Billy Hargrove (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
playingtough) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
revivalproject2023-06-09 05:27 pm
playingtough) wrote in revivalproject2023-06-09 05:27 pm
Calibrations ◊ The Chain by Fleetwood Mac
WHO: Billy Hargrove & open
WHERE: Billy’s Calibration Room
WHAT: Calibrations event
WHEN: June 10 - July 10
WARNINGS: Memories are marked with CW/TW to help out
Mingle Post: Runaway by Bon Jovi
It’s a living room. A simple living room filled with 80s aesthetic of a Californian home. Except…
It’s broken. There’s large fissure that breaks the room into two halves and Billy sits on a worn couch that straddles it. There are framed pictures on the wall, but in each of them, the woman’s face has been torn or cut out. There’s holes in the wall the size of a grown man’s fist. There are lines like thin black veins jagged over some of the walls before they fade off.
On a coffee table in front of Billy, are a simple set of Chevy car keys with a metal California keychain attached to the ring. There's a glass enclosure over them, preventing someone from just grabbing them. To keep Billy from grabbing them.
No running from this, not for him.
On each of the four walls, there’s one open door. Thick fog rolling in different hues of red, with ashy flakes of grey, keep anyone from seeing what’s beyond the door’s frame. Things can be heard though. At one door, a plate smashing [cw: domestic abuse]; another has the sound of the ocean’s surf; door number three has no sounds but there’s heat, like a freshly opened sauna; and the last one has a telephone’s dial tone [cw: abandonment/child abuse].
He looks up at the... visitor and his blue eyes harden. “You shouldn’t be here.” But it's clear the guest can't leave the way they magically appeared.
WHERE: Billy’s Calibration Room
WHAT: Calibrations event
WHEN: June 10 - July 10
WARNINGS: Memories are marked with CW/TW to help out
Mingle Post: Runaway by Bon Jovi
It’s a living room. A simple living room filled with 80s aesthetic of a Californian home. Except…
It’s broken. There’s large fissure that breaks the room into two halves and Billy sits on a worn couch that straddles it. There are framed pictures on the wall, but in each of them, the woman’s face has been torn or cut out. There’s holes in the wall the size of a grown man’s fist. There are lines like thin black veins jagged over some of the walls before they fade off.
On a coffee table in front of Billy, are a simple set of Chevy car keys with a metal California keychain attached to the ring. There's a glass enclosure over them, preventing someone from just grabbing them. To keep Billy from grabbing them.
No running from this, not for him.
On each of the four walls, there’s one open door. Thick fog rolling in different hues of red, with ashy flakes of grey, keep anyone from seeing what’s beyond the door’s frame. Things can be heard though. At one door, a plate smashing [cw: domestic abuse]; another has the sound of the ocean’s surf; door number three has no sounds but there’s heat, like a freshly opened sauna; and the last one has a telephone’s dial tone [cw: abandonment/child abuse].
He looks up at the... visitor and his blue eyes harden. “You shouldn’t be here.” But it's clear the guest can't leave the way they magically appeared.
no subject
Could he be better? He told Eddie and Steve he could try, but maybe he really couldn't. That gaping hole in his mind's floor was threatening to swallow him whole. Did he deserve it, especially after the events of the summer? He still holds in that harsh grip to Tommy. Neil may not win, but his own actions might.
"She won't like what I've done, Tommy," and it sounds like an admittance. He recalls telling Max, sitting in that damp sauna room, about how he's done such bad things. He felt regret for all of it, too. Maybe that was where he was actually starting to change.
Curls.
Billy finds he likes that name. It could be for his hair, or maybe his weight-lifting tactics. His hands grip turns harder. Doesn't know, maybe doesn't care, if he's hurting Tommy. "You have to go. Even if I can't leave here, you can't stay in here." The room might consume Billy, and if that happens, he doesn't know what would happen to Tommy.
no subject
And then he's probably not going to poke the guy in the morning because he doubts that Hargrove will forgive him if the guy remembers all of this.
"You can't wash the blood from your hands, but you can spend the rest of your life building a better world, Hargrove. I live it every fucking day. I get up in the mornings and I cook, I farm, I clean, I do everything I fucking can to make life better for the people around it. It doesn't take away the ghosts, but I refuse to make more. And that's a step forward. You're going to do it too, because you're too fucking stubborn. So say it with me. Fuck Neil."
no subject
He listens again. When had people ever tried to make his life better? Billy knows he did it for Max, but whoever did it for him? That girl in the mall did. The one he had been hunting for. Not he as in Billy but what was the name Eddie or Steve had called him? Vecna? Henry? Something like that. She went out of her way to save him when he hunted her like an animal.
Billy thinks of Max, and what she had told him what happened after Starcourt. What Eddie and Steve had also mentioned.
He could be better for them. Even if they weren't here, they had to believe that Billy could do it, right? Max escaped Neil, so did Susan. She did what his mother couldn't.
"Fuck... Neil." Said slowly, breathing haggard. That crack splits open more, trying to aim for the two of them.
no subject
"Good," Tommy says, and he sees the crack and excuse you, he's repositioning them. again. No fucking slow moving threat is going to really mess with him. And he's not getting them swallowed up. He just has to find the out. The way to wake them up.
"Come on, say it again. Louder. Scream it."
no subject
"Why aren't you just taking the keys to leave?!" He shouts. Gives Tommy a push towards where they were floating, waiting. "Staying here isn't going to help, you need to go and wake up!!"
no subject
"Cars and me don't get on but... Sorry about this."
And then he's got Billy in his arms, carrying him bridal style. Then he's rushing for the keys.
"Grab them," he tells Billy. His hands are full. "Quick."
no subject
They float, weightless and without gravity, over the enlarging crack as Neil's voice and a second voice join the echos. There hasn't been a memory with that voice, whispering like a nightmare to mix with Neil's. And Billy's not focusing on that as much as he is on the keys. As soon as he's close, he catches the ring of the California keychain and the effect is instant. The wall holding the sauna falls away to reveal the Camaro with her driver door open and waiting.
With a click, the passenger door swings open.
no subject
"I can't drive. So, you know, make like me and put the pedal to the metal or whatever!"
no subject
His four-wheeled stand in for freedom. Billy loves his car, would break fingers over people touching it. It put distance between himself and Neil, even if it was temporarily. That car did more saving than anyone else did in his long eighteen years of existing.
The driver door slams shut, the passenger follows in sync and Billy puts the key in the ignition. The voices stop yelling, though the crack continues. Being in this seat puts him more at ease as he starts the car and throws it into gear. The tires squeak against the floor with splinters of wood flying before the Camaro roars towards a white light, towards being awake.
no subject
Sometimes even the strong are afraid. Especially with the crack. Tommy doesn't know how this is any better.
Until they near the crack and the light and he is sitting up in his bed shouting.