ok by i cannot stop thinking about billy just losing his fucking mind to dream on by aerosmith. like his dad just went too far or he found out about him and steve and now hes tearing his room apart like a mad man, throwing records and smashing bottles and shit. and its not even just like angry hes like /crying/ like he cannot even for a second know peace and happiness and this has been on my mind for MONTHS
TW: physical abuse, blood, homophobic slurs ((f-slur)), verbal abuse, mental breakdown, cussing
Honey, ever since i got this i havenāt been able to stop thinking about it either ohmyGOD???? This is legitimately a PEAK Billy āiām absolutely sick of all of this and i need out NOWā Hargrove anthem!! God if i could direct this i would but unfortunately iām bound to words on my silly little blog so i hope this will do, love. ā„ (@venomdean)
Because itās absolutely explosive. I kind of hate to think about it, but I feel like Billy is like a landmine. Heās a pot always threatening to boil over. Heās on constant vibrate just about ready to pop. Heās always on the edge of going absolutely feral because the only certain thing heās felt for years and years is pain.
And youāre right- on both accounts. Neil finds out⦠and he goes too far.
Because Neil has been hearing all around town that Billy has been running around with āthat Harrington boyā. You know, the son of that really influential family, the boy who āhas all the opportunities in the worldā but āseems to be amounting to nothing⦠what a shame. You know, his parents couldnāt even pay a school to take him. What a pity. I knew it would happen though...ā
And Neil just hoped it wasnāt true. He hears it every time he goes to the grocery store. The voices follow him down the aisles, either from mothers who whisper about how āThatās Neil Hargrove. His son is that curly haired one I told you about. The different one.ā or from teens who hiss about how āThatās Billyās dad. Wonder if he knows his son is probably a fa-ā
And one day Billy comes home happy. And iād encourage you to really think about that and just enjoy it for as long as you can because Billy is happy. So happy heās beaming. He feels like heās glowing from the inside. He forgets that anyone other than Steve even exists. For a second he forgets his own existence, heās so enamored and infatuated and near obsessed, really. Because he spent the whole afternoon with the boy, which isnāt necessarily a rare occurrence but itās always an exceptional one, and today was especially joyful because something about their mutual existence just felt soā¦. So good. Yeah they had sex in the camaro like the teenagers they are and then again in Hansenās field because itās fucking massive and Hansenās away on some trip and they blasted hippie music and fucked in a field of flowers and pretended like they were at Woodstock just existing in the skin of the other like they were made for it. Like they were made to share each otherās bodies and they were finally completing their infinite and perpetual task. And Billy would never be able to say these words or perhaps even string them together but itās about the feeling.
Because thatās just the feeling he has. The nameless feeling.
And they fucked and they thought about smoking and they thought about drinking but they stayed high on each other and that was enough. They were laying there among the daisies happier than anything else in existence and Billyās not even sure why. But they laid there and Billy felt the sun lay a large blanket of the softest warmth right over him and he absolutely reveled in it, allowing his hand to grace Steveās fingers and then he rolled over to lay his head on Steveās shoulder and he canāt believe he does that without feeling like a stupid fucking sissy but⦠but Steveās always there. Always always always there. Stronger than he looks and warm and supportive and there. And Steve started to curl some of Billyās hair around his finger and Billy pretended to bite at him like he was irritated and Steve whispered something about love and you and me and California and after graduation⦠i should have enough money by then. Letās do it. Just you and me.
And Billyās whole world froze. Froze in warmth, incubated in love, goddamn teeming with adoration as he got up on his elbows and evaluated Steveās face just to be sure it wasnāt a joke and saw that it wasnāt and absolutely 100% beamed. Because the words and Steveās eyes and the warmth of the sun on his back painted, stroke by stroke, the image of the two of them in California. On the beach. In the soft sand. Enjoying the sunlight. Playing in the waves. Billy teaching Steve how to surf, Billy dragging Steve under the boardwalk, Billy and Steve getting sticky with popsicles and soft serve and fresh watermelon and strawberries, Billy rollerskating hand in hand with Steve just like he used to watch all those couples do back when he was 9 years old and questioning everything. Billy and Steve existing freely. Openly and honestly. It can only have gotten better. Heās sure of it. It can only get better from this stupid hick town. He knows it.
And so they make out some more and the rest of the afternoon is a whirlwind up until heās got Steve pressed up against the Camaro making out with him on that backroad and then again in front of Steveās house and heās letting his skin light up over every little promise of you and me in California⦠that Steve whispers into his skin, his ears, his mouth...
He feels fucking invincable.
He walks into his house with a forcefield. A smile he never sports. A bounce in his step he never maintains. Goddamn happiness. Not even just confidence, itās pure bliss on his face and not even Neilās ugly mug can ruin it. Not even Neil storming down the hall, electricity following his path, can ruin it. Not even Neil scowling, glaring daggers, lip snarled, teeth bared, can ruin it. Not even whatever gross, growling worlds Neil is spitting his way can ruin it.
Billy is blissed out on the future and the idea of pure bliss with a boy he thinks he knows he loves that he doesnāt feel it until even moments after. He doesnāt see it til itās over. He doesnāt know it til he canāt defend himself. He doesnāt care until he does.
When Billy thinks back on it afterwards, after everything, he heaves and hisses and snarls at his past, blissed out self. He wants to punch himself in the face for such a mistake. This is a lesson he learned years ago. Back when it all first started. Back when he was so young.
But current Billy is blissed all the way up until his world flashes black. Until his ears ring. Until his hand flies to his face of its own accord to press at the pain to get it to stop. Second nature.
āYou stupid fucking homo.ā
And Billyās vision bleeds red. Itās anger, itās rage, itās betrayal. His vision tunnels with vitriol. With scorn. Fight or flight kicks in and every smart part of Billy is yelling run but the dumber, closer, stronger parts say fuck him fuck him fuck him I donāt deserve this.
So his fist swings, rearing back and surging forward. Animalistic nature.
He thinks he makes purchase, but if heās honest, the rest is a too quick blur. A mess of motion. Someone presses fast-forward on his VHS tape. The moments bleed together.
Itās a montage of angered words. Words beyond anger. Words that poison his system. Words like āhomoā and āfagā and ādisgraceā and āmilitary schoolā and Billy checks in right there because-
āYouāre going to military school, you worthless piece of shit.ā
Billy spits in the manās face. Longtime craving.
And then the world blacks out again. Itās blurrier now. His face is warm. Thereās liquid gushing out. His wrist is sore and the ground is being taken out from beneath him and he realizes heās being grabbed and pulled and then dragged because his body is feeling weak. Call it a mix of everything.
And heās being dragged to his room and the world shatters when they cross the threshold because this place is the only place in this damn house he feels somewhat safe in. And he feels himself hit the ground heavily, right in front of his mirror. Feels himself being pulled up to be seated. Hears a rustling. Hears a weirdly familiar sound his mind canāt process. Sees something metal in the mirror before his hair is being grabbed and pulled taught and then thereās slack and the pressure is gone and-
āHow could you fucking do this to me?ā
More hair pulling, more growling, more yelling, some spit.
āYouāve been running around with that prissy boy. How long, huh?ā
Then thereās slack and-
āEveryone talks about you two. Disgusting.ā
Pulling pulling pulling pulling⦠something tickling his arms.
āSaw you two⦠outside his house, huh? Youāre a disgrace.ā
Wetness. Billyās face is wet. His eyes burn. His throat burns. Thereās slack again.
āYouāre going to military school. Tomorrow. Youāre out of here.ā
Pulling and sawing and yanking and slack. Over and over and over and over-
āHope I never see you again, you fag.ā
Billy sobs. It wrenches through his chest. Pulling and slack, pulling and slack, over and over and-
It stops. Billyās weak. His body is shutting down. It must be. It feels like it. The vision in the mirror is blurry but he knows the damage thatās been done. He can tell. He can feel. Thereās nothing touching his shoulders anymore. Nothing against his neck. Something tickles down his arms. He shakes, weakly moving his hand to swipe the feeling away from his arms and grabs at tufts of hair.
Thereās that ugly fucking mug, right in his face. Itās a strange look he wears. Billyās vision is blurred. His lip snarls upward. Instinct.
āWhere did I go wrong?ā
The words are whispered in his face on hot breath. They hang in the air between them.
The door shuts loudly. Another door shuts after that. A car starts. Billyās still sitting on the floor.
His muscles in his legs begin to contract, and then his arms. His vision clears and sharpens. He pushes himself up off the floor, avoids looking in the mirror, walks up next to it to his stereo, moves to turn on the radioā¦. Auto-pilot.
Music fills the room. Lilts through the air. Cuts through the humidity of the once cool night. The altercation warmed everything up. Must have.
Thereās the sound of a keyboard and the plucking of a guitar. A familiar rhythm. It flows out of his stereo and through the room like it has a life of its own. Itās a spectral kind of presence, slinking out of the speakers, lurking in the corners, filling up the forgotten spaces with its haunting rhythm. Billy turns the music up louder. Stands in front of the stereo. Lets the music consume his space. Exist with him until they canāt co-habitate.
The chord gets more complicated. The chord runs. Billyās feet feel like theyāre going to betray him and let him fall through the floor. His head feels like itās in another realm. A mirrored realm of darkness and vines⦠a world teeming with threats that wouldnāt think twice of making attempts on his life.
When the voice starts his feet move. They betray his thoughts but they donāt compromise his balance, necessarily. Heās moving backwards.
Every time that I look in the mirrorā¦.
All these lines on my face getting clearerā¦
He knows he canāt. Not if he wants to keep his sanity. His breath gets shorter. His head is dizzy just from moving, even though heās slow. Maybe itās because heās going backwards.
His head betrays him now. Swings itself over the edge- looks over to the left.. Billyās eyes take a second to focus but itās only an instant after that before his hands shoot up to his head. Grab at tiny curls. Grab at randomly long tufts. Grab at whatever they can reach which is almost nothing.
Heās shaking. His hand is shaking as his fingers grasp with a kind of desperation Billy has never known but is suddenly wracking his body in a way that overwhelms every piece of him until heās nothing but fingers grasping for what should be where theyāre reaching but is nowhere to be seen. He canāt see anything but himself in the mirror. The world blacks out but him and the mirror. His feet are still moving him somewhere. Heās looking at the mirror at an awkward angle.
He hits the couch in his room. His fingers clench and unclench. He flops down onto it.
It went by like dusk to dawn...
Clenching and unclenching until his fingers get sore and he slams his hands onto the couch to stop thinking about it but how can he when his⦠his reflection...
Heās grabbing at his blanket beneath him harshly. He fists it and his mouth opens in a grimace and his eyebrows furrow so hard his head hurts and his lip shakes andā¦
Everybodyās got their dues in life to pay~ā¦
The voice is rising and the music is rising and the specter fills up the space with something passively threatening, something that gently nudges Billyās shoulders, something that presses at Billyās head, something present.
Billyās fisting hard at the blanket. His fingers are sore. He pulls at it. His finger slips into a moth hold or two. The voice reaches the top, along with the guitar and then they both topple over the peak and thereās the sound of a rip and something under Billy gives out. He pulls harder, hearing more tears, fingers dipping into the rips heās created in his blanket.
I know nobody knows⦠where it comes and where it goes
Billy looks down at his fists tearing his blanket and they stop, pull away⦠thoughtless. His hands shake to do something, maybe grab at his aching head and they do, he does- no, they do, his hands do, but they feel uneven tufts of curls and itās a jolt. His brain shocks itself. He pulls his hands away with a cry because what is this. Heās become alien to himself. He sees the mirror in front of him but heās not sure who he sees in it. Itās not him.
I know itās everybodyās sinā¦. Youāve got to lose to know, how to winā¦
The music is with him. Towering over him. The presence is daunting. Feels like itās challenging him to something as a separate chord climbs and falls as soon as it starts. The spectre falls down. Settles with him. Next to him. He stands. Heās unsettled. Nothing in the mirror is right nothing is right nothing is right. He shoves the flat part of his knuckles on his thumbs into his eyes to fix it, fix something, fix this image that doesnāt feel right. Fix this creature he doesnāt recognize. His mind is swimming.
He walks around the room. Heās not sure if this is easier or harder than before, but he still stumbles.
Half my lifeās in booksā written pages⦠Lived and learned from fools and from sagesā¦
He tucks his chin into his chest, his knuckles still pressed to his eyes, the world black and scattered with the spots heās pressing into them. His stomach is twitching with sobs that meet up in his throat and push out of his mouth. Theyāre small. That same droning chord is persistent, rising and filling up into the room, aiming to devour him in something. Drown him.
The end grows into a growl and takes with it a feeling thatās animalistic. The specter grows feral. Billy opens his eyes.
His chest heaves. His eyes burn as they water. His mouth twists up in misery. Because he sees it. There. At his feet. Under his boots. Heās fucking stepping on it.
His hair. In curly tufts on the ground beneath his feet and in front of them.
He looks up and he recognizes his face now and he⦠heā¦. Heāsā¦.
And he rounds on absolutely anything he can reach. Whatever is in armās distance behind him and it happens to be his lamp and he grabs it and he throws it with all his might to the ground and-
Sing with me, sing for the year-
-and it shatters. His mind is racing and he has no thoughts past the music. The presence is dark. Itās a shadow. Itās all around him. Itās in his vision.
-sing for the laughter and sing for the tear...
Heās swinging. His eyes are blurry from his own hot tears and they sear his cheeks as he grabs at whatever he can- vaguely registers the necks of bottles and the grooves of records against his palm and beneath his fingertips as he hashes through the world around him, trying to tear through the shadows consuming him and the tears are flooding everything out and heās just swinging and smashing and-
Sing with me, itās just for today⦠maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away~
Heās swinging and crashing and smashing like heās being challenged. Threatened.. Whatever exists in this room with him is menacing. Malevolent. Feeding off his pain. Sipping it through his tears. He punches the wall and then the drums hit and they stop and the guitar is back and-
Itās a voice. Billyās sure itās his own somehow. Sure itās the song somehow. Sure itās this presence somehow, whatever is it, floating through the chords of the song like a friend seeking a kill.
āB-Billy? I⦠Uhmā¦. Please stop.ā
Itās small. Feminine. Familiar. Shaking.
āPlease donāt hur-.... Youāre going to hurt yourself.ā
Billy strides to the door and throws it open. The violent thud it makes as the knob hits the wall fills something in Billyās chest. It springs more tears in his eyes. His chest is sobbing.
Thereās something Billy canāt place in Maxās eyes. If his mind were even a tad clearer he thinks heād recognize it⦠categorize it under worry or concern or care or even something deeper...
But the guitar chord hits a high note and the shadow specter of the music seeps into his mind and heās a husk.
The chorus picks up again, singing about singing and Billy is standing there looking at this tiny red head standing in his way and sheās blurred by his tears and-
āBilly, what are you doing-ā
āMind your damn business, Maxine.ā
āMind your business.ā
The music is rising. It fills Billyās throat.
āDid⦠did he-? Doā¦?ā
āDo what?ā Billy spits down at Max, leaning over her, invading her space. Maxās eyes flood with fear and it makes Billy step back. The shadows of the song step away. He sees through the blur to find the girl.
āDo that?ā She asks, voice small and soft and shaking and weak. Eyes filling with tears of their own and it fills Billyās gut with bile and heās so sick of it. So sick of everything. Thinks he might be sick. So fucking done. Broken. Feral.
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away~
Billyās eyes are filling. He glares as hard as he can while his eyelids are all mushy and swollen.
āGet out of my way, Maxine.ā
āWhat are you gonna do?ā
āJust get out of my way.ā He growls and takes his arm and shoves and she stumbles back and the music is building and then heās storming down the hallway, punching the walls and cracking every picture frame he passes and the voice is following him, sounding just as loud to him in the hallway as it did to him in his room as it chants-
Dream on⦠dream on⦠dream on⦠dream yourself a dream come true~
And he throws pillows off the couch and shatters a lamp on the ground with a shove and his blurry eyes search fervently for what he wants as the guitar wails and runs down and-
Dream on⦠dream onā¦. Dream on⦠dream until your dream come through~
And the guitar gets darker and heās got it. Grabs it off the mantle. Looks as steadily as he can with shaking and blurry eyes at this thing in his hands. This picture frame... with their stupid family in it. This stupid thing they call family to convince others. It never convinced him. Heās not sure how it could have convinced anyone. His tears are so hot on his face they feel like theyāre boiling and his nose is leaking and his saliva is runny and his chest is heaving and heās-
Heās thunder. Heās lightning and heās rain. The music followed him down the hallway and follows him with heavier footsteps back up as the voice screams on with-
Dream on⦠dream on⦠dream on⦠dream onā¦
And each chant sees Billy taking the frame in his hands and slamming the corner of it into the wall of the hallway as he walks, goes back to his room, ignores Max as she cries to him some kind of garbled nonsense and the music is filling his shoes like a dark puddle and his eyes are drowned.
And the voice that was once singing is now screeching into the air, into the corners of his room, into the darkest parts and Billy looks at the stupid faces of these stupid people heās been forced to love and thinks of how the only happiness in his life is going to be taken away from him and probably has been permanently taken away now because heās fucking hideous with bruises and almost no hair and heās wailing. Deep from his chest, right alongside the voice from the stereo, hurling the picture frame at his mirror blindly as he screams and hitting his target and hearing a loud crack as it shatters and heās just screaming. Everything inside of him rising and bubbling and boiling over and over and over some more and heās sure his body will never settle. Heāll never know peace. His mind and his body and his heart will never rest like it did this afternoon in that field with the warm sun and the blue sky and a love underneath him that was all his own for once for fucking once in his miserable life and he opens his eyes and heās disgusted heās a disgrace, heās bruised and bloody and nearly bald and his fingers and knuckles are bruised and bleeding and in that cracked mirror is the most miserable version of himself and he canāt bear to look.
He throws it to the ground. It covers his fallen hair.
He stomps it with his boot. Hot tears stain the toes of his shoe.
He reaches for his bedsheets. He needs to take a few steps to get there.
He tears at them, ripping all the way down. As far as he can.
His chest heaves. He rounds on his makeshift vanity. Swings his arms violently until itās all on the ground as his feet, discarded and broken and cracked.
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away-
He looks up from the ground. Up to Max, whoās hugging the door frame and shaking, watching with horror or what Billy thinks must be the equivalent. Something equivalent to it. The music and itās guitar and the specter itās conjured up is still rising, expanding, residing in every space of the room, pushing Billy out of the space and heās struggling, fighting, mind getting so nervous and worried as it looks at Max that it needs to look away, needs to distract.
The song repeats itself as he reaches and throws and rips and tears everything in sight. Posters, picture frames, books, cassettes. He steps on everything, smashes everything, tears pour out and out and out, his mind is running and racing and throbbing in pain in hurt in worry in all of its unease and he picks up a hand weight and rounds towards the window and chucks it as hard as he can and-
The sound of the shattering of the window breaks everything. Breaks any resolve still left within him. Lets the shadow and spectre of the music out and into the night as the room is pitched into a bitter and unforgiving chill. Letās all of Billyās breath out of his lungs as he heaves and heaves and heaves like heās going to hurl. He stands there, looking at the window, pictures something faint and distant and at one time hopeful in his mind before he turns around to Max and itās just music now, the last of the words have been sung, and he mutters a dark and languid and miserable:
āDonāt wait up for me.ā
And then he strides to the window and steps on the small table he has in front of it and jumps out and walks into the unfriendly night, a storm. More than a husk. Once again a human. At least, feeling something closer to human.
And then itās just Max. She rushes to the window, the music turning into a haunting kind of alarm that doesnāt seem alert or at all worried or hurried or serious. A lazy alarm that warns you of an error in the system. She stands in front of the broken window, exposed to the cold, cutting her hand on the glass in her hurry to watch after Billy, watch as he leaves, watch as he stomps his way out of their house and out to the street and down the street and sheās crying. Her mind is spinning. Her face is heavy with tears and sorrow and fear. Her heaving subsides slowly as the music does.
Sheās alone in this house. Truly alone. Not even the presence of Billy lingers like usual.
And then she runs to the phone to do the only thing she can think of- she dodges the carnage strewn across their house and runs to the phone and calls the only person she can think to call. The only person she thinks will for sure be able to help him from doing something crazy like leaving with nothing but the clothes on his back and whatever random cash he carries in his pocket.
Another song starts up slowly. The phone picks up.
āJim Hopper speaking.ā