revivalproject | Do you wanna feel how it feels?

Entry tags:

Do you wanna feel how it feels?

Who: Eddie Munson, Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington
What: Max is gone...
Where: The hotel
When: Early in the month, soon after Max disappears
Warnings: Violence, TBD

Sitting in Max's room, Eddie sighs, cursing and scanning over the list again. As though her name will have reappeared since he last rechecked. He wanted to see for himself before bringing it up to Steve, but now that he's looked around and proven to himself she isn't here...he feel overwhelmed. There's grief, there's fear- and god- how the hell is he supposed to tell Steve? And what about Hargrove? Worrying about the others at least lets him distance himself for the time being.

He picks up the tape player he'd stolen for her, flicking it open and seeing his custom mix tape still inside. Before he can get too emotional about that he shuts it and shoves it into his pocket.

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"The one in the mall," is added, to help Eddie. Billy doesn't know about the dust part though. He knows how it invaded his mind, made him do things that are worse than anything the blond has ever done.

He takes the walkman and sets it in his lap for the moment while Steve calls for a truce between them. The instinct in him wants Billy to snap and say no, but he shouldn't. There wasn't anyone to back him up here, not like he had in Hawkins before he got dragged into the Steelworks building.

He holds out his right hand towards Steve. Billy wants to at least shake on it. "I... will try." Because he does want to be better, for as long as he's allowed to live here before being sent home. But there's a lot to undo, but he wants to at least try.

Steve rolls his eyes but gets up from the couch to take Billy's hand in a weak shake. "Yeah, yeah. You're gonna try. Try real hard, Hargrove. I really don't like getting beat up or doing the beating up. Being here is sort of a break from all that shit. I'd like to keep it that way."

He goes back to the bed and sits beside Eddie again. With the adrenaline worn off all he has now is the pain and grief he was fostering before. The loss of Max weighing on him. Steve leans into Eddie just ever so slightly. With Billy here he doesn't want to expose anything he can be taunted for.

"Right, right. The 'not a mall fire'. Seriously, I wonder how much of Hawkin's history is just random cover up bullshit."

Eddie watches them shake, and makes a show about leaning forward to shake as well. Sitting up again he feels Steve lean in, and without looking over the hand resting on the bed between them gives Steve a little nudge to show his comfort in mixed company. He doubts this truce will go over well if there's even the slightest hint in the air that they've done anything. Even if it's just fooling around. Even if Steve's still probably totally/mostly straight.

"Jesus." A scowl. "Is that what they were calling it? A mall fire? God Hawkins is the worst." His own grip on Steve's is firm - not to the point of being painful, but not weak. Billy means it saying he was going to attempt to be better.

It takes longer than usual, but Billy manages to get to his feet with a hiss and stretches as much as he dares. A rub to his midsection, then up to gently feel out the bruise left in the shape of Steve's fist on his face. It's fully formed now and Billy wonders if it's worth going to get ice from the diner. If they even had any.

The other hand holds the walkman carefully. Like Billy's afraid his strength would break it. "Think the alien shitheads that brought us here would bring me some tapes from home if I asked?" It's a joke, but it probably comes across too serious to be one.

"Honestly? Probably most of it in the last few years," he answered Eddie with an apologetic smile. The small nudge makes that smile more genuine. More fond as he sneaks a small glance over at the guy. Looking back toward Billy, he tries to keep it on his face. Truce and all, right? He needs to make an effort here, too. At least for Max.

"You could ask. Honestly I have no idea what you'd receive from them. I've heard horror stories from people asking the Aggro or Agora or whatever the fuck they are for shit. They take it pretty literally. You'll probably get like scotch tape or something like that. Or if you ask for Heart, you might actually get a heart. So. Good luck."

"Replicator," Eddie advises, "You can even get some music from future albums if you try." Which was an amazing discovery.

Watching them out of the corner of his eye, Billy feels like he should leave. What was it called, being a third wheel? He had spent plenty of time making others feel like said third wheel now he knew how it felt. But he keeps it to himself for now, instead, listening to the suggestions as he turns over the walkman in his hands gently.

It was probably impressive that Billy Hargrove knew how to do anything gently in the first place.

"Rather than what I know from my stereo." Metallica, Scorpions, those kinds of bands. "Something at least familiar." Briefly, he wonders what Max was listening to. Munson said it was only one song.

"Wait, what?" Steve apparently hasn't heard about this discovery yet. It's enough to push everything else out of his mind for a moment. "Seriously? We can get music from the future? Holy shit. I wouldn't even know what to ask for. You think ABBA came out with anything new? Ooh, Whitney Houston was pretty great. Just getting started. I bet she has a ton I could find. And Heart and Tears for Fears are never going away..."

He beams, thinking about all the music he might now have open to him. "This can be a real good time..."

"You can go through my tapes if you want," Eddie offers, knowing they have fairly similar taste, at least with what he's heard coming from that pretty car of his.

"And yeah- I mean- at least up to whenever the Replicators are from I guess, but they're pretty far in the future." He snorts, groaning a little at Steve's top choices, but he nods, "Yeah, I guess they probably would. Heart I can get behind. The rest you're gonna have to enjoy solo."

There's a light bark of laughter, just on that side of mean as Steve gets lost in his thoughts of the artists he'd listen to. ABBA? Whitney Houston? Sounds about right for someone like Harrington, but he keeps it to himself.

There's a truce after all and he does want someone a little on his side. That seems more like it might be Munson than Harrington right now though. One hand goes up to test the bruising on his face where Steve got him by surprise. He knows there's one probably forming on his midsection, too. Cheap, easy shots.

"Hope this piece of shit doesn't run out of batteries I guess. If I don't wear out my stupid stepsister's tape in the first place." Settling into old habits he had made after the Mayfields were brought into the tiny Hargrove family. Habits. Instincts, to keep her hating him and behaving for Neil while the man directed his ire at his son.

He opens the player and plucks out the tape to see if there's any writing on it to indicate what she's been listening to.

Steve hasn't seen the tape player before, here, but he can bet money he knows what's inside. "Kate Bush?" He asks it of Eddie, figuring that has to be the answer. Steve glances at Billy and lets out a small sigh before making the call to let him in on what happened. At least a little.

"The year after you...you know. Shit hit the fan. There was some crap that could sort of get in your head and fuck you up. But you could break out of it with your favorite song. Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush was her song. We had a tape that she listened to all the time to make sure she was safe, so if that is all you got there, it makes sense."

Eddie smiles a private smile and nods. The tape (and the player) had been his gifts to help Max feel safe here.

"When she first got here and it was just the two of us...we didn't know if he could find her here. That's why she stayed close. When neither of us could sleep she'd come across the hall and we'd listen to music and...feel a little less alone."

Edited 2023-06-14 21:30 (UTC)

Even standing, it's easy to see Billy stiffen as Steve tries to find a gentle way to bypass saying what happens to him. Eyes widen at the description and he looks sharply at him. He barely even hears Eddie talking about the tapes and music and Max visiting.

"What did you say?" But he doesn't need a repeat actually. His brain catches up and he moves in closer. "That's what happened to me. Kind of." But he couldn't break out of it. It took that girl's help to break the control over his head. "I watched everything I did, but I wasn't in control."

Steve doesn't want to get into this with Billy right now. Not when Max is gone and there is no saying where she is nor in what condition. Still, he doesn't want to tell outright lies. The only way things will change between them is with trust.

"Yeah. That seems to be the Upside Down's MO. Make people feel shitty and use that against them. Like our pain gives them more power or something. But don't worry... Max didn't..." He glances at Eddie both to hopefully clue him in on the angle he's going for and to seek out confirmation of the technical truth.

"She wasn't forced to do anything bad. Not like you were. It wasn't possession like that with her body being used by the Flayer dude. It was...more of giving her really bad nightmares."

That's...one way of putting it. Eddie pauses for a moment when Steve looks him before nodding his head. "...Really bad," he agrees, "But...we're working on it. And we know the music things now, so...that's a big plus. Would've been helpful to know sooner..."

The walkman gets fiddled with in his hands, because Billy starts pacing a little bit. "I went to the Steelworks building. I was going to meet someone there. There was a noise, and then I got jumped. Pulled into the building and down the stairs by something so strong. And then... I was just a passenger in my own body." But that didn't happen to Max. Whatever happened to her wasn't really the same. That was good. She wasn't made to do bad things.

Max wasn't made to murder people.

"I see why you both were so protective of her here then. Was there any sightings of the Mind Flayer here? Or whatever that thing was called?"

Steve shakes his head. "No. No, there's nothing of the Upside Down here. Thank God," he follows up. If there were, he'd be a wreck and he knows it. Half the reason he's able to be as relaxed as he is now is because this whole nonsense is like a vacation for him. A trip someplace safer than where he left. Before, he'd been so thankful Eddie and Max were here with him, safe and protected.

Now? Now he couldn't think about Max for too long. Not without feeling raw.

"The main dude we called Vecna. Or uh...Henry...or One. But yeah, no sign of any of that stuff here, outside of us," Eddie confirms, a bit conflicted about leaving out what Vecna's been doing to the people he targets. But Billy doens't need that image in his head. Eddie hates that he has it.

Vecna. Henry. One. Names that meant nothing to him. He knew his was called Mind Flayer, when Billy just called it a shadow. The cord connecting the headphones and the tape player wiggles as his hands shake. He's still furious that Max is gone, and he wants to hit something.

And there are two prime targets sitting awfully close to each other in front of him.

But he holds himself in check, and Billy doesn't lash out. They have a truce. He's going to hold his end up. "Good," is all he can say at first about the Upside Down situation. "So she'll be safe from that bullshit if she comes back here." Billy starts towards the still open door, clipping the walkman onto his side for the time being. "I'm gonna go lay down until the pain goes away. I'll have more questions that I expect answers for later."
The now free hand goes to test his midsection again. The pain was just a nibbling presence and thankfully nothing more.

"Just... stay out of my way." But the usual bite and snarl isn't there in his tone. Billy just sounds defeated as he heads out.

Steve hates being basically told that he's gonna get interrogated later. But Billy is up and leaving before he can really decide what to do or say about it. He lets him go and turns to Eddie, cradling his cheek now that they were alone.

"You're okay?" He looks around the empty room and grief claws his throat. "Physically, anyway? Jesus. They weren't lying that we just get torn out of here..."

Watching Billy leave, Eddie gives a grateful hum to Steve's touch and nods half heartedly, pulling Steve into a one armed hug.

"Didn't want you to find out on your own, man. I'm sorry..."

Steve nods numbly, arms wrapping around Eddie and enjoying the security of the solid body against his own. He is more than a little reluctant to let go.

"I just wish I knew if she was okay. Or...if she just went back."

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