* 𝗣𝗟𝗢𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗗. / @swordoaths.
The moment he'd passed that sign in the Camaro, a heavy sense of dread had befallen Billy. The town where everything had happened... ironically, making Hawkins more interesting than California, but in all the worst ways. Initially, when Joyce, El, Will and Jonathan busied themselves with helping out from both California and some remote part of Soviet Russia, Billy had done his best not to get involved. It was far easier to buy some weed from Argyle, drink a few beers and just try to forget.
But California just wasn't the same. Surfing came with a dose of discomfort when it meant showing still-healing wounds decorating his torso. His old friends all lived somewhere else or had gone to college or gotten jobs. And... there was no Maxine here, either. He'd never want to admit it to her, but she really had become a fixture in his life that once Billy would have found irritating and little else, but now he can't imagine being home without her. It's not home unless she's there.
It was the news that Max had been hurt that finally dragged Billy from his slump and back into action, even if the thought of facing another creature like the last, and the way it had so easily forced him to do what it wanted, terrified him like nothing else ever had. Except maybe his father. So he'd decided to return, to finish the fight, no matter what. Entering the hospital and finding his way to Max's room where she was apparently in a fragile, comatose state with broken bones, Billy was sure he could hear his own heart pounding. They'd bickered pretty much non-stop, but he seems to have reached a point where he wouldn't tolerate anyone else hurting her.
He remembers the last thing that happened before he'd passed out and almost died in the mall. He'd told her he was sorry; a genuine gesture he thought would be his last, and he'd seen the fear in her own eyes when he did. After that, things were a blur. A hospital stay, Neil's swift departure from Hawkins when other injuries were found and his years of physical abuse threatened to reveal themselves, and after he was healed enough, he couldn't stay in the town anymore. It really did feel cursed.
But here he is, walking down the hallway and looking like a different person; his hair shorter and his jeans looser, wearing a black button-up shirt and no pendant necklace — removed after finally deciding to let go of his mother. If Max woke up, would she tell him to leave? Would she want him here? Did she accept his apology? The thought grinds to a halt when Billy stops outside her room and slowly enters... only to find she already has a visitor. A very familiar visitor. “...Harrington?”