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Tommy Shepard
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doubled_speed - A Prologue Of Sorts- doubled_speed - January, 1985
- doubled_speed - February, 1985
- doubled_speed - March, 1985
- doubled_speed - April, 1985
- doubled_speed - May 1985
- doubled_speed - Early June, 1985
- doubled_speed - Friday, June 28th, 1985
- doubled_speed - Saturday, June 29th, 1985
- doubled_speed - Sunday, June 30th, 1985
- doubled_speed - July ???, 1985
- doubled_speed - July 4th, 1985
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A Prologue Of Sorts
Date: 2023-09-20 12:04 am (UTC)No. There was absolutely nothing about this plan that wasn’t batshit. But he refused to be yet another person who failed Billy Hargrove. It didn’t matter that it wouldn’t be for long, or that he wouldn’t know it. That failure? It wasn’t an option.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. How’s this going to work?”
“Well, you’re going to owe America and me both an extremely large debt. Come on, let’s start with the research.”
The problem presents itself almost immediately upon arrival. It was one thing to aspire to being a hero in ways that no one here has ever fathomed, but it was an entirely different thing to realize he was missing absolutely vital data. Sure he had the specific where, and the general when, but damn if he wasn’t missing really important little details like ‘when the fuck in 1986 Hawkins, Indiana am I supposed to be’. So they did their best, which was erring on the side of caution.
Which had unfortunately met Tommy settling down and passing the winter in fucking Hawkins, Indiana in the fucking late 80s. Given there wasn’t anything resembling people with super powers here (except for apparently people that the government experimented on), it meant that Tommy had to play at life here, while trying to get his bearings. A whole winter of fashion that was thankfully dead (though he was glad about the jeans holy fuck) in the future, of a miserable wig that his brother had thankfully enchanted to return to perfection whenever he put it on its form at night, and a dinky ass trailer that he managed to afford because apparently magic could fool old computers pretty easily compared to the ones he knew.
From there, well, it was a matter of melding into the town with all of his magically created identification and life. Which was actually a bit harder given, well… There was one thing that Tommy had acquired that he really wasn’t comfortable with. Seriously. Cars were hell. And this place had nothing resembling proper public transportation. So, you know, what the actual fuck. Had a beat up old clunker though, something he’d studied back home with Kate to prove himself capable of using, but he still defaulted to moving by foot when he could get away with it.
Honestly, he couldn’t get away with it enough. Especially not in the winter. Especially not when he was trying to seem like he was following a guy around too much. At least there was work to do of course. A local restaurant that needed a short order cook that Tommy found himself more than capable of doing.
Which, much to his surprise, was where he first laid his eyes properly on one Billy Hargrove.
January, 1985
Date: 2023-09-20 05:12 am (UTC)“Yo boss,” Tommy said, looking over his shoulder as he put the last order up for the waitress to ferry out.
“Take a break. You’re making me look bad.”
The observation makes Tommy chuckle, because what it really means is that they finally, after a long ass day, had things slow enough for Tommy to take a break. Normally he only did mornings here, trying to wile away the hours that Hargrove and his associates would be at school. Not much else to do during the day otherwise. Meant he had the ass end of the morning shifts, and usually got off in the time between the close of lunch rush and the start of dinner. Of course today hadn’t been normal, given the guy that regularly did nights had gotten sick enough to actually call in.
Which meant Tommy had been here, with minimal breaks and rests, since five that morning. Some of it had been cooking, some of it had been managing inventory, and there had even been a bit of time where he’d done table service. But now, twelve hours in he should be dead on his feet.
People here were never prepared for the lasting power of a well fed speedster. And Tommy? He was damn well fed. Best part of his own income on top of what Billy had funneled into an account for him was that he knew he could account for his food.
“Don’t get down on yourself, Bossman. I’m sure you’re charming ladies all the time with that face,” Tommy said before moving back to his work space. “Gonna grab a burger and fries, you okay with that?”
The manager nodded and gave a gruff noise, leaving Tommy to it. And Tommy, for what it was worth, had himself all served up relatively soon afterward. From there it was a simple matter to slip out into the diner proper, grab a table and sit down to enjoy himself. Which didn’t last long.
“Hey, you’re in my spot.”
The voice cuts into some primo burger enjoying time and he already knows who he’s going to find when he looks up. And he does look up. Of course he looks up. Why would he not look up when the view from here is something he’s missed?
Billy Hargrove is a masterpiece, always has been. Golden hair and tanned skin, and his curls were so masterfully put together. They went together so well with the mostly open red shirt and the shine off of his necklace and his earring, and for the moment he could see just what it was that Billy had been before a shitty little city in the assent of nowhere space. Of course there were things that were different too. His muscles weren’t quite the same level of toned that Tommy knew would come from time spent training with Gladio, muscles that were only enhanced by that axe he’d used to good effect. There was also less of the open softness that Tommy knew the man to have. More than anything, though, there was no light of recognition in those eyes.
Hard to believe that only a month ago those eyes would light up when they landed on Tommy. Harder still to believe that a month ago he would wake up with that head with its soft curls pillowed on his chest, those strong arms curled around his chest, those long and shapely legs entwined with his.
Of course there is absolutely no recognition in Hargrove’s eyes, just annoyance. The young woman on his arm looked more than a little bit uncomfortable. Like she was worried Billy was going to start something. Thing was, Tommy was pretty sure he could. All that bullshit ‘macho or die’ energy that he’d first seen in Billy Hargrove when they’d met.
For a moment there was a flare of jealousy in Tommy’s heart. He knew exactly what this was. He had no right to feel angry and upset and betrayed over the petite redhead who was going to have his man’s attention tonight. This wasn’t his boyfriend yet. He had no right to be upset, because time was always a mess for Tommy, and always would be wouldn’t it?
“I’m really sorry,” he says, immediately starting to slide out of the booth and picking up his plate and cup. If there was one rule he was trying to live by here, it was not interfering until the proper moment. He knew just enough to know that it definitely wasn’t right now. “Just let me get out of your way.”
No, it was more than not interfering. It was not being someone that Billy would notice, even though he wanted to stand up and scream and say ‘your father’s wrong, we’re meant to be ourselves.’
Will you ever forgive me, for leaving you to him, to all your suffering? Will you hate me because you think I don’t love you enough now, even though my heart is screaming to rescue you?
That was a bridge they would have to cross when they got to it. For now there was enough time between the seconds for him to think it all and long for the man in the way his body had grown used to longing for him. Except now it was worse, because he was right there, in reach.
“I’ll get someone to bring over new flatware and all that,” he says with a nod before moving away.
He doesn’t wait to hear what Hargrove would say in response to that. Hearing that voice again, turned against him with such annoyance and frustration. It cut him to the quick and admitting that to anyone would be more destructive than he could ever describe. So he just moves on, finding a table in the corner so he doesn’t have to see Billy while he’s there.
This? This was why he didn’t work nights. There was a far higher chance of running into someone he knew. Which only made all of this harder. Strange how he never really considered how much it would hurt to be looked at by his lover and not recognized. In the moment that he walked away he contemplated the woven string bracelet around his wrist. All he had to do was break it and his brother would come and fetch him back.
For one brief second he considered it. Going home, accepting this as a loss, and just moving on, it was all possible.
Tommy only considered it for half a nano second.
He refused to fail.
Turned out the diner was one of the go to places in town for the younger crowd to take their dates. Which was, of course, a bit of an annoyance for Tommy who soon found himself taking two night shifts a week. Not that he’d wanted the shifts of course. At least they were only ever slow nights, some level of pity managing to get him freedom from working Fridays and Saturdays, which he usually used to stay low key stalking the people he knew.
Yes, he was fully a creepy stalker dude, living in the absolute background and corners of the lives of Hawkins, waiting for the moment when shit would hit the proverbial fan. Really, someone should arrest him, not that they could ever get their hands on him.
Still, the biggest problem was just how often he was dealing with Billy bringing in his ‘friends’ or dates on nights that Tommy worked. Sometimes it was athletes that Tommy presumed he played basketball with, sometimes it was an asshole named Tommy Hagan’s who was a disappointment to the very name of Tommys everywhere, but by the end of Januarya Tommy had seen Billy come in with enough girls that he wanted to tell the guy he was trying too hard.
No one else saw it, but Tommy had the secret knowledge that made it obvious to him. Anyone else might see it for what it was, someone trying to prove he was popular and worthy and straight through the company of a seemingly endless parade of teen girls. Though Tommy had to admit he more than once saw the guy talking up older women too and wow was that enough to make Tommy’s skin crawl.
The 1980s really needed to be introduced to the idea of grooming, and told it was actually a bad thing.
Perhaps the biggest issue, though, was the fact that it almost seemed like Billy remembered him.
It wasn’t possible, but there were moments like this, when the night was slowing down and Tommy was ending his shift, when he felt those eyes on him. There was no way that the guy could remember him, right?
Except here Tommy was, walking out past Billy’s date who was clearly getting up to get to the bathroom, and there was Hargrove, watching him as he walked toward the table, intending to get past it to the door.
“You,” Hargrove says, and Tommy can’t just ignore him. There is no part of him that can just not pay attention to Billy. If only the guy knew that Tommy hung on his every word, every gesture, every breath.
So he stops, sighs, and looks at the (only barely) younger man. “Yeah, man?”
If Billy did recognize him, it was probably because he’d seen Tommy working here for a month now. It’s got to be that and only that. Of course Tommy flattered himself in his mind by letting himself think that Billy probably just liked how Tommy looked, even if he couldn’t admit it.
Which was fair. Even with all the layers he kept on to keep warm in the face of the cold outside, he could never stand to layer up on his legs. And as the only person in town with a better ass than Billy… Well, maybe that was why Billy was aware of him. Maybe Billy was checking him out.
Except you know he isn’t, so don’t get your hopes up.
“Our drinks are running low.”
And yeah, that made a lot more sense. Tommy just sighed. Why did he ever let himself get his hopes up?
“Sorry man, my shift just ended. I’m out of here.”
Billy sure didn’t look impressed by that statement.
“Looks like you’re still here to me.”
“Wow, talk about a really shit argument to try and get your way. I’m sure you could do better, Curls.”
The name slips out easily, too easily. He probably shouldn’t have, because that gets a whole confused and intrigued look. But hey, way too late to take it back. So he just heads right on past the table, easily stepping right past the quickly extended foot. No, he was not going to get all caught up in those legs. Not like this.
Something told him he was going to be saying those words to himself quite a lot in the coming months.
Not the biggest frustration in his life, but after waiting in hell for his brother to come pick him up, few things were. But hey, it would be close.
February, 1985
Date: 2023-09-21 05:19 am (UTC)Kate was going to tease him about that mercilessly when he got home, he just knew it. Maybe he could leave that part out of the story when he got back. Honestly, he wished he could leave this part out of his life in the moment too. That would be nice.
The moment was coming in the form of him just trying to pick up a few things at Melvald’s even as Billy Hargrove and this one girl he often hung out with named Carol entered. Normally where the two of them were there was also Tommy Hagan, but he was almost conspicuous in his absence as Billy moved to check out a rack of magazines. Carol, meanwhile, split of from him and…
Was making a beeline for Tommy, who was just trying to pick up some damn essentials.
“Hey,” she said as she came up beside him. Slid up close like she had a right to be in his space.
“Hello,” he said, trying his best to sound disinterested as he picked out a package of bandages.
His nerves told him that something was happening that he would not be a fan of, so Tommy let his mind and body slip into a different sensation of time, a different way of interacting with it, and turned his gaze to look at her. And of course he caught her in mid-eyepan. Yeah. That was definitely one of Billy’s friends, one who was in a relationship, eyeing him like he was a piece of meat.
This was not what he was expecting on the night before Valentine’s Day. The girl had a boyfriend, that much he knew for sure given how often they spent their time at the diner making out. Worse than that, he didn’t know how to make it stop. That wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to achieve before.
He returned his attention to the area in front of him and let himself fall back into the regular flow of time. Box of bandages in hand he turned away from her. Hopefully he could just lose her attention just like that.
Of course she found him again by the bread. She didn’t even have anything in her hands from the medicine area, and that was particularly annoying to him. That turned this from a ‘maybe she’s trying to get your attention’ to as ‘she’s absolutely trying to get your attention’.
“Can I help you?” he asked with a sight.
She smiles at that, finally turning fully to face him.
“You work here too?”
No, he didn’t, and he would like to just get his sandwich fixings and settle in for a night of questioning why he didn’t ask his brother to at least drop him in the spring when it would be warm.
“Really no. But you were staring at me and figured you probably wanted something,” he noted. “Since you don’t seem to, I’ll just be-”
“I was just wondering if,” she started to say, and then there was Hargrove, suddenly standing beside her and holding out some canned soup.
“This was what you were after, right? For Tommy? Since your boyfriend is the sort to go and get himself sick before Valentine’s.”
The interruption was a save, not that Tommy knew exactly which of them Billy was setting out to save with the little action. Was it to keep Carol from fucking up her relationship? Was it to protect Hagan from Carol flirting with other dudes? Or was he really just trying to get the soup and get out of here? Probably the last one actually, that seemed bottled up Billy through and through.
Carol, for what it was worth, smiled at Billy and took the cans.
“Thanks. Knew it would help to have you here, Billy.”
“Yeah, whatever you say. Was there anything else you needed to get?”
Once more Carol’s eyes moved to Tommy, and he could see the way that Billy’s gaze followed, his eyes narrowed. Yeah. Protecting his friend’s territory indeed. Tommy offered back a brief shrug of just one of his shoulders, what he hoped would be taken as a universal sign of ‘man i don’t get women either’. Billy sighed and pushed the can right in Carol’s hands.
“Go pay. Can’t be here long. Have to pick up the shitbird soon.”
“You know, Billy, you could just-”
“Taking care of your sick boyfriend for Valentine’s Day,” Tommy cut in because he knew it was better not to touch Billy’s complicated relationship with his step-sister, “pretty kind of you. Really romantic. I’m sure he’s going to appreciate it.”
That earned a pleased look from Carol, like she really did appreciate being seen in a good light, even if all three of them were pretty sure she’d been after something else entirely.
“Yeah, and it would go better if you actually bought your shit and we got going,” Billy told her, and just like that Tommy was free of the two. Just a few little prods and Carol was happy to move away.
In a way it was nice, because he was free of Carol. Mostly Tommy just felt frustrated to have been so close to Billy and not have the guy know him. That always left a sour taste in his mouth. All their time together meant nothing to this Billy, and that hurt for him. There were nights that Tommy spent up, completely devoid of sleep because his bed felt cold and empty without Billy’s head pillowed on his chest, and Billy Hargrove didn’t miss him for even a second.
Didn’t even know his damn name.
“Sorry about her,” Billy said after a moment. “Her and the boyfriend are…”
“On the rocks,” Tommy supplied, because he could guess that. “Sorry to hear it. I’m sure the nursing will help.”
“Doubt it. She just found out his dad got him into a nice school out east and she’s going to Indy State. Long distance and all that.”
Ah. Yeah, he guessed he could see it. She was already looking ahead to a day where she wasn’t going to have Hagan around. Which was just silly. That was no reason to act like she had, like she was on the hunt.
“Plenty of people make it through worse separations than college. And if they can’t handle that distance, then maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”
Billy rolled his eyes, of course. This was a Billy before he thought to believe in love and romance and two people truly wanting to go out on the limb for each other. Could Tommy really blame him, after the life he had lived, for not believing in that potential?
“Yeah, whatever you say man.”
With that Billy turned and walked off.
Tommy had to wonder if he knew he was putting that extra swagger in his step for someone that really did appreciate it.
He shouldn’t be here.
That was something that Tommy had told himself about seven or eight times in the week leading up to the game. He had no connections to the high school and all that happened there. The people that did come to know Tommy Shepherd knew that he wasn’t from so much as the Midwest, so they would know there wasn’t a particular reason for him to be invested in Hawkins High School basketball.
There wasn’t a lot to argue for his presence beyond boredom. So he knew he should just stay home that night since he knew where Billy would be and figured that it would be safe at least until the game let out.
Instead Tommy threw on his coat and gloves, climbed into that horrible thing he claimed was a car, and took the drive over to the high school. And he hadn’t even been sitting for three minutes before he was regretting it, because of course Carol had appeared out of thin air to sit at his side. Which, well, made Tommy really uncomfortable. Especially since there were eyes on him from the crowds.
Needless to say, this was absolutely going to get back to Tommy Hagan. Which was going to be a whole other level of fucking his life up.
But Tommy was here for a reason, so he did his level best to ignore the girl at his side as he instead let his eyes cast about the gym. There amid the band was a vaguely familiar young woman who was probably Robin Buckley. Amid the cheerleaders a blond girl that he only sort of thought he had seen once back in Temba, maybe in passing. They weren’t really his focus of course. Instead his eyes were on the team.
If there was one part of the 80s that Tommy had come to appreciate, it was how ridiculously small the shorts for the basketball team happened to be. His mind alighted briefly on Steve, who seemed to be offering his team a bit of a pep talk that most of them seemed too zoned out to notice. Which was probably a mistake because this was the last game of the regular season if they didn’t win.
And, across from Steve…
There was something very wrong about sitting on a bleacher in a gym in small town in Indiana and trying not to eye the legs of the star player. Maybe if he was a girl he could get away with it. Hell, he probably would be able to get away with it as a girl. Here, though, Tommy knew he shouldn’t be watching Billy and remembering the feel of those legs wrapped around his.
“So you like basketball or something?” Carol asked from beside him and Tommy had to take a breath to keep from sassing her.
Team sports had never really been Tommy’s thing. Especially not high school level team sports. So no, it wasn’t exactly his thing. Which wasn’t going to fly if he was here just watching a high school team support.
“They’re about as good as anything else,” he said instead, giving a half-interested shrug. “But the way I see it, the team, the cheerleaders, even the coach, a lot of them are regulars. Only right to support them back for supporting me.”
“I see.”
Listen, it wasn’t like he could say ‘I’m here to root for my boyfriend in what might be the last game he’s going to get to play’. Couldn’t say ‘watching him so something he loves will mean that for a brief moment I’m getting to see him as I love him, alive and passionate’. And he sure as fuck couldn’t say ‘I need one night of Billy Hargrove in a tank top and stupidly short shorts so that I can keep the dream alive.’
“You here to root for your boyfriend? I think I see him there. Not in the warm up gear so he’s a starter, right? That’s pretty cool.”
Carol gave a shrug then made a show of turning her attention away. Then she made a pleased little noise like she’d found something exciting. Tommy had to fight to not laugh as she bounced to her feet, waved at some else further down the bleachers, and got up to go join them. He knew he wasn’t the most entertaining person as it was. Hell, he barely knew anything about basketball, beyond what Billy himself had told him.
Soon enough the seat beside him was taken up by a small group of rather noisy kids, middle schoolers probably, who were falling over themselves talking about Steve.
At least they seemed to be about as wise in the ways of basketball as Tommy did by the time the game started. One of them seemed to have enough of a concept that he was correcting the misstatements of those around him, and frankly Tommy found he was learning a bit just from listening to them. They were amusing, actually, and had that sort of energy that reminded him of his team back home, back when he’d first joined and most of them were still ultra nerds.
Mostly, though, Tommy’s attention was held by one part of the game and one part only.
Billy Hargrove dominated the court. While the kids beside him grumbled and complained about him Tommy watched the way he moved. Billy moved with speed and grace, danced around members of the other team while he kept the ball in his hand. Confidence and arrogance. Poetry in motion if Tommy only had the words to capture it with. His man was hungry for the win and Tommy found himself whooping with delight whenever Billy scored, and shouting in annoyance whenever he was fouled.
The kids really did start side eyeing him by the end, but what did Tommy care? The game was almost over, they were down by four, and in his heart, Tommy knew it was over. Maybe no one else could see it, but Tommy knew the signs of bubbling frustration and anger in Hargrove, especially when his temper was worked up by Harrington. Not that either of them were playing badly by Tommy’s estimation, it was just a long night, the other team was pretty well, and it was clear Steve and Billy were the anchors of the team. Anchors that hadn’t sat down longer than a time out or breaks between quarters (he was pretty sure they were called quarters).
Clearly they were tired, and that was affecting a lot of things, and the coach just wasn’t handling things the way he should have.
Maybe Billy had seen it too. Could see that this wasn’t going to end in a victory. That this was the end. Because he was getting a little sharper, a little angrier, a little more desperate.
That’s probably why the shot goes just a bit wide. It’s probably why everything started to fall apart at the end. It was probably why a lot of things that happened happened. In minutes the game just fell apart, and the Tigers were left with a loss. The locals filtered out slowly, clearly upset by the loss.
For a long moment Tommy lingered, his eyes following after Billy, watching as he moved for the locker room.
Wish I could take you home and cheer you up. Work all the frustration and tension from your muscles with the press of my hands, and tell you how beautiful you were. One day, Sunshine, I’ll tell you. Hopefully I won’t leave you waiting long.
March, 1985
Date: 2023-09-23 11:12 pm (UTC)Tommy was not someone who was fond of the cold. It was a powers thing, but it was more than that. There was something isolating about the cold. About being alone and distant from the things that were good and warm in the world. It made his heart ache, his hands sore, and his legs scream for activity.
Winter in Hawkins seemed to continue well into March, which was frustrating for Tommy. He’d never lived so far from the ocean, which apparently made winters a bit more mild. And when it got bad back there, he’d just head down to Florida for a few days, enjoy the sun and the sand and the relative quiet that came with snowbirds.
That wasn’t an option when he was here in a holding pattern.
The trailer rarely ever felt truly warm. In fact, Tommy was losing his mind with the chill. He’d been to the second hand store not once, but three separate times to get himself more blankets. His bed had turned into something more like a mound, and Tommy was currently curled up in it, enjoying a rare day off when he wasn’t expecting to need to trail Billy because he’d apparently been grounded over the weekend. Which was a good thing.
For the first time in several years, Tommy had a head cold, and he was so miserable that he was genuinely considering summoning his brother for help. Because, if nothing else, Tommy was a fussy guy when he was sick. And he’d already eaten himself out of just about everything he had stored in the trailer too. Stupid illness making him weaker and needing more food.
The only real comfort he had beyond the warmth and the occasional phoned in pizza was the other small thing he’d bought at the local second hand shop. Even now he was curled up under his blankets for warmth, cranking a small wooden box in his hands. Once he had wound to his satisfaction he opened it up to listen to the music. The tune had long since grown familiar to him, but the words? The melody made him think of what he wanted most now.
You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray.
Knocking on the door broke Tommy out of his revere. He lifts his head and glares at it. No one really knows him well enough to swing by beyond the delivery guy. Wasn’t like he was being noisy either, so it wasn’t the neighbors.
“Go away,” he said weakly, his stuffy nose actually making his voice sound weird and whiny.
Or maybe he was just whining.
The knocking didn’t stop. If anything, it grew a bit more demanding. Enough so that Tommy grumbled as he closed the music box and threw back the blankets. His feet were shoved into some stupid fuzzy slippers he’d found on sale at Melvalds (probably because the neon orange color had not appealed to people) and shuffled to the door.
“What?” he demanded as he threw the door open.
Only to face Billy Hargrove, fist poised to start pounding all over again.
“You’re not Munson.”
Ah. Right. Eddie lived a trailer over, didn’t he? Parked the van between their places, so he could see why there would be some confusion.
“Bingo,” Tommy agreed, and the word seemed to make Billy wince. Something on his face just said ‘ah, you’re sick’.
“You look like shit.”
And apparently the guy needed to say it. Tommy just groaned, half in annoyance, half because of the fact that it was true. Plus maybe an extra, secret third half that was over the cold because fuck, the door was still open and could it just not be that?
“Munsons are in the next trailer,” he grumbled. “When you see him, let him know I’ve got an errand he can run for some cash.”
Eddie probably wouldn’t be at all upset to make a bit of cash doing a grocery run for him. Because fuck, Tommy needed more calories in him and soon.
“What sort of errand?”
Okay, not the response he was expecting, but not one he’d turn away. He realized that Billy could benefit from the exchange just as much as Eddie could. Plus it would be an excuse to have just a few minutes where he existed in Billy’s eyes.
“Grocery run. Sick and I don’t wanna go. Got a list and cast, and I’d be paying him twenty for it.”
A lot of money to be throwing around on so simple of an errand but Tommy didn’t want to go out in the cold when he was sick. And you know what, it made Billy look pretty interested. Alright then.
“Come inside if we’re gonna talk, okay?”
When he backed away from the door Billy hesitated for a moment before stepping inside, closing the door behind him. Once that was done the kid started looking around. Go figure. Tommy wanted to smile, wanted to let himself be overwhelmed by the relief that came with having Billy in his space.
Instead he moves to the dining room table, grabs his notepad and starts writing a list.
“You really paying someone to go pick up your groceries?”
“Pretty common where I’m from,” he says. “Used to do some work like that.”
Of course it was more door dash than anything else, but you did what you did to get by.
“Frankly, I hate driving in the winter, and I hate driving sick even more. So I don’t care who does it, provided it gets done.”
He catches sight of Billy looking through the place, wonders just what he thinks of it. There’s no pictures here, no personal touches to make things more homey. This was utilitarian at its best, and as Tommy thinks about it, from an impersonal perspective, he realizes that maybe it’s just a little pathetic. Or a lot pathetic. Completely pathetic.
“Here,” he says, holding the paper out. “I’ve got to fetch my wallet. Wait here.”
Billy only nods, taking the paper as Tommy gets up and shuffles off to the bedroom.
“This is a lot of shit,” the guy calls after him. Which, of course, Tommy knows. He needs a lot of food to keep going most days. It’s worse when he’s sick. “Seems pretty unreasonable. I’ll be out for a while getting this.”
“Fair enough. If you don’t want to do it, pass it over to Munson and tell him to come over here for the cash.”
Tommy scoops his wallet up from the dresser and pulls out some money, only to turn around and find Billy just, well, right there. Right fucking there. In the moment Tommy looks at him and takes it all in. The rosy cheeks, the red tip of his nose, and of course the way he looks bundled up against the cold.
At least it’s not a Temba winter, my California Dream.
That’s just too affectionate, he knows, and so Tommy pushes on past it.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, why the hell not,” Billy says with a shrug. “Call it my good deed for the day.”
More like the month. Tommy snorts and hands the money over.
“Don’t know, Hargrove, you might actually just be a nice person from time to time.”
“Don’t count on it. I could always just run off with your money.”
“You really going to do that to a sick guy? Cruel. I’ll wither away and die because you can’t handle one good deed. And then who will make sure you get your burgers the way you like them at the diner?”
That gives Billy pause. Maybe he hadn’t really been thinking about why the food he got at the diner was sometimes better than other times. The simple answer is that when you know a guy long enough, you learn their tastes. And in Billy’s case he knew just what was right.
“Whatever man,” Billy says as he turns away.
“Just drop it all at the door and knock to let me know it’s there. I’ll leave the twenty in the mailbox.”
Billy nods and heads back for the main room and the front door. That leaves Tommy to curl up under his blankets again, opening the music box once he was properly cocooned up.
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.
Thankfully, an hour later, there was a knock at the door and soon the Camaro was driving off. But there was food waiting for him and his change. Honorable little punk.
Please don’t take my Sunshine away.
Thankfully the winter didn’t linger too much longer. That didn’t mean that it was shorts and t-shirt weather right away. It was still nice to have the ice off of the ground, the risk of illness gone, and the slightly longer days. There were plenty of parties starting up among the high schoolers who were glad to just be free of the winter. As for Tommy, well, he took advantage of the light warmth for something else entirely.
The nights were finally just barely warm enough to be tolerable in nothing more than a sweater and a coat, even late at night. Which was why Tommy was here tonight, at the quarry. Here it was, coming up on one in the morning, and Tommy laid out on the roof of his clunker, staring up at the sky.
There were just so many fucking stars out there.
It was almost peaceful. Almost. Because of course he couldn’t get a moment of peace. There was a noise, ripping through the chill night air like a fucking crime. An engine. Too loud of one by half, and Tommy wanted to scream in frustration because he might go mad from not only it, but the implication that someone was showing up to interrupt his night. Probably a sheriff’s deputy. They could be particularly annoying with the ‘we’re watching you, outsider’ vibe.
He lifted his head just enough to turn his gaze toward the approaching vehicle lights, and…
The Camaro. Huh. He hadn’t expected that.
The car pulled up beside Tommy’s own, the engine soon turning off. There was no real movement in the car though. Well, there was, mostly a moving shape that he knew was Billy. And at this hour of night it was probably only Billy. Then the flicker of firelight, a lighter probably. Which Tommy supposed explained Billy’s presence. This was a means to get smoking, away from where his dad could catch him. Or maybe he was just out for some other reason. Maybe he was out because…
It’s not his business, even if he wants it to be. More than anything Tommy wants to go right over there, haul the door open, and pull Billy into his arms. To tell him that he’d never let the guy hurt again, that he’d break Neil if he even looked at Billy.
Instead he turned his eyes back toward the stars and tried to ignore the other car.
That lasted all of three minutes before he heard the door of the Camaro open. Tommy did his best to keep his eyes to himself, because he knew if he looked at Billy, if he found what he expected, keeping his cool would not be possible. And he’d never be forgiven for that.
“Can’t sleep?” he asks, eyes staring up into the stars.
How many nights had they spent on the beach, looking up at them? How many long trips on the ships, looking out when there was nothing between them and the feeling of being small and insignificant? How many moments with fingers tangled together and secret smiles and whispered dreams?
“Sleep’s for the weak,” Billy answers, and his voice sounds…
Well, Tommy doesn’t have a point of comparison other than to say it sounded wrong. The tone stuck in his craw and made him want to scream. Made him want to find Cherry Lane and break a skull in. Instead he kept his eyes respectfully to the sky.
“Guess you’re not wrong,” he says with a shrug. “At least the night’s beautiful.”
That earned a scoff, and before Bily could say something silly Tommy snorted in amusement.
“Yeah yeah, it’s not like California. No fucing duh. Not like Jersey either. You get the sunsets, we got the sunrises. And these yokels? They get the fucking stars.”
That earned a thoughtful hum, and Tommy could just barely pick out the scent of the Marlboro Reds.
“So then, Jersey, why’d you ever come here?”
“Why does anyone ever come to Hawkins?”
Because your asshole father finds out that you’ve been with a guy and decides to take you somewhere that he thinks will hate you for it as much as he does. Tommy knows. But he can’t tell Billy that.
“That’s my fucking question,” Billy said with a weak laugh. “So? Why did you?”
Well, that’s a simple one, and he could even be sort of honest about it.
“Hawkins isn’t the end goal. It’s a stop on a journey. A way to get somewhere I need to go.”
He stays silent, hoping that’s enough. But of course he should know better. Billy isn’t the sort to just leave that quiet hanging when he was curious about something.
“And where are you going?”
Making my way back to you.
“Home,” he says. “But it’s not a place. It’s… a person. Got a bit lost on the way, needed some time and some funds, so for now, I’m waiting. Waiting for a sign that it’s time.”
The words are met with a scoff of disbelief. Makes sense. Tommy’s pretty sure he doesn’t really believe in things like that. Of course he doesn’t know that even this version of Earth is so far from ‘normal’ that it’s just scary. So Tommy can’t blame him.
“Laugh if you want, but I’m sure it’s coming. My sign.”
He knows how it’s going to happen. Doesn’t know much more than that. A giant monster in the streets, Billy not being himself, and loud noises. Very loud noises. Whatever it was that made Billy flinch at New Tick fireworks.
“Whatever you say man. Good luck I guess. What’ll you do when you find them?”
Tommy smiles.
“Give fate a middle finger.”
This time he wins laughter, loud and boisterous and like he’s just carried Billy off into the night at high speed.
For now it’s enough. Enough for both of them perhaps, because Billy doesn’t ask anything more, and Tommy doesn’t tell him. He gives it maybe twenty minutes before he climbs back into his car and heads for home. Not because he wants to be back in that too quiet trailer, alone and empty and heartbreaking.
No, he leaves because Billy clearly needs this space, and he’s going to give the guy what he needs first and foremost. It’s the only thing he can give right now.
April, 1985
Date: 2023-09-24 10:43 pm (UTC)Apparently he hadn’t truly understood any of that until he’d come to Hawkins in the ass end year of 1985.
His life had devolved into the strangest combination of routine and unpredictability he’d ever known. Get up, work, wait for school to get out, follow the Camaro as subtly as he can to look for trouble, to look for the moment, realize it’s not the moment, go home, sleep, repeat. Some days it gets changed up because there’s a party to linger around the edges of, to see Eddie and not say hello, to to recognize the voice that comes with no one being around.
He sees people, he sees people constantly. More people in Hawkins than there ever had been on Temba, hell, maybe more than there even were on the Agrii ships. It’s like the planet trips but it just doesn’t stop and he’s alone.
There are rare interludes of connection. More than once Hargrove has ‘accidentally’ shown up at his door, looking for a bit more money, and Tommy doesn’t make himself completely predictable in that way. He’s not supposed to leave an impression, right? Not one that matters. Not supposed to mess up time before that one right moment. The one that matters.
In a way he’s more tired than he’s ever been in his life. More alone. He can’t even just take a day trip to New York, find an Avenger, and just be around someone he knows that doesn’t know him in a way where he could still talk about it.
No, all he can do is ache, all he can do is wait. All he can do is wonder if, in the end, it will even be worth it.
May 1985
Date: 2023-09-28 11:56 pm (UTC)On those nights he finds a new way to hate himself.
Indianapolis isn’t too far from Hawkins and it takes only a few nights of desperation for noise and people and dancing that he doesn’t feel wrong about to find the right people to ask the right questions. Which is how he ended up at Essence the first time. Right away it had felt closer to home, closer to his time, closer to his people. The lights and the music, the mixed drinks, the bodies. People smile at him, and he can smile back and not have to feel like someone will get the wrong idea.
It’s the only place Tommy feels comfortable not wearing the wig, the Midwest approved clothes, and all the things that make him pass for normal. Here he can take a few minutes, a few hours, and just be.
“You’re looking stressed, beautiful. Maybe I can buy you a drink to make that a little better?”
The man that sits next to him radiates real Daddy Bear vibes, and Tommy would normally say no. He isn’t here to get picked up, to be pampered, to fumble around eagerly in a bathroom. He’s here for fruity drinks in little cups with umbrellas and no one who is going to judge him for liking what tastes nice. Yet there were moments like this, with a guy sidling on up to him and smiling like it’s going to get him somewhere.
“You’re welcome to buy a drink, but I feel it’s fair to be upfront with you and say I’m not putting out for it. Just not here for the romance tonight.”
The man offers a chuckle of understanding, perhaps even approval. Then he’s sitting next to Tommy, waving the bartender over. There’s that perfect little unspoken sort of exchange Tommy has seen regulars pull off with their bartenders in a way Tommy has never perfected. Some gestures, a point at his tequila sunrise, some nods and a gesture that probably indicates just what the guy himself is looking for. Then they’re alone, or as alone as anyone can be in a gay bar that’s absolutely bouncing for a Wednesday night.
“So what’s his name?”
It’s the sort of question that, in another place or time would make no sense. Here and now…
“Billy,” he says with a shrug and a sigh.
“Straight?”
Ah, wouldn’t that be the far more manageable problem? Tommy laughs, fingers coming up to drag through his hair. It feels so nice, not to have the itchy wig on his head.
“I’m guessing that’s a story you hear all the time. Some poor guy falling in love with a straight guy. That’s probably the first rule, right? Never do that?”
The big man nods and gives him a curious, perhaps even pitying look. Yeah, first rule then.
“Course none of us can help it, yanno? It’s who we fall for,” the big guy says. “Ain’t easy though. Because-”
“It’s not like that,” Tommy cuts him off as he finishes his drink. It’s not like that at all. “He’s not straight, it’s more complicated.”
“Ain’t it always?”
There’s silence for a while as the new drink arrives and Tommy takes an appreciative sip. Yeah, that’s just what he needed. No buzz, but it’s still tasty and it burns going down and he feels alive.
“Maybe talking it out will help?”
Tommy snorts. How do you talk this out? Alien abductions, alternate realities, time travel, demons, magic… Fuck, his life is a damn soap opera. Then again, had it ever not been one? Shit, he was born before he was ever born, and that was a headache even for him some days. And don’t get him started on the baby-hands.
Still, maybe the guy is right. It’s been five months since Tommy’s been able to talk to literally anyone about anything. About how much it hurt to see Billy every few days and know the guy doesn’t know him. Sure, he recognizes Tommy in passing at this point, but he doesn’t know Tommy. Can’t know Tommy like he should, like he had. Doesn’t know that Tommy knows the taste of his skin, or the feel of his hands, or the softness of his hair. That he thinks if he was given a piece of clay he could shape it into Billy’s face without looking.
And holding all of that inside, being the only one that knows, being the only one to hold it all in, it hurts. It’s eating at him and he’s still only on the road to his path home. Home. Billy Hargrove was his home and he needed to get back to it.
“I fell in love with this guy. He’s… Well, I won’t say he’s amazing. He’s an asshole. Irreverent and angry and pigheaded. And also charming and protective and he burns like a bonfire with every breath he takes. He loved me too. I know it. We didn’t… Sometimes it’s hard to say the words, you know? To put them out loud? You start to fear that if you let them out then everything will immediately fall apart.”
The stranger nods like he’s been there before. LIke he knows this little song and dance, like he’s been there before. He hasn’t. Not like this. But that’s fine. He doesn’t have to know the whole this, doesn’t have to have been the whole thing himself to listen. So Tommy takes another sip and takes a deep breath and tries to think about how to continue.
“He leave you? Because you didn’t say it? Or was it that he got sick?”
“Shit man, not that. Nothing like that. It’s just…”
How does he explain that it’s just that Billy hasn’t fallen in love with him yet? That time hasn’t let him get there? Hasn’t let him make that choice?
“This is going to sound so stupid. But there was an accident. And now he doesn’t know me from Sunday. Plus he’s so far back in the closet that it’s actually almost sad.”
Back there because he hasn’t even left. So he’s never going to see Tommy as something beautiful. Something he can have. Something that was his already.
The man… Considers. Nods. Sips his beer. Seems to consider again.
“Sounds like a hell of a lot of shit.”
Makes him laugh. God Tommy hasn’t laughed like this in a while. Just such an understatement and he doesn’t know how to face it.
“You’re choosing to wait for him?”
And there it was. The greatest question of all of them. The one that Tommy asked himself so many times. Was he choosing this? Was it worth it?
“Yeah,” he says, and the word is so easy. It’s just there, so quickly.
“I could wait a lifetime for him,” Tommy says with a smile and a shrug. “Just hard some nights.”
“Well, if you ever need some companionship to see you through it…”
That gets a chuckle. Tommy throws back the end of his drink and shakes his head.
“Nah. I’m good. I’ve got a very experienced right hand to keep me in line while I wait. And with that, I think I need to be hitting the road. Miles to go before I sleep and all that shit.”
The man offers a nod and Tommy stands.
“Drive safe.”
“Always do.”
There were certain advantages to living in the 1980s that Tommy really hadn’t anticipated. The serious reduction in levels of security in places like schools definitely ranked up there. No real serious locks on the doors, big open windows, reduced presence of anything resembling real computer systems.
All things told, getting into the high school and then into the office was small potatoes for him. He didn’t even have to trip any locks. Just vibrate through a wall, and bam, access to the office and all the paperwork. It took a bit more effort to get into the locked filing cabinets, but hey, there had been a time where he’s been in juvie before the whole super part and so he had some skills he might not be fully proud of. Just some careful application of arms from a certain kind of aviators that were pretty amusing to use as a basic set of rake and tension bar, and there they were.
Locker combinations.
Okay, so he probably could have broken one open but breaking wasn’t the goal here at all. From the buzz at the diner and the reduced number of people who were actually brainy students, it was clear that finals week had arrived. Which meant stressed seniors everywhere. Including one that Tommy had a personal intention of taking care of.
Tommy shifted the backpack he wore as he started the slightly more involved task before him. Which was composed almost entirely of the process of trying to find one locker amid a school of them. Annoying as fuck, and he couldn’t go too fast given he had already risked some stuff with the whole vibrating through the doors thing. Ruining the surprise over a lack of patience wasn’t really an option for him.
At last he found it, the locker that matched the records in the office. A few quick turns of the dial later and he had the thing open.
It smelled of cigarettes and that woodsy sort of cologne that Billy used. There wasn’t much in it besides text books that apparently hadn’t been taken back for studying. Well, who was Tommy to judge that? Not like he was much of a sturdier himself (blame it on a brain that had started to retain things a lot faster when his mutation came to the fore), so he couldn’t say anything.
What he could do was push things around just enough to set up a clear area. Into that he put the Tupperware he’d wrapped in several pieces of colorful paper. Ribbons and bows festooned it, and he’d taken hours to get the handwriting on it right. Just fancy enough to look feminine, not so girly as to be annoying or point to any one particular girl in school. He hoped.
There wasn’t much to it of course. Tommy just remembered what sorts of things Billy had liked as treats back on Temba. He couldn’t make the same things here of course, there was as much of a problem in translating Temba cuisine to Earth as there was in translating Earth dishes to Temba, but Tommy had been practicing on these for a while. Cookies, fruit breads and other little savory things that wouldn’t really be at risk here in a locker overnight before Billy showed up for classes tomorrow.
A nice little package of treats that Billy wouldn’t have to take home but could keep him energized for the coming week. The note on it would claim it was from an admirer, a little box to cheer him on for his finals. Tommy had heard girls around town plotting out these very sorts of gifts.
It had felt right, after that conversation, to do this.
Hopefully Billy wouldn’t get too much grief for it.
Tommy looked from one side of the hall to the other, a point of paranoia that he laughed at immediately after. He lifted the envelope to his lips and kissed it lightly. After that he closes the locker. Time to head home.
The fact of the matter was that he didn’t belong here. Tommy knew that, and he knew that just about anyone who knew who he was would know that too. But when he woke up that morning, Tommy found it wasn’t at all possible for him to not be there.
The good news was that there were enough people there for Tommy to sort of… blend in with the crowds. He took a seat in the back corner of the gym, on the benches just short of the top row. Made it easier to blend in. Made it easier to jump down and disappear in a flash as it was needed.
While this wasn’t the first graduation he had been to, Tommy definitely hadn’t been to very many. There had been Teddy’s and Kate’s and Billy’s, but Eli had moved away and hadn’t told anyone when his graduation would be. There had been David’s one for college with America, and Tommy had been at that too. But he’d never graduated himself, he’d gotten a GED instead because no school ever would have let him into their walls.
So Tommy had a pretty vague idea of how this was going to go, but he didn’t understand what it was like to be down there. Would Billy be anxious? Would he be annoyed? Would he be ready to jump ship and head out of town? Hard to tell. The one thing Tommy was certain of as he watched the graduates enter and sit was that Billy had to be at least slightly annoyed, sitting next to Steve Harrington as he was.
Graduation was more energized here than it was at Kate’s school, but about what Tommy had experienced at Billy and Teddy’s. There were people that shouted and roared with pleasure at the graduation of their friends and family members. Hell, the one for Harrington was particularly noisy, thanks to a group of kids that Tommy had seen at that last basketball game. And then it was Billy’s turn.
The noise was… sedated. Polite. Probably underclassmen who were attending and other seniors who liked Billy. But nothing from the gathering of families. Which meant nothing from Billy’s father.
How was he not even remotely surprised by that?
Once Billy’s back in his seat Tommy slips off the bleachers. The fall isn’t enough to upset him. And it’s easy enough to slip out through the doors.
It was warm for late May. Almost time for June to be upon them. Which meant Tommy needed to be preparing. Soon. He knew it had to be soon. Billy had arrived in a tank top from what Tommy’s brother had said. Chances were that his Cali Boy had not fallen in the fall.
Three months. He didn’t have much of a window before things hit the fan. Tommy needed to be ready. Ready to save the guy he loved.
Ready to be the witness to the worst moments of his life.
Early June, 1985
Date: 2023-09-30 06:51 am (UTC)It presented a whole new problem for Tommy that he didn’t really like. Without school going on there was more time in the day that Tommy needed to be following Hargrove. More time in which Billy could get into his possession trouble. Which meant Tommy had to follow him more. Work would only get in the way of that.
So Tommy started the summer by quietly quitting his job at the diner. He hated giving up the work, it was satisfying and familiar and the lunches were nice. But he didn’t need the money, so he apologized for it, pointed out there were probably some high school kids who needed the work for the summer anyway, and started the extended period of staking out the life of his boyfriend.
Not boyfriend. Sort of boyfriend?
Fuck. He was just a stalker, wasn’t he?
At least there was one advantage to needing to follow Billy to figure out that moment to save his life during. Billy worked at the community pool. And, as luck would have it, someone had taught him how to swim.
Is there anything quite so beautiful as Billy Hargrove in his lifeguard gear? Summer felt that much hotter when Tommy looked at his boyfriend striding out of the locker room in those red shorts and the white tank top and oh god Tommy knew he was drooling.
He wasn’t the only one of course. There were housewives that had started showing up at the pool at the start of Billy’s shift every day. Seeing them made Tommy think about a conversation, long ago, on the island beach. About how he never wanted to be like them.
As he watched the women stare and drool and watch a recently eighteen year old guy sitting and doing his best to be a fucking life guard, he realized it had never been a risk. He actually cared about Billy, he wanted more than a lay and a pretty face. He wanted to cherish the guy and hold him. To taste him and show him love and enjoy those moments of chaste but lingering kisses that left him breathless and lost.
Tommy’s too hot and he’s worried it’s going to show in his trunks. So he rises from his lounger where he’d been working on his tan and let himself sink into the cool of the water, one of the actual dedicated swim lanes. Once there he started himself on laps. He knew when Hargrove’s shift would be done, he could recognize the angle of the light on the water, so he knew he could lose himself to the swimming for as long as he needed to and not lose track of Billy.
Of course he wasn’t expecting just what came next. He must have lost track of time in the mindless passing back and forth in the water, in the focus on the flawless form that Billy had spent countless hours teaching him along a purple beach, and in other places as well. He remembers the joy of it, parting the water around his body and seeing things in a whole different and wholly more confident light. Remembers the smile of pride that he’d earned on his boyfriend’s face, and his own swell of joy over having put it there. So Tommy was lost in it all which meant, well…
“Not bad,” he heard as he came to a stop at one end of the pool, taking a moment to catch his breath fully and enjoy a cool summer breeze on his skin.
The way Billy smiled at him made Tommy want to propel himself from the pool and kiss those beautiful lips. Of course he didn’t do that. It would be trouble. He’d get his ass not-kicked and people in town would give them both grief and yeah, bad ideas abound.
At least he knew to think before he acted.
“Had a good teacher,” he said with a shrug, trying to act unaffected by the praise. “So, you always stare at the people who clearly don’t need guarding?”
“Anyone can drown, chef,” Billy returns immediately.
True enough. That was half of why he’d accepted Billy’s lessons. As a safety measure.
“Didn’t you usually work these hours?”
Tommy’s heart leapt, just a little. He hadn’t thought that Billy really paid that much attention to him here. Sure there had been a few instances of Billy running errands for him (moments that made Tommy’s heart jump to just have Billy there and in his space briefly), but paying attention enough to notice his time at the diner…
“Should you really be talking to me when there’s other stuff to do?”
It earned him a laugh. “You trying to get rid of me? Mighty suspicious. First you show up at my work on the regular. Then you’re not answering questions about your job. Now this? Guy might think you’re focused on him or something.”
Back home he’d flirt at this point, he’d say ‘well isn’t it interesting how you noticed me that much’. But this was Hawkins and 1985 and Billy didn’t know that Tommy could map out the scars on his body that he didn’t even have yet, all without looking. So he shrugs.
“Something else came up. Got different things I’ve got to do now.”
There was a look on Billy’s face, intrigued, and a bit dark too. Something with a hunger to it that Tommy knew very well. A look from when Billy talked of going home, of showing him California beaches properly, of introducing Tommy to all the places that mattered to him.
“So you’ve found your hint or whatever the shit you were after?”
“Basically,” Tommy says. “And soon I’m going to have to deal with that. But not today. Figured I can probably coast on what I’ve got saved up for now, so I might as well take some time to enjoy myself. The water’s been calling me.”
“Not as good as a beach.”
“No man. Not as good as a beach. I hope to see some good ones some day. Not back in Jersey. Out in California maybe.”
That wistful look lingered for a moment. And oh man Tommy wanted to promise to share them with Billy. Which wasn’t something he could do. Not right now. So he’d have to let it go.
“So, summer job?” Tommy said, trying to turn the conversation just a bit. “Passing time until fall semester at some nice college?”
Better to be clueless to some degree. He didn’t actually know what Billy wanted, beyond ‘going home’.
“Saving up for my own trip. And it’s a good way to keep up the tan.”
Okay yeah, that sounded like Billy. It made Tommy laugh happily to hear such honesty. More than that, he could see the happiness there. Not as much as he’d seen back in Temba, but some of it. Important notes of happiness that made Tommy a bit more relieved.
Because in this moment he realized it was probably likely that Neil couldn’t easily lay a hand on Billy right now. Couldn’t exactly hide bruises in how little Billy was wearing.
“Well, I need to get back to my laps,” Tommy says with a shrug. “And you’ve probably got some brats to teach to float or some shit, right?”
Billy nodded, his attention faded out a bit. His eyes catch on something else and he nods before standing. Which leaves Tommy on his own. With a sigh he throws himself back into his laps. He needs them to work off the new tension in his body. Work off the longing. The desperate desire for a touch he knows he might never feel again.
He doesn’t know whose idea it is, of course. But the offer comes one afternoon when Tommy hauls himself out of the pool, water running off of his body and out of his wig (he will owe his brother so much later over how well the wig was standing up to everything). Maybe it’s Carol’s fault, she’s been eyeing him a lot more over the summer. Though why she was bothering to sniff around when he knows she’s going off to college soon is beyond him.
But the offer came as Tommy was dripping wet and he knows there are eyes on him from those same housewives that often spend time eyeing Billy.
“There’s a party tonight,” Billy noted as Tommy was crossing by the lifeguard chair, intending to grab his towel. Billy would be finishing his shift soon which means that Tommy needed to get showered, out, and ready to quietly trail the Camaro soon.
“Oh, is there?” Tommy said as he grabbed his towel up and rubbed his arms a bit drier than they currently were. “I’m sure there’s a lot of parties in the summer. People looking for one last hurrah before they get to college and find those parties.”
He could hear Billy snort in that way he did when he didn’t want to admit to being amused to something.
“Whatever man. It’s at the quarry.”
Ah. Just as likely to be a warning as an invitation. There had been a few nights this summer where Tommy had thought he’d seen Billy get settled into bed for the night and snuck off to the quarry, only for Billy and the Camaro to show up. Really, it was getting to the point where Tommy was considering finding a place to sleep near the house on Cherry Lane.
“Well I guess I’ll have to enjoy my own bed tonight,” he answered with a shrug. Seemed like he was being waved off more than anything.
“Yeah, or you could find a way to warm your bed up.”
An invitation then. One that wasn’t as tempting as Billy clearly thought it was. There was no small town girl just out of high school that he was going to take home. Once he might have, but now? Now the only beauty this town had that he wanted was Hargrove himself.
“You’re in a holding pattern still, right? Before you head out? Might as well pass some time. Bring drinks.”
Tommy laughs then. So that’s what he was being invited for. Some chicks and to serve as the source of booze here. Yeah yeah, fair enough.
“Not getting you guys drunk,” Tommy dismisses, and he slips to the showers. Time to get cleaned up and sneak off to wait and watch.
Of course Tommy shows up. He can’t not show up. For once he has an excuse to linger at a party that Billy was going to be at, so why would he not do it? Granted he doesn’t buy or bring any booze for them. Fact of the matter was that he didn’t intend to facilitate the kids’ drinking habits. Didn’t make anything better, and he hated the idea of them drinking so close to the quarry. Whether they were up high where they could fall, or down low where they could get into probably contaminated water, he didn’t want to feed into that.
What Tommy did have was girls. They moved around him like he was something to see, and Tommy knew how to play at all of this. He’d spent enough years as a partier back home to know how to do this. He could keep his eyes on a swivel for Billy while he danced with one tipsy girl to another. Knew how to let them down gently but make them feel special.
By the end of the night he knew the story he spun through several different girls was starting to spread. A story of lost love, someone hurt and taken away from him by a father who would never approve of them together. He said he had been trying to find his Sunshine for a while now, had been using his money to hire a private dick in Indy, and had chosen to settle down here because it reminded him, just a little bit, of home.
Really, he was starting to sound like the tragic hero of a Hallmark Channel romance, the sorts of things Mary used to watch. But over time it earns him a safety buffer. The girls still want to dance, but they don’t seem as intent on earning their way into his arms for anything but the roll of the music. That’s a relief all in and of itself, especially since he already has eyes on his Juliet.
He’s magnetic at a party. Someone started a bonfire a long time ago, bathing Billy in this warm orange glow that flickered and danced in his eyes. It also danced in irregular patterns across the stretch of Billy’s bare chest, where his muscles were still shining from his defense of his keg king title.
Tommy wanted to lick his skin, taste the stickiness of beer with the sweat of Billy’s body with the no doubt lingering hints of chlorine. Which of course he’d never be able to do. But damn he wished he could. Wished he could pull Billy against him as they danced, to feel his heat and the strength of his muscles and see those eyes boring into him, his face haloed by golden light in even more golden curls.
“You came.”
There was just something about Hargrove that meant the guy could just catch him off guard. It kept happening and Billy didn’t even know how amazing that was. How powerful it made him to be able to get the drop on him. Because one moment Tommy had been fantasizing, and the next here he was, smiling that smile that used to make Tommy feel like he was the only one in the world.
“Yeah, well turns out I still couldn’t sleep.”
That earned a nod from Billy. He tilted his head to the side, to the trail up the side of the mountain. While they walked Tommy let his eyes fall to his feet, not commenting as he listened to Billy light up.
“Been hearing a lot about you tonight. I think Hagan’s been jealous, he’s not the Tommy on everyone’s lips tonight.”
Tommy snorted at that comment. He’d seen more than enough of Hagan to think that the guy deserved the sort of attention he got.
“You know how to spin a fucking tale man.”
“Not as much of a tale as it seems,” Tommy said as they came to a stop together at the edge of the trail. He let himself look down over the edge, carefully. Falling was still something he wasn’t a fan of.
“Yeah, not buying that. You’re going to get yourself invited to the next thing at this rate, so the girls can coo over you.”
“And take their eyes off of you? No man, I don’t think I’m going to sign up for this again,” Tommy answered with a smile.
Billy rolled his eyes at that. Tommy knows even without looking that Billy’s rolling his eyes. Years they were together, so many years. His heart aches to know it’s there, that he can’t watch it, that he can’t stare into those eyes.
“Sure man. Claim you aren’t having fun if you need to, but I don’t think anyone here will buy it.”
The words hurt, and Tommy can’t explain why. He thinks he knows why. He thinks it’s because if this was Billy as he knew the guy then the suggestion would never have come. And more than that…
“I need to go,” Tommy said, because his stomach was turning now, churning and screaming because it hurt so much. Because this is intimate, in the same way so many other things they had done before were intimate. But no, it wasn’t that at all.
Because Billy Hargrove doesn’t know who he is.
“Party’s still-”
“I need to go,” he repeated, his voice shaking, and Tommy knows it’s going to his hands and if he doesn’t go soon then there will be problems.
When he shakes he’s not like another person. And that would be a problem.
It’s only worse when Billy nodded rather than saying anything. Rather than comfort him Billy just nodded and let him go.
It hurts in ways Tommy didn’t have words for.
Friday, June 28th, 1985
Date: 2023-10-01 02:41 am (UTC)Once upon a time he would hardly have counted a blackout as something he really should care about. Even when he was a superhero and he was in New York it hadn’t seemed like something he could get involved in. Power outages tended to mean evil geniuses or people with electrical powers and that was never fun to work with. Unless he was called in he didn’t get out in a power outage.
Except Agra-10 happened. Except power outages tended to mean energy storms. Except power outages went with some of the worst moments that the world had to give them.
It wasn’t that Tommy was afraid of darkness. It was that he’d grown scared of what came when it struck suddenly.
They went out suddenly while Tommy was enjoying dinner at the food court of the mall, keeping his eyes on the distant presence of Billy Hargrove, who was in turn paying attention to someone else. Honestly, Tommy didn’t pay attention to who. It hurt every time he saw Billy watching someone else. Every time he had to admit that the man he loved didn’t even know who he was.
The lights went out and people around them gasp over their Orange Juliuses and their pops (god the Midwest chose the worst words for this stuff) and their Scoops Ahoy cones. Tommy, who had been packing away some orange chicken from Panda Express, went still. Only for a second though. For a second that was impossibly short for everyone else. For Tommy it was long enough to race out of the mall, slipping past all of the people and through a half open door.
Outside it was as dark as sin. A widespread outage then. Tommy kept moving. Made for a nearby bench to sit down on. Once he was down he took in the sight of everything else. And damn, it was still dark.
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t sink back into regular time because what was happening? His mind turned to Temba and the storms taking power out. But this wasn’t a storm. He was still fast. He was still Speed, he was still more than just human. But the fear.
The fear still gripped him and would not let go. Like a hand clenched around his fist. His hands started to shake and Tommy shifted to sit on them. Couldn’t let them shake. Couldn’t let his powers fall out of control. The danger for everyone, for Billy, was too high.
So all Tommy could do was face it alone. There was no one here to back him up. There was no one here he could talk to. No one here he could turn to now that the months were growing long and his ability to handle the tension was quickly falling apart.
What was he going to do? Tommy didn’t even know. But something told him he was going to have to figure it out soon. Because yeah, this was… This was a precipice. He could feel it.
“I won’t fail him,” he tells himself quietly. “I won’t fail him.”
It takes a few minutes for him to settle into normal time again, and once it does, Tommy heads back inside, just as lights are coming back on.
He hopes no one saw that he had been inside before.
Saturday, June 29th, 1985
Date: 2023-10-01 03:16 am (UTC)All in all it made for a very, very cranky Tommy. One that was having a hard time keeping his wig properly on. It just didn’t want to stay today, almost like the magic of Bobby pins and, well, magic, was fading. What it also meant was that Tommy was in a bad mood to start with and not able to cool down in the pool lest something were to go wrong.
That meant that he was treated to a sight that made him want to snarl.
Watching Billy flirt with Karen Wheeler was driving Tommy up the wall. Because that was undoubtedly what it was. If there was one thing Billy knew, it was what his boyfriend looked like flirting. The little biting of his gum instead of his lip, the way he looked up and down Karen, the brightness in his eyes.
Envy curled in Tommy’s stomach because how dare a woman her age ever expect something of his boyfriend. How dare she ever…
Tommy lifts himself from his lounger and just walks away. He can’t stand to look at it. Not for anything in the world. Not when the day before had been so wrong.
“Hey, Tommy,” a girl called nearby. He pauses, catches sight of Carol in her bikini that was about as risky as 1985 seemed to put out. “You leaving? You didn’t even swim.”
“Carol,” he greeted with a brief nod. “I think the heat is getting to me today.”
“I haven’t seen you around the diner recently. Everything okay?”
“Fine,” he says. “I just need to cool off. Have a nice swim.”
If he was lucky she wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t even begun to address her real comment there, or the implication there. Of course it can’t be left at that. Because Tommy only makes it a few feet before Carol’s at his side, walking with him.
“If you need to cool off then we should get you something to help with it. Like a milkshake.”
We. Fucking we. Something told Tommy he wasn’t going to get away from her easily this time. Not without liberal applications of ‘humanly impossible’ amounts of speed. So it seemed like he was going to have to deal with it as it was.
“I don’t get employee discounts on them anymore, so-“
“Then it’s my treat. Meet me outside once you’ve showered and changed.”
She says it with such bright expectation that it’s honestly hard to say no. And it’s not like Billy won’t be at work for another two hours.
“Alright,” he says after a minute. “But don’t leave me waiting. I’ve got errands to run this evening.”
Carol nodded and they parted ways outside of the locker room doors.
Getting rid of Carol took a bit over two hours, which was a headache and a half because it meant Tommy had to work to find Billy again. Which wasn’t as hard as it could have been of course. It seemed like Billy’s night life was tapering off as summer built up steam. Chalk it up to saving up for getting out of town he supposed. Made the most sense actually. What time Billy did spend out of the house on Cherry Lane was spent in the company of others.
It was here that Billy ended up, at least in the hours his father wasn’t working. Something that Tommy took advantage of when he didn’t want to run all over town to find Billy. Sometimes it didn’t pan out of course, and then Tommy had to put on as much speed as he thought he could safely get away with to find the Camaro, because Billy was never far from his baby.
This time of day there weren’t really many people around in the neighborhood, and moving at the frame of speed that he was, well… Yeah, today he was picking up a level of creepiness that he knew was absolutely just wrong. Some days, though, he just needed to see Billy up close.
It was probably wrong that Tommy knew that it was easier to vibrate through the kitchen door and into the house than it was to get in through the front. It was probably wrong that he knew every board that creaked or groaned, and how to avoid them. It was definitely wrong that he knew about the lock on the outside of Billy’s door and just where Neil Hargrove slept at night.
What was absolutely wrong with no question about it was slipping into Billy’s bedroom while Billy was in it, caught in the space between seconds. There was Billy now, in front of a mirror, smiling to himself. That wide smile, full of mischief, that told Tommy all he wanted to know about Billy’s conversation with Karen Wheeler at the pool. It was the sort of smile that Billy got on cold nights when he slipped into Tommy’s room, his shirt half off before the door was even closed. The sort of smile that Tommy gave him right back when their bodies crashed together and they chased…
Billy smiled into the mirror and he was teasing at a curl, trying to get something to lay just right. Tommy longed to reach out, to touch his golden hair. To curl his fingers into it and press his lips to Billy’s throat and promise that he doesn’t need this. That Tommy would always be there for him no matter what. That what Neil had stolen from him in California would be his, so soon, sooner than he could ever imagine. That Tommy was right there.
Instead he reaches past Billy for the bottle of cologne. He lifts it carefully, opens the cap. A brief dab of it to each wrist so he can smell Billy against his skin later. Then the bottle was put back with care before Tommy left again. He didn’t need to see Billy getting ready for a hookup. Watching it would only break his heart.
As he left he wondered if Billy could feel the ghost of a touch against his cheek, or the kiss of the breeze Tommy left in his wake.
Tommy had seen a hell of a lot of things before in his life. All sorts of villains and weapons and types of attacks.
What Tommy has never seen before is the targeted attack of a rat launched against a speeding car. There was no way an animal should have the reaction speed, or in this case the jumping ability, to manage what it did. Yet as Tommy ran through the woods trailing after Billy, he saw the impossible.
Saw a pack of rats he wasn’t expecting lingering in the trees. Saw one tense and move and jump precisely. Saw it strike Billy’s windshield. Saw the Camaro swerve.
He drops back, and after a moment of thought, climbs a tree. If the rats were behaving this weirdly, then he didn’t want to see just what they would do to someone standing in their midst.
From there everything happens… Not quickly. No, none of it is quickly, not for Tommy. Because he realizes what is happening before it starts to happen. Realizes what tonight is.
Maybe you shouldn’t forgive me, he thinks to himself as he sits there, high in the tree, watching Billy circle the Camaro and curse to himself.
I will never forgive myself for this, Tommy thinks as he sees something dark and slimy and vine-like snake out of the factory and grip Billy by his ankles.
Never, he realizes as Billy shouts, grips the vertical supports of the handrails, fights back against the undeniable pull of fate.
And I wouldn’t ever deserve it anyway, he tells himself as Billy stumbles out a few minutes later, his attention not on anything in particular. He seems so lost.
Eventually Billy starts moving again. Gets into his car with a degree of shaken fear and confusion that Tommy knows will haunt his boyfriend for so long to come.
You’re a horrible man, Tommy Shepherd. Just like everyone always said.
For a moment he almost pulls at the braided string bracelet at his wrist.
Except even your brother couldn’t love you now.
He spends the rest of the night up the tree, sobbing.
Sunday, June 30th, 1985
Date: 2023-10-01 03:44 am (UTC)And what Tommy determines by noon is that no one else even sees it. They don’t really see Billy and recognize the differences. The way Billy looks sick and dizzy whenever he moves. The way he squints against the sunlight. There’s a moment when Billy should be watching the pool when he seems to pass out, and no one sees it.
Never before has Tommy wanted to scream. Never before has he wanted to shatter a building just because he can. Never before has he wanted to make the world burn if it might make one thing in it better.
For the first time he realizes he really does understand his grandfather, and not Magneto. The longer he watches not-Billy puppeting his boyfriend like an awkward sack of meat, Billy’s will still lingering just at the surface, the more he wants to be like Ultron and just destroy everything. Wants to throw himself into this Upside-Down and find the being behind it all and break him until there isn’t even dust left.
It’s all Tommy can do to stay up in the tall tree he had decided to use as his perch, holding his binoculars and watching. He watches as Billy stumbles back inside, his arm burned in a way that no one notices. Tommy keeps watching as Billy disappears back into the employee locker room and doesn’t come out.
Watches when Billy comes back out but the girl that eventually followed him in doesn’t.
Watches when the pool closes and a while after Billy comes out, carrying that girl over his shoulder.
And of course he watches later at the steelworks as Billy carries her down into the darkness.
What hurts the most is when, half an hour later, the two come back up together. When she isn’t scared anymore. When both of them are blank faced.
In that moment Tommy knows his Billy is buried too far away for him to find.
July ???, 1985
Date: 2023-10-01 04:02 am (UTC)The last few days have been impossibly hard by those standards. Each person that Billy gets alone is a life that Tommy knows will be lost. They are weights that will always rest on Billy’s mind, and now Tommy’s as well. They are lives he could save, people he could spare this terrible fate. Lives he doesn’t touch because if he does this becomes an alternate reality and so he loses the man he loves.
Which makes him complicit in every life lost. No matter what he tells himself about causality and the flow of time and how things work, these lives are on his hands too. These people are his mistakes too. So each time he sees one Tommy makes sure to learn their name. If he carries the weight of them for the rest of his life, he will make sure they are remembered properly.
Even that resolve doesn’t make a moment of this any easier
Tommy eats mechanically, he showers mechanically, he cries as the hot water runs down his face because he did this too.
He’s a monster.
Why is he shocked by that? How could he ever be shocked by that? His soul was a fragment of Mephistopheles’s. He is broken if he can just stand back and let all of this happen.
There is no way he can be a hero again. Tommy knows that now. While Billy was a hero born from their mother’s magic and a god to be, Tommy Shepherd, he was born from her darkness, from the moments she was held by Chthon, from her days in the Brotherhood. Tommy Shepherd was born of Ultron and the darkness of his destruction.
He is unforgivable.
And yet he knows he won’t stop, because Billy? Billy didn’t deserve this. Billy deserved to live. And so he would give Billy that. Give Billy his chance to be better than his father, better than the creature that possessed him, and better than Tommy Shepherd.
July 4th, 1985
Date: 2023-10-01 05:17 am (UTC)What he wasn’t expecting was the battlefield. There was something… strange about a final stand made in a mall. Not as strong as a thirty foot fall flesh spider nightmare of course, but damn, it was all just very strange.
The biggest problem, though, was that the creature seemed almost aware of Tommy. He stayed at the edges of the conflict, trying to stay out of people’s sight. More than once, though, he could feel something… brush against his mind. Sometimes it was like Billy was about to turn his head, about to catch sight of Tommy. But surely that was impossible.
Still, he kept risking it. Kept risking blowing this timeline for nothing, because Tommy knew that he needed to see. If he didn’t see the right moment, if he couldn’t see the change come over Billy, then everything was for naught.
Honestly, Tommy wonders if he made a mistake by the end, coming into this without knowing the full details of everything. He doesn’t know who the girl is that Billy’s dragging toward the monster. He doesn’t know who most of these children who throw fireworks indoors are, or how they got involved. He doesn’t know a lot of things except for the fact that Billy is bent over a girl who reaches up and touches his face.
For the first time in days Tommy gets a glimpse of the man he loves. Tears roll down Billy’s cheeks.
Tommy wishes he could be there to reach out, to wipe them away.
Then Billy rises. He stands and turns toward the monster he created. The monster that helped create him.
The creature roars as Billy stares up with wide, fearful eyes. This wasn’t a moment they talked about a lot. So much is happening at once. Two teens run up from where Billy entered the food court. The girl on the floor drags herself backward, staring in horror. A nasty thing shoots out of the monster’s mouth and…
Tommy wants to applaud. The speed with which Billy moves is actually impressive for a normal human. His hands come up and catch a maw filled with teeth and sharp bones. It explains the multitude of tiny scars on Billy’s hands and palms, ones Tommy had kissed tenderly under the stars as he promised to always be there.
It feels wrong to stand back as Billy shouts in defiance, giving his all to hold back the literal and metaphorical darkness. This is Billy fighting one of his monsters in the most literal sense. The greatest shame is the way he can’t win.
What comes next is overkill. A scream as the first sharp, gaping appendage sinks into Billy’s side, gripping band biting all at once. Silence falling as others strike and Tommy keeps back the tears before he has to. His eyes are glued to the scene, waiting for it, waiting for that one moment, for the hope that he can make this stop.
All eyes are on Billy as he falls to his knees. It’s an ending. Those wounds are bleeding and there’s no way he could survive this.
Another defiant scream rends the air. Black bile spills from his lips, rolls down his throat.
Tommy slips faster and faster, steps closer, to where he might almost be seen, would be seen if all eyes weren’t on Billy.
And then he sees it. The moment where Billy’s mouth started to move, to form a word. A name. His eyes slip out of focus, and there are new tears forming.
Another tentacle, the mouth one again, forming, twisting, pointed. Here then is Billy’s death.
Here is the one life Tommy can save
There are some things that are a gift when it comes to speed, and there are some things that are a curse. Tommy Shepherd is physically twenty-one and mentally not even sure anymore, and he’s had more than enough time to figure out what he thinks those pros and cons are.
The biggest pros at the moment are the fact that he has all the time in the world to stage an entrance. He moves across the space at a stroll, trying out lines in his head, imagining ways to stop the creature.
In the end he puts himself between Billy’s suspended body and the tentacle, but only after putting one of the metal rope holder thingies nearby to grab once he needs it.
Then he lets himself fall closer and closer to real time. The tentacle lunges forward, already in motion, already looking for Billy. The creature hasn’t had a chance to react yet, to understand. So Tommy smiles up at it, bitter and angry, as he catches the offending appendage. Instead of letting it continue forward he puts all of his body into forcing the thing down. Given he can move faster than a human eye can see, he can put a lot of force behind his will.
There’s a ripping sound that tears through the air, and there’s a gasp behind him.
“Wh-” Billy’s voice slurs out.
Tommy reaches up and hauls the fucking wig off. Fuck that thing.
“I promised, didn’t I? That I’d always be there to save you.”
Tommy doesn’t look back though. The creature is roaring in fury, or pain. Honestly, he doesn’t care which it is. In fact, knowing would waste his time. Instead he grabs the metal support at hand and swings it first one direction, then the other.
Even lightweight, hollow metal can shear through flesh when you have enough speed behind it. The tentacles grasping Billy fall limp and of course Tommy is there to catch him. His fingers vibrate gently to peel the horrid mouth-vines from Billy’s flesh. Between the seconds he takes out the gauze he had brought with him and wraps the wounds as tight as he can. He needs to buy time until he can summon his brother to heal this again.
The creature roars in agony, and Tommy grins up at it.
“Jersey,” Billy croaks out, and Tommy smiles softly, sadly.
“Hey Sunshine,” Tommy croons back softly. “I missed you. Sorry I had to wait. Hate me for it later.”
There’s a look on Billy’s face but Tommy doesn’t linger to look at it. People are shouting, but Tommy can’t pay any attention to them. Now he has a whole other task to set about. Time for one last heroic action. He’s going to buy these other people time for this thing to die. Then he’ll call for his brother and they’ll figure all the rest out from there.