Crying Rn

crying rn

Angsty Billie request: reader is a flight attendant, and on her last rotation for the month, the plane she’s working on crashes into the ocean. Reader survives, but she’s left with lingering injuries, trauma and ptsd from her experience.

𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 (𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫)

cw: men and minors dni, 18+, angst, dealing trauma while also maintaining a relationship, very sad, no y/n usage

a/n: more requests coming soon!

wc: 2.9k

the ocean had never felt so heavy. it clung to you skin like a memory, and the dead silence of a hundred cries never heard again.

you don’t remember the impact. one second, there were clouds, clipped seatbelt clicks. the next, screams…the thing you couldn’t forget and then the sound of water swallowing everything. you remember being yanked into blackness, lungs burning. and then: nothingness.

when you woke up on the shore, everything is pain.

your body was riddled with bruises and burns. your arm is sliced open where a tray table had hit you, and you think your shoulder was dislocated..or broken? maybe. but you were alive. you were alive, and no one around you is moving.

it took three days. for help to arrive.

three days of drinking rainwater and digging through wreckage. three days of seeing faces that you wish you hadn’t. your co-workers. passengers you gave extra peanuts to. children. those faces burned in brain forever.

you were pulled from the beach on a stretcher. barely conscious, whispering billie’s name to a medic who asks, “is that your sister?”

you shake your head. “she’s…my-.”

the hospital was chaotic and a blur. sterile. reporters tried sneaking into your room. you say nothing. you didn’t want to talk about surviving. the word “miracle” makes you sick.

billie arrives on the fourth day. she bursts into the room relieved. she hadn’t slept, hair was mess, and she couldn’t take her eyes off you. raw, red eyes, and a tightness in her jaw like she hasn’t unclenched it since she got the call.

“hey,” she says softly.

you try to speak, but your throat cracks. the breathing tube was gone, but you just can’t…you reach a shaky hand out instead.

she doesn’t hesitate. she walked straight to the bed and folds her arms around you tightly. never wanting to let you go.

“i thought i lost you,” billie whispered into your neck, voice breaking.

you gripped her shirt in your fingers, clinging to her.

you didn’t go home for another two weeks.

when you did, the world changed. everything feels louder and less real. your shared apartment is too quiet. billie was supposed to be on tour, but she couldn’t. she just didn’t want to leave you. you didn’t complain.

she sets up the bed just how you liked it before. you couldn’t sleep without her. if she got up to do something during the night, you would wake up screaming and she’d rushed to your side. after that, she sleeps doesn’t get up without letting you know. just her presence keeps the water away, keeps your dreams from drowning you.

your body was healing. your mind wasn’t.

it felt like you were going crazy.

you flinched at loud noises. you couldn’t even look at your reflection without feeling like you’re back on the island. you haven’t opened the bedroom window since you got home. sometimes, you stare at the tv, but the sound was always off. silence was safer.

“i’m worried about you ,” billie says one night, sitting across from you on the floor, fingers playing with the hem of her shorts.

you look away.

“there’s nothing to be worried about.i am fine”

she nods quietly as tears fall. “you’re not. i miss you…as selfish as that sounds.”

you finally meet her gaze. “i miss me, too.”

weeks blur, losing all meaning. you just go through the motions day to day. a shell of your former self.

billie becomes your life. she makes sure you eat, reminds you to take your pain meds, she holds you through your panic attacks.

there are days when you snap, when you cry without spontaneously, when you tell her to leave, because you hate how you are now, and you hate that she has to see

she never does.

“you’re not broken,” she tells you one night when you’re curled up in the corner of the bathroom, shaking and cold even though the shower’s steaming. “you’re surviving.”

“it doesn’t feel like it,” you whisper, voice cracking. “i hate this. i hate me.”

billie kneels in front of you. Her hands are gentle as she brushes wet hair from your face. “don’t say that. you’re still you.

“i don’t know how to be me anymore, b.”

“that’s ok, babe. it takes time.”

eventually, your wounds scar over. You stop waking up every night.

you start therapy. taking about the to a stranger with a kind face who doesn’t flinch when you say, “ my friend’s body floated by me.”

billie waits for you every session. sometimes, you cry in her arms after, other times you don’t say a word.

she always waits. she always there.

the first time you go near the ocean again, it’s your idea.

she doesn’t push. just drives. you both end up at the coast around sunset. the beach is empty. you stand at the edge of the parking lot for ten minutes, shaking.

“i can’t,” you say.

“that’s ok baby, at least you came,” Billie tells you.

but then you feel her hand in yours. warm. safe. secure.

when you’re close enough to hear the tide, you start crying. mourning and healing all at once.

billie stands by you, arms wrapped around you, forehead against your temple.

“i’m alive, b,” you whisper. it’s just hitting you for the first time.

“you are” she says. “and i’m so fucking glad.”

after that.

some nights still bring nightmares.

but billie is there through it all. you start to smile again. laugh again. making coffee in the mornings while you and billie chat about little things. she brings you to her studio and plays you half-finished songs, letting you pick your favorites.

billie stayed.

through the worst of it.

through the healing.

she’s there. and slowly, you realize—

so are you.

-thank you for the request 🫶🏾