here, here, gone again
Surprisingly, there is something good that comes out of not being in his own body anymore! Namely, the fact that no one in Westview recognizes him anymore. He doubts they’d be fans.
There is a lot of graffiti on the house foundations.
“Wow,” Kate says, frowning at the lot. “They really don’t like your mom here, huh?”
He shrugs from his place on the curb, skipping another pebble across the street. “I mean, she did strip them of all autonomy and trap them in her hellish nightmares so they could be danced around like puppets by the subconscious whim of her desperation to never feel grief again.”
“I mean this in the least offensive way possible,” Kate tells him, “but what the hell.”
“You can be offensive about it, I think.” He chucks the next stone extra hard, bouncing it against the opposite curb. “I mean, Billy says she didn’t stop. When she realized what she was doing. So.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” he agrees. Kate sits beside him, dropping her hand against his on the pavement.
“Dude. No wonder you’re so...”
“Fucked up?” he asks, and she winces.
“I was going to be nicer about it, but yeah.”
He hums noncommittally, tapping his fingers on the back of her hand. “It is what it is, I guess.”
“That’s definitely not a healthy coping mechanism.”
“Learn that from your rich person therapist?”
Kate squirms, her cheeks red. “I mean. Yeah, sorta, but you don’t have to be rude.”
“Oh please. It doesn’t bother you. If it did you would’ve ditched me on the side of the road an hour ago.”
Kate opens her mouth, probably with another snarky remark, that is how this tends to go, but someone across the street calls out to them first.
“Hey! You kids doing okay?”
He hops to his feet, tugging Kate up too. “We’re fine, thank you.”
It’s a smidge surreal, watching his former neighbor cross the street toward them. Geez, he remembers this guy. Memories are weird. Especially when they weren’t real.
“Are you sure?” Herb asks, smiling kindly. “You two looking into, um.” he pauses awkwardly, then nods his head toward the lot. “Her?”
“No,” Tommy says quickly, bouncing on his heels. “We’re, uh. We’re most definitely not, Mr. Herb, don’t worry.”
“It’s John,” his former neighbor corrects. “John Collins. Herb is what, uh, she called me.” He tilts his head, his smile turning confused. “How do you know that?”
John, Tommy mouthes to himself, frowning. Huh. He... hadn’t really considered the fact that his mom might’ve renamed every single townsperson in her little magic fantasy. Like, sure, Agnes turned out to be… oh, what was it? Agatha? But he’d assumed that was a disguise thing, for the whole evil witch nonsense.
Kate is talking, presumably rescuing him from the hole he’d accidentally dug himself, but he interrupts, asking, “Hey, is Agatha still around?”
Herb-John’s face sours quickly. “So you are poking around about the Hex.”
Shit. “I used to know her,” he says, annoyance growing. “I need to see her again. Is she still here or not?”
There’s still suspicion coating Herb-John’s voice, but he replies, “I’m afraid that’s... complicated, son.”
He grinds his teeth together, scowling. “It shouldn’t be, really. Is she here or not?”
“It’s complicated,” Herb-John repeats firmly.
“How so?” Kate interjects, helpfully interrupting his desire to punch the man directly in the face.
Herb-John hesitates, then says, “She wasn’t... freed. From her spell, the way the rest of us were. Or at least, until yesterday? And then there was all sorts of crazy magic nonsense happening earlier today- weird cloaked figures, the sky turning green, a boy with magic-”
Herb-John keeps talking, but Tommy can’t hear it.
A boy with magic.
Billy.
Billy, it had to be-
“Where is he?” Tommy demands, and Herb-John takes a step back.
“Excuse me, son?”
“The boy,” Tommy insists, heartbeat pounding in his chest. “The boy, the magic one, where is he? I need to find him, you don’t understand, where is he-”
Kate catches his shoulder before he can back the poor man into the road- he hadn’t realized he was moving. “Tommy,” she says in a warning tone, her voice low. Herb-John’s eyes narrow in recognition, taking another step back as he holds his hands up.
“Look,” he begs, “I don’t want any trouble, not from your family, not from anyone, would you just-”
“Where is he?”
The man wordlessly points at Agnes’- Agatha’s -former house. Tommy is running before he’s finished raising his hand.
Billy Billy Billy Billy-
The door is blown off- Tommy doesn’t even want to know how that happened -and the house is in disarray, broken and messy. He runs through, faster, faster-
There is the pulse of magic in the basement. Billy’s magic, Billy’s magic is here. Tommy can feel it in the thrum of his bones, his blood reacting to the achingly familiar press of Billy, Billy, Billy.
But there is no one here.
Billy’s magic is here, blue and insistent and real but-
But there is no one here.
There is no one here.
His brother was here, hisbrother was here he can feel it-
And now-
And-
Tommy’s knees hit the ground, hard enough to burn as he collapses, breathing heavily in the aftermath of his brother’s presence.
He was here.
He was here.
Tommy can’t stop the sob that rips through his chest, tearing him apart-
He is gone.
He is gone and Tommy is alone again and Billy is gone gone gonegonegonegone-
HisthoughtsaregoingtoofastBillyisgoneitallhurts-
Gonegonegonegonegone-
“Billy,” he chokes out, the tears hot and painful down his cheeks, shoulders shaking as he sobs onto the concrete floor. “Nononononononono-”
“Ah.” He looks up- a figure, a woman. Bloodshot eyes, a face of bones. A ragged cloak that billows around her, the rotting hollow of a tree. “So there’s the second one.”
He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe where’s his brother- “Wh- who-”
“Not your business, little abomination.” Her voice is torn with tears of her own, but her eyes are flat.
Dead.
“Billy-”
“Gone now,” she says coldly. “Again.”
He swallows- tries to, at least. His heart is racing in his throat. “Where-”
“-is he?” she finishes, a mocking lilt in her voice. Her skull-like face twists into a sneer. “I told you. Gone.”
“Where?”
She watches him- the time stretches as her gaze bores into him, through flesh and bone to his soul.
Then she smiles cruelly.
“How far would you go for him, abomination?” Her voice dips, drops. Inhuman. “Would you make a deal with Death?”
Always, he thinks feverishly. Always and forever, for him.
Before him, Death grins.