Dance In The Dark
—
Author's Note: I loved the alternate reality episode of Y&R so much. Everyone was really interesting complex with little things that made them tick. I really, really adored Billy and Victoria's relationship. The role reversal was really, really brilliant. But they were intrinsically the same people. I found myself thinking what their home life must really be like and thought it was probably pretty idyllic with something dark, and horrific beneath. So, I attempted to explore the dark side of Villy's relationship. Hopefully, I succeeded.
The characters aren't mine. Just me playing in the Sony/CBS sandbox and hopping out. Fair warning, if you don't like Villy, please keep on strolling. Surely, you can use your time for something else. For those that don't and read anyway, thank you.
Feedback would be lovely.
Happy Sunday,
-Erika
—
Summary: Pain and pleasure mean the same thing. / Or, in which Billy and Victoria destroy each other, and put themselves back together all at once. BillyVictoria [AU]
—
The smells are all the same – absolutely putrid.
The names are blended in her head, and they don't matter.
The men all touch her and Nick beats them into bloody pulps.
Victoria cracks, actually breaks off piece by piece each time.
And then her mom is passed out again, her father is a shadow, Nick isn't here this time and one of those men rips her to pieces. Everything spills out. Becomes warm, then cold.
She screams, and then she's silent.
Victoria remembers nothing about being raped at seventeen. All she sees in her mind's eye is the part of her that make crimson tracks down her legs, onto the floor, and the sensation of burning. Everything burns.
That's why she drinks. Yes, it's quite fun, but it's also turns her to ice.
(She's comfortable with ice. Ice is her best friend now.)
—
Victoria is nineteen years, six months, three weeks and four days old when she discovers her mother is once again passed out.
She also makes the realization that she could suffocate her own mother in six minutes. Nikki passed out – dead to the world – and the only thing that glitters is the sunlight hitting the tipped over vodka bottle.
Nick comes over from outside, looks down at their mother, disgusted.
"Don't do it, Victoria. I feel the same but Mommy Dearest here, will kill herself."
She replies, factually, "It will take six minutes, Nick. That's it."
"I'm so sorry I wasn't here, Victoria."
She shrugs, offers her brother a wry smile, "I'm not. I feel liberated. I want to kill my own mother and I'm not sorry for it," she laughs, when clearly this is no laughing matter and hugs her sixteen year old brother. Nick is taller than her so finds comfort in resting her head against his shoulder. "I'm not sorry that it's just you and me from now on either."
—
She's married now, to Billy Abbott.
God is a cruel bastard by giving her three children: Reed, Johnny and Katherine.
Billy's daughter, Delia, dies from cancer last year. Billy breaks to pieces, and Victoria tries to be something of a decent person but she gets cut picking up the jagged pieces. He yells at her and she yells back, backhands him across the face too.
The man Nikki lets rape her yells at her to be quiet too. She remembers that and her hands shake, so Victoria proceeds to drink a half of Billy's favourite scotch straight out of the bottle. It's a reason with benefits. For one, she's drunk and two, it'll piss him off.
The husband's gotta be useful for something. He'd rather fuck his portfolio in the ass than come home to her bed instead. Not that she'd let him. At least, while sober. Victoria is the practical one, the type to go for the pre-emptive strike. Victoria can go sleeping with people too, so she does: three people recently, one night after the other. Both of the men are married and the sexual encounter with the woman happens because it's a club with flashing lights, thumping bass, and dancing where a bunch of strangers end up having sex. Victoria may or may not be high on ecstasy at the time. Their autobiographies are irrelevant because, well, it ruins the mystery and sexual intrigue of it all.
(Ain't life grand? Hers is a champagne filled party and she's dancing all by herself.)
—
Victoria's drunk. Or, happy. Maybe a bit of both.
Mr. Jack Daniels is a very lovely, warm person and keeps her company since Hannah has the children. Somewhere in the drunk fog, she's wondering how the hell she's a mother. God, she thinks, she'll screw them up.
She tips the bottle back, draining the rest of the amber coloured liquor. It burns her throat and she winces. She stares at the wall near the bookshelf. Victoria's eyes still think the bullet hole is still there – a deep hole, burned around the edges. But it's painted over, plastered and made brand new. Like Billy doesn't throw a tantrum and shoot at the wall.
"Oh, you're home," she laughs, quietly. Jack Daniels is the best lover ever. She stands up. Victoria's wobbly, but not really. It's gravity that's the problem. Gravity doesn't co-operate. Gravity is leaving her. They all leave. Billy glares at her and sets his jaw. He sets his keys on the table a little too loudly and leaves his briefcase by the door. Victoria notes the frown lines in between his eyebrows, and the little vein in the side of his head. "Did the racing horsies kick you in the head again?"
"Not now, Victoria. You're drunk."
"Or…or," she smirks. "Your Jabot underlings didn't fall at your feet the right way."
"I said, not now!"
"Or what?" Victoria challenges, defiantly, blue eyes turning to ice. "You'll whip out your gun and shoot properly this time?"
Billy glares at her, and lowers his gaze. He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, I did that. I shouldn't have lost control like that. Thank God, the kids weren't here."
Yeah. That would be bad. If she were sober, Victoria would probably cry.
She knows how angry Billy is that night because he's a little less drunk than she is, but more angry. His hand is shaking so it throws his aim off. Victoria stands there, out of her body for a minute before she goes back into it. That's why she doesn't flinch at the crack of the bullet leaving the chamber. Victoria is too numb, too detached to feel anything except the burn of this poison she loves so much.
"Piece of wifely advice. Next time you get trigger happy, aim for your head," Victoria slurs, letting a mocking smile rest on her lips, "or mine."
Billy angrily grabs her wrists. "When will this stop, Victoria? When?"
"When you realize you married me to save me. I don't want be saved. So, either, you fuck me right now or let go," Victoria glances down at her husband's crotch, seeing proof of what he really wants. Billy drops her wrists, backs away from her but she grabs his wrist and it doesn't take much for her to pull him to her.
Billy kisses her, angrily and roughly, whispers, "Damn you, Vick," against them, before she returns the kiss with equal drunken need. Billy tastes of celebratory cigars and gambling related failure. He's been drinking too and it makes her smile against his lips.
They're both ruined. They're both twisted.
Sometimes, underneath Victoria's claws, fangs and poison, she thinks, yeah, she could let herself love Billy.
So, she does. Just for one moment in time.
—
Billy thrusts his frustrations into her body and Victoria claws her pain into his.
It's a painful yet pleasurable rhythm to dance to, while she leaves vertical red scratches on his back and he cries out in pain or pleasure. She doesn't know and doesn't care all that much. Billy flips her over, gazes at her or through her Victoria doesn't know which is it, but it's unnerving.
"God, you're beautiful," Billy whispers, kissing the slope of her neck, the juncture of her collarbone, the area where this stupid, racing heart of hers lies. Billy works his way upwards until his mouth finds hers, and captures it.
Brown eyes bore into blue ones as if trying to uncover the girl she buries in mental, emotional dirt years ago. She wants to breathe. The girl wants to speak, opens her mouth but nothing comes out. So, Victoria – the woman, the one who is damn fine with or without sanity – kicked that broken, bleeding child down back in. Billy's eyes search hers, trying to look for something still beautiful, despite the ugly interior.
"Stop."
Stop unravelling. Stop stripping me layer by layer. Stop searching.
Stop—
Billy's fingers dance across the apples of her cheek. He half-smiles and his eyes glisten with tears. Seriously, Victoria thinks angrily pushing her own tears back, fuck him for splintering her this way. Sex is her weapon. Sex is her shield.
"Don't, Billy," Victoria warns, wanting the single word to have the edges around it. But it's soft and husky to her ears.
Don't mend me. Don't save me. Don't love—
"Let me make love to you, Victoria."
He says it so earnestly, so gently, he could actually mean it. Billy kisses her nose with a laugh on his lips.
"Let me in. Please."
For the first time in God-knows-when, Victoria actually looks into her husband's eyes. They are a deep brown and don't remind her of the colour of liquor this time. Still, they are so soulful, searching for some untouched part of her. It's sounds futile.
"You sound stupid, Billy."
In her mind, Victoria is throwing the words at him, laced with acid that burn and blister Billy past the layer of his skin, all the way down to the marrow of his bones. Out loud, these three words aren't sharp or edgy. They are tearful and broken. As stupid as it sounds to her, something comes undone within her when Billy uses the pads of his thumbs to whip her tears away. She numbly nods and says a barely audible yes. Victoria lets Billy into her. She wants to detach herself like she usually does so she doesn't feel this gentleness Billy showers on her body the second time around. She can't leave. Victoria cannot leave.
She's suffocating under the sensation of her nerve endings burning and then freezing. The blood in her veins bubble and fizzes beneath her skin. The two syllables of Billy's name tumbles out of her mouth, escapes, hit the ceiling probably going through it. Wherever they land – heaven or hell – she doesn't care.
Billy's rhythm is steady, and consistent. Safe. Her hands are held above her head and the fingers intertwine with hers. Victoria curls the fingers between the crevices of his for three reasons: something deeply instinctual, sobriety and sanity kick in or it's love or something like it.
These hands that run up and down Billy's torso aren't her hands, and they are. Victoria wraps her long legs around his torso because she's selfish and wants Billy all to herself. At least, that makes sense.
Billy's winding her up, little trills of pleasure running through her body.
Everything explodes, warm and slowly. She holds on to Billy and he's jumping into this sea of sexual rhapsody with her.
The only difference is, Victoria's not torn apart.
She's being put together for the first time, and it scares her.
So, this is what heaven must feel like, she thinks collapsing on top of Billy after she orgasms.
"What're you thinking of?" Billy questions, his voice whisper quiet.
"Nothing."
Victoria presses a kiss to the skin of his torso.
—
There will be hellfire and brimstone tomorrow. She will be the one to light the flames. That is what Victoria is thinking, if honesty is the objective here.
Otherwise, it's the usual answer: the sex is amazing.
Only it isn't just that: it's something otherworldly. Victoria quietly tells herself to shut up. She's looking into things too deeply. Let sleeping demons lie.
At least the sex is better than the time Victoria gives him oral sex just to shut Billy up.
—
Victoria lies there against Billy's body upright, hair tousled and falling over one shoulder.
She's okay with his arm resting across her chest, fingertips caressing her shoulder. He places a kiss on the soft curve of it.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm okay," she replies. It's still warm inside of her, knots tied several times over start to feeling like coming loose. Victoria feels the corners of her mouth turn upward into a smile and tousles her hair, absentmindedly. "I do, however, crave a cigarette."
Billy kisses her hair, laughs against it. He laughs and Victoria wonders what the hell is so funny. The remnants of her Jack Daniels buzz linger and causes her to wonder if a racing horse does, in fact, jump the track and hit Billy in the head. Nevertheless, Victoria detaches herself from Billy long enough to retrieve two cigarettes from a pack, and her favourite black lighter.
She lights his, then hers.
Satisfaction courses through Victoria's body – must be endorphins, she hears that from another doctor before she fucks him, too – when she takes that first drag and blows a steady steam of smoke upwards. Billy's smoke circles dances around and in between Victoria's rising, curly smoke.
"Show off," Victoria mutters, playfully nudging him.
Billy chuckles again and kisses her neck. Victoria doesn't mind the upcoming hickey.
Nothing concealer can't fix and it's from her husband.
Husband, Victoria tumbles that world around in her mind. It's still murky there and that's okay with her. There's a lot she doesn't want to think about. The residual rest are jumbled pieces of this and that that, Victoria leaves to float around. But this: Billy Abbott is my – Victoria Newman's – husband. This thought is okay with her.
She kisses Billy's forearm.
—
Victoria's half-drowned in nicotine and doesn't want to leave.
She receives another kiss on the back.
Glancing up at Billy, she doesn't know how three more words stick themselves together in the backdrop of the random things floating around.
He's already put his cigarette out, while she nurses hers.
"I love you."
She doesn't know what that means to herself, yet, but it means something to Billy.
Love is a complex word. So, she'll leave it alone and stop figuring it out, because Victoria won't risk the monsters in the corners of her mind twisting that simple word around. Leave it as is. He loves me. I love him. Besides, it agitates her.
Billy grins, and lowers his head to capture her lips. She balances her still smoking cigarette between slender fingers to kiss him back.
He tastes like residual beer and cigarettes. She smiles against his mouth.
"I love you too, Vick," Billy answers, when he barely pulls away, his fingers intertwine themselves in her hair. "So damn much."
"Can we stay like this a little longer?"
She resettles herself in Billy's arms.
Another drag of her cigarette. Another stream of smoke.
"Sure, we can. I like it like this, too. I miss this."
That's fine with her. Victoria misses a lot of things, too.
—
Tomorrow, Billy will probably try to shoot at her and again, miss.
Tomorrow, Victoria will be drunk and threaten him with jagged edges of yet another liquor bottle – green ones that hold red wine are the sharpest ones. The venom and acid will return. After all, it is the dysfunction that holds them all together. Reed, Johnny and Katherine are the truly innocent ones and that makes her feel awful. She can admit that.
The barbed wire slightly loosened around her heart will tighten again, the pain of the razors cutting comfortable in her chest.
But not today.
Victoria finds that she is soothed by Billy's steady breathing – the rise and fall. Likes the warmth of her legs being intertwined with his.
She takes a final drag of her cigarette.
The end glows bright orange before it goes out.
—
fin.