Chapter Text
It starts, and for once Billy has no idea why. He’s usually good at tracking Neil’s moods, it’s probably the thing he’s best at, and usually even if he isn’t totally certain what it was he did, Neil has no issue reminding him. But there was nothing this time, not a single hint and Billy is wracking his brains trying to figure out what it was. Did Max snitch on him for something? Neil would have said. Is he pissed off at something that happened at Tina’s party?
He didn’t do anything unusual, he’s pretty sure, and some part of Neil seems to like it when he goes out to drink and flirt with girls. Maybe it was his outfit, he wonders briefly, but then Neil would have called him something more specific than “worthless”, he would have named him as a whore and a fag. His grades are good. He didn’t miss curfew. He can’t figure it out and it’s driving him a little bit mad, because when he knows what pisses Neil off, he learns from it. He can either hide it or tuck it into a back pocket for future reference, depending on his mood.
The Camaro rattles as he speeds over a rough patch of road, and he curses at Hawkins, not for the first time that day. There’s a little laneway ahead to his left, splattered with mud like a herd of cows was just out here fucking up the road like the backwoods hick place this is. That’s where the cop car must have been parked, he realises when red and blue start flashing behind him. Jesus Christ. That’s all he fucking needs. He pulls over, not in the mood to entertain a small chase and swipes the back of his hand over his still-bleeding mouth. The cop who gets out isn’t one he’s seen before, not the gawky white guy or the resigned-looking black one, this one is taller and broad and older, and he looks seriously pissed off as he climbs out of the jeep and stalks up to his window.
“Know how fast you were going?” Is the first thing he says, and for a moment Billy doesn’t answer, blinded by the flashlight in his face. He shuts his eyes, stars and colours flashing in his eyelids and swallows. The cop doesn’t wait for an answer.
“What the hell happened to you?” He says and Billy’s vision comes back enough to blink away the flashes.
“You should see the other guy,” he says weakly, and the cop looks at him with undisguised disgust. The flashlight travels over him, catching on the blood-splattered wife beater and boxers he’s wearing, over his unbruised hands, even down to his unsocked feet shoved into ratty sneakers.
“This other guy musta busted in when you were asleep,” the cop says evenly, and Billy swallows again, reflexively.
“Hey, she told me she was single, how was I supposed to know her man was gonna come home?” He shoots back, and it’s fucking good honestly, it’s one he’s used before but it usually gets him that look of disgust and a sneer, and it gets him nothing from this guy. His face is blank and as the light bounces around, his badge reflects it. Hopper. There’s a beat too long, an echoing silence and Hopper isn’t buying it. His stomach freezes, a bitter ice flooding through him as he understands that Hopper is seeing more than he’s saying and he isn’t buying it.
He’s panicking now, and his breath is too loud in the car, echoing around the emptiness and his chest is rising and falling fast and Hopper’s flashlight is catching every moment of it.
“Get out of the car,” Hopper says, finally, and Billy blows air out hard, breaking open the thin scabbing on his lip again. He fumbles with the door, climbs out and stands there, his feet hot and sweating inside his sneakers. It’s awful, Hopper is looking at him with something like pity, enough silent sadness to infuriate him, and Billy can’t figure out how to get past this moment - and then. He doesn’t need to, because everything changes. The first thing he hears is a noise so terrible he can’t even understand what it is, can’t comprehend such a shriek, and Hopper is turning hard, his boots kicking up dust.
The flashlight wheels, before it focuses on something, and Hopper’s back bumps up against his chest, as he draws his gun. It’s a dog, he thinks, at first, but even that thought is quickly washed away when it catches the light. It’s sickening, slick with something like it’s just been born, and his knees go weak. His back hits his car, and Hopper is clicking the safety off his gun and firing shots, and stepping towards it, his boots heavy on the packed dirt.
“Don’t-!” Billy says before he knows he’s speaking, but Hopper ignores him. The dog bounces to the side, unspeakably fast in the undergrowth, and the bullets glance off its sides. A thick black liquid oozes from its side but it’s not slowing down. It dives at Hopper, and he backhands it, driving it to the side. Billy dives to the ground but he’s too slow. For too long a moment he grasps at the cold dirt, his nails breaking against a rock and something hot runs down his side, catching thickly in the dip of his waist and then Hopper is on it, kicking hard at the dog until it leaps around. Its face opens like some poisonous flower and it’s on him.
It’s shockingly heavy, drives him to the ground, and jams its face into his side. Its body is cold, thin slime coating it, and Billy yelps and scrambles backward, tearing his back against the gravel in the road. Hopper is reloading. The dog rolls off him, sinks back and then crouches, ready to pounce again.
Billy scrambles to his feet, and then the pain hits. He looks down at his side dumbly, and sees a round bite, pulsing blood and cold black ichor, serrated at the edges through his vest. The thing howls, a child-like scream and Billy’s ears ring. A shockingly loud bang, and the thick smell of gunsmoke and it drops. It’s heavy enough to make a sound, he can tell by how the dirt puffs up around it, although he can’t hear anything after the gunfire.
He sinks backward, caught only by the Camaro at his back, and he hunches over, nausea rising. Hopper puts another shot in the dog-thing, a safety measure before he turns to look at Billy again.
“Billy Hargrove, right?” He says, and Billy blinks at him stupidly. His side drips rapidly-cooling blood sluggishly. “You might want to come with me.”
Hopper nearly physically puts him back in the Camaro, and he’s clearly antsy enough to get out of Dodge fast, so Billy doesn’t fight it, just grips his steering wheel and follows the cop car away from the fight. He’s following a little too close, probably, but his breath is still too fast and his side is pulsing now, flickering between hot and cold. He figures if he sticks close by, Hopper is bound to notice if he crashes. His heart feels cold, like it’s pulsing ice through him instead of blood, and he drives slower than usual. When he turns off to the left, toward the woods the drying blood on his ruined undershirt prickles and tugs at his skin.
Wherever Hopper is leading him, it’s further than he thought, and he’s not turning back to town like Billy assumed he would. Instead they seem to be traveling further into back roads, to skinny farm lanes and woods. The last streetlight was miles away. It’s pitch dark outside the car, the road in front seems to be absorbing their headlights, every inch outside their glare is invisible to him.
When Hopper approaches a cabin, Billy is nauseous again, acid rising in his throat. Hopper has time to pull forward into a small niche in the woods beside the dirty cabin, and Billy parks just behind him, and then he opens the door and leans out and vomits. The acid burns his torn mouth, and he spits hard, coughing, and the blood pools on top of the bile, black in the moonlight. Hopper’s boots enter his vision, and Billy looks up at him, and wipes his mouth with his wrist. He doesn’t look disgusted, or angry, as Billy expects, instead there’s an unreadable expression on his face - or maybe an expression someone who knows him better could read, but Billy can’t tell. It’s not pity, at least, so he stumbles out of the car, and coughs once more. Hopper leads him up the narrow steps to the cabin door and Billy hesitates. He brings up one hand to rub at his arm, the cold catching on his skin.
“You gonna take me out?” Billy says, and when Hopper turns to look at him with a frown on his face he nods at the cabin.
“Take you - oh, Christ. No, you fucking - “ Hopper starts, and then he looks upward at the black sky like he’s wishing for patience. “No, kid, I thought you might wanna wash and wrap that bite. And we got some things to talk about.”
“Oh,” says Billy, although he doesn’t believe him. Hopper was quick in the fight, pulling his gun, and he never once screamed, not like Billy’s pathetic screech, and one thing that was obvious was that Hopper was not surprised by the appearance of some freak alien monster.
He doesn’t know what to do, if he should give up and follow Hopper into this abandoned-looking cabin, or try for his car, but it’s not like Hopper doesn’t know exactly who he is and where he lives. As he’s trying to decide while Hopper’s distracted taking out his keys, and unlocking the front door, a curtain twitches to the right. He glances at it, and sees a little hand, pale through the dust of the window, tiny like a child’s, fingertips around a worn grey curtain.
His curiosity decides it for him then, and he follows Hopper into the cabin. It’s not dusty or dirty inside like he’d assumed. It looks and smells freshly washed, like someone has taken a sponge to every surface in here recently. He turns to the right, where the curtain-twitcher was and he sees a little girl. Her hair is wild, like she’s just woken up, dark curls everywhere. She’s wearing a set of pajamas with Scooby Doo on them. They’re worn a little around the cuffs, like they’re beloved.
“Billy,” Hopper says, and shuts and locks the door behind him. “This is my daughter, El.”