
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/10932231.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      The_Magnificent_Seven_(2016), Justified
  Relationship:
      Goodnight_Robicheaux/Billy_Rocks, Billy_Rocks_&_Boyd_Crowder, implied
      Boyd_Crowder/Raylan_Givens_-_Relationship
  Character:
      Goodnight_Robicheaux, Billy_Rocks, Original_Female_Character(s), Original
      Male_Character(s), Boyd_Crowder
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Modern_Setting, Alternate_Universe_-_Fusion,
      Alternate_Universe_-_Deputy_US_Marshal, Alternate_Universe_-_Law
      Enforcement, Alternate_Universe_-_Criminals, Past_Rape/Non-con, Past
      Child_Abuse, Past_Violence, Military_Backstory, Goodnight_is_a_Deputy_US
      Marshal, Human_Trafficking, Billy_is_a_Federal_Fugitive, Non-Graphic
      Violence, Past_Abuse, Prostitution, Texas, Family_Feels, First_Love,
      Motels, Caretaking, Angst_and_Porn, Confessions, Miscommunication, Other
      Additional_Tags_to_Be_Added, Additional_Warnings_Apply, Additional
      Warnings_In_Author's_Note, Immigration_&_Emigration, Eventual_Happy
      Ending, Road_Trips, Names, Past_Sexual_Abuse, Forced_Prostitution, Slurs
  Series:
      Part 2 of Justified
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-05-17 Completed: 2017-05-20 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 9659
****** I Tried It On One Time, and It Fit ******
by dancinbutterfly
Summary
     Billy has traveled so far over the course of his life and encountered
     so many problems and people, both before and after Goodnight. All of
     it has left a marks, though few as deep or as profound. All those
     impressions make him who he is, Goodnight's more than most. He just
     didn't think that finding him again could, would be what puts him at
     risk of being destroyed.
Notes
     This story is complete and will be posted over the course of the week
     as I clean it up. It's one of the rougher and more visceral things
     I've done in a long time but I'm really proud of it and got a lot out
     of writing it. We're diving into the dark on this one, yall. Buckle
     up.
     Thanks as always to Decoy Ocelot for the encouragement and
     About the Warnings: I didn't click any of the archive warnings or go
     into detail in the tags because they are primarily referenced from
     the past and I didn't want to spoil. However, self-care comes first.
     If you want to know the details, beyond what I put in the tags, go to
     the chapter titled Warnings. It will be updated as the chapters are
     posted.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Chapter 1 *****
Chapter Summary
     For a man who spends most of his life alone and waiting, Billy isn't
     currently doing very good at waiting, alone.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
 
                       Rachel: Got to ask. Why the hat?
             Raylan: Honestly? I tried it on one time, and it fit.
                         - Justified 1.02 “Riverbrook”
===============================================================================
 
An entire millennia has rolled over since Billy was this nervous. Literally.
Last time was 1990-something, a knife dangling firm but loose from his hand the
moment before he killed one of them for the first time. The fear had vanished
when as his blade cut the man open to pull Yeon-mi out of that fucking stale
room, away from those fucking hungry hands.
Now, he’s in the 21st century, in a stale room of his own, waiting for a pair
of hands for himself. The feeling that his heart is going to jump out of his
chest and run away isn’t something he can cut through this time.
So it’s been a long time since he’s been truly nervous. But worry is a feeling
that has been a constant companion his entire life. Fixing that’s easy though.
They taught him the hard way during his youth outside of Bukhan; taught him the
power of chemicals as a problem solver.
Since he was freed and they couldn’t ever touch his skin again, he’s been able
to choose which ones he used. He made a point to stay far away from all the
pills, powders, vapors and most of all the liquids that required long thin
needles sliding under his skin and into his veins making him cloudy and sleepy
and happy and so, so pliable. He prefers the soft fog of smoke or the clean
burn of a stiff drink to calm his nerves and get his feet back under him so he
can continue the charge forward.
Forward. He was always moving forward. It was the only direction to go because
for the most part, there was nothing but devastation behind him.
Goodnight, though, was the one bright spot in the empty night of his history.
Like a strange sunrise, he’d come back around and Billy is jittery with
excitement at seeing that light again.
So downing a double from the bottle of bottom shelf vodka or lighting the joint
in the Altoids case hidden in a sock is not an option. He wants all his senses
sharp when that man walks in his door. He craves everything Goody brings him
and won't accept feeling it in anything less than crystal clarity.
Goody. Goody. Jesus. Billy hadn’t expected him. He really thought he’d seen the
last of Goody when he left Georgia twenty years ago.
He’d had to go. Yeon-mi had seen one of them on her local news. She had been
panicked and Billy didn’t know how he'd be there. He couldn’t let the chance to
protect his big sister away from them slip through his fingers, not even at the
cost of that ridiculous, brilliant, terrifying, beautiful man.
She deserved to be safe. They both deserved to be free. So he’d packed his shit
(it was pathetic, just a collection of knives, a half a dozen shirts, a pair of
slacks and a pair of jeans, one pair of shoes and the books Goody had checked
out from the library) and he’d just-
He’d left Ft. Benning without any hesitation. He’d only paused long enough to
leave to leave a note for Goody. Back then there hadn’t been a cell phone
number to leave, an address to forward, anything. All he had were words on the
back of a receipt for Chinese delivery and hope that someday Goody would
forgive him for being such a miserable shit about the whole thing.
And he had. Holy shit, he had. Goody had been the one to find him, to pull him
close, to melt into his arms, to ask and pull and beg. It was so old and so new
and the old coals of love for him that Billy was never able to fully smoother
had roared back to a blaze that was already out of control.
When he has to wait and can’t get buzzed, he sharpens his knives. He really
doesn’t like guns. They liked to shove guns in people’s faces before giving
orders, rubbing the barrel against skin with instructions murmured like pillow
talk to do as he says, suck a little harder, moan a little louder, clench and
tighten up like you like it, pretty boy. The memories of what they did with
guns (and without them) are what remind him to always keep his knives razor
sharp.
Billy doesn’t want to look intimidating when Goody shows up, though. Yes, Goody
used to tell him that he liked him threatening. “The way you move, Billy, it’s
like a leopard or an eagle. Your danger is so stunning I never want to look
away.” But that had been twenty years ago. Billy doesn’t know if that still
holds true.
Even if it does, he does not want sharp objects lying around when the knock
comes. He wants to be able to pull his tall drink of Louisiana ice tea in and
fuck him wherever they want, be it the floor, the bed, or the rickety TV stand
that has a little paper placard on it declaring that this particular room has
free wifi and HBO.
He checks the time again. He focuses on actually opening the different screens
on the Apple Watch, just to give him something to do. It isn’t connected to
anything, not even the proclaimed free wifi, but it was a gift from Yeon-mi and
Jin-sung on his last birthday and on top of telling time in every timezone
simultaneously (which has been incredibly helpful), it lets him carry some
music around with him without having to keep track of a phone or an iPod.
When he’s finally done, he flips back to central time and tries not to let his
anxiety rise. Goody is fifteen minutes late. When it came to appointments,
Goody used to think that fifteen minutes early was on time and on time was
late. Sure he was late to work but when he has somewhere he has promised to be,
fifteen minutes late for him is unheard of. It’s the Army in him, Billy is
pretty sure.
When half an hour passes, a familiar despairing doubt starts to creep in. It’s
a dark ugly voice that whispers seductive lies into his brain. Everything
sounds so true when the doubt tells him, reminds him about the human stains
that have been on his skin, the raw messes that have been left in his body, the
blood that has dripped from his hands like water.
The despair explains, calmly and rationally, that while Goody might have
accepted those ruined pieces of him before, things have changed. He’s changed.
He’s gotten so much worse. If Billy can see each crime in the mirror when he
shaves in the morning, how can anyone else miss it? Surely, Goodnight got his
closure and fucked off back to his real life. A real life is what Billy would
want for him anyway - a happy existence where his lazy warrior has a home and a
career and a solid stable life that doesn’t blow like the wind based on where
his next target from Union Pacific Multinational has traveled for a vacation or
been sent for a business meeting, apart from the them and vulnerable.
Before he can fall too deep into the cavern of his own head, there’s a knock on
the door, a pause followed by three quick taps, then two long slow knocks and a
quick tap. Morse code, Goody had said, when he came up with the idea. “B and G,
cher, for you and I.”
When Billy moves the dresser out from in front of the door, undoes the chain,
unlocks the deadbolt and pulls the door open, Goody looks like he rode out of
hell with demons on his heels. His eyes are bleary with purple bags beneath
them and his hair is sticking up everywhere. He must have run his hands through
it a hundred times. Billy doesn’t remark on any of that, just steps back and
lets Goody in. “You remembered.”
“Of course I did. Like an elephant stenographer up here,” Goody declares,
tapping his temple but there’s no humor in it. Okay then.
“For you and I,” Billy offers, a quiet careful olive branch that Goody can take
or leave as he chooses.
“Mhm.” Goody turns, slowly surveying the small space. It’s a copy of a copy of
a copy of all the small, shitty motel rooms Billy has stayed in over the course
of the quarter century and change since he arrived in America. He wonders what
Goody is seeing until his stormy blue eyes land on his own face.
“Nothing sticks for me the way we do, mon vainqueur,” Goody declares with a
small but heavy sigh.
Billy shivers. He fucking loves it when Goody speaks French to him in any
capacity but that name? That’s his favorite. He looked it up in an French-to-
English dictionary at one of the public libraries in Ft. Benning a week or so
after they started seeing each other. The definitions of “victor” and “winner”
“conqueror” and (his absolute favorite) “vanquisher” made him feel taller,
broader, bigger, and most importantly stronger than his body and his problems.
Every time Goody said it, he was reminded of that feeling of strength, of the
victory and destruction under his control. Not even actual vengeance has made
him feel the way Goody does when he calls Billy his vainqueur.
Goodnight’s study of the room continues, his boy taking in the room with that
critical sniper’s eye. Billy has to force himself not to cross his arms over
his chest. It’s a defensive gesture. He doesn’t need to be defensive. He’s a
man who lives life on the offensive, always, and that is the best defense.
With Goody, the best offense usually isn’t an attack. So lets his hands hang
loose by his side, like he has a cigarette dangling from each and tries what
works instead. “Are you all right?”
Fractured laughter erupts from Goody. It’s borderline hysterical, nothing like
the man he met again last night. Billy watches Goody cast his eyes to the
ground like it holds the secrets of the universe before dragging a wet gaze up
to met his own.
“So no.”
He chokes out “Cher, love, please.” He crumples and Billy gathers him up like
he’s never had to before.
When they were young, Goody did this for him on nights that memories of them
got too close and crawled into his dreams. He’d never asked questions or wiped
his tears away. He’d just hold out his arms and let Billy crawl into him.
Goody wasn’t him, he liked questions, but he liked to be held too so at least
he had a place to start. “Hey, Goody, what-“
He doesn’t get to finish the thought because Goody kisses him, hungry and
desperate and full of a longing that Billy can actually taste. The moment they
part to breathe Goody breathes “I want to see your face,” and okay. That’s
enough for him to work with.
They manage to get out of their clothes this time (barely) and on the actual
sheets of one of the two full sized beds that fill all the space in the room.
Most of Goody’s skin has been baked to a warm tan, just like he’s always was.
He supposes the sun doesn’t discriminate between Georgia and Texas and Goody
always liked being outside. Apparently the suits aren’t a permanent fixture.
He wants to sit back on his knees and look. He wants to study the changes the
years have wrought, what’s the same. He wants to take in everything but the
moment he pulls back Goody hooks his arm around his neck and yanks him back
down. Billy tenses for a moment, his nerves jangled by the sharp movement but
Goody kisses him again, again, again, and he loosens.
“Fuck me to pieces,” Goody says, not bothering to separate their mouths. “Turn
me inside fucking out, Billy, please. Please, cher, I can’t- I’m not- Please.
Please. Goddamnit, please.” The last words are a sob, his biceps and triceps
tightening around his neck and shoulders. Billy doesn’t know what this is
about, but he knows this height of desperation. He’s seen it and he’s lived it.
“Okay, Goody.” He doesn’t say that everything’s fine or that he’ll be okay.
They could turn out to be lies.
Billy has lied for Goody and he’s refused to answer him, even when faced with a
direct question but he’s never lied to him before. He never will. In Bukhan,
truth was and is in short supply and his family showed their love by making
sure that, at least with each other, what honesty they could have was always
shared - even when it was ugly, even when it was painful.
He and Yeon-mi had clung to that brutal honesty when things were at their
worst. She had never lied to him - not during the the crossing into China, the
trip east to the US in claustrophobic darkness of that corrugated metal
shipping container, or the years with them. When they paid the high cost their
escape with their bodies and freedom over and over again as slaves (if anyone
dared use the term slavery anymore), they had never lied to each other no
matter how badly wounded they were or horrific the situation. Including Goody
that same policy of truth was one of the only ways he’d been able to come up
with to share himself in the way Goody had opened his heart to Billy. It never
mattered whether Goody knew it or not.
Billy doesn’t want to hear Goody beg any more so shoving two fingers into
Goody’s mouth for him to suck isn’t so much a move as an act of desperation. It
seems to work though, thank fuck. Goody moans low around the digits, licking
and whining and squeezing his legs around his waist. His teeth nip at Billy’s
nails, just a little, a wordless request for follow-through.
Billy got supplies for this at a CVS in Terrell. Optimism didn’t touch what
he’d felt under the fluorescent lights. Hope had burned in his chest as he
stood in the sexual health aisle. Staring at the shelves of options, Billy
couldn’t remember what brand of condoms they’d used or lube they’d liked.
Brand loyalty hadn’t mattered any other time in his life but the months he
spent with Goody. He and Yeon-mi and everyone else they owned had been just
been relieved any time condoms or slick were supplied at all. When he was on
his own, he’d used whatever he could grab in any Planned Parenthood or county
health department he could find. Comfort and fit and any of that other shit
never mattered so long as his clients wore them and he didn’t have to spend
what he earned.
Sex with Goodnight has been all about pleasure since the first time they
touched. Billy wants it to stay that way. It’s why he spent almost forty-five
minutes before he picked Trojan, latex, ribbed, extra lubed for her pleasure
and a small bottle of something water based with no glycerin or those things
that cause cancer.
It’s not the same. He can’t remember what they used when they fucked most of
the time. What he remembers most vividly is the time Goody turned up with what
he called “something special” from a sex shop over in Columbus. That lube
smelled like baked goods and was like thick lotion on his fingers.
More important, the “something special” lube smeared on his fingers had slid
into Goodnight’s hole so slick and smooth. Billy’s first thought as he’d
twisted his knuckles against Goody’s soft walls was that he probably could fit
anything he wanted inside without any resistance. Then, because Goody was
Goody, he’d teased Billy as he fingered him open until the words just slipped
out. Being around Goody always did that to him, made him say what he never
meant to. Goody had proposed some creative experiments to prove the theory
(even though a trip to the ER for a pervertible up the ass would’ve gotten
Goody DADTed out in a heartbeat). They’d enthusiastically tested exactly how
full Billy could stuff his sweet, slutty soldier, as thoroughly as possible.
It had been a good weekend.
Billy wanted this to be good too. He doesn’t know if his preparations have been
enough. Not in the face of…whatever the hell this is. There is clearly no way
Goody’s going to let him open him the way he’d like, pull him apart, ease this
frantic energy. What he can do, what he does, is get himself covered and so
slick and wet he’s dripping, as ready as he can with Goody stubborn and
desperate, and hope for the best.
“I’ve got you,” Billy murmurs, lips brushing Goody’s cheek - as far back as
Goody will let him get. That, at least is true and should give him comfort,
what he wants. He kisses the skin between his lips “I got you.”
Goody moans and sucks his fingers deeper into his mouth when Billy pushes into
him. He fucks back onto him, hips bucking, even as he pushes up and tries to
pull Billy’s fingers deeper into his throat, to choke on them, gag himself.
Billy fucking hates it.
There was a time when sex was used to hurt him so often it was more normal than
brushing his teeth. He knows, better than most, that intimacy can be one of the
most vicious weapons that can wielded against a person. It’s why he’s never
done it and it’s also why he will not fucking let Goody use him to wound
himself.
He yanks his fingers free and drops down, trapping Goody’s body with his
weight. With his hands free, he’s able to grab Goody’s wrists and pin them down
beside his head. Goody is bigger than he is, heavier, but Billy has enough
experience and practice to hold him still if he needs to.
Thankfully, he doesn’t. Goodnight goes limp beneath him, the energy draining
out of his body if not his eyes.
“If you stay just like this,” Billy says softly, “I’ll give you what you need.”
He twists his wrists in Billy’s grip, testing. When Billy doesn’t give, Goody
smiles at him and it breaks his heart. He smiles back anyway and starts to
move.
Fucking Goody is like diving into the ocean. It’s different every time, bigger
than he is and overwhelming. Sometimes it’s like splashing in hip-deep waters
on a sandbar in summer and sometimes it’s like being hit by the ten-footers
Jin-sung has been trying to teach him to surf for years.
This time, pinning Goody down and slamming his hips deep and hard, he feels
like he’s pulling himself through deep murky waters, in the dark and overcome.
Goody’s groans are a roaring in his ears. His body opens up under Billy’s
thrusts - taking, taking, taking and still begging for more.
Billy doesn’t get many chances to give so he’s happy to do it. And Goody’s ass
is so tight, god, so fucking tight. He squeezes Billy’s cock like he’s trying
to strangle him at the same time the heat from his body tries to immolate Billy
with pleasure.
But it’s a relief when Goodnight breaks, crying out, heels sliding on the rough
sheets as he arches up into his orgasm. He screams something wordless and
broken and hoarse before he sags into the bed, head lolling to the side.
“Finish,” Goody mumbles into the pillow. “Cher, finish in me.”
He can’t say no to that. His lower back actually cramps he comes so hard. He
doesn’t close his eyes though. He keeps staring at Goody’s face. Fuck. He loved
that face.
“I love your face,” Billy says, letting go of his wrists to trace his crooked
nose with a fingertip. “I missed it.”
Goody turns away from Billy’s touch. “Get off me.”
Billy blinks down at him. “What?”
“Get the fuck off me,” Goody says, louder this time. He gives Billy’s shoulder
a push before saying again, even louder, “Get off.”
Billy moves so fast he almost rolls off the bed. He drops a foot to the floor
to save himself then pushes up to a sitting position to look at Goodnight. What
he sees is Goody is curled up on his side, naked, and shaking with sobs.
“I’m sorry,” Billy tries. He wants to reach out and touch but he knows not to
touch a person breaking like that without invitation. “Goody, I’m sorry.”
“No,” Goody chokes out, covering his face with his hand. “Not this. Not for
this.”
Billy nods. It doesn’t matter that Goody can’t see him. “Do you want me to go?”
“Stay,” he gasps.
His other hand shoots out and grabs for Billy. They’re too far apart for him to
reach. Billy picks it up and laces their fingers together. It’s better and he
squeezes once, just to make sure that Goody knows that Billy isn’t leaving.
Then he waits.
Goody finally collects himself enough to sit up and wipe his face. When he lets
go of Billy’s hand, Billy misses it.
He comforts himself with watching Goody pick his way across the room for his
clothes, naked. He’s less comforted when he goes beyond pulling on his
undershirt and boxers and steps into his pants.
“Goody.”
“Here.” Goody’s tosses him his own pants too. Billy wasn’t wearing anything
under them. “We shouldn’t do this naked.”
“Do what? Goody.” He pulls the black slacks on and drops back onto the bed.
“Talk to me.”
Goody laughs. “You’re the only person I have ever met, in the whole of my life,
who has ever asked me to talk, mon vainqueur.” His smile is lopsided and
bright. “God, I do love you still. You should know that.”
“Me too,” Billy whispers, feeling strangled, because he does. He always has.
Goodnight sighs, rubs his face then digs in his pocket. He fishes something out
and tosses it on the bed. For a second, Billy thinks it might be his wallet,
but when he turns it over, the star of the U.S. Marshal Service is looking up
at him.
Oh. Fuck.
He gives Billy a corpse’s grin, curled back lips and bared teeth. “Did you know
that the Marshal Service is the primary fugitive investigation agency in this
country? When a federal fugitive’s on the loose? We get called in to help -
local, state, hell, even other countries on occasion - when there’s a wanted
fugitive on the loose.”
Billy’s mouth goes dry. “Goody, I-“
“Don’t. Don’t say anything because once you start lying to me?” He shakes his
head.
“I didn’t lie.” He just never mentioned the trail of bodies he’s left in his
wake since Jin-sung was born. He’d been too overwhelmed last night and there
was no good way to tell someone you’d become a killer since you last saw each
other via text.
“But you did do it.”
Billy doesn’t respond to that. He loves him, loves him so much, and probably
won’t ever be able to shake that since he hasn’t so far. But Goody’s a fed and
he’s an immigrant whore with the blood of rich white men on his hands. He knows
that anything he says against him can and will be used against him in a court
of law.
“Am I under arrest?” he asks hollowly. Although if his personal mission has to
end in anything less than total victory, he supposes there are worse ways than
this.
“You should be,” Goody grits out. “You fucking should be. God. Billy, god, what
you’ve done-“ He breaks off and looks up at the ceiling. He’s trying not to cry
again. “I should call in the locals and throw you in holding until the AUSA can
have you arraigned.”
His heart beats so hard, it feels like it’s going to jump out of his chest and
across the room to Goody. “Should?”
“Yeah,” Goody says, starting to pace - from the bathroom to the door and back.
“I fucking should. I have a job, a damn duty and the damn Feeb are so
interested in you they gave you your own nom de guerre and everything.”
“Yeah?” Billy laughs. “What’s the FBI decided to call me?”
“They call you the Assassin.” Billy actually snorts at that and Goody manages
to give him a wry look without pausing his pacing. “Their best guess is you’re
some kind of corporate hitman spook.” He rubs his hand over his mouth, rubbing
his beard. Then he comes to a grinding halt in front of the bed and looks down
at Billy with his blue eyes, an ocean during a storm. “But it’s them, isn’t it?
Billy closes his eyes. It was never easy to talk about but Goody had always
made him open up, even about them. “You still know me. What do you think?”
““Fuck.” Goody drags his hands through his hair and tugs. “Fuck!” He drops onto
the bed and puts his head in his hands. “Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Billy sighs, carefully reaching out to rest his hand on Goody’s
shoulder. Billy feels something like hope when when Goody doesn’t pull away.
“That’s about right.”
Chapter End Notes
     Here are a few short ones that are really pertinent to this chapter. 
         * Sex trafficking in the US is not people in cages or locked
           rooms. It's manipulative traffickers getting their victims so
           scared, loyal, high/addicted, and/ore mentally and emotionally
           trapped that they don't even try to leave.
         * Atlanta is one of the largest, if not very biggest, hubs of sex
           trafficking in the US. Since I'm in the area, I've had a chance
           to learn about it from APD through my area of study on top fo
           all the research I've done independently. What I've learned is
           most arrests are made when known girls are busted at the
           airport or are tricks arranged online by johns who have no idea
           the prostitutes don't have a choice are caught in regular hotel
           and motel rooms.
         * In the 80s, when Billy and Yeon-mi were being held, things
           would have been arranged differently because duh the lack of
           internet requires a whole lot more planning and organizing but
           I'm pretty sure that the basics would be the same likely, the
           set-up wise.
         * I have been reliably informed that the term that South Koreans
           and North Korean escaped defectors use for North Korea is
           Bukhan.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Summary
     Once, a long time ago, a young man picked up Billy up hitchhiking on
     the side of the road. They were together less than a day but in that
     time, the entire course of Billy's life is forever altered.
                                        

Chapter Notes
         * WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS POTENTIALLY
           UPSETTING SEXUAL CONTENT! If you are concerned about your self-
           care, check the warning chapter and know that if you need to,
           you can skip this chapter and wait for chapter 3 without
           missing much.
         * I EDITED THE LAST CHAPTER TO PUT THE CORRECT REASON BILLY LEFT
           GOODNIGHT INTO THE LAST CHAPER! If you don't want to go back
           and reread, all you need to know is that he left because Yeon-
           mi, who is settled in California, saw one of them in her city.
         * This chapter is set in the past and is officially a crossover
           with Justified. You do not need to know ANYTHING about
           Justified to read it but the boys from Harlan wouldn't stay
           out. Warnings regarding the Justified character and potential
           triggers are in the end notes.
     Enjoy! Comments keep me alive <3
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                        Fall - Sometime in the Mid-90s
===============================================================================
[https://78.media.tumblr.com/a587ce5391834c410504510948b252cb/
tumblr_oxcup9FNTe1ua2pu2o1_1280.jpg]
Right after Yeon-mi first settled in La Palma, Billy had gone east. She’d
wanted him to stay, to settle but he couldn’t and east seemed like the best way
to escape. East and south were as far from Bukhan and China and the places they
held the two of them in California and Nevada and other dusty cities he never
saw as more than buildings through a window and over hotel balcony railings as
he could get.
Yeon-mi hadn’t tried to stop him. She’d used some of the precious money she
made at the Korean barbecue place that was fine paying her in cash under the
table because of her fluent English and her cooking skills and bought him a
newish duffle at an Army-Navy surplus store and insisted he stay safe. She’d
given him the number for her apartment and the restaurant and demanded he check
in twice a week, then let him go. Of all the things he is grateful to his big
sister for doing for him, that was the only one he’s never been able to thank
her for.
The closest he can come is to make sure he always hangs onto at least two bucks
in change no matter how shitty things get. He's eaten out of trashcans before
he spent it so that he could follow through on his promise to call her.
Of course, just because he uses his last cents to make their scheduled call
doesn't mean he tells her that the ride he bummed in Ohio dumped him, broke, at
a rest stop in rural Tennessee. The spot was a woody view of a lonely exit on
1-75, a too far south to go back to Knoxville with no gas and too far north to
be near a town that was anything more than a cluster of gas stations, Waffle
Houses and McDonald’s.
Money runs out all the time. The only thing special this time is that he isn’t
somewhere he could really work - no red light strip with it's little section
for boys, no gay clubs or sex stores to cruise. Hell, he he was pretty sure he
was even a few days on foot from even the hint of a real truck stop(the kind
with where long-haul CDL drivers like to stop and there are rentable showers to
use after he distracts a few of them from being away from their wives), and
that's if he was lucky. He didn’t want to worry her so he says that he's fine,
because he is really, at least at the moment, and starts to walk.
He’s made it eleven miles and the sun is starting to get oppressively high and
hot when a rusty blue truck slowed to a stop beside him. The man inside leans
over towards the passenger window is young, close to his own his age with spiky
brown hair, and wears a khaki green army jacket. He has smile so huge, straight
and white that between his teeth and the reflection on his dog tags, Billy
winces.
“Where you heading, friend?” He drawls in an accent that was thicker and more
syrupy than any Billy has heard before. Still, he’s heard enough similar ones
on people he met in Cincinnati to know the guy was Kentucky country, all the
way, and military to boot.
That combination might not bode well for him but he's not getting anywhere fast
on his own. Billy reaches his right hand into the back pocket of his jeans to
palm the knife he'd stolen from a pawn shop in Californa as he approaches the
passenger side window. He leans his left elbow on the door and says casually
“South.”
“Well isn’t that fortuitous,” the man says, his smile growing. "I happen to be
heading in that direction myself. If Georgia's to your taste, I reckon I can
get you as far as Ft. Benning.”
Billy had no fucking idea where that was (besides Georgia apparently) but
anywhere was better than nowhere. There would at least be options in
civilization. So he shrugs and say “That’ll work.”
“Climb on in, then,” the man said, reaching across to pull the manual lock open
on the window. “With stops we've got a good five hour drive ahead of us and I
wanna get in before it's too late for supper.”
For a split second, Billy hesitates. A man like this probably has a gun. No,
definitely. He definitely has a gun in the cab, if not on him, but Billy can’t
stay here. Steeling himself, he carefully slides his knife out of his pocket,
into the wrist of his flimsy jacket behind his back, fights the rusted, loudly
protesting hinges to open the door, and got in.
They're driving all of a ninety seconds before the man takes his right hand off
the wheel and reaches over to hold it out to Billy, open and square. “Boyd
Crowder, pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Billy looks at his hand, at the threadbare tan knit and brown leather of the
bench seat, the faux-wood of the nobs on the radio, the stick shift between
them. Just before the pause could be offensive, he shakes it. “Billy.”
“Billy.” Boyd repeats. “Just Billy?”
“Yeah.”
“A man with a mononym,” Boyd muses. “Speaks for itself, like Jesus or Buddha.”
“Pretty sure both of them have at least two names.”
“Do they?”
“Most people like to call that guy Jesus Christ, last time I checked.”
Boyd’s laugh is lazy and amused. “I think you might be right. Though I do
believe his second name would be of Nazareth, although I don’t know what that
would be in the Aramaic.” He turns his head and grins that disturbingly
straight smile at Billy. “And the other fella? Buddha comma The?”
Billy shrugs and looks out the window. He isn’t really a Buddhist. Religion
wasn’t encouraged in Bukhan. Why let people partake in the opiate of the masses
when loyalty to the Great Leader and the State could supposedly give a person
all the same things? His family had been, though, before the war. As a kid, the
risk for his parents as government employees was too great so they'd never
practiced it but they got away from them, and he’d gone with Yeon-mi to one of
the temples in La Palma a few times before he left. He read on his own too,
after, trying to see if he could get any of what was taken from their family
back. So far, he hadn't, really.
“Come on now, son. You’ve peaked my interest. You can’t leave me curious and
the poor cat dead. Only satisfaction can resurrect that pitiful feline from
it's grave and restore it to life.”
Billy tilts his head. Boyd talks…a lot. He talks a lot and he expects Billy to
keep up. Most people hear his accent and stop trying and the ones that do give
up when he doesn't respond with the typical American gregariousness. Boyd
doesn't seem to be bothered by either, instead determined to keep the
conversation not only moving but mutual. He hasn't really had that happen
before. He's finding that he likes it.
“Siddhārtha Gautama,” Billy says finally. “He was an Indian prince.”
“Buddy of mine read a book with that name when we in Iraq,” Boyd replies. “Lots
of free time to read when you’re waiting to be shot at or blown up, I can tell
you that. Wasn’t by an Indian though. Some Kraut son of a bitch wrote it fifty
odd years ago. We went home before he finished it, so I never did get my hands
on it.”
“You could now.”
Boyd smiles again, like that never occurred to him. “Guess I can.”
They travel through Tennessee like that, Boyd doing most of the talking with
Billy pulling his weight in when Boyd won’t accept anything less. It’s not
until they cross the state line into Georgia that Billy realizes that not only
is he starting to like Boyd, the man hasn’t tried anything on him. It's bizarre
because so far, every man who has picked him up has wanted him to pay for the
ride one way or another. Usually another. Once he realizes it, the lack of
expectation makes him uneasy.
He resolves to mention when Boyd informs him that they're taking a detour on
the I-285 perimeter highway surrounding Atlanta then up I-85 up to Stone
Mountain National Park. Going to a park is a little bit too much like something
you'd do with a friend, Billy decides. The thought makes his discomfort grow
because he doesn't know what Boyd is but they're not friends. The imbalance is
too great.
He gets derailed when they park and get out. Stone Mountain Billy exactly what
it advertised - a mountain that seems to be one solid wall of stone with a huge
carving on the side of Confederate soldiers. Boyd leans against the side of his
truck and stares up at it, legs crossed at the ankles and arms over his chest.
The craftsmanship on the memorial is spectacular but there's something
disturbing about the whole thing, an out of place unnatural icon in a panorama
of mountain and forest.
Boyd doesn’t say what they’re doing here, why they came. He just stands
quietly, looking. Billy waits beside him and doesn't ask. He learned most of
what he knows about American history from watching TV but looking at this is
enough to remind him that his knife is still in his sleeve.
“Why did you pick me up?” Billy asks finally as they stare up at the stone
faces of dead killers.
“It’s a long drive from Harlan to Ft. Benning, Billy No-Last-Name. I figured
it'd be nice to have some company. Sides, didn’t have a reason not to.”
“So you weren’t looking to have your dick sucked?”
Boyd laughs at that, once, short and loud, head thrown back. “Not actively but
my friend, I do believe every man alive’s looking for that every minute of
every damn day.”
Billy shrugs and looks around. There’s a visitor center across the parking lot.
He jerks his chin at the small building. “There’s probably a bathroom over
there.”
That makes Boyd laugh again. “Why Billy, I do believe you’re trying to
compromise my virtue.”
Billy doesn’t think Boyd has any virtue. He’s been listening to him talk for
four fucking hours. He’s been to war. He’s blown shit up. He’s killed people.
God knows what else. He also picked Billy up and took him this far and Billy
hates having a debt. He wishes he could afford cigarettes because if he could,
he’d have one to smoke right now instead of having nothing to do with his hands
and nothing to say.
Luckily, Boyd proves yet again that he can do the talking just fine. “You’re
not sucking my cock in a park bathroom.”
“Not okay with a guy touching you?”
“Not into public displays.”
Which is how Billy ends up with Boyd’s cock down his throat as the truck exits
285 and gets back on 75 outh. It’s easy, familiar, a game he knows and Boyd’s
nice about it. He pets Billy’s hair like he's a particularly affectionate cat,
instead of yanking or pulling or moving his head and he showers him with
effusive, creative and profane praise. When he comes, he says someone else’s
name (another man’s - Raylan is definitely a man’s name) but he doesn’t swerve
into a median or another lane. When it’s over Boyd glances over out of the
corner of his eye, smiling with just his lips, real and soft, and reaches out
to wipe come from the corner of Billy’s mouth.
“You’re an interesting man, Billy No-Last-Name.” Boyd muses, fond.
“Byeung-rok.” Billy says. He doesn’t know why he says it. Only Yeon-mi calls
him that, is the only one in the country who even knows it until this moment.
Maybe he doesn’t like the way Boyd keeps pointing out that he has no surname,
which isn’t true of course. He has a family name, one he’s kept close since he
left Bukhan, closer than even this.
“That’s a mouthful,” Boyd says deadpan. There's light dancing out from behind
his eyes though, teasing and friendly.
Billy knows it’s a joke, one meant with no ill will, but he still sighs.
“All right, that was in poor taste, I’ll concede that,” Boyd admits with a
chuckle. “But it’s certainly better than Mehitabel or Aloysius or some of the
other names from round my parts.”
Billy shrugs. “Most people can’t pronounce it. I saw this movie about Billy the
Kid when I was a kid.”
One of their first minders in US liked to watch old Westerns whenever he could
and had left a movie on when he left Billy with with his third or fourth john
during that first week in the country. The man had let the TV play in the
background while he fucked Billy from behind. He had been older, older than his
father, with grey hair and huge, horrifyingly strong hands. He'd pushed Billy
onto his chest, fucked into him bare with hardly any lube and squeezed the back
of his neck so hard he'd cried - hating himself for every tear and hitched sob.
He hated everything back then, barely what could be considered a teenager and
already mostly dead inside.
The film was white noise in the beginning, one he couldn't really focus for
everything his body was going through. After awhile the john had pulled him
back into his lap to lift him up and down on his short, thick, disgusting cock
like a doll (because when he was young, Billy wasn't just smaller and weaker;
he was light as a hollow-boned bird), and in the new position Billy could
suddenly see the screen and hear the dialogue. With something to direct his
energy towards beyond keeping his legs from giving out beneath him and keeping
himself from being too loud in a bad way (because they had gagged a girl for
that on the trip from China and when accidentally she'd suffocated Billy knew
that if he didn't learn to be quiet, it could be him next), the ordeal got just
that little bit easier. And then a little more. Once he had a real diversion to
help him escape, he'd finally relaxed. His body went pliant, making everything
less painful and allowing him to endure the experience with his focus locked
the movie.
He hadn't understood most of the words but he knew what he was seeing anyway
and took comfort in it. Small, scrawny, deadly and charismatic, he'd recognized
that Billy the Kid had been someone who lived on his own terms, took no shit
from anyone and people feared him. Trapped with a man who saw him as nothing
but a living sextoy and held captive by people who would make it happen again
and again and again, Billy wanted to have that power and freedom. Desperately.
So a week later, when the first American had asked bothered to ask his name,
“one I can fucking say, you goddamn gook,” that had been the one he chose. He'd
imagined dragging the asshole behind one of those horses Billy the kid had been
so fond of stealing and felt for a few moments felt almost alive.
What he says is, “Seemed as good as anything.”
“Billy Byeung-rok,” Boyd says, turning the sounds over in his mouth, the
country twang and drawl making the syllables sound foreign and sharp when Billy
is used to liquidity. “Rock,” he says, the pronunciation just a bit off,
English and not Korean. “Like the mountain?”
“No.”
“Too bad. Because meeting Billy No-Last-Nameon the side of the road is one
thing but Billy Rock sounds like a man I wouldn’t want to encounter in a dark
alley.”
Billy hunches into the door. He’s had to fight more than a few johns who didn’t
understand when a transaction was over, cut a some who thought that because he
was slight meant he’d roll over and die. He practiced with his knife alone in
dark places. He got in bar brawls on the regular so he can stay in practice and
hit hard when needed but honestly, he just wants to be left the fuck alone. The
man Boyd was describing sounded like someone looking for a fight.
“That’s not who I am.”
“Says who?” Boyd asks. “You were all on your lonesome out there, my friend. You
could’ve told me you were," he tosses his hand dismissively through the pair,
"Elmer Montague, creator of the round shoelace, and I’d have had no way to
prove you wrong.”
Billy thinks about that the rest of the drive. He probably should have asked
Boyd to leave him in Atlanta. There’s a gay scene in Atlanta. He could make a
lot there, enough to stay somewhere with actual beds and showers, enough to get
a bike or a car if he’s careful. But Boyd doesn’t pull off his planned route
and he’d have to ask him to go into the city. Boyd's been generous, asked for
nothing yet accepted the balancing of the debt without comment or question, and
Billy finds he doesn’t want to leave just yet.
“Billy Rock huh?”
“Billy Rock. Billy Rocks. Something to that effect. Billy Stone maybe?” Boyd
muses. “I reckon it makes you sound like an outlaw.” Boyd says, grinning out
the window. “Billy the Kid was, so you’re on the right track.”
“And you know about outlaws?”
“Could say that,” Boyd chuckles, flexing his long skinny fingers on the
steering column. “But then, most men trying to get ahead in this world have to
be an outlaw of one sort or another.”
Billy doesn’t respond to that though he’s pretty sure Boyd’s right. He stares
out the window as trees rush past for a while. He closes his eyes and drops his
forehead against the cool glass when he gets dizzy and says, says, “Billy
Rocks.”
“Hm.”
“Billy Rocks,” he says again. He opens his eyes, shifts in his seatbelt and
even though Boyd’s driving, this time he holds out his hand. “Nice to meet
you.”
Boyd turns and beams at him. He grips Billy’s hand and shakes it, hard,
gripping it tightly. “Mr. Rocks, it is my true pleasure to meet you.”
Three hours later, Boyd drops him off at what passes for the middle of town in
Ft. Benning. It’s another nowhere town but it has stores and bars and
restaurants and places where he can probably get backdoor work on top of his
regular tactics and that’s enough. He can be Billy Rocks in Ft. Benning and
start the next step.
When he climbs out of Boyd’s truck and waves goodbye, he doesn’t know that he’s
going to stay for so long. He doesn’t know that catching that ride is one of
the best and worst things that will ever happen to him. But how could he? In
that moment, he doesn’t know how much of Billy Rocks is going to be built on an
Army Ranger named Goodnight Robicheaux.
Chapter End Notes
     Warning for Boyd Crowder:
     On the show, Boyd Crowder is an ex-skinhead who was once the leader a
     white supremacist organization and blew up a black church(with no one
     in it). He changed dramatically starting on the 2nd episode of the
     show but he still can be upsetting to some people. However, according
     to canon, prior to going to prison(where the Aryan Brotherhood is one
     of the most powerful gangs) after the army, Boyd wasn't involved in
     any of Neo-Nazi...anything. When Raylan finds out about this he is
     surprised and doubtful that it's anything but a ruse to get
     manipulate his followers, which implies that aside from typical rural
     institutional racism and ignorance born of lack of exposure to
     diversity, Boyd was is not a bigoted person. Regardless of what he is
     or isn't during the series - the Boyd that Billy meets hasn't gotten
     involved in any of that bullshit yet and does not behave in any white
     supremacist or jingoistic ways towards Billy. He's just a soldier
     driving back to base from leave.
     Notes:
         * Immigrant communities tend to form ethnic enclaves. The largest
           Korean communities(by % not #) in the US are in New Jersey and
           California. I couldn't send Yeon-mi to freaking Jersey. I just
           couldn't. So I sent her to La Palma, California as it's one of
           the larger Korean communities in the US and its in the OC bitch
           and that girl deserves a beach.
         * Boyd Crowder was born in 1970. He joined the army sometime
           after turning 19 but soon enough to survive in Operation Desert
           Storm. I figure we're around 1993/1994 in this moment but I
           don't want to pin anything down just in case.
         * Religion in Communist countries is, um, let's say
           "discouraged". That's at best. In North Korea, most people who
           are a member of anything often practice at home, in secret.
           There is a state-sanctioned(not to be confused with official)
           religion I don't really understand but, yeah no. Religion isn't
           really something that's viewed well by those running the
           fascism machine.
         * The book Boyd mentions is Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I haven't
           read it cuz Hesse's writing is not really my cuppa but Boyd's a
           reader ;P
         * I live ~25 minutes from Stone Mountain Park. It is, literally,
           a_giant_stone_mountain_face_with_confederate_generals_carved
           into_the_side and also miles of forest and protected lands.
           Events are held there all the time but the park itself has and
           does HOST the amazing annual Native_American_Festival_and
           Powwow but it's so incongruous I just. Can't. Even. I feel like
           that sums up the dichotomy of Atlanta for you in a nutshell.
         * I mentioned, Atlanta's a sex trafficking hub but most of the
           people trafficked through the city are American girls starting
           at around ~13/14 along I-285, in the northern county of
           Gwinnett, which is where Stone Mountain is. However, Billy's
           case is distinctly different from most of those that go this
           the area because of his undocumented status(which is a weapon
           many people trafficked in the US don't have against them) and
           lack of emotional connections to his traffickers (which is one
           of the foundations of modern trafficking).
         * To close on a lighter note - Check out only tangentially
           related video of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Stephen Colbert rapping
           about Button Gwinnett, Constitutional Congress Signatory for
           the State of Georgia (as in Georgia named that county after him
           cuz he signed the Declaration of Independence) in the musical
           short Button.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Summary
     Billy endures it as Goody questions his motives.
Chapter Notes
     *sigh* This fucking fic. I don't know what happened but suddenly it
     grew legs and ran away from me. Thanks for giving it a shot guys.
     Thanks, always, to Decoy_Ocelot for showing up like a champ and
     fixing my spag disasters. This wouldnt exist with out you.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“They’re a logistics company called Northern Pacific Multinational,” Billy
says, back against the wall, legs stretched out on the bed, joint bobbing
between his lips. “Which means that they make the world move. Transport,
storage, inventory, supply chains. If you need it to get something from here to
there, they do it, not to mention all the shell corporations they have in
registered in dozens of different industries. Started in the 50s by vets who
thought it'd be a good idea to use their Asian and US military connections to
start a business. Their profit are in the billions so." He shrugs. Just because
he never got rich living in the underbelly of the world, doesn't mean there
isn't a killing to be made. "Global headquarters moved from San Francisco to LA
during Vietnam but they’ve got offices in pretty much every gateway in the
world. I mean, New York, London, Shanghai, Jakarta, Dubai, Mumbai, Lagos,
Singapore, Sydney, Manila, Busan, and a few other places, not to mention all
their small holdings. They supposedly make most of their money is shipping
based which is true.” Billy purses his lips and inhales deeply. He holds the
smoke in his lungs for a long, long time letting the plant test fill his mouth.
He clenches his teeth around the tip and exhales a plume of white smoke into
the air. This motel isn’t nice enough to have non-smoking rooms. “Which is a
pretty way to describe what they do.”
"Which is...human trafficking?"
"It's anything, Goody. If it's big and there's no legal way to do it, Northern
Pacific's the ones who makes it happen."
"That's like saying the post office is in charge of the black tar heroin trade,
Billy," Goody says, horrified..
He takes another puff, thinking about how much of his life have been in public
libraries, hotel business centers, Starbucks with wifi hotspots, and and before
the internet really got rolling - trolling through paper archives in public
records buildings and standing around UPS stores for faxes. After that there
all the times he couldn't go home because he had found someone who knew someone
who knew something about one of them that he had to track down in person and
the thread unraveled a bit more only for him to have to start again. He gave up
his youth, his body, and pretty much any peace of mind he could have scraped
together to find these answers. He gave up Goodnight. He can't let it go.
"More like FedEx being parent company for the Yakuza and the Bratva. They've
got enough legitimate interests and pull to hide the fact that they're one of
the few organizations that provide the foundation the blackmarket needs to
stand on."
Goody is at his feet, legs folded under him like the world’s sloppiest yogi.
His elbows are on his knees and he drops his eyes are into his palms. “Fuck.”
And Billy loves him a even more for not hesitating to accept this. Goody has no
reason to take what Billy says at face value, it's been half a lifetime after
all and Billy's given him no evidence, yet he does. He trusts him. He believes
him. He has fucking faith in him. Billy swallows hard before he speaks.
“Mm. I think it’s mostly drugs, which, who gives a fuck, but there are other
things too. Weapons. Northern Pacific employs people, lots of people, from
before.” He takes a deep breath. “And I saw a shipment in LA come in from
Cambodia, Goody. A big shipment.” He takes the joint between his fingers and
looks down at the slowly burning cherry, remembering the beginning, when this
had changed from revenge on the men whose faces he knew to a fucking crusade.
“Those kids were younger than I was when I got here. I followed them to where
they were being held and called in an anonymous tip, but-” He stops.
They’d been so young. So fucking young. He’d been old enough to understand, at
least. Yeon-mi had been nearly an adult, had been taking care of him since they
made their way out of Pyongyang, and he could trust her to explain and guide as
best she could through the horrors but these kids. Fuck. If he broke into the
LA County Sheriff's records, he'd be shocked if any of them turned out to be in
their teens.
“This a publicly traded company.” He finishes. That should explain it all. It
really should. He feels like it does. This sort of open corruption and ruthless
inhumanity was why his parents made them leave Bukhan.
“So murder?” Goody groans into his hands. “You figured murder was the answer.”
“You have a better plan?” Billy asks because who knows. He's still the same
Goodnight Robicheaux he knew - smart, good, kind, creative, and dangerous. He
has years of experience Billy can't even imagine and he's a fed, after all. If
Goody's got an idea, Billy's open to suggestions.
Goody’s head jerks up at that, eyes wide, appalled. “Yes, Billy. Jesus. You
call the cops. You call the FBI. You call ICE to tell them-“
“And tell them what?” Billy demands. “That a company that has more money than
most countries is smuggling drugs, people and who knows what else? Weapons was
my first guess," and the only one he's been able to gather anything concrete
on. "Exotic animals and their parts go for a lot too. So do human organs.”
“Billy.” Goody sounded absolutely heartbroken. “This can’t be the only way.”
“It’s my only way,” Billy says.
“Your way’s going to get you killed.” The words clearly cause him no end of
pain. Billy remembers feeling that, when it first hit him that he was in love
with a warrior who was going fight, maybe die, no matter what happened with the
rest of the world. He realizes now what Goody must have known then, that
feeling shitty about something doesn’t change a fucking thing.
He swallows hard but charges forward because this is Goodnight, his Goodnight,
who is sitting, barefoot and listening, instead of dragging him off in cuffs.
He can say this. “Then I get killed. These are the people that promised me and
my sister a way out of North Korea and turned us into strung out slaves. You
don’t know what they did, made us do. You didn’t see what happened to-”
He cuts himself off mid word. He doesn’t think about what they did to some of
the others he and Yeon-mi encountered. The truly unlucky ones. He refused to.
He’d start screaming and he didn't know if he'd ever be able to stop.
“I can’t let you do this.”
“Then you’re going to have to stop me,” Billy says, each word hauling itself
painfully out his mouth from his heart, tearing at the back of his throat like
shards of glass along way.
“I left my handcuffs in the car,” Goody replies with a smile.
Billy does not smile back. “I’m never going to let you put me in handcuffs,
Marshal. If I go, it’ll be in a bag.”
Goody’s smile falls off his face like a pebble off the edge of a high rise
roof. “That’s not funny.”
“No,” Billy agrees.
Goody unfolds himself and moves up the bed to take his hand. “I can’t lose you
now I’ve found you again, cher. So, don’t. All right?” He brings Billy’s
fingers to his mouth and presses warm, dry lips to the backs of Billy’s
fingers. “Don’t do that.” Goody kisses his knuckles a bit more wetly. Billy
doesn't know if it's a good sign or a bad sign that the contact sends tingles
up his arm to his heart and groin given all the variables.
“I’m not going anywhere I can’t walk out of,” Billy says firmly. “For
anything.” Not for Goody, or Yeon-mi, or Jin-sung or life itself. He is never
going to be caged and trapped again. Death will be so much better.
“I won’t allow it,” Goody declares, dropping his hand to Billy’s forehead.
Rage roars through Billy like a flash fire on a greasy stove. “You won’t allow-
“
“I will not fucking allow it,” Goody repeats even more forcefully, carefully
articulating each syllable, eyes lifting to defiantly meet Billy’s. Maybe it’s
the weed, but his eyes look like chips of blue ice. They’ve never looked that
hard or cold before. “There’s another answer to this beside committing suicide
by cop.”
Billy sighs and tugs their tangled hands towards his chest. They fit neatly
against his sternum. “Of course, there is. I’m leaving. I should already be
gone.”
He'd heard that the one of shell companies was looking at investing on one of
the smaller ports on the Gulf Coast. He'd missed them in Beaumont but he was
going to catch them when they signed the papers here in Dallas. They he'd have
another name, another face, another check on his list and more leads to move on
to the next target.
A stricken determination crosses Goodnight’s face. He is every inch the lawman
and exactly like the boy Billy left behind at exactly the same time as he says,
“I just got you back so you’re not supposed to be leaving me like this again. ”
Billy’s heart twists and he can’t help the fondness that rushes through him.
This man. This fucking man who saw him as he was and wanted him to stay, wanted
to keep him. “That so?”
“According to the esteemed Khalil Gibran, I do believe it is, yes. Doesn’t
matter how it happened. We came back to each other, you came back to me, and I
want to keep you this time, Billy Rocks.” He reaches over with his other hand
and cups Billy’s face with his large left palm. The pad of his thumb strokes
over his cheekbone, then his eyebrow. “Let me figure out how.”
Blinking, Billy clenches his molars together and fights back a the way the
scrape in his throat threatened to turn to tears. He forced himself not to
because Goody’d shed enough tears for both of them tonight.
“I don’t think you can.”
“Let me try. Billy.” He leans over and presses a kiss to his mouth, soft and
sweet. “Billy I- We- We’ll figure this out. If Northern Pacific are them then
we can figure something out. I know it. God.” He drops his forehead against
Billy’s. “This can’t be the end of our story can it?”
Billy’s doesn’t know. Going against Northern Pacific is probably going to get
him killed and he thinks he can accept that. His story’s a dramatic one, full
of pain and blood and filth and death. High points haven't been as common for
him as they are for others maybe, but he got to see his sister become a US
citizen and be an active part of his nephew's life and Goody. There was the
time when he'd had Goody. Finding himself in that stunning burn of falling into
each other with a frantic desire, and a kind of terrified joy that Billy
thought had been beaten to death inside him before it ever had a chance to grow
had given him hope for himself as a person. Knitting together the pieces
required to build an infatuation into a relationship that had given him a sense
of safety, connection and blessedly fucking contentment that been able to
imagine hoping for his future. If he can squeeze some more love that into the
story of his life before it ends, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?
“I don’t know, Goody,” He says, rubbing the side of his nose against Goody’s.
He wraps the arm still holding his now-dead joint around Goody’s back and tugs
him closer. “We’ll have to see.”
Goody kisses him, sloppy this time, with intent. Billy kisses him back, his
soldier, his love, the bright spot he built on when he was at one of so many
kinds of lows, and tries, really tries, to have hope.
Chapter End Notes
     Notes:
         * Details about Northern Pacific Multinational Incorporated and
           how it works and why are pretty much made up from a mix of
           reality and fiction but most important - it's named after the
           railroad that put that warrant out on Billy. Fuck those guys.
           So, origins and research. Reality first? Sure! 
         * A big part of this is based on the international logistics
           company DHL which does pretty much what Billy describes and are
           as far as I know are a normal, above-board-for-a-corporation
           company but ya never know. But they're based in Europe and I
           didn't see a reason to drag them into it when I could give
           FedEx and the US Postal Service shit :P
         * The second fact-based component that the NPMI background is
           going to be grounded in the the Johnny Gosch kidnapping and the
           accusations of a massive child sex trafficking ring involving
           rich and powerful men surrounding it. Johnny Gosch was taken
           off the street in broad daylight by a guy in a van in the early
           80s and was the first kid whose face was ever on a milk carton.
           The "get in the van" jokes? Probably based on him which is
           fucking horrific because his mom spent the next, eh, 30 years
           struggling to get first the local police, then the FBI to do
           literally anything about it and - if his mom is correct - later
           found out that Johnny had been kidnapped to, essentially, meet
           a customer request from a sex slavery ring that dragged kids
           around the US and Canada to men who could afford it. There's a
           lot involved in the Franklin child prostitution allegations and
           the Gorsch kidnapping. It seems so far out as to be impossible
           but there's reasons to believe too. So while I'm not saying it
           happened, there's also enough evidence to make a case for the
           possibility of the existence of a crime ring that literally
           dragged minors around the country selling them to men really
           high up in the halls of American power, especially with the
           rings busted up in Europe recently. If that level of
           organization is remotely possible over decades, something like
           NPMI doesn't seem like such a stretch. I hope it wasn't real,
           and if it was, I hope it's over. If you're curious, start at
           the unbelievably amazing episode of the Sword_and_Scale
           podcast, move on to Who_Took_Johnny on Netflix, and try not to
           fall too deep into this rabbit hole. 
         * Everything else will be or has been stolen, borrowed, or copied
           from the playbook of the character Raymond "Red" Reddington on
           the really awesome, culturally literate, feminist as fuck,
           James Spader-chewing-the-scenery-filled show The Blacklist
           because Jon Bokenkamp is smarter than me and better at crime.
           Seriously, NBC, don't fire him I fear for our national security
           if he stops having a show to run. Actually the weather in DC
           being what it is lately... You know what NBC? Ignore me. I'm
           sure you'll do what's best.
         * I am not going to talk much about why I used Cambodia as the
           source of NPMI's victims as it breaks my heart. The short
           answer is that child sex tourism is a thing but the first
           countries that spring to mind(Thailand, Vietnam, the
           Phillipines) are actually working internationally with ECPAT to
           try and curb that shit. Cambodia isn't. Also, while people in
           SE Asia live at various economic levels just like everywhere
           else, the destitute are exploited into slavery at an alarming
           rate. Yall can do the math.
         * Billy smokes weed because of course he does. *tips hat to
           whoever did the opium cigarette first* Villa? Hazel? Was it one
           of yall? IDK but whoever came up with that is a genius however
           this is the 21st century. Tou cant pick up your opiates in
           smokable form at the pharmacists and Billy doesn't have health
           insurance anyway. I imagine he loads up on gas in states with
           dispensaries, has fake cards for medical states and then in
           places like Texas it's a long involved process that involves
           waiting around in more than his share of McDonald's parking
           lots. His life is so hard, yall.
         * We've all heard at least one version of "f you love
           something let it go' and its been attributed to a few different
           places. Khalil Ghibran's version is the best version because
           I'm pretty sure he coined it and he was great and also the way
           he put it was great: "If you love somebody, let them go, for if
           they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never
           were. ".
         * *covers face with hands* Questions his motives. Oh my god I'm
           so sorry I just love puns.
     If you're still reading this, wow. That was some dark shit in there
     right? I kinda can't believe I did that to be honest /o\ :D Thanks
     sticking with me.
     Comments are always welcome and encouraged as they keep me going and
     feel free to come say hi on tumblr I l<3 IMs and anon ask is on.
***** Warnings *****
Chapter Notes
     This story gets really dark so hear are the warnings for everything
     in the story that could be triggering. It could be spoilery so read
     only with your self-care in mind but know that it could blow some
     surprises.
     Onward!
This story contains or will contain the following:
===============================================================================

Allusions or references to 
    * Human trafficking of adults and minors 
    * Forced prostitution adults and minors 
    * Sexual abuse of adults and minors 
    * Rape 
    * Violence against minors 
    * Child abuse in general 
    * Forced illicit drug use 
    * Living in a fascist dictatorship 
    * Prostitution 
    * Homelessness 
    * Transience
    * Violence 
    * Revenge killings 
There are explicit scenes and mentions of
    * Recreational drug use 
    * An extreme negative reaction after consensual sex (it is resolved)
      Consensual prostitution/exchange of sex for favors 
    * Casual and institutional racism 
    * Mild (justified) paranoid behavior 
    * Self-medicating with recreational substances
    * Guest appearance from a Justified character.
Chapter 2 Exclusive Warnings
    * Graphic descriptions of an incident rape/forced prostition Billy
      experienced as a young teen (he was very much underage and while he did
      not fight back it was very much non-consensual)
    * Explicit racism (including american history and slurs)
    * Boyd Crowder
    * Prostitution

This list may be expanded as chapter are added. Got some questions? Hit me up
on tumblr and I'll be happy to talk to you about whatever you need to know to
read this in a way that is safe for you. If you're still here? Wow. ILU lots.
<3
End Notes
         * Sex trafficking in the entirety of the Western World is not
           people in cages or locked rooms. It's manipulative traffickers
           getting their victims so scared, loyal, high/addicted, and/ore
           mentally and emotionally trapped they don't even try to leave,
           especially since victims can't go to the police without being
           arrested for solicitation in the US anywhere but Nevada.
         * At this point in time, people who are trafficked get "clients"
           (used loosely because its not like they make money) through the
           internet or by walking the streets. Since Billy and Yeon-mi
           were definitely not allowed to troll the red light district in
           the 80s when they were prisoners, things would have been
           arranged differently because the lack of internet requires a
           whole lot more planning and organizing(no idea how to be
           honest) but I'm pretty sure that in terms of methods and
           location tactics I'm pretty certain the basics would be the
           same likely, the set-up wise.
         * Atlanta is one of the largest, if not very biggest, hubs of sex
           trafficking in the US. Since I'm in the area, I've had a chance
           to learn about it from APD through my area of study on top of
           all the research I've done independently. What I've learned is
           most arrests are made when known girls are busted at the
           airport or are tricks arranged online by johns who have no idea
           the prostitutes don't have a choice are caught in regular hotel
           and motel rooms. You may even know someone in that situation.
           Educate yourself if you can, keep an eye out because the next
           time you're on a vacation, the girl in the next room may be in
           a bad situation and while you can't save them, you might be
           able to report suspicious activity, which is better than
           nothing
         * I have been reliably informed that the term that South Koreans
           and North Korean escaped defectors use for North Korea is
           Bukhan.
         * With the exception of Billy, all Northern Korean defectors in
           this story are named in honor of real life defectors(Park_Yeon-
           mi and Jang_Jin-sung which is technically a pseudonym). If you
           can, read their stories, listen to their speeches, learn from
           their experiences. We need to know about the working of fascist
           regimes so we can remain vigilant and fight back.
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