I woke up with Billy pressed against me. It was dark and I debated throwing a fit and tossing his ass out of the bed, but the warmth of his body felt right to me, and soothing. My face was still damp from my crying fit and my entire body hurt from the pain of feeling like the man I loved could think that what Ryan had allowed them to do to him was right. And that Ryan as a child should be allowed to make that decision was something that I had issues with as well.
"I know you're awake," his voice was quiet, rough. "I know you are, and I know you're hurt." He pressed his face into my hair and inhaled. "And I did it." His arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me tight into his body, holding me like he was afraid I would pull away or disappear. "You can't -" Billy stopped and took another deep breath, breathing me in. "Ronnie, you can't pull away from me and shut me out."
My heart felt like it was breaking and clenching tighter all at once. I knew he was right, at least about pulling away, but hearing him almost make it seem like what Ryan had agreed to allow these strangers to do him was something that was an answer to a problem had cut so deep - if only because Ryan was a child, innocent even if he'd cut down someone Billy had loved beyond measure. And I just couldn't argue the point, not when I was arguing it, I was arguing against the person he loved and the person who had been cut down.
"Please, Ronnie -" Hearing him plead with me didn't make it easier to turn to him or pull away. "I love you."
"I love you, too," my throat hurt, it was dry from the crying and as rough as if I'd been screaming for hours. "I love you, but I can't agree with you on this." I couldn't. Not about Ryan. Not about his 'choice',
"You think I only think it's a good idea cause of what happened to her -" I shook my head.
"No, I think you think it's a good idea because he's a supe." I said it into the darkness, I let him hold me, but I didn't turn to him. "I think that you think this is an answer to the supe problem that doesn't get hands dirty, but where Ryan is concerned -" I shook my head. "He's a child, Billy. That doesn't change."
"Would you be as opposed if an adult had made the choice for him?" He asked it into my hair, and I felt the pain of it fly through me. "If his guardian made it?"
"If YOU made it," I supplied for him. "You want to know if I'd be pissed off at YOU if you signed off on it for him?" I sighed. "I'd be disappointed, Billy." I tried to think of HOW to explain my stance to him, so he could understand me better. "Annie." I flashed on Hughie's girlfriend, the sweetest girl I knew. "Starlight has had her powers for as long as she can remember, basically." Billy waited, letting me explain my argument. "Her parents signed off on her getting Compound V, she knows that now, but when she was a little kid? She thought she was born with them." Just like Ryan WAS actually born with his, but unlike Becca, Annie's mom made sure she learned to control hers. "She learned how to harness them, how to keep herself in check, and while you might hate the path she took to get to Hughie, here she is."
"You can't take away how Ryan was created, Ronnie," my eyes were closed and I forced down the sigh that was building because he listened to ME. "Homelander violated her, he forced himself on her for HOURS." I knew this, and I knew Billy knew I knew it, but he wanted to remind me. "She still gave Ryan life -" A fucking martyr, I thought, that's what he was hellbent on making Becca. A martyr to motherhood and pro-life after rape, while I wanted to pipe in, I didn't. Again, he let me have my say, so it was his turn. "You don't agree with her way - the way she chose to raise 'em, but she didn't have a support system like -" he stopped, cornered himself with the reality that Becca's support system was the same fucking company that had put her RIGHT in the path of her rapist. The same shitty company who would have eventually, without a fucking doubt let me fucking die. Vought. Wonder how that shit tasted in his mouth? "All I'm sayin' is that it's easy to point fingers when we don't know what she was going through." Kind of a fade after that strong start, but I didn't feel smug. I couldn't.
"I wouldn't diminish what she went through at his disgusting hands," I felt fucking pissed that he'd even consider it. "What I would challenge is the idea that her ONLY choice was the one she chose or that her path was the right one." I sighed, finally feeling safe to do so. "Ryan is broken, Billy. He is, and putting these inhibitors inside himself? They are, at BEST, temporary fixes for the issues he's dealing with - because the heart of his problem is that the people closest to him have lied to him from day one. And I'm not only talking about her."
The silence fell over us, and eventually - exhausted, we both fell asleep. But rest? Rest didn't actually come to either of us, and I think everyone who took a look at either of us the next day would have known it immediately.