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”I’m fine.”
Byron regrets the words as soon as they’ve left his mouth, because it’s obvious that he isn’t fine, and now he feels absolutely ridiculous. But really, what is Hollis expecting? He was there last night when Byron hit the pavement like a sick of unusually drunk potatoes, and he was the one who ended up convincing him to go to the hospital and then driving him there himself after it became abundantly clear that Byron’s difficulties with staying focused weren’t just him being drunk.
A concussion and a sprained ankle had been the doctor’s diagnosis, and Byron had been groaning inwardly over the unnecessary hospital bill while he got a lecture about drinking on weekdays and riding electric scooters while drunk. Not that he had been, of course, but like hell was going to the hospital as Mothman – and he’d probably have been more uncomfortable with Hollis undressing and re-dressing him if he hadn’t been so groggy from alcohol and hitting his head – and “I fell while riding my scooter” had been the first excuse he could think of.
Afterwards, Hollis had ended up taking him home to his own place, not trusting Byron to be alone for the night, and Byron had fallen asleep to the sound of his phone vibrating every time Eddie was sending him a Snapchat message. He’d woken up ten hours later, feeling like a truck had run him over. It wasn’t just his head and ankle that had been hurting, he was pretty sure that Hollis’ couch had broken his back during the night too, and last night’s drinking made itself reminded in the form of a mild nausea.
So really, the fact that Hollis had asked him if he was fine once he came into the room and saw that Byron was awake felt just as ridiculous as Byron’s own answer to the question had felt.
“Did you check your Snapchat?” Hollis asks, and Byron reaches for his phone on the table, a new wave of nausea hitting him at the sudden movement. “Apparently Bill got into a fight with some guy in a Pokemon onesie and Eddie decided it was better to liveblog the whole thing to the rest of us instead of helping.”
“I’m afraid to ask…” Byron murmurs while clicking on the notifications, only to get greeted by a video of a grown man in a Pikachu costume yelling profanities at Dollar Bill, who looks like he’s struggling not to start laughing. In the background, Byron can see a man with a hot dog cart, and he feels reasonably safe in his assumption that the red liquid covering the man’s face isn’t blood.
“Everything happens when we’re not around,” Hollis grins, sitting down next to Byron’s feet while waiting for the other man to be done catching up on Eddie’s videos, which end with a video of Dollar Bill wrestling the screaming Pikachu man to the ground while police sirens can be heard in the distance.
“Damn. Pokemon are getting violent.” Byron shakes his head, immediately regretting it as a stab of pain flashes through it. “Ow…”
“You okay?” Hollis asks, amusement gone from his voice, and Byron wants to roll his eyes at the concern he hears in it.
“The answer hasn’t changed, you know.”
“Oh, right.” Hollis grins again, but Byron can’t help but think it looks forced this time. “You’re fine.”
“I mean, as fine as I can be with a concussion and a hungover, yeah.”
“We kind of need to talk, you know,” Hollis says, and Byron is beginning to suspect that agreeing to come home with him last night was a very bad idea. It’s certainly not the first time he’s spent the night at Hollis’ place, and it’s certainly not the first time Hollis has said they need to talk, but unlike the other times, he has a sprained ankle that prevents him from just running out of the apartment. That, and it’s Saturday, so he can’t even use his daytime job as an excuse to get away from the potentially uncomfortable discussion Hollis seems so eager to have with him.
“I told you,” Byron sighs, forcing his voice to sound a lot more energetic than he feels. “I’m fine. I just need to take it easy a couple of days and I’ll be back on my feet, ready to throw myself off of buildings and kick ass.” He smiles, but Hollis isn’t returning it, and his smile fades. “What?”
“Byron,” Hollis begins, and Byron hates how Hollis sounds, because he’s pretty sure this is Hollis the Cop talking to him, not Hollis the Friend, and it makes him uncomfortable enough that he forces himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the stab of pain in his head and the new wave of nausea that hits him.
“I re-really, genuinely, co-completely seriously a-am fine,” he says, as calmly as he can, trying and failing to keep the stuttering away. “T-t-thank you for your ho-hospitality but I really need to--” He grimaces. Okay, the words aren’t coming out. Deep breath. Refocus. Fuck. Hollis looks patient and for some reason, it annoys Byron. Usually, he appreciates that people don’t try to fill out words for him when he gets blocked, but this time, he almost wishes Hollis would. “—to leave”, he finally manages to get out, the five or so seconds feeling more like five minutes in his head.
Hollis sighs.
“You’re gonna walk all the way back to your place with a sprained ankle?”
Byron shrugs.
“I’ll ta-take a cab.”
“You’re stuttering,” Hollis points out, and this time Byron does allow himself to roll his eyes. What does he want, a Captain Obvious award? “It kind of really proves that you’re just uncomfortable with the discussion we’re about to have,” Hollis continues. “And I’m sorry Byron, but we do need to have it. We’ve pushed it up long enough.”
Their eyes meet for a moment before Byron looks away. His stuttering is a lot better these days than it used to be when he was a kid, but stress and anxiety tends to bring it back, and sometimes he regrets ever telling his friends about it. This is one of those times.
“Fine,” he mutters, still not meeting Hollis’ gaze. “Go-go ahead and te-tell me you’re di--” The rest of the word doesn’t want to come out, but it doesn’t need to.
“We’re not disappointed in you,” Hollis says, and Byron swears there’s a hint of surprise in his voice, as if he couldn’t possibly imagine why Byron would think that they were. As if he hasn’t gotten the “we’re disappointed in you” talk before, from his parents, from other, former friends. “Byron, me and the rest of the Minutemen are worried sick about you. This is the second time in less than a month you’ve gotten hurt on patrol, and when you hit the ground last night, I swear I thought you were going to crack your fucking skull.”
Hollis voice has gotten higher and Byron winces. So they’ve been talking about him, then. He wishes he could feel surprised, but he doesn’t. A part of him had been expecting it, but tried to convince himself that he was just imagining things when he saw the glances that passed between them whenever he showed up in a state that they deemed drunk. Honestly, most of the time, he hadn’t even had that much to drink, and besides, he’d like to see them throw themselves off of buildings without ever needing a bit of liquid courage.
But he doesn’t tell Hollis any of that. Instead he makes a move to get up from the couch, hurt ankle be damned, but Hollis grabs his arm to stop him.
“Let g-go of me.”
Their eyes meet for the first time in a couple of minutes, and Byron knows he must be glaring daggers.
“No,” Hollis simply says, not letting go of Byron’s arm. “Not until you listen to what I have to say.”
“I-I’m sure you’ve said p-p-plenty of-- stuff be-behind my back already,” Byron forces out, hating his stutter more than he has in a long time. He feels ridiculous again. How pathetic must he be to not even be able to have an argument without stuttering? He’s probably just giving the others more to talk about right now, and he hates himself for it. Hell, he hates Hollis too, because he trusted him.
“Byron,” Hollis begins and Byron tries to pull his arm out of his grip, but the other man is stronger. “We haven’t been talking behind your back, for fuck’s sake. We just. You keep showing up for patrol wasted--”
“I’m not wasted.” The words leave him in a hiss and Hollis blinks in what Byron can only assume is surprise. He’s surprised too, at how furious he’s sounding.
“Fine. Not wasted then. Drunk. Byron, you’re jumping from buildings for god’s sake. A single mistake and--”
“You don’t think I kn-know that?” Byron interrupts. “You don’t think I’m aware that I risk my fucking life every single time?” He pulls his arm back, harder this time, and Hollis finally lets go. “I’m so sorry I’m trying to help, I really am.” He stands up, careful to not put pressure on his left foot, and unceremoniously begins to jump across the room on his good foot. He’s probably looking hilarious right now, angrily jumping on one leg, but he can’t really be bothered to care.
“Byron,” Hollis tries, walking after him across the living room. “Please sit back down.”
Byron keeps on jumping without a reply, aware of the fact that the others will probably be laughing their asses off when Hollis tell them about this. He doesn’t give a damn. He won’t be coming in to patrol for at least a few days anymore. Maybe longer. Maybe he just won’t bother showing up again. It probably would just make the rest of them happy.
“Byron for the love of go--” Hollis doesn’t get further, because the moment he grabs hold of Byron’s shoulder, Byron loses his balance, falling forward and bringing Hollis along with him, the taller man landing on top of him in a heap on the floor.
“OW!” Byron yells. “Fuck fuck fuck ow my ankle fuck ow”.
Everything’s quiet for a moment, and then he hears Hollis laughing. His first feeling is fury, but it only takes him a second to register that it’s not a mocking laughter, it’s an amused one, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s laughing too.
“My ankle really hurts,” he gets out between laughs, and Hollis rolls off of him and stands up, holding out his hand to help him up while Byron turns around as gently as he can to not hurt his ankle further.
“We good?” Hollis asks, and the uncertain look he gives him suddenly makes Byron feel bad.
“Yeah,” he replies, grabbing Hollis hand and allowing himself to get pulled up into a standing position. “We’re good.”
Hollis shrugs. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I mean. It was a stupid idea, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“It’s cool,” Byron replies as nonchalantly as he can.
“Yeah.” Hollis nods. “Cool.” Neither of them is looking at the other again. “Wanna order a pizza or something?”
“Sure,” Byron replies. He’s probably not going anywhere in the foreseeable future anyway.