Chapter Text
-Billy’s Chapter
Cry For The Bad Man / Edge of Seventeen
“What do you mean we have to move? It’s my junior year! All the people I’ve ever known are HERE! Since before elementary! This isn’t fair!”
He didn’t get to finish his very well deserved rant because his dad socked him in the mouth before he had to hear any more of his son’s bitching. “Good fucking riddance.” Neil thinks as he walks away from his sons prone body on the floor, he always hated the stench of the ocean and of California and the people in it in general!
Sick and tired of hearing the ungrateful brat any longer he goes to sit at the dinner table with his new wife and step-daughter to eat like a family should, even better without the unwanted little bastard he notes to himself, and aloud. Suzan and Maxine looking down so not to catch his eye nor the ire of his wrath he held with his own son.
He would never lay his hands on a woman in anger. Well, he wouldn’t’ hit a good woman who didn’t deserve it, never! No, he’d hit a worthless whore and her bastard, yeah, that’d he’d do like he was getting paid for it! Happily, with unpaid over-time!
Neil met Lyla coming home from Korea before going back home to Texas after fighting in “the conflict” only to come back to California a couple years later to find that she’s done gone and had her his unwanted bastard son! He never wanted to come back to a family already made, especially when she raised him on her own its’s as if he was raising some other asshole’s son! He had no connection to this kid and doubted it was even his, if he didn’t look like his own mother he’d have left without even questioning it further.
To say he was bitter about his situation is an understatement, not only that but Uncle Sam isn’t giving him or his fellow soldiers their just dues in benefits because they’re not acknowledging this damn fight is in fact A WAR! He of course comes back a bitter man, he had to obviously do the right thing and make an honest woman out of some common harlot, it was the only decent thing to do when a woman has your child!
To say Lyla and Billy were happy, thriving & blissful and completely better off before Neil came back into the picture would be an even bigger understatement. She was a fully capable woman who didn’t have to sell her body, and never had to work at night, was always home when Billy was out of school, always dropping him off & picked him up every day, she did not need any one’s assistance least of all a mans! She ran away when she was 14 yers old from a piece of shit family, she didn’t need anyone but herself.
The moment she knew about Billy though everything changed, she only needed ONE man from now on. It was the best most exciting thing to ever grace her life! She went to all the appointments, read the books from the professionals and then went and listened to her Doula and Midwife! She took all the right herbs and exercises, she was the personification of “Glowing Mother Earth, Moon & Stars!”
California Girl through and through she raised her baby boy the same, darkened hair kissed golden by the sun’s rays, brightened by his shining sea glass eyes his smile was her smile! She was all his and wrapped entirely around his little finger! He is just the strongest little swimmer she ever did see, and she’s not just biased of course!
She taught him every thing a water rat could learn, being the one who taught him how to surf and loved how he never wanted to get off his board and stay the water all the live long light, biggest smile and loudest laughter a little body could project, but even the best little athletes needed their rest and food in their hungry bellies! It seemed to be the only time she could get him back on the sand, promises to come back as soon as the sun came up!
One day though all their bliss was shattered in the form of a monster called “Neil Hargrove.” He came in and said they were doing every thing the wrong way, their entire lives are wrong. He cam in and ruined everything.
Neil married his mom, he sayid it’s whats best for the boy, too have both parents snd not as single mother, hell be in prison before he’s 18…. well well well, great call Pops!
Starting in with the verbal abuse immediately then soon after came the physical, on both of them. He made Billy try out for all the sports, drove him harder than grown athletes, trying to live vicariously through his spawn. He had to make the teams.
Billy hated baseball and basketball then he even started resenting swimming which is his favorite thing to do, now they’re to “move away from California because taxes were too high and his father has more mouths to feed.”Making it so now you’re all moving to where ever Susan was born to be “Miss Dairy Queen 1970, of Hawkins Butt-fucked Indiana!”
He hasn’t seen his mom since the last time she tried to come and get him for the 5th & most bloody time. He didn’t know Neil was with his mom at the hospital making sure she stuck to the script when he begged his little big heart out. He misses her more than he can express healthily, it’s a physical hurt as if a piece of him, his heart is legitimately missing.
His dad didn’t even want him and no one understands why he wants to hurt his mom so badly by keeping him and hurting him, he needs to be put down like the rabid mutt he is.
As soon as he graduates he’s bolting from this town and going to look for his mom. That will be the first thing, next is going back to Cali on his own, claiming his freedom from his sperm donor. Any penny he has is saved up and hidden from Neil, he won’t take this from him.
Moving from a vibrant place with so much to do and so many people to a small town with one school for elementary, middle and high school for the entire town & directly across the road from one another is more than a culture shock for him.
Where people know more about him before he even sets foot in his new home than his best friend did back home is something he knows he’ll never get used to. Yeah he’s used to gossip of course but this was a new level of invasion of privacy that he’s absolutely not ok with. Making him decide to keep it close to the chest giving all of them absolutely nothing except a “give ‘em hell-attitude” with a cock-sure saunter no one in town has seen, “Californian’s!” ::rolls eyes: Clearly saying “keep away!”
He takes comfort that there’s a lot of no where so that means a lot of places he can just drive away to. unfortunately the smell is there but he’ll take the smell of shit over the shit he deals with at his house. Usually when he’s out he’s not fucking girls like most people would think, no he’s just driving around & around dreaming of the day he gets to drive away and never turn back, go look for his mom and back to California after traveling the country. He dreams of freedom.
Once they get to their new home and unpacked no one wants to cook so they go to the diner in town, and that’s where he see’s her for the first time & his breath is stolen from him. Knocked right out as she walks right into him with a tray full of dirty dishes!
Frambling to apologize and clean up as much as she could she’s a flurry of arms and “sorry’s” he actually goes to help help her, careful not to cut either of them or his family walking in behind him, before his father even started yelling at him, “you help her clean that up!” The host rushes over to seat them also apologizing, while Billy stays back to help you out emphatically letting you know it’s not a problem and taking blame.
You only start calming down when you look to him and see he’s ok and he wants to help you, you only agree it was a mutual faulting while gathering the bigger pieces and going to get the cleaning supplies in the back room to sweep the rest up. When you get back he’s still standing there and with a smile on his face!
This boy is blinding you with his entire person! You’ve never seen this guy before, he’s certainly not from this town! His smile aimed at you is making you feel like sunshine!
Without realizing you’re smiling back & apologizing again while sweeping the mess, you keeping your glances at a maximum! He’s about to say more to your apologies when your moment is abruptly ruined by a sharp “BILLY! Let the poor girl work!” called from the tables behind you by his father. Good god is this man bipolar, he just said help!!
Giving you one last look and a wistfully apologetic smile he goes to his table fully planning on catching you when he could next to speak with you.
He was smitten. You were going to be the hope to make this town bearable he knows it! Oh he prays you don’t have a boyfriend, a girl like you would certainly be snatched up back home! It wouldn’t matter anyways he’s going to make you his regardless of anyone else.
That was until he actually met you, you wouldn’t put up with any of his cool guy California bull shit. He loved you for it. The rest of the girls in school and especially their mothers all fawned over him like leeches and he was a moose walking through a mucky river, it was repulsive. The married women in this god forsaken town needed to tell their husband’s to fuck them or take charge and fuck their husbands if they’ve got the balls to openly drool on a boy as old as their daughters.
He acts like he takes it all in but he’s really disgusted by all these females in town.
The male population no better, acting like the assholes they’ve only seen in movies and no real world experience, never meeting anyone outside “The Nuclear Family” image having Eisenhower, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and now Tom Cruise as idols and what men and life should be and how to run family’s blah blah, his dad’s perfect town actually. No wonder he agreed to it, being from Texas himself, thank god they didn’t move there!
That was the first day he saw you and quickly his hopes were dashed when as his family was finishing and fully planning on staying back to speak with you there’s a screech of tires outside and metal music so loud it’s rattling the diner windows, and a loud “goodbye!” from the kitchen and the girl of his dreams running out the door like a bat out of hell and into the van with a long haired curly headed fuck at the wheel, smiling at him the way he just smiled at you!
In a whole new mood, back to the one he was in before they came to the diner he loses his appetite and is ready to leave and storms out of the restaurant without seeing the look of curiosity on his sister’s face. She’d witnessed the instant change in Billy once he saw he, sitting next to him for a whole meal she felt the difference! When he saw her run to the van and the guy in it he instantly reverted back to his regular self.
It’s a shame she didn’t know him when Neil wasn’t in the picture but then again they would never have met if it wasn’t for that bastard.
Keeping that thought for later they all head back to their new home to sleep on their mattresses on the floor until the morning. School starting in only 3 days she has more to worry about herself.
Once school started he couldn’t believe his luck, or was it unfortunate life, his very first class YOU’RE in it not only that but you’re assigned to show him around school! The smile you got when you saw him walk in your first hour class was blinding him! You waved enthusiastically and called to him to sit in the, luckily, empty seat next to you in the back. Since the teacher saw this she assigns you to be the one to es tort him around and show him the ropes which you had no problems with.
He finally finds out your name not having caught a glimpse of your name tag before.
He finds out so much about you, everything he could and subtly not so subtly asks who the guy in the van was. You laugh but it’s pained and sardonic, you confide in Billy it’s your crush you e been pining after since elementary school but it’s one sided unrequited love type stuff and everyone knows it except him but you’re too chicken to tell him, especially now it’s gone so long with him clearly not being interested you got the hints!
He jokingly not jokingly suggests he could be your new crush and it wouldn’t be one sided, to which you swiftly side-step and deflect it with a “no thank you I’ve been in love with this kid since forever and I just met you bull shit” (you later realize you should’ve taken the chance and taken him up on his offer right then and there! “Hindsight” is todays word of the day people!) blah blah blah and you crush his dreams and his heart again!
He keeps on trying but he does it in a disingenuous way where you’ve SEEN him with other girls you really don’t want to take the chance! He IS a teenage boy, who also got rejected he’s got to shoot his shots when he can!! Or at least give the image off, he was like coffee and bacon in the morning, simply irresistible!! And he really did smell so good it was like every one was a cartoon character floating to the wafting scent of freshly baked pie on a windowsill Heart eyes & heart beating out of chest and drooling and lolling tongue and all that cartoon jazz!
He didn’t stop asking you out until right before senior year though. He got the message it wasn’t happening and summer break was coming up, he was antsy and had to get his rocks off or his attitude was only going to get worse to those around him. He started distancing himself until he didn’t even say goodbye on the last day of junior year and didn’t talk to you when you saw him out after that, not even a hi or a smile. He had to cut you off, like you were everyone else because if he kept letting himself feel anything around you he wasn’t going to make it, all you talked about was Eddie and it not only broke his heart it was annoyingly frustrating. He had to cut you off for his own sake.
Then she comes back from summer break quite literally with his heart in her hands with the most meaningful gift he’s ever received, “it made me think of you” she says already walking away as she hands him a small broken abalone shell shaped in a jagged heart & shines so blue he’s never seen one like it before! He figures after the way he treated her she did t want to get too into it and just have it to him. He deserved that but what he didn’t deserve he knows, was her gift.
A jagged heart shell, nothing in life could be more fitting to describe Billy. Fragile and beautiful, needing a protective barrier to deter those who only want to touch him for his beauty, you need to hold him gently and just right to not be cut.
You could never know how much it means to him, it means more to him than his car he worked so hard being a paper boy and other jobs as soon as soon as he could get a workers permit. His car was his ticket to freedoms once he was done with high school, one thing he was determined to get was his diploma so he wouldn’t have to worry about that once, he knows, he’ll be kicked out on his 18th and it had been his most prized and proud possession, until now.
If his dad wasn’t such a prick he would have wrapped it and made a necklace to wear it all the time, instead of inciting his fathers homophobia and name calling he wrapped it and put it around his rear view mirror so he could see it every day and could protect it from his father stomping on it and calling him a queer for having jewelry.
The charm of St. Anthony I wear, my moms necklace as it was the only thing Neil didn’t take since he didn’t know 1. It was hers and 2. We’re god fearing in this house, spare the rod spoil the child and the mother of your child etc.
You had to go and pull him right back to you didn’t ya?
He missed you all the time though and started trying to distract himself with as many women he could. He really became the fuck boy of Hawkins, embracing the image of what everyone else ,including you, thought. It really hurt him.
He’d see you around smiling and laughing and being a ray of light and joy, directed towards the one guy he hates but would never do anything to if only to incur your wrath and rejection of him, he wouldn’t hurt you like that. Needless to say he took his frustrations out on an admittedly undeserving Steve Harrington, former reigning king of Hawkins High. He should probably take up wrestling and boxing after school… doubt there’s a gym here.
He didn’t really pay attention to you, as much as he could, that you saw anyways, until one day he was going to lunch and upon opening the door he finds you in tears attempting to run out the door he was currently blocking.
Panicked and concerned he is immediately on alert with you, wondering what’s got you in a fret. Then you look back to your table and looking back in front of you. Seeing what you were looking at he sees Eddie with Chrissy Cunningham’s hand on his shoulder in a way that got an eyebrow raised before looking back to the love of his life, taking her head in his hand he looks into her eyes with no questions asked before he just takes her hand and sweeps them out of there!
Asking her where they should go she suggests the woods to which he laughs and drags her to his car. It’s lunchtime they’re going to eat! And he knows the perfect place!
Admittedly he feels guilty to feeling happy at her heartbreaking predicament, selfishly he sees this as his chance to finally make her his! He’s giddy and nervous and feels like a little girl! He can’t take the smile off his face and can barely listen, but he checks himself before he wrecks themselves! Arriving at the diner he guides her to the booth in the back where he first kept his eyes on her while she worked and his family ate. Totally not in a creepy way.
Nervous and excited and wanting to help her out unwittingly decides to use Eddie the genius’s plan to make the object of her affections jealous!
Waiting with bated breath after suggesting he be her fake boyfriend for the time being, she finally answers and he can breath again!
“Yes!” She says after a pregnant pause, very little considerations. She was all for it, eagerly smiling like a maniac! “Oh my little minx is devious!” He thinks.
He knew this could and would eventually come back to bite him in his ass but he didn’t care, in his eyes he finally has her as his and he was going to take full advantage..: not FULL advantage but he was definitely going to enjoy what she gave him!
He’d give up all the sex just to get her to kiss him, he’d never admit it to himself but it passes his mind, “what a sap get over yourself!”
When Betty comes back with the check he’s so happy he gives her a fat tip, he’d like to give someone else a fat tip… NO BILLY! Bad Billy!” He slaps his brain in his mind for being a pervert to his girl! Looking at her and offering his hand out of the booth they head out, opening the doors for her until she’s buckled safely in and they’re on the way back to school, just missing 4th period. He hasn’t let go of her hand except to shift gears and he doesn’t want to go back in once they get back in the parking lot. Knowing they need to get back they get out, meeting in front of his car he takes both her hands in his, and moves in to kiss her, stopping just at 80% to see if she’d meet him the 20%.
His world and the school erupt in gossip for the second time that day! He could hear nothing but the thumping of his own heartbeat in his ears!
In less than 2 hours two of the most popular kids, respectively, in high school got claimed by the biggest outcasts of the entire town!
What was going on, was the world ending?!
Everyone is rushing to class while desperately trying to get all the gossip about this they could get in before next bell rang.
“It’s only a matter of time before Eddie hears about this,” Billy says.