This Means War // Billy Hargrove x Reader

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄

You didn't say much the whole drive home. Neither did the kids in the car; the lot of you just settled into an uneasy and unbroken silence. The plan now was to head back to your house and take refuge in the basement, regroup, and come up with what to do next.

Something you had no fucking idea about. 

The first step though? Finding Hopper. As chief of police he had access to resources you weren't able to get to and, honestly, you just wanted someone to take over as the leading adult in this shit-show. 

Yeah, you were an adult. But you needed a more adult adult to take the lead and come up with a plan that wouldn't end in the deaths of everyone you knew.

For now though, you focus solely on driving and herding the kids inside the house, just in time for when your mom was waking up to start her day. Fuck, it had been a long evening. You hadn't even noticed that it was morning already.

She doesn't notice the group of adolescents clambering through the house thankfully, just hums softly as she gets breakfast going. 

El and the kids make a start on trying to find Hopper while you excuse yourself to get cleaned up, body aching and throat sore with every spoken word from the encounter with Billy. You head into the small bathroom and pull the cord for the light, a grim and bloodied expression meeting your gaze in the mirror.

Your neck and jaw were bruised, your bottom lip busted a little in the corner though you don't notice it at first from the blood that coated the delicate skin between your chin and lips. Your eyes were puffy and rimmed with a furious scarlet shade from the tears you'd shed, tears that came fresh and trickled over your cheeks once more as you looked at yourself. They cut a clean line through the dried blood there, reminding you that you couldn't stay like this.

So you begin to clean it off and wince as warm water brushes over the wounded flesh, wiping clean the open gash before an infection could get in. Where it had hurt the split skin though, the warm water soothes the contusions on your jaw and neck, pulling free the ache deep within and helping you to feel just a fraction better. 

You craved a bath so badly; to dip into the heated water and be enveloped by only warmth and lovely smells to relax you, coaxing the pain from your limbs and easing the cloudiness in your mind. But there wasn't time for that. No, a quick clean up with a wet rag would have to do. Gross. 

Once the skin is clean, you pat yourself dry with the hand towel as a small knock comes upon the door, followed by Max asking if she could come in. Prying open the door, she and El enter and fill what was left of the small space that was the bathroom.

"Christ, not much room in here. Maybe I should go." You chuckle nervously, throat tightening over the sharp pain that came with speaking.

"Stay." El insists, a small smile on her lips as Max uses the same cloth to clear the blood from under her nose. You close the lid of the toilet and sit on it, legs crossing as the girls filled you in on what El had seen while looking for Hopper. He was apparently in Illinois with Joyce for God knows what reason, which makes you frown instantly. Your reprieve was not as close as it seemed, apparently. Fuck. What were you going to do?

"Wait, shh--" You tell the two of them as they joke about Mike, something you normally would be more than happy to partake in but you could hear the boy himself talking to his friends in the other room and you couldn't help but to smile as the three of you listened to their bickering.

"She said she dumped your ass, that doesn't sound like a break," You hear Will say, to which Max shouts a response, "It wasn't! You guys do realise we can still hear everything you're saying, right?"