otherbitches | IC Inbox [ RUBI ]

"I could give a FUCK about your neighbors!" Is Billy screaming? Not per se. But his voice is loud, full bodied, not afraid to take up an enormous amount of space. And that's what he does as he stomps further into Quentin's space, hands coming up, palms pushing harshly against his chest, knocking his shoulders back into the wall.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you that fucked in the head?"

When Billy pushes past the door, he traps Quentin on the landing. His voice bounces up the stairs and back, and when Quentin flinches away from the rebounding sound, it leaves him looking Billy square the face. Fine. His hands fist at his sides, chin tucks and mouth twists flat. Don't let anyone give you shit, she said. Maybe he should have asked her to tell anyone about it.

"Jem--asked me. She was terrified, she wanted out. So maybe you wanna wait to ask what the fuck is wrong with her."

"Not that—" He snaps, voice loud in the landing. Billy's got a lone inch on Quentin, but he's wider, and everything about him is in Quentin's face, taking his space, his air, anything Billy can take as he looms, palm still up and pushing Quentin's shoulder into the wall.

"Not THAT." He's red in the face; nothing has gone right this month. Not one thing. "Why didn't you tell her no? Why didn't you call me? I would've—" What? Stopped her? As if Jem's been stoppable.

"Billy! St--Billy!" He's been slacking on his lessons with Terry this whole month, and his mild guilt over the fact blossoms into full-on frustration now, as he gets his fists into Billy's shirt and--he really can't do anything but try to put up tension between them. He presses back when Billy's spit catches his cheek, hissing in return, "Hey! You know what she told me? Not to let anyone give me shit! Stop it! I'll tell you whatever, just lay off!"

That causes a flicker, an angry, stormy flicker. That sounds like her, Don't let anyone give you shit. Sounds like it was about him. Billy's still holding Quentin back against the wall, body and hands unyielding and firm, for a beat, another beat...

He wants to hit him again. Instead, he drops his hands, his shoulders still stiff. His expression twisted and frustrated.

"When did she—" His mouth works. "She asked you?"

"About a week ago!" The swollen pain in his cheek only feels more pronounced with the absolutely immediate danger taken out of play, but he'll take the one to get the other any day. Quentin is quick with the explanation, quick to respect the bargain. "She asked me. I guess she figured none of you would do it for her, and--"

A nose-flaring sigh, and as serious as it is exhausted: "She didn't want to put the weight of it on any of you. Not after everything these last couple of weeks."

"A whole fucking week—?" He cuts himself off, expression still frazzled and furious. His mouth snaps shut, teeth grit as he listens.

And thinks. Too long a beat passes, but Quentin doesn't get another hit to his face and Billy doesn't crowd him back against the wall again. Billy just works his mouth, chewing on his cheek. Says miserably: "She shouldn't have done it at all. Did you— do it here?"

Did he do it here? Quentin's mouth flattens out and tugs to the side, hands folding behind the small of his back. It still smells like her upstairs. The windows are open, cold air scrubbing the hot smell of blood out of the air and wood. Come on, man.

Come on, man. Billy keeps staring. Unfortunately for Quentin, he says, "Show me." He needs to understand something about how this all happened. Only if it's only the how.

Quentin makes a face like he's swallowing something awful whole, but his head rolls towards the stairs, one hand flicking to invite Billy up. Beyond the upper door, the place stinks. Heavy, round body smells--sweat and blood, the humid air that fills the caves between organs leaked out through her neck. His accoutrement still sits by the fireplace, bucket sucked dry by Ianthe, chair rocking gentle as night air slithers from window to window, picking up bits of human scent on the way out.

The knife is on the kitchen counter, still bloody. Quentin doesn't think to hide it. He drifts to the bench next to his table, sitting with his hands laced between his knees. Look away. The rest of the place looks inordinately mundane. Just a place where just a guy lives. This is where she chose to die.

It's immediately and alarmingly disgusting, the wet, humid smell of human meat, of her life blood. Quentin was right, man, he doesn't need to see this, it doesn't make him feel better. Knowing what she smells like inside out, how it beckons back to a dank and wet-smelling iron works, human meat and something else, something otherworldly.

He steps into Quentin's space. Looks at the tub, the window, then toward the kitchen and the knife. He looks back at the tub and says aloud: "I don't know what to say to her. When she wakes up."

"I kinda want to strangle her."

The hands between his knees scrape up over his face, muffling a mild groan. "Y'know--i'm glad you've got a couple days to think about it. You didn't...you didn't have any idea? That things were off with her?"

What a question. "No." Well that's not right. "Not like this."

Nothing about this has been easy. Their own bombastic fight that still doesn't feel solved, that might never get solved. Tensions in town. Murphy. Her waking up to House dead. Whatever else is happening over there.

"She said she was afraid of dying. Too afraid. I said, 'no shit.' Who isn't afraid of dying?"

Who isn't afraid of dying? He's not wrong--but it's been ages since Quentin had any normal way of dealing with that fear. "...I guess if we were back home, I would've told her to take a pill. Maybe drink more. I dunno. But...in a place like this..." His knee starts to bounce. "Do you know anything about where I'm from?"

What he knows is vague and uncertain, whispered by The Ghost Face, meant to unsettle Billy, meant to make him furious. It worked.

He says slowly, quoting Danny: "Death didn't stick. Couldn't leave."

His face twists, obviously angry. "I know you knew people I knew. Harrington. Wheeler. Byers."

The way his expression curdles worries Quentin, but the names that follow give him a good idea of why Billy looks so sour. His hands wring together, voice drops low. "...It was an awful place. I didn't realize you and Jim were from Hawkins. Not till...I mean, not till really recently. It didn't feel like great news to drop out of nowhere."

He's not any good at this part, the empathy and the hurt sharing. It's still new to him and it works best if you have tits and touch his face. He's got no script for, 'good game out there in the fog, buddy.' How'd Harrington do, anyway? Ever learn to plant his feet?

He ends up shrugging, and it probably sounds stupid to say: "It's whatever. We weren't friends." A reminder to himself that he has no business shaking with fury with Danny Johnson in his ear.

"Did you get used to it?"

They would have been friends if Billy was there. He's sure of that. You make all kinds of friends when you're integral to each other's survival. But that's a fight he's not trying to start before he's even settled this one. Billy brings it back to the point in a surprisingly graceful turning, and Quentin regathers his thoughts with a sigh.

"...No. Some days, maybe you feel that way, but--look, when you're surrounded by death like we are here, when it can happen anytime...it itches. Like someone breathing down your neck, never speaking, never touching you. Tickling. Sometimes you have to scratch the itch.

"Die, or go crazy."

"Dying didn't make me—" He trails off, frowning. Maybe it did. Less crazy, more crazy, who can say. So far, he's only bit it once, and that was disruptive enough. It can happen again, and theoretically, he'd rise again, punctually. Quentin has died a hundred times, maybe more. Billy doesn't think about his killer. Not now, with his eyes on porcelain.

"Well. What do you think? It gonna fix her?"

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