The Neighbor's Cat (Billy Hargrove x OC // Stranger Things)

7. Bullies, Deals, and Parties

Randy had just finally accomplished her locker combination and opened the door when it was promptly slammed shut again, narrowly missing her fingers.

"Hey Peters."

She closed her eyes and inhaled.

Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm.

It was a daily mantra, at this point. But while she should have been used to the grating voice, to the vexing stunts, to the face she was about to acknowledge, she wasn't. She didn't think she ever would be.

Slowly she turned to Tommy, who was perched beside her with his typical smirk. Arm half-over her head as he braced himself against the locker beside her, legs crossed in a lackadaisical manner, the quintessential picture of everything she had come to despise about school. He was like a walking, talking personification of her frustrations and insecurities. And to make matters worse, he knew it.

"Tommy," she replied coolly.

Sometimes it was bewildering to her how his expression managed to look so cheerful when his eyes were anything but. Like inky pits of acid, they were hot, sludgy, and always burning with some sort of chaos. He was unpredictable. He was cruel. Yet everything he did, he did with a smile.

"Heard you were invited to Tina's party tonight," he said casually, and slammed her locker closed again when she tried to open it.

"Yeah, but unfortunately for you, I don't plan on going. So you're going to have to find someone else to torment for the night," she replied, and forced the door open beneath his palm.

Tommy moved closer and gave it a rattling bang, forcing Randy to jerk her hands away.

"That's too bad," he murmured, leaning down, "because I was looking forward to seeing you."

"Ugh. Isn't it past trash collection time?" she muttered in disgust.

"Getting funnier every day, aren't you?" He titled his head. "Or maybe just uglier. I can't really tell."

"Don't worry, I'm getting funnier. But you? Not so much."

His gaze flickered down, and his grin grew feral.

"You have Algebra first period, yeah?" he asked.

Randy suddenly remembered that her backpack was at her feet, wide-open for the picking.

"Wai–"

But it was too late. Tommy had stuffed his hand inside and emerged with her Algebra homework – the same homework that had taken her until one in the morning to finish.

"Tommy," she growled. "Don't."

"What are you going to do?" he mocked, holding it above her head. "Pun me to death?"

"Seriously, Tommy–" She jumped for it, but he lifted it just a bit higher. "I really need–"

"You know, you might want to choose your words more carefully next time, Peters," he said lazily, grabbing the paper with two hands. "Maybe I'd be more merciful."

Riiiip.

Randy watched her homework fall to the ground in pieces.

Tommy laughed, slapped her on the shoulder, then walked away, his mirth bouncing off the walls.

As was usual, the overall reaction in the hallway was the pretense of having not seen a thing. Sometimes it was mercy, sometimes it was simply annoying. At that moment, Randy was glad for it.

She bent down and scooped up the scraps, hoping to piece them back together, but some had fallen into muddy footprints and others were torn so oddly that there was no helping them. After a few minutes of this, she decided to give up.