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Suddenly, everything was back together. But nothing’s well put together. Here we are, back in the same room, the room of bitter childhood trauma. For one second, everything was just fine. Billy recalls the memory of his little brother, Lenny, and his sweet smile. Just for that moment, everything was fine. Until he heard the erupting voice of his father, calling for Lenny.
“LENNY! Where’s Lenny?” he cursed under his breath. That’s when an alarm went off in Billy’s mind. He knew what was coming, so he quickly shoved Lenny out of sight. Then Dad barged into the room. “Where is he?” His breathing is rapid. Billy faces him. “Who?” he said. A harsh slap comes across his face, bruising sorely. Billy stumbles back a bit until his dad forcefully picks him up.
“Where. Is. he?” Dad’s voice is tough as metal. Billy doesn’t respond, and that’s when he takes his belt from the waist of his jeans. And Billy takes the beating, his arms come up to protect his face. But he glances at his father, he sees a reflection in his eyes.
SLAP!
Billy sees his reflection in his father’s eyes. He brings the belt up, and with it slamming down, he can see the pent-up frustration. The fury—and it’s traumatic. Especially because Billy almost believes this is some sort of personally beneficial, unhealthy coping mechanism for his father.
SLAP!
He lets out a pained cry. His body is aching now, it jerks with every hit. Now he could only imagine how much it must’ve hurt when he gave someone else a lethal beating. It’s like he was just born with tragedy in his blood, some generational curse. The violence in his father’s system was passed down to him. And Billy couldn’t break the system.
“Fucking snotty little cunt,” Dad spat. He leaves the room, finally. Now Billy’s left on his bed, trembling a bit. At least his brother is safe, for now. “Lenny, it’s ok,” he calls out for his brother. Lenny slowly gets up from his closet. After watching his big brother take a beating that was meant for him. He sits down, next to Billy on the bed, with a small cloth in his hand. Lenny puts a hand on his shoulder, then gently wipes the blood off his brother’s nose. He looks around for any visible bruises. Billy sighs, letting his brother take care.
“Billy, we both know your dad.” The voice of his principal echoes in his mind, he’s now in the school office. He hates it when he’s called down here. “You’re a smart boy. I’d just hate for you to . . . turn out like him.” The words pierced through Billy’s skull. Does this man seriously think that Billy’s father is his role model? Hell no. And any comparison to his father is a direct insult. It’s like a personal “fuck you.”
Billy loses his temper. He gets up, grabs the stapler on the desk, jumps across it, and hits his authority. He doesn’t hold back either, his muscles tense up. He brings it up and slams the metal down.
SLAP!
“You snotty little cunt!” The staples pierce through his flesh, breaking layers of skin and letting the dark blood leak out. Without even realizing it, he’s become a replica of his father. And when he notices—it’s too late. “Billy! What are you doing? Stop!” Lenny opens the door and rushes into the room, Billy didn’t mean to hit him, but he did. It nearly broke his nose, which is now bleeding. Lenny holds his palm up to it, terrified to see the blood that appears on his hand.
“Fuck, Lenny, I-I didn’t mean to,” Billy stammered, now absolutely terrified he had broken Lenny’s trust. He tries to hug Lenny to comfort him, but when he tries, Lenny pushes him away. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. He can see the look of betrayal in Lenny’s eyes, it makes his heart hollow. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, his voice getting hoarse. “I’m sorry.” But no matter how much he says it, it’ll never be enough.
“The world’s an ocean of shite, lads,” Dad spoke at the table, he called the boys to talk about what happened at school today, about what happened in the office. “You either sink, or you swim. Today, Billy my boy,” he took his drink in his hand, as a light of entitlement sparked his eye as he spoke, “you swam. Some cunts need a slap, don’t they?” He takes a sip of his drink and then sets it down. Lenny glances at Billy, unsure.
Hell, even Billy is confused. His dad isn’t like any other parent out there, who’d likely be punishing their child for violent behavior. Instead, Father encourages it.
Suddenly, Dad kicks Lenny’s foot under the table. “You ought to take a page out of his book. You don’t wanna be a fucking little poof all your life.” That word irked Billy. He hated that his father’s masculinity was so toxic. Dad thought just because Lenny didn’t want to fucking take his chances, risking his life with fights, that he was effeminate. Don’t listen to him, Billy thought. For fucks sake, don’t dare listen to that lump of shit. Not a bleeding word.
No, not here. He can’t be here; he doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to relive his trauma. Not this moment.
Billy walks in, the room is dark. Unbeknownst to him, his little brother was waiting for him. “So that’s it, Billy?” says Lenny. He gets up to turn on the light. Billy slightly flinched. “Jesus, Lenny,” he sighed. “Just gonna piss off? No goodbye or anything like that?” adds Lenny. “I’ll be back for Christmas. Once you’ve got everything sorted at the barracks you can maybe come out and see me,” Billy assured Lenny, he knew he was anxious about him leaving.
But he didn’t want Lenny to see it as a big deal or anything. He tried to walk off, but Lenny grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks.
“Please don’t leave me alone with him,” pleads Lenny. Billy knew who he was talking about, of course, Dad. The poor lad was terrified of him. He wasn’t very strong, not like he could fight back or anything. And even if he tried, it wouldn’t be enough—would probably make it worse, for matters. His eyes were glossed with tears.
…
“You’ll be alright,” Billy stated. And by God, he wishes he didn’t. No, Lenny wasn’t going to be alright. For Lord’s sake, could he take his words back now? No. It’s too late. The trigger has already been pulled. Oh fuck no. No, not Lenny. He has to ensure his survival. Billy was yelling at his younger self—fucking listen to the boy. Listen to him.
“Hey, he hates me the most. Maybe when I’m gone, he’ll leave you alone.” His voice quivers, but he tells Lenny like he knows it’s a fact. “I gotta go,” says Billy
He tries to walk off again, this time he's two steps away before Lenny stops him. Grabbing his big brother’s arm even harder this time, his voice breaking. “Billy, please!” Lenny begs. “Leave off!” Billy shoved him off. “For fucks sake, Lenny! It ain’t my job to look after you. Don’t be such a fucking poof all your life!”
And there he is again, usually with the exact vocabulary as his father. It’s his nature at this point. It’s his nature to become what he hates most. Again, Lenny looked just like the boy he was. With his soft, brunette curls—dark, harmless prey eyes. Just being abandoned. Like a deer in headlights, accepting its fate as it’s about to be run over.
“Right.” Billy paused for a moment before he finally walked off. Now that his present self was watching him, it felt like a bullet went through his heart, after all these years of pretending to be bulletproof. Might as well just cut out his heart, good for nothing. The most useless part of him. He replaced his heart with his mind—and now that’s what has been pumping blood throughout his system, doing so in a logical manner, leaving behind what he loved. Now, he can’t let go. He repressed that trauma, that’s now coming back to him. His heart is coming back.
Lenny watched as his only hope, his big brother left. It’s like Billy served his father up to him on a plate. Now he’s taking matters into his own damaged hands. He grabbed a wooden chair and dragged it to the counter. He went up, standing on it to reach the cabinet which has exactly what he needs. He pushed the cans that were in the away and grabbed the little box with the .44 magnum in it. His father was beating the living shit out of him, day in and day out. He couldn’t take it anymore.
He loaded the cylinder, putting in three bullets. It only takes one bullet to kill himself, but he uses the other two as a symbol. A symbol of the people Billy hurt. One for Becca, his beloved wife, who’s dead now. She had a son, Ryan. Ryan is Homelander’s son. Homelander raped Becca.
Ryan is the first person ever born with superpowers. And because of his power, in a fight where Stormfront was trying to choke Becca, Ryan used his lasers with his super-abled eyes. He accidentally hit Becca, causing her to bleed out. While she was dying, Billy was by her side. She wanted him to keep a promise, to promise to remind Ryan that it wasn’t his fault.
Billy failed to keep that promise.
He lashed out earlier. With his natural temper, letting Ryan know that maybe he didn’t want to see him at all after what he did to his wife. It was a mistake, a horrible mistake Billy would like to fix. But who knows whether it’s too late or not to fix it. And the other bullet was for Hughie. Hughie isn’t dead, not right now. But that doesn’t mean Billy hadn’t hurt him.
Lenny pulled the hammer, cocking it so it was ready to fire. And at that moment, Billy realized that anyone who’s ever loved him—he’s ended up getting them killed. Lenny, Becca, now Hughie. Hughie is the spitting image of Lenny. The last person on God’s green Earth trying to stop Billy from being a monster, and all he does is drag him down to hell alongside him.
Like that one night, when he almost took a bloody beating by Billy because he nearly got him and The Boys killed. It wasn’t his fault though. Billy was about to shoot a Supe but Hughie stopped him. Because it was Kimiko’s brother. And by doing that generated a chain reaction, it’s amazing they didn’t die when the place was brought down. It’s even more amazing Hughie didn’t die because of Billy’s temper. Luckily, M.M and Frenchie held him back.
But later that night, Billy punched Hughie. He punched him after that nonsense was sorted out, he did it as a warning. A warning that if Hughie ever came between him and his missus ever again he’d kill him. And it wasn’t the punch that hurt the most, it was the threat. The fact that Billy would simply kill Hughie in a heartbeat. The next day, he tried to make up for it. Hughie didn’t accept the apology, he actually hit Billy back. He lashed out and lunged himself toward him to bite back. Kicking, screaming “I’ll kill you!” but M.M and Frenchie restrained him. Meanwhile, Billy didn’t hit back, he simply tried to push Hughie away from him without hitting back. Billy just doesn’t know the effect he has on people.
BOOM!
The sound of the revolver reverberated in Billy’s skull. The splat of his little brother’s blood stained his memory, the muzzle pointed at the roof of his mouth and the trigger pulled. His brother is dead.
And that’s when he woke up. He snapped out of Mindstorm’s endless nightmare he’d put him in. He was lashed back to reality, with Hughie in his sight. He was above Billy, and a look of relief washed over his face as he saw him awake. “I’m sorry! I’m so fucking sorry,” Billy automatically apologized without context.
“Sorry for what?” Hughie asked, he let Billy settle down. “It’s alright, Butcher. It’s ok, you’re ok.” He held out his hand for him, to help him up. Billy always wore gloves, and even with them on he refused to touch Hughie’s hand. Like some sort of rebellion—disregarding his offer of help. But for once, he took Hughie’s bare hand, with his. He got up, to which Hughie grinned.
Unbeknownst to Billy how worried Hughie was while he was unconscious. He begged Mindstorm to wake up Billy. “I’m begging you,” he pleaded earlier, “to please wake up my friend.” His breathing was unsteady. Mindstorm glanced at Billy, then back at Hughie. “I’ve been inside his head. That guy’s a piece of shit,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be someone who leaves people behind, I want to be someone who saves his family. And for better or worse, he is family. ” His voice was soft and velvety, his eyes had a pleasing look. The same pleading look Lenny used on Billy when he begged him to stay. “Please wake him up.”
“No, no way,” Mindstorm refused.
“I can get you out of here. If you just please, please wake him . . . I’ll teleport you away. You’ll be safe, away from everyone, including Soldier Boy. I’ll take you wherever you want to go. And I’ll never tell a soul where that is. Hand to God.” He raised his hand. Mindstorm glanced back at Billy, irritated. And thankfully, he did what Hughie pleaded. And Hughie kept his hand to God, he would’ve kept his promise. If Soldier Boy didn’t kill Mindstorm before he could.
At least Billy now knows what Hughie’s worth to him. And there’s no way in hell he’ll ever let him go. His hand to God.