Birthdaaaaayfiiiiiic!!!!!
My *god*, it’s too hot! I am in bra, a vest and panties, and still there is not enough clothing to remove…or, uh, or something *wins*. I won’t be around much for a few days- I’m off to see
lipstickcat on Saturday \o/, and my sister’s coming over on Sunday \o/\o/, who is seriously one of the loveliest people in the *world*, so I’m not going to get much work done for…for a while. Still, it’s all good. Apart from, you know, the heat. Sigh.
Guess what! Because of timezones, and other fun shiny things like that, over here, it is the spectacular
mrsronweasley ’s birthday! ♥\o/♥.
So, to celebrate this,
lordessrenegade and I have conspired to produce something we think she will like. We may well be the first co authors of a genre known as ‘Hard Core Logo kidfic’. And you all thought it couldn’t be done *beams*. So we give you 2600ish words of Joe Dick, who, for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, is a be-mohawked toddler of punk. (we used ‘fuck’ 38 times *wins*) Enjoy!
For reasons that did not need fucking exploring at that juncture, Joe Dick was biting Billy's kneecap and kicking his shins.
He was also under two feet tall. Pipe and John were standing near the door, Pipe trying to make a sandwich monster to distract Joe with, while Billy just…stared. He had a cigarette in his mouth, was going to light it but didn’t, because he didn’t want to smoke around kids, even if said kid was calling him a 'cuntfaced fucking ingrate', and bruising his ankles. So he just looked down at him and wondered what the fuck they were gonna do without a lead singer;
He imagined Joe trying to sing like this, and couldn't help but smile a little, picturing the crowd boggling at the tiny squeaky little voice. Of course, the smile just made Joe hit him harder. Fuck. Those little fists hurt. Joe tired after a while, though, and just sat down, hiccupping and red faced, snotnosed, tracks of tears leaving grimy lines on his cheeks. Billy sighed, got a wad of toilet paper from the hotel bathroom and wiped his face as thoroughly as he could. Joe was glaring, but his lower lip was quivering, and Billy ruffled his hair and picked him up. He kinda knew how to do this part, could do the comforting better when the symptoms were crying and stamping, not lines of coke and bottles of vodka. He rubbed Joe's back and jerked his head to the door, relieved when Pipe and John took the hint
He paced for a few minutes, Joe still sniffling against his shoulder, until he felt Joe’s warm little arms wrapping around his neck and clinging to him.
“Hey," he said, "it's going to be ok," and Joe choked out a sad little laugh.
“Like fuck it is," he said, voice still startling, and Billy sighed, holding Joe tighter.
“And hey, we can get you the kids' portions at the diner, and put you on national tv for being the most foulmouthed toddler in America, and...” he grinned as Joe muttered 'motherfucker' into his neck. “I'll take care of you. I promise. I'll look after you.”
Joe didn’t say anything, just snuggled in closer and relaxed, worn out, until he was a warm sleepy weight in Billy's arms. Billy turned the light out and walked over to the bed, Joe curled up on his chest. He thought about leaving, about discussing what to do with Pipe and John, but just ended up lying there listening to Joe's snuffling little snores, and thinking about making plans.
He fell asleep without making any at all.
\\\*///
“Festus, we pull outta the tour. No- no I can’t tell you why, okay? Bruce is gone- I told him you’d sort out the costs.”
Billy smiled grimly at the curses coming out of the phone he was holding a few inches from his ear. He rubbed a thumb over the letters he’d been sent by Jenifur’s lawyer, his talisman, his way out.
“No, actually, that contract’s fucking nothing, Festus. In fact, you owe us a fair bit of money, Festus, because that contract was a xerox of the 1957 US model, and is no longer valid, never was in Canada, never will be. You got nothing on us, Festus. Yeah. You too. Fuck you kindly.”
He put the phone on the hook carefully, feeling a shaky sort of triumph. Pipe and John had gone back to their girlfriends, and their homes- their lives before this shit had all started. They had both offered them rooms, and they had meant it, too, would have put up with Joe…he felt grateful, uncomfortably grateful, not really used to it, to being offered help for no ulterior motive. With Joe it was always tied up in something else, there was a score being totted up in Joe’s head. Money for new strings would be repaid in other ways, against other walls.
He looked across to the diner. Joe was pacing back and forth in front of it, long t shirt looking like a dress on him. It had been in his guitar case, left by some skinny groupie with an uneven fringe and a scar on her left cheek. He’d never known why Joe had kept it, but at least it only looked like a nightgown, not a grown man’s t shirt, full of holes, sweat, smoke and alcohol. Joe looked over to him, ran across the road barefooted, with little regard for traffic.
“Stumpy fucking legs. Can’t fucking get anywhere. You okay?”
“Yeah. It’s sorted. Let’s get back to the van.”
“Billy, tell me what’s fucking happening, you fucker.”
Billy nodded, picked him up and, feeling giddy with relief, put him on his shoulders.
“No tour, no bills, no contract. Festus can pick up the slack. We’re done with him. We can live for a few months off the tour money you had in your guitar case-yeah, you lying fucker, I knew there was some left.”
Joe cuffed him on the head.
“You looked in my fucking case!”
“Yeah, and?”
“Cuntfaced sneaking spoogesucking twatfaced fucking motherfucker!”
A woman with a baby carriage gave Billy a look of mingled terror and disapproval, and he knew Joe was grinning like a madman, had sworn like that on purpose, the little shit. He walked on quickly, ducking his head. Foulmouthed grinning toddlers with mohawks in t shirts with ‘Jesus fucking hates you’ written across them. It was weirdly fitting.
“We need to get you some clothes.”
Joe just hit the back of his head again, cackling a little. “With my fucking money?”
“I’m not arguing about this.”
He unlocked the van, bent down so that Joe could clamber off his shoulders, into the driver’s seat. He put his little hands on the steering wheel and then sighed, head down. Billy could see him resigning himself to the situation, getting used to all the shit he couldn’t do. It was… he was wiser, somehow. Now Joe couldn’t fight with fists, forget with alcohol. It was saddening, to see him weak, Joe fucking Dick brought down, blowtorch eyes in a soft round face, fists clenched and ready to punch, chubby handed, ineffectual.
Billy had the power now, but he didn’t want it when Joe wasn’t there to fight him for it every fucking step of the way. He looked across. Joe was curled up in the passenger seat, thumb in mouth, lashes dark crescents on pale cheeks. He reached over, put on Joe’s seatbelt, and started driving, responsibilities weighing on him more the further away he got from the hotel, from where normal last was.
He got to Vancouver at three in the morning, found a seedy apartment four blocks from one of the bars where he and Joe got shitfaced at fifteen, and settled the rent with an insomniac landlord with a unibrow. Joe stayed asleep, a heavy weight in his arms as he haggled, only waking up when Billy put him up on the rickety kitchen table. Billy told him to stay put, put their suitcases in the corner and went down to the van to get their amps and guitars. He was out of breath by the time he climbed the five flights of stairs, sweaty, arms aching. Joe was standing on tiptoe by the window, frowning, knuckles white as he clutched the metal safety bars.
“This is a shithole, Billiam.”
“I know. Best I can do. Sorry.”
“You never apologize.”
“You never take naps.”
Joe swore, then rubbed his stomach, almost pouting. “I’m fucking hungry.”
“Ok, I’ll go find a diner. Stay here, okay? You don’t have clothes yet.”
Joe didn’t complain as much as Billy had expected. Billy locked the door from the outside, set off down the stairs at a run, pounding the streets, not caring how weird he looked.
When he got back, Joe was sitting next to his open guitar case, plucking arrhythmically at the E string.
“I’ve lost the chords, Billy. No span. Fuck.”
His eyes were haunted. Billy put the oven on, put the paper bag with the cheeseburgers in it to keep it warm.
“C’mere.”
He picked up the guitar, spanned an e seven with his left hand and put his arm around Joe, pulled him close. Joe picked out the chord, faltering, unused to the size of his fingers, then strummed, gaining confidence. Billy changed the chord, picking up speed until they had the intro to ‘something’s gonna die tonight’ going, slower than usual, tinny and thin in the damp apartment, but weirdly...significant, like they were rewriting it. He stopped when the grime in the oven started stinking, and they sat on the floor and ate chips and cheeseburger with greasy fingers.
It got into a pattern, of sorts. Billy got cash doing session recordings- boring fucking work, just the same sequence over and over until the trumped up fucking divas on the other side of the recording glass were happy with how uniform it sounded. Joe was a fucking terror, of course, as usual, but things started working even when they weren’t clicking and making sense. He couldn’t get used to looking like a toddler, to trying not to attract attention.
“Billy, I want a fucking mohawk. You have a razor, give me a goddamn mohawk!” became a constant argument, but the fact was, Billy kinda liked little Joe with all his hair. He liked having something to run his fingers through when Joe was sleeping beside him, and the little sleepy grunting noises Joe made and the way he still talked in his sleep, just like he used to, only this time it was kind of 'chase that fucking firetruck, my tractor's being towed away.’
Billy wondered if maybe Joe’d been watching Bob the Builder or some shit like that while he'd been out of the room. Sometimes he tried humming the theme tune when Joe was drowsing off, but Joe just smiled, gave him the finger and yawned 'swivel'. It never stopped being unnerving, seeing Joe Dick looking at him out of those little boy eyes, with that fucking scary stare he did sometimes, the way he'd try and crowd Billy into a corner and Billy would nearly move, but remembered he could just pick Joe up and dangle him if he wanted to.
He did, every time Joe was being bratty. He’d pick him up, sling him over his shoulder, and just wait for his kicking and hitting to stop, for him to wear himself out. There were patches of bruises on his front and back where Joe’s little fists and toes had landed, but they didn’t hurt. Sometimes, he'd do it just for fun, grab Joe by the ankles and hold him upside down until he was breathless with giggles, and it was like Joe could be a kid again, without his old man there to ruin things. When Joe forgot that he was Joe fucking Dick, punk legend, and just acted like a kid, getting hyped up over ice cream, Billy felt this weird quiet contentment.
They went back to the kid’s games they played before- still played when Joe was Joe. Played ‘where’s Billy’ in the kitchen, where Billy would just sit, hands up, biting his lip to stop himself laughing as Joe stomped around, opening cupboards, taking lids off boxes shouting ‘where the fuck are you, fucker?’. He’d even clamber up onto the chair Billy was sat on, poke him, stand up on his lap, shout ‘where’s Billy?’ into his ear. He’d go to the cookie jar and eat four, five cookies in a row, grinning with obvious relish at the game. Billy would stay still until Joe was close to bursting with impatience, then grab him the moment he got close enough, tickling him until he couldn’t breathe.
He liked to jump on beds, and eat candy for every meal of the day, and he still drank coffee in the mornings, but he had it with shovelfuls of sugar now, but he didn't think Billy noticed that, or that he kept pouring more milk in until it was practically white.
Billy didn't comment on it, but it made him smile, every morning, to see Joe sitting there on a chair with his little legs kicking to a rhythm only he could hear, fingers clutched tight around a coffee mug that was about five times too big, wearing the black sweater he bullied Billy into getting, that he cut holes in with scissors before the label was even off, and solid black boots he'd grow out of before the month was out
Joe still dressed like his old self, and was beyond frustrated with an inability to find decent boxers in kid size. 'Fucking airplanes, Billy! And stars! I want plain black, I'll wear yours with safety pins.”
They kept falling down though, and he came in one morning, holding them out to Billy. "Can’t you fix them?" he asked with big puppydog eyes. Billy hid a grin behind his hand, then frowned at him.
"What the fuck do I look like, a goddamn seamstress?"
The next morning when Joe woke up, there was a pair of roughly stitched Joe-size black boxers on the end of the bed.
"Must have been the fucking boxer fairy or something," Billy made the mistake of saying, and Joe called him fairy for a week, and kept hopping onto the table and flapping his arms until Billy looked up, and blamed Billy’s cigarettes going missing on 'the fag fairy’.
He smoked the whole pack in two days, and Billy just gave him a look when he came down with a horrendous coughing fit halfway through the second day, and when Joe got croup a week after, Billy ended up staying up all night, putting kettlefulls of water and menthol into a bowl and making Joe breathe it in until his chest eased, and then holding a cold cloth to Joe's forehead and reading him the story of Peter Rabbit until he went to sleep. After that, Billy started trying to quit smoking again.
He knew Joe hated getting sick when he was his normal size, but he hated it even worse now, because he couldn't do shit for himself- he kept swatting Billy away, refusing help, doing everything he’d done before. He was fucking worried, though, getting this tight feeling in his chest at every hitch in Joe’s breathing. He knew he was being kind in that awful worried way that parents do when they’re being all falsely comforting, but seeing Joe with his eyes clouded with feverdreams, clutching Billy’s hand, crying out, face sweaty just made Billy want to punch walls, made him want Joe back, the real Joe. Billy sang to him, sang him punk songs like they were lullabies, lullabies like they were up on stage again. Half remembered snatches of songs, all jumbled up together until he was hoarse as Joe- ‘the water is wide, I cannot get o’er, and neither have I wings to fly…and he lived upon a ladle, and his name was Aiken Drum…go to sleep, my little chickabiddy…she’s like the swallow that flies so high’- until the words were just one long ‘please get better’ in his head, a prayer of sorts.
Fever broke around five in the morning, and all Billy could do was look out of the grimy window at the grey dawn with redrimmed eyes, and thank fuck that it was over.
“You scared me, you fucker,” he whispered, running a shaky hand through Joe’s hair. Joe stirred sleepily.
“Fucking pussy,” he said hoarsely, put his thumb in his mouth, and went to sleep. The faint sunlight started to shine through the window. Billy leaned back against the wall, slight smile on his face. This time, he didn’t plan, he hoped.
lipstickcat on Saturday \o/, and my sister’s coming over on Sunday \o/\o/, who is seriously one of the loveliest people in the *world*, so I’m not going to get much work done for…for a while. Still, it’s all good. Apart from, you know, the heat. Sigh.
Guess what! Because of timezones, and other fun shiny things like that, over here, it is the spectacular
mrsronweasley ’s birthday! ♥\o/♥.
So, to celebrate this,
lordessrenegade and I have conspired to produce something we think she will like. We may well be the first co authors of a genre known as ‘Hard Core Logo kidfic’. And you all thought it couldn’t be done *beams*. So we give you 2600ish words of Joe Dick, who, for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, is a be-mohawked toddler of punk. (we used ‘fuck’ 38 times *wins*) Enjoy!
For reasons that did not need fucking exploring at that juncture, Joe Dick was biting Billy's kneecap and kicking his shins.
He was also under two feet tall. Pipe and John were standing near the door, Pipe trying to make a sandwich monster to distract Joe with, while Billy just…stared. He had a cigarette in his mouth, was going to light it but didn’t, because he didn’t want to smoke around kids, even if said kid was calling him a 'cuntfaced fucking ingrate', and bruising his ankles. So he just looked down at him and wondered what the fuck they were gonna do without a lead singer;
He imagined Joe trying to sing like this, and couldn't help but smile a little, picturing the crowd boggling at the tiny squeaky little voice. Of course, the smile just made Joe hit him harder. Fuck. Those little fists hurt. Joe tired after a while, though, and just sat down, hiccupping and red faced, snotnosed, tracks of tears leaving grimy lines on his cheeks. Billy sighed, got a wad of toilet paper from the hotel bathroom and wiped his face as thoroughly as he could. Joe was glaring, but his lower lip was quivering, and Billy ruffled his hair and picked him up. He kinda knew how to do this part, could do the comforting better when the symptoms were crying and stamping, not lines of coke and bottles of vodka. He rubbed Joe's back and jerked his head to the door, relieved when Pipe and John took the hint
He paced for a few minutes, Joe still sniffling against his shoulder, until he felt Joe’s warm little arms wrapping around his neck and clinging to him.
“Hey," he said, "it's going to be ok," and Joe choked out a sad little laugh.
“Like fuck it is," he said, voice still startling, and Billy sighed, holding Joe tighter.
“And hey, we can get you the kids' portions at the diner, and put you on national tv for being the most foulmouthed toddler in America, and...” he grinned as Joe muttered 'motherfucker' into his neck. “I'll take care of you. I promise. I'll look after you.”
Joe didn’t say anything, just snuggled in closer and relaxed, worn out, until he was a warm sleepy weight in Billy's arms. Billy turned the light out and walked over to the bed, Joe curled up on his chest. He thought about leaving, about discussing what to do with Pipe and John, but just ended up lying there listening to Joe's snuffling little snores, and thinking about making plans.
He fell asleep without making any at all.
\\\*///
“Festus, we pull outta the tour. No- no I can’t tell you why, okay? Bruce is gone- I told him you’d sort out the costs.”
Billy smiled grimly at the curses coming out of the phone he was holding a few inches from his ear. He rubbed a thumb over the letters he’d been sent by Jenifur’s lawyer, his talisman, his way out.
“No, actually, that contract’s fucking nothing, Festus. In fact, you owe us a fair bit of money, Festus, because that contract was a xerox of the 1957 US model, and is no longer valid, never was in Canada, never will be. You got nothing on us, Festus. Yeah. You too. Fuck you kindly.”
He put the phone on the hook carefully, feeling a shaky sort of triumph. Pipe and John had gone back to their girlfriends, and their homes- their lives before this shit had all started. They had both offered them rooms, and they had meant it, too, would have put up with Joe…he felt grateful, uncomfortably grateful, not really used to it, to being offered help for no ulterior motive. With Joe it was always tied up in something else, there was a score being totted up in Joe’s head. Money for new strings would be repaid in other ways, against other walls.
He looked across to the diner. Joe was pacing back and forth in front of it, long t shirt looking like a dress on him. It had been in his guitar case, left by some skinny groupie with an uneven fringe and a scar on her left cheek. He’d never known why Joe had kept it, but at least it only looked like a nightgown, not a grown man’s t shirt, full of holes, sweat, smoke and alcohol. Joe looked over to him, ran across the road barefooted, with little regard for traffic.
“Stumpy fucking legs. Can’t fucking get anywhere. You okay?”
“Yeah. It’s sorted. Let’s get back to the van.”
“Billy, tell me what’s fucking happening, you fucker.”
Billy nodded, picked him up and, feeling giddy with relief, put him on his shoulders.
“No tour, no bills, no contract. Festus can pick up the slack. We’re done with him. We can live for a few months off the tour money you had in your guitar case-yeah, you lying fucker, I knew there was some left.”
Joe cuffed him on the head.
“You looked in my fucking case!”
“Yeah, and?”
“Cuntfaced sneaking spoogesucking twatfaced fucking motherfucker!”
A woman with a baby carriage gave Billy a look of mingled terror and disapproval, and he knew Joe was grinning like a madman, had sworn like that on purpose, the little shit. He walked on quickly, ducking his head. Foulmouthed grinning toddlers with mohawks in t shirts with ‘Jesus fucking hates you’ written across them. It was weirdly fitting.
“We need to get you some clothes.”
Joe just hit the back of his head again, cackling a little. “With my fucking money?”
“I’m not arguing about this.”
He unlocked the van, bent down so that Joe could clamber off his shoulders, into the driver’s seat. He put his little hands on the steering wheel and then sighed, head down. Billy could see him resigning himself to the situation, getting used to all the shit he couldn’t do. It was… he was wiser, somehow. Now Joe couldn’t fight with fists, forget with alcohol. It was saddening, to see him weak, Joe fucking Dick brought down, blowtorch eyes in a soft round face, fists clenched and ready to punch, chubby handed, ineffectual.
Billy had the power now, but he didn’t want it when Joe wasn’t there to fight him for it every fucking step of the way. He looked across. Joe was curled up in the passenger seat, thumb in mouth, lashes dark crescents on pale cheeks. He reached over, put on Joe’s seatbelt, and started driving, responsibilities weighing on him more the further away he got from the hotel, from where normal last was.
He got to Vancouver at three in the morning, found a seedy apartment four blocks from one of the bars where he and Joe got shitfaced at fifteen, and settled the rent with an insomniac landlord with a unibrow. Joe stayed asleep, a heavy weight in his arms as he haggled, only waking up when Billy put him up on the rickety kitchen table. Billy told him to stay put, put their suitcases in the corner and went down to the van to get their amps and guitars. He was out of breath by the time he climbed the five flights of stairs, sweaty, arms aching. Joe was standing on tiptoe by the window, frowning, knuckles white as he clutched the metal safety bars.
“This is a shithole, Billiam.”
“I know. Best I can do. Sorry.”
“You never apologize.”
“You never take naps.”
Joe swore, then rubbed his stomach, almost pouting. “I’m fucking hungry.”
“Ok, I’ll go find a diner. Stay here, okay? You don’t have clothes yet.”
Joe didn’t complain as much as Billy had expected. Billy locked the door from the outside, set off down the stairs at a run, pounding the streets, not caring how weird he looked.
When he got back, Joe was sitting next to his open guitar case, plucking arrhythmically at the E string.
“I’ve lost the chords, Billy. No span. Fuck.”
His eyes were haunted. Billy put the oven on, put the paper bag with the cheeseburgers in it to keep it warm.
“C’mere.”
He picked up the guitar, spanned an e seven with his left hand and put his arm around Joe, pulled him close. Joe picked out the chord, faltering, unused to the size of his fingers, then strummed, gaining confidence. Billy changed the chord, picking up speed until they had the intro to ‘something’s gonna die tonight’ going, slower than usual, tinny and thin in the damp apartment, but weirdly...significant, like they were rewriting it. He stopped when the grime in the oven started stinking, and they sat on the floor and ate chips and cheeseburger with greasy fingers.
It got into a pattern, of sorts. Billy got cash doing session recordings- boring fucking work, just the same sequence over and over until the trumped up fucking divas on the other side of the recording glass were happy with how uniform it sounded. Joe was a fucking terror, of course, as usual, but things started working even when they weren’t clicking and making sense. He couldn’t get used to looking like a toddler, to trying not to attract attention.
“Billy, I want a fucking mohawk. You have a razor, give me a goddamn mohawk!” became a constant argument, but the fact was, Billy kinda liked little Joe with all his hair. He liked having something to run his fingers through when Joe was sleeping beside him, and the little sleepy grunting noises Joe made and the way he still talked in his sleep, just like he used to, only this time it was kind of 'chase that fucking firetruck, my tractor's being towed away.’
Billy wondered if maybe Joe’d been watching Bob the Builder or some shit like that while he'd been out of the room. Sometimes he tried humming the theme tune when Joe was drowsing off, but Joe just smiled, gave him the finger and yawned 'swivel'. It never stopped being unnerving, seeing Joe Dick looking at him out of those little boy eyes, with that fucking scary stare he did sometimes, the way he'd try and crowd Billy into a corner and Billy would nearly move, but remembered he could just pick Joe up and dangle him if he wanted to.
He did, every time Joe was being bratty. He’d pick him up, sling him over his shoulder, and just wait for his kicking and hitting to stop, for him to wear himself out. There were patches of bruises on his front and back where Joe’s little fists and toes had landed, but they didn’t hurt. Sometimes, he'd do it just for fun, grab Joe by the ankles and hold him upside down until he was breathless with giggles, and it was like Joe could be a kid again, without his old man there to ruin things. When Joe forgot that he was Joe fucking Dick, punk legend, and just acted like a kid, getting hyped up over ice cream, Billy felt this weird quiet contentment.
They went back to the kid’s games they played before- still played when Joe was Joe. Played ‘where’s Billy’ in the kitchen, where Billy would just sit, hands up, biting his lip to stop himself laughing as Joe stomped around, opening cupboards, taking lids off boxes shouting ‘where the fuck are you, fucker?’. He’d even clamber up onto the chair Billy was sat on, poke him, stand up on his lap, shout ‘where’s Billy?’ into his ear. He’d go to the cookie jar and eat four, five cookies in a row, grinning with obvious relish at the game. Billy would stay still until Joe was close to bursting with impatience, then grab him the moment he got close enough, tickling him until he couldn’t breathe.
He liked to jump on beds, and eat candy for every meal of the day, and he still drank coffee in the mornings, but he had it with shovelfuls of sugar now, but he didn't think Billy noticed that, or that he kept pouring more milk in until it was practically white.
Billy didn't comment on it, but it made him smile, every morning, to see Joe sitting there on a chair with his little legs kicking to a rhythm only he could hear, fingers clutched tight around a coffee mug that was about five times too big, wearing the black sweater he bullied Billy into getting, that he cut holes in with scissors before the label was even off, and solid black boots he'd grow out of before the month was out
Joe still dressed like his old self, and was beyond frustrated with an inability to find decent boxers in kid size. 'Fucking airplanes, Billy! And stars! I want plain black, I'll wear yours with safety pins.”
They kept falling down though, and he came in one morning, holding them out to Billy. "Can’t you fix them?" he asked with big puppydog eyes. Billy hid a grin behind his hand, then frowned at him.
"What the fuck do I look like, a goddamn seamstress?"
The next morning when Joe woke up, there was a pair of roughly stitched Joe-size black boxers on the end of the bed.
"Must have been the fucking boxer fairy or something," Billy made the mistake of saying, and Joe called him fairy for a week, and kept hopping onto the table and flapping his arms until Billy looked up, and blamed Billy’s cigarettes going missing on 'the fag fairy’.
He smoked the whole pack in two days, and Billy just gave him a look when he came down with a horrendous coughing fit halfway through the second day, and when Joe got croup a week after, Billy ended up staying up all night, putting kettlefulls of water and menthol into a bowl and making Joe breathe it in until his chest eased, and then holding a cold cloth to Joe's forehead and reading him the story of Peter Rabbit until he went to sleep. After that, Billy started trying to quit smoking again.
He knew Joe hated getting sick when he was his normal size, but he hated it even worse now, because he couldn't do shit for himself- he kept swatting Billy away, refusing help, doing everything he’d done before. He was fucking worried, though, getting this tight feeling in his chest at every hitch in Joe’s breathing. He knew he was being kind in that awful worried way that parents do when they’re being all falsely comforting, but seeing Joe with his eyes clouded with feverdreams, clutching Billy’s hand, crying out, face sweaty just made Billy want to punch walls, made him want Joe back, the real Joe. Billy sang to him, sang him punk songs like they were lullabies, lullabies like they were up on stage again. Half remembered snatches of songs, all jumbled up together until he was hoarse as Joe- ‘the water is wide, I cannot get o’er, and neither have I wings to fly…and he lived upon a ladle, and his name was Aiken Drum…go to sleep, my little chickabiddy…she’s like the swallow that flies so high’- until the words were just one long ‘please get better’ in his head, a prayer of sorts.
Fever broke around five in the morning, and all Billy could do was look out of the grimy window at the grey dawn with redrimmed eyes, and thank fuck that it was over.
“You scared me, you fucker,” he whispered, running a shaky hand through Joe’s hair. Joe stirred sleepily.
“Fucking pussy,” he said hoarsely, put his thumb in his mouth, and went to sleep. The faint sunlight started to shine through the window. Billy leaned back against the wall, slight smile on his face. This time, he didn’t plan, he hoped.