SUNSHINE ― billy butcher

twenty two

FRANKLY?

I'd rather see Butcher riled up about offing a Supe rather than see him look at me like this. Right after telling him what happened back there, he just literally look too stunned for his own damn good and I was half afraid he'll explode staying like that. I had to click my fingers together to pull him out a trance but he looked at me like I was a goddamn ghost.

He's lucky I hadn't told him the spawn of hell himself tried making a move on me. Or else Butcher will literally break havoc at the wrong place and the wrong time. "What the hell? She just offered you a job like that?" His first reaction was as expected and I was glad he was not driving his consciousness in a coma.

"It's good, right? She's offered me a job and I could go back, spy around a little bit—"

"No." He said immediately, in a tone of voice I almost didn't recognize. "No, you're absolutely not." He stood up, apparently too appalled as he walked back and forth. "You can't go in. Not now. We've done enough and I'm not putting you back to that shithole." Butcher freezed on his tracks and looked as if he was in deep thought.

"What is it?" He looked at me once and cursed under his breath, before deliberately taking a hold of my hand and pulling me out of nowhere. "Hey, what the hell? Where are we going?"

"Raynor."

"No. No way!"

You know that one person in the whole world you hate so much with your guts for some weird and dumb reason and you just couldn't place why you hate that person so much? Everything she does makes me so pissed I rather the earth swallow her whole and make her disappear than see the light of day where she still exists. And Butcher never understood how much I hated her—and him when they fooled around a couple of years after Becca.

I was already working inside Vought and Butcher didn't know I was keeping a close eye on him. He was hurt and angry, and he knew what really happened to her. It was a deathly combination and I had to live a triple life at the time. I had to work at Vought, be a secret agent, and a goddamn babysitter.

He didn't know that I knew he went to her at the time, and they kind of fooled around for information.

Every time, after a whole day with her, he got us clearance, passes to wherever in hell, and we're always in the clear. It doesn't take a genius to know they're doing each other favors and I was livid.

And now I fucking know why.

Goddamnit.

Goddamnit I was jealous.

"We need—"

"If you have to fuck her again for resources, please, Butcher. Spare me the fucking honor." I backed away to the door, feeling rather stupid and foolish, and annoyed by the fact that maybe, just maybe, I have felt something more for him way back. I was even disgusted. I should've just been a friend, we shouldn't have got together again, and I wished I didn't sleep with him.

Twice.

"Alice, I'm not!" He bellowed. "I don't do that shit anymore." He drew close, and immediately I was a mess. My chest started thumping so loud I wonder if he could hear it. Because I could—because it's ringing in my ears.

"Butcher, we shouldn't—" Billy Butcher held my hand, and I was almost thrown away with realization as soon as our eyes met.

Fuck. "Alice, I don't want to do that anymore." Fuck.

I didn't know why I was suddenly so angry with the fact that I just admitted to myself that in some fucked up way, I—really like him. I knew his wife! She couldn't have possibly died, right? She might've just been missing and here I am, fooling around senselessly with him without even a shred of guilt.

This shouldn't be happening.

"What if I don't want it, Butcher?" I remembered our conversation at the cemetery last time. About him, telling me he knows what he wants. It was nerving to think he was serious at the time and not just shitting me around. And judging by the look he was giving me now—I think I opened pandora's box of shitty decisions and drunk one night stands.

"Fine. We'll do this here." He slammed the door close and crossed his arms together. Rattling me so much I had to breathe in and out to compose myself enough to face this.

I have to tell him we should stop. We have to forget about all the foolish things we're doing and just focus on the work. All of this will be over pretty soon. "Okay." I heaved, thinking where to start.

"I go first, sunshine." The tone of his voice didn't go amiss. Butcher's annoyed. "I don't regret it." He said, shrugging. "I don't. Not a single fucking thing in my life. I don't regret pulling you and the boys back in. I don't regret the night at your flat. And I don't fucking regret wanting you."

"Wanting me—what the fuck?"

He huffed amusingly while I was burning in so much anger. Want and like are two different fucking things. How could he—"I don't regret wanting you back in my life, Alice. Not even once."

My heart dropped. Down to the ground and it was so, so heavy. Not from the burden of the truth, not even because I hate it. My heart dropped dead on the floor because hearing it felt different.

"You shouldn't be saying that. You're married—"

"If you haven't got the memo, I haven't been for the last eight years of my life."

"But Becca—"

"—we'll find her."

"But—"

"Jesus Christ, Alice. I like you! Okay?! And I want you in my fuckin' life!"

Billy Butcher is like--a trainwreck in slow motion. You know you shouldn't look, you know it's going to end very badly, but you can't take off your eyes on it. There's no way you'll avoid it, not even if you went in the way and use your body to stop it. Not even if you throw yourself under or scream for help. It was going to happen whether you like it or not.

Like a forceful fate with no pity left to give. He's shoved in my life and I was already sinking to the depths of his madness. Almost willingly.

"Now, your turn." He said, arms on his chest with a stern look on his stupid face. I was so angry--so angry with the fact that I didn't know what to say. That, and it was almost laughable to try and sink the fact that he just said all of that without a flinch. Without a shred of regret. "Do you got anything to say?"

"I want to wait." He frowned, and I know this was going to piss him off real bad. "I want to wait until we find Becca. Until all this is over. Then you can tell me how obsessed you are with me." I tried to take it out as a joke but he wasn't very amused and I feared he'd stomped like an angry child.

None of it happened, though. To my full surprise. He sighed, nodded, and bobbed his head to the car. "Let's go. We got a lot to cover tonight."

The whole car ride was awkward, silent, and full of repressed rage. For one, he's being passive aggressive with his answers when I asked him why we're heading for Raynor, and two, he was changing the radio one to many times I had to turn it off because it was nauseating. And third, my chest is still thumping so loud in my ear I didn't even notice he called for me two times already.

"We're here. Do you wanna come? Or stay in the car?"

"I choose the car." I mumbled as he paused for a little while and gave me one of those exasperating sighs again. "Just go, Butcher."

"For the record, Alice?" He said, opening the door, "Whatever happens out there, I ain't having second thoughts."

He slammed the door close, leaving me inside the car with my head exploding and splitting into so many pieces I doubt I'd be able to find them all in this mess.