Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.”

Chapter Text

Pete hadn’t had the Quizboys gig all that long, comparatively speaking, but it was cushy as hell. The last host had the job for like thirty years, so as long as nothing happened, Pete would have more than enough money for the rest of his life with plenty of pocket change left over to keep him well stocked with a little something to powder his nose with.

It wasn’t just working hard and partying harder though. The filming schedule was pretty intense, so some uppers to get him going and downers to get him to sleep were just what the doctor had… point blank refused to order, so he’d made other arrangements to put himself on a modified version of the Judy Garland regimen that involved a lot of cocaine and sleeping with Prince Valium. But he needed it to film five episodes a day, six days a week each season.

They filmed for 60 days out of the year, so even just having done the show for a couple of years, he’d seen a hell of a lot of contestants come and go. Even if one of them went on a winning streak, they’d usually be gone within a day or two.

Billy had been there for about a month. Cute kid, except that he’d politely but firmly told Pete he was turning 18 that year and just looked young for his age the last time he’d called him that to his face. But Pete liked him. He was smart, obviously, but not a pain in the ass precocious little darling about it. And while he was unerringly polite, he’d banter a bit back and forth with him on camera. Someone you could have a good time talking to made getting through a long day of filming a hell of a lot easier, so long may Master Billy Whalen reign as far as Pete was concerned. The kid was funny!

He was also… not exactly embraced by his fellow contestants. Any time Pete had looked in on the greenroom, Billy would be sitting on his own while the other boys would chitchat with each other and brag about their various scholastic and gaming achievements. After a while, Billy had just started bringing books to read with him and stuff. It kinda broke Pete’s heart seeing the little guy being left out in the cold like that.

It could maybe have been explained by the fact that Billy was on such a hot streak and they were all boiling alive with envy over it, but it had been that way from the start. He was also a little older than most of the other boys, but… well, if someone had tried to sell a younger Pete White some obvious crock of shit like that about why the other kids didn’t want to play with him when he was achingly lonely and unmistakably different from his peers, he would have told them to eat it.

No, it was abundantly clear to him that those little fuckers didn’t want to talk to Billy because he was different. A freak, like Pete. And, boy, did it grind their gears that a little freak like Billy Whalen was eating them alive. Which would be easier to feel smug about on Billy’s behalf if the poor kid didn’t still seem so goddamn lonely when he’d see him on the opposite side of the greenroom to some random snot-nosed brats who’d instantly become bonded by their common desire to peck a white crow to death.

When Pete stuck his head through the door, it was the same old picture he’d gotten used to seeing. This time, rather than reading, Billy was sitting on his own while he listened to a Walkman he had with him, but the key details were all the same. Just some new faces playing the familiar roles of mean little shitheads ignoring his pal. Pete waved the brats off as they jumped to their feet, looking to their mothers to see if their call time was earlier than they’d realized, to go over to Billy. Billy didn’t have his mom with him neither, nor a father or anyone else to keep an eye on him… which, sure, he was going to be old enough to leave home and enroll in college in the fall, but it still felt jarring to Pete to see him left there to fend for himself. Billy hadn’t noticed him come in, and leapt up about a mile when Pete tapped his shoulder.

“Mr. White!” he said, snatching his headphones off and jabbing at the pause button of his Walkman clumsily. “A-are we… is everything okay? I mean… um… hello, Mr. White. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Whalen, how are you?” Pete said, smiling as he sat down next to him. “Don’t worry, we haven’t changed the call sheet or nothing, just wanted to see how you were getting along. Had much of a chance to size up the competition?”

Billy followed his thumb with his eyes as he pointed over his shoulder at the other two quiz boys, whose names Pete had not bothered to learn yet. They’d be written on their podiums and he had cue cards, it didn’t matter.

“Oh, I, uh… well, you never know,” Billy said, swallowing. “All I can do is my best.”

“Well, from what I’ve seen, your best is pretty rock solid, kid,” Pete said, smiling. “They should be shaking in their boots.”

One of the moms frowned at him, but fuck ’er. She should have raised less of a shithead if she was going to get all precious about people not caring to fall over themselves to protect his ego.

“I’m not a kid, you know, not really,” Billy said, shifting his weight a little from side to side as he ducked his eyes, blushing. “Should I show you my ID again, Mr. White?”

Pete laughed and put both hands up. “Fair enough! I’m not old enough for you to have to call me ‘Mr. White’ while we’re at it. I’m just a kid myself. I’d show you my license to prove it, but they took a crummy picture of me at the DMV.”

It wasn’t a terrible photo, actually, at least by the standards of the DMV. He’d just got his braces off and a prescription for Accutane when it was taken, but he looked a… little pale in it, compared to how he looked at work. And he wouldn’t have minded Billy knowing, obviously, but it’s not like there’d been a good time to bond with him over how he was different too.

“Did you get red eye from the flash or something?” Billy said. For a second, Pete wondered if he’d figured it out on his own, but then Billy shook his head, laughing nervously. “I mean, I can’t imagine you don’t photograph well. You’re… the camera loves you on TV. Very… photogenic.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, Billy,” Pete said, smiling wide with relief. “When I was in college, folks said I had a face for radio. That’s where I got my start, you know. I had a radio show.”

“You were a DJ?” Billy asked, and boy was it hard not to feel like a lot more of a star than he was when the kid looked at him like everything about him was astonishingly cool.

“Just a college radio DJ,” Pete said, shrugging with faux-modesty. “Always was a music guy. Say, what were you listening to when I came in?”

Billy’s eyes snapped down to the Walkman in his lap as Pete pointed to it and then he looked back at him with near panic on his face. “Um, I… Golden Years? By which I mean, the controversial 1983 compilation album distributed by RCA Records after Bowie left the label, which was intended to ride the coattails of the popularity of his then-new album with EMI, Let’s Dance. Not the… well, actually, I was also listening to the song ‘Golden Years’ now that I think of it.”

Pete smiled widely. “Save some for the camera, Billy, I can’t give you any points until we start taping. Formally anyway. You like David Bowie?”

“I… um, I do, yes,” Billy said, blushing.

“What else are you into? Glam rock? New Romantics? Goth? Punk? Post punk? Synth-pop? New Wave? You listen to any Duran Duran?”

“I, I haven’t listened to a lot of…” Billy looked up at him with wide, pleading eyes. “I mean, I know a lot of music trivia, for like… quizzing, but most of what I’ve actually listened to with any great familiarity is stuff my mom likes. Show tunes, that kind of thing. But… I, uh, I found this cassette in a thrift store, and I… it’s good.”

“Easy, pally, it wasn’t a quiz,” Pete said, giving his shoulder a little shake. “Just tryin’ to get to know ya better. But, hey, how about this. We’re wrapping for the day after this next one, and then we’ve got tomorrow off filming. You win this next episode, and I’ll make you a mixtape of some stuff I think you might like. Deal?”

“Won’t the other quiz boys be jealous?” Billy said, eyes darting over to the other side of the room.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Pete said, leaning in to whisper in his ear. “I’d like to see you wipe the freakin’ floor with the other quiz boys. You’re my favorite.”

Billy laughed, ducking his head again. “Well. Okay, then. Deal.”

“Deal.” Pete stuck his hand out to shake on it, grinning when Billy took it gingerly. “Stick with me, kid. I think we’re gonna be working together for a long time to come.”

“Why, are you gonna make me a star?” Billy said, laughing. “No offense, Mr. White, but you’re kinda weird sometimes.”

“Enormous offense taken, Billy. I’m kinda weird all the time,” Pete said, and Billy laughed again.

Billy wouldn’t need any help from him, but for a moment Pete thought that he’d burn this studio to the ground before he let any of those other little fuckers beat him. He wanted nothing but good things for Billy Whalen’s future, and nothing but sturdy kicks in the teeth for anyone who got in the way of that.

Chapter Text

New York was a lot of things. Overwhelming, exhilarating, and, well. Expensive. Especially compared to living in a trailer on the side of the road in Colorado.

Plan A for finding somewhere to live had been to set up some cots in the lab at work in the meantime that they’d hide during work hours so Rusty didn’t start charging them rent at the company town, but when Billy’s mom had gotten wind that they were moving to New York, she’d swiftly swung a room for both Billy and his “young man” at Colonel Gentleman’s place on Christopher Street where she lived with the Action Man.

Taking advantage of the hospitality as the plus one of a plus one felt a little weird, but it was quite literally free real estate, since they weren’t even being asked to pay any rent. Just a share of the utilities, and Billy’s mom had been hinting broadly about covering that while they “found their feet”. That was kind of a bridge too far for Billy in terms of naked freeloading, but, still. Whatever about finding their feet, they’d certainly landed on them.

“Just a twin, I’m afraid,” Colonel Gentleman said, opening the door to what had recently been his spare room. “But if you want to put a queen in there, have at it, lads.”

“Why not? Putting two in already,” the Action Man said from down the hall, and then yelped. Billy figured his mom had stuck him with a knitting needle or something. “What! I was saying it in a spirit of solidarity!”

Colonel Gentleman laughed and shook his cane jovially down the hall as Billy blushed. There was… that one little wrinkle. His mom thought he and White had been locked in nightly embrace for the past twenty years—in… a significantly less platonic fashion than they actually had been—so living with her would mean they’d have to keep up appearances in a more involved way than White letting him hold his hand at a funeral because his mom happened to be looking.

“We’re very grateful that you’re letting us stay while we’re, uh… looking for a place,” Billy said, rubbing the back of his neck, hoping to God that White’s tolerance for people thinking he was gay would hold long enough that it wouldn’t screw them out of free room and board.

“Nonsense!” Colonel Gentleman said, leaning down to clap Billy on the shoulder a little too hard. “You boys are family. In more ways than one.”

He gave them a broad wink and Billy started to laugh, sounding a little high pitched.

White stamped on his foot and cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s wicked nice of you, Mr. Gentleman.”

He patted White’s shoulder and gave Billy a nod, then ambled off to… drink whiskey and write his memoirs in a velvet robe, or something.

When they safely had the door closed behind them, Billy slumped against it. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered under his breath.

“I mean, it’s not huge or nothing, but I’m skinny and you’re short. We won’t take up much room if we slot in against each other just right,” White said where he’d walked over to the bed and was pressing down on the mattress to test the springs. “Ugh, squeaky. Yeah, nah, forget it. We’re definitely gonna want to replace this thing ASAP.”

“Why, you have a lot of jumping on the bed you wanted to get done?” Billy said, rubbing his forehead tensely. “Also, I mean… we’re not going to be here that long, are we? We’re gonna be on the VenTech payroll by Monday, we can… money will be tight, the cost of living is pretty freakin’ high here compared to what we’re used to, but we can afford something else if we’re more careful with cash flow.”

“Are you kidding?” White said, turning to face him. “We’re sitting pretty here! And Gentleman owns this stack of bricks outright. We play our cards right and we could inherit it.”

“Dude, it’s obviously going to go to Dr. Quymn,” Billy said. When White looked at him blankly, he frowned and put a hand on his hip. “Tara Quymn? His step-daughter? Rusty’s childhood friend Tara?”

“Where was gay marriage legal back then that he was able to get himself a step-daughter?” White asked. “Or… I mean, he doesn’t like women too, does he?”

“It may amaze you to learn that gay men have been known to have sham relationships with women from time to time,” Billy said. “Straight guys mooching off elderly women who are so desperate to believe their son found someone that they don’t mind it’s a man don’t have that shit all locked up.”

White rolled his eyes and went to start unpacking. “Just to remind you, this whole thing was your idea, pally. I seem to remember the words, ‘Just play along’ being said to me not so very long ago. Don’t start getting snippy with me about it now like it’s all my fault we have a nice place to stay.”

“I didn’t know we were going to be living with her!” Billy said in a whispered hiss. “Back when it was just making her feel better and getting a sideboard out of it, this whole thing seemed less… complicated. I feel so… I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel great.”

White straightened up from where he was bent over a cardboard box and then stood there, still and quiet for a second. “I mean, uh… she’s your mom and she’d want you here regardless. I’m… do you not want me here?”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. I’m not breaking up with you,” Billy said. “It’s just all hitting me that… this is a pretty big lie. I’m lying to my mother to avoid paying New York rental prices. What if one of us meets someone? It could happen! And if it does, how exactly are we going to—”

White gave him a long, flat look. “Billy. Really?”

Billy scoffed, turning away from him again. “Well, whatever, you could meet someone.”

“Come on, that’s not what I meant,” White said, going over and putting a hand on his shoulder that Billy thought about shrugging off. He didn’t. “I just meant that, y’know… that hasn’t really been a priority for either of us for the whole time we’ve been living together. Why would it suddenly start being an issue now? And, I mean, we spend a heck of a lot of time together. Being your boyfriend wouldn’t be all that different for most practical purposes.”

“There are some pretty notable differences,” Billy said pointedly.

“Would you be doing that in front of your mother anyway?” White replied. “Just stop worrying and learn to love the con. We’ve got somewhere much nicer than we could afford to stay otherwise, your mom’s delighted to have you staying here with her, it’s all golden. And, I don’t know, we are partners. That’s not a lie, even if she thinks there’s more bodily fluids involved than there have been so far.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Billy said reluctantly. “But we really should look for something else. I love my mother, but I think I de-aged about thirty years the moment I stepped over the threshold. She actually pinched my cheek downstairs.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll always be her baby,” White said, the hand still on his shoulder giving him a quick squeeze. “That’s moms for ya.”

“I dunno…” Billy kicked at a ruck in the rug underfoot. “It just seems like… like maybe she doesn’t get that I’ve been looking after myself just fine since I was 17 years old. Although I guess her seeing me for the first time in years minus a hand and eye didn’t exactly help with my case there.”

“You just need to find an equilibrium is all,” White said. “She missed out on a lot of time with you, Billy. Once she feels comfortable that you’re not gonna disappear off into the sunset again, she’ll calm down.”

“Well… I hope so,” Billy said.

White gave him another encouraging smile and they both went back to unpacking.

Once they were finished, they lay down side by side on the narrow twin bed. When Billy looked over at White, his forehead was shiny with sweat and his cheeks looked flushed. He had an attractive rawboned look to him, but he was so out of shape.

“Not a whole lotta room,” White said, twisting a little to turn and spoon up behind Billy. “Good thing we got plenty of practice sharing space like this.”

“Yeah, not like it’ll be the first time I’ll have woken up with my face smashed into your armpit,” Billy said, shifting too to make some room. “Ugh. I’m fucking exhausted. I want to go to bed early, but I can’t make myself get up to brush my teeth and get changed.”

“Too early for that,” White said. “We gotta go eat with the old folks in a bit. Good thing that you’re tired though because it’s later than your body thinks it is. Time difference.”

Billy groaned, and White maneuvered him around so he could do it into the front of his shirt. “Fuuuuuck. I forgot about that.”

“It’s just two hours,” White said, shrugging in a way Billy could feel against his face where it was pressed tightly into his chest.

“Yeah, but two hours east,” Billy grumbled. “Harder going forward than going back in time.”

He felt White’s hand patting his back. “There, there. We’ll just have to go forward together, slugger.”

“I could do without you patronizing me too, asshole,” Billy said, putting his arm around his friend’s ribs. “I’m gonna have a nap now and you can’t stop me.”

“Yeah, okay,” White said, shrugging again. He rolled onto the flat of his back and arranged Billy on top of him. “Probably no harm for keeping up appearances for us to get caught like this anyway. I’ll wake you when your mom calls us downstairs.”

“You don’t have to stay here with me if you’re not going to nap,” Billy said, but his stupid arm tightened around White.

“Nah, I’ve got no place else I need to be,” White said, his hand reaching up to stroke the back of Billy’s head. “I’m gonna stay awake, but lying down and resting sounds pretty good right about now.”

“We… we are doing pretty good, huh?” Billy said. “Considering we lost everything, this is all… really nice.”

“Oh, come on, we didn’t lose everything,” White said, like he hadn’t been the one who’d been all doom and gloom about it right after the fact. “And… yeah, we’re doing okay. And we can start over, get some more stuff together that we actually own. But… I think just for right now we’re all set. We’ve got everything we need.”

Billy’s arm gave White another quick squeeze without conscious direction from his brain. “Thanks for doing this.”

“I’d be pretty stupid to turn my nose up at free digs just because some old people would think I was gay,” White said, laughing quietly. “But, sure, you’re welcome.”

“It means a lot to my mom,” Billy said. “She… it makes her happy thinking that I found someone. I don’t think she held out a huge amount of hope on that score when I was younger.”

The thought occurred to Billy that now he was fully committed to living this lie with White, it was harder to pretend he held out much of that kind of hope. If he thought there was any real chance that he’d meet someone, he probably wouldn’t have jumped to pretend the two of them were an item. But whatever. It didn’t matter to him as much as it did to his aging mother.

“Your mother thinks the sun shines out of your asshole, Billy, give her some credit,” White said. “You’re smart, you’re a doctor—I mean, she hardly thinks that you’re the one punching above your weight in this relationship.”

Billy sighed as White tugged him closer into the crook of his arm. “Well, you know, you’re… TV handsome, and I—"

“Say, uh…” White said, clearing his throat. “About that, how much does… your mom doesn’t think I was some showbiz creep prowling around backstage looking for underage boys to take to bed, does she? I know she said something to me about how she knows it’s ‘different’ for guys like us, whatever that was supposed to mean, but she… I mean, how much backstory have we established here exactly? Because, no offense to our host, but I heard Dean let some things slip about how things were with him and Kiki, and I don’t want anyone thinkin’ that I…”

“She doesn’t know you hosted the show,” Billy said. “And, come on, you’re like five years older than me. It’s not this huge age gap.”

“Five and a half.”

“Oh, excuse me, that makes all the difference,” Billy said with a huff. “A whole six months.”

“Well, it kinda does when you’re 17,” White said. “Would you have dated someone who was 11 and a half?”

“Look, it’s… she’s been pretty open about how much she approves,” Billy said. “You’re the selfless angel who’s been looking after her little water baby all these years.”

White was quiet for a moment and then let out a long sigh. “Well… okay,” he said. “But if she asks, I fell in love with you when you were 21 and it was all strictly platonic before then.”

Billy’s insides kind of twisted up a bit at that, and he firmly told himself to calm down. No one had really fallen in love with anyone at any point in the past twenty years and change they’d been together. He was just nervous and jet lagged and way too comfortable in this tiny bed being held by a man his mother thought was a 10.

“I’ll be sure to remember,” Billy said flatly. “Now can you shut up and let me rest?”

“Okay,” White said, dropping his hand from the back of Billy’s head. “Sorry.”

Billy sighed again and closed his eye. He had so much more going for him than he should by any rights. They were doing so freaking well for themselves. Wanting more than that would just be greedy.

Chapter Text

Pete knew he loved Billy a long time before it started being anything that gave him any kind of pause. At the start, it had just been a sense of connection, brotherly maybe, and wanting to look out for him… followed swiftly by wanting to make up for what had happened as a direct result of his “looking out” for him. But, guilt aside, how he felt about Billy for those first few years hadn’t seemed like anything he’d need to reevaluate core beliefs about himself over, he’d just liked being with him.

The change sort of crept up on him. It started with feeling weird about sharing a bed—he tried keeping to one side, making a little wall of pillows between them, which was sort of pointless since inevitably one or both of them would bulldoze through it in their sleep. He also felt kind of weird and agitated about touching in general, though, and snatched his hand back if it even barely brushed up against Billy. Sat farther apart on the couch than he used to just in case.

He’d kind of figured maybe he was just being a guy about it. Stomach twisting up when his hand touched a bro’s because, you know. Ew.

Then his appendix burst and he’d become Billy’s first patient ever. Billy’d had to cut him open on a fold up table and they didn’t have any general anesthetic, so Pete had been fucking awake. He still didn’t remember much, but what he remembered clear as crystal was Billy grabbing his hip to hold him down when the pain seared through the local anesthetic and he’d twitched in agony.

“No,” Billy had said firmly. “I could nick the wrong thing if you move like that. Do I need to tie you down?”

So, yeah, it got a lot clearer after that point that the weird, squirmy sensation he’d been feeling hadn’t exactly been “ew”. Which was fine. A little confronting, sure, but it hadn’t been like he was going to do anything about it, so really it was just some context for his own benefit. It didn’t have to change anything.

Because, well… the last time he’d driven Billy away had not gone well for either of them, and Pete didn’t want to think about doing that shit a second time. And maybe he wouldn’t have run off, maybe they could have agreed to ignore it, or, hell, maybe Billy would have just gone along with things because he didn’t have any better offers, but that didn’t exactly feel great to consider either.

So Pete just… ignored it as best he could on his own. Waited for it to go away. Which it never actually did, because it was hard to get over someone you spent your every waking hour with and then slept in the same bed with at night, but whatever. What they had was a pretty great deal, even without getting to make each other come and the thousand other little intimacies he’d like to have if he could. Dumb stuff, really. Holding hands. Cuddling during daylight hours. Kisses. Nothing he needed. And, again, giving up all the good shit they did have for the faint chance of what he really wanted just seemed stupid.

But… when Billy let slip that he used to carry a little torch for Pete back in the day, it started feeling a whole lot less stupid. Not that Billy actually remembered it had been him, but… he’d felt that way once, and he was okay with pretending he still did for the benefit of their septuagenarian roommates. Maybe he might again? Maybe he still did and he’d been playing it safe all this time too? Maybe Pete wasn’t a complete bozo to think that he could be in there.

Pretending to be dating was giving him plenty of opportunities to be cuddly during their waking hours, anyway, which was exactly as awesome as he’d thought it would be. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to say anything and could do a boiling a frog thing here where faking just turned into the real thing without Billy noticing.

“C’mere, sweetness,” Pete said putting his arm around Billy’s waist and tugging him onto his lap. “Make some room for your mom.”

Billy frowned at him, but hastily wiped the expression off his face when Rose sat down next to them.

“I can go sit in the armchair,” he said, making to get off Pete’s lap, but then Rose (a real ally to the cause here), clapped both of her hands over Billy’s kneecaps.

“Oh, no, sweetie, you don’t have to be embarrassed in front of your mother,” she said, looking into Billy’s face pleadingly. “I think the two of you are just cute as buttons.”

Billy looked back into his mom’s face for a long second and then sighed, letting some tension go as he settled himself more into Pete’s lap. Cha-ching. Winding his arms around Billy’s waist again, Pete decided to try his luck and leaned in to give him a little kiss on the cheek.

Billy let out a frustrated whine. “Stop, not in front of—that’s embarrassing,” he said, gaze darting over to his mother again.

“Oh, don’t be shy, honey, really, please don’t,” Rose said, eyes wide and sincere behind her glasses. “There’s nothing at all wrong with the precious love you two share with each other. Don’t ever hide it away on my account. You know all of Mommy’s closest friends used to be young gay dancers. I bearded for Joel Grey for a year before he married Jo Wilder. I do wish he could have just been himself, although I suppose we wouldn’t have Dirty Dancing if he had. But it’s not like that anymore!”

“Okay, I mean… that’s very sweet, Mom, and I appreciate that you… but, I mean, it’s not about—” Billy cut himself off and just sighed. “Thanks, Mom.”

“So flustered. You’re such a little cutie,” Pete said, nudging into his neck with the tip of his nose, and chuckling when Billy turned around to shoot him a death glare. “Where’d I find you, huh?”

Billy grabbed hold of Pete’s collar and tugged his ear down to whisper in it furiously. “Can you tone it down? This is mortifying.”

“I can’t help it,” Pete whispered back, a shit-eating grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “You’re just so darn adorable.”

“Sleep with one eye open, jackass,” Billy said, then gave Pete a perfunctory peck on the cheek before hopping off his lap to walk toward the door. “I’m just going to hit the hay. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mom.”

“I’ll come up in a bit,” Pete said, smiling as Billy narrowed his eye at him. “Keep my spot warm for me, baby.”

“Yeah… sure,” Billy said, smiling tightly. “Don’t stay up too late. Honeybunch.”

Billy wasn’t too mad at him though. When Pete did get into bed with him a half hour later, Billy turned around to press against his back, and his arm found its way around his ribcage as he lay his palm flat against his chest.

“S’nice,” Billy mumbled, already asleep.

Pete put his hand over Billy’s and sighed. “Yeah.. yeah, this is real nice, pally.”

So… that had all been going great. Operation: Frog Boil had been quietly heating up to a simmer in the background, and Billy had been alternating between the same easy intimacy they’d established over many years of living together and an increasing twitchiness at Pete’s Tony-worthy performance in the role of his adoring boyfriend. If Pete’s own phase of nameless unease before he’d figured out what was up was anything to go by, they were right on track.

Then Billy got hit with the God Gas and years of disillusionment with his childhood hero, Rusty Venture: boy freaking adventurer, went out the goddamn window.

“He’s not the Blue Morpho,” Pete said shortly,

“I know what I saw!” Billy said, putting his hands on his hips. God… Pete had kinda hoped maybe he’d be putting his own hands on those hips by now, but nope! No such frickin’ luck. “I was inches from his face, White. It was him.”

“I know what you think you saw, but you were literally under the influence of a psychoactive drug. I mean, I ran out of view of the cameras too, but no one thinks I’m the Blue Morpho.”

“Because you’re not,” Billy said flatly.

“I could be!”

“But you’re not,” Billy repeated.

“Well, no, I’m not,” Pete said. “But there’s no more reason to believe that Rusty is than me.”

It wasn’t like he wanted Billy to fawn over him because he thought he was someone else, but… well, would it have killed him to maybe recapture a little tiny drop of the hero worship he’d aimed his way back when they first met? Now he was old enough that something fun could come of it? But no, not even God Gas could rebottle that lightning.

When he’d heard Billy crying and come back out from the corner he’d been hiding in, Billy had reached for him and just for a second Pete had thought… but no, once he could make out the nonsense Billy was mumbling in his neck, it was all bullshit about Rusty “saving” him.

Swallowing his disappointment, Pete had got a cheeseburger into Billy to soak up some of the lingering drug in his system and got him home safe. For all the thanks he got once the video he took of him all drugged up and barely coherent went viral. But whatever, the point of looking after Billy wasn’t getting something out of it. For all the thanks he got for that, come to think of it.

Colonel Gentleman’s place didn’t have a lot in the way of stools or whatever when they’d moved in, and while Billy would usually just climb onto chairs or even counters if he couldn’t reach something, the furniture was all kinda too nice and not theirs to stand on. As a consequence, Pete had been getting stuff off high shelves for Billy a lot more than usual, heading off Rose at the pass as often as he could before she got all “my baby” about it, but Billy had just sort of sulked about it anyway.

But whether he’d get any gratitude or no, Pete kept an eye on Craigslist all the same and got a bunch of step-stools in dribs and drabs to add to all the public rooms in the house.

The night he picked up the first one, Rose had been starting to clear the table after dinner, and Pete stood up to take a plate from her hands.

“Don’t worry about this, go put your feet up,” he said. “You cooked. We can do this.”

Billy’s head turned at the “we” and he looked questioningly into Pete’s eyes.

“You want to wash or dry?” Pete asked him, nodding over at the stool in the corner of the room where he’d left it earlier.

Billy followed his eyes to it, and then looked back, giving him a wide smile. “Oh, cool, so you’re just volunteering me for housework now?”

“Yeah,” Pete said. “And actually, while I’m dictating here, you wash. My hands are dry enough as it is.”

“I’ll say,” Billy said, snorting. “You put your hand under my pajamas last night and I thought I was being sanded.”

He went a very fun shade of beetroot when he heard what he’d said, his face jerking over in his mother’s direction as he started to stammer out an explanation, and Pete laughed.

Chapter Text

Change was hard. Pretty uncontroversial take, right? And in a few months, Billy had gone through a lot of change. He’d gone from co-owning a business to being an employee, he’d moved across states from a remote rural area to the most populous city in the country, he’d gone from living in a trailer with one roommate to living under the same roof as his mother along with her new beau, said new beau’s former teammate (insofar as Team Venture ever really considered themselves retired, obviously), and… okay, the same roommate as before, but… well, it was different.

For one, they had been sharing a bed for years but now people thought they were, you know. Sharing a bed. And the specific bed they were now sharing was a hell of a lot narrower than the one they’d left behind back in Colorado, so forget about gradually drifting toward each other during the night in their sleep—if they didn’t want to fall out of that thing, they had to start out the night wrapped around each other.

Which wasn’t a huge deal or anything, except it was kinda when combined with the ongoing fraud they were perpetrating against Billy’s own mother. And… it also wasn’t amazing in combination with how much White was enjoying making him squirm by pretending to be all lovey dovey with him when he couldn’t say shit about it. Putting an arm around him on the couch, pouting to get him to sit in his lap, little touches constantly. Kisses on the cheek. One time, after he had already lured Billy onto his knee when they were watching Wheel of Fortune together As A Family with his mom and the Action Man, he took Billy’s hand to lay it against his own cheek absently, turning after a while to kiss his palm. So deep in the role that he was just doing this shit on autopilot.

The worst part of it was, Billy probably wouldn’t have even cared back in the trailer. They weren’t together, but they’d gotten over any awkward squeamishness about homosocial intimacy with each other decades ago. Or at least they had, until Billy suddenly found himself feeling very awkward and squeamish about his friend touching him now that there were all these people looking on approvingly at them piling on top of each other like puppies. Billy wasn’t even sure if it was just the specter of what they were pretending it meant making things weird or if it was that it was in front of his mom specifically. Well, that and… what they were pretending it meant might have been kinda nice if it wasn’t all a front.

Not that Billy had been wasting away pining for White all these years or whatever, but, well. He might just have the one eye, but it worked perfectly fine. Pete White was an attractive man and his best friend. And they already lived together, had made a life together, would it be so terrible if Billy got the occasional orgasm out of the arrangement? Maybe a kiss or two some place other than his cheek or his hand. That could be… pretty nice.

But… that wasn’t what the situation was between them. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but seeing how happy his mom was that he was supposedly coupled up with someone who adored him brought it all crashing home that he wasn’t and probably never would be. And did he even want that? Not really. Not if it meant changing the status quo enough that he wasn’t sleeping in the same bed as Pete fucking White anymore, which was a whole can of worms he’d avoided for years and it annoyed the shit out of him that the universe was trying to force him into opening it now.

Billy didn’t love that he wanted to be with White more than he wanted romance or sex with someone else. That their whole deal satisfied his needs better than anything else he could imagine with anyone else. And he really didn’t love that if he stretched the limits of that imagination a little, he thought he could a lot more than satisfied for the rest of his life if they… well, anyway.

White wouldn’t ever see him like that, and that was fine. Billy was White’s colleague and friend who he’d clown on and mooch off of, and occasionally his little buddy who he got surprisingly and infuriatingly tender toward, but Billy wasn’t kidding himself that if White ever openly admitted to being into guys enough to act on it that he would be top of his list.

Sure, they were basically married, if only in the sense that they’d skipped straight to the part where the attraction had long since died and what was left was a comfortable companionship. They were both someone who’d look at weird moles for each other and clip coupons together, or whatever. It was… yeah, honestly, pretty fuckin’ nice, but it was hardly the romance of the century. White was not shy about taking what he wanted, whether it was the last pop-tart or some vastly overpriced trash that he wasted money from a shared bank account on—if he saw Billy as a viable sexual prospect, even if only out of convenience, something would have happened years ago. But he didn’t and it hadn’t. And, again, that was fine! But thinking about it all the time and getting his nose rubbed in it wasn’t fun.

At least White had struck out at the fancy party they’d crashed with Rusty just as hard as he had. Well, he hadn’t tried as hard as Billy, granted, giving up pretty quick after getting blanked by Christopher Lambert. Still, hanging over at the bar with White eating purloined hors d’oeuvres was nicer than having more snooty rich people turn their noses up at him when he tried to schmooze them.

“You gonna try getting back in there?” Billy asked, nudging White a little. “You talked to like one non-Lambert and it looked kinda like you blew them off to come over here.”

“Eh, I’d rather hang out with you, wallflower,” White said, shooting him a slanted smile he probably thought was devastatingly handsome and charming. It was, but that was beside the point. “I’ve a feeling if I play my cards right, I might be able to sweet talk you into coming home with me.”

“Hilarious,” Billy said. He considered kicking White in the shin for a moment and then let out a long sigh. “You really are the worst, you know that?”

“Because I value spending time with you?” White asked, pouting, and then Billy did kick him.

Something else that sucked about White’s boyfriend act was how goddamn solicitous he was trying to be and how fucking helpless and dependent it made Billy look to his mom, who already thought he was about five years old max.

And like, yeah, sure, White typically did help him with stuff. A lot of stuff. Billy had signed a medical power of attorney making him his agent when he was 18 because he was already helping him with transitioning from pediatric care to finding a neurosurgeon nearby who could treat him. In the end, when they kept striking out, White had just badgered the OSI into giving them healthcare, which Billy had somehow never thought to question at the time. Another thing he’d never questioned was how his new doctor had all his medical records, which he’d figured was just your standard top-level government access spy organization shit.

As he had recently learned though, White had been in contact with his mom back then to get his medical records sent over and ask about his “care needs”. Which was a) how she knew he’d “moved in with a man” and b)… how she’d known he was still alive.

And yeah… another thing Billy didn’t feel great about was not talking to his mom for so many years. When Hank Venture had bounded up to him like a golden retriever, Rose Whalen in tow, and she’d offered the explanation that maybe he’d been afraid she’d disapprove of his sexuality up to Billy on a silver platter, it had been… well, it was easier letting her think that than that he just hadn’t called in twenty years. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been ashamed. Just… not of what she thought it’d been.

But anyway, given that she hadn’t seen him in so long, and given that her first point of contact with White was him asking her how to look after him, Billy wasn’t enamored of the impression all this “Have you taken your meds, sweetie?” and “Do you need a straw, baby?” crap was giving.

And it wasn’t… he looked after White too. He slathered him in zinc oxide anywhere he couldn’t reach himself, he steadied him when vertigo would hit, he kept a spare pair of shades on him in case White forgot his when they went out, he bugged him to take his meds. He’d operated on the guy, for Christ’s sake.

There was other stuff too. They were both prone to migraines and bouts of blurred vision, and would keep asshole behavior to a minimum when one of them was curled up in a ball on the bed. And just like… regular stuff that didn’t involve their mutual complex healthcare needs, like looking after each other if they got messy drunk or if one of them got laid out with a punch to the face. It was all pretty fucking mutual and it had never felt condescending before.

Maybe he was being kind of a jackass to take such enormous umbrage now that it was hitting different when he thought about how it looked to an outside observer. Specifically, an outside observer who had given birth to him and worried herself half to death that he wouldn’t live to see adulthood when he’d been a baby. Who’d openly expressed to him several times since he moved in that she used to worry who would “take care” of him when she was gone and that it was such a relief knowing he was safe with “dear Peter”.

But, hey, who wasn’t a jackass sometimes?

“Sweeeet, I’ll have a Ruddy Bottom,” Billy said, slurring his words. “But, instead of grenadine, I'll have rum. And replace the tomato: also rum.”

White looked over at him sidelong. “That a good idea, pally? You’re already pretty wasted.”

“Dignity of risk, asshole,” Billy snapped at him. “I can make bad decisions if I wanna.”

“And how,” White said, sighing. “I hope you feel very dignified when I’m making sure you don’t choke on your own vomit later.”

“I’ll choke on your vomit, you, you…”

“Hank, for my sake, ix-nay on the um-ray. Just give him a tall glass of ice tea or somethin’,” White said in a stage whisper.

“You’re not my dad,” Billy said, pushing away from where he was slumped against White’s arm and nearly falling off the high barstool he was perched on. White caught his arm, the prick. “I don’t need you to paron-patronose-patri—”

“Patronize?” White said indulgently.

Billy scoffed, turning away sharply and nearly falling to the floor again.

Later that night when he was worshiping at the altar of the porcelain god, White’s warm hand rubbing up and down his back, Billy felt kind of stupid. Not “apologize unreservedly” stupid, and he was still half-considering telling White to fuck off and leave him to live with the consequences of his actions in peace, but… if he’d been trying to feel less like Pete White’s sick little kid, this hadn’t been a great strategy.

“You’re okay, just get it all out,” White said to him softly. “Don’t want you puking on me on the subway.”

“You’d deserve it,” Billy muttered, his voice echoing into the bowl.

“Yeah, maybe,” White agreed in an amiable tone that made Billy want to scream at him. “But since when do we get what we deserve?”

“I feel like shit,” Billy said, resting his forehead against the toilet seat while he thought about whether he could get up yet or if that would just make him puke again. “Why has this happened to me?”

“Pretty open and shut case, pally,” White said, tearing off some toilet paper from the roll and reaching forward to wipe drool and vomit off Billy’s face where it was dribbling down his chin. Billy felt shitty enough to just let him instead of snatching the toilet paper out of his hand. “You drank enough rum to put Kano in a coma. Like we don’t already have one pirate who doesn’t know when enough’s enough.”

“I’ll stay away from the tranq darts,” Billy muttered. “Oh… fuck.”

He just barely got his mouth over the bowl again in time. As White’s hand returned to his back, Billy decided he felt like too much crap to keep caring so much about White cosseting him. He even let the fucker sit him on his lap on the subway home because there weren’t enough seats.

“What happened to worrying about me puking on you?” Billy asked, hanging on to the lapel of White’s jacket limply while he rested his head against his chest.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” White said, shrugging. “Anyway, I thought about it and I like you better than this jacket.”

“What about your lucky shirt?” Billy said, aiming for sarcasm in his tone and not quite getting there. “I can puke on your lucky pink shirt?”

“I mean, if you really want to,” White said with a laugh.

“Don’t tempt me.”