WHO: Billy & Rahne Sinclair (NPC by Jen) WHAT: Billy goes home to his mother and things don't go the way either of them hoped.
_____________________
Billy didn’t feel as good to be home as he expected.
In fact, he didn’t feel good at all. All of this felt wrong, in a way. He wanted to be home with his mother and repair his relationship with her, but he just snuck off and left most of his belongings at the school. It felt underhanded and wrong, and it just wasn’t sitting with him right. Everyone had been telling him so many things that he couldn’t think straight. People really thought his mother was terrible. Billy didn’t know what to think. Rahne had friends in the community, people loved her, and she was always a doting, loving mother who looked out for him and was fiercely protective.
Billy ended up putting his backpack on his bed and trudged off to the bathroom to take a shower. At least he had a shower to himself, and not a communal bathroom. That was onegood thing about being home.
But Luka wasn’t there. Would he ever see Luka again? His mind wandered and before he knew it, he was slumped on the shower floor and crying. He’d been happy. He’d been in love. He’d felt so good and so secure. A few long conversations with his mother and he was stuck questioning everything he passionately believed. He felt lost. Confused. He prided himself on being sure of himself and headstrong, and now he felt wildly off balance.
After washing, Billy dried himself off and threw on his pajamas before leaving the bathroom. He felt like he needed to call Luka, tell him that he still loved him and that he was safe. He just didn’t feel safe.
Rahne was actually warm and welcoming. Of course she was; she was his mother, and she loved him. He was home, and they were going to fix everything that had gone wrong in the last few years. Rahne had hoped Xavier’s would be as good for Billy as it had been for her, but he didn’t come from a terrible place like she had. He didn’t need them. He needed her.
He hadn’t brought much, and it was all as well. Billy had probably left behind all the presents he’d gotten from that boyfriend of his, and she could always buy him new clothes when he needed them. With the intention of being helpful (because she wouldn’t admit to actively snooping), Rahne unpacked Billy’s bag while he was in the shower, setting things back onto his shelves and putting his clothes back into drawers.
And then there was the diary, tucked down into the bottom of the bag. Rahne hesitated before opening it, but reasoned that he’d been overtaken by sin in her absence. The better she knew and understood how bad it was, the better she could help him.
So when Billy came back to his room, she was sitting on his bed, reading his journal.
“Mom.” Billy stopped in the doorway, his heart stopping for a moment. No, no, no, that was supposed to stay hidden. “Mom, that’s mine.”
Rahne looked up. Strangely enough, her eyes were filled with tears. “What is this, Billy?”
“It’s private.” Billy rushed forward and snatched the journal from her hands. “It’s mine and it’s private, Mom. You’re not supposed to read my diary.”
Rahne stubbornly snatched it back and stood. “Is this what you’ve been learning without me? The desire to be humiliated? To feel holy while you’re defiling the gifts He gave you?”
“I----” Billy didn’t have a good answer. Everything that he’d learned from Angela Rush, from reading on the Internet and books, from talking with Luka, everything went right out of his head. His mother was crying in front of him. “No, I... It’s not...” His mother had known he’d been having sex with Luka, but she never knew what he was doing.
“I should have forced you to come home at Christmas. I made such a mistake. I’m so sorry. But we’ll fix this.” Rahne looked like she was going to be sick. She’d read the last few entries, and one had explicitly detailed the way Billy felt when Luka called him a whore and... she couldn’t even finish the thought.
Billy fidgeted, glancing down at his feet. He was fully human while he was at home, feeling that his mother preferred it that way. Normally he’d grasp and stroke his tail like a security blanket but he didn’t have that now. He just tugged at the fabric of his pajama pants. “Mom, I----I didn’t want to come back. I just thought that if I had some time away, we could talk about all of this. I like who I am. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and sometimes I feel like I should be guilty about that.”
Rahne gestured with the diary. “This is not who you are.”
“Then who am I? Mom, I---you weren’t supposed to read that. That’s my private life----”
“This is sin, Billy! You’re my son. You’re a good, polite, religious boy who would never bring God into his dirty homosexual lifestyle, and who would never make himself feel good by being---being beaten.”
Rahne had a way of putting it that made Billy feel sick. The way she said it made it sound wrong, made it sound harmful. With Luka he never felt unsafe, he never felt like he was being harmed. He felt like he was falling into the arms of someone he trusted. “I’m trying to understand it, but don’t go through my journal and read all my thoughts, that’s not okay.” He found himself echoing Luka. Consent.
“I’m your mother. I have a right to know how much these people have damaged you. You don’t get to have any privacy in my house,” Rahne snapped. Billy wasn’t a child anymore. He’d cried and come home, but he wasn’t falling in like he had even a year ago. “We’re going to fix this. First I’m getting rid of this, and then we’re going to church---”
“Wh----getting rid of it? No, you can’t get rid of it, I’ve been working in that diary for over a year----” All of Billy’s important milestones of the last six months were lovingly written down, along with everything that Rahne was finding so horrible. It was his life.
“You’re home now,” she said firmly. “We’re starting over, and I’m not leaving this with you so you can hold on to all this ugliness.” Rahne brushed past him, diary in hand, and left Billy’s room to go to the kitchen.
“Ugliness?” Whatever self-doubt Billy had been feeling before, he felt immediately offended. What he had with Luka wasn’t ugly. It never felt wrong, he never felt unloved or unsure. That was part of the problem, he assumed. The way his mother framed it, maybe he was altered drastically by sin. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m your mother. It’s my job to know what I’m talking about and what’s best for you.” It was punctuated by a rip as Rahne tore out a chunk of pages from the journal and dropped them unceremoniously into the kitchen sink. “There’ll be no more of this in my house.”
Billy choked like Rahne had ripped out a piece of his heart. “Mom! At least----” Oh, God, she was tearing his diary, she was tearing it to pieces right in front of him. “Mom, at least try to understand me. Can’t we talk about this? I thought I was coming home so we could talk, but you have to listen to me, too----”
“This isn’t your life.” There went another chunk of pages into the dry sink. “This is against everything God has taught you.” And another. “I never should have let you go to Xavier’s. I knew it was full of temptation. I knew that you would be distracted from what I’ve taught you.” And another. This time the binding started to tear. “I’m just protecting you, William.”
“I have questions, I have fears, but----you have to listen to me, please don’t----” Billy couldn’t take it anymore. He bounded for the sink, tugging the journal out of her hands and scrounging to gather up all the fallen pages.
It was instinct, she would say. Rahne had been stressed, on the verge of tears, since she’s started reading. She viewed destroying the journal as destruction of a threat, and Billy’s devotion to it triggered an automatic response. When her grip found the scruff of his neck, her hands were claws, digging into his shirt and shoulder and tugging him back with unintended violence.
If Billy had been in his natural form, it wouldn’t have hurt so much, but he didn’t have his fur to protect him, and he didn’t have skin that was meant to be scruffed. He yelped in pain as her claws dug in and yanked him back, the papers scattering to the floor as he tried to pry her hand off of him. “Let me go!”
The smell of blood hit her nose after she heard his voice. Releasing him, Rahne took a few skittering steps back. “God---” Her natural form melted away, leaving her human when she tried to come closer to him. “Billy. Baby, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to---”
Billy let out a soft, animal whine. Blood was soaking the back of his shirt, and from this angle it was hard to tell how bad it was. When she moved forward, Billy scrambled back. “Don’t touch me.”
“Billy, please. Please let me help you.” Rahne was reaching for him, but she didn’t dare touch.
Billy turned away, giving Rahne a glimpse of deep claw marks across the back of his neck. It wasn’t the first time that her claws had caught him, but it was probably the worst.
Rahne gasped. She covered her mouth with both hands, stifling a sob. This wasn’t what she’d wanted; she’d wanted him to be safe, and now what was she? Just as bad as those people, as his boyfriend? Worse? “Billy, please. Please look at me.”
“I----no,” Billy jerked back, fumbling to gather up his torn papers. “No. No. I can’t stay here. I can’t be here. This was a mistake.” He was shaking, barely keeping himself together.
“Don’t leave me.” The smell of his blood was making her head spin. “I’ll fix this, I promise---”
“No. No. You won’t. You’ll fix me.” Billy clutched his beloved diary pages to his chest. He could feel the blood on his skin, feel his shirt getting sticky. “I----I don’t think I need to be fixed. You don’t listen to me. You just tell me. You don’t want to talk, you …” He swayed a little, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But this isn’t okay. I don’t feel safe here. I feel safe at school.” With Luka.
By then, Rahne was leaning against the kitchen counter and trying not to dissolve into ugly crying. He was right. She knew he was right---and when she tried to talk herself out of it, there was that smell. She’d scruffed him before, and she’d even managed to put herself into some pretty firm denial over the marks she’d left on him, but this was too big and too obvious. Billy hadn’t even been home for a day and she already couldn’t handle him.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I’m sorry. You can go. I won’t stop you.”
Billy let out another whimper as he got up, pushing himself back to his feet. He backed away from her until he was out of the room, then bolted to his bedroom. He was breathing hard, the pain really starting to sting. He touched his neck and his hand came back incredibly bloody. He should have stopped to clean it up, or stopped to change his clothes, but all he cared about was getting out as quickly as possible. Later on, he’d realize how her feelings had shifted and feel bad for bolting, but now he was too afraid that she’d change her mind and come after him.
Shoving his destroyed diary into his backpack, he clutched it tight as he slipped into his untied sneakers and headed out the door.