linda and billy

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Mike, Lucas, Will and Gabe headed back to where the girls were waiting, arms crossed, talking bitterly amongst themselves. Gabe caught a few snippets of mutinous mutters about Mike, and one about Lucas, although the girls abruptly stopped when they noticed the quartet arrive. Max was opening her mouth—probably to make some snarky comment about being left behind—but Mike interrupted her with the explanation of the hastily-formed plan. That shut her up. In fact, she actually seemed kind of impressed with it all.

El, on the other hand, seemed a little apprehensive. Tapping her feet and averting her eyes from Mike, she asked, "Will this work? Will we be safe?"

"As safe as we can be," answered Lucas. "We're going to lock him in. And we're going to be far away from him."

She seemed a little more reassured, and that was when they split into teams. Alina and Max would stay here and keep an eye on Billy, Mike and El would go find a way to lure Billy into the sauna (they were thinking about using a CPR dummy) and Lucas, Gabe, and Will would find the padlock and the other supplies they might need for this test. And with that, they set off, the three groups, and prepared for what might be a battle.

Gabe, Lucas and Will made their way to a storage shed in the parking lot, listening to the constant gleeful cries of the people at the pool. A big, red sign on top of the shed said Maintenance Personnel Only, but nobody paid any mind to it. They spared a few seconds to make sure nobody was watching before Will slid the door open. Since last year (and two years ago for Lucas), crimes had been nothing to them.

The shed was cluttered with rakes, shelves, and other tools, and had a musty smell about it, signalling to Gabe that people didn't go in here very much. As he surveyed the shelves for anything they might be able to use for this plan, Lucas finally spoke up. He seemed to have decided that this was a good time to try and make up for the fight from last night.

"Uh, Will?"

Will, who was beside Gabe, tensed a little, but he didn't turn around. Lucas took this as a cue to continue.

"Um, you know, about yesterday..." there was a clank as he shut a box. Gabe picked up a screwdriver, scrutinized it for a moment, before putting it down. He'd thought it might come as a good weapon, but that would only be if he got close enough to Billy to jab his eye or something, which was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. It would be safer to stay as far away from him as possible.

"It's fine, Lucas," said Will, even though he definitely didn't sound fine. "You don't have to say anything."

"I know, but it's just..." There really was guilt in Lucas's tone, and the anger Gabe had been retaining for him (which was less than his anger for Mike, because Lucas hadn't been as bad, but it was still there) faded. "It was a really cool campaign. And Mike and I, we should've never—"

"I don't care anymore, Lucas." Will sounded defeated. "I really don't. We have bigger things to worry about now."

Gabe picked up a Swiss Army Knife—one of those tools that came along with corkscrews and nail files and alike—and pocketed it. It seemed more useful than the screwdriver, anyway, and Gabe liked to have knives with him when he was doing these kinds of things, something he'd learned last year, sitting in that house waiting to be attacked by Demodogs. He traced the cool metal blade and felt at least a little more secure.

Will picked up a box from the shelf, taking a second to rifle through it before he pulled out a thick chain. Gabe looked at it. It would definitely work.

"This should hold him." Will seemed to think the same way.

They finished gathering their supplies, and left the shed, Will going slightly ahead of the others. He was still mad, Gabe gathered, and he wanted to comfort him, but before he could, Lucas grabbed his arm. "Hey, Gabe, wait."

Gabe looked at him. Lucas had always been nice to him, if not as nice as Will had. He was a really good guy, and a really good boyfriend. And he made mistakes sometimes. They all did.

Lucas rubbed the back of his neck. "Um, I know Will's still mad—I mean, I can tell he's not happy with us—but he's not the only one I owe an apology to. We were kind of ignoring you both at the mall, and dragging you around when all you two wanted to do was play D&D. And then when we were... Mike was thinking about El, and honestly? I couldn't stop thinking about Alina. I don't know why, it's like... since she nearly died, I haven't wanted to leave her, you know? Which is stupid, and I should've tried harder. I shouldn't have gotten so distracted. So I'm sorry, Gabe."

Gabe smiled, and then put an arm around Lucas. "It's okay, Lucas," he said. "I forgive you. And I get it. You're fourteen, and you've just gotten a girlfriend, a girlfriend who nearly died last year, might I add, so of course you want to spend every day with her. But yeah, you're right, not every moment has to revolve around her. I mean, I heard the girls had fun. And we messed everything up."

Lucas bobbed his head. "Yeah." and then: "Hey, Gabe?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever get lonely? Not having anyone, I mean. I know you're not the only one, and Max and Will and probably Dustin don't have anyone either, but you're... I don't know. Maybe more sensitive." He shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, I'm not so good at this stuff."

Gabe let out a chuckle, and adjusted the collar of his button-down. It was strange, talking about this with all of this possible-Armageddon stuff going down, but it was also nice, in a way. He tried to think of what to say to this, his mind moving, as usual, a mile a minute. All he could see was Will, Will, Will, but that was the one answer he couldn't say.

Eventually, he just said, "I'm not lonely. Just because I'm not in a relationship doesn't mean I don't have anyone. I have the party. I have all of you. And that's good enough for now." He took a deep breath. "My time will come."

Hopefully.

Meanwhile, Alina was sitting on the hood of the caramel car, which had surprisingly not set off the car alarm yet, and stared around the pool, rubbing her palms together. She wanted to be ready for anything that could be thrown her way, and so she discreetly practiced her abilities on the trees nearby, aiming for jutting chunks of barks and certain leaves and feeling pleased whenever she met her marks. By the end of it, her nose was bleeding heavily, her head was aching slightly, but she was feeling more prepared.

Max, on the other hand, who had been watching Billy (occasionally taking breaks to encourage Alina), seemed to be getting a little bored. She lowered her binoculars and raised a hand to her walkie-talkie. "Mike, are you there?"

Mike's voice came immediately, sounding a little irritated. "Yeah!"

"Where are you guys?"

"I'm coming," snapped Mike. "Just... hold on a second."

"Jeez," Alina remarked, flicking another beam of energy at a cigarette butt on the ground. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"Tell me about it," said Max, raising her binoculars to her face again. She was using Lucas's, because he'd actually been prepared for this. Alina's, on the other hand, were at home, perched on her dresser. She hadn't expected to need them again.

Still, her eyesight was good enough for now, and she squinted at Billy's face. She'd hated him for all of this time, but if he really was the host (something that was practically confirmed at this point) he must've been going through a tremendous internal struggle. There was pain, there was splitting vision, there was heat, so much heat, there was collapsing and, eventually, forgetting who you were entirely.

Heather hadn't shown up to work, which was a little worrying. Alina didn't know what Billy and the Mind Flayer had planned that involved her, and quite possibly her parents, because everything seemed so new. This wasn't like last year. This was in a whole different ballpark.

Max shifted slightly, and then she muttered, "God, I hope it's not you. I really hope it's not you." And then she seemed to realize she'd said that aloud, because her eyes flicked to Alina nervously, who had turned back to face her. "Sorry," she murmured.

"You care about him," Alina said. It wasn't a question.

Max looked slightly uncomfortable, a tinge of red coming to her cheeks. "I know, I know. He's an asshole and everything, and he almost killed Steve last year, but... I don't know. There were these... these times where he made me think everything was okay between us. Like we really could be brother and sister. Like we could be family." She scoffed. "When we met, I thought he was so cool. Like I was going to get someone who really cared about me. I guess I'm still holding onto that, even though I'm so scared of him. It's stupid, and I don't expect you to understand."

"No, no, I do." Alina slid off the hood of the car and moved towards Max. "When I talk about Linda, I mostly talk about all of the shit she did to me. I mean, she was a terrible person, and I'm glad she's in jail. But there were some days where she seemed almost pleasant. Like, she and my dad would get along, and she'd consent to play a game of D&D or something, or take me for a walk, and I'd think, hey, she's not so bad. And then I'd say something wrong and she'd break again, and I'd remember why I hated her so much."

Max looked uncomfortable at that, mainly because Alina was describing exactly how she felt towards Billy. She listened carefully as Alina continued, "There was always some part of me that cared about her. That wanted her to love me, that wanted to do things the right way. Most of that went away after she left us, but sometimes I'd wonder if I could've been the girl she would've loved. But I've learned now that there was nothing I could've done. It wasn't my fault Linda was such an abhorrent person, it was hers. And I've learned not to care about her.

"And I know you haven't been able to break out yet, to get away from Billy and Neil, so you still blame yourself sometimes. And I know it's hard, to care, to want to help and be unable to. I know it's hard to live like this. But you're strong, Max. And you'll get through it. And you won't be them. You'll never be like them."

Max went quiet at that, and, to both of the girls' surprise, her eyes filled with tears. She took one look back at Billy, in that chair, and then threw her arms around Alina. Alina hugged her back, tightly, and for a moment, everything was okay.

Then Alina said, "And even if Billy is the Mind Flayer, we'll get it out of him. I know first-hand how that feels, and I know nobody deserves it. Not even a scumbag like Billy." And at Max's face: "Sorry. Old habits die hard."

Max laughed. "Thanks, Al," she said, raising a hand to wipe away her tears. "You're a really good friend, you know? I'm really glad to have you."

"And I'm glad to have you," said Alina. "The party would be weird without you and Gabe. I'm glad, even with everything that's happened, that you kept persisting last year. That you wouldn't give up."

Max smiled. "You know what?" she said. "I'm happy I did, too."

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a/n: i hate this chapter but i do like the conversation max and alina had in it lmfao. i was rereading the first draft of paroxysm while writing this and i realized that alina went sort of easy on billy in it, so i kind of turned up the billy hate for this draft.  i think alina comparing billy to linda was important, because they're both abusive assholes who have severely affected alina and max's lives. and i feel like stranger things 3 sort of downplayed that, with max treating billy more like an annoying older brother rather than the monster he was. which is why i added in this conversation.

anyways, i hope you enjoyed this chapter!! we're finally going to move on to the actual sauna test next chapter (and the chapters after that), so prepare yourself! it was super fun to write and i hope you enjoy reading it :)

'till next time!