ꜱᴡᴇᴇᴛ ʜᴏᴍᴇ ⇴ ᴛᴠᴅ ² ✓

fourteen

DISCLAIMER!!! TW!!before yall start reading this chapter, i will warn you in advance. below are mentions of alcohol abuse (obviously, this wouldn't be a story about Billie freakin Harper without some alcohol abuse) and suicide. i will put an asterisk (*) where this comes into effect so anyone who is sensitive to that kind of content knows in advance. read at your own risk.

Billie waited patiently to the side and out of view for Damon and Alaric to finish bickering childishly. Apparently, Damon had killed his friend in a momentary rage, knowing his magical ring would bring him back. Naturally, Ric was a little miffed, but eventually conceded into forgiving the vampire after a pretty crappy apology.

It was part of Damon's charm, she deducted. 

With eyes watching the ancient scribbles etched into the stone caves around her, Billie wished she could understand what the images meant, the story they told. Alas, that's why they needed a history junkie.

Ric stepped carefully in through the entrance to the small chamber, passing Damon who was stuck miserably by the threshold. "Billie, always a pleasure." He greeted her with a cute smile, having barely seen her, aside from a dodgy visit up in Appalachia with a pack of hybrids.

Billie bowed extravagantly, staying in her seat as he approached. "Touchè Ricky, darling." He rolled his eyes at her quirky words, glancing briefly back at Damon before shining his light on the cave walls. "He call you too?"

Harper waved off the assumption, standing and dusting off her trousers. "Nah, I was already on my way." She smiled cockily at the look he sent her before returning his attention to the walls. 

"Anything useful?" Damon called impatiently from the doorway, but Ric had his eyes religiously trained on the carvings. Billie observed the four names written in the recognisable blocky text of ancient Runic. "Could be... if we spoke Viking." 

⇴

Billie woke up that next morning facing the living room ceiling with a raging headache. It comforted her, seeing that blotchy, discoloured roof again, as much as comfort from familiarity could go.

Georgie was already gone, like usual. She had heard the front door softly opening early in the morning, the blonde trying her best not to wake her sleeping niece, like usual. It felt like maybe things were coming back to normal. Maybe.

By now she would have been getting up to make breakfast for one, lips smiling at her phone as she read Alex's good morning texts.

Alex.

Billie wondered what had come of his dad, the man compelled away from his abusive nature. Despite what horrible things he'd done, Billie thought of how he must feel, his only son, dead. Alex was all he'd had left after his wife died when the boy was a young.

Harper began to feel guilt roll over her like waves of blood. Did she not owe it to him, at least to give her condolences? Especially after she got Alex killed? 

She battled with herself for a while. He wasn't a good person, but his only son was dead. Nobody deserved to go through that. Would it be too much to go down and offer a sparse kind word? 

Before she could change her mind, Billie closed the door behind her, taking the elevator down to grab some flowers so she didn't show up empty handed, doubting her actions the whole way over.

On entering the building again, Billie took the stairs, if only to stall a little bit of time. But it felt like only seconds until she stood outside a plain white door, identical to all the others in the building, except for the gold '6'. She raised her hands hesitantly to knock, heart beating like war drums in her chest.

This wasn't a good idea, the man behind the door didn't deserve comfort of any kind, she thought bitterly, remembering Alex's body, littered with bruises that day on the roof.

No, she stayed adamant. Alex loved him, even for what he did to him. Billie used to ask him why he never told anyone. The government would help if he only spoke up.

"Nah." He would tell her. "He's still my dad."

"He's all I have left."

Billie hung her head in shame at her previous thoughts. She did this for him. Why had she forgotten that. Her leg began bobbing impatiently when there was no answer to the door and after a moment, she raised her fist to knock a little harder. 

Maybe he wasn't home.

Her hands collided with the hard wood and Billie jumped a little when she felt it give way. She watched with wide eyes as the door inched open, never fully shut in the first place.

Casting a cautious eye around the corridor, she pushed it open a little wider, stepping in to the apartment under her's. The smell hit her almost immediately. Sweat, liquor and must. Something smelled rotten, but the type of rotten hidden somewhere you would never find.

Pulling up her blue jumper to cover her nose, she continued slowly through the cluttered space. She'd never been here before. The closest she'd ever gotten to coming inside Alex's home was outside his window. He'd never let her in before, and she'd understood why.

Clearing her throat of nerves, she called out with a shaky voice. "Mr. Taylor?" She cringed at the sound of her own voice. It felt too loud for the space. Like it echoed around her uncertainly. "The door was open..." She explained, her tone just a little more quiet.

Billie stopped in her tracks, turning her head back and furrowing her brows with eyes scrunched shut. The rotting smell, if possible, had gotten so much worse, so intense and putrid she fought the gag building at the bottom of her throat. She cinched the jumper tighter around her nose, fingers clenching around the fragile stem of the bouquet. 

Something was wrong.

It worried her when she finally noticed the unusual lacking of her powers. There was just... nothing. Radio silence. Billie felt strangely alone in it's absence, like it was her favourite piece of jewellery she felt naked not wearing.

Billie peaked her head tentatively through every door she passed, finding the same pattern of clutter and dirt over everything. The layout was different from her place and she felt lost, not knowing where she was going.

Slowly, the almost unnoticeable sound of a TV came into her senses and Billie stiffened, following the noise blindly until she came across an open threshold. The living room, she guessed as she began walking towards it.

***She started seeing parts of the room coming into view, one after the other as she came closer. The small TV playing reruns of some old sitcom, a coffee table cluttered with empty bottles of beer and Jack Daniels, a body strung by the neck from the ceiling fan.