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Billy Hargrove had decided long ago that happiness was a thing made up by people who were too delusional to acknowledge the terrible things in the world. Happiness was for the dim-witted, the naïve, and children who had yet to grow up. It was for the rich who hadn’t known a day of hardship, or the poor who thought their lives would change any day now. It was for anybody who wasn’t him.
He always seemed to draw the short straw. His father was an egomaniacal asshole who seemed deadest on ruining Billy alongside himself, his mother had straight up abandoned him, and his stepsister (who Billy would reluctantly admit wasn’t that bad) had roped herself into a group of friends who fought demonic creatures from somewhere comparable to Hell on Earth.
And Hell, it was. The Upside-Down, as he had come to know it since his arrival here, was every waking nightmare of Billy’s come true. He had woken up alone, and he had stayed that way since. Initially, he was relieved to be back in control of his body but as the days passed, the joy of being free became bittersweet. The marks that Neil had littered his bodied had begun to fade and disappear into his skin and with it did his last reminder of his home. Although Mind Flayer’s scars stuck around longer, they too eventually faded from an angry red to a more subtle white littering his chest.
Sure, he had occasionally found some form of joy. Long car rides with the music playing far too loudly; smoking the first cigarette in the packet, teasing his boyfriend. But even those seemed to be a fleeting memory for him. He knew it had been nearly a year since he arrived here – even the Upside Down had its own twisted form of seasons – and in that time, the memories had turned blurred. The few faces he had come to treasure, to love, had blurred and contorted in time leaving his mind unsure of what was real and what he had forgotten.
When it came to his partner, he remembered the big things. The way they religiously played the guitar when they got home, the methodical planning of campaigns, the way the smell of weed and cheap cologne seemed to linger hours after they parted ways. The smaller things were harder. Billy wasn’t certain about how he took his coffee or the foods they hated anymore. He couldn’t remember the way he used to read to Billy on the weekends when he crashed in his trailer or the way that he would brush Billy’s hair from his eyes, no matter how many times it fell. Their time together had almost made Billy reconsider he stance on happiness, but their love was ruined as quickly as it had bloomed, leaving him certain of his fate.
He had tried to hold on to those memories for as long as he could, but the more he focussed on preserving them, the more skewed they seemed in his mind. There was no trace of them here either. Hawkins was stuck in a time before Billy had shown up; 1983 to be exact. Everything to prove that they were real was gone. The only reminder he had was the polaroid picture Billy had shoved into the pockets of his jeans one day.
It was just the two of them. Billy’s face was partially covered by his boyfriend’s black, curly mess of a mullet but he could make out his smile clearly. God, that was probably the last time Billy had smiled so much. Sure, being in this Hellscape had forced him to appreciate the small wins but he hadn’t felt happiness for so long. So, when he had found the half-dead Eddie Munson laying in a puddle of his own blood Billy smiled his first genuine smile in what felt like forever.
Billy’s joy soon became a heavy weight in his chest. As thrilled as he was to see him again, he was angry: furious even. He knew that Eddie hadn’t known about this places and its monstrous inhabitants, so he had somehow been roped into this and then left here to die. His Eddie wouldn’t have come here alone, he wouldn’t have been so done. He had been abandoned when he needed someone most. The rage sat heavy in Billy’s chest as he leaned down to check Eddie’s weak but steady pulse. Adrenaline spiked through his veins, and he moved the two of them into the house which Billy had taken as his own.
He knew that he knew nothing about first aid except from to stop any bleeding as soon as possible. So that’s what he did. His belt became a torniquet and his shirt was torn so he could pack Eddie’s wounds. But as he sat, watching his unconscious love, Billy couldn’t help but think about how even though they were stuck here, that they were stuck together and if he couldn’t be happy on the Rightside Up, maybe he could find a sliver of it here with Eddie.