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There was something about being watched that seemed to permeate through the boundaries of sleep. First, Billy shifted, from his side, to his back. Back to his side again. Pink eyes opened, but closed again, not noticing the blood-soaked boy, as he was obviously still asleep. He seemed like he was going to remain a sleep for a few minutes more, but everything on his face tensed, as if his sleepy mind were registering that something hadn't been right.

Billy's eyes slowly fluttered open, and focused. He stared, not quite processing what he saw, and then... It was hard to tell his reaction. On the outside, he didn't appear to have one. He seemed to just be staring sleepily at Wolframite, dripping with blood. Finally one could tell the wheels were beginning to turn in his mind.

"That's not yours, is it?" Was all he finally said.

Despite the panic that gripped him as he slowly sat up and shoved the covers aside, flicked on a bedside lamp, and squinted his eyes against the light. No, no, he'd been expecting this. Well, not this. Expecting Ladon to snap. Part of him was glad the boy had chosen not to do it while he was awake, so he didn't have to worry.

Billy made no movement to help Wolframite. He didn't see any wounds that hadn't been there before. It was obviously not his own blood. And Billy didn't pity the fool who it once belonged to.

"Feeling better?" There was a bit of amusement there, as Billy assumed brutally maiming something might have very well been therapeutic in some way. Psychotic, but therapeutic none the less. There had been times he had wanted to kill something in order to ease his own nerves. He wondered if it really worked.

Billy rose as Wolframite was leaving, stretched a bit and adjusted his sleep pants back to a decent place on his hips before heading out of the room.

"I'll go make some waffles, then."

It was an early breakfast, but then again, what was time to them right now anyway? Sick and injured, their sleep times had been royally screwed up the past few days anyway. And Billy was wide awake now.

Once inside the kitchen, Billy pulled out the Bisquick, some milk, and eggs. A bowl. And the waffle iron he'd found in his attic...well, he couldn't very well call it home right now. God, when had he become such a little b***h? Boyfriend says he's hungry. K. Go and makes waffles for him. At four in the morning. Certainly this hadn't been part of the 'protect Ladon for his and your benefit' deal.
Oh well. he was more worried about getting Ladon..Wolframite..through this, this,...whatever it was than he was his manly man pride.

He'd make a thousand waffles if it helped. Though...looking at the remaining Bisquick, he'd be lucky to make ten.... As an after thought Billy reached in to the freezer and pulled out a box of brown and serve sausage.

And got to cooking.

Like a little b***h.

"You said you were hungry," he said matter-of-factly, glancing over his shoulder at him, then flashing the briefest of smiles, as if to say it was not problem at all that he was doing this.

Billy wasn't going to guilt-trip Ladon about his going out in the middle of the night without him, the worry it would have caused if he had woken up before he returned, the small minute of panic he had when he saw him just those moments before... None of that. No. he was taking a very hands-off approach to all this. Reassuring himself that Ladon had come and returned unharmed, and what was done was done. He certainly couldn't keep Ladon locked up simply to ease his own insecurities. Hell, Billy wasn't even going to ask what had happened. He was simply...going to be glad he came back.

He plopped the last of the waffles on to a plate, and dividing the little sausages between the two plates there, then sat the plates on the table, and went back to the fridge to get the syrup, butter, and forks.

"I'm sorry you have to suffer my pitiful cooking~" There was a bit of the classic billy right there, as he spoke the line with a dramatic flair, "but at least it's not cereal..."

And Billy was content to leave Ladon to fixing up his waffles and getting his own water. Any help he felt would be an insult. Insult to injury. He was at least becoming somewhat less overly helpful. And he was getting somewhat used to the rollarcoaster that had come to be Ladon's need for him near, or total abhorrence of his very presence. Of course, that was Billy being a bit over dramatic. Although that was how it felt to him.

"It's hard to mess something like this up. I'm sure you could do better."

Cooking just wasn't his thing. he didn't enjoy it. It was, however, something he felt he should do, rather than plopping down microwavable meals.
Providing the best he could.
Wasn't that what guys were supposed to do? {provide the best they could for their loved ones? He couldn't truly call Ladon dependent. After all, he was sure the boy would have managed fine without him here to do anything. But just as Billy might have felt somewhat emasculated, he also felt some pride in being able to do something for him.

Billy examined Ladon as they ate. Carefully. The angry wounds that were being slow to heal, despite the speedy rate Negas seemed to heal anyway, and the blood that hadn't been washed away... As sad as the image might have been, Billy saw it all as a testament to Ladon's strength. He'd survived receiving those wounds. Persevered and made it through. But was he still completely intact? Physically yes. Mentally?
Well, that was likely a wound that would never heal. For what it was worth though, he had Billy's admiration. And it was a little hard to miss that warm look in his eyes, and that almost-there smile.

"I love you, y'know."

The words came casually as a mouthful of syrupy waffle was shoved in his mouth. Casually, but not without meaning. Billy didn't say it often. He'd said it maybe once since the rescue. Maybe once more before that. So why now? Perhaos it was reassurance for the darker-haired boy. Billy didn't stay, didn't help, out of pity. He was here because Ladon meant something to him.

And silence fell. As did Billy's gaze, his spirits with it, although those hadn't been too high to begin with. Deciding he was done with his breakfast, Billy stood and placed his plate, still somewhat waffle-laden on the counter, and wordlessly moved to the living room, knelt on the floor, and began picking up the pills.

Those hadn't gone unnoticed by him, scattered everywhere like they were.

Billy left because he couldn't let Ladon see the hurt. And it hurt. A lot. 'I know' was not a proper response. Not as unfeeling as it had sounded to Billy. Though he perhaps shouldn't have expected anything more than apathy from someone who had woken him at four in the morning, standing over him in bloodied clothes like some creeper. He shouldn't have expected anything more from someone who had gone through the mental and emotional torture that Ladon had. And that was forgetting the physical...

Right then Billy had to admit to himself that he was quite pathetically in love and pathetically needy. Perhaps more so the later than Ladon.

With the pills picked up and placed back in their bottle, Billy placed it back on the coffee table, and rested his cheek upon its cool surface.

Billy closed his eyes for the briefest of moments as Ladon's head rested on his back. His question made him open them again. As if Billy would deny him? Billy reached a finger into the pill bottle and drug one out between it and the side of the bottle. Shifting about he turned himself around in Ladon's hold, and held the little pill between them, but pressed forehead against forehead.

"Of course."

Again, as if Billy could ever deny him? Upset and moody as they both might have been, ill and tired, insecure, frustrated...it was all a trial. And he dared Paris to say he didn't care about Ladon now. Dared anyone to say that he was using him.

Billy would have asked if he wanted his water with that, but didn't have time as Ladon was already chewing away. Any words that he might have been about to say were lost. If they weren't, the medicinal kiss certainly silenced them. Indeed, not the best, carrying a twang of medicine, syrup, and sleep, but more than he expected from Ladon.

"I'm sorry," Billy said, a dampness rising to his own eyes. It was a phrase he'd said numerously before, and it covered so many things. Now, mainly, how unfair he felt for needing so much from Ladon. Needing to be here, hovering over him, worry over him, feeling like he was taking care of him, not just simply for Ladon's benefit, but his own. His own selfish need to know that Ladon was there. Safe. No one to steal him away.

"It's hard," Billy's voice almost choked on the rising lump he felt forming there, "this balancing act. Your needs and mine. I'm trying. I'm trying hard though." A heavy, shaky, intake a breath followed, and was proceeded by, "I'm scared, so scared, that you'll disappear. And I'm afraid of being too, too.." Smothering? He let that trail off, unlike the tear he was quick to wipe from his cheek. "And sometimes you seem to want that an' other times you don't and I just don't know what to do, Ladon."

It seemed a certain green-eyed boy wasn't the only one breaking tonight. Only Billy's was much more pathetic. No where near as bad a** and scary as showing up covered in blood and gore.