DONTMAKEMEFALLINLOVE || Billy Hargrove, Stranger Things

Season 4 Bonus Chapter X.

(author's note: deep content that may be triggering lies ahead. read with caution)

Friday March 28, 1986

Billy awoke when he heard a door slam farther away in the Henderson household. He rubbed his groggy eyes with the back of his hand before his head darted to the clock on the bedside table: 12:50 pm. He drew in a long breath and gradually exhaled; he supposed it was time to get up. Billy's vision fixed itself on the girl in a slumber. Sometime during her sleep, Diana had shuffled around and was now sleeping on her stomach; her legs were stretched out as she took a better chunk of the bed. Billy then noticed his side was at the very edge of the bed. He firmly believed another earthquake could shake Hawkins and it wouldn't rock Diana from her sleep.

Careful not to wake her, Billy scooted off the mattress. He checked Diana's drawers for some of his old clothes; since he came to Hawkins with nothing but the clothes on his back, he was in dire need for clean clothes. He fished around multiple drawers and found a pair of black boxers he left long ago. Back then when he snuck out of Neil's house and escaped, he'd spend the night with his girl and bring even more of his apparel until there was enough in Diana's room to live with her. Where was that old fuck? He didn't really have the answer to that.

It hadn't been long since he and Diana reunited when she told him about Neil–give or take two weeks since they'd both been in California. Diana hadn't gone into exact detail about how she made it happen, but the girl was always capable of a lot. She described a letter she had sent to Hawkins police; in it was a piece of writing and a tape.

Billy had tried his hardest to understand. He didn't know if he should have been angry or shattered (or both) by what Diana had done. He feared his anger had just been another projection he had learned from his fuckup of a father. She had confessed something she'd hidden from him and everyone for years. Diana hadn't sugarcoated what she'd done to Billy; she didn't deserve to have received Billy's mercy. 1984. When Billy had hid Diana in his closet to protect her from seeing the worst of him. The same night they had both gone looking for their siblings, and the same night he had kissed her. She told him she'd caught everything Neil had done to him that night on a recorder.

Diana sent the tape and a letter to Hawkins police. That was when the police had pursued Neil Hargrove and brought the man in for questioning. After he had been released for the day, the man fled town. He was on the run, abandoning his second wife and Max. That was why Max and her mother had moved into a dump of a trailer home. Diana's source had told her they were informing other police stations of Neil Hargrove should they find him, but for now it was left at a dead end. No one was going to take the time out of their day to look for a child abuser whose child they had abused was supposedly dead. It felt like everything inside Billy had plummeted and decayed. Billy had frozen on the spot as the news crashed down on him.

Diana had flinched when Billy abruptly stood from his spot and left her there. He needed space. She didn't follow him because she knew Billy would only push her away. She thought she'd done the right thing by telling him...and she didn't regret it, Billy deserved to know. Before she had been too selfish to lose him over it. Not only that, Max's abuser was gone too. The tape should have never happened; if Billy left her for it, Diana couldn't hate him, and she couldn't fight for him to stay. She was just a stupid fucking child who had wanted to hurt Billy where she knew it would have struck him; this time, her actions may have proceeded her.

Billy had been gone for almost twelve hours that day. Billy had driven around the city for hours until his car was out of gas and he had to refill the tank. He roamed the streets of Los Angeles for hours. He didn't know how to feel...he knew he was angry. He'd been angry his girlfriend had kept this from him and how she wanted to use it against him at one point. If she did, she wouldn't have been any better than his father. But she didn't do anything with the tape. Billy knew he'd hurt her many times just because he wanted to strike her down–fuck, he slept with another girl because he knew Diana would find them. Diana could've released it then or anytime she wanted to, but she hadn't. She had kept his secret. And he loved her. Billy had never loved anyone other than the faint memory of his mother. Look where that had gotten him, he'd lost his mother. Billy didn't want to lose Diana over something from their past.