#v;s2

“Hey, if I hadn’t have shot that gun then we might not be standing here right now, so maybe you should be thanking me instead of yelling at me.” Billy crosses his arms and furrows his brows in frustration. “If you want things to be quiet then maybe you should work faster.”

      HAND TAKES HERS, tugging her away from the crowds, out of the bustling room and into the hallway. Here, it’s suddenly quiet; no lights shine brightly from the ceiling, no music lulls children into a swaying dance. Soft smile frames freckled features, a smile he’s unable to dismiss. She’s here. She’s REAL. No more imagining dark eyes smiling back at his own, no more pretending to hear her voice. He’s never letting go, he thinks. Now that he’s got her, no matter what happens, he refuses to ever have say goodbye again.

      He pushes open the door to the outside, cool air hitting them as they step out into the chill. It’s refreshing; it grounds him, relieves him of some of his light-headed wonder. Smile tugs into a smirk as he lets go of her hand, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders, smooth as ever (though he’s never been smooth). The stars blink down at them, the sky clear; grassy expanse stretches before them and Mike allows himself to just breathe. 

Despite having his face cast off, Billy was ordered to stay in the hospital for a little while longer. During this time he had visits from multiple doctors and therapists and one of them had given him a mask to wear due to his worsening self image issues. It seemed a little counter productive to Billy as he figured a professional would want him to deal with his issues, but he really didn’t want anyone seeing his now disfigured face. Once pristine it was now littered with scars to the point where his skin was hard to see. The doctor’s thought something might be wrong with one of his eyes too. On top of that he was having memory issues. He remembered his time in the marines, his childhood and some of coming back from service, but there were gaps and he had no idea how he got the scars. He had assumed it was a car accident, but something seemed off about it. Something that he couldn’t place.

Frustration builds in Billy as she raises her voice at him. He has no clue who she was and why she had started to make all these bold claims about him. The last things he remembered before his accident was his company building blowing up and he assumed his injuries had something to do with that. He must have had a fight with someone, but he can’t say for sure if she’s involved. If she was he didn’t know her.

“What the hell do you want from me?! I’ve already told you. I don’t know you. Looking at you ain’t gonna make much of a difference.” His fingers fidget with one of the strings on his hoodie. “If you’re lookin’ for male attention you’re going the wrong way about it.”

     “oh, don’t give me that crap.” the glare that he has on will intensifies, his blue eyes giving the other man all of his attention as the anger courses throughout his body. he’s grieving and he needs someone to blame. in brian’s mind, the most suitable person to feel the brunt of his emotions is will. any sense of rational thought that he’d normally have is completely thrown out the window by feelings of grief and frustration.

      FORGIVENESS. It was something he was trying to learn. How to forgive, how to forget; how to move on when he felt like he couldn’t, when he felt like it was USELESS. He had to forgive Hopper, or so his mother had said. She didn’t know what Mike had suffered, what Hopper had done, but yet she’d somehow convinced him to march himself to the Chief’s front door. A year -- an ENTIRE year -- that’s how long Hopper had hidden El from him, how long they’d been merely miles apart, unknown to Mike. Every night he’d held the walkie, she had been listening; every night he’d cried himself to sleep, she’d been merely a twenty-minute car drive away.

      It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Even now, after two weeks had passed, he couldn’t understand WHY. He was still in so much pain; there was so much to catch up on, so much to make amends for. Hopper had spent so much time helping El when it could’ve been Mike. It was his job, after all; he’d found her lost in the woods oh so many days ago, cold and wet, alone. He’d brought her home, risked his life to help her, and hers for him in turn. They were soulmates, in every sense of Mike’s understanding of the word, whether he truly believed in the phrase or not. What right did Hopper have to keep them apart?