Sans titre

The ground suddenly starts shaking and a feeling of dread spreads through the room. They all share a look before running to the backyard door. There’s nothing except for the shaking that keeps getting more and more intense. 

Then suddenly— the staticky feeling returns. 

As soon as it does, all the lights in the house start buzzing and getting brighter. He jumps when the lightbulb inside the living room lamp explodes, followed by the porchlight. The fairy lights on the fence then explode in a succession that reminds him of fireworks. Blue light starts appearing in the middle of the garden, getting brighter and bigger by the second, glowing so strong that Eddie has to shield his eyes. 

“Oh my god,” he hears Mrs Kaplan gasp and he looks back at the light.

It isn’t as bright as before, because both Billy and Agatha have now appeared out of nowhere. Agatha looks as he remembers her to be, with a few more tears and mudstains on her coat and pants, but Billy…

Billy looks… ethereal. 

Unlike Agatha, he isn’t touching the ground, he’s instead hovering a foot or two in the air, with his arms slightly outstretched on each side of him. His clothes are both completely different and totally him; with a bodysuit full of runes and a shimmering pattern of stars on the side of his pants. A rich red cloak is wrapped around his shoulders, held in place by a belt with an elaborate buckle and the hanging fabric floats around him in a way that can only be described as heroic. A metallic crown rests on his forehead, with power pulsing through it like waves and water currents. His magic is glowing bright blue in his palms and around him, but nothing compares to the burning blaze of power in his eyes. There’s a lightness to him and a confidence that definitely wasn’t there at the beginning of all this.

His traits are relaxed, serene even, but Eddie has never seen him like this. Billy looks so much older than he actually is, and it worries him. Eddie looks at Agatha, begging for answers. “Is he… okay?”

“Yeah don’t worry, he’s still riding the high,” reassures Agatha. “Give him a couple of minutes.”

“The high?” frowns Mrs Kaplan.

“Your son has crazy potential and he just tapped into it to get rid of one of the most evil entities in the universe, it’s like a crazy adrenaline high.” She pauses to look at them before grinning. “I’d say it's similar to being high on drugs but I doubt any of you guys would know what I mean.”

“But he’ll be okay?”

Agatha nods but it’s obvious that no one is convinced. She rolls her eyes with an amused expression before turning to Billy. “Hey Demiurge, your family is worried. Either reassure them or snap out of it.”

For the first time since reappearing, Billy’s glowing eyes turns to them. The corners of his lips twitch into a smile, looking so much wiser than his boyfriend ever has. “ℑ 𝔞𝔪 𝔞𝔩𝔯𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱.”

The voice… The voice is both reassuring and frightening, it’s both new and old, and layered with the fabric of the universe itself. It’s Billy’s voice and yet so much more. They all wait for the next few minutes as the blue glow slowly dims and retreats back into Billy. His boyfriend seems to return to himself the moment his feet touch the ground. Even back to himself, though, he stands taller, and more confident than he’s ever been since he first met him. It suits him. 

“Welcome back, Teen,” greets Agatha. “Enjoyed your trip?”

Billy rolls his shoulders. “That was intense.”

Eddie goes to greet him but his path is cut short by the Kaplans running to envelop their son into a hug. His boyfriend gladly returns the hug and he sees a tear escape his eye. Eddie takes a step back as he lets the Kaplan family enjoy their reunion. Coincidentally, Agatha has also given them privacy, so he takes the time to ask something that’s been bugging him.

“Agatha… When we got thrown in the mud, I remember drowning. There was no way out.”

The woman turns to him with the corner of her mouth twisted in interest. “Hm?”

“I died, again. I know I did.” Eddie clenches his fist at the memory. “But then there was this… staticky feeling and suddenly I was able to claw my way out. I didn’t have mud in my lungs anymore, and I was just fine.” He glances towards Agatha and startles at the looks she gives him. She knows exactly what he’s trying to say and she’s proud of it. But he still needs confirmation. “I know Billy can rewrite reality, so did he..?”

Agatha grins widely with a knowing glint in her eyes. “Reality is only what he believes it to be. And luckily for you, Billy is very suggestible if given the right directions.”

The thought of that both fascinates and terrifies him. The memory of Billy’s anger as the Darkhold had taken a hold of him still makes him feel uneasy, he didn’t know his boyfriend could even be that angry. He hopes to never see it again, but he has a feeling that it’s only the beginning. For now though, he sees Mr and Mrs Kaplan stepping away and Eddie gets to have Billy’s full attention. He looks almost fearful as he approaches. 

He speaks before he even has the chance to think about it. “Eddie, I’m so sorry I dragged you into all of this—”

“It’s okay,” he cuts him off with more sincerity than he thought possible. “You were quite literally a hostage, and then possessed. I don’t hold it against you.”

Billy’s face visibly relaxes and he pulls him into a kiss. It’s heavy and charged with emotions and electricity. Eddie wraps his arms around him to squeeze him closer as he deepens the kiss and even dips him slightly, making his cloak touch the ground from the tilting. When they part, they are both slightly out of breath and Billy’s face is flushed red.

“Wow,” he exclaims. “I really needed this.”

“Me too,” Eddie laughs before his eyes trails over his boyfriend’s new outfit. “You look… good. Really good.”

Billy smiles and he looks down, flustered at the compliment. “Thanks. I’m not exactly sure how I got it but it feels right.”

“Magick, kid,” answers Agatha, inserting herself into the conversation. “Wanda had a similar transformation. You guys just love a makeover.”

The young man frowns before his eyes lowers to his hands. He observes them carefully, as though he’s searching for something. “My burns are gone, all my injuries are gone.”

“Burns? Injuries?” Questions Mr Kaplan worriedly.

Eddie shares his worry as he tries to make sense of why Billy would have injuries. For his part, Billy presses his lips together. “My trial was… uh… a little intense?”

“How intense?” Pushes on Mrs Kaplan, her tone sharp in a way that can only be accomplished by parents.

His boyfriend is about to answer, despite all his hesitation, but he’s interrupted by Agatha. “I understand we all want explanations, but how about we go inside? I’m pretty sure he can explain himself while we’re all sitting down and eating something.”

***

Later that night, after he’s explained everything to the best of his knowledge, from his point of view of Agatha’s trial, to the ballroom that the Darkhold tried to trap him in, to the multiple layers of his trial to the eventual defeat of the Darkhold by accepting his magickal self as well as his identity, Billy is spent. His parents seem especially worried about his magick nearly ripping him apart but he reassures them that he’s okay now. When he tells them that he resurrected Tommy in a similar way that he had reincarnated himself, he can feel how uneasy they become. William’s death is still sensitive, and it’s going to take time for them to fully grieve him. He’s quick to tell them that while he isn’t William, he’s not Billy Maximoff either, at least not entirely. They seem touched that he has chosen the name Billy Kaplan, their thoughts tell him of their worries that his magickal potential would make him push them away. He reassures them that despite everything, they are still his parents and always would be. Then, he bites back tears as they assure him that if Tommy also needs a home, they would welcome him too.

Later, when he’s shifted back into his normal clothes, he can see the way exhaustion clings onto the rest of the group. It’s no surprise, the Road was demanding for everyone, but Billy is surprisingly okay. He charts it to his transformation and acceptance over his Demiurge title; something he’ll have to look into when he has more time. The sun set an hour ago and yet his family can barely keep their eyes open. 

“Maybe you guys should go to sleep? I can continue tomorrow.”

“What about you?” Frowns his mom. 

Billy shrugs. “I’m honestly feeling pretty energized. Magick is weird like that.”

“I told my parents that I was staying with you guys,” says Eddie. “I have to be home tomorrow but I’m good for tonight.”

“You’re lucky this house is big,” grumbles Agatha in exaggerated grumpiness. “You’ll have to share in pairs though, I’m assuming it won’t be a problem?”

His mom shifts. “Well, we don’t usually let the boys share a bed…”

“They’re sixteen, it’s bound to happen eventually,” says Agatha with an arched eyebrow. “And they just survived a near death experience, are you really going to make one of them sleep on the floor?”

“No, of course not,” she quickly replies.

The woman seems satisfied by his mom’s answer. “Good! Now that it’s settled, let me show you your rooms.”

It barely takes 15 minutes before everyone is settled in, Billy uses his magick to create pyjamas and toiletries for everyone. Creating things out of thin air is surprisingly easy now, compared to when he had manifested a full bowl of food back on the Road. He wishes a good night to his parents and follows Eddie into their bedroom. He laughs when his boyfriend plops face down into the bed.

“Are you going to survive?”

“If the bed swallowed me whole, I wouldn’t even care,” he answers, voice muffled by the covers.

Billy laughs again and lightly pushes him. “Come on. At least let me kiss you goodnight.”

His previously uncooperative boyfriend suddenly flips himself onto his back and grabs his face. This kiss isn’t as intense as the one after the Road, but it feels sweeter. It’s a piece of normalcy in the craziness of the last few hours. It felt like days, but apparently the entirety of the Road has happened in a matter of 24 hours. 

Eddie separates the kiss and gently strokes his cheek with his thumb. “You’re not going to sleep now?”

He shakes his head. “Soon, but not now.” 

He kisses him again before leaving the room, Agatha is waiting for him in the hallway. She changed clothes, trading her coat, blouse and pants for looser but still stylish clothes. Her dark purple silky blouse and black pants feel appropriate for the occasion and he decides to also change. Billy closes his eyes and breathes. He pictures another pair of dark jeans, one without doodles, along with a striped shirt and a black jean jacket. It’s weird to feel his clothes changing and he figures he'll discover if his original clothes are gone forever later.

“Ready?” He asks Agatha.

She gives him a nod. “No time like the present.”

He knows she doesn’t care like he does, she’s been doing this for too long to let herself be bothered by a few dead witches. Still, Billy wants to make sure that Lilia, Jen and Alice don’t just fade away. He doesn’t know if they have any family, or friends, and when he asks, Agatha tells him that they probably don’t because no one agrees to walk the Road if they have anyone. 

“They still deserve to be mourned,” he argues.

“You have too big of a heart,” Agatha says but she doesn’t contradict him. 

Going down the basement is… bittersweet. This is where his coven met their final fates, this is where he was tortured and held hostage, this is where the entrance of the Road is situated, but this is also the start of his journey towards who he is. Seeing the bodies of his coven on the floor is harder than he thought though. 

He kneels next to Alice and apologizes to her. He does the same to Jen and Lilia, before he straightens up and takes a deep breath. He imagines them at peace, safe and at rest; when he opens his eyes, the bodies are gone, leaving only the entrance to his Road in front of him. The absence of the bodies reminds him of William, and he decides he’s going to find something to do with his parents to honour him, when they’ll be ready. William deserves to be properly mourned, like he should have been three years ago. 

With this thought, Billy closes his eyes once more, ready to put the Road behind. He focuses, he thinks about the magick of the place, of the trials and the emotions they had all lived through. He wills the Road into disappearing, he thanks it for what it did, but it’s time to say goodbye, it’s time to move on. 

When Billy opens his eyes once more, the door is gone and instead, Lilia’s, Jen’s and Alice’s names are carved into the stone.

It’s weird to say, but he feels lighter, and freer. It’s sad that it came at the price of his coven’s lives, but he hopes that he’ll make them proud eventually. He hopes that one day he’ll atone for luring them to their deaths.

“You know, you’re going to need a teacher.”

He turns to Agatha. “I know.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, clearly, she expected him to complete her suggestion. He knows what she means, but he wants her to say it. It takes a bit, but Agatha does the unthinkable and opens her heart. 

“We could make a good team… you and me. I have the prestige, the experience and the knowledge, you have…” she gestures at him with a wave of her hand. “Whatever aesthetic you call this plus raw power.”

Billy smiles. “I’m unpredictable, and dangerous.”

“So am I,” she shrugs. “I know more about chaos magick than anyone else.”

“That makes us a coven then?” He suggests, putting his hand forward. He let his magick dance over his fingers, this is a link that will be permanent if Agatha accepts.

The woman observes his hand with pursed lips before she grins and takes his hand. “Sure, Coven Two.” She pulls him forward. “That means you’re stuck with me, for better and for worse.”

“I think I can handle it, question is, can you?”

Agatha looks satisfied with his answer. “A spine looks good on you, Teen.”

When Billy finally goes to bed, it’s well past midnight. He wasn’t tired before but he definitely is now. He sees that Eddie is sound asleep so he quickly changes into his pajamas and crawls under the covers. His boyfriend doesn’t wake up, but he does sleepily turn towards him and slings an arm around him. 

Held safe in Eddie’s arms, he falls asleep in seconds. 

Billy drifts into the dreamspace, comfortably void of anything for a while before he finds himself in the middle of a crowd. The people move around him without sparing him a glance, the color of their clothes blurs together in a way that can only be achieved through dreams. None of the people have faces, but it doesn’t disturb him, he knows none of this is his magick. The crowd zips past him and he barely feels it, there’s nothing else around, no buildings, no plants, no cars; just him and a crowd of people surrounding him for as far as the eye can see.

The feeling of peaceful chaos is interrupted when Billy feels the hair on his neck stand up in alert. His gaze is lured to another figure, about ten feet away that, like him, isn’t moving. Horror clogs his throat as he sees Rio staring at him. She’s dressed in a long black cloak, her head covered by a voluminous hood and a long dark green skirt trails on the floor. Her eyes burn with fury and he notices a curved knife in her hand, the blade glints menacingly.

For a bit, they only stare at each other as terror fills his body. This isn’t just Rio, the lady that fought Agatha while flirting with her. 

This is Death herself, and she’s pissed at him.  

Rio takes a step forward, and then another. She glides through the crowd and Billy starts running. Agatha had warned him about Rio, about how she was angry at him for menacing the Sacred Balance, about how she would definitely be even angrier once she realized that he’d resurrected Tommy. It seems Rio has found him. So he runs, he runs and bumps into the faceless people while the crowd parts for Lady Death, who doesn’t run but still slowly catches up to him. She stalks forward, a manic grin on her lips; she’s enjoying the chase. When she’s barely an arm’s length away from him, Billy trips and crashes painfully to the ground. 

He looks up as Death herself, towers over him and raises her knife.

“I̵̼͙̳̞̓͘ ̷̢̤̹̭̦́̈̿k̷͔̱̦̮̺̹̟͊͝ǹ̷̨̥̯̤͙̥͈̝̂͒̾̔͜o̷̖̎̀͗̂̓w̶͕̻͙̗̤̒̎̈́͋̽̏̑͛̔͒ ̶̩̯͖̫̩̫̞̝͚̓̀̆́̔̑̕w̸̢̧͍̠͔͉͂ͅh̸̰̣̹̩͇̭̥̗̦̀͐̓̈́̎͛͠ą̴̛͇̘̳̬̥̗̘̟̂͜t̴̪͓̖̻̲̘̉̽̆͋͐̾͛̕ ̷̯̹̘̳̱̯͎͖͔̮̂̄͋y̵̨̙̥͊ͅͅo̷̖͒̎͘ų̸̩̥̤͉̭͈̒̐́̕ ̶̡̩̯̝̣̖̌͌̈́͋ḑ̷̤̬̥̞̼͖͍̆́̂́̅͛̕͠ͅi̵̭͓̒͗̆̾d̴̡͙̊ͅ,” she hisses with a voice as old as time herself.

She strikes down, and Billy wakes up screaming.

***

Note: Thank you so much for reading! This was 56k words and I had no idea it would be that long but thank you for being along for the ride. Thank you to all who read it, commenter or not, I hope you enjoyed this story!

The darkness is quickly closing in and he fears that there’s going to be no miracles this time. Eddie kicks as strong as he can, trying to swim out of the mud around him but it does absolutely nothing. Strength slowly leaves his body and the world grows fuzzy. His panic eventually subsides and makes way for frighteningly calmness. Eddie isn’t scared anymore and the darkness feels more like a heavy blanket; he welcomes it with open arms.

But then something in the atmosphere changes, like a staticky feeling that washes over him and suddenly his hand breaches the surface.

He doesn’t have time to question why he’s not choking anymore, or why he now has a way out, all he cares about is getting out of the mud. His hand breaches the surface and he feels grass under his fingers, he’s never been so relieved to feel grass. Eddie slowly pulls himself out of the ground and feels the air on his face. It’s cold, but he doesn’t care. He lays on his back, just breathing for a few minutes, and tries to ignore the leftover fuzzy feeling that surrounds him. 

Eddie is startled when the fuzzy feeling very briefly stings him when he touches the grass. It feels like the staticky feel of an old tv, but before he can think about it any further, a hand pops out of the earth, scaring him half to death. Eddie briefly wonders if zombies are now a thing before he recognizes Mr Kaplan’s watch on his wrist and he runs to the hand, grabs it and starts pulling. He pulls until the man can get both arms out to get a grip and free himself, if he feels the quickly fading buzz in the air, he doesn’t comment on it. They barely have the time to acknowledge each other before another hand pops out of the ground— Mrs Kaplan. By the time she’s out, everything feels normal and they soon realize that they're in Agatha’s backyard.

‘I’m sorry,’ he suddenly hears Billy’s voice in his mind. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t want to hurt you. You’re safe now though so just go in Agatha’s house and wait for us there. We should be out soon.’

He sounds apologetic but Eddie’s stomach twists at the voice. He can’t help it. He can still see the way he had gone from confused to angry, and how paranoia had so quickly devoured him from the inside. Agatha had warned them of course, but the way his eyes had burned with hatred still scared him. The woman had mentioned that this was just the beginning, and that it was bound to get much worse, but Eddie can’t imagine Billy as anything other than good. He can’t get the sight of his boyfriend’s darkened fingers out of his mind, and how casually Agatha had explained exactly what was going to happen to him. 

So as they walk back into the house, which is inexplicably unlocked, there is nothing to do, but wait and hope that somehow Billy and even Agatha will make it off the Road in one piece.

***

The moment Billy finally speaks his true name, his magick stops trying to kill him. It’s a fascinating process to watch as his skin slowly stitches itself back together and leaves him panting in exhaustion and confusion. The mirrors around them break into shards that disappear before they can hit the ground, leaving them in an empty room. 

“You did it,” she congratulates him.

He’s spent, that much is clear, but Billy still smiles proudly. “I did.”

“Billy Kaplan, uh?

He bites back a smile and shrugs. “It feels right.”

Agatha is about to tease him that of course this whole Road all came down to him just choosing the right name, because she’s not about to tell him just how terrified she was at seeing him so close to dying, but then someone starts clapping. She and Billy share a confused look and she helps him get to his feet. A figure is approaching them, she can hear their footsteps. They brace themselves for the upcoming threat. 

The first thing that comes into view are very familiar boots, followed by black skinny jeans and a grey sweater and blue vest. Agatha watches as a near perfect copy of Billy emerges from the shadows. She knows it’s not him though, because his eyes are a pool of darkness without a hint of white, the clothes are torn and darkened with very familiar corruption and so are the fingers. The Darkhold’s borrowed face looks gaunt instead of sculpted, and its mouth is twisted in malice.  

“Congratulations,” says the figure sarcastically. He claps once, then twice before raising an eyebrow. “It would have been a waste to have you die, I have so much more planned.”

Now there’s a familiar speech. Agatha’s never had the privilege of having the Darkhold take on human form to talk to her, but the words it had whispered in her ears back then were practically the same as they are now. 

“What are you doing here?” Billy’s tone is sharp, he’s never sounded so authoritative on his own before. She likes it. The kid is finally growing a spine.

It unfortunately doesn’t impress the Darkhold. “Be careful, Billy. I’ve been generous up until now but I can be cruel.”

“Generous?” He scoffs. “What did you do that was generous?”

“Everything!” Blows up the entity. It takes a step closer toward the witchling. “Everything that you wanted, I did it. You wanted to bring your boyfriend back to life. I gave you the spell you needed. You wanted your family gone. I made sure they were. Is that not generous?”

“I never asked you to!” Billy counters. Agatha delights in the way his magick is commanding the place, there’s something building up and she can’t wait to see what it leads to. “I would have been fine without you, I don’t need you. I want you gone.”

Billy is frightfully still as he stares at his corrupted counterpart. His eyes are burning with rage and magick starts shimmering in his palms. Agatha doesn’t miss the way the entity’s gaze flickers down in worry. She had no idea the book of the damned could be scared. This is bound to be interesting.

“Stop! Wait. Look, Billy. Look what I am offering you.” The entity summons an illusion of what Tommy looked like in Westview. “I can offer you your dreams. I ask for so little. Just let me rule you and you can have everything that you want.”

“I want you gone, I want you gone, I want you gone,” Billy keeps repeating. She notices that his magick is glowing brighter, something that makes the corrupted counterpart freak out even more. 

“Just fear me! Love me! Do as I say and I will be your slave.” The taunting feels more like begging now and she drinks every bit of it. That is, until it realizes that the kid is not listening so it turns to her. “Agatha! Tell him! Tell him how much fun we had.”

“We did,” she agrees because it’s true. The rush she had while using the Darkhold had been near equal to taking Wanda’s and Billy’s powers. 

“You were such a delight,” it praises. “There was no dilemma or whining, I didn’t have to coax you. You didn’t fall into the corruption like all the others, you jumped. We can be a team again. You, me, and Billy. You wanted your son back, you wanted power, we can be that together. We would be unstoppable.” 

The entity holds out a hand and she stares at the darkened fingers with narrowed eyes. It’s tempting, she can admit that. It would be easy to say yes, to get all that power she’s been craving ever since she lost it, but then again she knows what the Darkhold’s end goal is. It wants her to join it so they can then get Billy onboard, willing or not. And with it having taken the appearance of what a corrupted Billy might look like… it gives her some pause. Even if the kid wasn’t insanely powerful, even if he was just a random witch, she’s not sure she’d be able to go through with it. Something has… changed within her. Agatha doesn’t want Billy to feel the corruption of the Darkhold, she doesn’t want him to be consumed by anger and rage until it burns him up. 

Agatha snatches her hand away from the Darkhold. “Sorry, you had your chance. I don’t play second fiddle.”

The book’s corrupted face twists in fury. “You could have everything you ever wanted! Both of you! You would never be vulnerable again, the world would bow down before you!”

It’s freaking out and trying to find any hold it can get. Unfortunately for it, Billy isn’t listening. “I can manage on my own. I don’t need you, I will never need you. I want you gone.”

“You can never escape me!”

These words seem to be a trigger because one moment Billy is reciting the words and the next, he goes silent. His magick suddenly explodes like a bomb and Agatha sees the moment Billy lets go. His eyes glaze over, but not because he’s about to pass out, nothing so simple, but because he’s letting his magick take the lead. It’s not the first time she’s seen this kind of power.

‘I don’t need you to tell me who I am.’

The cyan magick envelops him and she and the Darkhold can only watch with squinted eyes as Billy’s silhouette changes. She can’t make out any details, but she does notice when a cape is added to the mix. The magick slowly dims, and she’s greeted with the sight of Billy hovering off the ground, eyes burning blue with power and expression serene and powerful. He’s wearing a suit full of runes and details that are intricately him. The crown that had appeared after resurrecting his boyfriend is back on his forehead and glowing with pulses of energy. His eyes are trained directly onto the Darkhold.

“ℑ 𝔡𝔬 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔟𝔢𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔯𝔲𝔩𝔢𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔨, ℑ 𝔴𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔪.”

“Wait— wait—” begs the figure, but it’s too late.

“𝔄𝔫𝔡 ℑ 𝔡𝔢𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔥𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔫𝔬 𝔭𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔪𝔢.”

Billy raises an arm towards the evil entity and it starts screaming. Agatha watches the display of power with fascination because this is so much more than Billy has ever done. But she slowly understands what’s happening as she thinks about his ethereal voice as he had quite literally rewritten magick to depower the Darkhold. 

This is not Billy that’s in front of her; this is the Demiurge.

“You can’t do this!” Screeches the Darkhold. It’s having a hard time holding onto the human appearance, but the anger and panic is clear on its face. “Your own mother couldn’t destroy me, what makes you think you can?!”

The Demiurge stares silently at the figure for a few seconds before he tilts his head in a gesture frighteningly similar to Wanda. “𝔅𝔢𝔤.”

“What?”

“𝔜𝔬𝔲 𝔥𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔶𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔫 𝔣𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔰 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔦𝔫𝔰𝔢𝔠𝔲𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔰𝔦𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔠𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫. 𝔜𝔬𝔲 𝔡𝔦𝔡 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔠𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔳𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔰. 𝔄𝔫𝔡 𝔫𝔬𝔴? ℑ 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔱𝔬 𝔟𝔢𝔤.”

Agatha delights at the cruelty. Making one of the most powerful forces in the universe beg for its life? She couldn’t have come up with something better.

The blue magick stalks closer to the entity and it gulps, scared eyes looking at the figure that’s standing unblinkingly. The Demiurge takes a step closer, arm still outstretched and all semblance of control from the book crumbles. 

“You’re nothing without me! Just like your mother was nothing! Stop this nonsense, you can’t—” Its breath falters for a second when it realizes that the threats mean nothing. It switches tactics. “Please! Please! M— mercy! Have mercy!”

“ℑ 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔩 𝔰𝔥𝔬𝔴 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔪𝔢𝔯𝔠𝔶 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔥𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔰𝔥𝔬𝔴𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔪.”

His hand finally makes contact with his corrupted-looking counterpart and it screams even louder. The skin starts liquifying and bones start to move under the skin. The pitch black eyeballs melt away and it barely manages to try to shove the Demiurge away before the illusion of the body it was wearing rips itself apart and all that’s left in the room is a mass of darkness. It’s intangible, but the Demiurge still holds it tightly.

“𝔜𝔬𝔲 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔩 𝔫𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔪 𝔞𝔫𝔶𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔢𝔩𝔰𝔢 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔞𝔤𝔞𝔦𝔫,” declares the Demiurge without any hint of regret or pity.

His magick invades the darkness that manages to scream without a mouth and it starts cutting through it. It’s uncanny to see such a powerful force be destroyed by something so much more powerful. Agatha is loving it though. She supposes that this is what Wanda looked like when she took her powers back and trapped her in a spell; she’s more than happy to be on the side lines this time. 

The Darkhold screams one final time before it’s reduced to nothing. 

Agatha blinks as the room clears and they’re left alone. She turns to the teen who’s still very much riding the rush of power from the dam that just broke. She knows what it feels like, it’s the very same rush she’s been pursuing for centuries, he must be feeling on top of the world. His magick is still vibrating loudly around him and his eyes are still burning bright, Wanda had already gathered herself at that point, but she assumes that the redhead had more control and was more used to the rush of her magick. As fascinating as this is, she figures that this whole adventure has gone on long enough.

“Hey, Demiurge!” She calls out to him. Agatha waits until he looks at her before speaking again. “How about you get us out of here?”

He gives her a nod and blue light surrounds them.

***

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“You seriously have to stop disappearing, it’s way too hard to follow you.”

Relief washes over him when he sees Agatha’s reflection. He turns around and instantly feels reassured that he’s not going to be alone. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he confesses.

“Me neither,” shrugs Agatha. “But I’m willing to bet that this unstable magick of yours is a good place to start.”

“What?”

He can't understand what she means. That is, until his eyes are drawn back to his reflections; and the many tendrils of blue magick snaking under his skin. He lets out a shuddery breath as he touches his face, trying to understand what’s happening. 

“You have chaos magick in your veins, quite literally,” snarks Agatha. “And that identity crisis you’re having? I think it decided that it’s been long enough.”

That wasn’t fair. Billy stares at his many reflections, silently hoping that an explanation would materialize itself, but besides the magick under his skin, nothing else happens. 

“Magick is a fickle thing,” starts explaining Agatha. “And it can overwhelm a witch if they can’t handle their power. You’re developing your magick too fast, if you keep being scared and trying to suppress it, it’s going to fight back.”

“Fight back?”

The woman takes a deep breath and Billy is surprised to see worry in her eyes. That doesn’t forebode anything good. “I’m sure you’ve been feeling… tight in your own skin? Like something is trying to claw itself out?”

Yeah he does actually, and it’s been steadily getting worse the longer they’re on the Road. “Yeah,” he confirms. “But isn’t that just the Darkhold?”

“I’m sure it can’t help, but this is your magick growing too fast for you to handle. Your magick is you, and the longer you’re going through this identity crisis, the more intense it’s going to get.”

“What happens if I can’t solve it?” He’s got a feeling that he knows exactly what she’s about to say.

Agatha looks apologetic, it scares him more than when she looks worried. “The pain you felt after resurrecting your brother? That’s barely a glimpse into the pain that awaits you.” She pauses, but he can see that she’s not done talking. She’s hesitating about saying something. It scares him that he knows her well enough to be able to read her so easily. “I’ve seen this happen before, your mom was nearly one of them, but if a witch can’t accept their powers and their potential… Their magick rips them apart.”

Billy’s throat dries up and his heart sinks in his chest. 

“Oh,” he exhales shakily. He glances at his many reflections again before meeting Agatha’s eyes through the mirrors. “What do I have to do?”

The woman narrows her eyes and purses her lips. “Let’s unlock those memories of yours, that’s a good starting point.”

Like when they brought Tommy back, she sits on the ground and Billy quickly follows suit. Agatha guides his breathing and he soon feels himself sinking into that weightless feeling, his body relaxed and his mind ready to follow whatever she has in mind. Maybe he shouldn’t trust her, she could kill him right now and he would never see it coming. But Billy doubts she would do that. They’re a coven, they would be one even if he wasn’t on the list. He chooses to believe that foolish hope that perhaps even Agatha has a shred of loyalty. 

“Think of Westview, think of your brother,” she guides him. “Start from your last night and go back to your first.”

The wall is still raised high, but it’s getting more and more brittle as he thinks back to his last moments with Tommy. He holds onto the image of his brother and uses it as a lifeline to walk through the darkness of his past. He sees flashes of a battle, he and his brother delight in disarming soldiers, and Billy stops a bullet before it can hit him. He sees Wanda protecting them from Agatha seconds before an image of Agatha’s dungeons flies by. He sees his home breaking apart in red glitches and switching through decades, and Wanda slowly losing her mind. He’s got Tommy at his side throughout all of this. He sees Ralph, that they call Uncle P, and he causes mischief with his brother before Vision is in danger. Then he feels himself going from 10 to 5, their bodies adjusting to the change as easily as breathing. Then he sees the way Wanda and Vision loved them, how they made every moment count because they didn’t know how long they had. Then the final memory happens, and he’s lying next to Tommy, but he’s asleep right now. He sees Wanda bent over him, a loving look in her eyes. She’s singing to him, he doesn’t understand the words but he feels soothed nonetheless; Wanda will always do what she can to keep them safe. 

Billy falls forward when he comes back to himself and Agatha catches him.

“You okay?” She asks as she helps him straighten up.

He doesn’t know what to say, his head feels so heavy with the weight of his old life. He grips her arms tighter as he gasps out the one thing he can think of. “I was loved.”

“You were,” she confirms with her eyebrows creased in worry.

He goes to argue that it doesn’t make sense, because everyone told him that Wanda was a monster, that she tortured people for her own happiness. Except it didn’t match with the woman he now remembered. He remembers the storm of thoughts in her head as she said goodbye to them, how heartbroken she was and how guilty she felt about everyone she hurt. But before he can say anything, he cries out as what feels like a hot iron blade suddenly slashing through his body. 

Billy clutches at Agatha as tears fill his eyes. “It hurts!” he whimpers. “I don’t understand. Shouldn’t it be fixed now that I have my memories?”

There’s a beat of silence and he’s itching to see what Agatha is doing but the pain locks his body in place. He can’t even crack his eyes open.

He feels Agatha cupping his face before she speaks up. “Probably. Except you don’t consider yourself a Maximoff, do you?” She presses a little harder into his temples, it might have hurt if he wasn’t feeling himself being ripped apart already. “Let me see if I can…”

Billy gasps as images start flashing through his mind again. It takes a while for him to understand what he’s seeing, it’s only when he sees his mom’s smiling face that he gets it. Rebecca looks younger, and so does his dad when he joins her side. The memories are blurrier, which he supposes makes sense because unlike Billy, William wasn’t born from magick. He sees himself taking his first steps, he’s not scared because he knows his parents are there for him. He sees every memory that had previously been nothing more than taunting pictures on the wall, reminding him that the creature wearing William’s skin was not William and never would be. But as he sees his life flash by, everything starts to feel more like him, the same way Billy’s memories from Westview had. He finally sees his Bar Mitzvah. He sees himself studying for this big event, he feels the nervousness as he recites the Torah, but his parents look proud and it gives him the strength he needs to continue. After that, he’s dancing with friends that Billy remembers losing when he never recovered from the accident, before heading to a palm reading tent. He comes face to face with Lilia and she warns him about his life breaking in two, she then tries to hide her fear but Billy knows what’s about to happen. His party gets interrupted by the Westview anomaly and everyone evacuates. 

William’s last word is him calling out to his mom. 

The darkness swallows him and he’s gone.

Then he’s back in his trial and Billy gets a moment of respite where all he feels is the wet tears on his cheeks before his magick flares up again. The pain is unbearable, it’s gone to a point where he can’t even scream anymore, he can only curl onto himself as his mouth is stretched into a silent scream. Through the mirrors, he sees the way a large cut is etched across his face, and the way his magick is seeping through. Billy has cuts like that all over him, some smaller, some bigger, but now he knows what Agatha meant by his magick ripping him apart. The pain is so immense and endless that he wonders if giving up is any easier. 

“Billy, you can’t let it win,” says Agatha. “You have to fight.”

“It hurts” he mumbles, his voice void of energy. He’s tired of fighting.

“So you’re going to leave your brother to fend for himself? What about your boyfriend? And your parents? How hurt do you think they’ll be if you never make it home?”

The taunting makes him pause, because he hasn’t considered that. He doesn’t want their last memory of him to be him trying to kill them. Billy looks at Agatha and sees his fractured face in her eyes, he doesn’t want this to be his end. He then turns to his many reflections and tries to stay calm as he sees just how dire the situation is. Another flare of pain makes him cry out and he hears the mirrors split. The ground crack under his fingers as his palm hit the floor. Once he’s able to open his eyes again, he sees more than just his reflection. He sees Billy as he was in Westview, both 5 years old and his 10-year-old self is a little further away. He sees William as a child and then what he looked like when the accident happened. He then sees his Westview self, but the one he was in his parents’ trial before his eyes land on a figure bathed in bright blue energy that he can’t make out. All the reflections are getting closer to him, like they’re trying to break out of the mirrors. 

Agatha suddenly grabs his face and stares into his eyes. “Tell me your name.”

“What?”

“You have all the tools you need and you’re nearly out of time,” she says without an ounce of her usual sarcasm. “So, who are you?”

“I don’t know!” He cries out. 

“Then figure it out.”

He takes in short and rapid breaths as he tries to do just that. 

“I’m Billy Maximoff!” That’s who he is, right? That’s what unlocked his magick in the first place. That’s who his research led to when he tried to figure out who he was.

A silent scream is ripped from his lips as his magick flares up.

“I don’t think it agrees,” tuts Agatha.

If he’s not Billy, then he must be— “William! I’m William Kaplan.”

The woman makes a loud error sound as his magick snaps at him again. “Wrong! Try again!”

He’s panting at how intense the pain is, he feels his skin bleed and his very being coming apart. Every layer of flesh is threatening to split apart and his magick disregards it as nothing more than trash. It can survive without him and it has no qualms ripping him apart if he doesn’t figure out who he is. 

He’s spent 3 years as William Kaplan knowing that he was something else. He’s now spent the entirety of their time on the Road plus a day knowing that he’s Billy Maximoff but he still doesn’t feel complete. Because he was Billy Maximoff in his parents’ trial and even there his soul felt wrong, but why? 

William had 13 years to live before death came for him.

Billy had 3 days before he was ripped away from the only home he knew.

He’s not William, but he isn’t Billy either. Because William died in that car accident and Billy never actually made it out of Westview, Wanda never planned for him to ever do that. 

Not William; not Billy.

“It’s always possible that their souls merged,” Agatha had told his parents on the very first night on the Road. Only now does he remember. “He’s not William anymore but not quite Billy either. A mix of both.”

He’s a mix of Wanda’s and Vision’s love and magick, of the time they had together, of the time they never will have together again. He’s a picture of their resilience. He’s an agglomeration of Rebecca and Jeff’s teachings, of their unconditional love and their support. He is man, machine and beyond all wrapped up in the blanket of love that has been weaved throughout both his lives. 

He is power, he is a miracle, he is a wish child come true.

A mix of both.

That’s who he is.

He is—

“Billy Kaplan!” he cries out. “I’m Billy Kaplan.”

***

Note: This was what I wanted the morgue trial to be. I wanted them to show them Billy getting back William's and Billy's memories and show that he's a mix of both. I wanted him to call himself Billy Kaplan. I mixed in a few quotes from the comics, such as Billy calling himself a wish child. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I had so much fun showing the build-up!

Taglist: @trampledore @hannah-0730 @fyregrl @lanfear-is-my-darkmistress @lover12345abcde @astronglywordeddm @tiredwitchmachine @lesbiifem @agathaallalongg @instantnoooodles

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He stares at her in disbelief. “You’re not serious!”

The flames are starting to catch and Billy pulls at the ropes, trying to pry his wrists apart, but they only seem to get tighter. 

“You made me face my mother and the coven that hated me. And I had to watch my son die all over again.”

“I’m sorry Agatha but—”

“And you left me alone, with my wife.”

The sheer surprise makes him momentarily forget about the fire. “You’re married?!”

“Of course you’re focusing on that,” groans Agatha. 

Smoke starts to rise and he does his best to turn his face away. “Agatha!”

“Billy!” She mocks.

He stomps on the twigs to keep the flames away and watches as Agatha marches up to her corpse counterpart. She tries to make herself react, but she, like all the other corpses, has their eyes focused on him with their face twisted in an expression of anger. He starts coughing as the smoke invades his lungs. Billy thinks he hears Agatha say his name but he’s too caught up in his fears to listen to her. 

He’s going to die. 

He’s going to die in front of an uncaring Agatha and the dead version of his loved one. He’s never going to see his parents or Eddie again and the last memory they’ll have of him is him trying to kill them. And isn’t that just what he deserves? Better kill the evil before it becomes too powerful to stop.

“Billy!”

He finally cracks his eyes open and ignores the way the flames are starting to lap at his feet. “What?”

Agatha looks nonchalant. “This is your mind punishing itself, get a grip.”

He hisses when the first flame burns him. “It doesn’t make it less real.”

“Look at the rope.”

Billy looks at the dark sky instead, pleading the constellations for help because clearly Agatha isn’t going to help him. Would she be cruel enough to watch him burn? Probably. Maybe he’s about to find out firsthand why her nickname is ‘Witch Killer’.

“You’re doing this to yourself, Billy,” articulates Agatha. “Look. At. The. Rope.”

He takes a deep breath and slowly cranes his head to see his restrained hands. The rope that his dad had handed to Alice was rough and it rubbed his wrists raw, and he’s surprised to see, not rope as he expected, but a crackling loop of blue magick circling his wrists. His magick.

He looks back to Agatha with a frown. “What?”

“This is your guilt trying to drown you,” she explains. “You built this cage. Break out of it.”

The fire is truly starting to burn now but… only if he focuses on the sensation. He stares at the flames and focuses on calming down his nerves. Gradually, the flames reduce in size until there’s nothing but ambers.

“You have to accept what you did and move on,” says the woman. “A lot of what you did was out of your control. You didn’t know what you were actually doing.”

“B— but Eddie, and William,” he stutters. “And Jen, and Alice and Lilia. I hurt them, I killed them and—”

The flames are suddenly set ablaze once more and he cries out in pain. He feels his flesh burn and sizzle and his knees buckle under his weight.

“Billy! Billy, listen to me!”

He does his best to stop hyperventilating, to very little success.

Agatha looks dead serious as she stares at him. “You survived like witches have been doing for centuries. You saw an opportunity, an empty vessel, and you moved in.” She takes a step closer to him, uncaring of the flames. “So you broke the rules. Big deal! That’s what kept you alive. That’s what makes you special.” He can’t help but be hung up on her words, they hook him up and soothe him in a way he’s rarely felt before. She looks at him with teary but determined eyes as she concludes her speech. “It’s what makes you a witch.”

Maybe he shouldn't be comforted by the words of a serial killer, but he is nonetheless. Agatha can understand him to a level that no one else can, because witches understand each other. That’s what covens are for after all. 

Billy suddenly finds that the flames are gone. He then gently tries to pry his wrists apart and there’s barely any resistance before the bonds dissipate. He’s quick to step away from the now intact wooden pyre. He has burns on his hands, but nothing as intense as the burning sensation had felt. The visions of his dead loved ones are gone, and Agatha stands in the charred forest land alone. He stumbles towards her and she has her arms outstretched, ready to give him the hug he desperately craves.

Before he can reach her though, he feels the floor give out from under him and he’s falling down into the darkness.

The fall is disorienting and it feels like when the hands from Agatha’s trial let him fall with no promises of a landing. He thankfully doesn’t have to wait long before he feels tingles all over his body and he finds himself lying down on a flat surface. The darkness still persists around him, but he can deal with that. He feels like he’s in a cocoon, he can feel his breath bouncing back against the material surrounding him. Billy tries to stretch out his arms to figure out where he is and very soon notices that what’s around him feels like a stiff sleeping bag. He fiddles with the zipper and slowly unzips the bag. 

Fresh air hits his face and he sits up. “Hello?”

He’s in… a morgue. He sees all the necessary equipment to perform an autopsy scattered around trays, tables, counters, and hanging on the wall. He looks down and notices that he’s wearing a simple cloth gown and what he’d been held in is a body bag. 

He takes a moment to acknowledge the horror of the situation he’s in.

“I know you feel bad for possessing a corpse but this is intense even for you.”

Billy looks up to see Agatha. She’s wearing dark clothes protected by an apron that also covers her arms and reaches below her knees. He knows what a mortician looks like. He’s just not super comfortable at the realization that he’s the corpse. He’s even got a toe tag. He removes it from his foot, he’s not sure why he does it, but something in him needs to read what’s written on it. He doesn’t know what to expect, ‘William Kaplan’ maybe, or ‘Billy Maximoff’, he even expects ‘Teen’. 

He certainly doesn’t expect for the name to be a black heart.

Agatha is just as shocked as he is when he shows her the paper. “You’re the black heart?”

‘It wasn’t a name,’ had said Lilia. ‘It was a heart. A black heart.’

‘You don’t have a heart.

Yes I do, it’s black and it beats for you.’

‘Here we are. Everyone, meet Mrs Hart.’

‘You’re my 🖤’

He knew it was Eddie’s nickname for him, but never had he thought that it was relevant. Surely a fated coven worked in more mysterious ways than that. But it seems that despite thinking that he was nothing but the familiar— something he absolutely despised but was willing to tolerate to access the Road, he’d actually been a member of the coven all along. 

Agatha stares at the tag for a few more seconds before clearing her throat. “We should try to figure out what we have to do.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, still a little hung up on the revelation.

Billy had considered them his coven, however brief it had lasted, but a gut feeling compared to the confirmation that they were fated made him feel… wanted. Like, despite all his doubts, he truly was a witch. Maybe even a good one.

But he can’t focus on that now, they have to complete the Road first. He turns to the room and Agatha helps him out of the body bag and off the table. He takes a moment to gather himself before, without even realizing what he’s doing, almost acting on instinct, he reaches into the body bag until his fingers brush against plastic. The bag contains his spellbook and he quickly takes it out. The weight feels familiar and comforting and he breathes in the leathery smell. He knows he can pass the trial, surely there’s a spell that can help him. There’s always a spell for everything, he just has to find it and use it, and once he does, all of his problems are going to be solved because it can protect him, only the Darkhold can keep him safe. He just has to let it—

Billy meets Agatha’s cold eyes.

He suddenly realizes what he’s doing and slams the book closed; he hadn’t even realized he had opened it in the first place. He tosses it into the body bag and backs away, accidentally knocking into Agatha. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, for knocking her over or the way he just acted, he’s not sure. “I couldn't control it.”

She doesn’t look scared, or disgusted; she simply raises an eyebrow. “I know how the corruption works, you don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

The relief washing over him is a surprise, but a welcome one. It’s weird to just be accepted but it’s certainly appreciated. He turns to the room, more specifically the table he was lying on. Next to it is another table, with another empty body bag. Billy walks over to it and picks up a discarded toe tag. It’s empty, but not for long. He watches as cursive letters appear to reveal the name ‘Tommy’. He feels Agatha peek behind him and he lets her read the tag. She takes it, reads it before her eyes start flickering between it and him. This goes on for a few more seconds before she presses her eyes shut.

“Rio’s going to hate me for this,” she groans.

“Rio?” Frowns Billy.

“The woman you summoned for my trial, the one that showed up at my house.”

“The dangerous but charismatic lady?” He asks, and she nods. He can’t help but tease her a little more though. “Your wife?”

“That’s the one,” she confirms. “And she’s quite special, you know why?”

“Why?”

Agatha’s eyes sharpen and her mouth curls into a grin. “Because she’s the personification of Death, and she doesn’t like when the Sacred Balance is messed with.”

Out of everything he could be hung up on, there’s only one part that hooks Billy. “You married Death?”

“Only one who could ‘match my freak’ as the youth says.”

His face twists in disgust at the mental image. “Don’t ever say that again.”

Agatha chuckles before she clears her throat. “Sit down.”

The sudden change of mood nearly gives him whiplash and he’s instantly suspicious. “Why?”

“Because it’s the reason you’re here, right?” She questions with a raised eyebrow. “The sole reason you wanted to come on this journey.”

She seems to know something he doesn’t, it creeps him out.

“Tommy isn’t in a body right now, but you can fix that.”

Billy’s breath hitches at the thought of his brother being so close, but then he remembers how it felt to be thrown into a new body. He remembers the panic and the struggle to adapt to his new body that felt foreign even before he knew he wasn’t William Kaplan. He doesn’t want that for his brother.

“I don’t know how I did it,” he tells her because it’s true. 

She isn’t deterred unfortunately. She even seems to revel in his fear. “You never do. Time to grow up, Demiurge.”

She sits down and hits the floor twice. It’s only when he joins her that he realizes that Agatha isn’t just dressed as a mortician, but as Doctor Frankenstein. And isn’t that just perfect? They are trying to bring someone back to life after all. Does that make him the creature? Assembled from old body parts and animated by a mysterious spark and so very lost in the world. He supposes that it fits.

“Close your eyes,” she says, and Billy knows the drill by now. He closes his eyes and clears his mind. Agatha continues. “Your last moments with Tommy. Tell me.”

“I don't remember anything.” His voice nearly breaks at the confession. He’s wanted to remember many times during his time with the Kaplans but never quite as much as he’s wishing to remember now. 

“You do. It's there, try.” Agatha doesn’t believe him, or doesn’t care. The two often blur together. “You were ten, you lived in Westview. You and your brother.”

Somehow, these pointers help him. He has tangible information to use as a guide instead of blindly trying to sort through the darkness of his past. He gets flashes of a bedroom, and of a young boy, the longing he suddenly feels is all he needs to know that this is Tommy. He sees a woman he recognizes as Wanda, she looks… sad. 

‘Your mother and I… Are very proud of you both,’ says a red man. Something inside him stirs at the sight. Something in his mind gives and he knows this is Vision, his father. He’s never seen a robot look so emotional.

‘Boys, thanks for choosing me to be your mom.’

“I was... about to fall asleep,” he says slowly, he feels the way his old self is getting sleepy. There’s a soothing sound and it takes him a moment to understand what it is. “I realize I'm breathing at the same time as Tommy. He's not snoring, but... It's heavy enough to listen to. It's nice. That feeling when your body knows it's safe.”

Agatha makes him breathe at the same time as Tommy, he’s stuck in between the two worlds. He can feel the cold floor of the trial as well as the blankets from his bed in Westview. Billy finds comfort in Tommy’s presence, it’s the closest he’s felt to him ever since he woke up in that car accident. 

But then the sound stops and he’s left in darkness.

Billy can’t understand what’s happening, he starts panicking, what else can he do? Tommy was there a moment ago and now he’s gone. Was the link cut? Did he lose his brother? Maybe he just isn’t strong enough. The darkness presses around him, it tries to drag him down and he doesn’t understand what’s happening.

“It's your mother folding her world. That's okay. It's okay.”

Agatha’s words ground him and he settles down as voices flash in the darkness.

‘We have said goodbye before so it stands to reason…’

‘We’ll say hello again.’

“Even if you can’t hear him, you don’t have to open your eyes to know how close he is.”

Billy realizes that she’s right, now that he’s calmed down, he can feel his brother again. 

Agatha continues guiding him and he focuses on her voice. “You hold it all inside of you. But it can't stay there. The memories. The feelings. You can't keep them. Keep your eyes closed no matter what.” He barely gets a second to wonder what she means before her hands cage his head and his magick pulses painfully through him. Billy whimpers at the feeling but the witch speaks before he can think about his pain for too long. “You can't keep him. So where does he go?” 

“I don't know!” He cries out.

“Find him a place.” 

The darkness has occasional flashes of red, but there is nothing. His brother is lost in the vastness of wherever he currently is. “It's black. There's nothing!” 

“He floats. He looks down. What does he see?”

“He's afraid,” he pants. 

Her hold gets tighter for a moment and he can practically feel her grinning. “Oh, but he has you with him now.” 

“I can't find a place.” 

“Don't give me that. 120 bodies empty out every minute. Find one.” 

The darkness clears, and he sees through the boy's eyes; kids are grabbing his arms and dragging him into the pool. Then he finds himself— “It's underwater! There's a boy.”  His head is held underwater and he’s screaming. Water is getting into his lungs but their holds aren’t waning. The bullies are laughing at his— the boy’s — distress. “It's a prank. They tricked him. He's gonna drown. It's a bad place.” 

“It usually is,” answers Agatha dismissively. 

He sees flashes of this boy’s life. He sees screaming and uncaring parents that barely check up on their child. He sees teachers ignoring the bullying and the bruises, he sees how hopeless the kid feels. He’s all alone. “And the people, the family, there's no one to love him! He's got no one!”

The water keeps filling his lungs and Billy feels it too. He feels the way his throat constricts and tries to breathe, but there’s no saving the child. His fate has already been decided. Except— Billy could change reality right? That’s why this whole adventure happened in the first place, so was this child dying truly a coincidence? Or was he causing this? Was he making this happen in the same way that his desperation to find his brother created the Road? He doesn’t want to be the reason for someone else’s death, he can’t be. “Agatha, am I killing this boy so my brother can live?!”

Billy screams as he feels Tommy’s soul ripping away from him and into the other boy’s body. He expects the pain to stop, but it somehow gets worse. Billy curls into himself, teeth clenched tight as he tries to ignore the feeling of his body ripping apart. He’s left panting on the floor, with the buzzing under his skin the strongest it’s been since he started the Road. 

“Agatha, it hurts! I don’t— I don’t know what’s happening!”

He doesn’t get to hear her answer because as another wave of pain washes over him, the floor gives out once more and he’s falling again. When the darkness surrounds him, he gladly surrenders to it.

***

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“To a ballroom,” he answers, just catching how ridiculous he sounds when he’s already said it.

Agatha raises an eyebrow. “A ballroom?”

“Yeah, there was a whole crowd of people dancing and Eddie was there, but it wasn’t him.” The woman frowns and Billy takes a deep breath as the vision of Not Eddie’s dark and soulless eyes haunts his mind. “It was the Darkhold.”

“The Darkhold trapped you in a ballroom looking like your boyfriend?” 

He knows how crazy it sounds. “Yeah.”

Agatha blows a raspberry, looking almost… jealous? “Well it never did anything fancy like that for me. What did it want?”

“In short? Me to embrace the darkness. Long version? It told me it could help me fulfill my goals, it could help me find Tommy and it could protect me from danger.”

The witch hums, her eyes focused on him but obviously thinking about what he just told her. “What danger did it mean?”

“People wanting to use my power for their own gain, the government wanting to turn me into a weapon.” Billy freezes as he recalls one thing it said as he had led him away from Wanda. He straightens up, hoping that Agatha has answers. “Wanda was there, and as soon as she tried to help me it pulled me away from her. It called me Demiurge.”

“Demiurge?” Practically gasps the woman. She grabs his hands tighter than needed. “Billy, I need you to focus. Are you sure it said Demiurge?”

He nods, not understanding her sudden panic. “Yeah. What does it mean?”

She takes a deep breath and shuts her eyes tightly before looking back at him. “In the Darkhold, there’s a whole chapter dedicated to the Scarlet Witch. She has no need for coven or incantations, and she’s destined to destroy the world. I didn’t care much about that part, I just wanted her powers for myself. There was another entity mentioned, not as detailed as the Scarlet Witch, but it was mentioned nonetheless.”

“The Demiurge,” he completes, letting her know that he is following her.

Agatha nods. “Exactly. Now I didn’t read it that much because Demiurge-to-be rarely reaches their full potential, but I did take a peek or two. The Demiurge's power is basically limitless, they can bend reality, rewrite it as they see fit, they can even oversee the universe to their heart’s desire, but you know what really interested me?”

He’s trying to ignore the horror that’s been growing in him as he slowly understands why the Darkhold is so interested in his power. He’s too curious to ask Agatha to stop though. “What?”

“The Demiurge can rewrite the rules of magick. They want people to hop three times before any spells or else it doesn’t work? Done! They want resurrection to be as easily accomplished as healing magick? Say no more! There’s truly no limit to their power.”

“That’s impossible,” he exhales. “The rules are the core of the craft, they can’t be changed because one person doesn’t like it!”

“And yet that’s what the Demiurge does,” shrugs Agatha. “Honestly, I should have seen it coming, Wanda’s first real spell was a probability hex to save her and her brother from a bomb, yours was creating a pocket reality. Your family is full of reality warping prodigies, I’m afraid.”

“The Darkhold is right then? I’m going to have a target on my back the moment we get out of here. What I did to my parents and Eddie, it might happen again, I might even hurt Tommy if I’m not careful! Is there even a way to stop me? What if the Darkhold corrupts me even more?” Billy gulps as he tries to stop his hyperventilating. “I’m going to end up like Wanda aren’t I?”

Agatha looks at him with pity in her eyes before she clears her throat. “Don’t be ridiculous, you have something your mom didn’t have.” He looks at her questioningly and she grins proudly. “You have me.”

Billy scoffs. “And that’s supposed to be a good thing?”

She looks at him for a split second before she pouts. “Give me your wrists.”

“What?”

“Come on, Teen,” exclaims the woman. “This is a turning page for our relationship! Don’t ruin it with your questions.”

Hesitantly, he gives her his wrists and he watches in silence as the witch passes a hand over the cuffs and they glow purple. The engravings on the metal glow brightly before it separates in two and falls to the ground. It takes him a few seconds to react, the sudden loss of the weight feels weird and he rubs his wrists to try to soothe the tender skin. Billy can feel the strings that previously bound him to Agatha snap away and it’s a relief. The weight of dark magick is still heavy on his soul but the loss of the binding helps him feel lighter. 

“Now,” says the woman, clapping her hands together and getting back on her feet. “With that behind us, let’s finish the Road, yeah?”

Agatha extends a hand and he takes it and lets himself be pulled to his feet. He’s a little unsteady but he manages to follow her. He only now realizes how heavy the binding was on his body, he’s both energized and exhausted. He and Agatha walk side by side and he can’t help the worry growing in him. Billy doesn’t know if he’s ready for his trial— actually scratch that, he knows he’s not ready for his trial. The Road has turned out to be much more challenging and a lot less fun than he had imagined, and the guilt of indirectly killing his would-be coven is still fresh in his mind. He thinks he would have gotten along well with them, Alice especially, if they had been given time to bond.

“Billy,” nudges Agatha.

He turns to her, but she’s looking straight ahead so he follows her gaze. There’s the door to his trial just a few feet ahead of them. However, he doesn’t know how to react, because there’s no building attached to said door. It’s just a standard door sprouting directly from the ground. The sight is a lot more unsettling than it should be. He turns back to Agatha but she’s just as lost as he is. 

She nonetheless gestures at him towards it. “After you, superstar.”

Billy bites the inside of his cheek and starts walking. His heart pounds loudly in his ears and he feels like the first victim in a horror movie. The door opens by itself when he reaches it and he takes a deep breath. Everyone has already gone through their own trial, he just has to suck it up and go through his own. He steps through and he jumps when the door slams closed behind him before Agatha can join him. He ignores his silent panic at the thought of facing his challenge alone. 

Billy finds himself in the remains of what he assumes used to be a forest. Everything is charred black, from the bare grounds to the tree stumps. He looks around for clues, for a riddle or anything that might indicate what he’s supposed to do. After a bit of fruitless searching though, it becomes clear that there’s nothing. If this is supposed to be his trial, he doesn’t understand it. As soon as he’s thought that, something pulses around him and he feels something shift in the air. He sees a black mass in the corner of his eye and he gulps as he slowly turns around. Billy gasps at the sight he’s greeted with. There are bodies at his feet, they’re splayed in front of him like a trail, but that’s not the worst thing. The worst is that he recognizes those bodies.

Agatha, Eddie, his parents, Alice, Jen and Lilia.

All of them, dead, with hazy unfocused eyes either looking at the sky or at him.

He sinks his nails into his palms and forces himself to stay focused, he tries to anyway. This is the Road and what it decided he needed to face. He knows that his family and Agatha aren’t dead, Agatha especially would never let herself die a pointless death like that. Even knowing it’s fake though, the sight of his loved ones and would-be coven isn’t any less disturbing. Especially considering that he has a real basis to compare with what his dead boyfriend looks like versus how he currently looks.

“You did this,” hisses an accusatory voice.

His heart drops as he recognizes the voice. Billy looks up and there, just a few steps away from the bodies, is his supposed mother. This Wanda looks nothing like the woman who helped him escape the Darkhold’s clutches. She’s wearing a dirty and cracked armour with every bit of exposed fabric darkened with the darkhold’s corruption. Her face is twisted with the same malice that was on Not Eddie’s face, even the eyes are the same. 

He gulps as he tries to stay calm. “What?”

The figure glares at him. “You did this. You kill everything you touch.”

“That’s not true,” he protests, but he nonetheless takes a step back. 

This is the Wanda he’s pictured in his mind when he read what she had done. This is who he had pictured when Ralph had told him about the way she had controlled and tortured everyone to have her perfect life. He knows better now… he thinks. He’s met Wanda, she even helped him escape the Darkhold, but he’s still unsure what to think about her. This corrupted vision of her certainly isn’t helping him.

The woman tilts her head, looking down at the bodies. “Do you really think this is fiction? You’re looking at your future.” She gestures at the charred forest around them. “All of this is but a vision of what awaits you. Your magick is chaos incarnate, it will rip the universe apart just like the Scarlet Witch was supposed to do. You are her legacy and people’s doom.”

He startles when the bodies in front of him start moving. Billy wants nothing more than to run away, far, far away from the horrific vision of his loved ones slowly getting to their feet and staring at him accusingly, but he can’t get his body to react. 

“Wait,” he protests weakly as they get closer. 

“You got us killed,” accuses Jen, her face twisted in anger.

“No,” he gasps out. “I— I didn’t know—”

Alice steps forward, and circles him. “You knew her nickname was ‘Witch Killer’ and yet you didn’t care. You only wanted to fulfill your cause. You’re just like her.”

Billy feels like he’s been slapped. He’s not like Agatha, he isn’t a villain! He doesn’t lie and cheat and destroy to get what he wants. He doesn’t—

‘You’ve tried everything but The Road,’ he suddenly remembers himself saying to Jen, confident that he could convert her to their cause. ‘If you value your freedom, join us here, tonight.’

And he had succeeded. 

He and Agatha had gathered an entire coven and then they had all died.

Was he like Agatha?

Maybe not as bad, but even she had to start somewhere, right? Was this just the beginning for him?

“You already killed me, do you think I’ll ever be able to trust you again?” Says Eddie as he grips his arm tightly.

It’s only now that he realizes that Eddie and Alice are on each side of him, both of them holding his arms firmly. His parents, Agatha, Lilia, and Jen are standing in front of him with hatred in their eyes. Not Wanda is nowhere to be found, so he assumes that the Darkhold’s got his fill of him for now. 

But that doesn’t mean that he’s out of the woods yet. 

Eddie and Alice start dragging him somewhere while the others watch him like he’s a disgusting bug. He turns his head to see where the half reanimated corpses are dragging him, and his knees nearly buckle at the sight of a wooden pyre. 

“No!” he yells, and tries to wrench himself out of the firm hold they have on his arms but to no avail. 

They drag him to the pyre, indifferent to his struggling and pleading. Billy is terrified, and guilty, he caused all this, from the death of his would-be coven to the Road itself. They force him up the pile of wood and he tries not to trip. They press his back against the wooden pole and painfully twist his arms behind his back. He whimpers when he sees a length of rope being passed from Lilia to his parents.

“Please,” he begs as his dad hands the rope to Alice. “Please, let me go.”

Billy tries to wrench his wrists apart but Eddie is holding them tightly as Alice loops the rope around them. He tries to plead to the others in front of him, but they all look determined to see this through, even his parents.

“I foresee great darkness in your future,” says Lilia, a grave look on her face. “We are doing the world a favor.”

“What are you going to do to me?” He asks in a weak voice. He knows exactly what’s about to happen, but he can’t quite believe it.

Jen steps forward. “What should be done to every evil thing like you.” She raises her chin high, her eyes fixed on him. “Burn the witch.”

Jen’s threat makes him tear up in fear and he turns to his parents. 

“Mom, dad,” he pleads. “Help me.”

He knows it’s not really them, but his guilt is still strong even after they said they forgave him for taking William’s life. But instead of seeing compassion and understanding, like he’s always seen, their eyes are cold and uncaring.

“You are not our son,” declares his mother. “William was our son.”

He barely has time to recover from the remark before his dad speaks up. “You never let us grieve him, you took that choice away from us. How do you ever hope to be forgiven?”

A sob rips from his throat and he doesn’t bother to hide his tears. Eddie walks forward with a lit torch, he lets his head drop down and stares at the pile of wood under his feet. The rope has rubbed his wrists raw, but he doesn’t care anymore. Instead, Billy wonders how long it’ll take for him to die. He wonders if Agatha will be trapped on his Road or if the Road will die with him. 

“Well,” says a voice, pulling him from his despair. “It’s nice to see that you didn’t make it easy on yourself just because you’re in charge.”

***

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