Somewhat Clear

deerna
somewhatclear

Rating: SAFE
Fandom: Stranger Things
Relationship: Billy Hargrove
Tags: Nightmare Sequence, Blood, Disturbing Imagery,
Wordcount: 2043
Notes: partecipa alla challenge di LandeDiFandom: Esploratori del Polyverso.

Summary:
Billy survives the Shadow, but he's trapped inside his mind while he recovers.

Excerpt:

He’s alone in the middle of a barely familiar road, the streetlamp flickering in the moonlight. Ash is raining from the sky. He starts limping along the road, listens to his boots clunking heavily against the metal steps. Rats skitter along the floor and gather into a shape in the darkness. Before his eyes can focus, his flesh comes apart and he falls.

{ read on AO3 | read here }

The sun is warm on his face and the sea is loud in his ears. There’s sand everywhere; the seagulls screech loudly over his head; the water is cold against his calves. He blinks up at the blue sky. No clouds. The wind is strong. A perfect day to go surfing. The board is heavy against his arm, slippery with seawater. He starts running.

“Billy!” a thin voice calls him from a very distant place, a faint wail like a siren, red lights blinking in the corner of his vision — but when he turns to look, no one is there, not even the seagulls, not even the sea, not even the beach. He’s alone, surrounded by a seamless, luminous darkness. His feet splash in the water when he tries to walk, but he doesn’t get wet. He can see his knees through the ripped jeans. There’s blood running down his legs.

He blinks, and the sky is back, blinding and bright. The water is cold against his chest and Billy gasps. It doesn’t hurt. He swims with the board under his stomach until he’s catching the wave, a surge of adrenaline setting his blood on fire as he braces his feet on the smooth surface—

He slips. His body breaks the surface in a mess of bubbles, and a shock of pain goes through him. He screams as his spine arches off the table, papery cloth rubbing on his skin, his hands scrabbling for purchase. Blood and ozone and a loud beeping chase him underwater as he drowns. He kicks uselessly at the thing that is grabbing his ankle, blind and scared. His knuckles catch on the rough metal steps of the rusty staircase, split open as he tries to hold on. His lungs burn, sloshing with salt water. He tastes blood and salt and rot.

Susan’s meatloaf is bland. Neil is screaming at his mother, somewhere in the kitchen. The plate breaks under his fork. Billy keeps eating, stomach cramping. His hair is falling in his eyes, he can’t see. There’s salt water on his face. The seagulls screech over his head. He’s drowning. He reaches for the surface—

A girl’s hand closes around his and she falls back in the dark water in slow motion, her mouth open in a silent scream. He tries to grab her, but he falls on his knees instead. The tiles under them are cracked and covered in blood. His head is full of cotton. A shadow falls over them, bigger than anything that ever cast a shadow. The girl touches his face and he closes his eyes.

Heather stares at him through the ice chips, her eyes glassy and her face slack. He’s so cold, sweat breaking out all over, making his shirt stick to his back. His hair floats around them like dead algae.

He coughs as he crawls ashore, spitting and retching. His fingers dig into the wet sand. He pulls himself on his feet, and starts limping along the water’s edge. There should be a storm brewing in the distance, but when he turns to look nothing is there, not even the seagulls, not even the sea, not even the beach.

He’s alone in the middle of a barely familiar road, the streetlamp flickering in the moonlight. Ash is raining from the sky. He starts limping along the road, listens to his boots clunking heavily against the metal steps. Rats skitter along the floor and gather into a shape in the darkness. Before his eyes can focus, his flesh comes apart and he falls.

—

He doesn’t scream when he wakes up because flesh doesn’t breathe. He slowly blinks at the pale ceiling, familiar and alien. The beeping sound is back, somehow sluggish and frantic at the same time. His head is full of cotton and his body is floating. He’s drowning—something is stuck in his throat.

A girl’s hand closes around his upper arm.

“Billy,” a thin voice croaks at him from a very distant place, a faint sound like a sob, ginger hair in the corner of his vision—and when he glances over Max of all people is there, dark circle under her eyes, face puffy and red.

He’s awake. Something digs in his arms and ankles when he tries to move, and he’s drowning—something is stuck in his throat. A shock of pain goes through him and he gasps. It hurts. The paper gown crumples against his bare skin, cold sweat making the thin sheet stick to his back.

“You’re okay,” Max half-sobs. “Don’t move. I’m going to call the nurse—”

No! His mouth opens in a silent scream. Something cold is spreading from the back of his neck. Run! Run! She needs to go away before He can catch her.

The light is blinding and bright above him. A shadow falls on him, it speaks but the sea is too loud in his ears. There’s salt water on his face. He’s drowning. Max stares at him, eyes wide and wet.

He’s out before he can feel his flesh come apart, and he’s grateful.

—

Max is wearing a red raincoat and riding a bike, and Billy is running after her. He doesn’t want to chase her, but that’s what his legs are doing. The darkness is bright and seamless around them, the sound of rain deafening in his ears. His boots splash in the water but he’s not getting wet.

The yellow raincoat is a sore spot in Billy’s vision. He tries to yell at her to go faster, but he can’t. He’s drowning—something is stuck in his throat. The rain slows to a faint dripping, a beeping. Max’s skateboard makes a grating sound against the wet concrete. It snaps in half with an ugly sound, like bones cracking. She turns around to glare at him like it’s his fault, red hair whipping around her shoulders.

Her face is slack and her eyes are wide and wet. Glassy. Her hair floats around them like dead algae. She shakes her head and slowly walks towards him, a slight smile, cold and thin, spreading on her lips. A layer of frost covers her fingers when she reaches out, ash fluttering around them like confetti.

The shadow looms over them like the world’s ugliest gazebo. Billy wants to curl up on the floor and cry until nothing is left of him. Pussy! An ugly voice echoes in the darkness. Man up, you disgusting faggot! Neil hits him across the face, the backhand all the more painful because of the new wedding ring.

“I couldn’t protect my sister,” Billy’s mouth says.

You could not, Max and Neil agree in the shadow’s voice. But We will.

They put their hands on his shoulders. They’re cold and clammy. It doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t want them to touch him and he doesn’t want to touch them either, but that’s what his hand is going to do, as he slowly lifts it like pulled by an invisible string—

Pain wrecks every inch of his body, setting every nerve ending on fire. For a split second he’s aware—he sees the ceiling, the bright fluorescent light above him, he hears the beeping of the machine attached to his heart, hears the doctors and the nurses hissing strange, frantic words to each other, silver instruments and contraptions grasped in their gloved hands—but then the darkness is back, brighter than ever.

Max’s yellow-red flickers in the distance, her red hair fluttering behind her as she speeds away on her skate-bike, and Billy screams-laughs at her, tears his throat apart as the pain burns him, blazing and clean. Billy screams—and it’s him, not just his mouth— and it’s the best sound he’s ever heard.

She’s got away and the shadows cannot touch her.

—

The next time he wakes up, he can breathe. His mouth feels cottony and dry, his throat is bruised, but he’s not drowning anymore. His lungs aren’t sloshing with salt water. The air smells too clean, chemical. The room is very bright, very warm, and there’s sweat running down his back. It’s bad. It’s wrong.

He gasps when he sees Max on the chair next to his bed. She’s not wearing a red (yellow?) raincoat, and she’s dozing, her messy hair falling over her shoulder as her chin lolls on her chest.

“Max,” Billy mumbles, surprising himself. “Max. You ‘ave to run away.”

The kid stirs a little, but doesn’t wake up. Billy groans. It’s hard to think—his whole body aches. It’s not quite pain, but it’s uncomfortable. He forgot what it felt like, to have a body like that. He glances down at the bandages around his chest, at the casts around his hands. A thin blanket covers his legs, but he can feel the ties on his ankles. He remembers snapping chains. He sweats more, cold and shivery.

“Max,” he slurs again.

The girl hears him this time, blinks bleary and exhausted in the fluorescent brightness, rubbing at her eyes, and then she sees him looking at her and she gasps. She’s on her feet in a split second, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hand touching his arm feels as hot as a brand.

“Billy!” she sobs. “Oh, Billy—I was so scared. I thought you were going to die after all—”

“Go away,” he tells her.

She gapes at him. “Are you serious? I’m trying to tell you how happy I am that you— that you— and you still act like a dick?”

Billy flinches. It hurts. “No,” he tries again. His throat burns. “He’ll hurt you. He’ll make me hurt you.. Have to go away before He comes back.” His jaw hurts, too. He hasn’t talked in so long.

“Oh.” Max blinks, and she looks like she’s going to cry. “It’s—it’s alright! The Flayer is gone. They closed the Gate and you— the doctors have been taking care of you. You don’t remember?”

He doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He only knows the Shadow. His skin prickles, as he waits for the tell-tale tingle of his body turning numb and pliable, but it never comes.

Max tries to tell him the story from what is apparently the very beginning—the other world, the weird alien dogs, the Russians, the mess at the mall—but he can’t follow. Sweat drips down his neck.

Billy closes his eyes. “Hurts.”

“I bet.” She grimaces, sympathetic. “Sorry, I should probably let you rest instead of talking your ear off. There’ll be time to bring you up to speed when you feel better. The doctors say you’re doing so well! You’re probably going to be out of here before you know it.”

A knot of dread forms around Billy’s stomach. It must show on his face, because Max’s face softens and she touches his arm again. “We all know it wasn’t your fault, Billy. We all saw what happened to the pool. That thing is gone and you’re safe, I promise.”

Billy knows it’s not true. What does a fourteen years old know about the Shadow? Just because he doesn’t feel Him lurk in the back of his neck it doesn’t mean He’s gone for good. It had been like that at the very beginning, too, when He hadn’t been as strong. But Max looks so earnest and Billy is so tired and he wants to believe. He nods. His face is wet again.

Max doesn’t comment. She just wraps her arms gently around his shoulders so he can bury his face against her bony neck, and they stay like that until Billy drifts off in the water.