the_freak | Dear Billy

Raising his palms, Eddie pointedly doesn't pursue, crossing his arms then and frowning. Something was definitely...off. Obviously. Didn't need to be a genius to see that one, but still...Billy seemed...different.

"A few days now," he answers, toing at the floor. He tries to remember everything he's been filled in on. Billy knew. Knew at least part of what Hawkins really was. Right? He shakes his head quickly, brow furrowing as he frowns. "Nah, nothing like...mm- nothing like that. It was, um..." He shuts his eyes against intruding memories of Chrissy...Patrick, able to imagine with graphic detail what had happened to Max.

"It's was, uh- we've been calling him Vecna," he admits, an anxious look on his face. It still feels wrong to admit any of this to someone outside of the party, sure he won't be believed.

So not Neil at least. Neil didn't do this, though it wouldn't take much of an excuse for the blond to rip into his dad. Not after all the shit he had done to Billy and his mother. There's a pull in his mind and his face screws up like he's in pain. A palm goes to his forehead and after a minute, he relaxes once more.

"Not the thing from the Mall then." But who was Vecna? Was it related to that thing that tried to kill Billy? God he should be dead. After ten months in that hell hole, he almost wanted to be dead. Fuck.

He swallows hard, watching Max for a long while, then his eyes slide to Eddie. "...Why are you here? She's a loser, not a freak like you," but even as he calls his stepsister that, there's not much attitude and bite in it.

"Yes and no? Vecna...uh...he's the one that controls...controlled all of that," Eddie explains, fidgeting and touching his knuckles.

Hearing the familiar taunt almost makes his lips curl fondly, and Eddie breaths a laugh through his nose, shrugging a shoulder. "Mm, never could lure her over to full freak," he agrees, "But uh...you missed a lot. Kid sister stepped up to try and stop the big bad..."

Sounds like Billy had just been a pawn. A pawn to get to the girl that had eventually saved him. Or helped break him. Them. Those eyes linger a little longer before finally looking away. Her vitals seem steady, though Billy doesn't know what he's looking at there.

He thinks of the last night he saw Max, one of the many faces gaping at him in the neon brightness of the mall. "We should be where she is. Or dead. Should be dead after everything." Which was true. It had to be some sort of miracle or bullshit or whatever that Billy was even here and not actually six feet under like his headstone would suggest. Hargrove was the one that had a difficult time coping with the step-family. Not Billy.

We. Eddie frowns, misunderstanding Billy to mean the both of them, and he shoots him an accusing look, wondering just how much he knew about what had gone on in the Upside Down with the Demobats.

He puts a hand to his chest in mock offense, like he's been struck by an arrow. But the play acting can only soften the mood so long, and the hand drops along with his gaze.

"Probably, man," he agrees, stepping closer to Max's bed with a frown. "...Doctor's say she might wake up still. Any day now..."

Billy has no idea what happened in the Upside Down. He only knew the laboratory and the rooms he had been free to roam after being locked away. There's tension that shows visibly in his body when Eddie moves closer, but there's nothing physically threatening. Could he even take Eddie on like this? He was skin and bones at this point, with nothing of the muscles he had before all that hell broke loose.

"Doctors are liars." He reaches out and puts a bloody, grimy hand on top of Max's. "We- I should be dead." He had to be clear because it doesn't seem like Eddie really understood that the blond was referring to himself. "You didn't say why you were here." At least being her step-brother, Billy had a reason to be here.

"Last I heard," Eddie allows, frowning and looking Billy over. And he looks the part. Which...you know, is uh...a little scary. "Maybe we chat a bit about how uh...you're not?"

Eddie watches the movement like he's afraid Billy might hurt her for a moment.

"...Red helped save me. Her and all her friends and Harrison. The whole mess of them. Figured I uh....owed her a visit, you know?"

Billy knows he looks horrid. He needs a shower, he needs a sandwich. Or something in his stomach that aren't leftover military rations and water from a dripping pipe. He misses how Eddie watches him intently to make sure he doesn't hurt the red-head.

"It's...it's a blur," he finally manages to say, glancing at Eddie, and then quickly away again. It's only then that he realizes that his hands are shaking. He thinks of the mall. The flashes of fireworks and that girl touching his face. Saying his mother was pretty.

Billy would never say out loud how much he misses his mother.

"...One of her friends saved me. It wasn't enough." And it would never be now, since El and creature had torn a rift in his head, in his personalities. "Thought I saw you outside but..." but he had to see Max first, for himself.

"A blur," Eddie repeats, nodding. Not...super informative. But then Billy elaborates. "The one with the super powers? They kept talking about her. Never did get to see that for myself."

But then- they're interrupted as voices outside grow closer, and hearing a hand on the doorknob- Eddie moves abruptly. Eyes wide, he grabs Billy almost as an after thought, knowing either of them getting caught in here was bad news. His fist caught in Billy's jacket, dragging him (practically hauling him. as he almost seemed to go dead weight) into the bathroom without warning.

Billy isn't the kind for elaboration. Neither side is, really. But he nods to the question about super powers. "She crept into my mind and broke that thing's hold off. But they cracked it in half--"

That's all he got out when Eddie's moving. Moving too quick for Billy to really keep up with what's happening. One moment he's at Max's bedside with a hand on hers, the next Eddie's dragging him away. He thrashes in the hold but he doesn't have the strength to fight his way out. The jacket he had managed to snag in the lab is closed and he can't get out.

He knows it's coming. There's nothing he can do to fight the pull (well, almost a yank) that makes him dead weight for the other to pull. It's when the door closes behind them that the fight really comes out and he aims a terribly aimed punch at Munson. "Let me go! Let me fucking go, dick!" It's all anger and teeth, thrashing in Eddie's grip at the jacket.

It's a sudden switch, though not entirely unexpected. Eddie knew well enough that Billy Hargrove was not someone to fuck with, and he curses with an anxious look at the door. The punch grazes off his shoulder, and Eddie winces, crowding the other back and trying to clamp a hand over his mouth with a pointed look back at the door. It feels about as effective as trying to quiet a angry bear.

"Do you want them to catch us??" he hisses, struggling to try and contain Hargrove's rage.

Eddie doesn't know the half of it, how quick that switch was and what it meant. Another hit to the shoulder but it doesn't seem to do much as Hargrove finds himself backed against the wall where patients were cleaned up. The hand over his mouth muffles his yells and his own clench into the shoulders of Eddie's jacket. Or shirt. Whichever it is, he's not paying that much attention to it.

He hears the footsteps on the other side of the door and tenses. Looks at Billy. The rage is still there but he shakes his head hard. No, no he doesn't want them to catch them in here. He doesn't want the nurses to haul him back into the darkness. The hands clench a little harder but he's breathing through his nose hard in the effort to keep quiet.

Eddie steels himself to absorb the hits and the struggle with a grimace, sure he'd be flat on his ass if Hargrove was at his usual strength. Only once he feels the other quiet does Eddie cautious release his grip. His eyes are large, breath heavy, and he pointedly shows his palms in the hopes of truce.

"We're good, man-" he encourages in a hushed voice, testing Billy's grip on him to see if he can step back.

Hargrove absolutely hates how weak he is like this. He can't protect the other half if he's like this. All weak and shit. He's still pressed against the wall, not moving from it, when Eddie lets go and keeps the hands up to show surrender. Or maybe a truce of some sort. Eddie won't hold him if he doesn't hit or make noise.

"Don't let them take us, Munson-" he whispers out urgently and looks ready to bolt when he hears the footsteps again outside of the bathroom. Those hands had almost let go but then they grip hard once more, like claws digging into the fabric. "I can't go back, I can't do it all again, that fucking hellhole in this godforsaken shitstain of a town-"

His brow twists, and for a moment he thinks he'd prefer the violence. At least he understands that, coming from Hargrove. This...leaves Eddie at a loss, looking anxiously to the door and nodding quickly, ready to promise just about anything to quiet that desperate look.

"No ones going anywhere," he swears, "Just-- shut up for a minute-" he urges, lifting a finger to his lips pleadingly. He pulls against the clawing grip to press his back against the bathroom door. It wouldn't do much more than stall if someone tries to get in, but it's the best Eddie can do to physically demonstrate .

Violence was his reputation. Smacking Harrington with a plate, laying his fists all over that pretty boy's face, all sorts of things that give him his bad rep. But Eddie wants him to shut up, and maybe that's for his own good. Keep that nurse from finding them in here.

He can hear her heels clicking around on the floor as she checks on Max. Hargrove's back slides against the wall until he's on the floor, looking like a gaunt shadow of himself. It's not safe yet, they can't switch. But he can stare Eddie down from this spot.

More heel clicking around the room before it goes past the bathroom door, the room door squeaks open, and shuts once more. It's quiet. "Can we leave this room now? And don't fucking touch us again."

Listening to the click of those heels, Eddie tenses, closing his eyes and cursing whatever universal force he pissed off that this is his life.

He waits a beat after Hargrove's question before he cautiously peers out of the door, silent a moment or two before he draws his head back in and nods, shoulders finally releasing some of that tension.

"Yeah. Yeah we can leave-" he allows, pushing open the door and waving a hand for Billy to go on. "...you keep saying 'we'," he notes finally, frowning after him. 'We.' 'Us.' But not Eddie and Billy.

It's the release of that tension that spurs Hargrove into moving again. Off the floor he picks himself up and shoves past Eddie into the main room. The bathroom was too small, too constraining and closing in the longer he was in there. He sucks in that hospital air of the room and goes back to Max's bedside.

"And? I know my pronouns, Munson. They give out education in California, in case you were wondering." The two of them in the same head were slipping up, though it wasn't like either side had made some sort of pact to keep the split under wraps.

Eddie shrugs, and those palms raise again, rolling his eyes with a huff, "That right? It's not all...body building the sun?" he quips, gesturing at Billy, not able to help himself.

He's slower to exit the bathroom, patting his pockets down and pulling out a cigarette, but after a glance towards Max he sticks it behind his ear for later. He'll have to find a slightly less destructive way to rid himself of that holding on by a string anxious energy.

"...I should get outta here," he mutters.

A cigarette. He'd been clean for how long of it? But the desire for that nicotine stick that Eddie tucks behind his own ear is there in his eyes. He could be good, try to stick it out, or fill this place up with smoke. Fingers flex as Hargrove makes his decision and keeps his hands to himself.

He frowns at the words and looks away. "You said... something. Makes me think I am supposed to be dead. What's the fucking date anyways?" How long had he been gone? "The mall was the last thing before they took us."

Before they took us.

For all his many, (many) faults, Eddie is at least observant. He recognizes that hungry look, and after a moment he wordless tosses the rest of his crumpled carton across to Hargrove without a word. They don't need to acknowledge it. There's not much left in there, but it's something.

"That was like...I dunno- shit... a year ago, man," Eddie answers, head tilting in question. He does not need more god damn mysteries to solve. "Kid and her mom moved into the trailer park. Your dad's out of the picture. I dunno, but... It's the end of March. You were...they buried you." Or...buried a box at least.

Almost an entire year.

A year.

Supposedly dead for almost a year.

At least his dad was gone. Shame Max and Susan left the house, but maybe Neil forced them. It was something he'd do and Hargrove knew it. He takes a seat next to Max, facing the door again just in case. It's not safe again, so Billy can't come out. Not yet.

Those features, the sun kissed skin pale and dirty, scrunches up at the news. He was dead. And buried. "Almost a year," he says softly, though there's a tightness in his voice that he hates. Like it's a weakness.

"I could tell you something but you probably won't fucking believe me Munson." His voice has tightened more, and he's staring at Max in the bed, eyes blazing.

Eddie looks unsure what to do with himself, nodding with an uncomfortable but sympathetic look. The hell do you say to something like that? "...You look good, considering," he offers, lips quirking a moment before there's an apologetic duck of his head. Maybe not the time...

"...Try me, Hargrove," he offers with an exhausted sort of knowing, echoing Max's own words to him when he was at his lowest low. He understands intimately the need to be believed in the face of all this utterly unbelievable shit.

'Try me' comes the answer. Not entirely what Billy was expecting for said answer, but after all the shit he's seen, the blond isn't really surprised.

Those eyes are still set on Max, though they're not looking at her. They're distant, remembering. Remembering a night that he's dreamed and had nightmares about for almost a year. A night that changed far more than anyone had expected. He breathes out and shudders as he takes another in.

"The night in the mall... when that freak of a girl went to save me... having two things in our head..." He pauses. Licks dirt off of his lips. Or, what he hopes was dirt. Maybe it was dried blood from some point. "Both of them in there, grappling for control... it snapped. We're two now."

He frowns, trying to think of a way to explain it but comes up metaphorically empty handed. How could you explain something like this? "One... half is the boy that the girl saw. The other half is me. Billy and Hargrove." Two sides of the same boy. A boy that was dead and buried and was sitting right next to his step sister.

Eddie squints, head tilting as he tries to process what he's saying. He still doesn't fully know what really went down in the mall, just the bits and pieces he's put together from different stories, and in the end that's more than enough context.

He catches his tongue between his teeth as he thinks and nods faintly, brows furrowed. "...right." His fingers tap anxiously against his thigh. "Um..." That's a lot. He nods again, more sure, and makes a point to meet ~~Billy~~ Hargrove's eyes. "I believe you," he notes, lips quirking a little- "Not sure I understand yet, but I believe you."

He looks back towards the door way and with a frown. "Look...man, if either of us get seen right now it's going to be trouble. Are you-...do you have somewhere...?"

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