan sighs softly and glances away, visibly uncomfortable.

“I’ll help you look for her,” he decides.

It’ll be much better if he and Susan find Max before she gets picked up by a cop.

“Oh, um…don’t worry about it.” Susan shakes her head. “The Wheelers brought you in, I know she goes to school with their boy, um…I suppose I’ll start there.”

“I’ll help you,” Billy insists because he was there, so his input is going to be key in keeping Max out of trouble.

“That’s not necessary.” She gives him a dubious look.

“You don’t think I can?” Billy challenges. “Psh. M’not a wimp, Susan, s’just my…my spatula? Gimme five minutes and I’ll be good to go.”

He just needs to find his shoes, or something. New shirt. Shirt and shoes. No shirt, no shoes, no service.

“Alright then, Billy,” Susan concedes to him, never was much for arguing. Shares a look with Scrubs and runs a hand through her hair. “You take your five minutes. I’ll pull the car around.”

Billy bobs his head, glad for her cooperation. He’s out and around more than Susan is, he has a better mental map of the town and where Max hangs out. Not only is it better for Billy to find Max because he was there, but Susan is bound to find her faster with his geographical guidance. Billy might be a little banged up but he’s not some useless coma patient. Max needs him to help find her and say whatever he can to keep her free. Max freed them from Neil and Billy is going to make sure free is how she stays, that one snap decision she made scared won’t end in their household prison exchanged for a brick-and-mortar one.

Billy waits until Susan leaves the room to close his eyes. He isn’t going to sleep. He definitely isn’t. He swears to himself he won’t. He just needs a moment to collect himself. Only a minute or two, just to get his bearings…

#my fic tag #billy hargrove #max mayfield #neil hargrove #susan hargrove #fixed this #mostly #here u go #i have too many wip but this was halfway a prompt so

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