Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will counts his breaths like Mom told him.

She said, “You know what I do, when I feel– ?” And she waved her hands and pulled a face that almost made him laugh; but he did know what she meant. He knew that feeling.

Mom said, “Whenever I can’t breathe, honey, that’s when I really focus on breathing—nothing else.” She gripped Will at the same spots she always did, and he thought of it like he always did: a seatbelt, her protecting him. His mom held him by his shoulders, and she took deep, deliberate breaths, and he followed her.

Billy screams, “Open the door! Open the door! Open the gate! Open the goddamn gate!”

And Will counts: in, in, in, in, in; out, out, out, out, out, out, out, out.

And it’s when he’s low like that, deep within himself and trying to stay here and now and not anywhere else that he realizes Billy’s chanting, muttering.

Billy’s almost out of sight, hunched over and locked inside the sauna. Will can only see the top of his head and his left arm—curled around himself, his hand hiding his face.

He’s breathing deep too.

And he’s chanting.

The lights flicker and buzz, and the air is hazy with steam. Everything is hissing and smoking, murky, sweaty, dirty, and Will is almost back there, back alone but not alone, in the dark but not quite alone, suffocating but never ever really alone.

Everyone’s yelling, and Max is almost crying, and Billy was actually crying up until just a second ago.

Everything’s too dark and too loud, but it still only takes Will a breath to process what word Billy’s repeating.

It takes a breath, Will’s breath, steals it away again, like it never left.

It. Him. He never left, not really, not all of him.

And now he’s the one who’s scared and a—stranger in a strange land. He’s the one crying: through Billy.

But Will knows, knows, knows. . .

“What?” Mike shouts. “What’s he saying?!”

. . . Billy’s probably crying inside too.

El shakes her head and keeps glaring, and Lucas shrugs. Max looks as lost as Will feels.

Will says, “My name.”

He whispers it.

And then the hair on the back of his neck prickles again, and he knows, knows, knows. . .

It’s back at the door, at the window, and It says, using Billy’s voice, “Our name.”

“William,” El whispers.

Will blinks, and Billy’s looking at him, but it’s not really Billy looking out of those eyes.

But Will knows, knows, knows. . .

“William,” the Flayer calls.

. . . that Billy’s still in there.

Lucas says, scared, “It found a loophole.”

The Mindflayer smiles, grins, bares Billy’s pretty white teeth, and Will knows that feeling, even as he breathes deep, even as he tries to keep count.

The Flayer looks at Will, and Will sees he’s not alone; they’re none of them—El, Will, Billy, the Flayer—ever alone. Not ever again.

Billy whispers, looking at Will with his big blue eyes and crying, “Where there’s a Will, there’s a way.”

Steve isn’t super intelligent, and he’s not especially imaginative or much of a believer either, not in God or goodness or fate, but, after all the shit, all the shit with Barb and Jonathan’s brother and the goddamn real as shit monsters, Steve wonders, like, a lot, if maybe every nightmare ever weren’t somehow real somewhere for someone somewhere and if maybe all the things he couldn’t even conceive of didn’t actually exist just below the surface of what average guys like him are looking at on the daily. Maybe it’s the Will Byers of the world who have it right and the Jonathans and Nancys who believe them.

A fucking super top-secret Russian installation underneath a mall in Indi-fuckin-ana: bonkers!

Maybe it’s just that he, Steve Harrington, is too goddamn dumb that he hadn’t thought of this before, that he hadn’t realized how much scary shit there actually is in the world.

Nance would roll her eyes at that, and Robin would smirk.

That night, that first night, he’d been scared, scared absolutely shitless. Scared, shit, he’d been terrified. He’d thought he was going to die in that house, die in that hallway, but worse he’d thought Nancy and fucking Jonathan Byers were going to die there too, die like Barb had, just disappeared and no one knowing the real reason why. All of them were going to disappear, and Hawkins would just chalk it up to just another strange teen tragedy. The Byers would be an urban legend, like witches or devil worshippers, and Steve and Nancy would be the poor hapless sacrifices or something.

And, sure, Nance’s folks would care, but would Steve’s?

There’s an answer to that, but he won’t acknowledge it. He won’t say or even think the answer.

It starts with an N though, and it makes him simultaneously pissed off and–

Steve doesn’t like being a joke. He really kind of fucking hates it, yet it keeps

fucking

happening.

And after the world cracks open again a year later, he’s even worse off. He doesn’t know what’s real or who’s right or what’s good.

What even is normal?

He isn’t. He gets that much. This whole deal? Not normal at all!

He doesn’t know, can’t know. How can anyone know?!

He still doesn’t believe, not really at all, but he can mostly still feel things out—eventually.

Dustin says Steve “intuits” and probably has some over-developed sixth sense or natural luck, but he also claims Steve seems “calmer” these days, and his bright idea to adopt a strange vaguely reptilian creature famously did not end well, so Steve’s taking that kid’s two cents with a huge grain of salt.

Dustin is a cool fucking kid, cool in the sense he’s a good person and smarter than you can believe, but not in the way that makes him popular.

Popular kids, though, are rarely good people. Look at fucking Steve.

Sure, Steve has his gut, his instincts, and over the years he’s fared pretty well, like the time he for some reason decided not to cheat on Mrs. Greer’s English test even when it seemed like it would be ridiculously easy and that’s when Tommy got fucking busted and assigned a week’s worth of detention and one scary phone call home to his mom. And, yes, Steve’s gut is what had him wiping that shit off the marquee and trying to apologize to Nancy for treating her like shit because at the end of the day he did actually want to be decent and kind, and it’s what had him hauling his ass back into the Byers’ creepy fucking house because something inside him said he couldn’t ever just fucking leave them like that.

But those instincts aren't always all that loud, not most of the time. Steve took lead with Dustin and that damn demodog, and they figured shit out, and he kept it together in the tunnels, and they all made it out, but intuition is good for survival and—not a whole lot else.

Right?

What good is decent survival instincts at the grocery store or in his dad’s office? How does the fact he can kill a demodog without blinking balance against the reality that he’s basically a loser?

What good is fucking luck if his life is pretty damn shitty?

Steve isn’t that bright, and he’s pretty sure he used to have more than just his intuition, more than just one good 13-year-old friend, but that was last year when he had Nancy, and the year before when he had Tommy and Carol and practically the whole school, and three years ago before– before all that shit when he got really sick and was in the hospital for forever.

Life, most of the time, just fucking blows.

Steve used to be a lot of things, and kind of smart was, he likes to think, one them. Spring of his freshman year is when he kind of permanently fell behind everyone else. Sometimes, in specific ways, people can be kind though.

Tommy’s a motherfucking shithead, but he never– he never made fun of Steve after.

Nobody did.

Afterward, months later, he was back home studying, or trying to, and it was supposed to be the same stuff the class had been working on before he got sick with his stupid brain fever, but it made no sense. He remembers it being way too hard, and he couldn’t figure out why.

Fevers do that though and, whatever, brain swelling. He’d felt something was wrong before it had gotten really bad, but he didn’t know what it was, was worried that him tripping over stuff and being tired all the time and sweating and seeing weird ripples along the edges would keep him off the goddamn track team, and everyone knew Steve Harrington was a fast runner.

Steve does that a lot, though, as it turns out. He focuses on the wrong wrong things instead of the right wrong things.

“Forrest for the trees, man,” Dustin said to him once, totally serious, and, fuck, if that weren’t the wisest and goddamn clearest summation of Steve’s existence ever, as it turns out.

They say you never forget your first, and he figures that applies as much to people dying and great realizations about life as it does kissing and fucking.

Some people get lucky and never have to deal with any of it. They get good families and happiness and success and never worry about fucking anything.

His first was when he was seven, and he’s different now, older and smarter and meaner, but the past doesn’t ever change, and he hasn’t forgot. Even knowing more about it doesn’t make it different.

(Even having HIM look through everything doesn’t actually change anything.)

It was just an accident, a hit-and-run, nothing special. He and his mom were standing at the bus stop, waiting, and the whole thing was over in less than five minutes. It was dark but not that late, maybe six, a school night. They were downtown for something, although he doesn’t know what for, and all the bright lights were on, all the signs and lamps buzzing. He remembers being nervous because of the people, the foot traffic, the noise, and the fact it was getting dark, and he still didn’t really like the dark at that point, but he wasn’t scared really. He was with his mom, after all. She’d been safe and strong back then.

And she’d been with him.

She’d been, he can only think—now—with him back then.

(She’s maybe still alive, HE whispers to Billy. WE could find her, William. WE could– )

A dark car moving too fast didn’t stop for a red light, and it crashed into a woman walking across the intersection, walking toward Billy (WILLIAM) and his mom, not even 20 feet away. After impact, the car stopped with a screeching sound, its trail of exhaust catching up to it and coiling over its trunk and roof, before it took off again, just as fast, just as loud and dark. It disappeared. Even with all the bright lights and signs and crowds of people everywhere, that dark car slipped away.

(Like smoke, carbon, high altitude, poison. . . )

That’s what freaked him out the most, not the woman dying or the blood or violence, but the shock of something terrible happening so quickly and then everyone, including the killer, just going right back to their lives. Bad shit happens, and nothing changes. Nobody fucking cares.

That’s what he realized, and it’s true. Knowing his life sucks doesn’t make it suck any less. Even pushing back doesn’t make it better, although it does make him feel something other than just tired and bored and angry for a little bit.

Pain is better than nothing; pain is sweeter than fear.

And he knows his past is what it’s always been, and it’s always sucked, but it didn’t used to be that different from everyone else around. Back home, he was like most of the other kids. He had friends, and they had shitty lives too, but they’d also been together.

But it’s different here, and he’s different. He’s older and smarter and meaner, and now he’s alone too.

He’s alone, alone, alone. . .

But none of it makes a bit of difference. It doesn’t matter if he gets good grades or scores the winning basket or completes all the chores: he’s always going to be this way.

So why bother?

Back there, in fucking California, he said about Shakespeare, after the teacher gave this whole lecture on how amazing the guy was: “Well, I like that he’s writing in code or whatever, that he’s making up words and stuff we say now.”

. . . but then he’s never ever really ever again alone, is he???

Billy says in Hawkins, with Nancy goddamn Wheeler sat a row ahead of him, know-it-all Wheeler who’s maybe, perhaps, hopefully, done preening and praising the dude’s structure and pacing of all things: “Shakespeare just wrote dirty poems, depressing plays, and– and stupid comedies that make no goddamn sense. I’m sick of reading this stuff. No one wants to admit he’s only exciting when some lady is eating her own kids in a pie or having her husband murder everyone. It’s boring now. Everyone always dies or gets married or gets married and then dies, and in one there’s this bear onstage for no damn reason! So, yeah, great writer, total genius.”

He said to his JV coach back there in Cali: “I hate this play, man. It never works! Why can’t we keep Tucker in and have him make the shot?”

He says to the joke of a Varsity coach here after one too many digs about his attitude, “You keep yelling at me like that and I’m fucking done. I don’t have time for this bullshit. Have fun losing because you want everyone to get equal playing time or whatever!”

(And HE curves at that, entwines and pulls Billy closer; he whispers, “WILLIAM.”)

He’s just bad. Bad shit happened and keeps happening, and what kind of moron thinks life is fair? The past doesn’t change just because someone wants it to.

(It can, HE whispers. WILLIAM, it will, WILL, if WE want it to, too, two, more than, more than TWO too. . . )

He still sees shit from when he was little, bad shit that he can’t shake off, still dreams about it.

A few years after that hit-and-run, it was his mom gone, left, and it’s not that he doesn’t dream about her still, doesn’t try and– and reframe it as her getting sick or having to visit her grave or all the noises she might have made if she were sick (WILLIAM, HE threads through Billy’s whole being, WE can be whole again), all the noises the machines would have made, and that one nurse that would have scared the crap out of him for some weird kid reason.

Billy remembers his mom a lot, but it’s the stranger that bit it in the street right in front of him when he was a kid that still gets him good. That one’s a fucking sledgehammer.

He hadn’t even had a chance to be scared it was happening.

His mom hadn’t even had a chance to pull him away.

She wasn’t holding his hand because she had both of hers up over her nose and mouth.

She probably gasped in shock, but Billy doesn’t remember that.

It was too loud.

And he knows, knows, knows. . .

. . . the sound of the dying woman, wheezing.

Wheeler.

Karen.

No, says Billy.

And he probably didn’t hear that either, but he remembers it. It still wakes him up in the middle of the night, in the dark, alone.

He just kept looking at the woman in the street.

The man next to him stood up from the bench and ran out to try and help and so did a few others but not too many.

It was just another accident, after all, and it was the city, downtown, at night.

(HUMANS, HE says to Billy, only to him. The others agree, will all agree, eventually. HE tells them through Billy, but Billy's the only one who responds.)

His grandma died a few years after that; he and his mom went to the funeral. She’d lived upstate a ways, and he remembers the drive more than anything.

PCH: gorgeous, bright, hot, green.

Everything HE absolutely hates.

Billy looks, and he looks, and HE looks back, and he knows, knows, knows. .  .

Chapter Text

Will met Eleven, met her eyes, and she hugged him. She was close before Will could even say Hello, all arms and flat chest and curly hair, and she still smells exactly like–

El’s thin, just like Will, but she’s strong. And she loves Mike, just like Will–

–just like Will does, pretty much.

He’ll always remember that first meeting. El threw her arms around him and said, right next to his ear, so happy, “Will the Wise!”

He’d never had anyone meet him that excitedly.

(He will never have anyone ever meet him that excitedly again.)

Will hugged her back, and Mike was just a foot away from them both, smiling, grinning, so damn happy.

Will hugged El like he wanted to hug Mike, almost. Pretty much.

(He wishes he’d been happier and more excited to meet her.)

And then Will—felt something, along the back of his head, like a hand running through his hair.

He remembers thinking, loud, deliberately, like he already knew, and maybe he had: “Hello, El.”

And the feeling, the hand slid sideways, kinda, El maybe hesitating.

She was maybe sorta shy too.

Will had whispered as he’d squeezed her a bit, squeezed her, as he’d looked at Mike smiling, “I’m glad you’re here."

Mike was smiling, and it was sunny. Jonathan and Nancy were already doing their thing, and Will remembers Steve there too but somehow a ways away already. He’d been over by Dustin and Hopper and Mom.

Max was with Lucas, and they were laughing and hugging, their arms around each other.

And Will was with El, with Mike, and it was almost perfect.

(And there were maybe dark spots along the edges, like when Jonathan messed up developing his film.

Will thinks and tries to remember the other who was there the whole time.

Will remembers him fine; he doesn’t even have to try. It’d be impossible to forget him, HIM.

There was someone else farther back, parked and idling, parked back along the edges and watching, wanting, but still, always, a ways away.)

Will remembers smiling but feeling cold, icy, submerged. He remembers a flat chest and the sun and someone almost out of reach.

He remembers, already, always, being alone—yet not ever really truly alone.

Maybe it’s not Jonathan at all, or, Christ, it’s probably totally him. But it’s him and Joyce and Will, all together. It’s their family, and it’s Nancy’s too. It’s Mike and Holly, just the fact Nance has younger siblings. She has siblings who annoy the crap outta her, who she has to watch sometimes, who steal her stuff and ruin it and who hug her and used to, or, with Holly, still do, wipe their noses on her sleeves and chest and fall asleep on her shoulder.

Steve has second cousins. He has an aunt. He doesn’t have grandparents or siblings or first cousins or uncles.

His mom doesn’t talk to his aunt; they’re not close, and, no, Steve still isn’t sure exactly why.

Tommy has a big family. He has tons of cousins. Steve used to–

Steve was 15, and his parents went to Aspen over Christmas. Again.

Still.

Steve hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it, although he’d sure felt it was kinda a big deal.

He’d felt bad. He’d been sorta mad, even, and he didn’t ever really get mad, not for real.

But they’d still gone. His mom hugged him, but she didn’t kiss his cheek like she’d used to.

His dad hadn’t done anything; he’d just walked out to the car.

Steve told Tommy two days before Christmas break, and Tommy hadn’t said anything. Steve can count on one hand the number of times Tommy hasn’t said anything, and that was the second time. The first, of course, was when he and his mom had come to see Steve in the hospital.

He remembers Tommy’s mom at Christmas dinner. She was in the kitchen with Tommy’s dad, and they were talking while doing the dishes, and Steve had just wanted to get more soda for him and Tommy, but he heard Mrs. Hall say, “ –just plain cruel, leaving him here like this.”

Mr. Hall said, “Especially after. . . ”

Mrs. Hall made a noise then, with a plate or something. It was like a delicate thump. Steve thinks now it was probably her dropping or even slamming down a plate in the sink.

She said, and Steve remembers backing up, already knowing what she was about to say, so it’s a Doppler effect: “He almost died. He almost died, Jeff, and they’re fucking skiing!”

It’s roadtrips, where they’re all crammed in together, all elbows and weird breath and inside jokes.

Nance spends her holidays, begrudgingly, with her parents, her siblings, her fucking family. She buys them gifts from an allowance she earns.

Steve buys, still, whatever pretty much whenever, and used to be he never had to worry about where the money was coming from.

Well, a lot of things can change real quickly though; he sure knows that for a fact.

Nance once said, that spring following all the weirdness the first time, that her family was “an obligation” she never signed up for, and Steve hadn’t thought that was very nice. Her mom and dad weren’t bad at all, not compared to Carol’s, at least, and while Mike was kind of a little prick, Steve certainly understood. He’d been pretty damn bad for most of his life. He and Tommy were like the worst for forever.

But her little sister was kind of cute. Holly wasn’t that bad. She liked Nancy; she liked Mike, called him “Mikkel,” which was fucking hilarious cos Mike would get that sneer on his face and roll his eyes. Holly even let Steve carry her around when he tagged along with the Wheelers to the Christmas bazaar.

A lot of the time, most of the time, Steve was way more into Family Time than most of the Wheelers. He thinks only he and Holly and maybe Nance’s mom some of the time really ever had fun doing stuff together.

Honestly, Steve feels like a real bozo because he definitely knew something was up with, uh, with Nancy and Jonathan way before anything apparently actually happened between them.

Steve remembers the word “consummation” from freshman English, and he thinks it applies to their situation perfectly.

All the deep stuff that was happening between them that wasn’t ever kissing or sex was what really should have had him freaked out, yet it was the physical stuff that bothered him most.

Goddamn forest for trees, right?

Maybe if they had fucked way back at the start, they wouldn’t have sparked and blown up like they did.

Maybe none of them would have wasted an entire fucking year. At least Steve had been mostly content the whole time. Jonathan and Nancy were just—pining, evidently.

Steve’s not, like, bitter or anything, but Nancy would be all in his arms, feeling great and smelling wonderful and just so fucking gorgeous and good because he’d thought, still kinda does, that she is the most decent person alive, ever, which isn’t sad, nope, and of course they’d always be over at Steve’s cos he pretty much always had the whole house to himself, and then she’d say something like, “Mike said Jonathan stays up with Will a lot and then he—just pretends they were sleeping for Joyce. Then he just goes to school and work!”

And Steve had never known what to say. Usually it was: “That sucks.”

Once, she said, “I can’t even imagine being that kind.”

And Steve remembers thinking two very distinct trails of thought.

His immediate reaction was to say Nancy was better than Byers. She wasn’t a fucking creep who took photos of people unawares, for starters.

And, yeah, Steve still feels bad for all that shit that went down, all the awful damn crap he threw at Jonathan in that alley, but the fact is: Jonathan was out looking for his little brother, and he saw Steve and Nance and goddamn Barb and all of them having a time, a party, and he took photos of them, and none of them knew he was doing that.

That right there alone is creepy.

But Jonathan took photos of Nancy, undressing and naked, from the window in Steve’s fucking bedroom.

That right there gives him, ugh, the fucking heebie jeebies, as goddamn Hargrove would say.

(Oh, Christ, is that how he was reading that situation that night? What a weirdo.)

And maybe Steve is still a little upset about all that.

But his second reaction to Nance saying Jonathan was so kind for staying up with Will and not making a big deal out of it was to wonder why she was so surprised.

Like, it took him a minute to get that Nance was basically saying she wouldn’t do the same thing for Mike or Holly or even, like, one of her parents?

Steve hadn’t actually said anything in reply to Nancy calling Jonathan kind right then. He’d just sorta kept hugging her and feeling weird about feeling weird.

See, Jonathan—doesn’t have hardly any goddamn thing, but he has a brother and a mother who love him and depend on him, desperately. He has fucking roots.

Tommy has that; Carol has that.

Obligations, Nance had called them.

Steve, uh, he does not have that, any of that. Nope. Not really at all, no. His obligations are about maintaining appearances, and he hasn’t done a good job of that for a long, long time.

It’s like he used to be someone else though; it’s like his whole childhood happened to someone else.

Sophomore year, a senior girl asked him to the prom. His dad fucking chortled when Steve told him, and his mom huffed a laugh. Steve told them that over the phone because they were off somewhere, doing something.

And maybe Steve is actually kinda a whole lot upset about being, uh, alone. Maybe he’s fucking sick of it.

If there were a beginning, there’d have to be an ending, a start, a finish, a middle, a climax, dénouement, rising action, conflict, plenty of exposition and dialogue.

The line “No son of mine” would recur ad nauseam, as would all the classic slurs and several variations on the theme of “Your whore of a mother.”

Have to be a hook and uncomfortably, often unbelievably, deep introspection, then a midpoint where the protagonist reverts to type and experiences a setback before proving up to the final challenge.

He knows stories; he knows literature.

And he knows right from wrong, motivation.

Billy knows all about agency and will.

He knows a whole helluva lot ‘bout—Will.

(FUCKER won’t shut up about him.)

Billy is a Will, and, if there were a beginning to this story, his story and theirs, it would start with a William, a Will, a Bill or Billy or sometimes even a Liam.

It’d star a him, and it’d be sad and tragic and lean, sparse: Tennessee Williams meets fucking Sam Shepard.

The only other character would be HIM.

(No Mom and no motherfucking goddamn shitheel Dad. No siblings but those whom William himself describes, maybe some projections or backgrounds, maybe a voiceover or two: a girl, an older boy.)

And even HE would be just a fucking voice and ominous lighting; he’s the backdrop, the setting.

HE is not the star; HE is not the protagonist.

HE is not even really, totally a complete entity or fucking thing, not even exactly a HIM because even HE is just a tiny part of a bigger WHOLE.

William is the hero and the villain. Will and Billy, they’re the center.

And HE isn’t a Will or William; HE is a fucking Billy, and that’s kinda part of why Billy goes with HIM.

He knows well from self-hate.

(The static backdrop would be Malibu, waves, blue, yellow, and the transitions between scenes a soundtrack of waves breaking, coming ashore, seagulls, distant laughter.)

Shame and self-doubt are basically how HE keeps getting Billy and keeps getting him back. HE tricked Will, played the big man and puffed up like a cat, all hunched spine and hair on end, but with Billy: HE fucking sucker-punches him. HE socks him right in the face, and then HE kinda just keeps Billy close, just keeps him right there next to HIM, like a pet, right at his side because HE—really just actually wants to be Billy.

But HE can’t fit. HE tries; HE’D tried, and HE tries again, and Billy doesn’t remember a whole lot, in terms of details. . .

(agony?

make it stop!

no no no, Mama, no, pleeeeease!)

Billy is HIS guy though, HIS right hand man. Billy is HIS WILLIAM.

Finally, fucking hell, Billy is the one and only for some-goddamn-one.

(He still isn’t Will; he isn’t El. Billy is just—only Billy. He’s just—there for the taking.

Fucking:

Convenient.

Because motivation:

no one else wants, wanted him.)

Will the Wise, Billy the—Barbarian.

If he were to write this story, it’d be a fucking play, and it would start with one actor in a spotlight.

He’s standing alone, downstage, stage right, real close, leaning forward, and he’s lit by a lone spotlight from above.

Billy said, and he wasn’t crying; he never was crying: “I understand, sir.”

William [looking down as he smokes]: I—understand.

Bob said, and he’s lit in warm pinks and yellows: “Only this time, I didn’t run.”

Will says, “Easy-peasy.”

(Like it’s just that simple. Like they’ll ever get away with just that their entire life.)

William [staring at his cigarette butt in hand]: This time, I didn’t run. This time, I stood my ground.

The falling action links with the physical consequences, and William lives, but he dies on-stage, bloody, gory, screaming and crying.

William comes back though, returns, is resurrected.

And Will lives and loves and is so unbelievably loved.

Will the Wise, Will the Beloved.

William: Don’t be afraid.

Billy is the Dark Night of the Soul though, and he’s crying, fucking bawling like a baby, glowering, chain-smoking, snarling throughout the first and second acts and creeping all over the fucking place because he can’t keep still.

Billy is that chill at the back of the neck, and he’s the weird tears that come right before sleep, and he is always, forever, right along the edges.

He is always, forever, farther back.

Removed.

William ends the play, crouching right where he started, downstage.

William: It’ll be over soon.

The backdrop, however, isn’t Malibu or HIS swirling black upon black.

The backdrop is neon and white tile.

William [tears on his face, looking down at his hands]: I—understand. I’m—sorry.

And HE’S hurt, betrayed. HE’S upset.

Billy hears and feels and feels like he’s HIM, echoing and mirroring into infinity: WHY, WILL?

Billy, Billy thinks. Billy, Billy, Billy Hargrove.

Billy thinks of Max. Billy thinks of Max reaching toward him, trying to pull him back.

HE is hurt and betrayed, and Billy just fucking smiles. Billy grins at HIM.

William: Now you know how I feel.

Max gasped back then, back in California, back with the waves and seagulls, blue, yellow, not black or green.

(She whispered, back in California, tearfully, regretfully, and Billy pretended not to hear her, “I didn’t know!

And she whispered to him, urgently, desperately, some rest stop in Colorado or Nebraska, and Billy had actually pushed her away, “I swear I didn’t know!)

William [falling to the floor, gasping]: 4819 Cherry Lane.

Billy opens his eyes, and Max is saying, “Billy, Billy, get up, please!”

William: Just try and stay—very still.

Max is sobbing.

And Billy opens his eyes; he wakes up.

Max says, “Billy, get up, please!”

William: Ok—Max.

Billy whispers to Max, neon, white tile, black and blue and green and her bright red fucking hair, “Fucking sorry, kid.”

Max’s face kinda crumples in upon itself.

And Billy grabs her goddamn hand with his good one, and he squeezes.

And he, Billy Hargrove–