Author's Note: Thanks to Mandi for beta'ing this so quickly, I don't know how you do it but I'm glad you do. Hopefully the next story won't make us have to poke Will with a stick eh?
This story is what I've taken to calling angst fest 2003. It's going to be three parts, I think, and probably isn't what Danny had in mind when he said he wanted me to write a Billy/Jason story. Ooops. :-) This is slash, m/m, so if you don't like that find the back button. Otherwise enjoy! But please don't poke Will to hug him we've discovered that doesn't get a favourable reaction.
Edited to add: Another songfic where the lyrcis have been removed. The song it was is listed above.
Why Do You Choose That Pain?
He looks so peaceful when he's sleeping. He's relaxed even. He's never relaxed when he's awake. His body is always so tense, even when we're making love he's tense, as if any moment the world is going to come crashing down on him. Nothing I do makes that tension go away.
It's funny, in a sad kind of way, to see him smile in his sleep. It's faint; his lips just curve a tiny bit, but it's there.
I know he's not dreaming of me.
It looks more genuine when he smiles in his sleep. Maybe it's because you can't see his eyes. When he is awake and smiling all you have to do is look into his eyes and know he is only doing it for appearances sake. He tries. He tries so hard but anyone close to him knows those smiles aren't real.
Sometimes I can't even stand to look at those eyes. I used to love to. I could have spent hours staring into those midnight pools before, memorizing every fleck of colour and sparkle of warmth in their depths. He never loved me as more than a friend then but I could deal with that. I'd take what he would give me. The love I saw there for me was that of a brother but it was still love in his eyes. I miss that.
His eyes are dull now. I would say they were dead but they contain too much pain to be that of a corpse. He told me once, before we became lovers, that the pain is what lets him know he's alive. Without it he would just assume he was dead because not even hell could be that bad.
I didn't believe him at the time but I'm beginning too. He is still alive, still plodding along, but I don't think he even knows why anymore, other than he was asked to by his real love. Once I thought I could heal him but that's a load of bull and I know it. Maybe I even knew it then.
He tried to warn me. He tried to tell me what it was like, that he didn't think he'd be able to love like that again. I didn't believe him, I didn't want to. Hey, I loved him, I still love him. I thought I could help him heal, give him back his smile.
I never knew how deep his pain went, how thick it was.
I should have known. I watched him fall apart after Billy's death. I held his hand at the funeral, we all tried to support him but... he didn't seem to really need it. Everyone commented on how well he was holding up. We should have seen he was too calm, too detached. It wasn't until later that we found out why he hadn't cried for Billy.
He thought he had to remain strong for us. Power Rangers just don't break down. There's too much riding on our abilities to stay focussed to allow us that luxury. We all screwed up when we didn't see that he was putting his duty as a Ranger first, burying the pain to deal with later. If we had just seen it, not been so damn blind, maybe we could have spared him some pain.
I held him, rocked him in my arms, as he had some sort of breakdown after giving up his powers. He kept asking why he was still there. I thought he was just rambling. I didn't know those bloody powers were the only thing holding him together because they gave him a purpose to get up in the morning.
That day was awful. It's bad enough we almost lost him to those goddamn powers but I think he wanted Trey to be unable to take them back in time. He wanted to die. Sometimes I think we would have been better to let him.
I hate thinking about that day. Taking away those powers were the worst thing we could have done to him. It took away what he thought was his only purpose. Everything he had kept inside since Billy died poured out of him.
I thought he would never stop shaking, stop sobbing. Loud sobs intermingled with mostly incoherent words and that constant, maddening, terrifying trembling that just would not stop.
We had to sedate him in the end. He was crying so hard he started to throw up and Zordon was worried he would damage his stomach if we didn't stop him. He was out for hours and when he woke up... I should have known then that nothing would ever be the same.
He was so listless, so... broken. I never thought I'd see him like that, not Jason. It hurt to look at him some days, knowing that nothing we had tried had broken through his grief.
It was a surprise when he announced he was leaving for awhile. He didn't know for how long or where exactly, just that he would start off in Scotland. We all tried to convince him not to go but now, looking back, it was probably for the best. He was suffocating here, drowning in too much pity and too many watchful eyes.
I just wish he had changed more by the time he returned.
I hear him sobbing sometimes when he thinks I'm not home or asleep. It surprises me, sometimes, how much he cries. I would have thought those tears had run dry by now. How much can his tear ducts take?
How can he still be crying after two years?
Sometimes I think he'll never get any better, that he'll never be happy again. I know he doesn't love me like he loved Billy. He'll never love me like that. But he does love me and I'll take what I can get.
It would be so easy to be mad at Billy, so easy to blame all this on him but how can I do that? The only reason he died was because he wanted to protect us, help us. How can I blame him for that? I would have done the same if it had been in my power to do it.
And watching him die... Seeing him age before our eyes, just waste away like something out of a bad tv show... That was hell. I'll never forget it. I can't imagine what it must be like for Jason. He has holding him, cradling the too old, too frail body as Billy died.
Billy had been talking to him, murmuring how much he loved him between the soft whimpers of pain when his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he just went still. I've never seen someone die before, not that close. It terrified me. He just stopped breathing, just stopped existing, just stopped.
Jason wouldn't believe it. He wouldn't let any of us take Billy away from him. He insisted he was just sleeping. He kept talking to him as if Billy could still hear him.
It was three hours before he finally faltered. His voice hitched, everyone who hadn't fled the room in tears already heard it. He let out a sob, just one dry sob, and pressed Billy's body closer, resting his head against his forehead for a moment before letting Adam take the body from him and rushing from the room.
None of us saw him for two days after that.
He wasn't the same when he came back from wherever he went in those two days. He's never been the same since. He's so broken, so much more than I had thought.
I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know how to help him.
Sometimes I get the feeling by just being here, not letting go, I am helping him, not to heal just to keep on existing. Sometimes he'll share a memory or a half laugh or something that will make it feel like he's not dead inside, not totally, not yet.
Then there are some days, or weeks, where he's just so hollow I can hardly remember what he was like before Billy's death, before all is pain consumed him.
I just don't know what to do to make those nearly happy moments last.
I hardly ever know what to do anymore.
I wish I could blame him. I wish I could blame anybody but I can't, not if I'm being fair. He tried to warn me. He fought tooth and nail against going this step further in our relationship for awhile but, in the end, he gave in.
I don't blame him for that. I mean, he's only human and he was hurting so badly… Why not take what I was offering, pushing at him? It must have looked like a comfort, though now I'm not sure it is for either of us. Some days I catch a glimpse of something in his eyes and know he's aware of what he's doing to me. He knows how much it's hurting me.
He tries to hard to be what he thinks I want him to be. It's unfair to him really. He didn't ask for this, warned me against it, and now he has to suffer more than he was because of it. We're both suffering, suffocating, and sometimes I get this sinking feeling that when this all comes to a head he's going to draw the short straw.
But I just can't let him go. I want to believe it can work. I have to believe it because I think this might be his last chance at not being miserable for the rest of his life. I don't want to be the reason that's screwed up for him.
I don't want to be the one to hurt him again.
But I don't want to become what he has because he can't love me.
Sometimes I hate myself for getting him into this mess in the first place. I should have been content to just stay friends. Sometimes I think I could have helped him more if we hadn't become lovers.
Then he wouldn't have to try and be what I wish he was. He wouldn't think he has to grieve in silence, alone, because he thinks I don't want Billy's memory to ruin our relationship, such as it is, but there's no way to not have it become part of our relationship. Jason and Billy… For such a long time they were each other, guardians of each other's hearts, keepers of each other's souls, whatever corny thing you want to call it they gave themselves to each other and when Billy died Jason never got himself back.
I don't blame either of them for it; at least I don't want to blame them. How can anyone find fault in that kind of love? And I loved Billy, as a friend, as a team mate. I miss him too but I can live without him. Jason, I'm starting to think he can't. Survive? Yes. Live? No. Nothing I do will change that.
It sucks but that's how it is.
He never accidentally calls me Billy. He has never mistaken me for his lost beloved. He always calls my name when we're making love.
But when he's dreaming he mumbles Billy's name with so much more than he will ever say my name with.
I don't know how much longer I can be second fiddle to his dreams.
We all make mistakes.
It was a mistake for me to try and pursue a relationship with Jason.
It was a mistake for him to eventually cave in.
It was a mistake for Billy to die.
Sometimes I think it had to be a mistake that Jason didn't die.
It's morbid but sometimes when he's talking in his sleep he sounds so heartbroken as he whimpers Billy's name I can't help but think it would be better if they were together.
It's all screwed up and I don't have a clue, nobody has a clue, how to make it better. Maybe it's just something that can't be fixed, no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard all of us try.
I would make it better if I could. I think I would do anything to heal him, even if it meant taking Billy's place.
I love him. I, Tommy Oliver, am madly in love with Jason Lee Scott.
It's just not enough.
How long can you say I love you to someone without hearing them say it back?