BAD BOY GONE GOOD - A STRANGER THINGS BILLY+FEMALE OC MIXED FANFIC

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to all those who faved, read, reviewed, and supported me to continue. Without you this fic wouldn't still be going. I appreciate it. :D

I do not own Stranger Things, Billy, or any original character from the show. This fic is purely for entertainment and is making no money and is completely free. The Duffer Brothers own everything and a big thank you to them for inspiring this. :D

Enjoy.

-BAD BOY GONE GOOD-

Chapter 5 - THE BROKEN BOY - MAD MAX - & THE THUNDERDOME

Summary:

BILLY REFLECTS. (lots of angsty confused deep thoughts)

Thoughts on the new town, new school, his new "friends" aka followers and worshippers, and some new girl he randomly has first period English with. He recalls everything about her and how it made him feel when being around her. He thinks about what he plans to do with her but something makes him feel off about her. He cannot quite place it but he's sure damn gonna try.

Billy cant stop thinking about Mandy though even if he continues flirting with other girls, taking them out on dates, and when he goes to bed at night its her face he sometimes sees and dreams about. Why? Shes just a girl for him to ruin. She means NOTHING. He decides then and there to have her, seduce her, and sleep with her so he can move on and forget her and get her out of his head because she is driving him nuts constantly being on his brain.

Max pisses him off being late to show up to his car which makes both of them late to come home. It's really not much of a home to come home to. Everytime she makes him late its HIS ass on the line with Neil not hers. Their relationship is strained because of this and even deeper things he doesn't want to think about.

Returning to Neil's house, which he has dubbed the "Thunderdome", he has to deal with his father then retires for the night to sleep. Tomorrow after school he starts his first day at the Hawkins community pool and has no idea what to expect. Neil has given him a pass to not have to pick up Max when he has to go to work right after school but he still has to take her out where she wants on weekends or on his days off.

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Billy didn't see the girl with the deep ocean eyes again after he took off to shower at the end of practice.

Feeling proud of himself for easily manipulating Steve he quickly got dressed and made his way out to the school parking lot. Tommy gave him the address and took off to go do his own thing telling him he would see him later.

He wasn't blind. He noticed Tommy staring at Mandy in the gym. It invoked some sort of primal feeling in him but he couldn't put a finger on it. He was far more desperate to put his fingers on and in Mandy Hawkins and like hell would he let Tommy beat him to it.

Frustrated at not being able to find her out here he unlocked his Camaro and threw his gym bag in the back. Keeping the door open and sitting sideways in his driver's seat he lit up a smoke and waited for Maxine to show up.

If the little shit was late again he would be absolutely pissed. Billy was tired of taking Neil's crap because of her piss poor attitude and her lack of punctuality. Max knew the rules and he laid down the law with her quite clearly and yet she still found ways to make him suffer at the hands of his old man and played games.

Thinking back to the girl he met today he almost curled his lips into a smile when he recalled how she had helplessly pressed herself against her locker when he stood before her. He felt powerful and in control with her. All the other girls just melted right into his hands and arms willingly which left him no satisfaction of the chase. But Mandy was different. She was resisting him.

When they locked eyes, he had felt some sort of magnet pull him to her the moment he laid his icy blue ones onto hers and it had sent a jolt of hot white electricity throughout his body. When it struck him he almost stopped breathing for a second. Her eyes made him think of things he didn't want to so he let his eyes roam her body instead.

But no matter how hard he tried to avoid them and look at her anatomy, he just kept looking right back into her deep green orbs realizing they almost paralyzed him. They reminded him of something far away that he pined for. Reminded him of his beloved oceans and waves back home in California, perhaps? Maybe they had somewhat started making him homesick.

Yeah, that has to be it. She has eyes like the ocean and I just miss California and the beach. That's all. Nothing to it. He thought dismissively as he took a long drag from his cigarette enjoying the feel and taste of the smoke.

Her sea green eyes, almost like two precious tidal emeralds, were hauntingly beautiful as he beheld them for the very first time. They were emblazened on his memory now but it wasn't the same seeing them in a memory, dulled with time, when compared to seeing them in real time and in person. The memory can fade and become skewered and incorrect more and more as time passes and the memory fades. But her eyes were definitely unforgettable and left an impression on him. It angered him to not understand why.

All he knew is he had to see her again and corner her, even if only to figure her out. Until he did this would definitely bother him to no end. With new resolve to track down the newest object of his lusty ambitions and conquer her, he would look for her every chance he got while wandering the campus in between bells.

He would spend his lunch time trying to track her down to work her up even more. He would get her hot and bothered and ready for him so he could claim what he wanted from her. The rumors be damned, he would see to it she would give in to him and he would break her one way or another.

While wandering the school today he was asking people questions and directions to familiarize his new territory. Memorizing every mile of it like a wolf would map out it's territory for a den and before hunting it's prey.

He would love to skip or ditch but if he started that shit here, Neil would be on him in no time to punish him for fucking up a second chance out here. He had horrible grades and attendance back in California and had been in so many fights that the move was carried out by his old man as a latch ditch effort to control him completely. To force him into unfamiliar territory thinking he wouldn't make it.

Well, he would prove him wrong. He could take the man out of the beach but he wouldn't take the beach out of the man. He hated this fucking town and all the hick people in it. The girls were fat or dogs here, besides Tina anyway, and he was tired of looking for scraps instead of a nice juicy steak to chew on.

He missed the warm sands, the ocean spray and salty smell of the beach. He missed his actual real friends on the West Coast that were like him in so many ways he didn't have to act or hide but could be himself around them and they accepted him. Everything about Hawkins, Indiana screamed the death of his sanity and his enjoyment.

Well, Tina wasn't the only one that got his attention if he were honest with himself.

He thought again of Mandy and the first true moment he gazed deeply into her ocean like eyes when she was against her locker and he had closed in to get a good look at her in the hall. He took in all of her then. Her lovely eyes, full pink pouting lips, her long soft black hair finely accenting her fair pale skin.

She barely said a word to him at first until thanking him for helping with her locker. He didn't want her thanks he wanted her to swoon. But once he realized she wouldn't it excited him even more. When she begged him to move aside and let her go it was all he could do to keep from grinning and enjoying trapping her there.

He saw how fired up she got over it and it made him satisfied. One small 'thanks' barely a whisper and then she was suddenly spurning him and walking away angrily. He liked her like that deciding then and there he didn't want her easy like all the other girls that fell at his feet.

Billy recalled how she had stiffened up in class when he whispered against her neck. The same way she had gone stiff against the locker. But it didn't seem like fear because there was want in her eyes mixed with confusion... or perhaps something else?

Her body, from what he could tell, was shapely and definitely doable. The skirt accented her hips and her ass just right which he got a great view of as she walked away from him. Her outfit had shown decently how well shaped she was in her torso and her chest. It was odd for him to enjoy such a view because in all his years, the soft quiet shy nerdy type had never been his type at all, yet there she was turning him on and looking good despite her odd style and appearance.

He supposed it was the expression she got on her face when he backed her up against her locker to open it for her. She had gazed up into his eyes with an unknowable unrecognizeable emotion but if he had to guess it would be desire mixed with hesitation. Something else in her eyes he couldn't quite make out.

There was no lust in her eyes for him, which had made him wonder most of all. Every girl that had ever gazed upon his face or his body had that look. But hers was more a trapped panic, a desire to flee, coupled with a need to understand or figure him out.

It was as if she was searching into his eyes for something. She had spared a glance at his tight good looking ass as he walked by but even then it was more out of curiosity than out of a desire to try and own him and his physical perfection. He didn't let any female delude herself into thinking they could own him. He owned the girls he chased until he was sick of them, simple as that.

Each time she pulled her eyes away from him it made a part of him ache inside to look into them again. A painful withdraw had struck him from her abscence somehow, hitting him deep down inside the core of his very being.

He was pleasantly surprised to see her again at the gym watching him move all over the court. He supposed she was pissed about him tormenting Steve but if it made her hot for him, so be it.

She looked so surprised when he used her first name. Most likely she didn't know he could hear some of what her and her friend were saying in the hallway while flirting openly with Tina to get to her. Tina was pretty for sure, but he mostly did it to get under Mandy's skin and show her just how desirable he was.

In class he saw her passing notes with her friend and oh how fun it would have been for him to find a way to get his hands on one of them to read them to her out loud when he cornered her all alone. He could only guess they were about him, despite his ego being almost sure of it, since she was stealing glances at him as she read them.

What a pity that English class in the morning was their only class together. Tina was all over him every chance she got and while it made him feel wanted and inflated his ego, it was quickly getting on his nerves, but if he wanted to play then he had to pay.

He had asked the cute yet outspoken chick who gave him her number all too easily about the girl earlier during break between classes. She looked crestfallen and maybe a little jealous and insecure when he did.

He was smoking at the corner of the school with all the other misfits, Tommy and Carol included, and the party people of Hawkins High when he asked. Tina decided to just tag along with him uninvited. She was cute but way too social, extremely flirty and talkative. She had laughed incredulously almost to the point of scoffing while asking him why he wanted to know about Mandy.

This was just her making a statement that she could show him a far better time than any other girl at this dump of a school. Her laughter and the way she teasingly touched him couldn't mask her off put and hurt feelings either. It was apparent to him that this girl, Mandy Hawkins, literally was simply a little nobody and wasn't part of the popular crowd that he was working his way into.

When he had looked for her during lunch while walking around to familiarize himself with the school grounds and hallways he had decided he would have to wait to see her tomorrow morning and try again twice as hard to get to her. A part of him hated her for making him want to see her and mess with her head so badly. It wasn't really like him at all to fixate on any one girl, ever.

By lunch time the rumors were going around that there would be a party at Steve Harrington's place and Tina also invited herself to that with him as well. Tina was clearly the better choice and more ready for him to do unimaginable things to her in his car for an amazing afterparty delight. So why choose someone who seemingly had no interest over one who did? Still, he could not get the raven haired porcelain skinned girl out of his mind. Her cattiness had only piqued his interest even more.

He found himself rehearsing and thinking up things he could say to get into her panties or at least get them in a bunch over him. Either she was very good at hiding under a rock away from everyone else or she was very actively and specifically avoiding him.

Usually he could blow it off and move on to other potentials or distract himself with someone ditzy and willing, like Tina, but for some reason he could not get this Mandy Hawkins girl out of his head.

She was nothing like the girls in his magazines or posters that he often sweated to at night, but maybe that's what he liked about her. She was unique and dare he think even kind of beautiful in a strange way he couldn't figure out. Everything about her should be making him scream in hatred of her and be repulsed. She dressed like a widow or a grandma. But when the hoodie was off, he saw that she had something going for her and to work with body wise.

Billy found it slightly interesting that her last name was the same as the shit town he wound up in but he didn't care to ask too much about that.

Eventually he tried to block out whatever it is that was going on inside of him about this strange girl. It felt like a battle between his sexual needs and desires for something different than his usual tastes and something else he couldn't repress or name.

So in his mind, he resolved to be determined to get her into his car or in his room alone with him. Any girl in Hawkins would basically do to satiate his urges but no matter where he went he found himself planning things for her.

Picturing her in his mind how she looked when they last met and how she had pressed herself back against the locker flattening herself as far away from him as she could, he wondered how he could have repulsed her so. No girl did that to a good looking guy like him. It was a strange reaction to see, she clearly wasn't normal. He would like to tell himself it was because of the intensity of his flirty presence but he knew that wasn't quite right.

He had to admit, a part of that made him feel powerful to corner her and see that look in her eyes. He knew the affect he had on girls, even older women. But when he looked into those deep green eyes of hers he didn't see the usual response. He saw avoidance and disgust. He saw her holding back something from him. A sort of trapped need like his own begging to come out only unlike him she wouldn't allow it.

It was as if she was keeping the best part of herself away from him, guarding and protecting it. Keep her thoughts or feelings locked up tight out of his reach. Dangling it there to see but not letting him absorb any of them.

She was strong. Stubborn. Willful. She resisted. It made him almost have respect for her in a strange way. He just bet she truly was just like all the others deep down despite her mask of innocence she tried to use on him. If she thought she could fight him eventually he would win and take what he wanted from her.

Not by force, he wasn't into that and knew better. But by coercion and causing her willingness to slowly unfold until she yielded to him. But the fires of intelligence that burned in her eyes said otherwise. This would be an uphill battle and the fight of his life if he truly wished to pursue this. To pursue her.

If she did want him and was only playing games with him, she was hiding it very well. Almost as well as she hid her figure underneath all those damn baggy clothes she wore. He noticed seeing that was a hundred times better than it all being on display for him. He loved to imagine her soft supple body beneath all of those layers for himself.

Most girls showed off their skin for him. Painted their faces up. Did their hair just right. Even putting on extra perfume so he could smell it on them when they got close to him to flirt back. She had a natural soft and fragrant scent that couldn't come from a bottle. It was pure innocence that he picked up on from her with all of his senses.

This of course, was impossible to him. No girl was pure like that. At some point in their lives even pre high school or during, their innocence is taken, and that is the simple fact of reality. One of the many things his father had told him. According to Neil, all girls are whores who play the virgin. All girls are begging to go for that ride in the car but like to pretend they are higher class than that.

He couldn't imagine why he was becoming so unhinged by some mousey female he hadn't even gotten the chance to press his mouth against let alone his hands either. She was a mystery wrapped up in mysteries and it was beginning to crawl into his brain and scratch around in there bothering him all day. So simple, so plain, and yet so beautiful at the same time.

How could she have this kind of effect on him on a first meeting? Never in his life had he been so obsessed with the idea of breaking a girl in. Tina was gorgeous but she was far too simple and easy to figure out. Too easy to win over and was even eager to be the girl on his arm and the girl that would wind up in the back of his car.

Most girls he fancied or went after were all lovely and exotic but for him to have these intense desires for a plain looking girl like Mandy and to feel so broken and laid bare before her eyes was ridiculous.

He felt like he was trying to hide something deeper within himself from her with his cocky and perverted behavior only to have her see right through him. It bewildered him. He had to shake this off and get it out of his mind. He bet that once he had a simple taste of her things would go back to normal for him and he would drop it.

A female was only desirable for him during the thrill of the chase and then conquering them so they would give him what he wanted from them. But once he had his way that was when the desire quickly faded and he moved on to the next while he ruined the last one for anyone else.

After being with him, they would never be able to be with another man quite the same way again because every time they rutted with some other guy they would think only of him and what he did to them. He was damn good in bed and he knew that as well.

The big turn off for a lot of them was he didn't want committment to them. No girl sprung him enough to make him even slightly crave that. He was not relationship or boyfriend material. He was not the guy you would bring home to mother. Nor the guy you made matrimony plans with. He only dealed in one night stands. Love them and dump them. Wham, bam.

So how could this insignificant ordinary little nobody like Mandy possibly make his head spin or feel eager to close the deal with her? Getting close to her in the hallway had him turned on and in heat for her but he hadn't shown it.

He was good at masking his true emotions replacing them with something else over the top. He could hide the anxious quivering and trembling of his body as it shuddered for her. He could use disdain, mockery, and his flirtatious qualities to mask it. But her look almost put him in a spotlight as if she could sense his need for her.

Had she caught onto his game? Saw through to his intentions? Had Mandy realized that he could offer her no more than bodily pleasure for one night and he was too willing to give it? Or did she see past that and instead saw something in him that was worth her time enough for her to linger? She had to have come to the gym to see him. And if not, she did stay to watch, that was obvious.

These questions were really throwing him around and he could feel the pangs of physical need as well as the claws of frustration rake over him for her. Billy hated the idea of love. It was cheesey and stupid. Lust and sex were better. Instant gratification. He didn't believe in soulmates. Nor did he believe he would ever want that with anyone. That part of him had died long ago.

Love was a weakness. He learned that from his father all too well. To love someone was to open yourself up to their toxicity, their poison, and their eventual hatred that would rip that love apart and leave it lying on the floor bleeding and broken. His mother also had taught him that love was meaningless when she abandoned him and left him to the cruelty of his father.

As he sat on the hood of his car waiting for Max, pondering these useless terminologies and worthless notions of feelings, he smoked his cigarette so far down to the filter it burned his fingers and shook him out of it. Cussing at himself and stomping out the cigarette with his boots and glared. It was simple. He had simply had a temporary moment of weakness and self doubt and he wouldn't let it happen again.

Cali girls were super easy too although very sexy. Mandy didn't look like those girls. She didn't that look in her eyes they did when gazing at him either. No obvious lust, need, ache, hunger, none of that. Just aversion to him and cold curiosity.

Shrugging it off he squashed his own churning turmoil of emotions and thoughts. Stone faced and cold hearted he reminded himself that having such thoughts would do nothing to fix the deep wounds and scars that were on the inside. The external ones he could handle and would heal with enough neosporin, bactine, ace bandaging, and bags of ice or frozen peas. The other ones from within he would hold onto and keep them as a neverending reminder that love and tenderness didn't exist and was simply a delusion for fools.

He was no fool. His father didn't raise a lovesick puppy he raised a man. He taught him that the strong devoured the weak and that a man takes what he wants when he wants and gives nothing in return if he can help it.

This was how he would protect himself from the poisonous enemy known as "love" that festered in ones mind and causes those who succumbed to it to be destroyed from within. It takes over the mind and body leaving them a host, a pathetic shell of a former man, and controls their every thought and action waking or sleeping. The only antidote for this was its counterpart. Lust. Lust was all he knew and it was easy enough to figure out. His lust often coupled with hate made it even easier.

So just as he used Tina and all the other no name girls that weren't important in his life, so too would he use Mandy and get rid of these ridiculous notions that it could be anything deeper or more meaningful than that.

His thoughts were interrupted, finally, by his stepsister Maxine, as she noisily came skateboarding over to his car. For once he was thankful to see the brat if even only to distract him from his deep dark thoughts.

"What did we talk about, Max?"

He said angrily his teeth on edge. In addition to his ire for her being late it was also mixed with a curious hint of pent up frustration over his interaction with the girl he met today at school. It was a little off and he didn't feel as icy and aggressive with Max as he usually was.

"Not to be late." She didn't look him in his eyes simply stared at the pavement.

She said in a monotonous flat voice barely able to hide her hatred and recoil that she felt toward him. He was a powder keg and the match could be struck at anytime to set him off. She feared him but she loathed him as well.

"Next time you're late you can skate home. Don't make me tell you again." He said as he pulled out another cigarette and lit it.

Taking one last look around in the lot giving up on seeing Mandy again he finally had a screw it attitude and just wanted to leave. He ordered Max to get into the car because both of them being late meant another lecture, chastising, and possible punishment from his father. Not to Max. But to him.

Neil and his son had a talk about respect and responsibility, but most of the talking had been done the only way his old man knew how to do it... with physical violence.

Max was not worth getting beat for so she could either wise up or he would put the same fear in her that Neil put into him and make her see that to get him whooped meant she would also share in those consequences. He may not desire to physically lay a hand on her but he could emotionally terrorize her all the same if she didn't get with the program.

"Okay. Whatever. I'm sorry."

His step sister looked down at the ground angrily practically tossing her skateboard into the backseat pissing him off that she might scuff up the leather. Getting into his car quickly not wishing to set him off or worsen his temper she did as she was told. She had learned that lesson the hard way the last time she didn't obey and he broke her skateboard as punishment for it.

She couldn't tell Neil or her mom because that would just make it even worse and then Billy would come down even harder on her making her even more miserable than he already did. So she had to suck it up and save up some of her allowance to buy a new one telling them she had accidentally broke it while doing a trick on it she wasn't quite skilled enough in. She took the heat for wasting money to spare Billy being the cause not even knowing why she would do that for him.

"Easy on the leather, dipshit! Watch the attitude or you can find your own way home starting right now. I'm too damn tired for this. Let's get out of this shit hole. I've had a long first day and I'm so fuckin' done once we get home. Neil's gonna bust my ass for this, I swear to God, Max."

She looked over and dared to give him some sass with her bright blue eyes glaring at him holding nothing but utter contempt.

"What... no bimbo high school girls to take out tonight for a makeout session and then dump later? That would explain why you're in such a WONDERFUL mood."

She was scowling, dripping sarcasm, with apparent distaste for his practices and habits. Max couldn't possibly fathom the extent of what he did with the high school girls but it definitely didn't stop at a makeout session. Her knowledge and imagination was so tame and limited. She would find out when she was older, if a boy was lucky to touch her as long as he was around. But nonetheless, although it was meant as a sassy comment just to poke fun at him, it still hit home in his pride.

He knew it wasn't like him to strike out with a chick not even on the first day of school in a new town let alone a new state. He had tried to hook Tina but she said she was busy with homework and he snorted in disgust over it. She was hot, talkative, but boring if she found school work to be more important or interesting then him.

Looking at Max with a small snarl he turned up the volume on the radio to his Metallica mix tape and pushed his lips out angrily into a hard line, his nostrils slightly flaring. He blasted his speakers up all the way so he didn't have to listen to her mocking jabs or her attempt to tell him how he was driving. Putting his hand to his ear that was closest to her he mocked that he couldn't hear her as he let the sound drown everything out between them. He gave her no quarter to cry for him to slow down, turn down the music, do this, or do that. No one told him what to do.

He got enough of that from Neil, whom he obeyed on a dime much to his displeasure, but he wouldn't take that shit from her or the girls he dated. He wouldn't take anyone's shit, really. Not even the school teachers, principal, or anyone else. Hell he wouldn't even take shit from a pig if they decided to pull him over for a speeding ticket. He'd pay it from his new lifeguard job's savings but even then the cops could kiss his ass as far as he was concerned.

They drove like that for a few minutes until she got the hint to shut up and then he switched it off to think while concentrating on the road that lead to "home". If home was in fact what he could call the cold prison cell he was trapped in.

He still sorely missed California. This crap town of Hawkins would never replace what he left behind, and unlike Max, he vowed to himself he would never let it grow on him nor would he make any friends here.

Billy didn't need to make friends. He would just make followers. bad boys, bad girls, party people. Animals like him just to amuse him and worship him and his godlike ego. He didn't care if people liked him he just cared if they feared him and obeyed him. Tina was already pissing him off by not falling in line but he would remain sweet on her until he could break her down and have her begging for him to take her out for a ride with him at the Quarry.

He had sped up out of the school lot originally but then he slowed down after a few miles. Normally he wouldn't care if he were speeding and breaking the law but until he got a police scanner going and knew the area better mapping it all out in his head he didn't want to run into the infamous Chief Jim Hopper of the Hawkins PD.

Turning to Max he had said something snarky about the smell of cow shit everywhere and how the high school girls looked like cows themselves and it made Max roll her eyes and stare out the window to avoid looking at him.

As he drove home through the long country road toward Neil's house he thought of the first moment he laid eyes on Mandy. How she had looked at him when he was standing by his car as the movers unloaded the truck.

Grinning he took joy in knowing it wouldn't be too hard to find her at all if not at school. She had walked out the front door of the house opposite to his. They were neighbors. He could make an excuse to go to her door any day of the week.

He remembered how she saw him outside when he was pissed glaring at Neil over the move. He was always angry but he chose to hide it unless someone cracked at his mask bringing it out in the open. Still, he tried to hide that side of himself from the girls he was attempting to bait hook, line, and sinker for a date and a little bit of awkward fumbling around in the back of his car at night.

He put on an act for them pretending to be happy. It was an act to get them to think he had actual feelings. He would have to keep his charade up for Mandy if he wanted to get on her good side so he couldn't let her see his anger or anything that went on between him and his old man. He would have to be careful.

Once again he found his musings going back to her. He thought about how Mandy almost smiled when he had played dare devil in his Camaro showing off for her but had tried to keep her eyes forward as if she didn't care.

Why was he thinking about her so much? She just kept creeping back into his thoughts like a dark tentacle taking over everything it could worm its way into within him. He snorted out loud without realizing he had done it and it made his step sister notice.

Max looked over to him wondering why he was being so quiet instead of taunting her like he usually did with how he drove. Instead of being cruel, crazy, or obnoxious to her, he simply had his hands on the steering wheel with his knuckles tightly curled around it.

His face was forward and his look stern and in deep thought or concentration. She didn't dare say anything to him that might pull him out of it and make him turn his attention back on to her. She was enjoying the break from his antagonistic attitude so she sat silently the rest of the ride home.

He wasn't speeding. He wasn't blasting his stereo. He wasn't being his usual angsty self at all. He was thinking about the way Mandy's body had stiffened when he first whispered to her in their shared English class together. It was so obvious a response that he knew why she did it.

Either he turned her gears... or he repulsed her. Such a strange thing to happen since any other girl would have shuddered and then turned to be at full attention enjoying his flirting with them.

His scoffing laugh made Max's eyebrows screw up in surprise not expecting him to do that out of no where. She looked back out the window trying to let it be. Max had felt for a long time her step brother was going slowly insane. He had a few screws loose for sure and she was counting down to when he would completely lose it. She only hoped it wouldn't be on her or her mother Susan when he did.

As Billy kept driving lost in thought he hated how one question would lead to another. If Mandy was repulsed by him, why did he see a need in her eyes or see her allow him to stay so close to her before taking off? She had lingered and actually talked to him with nothing but spite in her words for him.

Her mouth was brazen and sharp but her eyes were looking at him as if she wanted to know him. It was that kind of thing he never wanted to see in a woman's eyes as he flirted with them for a hookup. And yet there it was plain as day. She wanted him but she wouldn't allow herself to get close or to show it. Undeniably underneath her resistance was a kind of curiosity but with a need to keep him at arms length and put her icy walls up.

Before he knew it, his car approached the driveway of the new house and he almost passed it while lost deep in his own thoughts.

Making a sudden stop, Max pitching forward slightly, she called him a jerk and flipped him off while eagerly jumping out with her backpack slung over one shoulder and her skateboard under her other arm.

His only response was to sit for a few seconds his hands still on the wheel but as his anger at her grew he quickly got out of his Camaro slamming his door locking it then walking around the front of it to start following Max. She was walking down the drive angrily away from him. He had grimaced in anger when Max flipped him the bird when she thought he wasn't paying attention and then had stormed up towards the back door.

Even when he left her alone and drove normal and quiet with her in the car she was still wasn't satisfied and had a bad attitude towards him.

"I saw that, shitbird. Keep flippin' that at me and I might break it off."

He said it viciously after taking a short drag on his cigarette then flicked it embers and all in her general direction just barely missing her backside as she continued to walked away. He knew he wouldn't and that it was an empty threat but he wanted her to think he would.

Max left him outside for a bit to collect his thoughts before attempting to enter into his father's house. He knew what was coming and he wasn't in the mood to face it just yet. Eventually he would have to walk into the Thunderdome and battle his insane old man just like he did almost every day and almost every night.

He turned his head to look up at the house across the street. Lights were on but the window curtains and blinds were closed in what he assumed to be Mandy's room upstairs that faced his house's back driveway and backyard. The princess must have it so nice to come home to an actual family that gave a shit about her. It made him angry to think about that. To think about how she most likely had parents who loved her and a warm safe home she could always run to. It made him bitter and he slightly hated her for it.

Before he resigned himself to his fate, he recalled the innocent look Mandy gave him when he leaned in to pop her locker for her. That familiar tentacle crawling back into his head making him shift uncomfortably before heading into the house to deal with his dad's bullshit.

He walked through the back door slowly and braced himself for the inevitable.

Neil was in the living room watching his usual sports channel and drinking a beer. Billy counted the cans. There were at least three empty and crushed with his father working on his fourth. This was not going to be easy today.

"Well... looks like my good for nothing son has finally decided to grace us with his presence." He started in with an already eager tone of voice thirsty for blood.

"I'm sorry I was late bringing Max home, dad." He replied while standing still and looking Neil in his eyes. His father hated it if he didn't look him in the eyes.

"Wanna try that again the proper way this time?" Neil said his rage bubbling beneath the surface barely curbed by his obvious mild intoxication.

"I'm sorry I was late bringing Max home, SIR." Billy corrected himself. He had slipped yet again. Anything even less than that would warrent a swift kick in his ass. Neil also hated it when Billy didn't refer to him with his proper title out of respect.

"That's better. You will respect me as your father and address me properly."

He said with an icy tone of voice laced with mild slurring and Billy winced at the familiarity of how his father kept tight control over him. What he could say. What he could do. Where he could go. When he could come home and when to leave.

It was why he often snuck out for his dates or to party and had to sneak back in timing it just right so Neil wouldn't notice.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it landed him fresh bruises and cuts that Billy would claim were earned during a fight with another boy at school or off campus.

"Now. Care to tell me WHY you both are late coming home for supper? Care to explain to Susan as well and apologize to her for making her wait? She's been slaving over the stove for you for two hours now and you don't even have the decency to show up on time for our family dinner?"

Susan looked at Neil, then to Billy, then back to her husband. She was fidgeting and waiting for what usually happened next depending on Billy's answer.

"It's alright, Neil, there are plenty of leftovers. I don't mind." She shifted her eyes nervously not wanting another confrontation and tried to smile softly.

"No, it's not alright, Susan. This boy of mine needs to learn respect and punctuality."

Neil gritted his teeth. Before he could get up and close in on the space between him and his wayward son with intent to teach him that lesson, staggering most likely in the process, Max suddenly rushed out of her room and taking one look at Billy frozen there she turned to speak to Neil trying to be very sweet.

"I'm sorry, daddy. It's my fault. I got caught up talking with some of my new friends from school in the Hawkins AV lab. I'm sorry. It won't happen again. I promise."

Neil's face softened a bit as he debated whether or not to believe this but pleased all the same she had referred to him as her father. Funny how she didn't have to call him Sir.

Hearing Max call this piece of shit 'daddy' and being sweet to him made Billy's stomach churn. She had layered it on thick to calm him down. They all knew Neil wasn't her father but both he and Susan demanded she call him dad or daddy in order to further cement that they were all a family now. Max didn't like it but it's clear she did it for Billy to keep the peace.

Billy looked at her stunned that she would step up and say something. She gave him a look back as if telling him to keep his mouth shut and let her explain. He remained silent but his body still rigid with nervous tension.

Neil's suspicious glazed eyes flitted back and forth between them. He knew he could say nothing if Max claimed the responsibility. He was an asshole but he wasn't stupid.

"I just got so caught up in hanging out with them I didn't notice the time and I came late to get in the Camaro so we could come home."

She had spun the lie so smoothly it made Billy almost admire her bravery at having the nerve to lie to Neil.

"Well, Max. You will just have to try harder to keep an eye on the time, then." Neil said softening his tone as Susan eyed him while bringing out the leftovers and fixing plates for Max and Billy. She immediately breathed out a soft sigh of relief.

Max smiled to Neil and then took one look at Billy seeing the confusion in his eyes with a stone face on to hide it as she went to the bathroom to wash up for dinner.

"As you were then. Go wash your hands and eat. If you have plans for tonight, Billy, make sure you are home at a reasonable hour. It's a school night and you also start your new job tomorrow after school. I will have Susan pick up Max when you're working but the weekends are still yours to deal with. I busted my ass to set this up for you so don't fuck it up. Make sure you get there on time. It's time you start chipping in around here and help with the bills and pay your own car payment and your own gas. I'm not carrying your lazy ass anymore."

Susan frowned prepping the table but kept her silence. Even she knew better than to argue with him, whether she was his wife or not, when he was like this. Especially when he was drinking.

Neil dismissed him scratching his belly sitting back down on the couch and letting out a small burp from all the beer he had been drinking.

Stiff and releived at the same time he walked to his room and put his gym bag down on the carpet. Max peeked in his room through the crack of the door seeing him just stand there for a moment collecting himself. His back muscles tense. She frowned and went back to washing up for dinner.

Billy may be an ass but she didn't like how Neil treated him and if she could prevent it, she would. She knew he would never say thank you or ask her why but she didn't care. If it could prevent a huge fight in their house she would take the blame as often as possible to calm everything down.

They all joined each other at the table to eat and it was a strained uncomfortable silence between them. Billy didn't say a word and when done he then asked to be excused so he could shower and go to bed. Susan pardoned him but asked for help cleaning up the dishes and he complied not wanting to anger his father if he declined. Max retired to her room once more and the house was silent tonight. It had been a nice break from what usually went on in this house.

Once Neil was content with passing out on the couch and Susan had served them all dinner, Billy helped to clean the dishes and wipe down the counters and table. He then showered and cleaned himself up for bed. He walked slowly into his room passing Max's bedroom.

She was playing music softly in her room and more than likely had her door locked but he didn't really care as he had no intentions of going in there.

He almost paused there at her door and wanted to knock to tell her something but he shook his head and decided against it. Just because she helped him avoid a fight with Neil didn't mean he owed her shit or had to like her. She was a pain in his ass and until he could graduate and move out he would just have to deal.

Max didn't like him anymore than he liked her so what was the point in trying to be nice and cozy as a family now? Years of Neil and Susan favoring her over him was enough to keep his hate and spite of her going. She was a spoiled brat, a real regular princess, and could do whatever she wanted while he had to adhere to strict rules and would get hit and scolded if he even broke one of them.

Entering into his own room and locking his door he flopped down on his bed he put his arms up behind his head. He did his best to shrug off the fear and trembling of what had been a very close one with Neil. Finally calming down he lay there looking at the ceiling. For a split moment he thought once or twice about bringing out one of his racey magazines to help him relax and sort out his uncomfortable pangs of need and stress but decided not to. He was too damn tired to take care of it.

When his head hit the pillow for sleep he replayed the last encounter with her when she stormed off angry at him. Behind the anger there was something else hiding underneath. Much like how underneath her plain and thick clothing there was more waiting to be discovered.

He licked his lips imagining his hands running over and under her layers to find what secrets she held for him. It was almost better than any airbrushed magazine girl because this was REAL and not dolled up designed to get men's blood pumping and their hearts racing.

When he had looked into her big green eyes she had looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. Even more, she had looked at him as if TRULY seeing him. Which is something no one else has ever done before. She had looked right through him as if staring into his very soul.

Most people looked past him and lusted after him lingering their eyes on his body. Or they gave him looks of hatred or jealousy. When he showed up somewhere with traces of bruises barely covered by his clothing and his sunglasses, the looks he sometimes recieved were those of shock or pity.

Her gaze was different. It was deep and soulful. Her green eyes had beckoned to him the moment he first truly looked into them and it chilled him to the bone almost making him want to walk away.

When sleep came for him, his dreamscapes and nightmarescapes gripped him in the throws of soured memories. Twisted up with fists, and shouting, blood and pain. Images of his imposing father and his soft frightened mother, his REAL mother.

Once those passed, he noticed in the dream he held a flyer in his hand. It was yellow and tattered and he didn't know what the text read on the piece of paper, all he knew was it called to him and told him it would lead him to her.

Talking in his sleep he gripped a phantom note that wasn't there and resolved that somehow, someway, he would see her again. Even if just to make damn sure that this was not what he thought it was. Just another random connection with no meaning behind it. That she was nothing to him but a plaything.

And as the note blew away in the wind he saw his mother's face and it slowly morphed into hers. The beautiful long blond hair and smiling narrow face changing before his dreamscape eyes into Mandy's fuller face with her dark long raven hair and her sea green eyes. His mother's eyes almost just like her green ones with very little change at all. Sun kissed skin exchanged for pale soft milky white skin.

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