ok by i cannot stop thinking about billy just losing his fucking mind to dream on by aerosmith. like his dad just went too far or he found out about him and steve and now hes tearing his room apart like a mad man, throwing records and smashing bottles and shit. and its not even just like angry hes like /crying/ like he cannot even for a second know peace and happiness and this has been on my mind for MONTHS
TW: physical abuse, blood, homophobic slurs ((f-slur)), verbal abuse, mental breakdown, cussing
Honey, ever since i got this i haven’t been able to stop thinking about it either ohmyGOD???? This is legitimately a PEAK Billy “i’m absolutely sick of all of this and i need out NOW” Hargrove anthem!! God if i could direct this i would but unfortunately i’m bound to words on my silly little blog so i hope this will do, love. ♥ (@venomdean)
Because it’s absolutely explosive. I kind of hate to think about it, but I feel like Billy is like a landmine. He’s a pot always threatening to boil over. He’s on constant vibrate just about ready to pop. He’s always on the edge of going absolutely feral because the only certain thing he’s felt for years and years is pain.
And you’re right- on both accounts. Neil finds out… and he goes too far.
Because Neil has been hearing all around town that Billy has been running around with “that Harrington boy”. You know, the son of that really influential family, the boy who “has all the opportunities in the world” but “seems to be amounting to nothing… what a shame. You know, his parents couldn’t even pay a school to take him. What a pity. I knew it would happen though...”
And Neil just hoped it wasn’t true. He hears it every time he goes to the grocery store. The voices follow him down the aisles, either from mothers who whisper about how “That’s Neil Hargrove. His son is that curly haired one I told you about. The different one.” or from teens who hiss about how “That’s Billy’s dad. Wonder if he knows his son is probably a fa-”
And one day Billy comes home happy. And i’d encourage you to really think about that and just enjoy it for as long as you can because Billy is happy. So happy he’s beaming. He feels like he’s glowing from the inside. He forgets that anyone other than Steve even exists. For a second he forgets his own existence, he’s so enamored and infatuated and near obsessed, really. Because he spent the whole afternoon with the boy, which isn’t necessarily a rare occurrence but it’s always an exceptional one, and today was especially joyful because something about their mutual existence just felt so…. So good. Yeah they had sex in the camaro like the teenagers they are and then again in Hansen’s field because it’s fucking massive and Hansen’s away on some trip and they blasted hippie music and fucked in a field of flowers and pretended like they were at Woodstock just existing in the skin of the other like they were made for it. Like they were made to share each other’s bodies and they were finally completing their infinite and perpetual task. And Billy would never be able to say these words or perhaps even string them together but it’s about the feeling.
Because that’s just the feeling he has. The nameless feeling.
And they fucked and they thought about smoking and they thought about drinking but they stayed high on each other and that was enough. They were laying there among the daisies happier than anything else in existence and Billy’s not even sure why. But they laid there and Billy felt the sun lay a large blanket of the softest warmth right over him and he absolutely reveled in it, allowing his hand to grace Steve’s fingers and then he rolled over to lay his head on Steve’s shoulder and he can’t believe he does that without feeling like a stupid fucking sissy but… but Steve’s always there. Always always always there. Stronger than he looks and warm and supportive and there. And Steve started to curl some of Billy’s hair around his finger and Billy pretended to bite at him like he was irritated and Steve whispered something about love and you and me and California and after graduation… i should have enough money by then. Let’s do it. Just you and me.
And Billy’s whole world froze. Froze in warmth, incubated in love, goddamn teeming with adoration as he got up on his elbows and evaluated Steve’s face just to be sure it wasn’t a joke and saw that it wasn’t and absolutely 100% beamed. Because the words and Steve’s eyes and the warmth of the sun on his back painted, stroke by stroke, the image of the two of them in California. On the beach. In the soft sand. Enjoying the sunlight. Playing in the waves. Billy teaching Steve how to surf, Billy dragging Steve under the boardwalk, Billy and Steve getting sticky with popsicles and soft serve and fresh watermelon and strawberries, Billy rollerskating hand in hand with Steve just like he used to watch all those couples do back when he was 9 years old and questioning everything. Billy and Steve existing freely. Openly and honestly. It can only have gotten better. He’s sure of it. It can only get better from this stupid hick town. He knows it.
And so they make out some more and the rest of the afternoon is a whirlwind up until he’s got Steve pressed up against the Camaro making out with him on that backroad and then again in front of Steve’s house and he’s letting his skin light up over every little promise of you and me in California… that Steve whispers into his skin, his ears, his mouth...
He feels fucking invincable.
He walks into his house with a forcefield. A smile he never sports. A bounce in his step he never maintains. Goddamn happiness. Not even just confidence, it’s pure bliss on his face and not even Neil’s ugly mug can ruin it. Not even Neil storming down the hall, electricity following his path, can ruin it. Not even Neil scowling, glaring daggers, lip snarled, teeth bared, can ruin it. Not even whatever gross, growling worlds Neil is spitting his way can ruin it.
Billy is blissed out on the future and the idea of pure bliss with a boy he thinks he knows he loves that he doesn’t feel it until even moments after. He doesn’t see it til it’s over. He doesn’t know it til he can’t defend himself. He doesn’t care until he does.
When Billy thinks back on it afterwards, after everything, he heaves and hisses and snarls at his past, blissed out self. He wants to punch himself in the face for such a mistake. This is a lesson he learned years ago. Back when it all first started. Back when he was so young.
But current Billy is blissed all the way up until his world flashes black. Until his ears ring. Until his hand flies to his face of its own accord to press at the pain to get it to stop. Second nature.
“You stupid fucking homo.”
And Billy’s vision bleeds red. It’s anger, it’s rage, it’s betrayal. His vision tunnels with vitriol. With scorn. Fight or flight kicks in and every smart part of Billy is yelling run but the dumber, closer, stronger parts say fuck him fuck him fuck him I don’t deserve this.
So his fist swings, rearing back and surging forward. Animalistic nature.
He thinks he makes purchase, but if he’s honest, the rest is a too quick blur. A mess of motion. Someone presses fast-forward on his VHS tape. The moments bleed together.
It’s a montage of angered words. Words beyond anger. Words that poison his system. Words like “homo” and “fag” and “disgrace” and “military school” and Billy checks in right there because-
“You’re going to military school, you worthless piece of shit.”
Billy spits in the man’s face. Longtime craving.
And then the world blacks out again. It’s blurrier now. His face is warm. There’s liquid gushing out. His wrist is sore and the ground is being taken out from beneath him and he realizes he’s being grabbed and pulled and then dragged because his body is feeling weak. Call it a mix of everything.
And he’s being dragged to his room and the world shatters when they cross the threshold because this place is the only place in this damn house he feels somewhat safe in. And he feels himself hit the ground heavily, right in front of his mirror. Feels himself being pulled up to be seated. Hears a rustling. Hears a weirdly familiar sound his mind can’t process. Sees something metal in the mirror before his hair is being grabbed and pulled taught and then there’s slack and the pressure is gone and-
“How could you fucking do this to me?”
More hair pulling, more growling, more yelling, some spit.
“You’ve been running around with that prissy boy. How long, huh?”
“Everyone talks about you two. Disgusting.”
Pulling pulling pulling pulling… something tickling his arms.
“Saw you two… outside his house, huh? You’re a disgrace.”
Wetness. Billy’s face is wet. His eyes burn. His throat burns. There’s slack again.
“You’re going to military school. Tomorrow. You’re out of here.”
Pulling and sawing and yanking and slack. Over and over and over and over-
“Hope I never see you again, you fag.”
Billy sobs. It wrenches through his chest. Pulling and slack, pulling and slack, over and over and-
It stops. Billy’s weak. His body is shutting down. It must be. It feels like it. The vision in the mirror is blurry but he knows the damage that’s been done. He can tell. He can feel. There’s nothing touching his shoulders anymore. Nothing against his neck. Something tickles down his arms. He shakes, weakly moving his hand to swipe the feeling away from his arms and grabs at tufts of hair.
There’s that ugly fucking mug, right in his face. It’s a strange look he wears. Billy’s vision is blurred. His lip snarls upward. Instinct.
The words are whispered in his face on hot breath. They hang in the air between them.
The door shuts loudly. Another door shuts after that. A car starts. Billy’s still sitting on the floor.
His muscles in his legs begin to contract, and then his arms. His vision clears and sharpens. He pushes himself up off the floor, avoids looking in the mirror, walks up next to it to his stereo, moves to turn on the radio…. Auto-pilot.
Music fills the room. Lilts through the air. Cuts through the humidity of the once cool night. The altercation warmed everything up. Must have.
There’s the sound of a keyboard and the plucking of a guitar. A familiar rhythm. It flows out of his stereo and through the room like it has a life of its own. It’s a spectral kind of presence, slinking out of the speakers, lurking in the corners, filling up the forgotten spaces with its haunting rhythm. Billy turns the music up louder. Stands in front of the stereo. Lets the music consume his space. Exist with him until they can’t co-habitate.
The chord gets more complicated. The chord runs. Billy’s feet feel like they’re going to betray him and let him fall through the floor. His head feels like it’s in another realm. A mirrored realm of darkness and vines… a world teeming with threats that wouldn’t think twice of making attempts on his life.
When the voice starts his feet move. They betray his thoughts but they don’t compromise his balance, necessarily. He’s moving backwards.
Every time that I look in the mirror….
All these lines on my face getting clearer…
He knows he can’t. Not if he wants to keep his sanity. His breath gets shorter. His head is dizzy just from moving, even though he’s slow. Maybe it’s because he’s going backwards.
His head betrays him now. Swings itself over the edge- looks over to the left.. Billy’s eyes take a second to focus but it’s only an instant after that before his hands shoot up to his head. Grab at tiny curls. Grab at randomly long tufts. Grab at whatever they can reach which is almost nothing.
He’s shaking. His hand is shaking as his fingers grasp with a kind of desperation Billy has never known but is suddenly wracking his body in a way that overwhelms every piece of him until he’s nothing but fingers grasping for what should be where they’re reaching but is nowhere to be seen. He can’t see anything but himself in the mirror. The world blacks out but him and the mirror. His feet are still moving him somewhere. He’s looking at the mirror at an awkward angle.
He hits the couch in his room. His fingers clench and unclench. He flops down onto it.
It went by like dusk to dawn...
Clenching and unclenching until his fingers get sore and he slams his hands onto the couch to stop thinking about it but how can he when his… his reflection...
He’s grabbing at his blanket beneath him harshly. He fists it and his mouth opens in a grimace and his eyebrows furrow so hard his head hurts and his lip shakes and…
Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay~…
The voice is rising and the music is rising and the specter fills up the space with something passively threatening, something that gently nudges Billy’s shoulders, something that presses at Billy’s head, something present.
Billy’s fisting hard at the blanket. His fingers are sore. He pulls at it. His finger slips into a moth hold or two. The voice reaches the top, along with the guitar and then they both topple over the peak and there’s the sound of a rip and something under Billy gives out. He pulls harder, hearing more tears, fingers dipping into the rips he’s created in his blanket.
I know nobody knows… where it comes and where it goes
Billy looks down at his fists tearing his blanket and they stop, pull away… thoughtless. His hands shake to do something, maybe grab at his aching head and they do, he does- no, they do, his hands do, but they feel uneven tufts of curls and it’s a jolt. His brain shocks itself. He pulls his hands away with a cry because what is this. He’s become alien to himself. He sees the mirror in front of him but he’s not sure who he sees in it. It’s not him.
I know it’s everybody’s sin…. You’ve got to lose to know, how to win…
The music is with him. Towering over him. The presence is daunting. Feels like it’s challenging him to something as a separate chord climbs and falls as soon as it starts. The spectre falls down. Settles with him. Next to him. He stands. He’s unsettled. Nothing in the mirror is right nothing is right nothing is right. He shoves the flat part of his knuckles on his thumbs into his eyes to fix it, fix something, fix this image that doesn’t feel right. Fix this creature he doesn’t recognize. His mind is swimming.
He walks around the room. He’s not sure if this is easier or harder than before, but he still stumbles.
Half my life’s in books’ written pages… Lived and learned from fools and from sages…
He tucks his chin into his chest, his knuckles still pressed to his eyes, the world black and scattered with the spots he’s pressing into them. His stomach is twitching with sobs that meet up in his throat and push out of his mouth. They’re small. That same droning chord is persistent, rising and filling up into the room, aiming to devour him in something. Drown him.
The end grows into a growl and takes with it a feeling that’s animalistic. The specter grows feral. Billy opens his eyes.
His chest heaves. His eyes burn as they water. His mouth twists up in misery. Because he sees it. There. At his feet. Under his boots. He’s fucking stepping on it.
His hair. In curly tufts on the ground beneath his feet and in front of them.
He looks up and he recognizes his face now and he… he…. He’s….
And he rounds on absolutely anything he can reach. Whatever is in arm’s distance behind him and it happens to be his lamp and he grabs it and he throws it with all his might to the ground and-
Sing with me, sing for the year-
-and it shatters. His mind is racing and he has no thoughts past the music. The presence is dark. It’s a shadow. It’s all around him. It’s in his vision.
-sing for the laughter and sing for the tear...
He’s swinging. His eyes are blurry from his own hot tears and they sear his cheeks as he grabs at whatever he can- vaguely registers the necks of bottles and the grooves of records against his palm and beneath his fingertips as he hashes through the world around him, trying to tear through the shadows consuming him and the tears are flooding everything out and he’s just swinging and smashing and-
Sing with me, it’s just for today… maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away~
He’s swinging and crashing and smashing like he’s being challenged. Threatened.. Whatever exists in this room with him is menacing. Malevolent. Feeding off his pain. Sipping it through his tears. He punches the wall and then the drums hit and they stop and the guitar is back and-
It’s a voice. Billy’s sure it’s his own somehow. Sure it’s the song somehow. Sure it’s this presence somehow, whatever is it, floating through the chords of the song like a friend seeking a kill.
“B-Billy? I… Uhm…. Please stop.”
It’s small. Feminine. Familiar. Shaking.
“Please don’t hur-.... You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Billy strides to the door and throws it open. The violent thud it makes as the knob hits the wall fills something in Billy’s chest. It springs more tears in his eyes. His chest is sobbing.
There’s something Billy can’t place in Max’s eyes. If his mind were even a tad clearer he thinks he’d recognize it… categorize it under worry or concern or care or even something deeper...
But the guitar chord hits a high note and the shadow specter of the music seeps into his mind and he’s a husk.
The chorus picks up again, singing about singing and Billy is standing there looking at this tiny red head standing in his way and she’s blurred by his tears and-
“Billy, what are you doing-”
“Mind your damn business, Maxine.”
The music is rising. It fills Billy’s throat.
“Do what?” Billy spits down at Max, leaning over her, invading her space. Max’s eyes flood with fear and it makes Billy step back. The shadows of the song step away. He sees through the blur to find the girl.
“Do that?” She asks, voice small and soft and shaking and weak. Eyes filling with tears of their own and it fills Billy’s gut with bile and he’s so sick of it. So sick of everything. Thinks he might be sick. So fucking done. Broken. Feral.
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away~
Billy’s eyes are filling. He glares as hard as he can while his eyelids are all mushy and swollen.
“Get out of my way, Maxine.”
“Just get out of my way.” He growls and takes his arm and shoves and she stumbles back and the music is building and then he’s storming down the hallway, punching the walls and cracking every picture frame he passes and the voice is following him, sounding just as loud to him in the hallway as it did to him in his room as it chants-
Dream on… dream on… dream on… dream yourself a dream come true~
And he throws pillows off the couch and shatters a lamp on the ground with a shove and his blurry eyes search fervently for what he wants as the guitar wails and runs down and-
Dream on… dream on…. Dream on… dream until your dream come through~
And the guitar gets darker and he’s got it. Grabs it off the mantle. Looks as steadily as he can with shaking and blurry eyes at this thing in his hands. This picture frame... with their stupid family in it. This stupid thing they call family to convince others. It never convinced him. He’s not sure how it could have convinced anyone. His tears are so hot on his face they feel like they’re boiling and his nose is leaking and his saliva is runny and his chest is heaving and he’s-
He’s thunder. He’s lightning and he’s rain. The music followed him down the hallway and follows him with heavier footsteps back up as the voice screams on with-
Dream on… dream on… dream on… dream on…
And each chant sees Billy taking the frame in his hands and slamming the corner of it into the wall of the hallway as he walks, goes back to his room, ignores Max as she cries to him some kind of garbled nonsense and the music is filling his shoes like a dark puddle and his eyes are drowned.
And the voice that was once singing is now screeching into the air, into the corners of his room, into the darkest parts and Billy looks at the stupid faces of these stupid people he’s been forced to love and thinks of how the only happiness in his life is going to be taken away from him and probably has been permanently taken away now because he’s fucking hideous with bruises and almost no hair and he’s wailing. Deep from his chest, right alongside the voice from the stereo, hurling the picture frame at his mirror blindly as he screams and hitting his target and hearing a loud crack as it shatters and he’s just screaming. Everything inside of him rising and bubbling and boiling over and over and over some more and he’s sure his body will never settle. He’ll never know peace. His mind and his body and his heart will never rest like it did this afternoon in that field with the warm sun and the blue sky and a love underneath him that was all his own for once for fucking once in his miserable life and he opens his eyes and he’s disgusted he’s a disgrace, he’s bruised and bloody and nearly bald and his fingers and knuckles are bruised and bleeding and in that cracked mirror is the most miserable version of himself and he can’t bear to look.
He throws it to the ground. It covers his fallen hair.
He stomps it with his boot. Hot tears stain the toes of his shoe.
He reaches for his bedsheets. He needs to take a few steps to get there.
He tears at them, ripping all the way down. As far as he can.
His chest heaves. He rounds on his makeshift vanity. Swings his arms violently until it’s all on the ground as his feet, discarded and broken and cracked.
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away-
He looks up from the ground. Up to Max, who’s hugging the door frame and shaking, watching with horror or what Billy thinks must be the equivalent. Something equivalent to it. The music and it’s guitar and the specter it’s conjured up is still rising, expanding, residing in every space of the room, pushing Billy out of the space and he’s struggling, fighting, mind getting so nervous and worried as it looks at Max that it needs to look away, needs to distract.
The song repeats itself as he reaches and throws and rips and tears everything in sight. Posters, picture frames, books, cassettes. He steps on everything, smashes everything, tears pour out and out and out, his mind is running and racing and throbbing in pain in hurt in worry in all of its unease and he picks up a hand weight and rounds towards the window and chucks it as hard as he can and-
The sound of the shattering of the window breaks everything. Breaks any resolve still left within him. Lets the shadow and spectre of the music out and into the night as the room is pitched into a bitter and unforgiving chill. Let’s all of Billy’s breath out of his lungs as he heaves and heaves and heaves like he’s going to hurl. He stands there, looking at the window, pictures something faint and distant and at one time hopeful in his mind before he turns around to Max and it’s just music now, the last of the words have been sung, and he mutters a dark and languid and miserable:
And then he strides to the window and steps on the small table he has in front of it and jumps out and walks into the unfriendly night, a storm. More than a husk. Once again a human. At least, feeling something closer to human.
And then it’s just Max. She rushes to the window, the music turning into a haunting kind of alarm that doesn’t seem alert or at all worried or hurried or serious. A lazy alarm that warns you of an error in the system. She stands in front of the broken window, exposed to the cold, cutting her hand on the glass in her hurry to watch after Billy, watch as he leaves, watch as he stomps his way out of their house and out to the street and down the street and she’s crying. Her mind is spinning. Her face is heavy with tears and sorrow and fear. Her heaving subsides slowly as the music does.
She’s alone in this house. Truly alone. Not even the presence of Billy lingers like usual.
And then she runs to the phone to do the only thing she can think of- she dodges the carnage strewn across their house and runs to the phone and calls the only person she can think to call. The only person she thinks will for sure be able to help him from doing something crazy like leaving with nothing but the clothes on his back and whatever random cash he carries in his pocket.
Another song starts up slowly. The phone picks up.
