Chapter Text
A week ago, hell, a few DAYS ago, Billy would have told you that he knew pain. He knew split lips, busted eyebrows, black eyes. He knew bruised knuckles, shins, elbows, and knees. He knew bloody teeth and concussions. But the pain that drifted around Billy, sucking him in and out of consciousness, told him that everything he thought he knew was very, very wrong.
Voices flitted in and out with each new wave of pain. Most were unrecognizable; strangers whose words sounded like garbled gibberish mixed with faint beeping or maybe a whirring. But through it all, almost constantly, was the nagging, obnoxious, unending sound of Max's voice.
"Come on Billy, don't do this to me. You can fight this, I know you can."
There was something nagging at the back of Billy's brain that appeared whenever the firecracker of pain subsided slightly; a single thought, an untethered sentence that repeated in his head and drummed a headache through every corner of his mind.
I am so sorry.
Through the darkness of his own mind, all Billy could see was red. Red, red, red. Red like pain, like anger. Like blood and cracked skulls and tentacles and stinging cheeks. Like being left behind and like the dying embers of a cigarette.
Like every thought he had had since the moment his mother had hung up the phone for the last time. Like every envelope of every birthday card she’d sent him for all of two years before they stopped entirely. Like her lipstick. Like her nails. Like her hat. Like the flowers she’d kept on her bathroom counter.
Like his goddamn step-sister’s hair.
Max.
Shit.
The constant wave of anger and resentment and shitty, malicious hatred he’d been riding for the last eight years suddenly ebbed. Quiet filled his brain, and for one awful, awful second, Billy thought that this was it. The darkness would engulf him and then that would be the end of things.
Would his dad cry at his funeral? Would his dad even have one for him? Would his mother come from California to see his body in a casket? No. She wouldn’t even recognize him. Why would you stare at a dead body of someone you wouldn’t recognize on the street, even if they were technically your own flesh and blood?
“If I have to throw you a funeral, I’m going to be so pissed.”
Max? Shit, Billy had almost forgotten about her. He didn’t think she would cry. Hell, she would probably dance with his dad across his grave. They’d probably turn his room into a goddamn craft room or a workout space or something. Fuck.
“Billy.” There’s her voice again. It sounds closer this time, more like her usual voice, but still watery.
“Billy, I mean it.” A small sniff, some rustling.
“I swear to God, if you die, I’ll never forgive you.” Her voice cracks and something inside Billy cracks too. Okay, she really is crying. Well, shit.
Sure, she’s his annoying not-sister. Sure, she’s clearly the favorite between their parents. Sure, she used to follow him everywhere and beg him to take her places and ask to hangout with him and his friends. Sure, she doesn’t need protection anymore.
But there’s a spark that jumps from somewhere inside Billy. There’s a little light that dances across the darkness. There’s a beeping that clouds his ears. There’s a cloth against his fingers. There’s something heavy on his hand. On his chest. On his legs. On his head. It threatens to pull him back down, back into the darkness. But Billy hears it, so quiet, so tiny.
“Please don’t leave me.”
Billy fights each wave of pain as it arrives, pushing through even as it doubles, triples. He pushes as he feels needles stab every part of his skin and his blood boils. As he pushes and fights, the weight seems to melt away. Except for the one on his hand. He focuses on it, his energy moving towards that hand, that touch. He pushes.
And pushes.
And pushes.
Everything burns. Pain tears through every cell in Billy’s body in a way that he didn’t think possible. But all he can see is red. Red, red, red.
Red like her stupid rain boots. Red like her stupid skateboard. Red like her stupid bedroom and her stupid blanket and the stupid bowl she made soup for him in when he was sick. Red like her voice. Red like her hair.
Red like every thing he’s ever wanted to tell her but didn’t because he didn’t care. Because he told himself he didn’t care. Because he didn’t want to care.
Red like the sister he treated like shit up until his last moment alive.
Like the sister who stayed with him.
The sister who asked him not to leave.
****
“Darling, are you sure you don’t want to head home?” a woman dressed in scrubs taps Max on the shoulder. She jostles, her body instinctively moving closer to the bed housing Billy’s lifeless body. She’s positioned in the perfect vantage spot; from here, she can see the door and the window in her peripheral as well as Billy. Her hand hasn’t left his for a moment since she was allowed into the room.
“No.” Her voice is hoarse and empty. She normally would have been embarrassed, but she doesn’t have it in her to care.
“Well, do you want me to call your parents and have them head over?” She asks politely.
“No.” Max says, her eyes drifting to Billy’s face.
“Hon, it’s only been a few days.” The nurse says slowly. Max can tell she’s chewing on her lips without even having to look. “I’ve seen people stay in this state for weeks. Months, sometimes.”
“What are the odds?” Max says, trying to fight the impending crack away from her voice.
“What?” The nurse sounds taken aback.
“What are the odds that he wakes up?”
“It’s so hard to quantify these types of things, honey, they almost never-”
“Try.” Max finally turns to look at the woman, full on. She’s plain looking and has a look behind her eyes that shows she’s been doing this for a while. Not long enough to be completely cold-hearted, but long enough that she knows her shit.
“I mean…” The nurse glances at Billy. The extensive tubes leading from one machine to his skin, the expensive equipment beeping different readings, flashing different numbers. “Is he a fighter?”
It’s Max’s turn to look taken aback. “Yeah, he’s the biggest fighter I know. He wins most of the time, too.” There’s a little pride in her voice, even though she knows she shouldn’t have any pride for the type of fighting Billy engages in.
“Then he’ll wake up.” There’s a wave of confidence in the nurse’s voice that gives Max a newfound hope. “The fighters almost always wake up.” She offers a smile before grabbing the clipboard and heading from the room. As she moves farther and farther from the door, her smile falls with each step. She tried not to make a habit of lying to grieving family members, but when they’re so young…
Ten percent. A ten percent chance he’d wake up, and that was being generous.
But thankfully she’d gotten out of putting a number on it.
Three more days pass. Max’s friends drift in and out of the room, sometimes bringing food or changes of clothes, sometimes insight into how the town was recuperating after the “tragic mall fire”. They tell her how tired she looks, how sunken her eyes are. They tell her to go home, take a shower, get some rest. But she doesn’t. She stays dutifully by his bedside.
When Billy wakes up, she doesn’t want him to think that no one was there. She doesn’t want him to know that their parents couldn’t be bothered to drop by once, not even to visit or handle paperwork. She doesn’t want him to think that there’s no one in this world that worries about him or cares enough to sit by his bedside. She never fools herself into believing that Billy would do the same for her if she was in his position, because she’s not stupid. He’s not that kind of person.
She’s found herself using a million different tactics over the course of the last week that Billy has been comatose. She’s read to him, she’s played him some music (although it was that garbage pop music that plays on the radio, Billy hates it so much that Max thought it might be enough to make him wake up just to tell her to shut it off), she’s yell-whispered at him how mad she’ll be if he doesn’t wake up, and she’s even tried begging.
Nothing. No movement, no blinking, no indication that anything is even doing anything.
But Max makes a promise; she’s going to sit in this chair. This goddamn plastic chair next to his bedside until he wakes up or…
Yeah. Until he wakes up.
The first few days were full of a lot of crying, but the last few have been quiet. The only sounds in the room are the beeping from the machines and Max’s own breathing. She doesn’t sleep much and she’s lucky if she eats more than one meal a day. Sometimes she’ll busy herself with getting up to readjust Billy’s bedding. To lift the blanket up and lay it back down, smoothing out the edges and wrinkles like her mom used to do when she was little. Sometimes when there’s a nurse there to help, she’ll lift up his head and fluff his pillow, but she tries not to move him too much.
Although, she halfheartedly joked to herself at one point, maybe his thick skull just needs a really solid smack, like their shitty TV set. The tiny chuckle that had escaped then turned into a full hour of sobbing, so she didn’t make jokes about it anymore.
Then, eight days into his hospitalization, something began to change.
Max had grabbed a random book off the shelf and had been absentmindedly reading it loud. It was incredibly boring and monotonous and full of big words that she definitely didn’t know. But the hope that it would make Billy angry enough to wake up seemed like a real possibility.
She had just finished a segment where the main protagonist had discussed the appearance of a pair of kitchen shears for five pages when a beep different to the other beeps pierced her ears. Immediately alert, she discarded the book on the floor and began looking at the monitors. Most of it was completely foreign to her, but the beeping began to become more and more rapid.
In a hurry, Max slammed her hand on the “Call Nurse” button. It only took a few moments for a nurse to arrive, but it felt like so much longer. Time seemed to slow as the nurse quickly entered the room, looked between Max and Billy, and then rushed to the doorway to shout something intelligible through the hallway.
Before she knew it, Max was being pushed to the side as doctors and nurses rushed into the room, tampering with the medical equipment and beginning chest compressions.
Tears fill Max’s eyes.
No. No. No. No.
Her head is a flurry of memories of the two of them. Of his smile and his stupid car and his stupid girlfriends. She hates him. God, she hates him so much. But she loves him. And if he dies…
“Billy.” She gets as close as she can, scrabbling to grab any skin she can touch her fingertips to. “Billy.” She says it more forcefully, despite the waterfall of tears cascading down her face. “You need to wake up. You need to snap out of it.” There’s anger behind her words for some reason, as if she’s mad at him for starting to die.
“Billy, wake the hell up.” The anger in her voice reverberates through her bones. Through her jaw and her skull and her heart. All she can see is red, swathing every conceivable facet of her body. It completely engulfs her, and she continues speaking to him, her voice quickly losing volume and easily being covered by the doctors and nurses barking orders to one another.
“Billy, PLEASE .” Max says, a quiet sob escaping her mouth. At some point, she went to her knees, her fingers still touching his shoulder over the thin hospital gown.
“Please don’t leave me.” She manages to get out before she feels someone grab her shoulders and hoist her up.
She immediately begins to thrash, trying to break free of the grip.
“Let me go! Let me go!” She screams, tears blurring her vision. A doctor is still continuing chest compressions but the beeping of the machines has gotten louder, more insistent. The nurse holding her has a strong grip and tries to pull Max out of the room but she wriggles and flails.
“That’s my fucking brother !” She cries. She hears a voice in her ear trying to soothe her, but all she can focus on is Billy in front of her. She tries to memorize his face, his hands. She can’t remember. Oh, God. She can’t remember what his fucking cologne smells like. She can’t remember how his hair looks when he gets out of the shower. She can’t remember the annoyed look he gives her when she’s late to meet him at the car after school.
She can’t remember.
Oh, God.
What else is she going to forget once he’s really, truly gone?
She goes slack, falling to her knees and burying her face in her hands. Her shoulders shake violently in time with her silent sobs. She feels the nurse stop tugging at her, instead rubbing at her shoulders, her back. She can’t hear, she can’t feel. Shit, she can hardly breathe.
This is so, so much worse than she ever imagined.
“Honey? Sweetheart?” A voice she doesn’t recognize finally breaks through. How long has she been on the ground for? She moves her hands from her face. The room is empty, save for the nurse by her side. The same one as before. The nice one.
The nurse kneels in front of her, helping her to her feet and offering her a tissue.
“Where is everyone?” Max sniffs, rubbing at her eyes with the tissue. Her voice sounds absolutely wrecked .
“They left, honey. They-” The nurse doesn’t look like she’s about to deliver bad news, but Max’s head hurts so bad and her eyes are so puffy, she doesn’t think she’d be able to make out any expressions right now.
“Is he…” Max can’t bear to hear the words out loud, but she needs to know. She doesn’t think she can see it for herself, either.
“Max?” a voice, quiet, hoarse, and destroyed croaks out to her. She has to be imagining it. God, there’s no way…
“Billy?” Max sidesteps the nurse and sees it perfectly in front of her.
There he is. His eyes are open, his hair is matted. He’s sweaty and he looks like pure, absolute death. But he’s smiling.
And he’s smiling at her.
“Billy!” She runs to his side, tentative to touch him. “You asshole, I thought you were dead!”
“Shut up. You’ve obviously been crying.” He says, trying to form a grin that quickly turns into a wince.
“I was just crying because you weren’t still comatose.” She lies.
“Well, then let me just get comfy again and I’ll-” Billy starts.
“No!” Max says, a little rushed. It quickly occurs to her that that is very much not how it works. But she doesn’t care. She doesn’t even think that she’ll be able to watch him sleep without worrying that he’s going to fall under again.
“Sounds like someone missed me.” Billy says. “You look like shit.”
“Well, that’s kind of what happens to a person after staying in a plastic hospital chair for eight straight days.” Max snaps. She watches Billy’s eyes wander to the chair seated just off to her side.
“Jesus.” He breathes. “Where’re the parents?”
“Not sure.” Max lies. “I think they might’ve gone home to get rest while I was asleep.” She sees the light flash in Billy’s eyes. He clearly does not believe her. But she wouldn’t believe her either, knowing their parents.
“Oh, shit, wait, what about my car?” Billy asks, recognition flooding his face.
“Really?” Max can’t help but laugh. “You just woke up from a coma and you’re worried about a goddamn car ?”
“It’s a nice fucking car!” Billy cries. “God, is it wrecked? I bet it’s wrecked. I remember-” His face quickly darkens and the words fall off his lips.
“It doesn’t matter.” Max says quickly. “It’s just a car. You can get a new one.”
“Yeah. It’s just a car.” Billy says, but the spark in his voice is gone.
A doctor comes in a while later and gives them the rundown. An extensive list of all injuries, of the physical therapy that needs to occur, of the potential disabilities that Billy could endure, the list of medications he’ll need to take, and, most importantly, the day he’s going to be released from the hospital.
Just like every other night for the past eight days, Max stays with Billy. In the dark, now-silent hospital room, she falls asleep with her head resting on the foot of his bed.
“Max?” Billy whispers into the darkness.
“What?” She says, a twinge of annoyance in her voice.
“Do you…” Billy hesitates. He hesitates? When has Billy Hargrove ever hesitated doing anything in his life?
“Do you hate me? For everything. For what I did. To you, your friends, that-”
“No.” Max says. “I hate you because you stink and you waste all the hot water and you drive too fast and you fight anyone who says something negative about you. But I don’t hate you because of what happened.”
“Are you sure?” Billy sounds so unconfident. Did this whole experience knock something loose in his head? What if he’s a completely different person now that he’s woken up?
“Positive. Now go to sleep, I’m already tired of hearing your voice again.” Normally the insult would be slung with some malice or anger behind it, but this time, there’s almost affection.
“Brat.” Billy mutters.
“Dick.” She grumbles back.
“Little shit.”
“Asshole.” Billy doesn’t reply. But if Max isn’t mistaken, she hears him laugh ever-so-softly. It could just be the sleep deprivation, though. And if she heard him whisper apologies after he thought she was asleep, well…
That was probably the sleep deprivation too.