Chapter Text
“I just don’t know how he knew we were bluffing,” Billy said, staring up at the ceiling of their… well, technically White’s, and, even more technically, St. Cloud’s trailer as he lay in bed next to his partner. “I thought we played it so cool! How did he know that we’d—”
“That you would,” White said, back facing toward him. “Don’t drag me into your… business decisions.”
“You could have stopped me,” Billy said. He hesitated for a moment and then put his hand on White’s arm. “I mean, uh… I wouldn’t have… I’m sorry. I know it was a big decision and it affected both of us.”
“Yeah. It… it did,” White said, then sighed and rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling too. “He’s got our nards in a vice. He could come here tomorrow to lay us off and tell us to get out of his property if he wanted to.”
Billy shifted next to him and rolled onto his side, moving closer slowly. Ready to stop if White shrugged him off or turned away again. “Are you still mad at me?”
White wiggled his shoulders from side to side while he screwed his face up, before letting the tension go and slumping back down into his supine position. “No. I’m not mad with ya, pally. I’m just… this sucks.”
“Yeah, it does,” Billy said glumly.
He started to scoot away again, but then White stretched his arm out and gave an absent flick of his wrist. “C’mon. Let’s not go to bed mad over it.”
Billy hesitated for a second and then moved back and tucked himself in against White’s side. “Thanks. You know, I—”
“Yeah, I know,” White said, sighing again and rubbing his eyes. “Just go to sleep, Billy.”
White was wearing a thin undershirt that had seen better days. Billy had seen a lot of them too, come to that, since he’d been with White almost as long as most of his fairly meager wardrobe. He liked nice clothes, but he mostly liked his clothes and would rather blow money on video games and overpriced robots than update his look.
Billy remembered patching the pajama pants White was wearing the last time he was doing some small repairs on his own clothes. He had more of an excuse to dress like a cartoon character than White, given how he had to shop in the kids’ section, and even then had to make alterations to get things to fit right, so keeping up with his repair basket was just part of his routine, and occasionally White’s stuff made its way in there too.
Rather than through necessity, like Billy, White wore the same stuff over and over because he was, at heart, a creature of habit. He liked things to be the same. To stay the same.
Things were going to get very different pretty soon.
Billy did not look forward to finding out what fresh humiliation St. Cloud had planned for them now that they worked for the fucking guy. All this over a stupid quiz show! Taking everything from him; everything he and White had worked for and scraped together in their much less blessed post-Quizboys life, gone, because St. Cloud couldn’t get over a loss that had in no way hurt him as bad as the ill-gotten win had hurt Billy.
But… for all that he’d chafed at the stasis of his existence living in this trailer, barely supporting both of them with his work along with whatever token support White deigned to put into their business, frustrated at never living up to all that potential he’d been told so much about when he was younger, Billy… liked his life.
They weren’t rich, but he’d been living and working with the same person for more than twenty years, and, miraculously, they both still wanted to keep doing that. They had also never seriously thought about killing each other, which was more than a lot of people in similar situations could boast. And even if he and White weren’t shacked up in domestic bliss the way he’d allowed his mother to believe, he liked the independence they had together. Being their own bosses. And, sure, he’d had to browbeat White into the occasional vacation or whatever, but for the most part, he’d spent his adult life doing things on his own terms after a childhood of being little more than some combination of show pony and charity case.
“Whatever happens, at least we’ll be together,” White said quietly, and pressed Billy closer to his side as he rolled over to curl his long, thin body around him. “I’ll take care of you and you’ll take care of me. Like we always have.”
Billy’s eyelid was drooping more and more heavily. “Uh huh,” he said, too tired all of a sudden to muster much more of a response. “We’ll be okay. We’ll…”
White started to hum under his breath and Billy laughed a little into his shoulder. “God, are you singing me to sleep, you loser? My mom’s going to be mad you’re muscling in on her territory.”
“You used to ask me to sing for you,” White said, reaching out to cup the back of Billy’s head loosely. “Remember? When we were on the road. Before…”
He kind of did. He remembered “before” a lot more clearly these days, but it was still all blurred together. The feelings were easier to access than precise events. A messy slurry of feeling protected in a fucked up, scary situation, married unhappily with the acute feeling of absolute betrayal at how White had abused his trust by putting him in that fucked up situation in the first place.
But in terms of specifics… he did remember White singing to him, a little. Late at night in some motel or other. Maybe several. He’d made up a little bed for himself in a drawer and when he got in to settle himself to sleep, White lay sprawled on whatever bed bug ridden mattress Billy had passed up and sang to him, like Billy really was as young as he’d lied about being on Quizboys. New Wave stuff, from what he could remember, instead of anything with lyrics that mentioned mockingbirds, but… maybe not all that different in sentiment. Thinking about it years later made Billy’s stomach squirm oddly.
It was weird being peers with someone who used to be, like… for better or for worse, kind of responsible for him. He’d still just barely been a minor when he and White started living together. Remembering that was always kind of a jolt. Not exactly unpleasant, but not fun either.
“Yeah, well, I’m a big boy now,” Billy said, feeling his forehead crease as he fought the urge to… bite White on the bicep, or something. They did say they weren’t going to go to bed mad, after all.
“I know,” White said, laughing softly. He gave Billy’s forehead a big smacking kiss and poked a ticklish spot on his waist. “Daddy’s big brave boy.”
“You’re such a dick.”
“Language! I raised you better than that, young man.”
“Dick!”
“Come give your daddy a kiss and say you’re sorry,” White said, laughing again until it died in his throat as quickly as it had started and he sighed, giving Billy another quick squeeze. “But seriously, let’s go to sleep, huh?”
“Yeah,” Billy said, slinging an arm around White’s middle. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, dreamer.”
As he drifted off, Billy thought maybe he felt another kiss pressed to his forehead in a way that felt less like a joke. But, whatever. It was too late to get too bent out of shape about stuff like that.
Once they realized they were not under St. Cloud’s thumb at all but off to NYC to work with Rusty, their cautious optimism and resolve to make the best of things transformed into giddy exuberance as they packed up their stuff.
“Hey!” White said, picking up a cassette tape that Billy’d had since roughly the Cretaceous period. “Look at that.”
“That’s crazy, I had no idea I still had this,” Billy said, taking the tape from his hands. “I’m not even sure I have a way to play this anymore.”
On the front, written in very faded ink, were the words “Songs for Billy, Vol. I”, and when he opened up the case the tracks were written out on the inside cover.
“Is this why…” White cut himself off and gestured wordlessly at the red ball they’d given up so much for where it was packed up a cardboard box with some of Billy’s other memorabilia.
Billy looked down consideringly. “Huh, I… I mean, maybe,” he said. “I guess it was the first time I heard ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’ First time someone ever made me a mixtape too. And last, despite the tantalizing promise of further volumes to come implied in the title here, but it still meant a lot at the time.”
When he looked up, White was smiling softly at him. Kind of like a proud parent whose kid had landed their first date, which was… vaguely uncomfortable. Although, Billy’s head was probably only going there because of that weird train of thought he’d gotten onto the night before. He was reading too much into things.
“I’d make you another,” White said.
“Nah, that’s okay,” Billy said. “I think I mostly was so pumped about getting this one because I was violently in love with the girl who gave it to me… Jesus, what was her name? I think she used to babysit me or something.”
White stood there for a second, then let out a loud bark of laughter and nodded. “Oh, right. Yeah, who hasn’t had a little crush on the babysitter, am I right?”
“This is going to drive me nuts,” Billy said, tapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. “What was her name? I swear, I wanted to marry this person, but I can’t even remember what color her hair was.”
“Puppy love can be fickle,” White said, shrugging. “Take the tape with you, anyway. You can pick up a Walkman on eBay for like a dollar.”
“Yeah, I’ll buy a Walkman to play my one tape that I probably wore out years ago,” Billy said with a wry expression on his face, but he put the cassette in his pocket all the same. “Okay, what time do you wanna hit the road?”
“Probably in the next hour latest,” White said, getting his jPhone out of his pocket to look at the itinerary they’d hastily put together. “I want to make sure we get enough bathroom breaks in and still get to the motel before it’s stupid late. You should go before we leave, by the way. While I’m thinking of it.”
“Jesus Christ, White, I can be in charge of scheduling my own bodily functions,” Billy said.
“Fine, but remember you said that when we’ve been on the road five minutes and you need to go.”