#literally how does billy explain any of this to his parents

[olivia-ivy]

If Wanda ever comes back in the MCU

billy: i have two moms and neither of them are you!

ghost agatha: *holding back tears* that's- shut up, you're stupid, that's s-stupid

rebecca kaplan: i'm so confused, what's going on

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

Eddie is gushing about Steve to Robin and he mentions how it's so fucking metal the way he never shies away from danger. Like, quite the opposite, he literally jumps right into it without a second thought!

And suddenly Robin remembers how Steve wanted to be tortured by the actual real Russian secret service if it meant that his then friendly coworker who he never saw outside of Scoops would be at least a little bit safer. And she notices for the first time how Steve always makes sure that everyone is safe before he leaves a dangerous place - how he makes sure to always be the last one - and she thinks fuck.

(She feels so fucking bad. He is her best friend. Her soulmate. The person who knows her best and vice-versa. How has she never noticed this before?!)

They start paying closer attention to him, then. Neither like what they see. Steve's eyebags grow bigger with every day that passes. He doesn't eat a lot. He can never say no to others, no matter how much it inconveniences him. And when Robin and Eddie gush about what an awesome person he is, he gets an uncomfortable expression on his face and denies it. Robin had never noticed how most their interactions were self-deprecating jokes until now, either.

They need to stage an intervention.

The next time Steve walks through the doors of Family Video, Robin and Eddie are ready. They lay down all the facts and propose a simple deal: either go talk to a professional, or they will explain everything to the rest of the party and they will force him to talk to a professional. It will end the same way no matter what he chooses, might as well take the path with least resistance.

The only thing that sounds worse than paying a stranger to talk about his feelings is to be forced to talk about them to his friends, so he agrees.

He doesn't think it will make a difference, at first. It's not like he is allowed to talk about monsters and other dimensions.

The first session is awkward. But Robin and Eddie always look at him with such worried and expectant looks and he cannot bear to burden them in any way, so he starts opening up more. He can't talk about the time he almost got eaten by Demogorgons in a secret supernatural underground tunnelsystem, but he can talk about the time Billie almost beat him to death. He can't talk about the secret Russian operation beneath the mall, but he can talk about almost dying in the "mall fire". (His memories of his time there are all scrambled because of the drugs, anyway. It is more about the 'near-death' thing and never being able to feel safe, which he can talk about)

He doesn't mean to talk about his interpersonal relationships at first. But then his therapist cautiously asks him about his parents, and before he knows it he is spilling beans he didn't even know needed to be spilled. He talks about how he only seems to be friends with people who went through traumatic experiences with him, and what does that say about him? He talks about when he first realized that other kids are not left behind by their parents for months at a time. He finally starts unpacking the whole Nancy situation and realizes, wow, turns out he isn't nearly as over the whole thing as he'd hoped. (There are a lot of tears).

He seamlessly fills session after session, and at first he doesn't think that it makes much of a difference. Until the kids meet him after he is exhausted from a double shift at Family Video and beg him to drive them somewhere or other, and he can say no and not give in without fearing that they will cast him aside.

(Robin and Eddie are smug when they also notice the changes, but Steve supposes they have earned it this one time.)

[seelie-regent]

Omegaverse CorrodedKing au

So Steve was close friends with the whole group throughout elementary and middle school. You literally never saw Steve without at least one of them. They did everything together and knew everything about each other. They didn't keep secrets from each other and were never apart for more than 12 hours at a time. When they formed Corroded Coffin in sixth grade Steve was their vocalist.

Steve's parents didn't exactly like it but didn't do anything about it. Figuring Steve would grow out of them. Mature and realize they weren't up to par to be around someone with the status of a Harrington. Figuring that when Steve presented as an alpha like they expected their little group would fall apart. Except Steve doesn't present as an alpha. He presents almost a year later than he was expected to as an omega less than a month before he's supposed to start high school.

His parents are furious. Especially since the rest of the band has already presented as alpha's. His parents forbid him from seeing them again. Steve tries to argue but it's shut down almost instantly with a threat to have him sent to an omega finishing school out of state. Not even a week after Steve presents his parents are looking into ways to hide his designation while seeing if there are any alpha's to marry Steve off to once he's of age that will benefit them.

So with no choice but to bow to his parents wishes he's forced to cut contact with the band and go on suppressants and wear false scent patches to make him seem like an alpha. He's forced into befriending Tommy and Carol who are the kids of his parents 'business partners. They force him to toss everything related to the band. Pictures, clothes, gifts, books, and everything related to D&D.

On top of everything Steve is made aware that Tommy and Carol are to report everything he does back to his parents. So he knows he won't get a chance to explain anything to the band.

Come the start of Steve's freshman year and the bands confused and devastated for Steve's "abandonment" of them. Their hurt turns to anger that they take out on Steve in whatever ways they can. Constantly talking about how they should have expected it given Steve's parents. Steve, desperate for a distraction, throws himself into sports and partying. Which the band uses as further "proof" of Steve being evil.

It doesn't take long for Steve to develop rejection sickness from the bands constant taunts. Not that he blames them. He knows how it looks. He wishes he could explain. But he can't. Better to be around them and see them even if they hate him then to never see them again.

It doesn't take long for Carol who's also an omega to realize what's happened. And to Steve and her own surprise she does her best to help him. They might not be able to go against their parents but they can redirect Tommy and his friends attention. They can be there for each other.

Steve does end up dating Nancy still. Seeing bits of the boys in her. She's nerdy like them, albeit in a different way. She's got the same big eyes and fluffy curls Eddie has. She's got Gareth's anger that she desperately tries to hide. She's got Jeff's determination. She's got Doug's sense of humor. And Steve misses them so much. And at this point Nancy may as well be as close as he'll ever have to having his boys, his alpha's, back.

Things still fall apart. Steve finds the courage to break away from Tommy except this time Carol goes with him. And he still tries to cling to Nancy, to the pieces of his alpha's that she has, and it's still bullshit come Halloween. What Steve isn't expecting when he comes into school the day after Halloween though is for his secret to be out. For Tommy to have told Billy as revenge when he saw Carol leaving with Steve and trying to comfort him. For Billy to have told the whole school. He and Carol leave as soon as they hear people talking about it. Scared to deal with the fallout of this.

The band started putting the pieces together as soon as they heard what everyone was saying. The more they think about it the more pieces they realize they're missing. It's when they really start to think about what they remember of Steve's parents. That they finally look back and think about Steve constantly looking at them. The longing in his eyes every time. How the looks of pain they always agreed were just wishful thinking when he would watch them. How they had written off the look of Steve's face every time one of them made a comment. How Steve always seemed a little off. How he seemed sick more often than he ever was when they were kids. And all the pieces they're putting together make them almost sick with regret. Desperate to fix it but horrified to realize they don't know how.

Dustin still stumbles upon Steve however Carol is with him this time. So it's Steve and Carol who face the demodogs to protect the kids. When Billy shows up and Steve tries to make him leave he propositions Steve. Steve laughs in his face, because seriously who did he think he was, which only serves to further piss Billy off as he storms into the house. Steve still gets beat to shit but Carol breaks Billy's nose when throwing things at him to try and get him away from Steve giving Max the distraction to knock him out.

Come school the following week everyone has heard some version of the story or another. The band can't decide which version is worse. The one closest to the truth, that Billy attacked Steve while he was babysitting after he turned him down, or that it was Steve's parents furious that the secret had gotten out. Steve's fairly certain the only reason that one isn't true is because he parents still haven't returned home. The band is desperate to apologize but still can't figure out how. Even if they wanted to the Party is keeping Steve so busy that they wouldn't be able to get a minute alone with him. Which might have been Carol's fault. She had accidentally let slip that the band was why Steve had rejection sickness while at the hospital and the kids had misunderstood and taken it as the band had done something to hurt Steve. Any time one of them tries to get Steve outside of school one of the kids suddenly pops up needing something. Dustin, Max, and surprisingly enough Mike are the worst ones about it.

Meanwhile Steve has no idea. He has no clue the party is keeping his away from Corroded Coffin. And he has no idea that his boys are trying to apologize. After several weeks Corroded Coffin starts to think Steve does know though. That it was Steve's idea. (It was Mike's) That Steve really doesn't want them around anymore and that this time it's their fault for being so casually and constantly cruel to him. So they back off.

Then comes summer. Steve and Carol working at Scoops. Carol falling for Robin. Robin oblivious and falling for Carol. And Steve and Robin becoming Steve&Robin one day early in summer when Steve accidentally tells her about Corroded Coffin and the truth of his rejection sickness. Then come the Russians. And truth serum. And Carol and Robin getting together. And Steve talking about how he dated Nancy because of everything she reminded him of. Completely unaware of the fact that his boys were right there.

Eddie has smelled Steve a scent the whole band was familiar with thanks to school and hanging around Scoops. Eddie had followed and seen Steve once more beat to shit and rushed to get the rest of the band so they could try and help their omega. Because maybe Steve didn't want them around but they couldn't just leave him like that. So the band walks in at the perfect moment. To hear Carol and Robin pull the full story from him. They're overjoyed to be proven wrong and devastated to hear what Steve says.

The rest plays out more or less the same and the band drags Steve to the hospital. Once he's released they finally talk things out. Steve refuses to accept an apology for any of it and they refuse all of his.

It's not till they tell the kids that the band learns complete truth. The kids are pissed that Steve would date the band much to Steve's confusion. He ends up learning about the small misunderstanding sprouted from Carol's poor explanation. After that the kids are completely on board with the relationship. Dustin latching onto Eddie and Will deciding Gareth is his favorite.

A year and a half later Steve's parents show up having finally found out about the last several years of Hawkins chaos. However they can't do anything. Steve had mated the band and moved out almost year before they show up leaving them with nothing to hold over Steve's head.

Steve can't imagine a timeline where he's happier. He has his boys back. His alpha's. And he gained a best friend, platonic soulmate, and a small pack of chaotic teenagers. There's nothing more he could imagine wanting.

[sylveon-and-velveon]

Playing "4 Big Guys" around the slashers

Shitpost idea has been made, so here XD

This will include: Michael Myers {OG & RZ}, Brahms Heelshire, Jason Voorhees, Billy Lenz, Freddy Krueger, Stu Macher, Billy Loomis, Thomas Hewitt, Bubba Sawyer, Harry Warden, Tiffany Valentine

Feel free to request any shitpost writing prompt ideas you can think of in my asks, I love silly non-serious ideas XD

Given the music is VERY adult related, this is 18+ ONLY

OG Michael Myers

Ain't gonna lie, the second you play that song he's probably staring at you instantly. Anger? Disappointment? Cursing your entire family and possible future children? Who knows! It's Michael-Fucking-Myers baby!!!

He's not used to anything sexual overall so hearing a song openly sing about gay sex, and in such a detailed way, would worry him. Not for the singer, no- more on your taste in music.

And don't even get me started on when he hears about shit being involved. The second he hears that being mentioned he's turning off the music entirely, patting your head, and dragging you away so you'll listen to something he likes instead to cleanse that weird mind of yours. Like... Kate Bush or something.

He'd like Kate Bush right? He looks like a Kate Bush enjoyer.

RZ Michael Myers

Judging you, hard. Though he ain't saying it. His aura is practically smellable he's judging you so hard.

Does he like it? No. It's loud, obnoxious, and profound filled. Ignoring the obvious "gay sex and other weirdness" part, the volume of the music reminds him of his childhood.

He's smashing the device the music is coming from. He doesn't care if it's your MP3 all the way to a damn TV or Alexa, he's smashing that shit to pieces if it means he doesn't need to hear it anymore.

What would he put on instead? Calming ambient noises that play for hours on end on YouTube. It's the exact opposite of whatever hellscape you just played. It's better.

Brahms Heelshire

Well first of all it ain't classical, so that's a point on the "I Hate This" list.

Second it's not a piano.

Third it's literally "4 Big Guys"-

Not only is this poor man confused about everything the singer is saying, I highly doubt his parents explained LGBTQ+ to him, he's also hating how loud it is.

"Who puts things up their ass?" - Brahms Heelshire 2024

You turn off the music yourself when he practically begs you to.

You're probably tryna hold in your laughter while he's sitting on the floor trying to figure out what the fuck he just heard.

Jason Voorhees

Is there a bigger word for "traumatized"? Because that man earns it.

You're lucky af, if his mom was live she'd hit you with a crowbar so fast- Not kill you tho, she wouldn't dare hurt her boy.

But yeah, he's not saying anything, nor moving. Bro's too traumatized. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE-

You better give him his teddy he fucking deserves it TmT

Laughing his ass off until the shit is mentioned, even this horny gremlin has his limits.

Can you tell I hate shit kinks? XD

He'd want an apology for you blasting that song so far to that section. But no music! He hates Christmas songs, they're so repetitive and they all sound the same anyway.

Bake him a cake, the more unique the better. His favourite so far is red velvet with cream cheese frosting!

Then when he's finished eating you're getting railed by him not longer after, man's not changed. Not now, not ever.

Freddy Krueger

You can play this entire song with this man on REPEAT and he'd be fine with it.

I'd be surprised if he didn't given his track record and.... slicing open his skin to reveal green "blood" and maggots crawling out.

Would he laugh the first time? ABSOLUTELY!

Would he jokingly sing along, probably.

But he would TOTALLY play this song when going after his victims sometimes. Imagine dying and the last thing you hear is:

"4 BIG GUYS AND THEY GRAB ON MY THIGHS-"

Stu Macher & Billy Loomis

Billy is concerned for your wellbeing. Especially when you start singing it at full force with Stu joining in not long after.

Yeah Stu is enjoying this to the max!

Finds it hilarious, who the fuck wouldn't when you've got humour more broken than Brahms' doll-

But seeing you enjoying yourself to this.... absurdity, at least makes Billy calm down from worry. Now he's just concerned your taste in music may infiltrate your taste in movies.

I doubt the man's used to hearing music.... imagine this being his first time hearing it-

OMG he'd probably think this is normal for music.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??? XD

If it's not his first time hearing music though? No concern, laughter, nothing. He's neutral, given that this is something that makes you a little chaotic gremlin.

He's happy seeing you comfortable enough around to be a "gremlin" as you call it.

Bubba Sawyer

Don't traumatize him more than he's been already!!

Sure he doesn't realise it, or the fact he's used to it, but the poor guy's already traumatized-

Though he's probably more confused in the whole scheme of things. I mean, he knows what sex is. But just the surface of it.

So he's probably just learnt way too much in such a short period of time.

Oh lord what have you done-

Harry Warden

Okay first of all, why is there no GIF of this man? WTF????

Second; man's from the mines, man's old fashioned, you've probably just thrown way too much modern shit in his face way too quickly that he's just staring at you, the music video, and then the floor.

Poor miner is so confused, especially when the "cum starts spraying".

Oh god he'll probably think it's like dust from the mines spraying everywhere.

Fucking hell that's a vision-

Tiffany Valentine

Finds it amusing? Yes.

Judging? Not as much as you'd expect.

Girl's been through a wild ride, hearing you blast out "4 Big Guys" from your phone wouldn't be the most shocking thing in the world.

Hell. she'd probably encourage you to start singing along to it XD

Oh she's gonna use that song to torture someone with it. She doesn't know how yet, but she's got the idea in her head now

[directdogman]

I have two questaroonies.

(1) Does mayor Mingus give little Billy the privilege of legally being considered a child? She seemingly knows what he's capable of so couldn't she just put him in jail?

(2) Who the hell are little Billy's parents? Where are they? How did they raise him to be the thing he is today?

1)billy isn't considered a legal adult, no. remember during oliver's route, the ID he produces is an obvious fake.

saying mingus COULD put him in jail is kind of ignoring the implication that billy has already been through the juvenile courts at least once, which is implied in at least one of the mingling scenes. others below mingus have certainly tried and failed.

i think the reason she doesn't try this is obvious if you think it through. billy is an absolute pest and if placed in any sort of holding place, he would see to it that the mayor's life is absolute hell. her own goons (stabby + shooty) literally look up to billy as a criminal, so imagine what it'd do to DT to have billy end up in a prison for adults. these petty crooks would leave prison with actual training, courtesy of billy. unless he was placed solely in solitary, he would absolutely have an awful influence on the prison population.

and imagine you're in mingus' place and have to try explaining to virtually anyone why you decided to have a random child you dislike placed in solitary confinement! basically, good luck KEEPING him there. and y'know, once he's out, you'd better believe he'd become a problem for you. it's a dead-end strategy. her strat of keeping him where she can see him is her only play, given how unassuming his physical form is. she knows how dangerous he is, but would struggle to sell it convincingly to anyone who doesn't know him well, and it would create nothing but problems for her to actually try to nip the problem in the bud.

2)i actually considered partly answering this question in-game with a whole subplot that basically amounts to gingi asking "where are this kid's PARENTS???" and looking into the matter, only to keep finding a trail of dead-ends and basically realizing that billy's parents only exist on paper, adding an extra layer of confusion and malevolence to the character. but, i decided against it based on having too much to do already. take from that what you will

[eclipsewxtch]

I can't take this edging on Billy, I'm going nuts with the crumbles from his past. Now that i know he has a scar in the neck that he hides with a prosthetic? This is so cruel, I need to know AAAAAAA

I also want more of his parents, he seems like he hides such a big portion of his life from them ??? How does he hide it all? How did he explain the scars? Who he was before the adoption? So many questions, I'm obsessed with this man

(Also, the fact that he has a diary is so cute, he must write like super serious stuff (or maybe not) in a very Paperboy tone "The recovery from the workers on Amaya warehouse has been steady, still-[...]" and then right on the next page with a glitter pen is like "Griffin Stagg x Billy Showalter 💓" "His initials could mean Griffin Stagg or Griffin Showalter 💕" like a middle school girl playing those compatibility games

the funniest plot twist i could think of is billy ‘open book’ showalter having the most secrets and no one suspects a thing abt it. so far i have given yall NOTHING. it is incredibly funny. like—ppl know his foster/adoptive parents, but no one knows what his life was like before he met them at 13; not the readers, not griffin, not even his boys. u guys know he met robin first, then vance, but not how they bonded. warehouse boy is a mystery all in itself. what got him into the drug business? where’s the scar from? did he rlly get that scar on his face in paris? like the hits just keep coming. and no one even notices it. he’s great at putting on a mask.

also yeah he does do that in his journals. he calls it a diary but he quite literally has detailed reports of information on his chemical formulas, human trials and testing, and even the names of victims he tosses to vance when they aren’t giving him decisive results, or victims vance gives him — void of any particularly bloody wounds, or at least haphazardly patched up — that billy can use how he pleases. and then the back of the page is their initials in a pink glitter heart. he’s a sick man.

[strawberrybyers]

poltergeist vs stranger things parallels

i watched poltergeist for the first time the other day and there’s a lot details that actually feel very similar to stranger things?? not entirely sure what these parallels are going to prove, but maybe someone would be able to add to it??

In Poltergeist, a little girl named Carol Anne is able to communicate with something through the TV. The home starts experiencing weird things happening such as objects moving, lights going out, and TV automatically turning on. In Stranger things, Eleven is able to use her powers by using white noise of a TV. She also can communicate through radio signals. Will was able to communicate through lights whilst being in the Upside Down.

Look at how similar these scenes are of Carol Anne’s mom communicating with her vs Joyce communicating with Will

3. Something else I noticed was how similar the Freeling Family is to the Wheeler Family.

Literally, copy and paste lmao. You have the brunette teenage daughter, the middle child son, and the blonde haired younger sibling. Both families are considered successful, middle class families. They both do not want any information of what’s going on within their household to be leaked to the public because that would ruin their “perfect suburbia” image. Also, interesting how Carol Anne was targeted by the Poltergeist through the TV and when Holly went to the Byers house, she was led astray from Joyce and Karen to Will’s room because of the lights. Also, Steve Freeling and Ted Wheeler both support Reagan.

4. Even though I said the Freeling Family and Wheeler Family parallel each other— there’s actually one member of the family that parallels Will and that’s Robbie. Robbie actually has trouble sleeping one night because he’s afraid of the tree outside his window. He explains to his parents he feels like it knows he’s there—that the tree is actually alive. Interesting to think about Will and how he can sense the presence of the Mindflayer. Also, interesting how if you think about how even though Robbie wasn’t the main target like Carol Anne was, he was still able to sense something evil was lurking… Makes you think about how Will was kept alive in the Upside Down… Also, Robbie and Will’s appearances are somewhat similar??

5. The tree that Robbie is afraid of eventually does snatch him, but he’s saved by his parents. It’s wild because the tree has a similar appearance to the Mindflayer. And we know that Will has a connection with the Mindflayer, just like Robbie had a connection with the tree.

6. The Poltergeist creature’s appearance looks very similar to the Mindflayer…

7. Even the portal vs the Gate look similar…

8. In the Poltergeist, a medium ends up coming to the house to help rescue Carol Anne. She mentions that the dimension that Carol Anne is in, she’s there with something very evil. A presence that is angry and has felt betrayed. Who does that remind us of? Oh, yeah 001/Vecna. 001 gives a monologue about how angry he is and he tells El he uses that anger to increase his power. Also, the medium mentions that the beast or whatever they refer to it as, lies to Carol Anne and keeps her close. Well, why did the Mindflayer keep Will alive? Will still has a connection with the Upside Down. We know Vecna was manipulative. He could alter realities. He knew what people were thinking and their fears. The creature in the Poltergeist has the same capabilities. The medium explains that Carol Anne thinks the creature is another child and uses her to restrain the others… Um, doesn’t this sound like how Will is being used for a reason we’re unaware of yet and that’s why he was kept alive? Doesn’t this sound like how Vecna was used by the Mindflayer? Doesn’t that sound like how Billy was used as a host?

9. A conversation that has been had about the Upside Down is the presence of no water. Also, El uses water to help with her powers. In the Poltergeist, the medium mentions that when Carol Anne and her mom return, they have to immediately be put in the bath. Also, the Freeling Family was getting a pool built in. One of the mom’s fears was the kids falling in. The pool is shown multiple times with both parents falling into it. Just another interesting way of how water plays a role in both Poltergeist and Stranger Things.

10. The final parallel I discovered was the slime that Carol Anne and her mom are covered in when they exit the portal and the slime that’s on Nancy when she exits a gate in season 1. For some reason, I feel like there’s more Stranger Things characters who have entered the Upside Down and have had slime on them, but I couldn’t find any other images/clips of that??

Anyways, not sure what this post proves or whatever. It’s possible someone has already made this parallel considering Poltergeist is considered a classic 80’s movie and Stranger Things takes place in the 80’s. Just wanted to share my thoughts and if anyone has anything else to add to this analysis or has a theory, please share! I’d love to read it!

[ahaura]

i have SO many questions that the movie didnt exactly answer about legacy vs. nature vs. nurture like

i dont think just because she's billy's daughter that means she will turn out like him. sometimes children turn out like their parents sometimes the cycle continues, sometimes it doesn't. i know she kills the ghostfaces at the end but like... there's a morality/humanity component that wasnt with sidney because sidney's mother was murdered by her boyfriend and then after killing her boyfriend and his friend she had to kill like 12 other ghostfaces to survive. now im NOT going to armchair psychology my way around anything but while sam obviously killed in defense of herself, her sister, and others theres the question of "is she going to turn out like her father". like she said "it felt right" after explaining how she killed richie but there was no further elaboration or details which leaves this all up in the air. the thing with same is that up until a certain point and developmentally speaking sam was [considered] normal, there are no indications she exhibited any behavior that would be cause for concern until AFTER she found out billy was her father. that doesnt mean there weren't any but scream v was very specific in saying "sam's dad left" (which happened after both sam found out who her biological father was AND when her father found out that sam was not only not his child like his wife claimed) "and she started getting in trouble with the cops" (which, to be frank, i dont fucking blame her??? like she's a teenager, and being a teen is already hell, but on top of that she 1) found out her dad wasnt her biological dad 2) blames herself for her and tara's dad for walking out on them and 3) IS AFRAID SHE WILL TURN OUT LIKE BILLY SO SHE RUNS AWAY TO MODESTO! like she didnt develop a fascination or obsession with her father or serial killers or become one herself and well obviously its a movie so it is suggested the "dont fuck with the daughter of a serial killer" MAY lend to her survival but all things considered... she did NOT turn out like billy! and the fact that she killed to survive doesn't make her like billy either! but the question is... does "it felt right" mean she DID? and in this movie she's obviously hardened from previous events, she literally says "richie was a limp dick little fuck who cried when i slit his throat" which may be typical grizzled protagonist bravado but because of her parentage her worth, or humanity, or her place on the good vs. evil scale (what's that quote that was like 'once again reminding me of my place on the menu' or w/e) and like IN REAL LIFE this would not be indicative of "the poison dripping through" (to use succ lines) but because its a movie the audience is left to believe... IS IT???? and my conclusion is... well does it MATTER? if theres going to be another scream movie with sam i would want them to PROPERLY explore that avenue of "is she or isnt she" like sam is NOT just the sum of her parts or her father's daughter like she's still human after all that (what's that quote that's like 'evil is almost always human and boring' or w/e) like... sam makes the CHOICE of not being like her father and i am not of the belief that she is anything like him and even IF she has a natural inclination or affinity for murder for whatever reason then, like... idk, i still dont think that means shes like billy unless she literally devolves into a full-blown serial killer. is this anything????

[rigginsstreet]

The Duffers give off the vibe that they’ve never been to a high school before. Like granted, I was homeschooled through high school, but I went to homeschool co-ops (basically a bunch of parents would teach certain classes), and yeah we had cliques, but the “king and queen of Hawkins high” feels like something straight out of a Disney movie.

Also like, none of their “popular” teens act like they’re popular? Like Steve is supposed to be the King, and to me that would imply he’s constantly out throwing parties and getting into trouble and breaking hearts. But the one time we see him as king, he just,,, has three friends over and they do dumb teen stuff? He gets really emotionally wrapped up in his girlfriend?

And don’t get me started on Billy. His popularity would have lasted maybe a month. Yeah, he’s the new guy from California and he’s gorgeous, but the novelty would have worn off after a month. Billy’s from a lower-income family, based on their house. He’s a metalhead. He pushes the envelope a lot for a small, likely conservative town like Hawkins.

I’m from a huge ass city and went to a big ass high school so admittedly I do not know how things work in small towns/schools. Like when it came time to vote for prom king and queen I literally knew not a single name on the ballet 😂 the only popular kids I knew where the ones I had shared classes with for years. The other popular kids? Never heard of them.

But also like…the few jocks and shit I did know we’re chill? They were the class clowns and everyone actually liked them. And like I knew cheerleaders in drama club there was a lot of intermingling going on.

I get that a conservative town in the 80s would be a whole different vibe but like you said, steve at his height of popularity has like 3 friends? Lmfao I think he made reference to throwing parties before but his dad got pissed right? So maybe that explains why he stopped throwing crazy ones.

Billy in that environment absolutely would not have lasted as popular nor can I imagine HIM being the one all these conservative ass moms flock to like realistically the satanic panic should’ve started with him lmao I don’t think the duffers fully realized how offensive metal music is to that crowd I mean hell I went through my whole emo phase in the mid 00s and my grandma was constantly going on about me being “goth” and worshipping the devil. The duffers just wanted to focus on dacre being hot and expected us to ignore ever other detail about billys personality because if you think about it for even one second shit quickly starts not adding up

And this is not even touching upon how realistically HE would’ve been most likely hate crimed by some neil-like figure around town dressing and primping himself the way he does (I mean billys normal everyday attire is pretty basic but I can imagine him standing in the beauty aisle of Melvads and some guy making a slick comment)

But anyway… we’re not meant to think too deeply about any of this because stranger things is a very surface level show so

[memes-saved-me]

Max is probably the character I'm most indifferent about. I understand she went through a lot and there are times when she can be enjoyable but a lot of the time for me personally I really don't like her!

My main gripe with her though is that even after Billy's death not once does she ever bring up the abuse Billy had to endure all his life. The only time she mentions Neil is when she literally tells Billy's grave that he left Susan and Max (like that is supposed to make things better)

And you can't say she didn't know what was going on, SHE'D SEEN IT FIRST HAND! In runaway Max she witnesses Billy getting hit with a belt!!!

I honestly wished she had told the party about it, like she brings up how miserable Billy could make her at times but then she explains that it was because Neil made his life a living hell and he didn't have an outlet to take out all his anger on other than Max (even if he didn't want hurt her the way he did) she talks about how everytime she got into trouble Billy would take the blame and suffer for it.

The party could see Billy in a new light: at first they all thought he was an asshole who only looked out for himself when in reality he only had himself to look at for. Billy didn't have anyone supporting him or on his side, he barely had any friends back in Cali. Neil had taught him to never express his emotions to others and therefore he closed himself off to the rest of the world. Hoping that someone would recognize his reckless behaviour and try to help him.

Sorry for the rant, I just really hope the Duffers can pull their head out of their ass and fully redeem Billy's character and his relationship with Max. Have a scene where ghost Billy (not Vecna!Billy real Billy) is speaking Max while she is in a coma and he apologizes for how he acted and Max tells Billy she understands what he went through and that she knew a part of him did care for her. Billy admits that he did always want them to have a sibling relationship but he was so afraid of opening up only to get hurt again, which is why he acted out around her. The two get there closure and say that they love each other (maybe Max goes with him to the afterlife) that's how I want their arcs to end.

With them getting closure and starting to rebuild their relationship in the afterlife

I love Max but the Duffers let her (& Billy) down in S4. That scene with Lucas where he's talking about his guilt of not saying anything to Patrick about his abuse drives me insane because I was sitting there expecting Max to say something along the lines of, "I know how you feel. Billy was the same. I saw it happen but didn't do anything and I can't change it." That would have been such a simple moment to not only let Lucas and then inturn through general group knowledge know Billy was abused but also for them to have a genuine moment of relatability. It would have been nice for them to have a heart to heart about grief and actually have someone to speak to about it but nope.

The fact no one. Not a soul connects the dots of Max being depressed and her watching her brother die. I like to think she spoke to El about it before she left but after that was alone because no one else could understand.

Don't even get me started on Neil getting away with everything and Susan becoming a neglectful parent leaving Max well and truly alone.

I don't have big hopes for Billy's character from now on but I seriously hope I'm surprised by s5

[yikesharringrove]

Agitation (or disturbance of the mind)

Here is my piece for the Harringrove Big Bang!! I’m so so proud of how this piece turned out and I’m so excited to share it! @harringrovebigbang

Read on Ao3 (highly recommended. It’s over 16k).

Special thanks to my beta readers @thinger-strang @crispysteve without whom this story would’ve been scrapped in many fits of emotions.

Art for this story to be linked soon by @thedogsled

Check out this amazing moodboard by @memes-saved-me !!

Enjoy!

-

Steve Harrington is a liar. 

He always has been. 

Nearly everything about him is a perfectly crafted facade. 

From the story of his family’s move to Hawkins when he was eight, to the smile that slides easily onto his face when he tells Robin I’m fine. 

Steve is a liar. 

But it's all out of necessity. All for the greater of some good he isn’t all that clear on anymore. 

It was always about protection. 

Protecting his friends and everyone in Hawkins from the truth about Hawkins National Laboratory. 

Then it was about protecting himself from his powers. 

From the way his words had a knack of worming their way into someone’s brain. Of setting up shop inside and clanging around until they could do nothing but bow to his suggestion. 

Just because he could get his way with the right inflection and the telltale shiver down his spine, didn’t mean that that was okay. 

It was drilled into him the first night he arrived in Hawkins. 

After his file was stamped with a large red mark that read defective, he was given to one of the scientists and her husband. 

The Harringtons. 

A normal new family from Eastern Oklahoma. 

That’s what they told everyone. 

That’s what they made sure Steve parroted to everyone in his brand new school. 

His new father took a cigar to the tattoo on his wrist, welting the flesh with an ugly burn. He ignored Steve’s screams and tears. 

You have to fit in here, Steven, he had said, the cigar smoldering between his fingers, Steve clutching his wrist, eyes shining with tears. You have to fit in and be normal. 

So Steve lied. 

He smiled and told everyone he came from a normal family from normal Oklahoma. He said that he lived in a normal house, and read normal books, and played normal sports. 

And he tried, and failed, to convince himself the lab was a dream.

-

“We should do something after this.”

Steve was careful to keep his voice casual. He didn’t want to let Robin in on how much he was dreading returning to his empty house tonight. 

Robin didn’t acknowledge him. She was sorting the returned movies, placing them in piles of genre so they could easily be returned to their proper section. 

Steve quietly lifted his leg, and lightly kicked her hip. 

She glared at him. 

“Quit ignorin’ me. Just say yes, or no.” It’s not like if she said no it would crush him or anything. No. It’s fine. 

“I just have a bunch of homework that’s all, like, due tomorrow,” she said it slowly, as though telling him a beloved relative had died. 

Was it that obvious how lonely he is?

“Don’t worry about it, Buck.” Robin took school real serious. She had perfect grades every year and had already applied to sixteen colleges and universities, including four Ivy League options. 

So Steve didn’t blame her for not skulking around with him. 

With college-less, nowhere bound Steve. 

“I’m really sorry,” she began, getting that sad look in her eye like that night in the mall bathroom when Steve spilled his drugged-out guts. Literally, and metaphorically. 

“Nah, I was just lookin’ for something to do. It’s okay, Robin. Really.”

And it was. 

Almost. 

It’s just that, Steve’s not got a lot going for him right now. 

He’s got a big empty house, and a brain that likes to give him excessive nightmares, and one age-appropriate friend in the whole place. 

But he doesn’t wanna talk about all that shit. 

And Robin looked like there was something on the tip of her tongue. Something her teeth were barely holding back. 

So Steve just scooped up the stack of neatly ordered Action films, and made his way over to the far shelf, taking himself out of the situation before it would get to a place that would only make him lie more and more. 

Robin means well. He knows she does. 

It just feels like a lot of her well-meaning chats end up with Steve lying through his fucking teeth and Robin nearly in tears of frustration at his lack of openness with her. 

She feels like being tortured and drugged together gives them a close kind of kinship very few share. 

Steve feels like he’s got just too much fucked-up baggage to dump on her. 

Not when they’re trying to put the Upside Down behind them. 

Not that Steve could ever put it behind him. 

He felt something build in his gut. Something hot and heavy. Something that always meant his powers were scraping at the walls of the neat little cave he had shut them in. Something that meant his skin would burn until he unleashed some of his pent-up energy. 

He took a deep breath, blowing out the air slowly through his nose. 

He had rules to his power. Rules he had given himself, mostly. Things he’d never use his powers for. 

He tried to avoid his powers at all costs, but he had seen what could happen if he tried to tamp them down. It was less dangerous to open the lid of the box just a tiny bit. 

Especially if he did it right. 

He made his way back over to Robin, finding that spot in his brain that made a shudder zip down his spine. The spot that was made of cold and electric heat. 

It was always too simple when he let the power take over. 

Locate her feeling. Let him consume him. 

And then just, twist it as much as he wants. 

“Robin,” he spoke slowly, honing his suggestion. “You don’t have to feel bad about not spending time with me tonight.”

He felt her sadness and guilt about the evening recede about as fast as the tide. 

She really shouldn’t feel bad about ditching him, especially not when her education is the main priority. 

He matched her lazy grin, wiping his nose discreetly, only a small drop of blood smeared against his hand. 

The rest of the shift passed without incident, and the roaring feeling in Steve’s gut had been sated enough for the time being. 

So he pushed it back out of his mind, and returned to his empty house. 

He was saving up to get his own place. He really was. But it was easier this way. He didn’t pay any bills, had lots of space to himself, and a pool in the backyard (that he never used). 

And it’s hard for him to explain, but there’s something tugging him back into this house all the time. 

He doesn’t know if it’s because it’s the only home he ever knew after the pain and fear that was his childhood in the lab, or if it’s something else that makes him feel tethered to the too-big house. 

Sometimes he thought there was a sense of safety in the old place. 

With parents that spent excessive amounts of time doing research for things he didn’t understand but was sure were important, it was largely an emotion-free place. 

Which was good for Steve. 

High emotion situations made his power boil up and spill over the edge like a pot of water on the stove. 

A place like his empty house, he could keep everything in check. Not get his feelings tangled with those around him. Not catch thoughts that were just beginning to be molded into something brand new. 

He clambered into bed, punching his pillows around in a way that was decidedly not petulant. 

There was a steady silence in the old house. A silence that was as depressing as it was easy on his brain. 

And there wasn’t silence. 

Creaks. 

Creaks issuing from downstairs. From the floorboards in the hallway. 

Footsteps. 

Steve was out of bed in a second, bat held aloft in as close to ready position as he could maintain while bolting down the stairs in his socks and faded green gym shorts. 

He knew how to navigate the house without a sound. Practice of tip-toeing around a volatile not-father kinda ended up giving him something useful. 

The creaks were still progressing, moving up the hallway from the back of the house, where his parents’ empty bedroom sat still. 

The person was getting closer, lumbering slowly as if they were trying to be quiet themselves. 

Steve adjusted his grip on the bat, taking proper batting stance, ready for the intruder to round the corner into his section of the hall. 

First sign of a person, and Steve would swing. 

No questions asked. 

The floorboard before the bend in the hall gave a loud sound, and he could’ve sworn he heard someone curse under their breath. 

He closed his eyes, and swung. 

His bat sailed through the air, and connected with, not an intruder. 

And then he was filled with an overwhelming sense of fear. A completely feral state of fight or flight made him nearly bare his teeth in an animalistic growl. He felt fear, and dread, and pure stubborn, stupid resolve. 

It nearly blinded him, the emotions were so thick and clear. 

And then there whooshed out of him, as though being sucked up by a feelings vacuum, leaving him empty and confused. 

His top lip was covered in blood. 

He had a lot of fucking questions as he stared at the bat, hanging by it’s long nails in the hallway wall, the ominous creaking moving past him towards the stairs. 

The footsteps that were caused by no one. 

It’s official. 

Steve’s lost it. 

He’s fucking crazy. 

He’s hearing footsteps and voices swearing quietly, and he’s going mad and completely batshit and should be tucked away in a padded room for the rest of his life. 

He didn’t even bother to wrench the bat out of the wall as he stumbled after the imagined footsteps. 

He clearly needed to get a good night’s sleep, and to forget that anything happened at all tonight. 

-

Billy hates Harrington’s house. 

He doesn’t, really. It’s given him excellent shelter while he pulled himself together, and it’s out of town enough to serve as a good base for the little gang of Lost Boys he had accumulated. 

It’s just that, the old house likes to make a lot of noise. 

It keeps him on edge. 

Every squealing door hinge, and every creaky floorboard sets his teeth on edge and makes him whip around in a frenzy, expecting to see a demogorgon snarling at him from the sitting room. 

He nearly had a heart attack when he heard the thuds coming from upstairs. 

He generally liked to avoid the top floor of the house. 

Harrington’s bedroom was up there, and it wigged him out something fierce. He’d only been in the dilapidated version of it one time, his first night in the house he had claimed for safety. 

He didn’t intend to stay the night in there, he had just stumbled upon it, and curled up in the bed. 

He remembers not sleeping the entire night. He was so scared after coming to in the library, something slimy and disgusting slipping its way out of his throat. 

The whole place had been screaming, as though the Upside Down itself was alive. Alive and being horrifically murdered. 

He didn’t know what it was called then, all he knew was that Harrington’s house was the first one he came across, and that Harrington’s room was depressingly empty and impersonal. 

But, there was a thudding coming from that general area, and if some kinda shitty creature was making its way into the house, he needed to hedge it off before it did any damage. 

He took hold of his ax, never far from his side these days, and slipped out of his cot. 

The floorboards in the hallway were creaky, and he tried to walk slowly, muffling his footsteps as much as he could in his heavy boots, not wanting to warn the monster he was coming for it. 

He cataloged the crew in his head: Hopper had his troop of three in the basement where they were resting up for the supply run tomorrow. Timothy was on nightwatch with his team of five. Billy was in a pack with four others; Heather Holloway, her mother, Janet, and the two boys they found skulking around the library the same night everyone seemed to wake up. One of the boys was called Andrew. The other hadn’t spoken a single word the entire time they’d been trapped. 

Billy liked to call him by different names each time he referred to the kid. Trying to get him to laugh. He couldn’t’ve been more than seven years old, and he was trapped in this fucking hellscape with the rest of them. 

Andrew was thirteen. Billy didn’t like to look at him much. Andrew reminded him of Max. Which made Billy feel empty and achy in a way he didn’t think was very productive for survival.

But Andrew took a shine to Janet Holloway. Probably missing his mother and needing more comfort than his thirteen-year-old self was willing to admit.

The Holloway women were a hell of a lot feistier than Bill originally gave them credit for, saving his ass in a scrap just as often as he had been there for theirs. Heather and Janet were equal parts caring and soft, with the right amounts of clever and bossy to take point on their team. 

Billy let himself be the muscle. 

He let himself be the watchdog and attack dog. He took nightwatches and never let his weapons out of his grasp.

Everyone had a role. 

And that was perfectly okay.

They had to keep together in this world. They wouldn’t survive it otherwise. 

They’d all lost enough people to understand that. 

One of the boards gave a hefty creak under his left foot, and he breathed a quiet fuck through his bandana, listening for more of the thudding. 

It had stopped about forty seconds before, Billy had counted, and he couldn’t hear any other sounds of something forcing its way inside. Plus, the nightwatch hadn’t sounded any alarms. 

He took another step, ax held ready and aloft in case he came face to ugly face with one of the horrible creatures that prowled the night. 

He rounded the corner, and there was a loud bang on the wall next to his head. 

He jumped as paint chipped off the wall and flew all over him. 

He was hit with a feeling of intense fear, and adrenaline rush that caused all the blood in his ears to rush. He looked wildly around, seeing, nothing. 

Billy bared his teeth, ready to go down fucking swinging. 

As long as he took the fucker down with him, that’s all that matters. 

Save the rest. 

And he stood, ready to fight, ready to die. 

And there was nothing.

Nothing in the hallway. He was all alone. 

None of this shit made any sense. He hadn’t dreamed the wall cracked beside his head, and looking back, there were holes in the wall, and a big dent that had splinted the white paint and drywall beneath it. 

There was some fucked up shit going on, and Billy didn’t like it one bit. 

He continued down the hall, creeping to the stairs to check the original source of the noises that had woken him up. 

Harrington’s room was pretty much just as he remembered it from that first night in the house. 

It was sparse and sad-looking. The covers on the bed were all jostled and thrown around, the horrible spindle-like vines covering nearly every surface in the room. 

They had cleared the tendrils in other rooms, cutting them and burning them back, ensuring the vines didn’t start creeping over them when they weren’t looking. 

Billy didn’t fancy being covered and tethered by the slimy black vines. He was pretty much over all this Upside Down shit. 

He took a cursory look around Harrington’s room, not noticing any signs of forced entry from a creature, really nothing was out of place. 

The meager school trophies on the bookshelf next to the closet looked rotted and tarnished, just like everything else in this absolute hell called a parallel universe. There were few pictures in this room, much like the whole house. It had taken Billy a long time to notice the lack of inhabitancy the house had. The way it seemed to feel so cold and empty, it would be that way in the real world too. 

His eyes swept over the dilapidated dresser, cataloging the room quickly for anything that should worry him. 

Billy deemed the whole scene safe, and made sure to close the door tightly as he retreated back downstairs. 

-

Steve’s going fucking crazy. 

He was still in bed, his alarm clock ringing angrily at him as it had for the past six minutes. 

He hadn’t slept at all last night. 

Something just felt. Off. 

The feelings in his chest were scrambled, and they felt foreign to him. Like he had taken in somebody else’s emotions. 

But proximity was the key to his power, and he was alone. Alone alone. 

Like, the closest person was Mrs. Gardfeld in the next house, all the way across their combined, much too big, yards. 

It felt like. It felt like someone was in the house with him. Someone was in the house with him, and they were scared, and stubborn, and tired, and a flurry of things that made Steve feel ill. 

And he couldn’t push them out. 

He couldn’t find the chasm between this slew of someone else’s shit, and his own messy cocktail of feelings. 

The other feelings were like those awful vines in the tunnel. Snaking around under his feet, wiggling up his ankles and keeping him stuck in the mud. Wrapping around his own emotions and squeezing until they just merged into one. 

He’s lost the metaphor. 

Doesn’t matter. 

His feelings are fucked and his brain is fucked and his day is fucked. 

And he has to work a double at Family Fuckin’ Video. 

He found his way out of bed. Not going very far, just standing next to his warm nest of blankets, debating getting back in and hiding for the rest of his life. 

He was going to be late for work. 

He didn’t really give a fuck. 

Keith would be all smug and probably make some remarks about Steve not even being worth the less-than-minimum wage he was making. 

He took a shower, not so much cleaning himself as letting the lukewarm water cascade down on him and hope it got rid of the stench of sweat and anxiety and bad sleep that was clinging angrily to his skin. 

His brain was empty. 

Empty save for the pounding otherness that were these horrible fucking feelings. 

Robin didn’t even have the heart to call him out for being nearly half an hour late.

“You look like shit.”

No, she just called him out for looking like shit. 

“Y’know, it’s really wonderful to have such a caring and thoughtful friend in these trying times.”

She rolled her eyes. He always told her one day she was gonna get stuck like that. With her eyes permanently fixed towards the ceiling in exasperation. 

“Drop the attitude, Steve Harrington. Just because you didn’t sleep doesn’t mean I have to suffer.” 

Sometimes it was hard to tell if she was joking. Steve just clenched his jaw and stared at her blankly. Either she would get mad at him, or sigh and roll her eyes. 

She sighed and rolled her eyes. 

Bingo. 

She wasn’t actually mad at him. 

“You okay?”

“Jus’, some weirdness. Bad vibes.”

He couldn’t give her more than that. Couldn’t say I can feel someone else in my house and I don’t know if someone is hiding in my house or if I’m going crazy, oh and by the way, I was one of those freaky lab kids and I can manipulate and feel people’s thoughts and emotions, by the way.

That’s too much for a slow shift on a Saturday morning. 

That’s too much for really any time of any day.

No, Steve fully plans to take all that shit to the grave. Like a real man, his dad would say. 

“Well, if you could take your bad vibes back to rewind duty, that would leave all the good vibes up here to me.” She shooed him off with her hand, landing a quick slap square on his left asscheck when he groaned and dragged his feet dramatically on his way to the back room. 

Not that Steve would ever actually complain about rewind duty. Steve preferred doing it to anything else in the place. Especially re-shelving. That was just asking for someone to come ask him for a movie recommendation. Steve only watched the same five campy old westerns and when he recommends any of those, people seem to wanna get out of his face right quick. 

No, rewinding was dull and monotonous and solitary, all the shit that Steve really needed on a day like today. 

There was a strict routine and he didn’t have to think or do anything. 

Just sit. New tape. Rewind. Put in case. Put in re-shelve bucket. New tape. Rewind. Put in case. And again and again and again until all the tapes were ready to go. 

Hawkins tended to take out a lot of movies on the weekend. Not much else to do when you aren’t sixteen and ready to hit up any party you could possibly weasel your way into. 

So, Steve had about fifty some odd tapes to rewind from the past few days and he was feeling benignly excited about sitting in the small room for most of his shift. 

It was easy to pass the shift like that. 

Sitting with the quiet whirring of the tapes being tracked back to the beginning. Not having to deal with anyone’s thoughts except his own tedious ones about when he should take his lunch break and reminding himself to check the TV Guide for anything good tonight. 

It was an odd emptiness that took hold of him throughout the day. And he almost felt, well. 

Lonely. 

He almost felt lonely. 

Which is fucking bonkers because that horrible feeling of someone else had well and truly fucked him over last night, and well into this morning, but he kind. Missed. The other presence. 

He’s officially crazy. 

Someone find this boy a padded fucking cell because Steve Harrington has officially gone all kinds of batshit bananas wacky. 

He’s feeling lonely because the horrible not his feelings of fear and anger and betrayal and desperation aren’t clogging up his little brain sink. Even when they were, the brain sink was threatening to burst and leak all over his brain kitchen. 

Or something to that effect. 

He let his eyes unfocus, watching Jaws at double speed and backward for the fourth time that day. 

There was something about the foreign feelings he just couldn’t quite wrap his head around. 

Something twinging in the back of his brain, screaming at him to open his eyes and pay attention. 

But that’s never been Steve’s strong suit. 

-

“Stupid. Fucking. Vines .”

Hopper muttered to himself a lot. 

It was usually too muffled underneath his own bandana face covering and the hefty beard he had been sporting to discern whatever he was thinking, but it’s not like hating the awful black tendrils of gross plant/monster/everything-that-made-up-the-Upside-Down hybrid of vine-ish tentacles was something that just Hopper experienced. 

It was a sentiment they all shared as they hacked away at the new growth in the dilapidated Bradley’s Big Buys. 

They had already ransacked the general store five times over, and took as much as they could salvage from the wreckage of the other-dimensional mall. 

Supplies were needed, and they had to be smart about it. 

Things had been quiet lately. 

Not many beasties out and about since the night they all seemed to come to. 

Hopper had said something about the gate closing and the brain being cut off from the body. 

Billy hadn’t listened. 

He’d been scared off his ass and all that had really registered was clear for now. 

So, they made supply runs. And poked around town for any survivors left to take back to Basecamp Harrington. Only Billy called it that. 

They had the runs down to a system. 

Pry away any vines they could, burning them back as they went, making enough room to slip into the bargain store, gather as much canned food and grimy medical supplies as they could manage, and book it back to the relative safety of the big house on the edge of the forest. 

Nobody talked about what they’d do when they ran out of supplies. When they’d exhausted their resources and were stuck with nothing but the vines on the ground and the spores in the air. 

Billy got it. 

It’s not like he wants to hear he’ll probably die of starvation and/or a gangrenous infection before he’s eighteen. 

They just. Make do. 

Ration food and keep each other safe. 

Always thinking about the minute they’re in and the minute coming up. Not looking too far forward. 

There’s nothing to see too far in the future. 

Billy crashed the blunt end of his ax through the sliding door at the front of the store, clearing away as much as he could. 

Janet and Andrew would slip inside first go, taking as much as they could carry with them. Next round, Heather would take the little one and gather anything left. 

Billy would keep watch. 

He always kept watch. 

Things had been too good for too long. 

After the first wave of those who didn’t make it, the whole broken side of the Earth was too kind to them. Not sending horrible fleshy monsters to nearly suck out their very souls. 

Billy didn’t think this could last for much longer. 

Heather took the little one by the hand, rushing past her mother and Andrew as they returned with their supplies. Billy did a quick scan of them, noting no new injuries. Nothing out of the norm. 

Supply runs were choreographed down to the minute. 

Should the group not return in forty-five minutes, a search team was sent out. 

The small group trudged back to the Harrington safehouse, keeping in the shadows, not a single one of them daring to speak. Billy walked slightly behind the others, never letting himself relax for a single second. 

Things were too quiet.

-

The feeling hit Steve over the head like a sack of bricks being whacked against his skull. 

Walking into his home was like walking into a stinking den of fear and anxiety. The air was clogged with so many emotions Steve felt like he was choking on them, slowly being crushed under their weight. 

Whoever was emitting all these, Steve felt sorry for them. He can’t imagine living with this much bad energy taking up space in someone’s brain. He could barely cope with his own terrible bullshit. He doesn’t know how someone could cope with this. 

He tried to move through his evening to the best of his ability. 

He nearly set the house on fire when he left the tin foil covering on his frozen meal, causing the microwave to spark angrily at him, the potatoes underneath the corner of foil that had nearly caught fire to smolder and blacken. 

Even in the shower, the water as hot and steamy as he could stand, he felt that prickle he couldn’t get rid of. 

Like if he could just close his eyes and reach out far enough, his fingers would brush someone else. Someone nearby. 

He’s felt it before. That there was a person just out of reach. A person he could feel clear as a bell, but couldn’t alter. Couldn’t manipulate. Just had to experience everything that was going on inside and try to hold on for the ride. 

He wore headphones to bed, blasting a mixtape Robin had made for him last month. Something with a lot of heavy guitars and girls wailing about society. 

He doesn’t think it was all that good, but it helped. Helped him feel like maybe the person wasn’t seeping into his own soul. 

And the whining synth of Patti Smith finally let him get some goddamn sleep. 

  “Hello?”

It was his house. 

But it wasn’t his house. 

It was a blank void. It was nothing. It was nowhere. 

But for some reason, his brain kept telling him it was his house. 

“Harrington?”

It was Billy. Hargrove. 

But it wasn’t Billy. 

He was dirty, covered in soot and horrible black sludge that made Steve’s stomach churn. 

“Why are you in my house?”

Billy looked around the blank void all around them. Water sloshed on the floor, lapping at Billy’s black boots. Steve observed his own toes. 

He was barefoot, but he couldn’t feel the water. 

“This is your house?”

Steve didn’t want to explain. 

“You’re dead.”

“Could be soon.”

Nothing Billy said made any sense. But then, Billy never made much sense when he was alive, either. 

He was an enigma to Steve. A big question mark all wrapped up with a gorgeous face and perfect body.

“Where is this to you?”

Why was Steve’s brain so adamant on declaring this place his house?

“Somewhere safe.”

-

So. 

That’s something. 

Dreaming about Harrington. 

Not necessarily something that Billy wanted to have happen to him while he was experiencing the worst possible time in his life. 

Or maybe he did. 

He’d said it in the dream. 

Somewhere safe. 

It’s what he felt in that blackness. 

Safety. Warmth. Hope. 

All the shit he hasn’t felt since he opened his eyes in the rank-ass library. 

That darkness was like a harness, keeping him grounded to something real. Tucking him in gently at night and kissing him on the head. 

It made waking up that much shittier. 

Knowing he’d be on nightwatch with Heather and Janet tonight, he used resting up as an excuse to lay on his cot, hardly moving in the clouded air. 

He needed to process. 

There was something so fucking weird about that dream. 

It felt real in the moment, and he didn’t question anything that had happened. 

Why there was water on the ground at his feet? Why Harrington was there wearing pajamas Billy could only describe as skanky? All of this made perfect fucking sense to dream Billy. 

Awake Billy, had some fuckin’ questions. 

Mostly, those previously listed. As well as: what the fuck?

He blames seeing Steve specifically on being in his house. That makes sense. You tend to think about a guy quite a lot when you’re living in the broken shell of his family home. He blames seeing Steve in those itsy-bitsy shorts and a homemade cropped t-shirt on the well repressed sexual interest he refused to admit he felt towards the guy. 

All that made sense. 

But everything else. 

Steve said he was dead. 

Was he dead?

Was this Hell?

Purgatory?

He’s read The Divine Comedy, and this doesn’t quite match up with any of the shit Dante waxed on about. 

And dream Billy didn’t think that was a weird thing to say to someone. To accuse them of being dead. He just said could be soon and then acted like that was a normal fucking response. 

His head was spinning out of control. 

The only thing that made sense was when Billy said they were somewhere safe. 

Because, they were. 

Even in the void place, he knew they were safe. 

There was a small tapping sound on the wall next to the open door frame. 

The door had long since rotted right through. 

“Miss Janet sent me to see if you’re alright.”

Andrew was always calling Janet Holloway Miss Janet. 

It makes Billy wonder if manners like that were beaten into him by a father like Neil. 

He hopes not. 

He likes Andrew too much for that. 

Andrew hovered around while Billy swung himself out of his cot. 

He changed out the bandana over his mouth and nose. 

Most of them slept fully dressed, even with their shoes and socks still firmly on their feet. 

You had to be ready to go at the slightest sound of Bad in this place. 

Plus, everything was so goddamn dirty, what’s a little mud in the sheets in the grand scheme of things? And the rancid rotting smell of the Upside Down did wonders to cover the smell of body odor.

Billy followed Andrew down the L-shaped hallway, to the sitting room where he found Janet and Heather huddled together on one couch, the little one between them. 

“Apparently something happened on the run last night.” 

Billy’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t make out Janet’s expression under her face covering. The little one got up from his spot on the couch, standing in Billy’s shadow. He liked to do that. Billy figured he felt safe behind someone so much bigger and stronger than him. Someone with a big fuckin’ weapon that was never too far away. 

“Who’d we lose?”

“No one. Everyone’s okay. Hopper just called all of us for a discussion, then went to the basement.”

The basement was Hopper’s domain with his little chunk of the crew. 

He had found some busted up H.A.M. radio from somewhere he refused to explain, and spent all the time he wasn’t watching over his shoulder for threats or gathering supplies from smashed grocery stores, trying to fix it up, tuning it to different crackling stations, and yelling into it. 

El. El, I need you to copy if you can hear me. El!

-

The pillow was a mess of blood the next morning. 

It was congealed and cracked and tacky against his face and made the pillowcase stick to his cheek and his bloody upper lip in a way that kinda made Steve wanna puke a little bit. 

His nose had bled in the night. 

He never got nosebleeds. 

Unless he used his power. 

And that dream. 

That blank void space and that mucky scraggly Billy lookin’ like the hunky star of some apocalypse movie.

Wait.

Blood forgotten, smeared on his face and neck, Steve tossed himself towards the phone on his nightstand, smacking his shoulder against the wooden corner and tumbling to the floor, his legs still tangled in his sheets on the bed. 

He couldn’t deal with anything, snatching the phone up and punching in the only number that was grinding through his head. 

“ Pick up pick up pick up pick up pick up, ” he muttered into the receiver. 

His upper body was still flopped over to the plush carpet, legs twitching and shaking on the bed with his anxiety. 

He’s had some massive fucking realizations and he needs backup. 

“This is the Byers.”

“Put El on the phone.”

-

“Oh. Steve’s covered in blood again. The Upside Down must really be back,” Dustin said in complete monotone as Steve opened the door. 

Steve couldn’t give less of a fuck right now. 

He felt like he was on the verge of a major breakthrough, all coming in the neat package of a major breakdown. 

He felt manic and shaky and so what if he forgot he was covered in the aftermath of a superpower-nosebleed-explosion?

“Shut up. Just get in.”

El had rallied the old troops from St. Paul, calling everyone at the ass-crack o’fuck in the morning and saying something about catching some weird Hawkins vibes all the way from Minnesota. 

It was a fucking weak excuse, but explaining the whole Steve situation was just not really in the cards today. 

He’s got an agenda and they need to stick to it. 

Robin said she’d gather Max on the way to Steve’s place, and Nancy was probably hauling Mike and Lucas over faster than a speeding gun or whatever that expression is, so all Steve had to do was get his story straight. 

“And maybe you should think about putting on a clean shirt? At the very least. I’d say, maybe just start over. Take a shower. Powerwash your face, even.”

“When the fuck did you become sarcastic ?”

“Right after you became friends with the coolest chick on the planet and then decided you’re too good for her.”

“ Chick. Don’t call Robin a chick. And I’ve told you, we’re just friends. I’m not too good for her.”

Really, Steve thought she was too good for him. 

Well, that, and there’s the whole part where she’s super totally not into guys at all. 

“So, what’s this all about, anyway? Mike said on the phone that El called him and left a really cryptic message.”

“Look. She called me to explain and ask if everyone could meet here,” Steve lied. “I’ll give you guys a recap once the rest of the gang shows.”

“But she thinks there’s something going on with the Upside Down? Again ?”

“I think she knows there’s something going on with the Upside Down.”

The more Steve sat with the memory of how Billy looked in that dream, the more he was certain of where he was. 

Billy had been ratty. His normally perfect hair was long and limp, greasy on top and matted around his face. He was sporting a patchy beard, nothing like the fuckin’ pornstache the guy had been rocking all last summer. 

And he was filthy. Covered in grime and dirt, and Steve’s sure if he’d looked harder, he would’ve seen traces of that viscous black goo that only meant bad news. 

There was a squeal of tires, an alarm signaling the arrival of Nancy in her mother’s station wagon, toting her brother and Lucas. 

“I’m in this now, Lucas Sinclair!” came Erica’s voice from the entryway. 

Steve was tapping his foot impatiently.

“Erica, you accidentally found out about all this!”

“So did you!”

The Sinclair siblings’ bickering was only cut by the sound of the Wheeler siblings snapping at one another in turn.

“Am I the only one that thinks it doesn’t make sense to meet up this early? El and Will are like, seven hours away!”

“Mike! It doesn’t matter. We all have to talk and figure out what’s going on.”

The sounds of arguments all quieted abruptly as the four people rounded the corner and caught sight of Steve.

“Oh, Jesus. Who kicked your ass this time?” Mike snipped at Steve. 

Oh, yeah. He keeps forgetting he’s covered in his own nose blood. 

“What? It’s nothing. I kicked my own ass. Just take a seat.”

“I told you to-”

Steve didn’t wanna hear it. 

He loves all these people, but his head kinda felt like it was full of mushy jelly and runny pudding and all the loud talking wasn’t doing much to help. 

He stepped out onto the porch, snagging the pack of cigarettes he kept stowed in the flower box next to the door. 

It took two to finally tame his nerves any. 

Sitting there with all the people in his house waiting for an explanation, he kinda felt like his haphazard plan was shit and going to fall through immediately. 

Just tell them El called. Tell them she saw Billy in the nowhere place and she thinks he’s alive. Easy as pie. 

The tell-tale sound of a skateboard making its way closer and closer announced Max before he saw her. 

Robin was pedaling next to her, helmet lopsided on her head and not buckled underneath her chin. 

They were talking animatedly to one another, their laughter dying as soon as they saw Steve waiting for them.

“Fuck. So this is real.”

“Why does everyone think I got the shit beat outta me?”

“Your ass gets creamed every time some spooky shit goes down in this place, Harrington,” Max informed him. 

She was a little Billy replica, all the way down to the way the corner of her mouth twitched up when she said his name. 

It would’ve been sad. The way she tried to become her brother after losing him so violently last summer. 

But something like relief settled into his bones, strong and real and wait ‘til I tell her Billy’s not dead and he was laughing. Curling in on himself cackling so hard his stomach had already begun to get sore

“Fuck. He’s lost it,” Robin sighed, ditching her bike next to Dustin’s and heaving Steve up, both hands underneath his armpits.

-

Nobody dared speak. 

“And you’re sure? You’re positive you heard one of those things?”

Janet had her arms twisted over her chest, her jaw tight as she watched Hopper’s every move. 

“It’s not really a sound you forget.”

Billy’s hand was shaking, he was gripping the ax so hard. 

“So, we’re fucked,” Angela said harshly. Her cold voice sent ice down Billy’s spine. “If those things are back, we don’t stand a fucking chance.”

Hopper scrubbed his hand over his brow, sighing through the cloth over his mouth and nose.

“It just means I have to try harder. I can get to El, I know I can.”

Hopper said that a lot. But he never explained what getting to El meant. 

Heather had explained she met El once, but she said it was weird and she only saw her like some kind of shadow, a figment in this dark empty place. Somewhere as cold and broken as the Upside Down felt. 

The little one was leaned up against Billy, his left hand balled in the edge of Billy’s leather jacket. He stood like that a lot. It was grounding for Billy. Kinda like holding Max’s hand when she was young and still thought he was the coolest person she’d ever met. 

“But, you only heard something, right? So it very well could be nothing.” Timothy was good at keeping mediator. He always kept a level head and talked slowly and calmly. They needed someone like him in this nightmare.

“They make this noise. This kind of wet chirping. Like this gurgle that just sounds like they’re watching you, ready to pounce out at any time, shrieking and attacking. It’s not a sound you forget.” Hopper had this horrible haunted look on his face, and Billy fucking believed him. 

“Then we up nightwatch. Stick together,” Billy offered. He never usually piped up with strategy, but that’s the best he’s got, and frankly, he thinks it’s the only way they’d all be able to make it through. 

“Exactly. We move in a pack now. Keep track of everyone together, and stay aware of what’s around us. I think we should do a major run and then lock up for a few days to see what goes down.” 

Hopper leaned back in the ratty armchair he was taking up, looking around to see if anyone challenged his ideas. 

Billy had given up his alpha male attitude the second Hopper yanked his upper arm and nearly screamed at him, asking Billy if he was ‘one of the flayed’ all while aggressively checking him over for injuries. 

First time any of Neil’s lessons actually sunk in. 

Respect and responsibility. 

If that fucker could see Billy now, doing nothing but respecting authority and taking responsibility for all these peoples’ lives. 

“We should rest up. Take a run tonight. Get a lay of the land,” Timothy said with an air of finality. Nobody argued. 

Hopper nodded. 

Everyone broke out from the Harringtons’ living room, milling around to get prepared for tonight’s run. Taking stock of what they needed to keep going for the next few days. 

Billy was itching to slide back into his cot and try to seek out that space if he can. The empty space where Harrington and that warm feeling of safe existed. 

The little one stayed clinging to his jacket, and Billy took a loose hold of his wrist, trying to provide some kind of basic comfort to the tiny kid. 

���You wanna go raid the cabinet?” The kid stared up at Billy with big eyes. Billy could never tell what color they were in the gloom. He thinks maybe green. 

The cabinet was a large door, built into the wall of the sitting room, and clearly where the Harringtons kept their games. 

They had these excruciating couple thousand-piece puzzles, the pictures peeling and faded on the pieces. They had Trivial Pursuit and backgammon, and all kindsa shit. 

The little one went and pulled out the checkers board. That was the only game Billy knew how to play anyhow. 

He and Max used to sit for hours, playing with this dinosaur-themed checker game Max’s dad got for her one birthday. 

It helped, playing a game. Helped pass the time. Help bait the anxiety. 

Helped them all feel a little bit closer to human.

-

“I don’t. Get it.”

Apparently, Nancy was not the only one, if the blank stares Steve was receiving from around his living room were anything to go by. 

“Yeah, why did she call you ?” Mike’s snitty tone was really grating on Steve’s fragile nerves.

“She said, she called to make sure everyone could come over here before she told you all to just show up this early on a Sunday morning and then she kinda explained what happened.”

Max was white as a sheet, tracking Steve like he was playing a horrible joke on her. 

“And she saw Billy. Billy Hargrove .” 

Steve nodded at Dustin. 

“Why does she think he’s in the Upside Down?” Robin asked, perched on the coffee table, sitting closest to where he was standing nervously. 

“She just knows .”

It was frustrating, trying to impart the seriousness of the situation without just spilling his guts. 

He rubbed absentmindedly at the cigar burn on his wrist. 

“I just don’t believe this. I talked to her three days ago, and she’s still having trouble with her powers. She can barely move a book, and hasn’t been able to get to the void since July, and you’re saying she accidentally saw Billy Hargrove, who we all saw murder a bunch of people and then get killed -”

“Shut up! He wasn’t himself!” Max shrieked out over Mike, the only time she’d even opened her mouth since Steve had mentioned her stepbrother’s name.

“Even if he is alive, El couldn’t have seen him! It doesn’t make sense!” Mike’s voice rose over Max’s, and Steve has a fucking headache and he’s over it.

“It was me! I had a dream. I went to the void. I saw Billy in the Upside Down. I called El to say she saw him.” 

Everyone went dead silent, staring at him.

“Steve,” Robin began, searching his face.

It was like all the wind that had been filling up his sails, powering his energy ship, had suddenly quit blowing. 

Steve was tired. 

He sank to the floor, crossing his legs where he sat.

“I need you all to shut the fuck up for a moment and let me explain, because I only wanna say all this shit once.” He covered his bloody face with his hands. “I’m like El.”

That statement hung in the air for a moment. 

And then there was a roar of noise.

“How could you keep this a secret?” Dustin shouted.

“Not in a million years !” Lucas decided. Erica yelled something back at him, vaguely defending Steve, which was nice.

“You mean you came from the lab?” Mike had a look on his face like he’d swallowed a particularly bitter lemon. 

“Everybody, shut the fuck up!” Max roared, glowering at each person until they were silent again. 

In all this Robin hadn’t said a word. She was pale, staring at Steve.

“Look, I don’t wanna go into it because it fucking sucks to think about,” Steve still hadn’t uncovered his face. “But yeah. I was in the lab. I got out because they decided I was a failed experiment. My mom worked at the lab and she took me and we pretended like the three of us moved here from Oklahoma and my dad told me never to tell anyone. And I haven’t. Didn’t even tell El. She recognized me from then. Don’t even know how, I left when she was like, three. Doesn’t matter. I’m a freaky lab kid and last night I fell asleep and saw Billy in that-what’d you call it? The void? Yeah, I saw him, and he’s covered in dirt and gross black Upside Down shit, and he’s fucking stuck there, and now we’re here.”

There was another silence. 

Steve didn’t dare to look at any of them.

He didn’t want them to laugh in his face. Tell him he was making all this shit up and leave him alone to deal with Billy trapped somewhere else. 

He wanted them to take his word for it. To quietly believe this crazy fucking shit of a story because the scared other feeling was back and clawing at his spine and making him want to burrow into the ground and find somewhere safe and secure and-

“Okay.”

Of course it was Robin. 

It was always Robin. 

Steve let himself look at her. 

She was pale, but she was smiling at him. 

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Steve nodded once.

“Okay. Uh, great.”

“Wait, if you’re defective, no offense, then how did you see Billy?” 

Steve stared at Max weighing his answer carefully. 

“Because, well, the defective thing, that was all, I didn’t mean to, that was before I really understood what I could do. Don’t get me wrong, it really worked out, but it was an accident.”

“Spit it out, Sailor Man.”

“ Erica .”

Erica just rolled her eyes at Lucas. 

“Okay. Uh, before I explain, just, just keep in mind that I have rules, and I don’t use my powers if I can avoid them, and I’d never use them to be a creep, but-”

“Steve!”

“Fine!” The words were right there, ready to tumble out of his mouth and ruin his life forever. 

There was no going back after this. 

The second they knew, everything would be different.

“I can feel other peoples’ emotions and, like, change them.”

Another silence.

“I don’t understand.”

Nancy was the last person he’d ever want to have this conversation with. 

He knows what she’s thinking. He knows that the great anger brewing inside her is because she assumes he made her like him. Made her attracted to him. 

Made her want him. 

“I don’t use it like that. I would never, put something there that shouldn’t be there. It’s just, When someone feels something near me, I can tap into it. Let it become my own feelings. And then I just, change it. Just a little.” He cast around for a harmless example because so far, everyone was staring at him like a goddamn creep. “Robin!”

She startled slightly when he yelled at her.

“Okay, so Robin. I’d never, ever make you feel something not true to you. Like, I’d never make it so you were into me when you’re totally not, right?” He cast a glance at Nancy. “But, like, the other day, when you felt really shitty when I invited you over and you were studying, I just, I made it so you wouldn’t feel bad. I felt all this guilt you had for leaving me alone when you thought I was having a shitty day, and I made it so you didn’t feel guilty because you shouldn’t. That’s the kinda level I allow myself to work on.”

The look Robin was giving him was breaking his fucking heart. 

Worse still, was the feeling of betrayal that began eating away at her. 

“So, right now. You can tell what we’re all feeling?” Even Lucas, ever the level-headed one, couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I don’t want to. I don’t try to, but I can’t really avoid it. I just try to ignore it. But sometimes, sometimes if I bottle it all up for a while, it comes crashing out of me, and that’s when bad shit happens. If I don’t use it occasionally, it only wakes things worse, and I-”

“I can’t hear this.”

Robin’s anger crashed through Steve like a wave, nearly knocking him over. She stood, towering over him. 

“When we were in that bathroom, all drugged out of our minds. I-” she sniffed, rage tears pooling in her eyes. Steve likes her eyes. So crystal blue. “Are we even really friends?”

Her last question was nothing more than a whisper. 

And it made Steve wish he was never born.

He gaped at her like a dead fish.

“Rob, of course we are! I would never-”

“Because I hated you. And then one summer. Two whole months where we’re close enough that you can get all up in my brain, and suddenly I’m telling you shit I’ve never told anyone before.”

“It wasn’t, Robin I swear, that whole time, I never once used-”

She held up her hand, cutting him off. 

A sob caught in his throat as she turned on her heel. 

She slammed the door closed behind her. 

Another fucking silence. 

Steve couldn’t look anyone in the eye.

Their feelings were enough for him now, betrayal and anger and disappointment rushing into his lungs, drowning him. Choking him. 

“You’ve used them on all of us.”

It wasn’t a question. 

It was just a statement. The coldest he’s ever heard Dustin sound. 

“I just want everyone to be happy.”

“Jesus, Steve. You realize that’s actually totally fucked up, right? You can’t just make us feel whatever you want,” Dustin bellowed at him, standing up like Robin had done, looking down at Steve where he sat pathetically on the floor. 

And, when it’s put like that. 

Sure. 

It’s kinda fucked up. 

But he’s only ever meddled in a way that’s good. He only ever tries to make his friends feel the positives. Hell, on the night of that stupid Snow Ball, he’d given Dustin enough self-confidence to make Madonna seem insecure. 

All he does is try to help. 

“All I do is try to help.”

More fucking silence. 

Steve was so goddamn sick of silence. All he had was silence. He had the nothing, empty quiet. And he didn’t want it from the people who were supposed to make his life loud. 

“El won’t be here until later tonight. I think we should just meet up then.”

Steve buried his head in his hands, biting back sobs as the small group filtered out of his house. 

This is why he had wanted to take this secret with him to death. 

He told everyone who he really is, and now they all hate him, and he’s completely alone, and wherever Billy is he’s fucking scared and-

“Steve?”

Max’s voice was small, mirroring the way she was curled in on herself in the plush armchair near the wall. 

“Do you really think Billy’s alive?”

Steve nodded at her, desperately begging her to stay. To help him. 

“I know he is.”

“I have an idea.”

-

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. 

Doesn’t remember much of anything in this place. 

He studied the water lapping at his muddy boots, dragging his toes through it to make the water wave and ripple. 

It didn’t make a sound. 

“I want to help.”

Billy knew Steve was there even before he spoke. 

Something about the warmth he brought to the void place. 

The safety. 

“Don’t know if you can.”

Steve’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smile at that. His face was covered in blood, dried and flaking away from his skin, painted all the way down his face and neck, some staining the collar of his shirt.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“That happens when the only interactions you have with a guy are to beat his ass.”

Steve cracked a real smile at that. Something big and bright that made Billy’s gut twist in a way he didn’t quite like. 

“You’re forgetting all those other times we spent together. You’re not very subtle, you know.”

Yeah, Billy knows. 

Mostly because he wasn’t trying to be subtle. 

He had talked to Steve about his bitchy ex while they both had their dicks out in the shower. He was trying to be very much un-subtle. 

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

“I know.”

Oh. 

Steve knows. 

And all he had done was stare blankly at Billy. 

Nice. 

“I need to know where you are.”

“Why?” 

“Because I can help.”

Billy just blinked at Steve. 

“Do you know El?”

Something funny happened to Steve’s face. He kind of gave a little smile that flickered into a frown and landed on something a little pinched and awkward. 

“Yeah. How do you know her?”

“Hopper keeps saying he needs to get to her. None of us know what he’s talking about.”

And with that, Steve’s eyes went huge, and his jaw dropped. The water at Billy’s ankles sloshed quietly. 

“Hopper’s there? Chief Hopper? Jim Hopper is there?”

“Jesus, yeah. Been here since we all woke up.”

Steve acted like Billy had told him that Farrah Fawcett herself was on her way to shave his head. 

Meaning, he looked struck fucking dumb. 

“I’m gonna need you to explain.”

“I don’t know. Don’t remember much. Crashed my car on one of your shitty backwoods roads, and then everything is just, kinda, gone. I woke up in this shithole version of the library and Hopper found me here and we’ve kinda set up camp.”

Billy shrugged lamely. Something was dripping, he could hear the sound of it far behind him.

“There’s more of you? How many?”

“Not as many as there should be.”

Steve’s mouth pinched, and his big droopy eyes went all sweet and sad. 

“Where are you? Where’s the camp?”

Billy was suddenly embarrassed. There was a sound like a stream flowing over rocks.

What’s he supposed to say? The hellscape skeleton of your house oh and by the way all your stuff is here and I slept in your bed once because I was scared and sad.

“Someone’s house. Don’t know whose.”

Steve huffed some air out of his nostrils, his mouth pinching again. 

Billy hadn’t realized someone could make so many different expressions just by pursing their lips in different ways. 

“Find out. We’re coming to get you.”

A crash of a wave, and Billy was back in hell. 

-

Steve sucked in lungfuls of air, tossing the towel that had been covering his eyes to the ground. 

“You saw him.” 

Max was sitting in front of him, the t.v. playing static behind her. 

“Yeah. He’s okay. I mean, he’s really gross. Like, he’s-sorry. He’s okay.”

Max was still staring at him like she didn’t quite know how to proceed. 

“But he’s in the Upside Down?”

“Yeah. And there’s others. He said Hopper’s there, that he’s been trying to contact El.”

“Wait, Hopper? He’s alive?”

“Billy said all of the flayed woke up after the Fourth of July in the Upside Down. He doesn’t know anything that happened in this world, and Hopper was there and they’ve set up, like, some kind of camp, or whatever. He said they’re in someone’s house. He doesn’t know who.”

“ Fuck .”

Yeah, Steve agrees with that sentiment. 

This whole thing was like, kind of a lot. 

And deep inside him, those other feelings had yet to leave him alone all day. 

There was some kind of disappointment knocking about in his brain. 

He knows it’s Billy. 

All of those other feelings, it’s whatever Billy is feeling right that minute wherever he is. 

And it only happens when Steve is-

“Max, he’s here.”

She whipped around behind her, staring at the front door like Billy could waltz through it at any moment. 

“No, no not here, here .” She clearly didn’t understand. He used the towel to wipe the fresh blood from his upper lip, still having yet to clean himself up any. “The camp, the safeplace, it’s here. They’ve set up in my house!”

It felt like a revelation on par with the greatest inventions. Steve felt like the scientist that landed the man on the moon or the very first person to melt cheese onto fries. 

A genius. 

“So, he’s, I mean, he could be, just, here .” She looked over the room wistfully, and Steve knew how she felt. Like she wanted to pierce her hands into thin air, tearing a hole in between the two worlds and ripping Billy straight outta hell. 

(Really, she just filled him with a wave of fierce determination, but Steve likes to take poetic license on other people’s feelings sometimes.)

“And you can feel him.”

“Yeah.”

“Is he, okay?”

And he knows this question. 

Not the okay he assured her of when he first saw Billy. Soothing that he wasn’t missing any internal organs or possessed by any monsters. 

She wants to know if he’s held it together. 

“He’s scared. He’s always scared. But he’s really fucking stubborn, and he- I don’t know why he feels these things, but sometimes he gets kinda sad. Almost like he’s lost something, and sometimes, it feels like he’s caught fire, and his insides are just going up in flame and he gets overwhelmed by them. And sometimes he feels-” He hadn’t meant to continue.

“Tell me.”

He’s pretty sure Max knew what he was going to say next. 

She just wanted it confirmed. 

“Hopeless. Sometimes he feels hopeless.”

She sniffed, her eyes shining as she looked anywhere that wasn’t Steve. 

“But, we know now. He doesn’t have to be hopeless anymore. We’ll find a way in, and we’ll get him out.”

He didn’t want to manipulate her. 

He didn’t want to cross the boundaries everyone clearly thought he already had. 

But he was positive he would find a way to Billy. He was positive he would get him out and get him home. 

He sent a wave of that determination and hope and conviction to her. 

“Yeah. We’ll get him.”

-

“Hopper, man, some funky shit is going down.”

Hopper whirled around quickly, halfway to his feet and asking who's been hurt before Billy raised both hands, acting like he was calming an anxious horse.

“Nah, sorry, shoulda worded that better. I just mean, something’s happened to me. With me, maybe. I don’t know. Just hear me out. This shit’s gonna sound, insane.”

Hopper didn’t say anything as Billy explained, beginning with that night when the wall shattered next to his head, and ending with his most recent trip to the void place. 

Billy shrugged lamely when he finished explaining. 

“So, Harrington, huh? Never woulda guessed he was like her. You sure you didn’t see a little girl anywhere in the blank place?”

“No. It was just us. Both times.”

Hopper leaned back in his chair, scratching a hand through his thick beard. 

“The first time one of the demogorgons showed up on our side was behind Steve’s house. Took Will Byers from his shed. They live some few miles away. Second time was in Harrington’s backyard. Took Barbara Holland.” Hopper sighed, looking in the direction of the busted radio. Billy could more or less see the cogs turning in his head. “If you see him again, tell him where we are. Tell him I think the walls are thinnest here. That maybe he and El could tear through. Better yet, tell him to find me if he can.”

He clapped Billy on the shoulder, looking right at him in that way he did sometimes. It always made Billy feel like a little kid. 

“Thank you, kid. You might’ve just saved us.”

Billy felt awkward and didn’t really know what to do with his face. Thankfully, Hopper turned away from him, cutting the moment short and moving back to fiddling with the old radio. 

Billy ducked his way up and back to the furthest bedroom on the ground floor, taking a seat on his low cot and digging his palms into his eyes. 

He didn’t know how the void happened. If he could only get there in his sleep, or if it was Steve’s doing somehow. 

“C’mon, Steve. Where are you? Come find me, Pretty Boy. We gotta talk.”

When he moved his hands away, he was in that blank place. 

Billy was taken aback a bit, thinking somehow he had created the place around him. 

Until he saw Steve, standing nervously and staring at Billy. 

“I felt you. What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, you felt me? What in the fuck’s that supposed to mean.”

“Don’t worry about it. What happened? Are you guys okay?”

Steve wasn’t covered in blood anymore. 

In fact, he looked freshly showered, his hair slightly damp and soft-looking without product. 

It’s how he always looked right after having a post-practice shower. Clean and warm. Soft and inviting. 

“I talked to Hopper. He told me to give you a message.”

Steve’s eyes lit up, and he took a step towards Billy, the water rippling where his foot disturbed the surface. 

“He said, well. He told me where we are. Apparently, we’re at your place.” Billy tried to smirk a little, act like this was brand new information to him.

“Yeah. I gathered.”

“He thinks the walls are thinnest at your place. Said that maybe you and El could tear through easily. That mean anything to you?”

Steve nodded so hard his bangs flopped right into his eyes. 

He pushed his hair out of his face, tucking some behind his ear. Billy tracked the movement. 

“We’re going to try tonight. Maybe around six. Can you guys be ready by then?”

“We don’t have any way to track time around here. Don’t even know if it’s day or night, really.”

Steve bit his soft bottom lip, looking at Billy like he wanted to cry for him. 

“Then I’ll come and get you before. Warn you when we’re about to start. Make sure everyone stays close. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep it sustained, and we want to get everyone out if we can.”

“Steve, man, what in the fuck is going on? I’ve been shut up in this place for, for I don’t even know how long, and all of a sudden, you just start showing up in my head and telling me that you’re gonna take point on this big fuckin’ rescue mission.”

Billy doesn’t want to admit it to anyone, least of all Steve Harrington, but he’s scared, and confused, and he genuinely wishes that he had died in that library instead of waking up. 

“I’ll explain it when you get back.” 

And Steve smiled at him and the corners of his eyes crinkled and Billy didn’t quite feel like he wanted to die anymore. 

-

“Where are they?”

El didn’t even say hello when she pushed Steve’s front door open, just made straight for Max and Steve in the sitting room.

“They’re all being dicks,” was Max’s answer. “Steve told us about how you two know each other, and everyone kinda freaked.”

“I mean, it’s pretty freaky.”

“Yeah, sure, but they didn’t need to be such shitbirds about it.”

Somewhere between feeling harshly angry at Steve and his powers and hearing her brother’s voice crackle through the television speaker, Max had pretty much ensconced Steve as her sidekick. 

Which he didn’t mind in the least. 

It was kinda odd seeing the Byers in his house. 

Jonathan looked. Exactly the same. 

Like literally. His hair had grown out since his mother had taken a pair of scissors and a bowl to it last summer, and he looked just like the Hawkins Jonathan Steve was used to. 

It was kinda nice. 

At least one thing hasn’t changed. 

Especially because Will is pretty much unrecognizable. 

He had shot up, growing until he could nearly look Steve in the eye. And thank God, he must've followed Jonathan’s footsteps and stopped letting Joyce cut his hair. 

It was longer, adn shaggier, but it made him look so grown up. 

Nearly as grownup as El, her hair nearly down to her shoulder blades, the top of her head coming up on Steve’s chin, showing off the signs of her own growth spurt. 

Even Joyce was sporting a new look. Longer hair with bangs that were swept off her face.

She gave Steve a comforting hug, and those were just the same. 

Unease filled the room. 

Nobody knew what they were walking into. El had to have given them the basics, and Steve figures she explained some on the long drive back to town, but there had been even more developments since the last they had spoken this morning. 

Steve sifted through the borderline panic of Max and the Byers, clinging onto the fierce calm that El was radiating. Probably for his benefit more than her own actual experience. 

“I know where Billy is. We talked. I have an idea.” He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the feelings. “Hopper’s alive.”

It took a second. 

El’s carefully maintained calm wavered for a moment. 

And then it crashed down. 

Disbelief, relief, denial, anger, hope, joy. 

Everything a person could possibly feel at once poured out of El and Joyce both, nearly knocking Steve off his feet with the sheer velocity of the emotions. 

“Saw him?”

“No. But Billy mentioned him. He said he’s been trying to get to you.”

El’s eyes filled with tears, and Steve could feel the satisfaction, the pride, welling up in her that Hopper was still thinking of her. That he was trying to reach out. 

“My powers,” she trailed off.

“Yeah. I know. But, he said, well, he told Billy to tell me, he thinks the walls are thinnest here. Maybe in the woods outback. He thinks we can do it.”

Sorry,” Joyce interrupted. She had gathered herself somewhat, but her feelings were still shaky. 

She always felt like she was trembling emotionally. Joyce felt everything nearly as viscerally as Billy did. 

“I think we’re not on the same page. Steve, you spoke to Billy? El said she sensed him.”

“Steve is like me. From Papa.”

“You mean, from the lab?” Jonathan clarified. 

Everyone was staring at Steve again and he felt like burrowing a hole right through the floor and hiding underground forever. 

“Yeah, I got out when I was a kid. My parents were pretty hell-bent on hiding it from everyone. But. You know. Cat’s outta the bag now. But yes, it was me who saw Billy. He’s in the Upside Down. A bunch of people are. Including Hopper. It sounds like they were all taken and the flayed people out here were like, fake. Like evil twin versions.”

Sure, it’s a shitty explanation.

It’s the best he can do, okay? Leave him alone. 

“So, what’s his plan, then?”

That’s the good thing about the Byers, though. They get the whole, priority thing. Now’s not the time to focus on shit like Steve’s fake life. Not when the Upside Down is concerned. 

“Billy didn’t say much. Just that he thinks maybe El and I could like, band together to open it. I don’t really know how, I mean, I haven’t thought about it much, I just spoke to him, but that's the idea. I told him I would meet him in the void or whatever before we go so he can gather everyone and get ready.”

“So, is it just us?” Will asked quietly, biting the inside of his cheek. He was disappointed. His friends not being where they were needed. Not being there to see him for the first time since his family moved away months ago. 

Steve shrugged.

He was battling his own disappointment and hurt at everyone ditching him. 

“No. Let’s start calling. We need to stick together for this one. Billy hasn’t said anything about how bad the Upside Down has been, and we need to be ready to fight off anything that tries to get through.”

“Max is right. They should be here.” Will was already making his way to the phone placed on the side table. “They need to be here.” 

Jonathan caught Steve’s eye, jerking his head slightly to the hallway. 

Steve followed him, already knowing the line of questioning that was about to hit him. 

“I knew you called El. I picked up this morning. Now the story makes a lot more sense, I guess.”

“Yeah. I’ve been getting this weird feeling for a couple months, but I finally put it all together. Probably would’ve happened faster it is was El.”

“I don’t know. She’s been struggling a lot. She practices every day, but,” he sighed” I don’t know if she’s strong enough to make this work.”

He’s worried, adn scared, and has that exact same tremble-feeling that his mother does. 

“I know. I just don’t think we can leave them any longer. Billy said they’ve already lost people. I don’t know what it’s been like for them, but they’ve been stuck for fucking months, and-”

This time, it hit him so hard he really did blackout. 

His vision clouded around him, and his whole body burned with the raging fear inside of him. 

He could hear something, could hear someone screaming, adn something, something that sounded horrible, and so very very like a-

-

“Demogorgon!”

It’s like it had come out of nowhere. 

This towering figure, long and thin in all the wrong fucking ways.

And the sound. Billy realized what Hopper meant about how it’s not something you forget. 

They were in some form of a ready position. 

Billy among the front of the group, holding his ax he had never let go of in the first place. 

His heart was pounding. 

We’ll be out soon. We’ll be out soon. 

He didn’t believe it. 

How could he?

How the fuck is Steve Harrington going to get them out of the worst place ever? No offense to him or anything, but the guy could barely make a goddamn milkshake without spilling something on the sticky tile floor of Scoops Ahoy! and now, Billy’s life is in this guy’s hands while he stares into the jaws of a monster that looks like it stepped right out of H.P. Lovecraft’s wettest dreams.

It’s not like this is the first time he’s had this realization, but he is in way over his fucking head. 

“Steve,” Billy grumbled to himself through gritted teeth. “If you can hear me, get us the fuck outta here.”

The thing ahead of them wasn’t moving. It stood in the line of the trees behind Steve’s house. 

It was staring down the clump of people on the other side of the backyard. 

The air was still. 

Billy’s ears were ringing. 

He stared the thing down. 

Its long fingers twitched. 

Someone screamed. 

And the thing charged. 

It roared like nothing Billy had ever heard before. A shriek that seemed to vibrate Billy’s bones and tremble the earth underneath his feet. 

It charged. 

Sprinting forward on long thin legs, it loped with a grace that turned Billy’s stomach and made his knees wobble and threaten to give out. 

Plant your feet. 

It rang through his head, Steve’s voice from, some time Billy couldn’t remember. Or maybe Steve was just the little voice that commanded his bravery now. 

Either way, he dug the balls of his feet into the cracked ground, and waited. 

Don’t stop fighting.

He swung. 

The ax clocked right into the side of the thing, barely cutting into its thick leathery skin, but it slowed it down. 

Well, actually. 

It made it change course from attacking the group as a whole, to honing in on Billy. 

Which was less than awesome. 

Billy wrenched the ax out of its tough body, thick, sticky black goo connecting the ax with its entry point as he drew it away. 

He swung again, nearly hitting the same place. 

The thing cried out, roaring over the sound of screaming and gunshots. 

Hopper had his rifle trained on the flowered head of the one Billy was furiously chopping into like a tree. 

There were two more, two he hadn’t noticed in his preoccupation with the one in front of him. 

He didn’t know who was who. Which gunshot belonged to which gun, which shriek belonged to which animal. 

He didn’t know if the cries of pain were from the awful beasts or the people in his camp. He was hoping the former. 

He swung again. There was a sickening sound of the metal blade connecting with something solid. Something like bone. 

Hopper shot it, once, twice in the head. 

It was whining, making a high-pitched noise as it staggered about. 

One last blow to the side of the thing, and it was finished. 

The monster flopped onto the ground, dark liquid oozing out of it, its body nearly split in half where Billy had hammered it with his ax. A great gaping wound that showed sticky dark entrails. 

Billy turned. 

His brain was working in slow motion as he charged into the battle still raging. 

He didn’t know how many of the things had arrived. 

All he knew was taking them out.

His arms were sore from the force he was putting into each blow with his ax. His muscles threatened to give out at any moment.

Drive them back. We’re coming. 

The thought was shoved into his head. He didn’t know where it came from but he believed it. 

“Help is on the way!” He shouted to no one and everyone. 

He had taken down two more demogorgons with the help of the others. One was missing its body, a petal head lolling on the ground, getting trampled on in the fight. 

-

Steve had felt the demogorgon before Billy saw it. 

It was an odd feeling, almost like it was a black hole sucking up everything he thought and felt before he could cling onto it. 

It made him feel cold, and empty, and just like the Upside Down felt. 

“We don’t have time!”

El was insisting on contacting the others. She was livid with them for abandoning Steve, but things were taking a turn for the small group trapped in that hellscape. 

“Steve’s right. If there’s a demogorgon there, that means the Mind Flayer has gotten some strength back, wherever he is.”

Steve nodded at Will gratefully.

“But, what’s the idea? You two open the gate. Then what? We wait for those things to come through to our side?” Jonathan asked, kinda harshly, if you ask Steve.

Steve rubbed his eyes, his fists pressing against them so hard he was seeing odd shapes. 

“No. I go through. I get them. I bring them back.” His head was a fucking mess. Billy was all over the place. Fear, desperation, and a horrible calm that only came when things looked like the end. Plant your feet, he thought, trying to get his feelings to Billy through the thin dimensional wall. Don’t stop fighting. “For the past few days, all I’ve been able to feel is somebody else’s fucking fear and this stupid stupid stubbornness and I know it’s Billy, and I know he’s in trouble. Like right now. The demogorgons are coming for them, and he’s so scared. He’s so fucking scared and he thinks he’s gonna die, and he’s trapped .”

He looked at each person individually, glaring at them all in the eye. 

“We don’t have time.”

So it was decided. 

He brought El outside, and stared into the shimmering water of the pool. 

The pool where a demon came out and dragged Barbara to her death. 

It gave him the fucking creeps. Well, it more gave him the severe anxiety, but there was something about it that made it seem like it was the best place to try and rip the fold between himself and Billy. 

Drive them back. We’re coming. 

He wanted Billy to have some hope. Something like a lifeline that would keep him fighting the monsters. 

He had wrenched his nail bat out of the wall it was still planted in from a few nights ago, and stood next to El, ready to try. 

“To be honest, I don’t know how to help you.” It was the only thing that scared him about this plan. “I don’t have the same powers as you. The telekin-the moving stuff around. I don’t know how to open this.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. 

“In Chicago. Kali. When I’m angry my powers are better,” she took his hand. “Make me angry.”

Steve closed his eyes. 

He tried to push Billy to the side, clinging onto the first bit of El he could sense. 

Her anger was like a melted core running through her. Driving her in a lot of ways. 

He grabbed onto it. 

Papa. Everything he did to your mama. Being locked in isolation. Fights with Hopper. Being trapped in the cabin. Feeling alone and not knowing how to fix it. New kids at school being mean. Techs in the lab that treated us like rats. The smell of skin burning. Parents that called you a freak. 

He didn’t know when he had stopped using El’s ready-made rage, and began siphoning his own straight into the beating heart of her fury. 

His gut began to feel white-hot, and he could feel the blood dripping down his lip. 

Lying to everyone. Being abandoned for the truth. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

Steve was livid. 

He’s never felt an emotion consume him like this. Felt one feeling take over so completely it’s like there was nothing else in the world. 

He opened his eyes. 

There was blood flowing steadily from El’s nose, and he knew his was doing the same. 

He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, his body going into overdrive to divert all of his energy to his powers. 

The rift glowed red through the clear pool water, splitting open like a seam on a well-worn shirt. 

The burn on his arm ached, and he pushed into it. 

He remembered being held down on his father’s desk. Remembers the cigar being forced against his skin, bubbling up and disfiguring the tattoo beyond recognition. 

He remembers his father, this is for your own good, Steven. You’ll tell everyone you had an accident. People won’t question a burn like they will a tattoo. 

Like no one would take one look at the quarter-sized mark and know what would make it. 

He remembers getting the tattoo. 

It was nearly the same process. 

He was strapped down in a chair, his screams going ignored as the needle drove into his skin over and over, leaving a neat black number behind. 

001

Number One. 

The first in a series of children bred for something more, and beaten into acceptance. 

His head felt like it could explode. He didn’t know what was going on around him, was barely aware of El’s sweaty hand in his, and the bright red light coming from the cracked bottom of the pool. 

It was open. 

Number One took a deep breath, and dived into the pool. 

-

It was the little one that noticed it. 

Billy had been trying to yell at him to get back inside, to keep himself out of harm’s way. 

They had killed six demogorgons, and more were certainly coming. 

The trees in the forest were rustling in a way they never did on their own. 

The little one was pointing frantically, his eyes wide and scared. 

Billy turned, and his blood ran cold. 

Something was moving in the pool. 

It was making the thick non-water slosh around dangerously, the dark liquid lapping over the sides and staining the concrete. 

There were vines crisscrossing over the surface of the liquid, and Billy approached it carefully, hoping whatever was coming out would be trapped underneath them. 

“This is the last fucking thing we need,” Hopper gritted out, cocking his rifle and aiming at the sludge. 

And then Billy’s head felt like it had been cracked open. 

He was blinded with pain and rage and 

Help me, Hargrove!

He started swinging his ax wildly at the vines. Trying to break them apart enough for a body to fit through. 

His heart thundered in his chest, and he dropped to his knees, ripping at the slimy black tendrils. 

He shoved his left arm in.

It was like dousing his arm in ice. Like the liquid was made from the purest essence of cold. 

He searched frantically with his hand, finding something solid and yanking with all his strength. 

He had to put both arms in, grabbing hold of whatever he could, using his body weight as leverage to extract Steve from the cold. 

He was limp when Billy finally got him out, but breathing heavily. 

He opened his eyes, wiping his face free of the goop and blood covering him, and grinned at Billy. 

“Told’ya we would get you out.”

They shepherd him inside, most of the gang speechless and struck dumb from the events of the past while. 

Steve was given a change of almost clean clothes, and allowed to use some of their bottled water ration to clean the freezing black fluid from himself. 

He wasted little time, and was down in the Upside Down version of his living room with everyone else. 

“We can’t be long. El had to use a lot of strength to open it, but she’ll need her strength to close it, too.” 

Nobody knew what in the fuck Steve was going on about. 

Nobody but Hopper, that is. 

He still had disgusting pool sludge all over his front from when he pulled Steve into a tight hug when he had gotten his bearings back from his journey through the rift. 

“We can’t send people through that shit. It took all of Billy’s muscle to get you outta there.”

“So we drain it,” Steve insisted. “My parents drain it sometimes, I know how to do it.”

“I’ll keep watch. Make sure nothing tries to make itself known.”

Billy had barely wiped himself off. 

He didn’t care anymore about how freezing that shit was, he just wanted to surge forward, and get back the fuck home.

Hopper studied them both.

“Bring weapons. Yell if you need help.”

Billy nodded once, and turned on his heel, following Steve out the back door. 

Steve led him to a wooden shed on the side of the house. Billy had to clear the vines away from it before Steve could pry open the doors. 

It was full of pool equipment, and it didn’t take long for Steve to locate a large grubby pump. He knocked it against the wall of the shed until the filter attachment clattered off, leaving bigger openings for the sludge to, hopefully, run through. 

“Shit. This thing is electric. You got electricity?” 

It was the first time Steve had really gotten a good look at Steve since being in the Upside Down. 

He looked exactly as he had in the void place. His hair had a lot more disgusting black fluid in it, and he overall looked kinda shitty with the flecks of grime and blood on his face, but he looked bright. Alive. Strong. 

“How did you do it? Take me to that place. Figure out we were here.” 

Steve flushed. Billy had become overly aware that his face was completely covered under his bandana. Steve should cover his face. 

He drew another one of his back pocket, and, he didn’t know why, but he tied it around Steve’s face. 

Seriously, he could’ve just handed it to the guy and called it good there. But no. He had to set his ax on the ground, propped against his leg, wrap his arms around Steve’s shoulders, and tie the bandana like this was some intricate ritual. 

All while Steve just stared at him with those fuckin’ eyes of his. 

“It’s a long story.” Billy could barely hear Steve speak through the dirty cloth now covering his mouth and nose. “I’ll tell you when we’re back. When we’re safe.”

“I’m holding you to that, Harrington. Can’t have a guy poking around my dreams and shouting in my head without knowing his intentions.”

It was as close to flirting as Billy dared right now. 

Right before they tried to journey between worlds. 

“Good to know you heard me. I was trying to give you something of a pep talk.”

“Well, it worked. I would’ve just put my arms out and let those things rip me to shreds if I hadn’t have known.”

Billy didn’t know what Steve’s face was doing behind the cloth, but his eyes dropped, and Billy imagined that little cinch of his mouth that he had noticed Steve doing so much in that void place.

-

Billy meant it as a joke. 

He really did. 

And the Billy that was torn to bits in the mall wasn’t this Billy. Wasn’t the real Billy that was made out of real Billy materials and real Billy personality. 

But it still made Steve feel queasy, thinking about his arms spread wide, black goop pouring out of his mouth and nose as the Mind Flayer decimated him. 

“We’ve got a lot to talk about, Billy. Just, not now.” 

And Steve turned off, hauling the pump back to the pool and taking calming breaths. 

The pump sank without much effort, like there was some kind of gravitational pull at the bottom of the pool. 

Steve had connected the thickest hose he could find, adn sent Billy off with the extension cord to find an outlet that didn’t spark and threaten fire. 

Before no time, the pump was humming, and pushing black slime through the hose and onto the dead grass. 

They didn’t need to get it all out, just as much as they could shove everyone through. 

Steve closed his eyes, trying to reach El like he had Billy. 

We had a hold up. Shouldn’t be long. 

He could feel her on the other side. 

She promised she would stay close enough to the rift that Steve could get in touch with her. 

He could feel something slither down his spine, a wordless confirmation from her. 

The liquid in the pool was slowly edging down, leaving a stain on the once-white walls of the pool. 

“Gather everyone up. Tell ‘em to meet out here. Tell ‘em to leave it all behind.”

Billy was still staring at the edge of the forest when he commanded Steve. 

It was odd, being in his house that’s not his house. 

Everything was so. Wrong. 

From the way the house seemed to be crumbling down, reduced to its studs in some areas, to the way it was still clearly his house. Paintings his father had bought. Elegant furniture his mother selected. 

It was all there. Just under a thick layer of dirt and nightmares. 

He thought idly about his bedroom, wondering if it would look like it did on his end. A little messy, the sheets typically rumpled and unmade. 

He resisted the urge to wander upstairs, reminding himself he was on a mission. 

“It’s time. Don’t bring anything. It’ll probably be ruined along the way.”

Everyone looked grave. Steve tried to smile at them, tried to push through some calmness to them all. He had forgotten Billy’s bandana was tied around his face. He sent one last wave of quiet confidence around the room, and led the group through the kitchen. 

They had barely rounded the corner of the kitchen island when they heard a strangled yell from outside. 

Steve put his head down, and sprinted through the shattered glass doors, skidding to a halt in the threshold. 

Billy was staggering backward, his ax forgotten on the ground and his left hand was clinging wildly to his right shoulder. 

His jacket was in tatters, thick blood dripping bright crimson down his arm, standing out like neon against the dark, dirty ground. 

Steve didn’t feel himself moving forward. He didn’t feel his hands raising in front of him. 

He just felt anger. The same anger from before that had ripped through him like a raging forest fire and straight into El. 

The thing shrieked. 

It backed away from Billy, twisting and writhing as its horrible screams filled the air, making the hair on the back of Steve’s neck stand on end. 

Fierce fury was exploding out of him, and he grit his teeth against the pounding in his head. 

“You don’t get to hurt him,” Steve barely barked out. 

All went still, and the demogorgon snapped into pieces. 

Steve felt like he could pass out where he stood. 

He had never felt so wrung dry. 

His vision was waning at the edges, and he felt an arm around his waist, coaxing him toward the red light now barely shining through a thin layer of slime in the pool. 

“Hold your breath, Pretty Boy.”

-

Steve was limp against him, and Billy was doing his best to ignore the searing pain in his right shoulder as he held Steve close to his side. He had fumbled off both of their face coverings, moving clumsily through the pain of his injury. 

He took one last breath, and jumped into the rip between worlds. 

He plunged into the water, the crystal blue of a chlorinated pool. 

It was the best feeling in the world. 

Being covered and surrounded by clean. The heated water doing more to soothe Billy’s frayed nerves than anything in his life. 

He kicked hard, swimming one-armed to the surface, Harrington a dead weight in his injured arm. 

His head broke the water, and he took in deep lungfuls of clean, crisp air. 

Someone was tugging at Steve, and Billy, for the first time in his fucking life, was glad to see those kids Max was constantly hanging around. 

A woman Billy didn’t know was fawning over Steve, feeling for a pulse, and looking relieved when she felt his hot breath against her palm. 

“There’s more coming,” Billy coughed. 

He barely managed to get the words out, dripping muck and grime on the cement by the pool, when it felt as though he was hit from the side by a speeding train. 

He buried his nose in bright orange hair, hugging Max back as tightly as he could manage. 

He was exhausted, and feeling her there, alive and okay, was all that was keeping him standing. 

“I thought, I mean, we all thought you were dead. We saw it. That thing killed you .” Billy realized, with a whole lotta horror, that she was crying. Sobbing outright into his dirty chest. 

“Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” How could they have seen when that monster just came at him? 

“Oh, you’re bleeding.”

And if she only just realized he was hurt?

Max frog-marched Billy inside, to a very pale-looking Nancy Wheeler, sitting ready with a first aid kit. 

Billy had to peel his clothes off his body, the fabric stuck to him like a second skin. 

Nobody was speaking, and more of the people locked in the other place came traipsing into the room, fluffy towels wrapped around their shoulders. 

Hopper was the last to come in, holding the woman tight to his side underneath the striped pool towel. 

“Steve and El are closing it back up.”

There was a quiet murmur around the room.

Nancy patched up Billy’s shoulder, Max still stuck to his side like glue, the little boy from camp pasted to his other side. 

He had no idea how much time had past when Steve finally came traipsing into the room with Max’s little friend, both of them sporting matching bloody noses. 

Steve looked like shit. 

His face was covered in blood, old and new, and he still had some of the gross not-liquid in his hair from the Upside Down. 

But Billy doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see someone in his life. 

“I’m sure everyone has questions,” said the woman tucked against Hop’s side. El, Billy assumes, had taken her place on Hop’s other side, wrapping the towel around her shoulders as well. 

The woman launched into a story that made Billy feel like his brain was oozing out of his ears. 

A monster. One they had all met before. Playing body snatcher in their sleepy little town. 

Apparently, one had been wearing a Billy meat-suit and wreaking havoc around town, which made Billy wanna throw up until he died. 

Which, not-Billy, had died. Fuckin’ brutally. And in front of everyone. Which sure as shit explained why Max wouldn’t let go of his sweaty hand. 

The story made Billy queasy, and he took to studying everyone in the room instead. 

All the kids were there, even the one that had been following Steve around like a little shadow, but they were all glaring in the very much opposite direction of Steve. 

Steve himself was pressed almost against the wall, looking like he’d collapse if the wall weren’t supporting him. 

“What’s up with the cold shoulder?” Billy muttered to Max.

“They’re mad at Steve right now. He’s been lying to us all.”

It was all he got out of her before everyone started moving around. 

The woman, Joyce Byers, he’s learned, had finished her story, and the group from the Upside Down had begun clamoring for rides home, or maybe something to eat. 

Billy just saw Steve manage to slip away before he followed him. 

It took some doing, shaking off the little one, who still wasn’t speaking, and looked ready to burst into tears when Billy told him to stay behind in the living room. 

But Janet Holloway took the kid’s other hand and gently led him back into the living room. 

Billy nodded at her, and sped up the stairs. 

It was weird, being in Harrington’s actual room. 

It was messy, and looked like Steve spent most of his time here tossing clothes on the ground or twisting up in his bed covers like a tornado. 

But it was oddly comforting. 

Being in Steve’s real room, and not some perverse dirty copy. 

Steve was standing, facing the bed, peeling his borrowed jacket from his shoulders and leaving it there on the floor.

“I never said thank you.”

Steve startled at Billy’s voice.

“Yeah. No problem.” Steve’s tone was light and airy, but Billy heard him sniff.

“Max said the little shitbirds are mad at you. Something about you lying.” 

Steve turned around, giving Bily a watery smile.

“It’s a long story.”

“I got time.”

So Steve told him. 

About the lab. 

About the experiments. 

About the torture. 

He explained that he had rules. Never making anyone feel something they already didn’t. Never altering someone’s opinion of, or feelings towards him. 

Billy grit his teeth as he imagined Wheeler giving Steve a hard time about that.

Steve was silent for a moment, not looking at Billy.

“It’s okay if you hate me. I mean, everyone does now.”

“You'd be able to feel if I hated you. You and those powers of yours just saved my life, Pretty Boy. I’m pretty sure I’m feeling the farthest thing from hatred just about now.”

It was as close to a confession as Billy would let himself get. 

But if Steve knows what he’s feeling at any given moment, then that means that he knows, and he didn’t-

“Quit it. Insecurity isn’t a good look on you.”

Steve sounded tired, and he flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling with his arms out. 

At first, it didn’t sit quite right with Billy. 

He had barely even begun to identify what he was feeling when Steve swooped in and just point blank told him what the emotion was. 

Billy spent nearly all of his time being a big fuckin’ facade. 

He tried his very best to hide any emotional tell from anyone around him. 

He prided himself on being a chameleon. That nobody would ever truly know how he felt in any given situation. 

And here’s pretty boy Steve Harrington. Who is feeling just as, if not more, strongly as Billy is. 

But, it takes out all the parts of emotions that Billy hates dealing with. 

Showing them. Talking about them. 

He’d never once had to grapple with the words to explain how he feels to Steve. 

Steve would just. 

He’d know. 

And god, that’s kind of a nice idea. 

Billy sat down gently on the bed. 

“Alright.”

Steve’s head popped up to stare incredulously at Billy. 

Billy just grinned at him. 

[kaypeace21]

Crash-course for all the evidence of Will creating the mindflayer/upsidedown

* Honestly I’ve talked about this stuff in my did theories- where I explained how the upsidedown/mf/ the lab subjects/ and russians all connect back to Will creating them. But since so may people assume that Will got his powers from the upsidedown/mf rather than Will creating it all subconsciously (with his powers). Thought i’d do a short analysis of just that connection (without boggling it down with those other plot lines that are interconnected) . *So I’m not mentioning the lights -because it interconnects with the numbers/lab.I’m just going to list every example in short succession from every season for brevity’s sake (so it won’t be structured as eloquently as prior analyses). 

refresher of how Will influences the mf/upsidedown ...

S1) 

Will ( in s1e1) says to Dustin if he could have any comic it would be the xmen. Dustin later  says "do you think - el was born with her powers like the xmen? " Will plays a d&d game saying the demogorgan got him -so it does irl. Will writes stories where bad guys weakness are fire so the mf/ demogorgans are lit on fire in s1-3 (and it's their weakness). Will watches poltergeist so Will is forced to be the child character in that film- who was trapped in a alternative dimension and could only speak to their mother through tech. The demogrgan is said to resemble a shark by nancy-mathcing Will’s Jaws movie poster in his room. in s1 Mr clarke describes the vale of shadows (later the upsidedown) as being created by “necrotic” (’dead’-zombie boy) and “shadow” (shadow monster/mf) “magic”. In d&d the Vale of Shadows, is  as a lush valley hidden in the mountains that holds a sacred pool with the power to make dreams reality. In d&d the demogorgan is literally called the "deep father" in d&d Nancy also says the demogorgan is like a “lion” the meaning of the name Lonnie- is literally “lion”. We see it attack Will when using lonnie's gun (in lonnie's shed). And it knocks the bat out of Jonathan's hand too. (Baseball/hunting were taught by their dad lonnie). The demogorgan also hurts a deer- mirroring Jonathan's story about how Lonnie forced him to kill a rabbit and how this upset him as he was a fan of the rabbit character from the film bambi.. El when she first sees the demogorgan also sees it eating it’s own eggs-aka symbolically the father hurting his own children.  Will's password for cb is rhadagast a wizard who protects Wildlife (the opposite of Hunter-lonnie/the demogorgan). 

Duffers cited as inspo the silent hill videogames): And in s1 Hopper named dropped the character Alessa’s last name. “The bad guys faked Alessa’s death. Kaufmann prepared a substitute body of alessa;  and performed the fake autopsy (like Will) . Alessa had precognition (future/intuition-like will the wise is said to have in s3) and pyrokinesis (firepowers mentioned  Will the wise has in s1).  Alessa’s latent psychic abilities are triggered and she shrouds Silent Hill in fog and an altered reality to prevent her ab*sive parent’s schemes from advancing. Many of the drastic changes that befall the town in the game, such as the horrific creatures that come to inhabit it, are conjured from her imagination and delusions. “ 

Will also says in s1ep1 he wants xmen 134-about the dark phoenix saga. ‘dark phoenix’  - has pyrokinesis ( fire powers-like Will the wise). And the dark phoenix also  “was able to warp reality on a universal scale”. One of the phoenix’s host was even the god Thor (god of lightning-an element Will is associated with a lot in s2)

(in s1 Will also spit up a slug- in d&d putting a slug in a humanoid can create/turn that humanoid into a mf. foreshadowing Will being posessed/becoming the mf in s2. ).

S2)

 Will plays digdug (a videogame about underground tunnels) so the mf creates tunnels. Will's dog dies so demogogans become demo-dogs. He also watches Ghostbusters- where a character is possessed by the ‘gate keeper’ and can control demon dogs. So this happens to Will too -similar to s1 with poltergeist .In s1 , Hopper even mentions the book Cujo about a violent dog, who is replaced by a new dog named ‘Willie’ (to allude to this).In s1 we see  Mike holding a drawing of Will’s- where Will's wizard has lightning powers (coming from his hand). everytime Will uses tech in s1, the phones explode and lighting appears out of them- hopper makes a BBQ joke about the burned phones.later in s2 the mf has these same lightning abilities and the lab technician makes the same BBQ joke.Joyce even describes the tunnels of the mf/ that Will’s draws as “like lightning.”  We also see the russians eviserated by lightning next season too.

A lab tech calls Will a wizard-and they monitor his brain waves, record him on video, just like they did to El .(when the mf first appears at Will’s house- the lab techs even notice ). The drawing of the mf is next to a baseball (Lonnie ref) and Will says it was a drawing for a story he wrote. In s2 Nancy describes the mindflayer (but she’s actually describing Will).“So this thing is like a brain that’s controlling everything.”Because it’s not the mindflayers’ brain - it’s Will’s brain controlling everything. ( a “hive mind” aka the mf/WILL share a brain ). Owens in s2e1 (BEFORE the mf possession) says Will's ‘anniversary affect’ would make him remember “tra*matic memories” and “OPEN the neurological flood GATES” (aka Will’s neurological GATES are the gates between the real world and upsidedown - which are connected to the mf).  

 Owens in s2e1 (after mentioning the “gates”) even says Will's ‘anniversary affect’ /  “tr*umatic memories” would  cause temporary “personality changes”for Will (the later mf possession) . I mean... Owens wasn’t entirely wrong was he? Will even feels the back of his neck in s2 and says it has to do with “memories” ...and in s3 feeling the back of his neck meant Will was sensing  the mf. Similarly, before his possession-mr clarke  mentions phineus gage who after an accident had a “complete change to his personality” (and the shot pans to Will).

Nancy even calls the mind flayer the “mind-flamer”- hinting at it’s connection to Will the wise who has fire powers). And Dustin says the mf “takes over minds with it’s highly developed psyionic abilities “ And to “summon an undead army... cause the mindflayer loves brains ” ( and in s3 the mf creates a undead army by taking over people’s brains). Hopper  even says “So how do we kill this thing shoot it with fireballs ?” (which destroys the flesh-monster in s3) ”

S3) 

Will (the “zombie boy”) writes a story about juju zombies after watching a film about zombies at starcourt in s3 - then the mf creates a undead army -which was also foreshadowed in s2 (and similar to Will’s  s3 d&d story).  We also see Will wrote this d&d story in front of "the thing" poster. So the mf creates a flesh monster resembling the creature in that film too.  We also see someone get bit (el) like in Will's story and when his friends retcon his ending to be about “sacrificing themselves via explosion (Hopper).” Will just says “fine you win” (so it ends that way).Also, the shadow monster is now called the Mindflayer - and mimics the mf from d&d (both can control rats with their powers in the show/game).  

Will in s2-3 grabs the back of his neck and he attributed it to “memories”, “dreams”, and sensing the mf. Will created castle byers after his dad left and he grabs the bat in cb which was next to the Will the wise drawing (similar to how the baseball was next to the mf drawing in s2) and destroys cb with said bat . Then Will touches his neck and admits the mf has returned.  EVERY moment Will senses the mf can be loosely connected to Lonnie. Lonnie used to call him h*mophobic sl*rs so anytime he subconsciously thinks of his feelings towards Mike the mf appears-1st time it’s on one of their ‘movie dates’, 2nd time when Mike and El walk off together down the hill to make-out, 3rd time right after he smashed castle byers after Mike says “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls”, 4th time (after the fight with Mike) when Billy is yelling to open the door (a trigger) and confides in Mike, 5th time when Mike asks him to go away so he can talk to El in the hospital waiting area, and 6th time when Mike says he loves El. The 7th time is when Jonathan is fixing up a car -something Lonnie used to do.Lonnie fixes up cars as a hobby-showing his remodeled car to Jonathan in s1 . Will then senses the mf and grabs his neck-which he said are connected to old “memories”.  max and Mike are silent until Jonathan says  says “got it (the distributor)”. Then Mike screams for his older sibling. We also see in s1 Jonathan checked to see if Lonnie threw Will in his trunk- something the mf does to some of his victims in s3.

Dustin and susie sing “never ending story”- which is literally about a seemingly normal boy  named Sebastian with a bowl cut (from a single parent home) subconsciously making a fantasy world being invaded by a dark force (representing the loss of hope/dreams) that only his imagination powers can fix . “make believe i’m everywhere ... what you dream will be...Rhymes that keep their secrets Will unfold behind the clouds.And there upon a rainbow Is the answer to a never ending story” . Cough-Will’s rainbow ship he CREATED.Both times the  lyric plays  “Rhymes that keep their secrets WILL “ ( it pans to Will). 

The film also follows a false chosen one who everyone says is supposed to save fantasia- named Atreyu (el). Specifically, for that plotwist that Sebastian (Will) has to be the one to do so , not Atreyu (who sebastian subconsciously created). In the novel/film-Atreyu ( the child who was deemed the ‘chosen one) is knocked from Falkor’s back, and into the sea of possibilities. There he wakes on the shore of abandoned ruins. 

“There Gmork (The Mindflayer) reveals himself, having been lying in wait.And then latches his jaws onto Atreyu’s leg.”

-Before the duet, Susie tells dusin she’s reading “ a wizard of earthsea” and says ged is about to save his world. The book is about a boy-wizard  named Ged (Will) who casts a powerful spell, but the spell goes awry and instead he releases a shadow creature! The new Archmage, Gensher, describes the shadow as an ancient evil that wishes to possess Ged. But the ‘shadow’ turns out  to be a representation of the darkest aspects of his personality. And the only way for the world to be saved is for the 2 to merge and for Ged to accept himself . 

-Will says he’s a wizard ( writing on a music tape in s3 “will the wise-wizard mix’ and having his password for castle byers be ‘rhadaghast’- a lotr wizard). The way they describe d&d Wizards matches Will/mindflayer perfectly “Wizards are adepts and magicians who combine according to the type of their spells. Relying on the subtle weaves of magic that permeate the universe, wizards are able to create spells of explosive fire, sparking lightning, subtle deception, and gross mind control. Their magic summons monsters from other planes of existence, predicts the future, and turns defeated enemies into zombies. Their most powerful spells can transform one substance into another, summon meteors from the sky, and open portals to other worlds” (all these powers Will the wise/mf are implied to have)

- Stranger things d&d comic (published post s3) : Will creating a illusion army of monsters -as Will the wizard.

- stranger writers twitter reffed several movies which discuss artist/writer WILLiam Blake who helped make the art exhibit “worlds turned upsidedown” 

possible reason for the flayed eating  chemicals& fertilizer (in s3)

full link/credits here.  Lonnie’s gf has a biker shirt from Harley davidson- with the eagle logo and their saying “live to ride’. Which would imply lonnie is also in such biker circles. Harley davidson in the 80s had dr*g gangs too (primarily m*th).

 One reason m*th is so prevalent in rural areas is that it can be formulated, or “cooked,” by small producers and one of the ingredients is readily found on most farms – anhydrous AMMONIA fertilizer. Both farmers and chemical suppliers have experienced thefts of anhydrous particularly in the Midwest.“

WHICH REMINDS ME OF the FLAYED EATING FERTILIZER AND CHEMICALS IN S3 . Nancy even says farmers/chem suppliers  are having fertilizer stolen! And she later thinks flayed tom was on drugs- “A mysterious  case of the missing fertilizer- a Nancy Drew Mystery”. This is also in the same season one character (who looks a bit like Lonnie) is a biker is corrupting the town.

Will creating /basing the supernatural from suppressed memories -means it’s from a very young child’s perspective . young Will would equate people eating chemicals, ammonia fertilizer, and ammonia... to using those SAME chemicals to create m*th and then physically consuming them . Why we see mrs driscoll eating fertilizer & Billy drinking ammonia.

The reason the flayed started behaving differently is probably because in s2 Will was forcibly injected with a needle & woken up with ammonia by Hopper-jogging some of those old memories. 

EVEN Nancy’s proof Tom is on dr*gs is a symptom of m*th use or withdrawl from it-excessive sweating (like all the flayed in s2-3). M*th causes hyperthermia (body is at a higher temp than usual)-so they like it cold!!!!! Even clammy hands that she mentioned is a symptom of m*th use. in children it can even cause seizures- like Will :(

And when m*th is made via fertilizer it first is made into a highly corrosive liquid which is sometimes green-like the Russian lab.“six pounds of toxic waste is created for every pound of m*th manufactured. The waste is often dumped on farms, in rivers and and is harmful to the environment.” Like all the chemical leaks relating to Hawkins lab/mf that affected the crops in s2/this pic of water in s3.

m*th was even called ‘bathroom crank’-which is sketchy given the bathtub is what mf fears and how the sensory deprivation tank is also called a ‘tub’ by el . Becky even said Brenner would get terry high and throw her in the tank/tub.

It also does take some chemisty knowledge to COVERT various substances (including fertilizer and other chemicals) to make m*th- which reminds me of the kids saying they can convert one substance into another (when explaining why the possessed are eating chemicals)- they say they’re making a new chemical “in themselves”

other hints

Will’s b day is march 22 . Which is when “fire burns most brightly” and his ‘birthday number is number 7′ (”it was a 7 the demogorgan it got me′) . The number 7  is specifically associated with  “wisdom and psychic abilities”.  His b day even adds up to 7 (3+2+2).His horoscope is also influenced by the shadow god-ketu (who is also associated with wisdom and psychic abilities too). 

* There’s way more details/depth/ other st inspirations in my DID analyses -specifically pt 2. (where i discuss how the mf/upsidedown connects to the numbers/russians- and also specifially Will).But this is just a crash course about the flayed/upsideown/it’s creatures connect to Will.

People will dismiss all of this as just the Duffers liking to reference random things they like/ and foreshadow via d&d without any in universe reason.  but I really think that’s a disappointing explanation/outcome. Especially the predictable cliche theory that the mf is just experiment #1. Not only is it boring, cliche, and predictable af- but it doesn’t line up as well with the mental health themes mentioned in ever season.Will created everything via tr*uma cause of his dad- and overcomes this: is not only a “twist” that will make rewatching more enjoyable given all the hints- it’s more narratively sound given how much the series touches on themes such as overcoming tra*ma, mental health, and problematic fathers. The #1/ex experiment=mf theory doesn’t explain why they made the supernatural connect to Will in this way . And with such a boring cliche ending it would quickly be forgotten like other big sci-fi/fantasy shows that quickly lost relevancy after being popular: like heros, g.o.t, etc.One makes the show cliche another makes it remembered for decades (ex: jacob’s ladder).

[jackklinemybeloved]

A Non-Exhaustive List of All The Stupid Shit That Happened In Season 15 of Supernatural

(In Case Any Of You Are Tempted To Watch More Supernatural [*side-eyes the shitty prequel*] And Need a Reminder of How Bad The Show Got)

ALL of the souls in hell are released (including the ghosts the boys have defeated over the years) and it’s resolved in like. Three episodes. (15x01-15x03)

It is implied that Rowena fucked Jack the Ripper. He is also an antagonist for the episode but like. He’s not really a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. (15x02)

A major side character gets his heart ripped out because he chose not to give a demon the Winchester’s location. She finds them anyway with no struggle and then dies almost immediately. (15x03)

Sam and Dean come across a couple that is killing people to help their newly turned vampire child. There are many parallels drawn to their relationship with Jack, even though they both tricked him into being trapped in a coffin for eternity and Dean tried to kill him multiple times. They both say if they could’ve helped Jack the way the parents helped their kid, they would’ve. They kill the vampire kid anyway. (15x04)

God brings Lilith back (retconning the idea that God has no power in the empty) and all she does is destroy a gun and die. Anyone could’ve done that. At least she was one of the two actors who tried this season (the other is Jake Abel). (15x05)

Chuck takes away Sam and Dean’s Main Character Status, so they start having normal people problems. Fun concept, yes? Except for the part where Sam Winchester, a man who was raised to hunt monsters since infancy, misses a punch to a huge guy’s unmoving face by like an entire foot. There’s other examples of this in the episode, really just saying these characters are only skilled or in anyway important because The Narrative Dictates It. Not a cool way to end your fifteen year long character driven show. (15x10)

Jack goes to the Garden of Eden and that somehow restores his soul? There’s also a spirit of a young girl who greets him and tells him “[the garden will change him] if [he] was the one meant to find it.” Who she is and the reason God created some weird prophecy for someone who he was threatened by and didn’t plan on existing are both not explained. (15x13)

THEE biblical Adam is revealed to be A.) alive and B.) romantically involved with an angel named Serafina. Neither of these things are explained. Eve isn’t even mentioned. (15x17)

Speaking of Adam, he’s on a revenge quest to kill God. So he tests Jack by giving him a riddle. Why? Most of Jack’s trials have been strengthening him, both his body and soul, in order to have enough power to kill God. If Adam and Billie are so desperate to kill God, why give him a riddle? What if he gets it wrong? Is the whole plan abandoned? Plus the riddle is “which one of these rocks has been blessed by God” and the answer is “all of them, because God is in everything.” Very weird take from a group of people who want God dead but like. Okay. (15x17)

Sam and Dean have a life and death argument that prevents them from killing the main villain and neither of their arguments make sense. The argument ends when Sam asks Dean if he would let him die and Dean refuses even though he literally has a gun pointed at Sam for the entire argument. (15x17)

Jack explodes in the cold open of one episode and it makes me laugh every time I see it. (15x18)

The absolute racist bullshit that was the villianization of Billie. (15x18)

Do I even have to. Do I even have to say it. (15x18).

God brings Lucifer back and it has little to no effect on the plot. (15x19)

Chuck punches Sam and Dean repeatedly for like two minutes, uninterrupted. He also just says “Guys. Stay down. Guys stoppppp. Stop. Stay down” the whole time and it’s so bad. (15x19)

Bobby tells Dean “Cas helped” Jack fix heaven, and Dean has no further questions, even though Cas is his best friend and last he knew, Cas was dead. (15x20)

Blurry wife. (15x20)

[ssahotchhner]

hunter, hunted

i should not be so excited about this but i just discovered that when you copy and paste text into a new post tumblr FINALLY allows italics and bolded fonts to be transferred over so I don't have to remember to go through it and do it myself again i could literally CRY rn. ANYWAY I thought it would be fun to write a oneshot like the Profiler, Profiled where Morgan is accused of murder. i created an oc for this one and I hope you love April I've spent a lot of time with her the last couple of weeks (:

words: 13.4k

pairing: hotch x oc

warnings: detailed descriptions of murder and torture and sexual assault

questions comments concerns

“Where’s the weapon, April?”

It was almost laughable. A federal agent handcuffed in an interrogation room being questioned for murder in her small town while visiting a childhood friend. She shakes her head at the detective, laughing. “I carry a gun on me at all times because, as I said, I’m a federal agent. You have it in your possession already. If you want to test it to see if I’ve fired it recently, be my guest. You won’t find anything.”

“You’re right, we won’t find anything because Brandon Perry died from blunt force trauma to the head. So I’ll ask you again, where is the weapon?”

This time, April does laugh. Of course he wasn’t shot. That would be too easy. “You know what, Detective Barnes, if you hadn’t kicked my hotel door down in the middle of the night, handcuffed me and dragged me in here, I may have cooperated with the investigation, but here we are. So I’ll tell you again: my Unit Chief is SSA Aaron Hotchner. I won’t be answering any more questions until I can speak with him.”

The middle aged man glares at her until finally getting up and leaving her alone in the interrogation room. She rested her head on the table and hoped that maybe that stupid motherfucker would listen to her this time.

***

“Hunter has been detained in Bar Harbor, Maine.” Hotch tells the team in the conference room.

JJ frowns, “Isn’t that her hometown? Why has she been arrested?”

“For murder.” Hotch says. Before the team can react, he pulls up a picture of Brandon Perry’s body, “Brandon Perry was found yesterday by a fisherman just off the docks a week after he was released from prison on parole. He had been bludgeoned to death with some sort of blunt object, the M.E. suggests a baseball bat.”

“And why do they think April did this?” Spencer asks.

Hotch clicks a button and a picture of a couple brutally murdered in their bed, a little boy who’s throat had been slashed, and a little girl with brown hair and bright green eyes, alive and well filled the screen, “Because he was serving time for the murders of Addison, Jacob, and Timothy Hunter. April’s family.”

Everyone stares at the monitor in shock, “Her whole family was murdered when she was a kid… and she never mentioned it to us?” Penelope asks, her lower lip trembling.

“April was left relatively unharmed, but she had been sexually assaulted by the assailant. She said he was tall, but he had on a ski mask so she was never able to give solid identification.” Hotch finishes.

“So how’d they connect these murders to Brandon Perry?” Rossi asks.

“He was connected to a couple other home invasions and assaults nearby so he entered a plea deal. The local police were under a lot of pressure to close the case.”

“Breaking into homes to murdering almost an entire family is a big escalation.” Morgan says.

Hotch nods, “I thought so too.”

“April was just a kid,” Prentiss says, “And to go through a trauma like that, I’m sure she believed whatever the police fed her. And to see him be released from prison like that… I hate to say it, but it could have been the trigger.”

Penelope’s shaking her head, “No, no, you guys don’t really think April did this, do you?”

Everyone’s silent for a moment and then Morgan speaks, “Baby girl, if she’s innocent, we’ll prove it. But we can’t rule out the possibility that she did this just yet.”

“I know April hasn’t been here that long,” Garcia says, “But she is still a part of this family. You can all treat her like an unsub, but I won’t.” She finishes and marches out of the conference room.

Aaron sighs, “Wheels up in thirty.” He says resolutely before leaving the room.

***

Hotch walked into the police station, the team at his back and was greeted by a man about April’s age who introduced himself as Detective Fielder. “Detective, I’d like to speak to my agent.” Hotch demanded after shaking the man’s hand.

The man shrugged, “Sorry, sir. My partner’s in there with her. She’s stubborn as hell. I went to school with her, you know it’s a shame the way her family died but… must’ve knocked a screw loose or somethin’. She ain’t ever been the same.”

Aaron thought it over, killers had made their way into the bureau before. Not like this, though. Not under the nose of his whole team. April kept to herself, but she had joined this team less than a year ago, it would be overwhelming for anyone. “You misunderstand, detective. It wasn’t a request. Bring me to my agent.”

Reluctantly, the younger detective brought Hotch to the back of the station where he could already hear another man, older by the sounds of it, screaming at April.

She was staring back at him, her posture relaxed, looking more annoyed than anything. Hotch walked in and she relaxed further, only then letting on that she had been putting on a show of being unbothered for the detective, “Thank God.” April sighs, “I thought maybe they didn’t call you.”

“Are you alright?” He asks her first, unable to explain why hearing another man scream at you had made his blood boil.

“I’m fine,” She says and directs her attention back to the older detective, “Detective Barnes won’t even get me a water, though.”

“Detective Fielder, get April some water.” Hotch demands. He can feel the two men exchange a look behind him before the younger detective leaves the room. “Detective Barnes, uncuff my agent.”

“You can’t let her go, you don’t have jurisdiction here.” He growls.

“I’m not suggesting you let her go, but even if you’re right she committed a one off crime of revenge. She’s not a threat to anyone here. Uncuff her.” The detective glared at April who only smirked at him. “Now, detective.” Aaron said, firmer this time.

With a look of disgust on his face, the detective uncuffed a smiling April as detective Fielder came back in the room with a cup of water. “Thank you, Billy.” April said as the detective placed the cup in front of her. He ignored her completely.

“I’d like to speak to her alone.”

“Like Hell.” Detective Barnes spat.

“With all due respect, detective, it doesn’t appear that you’ve gotten much out of her. You’re welcome to watch through the window, but I will be questioning her. Clear the room.” They stared at each other for another few moments before the detectives both left the room. Hotch turned back to April whose entire demeanor changed. She sighed, relaxing her shoulders and slouching over the table as she rubbed at her wrists where the cuffs had been. The antagonizing behavior Hotch had just witnessed her exhibit completely vanished.

“You don’t help when you antagonize them like that.” Hotch says.

She shrugs, “The men in this town don’t like a woman who thinks she���s his equal. They never liked my attitude. They like it even less now that I outrank them. Either I act like the superior I am, even in cuffs, or they force me into submission.”

He sits down at the table across from her, “Why didn’t you tell me about your family? It wasn’t in your file.”

“Strauss knew.” April says, immediately defensive. She hadn’t lied, the bureau knew.

“But you didn’t want me or the team knowing, why?” She doesn’t answer him, just stares at her hands. “April, I can’t help you if I don’t know.” He says gently.

Finally she looks up and sighs, “When I was twelve my entire family was brutalized and murdered in front of me, but not before the unsub raped me in front of my parents. And I didn’t react the way the people of this town wanted me to. I was twelve and I was covered in semen when he left. So I showered before calling 911. I didn’t cry even once in front of anyone and I never spoke about what happened to anyone, not even the police. Only enough to tell them that I had no idea what he looked like, but I thought he was white.” Her eyes water just slightly and she doesn’t meet his eyes, “For the six years after the murders that I stayed in this town, I know a lot of people thought I did it. That I was some kind of psychopath. So no, I didn’t want it in my file.”

“You thought maybe we’d arrive at the same decision the town did.” Hotch opens the case file, “But you were never tried or even considered a real suspect. There was no physical evidence.”

She smiles sadly, “No physical evidence means nothing to a small town who’s rarely ever seen a scandal, and certainly nothing like this.”

He stares at her for a moment, “And so when Brandon Perry was released from jail, you thought he hadn’t suffered nearly enough so you came back up here and killed him.” April laughs and Hotch can see he’s made her feel antagonistic again, “This isn’t funny, April, you’re a suspect in a homicide.”

“No, Hotch, you don’t understand. It’s funny because I don’t even believe Brandon Perry killed my family and I haven’t believed that for a long long time. Which is why it would make no goddamn sense for me to kill him.”

“That’s bullshit!” The door bursts open and detective Barnes walks in.

“Detective--” Hotch stands as if to shield her and April nearly frowns at how protective he seems to be of her right now. She had seen him this way around the rest of the team, but never her.

“You told Detective Fielder when you were fifteen that you would kill that son of bitch yourself if he ever got out of jail.”

Hotch looks at April with a bit of annoyance, he hated when others had more information than him and from the second he walked in here she kept hiding things from him, not telling him the whole truth.

She lazily rolls her eyes and stares at Billy, “I was fifteen. I was angry. He cooperated with the police so he had the opportunity to get parole after fifteen years? Get his life back after I thought he had ruined mine? Yeah, I said some stupid shit, I think any kid would have.”

“When did you start to doubt that Brandon Perry had killed your family?” Hotch asks, but she’s still shooting daggers at the other detectives, “Agent, eyes here.” He says roughly, growing impatient with her.

Her eyes snap to his, “I used to lurk on support pages for people whose loved ones had been murdered and I remember seeing that this girl described… Almost exactly what had happened to my family, but she said it happened while Brandon was on trial here. She lived a couple towns over.”

“So what did you do?”

She shrugs, “Nothing, I was seventeen, I didn’t have any resources there was nothing I could do.”

Hotch sits down across from her again, leaning over the table so he’s closer to her, “You really expect me to believe, with the conviction you just said Brandon is innocent, that you didn’t look into this further?” She stays quiet and won’t meet his eyes, “I can have Garcia search your desk and computer if you’d rather do this that way.”

She leans back in her chair, rolling her eyes, “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m not a fucking criminal.”

“Then tell me what you know.” Hotch says, voice raised.

“Fine! I started volunteering at the police station so I could get access to files. I was good with the digital databases, but no one else was so they basically gave me free reign. I was able to find three similar cases, all within a couple years of each other but in different cities. One of them, he crossed into New Hampshire. All of the local police departments either arrested someone like Brandon or dismissed it as a one off crime and let it go cold. The files are in my desk drawer at the BAU.”

“You carried them with you all this time?”

She picks at the cuticles around her thumb, something Hotch noticed weeks ago she does when she’s nervous. “I thought… I thought about asking you guys to just look at the case a million times. See if you saw what I saw. And if you didn’t then maybe I could finally move on.”

“So why didn’t you ask?”

Her eyes dart around the room, to the detectives, the one way window, and then back to Hotch, “You guys, the team, you all have… This unbreakable bond and I… I barely just got here and I thought if I’d asked…” She sighs and runs her hands through her hair, “I just… I didn’t think you’d care.”

“The whole team flew out here at the drop of hat for you and you think we wouldn’t care?”

She frowns, “The whole team is here?”

“Yes.”

April sits back in her chair, looking dazed.

“Detectives, you’ll be releasing Agent Hunter from your custody now and since we have reason to believe there’s a serial killer loose and across state lines, we’ll be staying on the case.”

“You don’t really believe anything she’s saying, do you? She’s a psychopath!” Detective Barnes fumed.

Hotch stands and steps to the detective who immediately takes a step back after noticing Hotch’s menacing stance, “She is a federal agent and is no longer a suspect, you have no physical evidence and you just lost motive. You will speak to her with respect and if you don’t think you can handle that I’ll contact your superintendent and have you removed from the case. Is that clear?”

The detective stood back and out of their way, April looking at the ground so Hotch wouldn’t have to yell at her for antagonizing them again.

“What’s the history with you and Billy?” Hotch asks as they walk out of the room.

April rolls her eyes, “He was my high school boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Hotch muses, “You can do better.”

Before she can figure out if he was joking or not, the team realizes she’s walking of her own free will and they seem to all release the tension in their bodies. JJ walks to April first, pulling her into a hug before she can react.

April slowly raises her arms to hug JJ back, “I wish you had told us sooner.” Is all she says.

“I’m sorry you guys came all the way out here.” April addresses the team when JJ moves away from her.

“That’s okay, Hunter, we’re just glad to see you aren’t a murderer.” Morgan teases.

“We might actually be staying here for a while after all.” Hotch says.

Prentiss frowns, “Is there a case here?”

April opens and closes her mouth, “I-- Maybe.”

“Why don’t you call Garcia, ask her to get those files to everyone.” Hotch says to her quietly.

April nods and walks off.

“What’s going on, Hotch?” Rossi asks.

Hotch pushes his hands in his pockets, “The reason we were able to clear Hunter is because she has no motive. She doesn’t believe Brandon Perry killed her family and she hasn’t since she was a teenager.” He pauses, “She thinks the murders may be the work of a serial killer. She found three additional cases nearby, one crosses over to New Hampshire, that she believes are the work of the same unsub.”

Prentiss slowly nods, “And you want us to see if that’s true or not.”

Hotch nods, “I’m sure April would really appreciate our support.”

Everyone on the team is already nodding when April comes back, “So, as Penelope might say… Avengers assemble?” She asks hopefully.

Thankfully, they all laugh and nod, even Hotch cracks a smile, “Great.” April sighs in relief, “Let’s go to the conference room.”

With Garcia on a laptop screen, April tells them everything she knows, which admittedly, isn’t much. However, there are overwhelming similarities between the cases.

“Every family he chose was wife, husband, two kids. The eldest was the daughter all between the ages of 11-13 and in each case the daughter was raped and kept alive.” April was speaking as if she wasn’t speaking about herself and Hotch would be lying if he said it didn’t concern him. “In each case the parents were brutally tortured with a knife, forced to watch the rape and then killed with a fatal gunshot to the head. The boy was always killed first and it was always quick.”

“A mercy kill?” Reid muses.

April sighs, “I’ve never been able to figure that part out. It’s obvious he gets off on the rape and torture of the parents and daughter, but why not leave the boy alive the way he always leaves the daughter if it’s out of mercy?”

“It could be he thinks he’s sparing the boy the pain and trauma of having to go through the after effects of watching his parents and sister tortured.” Prentiss says.

“When all is said and done the daughter suffers the most psychologically.” Hotch says, “She could be the real target, maybe a surrogate for someone he knew.”

At this point, Hotch notices the way April is staring at the table, eyes unfocused, “Hunter,” Her eyes shoot up, “You must be exhausted, let me drive you back to the hotel so you can get some rest.”

“Hotch, I’m fine, I want to help.”

“No,” He says and she frowns, “If the daughter is the true target we’re going to have to dive deeper into victimology. Why he chose you. You don’t want to be here for that.”

Everyone’s quiet and deliberately looks away from April. She sighs, “Fine, but I’m coming back first thing in the morning.” She stands and walks out of the conference room without waiting for Hotch.

“Garcia, see what you can find about April’s childhood as well as the other victims and let us know if there’s any similarities.” Hotch says.

“It feels icky, but I’ll do it.” Garcia responds.

“I’ll be back.” Hotch addresses the rest of the team before heading after April.

They ride in silence for a few minutes, Hotch glancing over to the passenger seat every few seconds. “Whatever you want to say just say it.” April says, growing tired of the constant glances.

“You don’t have to keep working on this case like it’s any other case--”

“It’s not just any other case.”

“I know,” He says gently, “I’m worried about you. I know you bottle things up, showing emotion to other people makes you feel vulnerable, which in turn makes you feel weak. And I worry that the way you’re bottling up your rage is going to lead to you taking it out on--”

“I didn’t kill Brandon.” She says.

“I know you didn’t. But if we do find the real killer, I can’t let you come with us into the field until he’s been taken into custody.”

“Hotch--”

“It’s not up for discussion. I’m sorry.”

She sat back in the seat and crossed her arms over her chest and they continue on in silence for a while longer. “Do you think our unsub is also responsible for Brandon’s death?” Hotch felt guilty about upsetting her and thought maybe getting her brain back into work mode would stop her from giving him the silent treatment.

For a few moments he thinks she might continue to ignore him, but finally, she sighs, “It’s possible. If we think he gets off on the suffering of the daughters, he might be upset that I thought he had been caught. That I felt safe knowing he was behind bars. Killing Brandon after he was released could have been a message to me that he’s still out there and obviously following me.”

“You don’t feel safe anymore.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It was implied.” Hotch pauses, “I can stay at the hotel with you, work with the team remotely from the room next to yours.”

He expects her to refuse, but instead she agrees. “Okay.” She says quietly. This only worries him more as she is typically unlikely to accept help unless he insists upon it.

They walk up to the hotel room in silence and Hotch stands behind her as she unlocks her door, “Hey,” He says softly and she turns, “Anything you need, anything at all, I’ll be right there.” He nods his head to the door next to them.

“Thank you.” She says, giving him a small smile before pushing the hotel door open and then quickly closing it behind her.

He stands there for a moment, staring at the space she was just standing in before sighing and going to his own room.

“How is she doing?” Rossi asks when he calls the team from his room to let them know he’ll be staying there.

“She won’t admit it, but she’s scared. She thinks he might be following her and that Brandon Perry was a message to her that he’s still out there.”

“That would make sense if we think the girls are the real targets.” Prentiss chimes in.

Hotch stays on the phone with them a little while longer before they all decide to head back to the hotel. He stares at the wall that separates him from April and tries to get his mind to quiet enough to rest. He’s right here. Nothing will hurt her if he’s right here. He thought about how just last week Rossi had teased him for catching him staring at April. He had nearly convinced Aaron to ask her out. But she was so distant and hard to read and he didn’t want to chance rejection. Eventually, he closes his eyes and drifts off, an image of you smiling at him on the backs of his eyelids.

***

April was exhausted, but she stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours. Small noises that she never thought twice about now startled her. Hotch is next door. She reminded herself. She thought about the comment he made about Billy: You could do better. Had he been… Flirting? Aaron Hotchner… Flirting? It felt absurd. Shaking the thought out of her head, she got up and poured herself some water from the Brita in the mini fridge. Finally, after drinking the water, she’s able to fall asleep.

The breeze against her face wakes her. Slowly blinking her eyes into consciousness, she notices the balcony doors are open. Those were closed when I fell asleep, She thinks to herself and shoots up in bed, scrambling for her gun as her heart races. April considers yelling to Hotch, but if he’s still here she doesn’t want to scare him off.

On the wall at the foot of her bed reads “Welcome Home” in what looks like blood. Under it sits her favorite childhood teddy bear, head ripped clean off. She tightens her grip on the gun in order to stop the shaking and then glances around the room, but there’s nothing. Then she slowly opens the bathroom door. Pointing her gun at the shower, the curtain moves. She doesn’t hesitate she fires off four rounds, breathing hard. She doesn’t hear a body fall. Reaching out she pushes the curtain, but no one’s there.

Seconds later, Hotch is calling her name, but he doesn’t wait for a response before kicking down the door. “Hunter?” He calls again and she thinks she might hear fear in his voice. Fear for her?

“I’m in the bathroom. You can put down your gun, it’s clear.” He appears behind her a moment later, still staring at the shower, “I thought he was still in here.”

She walks around him and back out to where he left the message, “He came in through the balcony, I— I thought I locked it…” She trails off, looking at the glass of water on the table and realizing she can’t remember when she fell asleep.

“What is it?” Hotch asks.

“He was in here before. I think he drugged my water.”

He narrows his eyes at her, “We should go to the hospital then, I’ll have the team come here and treat this as a crime scene.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital, I’m fine—“

“We don’t know what he gave you or how much, besides, having you tested will tell us what he used faster than sending a sample of the water to Quantico.”

“Fine.” She agrees begrudgingly, he was right. She walks over to her bag of clothes and it’s only at this moment that she realizes she had worn only an oversized t-shirt to bed and Hotch was making a valiant effort not to stare at her legs.

“I’ll, um, I have to get dressed as well.” He says hurriedly, gesturing to the pajama pants he’s wearing. He leaves before she can say anything else. Under normal circumstances, April’s sure this would have made her laugh, but that teddy bear seems to be staring her down. She gets dressed and leaves the room without another glance.

***

April stares out the window of the SUV in silence while Hotch calls Rossi to fill him in on what happened so the rest of the team can start assessing her hotel room. When he hangs up, she feels his eyes darting between her and the road again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks quietly.

She’s quiet for a moment and then she takes a shaky breath, “That teddy bear went missing from my room a couple weeks before the murders. It was my favorite.” She swipes impatiently at the tears that start falling, “I blamed Timmy for it, we fought about it for hours. He felt so bad that I was mad at him he used his birthday money to buy me another one. I really thought he took it.” She tilts her head back in the headrest, trying desperately to stop the impending sobs.

Hotch doesn’t say anything, but he reaches across the car to hold her hand. To her own surprise, she lets him, the calluses on his thumb rubbing reassuring circles on the back of her hand.

***

“What do you have, Garcia?” Hotch steps out of your examination room for a moment to accept the call.

“How is she?” Penelope asks first.

“She’s… shaken up. But, like everyone else on this team does an excellent job of seeming unaffected.”

She sighs, “My poor wonder woman. Anyway, I think I found the connection between all the daughters.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it turns out that our April was a very talented child. Her parents took her to talent shows regularly, she was voted ‘Most Likely To Make It To Hollywood’ in her middle school yearbook.”

Hotch frowns and looks back at April, “We’re talking about the same federal agent, right?”

“I know, sir, not much surprises me anymore, but this did. There’s videos of her singing all over the internet, she was on the local news, quite the young star.”

“And the other victims?”

“All singers, sir. Every last one.”

“Thanks, Garcia.”

He walks back into April’s room, “You used to be a singer.” He says.

She rolls her eyes, “So?”

“So all the other daughters were singers too.” She sets her jaw and won’t meet his eyes. She’s not surprised by this information. “Why didn’t you mention it?”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“You didn’t think it was relevant that there was a connection between all of the victims?”

She sighs and she feels shame at his obvious disappointment, “I’m sorry. I’ve worked really hard to block it out, sometimes I honestly forget.”

“What else aren’t you telling me?”

She bites her lip and looks down at her hands, picking at the cuticles around her thumb again, “He made me sing while… While he raped me.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No. I swear.”

He stares at her for moment and she knows he’s trying to see if she’s lying. It makes her angry at him, but also at herself. Maybe Hotch had never been as fond of her as the others, but he had never distrusted her. Just another thing the unsub had taken from her. “What song did he make you sing?”

The question is so painful to think about that she visibly flinches, “Do you really need to know that?”

“You know I do.” He says softly.

She looks away from him again, back to the cuticle on her thumb that she’s made bleed, “Like A Virgin by Madonna.”

He places his hand over hers again and she finds it almost alarming the way his touch seems to immediately calm her. “April, we won’t stop until we find him. I promise.”

She gives him a teary smile, “Will you stay with me?”

He smiles back at her, giving her a hand a slight squeeze and his smile takes her breath away, “I’ll be glued to your side until this case is over.”

***

A couple hours later they had found out that there was a classic date rape drug in April’s system: Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB. The drug is usually prescribed for narcolepsy, but it was most often obtained illegally from Mexican pharmacies which they assumed was how the unsub got it.

“I’m bringing you back to the police station so you can stay with me and the team like I promised, but you don’t have to keep working the case.” Hotch says as he drives.

“Funny that you think you can stop me from working the case.”

He smirks a bit and brings his attention back to the road.

“What do you guys have for a profile so far?” He looks over at her, frowning. “What? I know you guys have been working while I’ve been reliving my trauma so what’ve you got?”

“White male, when he murdered your family he was probably in his twenties so now we’re guessing mid thirties to early forties. The torture is consistent with a sadist. Killing an entire family is an incredibly high risk crime which suggests he’s a narcissist, but also very organized. He’s able to control four people at once without much difficulty and he’s never left a shred of physical evidence behind except on the daughters. This means he’s arrogant and--” Hotch cuts himself off.

“What?”

“You said you showered before calling 911. Why?”

“I… I told you he left… He left his semen all over me, I was just a kid, I wanted a shower--”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No, that doesn’t make any sense. Yes, you were traumatized, but every kid has it hardwired in their brain that as soon as something bad happens the first thing they do is call 911.”

“Okay, well I didn’t.”

He presses some buttons on the console of the car and then Garcia’s voice is coming through the speaker, “At your service, sir.”

“Garcia, in any of the family murders, was there a rape kit done on any of the daughters?”

“Well, surely there must have been-- Oh. No, no rape kits, not on any of them.”

“Does a police report tell you why?”

“I’m checking… and…” There’s a sigh from Penelope.

“What is it, Garcia?”

“All of them showered before calling 911.”

April is already shaking her head, “No, no that can’t be right.”

“Did any of them report why they showered before calling for help?”

“Most of them, like April, just reported that they felt icky and needed to shower, but the first one, the very first victim Katie Yates, she reported that the unsub made her shower. Like, held her at gunpoint, marched her to the bathroom, and watched. Once he was satisfied with how clean she was, he left while she was still in the shower.”

“That’s not what happened,” April says quietly, her eyes closed.

“Thank you, Garcia.” Hotch says and hangs up the phone before she can respond, “April--”

“No.” She says fiercely, “I’m telling you that’s not what happened.”

“Every other aspect of the crime is controlled and calculated, he wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving DNA all over his victims--”

“I would remember that if he did--”

“No,” Hotch says gently. He had pulled into the police station now, putting the car in park, “No, because you didn’t want to remember. Just that one memory, that one you wanted so badly to believe was your own. That he wasn’t there for the shower. But he was, wasn’t he?”

“Please stop.” She said breathlessly.

“I’m sorry.” He sounds sincere and he puts his hand over hers, “Look at me.” She doesn’t obey immediately so he reaches up to grip her chin and gently turn her face to his. Her eyes are shining and her breathing is uneven, but his eyes are soft and she has the absurd urge to rest her forehead against his. “He can’t hurt you anymore. You’re safe.”

She nods and swallows. “I need you to walk me through exactly what happened after the rape.” He continues. Her lip trembles, but she nods again. “Okay, close your eyes.”

“Hotch--” She whimpers.

“I’m right here. I’ll be here the whole time. You know how this goes. Close your eyes.” She takes a shaky breath and closes her eyes. “Good. He’s on top of you still. He’s just finished. Tell me what you feel, what you hear.”

“Um. I’m crying. I can hear my parents crying. His weight on me is making it hard to breathe.” She starts panicking, her breathing quickens.

“April, focus. He’s not here. You’re safe. What about your hands, what are you touching?”

“The carpet. I’m on the floor in the basement.”

“Can you see your parents?”

“Yes,” She gulps, “But I’m trying not to look at them. It’s humiliating.”

“Okay. Now what is he doing?”

“He… He kisses my neck and whispers in my ear ‘Thank you for the show’ and then he stands up.” Her breathing quickens, “He’s walking to my parents, I don’t want to watch, he’s going to kill them, Hotch--!”

“Okay, okay, come back. Open your eyes. I’m here.” His hands come up to cradle her face. She should be startled by her boss touching her like this, but she’s oddly comforted.

Her breathing finally slows, “I’m tired.” She says softly.

“I know. We’re almost done. Close your eyes again, you can do this.” His hands stay on her face as she closes her eyes again, “Okay. Your parents are dead. What does he do now?”

“Uh, I’m screaming. He’s looking at me and laughing and then he grabs my arm and pulls me up from the floor. I struggle and he puts the gun to my head and says if I don’t calm down he’ll blow out my brains like he did my parents. And then… He walks me up the stairs to the bathroom…” Her breathing becomes rapid again, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Yes you can.” Hotch’s voice is low and soothing. He believes in you, she thinks to herself, if he thinks you can do this, you can.

“He turns on the shower. I’m already naked and once I’m in the shower he starts undressing.” Silent tears stream down her cheeks and she’s distantly aware of Hotch gently wiping them away with the pads of his thumbs. “He comes in the shower. He’s touching me. I’m begging him to stop. Oh, God.”

“April, stay there. He’s undressed, he’s taken the mask off, do you recognize him?”

She’s shaking her head, “I can’t… I can’t look.”

“The water’s hitting your skin, his hands are on you--”

“Stop.”

“Look up, April.”

Despite herself, she listens. She’s in that shower, significantly smaller than she is now, and she looks up to see blue eyes looking down at her. Shaggy brown hair nearly covers them, especially now that it’s wet. He has a smirk on his face and crooked front teeth. There’s a tattoo on his right arm of a cross.

“Okay, okay that’s enough, you did it.” Hotch’s voice pulls her back out and she becomes aware of the car that’s still around them and the fact that she’s sobbing. “You’re okay. You’re safe. You did so good.” She falls forward in his arms and after a moment of hesitation he wraps his arms around her, holding her until her breathing settles. It takes him a moment to realize that anyone could look in the SUV and find him in a seemingly compromising position with his subordinate and he pulls away. To his shock, she seems to look disappointed. “You ready to go inside?”

“Yeah.” She says and without another word, she gets out of the car. Hotch can’t deny that he feels like he’s done something wrong as he watches April walk into the station.

When April walks in the station, her whole team cranes their heads to watch her, but she heads straight for the coffee without looking at anyone. Hotch files in soon after.

“Is she okay?” Reid asks, the rest of the team waits for his answer.

“I just gave her a cognitive interview, I’m sure she’s upset.”

“Did you learn anything?” JJ asks.

“Yeah,” Hotch nods, “She remembers what he looks like and she identified a tattoo on his right arm.”

“We should have Garcia run that, see if we can get an ID.” Morgan says.

“Call a sketch artist as well.” Hotch looks up at where April was standing just a few moments ago to see her gone, “Excuse me.”

***

April’s hands shake so hard as she tries to pour the coffee she ends up putting it down in frustration. “Need some help?” She turns to see Billy, standing there smirking at her.

Sighing, she stands back and gestures for him to go ahead. He steps in to pour the coffee, “Pretty elaborate ruse you got going on, staging a break in at your hotel room with that teddy bear.”

She stares at him in disbelief, “You still think I did this?”

“I think,” He says, handing her a cup of coffee, “That you’re impulsive and you went to confront Brandon and you didn’t mean to kill him, but you did and now this is all to cover everything up.”

“Oh,” She scoffs and starts walking away from him, “You are delusional and a dick.”

He follows April into another room and closes the door behind them, “Open the door.” She says when she realizes she’s shut in.

“You and your stupid FBI team are making this whole police force look bad, you need to drop the investigation.”

“The cases cross state lines, we have jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, you would have jurisdiction if there was a real case, but there isn’t. You’re a pathological liar and you can’t even see it. Brandon Perry murdered your family and raped you and just can’t let it go.”

“You’re a sick son of a bitch,” She walks around him to the door, but he turns quickly and places his palm against the door, slamming it shut again. “Let me out.” She says slowly.

“I’ll let you out when you promise me that you’re going to march out there and tell them that you’ve been lying this whole time and then march your pretty ass back to D.C.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll arrest you for the murder of Brandon Perry.”

“You have no evidence.”

“Oh, April, April, April. I know you know what a coerced confession is here. And I also know that you know a jury of your peers here in Maine would send you to prison for less.”

There’s a sharp knock on the door and Billy finally steps away. When she opens it, Hotch is on the other side, “Everything okay in here?”

“Just fine, Agent Hotchner. Isn’t that right April?” Billy says and grabs a strand of her hair, twirling it around his finger and tugging, exactly like he used to when he sat behind her in middle school.

April slaps her hand on his wrist and twists his arm around until he yells. “You lay a hand on me or threaten me again, I will make sure you don’t have a career here anymore. Understood?”

“You can’t--” He starts, but she twists his arm further.

“Am I clear?” She says again.

“Alright, fine!”

She shoves him away and he stumbles, nearly falling to the floor as April storms out, Hotch still standing in the doorway, watching Billy.

“I told you,” Billy says, pushing himself to standing, “She’s a crazy bitch.”

“Detective, let me make myself very clear. If you continue to harass my agent or impede on this investigation in any way, not only will I make sure you never have a career in law enforcement again, I will arrest you for obstructing a federal investigation.”

Billy shakes his head, “She’s got you all wrapped around her finger.”

“And I think your boss has you wrapped around his finger. He’s the one who arrested Brandon Perry. Seems like he would have a lot more to lose if he was wrong than you would.”

“He wasn’t wrong.”

“Then let us conduct the investigation. If it leads back to Brandon Perry, then so be it.”

“You really think she’d accept that?”

“If the evidence led us there, she would. Now stay out of our investigation if you value your job.” Hotch leaves without giving him time to respond and then tries to find April.

“Are you alright?” He asks when he finds her. She’s sitting alone at a conference table.

“I’m fine, Billy’s just an asshole.”

“There’s more to your relationship than you told me to begin with.”

She frowns, “What are you talking about?”

“You said you came up here to visit a friend. Who were you visiting?”

“I’m tired of being interrogated--”

“The reason Billy is so sure you killed Brandon Perry is because you were with him that night and then you left suddenly, isn’t it?”

April sighs and looks down at the table, “Hotch, I appreciate everything you’re doing to help, but who I was with and what I was doing that night doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t kill Brandon so please just drop it.”

He shakes his head and he looks almost frustrated with April, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he care so much about her relationship with Billy? “I don’t understand why you would waste your time on a cop like that, look at what a mess it put you in.”

She frowns, “With all due respect, sir, it’s really not your business who I’m sleeping with.”

“Why did you leave that night if you didn’t kill Brandon?”

She scoffs, “I can’t believe this.”

“Answer the question.”

She was angry with him. Practically bursting at the seams with rage. Just like every other man, thinking he’s entitled to everything about her. They all disappointed her in the end. “Billy and I had a fight and I wanted to be alone.”

“What was the fight about?”

“He wanted to be an official couple again. I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

She tilts her head to the side, “Just because I’m a good fuck doesn’t mean he gets to claim me. Like you said, he’s just a stupid cop and I could do better. Now will you leave me alone?”

April recognized that look in his eyes: He was jealous. Aaron Hotchner was jealous that she had a sexual relationship with another man. And suddenly her anger evaporated and was replaced by desire. She supposed she did always have a thing for older men which she was sure a profiler would say had to do with her dead dad. Either way, she sent a smoldering glare his way until he left her alone.

When he left, she rested her head on the table in exhaustion and didn’t notice Emily had approached until she heard the seat in front of her being pulled out. She raises her head and manages a smile, “Hi.”

“How are you doing?” She asks.

“Better now that you’re here, I’m tired of all the men around here.”

She laughs, “Good. Well, the sketch artist is here and I’m sad to report that he is a man.” April groans. “But, I will stay with you if you want and then I think we’re all going to work through the night, but Hotch was talking about bringing you back to the hotel to get some rest. It sounds like you had a rough day.”

“Yeah,” She sighs, “Cognitive interviews are the worst.”

As promised, Emily sits with her while she talks to the sketch artist and Hotch walks over not long after. When it’s finished, Emily gives your hand a squeeze and leaves with the sketch to pin to the evidence board.

“You should get some rest, I’ll take you back to the hotel now.” Hotch says, hands in his pockets. It was intriguing to her that he could act like he didn’t just ask about her sex life only an hour ago.

“I can’t sleep in that room again.”

“You can sleep in mine. I’ll sleep on the floor,” He adds quickly upon seeing the look on her face.

She sighs, “You don’t have to sleep on the floor, just don’t touch me.”

“Won’t be a problem.” And with the indifference in his tone, she thought maybe she had actually imagined everything earlier.

“Great.” She murmurs and gets up to walk out first.

Hotch stays behind for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose and Rossi comes up behind him, “You picked a terrible time to start giving her hints about the way you feel, Aaron.”

“We’re trying to solve a case about her family’s murder and all I can think about is how pissed off it makes me to know that she’s been sleeping with someone else.”

“You’re human.”

Hotch just shakes his head and walks away.

***

“Daddy driving you home?”

The voice behind April makes her jump, her hand flying automatically to her gun.

“Woah, it’s just me April.” Billy laughs, leaning up against the station building, “You really are on edge, lately, huh? A sign of guilt or genuine fear?”

She could strangle him right here, she thinks. But instead, she reigns in her temper and leans against the wall next to him, “What about your daddy, huh? Haven’t seen him here all day. Is he too busy making wrongful arrests?”

Billy scoffs, “Yeah, and how’s your stupid little profile going? Did you find the real killer yet?”

She sighs, “You cops are all the same, think your old fashioned police work is better than profiling.”

Billy looks like he’s about to respond, but Hotch walks through the door just then, “There’s daddy, you better hurry up and get in the car like a good girl.”

Hotch barely registers what Billy’s said before April launches herself at him, fists flying. He immediately reacts, grabbing her arms, “Hunter, hey, hey! That’s enough! Get in the car.” He says sternly.

She shakes him off, but walks to the car all the same.

“Fucking bitch.” Billy mutters, drawing Hotch’s attention back to him.

“Detective, I thought I made myself clear that you were to stay away from my agent and out of my case.”

Billy steps up, eye to eye with Hotch, “This is my station, agent. Back off.”

Hotch stares him down for a few more moments, “The superintendent will be hearing from me tomorrow, at the very least you’ll be getting suspended. Maybe now’s a good time for you to clean out your desk.” And then he turns and walks back to the SUV, ignoring Billy’s curses behind him.

Once Hotch is in the SUV and starts driving away, he starts talking to April, “When you’re out in the field you represent me, you represent the team, and the whole bureau. You can’t just--”

“I don’t need a lecture right now.”

He’s surprised to hear tears in her voice and it softens him immediately, “April, I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you today.”

“You’ve only done what you need to do to solve the case, you shouldn’t apologize.”

“No, no, I… I shouldn’t have questioned you about Billy earlier. You were right, it’s none of my business.”

“It’s fine.” She says. First indifference, now an apology. Maybe she really had imagined everything. “I just want to sleep.”

***

Hotch works for a while by the light of the lamp when you get into bed, poring over the case files again and again, trying to figure out if they had missed anything. He’s pretty sure April is actually sleeping and once he’s sure he can’t get any more work done, he turns off the lamp and gets ready for bed.

He slips in the bed as quietly as possible, hoping not to wake her, but there’s the smallest moan that escapes her lips when the mattress shifts. A moment later, she turns over, still in sleep and slings her arm over his chest, sighing contentedly as she rests her head on his chest. Hotch freezes, unsure of how to react before slowly wrapping his arms around her in return. Her shampoo smells like peaches and vanilla and he breathes it in deeply knowing in the morning she’ll pretend this never happened.

***

When April wakes up and finds herself in Hotch’s arms, legs tangled under the sheets, she does her best not to panic. With the way they were positioned, it was clear she had initiated this which was all the more embarrassing. Lucky for her though, she doesn’t have to figure out her next move because his phone rings. She pretends to be asleep as he slowly comes to wakefulness and reaches for his phone.

“Hotchner.” His voice is husky from sleep and it sends a thrill through her and she imagines for a moment what it would be like if Aaron Hotchner was hers. Then she hears Billy’s voice in her head calling him her daddy and the moment sours.

“Okay.” He says after a few moments, “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

He ends the call and sets the phone back on the nightstand, but to her surprise, he doesn’t immediately wake her. “Are you awake?” He whispers after a few moments and she tries not to balk.

“Mmm.” Is all she manages and she keeps her eyes closed, not sure she can meet his eyes like this.

“They’ve, um… Another family was killed last night.” He tries to say it as gently as possible, but she shoots up in bed anyway, “The daughter was killed as well this time.”

She’s shaking her head, “No… No, that can’t be. She has to… She can’t be dead.”

“It’s probably a message to you.” Hotch says calmly.

She scoffs, “That’s great. A whole family’s dead because of me.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Oh, like hell it isn’t.” She says, climbing out of bed and pulling on her jeans. She doesn’t fully realize who she’s getting dressed in front of until Hotch tries to subtly avert his eyes. “I should’ve solved this case years ago. I’ve known it was serial for a while. I could have saved them.”

“You know as well as I do that thinking like that isn’t helpful for anyone.” He says, following her lead and getting dressed in front of her. The fact that they’re both acting like nothing out of the ordinary has taken place between them makes everything somehow even more intimate.

She sighs, “Let’s just get over there.” And she walks into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

***

April can feel the bile rising in her throat as her team mills around the crime scene. She’s crouched next to the girl, Layla, whose throat had been slit. She had also been stabbed too many times to be counted by the naked eye. Her eyes stared blankly ahead, but April could see the fear there. He had left her here, in front of her parents’ bodies, naked. “He went through the entire ritual, even the shower, then brought her back down here and killed her.”

“He’s always been very controlled and organized, but this last kill is full of rage.” Prentiss notices.

April frowns as she looks at Layla’s throat and notices that it almost seems to be bulging, “I think there’s something in her throat.” She pulls on her latex gloves while everyone crowds around her and then gently prys the girl’s jaw open. Reaching in, her fingers brush what feels like crumpled paper at the back of her throat and April pulls it out. Heart racing, she smooths it open.

Welcome home, April. I’d like to see the woman I’ve created. Arrive alone at the place where we first met, 20:00.

Everyone was silent as April read the note over and over after reading it aloud the first time. The word “alone” had been underlined several times. There was no threat attached to it, but April knew it was one all the same.

“We’ll have to call SWAT and let them know, we’ll also have to prepare the local police--”

“No.” April cut off Hotch, “You can’t be serious, he said to come alone.”

“April, his end game is clearly to kill you, if you go there by yourself you won’t come back out. And I already told you you’re not allowed to handle the arrest.”

“This is our one shot to get him,” Her eyes water, “This family died because of me--”

“Hunter--”

“Stop.” The tears fall down her cheeks and he wants to brush them away like he had the day before. “I won’t let this happen again, I’m going to see him by myself.”

“At least go in with a wire, we’ll stay a safe distance away.” Morgan bargained.

She shifts her attention to Morgan, to her team who are all looking at her sadly. Concern dripping heavy from their limbs. “No SWAT.” She insists, “Just this team.”

Hotch sighs and rubs a hand over his face, “You’re sure you can handle this?”

She wasn’t, but she nods anyway.

“Fine.” Is all he says before walking away.

***

Aaron is conscious of her eyes on him as he helps her put the wire on, “You steer the conversation away from yourself when you’re in there. Don’t let your guard down for a second. He’s going to try to get in your head, blame you for what he’s done. Don’t let him, just feed his ego and then call us when you’ve got him. Okay?”

“Yeah.” She says quietly.

He finishes putting the wire on and leans away from her in the surveillance van, “I can go in with you.” He says, giving it one last shot.

“No.”

He nods resolutely, “Promise me you’ll walk out of there alive.” She avoids meeting his eyes, “April.”

Finally she locks her eyes to his, “I’m scared.” She says, and her voice shakes.

It’s the first time he’s heard her admit it. He’d known she felt it, but she’d never admitted it. “Listen to me.” He says firmly, “You are not the twelve year old girl he knew. You’re stronger than him. You can do this.”

She takes a deep breath and nods, moving around him to exit the van.

“Be careful.” He says one last time and he thinks maybe she’s aware of just how worried he is about her, his eyes full of concern.

She gives him a small smile before turning away and walking down the street, rounding the last block to her childhood home, the house she hadn’t entered again since the murders. The town was small and since everyone knew what had happened there, it had never been sold.

April stands just outside the house for a minute, hand hovering just above her gun, trying to get both hands to stop shaking. Hotch believes in you. She reminds herself, recalling his words in the van. She can do this.

She’d been avoiding thinking about all his touches in the last few days. The way his rough, callused fingers felt so gentle on her face when she cried. The way he’d wrapped his arms around her in sleep, almost protectively. The way when he woke to answer his phone this morning he had absently stroked her shoulder. Did they mean anything to him or was he just an overworked, touch starved man, desperate for any sort of attention, even from her.

Shaking the thoughts from her head, she headed for the door, raising her gun as she approached. The door was already slightly ajar and she pushed it lightly with the pads of her fingers. Carefully, she cleared each room, heart ricocheting against her rib cage, though she already knew where he’d be waiting for her.

After they had found the last family, Garcia had been able to ID the killer based on the sketch and the tattoo as Allen Grey. He had the usual tough past, abusive father and mother, grew up in poverty. His parents died when he was still young and his older sister was left to take care of him, and she then continued the cycle of abuse, escalating to sexual assault. It explained the mercy for the young boys and torture of the eldest daughters, but April couldn’t bring herself to feel sympathy for him.

She stood at the top of the basement stairs, could already see the lights on down there and could hear Madonna’s Like a Virgin playing on vinyl. April hated the way her body reacted, the way everything in her was telling her to run. She was a federal agent for Christ’s sake, she took down killers like this one all the time. He was no different, she tried to assure herself, he was just like the rest. And then she steeled herself, brought her gun back up in front of her at eye level, and began descending the stairs.

“There you are! Welcome home, April!” Allen says cheerfully as you point the gun at him, “Now, now, come on, I don’t have a weapon,” He raises his hands, “Why don’t you holster that gun, Agent Hunter.” He had an arrogant smirk on his face.

Tears stung the corners of her eyes and her finger flexed on and off the trigger, wanting so bad to just pull it and be done with it. But she knew her team was listening and this was exactly why Hotch hadn’t wanted her in the field for this. She lowered her weapon and put it back in her holster.

“That’s better. Why don’t you have a seat?” He gestured to the worn out table and chairs, “Let’s have a drink. Talk.”

She swallowed thickly, “No thank you.” She managed.

“No, come on now, April. We have to catch up!”

“Why did you bring me here?”

He smiles at her again and comes closer to her. Slowly, he pulls a knife out of his pocket and brings it up for her to see. She balks, but he quickly grabs her from the back of her neck to keep her steady and runs the knife gently over her face. “You were always so clever, April.” She keeps eye contact with him, doing her best not to show any fear. “So pretty and smart. I only followed you, after, you know? You were… number two, I believe. I chased the high I got with you with everyone after, but none of them were the same.”

“Is that why you stopped for a while after the fourth family?”

He nods, “Like I said, you were always so smart. And then I saw how you became obsessed with people like me, went to college to study criminal justice, always thinking about me. Joined the FBI because you were so obsessed with me, weren’t you, little April?”

She wanted to spit in his face, but she remembered what Hotch said about feeding into his ego, “They say you never forget your first.” She says cooly, almost seductively.

It works, an arrogant smile twists its way up his face and he pockets the knife. “All I ever wanted was to find you,” She says, slipping into character, “See those blue eyes again. I dream about them every night.” None of these statements are lies, but the tone she takes when delivering them, the sweetness she adds to it, the act she puts on makes bile rise in her own throat.

“I knew it.” He says, looking at her with newfound desire, “We’re soulmates, you know?” His words are gentle, but he grips her by the hair again and pulls, exposing her neck. “Let’s run away together, baby.”

“Okay.” She says softly, “I’m ready.”

Hotch is already ordering the team to go in, jumping out of the back of the van with Morgan. Through his earpiece, he listens closely to you. He can hear your fear in the way you’re breathing, but he’s not sure Allen is picking it up from you.

When she agrees to go with him, he spins her and shoves her against a wall, her head painfully bouncing off the cement. He laughs as she winces and then leans in to kiss her throat, “Are you going to tell your team to leave us alone?” He reaches under her shirt where the wire is and yanks it off her. “April, April, April. My clever, clever girl. You had to know I would have expected you not to come by yourself.”

He pushes himself off her and walks to the table, reaching under it and pulling out a gun that he had taped there earlier.

April’s jaw tenses as he raises the gun to point it at her head, “You won’t kill me.” She says smoothly, though she’s not sure she believes it herself.

“No,” He cocks the gun and turns slightly to aim towards the doorway, “But if Aaron Hotchner walks through that doorway I’ll kill him.”

She does her best to betray nothing, but a muscle in her jaw jumps involuntarily and he narrows his eyes at her, “Yeah, I thought you liked him.”

“I care about everyone on my team.” She says stiffly.

He shakes his head, “No. Don’t forget April, I’ve been watching you. I know your weaknesses as I’m sure you know mine and the past few days here I’ve noticed the way you look at Agent Hotchner when you think he’s not looking. But he always notices because he’s always aware of you, even when he tries his hardest not to be. So, April, I’ll give you one chance,” He hands the wire back over to her, “Tell Aaron to back off.”

Reluctantly, she takes the wire from him. “Hotch,” She breathes, “Stand down.”

Hotch holds a hand up to the team on the outside, signaling them to stand down, though he can barely hear past the roaring in his ears.

“There,” Her voice comes in his earpiece again, “Are you happy now?”

“I’ll be happy when he hears me kill you and knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it.”

“I thought we were running away together.”

“You think I can’t tell when you’re playing me?”

“No, I know you can’t tell when I’m playing you.” Something in April had unlocked when Allen threatened Hotch. Threatened her team. And she knew Hotch could hear them and though she had told him to stand down, he was trying to figure out another way to get to her. He wouldn’t stop until she was out of there, whether it ended with both her and Allen in body bags or Allen in cuffs. But she wouldn’t let it come to that.

“Since you’ve been watching me my whole life, you know the entire town thought I killed my own family and that I lied about the whole thing. Do you know why they thought that? Because they saw in me what my team sees in people like you.” She walks up to him, and though every instinct screams to run, she instead places a hand on his chest, “That night… you made me into you. So no, Allen,” It’s the first time she uses his name and she relishes the shock that lights in his eyes, “You can’t tell when I’m playing you.” Capitalizing on his surprise, she disarms him the way Morgan has drilled into her over and over, quickly slamming his wrist into the nearest surface and catching the gun when he releases his grip. Faster, she takes a step back from him and draws her gun as well, now pointing two weapons at him, “And I think you’ve overplayed your hand, babe.”

He raises his hands and now there’s genuine fear in his eyes, “April--”

“I’d like you to very slowly remove the knife from your pocket and toss it to the floor and if you even think about launching it at me, just know that I am a very good shot and I have been dreaming about killing you every day since I was twelve, don’t tempt me.” Her voice shakes, but this time not from fear, but from anger that she’d harbored close to her chest since the man who stood in front of her stole everything from her.

As Allen slowly does as he’s told, April hears footsteps on the stairs and is relieved when she spots another gun trained on Allen in her peripheral. Morgan begins to walk to Allen, but April stops him, “No.” She says, “I want to do it.”

He nods and redraws his gun, backing away. She holsters her own weapon and hands Allen’s gun back to Hotch without looking at him. Drawing cuffs from her pocket, she walks behind Allen who has managed to get a smirk back on his face. The sight breaks something in her and she roughly shoves him against the wall, feeling satisfaction at his grunt of pain when his face collides with the cement. She tightens the cuffs a bit more than necessary and begins stating his rights to him as she marches him up the stairs.

“I’m going to be a legend, you know? They’ll make all these dateline documentaries about me and the families I’ve killed.” He’s smiling still as April shoves him in the backseat of Billy’s police car. She’s trying not to think about the fact that he showed up here.

“Prisoners don’t look too fondly on those among them who kill and rape children, Allen, and I’m going to make sure that whatever cell block you rot in knows exactly what you’ve done. Have a nice life.” And she slams the car door.

Billy’s watching her as she does so, “I’m sorry.” He says simply.

April sighs, “I don’t care.” She says without looking at him and then walks away.

Hotch is watching her, arms crossed and frowning deeply. She stops in front of him, tilting her head to the side and noticing the concern written all over his face as he sizes her up, “Thank you for backing off when I asked you to. I know that was hard for you.”

He simply pushes himself off the car that he was leaning against and pulls her to his chest. She feels surprised for a moment, but then wraps her arms around his waist in return, breathing him in, focusing on his touch rather than Allen’s. And when the sobs begin to wrack her body, he just holds her tighter. He knows the rest of the team is watching and maybe he’ll have to explain this later, the way he rests his head on top of hers to reassure himself as much as her, but he doesn’t much care. He’d been fairly certain she was going to die in there and he’d never have the chance to tell her how he really felt.

Hotch drives back to the hotel with her sleeping in the passenger seat. The medics had checked her out and concluded that she didn’t really have any injuries, but his heart had nearly shattered in his chest when April asked if there was any way they could refill her sleeping medication. They had been unable to, but decided to give her a few doses of ambien anyway, to last her until she could call her prescriber back in DC.

“You can take as much time off as you need when we get back.” He had said as they climbed in the SUV, his too big FBI jacket wrapped tightly around her shoulders as she immediately popped the ambien in her mouth.

“I don’t need to take time off.” Was all she said before she curled herself in a tiny ball, facing the car door, and fell asleep only minutes later.

Now, he pulled into the hotel parking lot, rain falling gently against the windows and debated whether he should wake her. “April.” He said softly, gently shaking her shoulder.

“Mmm.” She murmurs and her eyes flutter. Still straddling the line between sleep and wakefulness, seeing Hotch’s face above hers prompts a small smile. “Aaron.” She says softly and reaches her hand up to touch his face.

Hearing her use his first name so tenderly sends a jolt through him, but he reminds himself that she’s sedated, albeit lightly, from the ambien. “Do you think you can walk up to the hotel room?”

She nods sleepily and he quickly gets out of the car to help her out of the other side, pulling the hood of his jacket over her head to shield her from the rain. She walks slowly because of the drug, but he doesn’t mind. And when she slides her hand down to his to intertwine their fingers, he doesn’t mind that either. When they get to the hotel room she wordlessly strips down to her underwear and climbs into bed.

He stares at her for a while, unsure if she would want him in the bed or not, and decides it’ll be safest to sleep on the couch. He begins taking some cushions off the couch when he hears her voice, “Aaron?” There was his name again. He wasn’t sure why hearing her say it had him coming undone, but he wanted her to repeat it over and over again.

“Yes?”

“Why won’t you come to bed?”

He opens and closes his mouth a couple times before responding, “I was going to sleep on the couch.” She’s quiet for too long and he thinks she must’ve fallen asleep so he turns back to the couch.

“I don’t want to sleep alone.” Her voice is so quiet, he wonders if he imagined it. But when he turns back to the bed, she’s watching him, eyes full of sadness and what he thinks might also be desire. He can’t say no to her. She continues watching him as he takes off his clothes, first unbuttoning his shirt. She watches him carefully, no traces of shyness and he tries his best not to let on the way her attention affects him. He undoes his belt buckle and then pulls off his pants before walking to the bed, pushing the sheets aside, and climbing in.

She turns to him and brings their faces close enough that just another inch would have them rubbing noses together. “Why have you been so nice to me this whole case?”

It’s not what he was expecting her to say and he frowns, “It was a tough case for you that brought back a lot of trauma, why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

She shrugs, “I know you’ve never liked me the way you like the rest of the team--”

“That’s not true--”

“Aaron.” He wonders if maybe she’s caught on to the way saying his name affects him as his mouth closes immediately, “I’m not stupid, I haven’t been here nearly as long as the others and I certainly never open myself up in front of them the way the rest of you do. It’s not anyone’s fault, I’m just… Not a part of the family. But this case… You treated me the way you would treat Reid, JJ, Morgan, Prentiss… Any of them. Why?”

“The second you join this team you’re a part of this family and I’m sorry we made you feel otherwise.”

She rolls her eyes and turns her head to look at the ceiling, “Would you have shared a bed with any of them?”

Heat floods his face and he’s glad she’s not looking at him. “No.” He says and he’s sure his voice, thick with desire has betrayed him.

But April only nods, still staring at the ceiling, “Is it just because you’re lonely?”

It’s then that he realizes what she’s getting at. He hears the vulnerability in her voice, the fear there. She thinks she’s not good enough for him and it breaks his heart even further. “April, look at me.” She manages to turn her head to him and her eyes are glassy. “You have shown the last few days how incredibly resilient, intelligent, and just amazing you are. You can’t really think that the only reason I keep reaching for you is because I’m lonely.”

She smiles sadly, “You wouldn’t be the first.”

A lesser man would’ve taken this personally, perhaps groan about how she could think so little of him, but Aaron was different. He understood what she’d been through, that he could have been Superman himself and she’d still have her doubts.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to prove it to you.”

She turns her head back to him and frowns, a trace of amusement on her face, “And how do you plan on doing that?”

Hesitantly, he reaches out and strokes a thumb across her cheek, “I’d like to start by just holding you tonight, if that’s alright.”

She closes her eyes at his touch, nuzzling her face further into his palm and he melts. “I’d like that.” She says softly.

So he gently wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her to him. Her little sigh of contentment as she settles against his chest is almost too much for him to take. “Aaron?” She says after he's spent a few moments just listening to her heartbeat.

“Hm?”

“You’re the only man I’ve ever felt truly safe around.”

He feels her sadness then and he tightens his grip around her to convey that he’s sorry she feels that way, but he’s grateful for her trust. They fall asleep like that and neither attempt to move away from the other the entire night.

***

“So this is a date.” It had been about two months since they had gotten back from Maine and Aaron had been nothing but a gentleman to her. So much so, in fact, that at some points she thought he was no longer interested in her.

He chuckles, “It’s not a date. We’re meeting the team.”

“Yes, but you’re taking me,” April grins, linking her arm through his as they walk towards the bar, “So it’s a date.”

“If it was a date I would’ve done this--” Hotch spins her in front of him and abruptly kisses her. At first, she freezes, but when he gently nips at her bottom lip she moans slightly, kissing him back. As sudden as it began, it ends and Aaron is staring at her with a look of such arrogant satisfaction she wants to slap him.

“Okay, so it is a date.” She murmurs quietly as Aaron steps around her and walks away, “I knew it.”

When Aaron opens the door to the bar for her, he casually slips his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers. He notes her questioning look from the corner of his eye, but just squeezes her hand in response. And instead of detaching herself from him when the team notes their arrival, she squeezes his hand in return, even when the relentless teasing from the team commences.

Aaron only slips away from her to go get them drinks and even then she looks back for him. It’s the most unsure of herself he’s ever seen her and it only broadens his grin.

“You finally did it, eh? Attaboy, Aaron.” Rossi’s already at the bar, a whiskey in hand and another on the bar that he slides to Aaron. He takes it and then orders April a gin and tonic.

“It’s just one date, Rossi. She’s still… hesitant.”

“She doesn’t look hesitant,” Rossi says, looking over his shoulder, “She hasn’t taken her eyes off you since you walked away from her.”

Aaron smirks, “Yes, well, I’ve discovered playing hard to get is very effective with her.” He tips the bartender and clinks his glass with Rossi before walking back over to April. When he hands her the drink, she seems to shrink into his side, taking larger gulps of her drink than he thought she should.

“Slow down,” He plucks the drink from her hand and places it on a nearby table, “Why are you so nervous?”

“Look at all of them just staring at us, I feel pressured.”

“Pressured into what, being with me?”

“Aaron, no,” She places a hand on his arm, sensing the insecurity rising in him, “I want to be with you.”

“Then what?”

She shrugs and reaches for her drink again, but Aaron covers her hand before she can, clearly expecting an answer from her. She sighs and looks up at him, “I feel pressure to be perfect because I can see on their faces how much they love you and I don’t want to fuck this up and then you all hate me because I wasn’t good enough for you.” It all comes out in a rush and she feels breathless after admitting it, her cheeks reddening as he lifts his hand, allowing her to reach for her drink.

“April, they like you just as much as they like me.” She rolls her eyes and he reaches out to tip her chin up gently with his fingers, “You could never mess this up.”

“I messed it up with Billy.”

He drops his hand, unable to hide the annoyance and jealousy on his face at the mention of Billy, “Billy was an immature boy who didn’t know how to treat you anyway.”

She smirks, “And you’re a big strong man who can sweep me off my feet at a moment’s notice?” He manages the smallest of smiles as a slow song starts playing, “Come on, Hotchner. Ask me to dance.”

“You want to dance in front of the team?”

“Well you brought me here to show me off, didn’t you?” He gives her a look like he’s offended she would even think so and she laughs, “Please?” She pouts, “Billy would dance with me if he were here.” She adds teasingly, her eyes glittering with mischief.

Hotch shakes his head at her, but he’s grinning, “You love causing trouble, don’t you?” And she laughs in response as he takes her hand and pulls her to the dance floor, letting his left hand rest gently on the small of her back, his other hand holding hers.

He twirls her around the room and with the whole team watching, he kisses her as the song ends. Their lips worked together to teach each other their own dance and for a moment, it’s just the two of them, until the rest of the team starts jeering and April pulls away, her face flushed. Aaron is still looking at her, smiling and she reaches up with her thumb to swipe at his mouth, “I got some lipstick on you.” She says quietly.

“Can I take you home?” He says finally and his voice is husky and full of want.

She wonders if he’s aware of how alluring the sound of his voice is. “Yeah.” She responds swallowing.

He leads her out of the bar after much protesting from the rest of the team, but all he wants and needs is to get April, April who’s smiling at him from ear to ear, home and in bed with him. They settle into their new relationship with ease, the team noting that they’d never seen either of them smile so much and all of April’s fears and insecurities melted away day by day.

As long as her unit chief quietly placed a coffee on her desk every morning with a sweet note attached to it, she figured she could overcome anything.

[ckneal]

So, there’s this one angel story in the back of my head that I know I wont write. I wont write it, because it’s utter nonsense, with very little regard for the canonical timeline of Supernatural, and a willfully blurry view on what is and is not “in character.” It’s fluff. It’s all fluff, in the form of a bunch of smaller stories that gradually weave together, following the Love, Actually style of storytelling, but instead of problematic love stories, it’s all about angels playing hooky from Heaven after the Fall.

(Seriously, there is no substance here, I swear.)

Stories include Abner, living out the first half of the movie Family Man, struggling to figure out how to be a good father and house husband after he steps into the life of the raging alcoholic who agreed to be his vessel. There’s also a very minor story about Esther (not to be confused with Hester, who is not in this story because she never deserted her post in Heaven) learning to play the part of a little girl and navigating schoolyard politics, but kids can be mean and Esther learns the hard way that Michael’s approach to asserting dominance in Heaven does not translate well. There’s also Daniel and Adina, who both settle into vessels in the same movie theater where a romantic comedy is playing, and fall into a very innocent, play-acting sort of love after they leave the theatre—like little kids pretending to be in love, recreating the scenes from the movie, but at the same time not really understanding it. Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael each trying to roll with the luxurious high roller life style, and awkwardly running into each other at VIP poker games, exclusive spas and clubs, and the occasional orgy that they promptly leave IMMEDATELY after running into a sibling (don’t give me weird looks, Balthazar and Gabriel canonically include that sort of thing in their definition of luxury, and the whole thing of their story is their siblings keep cramping their style). Tyrus is in there bowling, somewhere. Benjamin’s playing arcade games with his wife. And then there’s Thaddeus, my pet favorite minor angel character, realizing what’s happening as he’s falling with all the other faithful angels during the Fall and seizing the opportunity to abandon his life as a guard and torturer, settling into a pop star for his vessel—initially for the sake of the cushy lifestyle, but then gradually looking back, before the garden and Lucifer, before everyone was assigned a job in Heaven, like it or not, and the options were to adapt or to be smote, and remembering that back then, he could sing.

And of course, Michael and Adam get a story too—in which Michael lowkey gets into a pissing contest with death, as he and Adam travel the world, hitting up hospital after hospital to heal people. Because the first thing Adam wanted to do after getting out of the cage (okay, second thing—burgers came first) was go to the nearest medical center and start healing people left and right. And at first, they’re having a great time. Adam steals a white jacket he finds in the breakroom somewhere, and anytime someone says he looks a little young to be a doctor (Adam still looking nineteen years old, because I say so), Michael wipes the poor sap’s mind. But eventually—sometime after they’ve cleared out the children’s ward, the cancer ward, the cardiac ward—Billie shows up, sniping at them that they can’t just go around healing people who are destined to die, because there is an order to life and death that cannot be shoved aside. And Billie tries to make a show of it, as Terra did with Dean, by having several people who Adam had healed over the course of the day inadvertently cause several massive accidents. The news suddenly comes pouring out of the television, channels flipping as newscasters talk about tragedies occurring in several different parts of the city they’re currently in. The sound of approaching ambulance sirens fills the air, as in the hospital hallway, doctors and nurses begin hurrying to receive a rush of ER patients.

Adam’s horrified.

Michael does not take kindly to this. He snaps his fingers and makes it so that the carnage has never happened. Because he is the archangel Michael, only two steps away from being a god, and if he says that all of these people are going to live, then they are going to live, and he WILL NOT be intimidated, especially by an amateur reaper whose only qualification for her position was dying at the right time.

Billie in turn lands Michael with a cold stare, and points out that the order to life and death is beyond even God’s authority, let alone daddy’s blunt, sniveling instrument.

As Michael’s eyes start to glow, Adam steps in and says, “So, to be clear, you want us to stop healing people on the verge of death? We can do that.”

After Billie leaves, Michael is outraged, but Adam says, “No, Michael, THINK about it.”

We then cut to other stories, where newscasts in the background reveal that ailments that are not IMMIEDATELY fatal (AIDs, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc.) are mysteriously disappearing overnight, worldwide.

Billie is not amused, and tells her reapers to be on the lookout for an archangel at every major hospital in the world.

Cut to Michael throwing open the door of the bunker, muttering aloud to Adam that he’s going to do it, he’s going to bind Death, just like Lucifer did—how hard can it be? Sam and Dean see him as he goes stomping off toward the cabinet where they keep all of their magical dry goods, but Michael snaps his fingers and the two of them are abruptly half drunk in Dean’s man cave, sitting in front of Dean’s flat screen TV, watching some campy monster movie, because that’s lowkey what Michael and Adam assume they do all day.

As they’re raiding Sam and Dean’s supplies though, Adam says, “Wait, I have an idea.”

Cut to Abner looking up while pushing his vessel’s daughter in a park swing, and literally seeing Michael and Adam chasing an ambulance, so they can technically heal the person inside before reaching the hospital.

Yes, I’m aware that Abner was dead by the time Michael and Adam got out of the cage. But see, this story? This story is like when someone gifts you a goldfish unexpectedly, and you put it in a bowl, checking in to feed it a couple times a day, lowkey expecting it to die. But it doesn’t die, it gets bigger. And you’re not a cruel person, so you put it in a bigger tank, but it just gets bigger again, and you don’t really know what’s going on, but you know, you just kind of keep checking in, meeting the minimum requirements but not really getting in there as a guiding force because it’s a goldfish and it’s surely going to die any minute now—but then you look over and there’s giant tank taking up your living room, and you’re thawing out bloodworms twice a day, and looking into tankmates to keep Charles company, and realize that “Oh wow, I guess this is a thing now.”

In short, the story says we’re ignoring the timeline, and it’s calling the shots. I’m just keeping the tank clean.

The angels all eventually wind up running into each other. Abner and Esther happen upon one another in a park, where Esther is morosely realizing that she is terrible at being a human child but she does not want to go home to Heaven, and it just happens to be the same park where Abner goes with his “little nibblet” once a day to let her toddle around the playground while he chats with nannies and other house parents. Anael, Adina, and Daniel meet up when the latter two’s game has reached the point where they’ve decided to get married, and they apparently need to buy something new—preferably blue—as per this very important rhyme someone told them about. Esther and Gabriel run into each other in an ice cream parlor. Thaddeus gets recognized while doing an interview on TV that everyone sees. And, while out joyriding in a Lamborghini, on their way to meet up with the growing community of angels who decided to opt out of their responsibility to Heaven and their father’s legacy, Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael are all startled to see Michael land on an ambulance stopped next to them at a red light.

Balthazar and Anael are both terrified, as if they’ve just been busted by a parent, because Michael, of course, is the guy who enforces the rules, and isn’t he supposed to be in Hell? They both shoot Gabriel looks as if to say ‘what the hell are you doing’ when Gabriel, watching as Michael climbs down and matter-of-factly wrenches the ambulance doors open, calls out, “Hey, Mike! Is that you?”

Michael looks over, freezes for a second—not prepared to be suddenly thrust into a social situation in the middle of his self-imposed mission to spite death—then his eyes flash and Adam takes over. “Oh hey, you’re Michael’s family? What a small world! I’m Adam, I’ve heard so much about you. Wait, hang on—”

The light starts to turn green, but Adam snaps his fingers and it promptly reverts to red.

Three jaws drop in the luxury car, and they don’t even hear Adam politely explain that he and Michael are in the middle of something, as he ducks into the ambulance, because Michael’s evidently letting a tiny human use his powers like it’s nothing, and what does that mean?

“Sweet dad in the unknown, Michael’s shagging a human. . .”

“Nooo!”

“HOW?”

“Hey, kid, you like weddings?”

At some point in the story, all the MIA angels are together, and Benjamin or someone comes running in saying, “Quick, they’re coming! Everyone hide!”

And everyone scatters, except for Michael, who stands in place, saying, “Gabriel, we’re archangels, two of the most powerful beings in existence. Why would we—”

And then Gabriel picks Adam up like a sack of potatoes and sprints off, calling back, “Trust me, you do NOT want to get involved with them!”

Being a projection, Michael is obligated to follow.

Team Free Will then walks by, looking constipated from whatever Big Awful Thing is currently threatening to destroy the world.

The story, of course, culminates in the wedding of Adina and Daniel, who still don’t quite understand what marriage is beyond promising to love each forever, which of course they will, after all, they are the very best of friends—which is about the same concept that most of the other angels present have. Adam is the first one to actually approach the big awkward question, upon finding out who the bride and groom are.

“Wait, aren’t they brother and sister?”

To which Serafina’s Adam, (who is of course there since Serafina was the original angel to play hooky) whose sons married his daughters, and all the angels, who do not understand what that has to do with anything, all cock their heads in unison and respond with, “So?”

Adam struggles to find words, looking into so many innocent faces. Then Benjamin’s wife puts a hand on his shoulder, whispering, “Shhh, let them have their fun.”

Benjamin’s wife and the two Adams wind up sitting at the venue’s bar, where they order nachos from a very confused bar tender, and watch as the angels go about setting up a wedding. But given that most angels haven’t been on earth regularly in roughly two thousand years, none of them have a clear grasp of what a human wedding entails.

“I heard it’s traditional for the father to give away the bride.”

“I think they’re supposed to kiss over bread.”

“Do humans still slaughter cows at these things?”

“I’m pretty sure someone is supposed to break a glass—”

Several angels promptly throw glassware on the floor.

At no point do the angels ask the humans for advice.

Occasionally, Gabriel knowingly throws out obscure details to keep the confusion going.

“You know, the groom needs to stand with the right arm to the aisle in case a sword fight breaks out.”

“Right! . . .How do we know which one’s the groom?”

At the bar, Adam open’s his mouth to say something, but the original Adam shushes him.

“No no, son, let them get there.”

The angels agree that being the better fighter, Adina should be the groom.

They’re nearly ready to start when Michael suddenly doubles over with his hand over his mouth. It coincides with the sound of Adam pounding the bar top, having just eaten a Carolina Reaper pepper on dare. Michael’s eyes quickly flash silver-blue as he straightens, and both he and Adam are abruptly fine—even if their eyes are still watering somewhat. But a different sort of damage has already been done, as Anael, Balthazar, and Gabriel all abruptly turn toward the triad of humans, having been reminded that the Michael walking around with them is actually a projection. In actuality, Michael is anchored to the human ex-college student sitting at the bar.

All three of them rush toward Adam, but Serafina gets there first, asking Adam if he’s ever tried mushroom tea.

Balthazar gets there next. 

“Adam, was it? We didn’t get to talk in the car, let’s fix that. Are you over twenty-one? You know what, this is a family affair, don’t worry—CAN I GET TWO SHOTS OF DON JULIO OVER HERE?”

From that point on, any time Adam turns around, there’s one of Michael’s siblings, wanting to get to know him—by consuming some sort of beverage. Because Adam and Michael are sharing body—and that means they share a liver too. A bet ensues as to how much it will take to get God’s alleged favorite wasted.

Gabriel’s actually one of the first out, having been convinced that Michael would be a lightweight. Little does he suspect that Benjamin and his wife caught onto what was happening soon after Adam was fed his third long island iced tea and second jager bomb, and began quietly cleansing the alcohol from his system through casual shoulder pats and high fives.

Adam does not know what to make of any of this, but it’s Michael’s family and he wants to make a good impression, so he just goes with it.

Thaddeus, of course, is in charge of music, Gabriel and Esther consume the majority of the cake, and Michael catches the bouquet (he may have cheated after finding out what the bouquet toss is for).

[heystephen]

its TIME! oh OH - ps i wont be revisiting the songs I already did weeks ago to keep things shorter Charlie be quiet "If she knows you're in love, she's gonna run, run away" - Mastermind. plain and simple. Taylor planned for Charlie to fall for her and he got really worried about it. "I'm not going out looking dumb Telling all my friends how you're the one" - "it would've been fun if you would've been the one" "When you touch me?" - "Do the girls back home touch you like I do?"

There's a first time for everything "Never thought that I would actually miss you Never thought that I'd be dying to kiss you" - "I always felt I must look better in the rear view, Missing me" "Thinkin' 'bout you really messed with my heartbeat" - Taylor's heartbeat in wildest dreams "Saw her on the TV Had the bleached pink hair with the ripped jeans And I thought, "What if I could meet her in real life?"" - this is LITERALLY about Taylor in the IKYWT music video and Charlie pining after her before they met and then he explains how they met, but remember, she orchestrated the whole thing because Mastermind "Stayed up, late night" - all of midnights and all of Taylor's songs about staying up late "We were trying our best to pretend, like That when the party's done, we'll go our separate ways, but We knew, yeah, we knew Pretty soon, it would be only us two" - New Year's Day anyone? cleaning up bottles with him on nyd after everyone leaves!

Smells like me (i think i did this one but I cant remember oops) "Tell me, do you ever miss me when I'm gone? Wonderin' what body I'll be on" - "If I wanted to know who you were hanging with While I was gone I would have asked you" "We can reconsider if you want" - "You can call me babe on the weekend" because she's not reconsidering the whole relationship but just hanging out together

Loser now, most of the lyrics are about Taylor here so I wont go over everything but the music video is SCREAMING cowboy like me

When you're sad I'm sad this is a mix of responses to both afterglow and getaway car

Marks on my neck "Why did I let you, Get all under my skin?" - "what should be over burrowed under my skin" because the relationship left a permanent mark on both of them "On the surface, you were perfect But you didn't really come to stay Now, when I look in the mirror I slowly watch you fade away" - is all anti hero taylor saying she'd rather look at the sun than the mirror and the ghosts in the video are actually charlie (himself), charlie (tiktoker), and charlie (musician) and according to Maroon, they both have scarlet marks on their necks sooo

Tears on my piano First of all - teardrops on my guitar, of course, just by the title. Then we've got music that they were dancing to and we know how Taylor loves dancing with people "Yeah, you know who you are I won't say any names" - he cant say because she made him sign an NDA, just like Billie Eilish does.

I dont think that I like her "Meet her parents, meet her brother" - all that was left for him was to meet Abigail I guess? "For me, the stars are alignin' But for her, it's bad timin'" - Midnights! Stars! It's A CLOCK! BAD TIMING!

No more drama "I sweard I dont love the drama it loves me" "Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover" so he doesn't have any more drama in his life because they're not together anymore "You start fights while we're up late" - "screaming crying perfect storms I can make all the tables turn" I mean he should have known it is an older song at this point so that's on Charlie

okay that's all I think? hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. i still don't know all the lyrics to midnights by heart to be able to quickly connect more of those songs but I did my best lmao

YOUR MIND