King

After That Night

It was cold, a little bit too cold for most people in Hawkins Indiana. The air formed vapor clouds around the words people spoke and made their fingertips tingle. School girls wrapped their necks in the scarves their grandmothers made them, huddled close to their boyfriends. Little kids ran around looking like marshmallows with their insulated jackets and warm mittens.

But it wasn't too cold for Billy Hargrove.

The cold air was a remedy for the forming bruise on his jaw, his split lip, and purple ribs. The wounds were hot, sore to the touch, he didn't want to move, but the air felt euphoric on his face, like the world wasn't against him for once. He tilted his head back in the seat of his Camaro, door open, enjoying life for a few precious moments, taking a long drag off his cigarette.

It was the end of October, fall was in full swing and the weather had just began to turn cold, families were ramping up for Halloween and students were getting antsy in class, eager for a couple days off. Billy was dreading the approaching holiday, he had to cart Max and her "boyfriend" Lucas around the neighborhoods, a promise he was made to keep through flashbacks of the nail packed bat plunging into the ground just centimeters from his manhood, he shuddered at the recollection of the memory.

Hauling around Sinclair also meant socializing with that whole group of kids Max had took a liking to, something he didn't want to deal with already, but even worse, socializing with Steve Harrington, who for some reason decided hanging with middle schoolers at the age of 18 was a great idea. Billy wasn't scared of Steve, by any means, just hated being around him. He was the exact opposite of Billy in every way, loving family, rich, big house, had good relationships with people, straight A's...everything Billy wanted to be but knew he could never have - it was too late for that. All he had planned at this point was to pass this last year of highschool, grab a bag of clothes and hightail it back to California where he belonged, to get out of this shit town he had been drug into.

Steve didn't hate Billy, he felt sorry for him.

Ever since that night that Billy came looking for Max he had felt sorry for him. It was hard to ignore the black and blue bruises around his torso in the shower the next day at school, especially when Steve knew for a fact, he had only hit Hargrove's face. There was no doubt about what his home life was like after seeing that.

He didn't have a perfect life either, it's not all black and white like everyone thinks. His parents are never home, which in some ways is a blessing but in others, it makes for lonely nights alone in a big house a with a bottle of vodka as the company. It leads to the smoking of weed every night, just so he could sleep without worrying that he will have another demogorgon nightmare, where he sees Nancy killed right before his eyes, or hears her saying that he was bullshit over, and over, and over... and maybe Steve was bullshit. Slapping on a fake smile everyday, lying that he was fine and stuffing all his problems deep down inside until he was alone, when he is the most dangerous to himself, certainly did sound like bullshit to him.

King Steve had fallen, and no one had even noticed.

Keg King Hargrove wasn't exactly special either, everyone seemed to had forgotten he even existed.

Long live the King of Hawkins High School.