003 (Billy Hargrove x OC)

Season 4 chapter 4

-Max Mayfield POV-

"Dustin, do you copy?" it was Robin.
"Yeah, I copy" said Dustin.
"So, Nancy's a genius" she said. "Vecna's first victims date back all the way to 1959. Her shot in the dark was a bull's-eye"

"Okay, that's totally bonkers, but I can't really talk right now" he said.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Breaking and entering school to retrieve confidential and extremely personal files" he said.

"Can you repeat that?" she asked.
"Just get your ass over here, stat" he said. "We'll explain everything"
I opened the door to Ms. Kelly's office and found her student files.

"Holy shit" I said.
"You found it?" asked Billy.
"Yeah, and not just Chrissy's file" I said. "Fred was seeing Ms. Kelly too"

"I'm beginning to think you need a new shrink" said Billy.
I looked at the file and saw some things that began to concern me...
"Can I see Fred's file?" I asked.

"Yeah" said Billy and gave it to me. "What is it, Max?"
All the symptoms... Headaches, nosebleeds, nightmares,... I had them too...
"Max, what is it?!" yelled Billy, but his voice was becoming more and more distant...

"Max" I heard a deep voice...
I walked out into the corridor and saw a clock...
"Max?" I recognised that voice... I turned around and saw her...

"Trisha?" I managed to get out.
She ran to me and hugged me tightly.
"It's you, isn't it?" I cried. "It's really you"

"Yeah, it's me kiddo" she said. "Why are you here? You should not be here"
"I... he..." I said and she began to look furious.
"No" she said. "Not you. Do you hear me. Not you. Not her! Not her, you bastard! I beg you! Don't take her!"
She was yelling around.

"Trisha" I said and grabbed her arms. "Does... does he have you?"
"Oh, Max" she said and touched my face. "You need to get out of here. You need to wake up. Please, wake up, Max!"
"No!" I shouted. "What about you?"

"I'm not really here" she said. "I'm just... high jacking the son of a bitch"
"I can't just leave you here" I cried. "Billy is still waiting for you! And Dustin, and your mom! Eleven! And me!"
"Max, sister" she whispered. "I can't come with you. My body is stuck. But I can protect you, for a while. I believe you guys will find a way to block him from your mind. He's too strong for me, and I can't hold him off forever. Please, Max. Wake up!"

"No!" I refused to leave her behind again. "I can't lose you again!"
"I'm already lost" she said. "I'm going to wake you up now"
"No!" I struggled.

"Please" she said. "Stop blaming yourself, Max. It gives him power over you. And tell Eleven, that I really miss her. And... and please, tell Billy... Tell him, I love him very much, and that I'll miss him terribly. But that he needs to move on"
She was crying... crying and trembling...

"We will save you" I cried. "I swear, we will find a way to save you. So no way in hell am I delivering that last part! You can tell him that yourself! We will find you! I swear!"
"Max..." she said and smiled. "Don't come for me, he's too dangerous. It's too dangerous. Now, wake up!"

I gasped and saw Billy again.
"Max!" he said in relief and I hugged him tightly. "Max, what happened?!"
I ran into the corridor where I saw the clock.

"Max!" yelled Billy.
"Trisha!" I screamed. "Trisha!"
"Max!" shouted Dustin.

"She's alive!" I shouted. "I saw her here, with a grandfather clock"
"What are you talking about?" asked Billy.
"Vecna..." I said. "I'm... I'm his next victim... and when... when I was in... that trance... Trisha managed to high jack him, to get in my mind. She was there, Billy. It was really her. He has her, he has her in the Upside Down... She's been there this whole time. She's still fighting. She's still alive!"

Billy fell on the ground and he began to cry.
"She... she's alive" he whispered.
"She told me, she loves you very much" I said.

"What else did she say?" asked Steve. "How can we get to her?"
"She must have given you a clue or something" said Nancy and I shook my head.
"She... she doesn't want us to come for her" I said.

"Like hell I'm leaving her there!" yelled Billy.
"She said it was too dangerous" I said. "That she's already lost. She can't escape him, he's too powerful for her. She woke me up from my trance"
"It's exactly like Eddie said what happened to Chrissy" said Dustin. "Is that why you think you're his next victim?"

"That's not even the bad part" I said. "Fred and Chrissy, they both came to Ms. Kelly for help. Uh, they both were having headaches, bad headaches that wouldn't go away. And then... then the nightmares. Trouble sleeping. They'd wake up in a cold sweat. And then they started seeing things. Bad things. From their pasts. And these visions, they just... they kept on getting worse and worse, until eventually... everything ended. And not even Trisha with her mind powers could stop it"

"Vecna's curse" said Robin.
"Chrissy's headache started a week ago" I said. "Fred's, six days ago. I've been having them for five days. I don't know how long I have, or how long Trisha can hold him off. All I know is that, for Fred and Chrissy, they both died less than 24 hours after their first vision. And I just saw that goddamn clock, with Trisha, so... looks like I'm gonna die tomorrow"

"Like hell" said Billy, but we heard a sound...
"Stay here" said Steve and grabbed a lamp.
We followed him anyway and we heard someone running.

Steve got ready to hit whoever came, but suddenly we saw Lucas and everyone began to yell.
"It's me!" yelled Lucas.
"Lucas?" I shouted.
"It's me!" he yelled again.

"Jesus, what's wrong with you, Sinclair?" asked Steve.
"I'm sorry" said Lucas.
"I could've taken you out with this lamp!" yelled Steve.

"Sorry, guys, sorry" said Lucas, catching his breath. "I was... I was biking for eight miles. Give me a second. Shit. We've got a code red"
"What?" said Steve.
"Dustin" said Lucas and walked to Dustin. "I've been with Jason, Patrick and Andy, and they've gone totally off the rails. They're trying to capture Eddie, and they think you know where he is. You're in terrible danger"

"I'm totally going to kill Jason" said Billy.
"All right, yeah, that definitely sucks" said Dustin. "But we've got bigger problems than Jason now. Max is the next one and Trisha is still alive and stuck in the Upside Down, being held captive by the asshole that's doing all of this!"

~

-Billy Hargrove POV-

I was struggling... hearing from Max that Trisha was still alive... it made me incredibly happy.
But... hearing that she has been stuck in hell for over 5 months... and is being held captive by Vecna... It made me angrier and more scared than I had ever felt in my entire life.
I failed her once, I was not going to fail again.

I know Max was holding part of Trisha's message back, and I had a feeling what it was.
'To move on... sorry, Trish. Never going to happen. I'm going to save you this time. And then I'm never letting you go again'
"Okay, be honest" said Steve. "Do you guys understand any of this?"

"No" I said, reading whatever it was I was reading.
"Pretty straightforward" said Dustin.
"Oh, straightforward, really?" said Steve.

"What's confusing to you?" asked Dustin. "So far, everyone Vecna has cursed has died, except for this old Victor Creel dude Nancy found. He's the only known survivor. If anyone knows how to beat this curse, it's him"
"Yeah, that's assuming he was cursed, which we don't even know" said Steve. "How can Vecna have existed in the '50's? It doesn't make sense"

"As far as we know, Eleven didn't create the Upside Down" said Dustin. "She opened a gate to it. The Upside Down has probably been around for thousands of years. Millions. I wouldn't be surprised if it predated the dinosaurs"
"Dinosaurs?" said Steve.
"Okay" said Lucas. "But if a gate didn't exist in the '50's, how did Vecna get through?"

"Oh, and how's he getting through now?" asked Steve.
"And why now?" asked Lucas.
"And why then?" asked Steve. "Just pops out in the '50's, kills one family and he's like, I'm good. And poof, he just disappears. Just... gone? Only to return 30 years later and start killing random teens? And why hold Trisha captive? I don't buy it. Straightforward, my ass. Honestly, Henderson, a little humility now and then, it wouldn't hurt you"

"Sorry" said Dustin.
"At least now we know Three is still alive" said Lucas. "And she's still fighting for us"
"We need to find a way into the Upside Down" I said. "I refuse to let her be in that hell any longer"

"My sister is a badass" said Dustin.
"That she is" I agreed. "And I will get her out of there. I swear"
"I wonder why he keeps her alive" said Lucas and we all looked at him. "Look, I'm thrilled that she's still alive. But you have to wonder why"

Suddenly the door of the Wheeler basement opened and Nancy and Robin came back down.
"Okay, so... we have a plan" said Nancy.
"Thanks to Nancy's newspaper minions, we are now rock-star psychology students at the University of Notre Dame" said Robin.

"I'm now Ruth" said Nancy.
"And I'm Rose" said Robin.
"Nice GPA" said Dustin.

"Thanks" smiled Nancy. "So we called Pennhurst Asylum, told them we'd like to speak with Creel for a thesis we're co-writing on paranoid schizophrenics"
"To which they said no" said Robin.
"But, we landed a three o'clock with the director" said Nancy.

"Now, all we have to do is charm him and convince him to let us talk to Victor" said Robin.
"And then maybe we can rid Max of this curse and help Trisha" said Nancy.
"Yeah, about that" said Steve. "We've been doing our Victor Creel homework and, uh... we got some questions"

"Lots of questions" said Lucas.
"So do we" said Nancy. "Hopefully, Victor has the answers"

~

-Max Mayfield POV-

I was finishing my last letter.
"I know you guys are staring at me" I said.
"What, sorry?" said Steve.

"You said you needed something?" said Lucas.
"Just hanging out" said Dustin.
"You guys are idiots" said Billy.

"How you think your eyes boring into the back of my head is protecting me from Vecna, I don't know" I said. "I'm pretty sure Trisha is doing all the protecting work"
I walked to them and they still pretended to be busy.
"You can look at me now" I said.

"Thank you, sorry" they said.
I sighed and gave everyone their letter.
"And give these to Mike, El and Will" I said. "If you can ever get a hold of them again"
Dustin was about to open his letter, but I stopped him.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I said. "No, don't. That's not for now. Don't open it now"
"Don't... okay" said Dustin.
"What are these, Max?" asked Billy.

"It's... um... it's a fail-safe" I said. "For after. If things don't work out"
"Wait, whoa. Max, things are gonna work out" said Lucas.
"No!" I shouted. "No, I don't need you to reassure me and tell me it's all gonna work out. Because people have been telling me that my entire life and it's almost never true. It's never true. I mean, of course this asshole curses me. I should've seen that one coming"

I saw the walkie and grabbed it.
"If we go to East Hawkins, will this reach Pennhurst?" I asked.
"Of course, yeah" said Dustin.
"Why are we talking about East Hawkins?" asked Steve and I looked at him. "No, no, no!"