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[otherbitches]

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Billy Hargrove, 20

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[otherbitches]

[ Cold and hurt and angry from so many angles: ]

Why don't you go check in on him too, Hop. You know where he is, don't you?

[verbol]

[audibly exhausted:] I don’t care how he is, Billy. I care how you are.

[otherbitches]

[ His voice is harsh, but brittle. ] Did you know?

[verbol]

No. No.

[otherbitches]

Okay.

I'm— [ A beat. A long beat. ] bad. [ How's he doing? He's doing 'bad'? ]

[verbol]

I can come back into town. I can stay, or take you home.

[a beat. ] You can tell me everything over dinner.

[otherbitches]

Yeah, okay. I'll go h— there.

[ 'Home' trips him up. They can't leave this place, can't traverse the void and end up in a place with a diner or a truck stop, the sort of place Billy'd get pulled over for speeding, Hopper writing him up while Billy leaned his ass up against the cold metal of the Camaro. That place wasn't home though. Never was. ]

[verbol]

Billy. Listen to me - you're gonna be okay.

[He says it with such conviction; such belief. ] I'm not gonna take too long.

[otherbitches]

Billy doesn't have anything else to say. Seemingly stuck dumb after Quentin, after Jem, Jem, Jem, Jem, after John, after D̷͙̰̳̅̉̍͘ͅa̶̻̲͆͛n̵̞͓̩̩̈́n̴͙̣̾͗ŷ̵̬̲͇̒.

Now it's hours later, and Billy's slipped out of bed, awake at Hopper's kitchen table in the middle of the night, eyes staring out Hopper's shit windows. Shitty windows. Shit. He needs better glass, to look out to the woods and think: if he went now, if there's a way through the wards.

His nail scratches the table top when he hears Hopper's footsteps. Says lowly: "What did you tell Johnson?"

[verbol]

Jim needs water, really. Wakes up with a thirst so intense he thinks his throat is made of sandpaper. He's made up of thigh and hip bruises from doing this routine nightly, banging against the bed corners, catching his hip against the doorframes. He hisses through his teeth, doesn't really come quietly. Goes straight to the sink and then pauses, frowns.

"What?"

[otherbitches]

Jim sounds like a bear when he wakes up, snuffles through his nose, drags his body up, banging into things here and there. Another night, it might make Billy sigh, with a familiar sort of comfort.

Not tonight. He looks up from where he's stewing. "I know about you both. I already know." Because Danny told him. This feels like lead in his throat. "What did you tell him about us? About where we came from? People from home?"

[verbol]

Wearily: "Nothing."

He trudges in. Pours his mug of water, takes a deliberate and long gulp to parch his throat. After which he sighs, real relieved. He adds, after a beat: "Danny and I have only ever talked about Danny." Which is mostly true; sometimes they talked about Hop and Danny, but never Hop, really. Never Hop's family.

I know about you both. He has the decency to look down, shamed.

"What did he say?"

[otherbitches]

He'd like to wring Danny's neck. Dig his fingers in and throttle him, skin him, make him feel like Billy feels, flayed and pained, like he can't fucking breath for how angry it makes him. Jem and Jim, his friendship with Eddie.

John said tomorrow.

"He knew Harrington and Wheeler's names. Munson and I shot the shit about them before." His voice trails off, he's watching Jim. "What'd you tell him about Jonathan Byers?"

[verbol]

Very sharply, very immediate, Jim says: "Stop - What do you mean Jonathan?"

There is a look of alarm on his face that is so quick to form, so genuinely focused, that it would be hard to fake. He rounds on Billy, steps closer, says, with less gentleness: "What do you mean what did I tell him about Jonathan?"

He has been mostly careful. He hasn't mentioned Joyce to anyone, hasn't uttered Jonathan's name, or Will's - barely thought about Steve Harrington or either of the Wheeler kids. He reaches for Billy's arm, holds tight.

[otherbitches]

[ Jim's not faking. He doesn't think Jim's faking. Which means Ghost Face isn't faking.

Billy isn't even fucking— friends with them. Couldn't pick Byers out of a crowd if it weren't for him stealing away Harrington's princess. Billy doesn't have any business feeling protective, not of them, but Danny's words ring in his ears. He feels protective of his world. ]

Smith says Johnson got him hundreds of times. Thousands.

How many times do you think he killed them? Harrington, Wheeler and Byers?

[verbol]

Jim says: "What are you talking about?" He's squeezing Billy's arm. His ears are ringing so loud, blood draining from his face. He doesn't know his own strength, sometimes; it's so tight it might bruise.

He says: "Billy, what the fuck are you talking about? What does Smith - what does Danny have to do with Jonathan?"

[otherbitches]

It's going to bruise, and Billy won't even mind when he finds that red ring, the mark where the thumb pressed in hard. Something that'll make this feel real when the sun rises, not a dream.

"I'm telling you," he mumbles back, hand rising to settle on Jim's forearm, gripping back. "If you, me, Munson didn't tell Johnson about Jonathan Byers, then why the fuck does Johnson know Byers?"

"He called it the fog. That's where he killed Smith over and over."

Be blinks slowly, eyes glassy in the dark from a lamp. "I'm going to kill him."

you edited so fast i missed it

[verbol]

He feels sick, suddenly. He feels bile rising in his throat, acrid and hot. His head swims with a terrible, terrible fear, wholly dizzying and suffocating. "He's - that's not possible."

It's not possible, it can't be possible. He sways a little, catches himself against the wood of his counter, holds on to it as he sags down against it. "Eddie was with Harrington and Wheeler, just before he died. Eddie - Eddie didn't tell him? You're sure?"

It doesn't matter, really - Jim's already reaching out to be sure. Barely reacts to that, until - "No, no you're not. For god sake, Billy, you're not going anywhere."

fast like the WIND

[otherbitches]

"You think any of this shit makes sense?" His voice twists, turns darker. "That thing tore me apart and I wake up here? With Munson and you from, what, five months later? None of this shit makes sense!"

Jim sags sand Billy keeps holding him. Billy smiles a little, eyes hooded and dark. "Not now. Not right now. But I'm going to— god, I'm gonna kill him. Would you turn me in?"

please god, give jim one normal spouse

[verbol]

"You're not going to kill anyone."

He's going into cardiac arrest, maybe. His chest feels tight. It could be panic, though. It's probably panic. He needs a moment to breathe, to haul himself straight, to get himself taller than Billy again, to say: "You're not going anywhere near Danny Johnson."

He sounds convincing, is thing. "If I have to strap you to that goddamn bed, I will. You hear me? You stay away."

the void says, /'no'/

[otherbitches]

Yes, yes, Jim, he's not going anywhere near Danny Johnson for at least 12 hours, maybe even a little more. Billy doesn't say that, but he does— Laugh. God dammit, it's been a long day, he laughs, sharp little percussive noises. "You need a reason to strap me to your bed?" Billy wonders what Danny would sound like if he choked him. He moves a little closer, nose brushing Jim's. "She'd just bring him back, right?"

"He asked me which one I thought was his favorite. What do you think?"

[verbol]

He thinks Billy needs to stop talking. He thinks Billy needs to shut up. He thinks he shouldn't kiss him right now, either; he shouldn't want to, not when his stomach is turning, not when he's slithered right into dangerous territory already. Maybe he needs the distraction, maybe Billy needs it.

He kisses him hard, shuts him up with the smash of his mouth, backs him into the counter and licks in, slides his hands to his hips to lift him up, sit him down. He doesn't care who Billy's favourite was. He doesn't care, doesn't want to know, doesn't need to know. "Shut up," he breathes, right into Billy's mouth, almost a snarl. He feels insane right now; feels suddenly wired.

[otherbitches]

Jim smashes their mouths together and Billy makes a sound like a wounded animal, bubbling up alongside his choked laughter. His ass hits a counter and if he weren't out of his mind with anguish and foaming fury, his stomach would be twisting from how fucking easy it is for Jim to heave him upward, plant his ass on the counter.

Instead he licks into Hopper's mouth. Don't worry, he says with another bubbling laugh, I'll kill him, you'll see. His hand comes up, wrenches into Hopper's growing hair as a leg crooks around his ass. His other hand pushes off clothes, any clothes.

"I think," he gasps, "I wanna skin him. Maybe gut him, watch him bleed out."

[verbol]

Jim feels outside his own body for a minute. He's got a hand on Billy's jaw in an instant, holding him still, holding him close. He breathes in laboured breaths, has Danny in his head, even as he says: "Do not ever say that to me again. Understood?"

He breathes out through his nose, wets his lips. Says: "Don't you fucking dare sink to his level. You are better than that, do you hear me?" It doesn't matter if Billy agrees, Jim has decided he's better than this. That he has to be. He has decided Billy needs to stop fucking talking now, like he's - like he's exactly like Danny Johnson.

He thinks his grip might still be bruising, right there on Billy's jaw. He pulls away abruptly; untangles himself from Billy completely, throws his legs down. Paces backwards, running a hand over his face, his head. "Go to bed. Go to bed, we're done with this."

cw: ref to previous physical abuse

[otherbitches]

Jim's hand is harsh on his face and Billy sucks in a sharp breath of air. Feels like little shards of ice down his throat, before he gasps out pulpy fire.

Jim doesn't hit him, and Billy's hardly paying attention to what he's saying. Maybe that's what makes Danny special: he sinks in, makes everyone around him worse, makes Billy want to yowl and cry and feel what a knife feels like when it punctures flesh. It makes him spitting mad, almost as mad as Jim dropping him, Jim's—

eyes flicking. Like he's not fully here. Billy needs him fully here.

"Are you—" he snickers a little, a little breathless. "Talking to him?" There go Jem, Jim, Eddie, maybe even Murphy. No one knows where Murphy is. But Danny's everywhere. "Fuck you. I need you." He slides from the counter, bare feet padding closer, animal quiet. "Hit me." His palm comes up, pushes against Jim's chest. He says it again, louder: "Hit me."