[For Billy]

[well_yeah_but]

Tony finishes the cigarette he'd bummed from Maxxie in the first part of the long, slow walk to Billy's. Hand-rolled and unfiltered, it's strong, with sharp smoke that scrapes up the passage from lungs to lips. He'd thought it would fortify or calm him, but it does neither, and when its gone, he has nothing to distract his hands or mind the rest of

Comments

[halfscarlet]

With his life so suddenly and thoroughly turned upside down in a matter of hours, Billy spends the time after Teddy's departure doing whatever he can think of to distract himself. He cleans his room, arranges his study, thinks about doing his homework, but decides his concentration is shot. Talking to Tony is what he needs to do, but he can't bring himself to step out of the door yet.

But he has to. There's no question to it. The only thing holding him back is the guilt gnawing away the pit of his stomach, and he wishes there were someone he could talk to about this. Even his mom.

When he hears the knock on his door, Billy almost doesn't answer. But he's sitting half way up the stairs when the door opens anyway, and he doesn't even need to see Tony's face to know it's him.

[well_yeah_but]

This bodes about as well as Tony expected. Across the room he can see blue jeans rising from trainer-clad feet and little else, but Billy knows he's there, he's certain of it. Tony is, of course, the reason he's hiding.

On the way here, Tony had planned something brief and impersonal, like ripping off a plaster. But here, stopped very soundly in the doorway to Billy's cottage, he isn't certain that's what he wants.

It's barely been over a week since his own birthday party was held in this house, and now he's not even invited inside.

Hands in his pockets, he levels a gaze at Billy's knees.

"Say it," he says, two words that seem so much bigger than they are in all the nighttime quiet.

[halfscarlet]

Billy clasps his hands together between his knees, trying to tell himself it's a good thing Tony knows; it takes away a fraction of the difficulty it would have taken to tell him. But that's only a fraction, and it's replaced by a number of emotions Billy can barely unravel.

He gets up and walks down the rest of the stairs, determined to at least look Tony in the eye as he does what is probably the worst thing he'll have ever done to someone. "Teddy's arrived. But you know that."

[well_yeah_but]

"No," Tony replies, and doesn't move but for the slight upward tilt of his chin, blue eyes dark in the shadow from the porch. "You were biding your time. Say it."