revivalproject | Heaven's on Fire

Entry tags:

Heaven's on Fire - KISS

WHO: Billy Hargrove and those that join him
WHERE: Mostly Temba's city-center area, maybe the Upside-Down
WHAT: Hey there's an event thingy
WHEN: During the event timeline
WARNINGS:STRANGER THINGS SPOILERS, profanity, event warnings, violence, panic/PTSD attacks, will update as they make themselves known

October 10th

Run To You - Bryan Adams
He’s in the civic center when the storm hits. Billy had seen it coming, but didn’t think anything of it. It’s a storm. It wouldn’t be anything to worry about. Earthquakes (well, volcanoes), those were something to worry about. Storms were not. So he had done his workout as usual as it hit and when he left…

…Well, Billy would wish later he hadn’t. Because upon leaving the civic center with the intention of hitting the diner and then heading home, he heard something. No, not something.

Someone.

He whirls around in place, his hair whipping about wildly as he struggles to see if it’s her. And Billy sees her in the distance. Tired muscles be damned, he breaks into a run, heading right towards the woman. She doesn’t seem to get closer no matter how far he runs.

“MOM!!” he all but screams out, determined to get to her, damn it. It’s hard to see with all of the lights out and the storm blocking out the sun. “Mom!” he shouts again. She disappears into the clouds, reappearing in different positions in the distance, never in the same spot. Billy looks confused, turning to try and track her.
 What was going on?!

The ghost of his mother disappeared and he turned, looking for her. “I DONT’ UNDERSTAND!!” he yells, feeling the echo of those words from when he was at the Steelworks building.

October 11th - 12th 

It’s The End of the World As We Know It - R.E.M.
It’s not the gate opening that starts it. It’s not the sight of the stupid looking bats or that weird flower dog.

It’s the gigantic thing that he knows from the mall. Seeing that mind flayer on the other side of the gate while trying to get from the cabin to the hotel to make sure there are others okay (hint: that didn’t happen). He freezes, the blood draining from his face to leave his skin white. Billy’s clammy and cold all in the span of a few seconds, but more importantly?

He’s terrified.

Billy knows that that monster can do. He’s felt it. It’s going to kill him when he’s sent home by the aliens here.

It’s here to kill him.

He ducks behind the fountain before darting to be against one of the side walls of the diner. Billy’s curling up, screaming and holding his head and looking like he’s agony. The guy is physically fine, but his mind is not. Guess seeing the very creature you helped create in your world while being possessed by the enemy would do that to you.

October 13th - End

If You Want Blood (You Got It) - AC/DC
No. He can’t be a pussy about this shit. It’ll kill him back home, but Billy has the tools to stop the beasts here. Gladio had found him in the chaos and dropped off an axe. Something about ‘use it if you need it, kid’ before running off to do more warrior things.

The axe had felt heavy in his lap from where he was sitting. But then Billy stood up, testing out it’s weight as he had been trained. It felt good. Felt right. He gave it a few swings before the confidence started growing in him. Billy could do this. He stopped the flayer’s tongue with his bare hands, didn’t he? He could stop the whole thing with his axe. He could stop any of them!

Heading out from where he had bunkered himself, Billy found one of those bat-things headed towards him. It took a few swings through the air (five, if you’re counting), to get it, but hitting it with the dull side knocked it down to the ground to slice through it with the blade.

“Take that you creepy fucker!” he shouted at it, giving it another smack. Black blood stained his boots and jeans as he hit something in it, before he moved on to the next one.

“COME GET SOME, FUCKERS!!” he shouted, wielding the weapon with far more confidence than he had when it had been dropped off.

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Even the general direction he points in is one she's not about to go investigating in. No thanks. Not with anything called a flayer. Hard pass.

A tone of uncertainty when she speaks, because frankly this whole situation has her more anxious, yes, but also because the screeching in the distance is not a great background noise to hear. “We should take it inside, probably.” She also finally glances upwards at the screech. “I don't want to be out here when that thing sees us, and that's probably the last thing you need too right now.” Which is a bit 'yeah no shit sherlock', but sometimes reminders help when you're having A Time with panic.

He was only pointing to indicate where it was, not where Billy wants her to go. He doesn't want anyone going to the gates. The flayer was behind them and it wasn't safe. It wasn't safe. His breathing picks up again as his heartrate does. Billy clasps his hands on his arms, shaking all over like a leaf caught in a windstorm

He looks at her, watches her with eyes both bright and haunted. It's not really clear if the blond is seeing her or something else, but... he hears her. "Inside. Inside is... safe." It's inside the diner; it has to be safe. It's where Tommy stays, isn't it? So the diner is safe. So he nods and starts trying to get up. Billy struggles to get his feet under him. It all seems to hurt even if it really doesn't. It's just his brain and the panic playing tricks on him.

She nods slightly. “Inside is so much better.” Has she been inside yet? No. Is she willing to bet she is right? Yes. And you better believe the first thing she's doing in there is just lying on the floor.

She offers him a hand if he needs to steady himself to get up. As she does, she asks a question she already knows the answer to, but it's something to hopefully distract him even a little bit form his current state: “Billy Hargrove, right? I'm from Hawkins, too.”

Inside was better. Safe, closed off. The beasts couldn't get in there. Billy takes the offered hand and he's shaking so bad that he almost doesn't grab it. But he gets up and to his feet, putting his hand on the other wall to keep himself stable. There's a nod. "Y-yeah. Billy. Used to be a lifeguard at the pool."

She's from Hawkins too. Maybe that's why he sort of recognizes her. A year under him or something maybe. A familiar face surrounded by strawberry blonde hair and ribbons for a cheerleader maybe.

There's a thump of a demobat landing on the roof above them. Somehow it senses the two of them, screeching down at the pair. Billy's hand tightens on her, too tight and he pulls. These don't trigger him as bad as the flayers do, but it's still something Wrong and Not Good. "Diner!" he manages to choke out, getting himself into gear to run towards the corner so they could get to the door.

Won't catch her wasting any time, so she starts running towards the entrance, before any creatures can get any closer after that one literally called them out, closing the door way to hard behind them when they finally make it inside.

“Well, on the plus side, I bet there's stuff in here we can use as weapons?” She'd like them to not have to, and these things to just go away, but that's clearly not happening any time soon.

As soon as they're inside and she slams the door, Billy grabs a chair to ram under it and then grabs her again. This time he pulls her back into the kitchen until he hits the wall, sliding down against it. The diner was safe, it was familiar, and the creatures couldn't see them from the windows if they were in here.

Weapons? No, no no nonono, not right now. "Not enough," he breathes out, feeling that panic threatening again. "Flayer, too big, too massive. Nothing big enough." And it wouldn't be a good idea to give someone like Billy Hargrove a knife or any kind of weapon at the moment.

That might be putting Chrissy in charge of the safety right now then...

She waits there in the kitchen for just a moment, while she mostly processes the last few minutes, and to make sure Billy's not going to pass out from stress or something. With the way he keeps talking about the flayer, she's glad she has yet to come across it; giant, creepy things are things she's trying to cut back on lately. Being away from the open outside and windows puts a little relaxation in her - not much, but a little.

It doesn't take long to find a few somethings sharp enough to hopefully deal some damage on the smaller creatures, so she puts them into a little 'just in case' pile. And then she fills a cup with water and offers it to him. “This should help some too.”

Billy wonders if the flayer is killable. But it has to be, he's certain Max mentioned it at some point. His death hadn't been swift, but it wasn't slow either. Pronounced dead on arrival by emergency services, but Max had told him. Told him what happened between what he knew and normal people showing up.

The water almost spills from the cup as he takes it carefully from her. He knows he's on thin ice with people from Hawkins, so he doesn't want to lash out at the wrong people. And Chrissy didn't deserve any of this bullshit. Didn't deserve his bullshit at least. Blue eyes dark and haunted look over the pile she makes.

"The flayer... I helped make it. Back home," he chokes out after taking a drink. God, he's a mess. "Got possessed a week or so I think. Before fourth of July." Because it wasn't a mall fire.

Nothing was ever as simple as a mall fire in Hawkins.

She sits on the ground, a few feet across from him, knees drawn up and her arms resting on them. “There's a difference between ‘I got bored on a Friday night and decided to create a behemoth of a supernatural creature’ and ‘I got possessed and did it’. Still sounds awful to experience, and I'm sorry you went through it. And it's not your fault it's here, either.” Just in case he was thinking it.

The more information she gets, the more she's realizing just how many things they've supposedly left behind in Hawkins that went bump in the night, and how it really wasn't the place she thought it was. If they could only leave them there, that'd be great.

Billy thinks of that night. It's only slightly easier than thinking of the night in the mall when it all came to head. He thinks of that abandoned Steelworks building and how he was gone before he even knew what was going on.

"It is. It is my fault. If I hadn't gone there—" though she probably has no idea what he's referring to, "I wouldn't have done any of it. And then when I wasn't possessed, I tried to stop it, because it was all my fault and it's going to kill me." The rats chitter in his mind, swarming him as the vines threaten to pull him back down into the panic and trauma of it all.

He takes another drink. Drinks until the glass is empty and sets it down. A hand reaches down to rub at where the scarring his hidden. "Hawkins is shit. No one knows what happened, no one from school even noticed anything was wrong until it was too late. And now they all regard me as some fucking hero at home."

And he's not. Billy Hargrove was never the hero.

"Trying to stop it has to count for something, because a lot of people might have just ran." She probably would have. She's also pretty sure he's never going to believe her that he shouldn't beat himself up over it.

"I'm dead too at home. Some creepy looking cosmic horror in a hallucination with apparently an obsession with clocks and spiders; I had no idea what was going on, and honestly I still mostly don't. I'm probably not one to talk since I lived in mostly obliviousness too, but...yeah a lot goes way over the heads of people in Hawkins." She doesn't even know how true that statement is.

"I had to stop it. It was all my fault anyways." Yep, definitely not believing that part where he shouldn't beat himself up about it. Billy looks at his hands. They're covered, mostly in the wrists, in minute little scars. Scars left behind from holding back the thing's tongue when he held it for so impossibly long before the blows started happening.

Billy's breathing picks up again. He wishes he brought his tape player and headphones. The one time he leaves them at home.

Then she keeps speaking and he looks at her. A spider? "Hopefully not the big spider thing that's inside the gate," he chokes out, gaze filled with fear.

“No - just spiders, the small bugs. The kind you can actually crush.” Well, if they weren't hallucinations, that is. But they certainly looked like the creepy crawlies that you can call exterminators for. “There does seem to be a lot of spider themes going on, though.” She's starting to think it'd be nice if there was less of that theme. She's never been grossed out by spiders, but this might make her reconsider.

“For now, we can ignore the out there.” It doesn't seem to be causing them an issue yet from in here. “You can tell me about life here instead?” More distractions are good.

Spiders and small bugs. Okay. Maybe that means the creature he made back home didn't make it out of the mall. Good. Good, good, good. His death hadn't been in vain then. "All of us... caught in a web we can't see until it's too late."

That's how it was starting to feel. It sounded like Chrissy didn't know she was doomed until it was too late. Like Billy himself with the ordeal outside of Steelworks.

"It's okay. It's got a beach, so it's better than Hawkins in my book. I live in a cabin out there. People are... good." Billy's not in that category yet. Maybe one day, when his attitude doesn't get him in trouble. "Fucking aliens keep us on our toes. Calibrations, the volcano... At least you can expect shit here. Hawkins doesn't give a warning when it's trying to kill you."

“You can sure as hell say that again.” Truer words have never been spoken about that situation, if you ask her.

“Already jealous of your beach cabin; you and Max came from California, right?” So it would make sense he wanted to be near a beach. Probably not as pretty here as the Californian ones, but whatever works. It would still be of some comfort, some familiarity. She nods slightly in concession to his point about warnings not being a thing in Hawkins. Those would have been nice to have.

"Yeah, San Diego. Dad yanked our fucking roots up to get to that shithole of a town." But talking about the real world and not the Upside Down was helping. Putting him back in the reality and not in his trauma response. Good, this was good.

"The cabin still needs fixing. I'm gonna have to do some work before winter if I want to keep most of the cold out. Been meaning to find a guy named Reeve. The aliens keep throwing obstacles in the way." He really has been meaning to. Right now it seems like winter's going to be a bit on the extra cold side for him. Billy makes a mental note to stop by the hotel to gather some extra blankets or maybe put a call out for them.

Blue eyes look her over. The important thing is he's seeing her and not some creepy other-verse shit. "Been in Hawkins your whole life I guess?"

She's not sure why anyone would pick Hawkins over San Diego, but apparently his dad did. Clearly he is a weird guy at minimum. No job offer or whatever sounds worth it.

"If you need any extra help, I'm happy to. When we're not dodging obstacles." Probably ones like they're dodging now. Yay.

"But yeah. I sure have, all eighteen years of it. Technically, I guess, in some ways it could have been worse." They weren't, you know, Harrington rich, but they were well enough off to have a nice house. But it didn't make up for what she went through inside the house.

It sounds worth it when you're trying to make your son into a man and beatings just don't seem to work. So Neil had taken away the coastline, the long highways, the dazzling sunsets. Now it was just rats and fog and death. Always had been, the rats just went from being metaphorical to literal.

"My dad worked at a bank. Security guard. Met my stepmom there and after a year or two, we moved to Hawkins. I hate it. I miss the beaches and the open roads." He looks her over, keeping out his head and just... focusing on her. "You didn't get caught up in the mall stuff, right?"

“Honestly, I probably would feel the same way if I came from a place like California.” Not that she's ever been, but the images of it always seem really ... well, free, non suffocating. You know, everything that Hawkins isn't.

To the question about the mall, she shakes her head slightly. “Nope. Before I got here, it was just a fire and I saw no reason to not believe it; seems kinda stupid now. But even if I had been caught up in it, I wouldn't blame you for it.”

"Not stupid. People are good at covering up what they don't want others to know." He swallows hard, but it's clear he's starting to relax. The episode of terror is starting to pass and talking is helping. God, it is helping.

Before I got here. "Wait, how long have you been here?"

Edited (forgot my icon, whoops) 2023-11-18 22:29 (UTC)

“If I wrote half the book on hiding things from the world, I guess that makes you the author of the other half. And we're not even getting royalties, which is a complete rip off.” How dare, really.

“Not long, but I mean like, before here as in while I was still home and had the mentality of someone just from a small town with no super creepy problems, before the reality check that came with showing up here.”

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Heaven's on Fire - KISS

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