WHO: Billy Sinclair & Luka Romanov WHAT: Billy is angry at Mark for sleeping with Tomás and Luka is having none of it. They fight, Billy breaks down and realizes he's being selfish, which leads to a terrible revelation on Billy's part.
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Billy just wasn’t good at this.
Maybe he was a jerk. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this. He could take care of Luka when Luka is sick, but when it came to people making mistakes like this, he wasn’t a good shoulder to cry on. Mark made a mistake, Mark was hurting, but Mark was deliberately sabotaging himself. He was doing this on purpose, and Billy just didn’t have the patience for it.
He was curled up in Luka’s bed, checking his phone for any updates. “I can’t believe him. No. No, I can believe him, this is exactly what he’d do. He blew it with Owen and now he’s blowing it with Jack.”
Luka was trying to take a little break from the internet and electronics in general. It was nearly impossible because he just was an electronic these days. He tried to read physical books, but it was so easy to just find them in digital form that he always ended up spoiling himself by accident. He processed pictures and photographs a little bit slower, just enough that it was easier for him to concentrate on graphic novels and comics when they were in his hands. His comic book collection was growing every day---except Sundays, of course. No deliveries on Sundays.
So he was sitting next to Billy while the drama happened, watching the network with half of his brain and trying to read Persepolis with the other half. “He’s sick, sweetheart. Of course he’s blowing it.”
Billy sighed, tossing his phone onto the other side of the bed. “He’s not sick,” he said rudely. “He’s bipolar. He’s medicated. And it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows what he’s doing, he thinks it through, and then he does it anyway and cries about it like he didn’t see it coming. He did it with Owen, he’s doing it with Jack, and he’s going to screw himself up so badly that he’s going to lose his friends.”
“That’s what sick is, Billy. He’s mentally ill.” Luka turned a page. “You’re taking this very personally.”
“No, I’m not!” was immediately followed by, “Okay, maybe I am. But why shouldn’t I? I’m his friend. It’s personal. Can’t anybody have an ounce of restraint? Can’t Mark stop and think that maybe, maybe throwing away his relationship with Jack is a bad idea? If he hates being with Jack so much, the least he could do is talk to him.” Billy felt like the only sane man sometimes. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t nice, but Mark wasn’t too fair or nice, either.
“Are you bipolar?”
Billy made a face. “What? No.”
“Do you hate yourself?”
“No.”
“Do you have OCD?”
Billy sighed and went back to checking his phone, ears flat.
“Billy.”
“No, Luka, I don’t have OCD.”
“You aren’t sick or self loathing. Have some compassion, Billy.” Another page. Luka had been having trouble making eye contact since he was revived. Not on purpose, of course, but his perception wasn’t as limited now and his eyes seemed least important. “Mark is there for you every single time something goes wrong.”
“It’s not the same,” Billy snapped, sitting up. “It’s not the same. Mark gets labeled mentally ill, so I have to coddle him when he does something stupid? Something he’s thought about, and knows is wrong, and does anyway? Why the hell should he get compassion from me? What about Jack, Jack’s not my favorite person in the world, but he’s done nothing wrong, he’s never treated Mark badly, he worships the ground Mark walks on----and Mark’s the one to be concerned about?”
Even as he spoke, he knew he was being cruel about his friend, but he wasn’t sure he cared right now. He needed to vent. Mark had been a mess for what felt like months. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. He’d pulled away he was drinking, he was rude, and Billy, as his best friend, had to keep picking up the pieces and making excuses. He had to keep explaining Mark, defending him, taking care of him. Billy just wanted his friend back. His nerves were shot and he looked close to bursting into tears. “Why isn’t anyone----why isn’t anyone focused on Jack, Mark’s the one hurting people.” But this wasn’t about Jack.
“Because this isn’t Mark deliberately hurting other people.” Luka closed his book. Sometimes Billy seemed very young to him, and he had to swallow as much irritation as he could. Billy was only seventeen, and most people his age barely knew how to look past their own noses. Luka should’ve felt lucky he was as aware and mature as he was in the first place. “This is Mark hurting himself. If he was cutting himself, you wouldn’t get mad at him. If he was starving himself, you wouldn’t get mad at him. The same things that lead him to physically hurt himself push him to do what he’s doing now. It’s mental illness, it’s not a choice he made just to make your life more difficult, so yes, he’s one to be concerned about. He should get your compassion because you say that you’re his best friend. He will be more than punished for his actions by everybody else, including himself.”
Billy looked away, his shoulders sense and trembling. He tried to keep it in, he really did. Billy was all about self-control and thinking actions through, and while he was an extremely passionate person he tried to keep his negative feelings in check. He didn’t like to cry unless it was absolutely impossible to avoid.
And right now, he doubled over and curled in on himself, bursting into sobs. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”
Luka sighed. He scooted over so he could pull Billy into his arms. “Shh. It’s all right.”
Billy was tense, refusing to give in. “Don’t give me lip service right now----”
“I’m not. Do you not want me to hold you right now?” Without waiting for Billy’s answer, Luka let go anyway.
“No---no please, I’m sorry.” Billy slumped against Luka and curled against him. “I’m just so tired,” he admitted. “I’m so tired of----of having Mark screw up and hurt himself or hurt people or lash out and … and I’m supposed to be fine with it. I’m not supposed to let it get to me or hurt me because it’s his disorder. You know what----you know what, things are hurting me, too, and I’m keeping it together----”
“Billy. He specifically told Elliot not to ask you to come back because he didn’t want to make you take care of him. He’s only letting Elliot comfort him because Elliot is insisting. He hasn’t even asked anything of you. If it’s this difficult and emotionally draining, then you need to stay away from him,” Luka said practically. “If it’s too much, don’t be near it. But if you want to keep being his friend, you need to be sympathetic to him.”
Billy didn’t want to talk anymore. He just sobbed, covering his head with his hands and curling up in Luka’s lap. It wasn’t even necessarily proportional to the situation; something else was underneath it. Maybe he wasn’t able to be strong anymore, and breaking a little meant breaking a lot.
Luka was patient, gently rubbing Billy’s back and letting him cry it out. Billy didn’t want to feel pandered to, so Luka didn’t tell him everything was going to be fine. If Billy needed to just let this happen and exhaust himself, then he was allowed to do that.
It took about ten minutes before Billy slumped and relaxed, breathing hard and wiping at his eyes. The stress relief felt good, a little bit like after the kind of sex where Luka would bind him and hit him and make him feel like he was about to go over the edge. Maybe he needed that windup and release to smooth things out.
“Luka?”
“Hm?”
“Am I a bad person?”
“No, of course not.”
“Am I selfish?”
Luka hesitated. “Today? Yes.”
Something about Luka’s answer genuinely bothered him. His breath hitched and he wiped at his eyes, slowly pushing himself up and out of Luka’s lap. “You’re right,” he said, looking up. “You’re right, I am.”
Luka waited a few moments before continuing, and even then he spoke slowly, trying to carefully choose his words. “I think that you have... a lack of sympathy for things that people can’t control. It comes from a good place; you have a lot of self control, and it comes from your own ability to restrain yourself and your own good mental health.” Billy might not want to talk after this, but Luka felt like this was a discussion Billy needed to have. “But if... if Mark was holding your situation with your mother against you, wouldn’t that be unfair? Your mother happened to you. Mark’s disorder happened to him, and he doesn’t have the... luxury? ---No, privilege, that’s a better word. He doesn’t have the privilege of being able to choose not to be in the presence of his mental illness.”
Billy was watching his hands and only half listening. He had a dozen other things running through his head and only half of them had to do with Mark. He knew what Luka was saying was important, but he’d gone quiet in a kind of strange, unsettling way. “You’re right, I’m selfish.”
Luka watched him carefully. He cocked his head and ventured, “What’s going through your head right now?”
“This is what she meant,” Billy said softly. “I’m selfish. All I think about is me. And what I want, and what I can have right now. And I hurt about other people. I don’t care about other people.”
Luka frowned. “Billy. That’s taking it too far.”
“No... no, it’s not.” Billy looked up at Luka, shaking his head a little. “She was right.”
“No, she wasn’t. When she said those things to you, what she meant was that you had the audacity to be your own person instead of staying four years old and worshipping her forever,” Luka said firmly. He tried to be fair and diplomatic about Rahne, but the crazy bitch had literally tried to tear his head off. His sympathy just didn’t exist. “You’re frustrated with things that are frustrating right now. That doesn’t mean you don’t care. Don’t even listen to her, everything she says is built to make you feel guilty for growing up and wanting something other than her.”
“My mother’s a good woman and she loves me,” Billy said. “She loves me, she’s scared for me, she hates this... this person that I’ve turned into. This selfish, demanding person...” Who didn’t think hard enough about getting himself into a sick, twisted relationship with an older man. Who liked how it felt when he was tied up and hit, who was always constantly talking and thinking about sex, who was perfectly fine accepting ridiculous amounts of money in exchange for abandoning his mother. He was selfish.
“She’s scared of you because she’s a terrible person,” Luka snapped. He immediately regretted it and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, that was rude. It’s true, though, she’s fucking terrible, Billy. She hasn’t called you or emailed you. She abandoned you on Christmas because you didn’t give her exactly what she wanted. If she was scared for you, she wouldn’t have cut you off. She didn’t know I would support you. She had no reason to assume I would. She’s trying to blackmail you into coming home and licking her feet by holding your education and your financial well-being hostage. It’s shit.”
Billy was quiet, his head bowed. “Maybe,” he said after a while. “I … Luka, I need to get some air. I’ll be back, I can’t go back to my room, but I just want to take a little walk, okay? Clear my head.”
Luka sighed. “Okay. I’ll be here when you get back.” As if he’d go anywhere else.
Billy kissed Luka briefly on the cheek. He gathered his phone and the heavy cardigan he’d worn here and slipped out of the room.
Luka would know. He always knew. But it had been such a long time and Billy couldn’t handle it much longer. He needed to talk to Mark but he’d do it in the morning. No, there was just one person he needed to talk to right now. He dialed the familiar number and waited.