Multi-Fandom

So, while you look through his tapes, he lays on his bed leaning against the backboard, a book opened in one hand while the other rests behind his head. His stereo playing one of the tapes he had made in collaboration with you. The music taste between the two of you had been on two sides of a spectrum but sharing them with one another was the only time Billy enjoyed your music taste. If anyone else tried to make him listen to it, he'd hate it.

When the final song finished, you pulled the tape out and put another one inside, this time the music was definitely a mix he had made only for himself, yet you still smiled while it played.

Seemingly bored of your rummaging through his various tapes of music, you pulled yourself off the floor, making an exaggerated sound like you were an older person getting out of bed. You had a little hop to your step when you stood straight and made a beeline for his dresser, covered in various trinkets.

"The fuck was that?" Billy questions the noise you made, looking away from the book Hard Times and looking to you, "sounded like an old ass man."

You shrug, "just practicing for when I'm an old lady."

"Keep practicing," he rolls his eyes and turns back to his book.

He doesn't see it, but he knows you're sticking your tongue out at him like a child.

On his dresser are a variety of things. A shirt he haphazardly threw on top rather than putting it away or in the laundry bin, a few different hair products that he liked to use, chapstick that you left at his house so if you forgot your other one you could use this one when you were there (he also used it too now), a few tapes he hadn't put away, a random book, and a little dish with different rings inside.

The dish was what beckoned your attention as you began to look through it.

Billy had a lot of rings. All of them were rather thick, made of silver or something else of the same colour. Some had designs on them, but most were rather plain to look at. He didn't wear them all at once, but somedays he'd wear a few on his hands. Sometimes he'd switch one out for another. But the one ring he never took off was one that had belonged to his mother. It was on his hand always.

Plucking a simpler ring from the dish, one that also looked a bit smaller than the others, you put it on your index finger. Too big. You tried your ring finger. Nope, way too big. Your thumb. Still no. It felt weird, definitely not meant for that finger.

Going through a few more, it gave you the same results. Rings too big for your smaller hands; it truly put into perspective just how much bigger Billy was than you in almost every aspect there was. Taller than you, buffer than you, bigger hands, feet.

You sighed dramatically, "you have huge hands you know?"

Billy looks up from his book again, this time looking at you almost as if you'd grown another head. To others, he likely would have come across as annoyed, but you knew how to read his face better than others.

And suddenly it's turning from mild confusion to a smirk on his lips, a glint in his eyes. You'd given him a perfect opening you realize, preparing yourself for whatever his brain had prepared for you.

"There are a lot of things about me that are big sweetheart," he almost purrs when he speaks. He sounds confident, snarky, and amused. If you weren't across the room you'd have playfully hit his shoulder gently.

But as it was, the best you could give him was a pointed look and a few words.

"Sure," you respond with an eye roll, "sometimes you are so..."

You look for a word that expresses itself properly but find yourself coming up empty; Billy however is quick on the draw- he always is.

"Sexy, the best fuck-" He offers words without much thought, only looking into your eyes- blue ones piercing through you as he smirks. He knows what he's doing. He always does.

"Annoying," you quickly cut off his words, huffing as your ears heat up, "I was thinking of the word annoying."

"That's not what you said the other night in your room."

"Oh my God, Billy."

"Yeah, that's more like what you were saying."

This time you don't even bother to offer him a response, too flustered to even try. You know it will be thrown back at you as you inevitably give him more ammunition to tease.

Instead, you puff your cheeks out akin to a child and turn your back to him once more busying yourself with the dish of rings in front of you on the dresser. Picking some of them up and looking at them in your hands but not really noticing them anymore.

Billy watches you fully now, dog-earing the page of his book he's stopped on instead of using a bookmark (he'd lose that shit so fast, and really, this is much faster and easier to do) and throws his book to the side on his bed. Stretching his muscles out a bit, he moves to stand to his full height, putting his arms up to stretch and then letting them fall.

Either you're ignoring him and what he's doing, or you're really enraptured with the rings in the dish. Billy is fairly sure it's the former.

It doesn't stop him from slithering his way up behind you and resting his heavy hands on your waist, digging his fingers into your sides roughly, but not enough to actually hurt you.

It elicits a small noise from your lips, one that emboldens the dirty blonde behind you as he pulls his body fully against your back, capturing you in his firm grasp.

His head dips to rest his chin on your shoulder and so he can peer into your face and gauge your emotions. Get your attention. But you're stubborn, and even though he can physically feel the way your body melts a smidge into his own, enjoying his presence and touch.

Your body always gave you away.

Your eyes stayed trained on the ring in your hand however and Billy watched the way you played with it.

"You want one?" He asks you, waiting. If he could pull you closer into his body he would.

You don't answer, trying your hardest to keep up the act of silence against him for teasing you. You aren't that mad in reality, it's just the principle of the thing you started.

And part of you enjoys the moves he makes to coax you to speak.

"You can take one," he continues, taking the ring out of your hand behind you and taking one of your smaller hands into his, slipping the ring onto one of your fingers where it sits loosely, not fitting whatsoever, "small ass fuckin' hands."

There's something about how he puts the silly little (it is not little and it's probably silver plated or platinum) ring onto your finger that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

It's the imagery of him doing so that makes you feel a spark. Makes you feel something deep in the pit of your stomach, something telling you that one day you hope he does this again, but for a different reason and with a ring that fits.

But that wasn't important right now. You were still young.

"Yeah, like I said... You have big hands," you finally speak, clearing your throat nervously, "It's too bad. Wearing something that's yours would be nice."

"You wear my shit all the time. Isn't that my shirt?"

It was, in fact, his shirt.

"That's not what I mean, I mean something like this. That I don't have to take off... It's like... Having a piece of you with me, all the time. No matter how far we are from one another or whatever happens to either of us, it's like a piece of you is with me always."

It was so cliché. And Billy's continued silence after you spoke only made you cringe at yourself. Albeit the words were true, and you meant them from the bottom of your heart, you also recognized how silly and corny it sounded. Billy wasn't corny, he wasn't mushy and soft like that. He had to be rolling his eyes you just couldn't see.

"Okay, go ahead and laugh."

But rather, Billy was just staring. Not rolling his eyes, making any jokes. You couldn't see this because he was still behind you, your back pressed against his front. But he wasn't preparing himself to laugh or make fun.

If you were anyone else, maybe he would have. If he heard someone else say something like that to someone he would've rolled his eyes and thought it was the corniest shit ever. But this wasn't the case.

It was you. And it made his chest tighten. The implication that one day maybe there was a possibility that life could tear you away from him or vice versa wasn't something that Billy liked to think about or entertain.

As far as he was concerned, nothing could happen. Not if he didn't think about it in the moment.

Pulling himself away from you suddenly, you missed the sudden loss of his warmth and his body against yours, the way his hands molded around your body.

You worried for a moment that you'd said something wrong. But you couldn't get a word in as you watched him move around his room.

Billy was on a mission, he went to a dresser beside his bed and knelt down. Inside the drawer was where he kept the few earrings he had and liked to wear in his single pierced ear.

He didn't like leaving them out in the open. His father used the fact he had his ear pierced against him. Neil would probably throw them out or use them as more ammunition against his son if he saw them sitting out.

Picking out one of the earrings- one that dangled- Billy stood up straight again and made his way back to you.

He took your chin into one of his hands and tilted your head to the side, then tilted it to the other side before settling it back to look directly at him.

"Left or right?"

"What?"

"Left or right, Jesus, which ear do you want this in?"

He dangled the earring in his hand in front of your face, as if it was obvious what he wanted and you were just annoying him.

In reality, he was very much unused to this- this feeling and the actions he was taking.

"Oh, right-" you quickly catch on as your heart swells, taking your small stud silver earring out from your left ear, holding it in your hand, waiting.

Billy's hands are gentle. Actually very gentle in this moment. You know him to be heavy-handed- not on purpose. The way he holds your hand is tighter than other people might, or the way he holds you is tight and you're always pulled against him. In bed, he's leaving his fingers indented on your body. He's never hurt you, but by default, he's rougher than other people.

But right now, as he takes the dangly earring and holds it so close to your ear, he is the most gentle you've ever seen him. He's so carefully placing the earring into the small hole in your earlobe, making sure it's in and not going to come out.

His fingers are warm against your ear and skin, and it feels peaceful. The way his knuckles brush against the side of your face as he puts the earring in. You just want him near you.

Billy's hands pull away once the piece of jewelry is secure, taking your face in his hands again, slightly squeezing your cheeks together as he does so. Seemingly admiring his handiwork and his earring in your ear, his face that he'd been keeping neutral seems to brighten a smidge and you note the upturn at the corner of his mouth.

"Looks good," he says suddenly, turning your face to look into the mirror on his wall.

The earring moves at the movement, dangling and touching the skin below your ear softly and it sort of tickles. But he's right, it does look good. Maybe it's a bit odd in contrast to your other ear, stud alone while the other is more dramatic, but you love it all the same. It's his, it's him, and he's letting you wear it.

"Give me your earring."

His hand is out expectantly, waiting for you to drop the object he's referring to into his open palm. Focused on admiring the earring in your ear and the warm feeling in your stomach, it confuses you for a few seconds as he moves his hand in a motion that repeats his previous words but this time only in his actions.

You place the object into his hand and he's easily moving, removing the small hoop he decided to wear in his ear that day and putting it on the dresser beside the dish of rings as he pulls the back off your simple silver stud.

He slips it into his own piercing hole and closes the back as if it's second nature, not messing up or having trouble finding where the hole is. 

It looks so simple for someone like Billy Hargrove. It's a little circle stud, not a hoop or a dangly piece. But it makes your eyes widen and fill with the beginning of tears.

It's the act of him doing this that makes you want to cry. The fact that he didn't just leave it at giving you his earring to wear, but also wearing yours in return. It is so goddamn cheesy, corny, cliché maybe. But your heart doubles in size when you look at him.

"Not as cool as my earring but..." he looks at himself in the mirror, making you turn to look as well, facing a reflection of the two of you with his earring in your ear and one of yours in his, "It's you."