We picked up a very worn out Terror from a very worn out set of my parents' house and headed home in a more relaxed mood. Our puppy was snoring between us, and Billy shot me a look and I couldn't handle it, I had to laugh.
"I'm guessing that Terror had an all-nighter," I managed, thinking about how tired my parents had looked, and how happy they seemed to be getting a night off of puppy sitting duties. "And he must have gotten a bit -"
"Loud as hell," Billy chuckled, causing Terror to snort indignantly in his sleep. "Listen to the little bugger, snorin' away, like it's his job." He shook his head as he drove us home. "Are we ordering in?"
"I thought I'd make dinner," I could FEEL his eyebrow arch and I had the urge to reach across the car and give him a tiny little love tap in the back of his head. I could cook, he knew that, I just rarely had the energy or urge. "We have everything I need to make what I have in mind -" He shifted and nodded, a smirk appearing on his smug mouth.
"Hot Pockets," I could swear I heard him confirm to himself. Oh, keep it up, I thought, Mr. Butcher and your ass would be asking Terror if you can share his fucking kibble.
We got home in one piece, mostly because I refrained though my massive levels of personal inner Zen to NOT slap the living shit out of the man I love, and I left Billy to try to get Terror interested in walking inside on his own volition. Good luck, asshole, I thought as I listened to him cajole the still snoring dog.
I was in the kitchen, a pot of water boiling with pasta on the stove, a clove of garlic minced and waiting for the butter and olive oil to be ready for the next stage in a pan over a medium heat. I was dicing some pre-cooked chicken breast, a glass of chilled white wine next to me when Billy found me.
"This is a sight to behold." He offered with a smile that would normally have my knickers dampening from the first sound of his growl, but I was NOT in the mood. And I was holding a very sharp knife. "What are you making, Ronnie?"
"Hot Pockets," I snarled, picking up my glass and taking a sip, before going back to my work. He flinched and I moved from the cutting board to the refrigerator to grab the grape tomatoes and broccoli. When I stood up, his body's warmth was pressed against my back. "I have a meal to prepare, Billy." Damn it, why did I sound breathless when I wanted to kick him very hard in his fucking ballsack?
"And I'll help," his hands slid down my arms, teasing gooseflesh to erupt in his wake. "Since I put my foot all the way in it," his mouth met the side of my throat, kissing my pulse, feeling that despite how pissed I'd been with his assumption of my dinner plans, I wanted him. Always. "Let me." He took the tomatoes and broccoli from me, and put them on the island where I'd been working on the chicken. Then he turned me so we were facing one another. I looked up at him and his brows were furrowed, worry shadowed his features. "Me and my big mouth -"
But I didn't get much of an apology, because his big mouth kissed me senseless, trying without words to make amends. His arms wrapping around me, holding me tight and urging me to reciprocate, to reassure him that I wasn't that mad. That I wasn't mad enough to cut him dead or off from me. As if I ever could or would. My fingers were in his hair, around his neck, anywhere that would hold him closer.
The hissing sound of water on fire pulled us back to the real world. My pasta. And I shook my head. "If dinner burns, and you're proven right, I'll -" I wasn't sure what I'd do, but I didn't have to figure it out, because Billy lowered the temperature on the pot burner, and we got back to work, making dinner together.
After dinner, which didn't burn, Billy and I sat together and worked out the details of our meeting with Ryan. I wanted no surprises, none at least that we could control.
"I have to warn you," I said leaning into him, because honestly I wanted the comfort of him. "While the woman, Davos?" He grunted into his beer bottle so I went on, "She's annoying, but the man is going to make you want to pound him into a puddle of human gore." He'd made me want to, and I wasn't Billy Butcher. I felt him grow still as he held me. "I'm not saying you can NEVER beat the high holy hell out of him, just not THIS time." See? Negotiation.
"What about him is gonna make me want to beat the snot outta him?" Good question, nice follow-up. Communication, with words, we're on track. "I wanna know what I'm walkin' into."
"He's rude," I thought back to the first visit. "He - there's something off about him. I can't put my finger on it. He knows the role he's playing, but it's an ill fit." That was it, he wasn't an agent, but he knew what he was supposed to say and how to act. He'd reminded Davos about the ID. He knew he was supposed to pat down visitors. He patted down above clothes, he kept his hands to himself. Yet, there was something that screamed, ACTOR. "He knows the right shit to ask, BUT he doesn't push back when he isn't sure. I tossed back at him when he tried to offer up staying in the room while I met with Ryan, and he caved."
Billy grew quiet, considering what I was saying, because while William Butcher sounded uncouth and rough as fuck, he was far more intelligent than most would give him credit for being. "A plant? Or do you think he's something more than that?"
I shook my head and sighed, snuggling deeper into his warmth, now that I was fed and content, I was in a far better headspace. "That's just it, without an ID? I haven't a clue. I can't put my finger on WHAT he is."
"I won't lay a finger on him," Billy promised, kissing my temple, making me smile. "This time." Which just made me laugh and turn so I could look up into his face. "You said -"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I rose up so we were nose to nose. "Using my words against me, Mr. Butcher," I brushed our noses and leaned in, tasting the beer on his lips, listening as he put the bottle down and then his hands were sliding up my back and we got back to far more pleasant business. Us.
We worked on planning for the second meeting with Ryan during the rest of the week. MM was on his own mission, looking for anything that bore any passing resemblance to Sage Grove, and Frenchie and Kimiko were trying to find somewhere that they could use as cover to aid us, should something go south during our visitation. Annie and Hughie were still doing their regular daily thing, a supe and a dupe, as Billy called them, but I would sigh and shake my head, reminding him that everyone had their role.
There wasn't an easy way to tell if the chips in Ryan were inhibitors. There was the obvious, which made Billy as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs - a saying my grandfather used to say a lot more than I ever did.
"He would not need to use the most dangerous," Frenchie was saying, but Billy's eyes flashed so hard that I had a moment of fear that maybe Ryan was HIS biological son and got that power from the Butcher bloodline. "I'm only saying that he could use another less destructive one." It ended lame, but I understood what he was going for, try a "less cut someone in half" power.
The day arrived, Sunday again, and Billy and I were on the way to the blandest neighborhood in the history of bland neighborhoods. As he drove, he pointed out what they'd cut from the drone footage, points that weren't necessary for intel, but still made no sense for Ryan's placement. How the houses all had curtains or blinds, but according to public records, only half the houses were occupied. The mail services that didn't come. The lawn services that weren't visible.
"Nothing about this place makes sense, Ronnie." He shook his head, glancing around as he drove to the house that Ryan was being kept, since saying he was being raised there was far too kind of a description. "I saw where Becca lived with him. Vought may have created it from their arses, but it LOOKED real. THIS? This don't pass the smallest sniff test."
I concurred. Nothing about this situation sits well with me. From the community, if you could call it that, to the house, to the guardians. Nothing made sense. There were more issues though then just Ryan's current predicament, and I had to wonder if Billy had considered it, because I had.
If we proved what I was so very scared was true, and Ryan WAS in trouble, what was Billy willing to do to get him out of it? What happens to Ryan? Where does he go? What part, in the play that is Ryan's live action stop-motion film, is the man I love willing to play?
We parked in the blinding sun in front of the house I'd gone inside alone the first time. Billy had his ID ready, like the good scout he was, and I had mine as well. Front door, knocking, that bright blue eye, it was all very Deja vu.
Inside the house, with Billy taking up so much space and air that I felt like the man, that actor who I couldn't quite place, took a few steps back, I waited for the pat down. It didn't come. Not this time.
"BILLY?" Ryan's voice was both loud and almost breathless at the same time, he was in front of us and staring up at Billy like I'd seen so many kids do to - I had to bite my lip.
He was looking at Billy Butcher like other children look up to supes like Homelander. My God, what a fucking twist. And Billy? Billy was staring over his head, as awkward as Hughie Campbell Junior staring at me as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with the welcome or the adulation. Well aren't we in a pickle?