revivalproject | The Human Paradox

Entry tags:

The Human Paradox

WHO: Max, Billy, Robin + anyone else left
WHERE: the bar of the Peanut Party
WHAT: Saying goodbye
WHEN: Before leaving
WARNINGS: Panic attacks, grief, course language, upcoming violence

Welcome to my delirium - open to anyone
Max listens to everything, to their options, to the explanations, and feels the world shift as she does. For a second, it feels like she's going to pass out - please no - so she reaches out to steady herself.

Go home. She can't even begin to process the conflicting fear and grief with the elation of maybe seeing Lucas and El again. Seeing Will, Mike, Dustin, Steve, Nancy - her friends. But, she's also made friends here, and there are some she'll never see again, no matter what. There's also knowing the first thing she's going to deal with when she returns is Vecna part. Her heart thuds in her chest, painfully and she finds herself gulping in air.

Sure, she could go into the open with everyone at the bars, maybe that would help, but she's embarrassed at the lack of courage. Not that she doesn't want to face and fight Vecna - she does. She wants to rip a hole through his damned chest for everything he's done to all of them, their home. But right now, Max needs to rely an older tactic of hers. She runs. She finds a small, hidden away, dark area and breaks into frightened, torn sobs. Collapsed into a ball, head buried in her knees, she cries in a way she's not accustomed to. Max hates it, hearing herself, feeling the heat on her face, but she can't seem to stop it, either.

She knows what she has to do, and she suspects what Billy is going to do. She won't deny him, hell, she would encourage him to go with Tommy, but it's a little bit like losing him all over again.

When she finally cries it out and feels stronger, she stands up with the knowledge at least Billy will be alive somewhere, and get the happy ending he always deserved but was robbed of. She can live with that.

No matter what, she's taking her memories with her, the offered crystal, the chance to return once in a while, and she's taking some time to say farewell, first. She manages to find one last piece of paper, and a pen that's survived.

Her eyes are still red, but she forces a smile as she starts to approach people she wants to say goodbye to. Max reaches out to touch an arm, first, then gives a silent hug.

Dear Billy, 2.0 - closed to Billy

When she's ready, Max breathes in, deeply, and starts to look for Billy. No matter what, they need to say goodbye, but she can't pretend she doesn't clench her hands into fists and that her feet feel like lead. It takes everything she has, because she doesn't want to speak to him for the last time.

And what did Max take time to write? The letter she plans to give Billy as they part ways?

Dear Billy,
I had this letter for you from home, but when I came back I couldn't find it. It was kind of terrible, anyway, and I was planning to burn it. It was from my heart when I first wrote it, but after we met here on Agra-10 and reconciled, it felt immature when I reread it.

Maybe it's best I couldn't find it. Now, you get this one.

We both know I have to go home, and I can't promise you things are going to end well, but I can promise I'm going to fight with everything I have. I can promise you I'm never going to forget having you as a brother here. I'm not going to forget how far we both came.

I also suspect you're going to go home with Tommy. I want you to go with the knowledge I'll be fine, and that I'll always cherish the extra time we got to steal from the universe. You deserve that happiness, especially after how hard you've worked, and how you were robbed back home. Take this second chance. Don't make me push you.

I'm probably going to say some of this, but I want you to have it in writing, to take with you, since this is probably the last thing I'll be able to give you. The last things I'll get to say to you.

You became the big brother I always wanted. You earned this. Don't you ever forget that. Every time you question that, and we know you will, read this and remind yourself how much you struggled, how much you changed. Remember the fact you became a good person. That was a choice you made. Remember I'm somewhere back in Hawkins, alive and well, thinking of my brother, and my brother-in-law, somewhere living a better life.

Love, your shitty little sister,
Max

Step right into pandemonium - closed to Robin
Sure, they weren't that close back home, but after spending time together on Agra-10, the ships, this whole adventure, she feels far more sentimental about her, closer to her, so Max decides to at least speak to her before she takes the final steps to leave.

"Hey, Robin," she calls out and waves to her as she approaches. "So, I can't turn away from what's happening back in Hawkins. But I wanted to check in and see what you're thinking."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Billys been doing the same with telling people goodbye (okay, his car really because he can’t take it with), and it’s a wonder the siblings hadn’t found each other before Max is ready to find Billy. And where is he?

The diner. There’s a small box he can hold under his arm, along with his axe, on the table as he smokes a cigarette. Apparently everything was stressful enough to cause him to cave one last time for it. He rummaged through the box‘s contents for a moment: Max‘s Walkman; his vase of shells; some cassettes from Eddie; Max‘s letter to Billy from home folded against the vase.

Ignore the bloodstains spattered on it from when he punched the civics center door.

He should be out there looking for her instead of smoking in the diner, but Billy’s nervous. Nervous that he’s gonna fuck up saying goodbye, all of that. He’s never gotten to tell anyone goodbye. They all left him, and then he died. Billy sacrificed himself to make the amends he didn’t have a chance to fix.

The door opens and Billy snuffs the cigarette out quickly.

"Max." It’s a little surprised but he shouldn’t be.

It is a wonder they hadn't found each other already, especially since Max stopped by the car first thing, thinking that was the most likely place to find Billy. After that, well, the diner was almost the last place she checked.

"What's with the surprise? Did you think I wasn't going to say goodbye first, or something?" Max asks him, already getting on his case, though she's not serious about it.

"I've been looking for you everywhere. What are you even doing in here?" she asks as she slides into the booth. Her nose wrinkles to the scent of a fading cigarette, but for the sake of their farewell, she doesn't comment on it. She doesn't entirely notice his box of items, either, not yet.

She's got a small bag of belongings she wants to take with her, and a piece of folded up paper in her hand. Max starts fiddling with the paper, nervously, as her leg vibrates under the table, not entirely sure where to even start, though, she kind of already has.

"No," he snaps back defensively with the surprise disappearing off of his face. "I figured if I just sat my ass in one spot, you'd find me eventually. You'd come here looking for Tommy and could find both of us if he was here too."

But there's no one else but the two of them. An empty diner where he and Tommy made a lot of memories. Munson, Radley, Gladio, even that Wesker bastard.

His own foot is bouncing under the table as she joins him on the opposite side. There's no metaphorical gap between them anymore, no yawning canyon of distance between them as siblings anymore. Billy considers them siblings more now than he ever had, even calling her his sister and dropping the 'step' part off of it.

"I like being in the diner. I pretty much checked the other places I'd been staying at for anything else I want to take with me." Billy breathes out through his nose and looks at her. "You probably already guessed, but I'm not going back to Hawkins. You know... You know there's nothing left for me there."

Nothing but the end.

He sniffs hard, eyes already getting glassy. This is kind of what he wanted, right? When he first started living here? To tell Max everything so she didn't have to shoulder any guilt about him back in that shithole they called Indiana.

"He offered it to me so I can keep going with what I can't have back home." If that meant living, having Tommy as his boyfriend, or both, it wasn't clear.

"But Tommy's not here," Max points out, because it's the only thing she can even bicker about, and right now, she wants to bicker as much as possible to postpone what they both know they need to do.

Max, too, considers them real siblings. Using the "step" part implies Neil has anything to do with their bond, and he doesn't - this was purely them. Their decision. Their work. This way, he's cut out, completely, as he should be.

The mention of the diner causes Max to look around, fondness in her expression.

"I like it, too. I'd come here a lot to just think." And then they start getting into the meat of this conversation.

Max's eyes flicker shut, like she's in pain, and her foot starts to bounce a little faster.

"I was going to say you shouldn't go back, anyway. You..." her voice does crack, slightly, "deserve a chance to life." Besides, Max can't handle the thought of Billy going back just to die. It's wrong.

"He will be," he tells her with a momentary scowl in his eyes and a blink-and-you'll miss it pout on his lips.

"It's a good place to think. And Tommy's made it real cozy upstairs for himself." If you squint hard enough at one of the tables, you can probably still see the shoeprint from one of Munson's shoes from him getting on the table during a D&D session.

The blond breathes in as they start getting into the heavier topic. The ones from Hawkins knows how he dies. He's never really told Tommy or anyone else here what happened. "I want that chance. Even if I lived back home, we both know everything I've done here would get wrecked by Neil back home." All the work he's put in to change, gone under the foreboding figure of the man back home.

"Besides," he adds with an air of confidence back. "I think Tommy's universe could use a lot more handsome and curls in it, what do you think?"

Max knows what to look for, now, and she's not taking his scowl seriously, anyway. They both know she's here to talk to Billy, first and foremost. She gets to, also, want to say goodbye to Tommy. He's been an amazing friend, to her, as far as Max is concerned.

"Then he's gotta show up, yeah." She's going to miss Eddie, but that's not something Max came to explore, though her mind starts wondering to anything that's easier to deal with.

Max's voice goes hollow as she looks down to the table and assures Billy, "That asshole wrecks everything he touches."

Her eyes start to sting, so she's grateful to have a chance to scoff and roll her eyes. She tells Billy, "Well, I guess his world could use more shitty curls, sure."

"Neil does. He hurts shit, damages people to keep them in line." It had been going on longer than Mac had seen for herself, but the damage was evident after the Mayfields moved in.

He’s about to go further when she calls his curls shitty in a sibling jab. "Hey! I have the best fucking hair in Hawkins AND San Diego and you know it!" Defensive again. Seems to be his go to instead of immediately to violence when his hackles raise.

"Neil wrecks everything. Tries to hurt us and shit. It works a lot. But not anymore. If I can be a better person on an alien fucking planet despite everything he did, imagine all the shit you can do. You’re like the second strongest person in our family, shitbird."

Max rolls her eyes and doesn't miss a beat in teasing, "I think you're in love with your hair more than any one person." And she has jump in with, "Correction, I'm the strongest," but otherwise, her eyes drop down to her hands and she's quiet for a while.

She suspects Neil was worse than she knew, and she can put together it had been going on for a long time.

"But you're right. You became a much better person away from him. Imagine how much better you're going to become." After all, she's not even slightly worried about Neil.

Her foot starts to bounce more, her jaw clenches, and Max feels her eyes prickle with tears once more.

"I," her voice cracks, and her eyes finally lift back to look at Billy proper, "I am sorry. That I didn't do more to stop him, before. I wanted to, Billy, I really did. But I was just frozen in place. Couldn't move."

Just like...she wanted to stop Vecna that fateful night, too. She let Vecna change the narrative on her to torture her with, but the reality was, she had been too horrified to move. Max had been carrying that guilt all this time.

"My hair is pretty damn amazing, so I don't blame you for thinking that." But Tommy is right there with it and his car. He sucks his lips between his teeth for a moment as she corrects him. "Fine. You're tied for the first strongest. Because you gotta share that spot with my mom."

Max never saw the memories like that weird girl did back in the mall, but it was clear from the home life that she didn't need to. Billy loves his mom and always would, but there was always going to be that little splinter of resentment of leaving him behind.

No point in focusing on the what-ifs right now.

"Don't-" he says to try and cut her off as her voice cracks with the pronoun, but she barrels on anyways. "Don't. Don't blame yourself. You think I'd rather him fucking hit you or Susan? You're mentally strong, shitbird but what he did to me..."

He feels his own hitch in his throat at the thought. "No, easier for me to just take it rather than him turn that against you and your mom." That was one thing that never changed - he never called Susan 'mom'. He breathes in and out instead of letting his emotions crash over and send his mouth out of control.

"I wouldn't blame you for any of that shit."

He reaches over to grab her wrist to hold on tightly. Probably too tightly. Billy still hasn't quite learned that one just yet. "You better not feel any fucking guilt about that back in Hawkins." Shit, now there's tears starting up in his eyes. "Not about Neil, not about the mall, nothing, Max."

Billy sniffs hard. "I'm gonna be a better person for me, but for you, too. I'm glad I got the chance to be the big brother you deserved instead of the one you had for a long time. I'm sorry for all that shit, but you know I am." Otherwise they wouldn't be having this heart-to-heart chat in the diner.

There's a second Max smirks, about to proudly share that title, until Billy says she's sharing it with his mom. She's thought of it before, of course, but this is a reminder she's always wondered about her and knows nothing about her. Her expression hollows out, then returns more earnest, deep sadness and curiosity mixed together.

"You never talk about her. Your mom," she swallows in between. "What was she like?"

Max will never deny Billy's earned that resentment.

As Billy talks, the idea that he never wanted her, or her mom, hurt helps her look back and see some of his behavior in a new light. Sure, they still didn't get on, and he was a dick, but maybe not everything was Billy being cruel to her. Max's eyes spill over with tears.

"Don't tell me how I get to feel," she insists, voice ravaged with pain. "I'm always going to feel some guilt we wasted so much time. Either fighting, or avoiding each other. Instead of bridging the gap between us sooner." She still feels there was some wasted time, that she wasn't able to forgive him sooner, try to see things from his perspective sooner.

She lets him take her wrist, even if it feels uncomfortable, and doesn't even protest at the grip. Her other hand palms her eyes, trying to wipe away the tears that won't stop.

"I'm glad we still got a chance. So...apology accepted." Amazingly enough, Max doesn't argue his apology. She takes it, greedily as she pins the memory in her heart.

For a very long moment, it seems like Billy's not going to answer the question about his mom. He really never did talk about her, but fought Neil tooth and nail to keep the vase filled with sand and shells.

"You know how Tommy calls me 'sunshine'?" His own voice cracks a little. "She was like that. With me. She was so good and happy until she couldn't take Neil's abuse anymore. I tried to call her once but it was too late." Obviously she never came back.

'Fuck man, you're from the 80s, right? Do you know how rarely men were punished for domestic abuse? How rarely custody was ever awarded to women? She made her choice to leave, but that doesn't mean she had a choice or not on coming back.' He can hear Tommy saying that so long ago before they were even friends. The resentment for his mother not taking him still lingered, but Billy understood why she did it. Why he couldn't go with her.

"Shut up. I'm your brother, I get to tell you what to do and no one else." It's what siblings did to each other, right? Proper siblings anyways. "You think me back then would've let you bridge it? And the whole ordeal after-"

God, could his voice stop cracking?

"After I was possessed there was no way it was letting me go. But I remember you while I was in the sauna. And everything I said there was true. Just like what I'm saying now." And there go the tears, spilling over to stream down his cheeks. "I'm sorry I couldn't be better for you back in Hawkins and San Diego and had to get fucking abducted by damn aliens to learn how to be better while it could still count. And you're my best sister ever and when you get back home, only you're allowed to drive the Camaro. No one else."

He lets out a little sob before getting up quickly to pull her up out of the seat and into her arms for a hug.

"Fuck you shitbird, I love you okay?"

In return, after Billy died, Max tried to do the same, fought to keep the last thing she really had of Billy - that same vase of shells. It didn't work out, in the end, but at least that led to the end of Neil in their lives. She listens, and Max's eyes flicker back to the table when she realizes the truth, that Billy's mom left him behind. This time, she flips her hand over, trying to be the one holding Billy's wrist as she searches for his eyes to speak to him, so earnestly.

"I'm sorry...that she left you with that monster."

Billy telling her to shut up gets a chuckle from her, easing the pain and tears for a moment.

"And it's my job to not listen."

He brings up the possession, and her eyes close, once more. A couple of tears leak down her cheeks, showing them both she's not done crying, not yet, even if she wants to be.

"You fought that. More than once, you were yourself again. And I knew, Billy. In the sauna, I knew it was you speaking. I knew you meant every word. I knew you were fighting Vecna." She shakes her head to the rest.

"Told you. Apology accepted already. You sucked back then. You don't anymore. You've more than made up for it."

When he pulls her into the hug, for a moment, Max buries her head away in his chest and sobs. It took too long for them to reach this point, and she's going to miss their newly forged sibling bond. As far as she's concerned, they both fought and worked for it, too. It was hard earned, so after their struggles, it won't just diminish because of time or space. but that doesn't mean parting doesn't hurt.

"I love you, too, dumbass," Max tells him, somehow getting the words out past her raw and cracking throat.

For a moment, she just closes her eyes and hugs Billy, then she stops and pulls back to stare at him with confusion. "The Camaro? Guess I never had the chance to tell you...it's gone. It was trashed." At least, back home it was.

As long as Neil was gone, Billy could rest easier back home. If there was anything of him to rest there. How would it work - would his grave lay empty save for a box back in Hawkins? Would the universe make a replacement for him? That was too many questions to go unasked as he holds onto Max.

As she sobs against him, he does a little too, burying his face in her stupid red hair and holding her stupid form against his stupid body. At least like this they can say their goodbyes, that they never get back home. Maybe back in Tommy's verse he could ask Kaplan to check in on her from time to time if that was possible. He had a big brother duty to keep an eye on her if he could.

Billy's arms tighten around her as she sobs and says she loves him back. Billy gets this. He gets the goodbyes, the closure before moving to somewhere good and new like he wants. He knows he's getting her hair wet but ask him if he cares.

Spoiler alert: Billy doesn't.

Finally when she pulls back he nods. "I know. You told me when the Camaro showed up here, that it was me because I was possessed." He hadn't realized at the time that 'flayed' and 'possessed' had meant the same thing at the time. "But I doubt it just got scrapped for parts back home. You get this shit with Vecna done and you get the Camaro. You and Harrington can fix her up."

Dear Shitbird 1.0

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Delirium

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject