16. Chapter 16

Jonathan’s driving Max home today, and then to Dungeons and Dragons because wow, it’s Friday already, and Billy has decided it’s time to clean the house. The Hargrove house. The one with the bloody bathroom.

Fuck.

The house is exactly as he left it, save for the fact that someone (probably Hopper) had locked the door and closed the windows. It’s musty and dark, and Billy wishes to be anywhere but here.

Too bad he’s got shit to do.

He starts with the bedrooms, boxing up his and Max’s stuff and throwing it into the car before going to Neil and Susan’s room to get her stuff ready for good will. He works methodically, scrubbing and vacuuming and bleaching and boxing up every room as he moves through the house, carefully avoiding the bathroom until he absolutely has to.

He’s so caught up in his task that when the phone rings, he jumps.

Who the fuck would call the house?

Frowning, he goes to answer the phone, because maybe it’s Max, who was informed in no uncertain terms where he’d be and why she wouldn’t be seeing him until late tonight.

“Hello?”

“Billy.”

It’s not Max.

Billy freezes, phone pressed to his ear.

“Dad?”

“Finally come back to the house,” Neil grunts into the phone. “Taking advantage of what I left behind, I see.”

Billy can’t talk. Billy can’t move. Billy can’t do anything but listen.

“You’re more than welcome than to keep that shithole,” Neil continues. “But first, you have to do something for me.”

Billy swallows.

“I’m not doing anything for you,” he says, and he meant to make it sound stronger, to sound final, but he’s pleased enough when his voice doesn’t shake.

“What did you just say to me?”

“I’m not doing anything for you,” Billy repeats, and this time, it’s a little stronger. “Do you realize what you’ve done? What you’ve done to Max?”

There’s a long pause.

“I am sorry about that,” Neil admits, the fucker. “But it had to be done, Billy. It really is that simple, sometimes.”

“Susan didn’t deserve that shit,” Billy hisses. “And even if she did, do you understand what’s going to happen to Max, now? Where she’s going to go if I can’t get my shit together?” He’s shouting, now, but he doesn’t care. If one person deserves to be shouted at, it’s his fucking father.

“Now, Billy, I don’t care for that tone at all,” Neil says, and there’s a hint of danger, there, something that would make Billy shake if they were in the same room. “Seems my only lesson still hasn’t been learned.”

Billy bares his teeth when he laughs.

“Respect and responsibility,” he says. “The way I see it, you killed a woman who couldn’t defend herself. You left her daughter an orphan. The way I see it, you’ve taken no responsibility, and you deserve no respect. So you know what? You can go, crawl back into whatever hole you came from, and fucking die.”

The phone shatters when Billy slams it back onto the receiver, a shard of plastic slicing his palm open with the force of contact, but Billy doesn’t care. He’s too busy trying to rapidly untangle the fear and fury and sudden urge to cry that is bubbling up his throat.

He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t fucking ask for this.

He tries to distract himself, but the only room left is the bathroom, so that’s where he goes, grabbing bleach and a scrub brush and an extra bucket. He forgets his gloves, but right now, he can’t find it in himself to give a shit.

The cut stings in the face of hot water and soap and pressure as he scrubs at the dried pools of blood with vicious urgency, but he pays it no attention. The bath mats are too damaged to do anything but throw away, so they’re tossed over his shoulder into the hall as he goes. He gets a good amount of the blood off without bleach, actually, and by the time he actually does break out the bleach, the cut’s stopped bleeding.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t burn when he makes the mistake of touching the bleach-soaked rag with his damaged hand, badly enough that he actually gets up and sticks his hand under the tap, ignoring his knees’ groaning protest.

He makes the mistake of looking in the mirror, of catching his own, tired eyes.

He looks like shit, like he hasn’t slept in days, like he’s been on a four day bender with nothing but speed and sex to keep him going. There’s blood smeared on his cheek where he must have wiped away an errant tear, and the faded aftermath of Max’s punch, still there nearly a week later. His head is pounding and his stomach is turning itself inside out and fuck. Fuck.

That’s what breaks him, in the end, what makes his knees buckle and his face crumple as his shoulders begin to shake with the power of each sob. He’s eighteen, and yeah, he’s not a good person, but shit, he shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be mopping up blood in a shitty little bathroom while his dad runs around a free man. This can’t be his life.

He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, curled up on the bathroom floor amid cleaning supplies and old blood, but that’s where he stays, even when he hears the doorbell ring and the door creak open.

“Billy?”

Billy doesn’t look up at Nancy’s voice, half-certain he’s just made it up in his head. Nancy seems like the sort of person who would care he’s having a meltdown, doesn’t she? It makes sense he would pick her to imagine.

“Billy, you’re not okay.”

Not a question. Apparently, the Nancy he’d conjured up was smart enough not to ask stupid questions.

“Billy, look at me.”

He does, and— oh. She’s actually there, dressed like she’s on her way out somewhere and looking worried as she stares down at him.

He looks away.

“Had to clean,” he mutters, like it’s some kind of excuse for his sitting on the floor in a puddle of bleach and blood. “Figured I’d get it done today.”

Nancy makes a noise.

“I think you need to go home,” she says, and her hand’s on his shoulder. “I’ll finish up, Billy. You need to go home.”

“I am home.”

“Back to the Byers,” Nancy says without missing a beat. “Billy, I don’t think you can be here anymore. The bleach isn’t good for you— what happened to your hand?”

He doesn’t move, but he doesn’t fight her either when she kneels beside him and reaches for his hand, turning it palm up so she can look at the cut.

“Jesus, Billy, you need stitches,” she says, making a face.

Billy turns, feeling a little-lightheaded.

“Your jeans are gonna get ruined,” he says dumbly, staring at her knees. “There’s bleach on the floor.”

“That’s alright,” she says. “Billy, can you get up?”

“I—” He shifts, pushing himself forward onto his knees. Nancy catches him by the shoulder, pulling him up with a strength he didn’t know she had.

“I don’t think you can drive,” she says worriedly. “Come on, Billy, let’s get you out of here, okay? Let’s go to the living room.”

He lets her lead him out, half-leaning against her smaller form as his head starts to spin. Fuck, maybe the bleach wasn’t such a good idea.

She drops him into the armchair— Neil’s armchair— and goes to the phone, except, right, Billy broke the phone.

“I need to call Steve,” she says. “Do you have another phone?”

“Bedroom,” he grunts, letting his head fall back. “At the end of the hall.”

Neil always kept a phone in his bedroom, so he could keep an eye on who was calling who.

Nancy nods, pointedly doesn’t ask about the destroyed phone in the kitchen, and goes to find the spare.

Billy sits, and sits, and sits.

Then, he falls asleep.

*.*

He wakes up with Nancy’s hand on his shoulder and her pretty face hovering over him.

“Billy?”

“Hmm?” He blinks up at her, foggy and unfocused.

“Steve’s here to drive you to the Byers’,” she says. “Are you feeling okay?”

No, not really, no, but Billy doesn’t really have to say it, because Nancy just makes a face like she knows and straightens.

“His car’s full of boxes,” she says. “You’ll have to take him in the Beemer.”

“Yeah, fine. What about you?” Steve sounds a little annoyed, which is blessedly normal, in Billy’s opinion. He’d give his left arm for some normal.

“I’m staying and cleaning,” Nancy says. “Tell Jonathan I’m sorry, will you? We were supposed to go out tonight.”

“Sure thing. How’d you know to come here?”

“I saw his car.” Billy opens his eyes just in time to see her shrug. “Had a feeling. Take him home, alright? Or maybe the hospital might be better.”

Billy grunts. His arms feel like lead when he tries to move them.

“No hospital,” he says, struggling out of the chair. “I’ll be fine, I’ll come back tomorrow and finish up, Nancy, it’s fine—”

“No, I’ll finish up,” Nancy says sharply. “No hospital? Fine. But you’re going to go to bed and spend tomorrow in the house. Do you understand?”

Billy sighs and falls back against the chair.

“I understand,” he mutters. What’s with girls asking him that, anyway?

Steve makes a face when he gets close, wary and slightly disgusted, but Billy doesn’t fight him when he snakes an arm under his shoulders and pulls him to his feet, holding him up when his knees buckle after three steps.

“What the fuck did you take, man?” Steve grunts, holding him up by sheer force of will alone. Billy doesn’t have the energy to say something witty, but he feels it in his heart.

Steve shoves him into the passenger seat of the Beemer and buckles him in, which would be annoying if it weren’t so damn funny.

“Max said you were a mom,” he says as Steve settles himself into the driver’s seat. “I believe her, now.”

“The safety of children I’m in charge of is important to me,” Steve says, glancing over at him as he starts the car. “And apparently, that now includes you.”

“I’m not a kid, though,” Billy says, fumbling for his cigarettes. “I’m a… whatever the fuck I am, now. Son of a murderer, I guess.”

Steve stiffens when he says that, but doesn’t respond.

They drive back to the Byers’ in silence.