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

19. The Field of Death

Oh, how the tables had turned.

Last Billy checked, it was his job to lure the innocent into destructive habits and criminal mishaps, not Peters. Yet there he was: following a barely five-foot, frizzy ball of unexpected corruption into a highly illegal — not to mention extremely stupid — situation that he otherwise would never have stepped into. It was fucked up but he had to give her credit: it wasn't every day he was persuaded to do something reckless that he hadn't thought up himself.

As much as he hated to admit it — and as big of a pain in the ass as she was — Peters was beginning to grow on him. Just a little. She screwed up his already screwed up life and almost got him killed, yes, but the cow country that was Hawkins, Indiana certainly wasn't as boring as he had thought it was going to be. And though it did disturb him, she was the only one who seemed to give a shit about anything other than the shallow existence that was high school.

Still, all of her "OK" qualities couldn't exactly make up for their current shit-show.

Sure, Billy had broken into places before. He'd stolen stuff, gotten into hundreds of fights, drank as a minor, and vandalized uncountable amounts of shit. But that nothing compared to creeping through a government-run lab, looking for answers to an escaped monster experiment. It was like waltzing through an empty hospital — the smell of chemicals burned his nose, the glaring white of the linoleum and the harsh buzz of the fluorescents made his head hurt. It reminded him of the time he and his dad had taken things a step too far, when it wasn't just bruises and split lips that their tussle left behind.

He hadn't walked into a hospital since.

Maybe that was why sweat was dripping down his temples and soaking through his shirt — everything around him seemed so bright, so freakishly sanitary, it was like being back in the hospital, waiting for the doctor to tell him that his arm was broken and and his ribs bruised, waiting for the nurses to question how it had happened, waiting to lie through his teeth that he'd gotten into a fight with some boys at school, pretending that his dad wasn't standing menacingly behind him.

"You think these are offices?" Peters asked suddenly, stopping in front of one of the doors that lined the hallway and rattling its knob. Its plastic number read 152.

"Beats me," he mumbled, glancing at the others around them.

When the knob refused to budge, she crouched down and pressed her cheek to the floor to try and peer underneath. "Or do you think they're, like, doors to secret rooms?"

This girl's stupidity was failing to surprise him anymore.

She probably thought they would open to some stupid space realm or magical world, like in those weird books she'd had stacked on a shelf in her living room. What were they called, again? Narby? Narminy? Narniny? Whatever the hell they were, he remembered Max going through some weird phase where she read them (something about a closet — maybe a lion? — and a witch), and he'd tried to flush them down the toilet just to piss her off.

"Oh, it's definitely a secret door to Narniny," he said with sarcastic excitement. "Maybe if you run into it enough, it'll open for you."

"Har har. Good one, Fabio, but that's—" She paused, titled her head to the side, then glanced up at him. "Wait. What is a... a Narniny?"

"Hell if I should know," he muttered, picking a leaf out of his hair, "Its one of your geek books."

"Um, no. It's not. I've never heard of that. Ever."

He snorted. "I saw it in your living room, dipshit. No point in trying to lie."

She squinted at him as if he was speaking another language as she asked, "Hold on, do you mean... Narnia?"