revivalproject | Calibrations ◊ The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

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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.

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Blue eyes are met with dark shades and a neutral impression carried by a tall man that radiates nothing but confidence as he steps easily into the center of the room. Wesker first regards Billy himself, then casts a look around, almost appearing bored, if not even disgusted.

"Hm." Is all he replies and he turns to the loudest noise around. Plates being smashed rarely indicate good memories. And those are the most telling ones in the end.

No, he shouldn't, but that's something Reeve has gotten used to. He's done this so often that he knows exactly what is going on, and he doesn't like the look of this room. This is the space of a young man torn apart inside, and he doesn't like it.

"You should not sit there, it's not safe," he says, his voice pitched to soothing. He can't stand to see the young man in a place so likely to get dangerous.

Billy doesn't move when the stranger enters, though the bright blue eyes track the man's movements. It's only when he starts getting close to the door does the couch creak when he gets to his feet. But then Weskers gone through it, into the cloud of red and grey and ash.

It's a dining room. It seems to be apart of the living room the man just came from, decorated in a similar aesthetic. At least in here, there's only one hole punched in the wall, but it looks like someone attempted to patch it up.

In the center of the memory, is a small and circular dining table, set with dinner for three. A young, perhaps about twelve or so, Billy sits in dark blue jeans a buttoned up blue shirt. A man with dark, short hair argues with a slender woman with curly blond hair hair like Billy's, both standing next to to the table.

"Where were you last night?" The man demands of her, hands already curling into fists. The woman holds her ground, even as he shouts at her, "where were you?!"

"I told you, I was with Wendy!"
"Stop lying to me!"
"I'm not lying t-"
"You saw him again didn't you?"

Billy's father crowds up against the woman, grabbing her arm hard to keep her from running. She manages to wrench the grasp away while shouting back, "get away from me!!" then proceeds to grab her empty plate from the table to smash over her husband's head.

It cracks over his skull and he takes a step back. It just fuels his anger, all zeroed in on his wife. "You...you whore!!" He doesn't even notice Billy getting to his feet to get between them. The adolescent runs at his dad, colliding against him to try and hold him back.

"Stop it!" Billy screams as his dad shouts the word 'bitch' at his mother. "Don't hurt her! DON'T HURT HER!" The man wrestles with his son for a moment, maybe two, before throwing him to the side and going back for the woman. Billy hits the floor but scrambles to his feet to look up in time to see his father punch his mother in the face. She goes down and he races towards her.

"MOM!!"

And then the room goes dark, with the exception of the spotlight that shines down on the broken plate. Then that, too, fades into darkness, revealing only the door Wesker came in as the way out.

He doesn't move from the couch, scowling more at the voice. This was an absolute stranger coming into his mind and trying to soothe him. "It's fine. The crack's recent but it's stable." He shifts where he sits on the couch to get comfortable.

"Pick a door I guess. Since the shits that brought us here have decided we all get to share our memories." He leans forward to tap the glass covering the car keys. "This doesn't open until you do, I think."

He had tried to pry it off, with no luck.

Seriously? Reeve sighs. This kid is gonna be difficult.

"You sure about that? What if I can open it?" Reeve asks. He can try.

"...Nice place?" Eddie offers, giving a shrug to explain his sudden and unwanted presence. He looks between the doors and back to Hargrove, "We can run the clock out?" he offers, smirking slightly as he knows that the idea of being trapped with him for however long that is, is probably worse than letting him see a few memories. But it feels fair to offer.

Wesker takes the scene in wordlessly. He doesn't feel bad for the boy or his mother. Neither does he feel anger towards the father. In fact, he feels nothing towards any of these beings. A gathering of ordinary humans portraying just too well why humanity failed to evolve further. Because failures like these were permitted to exist and live on and create more of their miserable kind.

He leaves the room without lingering too long and he sets eyes again on Billy after rejoining the young man.

"Uninspiring." Wesker concludes plainly and crosses his arms. "I assume the others are more of the same."

Steve doesn't recognize the space. No surprise since he's never been here before. He does, however, recognize the guy on the couch and he bristles instinctively. At the sound of a plate smashing, Steve's whole body flinches away before looking at Billy with clear distrust. He shouldn't be here? Yeah. No shit.

"I wouldn't be here if I had a say in it," he grumbles, fists finding their way to his hips. He looks at the keys on the table and then back up at Billy.

"If I am gonna walk into that room and watch myself getting smacked with a plate, we can play 'I Spy' instead..."

"Fuck off freak." It's instinct to say that, though he frowns and glances away for a moment. Billy hates this, how people can just walk into his head like this and access what he keeps hidden from everyone else.

"People leave after they go through the doors can come back." He leans forward to tap the glass housing his keys. "So I guess pick a fucking door and get out." Not that it would really be that easy, but maybe if he could rush Eddie through it, it would work like that.

Billy's head turns to regard the stranger's return, brows pulling down into a scowl. He hears the man and bristles mentally as he sits there on the couch.

"Unsolicited opinions about my life aren't welcomed, dick," he snaps with a roll of his eyes. "It's my memories, I can't exactly make them into something awe inspiring. Who the fuck are you anyways? Some cunt that wears his sunglasses at night indoors."

Despite how threatening the crack is, it seems stable. It doesn't close, and it doesn't widen. It's just present. Leftover from Starcourt, probably.

"Ha. If I can't open it, what makes you think a slender fucking twig like you can?" He leans over and tries to move it, but his hand simply slides over it with no grip. The glass doesn't move, or even budge.

"I'd say get out, but you can't. You have to go through one of these stupid doors first." He glances to the Camaro's keys on protected display. At the sound of the plate breaking, Steve isn't the only one that flinches.

Billy does too, like he's ducking from it himself.

"No..." It's quiet. Like what's in that doorway is a secret. "...It's not you in there." A pause. "It's not you."

This time when he looks up, it towards a collage picture frame. All photos of a family of three, but the woman's face distorted. Marked over. Scratched out. Torn off. The plate cracking sound happens again and another flinch.

"Might as well go through that door if you want to know."

"So you at least are aware that your life has no merit to it. Good." Wesker responds dryly. "Though I doubt you have any ambition to become more than the human chaff you apparently have grown comfortable to be."

Does he answer Billy's question? No. Wesker sees no need to do so.

"Would if I could, dude," Eddie says, but they both know they have no control over this. It doesn't make it any easier.

He eyes the doors, doing a little loop to try and gauge his options.

"Is that the ocean?" he asks curiously, gesturing to the one door and taking a step closer, "I've never seen it before-"

Steve notices the flinch but can't bring himself to feel bad about it. Billy smashed a plate over his head after all. If he'd gotten into a fight and had the same done to him, maybe that was just karma. But that might just be wishful thinking. Steve knows the sort of fear he sees on Billy's face. The chances that it comes from something as benign as a fight with a kid are low.

He sighs and brushes his hair off his face before turning toward the door. He hesitates a moment before stealing his shoulders and crossing over to open it.

Let's see what there is to learn about Billy Hargrove.

Steve got a smashed plate against the head from Billy's learned behavior. He knows what's beyond that doorframe, what memory is waiting there. It goes before the memory with the sound of a disconnected telephone.

Billy doesn't try to stop Steve, doesn't even move from the couch he's seated on.

It's a dining room. It seems to be apart of the living room the man just came from, decorated in a similar aesthetic. At least in here, there's only one hole punched in the wall, but it looks like someone attempted to patch it up.

In the center of the memory, is a small and circular dining table, set with dinner for three. A young, perhaps about twelve or so, Billy sits in dark blue jeans a buttoned up blue shirt. A man with dark, short hair argues with a slender woman with curly blond hair hair like Billy's, both standing next to to the table. They haven't touched their meal at all.

"Where were you last night?" The man demands of her, hands already curling into fists. The woman holds her ground, even as he shouts at her, "where were you?!" Billy can only sit and watch in horror, not even noticing the addition of Steve in the space.

"I told you, I was with Wendy!" she answers.
The man makes a frustrated sound. "Stop lying to me!"
"I'm not lying t-"
"You saw him again didn't you?"

Billy's father crowds up against the woman, grabbing her arm hard to keep her from running. She manages to wrench the grasp away while screaming back, "get away from me!!" then proceeds to grab her empty plate from the table to smash over her husband's head.

It cracks over his skull and he takes a step back. It just fuels his anger, all zeroed in on his wife. "You...you whore!!" He doesn't even notice Billy getting to his feet to get between them. The adolescent runs at his dad, colliding against him to try and hold him back.

"Stop it!" Billy screams as his dad shouts the word 'bitch' at his mother. "Don't hurt her! DON'T HURT HER!" The man wrestles with his son for a moment, maybe two, before throwing him to the side and going back for the woman. Billy hits the floor but scrambles to his feet to look up in time to see his father punch his mother in the face. She goes down and he races towards her, screaming for her.

"MOM!!"

And then everything plunges into darkness around Steve, with only a light shining down on the broken plate on the floor. Then that disappears as well, leaving Steve in the darkness for a long moment before the doorframe appears again to let him out.

Edited (knew i forgot my html whoops) 2023-06-11 19:52 (UTC)

Billy's slowly learning that people coming and going is out of his power. Doesn't mean he couldn't yell at the people who came in. He simply watches Munson step around the room. Over smaller cracks and broken glass and just...through a ruined house that Billy calls home in his head.

"It's Califo—" but his voice fades as Eddie steps through.

It's warm. So warm. Bright, too. The roar of the ocean greets Eddie as he finds himself on a beach, the surf lapping at his shoes. There's a woman in a white dress with sunkissed skin yelling happily with yellow sandals in her hand and a container of shells in the other. She looks so much like Billy.

Then there's splashing coming up behind the metalhead as a very small Billy runs through the water with a surfboard barely handled under his arm, runs towards her. He sticks out like he does in present day, curly hair wet against his head and red shorts bright.

"You did it!!" she calls out while he sets it down. Billy runs towards her, bright and happy as the sun starting to touch the the watery horizon.

"Did you see that?!" he asks as he races over to her. The woman runs her hand through he wet curls and kisses his forehead. "Yeah, I saw that!"

"That was at least seven feet!"
"I don't know what it was but you almost gave me a heart attack." Her hand hold her son's shoulder as he tilts his head. "Ten more minutes, mom?"

The sky, for a brief moment, rumbles with storm clouds that disappear as quick as they appear as worry crosses over the woman's face. "Yeah... ten more minutes." Billy grins and runs back towards the surfboard to get it. The woman calls out, "but any longer than that and dad'll be mad, okay?"

Another grey rumble that comes and goes quickly above.

"Okay!" He's the happiest he's ever looked as he rushes towards the ocean with the board.

"Billy!" She calls again. The child turns to look to her. "Watch out for ripcurrents!"

"I know!" And he races into the water, not noticing his mother's worry. Then the scene vanishes in darkness, with only a spotlight on the vase of shells his mother had been holding. Then that too disappears, revealing the doorframe Eddie had initially come through.

"Oh no, some stranger sees one thing and thinks he knows everything about me." The couch and split floor creak when he moves to his feet to close some of the distance. He makes a motion to look Wesker up and down, looking unimpressed himself.

"I'm not interested in the opinions of some sanctimonious freak that can't even share his name when it's asked for," though it was less of an ask and more of a demand. He pulls out a cigarette and lighter, lighting up quick and taking a long drag to blow into Wesker's face. "I've got vocab, too, I'm just not a pretentious hotdogger."

What is most surprising to Steve about this whole thing is that he's not surprised. There's just something about Billy and how he reacts to things that whispered of a home life that was less than ideal. Steve just had no idea it was this bad.

He watches, silent as the whole memory plays out. When it is over, he is numb as he walks back toward the couch where Billy's representation is sitting. For a moment he's just silent, digesting the scene. He has so many questions but there is one that is at the top of his mind:

"Did he do that to Max and her mom, too?" He looks at the walls with the fist holes. "Shit, man." He scrubs a hand over his face. "You never stood a chance, did you?"

Billy sits motionless, hands curled into lose fists on his knees, when Steve returns. He doesn't want to talk about it. Has never wanted to talk about it. But he looks up at Steve, eyes glassy and face softened despite how hard he wants to be. He's supposed to be the tough guy. He's not a pussy.

"No," he finally answers. Billy swallows hard. Steve had seen the hardest part, so he deserves to know the truth at this point. "He and Susan would argue, but he never hit Max. I kept his attention so he wouldn't."

The blond sits up straight and digs a little under his nails for some sort of invisible dirt. "They argued a lot. Neil and my mom." His head tilts back.

"Then she left." He doesn't look at Steve. "She left without me."

"I'm sorry." And he is. Steve can understand sacrificing yourself for someone else and he can't help but be grateful that Billy fell on that sword for Max. He knows that he was a different type of bully to the girl, but making sure Neil at least kept his distance is a kindness. Steve will give credit where it is due.

"She shouldn't have done that. You were a kid. You needed someone to look out for you." He doesn't relax any and his hands are still on his hips but at the least he looks sympathetic.

"No one deserves to have their parent hit them or do that shit. I'm sorry you lived through it."

Billy can hear the sincerity in Steve's voice. He took a lot for Max, even though it never looked like that from an outsider's perspective. He hated how Neil treated people, especially women. He wasn't going to let Max suffer like he did.

"I think...she meant to come back. But she never could." The couch creaks, as does that split in the floor, when he gets to his feet. A home of abuse that he kept hidden from Hawkins. As he does, the glass surrounding the keys burst slowly, the glass glittering in the air and allowing Steve to get the keys to the Camaro.

Billy doesn't seem to notice as he walks past the other and points to the doorframe that has sound of the ocean from it. "If you want to see her in a better memory...this one."

It felt more willing to let Steve see the memory after seeing the horrid one. One he had practically lived through himself in the Byers' house.

It's beautiful, and for a moment Eddie's lost in the warmth and impossible expanse of water. But then his attention falls on the woman, and she's beautiful too, smiling like the sun.

The kid has to be Billy, but with that smile he's hard to recognize. They were happy. Mostly. Eddie's gaze lingers on the mother's face, and that rumbling, feeling a familiarity there he doesn't like. He's seen that worry before.

He lingers in the darkness a moment, finally wandering back out. "...no wonder you hate Hawkins," he offers.

Billy doesn't look at Eddie on his return. The memory seen was one he keeps close in him, locked away under layers of defense that Neil could never touch. He would never admit it out loud, but he missed his mother so much. Even after all this time.

A slow nod. "She was the sun for me." He straightens up with a tired sigh, glancing at Eddie with glassy eyes. The same sort of glassy look that had in the hotel room when he cried over Max. And there was a keyword in that sentence.

Was.

He gets up with a creak coming from both the couch and the split floor, rounding the former to stand in front of the door where the sound of the disconnected telephone was. Yet even as he moved, the glass around the keys erupted and slowly exploded away to leave them free to grab. To leave this unhappy house.

At least Eddie could leave.

"...moms are good like that," Eddie agrees carefully. It's clearly a sore subject, and one he has his own understanding of.

"Hargrove- the uh- the keys are-- am I supposed to follow you?" he asks, moving after him.

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Calibrations ◊ The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

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When Doves Cry by Prince [cw: domestic abuse]

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