AN: FULL DISCLAIMER if it wasn't made obvious before— I own nothing. But, I might have to owe the Duffer Brothers for giving me the brilliant plot and universe. I appreciate all the follows/favs! And thank you to the following: A-pistachio-eclair, Idontknoworcareanymore, and TakeEmAway, you guys are ever encouraging!
Chapter Three: What's in a name?In this darkness, the warm pressure against his side eases him and the summer lilt of his mother's laughter beckons him to the surface. It's a liquid caress lulling his thoughts.
Then, the presence withdraws. Leaves him cold.
And the corridors rot.
. — . — . — .
The breath of a dying season prances into his room through the open window and Billy jolts awake, tangled in the sheets of his bed. His dazed eyes rove the walls and the debased posters, in search of nothing. With a groan, Billy decides that whatever he'd taken at the bar, he won't be fool enough to fill his cup with it again.
Across the hall, the toilet flushes and Billy kicks off the blanket, rolls off the side of the mattress and staggers into the bathroom, shoves the door in.
Max's scream raids his ears like a siren.
Billy glowers at her. "SHUT. UP."
Standing in her cartoon print pajamas, Max brandishes her toothbrush like a weapon with one hand curled around the edge of the sink.
"I was here first!"
"Think I care?" He drags her out into the hall by the shoulder, ignoring her high-pitched protests as he shuts her off with a slam of the door.
In the privacy of the bathroom, Billy leans over the sink and drinks from the faucet. He sheds off the layers of his outfit and discards them to the floor, enters the shower and cranks the shower valve all the way to the left and enters the pattering stream. He lets his mind fog up like the mirror as he washes himself. If there's a passing thought, he doesn't think about it too hard, until Max pounds on the door while he's rinsing his hair.
"Wait your turn, loser."
But, the next knock leads to the next and then the next. So, he shuts off the shower and exits. Heat convects off his skin as he wraps a towel around his waist and opens the door to his stepsister whose nose wrinkles at the sight of him.
"What?" Billy asks.
Although she's dressed, little effort is put into her hair and he doubts she brushed her teeth and for this reason, Billy never wonders why she doesn't have a boyfriend.
Max taps the top of her wrist, upper lip curling.
"We're gonna be late."
"For what?"
"For school."
"School doesn't start until Tuesday."
"But, mom wants—"
Billy pushes Max out of the way and strides into his room. She doesn't follow, doesn't dare to with all the times he threatened her if she did, yet he still shuts the door. Billy rifles through his dresser for a pair of jeans and a flannel, and tosses both onto the bed.
"Your ass better be ready in fifteen or you enroll on your own. By the way, it's a long walk to school," he warns as he searches through a stack of unpacked boxes for a belt, but the first box doesn't provide. As he navigates around his room, he freezes.
"Billy!" Max calls, but her irritating voice falls on deaf ears.
Last night is a flicker through his eyes and everything comes in such a brutal rush he almost backs away in alarm if it weren't for the fact that even through all the racket of his sister's screams there was a girl still asleep on the floor with one of his spare blankets curled around her shoulders and her jacket bunched to pillow her head. Her gloves and shoes are neatly placed beside her, the blue book lays on top. His eyes sneak past the dress riding up to the crest of her thighs and past all the easy feminine curves that lead to the edge of her underwear…
"BILLY!"
He sweeps to the door and opens it. If he looks half as annoyed and impatient as he feels, it could explain why Max hesitates.
"Gonna stand there looking like an idiot?" Billy sneers. "What do you want?"
Then, she snaps out of it.
"You left the bathroom dirty." Max replies with her arms crossed. "I'm not cleaning after you again!"
A growl surges up his throat.
"You're down to ten minutes, shitbird."
The door slams again, and when he pivots on his heel, he finds her charcoal eyes pinned on him from the other end of the room. She's sitting so still on the ground with the blanket clutched to her chest he doesn't think her breathing— more or less think her alive— until he sees her line of sight waver to his towel hung low around his hips. The gesture is telling and Billy feels flattered. Then, he isn't. Because he remembers the night before, the utterance of his name, his skin meeting hers...The blackout.
"What did you do to me?" He asks.
Underneath the blanket swaddling her upper body, her shoulders tense. She looks away. And he hates that she retreats from his gaze as though he's losing her attention.
Billy rounds on her before she can contemplate running, and like he'd done with so many classmates in school, he pins her to the ground. He feels her labored breaths from her stomach as he sits on her.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way. But, don't make me repeat myself again."
His fingers sink into her shoulders as the panic writes out on her face.
"D-don't!"
Billy's hands still. He can't accept taking orders from a girl, but there's a desperation in her broken voice that pleads more for his sake than hers.
"What. Happened?"
In such close proximity to her, it's all he can do to not think about her body… Or yesterday girl. Or the cheap thrill before that.
"I drove y-you after you...went...asleep."
Billy grimaces.
"Because you did something to me," he says.
Her frown is etched with rue.
"Y-yes."
Who would know what she had done to him. How she knew his name. Where he lived. Billy can't deign to wonder about that— not this early in the goddamn morning, but he knows… He knows she's incomprehensibly different and it makes his stomach shift uneasily.
"Why'd you stay?"
His wet hair drips water onto her cheeks as a wrinkle forms between her brows.
"T-t-to make s-sure you're...okay…"
The answer doesn't impress him. At least, that's what Billy tells himself.
"You're going to leave after this," he says. "I'm going to drop you off downtown, and you're not coming back here. Do you understand?"
If it's hurt on her face, he doesn't give it the time of day. Although small, she nods which settles the plan even though he's not particularly satisfied with the finality of it.
When he rises, the towel unravels from his hips and flutters to the floor. The girl pipes, hands slapping over her eyes while her skin colors with embarrassment.
"Grow up," Billy scoffs, snatching up the towel and walking over to his bed. As he readies, she commits her blank stare outside his window. It's her way of giving him privacy he hasn't asked for. Once he's done, he finds his keys on the bedside table.
"Billy! You said ten minutes!"
A split second of conflict festers in his thoughts—
If his Dad ever finds out she was here...
He approaches the girl. She senses him and turns her head.
"You don't say a word to Max."
The girl furrows her brows as he kneels, leveling his stare. Around her, he's incredibly wary of his hands, which is strange because he's never had to think twice about how he touched people before this.
"Got— it?" He repeats, but she never has the chance to agree.
"Eleven minutes!" Max intones from the living room.
Billy groans and grabs the girl's elbow, covered by the sleeve of her dress and begins to pull her up.
"M-my s-s-stuff," she bleats.
He releases her.
"Hurry up."
As soon as she gathers her things, he spots it again. Her smile. That gratitude. But, Billy realizes he's not as angry seeing it as he was the first time. He doesn't grab for her when they leave. As he weaves past unpacked boxes to the living room, Max is already yelling.
"Twelve min—"
"God, do you hear yourself?"
As he walks to the front door he doesn't look at the shift in Max's expression when she sees the stranger in their house, but he imagines her disbelief and revels in the fact that he'll never need to answer to it.
"Uh...Who are…?" Max falters at his glare and her question dissolves.
Then, Billy proceeds outside with the girl trailing close on his heels.
. — . — . — .
While Max locks the front door, Billy says, "You're sitting in the back."
"Seriously?" she mutters.
Billy cocks a brow. "What was that?"
Max's eyes tighten— she knows that provoking an argument with him always results in her losing.
"Nothing."
Billy looks forward at the car parked parallel to the curb. On approach, Max and the girl round the front of the car to the passenger side. He's already settled into the driver's seat, keying the ignition when he sees Max halted at the door with her attention pinned somewhere along the rear of his car and her mouth shaped into an 'o'.
He leans over the passenger seat and rolls down the window.
"What the fuck, Max? Let's go."
His palm hammers into the center of the steering wheel.
At the sound of the car horn, Max jumps as though she's been shocked. She wrenches open the door, plopping clumsily into the backseat while the girl slips in after her and buckles her seatbelt.
She turns her face to him.
Why is she smiling?
Billy rolls his eyes for even wondering about something so pointless as the camaro rolls forward.
. — . — . — .
The back alley of a pizza parlor. That's where he stopped. And the girl unbuckles herself. She stares at the dash for a moment. Then, turns to him.
"Thank you."
Billy's eyes are fixed ahead.
She doesn't wait for an acknowledgement and merely opens the door. As she steps out, she waves at his stepsister who's staring at her like an idiot. Before Billy thinks back on what he'd told her in his room, she says:
"B-Bye, Max."
And the door swings open, but she's already scuttled to the front of the building when it finally shuts. It's a bother being annoyed, but Billy is. And he's only momentarily distracted when Max asks:
"What's her name?"
As the camaro whips out of the alley and onto the main strip, he answers:
"Nobody cares."
Except…
Billy knows...
She is named 'Louise.'
