MIND/FLAYED

“ You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. -- You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for. “        // IND. BILLY HARGROVE written by MOCHI.  18+ ONLY.  

Eddie’s moved to sit against the side of Billy’s car by the time the fight is done, stoppering his blood-faucet with the collar of his shirt, acutely aware of the fact that we won’t ever be able to listen to Back in Black again without remembering Billy Hargrove and his fists of fury.

He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing. He can hardly look at Billy as he hands over his flag without feeling a degree of heat creeping up his throat and jaw. Teeth bloody, eyes wild, shirt open to reveal a chest reflecting sweat in the headlights as it clings to his skin. He’s a beautiful thing of terror. Suddenly, Eddie understands why the Greeks worshipped Ares so.

“Thanks for the tip.” Eddie crumples the bandana into his fist in shame as he forces himself to look away from his guardian angel. So he knows. Eddie feels exposed, humiliation burning like an igneous ball in his chest. Hope burns there, too- terrible, impotent hope, as delusional as it is futile. Those goons knew what the flag meant, too, and he doubts any of them are gay despite what he implied. Eddie glances at Billy’s still-clenched fists. They drip with fresh blood. “I got some vodka in the back if you need to clean up.” and gestures to his nearby Van with a tilt of his head.

Billy takes him up on it, snatching the bottle out of the backseat. He whips the blue bandana kept stashed away in his pocket out, before dousing it in vodka and wrapping around his busted knuckles. He hisses, the fresh, open skin stinging. He catches Eddie’s eye at the sight of the Bandana and scowls.

“It’s not like that, freak.” — except it’s a weak excuse and he knows it.  He doesn’t look at Eddie as he wraps his knuckles up. 

“Damn, they got you good.  Think you need a hospital?”  He hates this fucking stupid backwater town.  Not that you didn’t get your ass beat for being gay in Cali, but at least it was better than this bullshit.  At least there was a community there. 

Fuck he misses the beach. 

@possessyou​​ / cont.

He recognizes the car before he recognizes the voice- but at first, he doesn’t believe it. Why would Billy Hargrove be stepping in to save him from the hounds of hell? (No. Not hell. They’re not cool enough for that). Eddie scrambles back on his elbows when the car gets a little TOO close for comfort. The pavement rubs the skin raw. Stones cut into his flesh. Eddie is too busy gaping in awe at his unexpected savior to notice. He still can’t understand it. Or maybe it’s the head trauma.

“He’s fucking insane!” It sounds like Gerry, who had skedaddled out of the car’s path so hard he landed on his ass on the other side. Dean Thompson slams both fists into the hood of the Camero and jabs a furious finger in the air at Billy.  “Back off, Hargrove. This is our pick, not yours!”

Patrick hauls Gerry back to his feet with one great heave, and they share a look. Gerry nods. Patrick nudges Dean and nods toward Hargrove. They think that now that he’s out of the car, he’s outnumbered.

Dean plants both hands on the hood and vaults over it- he’s coming right for Billy.

“Pick a fair fight if you’re gonna pull bullshit like this you fuckin’ cowards, gotta get the whole gang together for one man?  It’s pussy shit!” Contrary to the shit he just talked, Billy doesn’t let them get a punch in-- Dean doesn’t even get both feet on the ground over the other side of the car before Billy is swinging.  He catches him square in the jaw and sends him spiraling left, cradling the offended side of his face.  

One of them is coming up across the back of the Camaro when his boots collide with deanie-boy’s ribs.  “Gotta gang up because you’re too pussy to handle one shitbean by himself, much less me.  Get the fuck out of here.”  He pushes Dean away with his foot and turns just in time for one of them to get a good right hook in.  

--It doesn’t do them a lick of good.  He takes the punch with barely so much as a stumble and rears back.   The sound of Billy beating their multiple asses goes on for ten minutes.  By the end, his knuckles are bruised and busted and he has some scuffs.  Nothing too bad.  Nothing worse than he’s gotten before. 

This wasn’t a part of Hawkins the cheerleader tended to find herself in. It wasn’t because of some snobby reason or another, it never bothered her that some of her friends didn’t live in the richer part of time, it was just details, little details that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Chrissy came from money, but the money wasn’t hers, just like some of the other kids at school didn’t choose the fact their parents didn’t have much of it. But that didn’t change her current predicament. 

She’d been out with Jason and some of his friends, but they wanted to go to Benny’s old place and get drunk, Chrissy didn’t and she certainly didn’t want Jason driving her home; he was already a few beers down and she just didn’t feel safe. Maybe that’s why she was so jumpy? A little rustle of something here and she was almost out of her own skin.

It was why when she heard her name being shouted down the empty street she almost made orbit, her feet quite literally leaving the ground. She half turned and could just about make out the rather imposing figure that was Billy Hargrove. 

“Um, no, no, I’m okay! Thank you!”

She jumps so high he thinks he can hear her feet hit the pavement when they touch back down.   He sticks the cigarette between his lips and makes the four steps down the bricks to follow her out onto the sidewalk.   “I could walk you, then, if you want.  Little thing like you shouldn’t be walking home alone after dark like this...” He thinks about the dangerous streets of Santa Cruz and the time someone had turned up dead just down the street from his house.  A young woman who was just jerked off the streets.  “I know some of the guys on the court would be devastated if something happened to you...”

She’s Hawkins High’s sweetheart.  She’s a year younger than him, but as far as he can tell, everyone who has ever brushed elbows with her adores her.  Right now, it’s late.  It’s dark.  The street lights in this part of town are sparse at best (someone should really fix that) and he’s having a smoke on his porch as she walks by.   Walking home, he can only assume.  An animal in the underbrush causes her to jump, her arms hugged tight to her chest.  He’s never seen her out this way, so a logical assumption can be made that she doesn’t usually get stuck walking home from here...

MEME !  // accepting

He’s never paid much attention to her.  Billy knows Nancy in passing, through the grapevine.  The nebulous concept of her as Steve Harrington’s girlfriend (although as he understands it that didn’t last.) or a face in the crowd.  There is an awkwardness to knowing her as anything else ⁠— though it’s hardly fair to reduce a whole human down to the dredges of what you know of them.  Especially when it’s bottom of the barrel, sludge, low hanging fruit.  Now, he knows Nancy to be smart, resourceful, capable. 

It’s weird. 

@possessyou

Eddie Munson doesn't get bullied.

Not anymore, anyway. Not since he moved to Hawkins. He arrived in this small town a big-city kid with big-city britches- nobody could try anything he hadn't lived through before, and it quickly became known that that Munson kid? Is fucking weird. Push him, and he'll tell you to do it harder. Call him names, and he won't just embrace them, he'll come to school the next day with a brand new button pinned to his chest with pride. Once somebody grabbed him and Eddie's eyes rolled back into his head like he were possessed, convulsing, and speaking in tongues.

So he doesn't get bullied.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't get his ass beat every now and again- it just means its harder for him to predict.

He’s seen this dipshit out before—his name is Munson or something. Billy only remembers because it reminded him of Manson. Those murders took place real close to home. His mom used to talk about it a lot. He watches with indifference as the ambush happens…Billy has to admit he did think it was a little weird for someone to park that close when the parking lot was essentially empty.

He was just trying to have a smoke. Billy stands in a dark corner of the parking lot, down near the canopy of trees and watches the whole shitshow unfold. He tells himself he’s not gonna get involved, what does he care if some poor sod gets his ass handed to him?

And then he sees the flag pulled out of his pocket and everything about the situation changes. Fury twists his guts sick. The hand sticking out of his own pocket thumbs the bandana hidden inside— he’s not stupid enough to just leave it twisting in the wind for every backwater homophobe to see.

Fuck, he really shouldn’t get involved in this. He really, really shouldn’t.

He tells himself that, but Billy is already grinding his cigarette to ask with the heel of his boot and shutting the car door behind him. The Camaro purrs to life— and he revs the engine intentionally as light suddenly floods the scene. (He’s got a bit of a reputation for reckless driving by now, right? Surely they’ll see the car that’s nearly run over several people this week alone and figure— if anyone is gonna hit them with his car, it’s Billy.

Just to be dramatic, he turns the radio all the way up with one twist of the dial— AC/DC starts blasting loud enough to be heard outside of the lot, and he spins his wheels before he shifts into gear. (If the radio weren’t on, he’d probably be able to hear them start scrambling ‘shit!’ One of them yells, ‘that’s Billy’s car!’ ‘Is he gonna fucking hit us!?’ Another one yells.)

He careens straight toward them, tapping out the rhythm of the song on the steering wheel with one hand and pulls a sharp twist, slams on the breaks just as the group scatters like cockroaches— he puts the Camaro squarely between their victim and the wall of muscle that had been descending down on him. “Hey, shitheads— pick on someone in your own weight class, assholes.” He yells out the window— and he doesn’t even open the door as much as climb out the fucking window like a goddamn madman. Like a racetrack driver. His boots land square in front of Eddie on the pavement.

The music is still blasting.