#FUJKKKKKCCCCKKKK

[harringrovehouse]

Billy finds out about the Upside Down in May of 1985.

He’s with Trish Coopernan at ‘Lover’s Lake’. They’re writhing around in the Camaro’s back seat, Billy’s hand shoved under her neon pink sweater, and her hand shoved down his pants as they french. He wouldn’t have even noticed anything other than Trish’s talons on his junk if Max’s name didn’t echo around him. His head slams into the ceiling of the Camaro and he swears, pushing away from Trish to glare out at the trees around him. It’s 11am, on a fucking Tuesday. He doesn’t give one single fuck about the ‘promise’ he made to Max. If she’s out here, at fucking ‘Lover’s Lake’ with that Sinclair kid instead of in her fucking science class, Billy is going to kill them both. 

Trish whines at him as he scans the tree-line, looking for a hint of red. Once he finds her he’s going to drag her ass back to school by the braids she instead Susan do for her and make sure she knows to stay put. He hasn’t decided what to do with Sinclair yet. 

A thick bundle of branches about 20 feet away bursts open and out comes Max. She’s got blood on her knee and her shirt looks like it’s been ripped in a few places. She looks like she’s been crying, her face is pale and her eyes are red. She’s doesn’t seem to see the Camaro, but she is searching for something, her head whipping back and forth. Billy feels his blood boil slightly. Okay, he was going to drown Sinclair when he caught him. Angrily he climbs back into the driver’s seat, tucking his junk back in and fixing his shirt, eyes locked on Max as she pants for air. Behind him Trish clambers up to the front seat, she’s also looking at Max with a concerned look on her face. 

“Isn’t that your sister?” She asks as she pulls her skirt back up, Billy grunts in repose and throws his door open.

“She’s not my sister. Stay here.” He takes off at a run. Max is just far enough away that he has to make up the distance.

Billy’s less than 10 feet from her when the trees move again, and out tumbles Steve Fucking Harrington. He grabs Max, scaring her enough that she screams before he starts to pull her back into the trees. Billy can’t see Max’s face but she doesn’t seem to want to go, she trips over her own feet and Harrington has to lift her back up before he takes off with her. 

“Hey!” Billy screams. “Harrington!” No way is he about to let whatever the fuck is happening right now happen. He’s going to finish what he started in October and destroy Harrington. “Harrington you sick fuck!” Billy yells as he forces his way through the branches. Who knew, King Steve, the man everyone at Hawkins high looked up too, was a fucking pervert. A sick fuck who trapped little girls in the woods. Billy wonders if the whole town knows, if all those kids hanging around Harrington have been dragged into these woods. The thought makes him want to throw up, he’s a lot of things, but he doesn’t fuck with child rapists. 

“Max!” The scream is followed by another one of Max’s high pitched screams. Billy turns toward the sound and takes off. 

He’s making a lot of noise, breaking branches as he races towards the sounds of voices. Tiny droplets of blood hit the forest floor as the jagged ends of the branches slice his arms and neck. There’s another scream and then the sound of something making contact with flesh, and then silence. Billy feels his heart pick up. The image of an unconscious Max laid out on the ground, bleeding and broken while King Steve stands over her flashes in his mind and Billy’s vision blurs for a second. 

He stops just long enough to pick up a thick branch, it’s heavy enough that Billy thinks he could kill a man with it. He plans too. New weapon in hand he shoulders his way through the last of the trees, a stray branch slicing his arm open and stomps his way into the most disgusting clearing he’s ever see.

The trees are rotting where they stand, huge chucks of bark have fallen off and black puss leaks from the wounds they’ve left behind. It smells like raw sewage, and death. Billy gapes at the sight. It’s horrifying and in the center of the clearing, surrounding by the dead beaten bodies of some animal Billy can’t make out are Max and Steve.

They both look like shit. Max is still bleeding from her knee, and Harrington’s got a nasty cut on his shoulder where his shirt sleeve is ripped and the fabric is stained with blood. Harrington’s got his arm wrapped around Max, that same nail covered baseball bat in his hands as he swings her away from Billy. Putting himself between Max and whatever just entered the clearing. Protecting her from the new danger.

There’s a silent, eerie beat as he and Harrington take each other in. Billy’s hand clenched tightly on the branch and Steve brandishing his bat like a pro. 

“Hargrove?”

“Billy?”

Max and Steve shout at the exact same time. It echoes once, and then dies. Billy wonders if this clearing is cursed. If every, and all sign of life dies here.

“Billy you need to leave!” Max says as she shoves Harrington away from her, no longer afraid of Billy. Especially not with the crowbar she’s got in her hands. Had that always been there, Billy isn’t sure anymore.

“What the fuck is going on?” He tries to put as much venom behind his words as he can but they still come out shaky. Max rolls her eyes and waves the crowbar at him. “Why the fuck are you in the damn woods with my sister Harrington!”

Max steps closer. “Billy!”

“Whatever sick game this is ends now Max!”

“Billy listen!”

“No! No fuck no. You’re fucking coming with me and we’re getting out of this fucked up town.”

“Billy shut up and listen t-“

A screech echos behind him. It sends shiver up Billy’s spine. He goes for Max’s arm, grabs her tight and starts to drag her away. Max’s fights him but Billy’s grabs the crowbar from her hands and gives her a shake. “We’re leaving Maxine!”

“Billy! You’re going the wrong way asshole!” Max screams but Billy doesn’t listen. He’s taking Max home and they’re leaving this fucking town, he’ll drive the kid all the back to California if he has too. 

To his left a bush shakes and Max freezes, eye wide in terror. She starts begging for the crowbar back, tugging at Billy’s hand and yelling for Harrington. Who comes running, bat in hand and eyes hard. Billy stares between them, ready to start shouting at both of them before the bush rips open and a monster jumps out. An actual monster. It’s face opens and then it screams, it screams in Billy’s face and then Steve swings. There’s a sickening sound and the creature recoils. Harrington starts to bash the things head in, what can only be blood splatters across the ground and whatever green is there dies almost instantly.

“Run!” Steve scream, turning to Max and Billy. Billy mouths at him, eyes wide as he stares down at the thing that Steve has just killed. “Billy lets go!” And then Steve’s grabbing his hand and hauling him across the black clearing back into the woods, Max clings to Steve’s other hand and suddenly they’re running straight into two of the other kids Max hangs out with. 

“Steve!” They scream as they almost collide with them. Billy stares at them in horror, they also look like they’d been beaten up. The one with the curls has a black eye and the one Billy is pretty sure is related to Nancy Wheeler has a huge gash over his left eye. “Max!” They scream and Max rushes forward to hug them.

“I told you to stay in the car!” Steve snaps at them, dropping Billy’s hand and rushing forward. Billy watches as he goes to shakesthem but ends up wrapping himself around the three of them and sighing. “Next time stay in the car you shit heads.” 

“What. The. Fuck. Is happening Harrington!” Billy hears himself say. The four of them turn around to stare at him. 

“Billy Hargrove?” Probably Nancy’s brother says and Billy gives him a look. Steve turns to him and they stare at each other, clearly Steve’s at a lose for words. His eyes flick down to the crowbar, and Billy sees him tighten his grip on the bat. 

“Woah there cowboy.” Billy says dropping the crowbar, which Max rushes forward to grab. “Not looking to fight.” He lifts his hands up to prove he isn’t a danger. “But you have to level with me here, what happened back there, they,” He motions at the kids. “You all look like you’ve just been to hell and back.” 

“We kinda have asshole!” Curly says, it might have impressed Billy if he wasn’t hiding behind Max like a scared little kid. 

Steve shakes his head and shoves the curly one behind him. “Look there’s something about Hawkins you don’t know.”

“Steve.” The kids hiss at him but Steve holds his hand up at them, eyes hard. 

“We tell him. He saw-“

“The last time you tried to tell him he kicked your face in!”

“I didn’t kick his face in!” Billy snaps. “I punched his face in.” He tries to look like that doesn’t bother him, like the idea of losing control like that again doesn’t frighten the shit out of him but it does. Harrington gives him a look.

“Yeah last time he didn’t seem ready to listen, but he’s seen them now. He’ll listen.” Harrington is looking into Billy’s fucking soul. Billy looks away first and he can practically hear Harrington smirk.

Harrington begins to tell him a story. It starts a year ago with Will Byers going missing and Barbra Holland dying, about Harrington finding out about the monsters because he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him and then Jonathon Byers kicked his ass and he showed up at the Byers’ house to say sorry only to find Wheeler and Byers armed to the teeth and a fucking demon crawling it’s way from the walls. Harrington talks about how the Chief of Police and Mrs.Byers went to another dimension and saved Will Byers, and how everyone thought it was over only Will started having visions and then Dustin Henderson, Curly, found a baby demon in his trash and kept it. Which lead to a full out demon versus Harrington and friends fight. Which ended in the gate collapsing and Will Byers being freed from being possessed. 

Billy stands there and takes it all in. He remembers arriving to the Byers house in November of last year, seeing red When Harrington lied about Max. Bursting inside to see the fucking mess the house was, broken glass and drawings of something all over the walls. Had Harrington been trying to explain all this crazy to him that night?

“Listen man-“ 

If Billy hadn’t punched first would he have been told this same bat shit crazy story or would Harrington have thought of another lie. He was still struggling to figure out if that mattered when Harrington spoke again.

“None of that matter now because we have to get to Hop and tell him what’s happening! We were getting ready to go camping when we saw the demodogs. My cars all the way on the other side of the clearing. We sent Lucas and Will to flag someone down and head to Hop but it’s not safe to be here right now, we have to leave.”  Billy knows they won’t make it all the way across to Harrington’s car. But maybe they can make it to his. 

“Give me that back.” He snaps at Max, yanking the crowbar from her grip. “Okay shit heads listen up! I’m going to lead us back to my car, we’re all getting in and we’re going to leave understand! Harrington you’re in back, Max behind me no don’t fucking argue behind me right now! Wheeler, Curls fall in line!”

There’s arguments but surprisingly everyone seems to listen, and then they’re off looking like a freak show as they wind their way back through the dead clearing where the many bodies of the demodogs lay bloody and unmoving. Billy tightens his grip on the crowbar as they approach the thick bundle of trees he and Max had forced their way through earlier. He puts out a hand and listens, everyone stopping being him. They wait a beat before Billy decides it’s okay to move again, he swings the crowbar and break the branches so they can walk without hurting themselves more. 

The sound makes him cringe but if what Steve says it true blood attracts this thing, the last thing they need is to bleed more. A bird shakes the trees in front of them and Curly screams, Billy’s whole body tense up as he tries not to swing at it. Letting the white creature fly off into the heavens. He watches it go with a sour look on his face, how is anything alive so close to that cursed clearing. He grabs Max’s arm and hauls her up a small cliff drop he hadn’t noticed earlier, ignoring the huff she lets out at being lifted off the ground by him. He sets her back easily and waits for the other three to catch up.

To his horror he watches as Harrington sets the bat down to help Wheeler and Curly up , Wheeler’s about as athletic as a new born blob fish apparently. Harrington hands Billy the bat and then hauls himself up next to Billy, who gives him the bat back the second his feet his the ground. 

“Plant your feet.” Billy tells him without the venom he used to have. Harrington actually smirks at him before taking the bat and ushering the kids back into formation. Billy takes the front of the line again, ready to bash some monster brains. He can see the edge of Lover’s Lake now, can make out the loud sound of his radio blasting Van Halen. They’re almost home free.

Something bursts free from the bushes in front of them, Harrington is at his side in seconds as they face down yet another demodog. This one looks different than the others. Bigger, almost older. Billy tightens his grips and swings just as the creature launches itself at them. He ends up missing it, but manages to stab it’s belly. The sound it lets out makes Billy’s ears ache. 

“Hold it down!” Harrington screams as he rushes forwards, boot flying out to kick the demodog in the side and his bat swing down. Billy waits just long enough for it to become distracted by Harrington bashing it’s head in before he twists the crowbar and yanks it out. 

The demodog screeches, it’s huge mouth opening wide as Harrington rains down on it. Billy straightens and joins Harrington in bashing the creatures skull in. Watching as it finally gives up and dies. 

“Lets go!” Harrington says, turning to the kids and grabbing Billy’s shaking wrist. The five of them break through the brush line and make a wild dash towards Billy’s Camaro. 

Trish is nowhere to be seen. Billy swears and calls out her name, hoping maybe she just needed to pee or something! But silence.

“Fuck! Trish!” Harrington calls out, shoving the kids into the car. “Trish it’s me Steve!!” And Billy’s reminded that Steve used to be the King of Hawkins. Billy goes to open the driver’s side, and find the handle is covering in blood. Billy turns to Harrington, lifting his hand into the air and they share a look, this isn’t good.”

“Get in.” Harrington says and he throws Billy’s passenger’s side seat back, climbing in himself and yelling at the kids to shut up! Billy doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s in the driver’s seat in seconds.

“Hold on.” He snaps at them, turning the car on and peeling out of the small parking lot. 

Behind them the trees rustle. Billy rips his eyes away from them before whatever is there can exit, he tightens his grip and focus on the road. Next to him Harrington whips around, eyes now locked on the road and hand coming up to grip Billy’s arm. It’s a heavy weight that Billy decides to ignore, for now. Maybe this town isn’t such a shithole after all.