A/N: So here is ch. 4. It'll probably be a day or so before chapter 5, I'm not even finished writing it yet, whereas this one just needed tweaking. Will get it up as soon as possible.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except Hansen. Don't sue, blah, blah.

I checked my watch. Almost six a.m. I should really be getting back to bed. I had to work a shift at The Four Roses, a bar nearby that was a big hangout for this crowd. It was a little hole in the wall, named after the red stained glass picture of four roses tied with a ribbon.

Saying The Four Roses was in the bad section of town was presuming a good one existed. No, around here, the wrong side was every side, just varying degrees of "bad". It was always an interesting parade of characters going through there, a kaleidoscope of different gangs all coming through. This was their place to mingle, common ground in this town. But everyone knew who ran the joint: they did, The SBE, South Boston Executioners.

Along with dealing shit for his dad, Billy and the other kids formed their own local gang, who were climbing up the ranks of fear in the area. It was what happened with mostly all the inner-city youth, no matter where you came from. They grew up together, graduating from errand boys to corner-keepers themselves, and the locals had given them a name. The South Boston Executioners.

Most of the territory that the SBE had originally came from Bones, who ran quite a lot in this town. Heroin was the drug of choice, along with gun-running and a few other specialties. Together, the SWE had turned an old abandoned mental hospital into a heroin factory, where great deals of the stuff could be cooked.

Upon initiation, Billy would the leader of the SBE, the one who had given them the errand jobs that had started them, the one who had helped stake out their ground. He wasn't the only kid I knew from the neighborhood that was apart of the SBE. His life-long pals Bodi, Spink, Heco, Tweak, and Jaime, were a few, along with other kids I had met here and there. They were all quite intimidating on their own, but together... It was quite a sight of fear.

And it was a future that had been written long before I had come onto the scene, and it wasn't anything I was going to be able to change. Billy never really talked to me about it, I was just to accept it and hope the carpet wouldn't be ripped out from underneath me.

I walked back into the apartment, settling back into bed. His back was turned to me so I wrapped my arms around him, kissing his shoulder.

"You've been on the balcony again," he mumbled. "Cold hands."

I sighed, rolling my eyes and laid my head on his shoulder. "Just go back to sleep."

"I'm gonna fuckin' close that thing off with bricks and cement," he threatened.

"No," I whined. "You wouldn't do that. I love the balcony."

"Uhrg," he grumbled, turning over to face me. "You will be the death of me, ya know that?"

"Ever so protective," I teased.

"Ever so naive," he countered. I smiled innocently, making a smile appear for a split second. He closed his eyes, trying to go back to sleep again. I ran a hand over his shaven head.

"Are you ever gonna let it grow back?" I asked him quietly.

"Didn't know ya missed it so much," he whispered tiredly, not bothering to open his eyes.

Billy pulled up outside the home, and I climbed into the passenger seat. I looked over at him, a drastic change had been made to his appearance. He had the goatee for a while now, but today he showed up with a completely shaved head.

To me, the shaved head represented more than just a look that made him almost more good looking and twice as intimidating than before. To me, it was the SBE changing him. And that it was I feared: losing him to the person he was to become.

"So what ya thinkin'?" he asked me while sitting at McDonalds. We were at one of the outside tables. He was drinking a coffee while I picked at a hash brown. We sat on opposite sides of the table, me hugging my knee to my chest, the other leg swinging back and forth. We hadn't talked the whole way there.

I shrugged. "I think they're changing you," I told him. He sighed, flicking his cigarette aside.

"Don't start, Hansen," he said exhaustedly. It had become a topic I had brought up often. He never gave me details of the inner workings, and not knowing killed me. Seeing the way it effected him killed me.

"What?" I asked. "You wanted to know what I thought, I told ya. It's not like I'm gonna lie to ya." I glanced up at him as he sipped his coffee, staring back at me over the rim of the cup. I looked back down at my pieces of hash brown, picking at them again.

"Don't start with this shit again," he told me. "This has nothin' to do with them."

"Bull shit," I called out. He looked up at me, annoyed. "What? You just out of the blue decided that you weren't intimidating enough to the people around here? You just had to go make yourself look twice as scary?"

I threw the pieces of food in my hands back on to the wrapper. I picked up his coffee and took a sip. I was never much of a coffee person, but my throat was pretty dry. He just kept staring at me with an aggravated expression. I looked anywhere but at him.

"Hey," he said softly. I ignored him, picking at a piece of torn plastic on the table.

"Hey," he said again, deeper, commandingly. I looked up at him. He motioned for me to come sit over on his side of the table and I obliged, keeping a couple of inches between us. I couldn't help this, I was mad. The SBE was taking him away from me. This was a future I couldn't control and I couldn't bare to lose the one person in my life that seemed to give even a little bit of a damn about me.

"They will not change me," he told me, as if reading my thoughts. Not that he would've had to been a mind reader, I had voiced my opinion about this whole thing many times.

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on his shoulder. But they already are, is what I wanted to say, but I knew my limits and being this physically close to him was pushing all the right buttons.

My feelings for him had been developing over the time of knowing him, turning our friendship into my own secret crush. But I hated calling it a crush, it was more. Even if I always kept these feelings of mine to myself, I would always feel a need for him. He was all I had.

I knew he was waiting for a response, but instead of saying anything, I just moved my head to the side, looking up at him, disbelieving.

"Don't give me that look," he said, throwing a piece of my hash brown at me. I smiled, burying my face in his shoulder again.

"Hey," he said again, picking up my face in one of his hands. "Why ain't you telling me what's really up?"

"I'm afraid," I told him, never being able to lie to him. "I can't lose you. You and Joe are the only thing I've got." He lifted my face a little higher, then kissed me. Just a quick little kiss on the lips, his facial hair scratching my face in the best way. This was the first, and I hoped against all that it wouldn't be the last. Then he made it better, wrapping his arms all the way around me and I clung to him.

"What was that for?" I asked when we pulled apart a little, an arm of his still wrapped around my waist, both of mine still resting on his shoulders.

"Reassurance," he said simply. "Everything is going to be fine. You will not lose me. I'm always going to here. And I'll always protect you."

I smiled slightly. "Well, it didn't do shit for reassuring me," I told him and he shook his head at me. "But I liked it."

"All right, smart-ass," he said, kissing my temple. "You finished now? We got shit to do." I nodded and we got in his car and headed back to Bone's place.

In the time since that first kiss, kisses had become like stolen prizes, secret pleasures. There were certain times I would get kisses: when he picked me up at the start of the day and when he dropped me off, but some were given when I least expected it. My favorite times were when he was drunk, due to his tendency to be a rather sweet drunk. His hard exterior crumbled the more his blood/alcohol level rose. This is when the kisses got deeper, becoming more than just lips pressed together, but tongues embracing and hands roaming.

We still remained "just friends", an unspoken term that we both knew, though he had no quandaries kissing me in front of other people, signifying me as a marked member of this society, I was not to be reckoned with. If ever there was a guy getting too close, be it at a party or waiting for him to get done with a deal, Billy would be there in a moment's notice, casually slipping an arm around my waist, placing a light kiss on my temple.

I let the topic of the SBE rest for the moment, knowing if I kept pressing, he would just get agitated. Instead, I just kept my fears to myself, the kisses helping to ebb my anxiety away, but not enough that I forgot completely.

Along with my fears of his future, his initiation was a whole other fret for me. He wouldn't tell me what it consisted of, but I had heard stories, and none of it had been nice. In some ways I had my suspicions of why he wouldn't tell me: I saw a somewhat different side of him than the front he put up to the rest of the people around here. My romantic side told me that he wouldn't give me particulars because he was afraid that I would look at him differently, wouldn't love him if I knew the gruesome things he had done. But I could never not love him.

Billy parked outside of the home, dropping me off for the night. It had been a silent ride back from the party, his pre-initiation party. This was the night I feared the most, the night I knew would change him forever. And I feared most of all that it would change us.

He leaned over to kiss me good night, but when he did, I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, not letting go. The kiss deepened a moment, then I finally let go, tears in my eyes that I was praying would not spill, hoping he wouldn't notice. I wasn't trying to give him grief, I was just scared.

"What was that for?" he asked, a shadow of a smile playing on his lips.

"Because I love you," I told him quickly, meaning it more than anything in my life. "And because I want you to be safe. Come back to me in piece, okay?"

He kissed me once more, just a quick one. I nodded and exited the car, watching him drive back to where we had just left.

A couple of hours had passed, and I still laid awake in my bed, staring at the one picture I had of Billy. It was taken a few weeks ago. It was Billy, Joe and I. The two brothers stood side by side, Billy with his arm around Joe's shoulder and I had jumped on Billy's back. Neither brother smiled, but I did. My face was practically glowing.

Sleep was a foreign notion at that time, and there was no more I could cry. The tears had finally spilled when I got into my bunk. Everyone else had been asleep when I snuck back in through my window, so there were no questions asked when I fell on the floor, sobbing. I cried because of whatever awful act Billy would have to perform, cried for what it would do to him, and cried mostly in fear of losing him. Now with all of the tears gone, I just sat there, awake, worried. Until I heard tapping on a window.

My bunk was closest to the wall with the window on it, it was what I used to sneak out of the nights I went out with Billy. Only Billy wasn't at this window. I looked closer and realized it was Bodie, the closest thing you could call to Billy's best friend, almost a brother himself. He waved for me to come down.

I nodded, grabbing my already packed knapsack and climbing out of the widow and down the fire escape. I got into Bodie's car and he threw some clothes into my lap. I looked down at the small top and short leather skirt.

"I had to guess the sizes," he said as we pulled away.

"What are these for?" I asked. He looked over at me and smiled mischievously.

"Billy passed initiation," he said. "And now we celebrate."

"And I'm the prize?" I asked, not sure whether to be insulted or honored.

"He doesn't know," Bodie reassured me. "I was told to pick a girl. And I knew who'd be the perfect one."

"We're just friends, Bodie," I argued with him, still unsure about the whole thing.

"If that's what ya wanna keep tellin' yourself," he laughed, "but we all know that ain't true."

I smiled to myself, glad to hear from someone else that they saw more to me and Billy. I gave up my fight and climbed into the backseat to change.

"That's the spirit, girl." Bodie laughed, turning his rearview mirror away to give me some privacy.

He did good guessing he sizes, but the top was still tighter than anything I had worn. pushing my breasts up to where I thought they were going to fall out, making a bra impossible to wear. And the skirt was short, the hem barely making it past my ass, the type of skirt that made your bottom touch the seat when you sat. But it still felt good to feel this hooker-ish hot.

I climbed back into the front seat, pulling out my hair and putting on a layer of make up.

"Good job, Bodie," I told him in regard to the sizes.

"Billy's gonna love this," he laughed and I tried to hide my smile to no prevail.

We stopped a few minutes later, pulling into one of the seedy motels that dotted our town. Bodie ushered me to a room, opening it for me.

"He'll be coming in just a sec," Bodie told me, taking the key with him.

After Bodie left, I peeked through the curtains and watched him stand at his car until another pulled up. Billy's car. Bodie handed him the key and pointed to the room I was in. I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest. Billy fought it for a second, trying not to accept the key. Bodie leaned down and said something I couldn't make out. Then Billy finally accepted the key with what could only be described as reluctance.

I backed out of the window as he headed toward the room. Since it was close to three or four in the morning, the entire place was dark, so I just sat on the edge of the bed, not turning on any lights. Finally, I heard the key in the door and then Billy came in.

"Hello?" he called into the darkness of the room, closing the door behind him. Rather than saying anything, I just walked over and kissed him, pressing my body to his and wrapping my arms around his neck.

He pulled away after a moment. "Hansen?" he asked, total shock in his voice. I walked past him to the light switch, turning on the lamp in the corner. He stared at me for a second, his eyes scanning over the outfit, still with a bewildered look on his face.

"I didn't plan this," I told him, walking closer to him. "I didn't even know about it until Bodie picked me up."

His expression never changed, just kept that somewhat confused, somewhat amused look across his brow. I took it all as a bad sign, insecurity being my default setting.

"But this isn't what you wanted?" I guessed, backing away a little.

He smiled then, coming over and kissing me again. He placed his hands right below the hem of the skirt and lifted me up. I laughed and wrapped my legs around him.

He walked us over to the bed, laying me down, him leaning over me, kissing me more. He moved his hands from my legs to the bottom of my shirt, pausing before pushing it up.

"What's the matter?" I asked, looking up at him. My whole body was shaking, both nervous and excited.

"You sure 'bout this?" he asked. He was breathing heavily, a little nervous himself. I pulled myself to him, kissing him again.

"Most definitely," I said with a smile, laying back on the bed.

He didn't ask again, just pulled off my shirt, kissing my neck, leaving a trail of feather-light kisses down through the space between my breasts, making a path down my stomach, pushing up my skirt. He stopped before going any further.

"I'm a first timer Darley," I joked with him. "Be gentle with me."

I looked down in time to see him smile before hooking two thumbs on the straps of my underwear and pulling them down.

I woke up few hours later, light peeking through the gap the curtains. Billy was next to me, and arm wrapped tightly around me. I smiled to myself, turning over to face him.

He moaned a little, waking up but not opening his eyes. "Go back to sleep, babe," he whispered.

"I need to ask you something," I said quietly. His eyes drifted open, looking at me through sleep-ridden lids.

"Hmm?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

"Is this all that's going to happen?" I asked him, nervously casting my eyes down. I was such a chicken, I couldn't even look him in the face while asking him how he felt. "I mean, is this all we're ever going to be? Are we going to leave this hotel room and just always be friends?"

I was shaking, nervous again. I took me all night to be able to ask this question, and the answer is what I feared the most. His expression didn't change, he just pulled me closer and kissed me. I didn't smile, I didn't know if I should. A kiss could mean anything.

"I love you," he told me. My heart ballooned in my chest. "You should know that."

"It helps to hear you say it," I told him. I tried to downplay my smile, but it didn't work, I just couldn't help it.

"Well I do. Always will." He hooked me under my chin, kissing me softly. "Now get some sleep."

I nestled myself under his chin, and he tightened his grip around me.

Many thanks to all my readers!! Wouldn't be able to continue without you!