Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13007115.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Stranger_Things_(TV_2016)
  Relationship:
      Billy_Hargrove/Steve_Harrington
  Character:
      Billy_Hargrove, Steve_Harrington, Nancy_Wheeler, Jonathan_Byers, Dustin
      Henderson, Jim_"Chief"_Hopper
  Additional Tags:
      Period-Typical_Homophobia, Alcohol_Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug_Use, Post-
      Traumatic_Stress_Disorder_-_PTSD, Praise_Kink, Risky_Blowjobs, First
      Time, Recovery, Child_Abuse, Insomnia, Mutual_Masturbation
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-01-10 Updated: 2018-03-12 Chapters: 7/? Words: 25424
****** a prayer for which no words exist ******
by celoica
Summary
     "There's blood on your face," Steve said numbly. He touched his own
     mouth. His fingers came back dark and slick with blood.
     Billy threw back his head and laughed. Red stained his teeth. "You
     gonna still kiss me, darling?"
     (Or: The one where Steve and Billy find something in each other they
     couldn't find in anyone else.)
Notes
See the end of the work for notes
***** Chapter 1 *****
Chapter Notes
     Billy is seventeen for most of this fic, hence the underage warning.
     I've always been a fly by the seat of my pants kinda girl, so expect
     updated tags and warnings as we go. Weekly updates will be on
     Wednesdays.
     Deeply inspired by paragraph 24 of You Are Jeff by Richard Siken.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                                                               January 19, 1985
===============================================================================
In a small town like Hawkins, everyone knew everyone—and everyone knew everyone
else’s business.
Or, at least, they liked to think they did.
Melinda and Greg who owned the coin-operated laundromat on Habersham were
always fighting about money. Everyone knew this because Sarah Colburne, one of
the waitresses at the greasy spoon next door loved to spill the beans while she
was topping up your morning coffee. Hilary, one of the other waitresses, would
drop an unkind word about how Sarah shouldn’t be talking about other people’s
money business when she had asked for an advancement on her last pay cheque
along with your plate of eggs and bacon. Father Bryant would turn in his seat
and tell Hilary that she shouldn’t speak ill of those in need, and then in the
same breath say, “I heard her husband has been gambling again.”
The convoluted game of telephone tag left Melinda with the gambling problem and
Hilary on the cusp of divorcing her own husband.
Steve didn’t put too much stock in what anyone said anymore. After the Upside
Down, he didn’t believe anything was true without seeing it with his own two
eyes.
“You know what I heard?” Sarah said as she filled his mug to the brim, snapping
bright pink bubblegum around a sly smile. “The Chief had to go out to the
Hargrove’s last night. Was a whole big ruckus going on in the front yard. The
neighbours had to call the cops.”
“Oh?” Steve said, glancing up from his chemistry paper. It was due first
period. It would get him a solid B- if he were lucky. These days it didn’t seem
he was that lucky.
Sarah nodded, setting the pot down. “Uh-huh. Susan—not the neighbour beside
them, but the one three doors down—came in here this morning all in a tizzy.
Said she didn’t get any sleep last night because they were up all night over
there screamin’ and yellin’.”
Steve looked down at his coffee, at the eraser marks on his homework, at his
own chicken-scratched name in the right corner. Billy wasn’t on his radar, or
maybe he was the one who wasn’t on Billy’s. He hadn’t been since he’d beat the
snot out of Steve and been scared by his own baby sister. Steve saw him around
when he picked up Will for Nancy from the Byers’ house, usually skulking in the
front seat of his noisy car, head dipped low and cigarette hanging out of his
mouth while he waited for Max. He didn’t go to the door anymore. Steve hadn’t
asked why.
“That’s…different,” Steve said, going for casual and missing by a mile. The
last time he’d seen Billy had been three days before. He’d been leaning up
against his car, hip jutting out in a way that made his jeans look even
tighter, running his fingertips over Brenda The Junior’s arm. They’d made eye
contact for three seconds. Billy had been the one to look away.
He cleared his throat and tried again. “Did she say what happened?”
Sarah shook her head and popped her gum. “No-ope. Just said that Hargrove boy
was screechin’ up a storm.”
Taking a sip of coffee so thick he could chew it, Steve hummed appropriately
and let Sarah go on about what Susan had said. By the time he tossed down a few
bills to pay for his breakfast, he learned nothing new—only that Susan who
lived three doors down had been wearing pearls on a Thursday morning and wasn’t
that just so unusual, and Billy Hargrove had not changed at all.
===============================================================================
Winter had come crashing in November as usual, leaving a thick blanket of white
across Hawkins that had only accumulated since Christmas. Mounds of snow piled
up in the corners of the parking lot, middle schoolers crawling up the sides
and tossing snowballs overhead at each other.
Steve stepped out of his car, nudging the door closed with his hip as he
balanced his textbooks on one hand. The chilly January air bit at his bare
cheeks and fingertips. He locked the door, scanning across the parking lot for
Nancy's curly hair and Jonathan's Ford. Spotting Jonathan himself a few lanes
over, he tucked his books under his arm and jogged toward them.
“Hey,” he said, settling in beside Nancy. She smiled at him, head tipping up
and squinting past the brightness of the sun.
“Hey, you.” She nudged him with her shoulder.
A few months ago, he would have slung his arms around her, settled his chin on
her shoulder and kissed her neck. His hands would have smoothed down her thighs
until she squeaked and pressed back against him. He would have kissed her mouth
and called her beautiful.
Jonathan Byers’ fingers threaded through Nancy’s. Steve smiled at him.
“Hey, man,” he said, shifting his books underneath his other arm. What he meant
to ask next was how was your weekend and did I tell you about the party Dustin
wants to crash. Instead what came out was, "Did Max say anything to Will or
Mike about Billy?"
Jonathan squinted at him. "Billy Hargrove?"
"Yeah."
"Is he bothering Lucas again?" Nancy asked. Her fingers tightened in
Jonathan's.
"I don't think so. Sarah told me Hopper was out at their place last night."
Nancy's hand relaxed. "Mike didn't say anything to me.” She looked to Jonathan,
who just shrugged. Steve took it as a no.
“It's probably nothing.”
“It's probably Billy being Billy.”
“He punched Reed in the face at practice last week,” Nancy added, as if it
explained it all. In a way, it did.
“Yeah. Yeah, you're right.” He plastered a grin on his face. “You guys coming
to Dungeons & Dragons night this Friday?”
Nancy barely hid her disdain. Jonathan laughed. When the bell rang, they filed
inside and parted ways.
===============================================================================
Later, during third period, when Mr Douglas ran out of chalk and sent Steve to
the office to collect more, Steve spotted Neil Hargrove stepping into the
principal's office.
He knew who Neil Hargrove was because this was Hawkins, where everyone knew
everyone, and because he'd seen Neil pick up Max a time or two from the
Wheelers house. Over Christmas break he'd spotted Neil, his wife and Max at
church, where all the other good Catholics in town went on Christmas Eve. Billy
hadn't been with them.
A bruise, blooming purple and tinged yellow around the edges, stained Neil's
cheekbone. Steve stared for a beat too long before jerking his eyes away,
muttering a thanks to the office aid and ducking out of the office.
Steve hid behind a wall outside the office until Neil Hargrove left, fingers
curled around the pack of chalk in his hand.
===============================================================================
A note was stuck to the fridge along with a twenty dollar bill.
Your dad surprised me with a trip to Indianapolis for the week. We'll be at the
Palmer House. I'll call you at five.
Steve tore down the note and tossed it in the trash. He pocketed the money,
picked out one of his father's German imported beers from the fridge, flopped
onto the couch and flipped on the TV.
Five came and went, along with two more beers and leftover lasagna. At eight-
thirty, Steve put on his coat and left the house.
It hadn't always been suffocating in his house. There had been a time before
when he had rejoiced in being left alone, in being considered trustworthy
enough not to burn the house down while his parents fucked off to whatever show
or concert or weekend-turned-entire-week getaway they were obsessed with
lately. They always left the house fully stocked. If his parents weren't
around, there were a dozen people willing to fill up the empty space they left.
If it wasn't Tommy and Carol, it was Amy or Laurie, or Becky. It was whoever
could hitch a ride to his place on a Friday night to drink and dance and mess
around. It was Nancy. It was whoever wanted to spend the evening with King
Steve Harrington, and that was everyone.
But that was before. Before the Demo-dogs and the Mind Flayer. Before Steve
knew that government conspiracies were real and that little girls were weapons
stronger than the atomic bomb. Before everything Steve had ever known had been
yanked out from under him.
After that first night in the Byers' house, he'd thought he'd seen it all. That
had been the worst thing to ever happen to him. Barb's death, Will
disappearing, facing off with what looked like the Venus-flytrap from Hell—all
of it was the worst thing that would ever happen to Steve. He'd barely been a
participant, but it had been enough to leave him in nightmares, gripped by the
night chills and the taste of bile in his mouth in the morning.
There had been no nightmares when the Mind Flayer had been stopped. Steve had
crawled into bed and slept for twelve hours. He'd gone to school the next day,
went to class and turned in his assignments. He'd worked on college essays and
argued with his parents.
The nightmares had rolled in just before Christmas, gnarled and twisted things
that sat heavy in his chest long after he woke. The shadows that followed him
at night looked so much like the ones that crept along the walls of his empty
house in the early morning light. When the wind howled and whistled outside,
the snapping, Venus-jowls of the Demo-dogs howled with it.
Sometimes, buried underneath a mountain of blankets, Steve could feel the
overbearing presence of the Upside Down creeping into his bedroom, slipping up
to the ceiling and swallowing him whole.
Steve jammed a slightly bent cigarette between his lips, fiddling with the
wheel of his lighter. He struck it twice before the cigarette lit up. He
inhaled, holding it for a beat too long, before releasing it out into the
bitter air. He shoved his hands in his pockets, half-curled into fists, and
trudged down the sidewalk, kicking a path of snow out of the way to lead him
back home.
Walking helped. Walking cleared his head, in the same way the slap-slap-slap of
a basketball on the court cleared his head, in the same way running at five-
thirty in the morning cleared his head. The cold bit at his skin, chilling him
under his jacket and leaving his fingertips numb, but left him mind blissfully
blank, a low-grade white noise buzzing in the background like whatever latest
tunes were playing on the radio while he did homework.
Even getting high and jerking off in bed didn't have the same affect on him
anymore. Walking in the cold air was like a balm to his soul, soothing it in
ways nothing else could.
Cutting a path through the house on the end of Cornwallis that had foreclosed
six months before, Steve buried himself in the quiet of Hawkins after dark.
Wrapped up in the sound of snow shuffling beneath his boots and the flutter of
the flickering streetlamp overhead, he almost missed the Camaro parked on
Belmont.
He slowed to a stop, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. There were exactly
three people in Hawkins who a Camaro, and only one who owned one that looked
like that.
Stationary, it didn't look nearly as intimidating as it did when it rumbled and
revved into the school parking lot, blasting AC/DC or Lynyrd Skynyrd through
bass-laden speakers. It was loud and rough and All-American, just like the boy
who drove it. Turned off and quiet, surrounded by the rows of baby blue and
off-white houses in the suburbs, it looked as threatening as a plastic spoon.
Steve bit his lip, glancing up and down the street. There was no one else
around. All the windows of the houses were drawn, flimsy light glowing from the
edges of the curtains. He could just walk away. It didn't matter what Billy was
doing in Belmont. It wasn't Steve's business.
He bent down anyway, squinting into the dark interior of the Camaro, pressing
the cigarette back to his lips.
Outlined in the dim light of the streetlamp was Billy, curled up in the
passenger seat, legs tucked up and feet resting on the driver's side. Steve
knew his shape, the length of his legs, what his thighs looked like in his
jeans, to know it was Billy, even if he couldn't see his face. A plaid blanket
was draped over his torso, tucked up to his chin. It didn't look warm enough
for frigid weather.
Steve dropped his cigarette, snuffing it out with the heel of his boot, and
knocked on the window.
Billy jolted, smacking his head on the roof. He swore, loudly, jerking himself
forward in his seat and glaring at Steve. Whatever was on his face, Steve
couldn't read, shadowed by the darkness of night. Steve stepped back and
straightened his spine, shoving his hands into his pockets.
It took so long for Billy to open the door that Steve thought he might drive
off, but when he finally did, Steve put his finger to that look on Billy's
face. He had seen it staring back at himself for weeks, molted and purple,
fading to a sullen yellow.
It was still in the molted and purple stages. There was some dried blood around
Billy's nose, and his left eye was swollen shut, a puffy mass that made Steve
wonder if he even still had an eyeball under it.
“You look like shit, Hargrove,” he said. He dug his hand into his pocket for
his cigarettes, opening the carton and offering it to Billy.
Billy stared at it like it was poison. Silence stretched between them for so
long that Steve's hand shook with the cold wrapping around it. “Nothing gets
passed you, does it?” Billy said, reaching for the pack.
Steve handed over his lighter wordlessly, watching as Billy light up a
cigarette and inhale deeply. When he breathed out, he tipped his head back. He
looked like a lone wolf, howling to the moon hanging fatly in the sky.
Steve watched him burn through the whole cigarette in silence. He'd never been
like Nancy, book-smart and nerdy to boot, and it had been hard enough for him
to string enough orderly sentences together for college applications, but he
wasn't stupid. He'd never been that stupid.
He rocked back on his heels, hands curled into fists in his pockets. He sucked
on his teeth.
“You got something you wanna say, Harrington?” Billy asked, cutting Steve with
a hard glare, voice raising on the last syllable.
“Not really,” Steve said after a moment, shoulders slipping down a notch. The
last time they had faced off, Steve had only escaped by the skin of his teeth,
and only because Max was wicked in a crisis. A fight in the middle of the
suburbs at night would lead to the cops getting called—and another incredibly
boring lecture from Hopper.
“You want another one?” Steve asked, holding up the pack of cigarettes. Billy
swallowed thickly, Adam's apple bobbing along his throat, and nodded. Steve
could see the edge of a bruise peeking out from under his collar. He wondered
if Neil Hargrove had any underneath his shirt.
“It's supposed to get cold tonight, you know,” he said. And your jacket isn't
going to keep you warm, his eyes said for his mouth.
“It's cold every night. It's winter,” Billy said, lips twisting into a sneer.
“You know what I mean.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don't.” Billy blew a stream of smoke into Steve's face.
Steve's eyes stung. “What's your point?”
"You'll freeze to death," he said softly. 
Billy didn't say anything for a long time. The silence was new. Most of the
time Steve couldn't get Billy to shut the hell up. From their first meeting to
the showers, to the night Billy had kicked his ass, he had always been running
his mouth, tongue flicking behind his teeth. The quiet was different. It was
alarming, too. When Billy was talking, Steve knew what to expect. Billy could
do anything now, in the silence, and Steve forced himself to keep his eyes on
Billy's hands. If he threw a punch, he'd be ready.
"It's not that cold, princess," Billy said dismissively, leaning back against
his car. He puffed on the cigarette, eyes locking with Steve's. It felt like a
challenge.
"It's cold enough."
"For who?"
"Stop talking in circles," Steve snapped irritably, shoving his fists deep into
his pockets. His fingertips were numb. Billy's cheeks and nose were stained a
ruddy red by the chilly breeze. Steve expected his own were too. "Do you want a
place to stay or not?"
Billy didn't look surprised. He didn't look shocked or mollified, grateful for
Steve's jabbing offer. Instead, he looked angry. His eyes sharp, he sucked a
last drag on the cigarette and tossed it to the ground. He spat next to it,
like the offer was as worthless as the cigarette. "I don't need your fucking
charity."
"I don't like you enough for charity, fuckhead," Steve said. Frustration
stained the inside of his mouth like the chill, curling around the words. "If
you freeze and die, Max is gonna have to deal with that."
She'd probably rejoice, he didn't say, but he didn't have to. Billy probably
knew that already.
Billy smiled, sharp, all teeth. It didn't reach his eyes. "I didn't know you
were into little girls. Does your girlfriend know?"
"You know what? Never mind. Fuck you. I hope your dick gets frostbite."
Steve turned to go, an angry hunch to his shoulders. Billy's hand landed on his
arm. Steve tried not to flinch and failed. Shrugging out of his touch, he spun
around and glared at Billy. "What."
Hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched up to protect his neck from the
cold, Billy looked like a mirror image of Steve. Glare stuck to his face, lips
twisted into something unhappy, he said stiffly, "It's just for the night."
Steve stared, counting back from ten in his head. "Yeah," he said, voice
sounding strangled to his own ears, "just the night. And don't fucking steal
anything, aight? I'll kick your ass. I'll get your sister to kick your ass.
Again."
"She's not my sister," he said, and then Billy smiled again; less sharp, less
teeth. He looked tired. Steve didn't know how he'd missed the dark circles
underneath Billy's eyes. "You can try."
===============================================================================
They took the Camaro, Billy in the driver's seat because he refused to let
Steve take the reigns. Steve had conceded to the passenger seat, giving
directions out softly as they passed street signs and lamps. He looked out the
window, refusing to look at Billy. The radio stayed off, and the car was filled
with the sounds of their breathing.
Billy didn't say anything as Steve unlocked the front door, flipping light
switches and flooding the front foyer with yellow light. He kicked off his
boots, careful to nudge them onto the boot tray. His mom threw a fit when water
got on her precious cherry hardwood, sighing angrily about swelling
and staining. Billy followed suit and let his boots drop to the floor beside
the tray. Steve glared, bent down to set them on the tray and muttered jackass
under his breath.
He didn't wait for Steve to gesture him through the hallway. Shoulder bumping
Steve's as he walked by, he let out a low whistle as he peeked into the living
room. "So this is Casa Harrington."
"If you touch anything, I'll call the cops," Steve said wryly.
Billy didn't respond. Instead, he flopped down onto the overstuffed couch,
reaching for the remote Steve had left on the arm and kicking his feet up on
the coffee table. He clicked on the TV. Steve just rolled his eyes and sat down
next to him, saying nothing.
It was more than surreal. It was something Steve didn't have a name for. Like
the Upside Down, but more and less, but worse and better. A month ago, Steve
wouldn't have thought it a possibility. Sitting in his living room with Billy
Hargrove, side by side on the couch, watching a rerun of M*A*S*H in silence.
Billy Hargrove, the boy who had beat his face in until it had been black and
blue, the boy who had terrorized Lucas because of a step-sister he claimed to
not care about.
He was supposed to hate Billy. Steve knew that much. So why had he let him into
his home? He didn't have a good answer. He didn't have an answer at all.
Maybe the Upside Down had fucked with his head more than innocuous shadows
creeping across the walls.
"Hey," Steve said, when M*A*S*H had switched to Dallas to the opening credits
of Charlie's Angels, "do you—?"
Head tipped back, lips parted around a soft snore, Billy's fingers twitched in
his lap. Steve watched him for a moment, memorizing the smooth line of his
forehead, the way his lips weren't turned down into a frown or a sneer. He
didn't look any different. He still looked like Billy. Steve didn't know why he
was watching him.
Careful not to wake him, he reached across Billy's lap for the remote, clicking
off the TV. He rose silently and left the room, flicking off the lights as he
ambled up to his room, quiet on the creaking stairs.
In the dark of his room, Steve stripped down to his boxers and crawled into
bed. He pulled the covers up to his chin, counting down from one thousand while
he stared at the stucco ceiling.
At three hundred and ninety-eight, he drifted off to sleep, lulled by the
inane image of slinking downstairs and covering Billy in one of his
grandmother's hand-sewn quilts. 
Chapter End Notes
     About TV syndication in the 80s: I had to ask my dad about it and do
     a lot of Googling, but I couldn't seem to find a clear-cut answer to
     which channels had which shows on syndication in 1985, so I picked
     three that my dad had actually watched.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Summary
     He barely smothered a grin. “It can't be that bad.”
     “Bridge is pretty bad, Steve. It's, like, worse than Monopoly.”
     “Monopoly isn't that bad.”
     “Monopoly is pretty bad,” Billy said loudly, drunkenly, laughing as
     he took another swig from the whisky bottle. Steve had tried to hide
     it from him, only for Billy to go to the bar in his dad's office and
     steal another one.
     Steve slapped his hand over the receiver and hissed, “Shut the fuck
     up.”
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Billy was drunk by the time Steve made his way down the stairs in the morning.
Somehow, that figured.
His shirt was open, exposing sun-kissed skin, no wife beater underneath. There
were bruises on his collarbone in the shape of fingerprints. His hair was a
mess, a wild tangle of curls that are flat on one side from where he slept. His
face didn't look much better. Standing next to the kitchen window, a bottle of
Steve's dad's expensive, imported whisky in hand, he looked like something out
of one of those after school specials about drugs and drinking and too much of
a good thing.
Steve stared for a beat too long, eyes dipping down to the bottle in Billy's
hand, before he sighed. He should have figured. He really should have. His dad
was going to kill him.
“It's a little early for that, isn't it?” Steve asked flatly, stepping around
the island and opening the pantry, pulling down the coffee canister and
filters. If Billy was drunk before 7AM, then Steve was going to need at least
two coffees before he could deal with him.
He'd never actually seen Billy drunk. Wild and vicious, chaos rampant in his
eyes, sure, but even at the last party he'd gone to where Billy had been, Billy
hadn't been drunk. Steve hadn't known what he was, but drunk wasn't it. High,
probably, by the way his pupils had been blown wide, lopsided grin on his
mouth, all teeth and joy.
“It's never too early for a lil' hair of the dog,” Billy said, turning on his
heel to look at Steve. The whisky sloshed in the bottle. That smile was on his
face against, the one made up of teeth and delight.
“Hair of the dog is for hangovers, not morning drinking.” Steve filled the
coffee maker's reservoir with water from the tap. “You owe me for that,” he
said, nodding to the bottle in Billy's hand.
Billy held up the bottle, squinting at the label like it was the first time he
had seen it. “What the hell is it?”
“Whisky.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” he said, words slurring together on the S. “But what
does it say?”
“You're the one holding the bottle.”
“I can't read Russian.”
“It's French,” Steve said, flicking the coffee maker on.
“Can't read that either.”
“What can you read?”
Billy tapped his index finger to his lower lip. “English.”
Steve snorted, grabbing two mugs from the cupboard. He said nothing as the
coffee maker burbled to life, filling the pot with barely enough coffee to fill
a mug. Steve listened to the sizzle as it dropped onto the hot plate, pouring
the coffee into a mug. He set the pot back and turned, reaching across the
island to where Billy was nursing his pilfered bottle of whisky. Plucking it
from his hand, he set the mug in front of Billy, ignoring the indignant hey!
“Don't pout,” Steve said, holding the bottle out of reach as Billy tried to
swipe at it. “Drink your damn coffee.”
“You're no fun, Harrington,” he said, definitely pouting. He looked like an
overgrown, rock-and-roll toddler. Steve tried not to laugh.
“Yep,” Steve said, watching the coffeemaker drip enough to fill his own mug,
“that's me. No-fun Steve. Ready to ruin your before school drinking.”
“I don't know why anyone likes you.”
“I've been told it's because I'm real pretty.”
Billy squinted at him, and then took a large gulp of his coffee. He winced as
it went down. Steve almost offered him a glass of water. “Not that pretty,” he
said after a moment.
Steve rolled his eyes. “Maybe because I'm not an asshole?”
“Heard you used to be.”
Billy had him there. “I used to be a lot of things.”
“Yeah?” Billy propped an elbow onto the counter, chin resting on his fist.
“Like what?”
Steve stared at him, uncertain. “None of your business,” he said, finally,
lamely. God, he really was lame.
“Oh, c'mon, Stevie. Who's this King Steve I keep hearin' about? You don't look
like him.”
“What am I supposed to look like?” Steve muttered, turning away from Billy to
fill his own mug. He topped it up with a heaping of sugar and cream, stirring
slowly, taking his time so he didn't have to look back at Billy. That surreal
feeling from the night before was back.
“Like a king,” Billy said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Steve braved a glance over his shoulder, eyes rolling again as Billy tipped
whisky into his coffee. That figured. “You're just normal.”
“What's so wrong with being normal?” Steve turned and stole the bottle back
from Billy. Instead of squawking, Billy just grinned impishly.
“Normal means you're not special.”
“Well, shit, Hargrove,” he said flatly, “you're really onto something there.”
Instead of snapping back, Billy just smiled again, more teeth this time, taking
another gulp of his coffee. It went down smoother; Steve watched his Adam's
apple bob in his throat.
“You're chatty when you're drunk,” Steve muttered against the lip of his
coffee, averting his eyes from Billy's throat.
“I'm not drunk.” Billy licked his lips. “Swear on my mother's grave.”
“You don't—” Steve stopped himself, shaking his head. It didn't matter. Billy
was already well on his way to ass over teakettle; arguing about it would just
waste time. “I assume you're not going to school.”
“Neither are you.”
Steve frowned. “Yes, I am.”
“No, you're not.
“Yes, I am.”
“No,” Billy said, straightening in his seat, “you're really not.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are? You can't tell me what to d—“
“Look outside, dumbass,” Billy said, jamming his thumb over his shoulder at the
window. “No one's going anywhere.”
Steve blinked, looking over Billy's head.
He was right. He wouldn't be going to school. He wouldn't be going anywhere.
That meant Billy wasn't going anywhere either.
===============================================================================
“Listen, kiddo,” Steve said into the receiver, watching as Billy flipped
through channel after channel on the TV, landing on one for a moment before
switching to the next, “there's no way I can get my car dug out to come over
tonight. I don't even think my car's going to start.”
Dustin sighed, heavy and dramatic. “Yeah,” he said, “it's just my mom, y'know.”
His voice dropped to a low whisper. “She wants to play bridge.”
He barely smothered a grin. “It can't be that bad.”
“Bridge is pretty bad, Steve. It's, like, worse than Monopoly.”
“Monopoly isn't that bad.”
“Monopoly is pretty bad,” Billy said loudly, drunkenly, laughing as he took
another swig from the whisky bottle. Steve had tried to hide it from him, only
for Billy to go to the bar in his dad's office and steal another one.
Steve slapped his hand over the receiver and hissed, “Shut the fuck up.” He
dropped his hand, and to Dustin, he said, “Be nice to your mom. It's only one
day.”
Dustin sighed again, heavier, somehow more dramatic. Steve was impressed; he
didn't think it could get much more melodramatic than before. “Oh-kay, I guess.
But if it clears up, you're coming over, right?”
“Right,” he said, cheerful even as he watched Billy spill whisky onto the
couch. He thanked God that his mother was obsessed with Scotchgarding every
piece of furniture in the house. “I'll be there in a heartbeat.”
Dustin perked up at that, tone ticking up in joy. “Alright-y, captain! Hey, if
you do come over, do you think you could bring—“
“I'm not bringing you alcohol,” Steve said. Billy opened his mouth to say
anything. He picked up a cushion off the couch and whipped it at Billy's head.
Billy sputtered, the bottle tipping over and spilling across the couch. Steve
winced. “Hey, man, I've gotta go. My mom's supposed to be calling soon.”
He said his goodbyes to Dustin and hung up the phone, shooting a dark glare at
Billy. “You're an asshole,” he said uselessly, because Billy already knew that.
He was probably too drunk to care.
Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose, blood rushing in his ears
with the thud of his heart. He hadn't realized how horrified he'd been that
Dustin would hear Billy until Billy had spoken. Betrayal was something Steve
had learned intimately in the past year, and to see that on Dustin's face
wasn't something he could handle. The idea of it churned cold dread in the pit
of his belly.
Lucas...he didn't even want to think about the look on Lucas' face.
“Clean that up,” he mumbled as he left the living room. He locked himself in
the powder room, sitting down heavily on the closed toilet, the heels of his
palms pressed tight to his eyes.
What the fuck had he gotten himself into? What the hell had he done? Whatever
terminal case of stupidity he had come down with last night had passed, and the
panic had settled in, the clenching fear that clawed its way inside his chest,
burrowed deep until it was smothering his heart.
Billy Hargrove wasn't someone he thought about. He was background noise,
someone who did something bad to him once because he was a bad person. Steve
had met a lot of those kinds of people. He used to be one of those people.
Selfish, uncaring for the kind of damage he caused.
But he'd never been that violent. He'd never gone after a kid because he was
black, because his not-sister was friends with him. The biggest fight he'd ever
gotten into had been with Jonathan, and Steve could admit that he had that
coming. He'd been a dick and he'd paid for it with a broken nose—but he'd never
been like Billy.
Billy, who was sitting in his living room, spilling his dad's expensive alcohol
on his mom's expensive furniture, drunk off his ass.
Billy, who last he'd heard, had been arrested last weekend.
Billy Hargrove, who wasn't his friend, who wasn't his buddy, who wasn't even
someone Steve liked.
Steve pressed his palms harder to his eyes, until he saw bright-white stars
behind his eyes, until his heart thudded to a steady pace in his chest. Calmed,
splashed cold water on his face and ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing
down sleep-twisted cowlicks.
When he stepped back into the living room, Billy was passed out, bottle of
whisky lolling in his grip, spilling onto the carpet. 
Somehow that figured, too. 
===============================================================================
He cleaned up the whisky, threw a blanket over Billy and stepped outside for a
cigarette. Thirty seconds later, when a gust of wind walloped him in the face,
he regretted it, chucking his barely-smoked cigarette into the snow and
shivering his way inside. Billy was still asleep on the couch, head tilted
down, chin to his chest. Steve left him there and went to make lunch and
another coffee.
Turning the radio on low, he hummed along to Billy Joel and Duran Duran, wiping
down the counters and putting the dishes into the dishwasher. He drank a cup
and a half of coffee and traced the patterns of ice on the windows with his
fingertips. It was quiet when Billy was asleep, silence pressing in on him.
Steve poked his head into the living room just to see that he was still there.
Every time, he was.
His father called at noon.
"Listen," he said gruffly, a shiver in his voice. Steve thought he could hear
the bite of wind into the receiver, "you need to use the fireplace. Crank the
heat. If those pipes burst, you're going to be the one paying for them."
"Are you outside?" 
"Your mother," his father said tightly, "is talking to her sister."
Ah, Steve thought. Aunt Judith could talk a nun into cursing. "Tell her I say
hi."
"Yeah, I'll do that," his father, sour.
Hanging up, he went to nudge Billy awake, prodding him in the shoulder with a
finger. He woke like he had in the car; loud and violently, body jerking like
he'd been hit. He turned an angry look to Steve, hands tangled up in the
blanket. "What."
"It's cold," Steve said brightly, just to be obnoxious. "Dad wants me to start
a fire."
Billy squinted at him. There was sleep in the corners of his eyes. He looked
like hell. "What's that got to do with me?"
"Start pulling your own weight, you lush." Steve pointed to the fireplace, the
stack of logs beside it. When Billy didn't move, Steve narrowed his eyes.
"Billy, come on."
"I don't know how."
"You don't know how?" he said, incredulously.
"I grew up in California, dickhead. It never got that cold." Billy rubbed the
sleep from his eyes and yawned. He stood, blanket crumpling to the floor. Steve
resisted the urge to pick it up. Billy swayed on the spot, shaking his head and
blinking. "Think I'm still drunk."
"Well, you did drink a whole bottle of Scotch. You owe me for that. That shit
isn't cheap."
"It tasted cheap."
Steve bit his tongue, hard, to keep from laughing. He tasted iron in his mouth.
"I'll let my dad know to only stock Budweiser from now on."
"You do that." Billy gave him a surly look. "Where's the lighter?"
"Uh, no, I don't think so. I'm not letting you near open flames." Steve shooed
him away with a hand. "Go make coffee. Get sober." As Billy turned, Steve
added, "And stay the hell out from the bar, Billy."
Filling the fireplace with wood and crumpling newspaper in between the logs, he
wondered if he was going to find Billy face down in liquor when he was done.
Fire fixed, still crouching, flames jumping from the paper to the wood, he
closed the safety gate, locking it in place. He watched them lick into the
timber, until yellow-orange-red tongues warmed his skin from a safe distance
away.
Like always, Billy's presence was thick beside him, something that beat against
the side of his head with all the weight of an anvil. It had happened the first
time, during practice when Billy had left a bruise on his thigh and Billy had
beat them 10-4. It had been humiliating. Even Coach had given Steve a weird
look, eyes trailing over his shamed face with something that tasted too much
like disappointment. Shown up by the new kid in every sense, at the one thing
he had thought he was still good at, Steve had nursed his wounded pride back to
health with the affirmation that Billy was a junior and he would be graduating
soon.
"Do you understand the concept of personal space?" Steve asked, feeling Billy's
jean-rough thigh brush his bare shoulder. A shiver slid up his spine. It had
nothing to do with the chill still lingering in the air, being burned out by
the heat of the fire.
Billy said nothing. Steve looked up, biting the inside of his cheek. Blue eyes
as icy as the frost plastered to the windows bore into his. They weren't cold.
Heat, hot as the fire warming Steve's forearms, and something thick, heady,
coiled in Billy's eyes. Steve swallowed, counted from five, and opened his
mouth to say something. Something didn't come out; instead, he licked his lips,
biting the bottom one.
Billy's eyes dropped to his mouth, watching the curl of his tongue, the press
of his teeth. His eyes seemed darker, hotter, hungry for something.
Steve stood abruptly, clearing his throat. He took three hasty steps to the
side. "Do you wanna shower or something? You smell like wet dog." Lackluster,
barely an insult, but it broke whatever trance Billy had been under.
While Billy trudged upstairs to the bathroom, Steve poured himself two and then
three and then four fingers of his dad's expensive liquor. They burned all the
way down, doing nothing for the flames licking the inside of his belly. He
poured himself another glass and sat down on the couch, turning the TV volume
up to just below earsplitting. It didn't help. The thoughts in his head,
muddled and cloying, flashes of Billy's face and eyes and the bob of his throat
when he swallowed, weren't drowned out by the noise. They were amplified.
Long, knuckle-bruised fingers plucked the glass from his hand.
"Hey."
Billy grinned, feral, and downed the rest of the drink. He didn't look anymore
sober, standing in his own jeans and a too-small sweater Steve had fished out
from the laundry room. He was bigger than him, more muscled, thicker in the
thighs and hips and chest and arms. He'd heard Tina sigh dreamily and say, look
at that ass more than once. Steve had always averted his gaze and asked Nancy a
stupid question to distract himself.
"Lookie what we got here," Billy said, singsong. "Goody two-shoes Harrington
breaking his own rules."
"It's my house. They're my rules." His dad was going to kill him. Maybe cut him
up into little, itty-bitty pieces and toss his remains to the wolves. 
Billy held up the glass like a trophy, triumphant, like he'd cracked a code
he'd been puzzling over for months. "You're drunk," Steve said mildly.
He snorted. "I'm barely tipsy."
"Sloshed. Wasted. Plonked."
"No one says plonked anymore."
"I just did."
"Are you going to give me my glass back?"
"Are you gonna let me have another drink?"
Standing, Steve snatched the glass from Billy's hand. A tiny voice, secretive
and pleasant, asked if it would be such a bad thing. School was closed for the
day, his parents were stuck in Indianapolis Saturday afternoon and neither of
their cars would start in the cold. Billy had tried already. Getting drunk with
Billy Hargrove wouldn't be the biggest sin Steve had ever committed.
"Okay," he said, "but you're not allowed to pick your poison."
In the end, he pilfered a bottle of vodka from the bar, cheap and gifted to his
father by his secretary over the holidays, left to collect dust. It wouldn't be
missed.
Slumped on the couch, a Frank Sinatra record playing in the background, Billy
filled two shot glasses, sloshing vodka onto the table. Steve wiped it up with
a Kleenex. "Okay," Billy said, and it sounded like declaration, "never have I
ever been dumped by a nerd."
Steve shot him a dirty look, lips twisting. "What's your obsession with my love
life?"
"Do you even have one?"
He looked down at the shot sitting on the table. A drop of vodka dribbled down
the side. With a sigh, he picked it up, swallowing it down. "Never have I ever
been hit by my dad."
It was, Steve knew, the worst thing to say. It was wrong. There were lines
Steve didn't cross, even when he wanted to. Nancy and Jonathan had been the one
lingering in his head for months, since they'd attached themselves to the hip
less than a week after Nancy had dumped his ass, but Billy was something that
had been tucked into the corner of his mind for just as long. Feigning
indifference, distaste, was easy, especially after the number Billy's fists had
done to his face. Billy had stayed to himself, to his crowd of admirers and
Tommy and Carol, taking over the throne Steve had once sat upon with glee.
Steve hadn't cared, he'd told himself, but that wasn't entirely true.
Disappearing from the world, a ghost of who he'd once been—no matter how much
he didn't like who he'd been now—hadn't been easy.
Maybe they'd been dancing around it since the night before. Hopper at the
Hargrove's, the bruise on Neil's face, the ones marring Billy's own, his
collarbones, the one ugly one that peeked out from where Steve's sweater rode
up on his hip. Steve knew, in the way Billy probably didn't want anyone else to
know, in the way he didn't want anyone to know he was sleeping in his car in
the middle of winter.
Billy hit him. Hard. Knuckles landed on his jaw, slapping Steve's head to the
side, into the fabric of the couch. It hurt, stars exploding behind his eyes,
black spots dancing in his vision. A hot throb crawled along his chin and
cheek, a sharp sting weeping blood into his mouth where his lip had dug into
his own teeth. He blinked until his vision cleared and the world righted
itself.
He touched his mouth, fingers stained pink. Billy stared at him, eyes hard,
sharp, angry. Fire burned behind them. Steve hadn't seen rage like that in a
long time.
They stared at each other, Steve bewildered, Billy angry, for a long stretch of
silence. Then Billy downed his shot, stood and walked away.
The slamming of the front door echoed in Steve's ears long after Billy had
gone.
Chapter End Notes
     On January 20, 1985, a sudden cold snap took America in its cold as
     hell grip and didn't let it go for three days. It set new records
     across the country for lows and snow fall, and caused Reagan's
     inauguration parade to be cancelled. According to a map I found,
     Indiana was struck with -16F to -25F lows, which is basically a
     normal winter day where I live. Since Hawkins doesn't have a definite
     location outside of being probably near Indianapolis, I'm putting it
     closer to the colder areas.
     You can find me on Tumblr @ celoica.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Summary
     “You didn't take your jacket?” Steve demanded, eyes widening as he
     caught sight of Billy. Crouched next to the fireplace, where he
     burned what looked like damp logs and old newspaper, pale and
     shivering, a glare of ice directed at Steve. Next to him was a pile
     of old blankets, moth-bitten and threadbare.
     Billy bared his teeth. “Fuck you, Harrington. What the fuck are you
     doing here?”
     “Watch your language,” Hopper said mildly, unzipping his jacket and
     shrugging out of it.
     Billy stood slowly, fists curling at his sides. Steve eyed him
     warily. Would he hit him again? In front of the Chief? Probably, he
     decided after a moment, watching as he batted away Hopper setting his
     jacket on his shoulders.
     “Would you fuck off?”
     “Language,” Hopper said again, just as mildly.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
“You know, I don't expect this sorta shit from you,” Hopper said as Steve
climbed into the front of the truck.
It had taken Steve a long time to get his thoughts in order after Billy had
left. Fuck him had been the first thought, the one he'd wrapped around his
finger while he'd poked at his lip and spat blood into the powder room sink.
His cheek was going to bruise.
His mother was going to flip out. After the incident with Jonathan, she'd been
concerned. After the one last fall, she'd been disappointed. He'd held out,
refusing to give a name or a reason for why he'd come home looking beaten to a
pulp. He'd lost the car keys for nearly two weeks for that one. He knew it was
going to be worse this time.
Halfway through filling a towel with ice for his face, he'd looked out the
window. The thermometer had been frosted over, glistening with an icy sheen.
He'd left the ice in the sink and gone looking for Billy.
Camaro still in the driveway, Steve had followed Billy's footprints until
they'd disappeared into the snow. There was nothing but a sheen of white. No
trail of bread crumbs to follow, no haze of Marlboro smoke to lead him. He'd
gone back inside, warmed his hands in the sink and called Hopper.
It was the only thing he could do.
“Yeah,” Steve said, buckling himself in. “Neither do I.”
“I wasn't gonna ask,” Hopper said, pulling out of the driveway and taking off
down the street, “but what the hell was Hargrove doing at your house?”
He gave Hopper a weak smile. “We were playing Parcheesi?”
“Out in the snow.”
“That was after he hit me.”
Hopper cut him a sharp look. “Again?”
“I deserved it this time.”
“You sure?”
“Real sure,” Steve said, and looked out the window. Hopper's eyes were too
intense and all-seeing. It was worse than being in the same room—or general
area—as Eleven.
“Okay.” It was long and drawn out, entirely unconvinced. “You wanna tell me
anything else about it?”
Steve shifted uncomfortably in his seat, silent. Snow-peaked houses and cars
drifted by. There were no signs of Billy. Steve didn't expect him to stick
around after that. Steve wouldn't have.
“Sarah said that you were at the Hargrove's last week.”
“Sarah?”
“Diner Sarah.”
Hargrove snorted. “She needs to learn to mind her own business.” He heaved a
sigh and turned off onto one of the side roads, away from Steve's
neighbourhood.
No signs of life dotted the sidewalks or front yard. Steve could see the
shadows of people walking by their front windows, behind half-drawn curtains
and blinds. They were smart. They stayed inside while it froze outside, instead
of chasing around a boy that probably didn't want to be chased after.
“Is it true?” Steve asked, looking at Hopper. He bit the inside of his cheek.
“Is it true what she said?”
Hopper sucked on his teeth. “Maybe. It ain't really your business, is it?”
“No,” he said. He bit down harder on his cheek. He tasted blood. “It's not.”
They were silent for a few minutes. Steve leaned forward to turn up the heat.
Hopper didn't stop him.
“He was sleeping in his car. I found him last night,” Steve said, finally,
clearing his throat. “He looked pretty messed up.”
Instead of saying anything, Hopper shook his head, letting out a sigh through
his nose. He didn't look shocked or surprised or appalled. Steve should have
guessed.
“Did his parents kick him out?” he asked.
Hopper didn't say anything. Steve asked again, more forceful. Hopper shrugged.
“You're not going to tell me, are you?”
“That boy,” Hopper said, “can tell you himself if he wants. It's not my
business to be telling people shit. It's not Sarah's business either. How'd she
find out?”
Steve looked down at his hands, at the ragged cuticles he'd picked at while
he'd been waiting for Hopper. “One of his neighbours came in and told
everyone.”
He shook his head again and pulled onto the main street. It looked like a ghost
town, blanketed in undisturbed white. “Don't listen to everything you hear.”
“Did you just call me a gossip?” Steve asked, voice pitched, incredulous.
Hopper's mouth twitched. “Who's not, in this town?” He had a point there.
“Now,” he said, looking over to Steve, “if you were a stupid teenage boy, where
would you go?”
Anxiety bubbled in Steve's stomach as they searched for Billy. When thirty
minutes bled into forty-five, only due to Hopper having to stop to answer a
call and redirecting the deputies to help dig some unfortunate soul out of a
snowbank, his hands began to twitch. He picked at the sides of his nails until
blood welled up.
They ended up circling around town until they ended up on Cornwallis, at the
old Peterson house that had foreclosed in the late summer. The back door was
ajar, lock picked. Hopper went in first.
Steve shivered against the wind as he stepped in behind Hopper, tucking his
chin deeper into his collar. Everything was cold; his fingertips, his toes,
even his armpits. Inside the house wasn't much better. The wind couldn't slide
across his skin, but it still felt like subzero temperatures.
“Billy?” Hopper called as he moved through the kitchen. There was a layer of
dust on the counts, thick enough to draw in. “It's Hopper.”
A shuffling sound, and then a cracksounded from the living room.
“You didn't take your jacket?” Steve demanded, eyes widening as he caught sight
of Billy. Crouched next to the fireplace, where he burned what looked like damp
logs and old newspaper, pale and shivering, a glare of ice directed at Steve.
Next to him was a pile of old blankets, moth-bitten and threadbare.
Billy bared his teeth. “Fuck you, Harrington. What the fuck are you doing
here?”
“Watch your language,” Hopper said mildly, unzipping his jacket and shrugging
out of it.
Billy stood slowly, fists curling at his sides. Steve eyed him warily. Would he
hit him again? In front of the Chief? Probably, he decided after a moment,
watching as he batted away Hopper setting his jacket on his shoulders.
“Would you fuck off?”
“Language,” Hopper said again, just as mildly.
“You can fuck off, too!”
Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat, taking a step closer. Billy
narrowed his eyes and took a sharp step forward. Steve took a step back as
Hopper shoved his arm between them.
“If you hit him,” Hopper warned, “I'm gonna arrest you. Do you wanna spend a
night in jail?”
Billy looked between them for a moment, as if weighing the option in his mind;
to hit or not to hit. He lunged forward. Steve stumbled back, grabbing onto the
edge of the door frame as his heel caught on the floor trim.
Hopper grabbed Billy by the shoulders, hauling him back.
“Billy.” His voice sounded as warning as an alarm bell.
Struggling against Hopper's grip, he licked his lips, tongue leaving a wet
trail across the space between his chin and mouth. He looked wild, unfettered;
he looked like one of the Demo-dogs when they caught the scent of blood. Steve
tightened his grip on the door.
He struggled for a minute, until Hopper slung an arm from around him, dragging
his back to his chest, his forearm a steel band to keep him still. He spat on
the floor at his feet, chest heaving.
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah,” Hopper said, as mild as ever. Steve stared at him, bewildered. “We
heard that already. You gonna calm down?”
Billy spat again, less this time, and took a shuddering breath, like a shackled
animal. Steve swallowed again.
“Yeah,” Billy said, a wide smile on his face as he looked at Steve. It didn't
reach his eyes. “I'm good.”
Hopper let him go, slowly, arm raised, Billy stepped away from him but didn't
go for Steve again.
“What the fuck was that?”
Hopper and Billy glanced at each other and then to Steve. Billy shrugged.
“Nothing,” he said, as Hopper bent down to grab his fallen jacket, shaking it
out as he said, “Not important. C'mon, boys. If the neighbours see us, we're
screwed.”
Dazed and confused, Steve stepped out of the way, watching as Billy took
Hopper's jacket, eyes downcast, refusing to look at his face. Hopper didn't say
anything as he put out the fire and scraped the ashes into a nearby bucket. He
took them outside to dump.
Hesitant, Steve set his arm on Billy's shoulder. Billy tensed, head jerking to
look at him.
“What.”
Steve bit his lip. “I'm sorry. About what I said. It wasn't...it wasn't good.”
He sighed and dropped his hand. “Listen, that's not what I meant. It's not
good, I mean, but it's not what I meant.” Wincing, he said, “I'm just sorry,
alright? I'm sorry.”
Billy looked at him, eyes narrowed, lip curling up at the corner in a phantom
sneer. He could spit in Steve's face again. Steve wasn't even sure he'd stop
him. It was no worse than another knock to the jaw.
“'Kay,” Billy said, and turned away from him, zipping up Hopper's jacket as he
left the house. Steve stared after him.
“Steve!” Hopper shouted from outside.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and followed them to the truck. He felt
dazed, head clouted with something he couldn't put his finger on. As he climbed
into the front seat of the truck, all he could think was, what the fuck just
happened here?
It had to do with what Diner Sarah had said about the Hargroves and Hopper and
what had happened on the weekend. Steve didn't need a yes from Hopper to know
he'd at least been there. He could put two and two together well enough on his
own, but the gaps were chasms the size of the whole in the ground the Upside
Down had opened up.
Both Hopper and Billy climbed into the truck; Hopper in the drivers seat and
Billy in the back.
“It's fuckin' cold in here,” he said, and Steve reached over to turn up the
heat without a word.
===============================================================================
Hopper dropped them off at Steve's house with a warning of, “If you pull that
stupid shit again, I will kick both your asses and then cite you.”
Steve believed him. Fully.
“You should shower,” Steve said, as they stood awkwardly in the foyer. Steve
stripped off his twenty layers and hung them up, unwinding his scarf.
“I just did.”
“You look blue.”
“It's my colour.”
“Your hair is frozen. I think you might still be kinda drunk.”
Billy glared at him. “I'm not.”
“Maybe a little bit?” Steve said, smile wobbly on his mouth. There was a strain
in the air, thick and tense. Steve hated it.
“Anyone ever tell you you're kind of a priss?”
“Not lately,” he said.
“You're kind of a priss.”
“Thanks,” Steve said dryly.
As Billy trudged upstairs, Steve cleaned up the kitchen, the leftovers from
their aborted game cleared from the coffee table. He locked the bar in his
dad's office for good measure.
Standing in the middle of the living room, he stared at the couch where he and
Billy had sat, slouched and side-by-side, an ease between them that had never
been there before. Billy had always been too busy playing games Steve hadn't
wanted a part in for Steve to care. Too aggressive, too obnoxious; even when
Steve had been King Steve, Billy would have been too much for him.
He wondered, not for the first time, how he managed to get himself into these
situations. It had been Nancy and Jonathan at the house, trapped with a
Demogorgon and armed with little; it had been Dustin, dragging him to his house
because he'd fucked up, because he was just a kid and kids were supposed to
make stupid mistakes. It had been sliding into the underbelly of the Upside
Down, gloves and face masks, a group of kids who were his responsibility
following him.
It had been the disappointment on his parents' faces, the way his father had
said, “Well, I guess you'll be working with me, then, huh?” when they'd seen
his report card. It had been the way Nancy had spat it's bullshit in his face
while she stomped on his heart.
Two years ago his life hadn't been like this. It had been easy. Whatever dumb
thing Tommy had said or done to upset Carol was easily fixed with some kind
words and a reminder that Tommy was, as always, dumb as fuck. He could smooth-
talk his way into extra credit to make up for failed assignments before his
parents even knew about them.
He couldn't even keep his shit together now. It felt like he was floundering
all the time, floating in the darkened abyss the Upside Down had left across
Hawkins and inside himself. Fuck up seemed more severe, more permanent. The
bruise on his cheek felt like failure.
Shaking off the thoughts, he headed upstairs, calling out when he didn't hear
the sound of the shower running, “Billy?”
He stopped outside the bathroom door, peeking in. Steam fogged the mirror.
There was a wet towel on the floor. Steve left it, crossing the hallway to his
own room, where the door stood ajar. He stopped outside, leaning his shoulder
on the door.
Billy lay across his bed, curled onto his side, hair a wet tangle across
Steve's pillow. There were damp spots on the fabric. Bare chested and in
another pair of Steve's sweats, he slept like he belonged there, like there was
no other place for him to be.
Maybe the booze and the day had worn on him more than he'd let on.
Steve tiptoed across the carpeted floor to the bed. Billy's chest rose and fell
with his breaths, sure and steady. Skin flushed from the shower, a rosy stain
stretched across his collarbones and down to the waistband of his sweats,
dipping beneath the V of his hips.
Steve stared, mouth dry. His tongue was sandpaper, an uncomfortable fit behind
his teeth. A right-wrongness welled in his throat, like he was doing something
illegal. Like he was doing something that even the Mind Flayer wasn't right
with, let alone God.
He swallowed and bent over, grabbing the edge of the blanket. He worked it from
under Billy's hip, breath caught in his throat when Billy shifted, curling
tighter onto his side, letting the blanket free from his weight. Steve covered
him and retreated, like a green soldier seeing the enemy for the first time.
He laid on the couch, on his side, watching daytime soap operas on low,
interspersed with cold weather warnings and reports of people freezing to death
across the country. When the lights cut, the TV screen turning black, as the
sun went down, he sighed.
Everything about the day was just shit.
Heaving himself off the couch, he stoked the fire and made a peanut butter and
jam sandwich, leaving the counter a mess to be dealt with in the morning. He
thought about going upstairs to prod Billy awake but chickened out halfway up
the stairs, tiptoeing down as if he could erase his own steps.
He stripped off in the laundry room, changing into a pair of sweats, a shirt
and sweater, rolling on thick socks against the coming chill.
Before he dozed off on the couch, he prayed the pipes wouldn't freeze.
===============================================================================
They were standing in the forest, barefoot and in the clothes they'd fallen
asleep in. The leaves rustled over Billy's head, but no wind caught along their
flesh. Steve shifted his feet, digging his toes into fluffs of virgin snow that
felt like warm wax on his skin. Billy stood silent across from him, as still as
a statue in crazy Mrs Morton's marble cherub garden. His skin was thin, waxy,
almost transparent. Steve could see the outline of his heart thumping in his
chest.
“Where are we?” Steve asked, but he already knew. He'd been here before, a
dozen times.
“It's coming,” Billy said without opening his mouth. He stared at Steve, eyes
wide, hands loose at his sides. Something vicious clawed behind his eyes.
“What's coming?” He took a step forward; the snow stuck to the soles of his
feet like gum.
“It's coming,” he said again, lips unmoving.
The ground broke from beneath him, caving in, swallowing Billy Hargrove whole
into the Upside Down.
===============================================================================
“I'm cold.”
Steve cracked an eye open. Billy loomed above him, close enough to kiss.
“Jesus. Get the hell away from me.” He licked his sleep-chapped lips and sat
up, scooting away until there was a safe distance between them.
“I'm cold, Harrginton,” Billy said again, more insistent. “It's fucking
freezing upstairs.”
Well, there go the pipes, Steve thought, rubbing the sleep from the corners of
his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Like ten.”
“AM?”
“Does it look like it's the motherfucking morning?”
“You swear a lot,” he said, and then yawned, arms stretching above his head.
The blanket he'd tangled around himself in his sleep slipped to his waist.
“You got any other insights, Einstein?”
Steve ignored him and stood, glancing at the fireplace. Only coals burned,
lowly. He shivered. Billy was right. It was cold.
“We should probably sleep in front of the fire,” he said after a moment, brain
still foggy with sleep, tangled up in what was real and what wasn't.
He glanced at Billy. He looked solid and warm. He'd pulled on another sweater,
one that Steve knew had been buried in the bottom of one of his drawers because
it was too big for him. At least his lips moved when he spoke.
“Go get some blankets from the laundry room,” Steve said, pulling pillows off
the couch. His mom was going to kill him for putting her precious throw pillows
on the floor. He figured it would be worth it.
Billy came back with an armful of blankets he dumped unceremoniously onto the
floor while Steve built another fire, crouched and poking at the logs with the
iron poker.
Billy still looked real. Solid and grumpy and himself, if the cursing under his
breath while he untangled the blankets was any indication. The lump in Steve's
throat started to ease.
Fire burning hotly, Steve laid down next to Billy. His back was already turned,
two thick down blankets pulled up to his shoulder. Steve didn't know why he
expected anything different.
Arranging the rest of the blankets on top of himself, adjusting the pillow
behind his head, he closed his eyes. The sound of the fire cracking didn't lull
him into sweet dreams. Each snap made his eyes twitch, until he was restless,
staring at the stucco ceiling for some kind of answer to a question he hadn't
asked.
He fell asleep, finally, counting Billy's breaths like sheep.
 
Chapter End Notes
     I started college prep this week, and it's been both great and time
     consuming. I'll still be sticking to my schedule, but I'll be more
     likely to update in the evenings and at night than during the day.
     As always, you can find me on Tumblr @ celoica. I'm currently
     accepting prompts and requests, so feel free to drop me a line.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Summary
     Steve smiled, thin and bitter. “I hate the dark,” he admitted.
     “Scared of the dark?”
     Steve nodded, hit by how stupid of a thing it was to admit to Billy.
     He blamed it on the nightmares.
     “Huh,” Billy said, and Steve didn’t know what kind of huh it was. He
     sat up, rearranging the blankets and peeling them back, holding them
     open. “C’mere. I’m fucking cold.”
     Steve blinked and stared, eyes darting between Billy’s tired face and
     the space between them. “Are you asking to cuddle?”
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Low-lit embers burned beside them, casting soft, barely-there shadows of their
bodies on the side of the couch. Steve stared at the fireplace and wondered how
long it had been since they’d fallen asleep. Darkness swallowed them whole,
pressing in on Steve until it felt like drowning. It felt like suffocating on
nothing.
Billy shifted against him, warm breath against Steve’s neck, the tip of his
nose cold and contrary against his jawline. Steve shivered, flexing his fingers
and toes, turning his head until he could look at Billy, head tilting out of
the way. His neck protested, the angle awkward, and Steve sighed softly.
He could see his breath.
“Billy,” he said, soft and groggy, swallowing down the dryness in his mouth.
Billy didn’t move. “Billy,” he said louder, wiggling his arm out from where
Billy had it trapped beneath his weight. He poked his arm, and when that didn’t
wake him, he brushed his fingertips across Billy’s forehead.
He jerked awake with a sound of confusion, eyes wild and blinking, hair a
tangled mess across his forehead. He looked like a deer caught in headlights;
he looked like a child, confused and startled, trying to put the pieces
together before he was entirely awake.
It was cute, despite the bruises.
Steve packed that thought away and put it on a shelf somewhere in the back of
his brain.
They parted quickly, Billy’s eyes widening a fraction before he scrambled back,
yanking most of Steve’s blankets with him. “The fuck you wake me up for?”
Steve grabbed the edge of the blankets Billy clutched in his hands and gave
them a tug. “You stole the blankets and I’m cold.”
Billy sniffed and rubbed his nose. “Make the fucking fire again, Harrington. It
ain’t that hard.”
With that, he turned over, taking most of Steve’s blankets with him. He laid on
his side, back turned to Steve, and pulled the blankets up to his chin. Steve
let him, watching him settle before getting up and tossing logs and more paper
into the fireplace, poking at the red coals until they sparked up the paper.
He sits back down on the bed of blankets and stares at the fire. He’s cold
still, on the edge of freezing, but each second spent close to the growing fire
sparks up something inside of him. It’s not warm and it’s not cold; it’s not
the dread of waking in the dark, only to turn on his bedroom light because he
can’t stand being in the dark for a second longer. It’s not comforting, like
the scent of his mom’s perfume or the sound of Nancy laughing, alive and
bright.
He doesn’t know what it is, but it has to do with Billy Hargrove. It’s been
there since Steve found him on the side of the road. It’s been there since he
called up Hopper and went looking for him, since he brought him home—home,
because that’s where he brought the guy who beat his face in—and laid down
beside him to sleep.
Thoughts bounce around in his head and the restlessness picks at his bones.
It’s too cold to put on a jacket and walk until his mind is blank. It’s too
cold everywhere but the living room, in front of the fire and beside Billy, to
walk about the house until he’s assured there’s nothing under the beds and in
the closets.
It’s coming, dream-Billy had said, mouth closed around the words. Maybe it was
an omen, like in The Exorcist. He’d been inside the Upside Down; maybe it had
left a mark on him in the way it had Will.
Steve swallowed and looked at Billy. He wanted to shake him awake and ask if
he’d seen anything. If he’d dreamed anything. If he knew anything.
In moments like this, Steve would drive around until he ended up at Nancy’s
house, climb in through her bedroom window like he’d done when they’d been
dating, and she’d let him sleep on the floor like she hadn’t when they were
dating. It was something on his face that gets her to offer the floor, Steve
knew, even if he had never asked; there’s concern the size of fear in her eyes
whenever he shows up at her window.
They don’t talk about it, but she always let him sleep in the comfort of her
room.
He looked away and to the fire, watched the flames lick up and brighten the
room. The shadows at the corners of his vision look like monsters; they look
like tendrils of vines. They looked like snapping jowls and ferocious
pantomimed roars.
“Hey.”
Steve flinched and looked over. Billy watched him, eyes heavy lidded, lips
pursed like there was more he wanted to say.
“Hi,” Steve said, soft and stupid, uncertain.
Rolling onto his side to face him, Billy said, “You look like you’ve seen a
ghost.”
Steve smiled, thin and bitter. “I hate the dark,” he admitted.
“Scared of the dark?”
Steve nodded, hit by how stupid of a thing it was to admit to Billy. He blamed
it on the nightmares.
“Huh,” Billy said, and Steve didn’t know what kind of huh it was. He sat up,
rearranging the blankets and peeling them back, holding them open. “C’mere. I’m
fucking cold.”
Steve blinked and stared, eyes darting between Billy’s tired face and the space
between them. “Are you asking to cuddle?”
Billy scowled and dropped the blankets. “Fine, freeze to death for all I care.
I hope your dick goes first,” he snapped, laying back down and rolling onto his
side, away from Steve.
Gently, Steve touched the bruise on his own face. It ached, tender, the
swelling controlled by the ice. He’d already forgiven Billy.
Slowly, like he was attending to a wounded deer, Steve pulled up the blankets
and slid under. He pressed up behind Billy, his chest to Billy’s back, arm
sliding over Billy’s waist. The movement pulled at Billy’s sweater. The skin of
Steve’s wrist slipped across Billy’s belly, warm and smooth.
Billy froze as Steve settled behind him, the length of his spine tense. Steve
almost pulled away and spat out a quick apology, but then Billy sighed and
relaxed.
He didn’t say anything. Neither did Steve.  
He fell back asleep, into blissful, dreamless sleep, the rise and fall of
Billy’s stomach lulling him to sleep.
===============================================================================
“You’re cheating.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Billy said, trying to roll the hidden
card from under his sleeve. He didn’t bother to hide it.
Steve’s eyes narrowed and he tossed his cards down, reaching across to pluck
the card from Billy’s cuff, waving it in front of his face. Billy just grinned
and snatched it, throwing it down on the pile.
“I win,” he said, and laughed when Steve groaned, dragging a hand down his
face.
Steve had woken up alone, with the lights on and the fire still roaring beside
him. Billy must have figured out how to feed it while Steve slept, keeping him,
them and the pipes warm enough that they wouldn’t freeze. Billy had been
nowhere to be found, and Steve had dragged himself upstairs to the shower.
After, he’d found Billy in the kitchen, making coffee.
And pouring Kahlúa into his mug, swiped from his mother’s personal stock in the
pantry.
Steve hadn’t said a word, topping up his own coffee with it, setting it back
where Billy had found it.
They didn’t talk about the night before. Instead, Billy had grinned, called
Steve a lush and they’d raided the fridge for some kind of food. Scrambled eggs
and bacon that hadn’t gone bad with the power off, they’d eaten side by side,
sipping coffee and Kahlúa, saying nothing.
After, Steve had put on a record and picked a fresh pack of cards out from his
father’s office.
“I hate you,” Steve said sourly, sitting back and looking at Billy.
“Oh, boohoo. You’re just pissed you lost.”
“You cheated. It doesn’t count.”
“Says who?” Billy asked, still grinning.
“Everyone.”
“I heard you don’t care about everyone anymore,” Billy said, and slipped off
the couch onto his knees beside Steve. He laid down on the nest of blankets,
arms stretched over his head. His shirt—clean and stolen from Steve’s
closet—rode up, a strip of golden skin exposed.
Some kind of quiet calm had fallen over the both of them. Whatever had passed
between them in the night had made things easier, smoother to swallow down.
Steve didn’t know what had changed. It was nice, not fighting. Billy didn’t
suck when he wasn’t up in Steve’s face, pushing at buttons he wasn’t allowed to
touch.
Steve stretched out next to him, pushing his hair from his eyes.  “I don’t,” he
said.
“Why not?”
Shrugging, he said, “I don’t know. They stopped mattering. Other shit’s more
important.”
Billy snorted. “Like what? That girl? That weird kid?”
“Yeah, that girl and the weird kid.”
“My sister?”
Steve turned his head, looking at Billy. Billy was looking at him, eyes heavy
in the way they’d been the night before. “I thought she was your step-sister.”
“She is,” Billy insisted, a frown tugging at his mouth.
“It’s nothing weird, man,” Steve said. “She’s just friends with my—”
His what? His who? It wasn’t like with Nancy or Jonathan, with their plausible
deniability. Steve was just Nancy’s ex, the guy who hung around a bunch of kids
because they all shared the same secret. Even Eleven, with her weird, watchful
eyes, and her even weirder abilities, had a better excuse to be around them
than Steve did.
Billy watched him, eyebrows raised, waiting. Steve sighed. “Dustin, the one
with the teeth?” he said, pointing at his own mouth. Billy nodded. “I was
trying to help him with Max.”
“Help him?”
“He likes her, dumbass.”
Billy snorted out a laugh, hands closing over his belly, legs drawing up as he
laughed. He looked like a hyena, graceful and graceless all at once.
“Oh, fuck you,” Steve said. “Don’t be a dick.”
“That’s just—” Billy cut himself off with another round of laughter, making a
vague gesture with one hand.
Steve scowled, rolling onto his side. He shoved at Billy’s shoulder.
“Seriously, man, don’t be an asshole.”
Billy grabbed his wrist, fingers curling around the bones. “I’m not being a
dick,” he said, still chuckling. “He’s just so fucking weird.”
Steve gave him a dirty look, eyes dipping down to where Billy still held onto
his wrist. “He’s a nice kid. Just a little awkward.”
A lot awkward. Steve wondered if that was what happened to boys who grew up
without fathers to beat them down; too much confidence and yet no self-esteem.
Sometimes he saw a look of relief on Dustin’s mom’s face when he came to pick
up Dustin, promising to have him back by nine; promising they were just going
out for dinner and then the arcade, to hang out and talk.
If Steve had to guess, it felt a lot like being a big brother.
“I didn’t know you were into charity cases.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
Billy dropped his hand abruptly. Steve held his breath, wondering if Billy
would hit him again. Billy narrowed his eyes and watched him for a long moment.
Finally, he rolled his eyes and rolled onto his back. “Whatever,” he said,
lacking bite.
Steve bit his lip and laid down again, hands folded over his stomach. Silence
stretched between them again, awkward and stilted in the quiet. “Are you going
to tell me what happened with your dad?” he asked, quiet and hushed. It felt
like a secret that wasn’t meant to be whispered above a library-appropriate
volume.
“Does it matter?”
“Kinda, yeah.”
“Kinda or yeah?” Billy didn’t look at him.
“I don’t know,” Steve admitted.
“See? Then it’s not your fucking business.”
“No, it’s not.”
Steve closed his eyes. Quiet, again, hung between them as thick as the snow
outside. Steve hated it.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Head turning, Steve opened his eyes. Billy looked at him, head turned, a few
inches away.
If he wanted to, Steve could reach out and touch him, gather him close like he
had the night before.
“What?”
Billy rolled his eyes. “Why are you scared of the dark?”
Steve stared, lips parting around a protest that didn’t come out. He’d already
confessed too much to Billy. The night before had been weird—these past few
days had been the weirdest of Steve’s life, and that was saying a lot—and the
words had just come out. Steve Harrington? Afraid of the dark? He’d expected
Billy to laugh, turn it against him and call him a pussy.
He licked his lips. Billy’s gaze dropped, watching Steve’s mouth.
He sucked in a breath and looked up at the ceiling. “Do you know about that
girl who died last year?”
“That Harrison chick?”
“Holland.
“Yeah, what about her?”
“She was Nancy’s friend. I watched her die.” Steve closed his eyes. It was as
close to the truth as he could ever get with anyone.
Silence from Billy, and then, “Shit, Harrington. That’s fucked up.”
“I showed you mine. You show me yours,” Steve said, clearing his throat.
Billy laughed. “You already know.”
“Know what?”
“He hits me sometimes.” Steve felt him shrug. “I get mouthy, he gets pissed.
That’s it.”
“If that’s it,” Steve said, a whisper as he opened his eyes and looked at
Billy, “why were you sleeping in your car?”
Billy pressed his lips together, staring at the ceiling, chin tilted stubbornly
up. “I left.”
“Or got kicked out.”
Billy smiled, teeth and anger. The tension was back, thick enough that Steve
would need a chainsaw to cut it. “Maybe a bit of both.”
“Do you have anywhere to go?”
“Does it matter?” Billy asked, looking at Steve. His eyes were sharp, daring.
Steve chickened out. “No,” he said, and pushed himself up to his knees,
standing, “I guess it doesn’t.”
He left the living room. They stayed on opposite sides of the house, Billy
downstairs in the living room, probably drinking alcohol Steve couldn’t afford
to replace and listening to Zepplin loudly; Steve in his room, reading the same
sentence of The Stand until the frustration overtook him like a storm and he
threw the book across the room, watching it bounce off the wall and land on the
floor.
He stared at the ceiling and the walls, out the window, at the floor. He
listened to Billy move a floor beneath him. A mix of emotions, most of them
Steve didn't understand, swelled in his chest, sliding down to his belly,
curling into a knot.
In the end, he snuck a Valium from his mom's medicine cabinet and went to sleep
before the sun went down.
===============================================================================
They stood in the forest again, the snow warm and soft like mashed potatoes
beneath Steve's feet. Billy stared at him from under the tree, lips parted, no
words coming out. 
He looked up. It was sunny and bright, not a spot of fluffy cloud in the sky,
but the darkness of the forest swallowed them whole. Steve took a step forward;
the snow stuck to the soles of his feet like tacky, a disgusting feeling he
ignored.
Steve stopped in front of Billy. His skin was translucent again, the blue veins
prominent against his jaw and throat. Red, deep and dark and terrible, leaked
from Billy's eyes and stained the inside of his mouth, tinging his teeth. He
spoke, mouth forming words, but no sound came out. 
His eyes were dead. 
When Steve reached out to touch him, he crumbled, withering away and falling to
the ground in a husk of skin and clothes. They melted into the snow, becoming
white and fluffy. Steve stooped down to touch it; it came away like the rest of
the snow, tacky and sticky on his skin, like newly-chewed gum.
Steve was alone, left the to dark forest and the loneliness that came creeping
from the trees.
===============================================================================
In the morning, Billy and his Camaro were gone, a mess of blankets, an empty
bottle and tire tracks in his wake.
Steve didn’t go after him.
Chapter End Notes
     As always, you can find me on Tumblr @ celoica.
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Summary
     “Billy,” Steve said finally, low, husky.
     The world melted away. The people passing them by on the sidewalk,
     eyes watchful; the buildings lining the streets and the cars whizzing
     by. They all disappeared, slipping away like the images in Steve’s
     dreams, until there was nothing left but Billy in front of him, teeth
     biting his lower lip, hand on Steve’s arm.
     Billy said nothing as his hand slipped down Steve’s arm, fingers
     encircling his bare wrist, the pads of his fingers pressed to the
     heartbeat under his skin. It throbbed. It ached. Skin on skin felt
     like a burn, like Billy’s hands were made of matches and Steve was
     nothing but paper.
     “Billy,” he said again, lower. It felt like a plead.
Chapter Notes
     I've been terrible at keeping to my post schedule. Forgive me for
     that. My life has been kind of crazy for the past two weeks, and I'm
     still scrambling to catch up. I'm really hoping to get back to my
     schedule next week, but don't hate me if updates are a day late.
The cold wave rolled over Indiana like it did the rest of America. Sluggish and
slow, frost and ice and death left in its wake. Hawkins stayed closed down when
the temperatures warmed, the onslaught of snow too much for the dismal town-
operated plows to handle.
Steve spent his Monday shoveling Mrs Henderson’s driveway with Dustin.
“This sucks,” Dustin said for the seventh time in ten minutes, wiping cold
sweat off his lip with his gloved hand. His mom had bundled him up herself,
wrapping a scarf so thick and tight around his neck Steve was surprised it
hadn’t choked him yet.
“Quit complaining and shovel,” Steve said around a grin, tossing another clump
of ice-and-snow over his shoulder.
“We could be doing anything else right now and it’d be more fun,” he
complained. He shoved his own shovel—borrowed from the neighbor—into the snow
and rested his folded arms on the handle, chin resting on his arms. “A root
canal would be more fun than this.”
“Have you ever even had a root canal?”
“No,” Dustin said, wrinkling his nose, “but I feel like I’m qualified enough to
say that.”
Steve laughed, pushing another shovelful of snow out of the way. He set the
mouth of the shovel against the snow, one hand balled into a fist setting on
his hip. “We can do something after.”
Eyes bright, he asked, “Dungeons and Dragons?”
“Yeah. No way. Something else.”
Anything else. Steve had accepted that Dustin was a complete and utter dork,
but that didn’t mean he had to struggle through trying to understand the
complexities of D&D. The one time Steve had sat in on a game, which had been
over five hours long, he’d felt his head would explode by the end of it. It
felt like being in Algebra II class all over again.
Dustin pouted, lips pushing out. “You’re such a big baby.”
Steve held up a gloved finger, pointing it at him. “I know when I’ve lost. Pick
something else.”
In the end, Dustin picked out his hidden VHS copy of The Thing from under his
bed and put it on while Steve made mac and cheese in the kitchen. He handed a
bowl and spoon to Dustin as he settled on the couch, tucking his legs up under
him. Dustin had drawn the blinds and cranked the heat, and Steve wiped a drop
of sweat off his upper lip.
If his parents had caught him watching shit like this when he was Dustin’s age,
they would have yelled and grounded him for a week. Steve was pretty sure if
Mrs Hendersen came home early, she would just sigh and say, I’m not mad, I’m
just disappointed.
The tape was Dustin’s in the first place. Steve didn’t ask how he’d gotten his
hands on it, but he was willing to bet it had cost him a pretty penny and most
of his saved up allowance.
They ate mac and cheese and watched the movie. Dustin hissed a shut up more
than once when Steve leaned over to ask a question. Steve barely smothered his
laughter. Enraptured by the blood and gore and swearing on the screen, Dustin
zoned out, lips parted and vocal chords quiet for the first time in forever.
When the credits rolled, Steve picked up the dishes and walked them to the
kitchen.
“Hey, Dustin?”
“Yeah?”
“Has Max ever said anything to you about Billy?”
Dustin snorted and looked up from where he was fiddling with the VHS player.
“Uh, other than he’s a complete asshole?”
Steve pressed his lips together, scrubbing harder than necessary at the pot in
the sink. “Yeah, other than that. Has she said anything about him?”
“Not really, no.” Dustin popped the VHS out and put it back in the ET case,
snapping it shut. “He’s got a wicked ride and he’s a dick.”
“Does she talk about his dad? Ever?”
Dustin didn’t answer. Steve heard him padding up behind him, settling his hip
against the counter beside the sink. “His dad? Nice guy, I guess. Kinda weird,
but nice.”
Steve bit his tongue.
It wasn’t that he cared—except he did. He didn’t want to give a single flying
fuck about Billy, but he did. Whatever had passed between them over the weekend
had changed things. Steve didn’t know if it was the bruises on Billy’s face or
the way Hopper had seemed unreasonably cool about the fact that Billy was
anywhere near Steve. Maybe it was the punch Billy had given him. Maybe it was
seeing him sprawled across his bed, drunk and passed out, looking about as much
of a threat as a chipmunk.
It was something. Something had changed, like a light switch being struck with
a hammer.
Steve didn’t want to care, but he did. He cared enough to stay awake at night,
even after all traces of Billy had been washed from his sheets and clothes, and
wonder if he was alright. He wondered if he was safe.
He cared enough to wonder if whatever his father had done to him he would turn
on Max.  
“How’s he weird?” Steve asked, eyes on the already-clean pot he still scrubbed
at.
“Just…y’know. Weird.” Dustin shrugged. “Talks about military shit all the time.
I think he was in the Navy or something.”
“And Max never talks about him?” Steve asked, chancing a glance at him.
Dustin frowned, lips turned down. He cocked his head to the side. “No,” he said
slowly, like he had to think about it. “Why’re you asking?”
Steve forced a smile on his face and flicked his fingers at his face, flecks of
soap and water landing on Dustin’s face.
“Hey!” Dustin cried, using his collar to wipe his face clean. He was grinning
when he righted his shirt. “Snowball fight? Winner picks the next movie.”
Dripping with melted snow and sweat, Steve let Dustin win. They watched Blade
Runner and ate chocolate chip cookies from the box dunked in hot chocolate.
Steve thought about Billy the entire time.
===============================================================================
Life returned to normal. The snow cleared, the sun brightened the day and the
Steve’s world settled back into its routine.
He went to school. He argued with his dad and made nice with his mom. He hung
out with Dustin and the kids. He worried about life after school.
He thought about Billy Hargrove.
Twice, he ran into Neil and Susan. Twice, he’d turned and walked the other way,
crossing the street and taking the long way home just to avoid looking at him.
Once, he almost asked Max about it. He chickened out and asked about school
instead.
Steve pretended his life had returned to normal, the days spent next to Billy
and the night spent tangled up in body-warmed blankets with him forgotten along
with the ice that breathed across the kitchen windows.
At night, he dreamed of Billy. They stood in the forest together, barefoot as
before, cocooned in the ice-heat of his dreams. Sometimes they spoke. Sometimes
they walked together. Always—always in the end—Billy disappeared from sight,
slipping from between Steve’s fingers when he reached out to touch him,
desperate for some kind of solid contact.
When he didn't dream of Billy, he dreamed of the darkness and vines, of blood-
tinged jowls biting at his heels and snapping at his fingers. He dreamed of
drowning in the taste of sulfur and being smothered in bitter-sharp ozone. 
He dreamed of dying until he didn't dream at all. 
Instead, he stayed awake, cold water on his face and colder showers to shake
off the beckoning call of sleep.
Sometimes, when Eleven was near and they were alone, she looked at him like
she knew.
Slapping on a smile and a swagger in his step, he pretended all was well.
===============================================================================
 He didn’t see Billy for almost a month after that.
Sometimes, in the thick of the hallways between classes, he looked for him:
Blond hair, teeth flashing under flickering lights, a laughing like a jackal
with Tommy and Carol. When someone called to him on the court, he turned,
expecting to see Billy before the disappointment hit him.
He shook it off, uneasy, trying to ignore the ghost of Billy’s body following
him around school.
Jonathan and Steve stood on the sidewalk, paper cups full of coffee in hand,
splitting a cigarette. It would be another hour before Jonathan’s Ford would be
ready. They loitered, like the teenagers they were, outside the coffee shop on
the main street.
“You thought about college yet?” Jonathan asked around an inhale.
Steve wished he hadn’t asked. He shrugged and reached out, taking the cigarette
from Jonathan’s hand. “My mom thinks I’ve got a shot at IU. She keeps checking
the mail like it’s going to make the letter come faster.”
“What about your dad?”
Steve pulled a drag off the cigarette and looked across the street. “He’d
rather I stay home and work for him.”
“You gonna?”
Cutting Jonathan a sharp look through narrowed eyes, he asked, “Did Nancy tell
you to ask?”
At least Jonathan had the decency to look guilty. “Maybe. Yeah.” He sighed.
“She’s just worried, is all.”
Steve pressed his lips into a thin line. It was all Nancy seemed to worry
about, since she’d helped lick the envelopes and send them off. The million
dollar question: What was Steve going to do after graduation?
He didn’t have an answer for her, or anyone. Even Joyce had asked him over the
holidays, eyes curious and bright, as if Steve was somehow supposed to know
what the hell he wanted to do with the rest of his life. As if Steve even knew
what he was doing now, here, in Hawkins, where everything used to make sense
and now it didn’t.
He scuffed the toe of his boot against the salt-rough pavement, puffing on the
cigarette. He didn’t look at Jonathan. “She shouldn’t be. I’ll figure it out.”
“Listen,” Jonathan said, and Steve closed his eyes, taking in a steady breath
of fresh air, “it’s not my place to say anything…”
“But?” Steve asked tightly.
“Maybe you should talk to her.”
“And say what? Fuck off and leave me alone?”
“Do you want her to?” Jonathan sounded surprised.
Steve sighed through his nose, eyes opening as he handed the cigarette to
Jonathan. “No, not really,” he admitted, “but I wish she’d stop asking about
it. I won’t even know what I’m going to do until I get an acceptance letter.”
Even then, he didn’t know what he would do. Stay in Hawkins, leave, go to
college. He could work with his dad, like he wanted, but he didn’t want to. He
didn’t know much, but he knew that, at least.
“Tell her to lay off.”
“Can’t you do that?”
Jonathan laughed and took a few quick drags from the cigarette. “No,” he said,
“not for all the money in the world. That’s your job.”
“Fuck you, Byers,” he said, not unkindly.
They lit up another cigarette and sipped their coffee, chatting idly about the
kids and Eleven, about the weird way Hopper and Joyce seemed to be dancing
around each other. They talked about school. They talked about cars.
Blond hair, curly and short. Jean jacket over a sweater. Silver earrings. Tight
blue jeans.
Steve did a double take, cigarette dipping from between his lips, head turning
to squint across the street.
“Is that—?” Jonathan cut himself, taking a step forward. “I haven’t seen him
in, like, a month.”
Steve stared, silent, pulling the cigarette from his lips and handing it and
his cup to Jonathan.
“Hey, where are you—?”
“In a sec,” Steve said over his shoulder, checking right and left before
jogging across the street.
Billy moved down the sidewalk, a paper bag tucked under one arm. He didn’t
notice Steve.
Steve stepped through the slush of salt and snow, stepping around puddles and
dodging the bodies of passersby.
He set his hand on Billy’s shoulder, breath caught in his throat.
Billy flinched, jerking away from his touch and spinning on his heel. A glare,
hard and shining in the afternoon sunlight, crossed his face, eyes narrowing on
Steve.
“What the fuck do you want?” he spat, voice rough.
Steve stared, dumb and useless, eyes roving over Billy’s face. The bruises were
gone. Not even a scar etched into the skin, nor a blotch of red left to show
for them. He looked off—younger and older at the same time, too different than
he had the last time Steve had seen him.
“You cut your hair,” he said dumbly.
Billy raised his hand as though to touch it, hand pausing at shoulder level.
His fingers balled into a fist and he dropped it. “I’m glad your eyesight isn’t
shit. What do you want?”
He stared for a moment longer, at the curls falling over Billy’s forehead. He
liked it, he decided. Maybe better than the mullet.
Billy scowled and took a step forward. “Are you done staring?”
Steve shook his head, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. “Sorry,” he said.
“I just didn’t expect the…you know.”
Raising his eyebrows, he asked, “Finish your fucking sentence, Harrington.”
“Hair.”
The scowl was back, angrier than before. “Did you hunt me down to tell me
that?”
He didn’t know what he was doing. It was a running theme for him. School, his
parents, Nancy’s pestering, the nightmares and the darkness that swallowed him
when he was alone—Billy. On his list, Billy was at the top.
“No, I just—” He sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I haven’t seen
you around.”
The anger was still there, hot heat in Billy’s eyes, but the scowl flipped up,
a grin of teeth as he took a step forward. “You worrying about me, Steve?”
It was Steve’s turn to scowl. “Fuck you,” he said. He didn’t deny it.
“Man, oh, man,” he said, whistling lowly, shifting the bag under his arm.
Amusement flickered in his eyes. “You were worried. You stay up late thinking
about me, too?”
“Fuck you,” he said again. It lacked heat and bite. It felt like Billy’s eyes
had cracked him open and he could see into his head.
“You did, didn’t you? You got a crush on me or something?” Billy took a step
forward. Close enough that if Steve leaned forward, he could feel the heat of
Billy’s breath on his skin. Steve swallowed and looked away. “Oh, you do. Shit,
I’m flattered. King Steve wants to gimme a kiss.”
He wanted to hit him. Shove him to the ground and maybe land a kick. Something
about Billy did something terrible to Steve. It felt like all his wires were
crossed, like there was something scrambled up just by the closeness of Billy.
It had badgered him in his sleep and followed him into waking. Billy fucking
Hargrove was on his mind all the time, infecting him like a disease. It was
blood poisoning or something worse. Billy had crawled under his skin and stayed
there, even after he’d left Steve’s home.
“Shut up,” he said, no heat or bite. Steve took a step back and Billy at a safe
distance from him. “I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t froze to death.”
“Because you care.”
“Shut up,” Steve hissed, teeth clenched together. “I don’t care.”
“Then why are you here?”
“You ask too many fucking questions,” Steve muttered. He took another step
back. “I’m glad you’re not dead. Enjoy the rest of your life.”
Steve went to step around him. A hand grabbed his forearm, fingers tight and
digging in. When Steve looked at Billy’s face, he was staring, eyes clear, lips
pressed together like he was holding something back.
A beat passed between them, and then two, three and four.
His skin felt too tight to his bones again. A breeze flitted across the air,
brushing Billy’s hair off his forehead. Steve wanted to lean in and touch it.
“Billy,” Steve said finally, low, husky.  
The world melted away. The people passing them by on the sidewalk, eyes
watchful; the buildings lining the streets and the cars whizzing by. They all
disappeared, slipping away like the images in Steve’s dreams, until there was
nothing left but Billy in front of him, teeth biting his lower lip, hand on
Steve’s arm.
Billy said nothing as his hand slipped down Steve’s arm, fingers encircling his
bare wrist, the pads of his fingers pressed to the heartbeat under his skin. It
throbbed. It ached. Skin on skin felt like a burn, like Billy’s hands were made
of matches and Steve was nothing but paper.
“Billy,” he said again, lower. It felt like a plead.
Letting go of his arm, Billy stepped back, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes
stretching across his mouth. Steve stared at it. His skin tingled where Billy
had touched.
“Do me a favour,” Billy said. “Stop caring.”
===============================================================================
Like always, Hawkins turned into a ghost town after dark. The bars and
restaurants closed, and people packed it in and went home.
Like always, night brought the terrors, gnarled fingers twisting in Steve’s
sleep and playing games inside his head.
Like always, lately he didn’t sleep.
He walked the lonely streets, kicking trails of snow out of his way. He stopped
at the ends of the streets and reached down, picking up handfuls of it and
letting it melt between his fingers. Palms red and burning with chill, he
stared at them, water dripping into his sleeve.
Stop caring. Echoing in his brain since they’d left his lips, Steve could hear
it in every tone of Billy’s voice. Angry, frustrated, wild; sleep-thick and
gentle, an edge of a whine. Pinpointing the one that had rolled off Billy’s
tongue was like trying to write a test he hadn’t studied for.
It was worse than the shadows twisting along the walls of his room. They
followed him around in real life, reality twisted by his own dark thoughts.
Billy’s voice stayed in his head, buried so deeply Steve didn’t think he could
cut himself and drain it out.
He wanted to punch something again. What had he done to him? Blood poisoning
had been right—Billy had infested his entire being, filling up the empty place
left by the hands of the Upside Down.
It was worse than Eleven’s manipulations, when she whispered inside his head
and read his thoughts. The feeling of wrongness disappeared when she did. Billy
stayed, haunting, an echo of memory Steve couldn’t shake off.
He kicked at the snow, angry again.
Stop caring.
He cared, painfully so. It had been Steve’s problem since he had been young. He
cared too much, attached his feeling to people and things. It stung when they
pulled away from him, prying off his emotions from their beings and flitting
off, leaving him with ruined gaps to patch up on his heart.
Nancy had done it, easily.It’s bullshit had ripped his heart in two, and
Jonathan had singed the tattered pieces with betrayal. They’d been friends,
Steve had thought. They had been friendly, at least. Why did he have to want
Nancy, if they were friends?
How did Billy know? A lucky guess? Had he read it on Steve’s face?
How did he know?
Steve stopped, pressing the heels of his cold palms to his eyes, pressing down
until spots danced behind his eyelids. His head ached with it, full of thoughts
of Billy.
Even alcohol couldn’t dull the obsession his brain had with Billy. A week ago,
when his parents had fucked off for a weekend trip of skiing and mojitos, he’d
tried all weekend. All it had left him with was a killer hangover and a bad
taste in his mouth.
He dropped his hands and kept walking, cold hands in his pockets.
At the twenty-four hour corner store at the end of the main street, he stopped
again, picking up snow in his newly-warmed hands. The chilled easily, reminding
him he wasn’t sleeping. He touched wet fingers to his face, to the dark hollows
under his eyes.
“You look like shit.”
Steve paused, fingers still against his skin. A laugh, hysterical and edged,
bubbled from his throat. It kept bubbling even as he turned to look at Billy.
He laughed until tears collected in his eyes. He wiped them away with frigid
fingers.
Billy stared from his perch on the hood of his car, cigarette held between his
fingers, impassive. “When was the last time you slept?”
How does he know, whispered in Steve’s mind, achingly familiar and yet so
achingly unfamiliar. “I don’t know,” he admitted, wiping the last of the tears
from his eyes. His mouth hurt from laughing so hard.
Billy tossed his cigarette to the ground and slid off the Camaro. Moving with
slow and certain steps, he took Steve by the wrist.
It burned, again.
Or maybe that was just his head. Steve couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure of
anything.
Billy said nothing as he reached out with his free hand, straightening the
collar of Steve’s jacket, head tilting to the side.
“You’re all fucked up, aren’t you?” he said finally.
Steve nodded.
“You should come home with me,” Billy said.
When he pulled on Steve’s hand and led him to the car, Steve didn’t fight him.
***** Chapter 6 *****
Chapter Summary
     “You’ll fall asleep on me.”
     “I won’t.”
     “You looked like you were ready to keel over back there.”
     “I feel better now.”
     “No,” Billy said, soft as fresh snow, “you don’t.”
     Steve turned his head and froze. Arm stretched out on the back of the
     couch where it hadn’t been a moment again, Billy’s knuckles collided
     with his cheek, fever-hot and gentle where he unfolded his fingers to
     brush along Steve’s jaw.
     “You told me not to care,” Steve whispered. A confusing cluster of
     emotions tangled themselves in his chest, settling there, anvil-
     sized.
     “I did.”
     “Did you mean it?”
     “No.”
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Tucked safely into the passenger seat of Billy’s Camaro, Steve watched Hawkins
slip by in the window, disappearing into the odd street lamp before vanishing
altogether.
He hadn’t asked where home was. He hadn’t asked anything at all. Billy had
opened the car door for him and closed it behind him, cigarette jammed between
his lips as he’d started up the car. The radio whined out some power ballad
Steve couldn’t remember hearing before. Billy hadn’t said a word. Steve
followed his lead.
Sinking into the seat, fingers tucked up into the sleeves of his jacket, Steve
turned his head. In the darkness he could only make out so much of Billy. No
earrings this time, and his hair had been slicked back from his face. Steve
wanted to reach out and touch it, tug at it until the gel came loose and he
could play with the curls.
He bit the inside of his cheek, picking at the edges of his cuticles. Where are
we going hung on the tip of his tongue, wanting to slide past his teeth but not
budging. Whatever tension that had grown between them, uncomfortable and full,
that day on the main street had evaporated, leaving nothing but silence and a
rough voice crackling from the radio. Breaking it seemed like a sin.
Billy pulled onto a side road, where trees still thick with green hung over the
bumpy road. The Camaro seemed ill-equipped for it; Steve felt every pothole and
dent through his spine.
Through half-lidded eyes, he watched Billy suck on another cigarette, the
window rolled down a crack to flick ashes out. Lazy, one hand on the wheel, he
looked at ease in a way Steve hadn’t even seen when he’d been fast asleep,
undisturbed by dreams or thoughts.
Where had he been? He wanted to ask. He wanted to reach out and take his hand,
lock their fingers together for something to stay anchored to, and ask where
the hell he’d been for weeks and why he’d cut his hair and where were they
going.
Hands to himself, he closed his eyes instead, bathed by the warmth of the
heater and the radio and the soft rustle of Billy moving in the driver’s seat.
Sleep beckoned him close, pulling at his eyelids.
When the car stopped, the engine cutting out, Steve opened his eyes. He
blinked, squinting into the dark.
“The lake?” he said, rusty. He licked his hips and sat up.
“Yep,” Billy said, offering nothing else as he climbed out of the car.
Steve followed, rubbing at his sore eyes with the back of his hand. They ached
the way they did when he stayed up too long reading. In the darkness, he made
out the shape of a trailer, metal roof clear of snow and a green garbage can
beside the small wooden porch.
“Who’s place is there?” Steve asked, suspicious.
Billy looked over his shoulder at him, smile brilliant. “Mine.”
Keys in hand, Billy climbed the stairs and unlocked the door. Steve watched
from the bottom of the stairs. He was kidding, wasn’t he? It didn’t look like
much, but it was more than Billy could afford. It was more than Steve could
afford. It was more than any seventeen-year-old could afford.
“I don’t believe you,” Steve said, exhaustion burying right down to his bones,
when Billy raised an eyebrow, holding the door open.
“You think I killed the guy who owns it?”
“So it’s not yours.”
“It’s mine enough.”
“How?”
Amused, Billy said, “I rent, Steve. Is it that complicated?”
Steve swallowed down the shame—he hadn’t thought of that, despite everything
he’d seen with the Henderson’s and their shitty, shitty landlord—and walked up
the stairs. He ducked inside, body twisting to avoid brushing against Billy.
Billy stepped forward, until their arms brushed. Steve shivered and stepped
away. It felt hot, despite the layers of fabric between them. Touching Billy
always felt like molten heat.
Billy kicked off his boots and closed the door, shrugging out of his jacket. He
tossed it on the arm of the couch and leaned over, flicking on the switch of a
lamp.
Yellow light filled up the room, illuminating the sparse furnishings. No
pictures or art on the walls, no curtains hanging over the windows. A couch and
lamp, along with a scuffed matching coffee table; a TV stand with an old TV,
and a rickety-looking breakfast table and mismatched chairs. The wood paneling
looked solid and the carpet looked clean.
Steve shifted from one foot to the other while Billy moved to the small
kitchen, flipping on the light as he went. Fridge, stove, a coffee maker, a
sink piled with dishes. The linoleum was a rusty red. It looked like dried
blood.
“Are you going to take off your jacket?” Billy asked, opening the fridge, one
hand on his hip.
Steve swallowed and shifted, unbuttoning his coat carefully. He hung it on the
hook beside the door and bent over, untying his boots. He set them neatly on
the ratty welcome mat.
When he stood, Billy was already seated on the couch, a box of pizza on the
coffee table, flipped open to three fourths of a pie. Steve stared at it as if
it were a dog with two heads and a pig’s tail.
“You gonna sit down?” Billy said between a mouth full of cold pizza.
Steve wrinkled his nose. “You’re disgusting.”
“You’re still standing.”
Relenting, Steve sat down on the opposite side of the couch, tucked into the
edge where the cushion met the arm.
Billy cast him a curious look, licking grease off his fingers. Steve watched
the slide of his tongue along his skin, the damp trail of saliva he left
behind. “You look like shit.”
“Don’t I always?”
Billy’s mouth spasmed. “No, not always.” He reached for another slice of pizza.
Instead of taking a bite, he handed it over. Steve took it, trying not to think
too hard about the spit on Billy’s fingers. “You look like extra shit right
now.”
Inspecting the piece of pizza, he shrugged. “I’m tired.”
“This about that girl? Beatrice or whatever?”
“Barb.” Steve smiled thinly and took a bite. “I see her in my sleep sometimes.”
Billy didn’t say anything, chewing on his pizza. Steve shifted uncomfortably,
eyeing the window across from the couch. “Have you ever seen something like
that before?”
“Someone die?”
“Yeah.”
“Nah. Close, though.” Billy polished off his slice and licked his fingers
clean. Stretching his arms above his head, he sunk lower into the couch. “Had a
friend who got knifed when we snuck into a bar. He got drunk and stupid. The
guy was bigger than him. He lost a kidney and everything.”
“I didn’t expect that,” Steve said after a moment, picking a pepperoni off. It
tasted like cardboard but he forced himself to chew. “Where were you?”
“Calling 911.”
“You didn’t fight?”
“I’m  not an idiot.”
“Is that why you came here? To Hawkins?”
Billy turned his head, cheek resting on the couch. His gaze was distant. Steve
wanted to take the question back. “No,” he said after a moment. His lips
twitched into a hint of ruefulness. “I’ll tell you one day.”
Tossing the crust into the box, Steve wiped his fingers on his shirt, uncaring.
“How about today?”
“You’ll fall asleep on me.”
“I won’t.”
“You looked like you were ready to keel over back there.”
“I feel better now.”
“No,” Billy said, soft as fresh snow, “you don’t.”
Steve turned his head and froze. Arm stretched out on the back of the couch
where it hadn’t been a moment again, Billy’s knuckles collided with his cheek,
fever-hot and gentle where he unfolded his fingers to brush along Steve’s jaw.
“You told me not to care,” Steve whispered. A confusing cluster of emotions
tangled themselves in his chest, settling there, anvil-sized.
“I did.”
“Did you mean it?”
“No.”
A beat ticked by and then another. Steve swallowed down the saliva flooding his
mouth, eyes on Billy’s face. The look there unsettled him, twisting his stomach
up into high knots that threatened to spill out from his throat.
He’d seen it on girls before. He’d put it on girls before—the heady, heavy 
look they got when he bit his lip and leaned in close, hovering an inch away
until they went breathless and pliant, and leaned into him. Their throat would
work when his fingers grazed over their leg, playing with the hem of their
skirt, dipping underneath to touch the delicate skin behind their knee.
Want, as raw and rough as hard liquor, was something he knew like the back of
his hand.
On Billy it looked like sin. In his eyes, on the shape of his mouth and the set
of his jaw, it looked like something Steve wasn’t supposed to know about. Like
something holy they whispered about in church but never looked at directly.
Like a secret of the universe he wasn’t supposed to believe.
Steve looked away first.
“You’re right,” he said, and the ache that had formed in his chest worked
itself into the word despite himself. “I should sleep.”
Steve looked at the floor while Billy stood. “The bedroom’s down the hall.”
“I’m okay with the couch,” he said stiffly.
“Sleep on the fucking bed, Harrington,” Billy said, walking across the open
space to the bathroom. He slammed the door shut behind him.
Harrington. Not Steve anymore. Just Harrington, the kid he’d fucked up in the
Byers’ house all those months ago.
Steve stared at his hands, palms up in his lap. He wanted to laugh again, loud
and irrational, until his eyes burned with tears again. Head heavy with
thoughts and chest full of feelings he didn’t have names for, he rubbed his
eyes and stood.
Maybe, like in his dreams, he really was going crazy.
===============================================================================
That night, he dreamed of the scent of fresh-cut grass and golden hair in the
sunlight.
===============================================================================
“You’re staring,” Billy murmured, husky with sleep, eyes still closed.
Billy was right because he was. Brain still numbed by pleasant dreams and a
restful sleep, he tried to work out how Billy had made it from the couch where
he’d silently laid down after he’d left the bathroom to the spot next to Steve
on the bed.
The sheets were tangled around their legs, blanket sliding off Billy’s hips and
falling into a jumbled lump between them. The air was hot, thick with electric
heat rattling from the space heater at the foot of the bed.
“You’re in the bed.”
Billy groaned and turned over, pinning the shared sheet underneath him as it
yanked off Steve’s body. Despite the stolen sweatpants, too big in the hips and
needing tied extra tight, he felt naked without it. Billy buried his face in
his pillow, arms tucked underneath it.
When he didn’t speak, Steve settled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. A
night of sleep without shaking awake from fear had done his brain good. More
rested and awake than he’d been in weeks, and sleeping next to Billy once
again.
Billy moved next to him, lifting his face from the pillow. Steve turned his
head to look at him. Billy squinted at him and yawned. “You got a stupid look
at your face.”
“It’s just my face.”
Billy cracked a smile and rolled onto his side, legs shifting. His knee brushed
against Steve’s thigh through the sheet. Steve wondered what it felt like skin
to skin.
“Your face isn’t stupid. Just your hair.”
“Who are you calling stupid?” Steve asked, fighting back a smile. “You had a
mullet.”
“And it was fucking beautiful.”
“It was awful. I’m glad you cut it.”
“You’re a bit of a dick. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“It looked like a rat’s nest, Billy.
“You should see yours right now.” Billy was smiling, soft around the edges and
his eyes, when he reached over to touch a piece of hair that had fallen into
Steve’s face. Twisting it about his fingers, he froze, smile slipping from his
face. He looked like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar.
For what felt like forever, neither of them moved, breath clogged up in Steve’s
chest—and then he sighed, settling his cheek against his own pillow, twisting
his body beneath to lay on his side, a mirror of Billy. His hand fell between
them, fingers uncurling until his knuckles bumped against Billy’s bare chest,
grazing his nipple.
The tension drained from Billy, muscles loosening, body falling slack into the
bed. He tugged at the strand of hair between his fingers. “It’s bad,” Billy
said, mouth twitching back into a smile.
Steve smiled back, eyes flicking up as Billy let go of his hair. “Yours isn’t
any better.”
“Better than yours.”
“What’s your obsession with being better than me?”
Billy’s smile slipped again. Steve felt like smacking himself. “I don’t,” he
said, slow and uncertain.
Steve frowned, straightening the hand between them until his fingers pressed
more firmly against Billy’s chest. His skin was warm, smooth where he touched,
light hair curling at the center of his chest. They were faint in the morning
light.
“Since day one,” Steve said, thumb moving back and forth, the flat of his nail
running along Billy’s chest. “Always talking about King Steve and all the shit
I used to do. What’s that about?”
Billy’s mouth twisted into something ugly and unhappy. “You were the king. I
had to beat you.”
“Why?”
“To be you.”
Blinking, he watched Billy’s face, mouth trembling around a laugh. “I would’ve
let you have it. I don’t want it.”
Billy sighed, lips still down. “Yeah,” he said, “I know that. I don’t want it
either.”
The silence coiled around them, an uncomfortable weight in bed between them.
“Tommy can have it,” Steve said.
Billy paused, lips frozen from their downward turn, and then he laughed, bright
and sharp, teeth flashing white in the sunlight. Something inside Steve’s chest
swelled and he laughed too, hand turning to press against Billy’s chest,
feeling the heat and shake of his breath in his lungs.
“They’re doomed,” Billy said, settling back down, chuckling. “Hawkins is
doomed.”
“It’s already doomed. They think you’re in rehab.”
Eyes sharpening, mouth still turned in joy, Billy asked, “What the fuck? Why?”
Steve shrugged. “That or you’re in jail.”
“They’d know if I was in jail.”
“They would.”
 “So I have to be in rehab?”
“They’ve never met a drug addict before—and Old Man Higgins doesn’t count.”
“What do they think I’m on?” Billy asked, curious, edging closer to Steve until
his chin rested on the edge of the pillow.
“Heroin. Or meth. I lost track.” At the narrowing of Billy’s eyes, he said, “I
don’t think anyone in this town has ever seen either in their entire life.”
“Yeah, makes sense,” he said with a nod of his head. “With all that inbreeding,
something’s bound to go screwy with your heads.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Hawkins is pretty fucking backwoods. You’re all a bunch of bumpkins .”
Turning his head to hide his mouth in the pillow, Steve smiled. “Maybe,” he
said, muffled by fabric. “But you don’t have to say it.”
 “You were thinking it.”
“I’ve thought it all my life,” he admitted.
Sobered so suddenly it hit Steve like a smack across the face, Billy asked,
“You leaving after?”
“After?”
“Graduation.”
Steve looked away, rolling onto his back, hand pulling away from Billy’s chest.
He missed the contact. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t?” His voice ticked up at the end. Without looking at him, Steve knew
there was disbelief in his eyes.
“I don’t think I’m going to get into college.” The silence was deafening, and
Steve drowned it out with, “I fucked around too much. Didn’t study, didn’t know
what I wanted to do. I’m barely going to graduate.” He sucked on his teeth.
“I’m going to work for my dad. He’s been planning it since I was born.”
“You can leave still,” Billy said, finally, after a solid minute of silence.
“Leave?” Steve echoed, looking at Billy.
Elbow tucked underneath him, he had a hand in his own hair, head propped up
against his palm. “Yeah, leave. You know, get in your car and fuck off
forever.”
“It’s my dad’s car.”
“Take the bus.”
“To where?” he asked, skeptical, eyebrows pulling together.
“Wherever the hell you want, Steve,” he said, one corner of his lips pulling
up. Something tugged at Steve’s chest, unraveling a knot. He was Steve again.
“Go live in Alaska if you want.”
“It’s cold there.”
“It’s cold here.”
“Maybe I’m tired of the cold.”
The tip of Billy’s tongue touched the corner of his mouth. His eyes were heavy
again, dark in the morning light, dark against the white of the sheets and the
tan of his skin. “You ever been to California?”
Sun and heat, sandy beaches and the endless stretch of bright blue ocean—Steve
had seen it on postcards and on movie posters. The farthest Steve had ever
gotten to that was a two week trip to Myrtle Beach when he’d been nine and
indifferent to how beautiful the sun looked in the sky.
He imagined Billy there, under the hot sun, shirtless and more tan, more golden
than in the cold of Indiana. He imagined what Billy looked like stretched out
on caramel-coloured sand, droplets of water clinging to his skin and slicking
his hair.
Steve’s eyes dipped down to Billy’s mouth, where his tongue lay against the
corner of his lips. Something tightened in his belly. Billy’s eyes darkened,
half-lidded and tongue sweeping across the pink of his lip. Steve leaned
forward, words perched on the tip of how own tongue.
Knocking heavy enough to shake the foundation slammed against the door.
Steve jerked, letting out a strangled noise as his head jerked toward the
sound. Billy muttered something, terse and angry, under his breath that Steve
didn’t quite catch. When the pounding continued—was it a giant’s fist thumping
against the siding, Steve wondered—Billy shoved the sheets and blankets from
off him, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing. Sometime
between going into bathroom and climbing into bed, he’d changed into basketball
shorts.
The hammering knocks continued, heavy and constant.
“Yeah, I’m fucking coming!” Billy shouted, reaching for a sweater from the top
of the laundry hamper, wrenching it over his head. His curls sprang upward,
twisting and coiling in a thousand different directions. Steve sat up, scooting
to the edge of the bed to peer through the open doorway as Billy yanked the
door open, glare set on his face.
It slid off his face almost instantly, hand clenching on the door like he meant
to shove it closed. A foot jammed its way between the door and the frame, and
Jim Hopper walked himself into the trailer with ease, hat tilted on his head
and in full uniform.
Pale under his tan, Billy glanced over his shoulder at Steve, lips pressed into
a thin line. Steve stared back, hands curled loosely in the blankets.
Hopper looked between Billy and him once and then said, sharp, to Billy, “I
don’t wanna fucking know. Steve, get your clothes on. Your parents are looking
for you.”
Shit, shit, shit. It rang through Steve’s head and he sat on Billy’s bed,
immobilized by the hard look Hopper gave him. Shame, thick as tar, coated his
tongue, a dead weight in his mouth.
“Steve,” he said sharply, a tinge of exasperation.
He scrambled up from the bed, kicking the sheets and blankets out of the way,
reaching to where he’d thrown his clothes the night before. He slipped on his
shirt and socks, ignored his jeans, and stepped on wobbly legs into the living
room. He didn’t look at Hopper as he pulled on his jacket and boots.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the set of Billy’s jaw, the way his hands
trembled into fists at his sides to the same beat Steve’s heart trembled in his
chest.
“Let’s go,” Hopper said, clapping a hand on Steve’s shoulder and steering him
out the door. Over his shoulder to Billy, he said, “We’re going to talk about
this later. Don’t leave. I’ll be back.”
Numbly, he walked down the steps to Hopper’s truck, climbing in with unsteady
hands on the door. His heart shook in his chest as Hopper got in, pulling a
half-burned cigarette from the visor and shoving it between his lips.
Steve stared out the window at Billy, standing on the top step, bare skin red
from the bite of late winter’s chill and a haunted look on his face.
Silence followed them halfway into town when Hopper pulled onto the side of the
road, hands on the steering wheel. Steve shrunk in the seat, tilting his body
toward the door. Anxiety, colder than ice, twisted in his stomach.
“I’m not going to ask because I don’t wanna know,” Hopper said, and Steve
chanced a glance at him from the corner of his eye. He didn’t look angry; he
didn’t look at Steve at all, eyes focused on the road in front of them. “But
you need to be careful.”
He swallowed down the lump in his throat. “It wasn’t—”
Hopper lifted a hand abruptly. “I don’t wanna know. You don’t need to say
anything to me, but you need to be careful. After the shit with his father, you
need to be careful. This town isn’t forgiving. We both know that. Tread very
carefully on this. Do not—” He cut himself off with a noise in his throat,
turning his gaze on Steve. “Be careful, alright? Just be careful.”
Steve said nothing and nodded, turning to look out the window, arms curling
around himself.
When Hopper dropped him off at his house and his mother enveloped him in a
tight hug, shoulders wracking with sobs, and his father stood angrily and
awkwardly to the side, demanding to know where he’d been, he remembered that he
hadn’t asked Billy about his hair or the trailer or gotten an answer to where
he’d been for almost a month—all he’d done was sleep next to Billy and wonder
what his skin tasted like.
Chapter End Notes
     This whole chapter can be summed up into "celoica had to rewatch S1
     just to catch glimpses of Hopper's trailer and she still doesn't know
     what it looks like in its entirety" and "Steve has gay feelings and
     doesn't know what to call them".
***** Chapter 7 *****
Chapter Summary
     Billy stifled a yawn with his hand. The bags under his eyes looked
     like bruises. Steve bit his lip. “I should get going.”
     “I'm not kicking you out.”
     “You're tired.”
     “Then sleep with me.”
     Steve swallowed hard, tongue gritty and dry and having nothing to do
     with the weed. He glanced between the bed and Billy. School was in
     session and Jonathan would have waited a half an hour for him. He
     should go, make up some bullshit excuse, and hope that was enough to
     smooth over Nancy's worrying.
     “Yeah,” he said instead. “Okay.”
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
                                                  "I’ll cut my soul in pieces, 
                                                    And breathe half into you,"
              —Heinrich Heine, from Book of Songs; “I Don’t Believe in Heaven,”
===============================================================================
Two weeks later, his parents were gone again, suitcases repacked and the keys
of the Bimmer hanging on the hook, off limits to Steve until they came back. He
was grounded for two months. Punishment, his father had said. It's about
responsibility and accountability, his mom had said, teary-eyed as she fussed
with his collar and straightened his hair.
They left anyway, off on another trip to do business and meet up with friends
they hadn't seen in a month. Steve sat in the living room for five minutes,
watching the seconds tick by on the clock above the fireplace. He had made
plans with Jonathan for a ride to school. He needed to call him, tell him he
was sick and couldn't make it. There was homework in his backpack, untouched,
that needed to be done. There was a pile of laundry on his bedroom floor that
needed washed.
The clock's hands struck 7:17 and he bolted from the couch, snatching the keys
off the hook as he jammed his feet into his boots. The front door slammed
behind him.
Like coming from a fever-dream, the second night spent by Billy's side had
haunted him. His thoughts were rolled into Billy and the trailer, the warmth of
his skin in the morning light, the short hair and the heavy look in his eye
when they laid side by side.
A wound that wouldn't heal, it itched in his brain, a missing piece floating
just out of his reach even as he rooted for it, hands grasping and pulling,
over-analyzing every second passed in Billy's presence.
He dreamed of him, too. On center stage in the forest, gummy-snow beneath their
bare feet, sometimes he died in front of Steve, withering away or bleeding out
from eyes and nose and mouth. In one, he'd been missing his tongue. In another,
he had no eyes. Each time, he disappeared when Steve reached to touch him with
shaky hands, the barest hint of icy-hot pain biting at his fingertips before
Billy was gone and he was awake.
Left gasping for breath, shaking through another night terror, he'd lay alone
in his bed and wonder what Billy was doing until he fell asleep or the sun came
up—whichever came first. Most of the time it was the latter. Even Eleven had
asked him if he was sleeping, shy and delicate in her own way, even as she
stared burr holes into the side of his skull like she could climb in if she
willed it enough.
It terrified him, a cold dread in the pit of his stomach. If she cracked open
his skull, what would she find? Would she know? What would she see?
Billy, probably. Billy in his morning glory, sleepy-soft and delicate. Billy in
all his rage, readying to haul off and hit Steve for his smart mouth. Billy,
drunk off his ass and sleeping in Steve's bed.
Nancy hadn't infected him like this, even when he'd been so deeply in love with
her he could feel it in his teeth.
Then again, maybe he hadn't been that in love with her. Love like that didn't
fade. Love like that, obsessive and pulling you apart from the inside out,
wasn't supposed to disappear in a cloud of betrayal and half-bitter acceptance.
He drove to Billy's place, the radio on low, fingers drumming anxiously on the
wheel. The drive was winding and long, Steve hesitating at each hidden entrance
until he remembered which one Billy had turned into. Too busy paying attention
to the stretch of shadows and light playing on Billy's face and too tired to
focus on anything but what was in the car, it took longer than expected, and by
the time his car bumped along to the lake, it was an hour later.
Billy's car was parked next to the stairs, snow cleared off the windshield. He
could hear the booming thunder of too much bass vibrating from the trailer as
he climbed out of his car. Icy snow, leftover from the last of the winter
chill, crunched beneath his boots. His heart hammered in his chest, thudding in
his ears.
The door opened and Billy stepped out. Shirtless, jeans slung low on his hips,
silver chain wrapped about his neck. A joint hung from his lips.
Steve shoved his hands into his pockets, stopping at the bottom of the steps.
“Isn't it a little early for that?”
Billy raised his eyebrows and cocked his head. “Shouldn't you be in school?”
“Don't you have work?”
“Night shift.”
“Ah.” He rocked back on his heels, head bobbing in a nod. An awkward silence
drifted between them. “You gonna invite me in?”
Billy leaned his shoulder against the door frame. He held his joint between two
fingers. It smelled good, strong and skunky. "Depends."
"On what?"
"Did Hopper follow you?"
Steve sucked in a shallow breath. "No. He won't." He paused, eyes stuck on the
shape of Billy's mouth and the smudging of blue-purple under his eyes. On
impulse, he plucked the joint from Billy's fingers and tucked it between his
own lips. It tasted as good as it smelled. "My parents are out of town."
Billy's eyes narrowed. He didn't reach for the joint. "Is that why you're
here?"
Steve shook his head.
"Then why?"
Steve shrugged. It felt like a lie, indifference that he shouldn't expose Billy
to. "You're more fun than school."
He studied Steve for a long moment and then stepped out of the way. "You're
rolling the next one," he said.
Inside, the music was deafening. There was a paint-splattered boom box on a
new-to-Billy-old-to-the-world, rickety-looking table next to the TV. Steve
could see it vibrate on the blush carpet. He kicked off his boots carelessly
and marched across the room, turning the volume down low.
Puffing on the joint, he adjusted the volume until it was somewhere between
earsplitting and background noise. He stripped off his coat and tossed it over
the couch. When he looked up, Billy was holding a mug in one hand and wearing
an unreadable expression.
Self-consciousness struck like thunder through his spine. "What?" Steve asked,
pulling the joint from his mouth. It was going to his head already, the world
going soft and fuzzy around the edges. Billy looked soft around the edges.
"You're making yourself right at home."
"You drank a bottle of liquor that cost a hundred dollars. You can share your
weed."
Billy squinted. "You're fucking with me."
His mouth twitched. "I'd never fuck with you."
"You're fucking with me right now."
"Am not."
"Seriously? A hundred?"
Steve grinned. "You still owe me for that."
Billy made a face. "I'm sharing my weed. Isn't that enough?"
"Is this apology pot?" Steve asked, holding up the joint. The end burned to
ash.
"Yeah," Billy said, nose scrunching up, "it is, so don't waste it."
Steve tucked the joint between Billy's lips, the pads of his fingers brushing
against the warm skin of his mouth. Like a sacrament, maybe. Like when the
priest offered the body of Christ.
Billy took it, lips cinching. "I didn't think I'd see you around here again,"
he said after an inhale.
Hot smoke blew in Steve's face. He wanted to lean forward and seal his lips
over Billy's. The thought didn't unsettle him as much as it should have. Waste
not, want not, or something like that that his mother always said.
"Why not?"
"Hopper didn't scare the shit out of you?"
"Not really."
"Two weeks and you didn't come back. I think he did."
"I was grounded."
Billy barked out a laugh. "Grounded?"
Steve shot him an annoyed look. "My parents were pissed, alright? They took the
car and sent me to my room. It wasn't like I could sneak out without my dad
noticing an entire set of keys missing."
Billy didn't say anything. He stepped around Steve to snuff out the burned-out
joint carefully into a glass ashtray. A set of roach clips sat next to them. He
sat down at the couch, balancing his mug on his knee. Steve stared. The silence
felt like failure.
"Listen," he said, when it got to be too much, the absence of words too much to
handle, "it's not like I know what we're doing."
Billy turned a look on him, as unreadable as before. "I don't know what you're
talking about."
"Are we—?" Friends. Acquaintances who share beds and beat each other that one
time.
Billy snorted. "What? Friends?"
Steve swallowed down the ache rising in his chest and looked away. Shame
bubbled in his throat. Stupid. He was stupid. They weren't friends. He and
Nancy and Jonathan were friends. Tommy had been his friend. Dustin and the
dweebs were his friends, even Eleven, in all her psychic glory.
Billy wasn't his friend. Billy was the kid who almost caved his head in because
his step-sister was next to a black kid. Billy was a fuck up, the town loser.
He wasn't his friend.
Still, it burned on the way down. Whatever had happened between them didn't
matter to Billy but it mattered to Steve. It shouldn't have. There were a
hundred reasons why, but they still didn't measure up to the way Billy had
wormed his way under his skin.
He dreamed about him, in the forest. In all his dreams before, Steve was alone,
stuck inside the solitude of his own nightmarish hellscape. Billy was with him
now, buried deep in his subconscious, sometimes dying and sometimes not.
Not even Nancy and the kids could touch that place inside of him.
He cleared his throat. "No," he said, voice strained to his own ears, "I guess
we're not."
The look on Billy's face was the same as before; unreadable. It felt like
looking at one of those paintings Nancy was so fond of. He didn't understand it
but, deep down, he knew it was profound in some way.
“I didn't think you'd want to be my friend,” Billy said finally.
“Oh. I mean...” Steve's face scrunched up. “You did beat the shit out of me.”
“Yeah,” Billy said stiffly. He took a long drink from his mug. “I know. I did.
People don't wanna be friends with me after that.”
Steve licked his lips, skirting around the makeshift coffee table to sit down
next to Billy. “Are you sorry?”
“Kinda. Sometimes.”
He mulled it over. It was as close to an I'm sorry as he was ever going to get.
“I can live with that.”
The look Billy gave him was disbelieving. He set his mug down. There were no
coasters on the table. “Seriously?”
“I'm friends with Nancy,” he said with a shrug. “Getting knocked around wasn't
the worst thing.”
“I don't believe you.”
“You don't have to.”
“So, what,” he said, “we're friends now?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Billy laughed, soft, almost delicately. "You're a real piece of work,
Harrington."
It stung, again, cutting something deep and fragile inside Steve's chest. Maybe
it was the weed. Maybe Billy had laced it with something to make him stupid and
open.
"You don't have to be my friend," he mumbled. He pressed his hands flat to his
thighs and wished he had something to do with them.
"Who said I didn't wanna be your friend?"
"You. Right now."
The corner of his mouth lifted into a hint of a smirk. "You're sensitive."
"Don't be a dick."
"I'm always a dick."
"Try to be less of one."
"Can't promise that," he said, leaning forward to snatch a baggie of bud off
the table. He handed it over with a pair of dubious looking scissors. "Your
turn to roll."
It was insane. Everything about it was insane. Sitting next to Billy on his
couch on a Thursday morning was insane.
He took the scissors and busted up the bud. He licked his fingers and then the
paper, rolling the joint carefully. He handed it to Billy.
Inspecting it with tired eyes, he grinned, slapping a hand on Steve's knee.
“I'm impressed.”
He jumped at the contact, lips parting around a watch it. Billy's hand stayed
on his leg, fingers spread and curved around his thigh. Steve stared, mouth
going dry. The heat from his palm soaked through his jeans.
Had Billy always been that closed? Had he always smelled like that—sweat and
weed, something earthy that tasted heavy on his tongue when he breathed through
his mouth.
He swallowed. “Tommy tell you that?” he asked, voice rough. He grabbed for the
mug Billy had left on the table, ignoring the arched brow he got in response.
It burned going down.
“Said you rolled better than anyone else.”
“Tommy's a flatterer.”
“Tommy's a moron.”
“Not always.”
Billy made a face. “Most of the time.”
“You're being a dick.”
“I thought you didn't like Tommy.”
Steve pursed his lips, setting the mug against his knee. “I like Tommy just
fine,” he said. He paused. “Most of the time. He just won't grow up.”
“Is that what happened to King Steve?” Billy asked. He tucked the joint between
his lips and plucked a lighter off the table, lighting the end. Musky smoke
curled from his mouth as he exhaled. “You grew up?”
Steve watched his mouth, the shape of his lips as he breathed out. “We all have
to sometime.”
Billy licked his lower lip. “That chick make you grow up?”
“Nancy?”
“The dead one.”
Steve breathed out through his nose and settled back against the couch. He took
the joint from Billy's fingers. “Barb. Yeah, maybe,” he said. “You can't be a
kid when you've seen that.”
“I read about it, y'know,” Billy said. He leaned back, head turned, chin
resting on his shoulder as he watched Steve puff on the joint. “In the paper.
They said she was poisoned. Didn't mention you at all.”
Steve cut him a look and blew smoke in his face. Billy didn't flinch. “You
reading up on me, Billy?” he asked, lazy and slow. His mouth had gone dry
again.
“Yeah, and it didn't say a single fucking thing about Steve Harrington.”
“They made us sign papers. Me and Nancy and—” He sucked in a fresh breath and
handed Billy the joint. If he spilled the beans on Joyce and Hopper and the
kids, Max included, he'd be fucked. “Some other people involved.”
Billy frowned. “So they just shut you up?”
“Yep,” Steve said, emphasizing the P with a pop of his lips.
“So why'd it come out?”
“Nancy,” he said, immediately and stupidly, head lolling to the side to look at
Billy. He was close—closer?— enough to touch. If he leaned forward, their noses
would bump. “Barb's parents were gonna sell their house to find her. Nance felt
bad and Jonathan wanted to help.”
He watched as Billy leaned forward to gently snuff out the joint, flicking off
the cherry. He settled back into his former position. He felt closer again.
“Sounds fucked, man.”
“Real fucked,” he said with a nod.
“I meant that your girlfriend left you for the weirdo.”
Steve cut him a hard look. “He's not a weirdo.”
“She still left you.”
“Are you trying to make me mad?”
Billy grinned, white teeth and heavy eyes. “Is it working?”
“Yeah,” Steve said, shifting in his seat to turn, biting on the inside of his
lip. “It's working. Stop it or I'll hit you.”
“Want your ass kicked again?”
“No wonder you don't have any friends.”
“O-oh,” he sang, smile sharpening. “That was rude, Harrington. Didn't your mom
teach you any manners?”
“Do you even have a mom?”
Billy paused. Tension swelled between them as his eyes narrowed, and Steve knew
he'd misstepped. He sucked in a breath and held it until his lungs burned.
Billy looked at him, red eyes steady and pointed, and then he sighed, tension
bleeding away as quickly as it came.
“What'd Max tell you?”
Steve stared, dumb and slow. “Nothing, really. She calls you a jackass a lot.”
He smiled thinly and pulled away, back pressed tight to the couch. Steve felt
the loss down to his bones. His fingertips twitched, the urge to reach out and
touch his skin wrapping around his throat.
“My mom's real fucking crazy. Max met her. She broke my dad's windshield when
him and Susan got married,” Billy said, looking at the mug on the table. He
smiled a little wider, adding, “And slashed the fucking tires and
wrote whore on Susan's.”
It took a long minute for Steve to come up with anything useful. He landed on,
“Well, that explains a lot.”
Billy barked on a laugh, bitter and high. “You calling me crazy?”
“My mom still makes me soup when I'm sick,” he said, when she's around staying
curled on his tongue.
Billy shot him a dirty look. “Good for you.”
“That's not—” He sighed and shoved his elbow into the couch to sit upright.
“You know what I mean.” He paused, squinting at Billy. “Right?”
“Yeah. I get what you mean.”
“Good. Good,” he repeated with a nod. If there were an Olympic sport for saying
the wrong thing, he would win it. Gold medal in the shape of Billy's fist,
bringing home the glory to his entire family by putting his foot in his mouth.
“I'm sorry she's crazy.”
Glancing at him from the corner of his eye, Billy kissed his teeth. “Yeah. Me
too.”
Steve scooted to the edge of the couch. Without asking, he handed the lukewarm
coffee to Billy and clipped one of the roaches in the ashtray, lighting it up
and taking another hit. Billy traded the clip for the mug, and they sipped
coffee and puffed down until their fingertips and lips burned hot.
Billy stifled a yawn with his hand. The bags under his eyes looked deeper.
Steve bit his lip. “I should get going.”
“I'm not kicking you out.”
“You're tired.”
“Then sleep with me.”
Steve swallowed hard, tongue gritty and dry and having nothing to do with the
weed. He glanced between the bed and Billy. School was in session and Jonathan
would have waited a half an hour for him. He should go, make up some bullshit
excuse, and hope that was enough to smooth over Nancy's worrying.
“Yeah,” he said instead. “Okay.”
They abandoned the couch for the bedroom, stripping off their shirts and socks.
Steve watched the curve of Billy's spine as he bent down, grabbing a pair of
basketball shorts and tossing them at him. He pretended not to look when Billy
pushed his jeans—no underwear, of course, of fucking course—off his hips. It
wasn't the first time Steve had seen him naked, but the showers lacked
intimacy, with coarse soap and the scent of sweat off teenage boys wafting in
the steam.
In Billy's bedroom, the morning light slanting through half-open blinds,
everything felt intimate. Steve clutched the shorts in his hands and watched
Billy. From the strong line of his shoulders, speckled with freckles, to the
line of his spine and the flare of his hips, the curve of his ass and the
careful dusting of dark blond hair across his thighs.
He was golden everywhere.
Something hot snaked its way through his belly, burrowing its way into his
spine and slithering across his nerves. When Billy turned, Steve looked away,
shucking his own jeans and briefs quickly and yanking on the shorts. He crawled
onto sheets that smelled of Billy. Billy climbed in next to him, on his side,
facing him.
They stared at each other in the silence, heart beats and breaths stretching
between them. Eyes locked, Steve slipped his hand across the sheets and the
small space between them. His fingers danced across the naked skin of Billy's
stomach, smoothing up the ridges of his abs to his side, hand settling there.
Billy closed his eyes, mouth curled into a smile.
===============================================================================
For the first time in weeks, Steve remembered nothing of his dreams.
===============================================================================
He woke with a start, limbs tangled with Billy's and his cock, hard and hot in
the thin fabric of his borrowed shorts, pressed up against Billy's hip.
Cool blue eyes peeked at him through half-closed lids. Steve cringed, twisting
away from Billy. "Jesus, I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."
The sheets twisted around his legs, catching on Billy's as Steve shuffled away
to the other side of the bed. Billy watched him passively, propping his chin on
the back of his hand. Steve swallowed, heart hammering in his head, traitorous
cock still achingly hard. He yanked the edge of the sheet over his lap, half-
sitting.
He shoved a hand through his hair, smoothing down twisted cowlicks, sucking in
a shallow breath. When he finally chanced a glance at Billy, he was grinning,
shoulders hitching in silent laughter.
Steve scowled. “Don't laugh!”
“You're freaking out.”
“My dick—” He pressed his lips into a thin line, red inching up his bare chest.
Tongue tied had never been a good look on him. It hadn't been a look he'd worn
since he'd been fresh-faced and popping a hard on every time the wind blew in
just the right direction.
“It's not a big deal,” Billy said, reaching an arm above his head, palm pressed
flat to the wall as he stretched. Steve watched the smooth slide of muscles
under his skin, the shift of his collarbones as he flexed.
Beneath the press of his palm, his dick twitched. Steve almost smacked it,
angry shame biting at his skin with another flush of colour. “Is this you
trying to make me feel better?”
“I've seen your dick before,” Billy said, twisting his shoulder, fingers
splayed against the wall. “It's not that weird.”
That—made sense, in a convoluted way. Steve swallowed, knuckles pressed against
the inside of his thigh. They'd seen each other naked in the showers, fogged up
by the steam and Billy always getting too close just to bother him. He’d never
snapped a damp towel at his flank, but Steve wouldn’t put it past him.
Steve chewed on his lip and looked away, the silence falling heavy between
them. Words hung on his tongue, as heavy as the silence, but he couldn’t spit
them out. They clogged up behind his teeth and stuck to the roof of his mouth.
In bed, half naked, cock aching beneath his palm—it was nothing new. Billy
laying next to him, sheet low on his hips, lips turned up into a smile, was
new.
It was unfathomable. Everything about the situation was impossible to wrap his
mind around, and yet he was there, and not for the first time.
Billy moved beside him. When he looked over, he was close, a hand settling
dangerously close to touching his thigh. “You gonna take care of that?”
Steve choked on nothing but his own saliva, a pained look pulling at his face.
“What?”
Billy raised an eyebrow, smooth as ice. “Aren't,” he said, enunciating each
word with arrogant care, “you going to take care of that?”
Beneath his palm, his cock twitched. He glanced at the bedroom door, where he
could see the open door of the bathroom. An awkward hobble to the shower wasn't
something his ego could suffer.
Billy sighed heavily and shoved the sheets off his hips. Steve's mouth went
dry, eye drawn to the bulge in his sweats.
He'd been hard against Billy’s hip and Billy was hard, too.
How had he missed that?
Billy pushed his sweatpants down his hips, golden blond hair catching on the
waistband, a thatch above the base of his cock. Steve stared, frozen, as
Billy’s cock—thick and long, foreskin obscuring the tip—slipped free of his
sweats. It curved toward his belly, a slight lean to the right.
He watched, tongue tied again, tongue dry enough to trap words there. What the
fuck and this isn't right and Jesus, you're gorgeous, you know that stuck on
his tongue like super glue.
Smoothness gone out the window, all he could do was look, heat pooling low in
his belly.
It was wrong, or something like that. Something about it wasn't right,
bordering toward sinful. The kind of sin that Father Andrew talked about in
church and Steve ignored. It was something not quite believable, but then
everything about Billy, from his car to his cut hair to the way Hopper seemed
to know him, wasn't quite believable.
“Man, you just gonna stare?” Billy asked as he wrapped a hand around himself,
blunt fingers circling right around the base of his cock. He stroked up. The
foreskin slid with his hand, bunching at the head and pulling back when he
stroked down. His fingers squeezed the base.
In bed with Billy, jerking himself off, looking at Steve like—
Steve turned off his thoughts. He shoved the sheet to the side, snapping the
waistband of his borrowed shorts down his thighs and to his knees. His cock
hung heavy, blood-flushed and a bead of precome swelling at the tip, between
his legs. Billy watched him, eyes dark, the corner of his lip caught between
his teeth as he gave his cock a rough drag-squeeze-twist of his wrist.
He curled onto his side, fingers skating down the flat plane of his own
stomach, slipping through his pubic hair. Even his own touch left trails of
molten want in their path. Wrapping a hand around his cock, he thumbed at the
tip, hips twitching into the touch.
He watched Billy and Billy watched him. The obscene sound of skin on skin
filled the air, mingling in with the catch of Billy’s breath, an orchestra that
played along with his own.
Beside him, Billy was close enough that Steve could feel his hot breath on his
skin, fanning over his lips and cheeks, warming him from the outside in to the
same beat that his hand worked over his dick.
Pupils lust-blown and flicking between Steve's face and his hand, Billy was a
sight. In the sunlight, hair a mess, fingers flexing over his cock to thumb
down foreskin and drag over the head, he looked like something straight out of
a fantasy. Pink flushed across his sun-kissed skin, skating down his chest,
ruddying his cock.
The muscles of his arms flexed, shifting with each stroke up and down.
Entranced, Steve watched, as enthralled with his hands as he was Billy’s face.
Heat and want and lust wrapped themselves around Steve's throat, choking out
tiny gasping sounds as they danced down his spine, spreading out across his
belly with each jerk of his hand. His balls ached, heavy and tight, desperate
for release. His chest ached with it. Blood pounded in his ears, eyes fixed on
Billy.
The world melted away, until there was only Billy and him, the bedroom nothing
more than background scenery.
Billy moved, thigh sliding across the sheets to nudge his knee against Steve’s.
Electricity sparked where they touched, pure want stuttering across Steve’s
nerves, and he swallowed down a moan, fingers squeezing the base of his cock
until it throbbed.
He didn't want it to end. He didn't want it to be over so soon.
If he touched his chest, thumbed and pinched at his nipples, nail rough against
the edge, would Billy care? Convincing girls to touch his nipples and press
their teeth to them always ended with a look of uncertainty, and, in Laurie’s
case, outright laughter.
He dug his teeth into his lip and skated a hand up his chest. Catching his
nipple between his forefinger and thumb, he pinched, tweaking the flesh until
it borderline hurt, a good ache that barrel down to his stomach.
He moaned, low and throaty, precome spilling from the head of his cock.
Billy’s eyes went hazy and dark, teeth dug into his lip as he watched Steve
touch himself. His knuckles tightened on his cock, the cap glistening, fluid
dripping down and disappearing with a stroke of his hand.
The sounds were lewd; damp breath and the wet glide of skin, the hard gasp and
crack of Steve’s toes when they curl. Billy swallowed down a moan: he shoved
his knuckles against his teeth to muffle the sounds, and Steve wanted to tell
him to stop, to take it away, just so he can hear him—
He came first, a hot rush spilling over his fingers. It ripped through him,
liquid fire snapping free of his belly and washing over his spine. It prickled
across his skull, washing over him, eyes half closed and lips parted around a
strangled moan.
He watched Billy and Billy watched him, knuckles still jammed to his lips. The
head of his cock disappeared into his fist, foreskin nudged back to reveal the
dripping tip, and when come dripped from the head, thick and white and
smoothing the way, Billy whined, a dark, hunted noise that sent a skittering
shiver up Steve’s spine.
Steve turned his head into the pillow, face obscured and one eye on Billy. His
palm, coated in come, curled uselessly against his thigh, cock laying beside
it. He breathed heavily, caught the scent and taste of Billy on his pillow
against his tongue, and basked in the warm afterglow.
Billy panted, heaving breaths he swallowed down as he dropped his hand from his
lips, eyes wild and bright, cheeks flushed pink. His knuckles were white with
come.
They watched each other, eyes heavy and hazy with pleasure, and when Steve
opened his mouth to say something, Billy reached out, smearing come across
Steve’s bare hip, mouth twitched up into a delirious smile.
He glanced down at his hip, to the streaks of come left by Billy’s fingers, to
where Billy’s palm, a hot, big brand on his skin, lay next to his hand and
softening cock on his thigh.
Steve licked his lips, mind hazy and full, clogged up with orgasm and the scent
of Billy in his head. He reached out, unabashed, and pressed his come-slick
hand to Billy’s chest, panting his palm across his skin. His heart beat hard in
his rib cage, sternum moving with each breath he took.
He said nothing as he settled his hand on Billy’s side, fingers fitting into
the delicate grooves of his ribs, painting the last of his spunk across his
golden skin.
Chapter End Notes
     I suck at updating this on time. I think that's what we really
     learned through me writing fic for the first time in forever. I took
     a couple weeks off to figure out where I wanted to even go with this
     story, but I figured it out. It won't take a half a month to update
     the next chapter, I promise.
     I've never met a single chronic user who didn't over-smoke just for
     the hell of it. You can't get higher than a certain point, but they
     keep smoking it anyway. Teenagers are well-known for being this type
     of dumb, so Steve and Billy are, too.
End Notes
     You can find me on Tumblr @ celoica.
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