Chapter Text
In his dreams (nightmares), Steve is never at the Byers' house. You would think (Steve doesn’t like to think about it) that that house would be a recurring source of horror for him, the place where his worst fears were first realized.
It was there that the Demogorgon came out of the wall. It was there that the monster, tall and faceless, went up in flames.
But when Steve remembers that first night (he doesn’t like to think about it), he remembers Nancy and Jonathan standing with him, next to him, the three of them a solid line. Fear drains away within the memory of two bodies close to his.
In Steve’s nightmares (only one nightmare, the same one, over and over), he is in the old junkyard, a graveyard for metal monsters reflecting an eerie gray moonlight through the fog. He stands in an open space, the demodogs surrounding him, pacing.
He is alone.
His bat is flimsy, his arms heavy and weak, he is in the dark and in the open and he is standing without Nancy, without Jonathan, without Dustin, without friends or adults or allies. The things that threaten him are so much bigger, darker, more primal than the comic book villains and schoolyard bullies of his youth. Things nameless, so ancient they are beyond human concepts of good and evil.
He hears voices, but they are frantic and far away… he knows the kids are in the bus, but there are miles between him and them.
The world is an ocean of empty, impossible distance, as profound as a black hole and just as destructive.
Steve can’t save them. He can’t save himself. It is dark and there is no one out there but Steve and the monsters and the conviction (like a living thing) that he’s not strong enough to stop any of it. Waiting and alone, and knowing what’s coming.
Pain and blood and obliteration, the nothingness that exists past the rows and rows and rows of teeth.
He wakes up screaming in an empty house.
Billy doesn’t dream. He tries not to dream. He works out, lifts and runs until every muscle aches, flirts and fucks and fights his way through Hawkins, drives his car at speed, music blasting loud to drown out any too-ugly, too self-aware thoughts. He shapes himself into a careening, careless ball of (un)feeling and pretends he isn’t stuttering slow, caged, trapped. He tries to wear himself out, to fight sleep so that when sleep comes there are no dreams.
Billy dreams.
In his dreams, at least in the days since that night (that night, that night, what the fuck happened?), Billy is in the Byers’ house. That weird, broken-looking house. He does not have the same nightmare over and over (not one nightmare but many nightmares but the same nightmare, really, over and over). There are variations.
Often in his dreams he can’t move. He is lying on the floor of the Byers’ house, pinned (trapped, caged, stuttering slow) under a hurricane, a pounding, punishing, terrible force which breaks bones, which tears skin and makes it bleed.
Sometimes he is under the hurricane… sometimes he is the hurricane, an ungodly, godlike manifestation of rage that Billy cannot control, punishing and breaking a blurred, fragile, faceless beauty laying stretched out beneath him.
Both dreams terrify Billy. He is (he is destroyed by) the raw, overwhelming energy which obliterates all, which hates everything.
There is another dream (nightmare) which is worse, so much worse. It’s a dream he’s experienced in bits and pieces, in myriad variations since he was small, since before he understood the meaning behind the name his father had called him (he'd never told his father about the dream, but dad knew, he knew, he knew). Before he understood that the word, the name he had been called meant dirty, wrong, twisted, weak. Before he understood that the name and all it meant was inescapable, as much a part of Billy as his own pounding heart.
You little faggot.
Recently the dream has solidified into something else, clearer and crueler.
It’s a dream that starts out (worse) gentle, with fingers tangled in thick, soft hair, playfully tugging, full lips jerking up in a warm smirk, large brown eyes that are open, so (holy shit) honest and open. Open, open, pressing open, gently giving, without force (no need for force, no place for the hurricane). All the hidden, hurting, sweet things are laid bare, exposed, but on warm, clean bed sheets and without pain, without judgement.
That dream is worse than any other.
It’s worse because it ends with two fingers pressed firmly against Billy’s bare (heart) chest, pushing him away. It ends with a cold, decisive, familiar voice.
Get out.
A dismissal. A rejection.
Like Billy, who has always, always been able to coerce compliance out of everyone except the father-monster in his home (in his head), is worse than shit (which he is, he knows he is), is worse than trash.
Like nothing Billy can say or do, like no act of gentleness or violence could possibly change this moment, could possibly touch the young man standing in front of him, his two fingers pressed against Billy’s bare (heart) chest.
Like Billy is invisible. Like Billy is nothing.
Billy wakes up from his dream drenched in sweat, cold dread sitting like a rock in his stomach.
Billy does not wake up screaming. He learned a long time ago not to do that.