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passivenovember · 4 years

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The Skull on the Shelf that Bares My Name

This is my first time posting a fic on tumblr, so. Here goes nothing

Billy was like an oil painting that had been around for a thousand years. Pretty in the right lighting, hideous in the swell of nightfall. All rough edges and smeared color, full of broken things inside that cut through the air and rattled around like shattered glass whenever anyone got too close, bristling and blowing with the 75mph wind that tumbled through his soul.

Billy thought it was breathtaking.

Thought he was breathtaking with split knuckles and broken ribs. Matted hair tangled with dried blood. Busted lips painted red, color spilling down his chin when he smiled too wide at his reflection.

He liked it messy and hideous.

Did everything he could to destroy the precious image, the golden boy.

He had always been pretty. Like a girl; sparkly eyes and curly hair. Neil had always old him someone would come along and color outside the lines, scribble over the image his mother had left behind and Billy had always been so breakable in the face of adversity.

Flinching against hurt and agony until it became commonplace. Until he grew tired of gluing himself back together every night under the light of the moon.

His face was beautiful like a sculpture carved from stone, or a window into the face of his mother and her mother, but.

Billy himself was like a cardboard box full of glass.

The Billy on the inside was sharp.

And crude.

And violent, when the mood struck him. Ask anyone and they'd tell you; guy's like a train barreling through an apartment building.

And he was.

A glorious, terrible, beautiful, ravenous storm brewing in the open sea.

Billy hadn't known girls could be hazardous.

He knew they were soft. Pretty, delicate and sometimes tough when they had to be. His mother had been like that--brazen. Flighty and aggressive in a different way, like when the sun emerges from the clouds and shines too brightly.

She was warm and loving.

Perfect in her femininity. Billy looked nothing like his mother because she dressed like a wood nymph, all sheer fabric and dresses that defied gravity. Her hair was blonde and curly, always pinned back with clips and beautiful scarves and Billy wanted desperately to look like her.

Film star beauty.

Painted lips, soft hands. When she threw herself off the bridge he brushed his fingertips over the fabric in her closet and tried to imagine what it would feel like to have the world at your feet.

She was so beautiful it felt like swallowing tar.

Hot and boiling on a summer's day.

Billy pulled something from the rack, ran his fingers around the liquid soft fabric of his mother's favorite dress; the white one with the pearl neckline that felt like water settling around his shoulders. They said she was going to be buried in this one and Billy hated it.

Hated that something so beautiful, so delicate would rot away in the cool, damp earth.

He sat in front of her vanity and watched the light twinkle against the jewels that littered the countertop; rubies, emeralds, opal stone cut into neat shapes. When he was a child Billy's mother would let him play with her rings because they made good skipping stones in the pond out back.

We'll always find more, his mother would say, and it was true. Neil spared no expense in making her shine like a million stars as if she didn't already steal the air from every room.

Pocket it in her velvet handbags for safekeeping.

Billy put a ring on each finger and studied his reflection in the pristine vintage mirror.

He looked like a rat.

A rat in a pretty dress, playing pretend for a day.

The front door slammed open and Billy put the dress back on the hanger.

The girl on the T.V. wasn't like his mother at all.

Not soft or feminine, but smoldering. Alight with power and freedom as she strutted around the stage. She looked like her eyes were swimming in water; thick black makeup smudged around green orbs, hair messy and tangled, legs littered bruises that peaked through the holes in her stockings as the lights threw her into disarray.

Slut kiss girls won't you promise her smack

is she ugly on the inside

is she ugly from the back...

The woman was a disaster packaged in something almost pretty but not quite. Like a beauty queen moments after winning the crown fair and square, tear stained makeup and fleeting promises of eternal beauty. She flung herself around the stage, dress ripped to shreds as the hands of the audience tried to tear away pieces of her flesh.

Her fingers were bruised and bloody as she wailed away on the guitar. Nails cracked and worn with the weight of her vengeance. With each press of her lips against the microphone the color oozed outside the lines of her mouth until she looked like a living dead girl and Billy.

He had never seen someone so beautiful.

The first time he put on a dress for real it had been an homage to his silver screen queen.

Black shift dress. Baby doll sleeves. Torn stockings and barrettes in his hair.

Kinderwhore they called it.

Billy stood awkwardly in front of the mirror in the bathroom and tried to make sense of the princess seam that came to an unsteady rest just above the line of his ribs. The clinging fabric felt nothing like the one his mother had been buried in it felt.

Dirty.

Sinful. Instantly cloaked in assumptions; he does heroin. He's a a bum and a loser in search of something the music can't give him so he searches for it in the sting of a needle. Billy bit down on his lips until they bled.

The color ran thick like maple syrup over the skin of his face, bringing out the blue in his eyes as it ran down his chin. As it caught in the stubble-rough landing of his jawline.

Billy looked like a mess.

Instantly, he was addicted. The first time Billy saw her he knew; that was his own image reflected back at him from the fifteen inch screen.

He began looking for inspiration wherever he could find it.

Debbie Harry, Freddie Mercury, Joan Jett, David Bowie. Women and men. Gods. His heroes. Feminine and masculine and dirty.

Courtney Love was always his favorite.

Filthy. Absolutely gut wrenching. Every time he saw her perform it was like his spleen was being ripped out and Billy couldn't escape the way he saw so much of himself reflected in her. All his rage and discomfort, his fury amplified by a million.

So he tried to emulate it.

Billy shopped around local thrift stores to find leopard print jackets and peasant tops. Dresses that hung wide or snuggled against the swell of his hips, kitten heels that brought much needed length to his hamburger legs and when he brought them home, always through the backdoor and stuffed carefully into a trash bag, Neil would raise an eyebrow.

Playing dress up?

Billy would grimace. Max is lookin' to be a Debbie Harry for Halloween. 'M helpin' her find the prefect dress.

And Neil drank like the answers sawm in a bottle of gin, so.

He would raise a fist at that. Never fully convinced but satiated, content with Billy playing the perfect older brother. His nose would bleed on the nights when Neil couldn't shake the impression that his son was a faggot but that was as far as it went.

Max never asked questions and Billy never told her the truth; that he felt more like himself when Courtney Love stared back at him in the mirror.

She sat with him sometimes.

Watched him apply his mother's lipstick, carefully at first and then all at once when the music carried him down.

Black lung coat and your little crown That's the crown that you get for falling down Hey baby, let me look in your eyes I see you standing in a weird red light...

"Why do you listen to this shit?" Max wrinkled her nose. Like a freckled bunny rabbit, it was kind of ridiculous. "She screams so fuckin' loud, you can't even understand what she's--"

"Mascara."

"Why? I know girls who would kill for your eyelashes."

Billy snapped his fingers. Max handed over the little black tube with a trademark eye roll, resting her chin in her hands as Billy repeated the process of careful application and then careless destruction of his hard work.

"Look prettier when you keep it nice," She snapped.

And Billy just chuckled. "I don't wanna look nice."

Max stared at him, popping a jaw breaker into her mouth. "Why not? Isn't that the whole point of makeup, to look pretty?"

Billy scrubbed at his eyes, warmth flooding his stomach again at the way the blue stood out against the black ring around his eyes. Like carefully crafted bruises, nothing like the ones Neil gave him. He shrugged his shoulders.

"That's so fuckin' predictable." He sat on the bed, pushing the hem of his skirt to roll the nylon against his legs.

"Using makeup and clothes to look worse, fuckin' idiotic." Max grumbled, but she watched with glowing eyes as Billy began scraping his nails down the length, creating runs in the delicate fabric.

"You gonna sit there yapping or are you gonna help?" He bitched.

Max slid to her knees in front of him, getting to work tearing holes into the stockings the way she knew Billy liked.

It was therapeutic, almost, having the help.

"I like when you do Blondie." She said after a while. "Fuck ton less work and Courtney makes you aggressive. She's got the energy of a horny dude, it's fucked up."

Billy smirked.

It was always more fun to play pretend with Max and her bitchy voice tethering him to the ground. He feared that, without it, he'd get lost in the feeling of freedom. Fly too close to the sun or something, catch on fire when he inevitably missed the tell-tale creek of the floorboards that meant Neil was listening in.

Max annoyed the hell out of him, but.

She kept him safe. Why, he didn't know.

Maybe she really was interested in the whole thing, electing to believe that every boy wanted to be a girl because the alternative meant her brother was sick in a way that couldn't be cured.

Billy stood, slipping on the kitten heels while Max held his hand.

He admired his handiwork.

"Gotta hand it you," Max whistled, low like a wolf. "Gets shittier every time we do it."

"Shut up, brat." But Billy was grinning.

For Max, that was a compliment.

Don't blush when I rip you open Hey baby, let me look in your eyes As you go off into your weird red light...

He ran his hands down the soft fabric, relishing the way the hem tickled the sensitive skin of his thighs.

He was pretty.

Not like his mother, not like Courtney Love, but.

Uniquely himself.

Max cocked her head to the side. "Don't you get tired of getting all dressed up with nowhere to go?"

Billy bristled. "Oh yeah? And where could I go in San Fran that wouldn't skin me on the spot for dressing like a bitch?"

"Castro." The gay area.

Billy felt his cheeks darken. He thought about it for a second; the lights, the thralls of people just letting the light in. Being themselves.

He shook his head, turning back to the mirror with a glare. "Yeah, okay. I'll get right on that."

"Cool, I'll just fetch my coat." Max turned to leave, chucking when Billy trapped her with an iron grip. "Relax, spaz. Neil would kill us both if he saw you looking like that."

And.

She was right. Billy had thought about it countless times before, what would happen if he threw a jacket over his baby doll dress and slipped out the back door one night. How the cool air would feel on the bare skin of his thighs, but. That's all it ever was. Just speculation.

Only dreams.

Knowing his luck he'd catch Neil in the hallway after his midnight piss and that'd be it. They'd never get the blood out of the wallpaper.

"Looks like we're stuck playing pretend." Billy patted absently at his spring of messy curls, refusing to let the sadness seep through but Max noticed immediately. Perceptive little shit.

She held up a finger, disappearing through the crack in the door. A second later she was back with her polaroid camera.

"Smile."

"No fuckin' way," Billy snarled. He could already imagine it; Neil digging through his sock drawer to find the pot he was always accusing Billy of smoking, only to stumble across something else.

Something worse.

Billy's ribs began to ache with the phantom memory of those fists planting like flower bulbs in fresh soil. He bruised easily, like an overripe peach.

Not everyone knew that about him, but. He did.

Max frowned. "Come on, we could send them to Courtney's P.O. box, I'm sure she'd be flattered."

Billy shook his head, tears swamping his vision as Max lifted the camera. The flash was blinding. Billy lunged for it, swearing as Max slipped past his grip. She took another picture.

And another.

And then another, until polaroid's littered the floor like fallen leaves on the dirty ground. Billy had tears rolling down his cheeks, ruining his makeup by the time she finally stopped. He held out his hand. "Max, just. Give that fuckin' thing to me. Now, we gotta burn this shit, alright? We gotta--"

But she wasn't listening, she was staring at the first image she had taken, when Billy was caught off guard. Max was absorbed in it, eyes glittering with something Billy had never seen before.

He snatched the picture from her hands and lifted it up to his face, brow wrinkled in disgust until--

This wasn't anything like staring in the mirror.

It felt more immediate, more real as Billy examined the image of a flawless stranger. Of a woman.

Of Courtney Love.

"Pretty," Max said.

And.

Yeah. He was.

They started taking pictures every time Billy got dressed up.

Max would help him get ready and then they'd do little photoshoots in his bedroom. He was a reluctant subject at first, awkward in his own skin until she suggested they smoke a joint before each session.

"To loosen you up a little, dick wad."

"What kinda brother would I be if I let my kid sister smoke pot?" Billy shook his head. "Absolutely not, Max."

She shrugged. "Then you do it."

So, he did.

And it helped. They switched up the music, finding it easiest to shoot to The Smashing Pumpkins, played with lighting and mood until she was satisfied with the "vibe," made immortal on film.

The images Max captured were like moments in time, archived in the shoebox under his bed. Billy looked like a rock star in every one--Debbie Harry on some days, Courtney on others; hair messy, cigarette trapped between his fingers, stockings ripped to shreds.

Max admitted that Courtney was her favorite, after a while, so that's the one that stuck.

And Billy loved every picture she took. Loved her artistic eye, obvious in the way she moved his lamp around the room to capture his features just so. Every session was serious like she was the photographer at Rolling Stone and he was her subject for the week.

It was addictive.

They had been taking pictures every night for a month when Neil caught them in the act.

The first punch felt like a bomb had gone off in his head, and Billy hit the floor without so much as a fight.

He remembers blood on the carpet.

Blood in his hair. On the walls. A splitting pain in his ribs and between his legs.

Keep digging your own grave, William.

Max patched him up after Neil's car tore out of the driveway.

"I'm sorry Billy." He hadn't realised she was crying. He ran his fingers over her cheek. "It's all my fault, I didn't mean--"

"I felt pretty." He said.

They stopped taking pictures after that.

Moving to Hawkins, Indiana was like stepping off the Earth and floating through space.

Billy felt weightless.

Every mistake, every hidden secret cloaked in baby doll dresses and leopard print coats had been left in San Francisco where they belonged. Stuffed in the back of his closet with the polaroid's they were able to tape back together.

He tried to forget the way it made him feel.

"You're the prettiest boy I've ever seen."

It wasn't meant to be a compliment. Billy could tell that from the way Steve's lips curled into a snarl.

He pushed his way into Billy's space, clearly drunk and high off something that made his pupils swallow the milky brown of his eyes.

Steve looked like he was swimming.

There were track marks in his arm. "You're like a vision," He reached out to touch, to feel, flinching back when Billy slapped his hand away.

"I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing, Harrington--"

"I think I'm in love with you."

And Billy had thought the same thing, the first time they ran into each other at the gay bar in Indianapolis, but. People talked.

Hawkins talked, like the city itself was an entity with a pulse and conscience that had been shot to shit in the eighties. Billy did his best to glare. "You don't love me, pretty boy."

"No, I." Steve grinned. He was high as a fucking kite. "I do. You're my guardian angel." He laughed hysterically, in a way that made Billy's skin crawl.

"What, your dealer tell you that?" He huffed.

And it was mean.

So fucking mean. If Steve was a junkie his skin wouldn't be so clear, so smooth. Like black cherries in milk, goddammit. Billy wanted to lap at the skin on his neck, taste the salt of his skin.

He wondered distantly if he'd be able to get high from it.

Probably. Steve smiled anyway. "Let me take you home."

"Such a fuckin' line," Billy said.

But he was already tugging pretty boy through the crowd.

Billy kept his dresses in the back of his closet where he kept his mother's suicide letters.

She had written more than one, consumed by her sadness in a way Billy had never understood until he had taken the fairy light inside him and smothered it.

Every once in a while, when Neil was out of the house and Max was at school or something, He'd take one out just to feel the weightlessness of the fabric settle against his skin.

Like little paper angels.

Like the whisper of something like hope but not quite, just out of reach.

He never did the full look anymore. Never put his heart and soul into it the way he had before, when Max was there to keep him from floating away, but.

Gradually he felt himself catch fire.

They had been together for three months when Steve peeled back the layers.

Neil was away on business, so Steve was sleeping over. Needed a shirt or sweats or to sleep in, catching sight of something bright red and shiny as he shifted the leather jackets at Greatful Dead t-shirts to the side to expose a stash of beautiful gowns that shone like an open sore against the soft light in Billy's bedroom.

Billy came through the open door, words dying on his lips as the bong in his hand shattered on the floor.

Steve held the dress up against the light, tongue poking out of his mouth in consideration.

"Max wants to be Debbie Harry for Halloween," Billy fished for his old excuse, eyes welling up with tears when Steve's jaw set in a firm line. "I'm helping her find the perfect dress, I--"

"Bill's--"

"That's not mine, Steve, I swear." Billy dropped to the floor.

Got on his fucking knees, hands level with his face in a silent prayer as he tripped over himself to rebuild the walls that had kept him safe. He was talking, spewing bullshit as Steve stood motionless against the closet door. Billy flung his arms around Steve's legs. Buried his face in his thighs, because.

He couldn't go through it again.

Wouldn't survive it.

"I never even seen that before, Stevie, please."

"Get up." Pretty boy commanded.

And.

Billy blinked teary, soulful eyes at him. "Huh?"

Steve shook his head. "I said stand up, baby. Get off the fucking floor."

Billy did. Steve watched him for a moment, expression unreadable. Billy prepared himself for the gut punch, the harsh word, the look of disgust in those eyes that had never shown anything but reverence for Billy, but it never came. In a single, syrupy slow motion Steve held the dress to Billy's throat, scanning him up and down in a way that left Bill naked and squirming.

He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think, as Steve smiled softly.

"Wanna see you." He said.

And. "What?"

"Can you put it on for me?" Steve asked. "Bet you look gorgeous. Like an angel, or a model or something--"

Billy let out a thick, wet sound. "I look like a beast, I'm--"

"No." Billy jumped when Steve nuzzled against his neck, the dress trapped like a gossamer curtain between them. "Bet you look like a deity. A goddess of rock n' roll. Like Courtney Love, right?"

And Billy had done a lot of things in his life. He was a builder of fortresses, a hider, an adventurer when the mood struck him. Billy protected himself and Max and his mother for as long as he could remember, carrying things that were too heavy for those with weaker shoulders, but.

He had never shown himself to someone he loved. No sugar, no cream, just.

Completely himself.

Billy took the dress and opened the safe in the corner. Pulled out his mother's makeup and painted himself into a masterpiece as Steve watched, motionless on the bed.

When he was done Billy was afraid to look in the mirror.

Terrified of what he'd see but Steve took him in his arms, peppering gentle kisses all along his face until Billy had built up enough courage.

"Ready? Steve whispered.

Billy let himself be turned around. Situated under the heavy sling of Steve's arm, until--

"Pretty."

Steve nodded. "Beautiful."

#harringrove #idk if this is how you do it but thats showbiz baybee #thanks for making it to the bottom lol

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