Private Eyes ~ Daryl Hall & John Oates

[playingtough]

WHO: Hargrove & Open
WHERE: Around Temba
WHAT: Memory time!
WHEN: During the Energy Storm even
WARNINGS: Abuse, homophobia, violence marked in their section

He's got a bag packed, with all of the essentials he needs. Billy's got some plans to head back out to the beach. It's warm enough again, and Max seems okay here in the city again. Tommy can get to him any time he wants (or so he thinks because of the speed), so going back to the coast is fine. It's totally fine. Blanket tied together like a knapsack to hold his few belongings (the surfboard already waiting down at the beach shack), Billy makes sure the Walkman is secure between clothes and pillow before heading out.

The storms are brewing, and Billy knows they have to get going.

So he goes.

But he doesn't go fast enough as the storm settles in around him.

_{[ooc: your character can intervene at any point in the memory if they want!]}

It's a Sin ~ Pet Shop Boys

› › CW/TW: Abuse homophobic language/slurs, violence ‹ ‹
The memory seems like it's at night. It's a bedroom lit by a bedside lamp and it seems dark outside of the window. The time is confirmed by the digital clock showing it's a little after eleven. Billy stops short at the sight that takes his focus away from where he was and who was there instead.

It's him, younger than he is now. A younger Billy Hargove where the Susan Mayfield isn't married into the Hargroves yet. On his bed, still completely clothed, but making out with someone. A someone that was a guy. A guy with shorts cut probably just a little too short, and wearing a some sort of shirt that Billy knows is some sort of tourist shirt from the Mission Beach boardwalk. It feels like Billy's intruding on the memory but he has to move. If he can stop it——

The thud of a distant door halts the two and Billy falls into his memory, his role. He can't save himself, it's already written——

The bedroom door opens, revealing a man that makes the memory feel ice cold. It's the dread that plummets through the younger teen as the two jump apart like they've been burned. It's not enough. His unknown partner fades in the memory as Neil becomes the focus.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Neil was out on a business trip, he was supposed to be gone another day or two, he was back early——

"You little faggot! Didn't I raise you better than that?!" Neil shouts, grabbing his son by his right arm to hoist him up. There's the bang of the door behind Neil as the teen rushes out, leaving Billy along with his dad. He squirms, trying to pull himself free, but that hand just locks down harder. "You know what happens to little pussies that don't learn their lessons?!"

A cracking noise. A scream. Both come from Billy as his arm is twisted and breaks.

Neil shoves him to the floor and stands over his son. "If I... ever catch you being like one of them, I'll make you regret it." But Neil never did after that. Because Billy regretted it already.

He's still curled up as the memory fades in a hard gust of storm wind, cradling an arm that wasn't broken again, protecting it from a man that wasn't there.

Kickstart My Heart ~ Mötley Crüe

Now it's daytime. It's warm and bright, even if it's artificial. It seems like the space station they were on a few months ago, even if they're actually at the beach. The difference between this memory and the other was night and day and Billy tries to hold onto it.

He breaks out into a run as the memory tracks with him like a rolling camera. And he's not alone in this one either. He's running from Tommy, laughing as he flings wet sand at him. "Come to the water with me!" he finds himself yelling, letting himself relive the memory. Where there was a cold dread that iced his veins with Neil, the sunshine of this is like liquid gold in his body.

"Excuse you it's white," Tommy corrects even as he dodges then runs after the blond. "We really doing this, Sunshine?" Billy doesn't get far as he's knocked down into the surf with a laugh and a splash. There's a flurry of bubbles and water as the two wrestle with the waves sliding over them. It's when Billy pins Tommy under him that the memory...

...feels strange. Like the floor rocks underneath and flips over. The memory falls nearly all the way away until it's just Billy and Tommy. It's almost like it's a picture as Billy just seems to stare at Tommy, then sits up to give the speedster space. The memory blends back out to bring the beach back and the world feels right again.

"Sorry, didn't mean to trap you under all of my amazingness like that. Don't let yourself get washed away before we clean up and get that ice cream cake."

But the world still feels unsteady.

The memory fades, as does Tommy, but Bill stays where he is, seated on the beach that fades into the energy storm around them.

Comments

[ziedrich_bearer]

Yeah, if Billy wasn't certain that he'd fuck up the guy's father if he ever showed up before, well, he was certain now. Really certain. Amazingly certain.

"I'm sorry that someone took that knowledge from you without your consent. It's not okay."

[playingtough]

Yeah, Billy was certain that Gladio would put Neil in the ground if he showed up here. And he'd do it before Neil could even make eye contact with his son.

He takes a deep breath and his fingers clench in their hold on his trainer. "You could only get out of my head then if you saw a memory. I told Harrington to go look at that one. Because we fought once, back home. Some other guy's house. But I broke a plate over his head, messed up his face. So I let him see where I fucking learned it."

Maybe that explained why he had been so ready to throw that plate in the cockpit of the ship, though he had done better and aimed it at the wall instead of Gladio. Or maybe he'll say he intentionally missed. "...'m doing a lot better. I haven't gone and picked fights like I did back then." The training's been helping with that.

[ziedrich_bearer]

Yeah, it helped that Gladio now knew what the man looked like. He'd never get a chance to get near the kid if Gladio could help it.

"That's not true," Gladio dismisses. "There are often other ways out. Like waiting. Had it happen. But you guys don't know that, clearly, so that makes sense that you didn't know how to avoid it."

Though he isn't surprised to hear about the fight. He'd heard about shit from Steve too.

"Trust me, Gladio. I know. I recognize it. And I'm really proud of you."

[playingtough]

"At least here we can get out of the storm," Billy grumbles, not caring if Gladio hears him or not. He lets go with one hand to brush water out of his hair, even if it's for naught with the storm. He and Gladio are no doubt soaked at this point.

"You're just saying that. You have to because you're my trainer." His mentor, really, but Billy's not entirely in the right headspace at the moment. "That's what trainers do n' shit. Say what you want to hear."

[ziedrich_bearer]

Yeah, they can. But Gladio? Gladio’s heading back out into it as soon as possible. He needs to get back to Noctis. He needs to find his fiance.

“If you think that trainers will tell you what you want to hear, that they’ll be nice, you never trained with the ones I did.”

[playingtough]

Billy should get back to the civic center. Take a shower to warm up, dry off. But he's in the diner, so maybe he can find Tommy and just warm up here and get his clothes dry. Wait out the storm. Unfortunately he doesn't know that his boyfriend isn't in here, but he'll find out soon enough.

"They train you to be better physically, but tell you what you want mentally so you don't break." Or maybe people did that with Billy to ward off the blow up that could happen in its wake. "Of course I didn't train with people like you did, I'm not from your world."

Scoff.

It's also easy for Billy to just push aside praise from outside sources. He'd been pushing back here and there when Tommy does it, too.

[ziedrich_bearer]

"Gentle approach. I did a mix of the two with Noctis. But i intend to push harder if you're serious about training. You're a knight of my people now, remember?"

So he intends to get the guy to see how good he is. But that's not tonight.

"You going to be okay here tonight?"

[playingtough]

"Right. Something about Crownguard or something?" He thinks Gladio mentioned it at some point or another. "Don't need people to be gentle with me," comes the under-the-breath grumble as he plops down at Eddie's table.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll dry off, get something hot to drink," probably try to brew the tea Tommy likes to make for himself, "and head up to my boyfriend's room to see if he's up there."

[ziedrich_bearer]

"Don't intend to be gentle with you. I expect a lot more of my guardsmen. The people I trust with the life of the man I love," Gladio says with a shrug.

Yeah. That's a thing to drop then. He smiles and heads back for the door.

"Rest up, kid. I need to be heading home. See you around."