1. Superpower AU (Marvel/DC/power rangers/Sailor Moon/secret identities)
2. Darkside AU (murder boyfriends/villainy/monsters/possession)
3. Kink AU Sub/dom stuff, sex clubs, kink discovery
4. Profession AU (mechanic/lifeguard/tattoo artist/flowershop/doctor/chef/fireman/musicians/band/fashion--go wild)
5. Historic or Fantasy AU (Pirates/Princess Bride/Lord of the Rings/Avatar the Last Airbender)
6. Fairytale AU (princes/dragons/curses/good fairies, retellings of traditional tales/traditional themes)
7. Detective/Crime AU (mystery/buddy cops/investigation/Film Noir/Mafia)
8. Asian Drama/Martial Arts Drama AU (Untamed/Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Rookie Historian/Word of Honor, anything goes!)
9. Spies or heist AU (secret identities again if you like! James Bond, Leverage, Oceans 8, gadgets and plots)
10. Classic play/novel AU (Shakespeare/Jane Austen and modernizations like 10 Things I Hate About You/Clueless/don’t forget Pride and Prejudice/Dickens/whatever)
11. Monster/Huge Robot AU (Pacific Rim/Jurassic Park/Godzilla/Transformers)
12. Magic/Witches/Wizards AU (Harry Potter/Hocus Pocus/familiars/curses/daemons/body changes or swaps/hanahaki disease)
13. Natural disaster/Nature survival AU (volcanos/earthquakes/lost/Tarzan/living in the wilderness/dogsledding/mountain climbers)
14. Modern horror AU (Supernatural/Teen Wolf/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/weres/demons/hunters/zombies)
15. Queer Subculture AU (Gay/straight alliance clubs at school, drag, gender-non-conforming characters as the focus/Stonewall/protests)
16. Athlete AU (skaters/baseball players/skiiers/roller derby Robin/coaches for kids or each other)
17. Future/sci-fi AU (Terminator/5th Element/Blade Runner/Matrix/Jupiter Ascending etc.)
18. Stripper/pole dancer/burlesque/sex worker AU
19. Creatures AU (Fairies/mermaids/creatures not in a horror setting)
20. School AU (college/university/pranks/gradeschool/middleschool/drama class/school sports teams)
21. Classic Movie AU (Victor/Victoria, Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Some Like It Hot, Miyazaki movies, Coraline, Nightmare Before Christmas, comedies/musicals/anything)
22. Soulmates/ABO/Destiny/Red Strings AU
23. Animals AU (zoo workers/trainers/pet owners/characters as animals/horseback riding)
24. Historical AU (cowboys/musketeers/Babylonian royals/politics/soldiers/anything you like)
25. Kidfic AU Childhood friends or sweethearts/parents/babysitting/adoption
26. Mythology/gods/cryptids/urban legends AU (Also includes Lara Croft/Indiana Jones/American Gods/Percy Jackson)
27. Stranded together/forced proximity AU (paired up for work/ stranded/blind dates/project together/fake dating/arranged marriage/handcuffed/deserted island/in the Upside-Down/roommates)
28. Injury/disability/illness/dreamscape AU (Amnesia/injury aftereffects/barely survived/coma/hallucination/questioning reality)
29. Canon-adjacent AU (change one thing from canon, like gender/soulmates exist/an event/a death)
30. Internet/fandom AU (chat rooms/catfishing/texting/social media/Twitch/Onlyfans/early fansites/cons/cosplay)
31. TV Show AU (Star Trek/Baywatch/anime/Doctor Who/anything you like)
Alternates:
Apocalypse AU (zombies/bombs/post-natural disaster/aliens/Annihilation)
80’s movies AU (Gremlins/Lost Boys/Stand By Me/Goonies/Ghostbusters, Spielberg/Stephen King, Karate Kid/Cobra Kai, anything with an 80’s vibe=fair game! Google “movies released in the 80’s” and blow your mind)
RULES:
Anything goes, use these however you like to make whatever you’d like! Do some, do all, or just enjoy the stuff other people make! Tag your work HarringroveAUgust and reblog what you like! We’ll make a HarringroveAUgust collection on Ao3, I’ll make a link later. Add whatever you want! This is generally a Stranger Things fandom thing, but everybody’s welcome!
Have fun!
tagging @ihni and @cherrydreamer, my enablers (fixed at Ihni’s excellent tag suggestion!)
(Let’s kick of Harringrove AUgust with a Superpower AU)
Today sucked.
Firstly, he didn’t sleep well and as a result, couldn’t have gotten more than two hours of sleep. Secondly, his dad was on the warpath that morning so Billy found it more convenient to wait for Max in his car rather than have breakfast, meaning that he was not only sleep-deprived, but hungry too.
Thirdly, he had hiccups.
Weirdly enough, it was the third one that was bothering him the most. Because, see, Billy had a secret. A condition of sorts, which he usually had no problem hiding from his peers, or dealing with on the daily. Only, it was much harder to keep it under wraps when he hadn’t had any sleep. And when he had hiccups.
Hic.
Flames flickered to life on his knuckles where he was gripping the steering wheel, and then immediately died at his will. He exhaled a small puff of smoke, and the sight of it made him grind his teeth together.
“Uh,” Max said from the passenger seat, eyes flicking between Billy’s face and his hands.
Before she could say anything else, Billy bit out: “Not a word, Maxine.”
She held her hands up and mimed zipping her mouth shut, which didn’t help because Billy could still feel her eyes on him.
He tried very hard to concentrate on the road, on the engine running, on the music coming from the stereo – anything that would distract him from–
Hic.
Dammit. This time his whole hand caught on fire, and he swore and swerved the car when he let go of the wheel for a second to put the fire out by slapping at his jean-clad thighs.
He righted the car and steadfastly refused to look at Max. Who sighed wearily.
“Look, maybe you shouldn’t go to school today?”
“I’m going to school,” Billy said.
His dad wouldn’t be pleased if he got another call from school saying that Billy had skipped class. Then again, Billy thought as he unintentionally exhaled smoke yet again, maybe he’d be lenient this time. He knew about Billy’s special condition, after all, and was just as careful as Billy – maybe even more – when it came to keeping it a secret. None of them wanted anyone outside of the family to find out what Billy could do.
Because it had been a long time since Billy’s mom was a part of those sketchy government-sanctioned experiments – back in the sixties, long before Billy was even born – but Neil still got a dark look on his face when he talked about it. And he only talked to Billy about it when he was chewing him out for not being careful enough, and threatening him with what would happen to him – “and this whole family, William!” – if anyone was to find out.
“Whatever,” Max said, flippantly. “Just don’t burn the building down. I don’t wanna move again.”
Billy narrowed his eyes at that, but didn’t have a good comeback. That was one time. Like, you accidentally burn down one tiny abandoned building, and suddenly the San Diego police are sniffing around and talking about arson.
Whatever. Wasn’t like he was overly attached to that place anyway. Plus, it was colder in Hawkins. Less risk of any accidents happening.
Hic.
This time he kept his hands on the wheel until he could feel the plastic start to soften under his touch, at which point he sighed and willed the fire down and his temperature back to normal.
Max pointedly didn’t say anything. Somehow, her silence was loud.
He dropped her off at her school before driving over to Hawkins High. He kept hiccupping, and his hands kept sprouting flames that he had to keep willing away, and he kept breathing out smoke. By the time he parked his car he seriously considered just biting the bullet and going home.
But there was that History test – which Billy had actually studied for – and also his dad was working nights so he was home all day and Billy really didn’t want to spend any more time in his presence than strictly necessary. So, school it was.
Hic.
His sleeve briefly caught on fire, and he had to pat at it to put it out.
Right. So maybe he’d just wait out here for a while until he had his fire back under control. Being late for class was better than not showing up at all, and not outing himself as a freak of nature was worth the detention he was bound to get.
He stayed in his car until the bell rang and the parking lot was empty. Then he got out, stretched his arms over his head, took a deep breath, hiccupped right as his lungs were full, and promptly choked out a plume of flames from his mouth.
Good thing his hair was fucking fireproof, or he’d have no eyebrows left.
Covering his mouth with his hand as he coughed to clear his throat, he didn’t hear anyone approach and almost jumped a foot in the air when Steve Harrington showed up next to him with a small smile on his face.
“Are you skipping today?”
Billy coughed again behind his hand, to hide any lingering sparks, before straightening up somewhat while trying to look cool and collected and not like he was hiccupping fire.
“Nah. Just …” What’s a good excuse? “… finishing my smoke.” Good one.
Steve’s face lit up at that. “Yeah? Can I bum one?”
Fuck. His pack was still on his bedside table, forgotten when he hurried out of the house this morning.
“No, uh, it was my last one.”
And, dammit, now Steve’s face fell. The two of them were friendly these days, Billy kinda liked the guy (like, like-liked him even, not that he would admit that to himself or anyone else), and he didn’t want to wipe that smile off the other boy’s face. So he schooled his face into a somewhat regretful expression and lifted one shoulder. “Sorry.”
“Eh, no problem,” Steve said, picking up a pack of his own from his jacket pocket. He shook one out and put it between his lips, and Billy was struck by two things simultaneously: One, Steve was fucking sneaky, trying to bum a cigarette off of Billy when he had his own. And two, that cigarette looked good between Steve’s plump lips. Like. Really good. Good enough to distract Billy from whatever he was saying, apparently, as he didn’t tune in until Steve took the cigarette out of his mouth and waved it in Billy’s face.
“What?”
“I was asking if you’ve got a light?”
“Uh.” Shit. The lighter was in his pack, back home. “No, sorry.”
Steve raised an unimpressed eyebrow, and Billy realized he had fucked up – Steve must have seen his fire before he walked up to him, and now he thought Billy was holding back on him. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Steve just huffed and took a step back. “Okay. Whatever.”
“I –“
“I’m gonna go to class,” Steve continued and backed up another step.
“No, wait –”
Hic.
Sparks flew from Billy’s fingertips – from the hand he had extended towards Steve – and he could feel the blood drain from his face. In a fit of desperation, he closed his fist around nothing and said, way too loudly to sound normal;
“I forgot! I have a lighter here!”
Smooth.
Steve watched him as if he was crazy – which, fair – before hesitantly walking closer, holding his cigarette between two fingers and putting it back in his mouth. Billy attempted a smile – at the very least, he pulled his lips back and showed off his teeth – before closing one fist around his other hand, pretending to light a non-existent lighter as he conjured a small flame from the tip of his thumb.
He lit Steve’s cigarette for him, and then leaned back against his car, faux-casually, crossing his arms over his chest.
Steve took a drag and then squinted at him in suspicion. “What is that, some kind of magic trick?”
“What?”
“What you did with the lighter.”
“Right.” Because Billy was stupid, and had forgotten that he should have pretended to pick up the lighter from somewhere, and put it back after. “Yeah, it’s. Uh. Sleight of hand. You know.” He mimed putting his hands behind his back just in time for his next hiccup, managing to hide the fire this time, and then brought them to the front again, showing his empty hands, fingers splayed. “Ta-daa. It’s a trick.”
“Hm,” Steve said neutrally, and took another drag of his cigarette. “Cool.”
“Yeah,” Billy said, nodding like a bobble-head.
“You’ll have to teach me some time,” Steve continued and then looked over his shoulder when someone opened a window and yelled at them to get a move on, and that classes had started already.
Billy hiccupped again, but luckily Steve missed him snorting out flames through his nose like a dragon, as he was busy dropping his cigarette to the ground and grinding it into the asphalt.
“Better get going. You coming?”
The smile hadn’t returned to Steve’s face and he still looked a little cautious, but he was waiting for Billy so maybe their tentative friendship wasn’t fucked after all.
“Yeah, I, uh –“ Billy motioned to his car, as if to hint at him having to get something out of it first, you go along, Steve, I’ll catch up, when –
Hic.
Steve’s eyes widened comically when the hand Billy was motioning with burst into flames. Billy closed his eyes and hid his face in his (still burning, because fuck everything) hands, as Steve started shouting.
“What the fuck?”
Today was the worst.
(Link to fic on AO3) (Collection on AO3 if you wanna join in on the fun)
The future is bleak, but your love is my right now. (Teen, 3.6k words, finished)
In the darkness, the only light is the flashing ball. Steve can’t take his eyes off it. Cannot look away as it condenses down smaller and smaller. Then begins spinning quicker than a tornado.
Around them everything seems to be kicked up into the air. The magazines Steve brought all get torn to confetti as they spin around the circle. Completely littering the floor in glossy photographs. In white articles of text. Now trash that moves and sticks to the circle as it spins.
The ball flickers with a shadow inside of it. Once licking against the ceiling, now the ball was roughly the size of a man. Of Steve. And the shadow that was inside the sparking lights sure seemed to him like someone crouched there.
And the instant change that makes in Steve has his feet moving.
He crosses the living room towards the door, keeping his back to the light to shield El from the many flying particles. She hasn’t stopped screaming and it’s starting to make his ears ring.
But he knows he can’t let her get hurt. He has to do this.
(The Terminator Au from yesterday’s prompt in Harringrove AUgust: Day 17- future/ sci-fi au. Sorry I’m a day short!! But I really hope y’all enjoy this quick take on the first Terminator movie🖤🖤)
There was a pointed click as Steve snapped his phone closed and tucked it back into his pocket. Joyce had given him a lead that would help Nancy and Jonathan with finding the Chinese scientist, and he had taken a minute too long forwarding the information to Nancy.
Enough time for his husband- No. Not his anything. Not anymore.
Enough time for Billy to snap out of whatever drug the Pavlovich's brothers had used to sedate him.
"What's her obsession with you? You guys got, like, a mommy-son thing going on?" Billy's voice was slurred but clearly mocking, brow furrowed in a fake worried expression. Trying to get a rise out of him probably.
Steve could only stare, eyes burning, as he did his very best to hold back the tears that threatened to spill.
"What's your plan? Is Mommy coming over? Is she gonna make me talk?"
"No, she's not." He muttered with a slight shake of his head, eyes never leaving Billy's blue eyes.
Those blue eyes that he had seen a thousand times before, in bed, right after he woke up, across from him on the table, next to him whenever he needed them. So many moments spent together. Moments he had believed every word and every feeling were real.
Lies. All lies.
"I am." And he's so glad that his voice comes out steadier than he feels.
Billy's eyes widen just the tiniest bit, mouth twitching up for a split second. It's clear he doesn't believe Steve is capable of that. Good. Let him underestimate him.
Steve takes the seat across from Billy on the table, arms crossed over his chest to prevent himself from fidgeting. "Who do you work for?"
"I have nothing to say."
Guess it's going to be that way then.
With a roll of his eyes, Steve gets up and walks over to the kitchen. Opens the tool cabinet and rustles around until he finds the pliers. Takes them out and walks over to where Billy is bound to the kitchen chair, sliding a hand over his shoulder in a threatening grip.
"Who do you work for?" He repeats, taking Billy's thumb between the teeth of the pliers.
"Stevie, come on." There was the smallest hint of panic in Billy's voice. So tiny that only someone who knew him well might've been able to notice it. Steve tries not to think about how much that hurts. "You don't have it in you."
He doesn't bother giving an answer. Instead, he tightens the pliers, twisting them until he hears the telltale crunch of bones breaking under the force. Billy screams from the pain, squirming in his seat as if trying to get away but Steve doesn't relent his hold.
Once he's satisfied that the thumb is broken, he steps back and walks back to his seat. His hand and the teeth of the pliers are covered in Billy's blood but he doesn't give a single flying fuck about it. He can worry about clean up later.
"You broke my thumb." Billy's smiling. His voice sounds slightly disbelieving but there's a smile on his face that doesn't seem to be born from joy.
"Yeah, I did." And okay, maybe Steve can't quite believe he did that but he doesn't feel bad. Not in the slightest. "If you're looking for sympathy you might wanna start with honesty."
The smile drops, lips thinning into a flat line at the same time those blue eyes glare back at him.
"Here's an example of honesty, Billy." Adrenaline courses through Steve in spikes that leave him feeling heady, giggles sticking in his throat. He knows it's a little silly, a little dumb, but he rather laugh like a loon than break down crying in front of Billy. "You've been making me pancakes for two years. I hate pancakes."
"You want honest? Here's one." Billy learns forward as best as he can, despite the pain he must be in right now. "If you're gonna handcuff somebody, don't break their thumb."
His words take a second too long to register.
Steve barely gets enough time to step back from the trajectory of the chair, as Billy pulls out his hand from the bindings and flips the chair over the table, successfully freeing himself from the remaining binding on his feet. He tries to scramble away towards the lamp in an attempt to use it to defend himself, but Billy slamming the chair against his back ends up throwing him against the floor, gasping for air.
With difficulty, he manages to grab the bar of the lamp and get to his feet, at the same time Billy lunges at him with the chair again. He manages to deflect the hit and send the chair careening off to the side but the distraction is enough for Billy to land a pointed kick to his midsection that sends him careening back into the desk.
Billy tries to pin him down then but Steve manages to squirm out of his grasp and tip the bookcase over in an effort to distract him so Steve has enough time to reach over for his gun that sits by the coffee table. Just as his hand closes against the handle, he feels a body slam into his back, the gun sliding over the wooden floor.
They scramble for purchase, kicking and scratching at whatever piece of the other they can hold onto but in the end, Billy ends up winning. He gets his hands around the gun and points it down at Steve, arms steady despite the way he's panting.
"Your handcuffs. One on the wrist, one on the banister. Do it." Billy doesn't yell but he commands, all the while keeping the gun pointed right at Steve's head.
Reluctantly, he does as he's told, glaring at Billy while he does it. He's going to leave and Steve will have lost him. Lost his chance for answers. Forever.
Fuck.
"I am not here to hurt you, Stevie. My job was never to hurt you." Billy's voice tries for placating as if the gun he's got pointed at Steve's face is more for his own protection than a way to threaten the brunette. "I'm one of the good guys. Byers, she's not who you think."
"I will find you," Steve growls, ignoring the tears that slide freely down his bruised cheeks.
"I can prove it." Billy insists, a plead more than anything else. "The key in the lamp, I know you found it. Take it to Radford Bank. Box number 3929. She is not who you think she is."
There's remorse in those blue eyes as well as determination. It burns inside his chest and fights to drag out a hushed sob past Steve's lips. Billy's hand twitches, almost as if he wanted to reach out but had to hold himself back at the last moment. With a heavy sigh, he lowers the gun.
"Goodbye, Stevie."
The sound of the door closing behind him had never been so loud.
(For Harringrove AUgust day 14: "Modern horror AU" - inspired by Supernatural)
~~
When Billy was nine years old, his mother died. Not in a car accident, like they told her family, and not from cancer, like they told most everyone else after that – no, Billy’s mother was killed by a monster.
Billy knows, because Billy was there when it happened.
Three days. Just over fifty-eight hours. That’s how long Billy and his mom spent in the Otherverse. Billy doesn’t remember much from his time there; it was dark, and cold, and hard to breathe. There were monsters there, that his mother tried her best to shield him from. She jumped in front of one of them to save him, and that’s how she died. Not immediately, though. It took some time. When she had dragged herself and Billy into the wrong version of their house, and barricaded themselves in the wrong version of their bathroom, she bled out over the course of four and a half hours.
Billy knows, because her wristwatch still worked.
He spent an additional eight hours in there with her body, after she had stopped breathing, before Neil came for them – armed to the teeth and ready to go through whatever monsters dwelled there to save his wife and his kid.
He only got the kid.
The experience changed them both, and not for the better. Billy could hardly ever sleep through the night, now when he knew that monsters were real. And Neil let his grief consume him, and warp his feelings for his son into resentment – “Why did you get to live, when she had to die?” he had asked once, when he was drunk, a couple of months after it had happened. Billy had no answer to that.
After the funeral, Neil sold their house – neither of them had stayed there since the night Billy’s mother died, anyway; the memories of what happened there in the Otherverse too overwhelming – as well as all their furniture and most of their belongings, and less than two weeks later they left town, never to return.
From that day on, they drifted. From place to place, town to town, looking to do one thing only; kill monsters. Save other families from having to suffer through what had happened to them.
At least that was the reason Billy used. It was many years later when he realized that his dad didn’t do it for the people they saved – he did it because he wanted revenge, on the world and on the monsters that had killed his wife.
They weren’t exactly a normal family. Neil taught Billy everything he thought he would need in life, but none of those things were what normal people would call essential skills. Billy could drive at eleven, stitched his dad’s wounds up when he was thirteen (his own, the year after). Neil taught him how to shoot a gun and how to fight; to use everything to his advantage.
He also taught Billy how to deal with people. How to be charming and how to act to get what he wanted. How to talk his way into places he wasn’t supposed to be in, and how to talk his way out of those same places once he was discovered.
School was Billy’s training grounds. In all the schools he attended – and none of them lasted very long, just until they moved on – he played a different role. Neil would instruct him to ‘make friends with the bullies’ or ‘make friends with the bullied’ or ‘join the football team’ or ‘start a fight, win it, and don’t get caught’. Whatever it was, Billy did it. His dad called it training. Billy secretly thought of it as homework. If he did well, he was rewarded with a pat on the shoulder, and more freedom. If he failed at something Neil had told him to do, he got punished for it.
Neil was an unforgiving man. He didn’t accept failure. “Failure will get you killed,” he always said as he was doling out Billy’s punishment. “Or worse, get someone else killed. In our line of work, we can’t afford to make mistakes.”
At times, Billy would be bitter about his lot in life. Would occasionally – stupidly – express a wish to be a real teenager and just go out and have fun for the sake of having fun. More often than not, it would earn him a beating, and afterwards Neil would look at him with cold, disappointed eyes and tell him that if he didn’t do his job, his mom would have died in vain. He would remind Billy that she died saving him, and that if Billy wouldn’t do his best to kill the monsters, then her sacrifice was for nothing.
Billy never had a comeback for that.
When Billy was fifteen, Neil saved a woman from a tallun (the same kind of Otherverse creature that had killed Billy’s mom – nine-year-old Billy, shaking with cold, had tried to call it a “tall one” when Neil came for him, and the name had stuck), and surprisingly they stuck around for several weeks even after they closed the rift in that place. Billy finally understood why, when Neil declared his intention to marry the woman.
The woman was called Susan, and she was a mousy little thing. Maybe she hadn’t been, before her encounter with otherworldly monsters who wanted to eat her, but if she’d had a backbone before, it was gone now. She seemed relieved and content to have Neil – a big, strong man who could protect her against the evils that lurked in the dark – as a husband.
She had a daughter too, Max. Max knew nothing about the Otherverse or what dwelled in it, and Billy was forbidden to breathe a word about it where she could hear. That was part of Susan’s terms for agreeing to marry Neil; Max was to be protected from the harsh realities of the world for as long as possible.
Billy gritted his teeth, but followed his dad’s orders; he drove his new sister around and babysat her when Neil brought Susan out for reconnaissance missions – because he always attracted less attention when he was with his wife. Billy taught Max how to skate and how to smoke and how to drive (but never how to shoot or throw a punch or pick locks). And he kept his mouth shut.
Susan and Max gave them credibility. Where a single father and a teenage son who kept strange hours may have raised some eyebrows, a nice white suburban family with two kids were as normal as they came. They were basically invisible.
In October of 1984, they headed to Hawkins, after Neil followed a paper trail that led him to the lab just outside of the small town. He and Billy had encountered facilities like that before – where they tried to create rifts, and experimented with whatever they could find in there – and this one was no different. The objective was the same; get in, find out what’s happening, and find a way to close the rift – preferably after burning the world beyond.
They still used the name Hargrove, which was an alias they’d had for a couple of years now. Neil took a job as a janitor at the lab, working the early shifts; early morning to midday. Billy climbed the social ladder in school and reached the top without much effort, and it was a good place for information. Everyone wanted to impress the cool guy from California with all the juicy gossip Hawkins had to offer.
It took Billy an embarrassingly long time to figure out that some people knew, here. In his defense, the people who seemed to know were kids, and used words for the Otherverse and its creatures that Billy had never heard. He didn’t put it all together until the night when his dad made him go out and find his runaway step-sister, and he found her at the Byers place in the middle of the woods. At first, he’d thought it was a whole different kind of sketchy going on, and had kicked his classmate Harrington’s ass for it. But when he woke up on the wooden floor, hours later with a pounding headache and blood on his neck from a needle, and found a goddamn demon dog in the fridge, well. He realized then that it was their kind of sketchy.
He was waiting on the porch when the kids returned, and he drove Max home without a word. Back at the house, he let Susan take her daughter away while Billy reported the night’s events to his dad and then took his punishment for, apparently, ‘letting Max get involved in this in the first place’.
Somewhat surprisingly, they stayed in Hawkins. Neil – one of the first ones on the scene at the lab the day after everything went down – had to sign a bunch of papers and got some hush money, and was advised not to leave the town for the foreseeable future. He told Billy that there were other things going on, and that from what he’d been able to piece together, they might as well stay. It would save them the trouble of having to come back, when shit hit the fan the next time. And Neil was sure shit would hit the fan.
Secretly, Billy agreed. He’d been watching, now that he knew what to look for, and it was only a matter of time before something showed up here again.
~~
Which is what leads him to this current moment, when he’s fighting his way through a pack of de-dogs to clear a path for a gaggle of pale children huddled together – including his sister – who are looking at him like he’s covered in monster guts or something.
Which he kind of is, so. Fair.
“Get to the car, now!” he growls, and slashes at a dog with his machete.
The kids move as one to the car, and pushes each other to get in. Billy doesn’t wait to see if they’re properly buckled in, he just slides over the hood and gets in the driver’s seat in one fluid motion.
He floors it, and they leave a few straggler de-dogs behind. The kids are talking over each other, but he’s not listening.
“Do you know where the rift is?” he asks once they get back out on the road, cutting through their chatter.
“The … what?” says the one with the curly hair, Henderson.
“You know,” Billy says, “where the dogs come through from the Otherverse.”
“Wait, you know?”
Billy pulls on his sleeve to show off an old scar, and sneers, “I’ve known since you were in diapers, short stuff.”
That seems to shake all of them – Max included – and Billy looks in the mirror to see if the dogs followed them, even though it’s unlikely. He pulls the Camaro to the side of the road and gets out, goes to the trunk.
Unsurprisingly, the kids follow him. They watch as he opens the trunk, and gasp out loud when he opens the false bottom to show off his monster hunting gear; guns, knives, another machete, an axe, a shotgun. Gasoline, rags, a well-stocked first-aid-kit. He picks up a notebook wedged in behind two bottles of lighter fluid, and holds it up. “I know about the Otherverse – what you call the Upside Down. In here is everything we know about it and the creatures we’ve killed from there – the talluns, the de-dogs, the deer and the droppers. We also know about the shadows, and the slitters. There’s a map of the places where we’ve closed rifts before.”
He throws the book at Henderson, who catches it clumsily and looks like he’s just been handed the Holy Grail.
“Now,” Billy says, and smiles like a shark. “You guys and I are gonna compare notes and find out where this goddamn rift is, so that I can kick some monster ass and get the damned thing closed.”
Day FIVE of Harringrove AUgust: Fantasy AU. When the curse hits Billy, Steve has hold of his hand. He doesn't know it affected him too, until later.
It all started when Billy Hargrove got thrown in the dungeon.
No, Steve corrected himself, it all started when the Court Magician decided Queen Susan should marry him, and started firing spells everywhere when she said no. She’d thrown he and all his supporters in the dungeon, and he’d turned everyone else in the dungeons into rats, and started firing curses up through the ceiling in hopes of catching the queen.
Mostly they’d bounced off the solid granite rockwork, but a few rats—guards, or prisoners, or perhaps a combination of the two—had been turned to stone as well. The Captain of the Guard, Robin Buckley, had been standing near the water wheel that brought the castle’s water, and a curse had bounced up and turned her into a dragon—not that she minded, once she asked her lady love about it.
Steve was the last to hear, it felt like, and he was running down to the dungeons when Queen Susan grabbed his arm, and told him to stop.
“I need to go down there,” Steve told her, his heart pounding, and the Queen said he might look through the door of the dungeons, just so they’d know where the Court Magician was. If Captain Robin could still fit her yards of scaly tail and wide spiky haunches down the narrow stairwell, the queen said wryly, she wouldn’t allow Steve anywhere near, because everyone knew dragons were resistant to magic.
“I’ve written every magician in the nine realms,” she said, squeezing his fingers worriedly. “Someone will—someone will come to help. If we must blow the wall of the dungeons open to handle the problem,” she said softly, “—then we will, but there are so many people down there, and rats are small and fragile.”
Steve nodded, squeezing her thin hands in return, his throat closing at the thought.
The Court Magician saw him through the bars, and started calling to him, since his brilliant plan to turn everyone into rats had not opened the cell doors, and his genius plan to then turn them to stone had also not opened the cell doors. Steve could see Billy in the cell with him, looking exhausted in the corner.
“You’ll beg me for release when my plans come to fruition,” the Court Magician laughed, and Steve didn’t bother telling him that Robin would never sully her role as Captain of the Guard by using her new dragon strength to cause mayhem. The only screams since she’d become a dragon—happy ones—came from her bedroom, and her lady love glowed with blushing fervor now more than ever.
Turning Captain Robin into a dragon had still had no effect on the locked cell doors.
Steve watched Billy Hargrove, wedged into the corner of the cell. He was dirty, slumped to the side, and Steve bit his lips together, looking around for something he could do.
The Court Magician paced the floor, threatening to turn all the rats into elephants that could crash their way out.
“Even if they did,” Billy sighed, “—we’d still be locked in here.”
The Court Magician turned on his heel to glare at his son, raising his arms—they were already glowing—and Steve threw the door to the dungeon open and ran in.
“Billy,” he yelled, reaching in to beckon him closer to the bars. Steve stuck his sword through, uselessly, towards Billy’s dad.
He didn’t make it in time.
The curse hit Billy just as Steve’s outstretched arm brushed his shoulder, and Billy screamed, a sharp gutteral sound, as Steve dropped his sword—it wasn’t long enough—and hucked a stone rat in at the Court Magician’s head. The Magician dodged, ducking away, and Steve grabbed and threw more rats as he glanced at where Billy had been, and saw a...crow.
“Come here, you can fit through the bars,” Steve hissed at it, beaning the Court Magician with a rat to the head at last, at which point he spun to face him, raising his arms again. “Billy,” Steve hissed. “Come here—”
The crow watched him, its head cocked as it fluffed its feathers nervously. “Run,” it croaked.
Just as Steve dove out of the path of the curse—it turned a stone rat into what looked like pudding, and Steve stared in horror as it spread into a puddle, and began to soak into the floor—the crow flew wildly and smacked the Magician in the side of the head, then scrabbled through the bars.
Steve grabbed Billy in his cape, trying to hold the fragile bones gently, and he squawked.
“Run—Harrington, run—”
The magician blasted more rats into pudding as Steve fled down the hall—he’d been relieved to be able to see into the magician’s cell from the stairwell, but he didn’t dare try and run back out of the door with the Court Magician five feet away, turning living beings into pools of chocolate, vanilla, and a nauseating green slime he suspected was pistachio.
The crow in his arms started shouting—half caws, half words. “What are you doing down here,” Billy croaked at him. “Why would—you’re stuck now, why are you down here—”
“Sssh,” Steve told him. “If we can sneak by him through the door, we can get out of here.”
“He won’t let you get to that door,” Billy croaked, fluffing his feathers like he was cold. “You’re the only target left. He won’t even sleep. No one else would be stupid enough to come down here—”
“Ah,” said Steve, imagining the days of waiting until more magicians arrived, and trying to resist the lure of pudding. He stopped to think.
“...why did you come in,” Billy chirruped softly, cocking his black feathered head to focus a bright black eye on Steve’s face. “You shouldn’t’ve come in.”
“I couldn’t just stand there.” Steve told him, rolling his eyes. “He was doing something to you.” He trotted down to the deepest, dankest parts of the dungons, past the wine cellars and the old disused castle barracks, from before they added the upper floors.
“You could have,” Billy said darkly, and Steve sighed, and then saw the door he was looking for. “You should have...why the hell are we going into the privy drainage,” Billy asked, flapping irritably, and Steve snorted a laugh, breathing through his mouth as he walked down the stone ramp, and stood against the bars. His boots sloshed in the ankle-deep sewage.
“Here,” Steve said. “I, uh. You—you’ll fit through the bars. I can just—I can toss you to the side, so you don’t fall.” They looked down at the mountainside where the privies drained into open air, and the rising fog far below.
“What,” Billy croaked.
“There are bushes and things around the sides, you won’t fall. You can go,” Steve told him, pushing the hand Billy was clinging to through the bars. He waved it within brushing distance of the jutting rocks that supported the drainage pipe. “Go on.”
“I—I can’t just leave you down here,” Billy squawked, scrabbling at Steve’s gauntlet as Steve tried to shake him off. “We don’t know when they’ll find someone to undo his curses—”
“Go,” Steve insisted. “You can’t help me here—”
“I can’t help you out there, either,” Billy cawed, pecking at him. “I’m a crow—”
“Just go,” Steve said, laughing a little, because Billy’s anger sounded funnier as a bird. “It’s getting dark.”
“I’ll come back. I’ll bring you some food, at least,” Billy said, clinging to Steve’s fingers with his talons, and sounding a bit muffled as he grabbed Steve’s sleeve with his beak as well.
“Turn around! Aim for the bushes!” Steve hissed, laughing, and wondering whether he’d ever see Billy’s real face again. He set his jaw. “Let go. We don’t know whether you can fly—” he said, sternly, trying not to smile, when the whole castle lit up with a purple glow.
There was a whud of air pressure, and Steve went deaf, clinging to Billy with both hands so he didn’t fall down the mountainside. He could see Billy cawing, but couldn’t hear anything for a few moments, and then there was silence. No voices from the guard stations above on the bridge, no wagon wheels, no voices chattering in the kitchen above, only the ponderous grind of the waterwheel.
“What,” Steve whispered, staring back over his shoulder towards the dungeons.
“Are—are you—how are you still human,” Billy whispered, clambering up his arm to stare him down with ond beady eye. “That—I felt that. I didn’t change. The curse before, it must have hit you too—”
“You should go,” Steve told him again. Billy clutched at his hand, scrambling with his black bird feet, and Steve realized his hand was shaking, and Billy was trying not to fall. “You—you can get out.” Billy was barely visible in the last rays of the setting sun. “You have to go,” Steve said, shoving him through the bars again as Billy squawked and clung.
“No, no, wait—” Billy cawed, “We need to know if something happened to you—” but something was wrong, and Steve just shoved him at the bushes as his legs shook and collapsed.
He banged his face into the bars as he fell, and blinked at the floor of the tunnel, his skull aching.
He had paws.
Billy kept yelling, and finally Steve whined, a rumbling, high-pitched wheeze, as warm hands pulled him through the bars, and he buried his face in the smell at Billy’s neck.
“Self-sacrificing bastard,” Billy whispered. “...jesus, your ears are soft.”
Steve chose not to dignify that with a response, partly because Billy was trying to climb across the cliff face to the castle gates carrying a dog, and he probably needed to focus.
“I have you,” Billy mumbled distractedly. “I won’t let you fall. We—we’ll go somewhere and—” he took a shaky breath. “We’ll—take a rest,” he said, hefting Steve against his chest. “Wait for someone to—to fix this. I—I’ll find you something—something a beagle can eat,” he said, laughing a little hysterically, and Steve licked his jaw. Billy laughed harder, or maybe he was crying.
Steve was one of the royal hounds, then, he thought. It made sense in a way, as a royal guard, but he wondered why it had taken nearly half an hour after the curse hit for him to change—or several minutes after the wave of magic, when all the other castle noise had stopped instantly.
“I’ll keep you safe,” Billy said, scrambling up through the scrubby brush and jagged rocks to the road.
Steve whined again, trying to get down, because there was no need for Billy to carry him, not now that they were on the road.
“Shut up,” Billy muttered, creeping along in the dark. “You don’t wanna look around.”
Steve could see, some, the colors drained from the magic lanterns by his hound’s eyes, or maybe the darkness. He stared over Billy’s shoulder at the frozen shapes of the guards, and the horses that had been hauling the wagon. Other than Billy, he could smell no living creatures at all.
“If you hadn’t opened that door like an idiot, I guess you’d still be in that stairwell, cursed,” Billy muttered. “What in the seven hells did you think you were doing, Harrington?”
Steve tried to huff a reply, but no hound can mimic human voices in the way a corvid can, and he just made a growly groan.
Billy snorted a laugh. “Good, you can listen for once. When everything’s...fixed, when you’re a guard again, you have to take me back in Take me to the guard. You’ll end up in the dungeons too, otherwise.”
Steve barked, growling, and Billy laughed again.
“It’s funny how I can guess what you’re saying,” he said, adjusting Steve’s weight in his arms. “But this was never gonna work. I thought it might,” he said, going a little hoarse. “I thought—before my father—” he cut off, taking a shaky breath. “But you’re in the royal guard, and they’re going to kill me, with my father, as soon as they can.”
The whining noise kept going without Steve really intending to make it. He growled, resorting to licking Billy’s whole face since he didn’t have hands, or a human voice.
Billy found an empty stall in the gatehouse, and sat down in the hay with Steve in his arms. He leaned his head back in the straw. “Your eyes are the same,” he whispered, stroking Steve’s ears as he fell asleep.
Steve woke with hands, and patted his face, looking around frantically. The crow he knew was Billy was perched on the stall door, looking ruffled. “Are you well,” Steve whispered, getting up to smooth the straw out of Billy’s black feathers.
“It’s the sun,” Billy croaked, turning his head a little towards Steve’s hand, and then sidling clumsily away. Steve stepped closer again, smiling, and ran a finger down the soft feathers of Billy’s head. Billy stilled, watching him. “It—it’s the sun,” he said again, tipping his head as Steve petted him. “It—I,” he chirruped, fluttering his wings a little, and making garbled bird noises.
“I know you love it when I stroke your head,” Steve told him, watching him fluff up in annoyance.
“I changed back at sunrise,” Billy cawed, turning away. “So did you. That must—that must be what he did. The curse hit both of us. It’s—it’s divided somehow. That’s why you aren’t a stone rat in the sewer pipe.”
“We’ll fix this,” Steve told him, running a finger down between Billy’s wings. “I’m not losing you.”
“You already have,” Billy croaked, but he leaned into it as Steve carefully picked him up.
“No,” Steve told him, kissing his feathers. “You’re still here.”
“...I flew around and found some food,” Billy said, stepping a little closer, and Steve wished he could kiss him, the way he had behind the glass house in the gardens.
“Her Majesty will see reason,” he promised aloud, to Billy and to himself. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I could have seen the signs,” Billy croaked softly, as Steve scratched around the base of his skull. “I should have seen this coming.”
“I could sneak back in,” Steve said, and Billy climbed him in a panic, his wings fluttering wildly.
“No! No! Harrington!” he cawed, just like a crow, Steve thought fondly.
“Billy,” he said, stroking his feathers. “If—if something—” he winced. “If your father died,” he asked, with a grimace. “Would the spells dissolve?”
“...hard to say,” Billy said, sounding calm, but his heart was pounding like a rabbit’s against Steve’s fingers. “Don’t go back in there. Please.”
“I could shoot him. Aim a crossbow through the bars of the door,” Steve whispered, and Billy tried clambering up his collar again.
“That stairwell is so damned small, that grate is too small,” he croaked. “What if you miss. Harrington. Please.”
“...hrm,” Steve said, unwilling to completely surrender.
“At least we’re together,” Steve said that night, just before he changed, and Billy’s shiny black eyes glittered in the light of the magic lanterns as he watched Steve drop into the straw, groaning softly as his body rippled and changed.
“We aren’t,” Billy said, once he was human again, “—not really.”
Steve relished it, though—he and Billy alone for days, a week, a week and a half, talking as much as they liked. Billy was furious at his father, and kept talking about his own imminent execution, but Steve—secretly—kept hoping for more time with him. Billy wasn’t a noble anymore, he thought guiltily, not with his father stripped of all rank.
The son of the Court Magician had been out of reach, for a guardsman.
“We’re going to run out of fresh food,” Billy said one evening, as they picked at the potato soup Steve had made.
“I can go in to the gardens,” Steve offered cautiously. “Or get a chicken.”
“Don’t even think of going back in the castle,” Billy told him, and Steve sighed.
“I won’t.”
Billy perched on a stone horse as Steve ate, ruffling his feathers in agitation.
“I won’t go,” Steve told him. “You have my word.”
Steve took Billy to three different bookstores in the town, stepping around the stone inhabitants, and then they raided the houses of two priests and a local witch.
“Read this to me,” Billy said, scrabbling at a book, and Steve read the table of contents, and then the chapter marked with a moon. “...alright,” Billy said. “Is there a calendar somewhere?”
Steve wandered around with his bossy crow on his shoulder until they found one, and Billy fluttered his wings again, chirruping.
“You’re acting like a bird again,” Steve told him, and Billy nipped his ear.
“This curse has happened before,” he said, “—and it was unbreakable, until the caster saw the two cursed under the light of an eclipse.”
“Oh,” Steve said. He could still be a guard, he thought, even if he was a dog every night, but he imagined Billy trying to live his life as a crow, and bit his lips. He didn’t think being with Steve was enough to want to live as a crow.
He tried not to think about Billy’s lips, either, or how it felt in his arms. It is unbreakable, he told himself, and took a steadying breath.
“There’s an eclipse in two days,” Billy said, dully.
“Then we can save you,” Steve burst out, laughing with relief. “We can save you!”
“No, we can’t, Harrington,” Billy said. “There’s no one here to help, yet. You can’t fight him on your own, he’ll turn you into—”
“We need Robin,” Steve said, dropping the scroll and running out of the house. “She’s a dragon, now. We need Robin.”
“I’m no help as a crow—Harrington! Wait!” Billy cawed, flying after him. “Wait, you can’t go in there—”
Steve ignored him, dodging around the stone figures on the road as he ran back to the castle. “Be quiet,” he told Billy. “He’ll never know we’re here.”
“It doesn’t matter about the eclipse, we can’t use it,” Billy croaked, swooping at his head. “Go back! Go back—”
“It matters for you,” Steve said, dodging, and running through the gates. He tried not to look at his friends, the stone guardsmen on either side of the gates.
Billy was silent by the time they found Robin, lying on her back on the battlements, singing a sad little song. “Magician,” she hissed, and Steve yelped “Steve Harrington! Steve Harrington!” as he dove back into the tower.
“Ah,” she said. “Come out, then. Where have you been?”
“We need your help,” Steve told her. “Or Billy will never see the sun as a human again.”
“Billy Hargrove,” she said, tonelessly, and Steve nodded, staring her down. After a while, she breathed out a curling, trailing plume of smoke. “You could die.”
“I know,” Steve said, shrugging a little. He dreaded the idea of trying to help Billy live his daily life as a crow, all the while watching him grow angrier.
“Don’t do this for me,” Billy croaked softly. “Wait it out. Wait for help, Harrington—”
“I was thinking Robin could tear the grate off,” Steve told them. “Climb in the way we escaped. It’s not that narrow.”
“Hrm,” she said. “Billy?”
“...here,” he cawed.
“What are your thoughts?”
“Sit on your guardsman until help comes,” he said. “He’ll be unhappy living as a dog at night, but he’ll be alive.”
“...a dog,” she said.
“A beagle,” Billy agreed.
“We can’t break the curse unless he sees us both human, in two days,” Steve told her, scratching Billy absently. Having a hand on Billy was habit, after so long, and it was bittersweet thinking of him uncursed, with no need of Steve to read books for him.
“...a beagle,” Robin said, with a suspiciously amused rumble in her voice, and Steve sighed.
Every morning, Billy braced himself—no matter what pose he was in as a human, the daily transformation into a bird always left him in midair, squawking indignantly. Robin laughed and laughed, big steaming tears running down her scaley cheeks.
“I wonder if you can be turned back,” Steve said aloud, as they roasted a deer she’d caught, later that day.
“I don’t mind either way,” she said, letting fire flicker between her teeth.
The day of the eclipse, Robin yanked the grate off like it was soft clay. They burst into the dungeons to find the Court Magician nearly unconscious with thirst, and Robin ripped the bars away and stood with one foot crushing the man’s head into the floor as he blearily regarded Billy and Steve. When the eclipse ended, Steve grabbed Billy’s hands and kissed him, laughing and crying with relief, but Billy was tense against him.
“I’m turning myself in, then,” he told Robin, squeezing Steve’s hand.
“To what?” she asked cheerfully, stomping on the magician’s kneecap as he screamed. “Turn them all back,” she said, and he moaned, trying to curl into a ball.
“I’m turning myself in to you,” Billy said again, his voice dull. “To the captain of the guard.”
“Nonsense,” Robin said, lifting the magician’s head with her enormous talons, and pointing him at various stone rats that swelled, and groaned, and returned to being people. Two dried puddles of pudding grew out of the floor, and Steve heaved a sigh of relief. “You two saved the kingdom,” Robin said. “You’re heroes.”
“What,” Billy said, and Steve kissed him again, squeezing him around the shoulders as hard as he could. It felt good to hold him. “No, what,” Billy whispered, bewildered, his voice hoarse as a crow’s.
“It’s over,” Steve told him, kissing him again, gentler this time, and Billy relaxed into it with a shuddery sigh, closing his eyes.
“Thank god you can stop licking me,” he muttered, and Steve stuck his tongue in Billy’s ear.
(Day 2 of Harringrove AUgust: Darkside AU/possession)
~~~
It is late at night at Old Cherry Road. The street is dark. People are asleep, and the lights are out in all the houses – except for at number 5280, where there is a light shining through the curtains in what must be the living room. The porch lights are on as well.
The young man parks his car – his banged up, dented car with a newly broken windshield – in the driveway, next to a well-kept truck, and gets out. His movements are choppy and stiff, as if he is not used to the body he is in. There is no expression on his face whatsoever. No life behind blue eyes.
He shuts car door with so much force that the window on the driver’s side cracks. The sound is loud in the night. He does not seem to notice. Instead he walks (stumbles, staggers) up to the house. The door opens before he can reach for it.
There is a man there. The young man’s father. He is red in the face with anger and points at the car – the banged up, dented car with the newly broken windshield – and hisses (yells) at the young man. He grabs his son by the arm and drags him into the house. The son lets it happen, his face a blank mask.
The door closes. The porch light switches off. The street is dark.
~
Inside, the man roughly pushes his son up against the door. The young man does not flinch, even if the door handle must dig painfully into his back. When the father grabs his chin in one meaty hand and shoves his head back against the door, the son just breathes in sharply through his nose. But he says nothing, and he does not break eye contact. Does not wince, even though the older man’s fingers are digging into his skin.
The father’s voice is grave. Serious. Vibrating with anger. But he keeps his volume low, as if reluctant to raise his voice. There are other occupants in this house. And neighbors close by. All of them asleep.
The angry words he sprouts are not for any of them. They are for the young man, who just stands there and lets them wash over him with his arms at his sides. It is not what the father wants. He leans in closer. Shoves at the young man again. Spits ugly, foul words in his face to get a reaction.
But the young man does not react to the words, or to the spittle that hits his cheek. He looks his father in the eye, and continues to say nothing.
His head snaps to the side with the force of the slap, his hair whipping across his face with the motion. The older man takes a step back, poised to strike again. He is breathing heavily, face distorted in a snarl, a challenge in his eyes.
What do you have to say for yourself, son?
But, oh. He doesn’t know. The young man is not the father’s son. Not anymore.
Slowly, the young man straightens up from his leaned-over position. Slowly, he turns his head to meet the older man’s gaze.
Slowly, a grin stretches across his face.
It looks wrong. Like it does not belong there. Like whatever is wearing his body like an ill-fitting suit has never smiled before, and is trying it out. Trying and failing. The lips are pulled back and the teeth are showing, but it does not reach his eyes.
It is not a happy smile. It is a threat. A promise of pain to come.
The father takes a step back. Instinct. A prey’s reaction to a predator. The anger flickers into confusion for a second. Perhaps in an effort to cover it up, he frowns. Reaches out a hand, points a finger at the young man, opens his mouth to spew more vitriol –
But before he can, the young man’s hand shoots out. He grabs the father’s wrist, and bends it backwards until something snaps under the skin. The sound is loud in the hall. The man draws a breath to scream, but he never gets the chance to. The son’s other hand flies to his throat, and the man’s scream dies in a gurgle when strong fingers – too strong fingers – stop any air from escaping.
The threat-smile is still on the young man’s face, unmoving, when he forces the older man to his knees and knocks him out with a hit to the temple. The man crumbles to the floor with a muted thump, his wrist bent at an angle it should not be able to bend at. He does not move, other than very shallow breathing.
The young man’s face reverts back to blank as he straightens up and looks down the corridor leading to the rest of the house. For half a minute, then a minute, he just stands there. Listening, perhaps, to see if anyone heard them. If anyone is coming.
No one is coming. The others in the house, still asleep.
The young man walks over the crumpled form at his feet and reaches into the living room to turn the lights off, bathing the room in darkness, like the rest of the house. Then he silently returns to the hall. He bends down and picks the father up, effortlessly, as if the man’s weight means nothing to him. He throws him over his shoulder. Reaches for the door handle.
~
Outside, the street is dark. The porch light stays off. If any neighbors were to look out through their windows, they would not be able to see a thing. Movement, perhaps, at the most.
The young man walks – does not stagger now, or stumble – back to his banged up, dented car with the broken windshield, and moves to the back of it. Opens the trunk, and deposits the older man’s unconscious body into it. Closes it more carefully than he closed the car door, only minutes before.
Perhaps he has learned the strength of the body he’s in. Or perhaps he just does not want to make another loud noise to break the stillness of the night.
Wouldn’t want to wake the neighbors, huh, dad?
The unconscious man in the trunk is not his father, though. Not anymore. And soon, he will be something else entirely.
The young man gets in the car – his movements more fluid, as if he’s getting used to his body – and he closes the car door gently. Turns the key to start the engine, and backs out onto the darkened street without turning the headlights on.
