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Max smuggles him his meds.
Or, well, she gets them from Susan, and Susan can only take so much before Neil starts to discover they’re missing, but eventually it reaches a point where he picks up Billy’s prescription and gives them to Susan to throw away, and then she can save more, although she does take care to throw some away. In case Neil checks the trash.
It doesn’t make Billy feel any less like he’s an addict and his little sister is his dealer. Susan’s the middlewoman. And somehow, Neil has both the role of developer of the drugs and the police.
Still, he thinks he’s starting to feel a little better.
Some days, he doesn’t even use the crutch the hospital sent with him. He never uses it when anyone else is home, though. Just when he’s alone. Just when his body hurts, when it burns, and he knows he’s going to fall without something to lean on.
Some days he wonders if those days would be even fewer and far in between had Neil or Susan actually been taking him to physical therapy.
It had been a relief to see Steve and Robin. For weeks, Billy’s only contact with other humans has been Max, and Susan and Neil at dinner and breakfast. Not counting the fiasco that was Halloween.
His dad hasn’t bothered him. Has let Billy spend his evenings cooped up in his bedroom. Has barely spoken to him, for weeks. Billy was happy with that arrangement.
It had been going so well. So well that Billy had actually started daring to believe that it was over.
That Billy almost dying had scared his father enough that he’d stopped hitting him.
But of course, as Billy has learnt throughout his entire life, no good things are meant to last.
It’s not even that bad, is the thing. It’s not even that bad. It wouldn’t have been anything if Billy hadn’t still technically been in recovery.
He hadn’t done anything, either. Nothing to anger Neil. But maybe that’s the problem. His dad had just seemingly decided that enough was enough, and tired of Billy barely speaking and not doing anything. Not even driving Max around. So he’d snapped, a little.
Afterwards, he leaves. Leaves Billy sprawled against the wall of the kitchen, listening to the sound of his dad’s car starting up and pulling down the driveway.
Billy can’t bring himself to stand up by himself. And Max is out with her friends. His walkie’s in the drawer of his nightstand, his crutch leaning against his desk in his bedroom. So he stays where he is, trying to breathe through the pain without crying.
Alexei’s teaching Robin Russian. She’d told him he and Murray were worried about him, and that they wanted to see him again. It’s a foreign thing, for Billy. People being worried about him.
He’s starting to think they might have good reason to, though.
Susan finds him.
Billy hears her step into the house, humming some tune she’s heard on the radio, and if it weren’t for the fact that this isn’t actually the first time Susan’s found Billy in a position like this, he’s pretty certain she’d have dropped the bag of groceries she’s carrying.
It’s been a couple months since last time, though, so she does freeze in the doorway for a couple seconds.
Billy sees her gaze flickering between the table and the fridge and Billy, still on the floor, as though she isn’t certain if she should prioritise putting away the groceries or helping him up first.
She’s never helped him up before, is the thing. At least, Billy hasn’t been coherent enough to remember that he doesn’t like her when she has. She’d tried, the first couple of times. But every time, Billy’d hissed at her that he didn’t need her help and either dragged himself away to lick his wounds in peace, or he’d stayed on the floor until he felt strong enough to move. Susan had learnt to ignore him, leave him lying where he was while she went about the business she’d stepped into the room to do in the first place.
But it’s different this time, because Billy does need the help. He can’t still be here when Neil comes back. And it seems like Susan realises that.
She leaves the bag of groceries on the kitchen table and crouches down beside Billy.
“Give me your hand,” she says, in that quiet way Susan does everything.
She’s taller than him, but not by much, and it’s a fact Billy hates. But he has to admit it comes in handy now, when she helps him to his feet and he has to lean on her not to fall back down. She wavers a little, probably not expecting it. Billy guesses she’d thought she’d help him up and he’d limp away and she’d be able to clap herself on the back for being a good and helpful stepmum.
“If you let go I’m going to fall down and I’ll make sure to take you with me,” he says, and Susan laughs. Still quiet, and a little apprehensive. She knows he’s serious.
She puts an arm around his waist and Billy can’t help the whimper that escapes.
“Sorry,” Susan mumbles, and moves her hand to hold Billy’s arm instead.
Together, they stumble out of the kitchen and into Billy’s bedroom. Susan helps him sit down on the bed, and turns to leave.
Billy’s voice stops her before she can escape. “I need to change my shirt,” he says, equally as quiet as she’s been. They’re the only two in the house, but it seems like neither one dares speak louder in case it’ll disturb the way both of them are pretending that this is normal, ignoring the clear signs that neither one really knows how to navigate this situation.
But Billy’s nose is still bleeding from his dad’s punch, and he knows he’ll get worse if he gets blood on the sheets. It wasn’t much he could do to keep the blood from ending up on his shirt, though.
“Third drawer on the left,” he says, and adds: “And can you get me a towel? Please.”
Susan nods, goes up to his drawers and gets out the first shirt she finds. She hands it to Billy before stepping out of the room, leaving the door open.
He moves gingerly as he gets out of his old shirt, taking care not to scrunch it up and make the bloodstains worse than they already are. Billy can hear Susan turn on the water in the bathroom.
He has to close his eyes and sit back, trying to just breathe through the pain signals his body’s sending to his brain because it did not like that movement.
A gasp alerts him to Susan’s presence.
He opens his eyes and sees she’s got a few tears trailing down her cheeks. She’s staring at him, wide eyed and mouth slightly open.
It hits him that this is probably the first time Susan’s ever seen his scars. Not counting the ones on his palms, and the ones he had on his chest before, back when he still strutted around with it on display. Those are almost buried underneath the scar tissue on his chest and sides, anyway.
Susan lifts a trembling hand to her mouth, and whispers from behind it: “Billy, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...” Billy wonders what the fuck she’s sorry about.
Then he wonders what he looks like to her. This stepson she never wanted, never really cared about more than making sure he didn’t die, sitting on his bed with a bleeding nose and red cheek, scars he got from saving her daughter’s best friend taking up the majority of his torso.
He wonders if she’s found the last couple of months enjoyable, with Billy first in the hospital and then once he came home, barely ever leaving his room other than for meals Neil insisted he’d be present for. If it’s made it easier for her to pretend that they’re a normal family, just her and Max and Neil.
He spends a second, wondering if she’d wished he’d died. It would certainly have made both their lives easier.
She goes up to him, quickly, and hands him the damp towel. Billy keeps it in his lap as he pulls on the shirt she gave him, before pressing it to his nose.
“I didn’t know,” Susan whispers.
Billy looks up at her, the towel obscuring part of his vision. “You didn’t ask.” He doesn’t say it accusingly, it’s just the truth. Susan hasn’t once asked him how he’s holding up, and only came to the hospital twice, once to drop Max off, and once to drop of a pair of sweatpants the day before he got released. They didn’t speak to each other.
Still, something seems to break in Susan’s face, and a few more tears slip out. Billy doesn’t know if she’s aware of them.
She nods, and goes out of the room. The door’s still open. Billy kind of wants to shout at her to close it, but he’s too exhausted to care. He leans his head back against the wall behind him.
But then Susan’s back, and she’s holding a glass of water out to him, two of Billy’s pain meds resting in the palm of her other hand.
She gives him a small smile when he sits up straighter to take them. It almost seems like part of her wants to ruffle his hair, or something equally as stupid, and Billy’s glad she decides against it. Giving him some of his meds, and making sure he’s fed, and helping him to his bedroom doesn’t make up for years of ignoring it when his father decides to go off on him. Not that Billy thinks he’d have reacted positively, if she had. As sad as it sounds, his dad’s treatment of him was the one constant, the one thing Billy could depend on, that made sense to him, even if he hated every second of it.
He thinks that the thing that hurts the most with Susan, is that when all of Neil’s previous girlfriends left as soon as they found out about the abuse, not caring enough to do anything about it but knowing they didn’t want to be a part of it, Susan decided to marry his dad, and bring another kid into the whole mess. Not that Neil actually physically hurts Max, or tells her she’s worthless like he does Billy, but Billy’s always been able to tell that the control, the very environment they live in, has been shit to Max even before the first time she heard Neil punch Billy. It’s not something Max deserves to grow up around.
It felt a bit too much like betrayal that evening when Neil first hit him after having come home with his new fiancée, Billy dropping his glass of milk and feeling a shard stick itself into his foot, while Susan stood clutching her bouquet and looking like she wished she could disappear behind it. Billy stopped looking to her for help, after that, especially when it became clear she hadn’t broken off the engagement after being witness to the incident in the kitchen.
Susan reaches out towards him, and Billy isn’t proud of the way he flinches, but he’s always jumpy after his dad’s been going at him. Susan grimaces, and takes his discarded, bloody shirt.
“I’ll toss it in the washer,” she says, and Billy nods without looking at her.
She closes the door behind herself this time, and Billy lies down in bed, pulling his covers up to his middle, and closing his eyes, waiting for the meds to kick in.
The fight with his dad plays on in his head, like a movie Billy can’t stop. It always does that, like his brain is attempting to figure out exactly what he did wrong this time, see if the rules have changed, so he doesn’t repeat the same mistake. But this time, the only mistake Billy did was hope that his dad cared enough about him that he wouldn’t actively be trying to bring Billy back to the brink of death.
‘You ungrateful child!’ rings Neil’s voice. Telling him he’s tired of Billy not pulling his weight anymore, and of Billy daring to wake him up with his screams when Neil needs to sleep to be able to work so Billy doesn’t have to.
He presses the towel harder against his nose, trying to focus on anything other than the sudden stinging, burning feeling behind his eyes.