Miracle (Billy Hargrove x Reader)
A/N: This idea randomly came to me, and I spent most of my day working on it. I don’t write for Billy much, but I 100% feel his character deserved better, so...here’s my attempt at rewriting the canon.
Warnings: Season 3 spoilers, mention of blood, a bit of angst and swearing
Billy should have died last night.
As you sit in the little folding chair next to his hospital bed, you can’t stop that thought from crossing your mind. By all means, Billy Hargrove should not have survived the injuries he sustained from the Mind Flayer. You’d watched as the monster’s tentacles had punctured holes through Billy’s abdomen, like a pencil stabbed through a piece of notebook paper. By the time you and Max had gotten to him, the bleeding wounds had stained his once-white tank top bright crimson.
You’d uttered a string of expletives before screaming at someone to call an ambulance. You tried tying your jacket around his midsection, unsuccessfully attempting to stop the bleeding. Like most high school students, you didn’t know much about first aid. The only thing you knew was that you would not let this boy bleed out in your arms.
Across from you, Max gazed at her stepbrother will tear-filled eyes. He stared back.
“I’m sorry, Max. I wish-I wish I could have been a better brother,” he said, his voice soft and strained, barely audible over the police sirens blaring outside the mall. Billy’s arm hung limp at his side, and Max placed her small, freckled hand over his. Then, he turned to you. “Thank you-for everything.”
“Don’t talk like you’re dying, Billy, because you’re not,” you’d said through clenched teeth. “Hold on. Help will be here soon.” You tugged at the sleeves of your jacket with shaking fingers, tightening its hold on Billy’s stomach.
“Y/N,” he said with as much force as he could muster.
It came out as a grunt, but it was enough to draw your attention. He watched you with unblinking baby blues-the same color as the ocean that he loved so dearly-the one you knew he wanted to see again. The one he would see again.
“Let me go.”
Your voice was hoarse, strained by the tears you were trying to repress. “You know I can’t do that.”
And you didn’t. You kept pressure on Billy’s wounds until the EMTs arrived, and you held his hand until they loaded him onto the ambulance.
“He’s going to live, right?” you frantically asked one man in scrubs.
The man hesitated before answering, “I can’t tell you that, miss. It’s a miracle he’s survived this long.”
A miracle.
Those words echoed in your mind as you jumped into your station wagon, stomped on the gas, and chased the ambulance all the way to the hospital. They permeated your thoughts as you paced the waiting room, uttering words of encouragement to Max and small prayers to the universe, to God-whoever would listen. (You’d never been a particularly religious person, but you figured Billy could use whatever help he could possibly get.)
A kind nurse asked if there was anyone she could contact for you. Surprisingly, despite how recently the family had moved to Hawkins, she managed to find “Hargrove” in the phonebook. She handed the phone to you, and you dialed the number. It rang several times before a husky voice answered.
“Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want any,” the man on the other end of the line slurred. Then, he slammed the phone down on the receiver.
After several excruciating hours of surgery, a doctor emerged from behind a set of metal double doors. She wore a white lab coat and an unreadable expression. Her eyes scanned over the paper on her clipboard.
“William Hargrove?”
You stood still for the first time in hours. Max, who had slumped over in the armchair, perked up. You wanted to make your way over to her, take her hand in yours-but you couldn’t move. Your feet felt like they’d been covered in cement.
“Is he...” You couldn’t bring yourself to verbalize the awful thought.
“In recovery,” the doctor said. “The surgery went well. We managed to close his wounds relatively quickly, but he’d already lost a lot of blood, so we had to do a transfusion. You’ll be able to visit him in a few minutes.”
A melting pot of emotions bubbled to the surface, all fighting for control of your mind. You couldn’t think, let alone speak. Fortunately, Max managed to choke out a sentence:
“Billy’s going to be okay?”
A soft smile tugged at the woman’s bare lips as she offered a small nod.
“He’ll need to stay here for a few days, just so we can monitor his vitals and make sure none of the wounds reopen,” she said, eyes returning to scan the information on her clipboard. “Mr. Hargrove got really lucky, though. Despite how many punctures his attacker dealt, they managed to miss every one of his vital organs.”
She paused then to glance up at you.
“It’s truly a miracle,” she said before ducking back into the surgery room.
***
Less than fifteen minutes later, the doctor had returned. She brought you and Max to a tiny hospital room that stunk of bleach. A cot sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by a bunch of beeping machines. The doctor fiddled with the settings on one of them as you approached the bed.
A blonde-haired boy laid under a white sheet. His infamous jean jacket was nowhere to be seen; instead, a light blue hospital gown covered his broad chest. Under the thin material, you could make out the lines of thick bandages that wrapped around his abdomen.
Billy’s eyelids were closed, but his lips were just barely parted. With every rise and fall of his chest, a small puff of air escaped his mouth. You never thought you could be so happy to see someone breathing.
“It may take a while for the sedatives to get out of his system, so he probably won’t wake up for a while,” she had said. “Make yourselves comfortable, girls. Let me know if you need anything.”
The doctor walked into the hall, leaving you alone with an unconscious Billy Hargrove and his exhausted stepsister. The two of you collapsed onto the tattered loveseat next to the bed. You wrapped your arm tightly around Max’s dainty shoulders, and she leaned into you, falling asleep almost instantaneously.
You, of course, didn’t dare to close your eyes. Sure, the doctor claimed the sedatives would last a long time, but you knew Billy. You knew how he could down an entire bottle of vodka before he even got tipsy, how his body could overcome a hangover in a matter of hours. You were sure the anesthetics would be out of his system in no time, and you wanted to be there for him when he awoke.
Thus, you slept even less than the doctors that night. You watched as the nurses came in to check Billy’s heart rate and change his IV bag. Still, you stayed. Max’s mother eventually came to retrieve her from the hospital, but Billy’s father never showed. Still, you stayed.
Behind the curtains, the sky lightened as the sun rose above the horizon. A beam of light shone on Billy’s face, illuminating the black and blue bruises all over it. His thick, dark eyelashes fluttered ever so slightly; the rosy flush had returned to his cheeks. Despite the scratches and bruises, Billy looked more at peace than you had ever seen him, and the words you’d forgotten emerged among your thoughts once more:
A miracle.
You suddenly remembered the mumbled prayers you’d sent to the heavens last night. And, after the events of last night, the idea of a supernatural force looking over you no longer seemed unimaginable. You’d asked, and you’d received-and you were thankful. So, unsure of what else to do, you closed your eyes, folded your hands, and leaned your forehead against the edge of Billy’s mattress. You didn’t know what to say-or even who you were saying it to. You just knew you needed to express your gratitude for your miracle.
Besides, it was really nice to rest your heavy eyelids, even if it was just for a moment...
***
When Billy finally came to, he was in a compact room with white walls. Immediately, he recognized it as a hospital room-as an accident-prone kid with an affinity for daring activities, he had spent a lot of his childhood receiving medical care. He only had to wonder what had brought him here for a second before the events of the previous night flooded his memories.
The last distinct thing he could remember was her face hovering over his. To be more specific, it was the deep frown that creased her beautiful features. Then, there was a slamming of a door, and everything had gone black. Billy attempted to sit up, only to wince in pain as he pulled on the stitches in his side. He opted to remain laying down as he surveyed his surroundings.
Natural light filtered through one of the windows, offering a welcome alternative to the florescent lighting of the hospital. Billy squinted in the bright luminescence. He cupped one hand, raised it to his forehead, and used it as a visor. That’s when he noticed that he wasn’t alone.
There was a folding chair next to his bed. You half-sat in it, your body leaning over the mattress. Your arms were crossed on the bed, and you rested your head on top of them. As the light glistened on your h/c hair, Billy could have sworn a halo appeared.
Billy didn’t want to wake you, but he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and gingerly brushing your hair out of your face. He silently cursed himself as your eyes fluttered open.
“Hey,” you murmured sleepily.
“Hey,” Billy echoed, his voice slightly strained from lack of use.
“I’m sorry. I was trying to stay awake until you were...but I laid my head down, and I guess-I guess I must have just fallen asleep? I’m really sorry,” you stammered, propping yourself up and rubbing at your eyes with a balled fist.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it, kid. I’m pretty sure you saved my ass last night, so I think you’ve earned a nap.”
You smiled, and for the first time in a long time, a little bit of warmth flooded into that icy heart of his. He loved to see you happy. When the two of you first met, for half a second, he’d fantasized about becoming the reason you were happy. He wanted to ask you out the day he bumped into you in the halls of Hawkins High, but he couldn’t. You were too sweet, too innocent-too good for him. He could never make you happy.
“How are you feeling?”
It took a moment for Billy to register that you were talking to him.
“I’m...okay. A little sore, but, I mean, that’s probably to be expected, when you get impaled multiple times by a huge flesh-eating monster.”
You chuckled this time, and he savored the twinkling sound. The two of you hadn’t talked in a really long time. Though he’d never admit it, he had desperately missed your voice. But every time he’d considered calling you up, he remembered that there was a reason he avoided you.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” you said. “You took so long in surgery. I was worried that you wouldn’t make it...that I hadn’t done enough to save your life.”
An emotion all-too-familiar for Billy flickered over your features. His father had looked at him with that same expression too many times to count. After he failed to protect his mother, even his reflection was forever tainted with it. The feeling was a killer of men, a breaker of hearts: shame.
If anything, the only thing you had to be ashamed of was the fact that you’d prevented Billy from being put out of his misery.
“Why did you want to help me? I’ve always been a douche to you,” Billy said. It was true, he thought. He had always treated you terribly; yet, you had never shown him anything but kindness.
“Not always. You’ve always tried to be a douche to me,” you said, leaning towards him, “but there’s good in you still, Billy Hargrove. I’ve glimpsed it before, and I saw it last night, in all of its glory, when you sacrificed yourself for your sister and her friends.”
By the time you’d finished speaking, your face was mere inches from Billy’s. He inhaled the sweet scent of your perfume. It was almost as intoxicating as the mere proximity of you.
He shook his head slightly, trying to clear his mind. This couldn’t happen. You were the softest, sweetest person he’d ever met; he saw so much of his mother in you.
And there was far too much of his father in him.
“I’m a bad person, Y/N. Even if there’s good in me...there’s not enough. Not enough for you. You’re an angel, and I’m-“
“A miracle. Your life is a miracle, Billy,” you whispered. One of your hands reached up to cup Billy’s cheek. “And I’m tired of you trying to shut me out of it.”
Even if he had been able to move, Billy wouldn’t have stopped you from pressing your lips to his. They were smooth and tasted of cherry lip balm, and when you pulled away, his mouth tingled. It felt like a butterfly had just landed on his skin for a split second, then fluttered away. He’d never had such a gentle kiss.
“You really are an angel,” Billy muttered, ocean eyes fixed on you.
“I’m not an angel,” you said, running your fingers through Billy’s golden curls, “but I’ll gladly be yours.”
