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The second the doctor left with Rod, shutting the door behind him, Billy allowed the tears to fall. He was still on the shower floor, cradling a limp and sweaty Daisy Jones in his arms. He looked down at her face. The face that haunted his dreams and sang songs to him in front of thousands of people.
Her eyes were closed, the deep ocean blue contained behind glittery, smudged makeup and vivid purple bruises under her eyes. Oblivious to the world. A tear from his face landed on hers and he watched as it slipped down the apple of her cheek and disappeared into her hairline. She almost looked like she was sleeping, exhausted after a stressful performance. He allowed himself a fraction of a second, a fragment of a moment to imagine. A perfect world in which she’d follow him back to his suite instead of Nicky. Where they’d put on a record and she’d drink whiskey or tequila while he sipped a club soda. She’d put her feet in his lap and they’d talk about everything until the wee hours of the morning. She’d give him her signature smile, the one where she looked at him as if he’d hung the moon and he would just look at her. The blazing star sitting across from him that would burn if he got too close. Now that star is barely alive, clinging onto life just like he’s clinging onto her.
He forgot what he came into the room for, why he sought her out. And the terrible thought that if he hadn’t come to find her she would be lying dead on the floor of a hotel bathroom wormed its way into his mind. It was almost enough to get him to run after Nicky and kill that son of a bitch. But he wouldn’t leave her. It was then that he realized that he was still sitting on the shower floor, Daisy’s skin growing cold and clammy.
He picked her up bridal style and carried her to his room. He laid her unresponsive body on the crisp and unrumpled sheets and rifled through his closet to find something to change her into. Fishing out a cream colored button down, he felt a pang, the garment reminding him of the shirt she wore during their first recording session of “Honeycomb”. It felt like a lifetime ago. He managed to dress her while preserving most of her modesty and tucked her into his bed. She looked so small to him, nothing but a lump in the smoothness of his duvet. He sat down beside her and began to wipe the sweat and runny makeup off her face with a wet cloth and with every swipe she looked impossibly younger. Too young to be carrying such weight around with her. She stirred, eyelids fluttering and opening ever so slightly. The blue didn’t look mysterious and inviting anymore, but sad and lonely, a part of the ocean where no one swims in and fish don’t bother inhabiting.
The first question she asks with a sickly, raspy voice makes his heart sink ever so slightly
“Where's Nicky?”
He doesn’t want to break the news to her that her husband left her for dead in the current state she’s in so he does what he does best. He lies to her.
“He just stepped out for a bit” he reassures with a half assed smile. But the tension doesn’t seem to leave her body.
“When is he coming back?” she asks with half lidded eyes and a tired expression on her face.
“Soon” he smiles, but it does nothing to comfort her.
“Want me to go get him?”
Daisy manages to shake her head on the pillow and reaches for his shirt, twisting her hands in the bottom of his denim button down.
“No. I want you”
He has to physically restrain himself from cupping her face in his hands. And pressing his forehead to hers.
“I’m not going anywhere Daisy,” he consoles. “I’m right here.”
“Can you stay with me?” she whispers, pleading in her voice. Just as he’s about to reassure her once again, she rambles on, eyes half closed and delirious, hands clutching tight to his shirt.
“Please. I’m so lonely, Billy. I don’t wanna take more shit to keep numbing myself, I wanna feel. You make me feel so many things. A lot of the time I really hate you and you really just piss me off but God I fucking love y-”
He shushes her with a finger to her lips and peers down at her like she is the world. Maybe she is. He certainly makes her feel that way.
“I don’t want you to say anything you’re going to regret Daisy” he whispers with a sad smile, face inches from hers. She’s undeterred and moves closer ever so slightly, just close enough that they’re breathing the same air.
“I’m gonna tell you a secret Billy Dunne, and you’re going to let me okay?”
He nods. How can he say no to her?
“I don’t regret you. I love you. Even if I can’t have you.” And with that just barely grazed her lips against his, a feather light touch, like when you’re standing in a room and the sun only hits the bottom half of your face and you feel that phantom caress on your lips.
He only let a fraction, an inkling of control slip past his barrier and pressed a quick, firm kiss to her lips before resting them on her forehead. He felt like fire and she was gasoline. Too much contact would set him alight with his desire for her. To love her, to please her and to show up for her like no one else had. He was afraid of consuming her and himself in his passion.
He’s half laying down on the bed at this point and her face is pressed against the curve of his throat. She’s intoxicating, it’s no wonder he’s addicted to her touch, her approval, her voice and her gaze. Once a junkie, always a junkie right?
She pulls away to look him in the eye, searching for something he doesn’t know he can give. He’s not prepared when she asks but decides to indulge her anyway. Or maybe he’s indulging himself?
“Can we just pretend for one night? Please Billy?”
Heaven knows he’s weak when she says please.
“Whatever you want Daisy.”
“But is it what you want?”
“...yes”
He can physically feel her smile against his throat as she pulls him impossibly closer by his shirt with surprising strength from someone who just overdosed. She sprawls herself over his chest, using his pec as a pillow and his arms encircle her waist, legs tangled together and he red hair splayed every which way.
And that was it. That was the moment Billy Dunne knew he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. She was already asleep when he whispered into her hair.
“I love you too Daisy Jones”
She didn’t even stir.