“We kind of stitched [Eddie’s vest] so it would look like he did it himself … We added a belt buckle that has a handcuff on it … We gave him a chain on the leather of his jacket, like maybe the zipper broke, and he tried to close it. So we really focused on little details.”
I say you’re asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I’m totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea. But the Shire… The Shire is burning. So Mordor it is.
warnings: same as the show — reader is under vecna’s curse so spoilers, mentions of billy being abusive when he was possessed, blood, trauma, angst, references to domestic violence, nightmares, anxiety, near-death experiences, strong language, billy survived the mind flayer so technically au
prompt: could I request a Billy x reader. When max gets attacked by Vecna, Billy’s girlfriend gets taken as well. Something really angsty lol Thank you.
(and for the anon who requested billy in season four)
You’re next. You work it out the same time Max figures out the criteria — the headaches, the nightmares, the trauma, the damn clocks. You tick all of Vecna’s sick little boxes. And you can’t tell anyone. You see it on every face: the worry, the dread. For Max, because she’s experiencing it all too. The Mind Flayer attack last year left all of you a little bit broken, a little bit haunted, especially the two of you, who watched together as Billy almost died.
And when Max figures out she’s next, it’s like watching it all over again. He might not be bloody and bruised anymore, but Billy turns just as pale as that night when he realises his little sister is not only in danger, but still struggling with what happened. You can’t handle being another weight on those shoulders, not when they already bear so much every single day. So you don’t tell him. You don’t tell anyone. You take deep breaths when the headaches come and you keep your concern focused on Max, secretly hoping Vecna will take you first. It will at least give the others time to stop him. A necessary sacrifice, one that nobody need worry about now. Especially not him.
Vecna first comes for you while everyone is waiting for Max to deliver her goodbye letter to her mom. The trailer park is leached of all colour when you lean on the bonnet of Steve’s car. Billy’s cigarette smoke stops curling around you, and the breeze stops rustling through the trees. Everything goes still, and for just a moment, it’s a relief.
Until you see it. Billy’s lifeless body on the grass, punctured with the holes of the Mind Flayer’s tentacles. Black, tar-like blood stains his white vest. Anguish, agony, curls across his features, and you can’t take it away. That’s what hurts the most. You’re helpless, and he’s dying in front of you.
“No.” You shake your head, because something’s wrong. Billy didn’t die. Billy was here with you just a moment ago. “No. No. No —”
“You okay?”
The colour returns, your breaths rattling around your chest like empty tins. Billy is beside you again, cigarette dangling from his lips, a curl falling into his curious, narrowed eyes.
“Babe?”
You’re so relieved your knees almost turn to jelly — and so afraid, because the visions aren’t just in your dreams anymore. They’re all the time. And that means he’s close. It’s almost over.
“Y/N?” He pushes off the bonnet, concern narrowing his features. You can only trace your shaking knuckles across his flushed cheeks, and then down his torso, his clean shirt. No blood. Not now. “Hey.” His voice is so gentle it makes you want to break. “I know you’re worried, too. But I’m not letting anything happen to her. I’m her big brother, and I swear to god, she’s going to be okay. I’ve been in the mind of that thing. If anyone can figure out a way to stop this…”
You gulp. “I know. She’s going to be fine,” you whisper.
He presses his lips to your forehead delicately. He never used to be so delicate before. Almost dying changed him in a lot of ways. It strengthened your relationship, strengthened him. You hope to god that when Vecna takes you, your death does the same. You can’t bear to think of him in pain again. You can’t bear to think of not being with him at all.
“I love you. You know that, don’t you?” you say, fiddling with a button on his shirt. “If anything happens…I just want you to be safe. Happy. You and Max.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Just…” You bite your trembling bottom lip. “Nothing. I just want you to know how much I love you.”
He opens his mouth to reply, but it never comes. Max returns, one goodbye letter lighter. You wonder what you’d have written in your own given the chance, and then wonder if it’s better off you can’t say your goodbyes that way. You don’t want to be a ghost for the people you love, with only smudged ink to remember you by. You’d rather go quietly and let them move on.
You just hope that can happen when the time comes.
***
Like always, you end up camped out in the Wheeler’s basement, waiting for Nancy and Robin to return — hopefully with information that will save Max. She sits at Mike’s old desk, tapping her foot and pretending she’s fine when everybody knows she’s not. Lucas watches her carefully, and Billy, too, while Dustin paces and brainstorms ways to stop Vecna. But they don’t know enough about the new threat yet. Nobody does. Though nobody says it, you’re all counting on Nancy and Robin to learn something new.
Your head is pounding, your hands clammy. Steve has asked you if you’re okay more than once, but you only nod weakly each time. You just want to be there for Billy and Max, so you hold his hand and reassure him. It feels like you’re in that hospital waiting room again, the one you sat in for hours, days, after Billy’s attack. Only this time, you probably won’t walk out.
And then you hear his voice. Vecna, calling you. The world turns to shadows again, the people around you disappearing and leaving you cold. Alone. Your teeth chatter as a shadow emerges from the red fog, all mottled skin and sinew. Vecna.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says. “Of all of them, you’re the one I’ve been most excited for.”
Nausea swims in your gut, your breath leaving you in shallow gasps. You shake your head. “Please. Just leave Max alone. Take me instead.”
He tilts his head. “I want you both. But we’ll start with you.”
He lunges and you run, whimpers leaving you. You pass through the broken bodies of Chrissy and Fred and sob at the thought that soon, it will be you. Just a mangled corpse. You should have left town, you think. The thought of Billy seeing you that way…you should have left town.
You trip in the red fog, twisting your ankle and letting out another shriek. And then it goes eerily silent save for the ticking of a clock. You twist around, searching, but you see nothing.
Until your name is called. A different voice this time. A familiar voice.
Billy is walking towards you, looking just like he had in the last vision: bloody. You see the flatness in his eyes and know this is a different version of him, though. The Billy who wasn’t himself. The Billy who was taken over by the Mind Flayer.
You shut your eyes against the memories — him hurting you, because he didn’t know what he was doing. Feeling like you were losing him not just on the day he died, but the times before that, too, when he snapped at you or pushed you out.
“Why are you running from me?” he asks now. “Still afraid?”
“No. This isn’t real. You’re not Billy.”
“You still worry sometimes, don’t you? You still wonder if I might hurt you again. Just a fragile little girl pretending to be a woman, huh?”
You shake your head, tears streaming down your cheeks. “He’s never hurt me. He’d never hurt me. This isn’t real.”
“Why do you let us hurt you, Y/N?” When you open your eyes again, there are dozens of him. Not just him. Your dad. Your exes. School bullies. All the people you’ve ever been hurt by, crowding around you.
You sink to your knees. “No. Please, no.”
“Is it because you like pain?” Billy towers over you now, alone again, but still not the man you love. Still dead behind the eyes. And Vecna doesn’t even need to try anymore, because on your knees like this, you’re back there. Before you knew something was wrong, when Billy was irritable and rough and not himself…when he hurt you, and you trembled below him. He hated himself for it afterwards, when he came back to himself in the hospital, but it doesn’t matter. In your mind, you’re always here. Weak. Unworthy. Broken.
A victim.
***
Billy sits up in alarm when he sees your eyes; the way they roll behind your lids. He calls your name, shaking your shoulders, but don’t hear him. You don’t move.
And somehow, he knows, though he’s never seen it before. He can feel that presence crawling down his spine, taking everything he loves — again. Only this time, it hasn’t sunk its claws in him. They’re embedded in you instead.
“No. No. Fuck, Y/N. Somebody tell me what to do!” he yells desperately, his voice cracking as he shakes harder. “Tell me what to fucking do!”
The others gather around in shock, Dustin swearing under his breath before pulling out his walkie talkie. “Nancy? Robin? Now would be a really great time to tell us how to stop Vecna.”
The line crackles. Radio silence.
“Nancy, Robin, do you copy?”
His pleas are drowned out by Billy screaming your name, over and over.
Everything turns to ice when your eyes open, so pale and colourless that it makes him sick. “Baby,” he whispers, shuddering. “Come on. Come back to me. Please, come back to me.”
But you don’t. You begin to rise, first off the couch and then… off the ground. You levitate in the middle of the basement like some sort of angel. An angel of death. Billy beholds you with nothing but fear, dread. This can’t be happening. He’d prepared himself for the worst with Max, but you… you hadn’t told him a damn thing. He’d never be able to prepare for this. For losing you.
“Why wouldn’t they tell us?” Steve asks, as though your secrecy is the most important thing right now. Billy knows damn well why you wouldn’t tell him. You’re a selfless fucking martyr, and for once, he hates that about you. Or maybe it’s him. Maybe he didn’t pay enough attention. Maybe he should have noticed all those weeks ago when you complained of headaches. When you whimpered in your sleep.
Finally, the walkie talkie crackles to life, Robin’s voice coming down the line. “It’s music. Play their favourite song!”
“What?” Dustin asks.
“Play their favourite song!” Robin repeats. “Music activates a different part of the brain, right, and Vecna attacks through the brain. So play their favourite song.”
“Shit. Billy, what’s her favourite song?”
“I…I…” He can’t even fucking think, not when you’re seconds away from leaving him. But a voice comes through. You tell everybody it’s Pat Benatar or Fleetwood Mac, but when the two of you are alone at night, those are never the artists you play. You always, always, always sing “Just One Kiss” by The Cure. And you don’t just sing it, you sing it to him between kisses and laughing, and the lyrics sound like they were made just for the two of you.
“The Cure. ‘Just One Kiss’ by The Cure,” he grapples finally.
Everybody begins frantically searching through the Wheeler’s collection of records, but Billy knows there’s no time. There’s no damn time. So he starts singing, a last resort. His voice is hoarse and fractured. Remember the time that you reigned all night?
He does his best to drag you down by the wrist, singing softly, softly, softly. “Come on,” he whispers.
Remember the time that the islands sank, but nobody opened their eyes?
He’s begging you to remember as he sings it. Begging you to come back to him. You slump into his arms, still somewhere else, and together you collapse to the ground. He wraps his arms around you, singing in your ear now. Remember the sound that could wake the dead? But nobody woke up at all. While the rest of Hawkins moved on, you, the group, fought monsters and watched the world end. Remember that, he begs. Please fucking remember.
His voice breaks when he gets to the refrain. Somebody died for just one kiss. Just one kiss. He nearly did, but he stayed for you. Now he’s pleading with you to do the same.
The rest of the group stop searching, too lost in this moment — this private, intimate moment — to go on. Your lifeless body is pressed against his, tears falling from his cheeks and into your hair. He can’t lose you, and the only way he knows how to tell you is like this. Some part of him believes you can hear him, wherever you are.
He hopes so.
***
You can. You’re tangled in vines, facing Vecna once and for all, when his voice echoes through the world, off-key and husky and his. It reminds you of the nights you danced in the kitchen together or drove around town just to sing to the radio.
Billy.
Vecna is so close, but behind him, there…you see Billy cradling you, singing to you, begging you to come back while the rest of the group watch.
Remember the time that the sky went black?
We waited alone on the sands.
Remember the taste of the raging sea?
But nobody held out their hands.
But he is. He’s holding out his hands for you, reaching out through that black sky, and you reach back. Slowly, painfully, you reach back.
***
Life comes back to you all at once, and you sputter and gasp in Billy’s arms. He keeps you pinned to him, sobbing into your hair. “You’re here. You’re here,” he soothes. “You’re okay now.”
You can’t say anything. You can only clutch onto him, tears rolling down your face.
“You’re still you,” he mutters. “You’re still here.”
“I saw him,” you whimper. “I saw him.”
“I know, baby.” He’s rocking you, thanking his lucky stars. “He’s not going to get you. I swear to fucking god, he’s not going to get either of you.” You only see Max kneeling beside you then, her face splotchy with tears. He pulls her in so it’s just the three of you, a crying, tangled mess.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he mutters.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” you whisper. “I thought if…I thought if he took me first, it would give you time to save Max. I couldn’t put you through losing both of us. I couldn’t…”
“You should have told me.” There’s no scolding there, no accusations. Just sadness and fear. “I can’t fuckin’ lose you, Y/N. You should have told me.”
“I’m sorry.” You squeeze your eyes closed, just glad to be here, warm and in the light again. “I’m sorry.”
His chest deflates on a ragged exhale as he squeezes you tightly. “You can’t leave me like that again.”
But you can’t promise you won’t. You may be back now, but Vecna still haunts the darkest corners of your mind. Still, you tilt your chin up, remembering the sound of him singing to you. You nudge his hair out of his face and wipe away his tears. “You brought me back, Billy.”
“Just like you brought me back.” He kisses you, and you taste your mingled tears. And you’re so glad that you didn’t have to die for that kiss. You’re so glad that, for now, you’re all still here. “I love you. So fuckin’ much.”
“I love you, too.” You stay curled up on that floor until Steve tumbles down the stairs with a The Cure cassette tape and Walkman, but you know it wasn’t the song that brought you back. It was Billy and all the memories you’ve made.
So when the tape runs out, Billy sings to you again.
Vecna doesn’t come back for you as long as he keeps singing.
