Chapter Text
Billy’s head is throbbing, his palms are stinging, and he’s on the verge of puking. He flails a hand, trying to ground himself, because he kind of feels like he’s floating.
“Stop,” a familiar voice warns. “You’re, like, crazy heavy, and I’ve only got a few more balanced steps left in me.”
Billy squints his eyes open, catches sight of big brown eyes, and tries to put his memories in order. He gives up on anything making sense. Time is syrupy; Billy’s floating along, and then he’s set down on his bed. He rolls over, dizzily looks out his window at the dark sky.
The voice attached to the brown eyes says, “I’m putting a glass of water here. So, you know, hydrate.”
Billy closes his eyes and passes out.
~*~*~*~
Billy wakes up to afternoon sunlight absolutely burning out his eyes. He rolls over with a groan and smashes his face into his pillow. A weird mosaic of memories floods his mind. His dad screaming at him about Max. Mrs. Wheeler in a fucking bathrobe. Steve Goddamn Harrington hiding his sister. That shitheel Lucas Sinclair. Smashing a plate over Harrington’s head. Max with a needle? Max wielding a nail-studded baseball bat?
Billy staggers out of bed and takes in that he’s wearing the same clothes he’d specifically chosen for his date with Gina that never happened. He stumbles over to his mirror. He takes in the blood crusted beneath his nose and the absolute tangles of his hair. Jerking to the left, Billy looks through his window to the driveway. His dad's car and Susan’s car are gone.
Billy kicks open his bedroom door. “Max!”
There’s a thump from the room next to his and Billy knows Max has literally fallen out of bed. He hopes she fucking broke her elbow or some shit. He slams his fist against the wall as he stalks to her room.
He hears Max scramble to throw the lock on her door, but Billy slams it open before she can succeed. Billy smiles dangerously at the stupid pre-teen staring defiantly up at him. “What the fuck happened last night, Maxine?”
Max crosses her arms over her chest. “You were a major asshole. Again.”
Tension coils so tight beneath Billy’s skin he feels as if he’s about to tear apart. Lips curled in a sneer, Billy rubs at the side of his neck. “I wonder what your mom will think of you stabbing me with a fucking tranquilizer.”
Max pales. “No! Billy, you can’t -”
Billy grabs Max by the shoulder and thrusts her away from him, further into the bedroom. “I can’t, Max? I can’t?” Stalking across the room, he towers over her, breathing raggedly. “I can do whatever the fuck I want, Maxine! And you don’t have one goddamn say in it. Do you hear me?” He shouts the last part at her, so furious he can barely keep himself from punching something.
Max stands her ground, teeth grit together. “Fuck you, Billy! I told you last night, you leave me and my friends alone! Or I swear, I swear I’ll -” she breaks off, bottom lip trembling.
“I hate you,” Billy seethes. “You are such a piece of shit, Max. I can’t believe I have to live in this house with you! I can’t believe I have to listen to my dad call you my sister. You are nothing, Max, you hear me? You are fucking nothing!”
He watches as Max’s crystal blue eyes shimmer with tears and it’s just this side of enough. Billy grabs the door handle as he slams out of the room. He hears Max burst into tears. Satisfaction burns fiery bright in his chest.
In his room, Billy yanks off his clothes, pitching them into his hamper before dragging on clean ones. He ducks into the bathroom, scrubs his face raw getting the dried blood off, and tangles his hair into a bun. He can’t stand to be in this house another minute. Not even to take a much needed shower.
“Do not fucking leave this house, Max!” he shouts as he grabs his keys off the key hook he never leaves them on. He can’t remember how he got home but he’s guessing he didn’t drive the Camaro.
“Fuck you!” Max shouts back in a pitiful whimper.
Billy sneers. He pushes open the front door, locks it behind him, and jogs down to his car parked on the curb. Billy gets behind the wheel, he’s knees crushed up against his chest. He wasn’t the one in the driver’s seat last night.
Billy fucks with the seat and mirrors until everything is set back to rights, then he stomps on the gas and tears down the street.
~*~*~*~
Billy has the windows down, the radio’s on so loud it hurts his ears, and he screams along to Welcome to the Jungle. He’s never been angrier. He’s never hated Hawkins more. He’s never wished harder that it had been his dad who died, not his mom. He’s never been so close to losing it completely.
Billy skids his car to a stop on the outskirts of Hawkins, where some shitty sign proclaims ‘Leaving Hawkins, Come back real soon!’ Billy leaves the car running, let’s Axel Rose pump through the driver’s side open door.
Billy grabs the biggest rock he can find on the side of the road and hurls it at the stupid sign. It smashes against the metal, breaking off the bottom corner. He picks up another rock, rockets it toward that shiny, gleeful fucking sign. When he finally stops, breathing hard, the entire outer edges of the sign are ragged with ripped off chunks.
Still furious, nothing settled inside of him, Billy glares up at Hawkin’s picture perfect blue sky with cottony white clouds and screams, “Fuck Hawkins!”
A flock of starlings startle out of the nearest tree and take off screeching. Billy envies them their ability to leave this piece of shit town.
On the radio, Guns ‘n Roses rolls into AC/DC. Billy brushes his dirty hands off on the knees of his jeans. Then he gets in the car and loops it around in a U-turn. He drives back into Hawkins.
~*~*~*~
Steve’s sitting and smoking on the front step of his rich bitch house when Billy pulls into the driveway, music thundering from the Camaro’s speakers. Steve jumps up like he’s been expecting Billy. He tosses the cigarette to the ground as he walks to the passenger side. He gets in without being asked.
Up close, Steve looks like he barely made it out of a car wreck. Hot pride curls in Billy’s chest. He did that. He smashed Steve’s face all to hell. “You lose a fight, Harrington?” Billy taunts
Steve tongues at his split lip and probes gently at his black eye. “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that, Hargrove?”
Seeing Max this morning, Billy had been ready to tear her a fucking new one. Seeing Steve’s busted face, Billy’s rage rolls back like a stormy tide, leaving him with his regular levels of fury. He smirks at Steve. “At least I don’t look like shit.”
Steve makes a face. “I was hoping I had busted your nose.”
Billy touches the bridge of his nose. “I would have been fucking furious.”
Steve scoffs, settling back in the passenger seat like it’s meant for him. “You would have deserved it.”
Billy doesn’t comment. Last night was a nightmare for a number of reasons. But in the fucked up way the world works, the only person who doesn’t make Billy feel like burning down Hawkins is this big haired, pretty boy who wears polos like they aren’t a fashion statement that went out in the fifties. He sifts through what he wants from Steve right now.
Billy let’s his shoulders relax. Lets his hands unclench from the steering wheel. He can play nice. He used to know how to do that. How to make friends instead of followers. Billy breathes out and turns to Steve. “How’d I get home last night?”
“I drove you. Then I dragged your drugged ass to your bed.”
Billy revs the engine of the Camaro. “I meant, who drove my car?”
Steve smirks. “Max.” Taking in Billy’s thunderous expression, Steve adds, “Almost crashed it too.”
Billy rakes his teeth against his bottom lip, a quick flash of pain to focus his attention on what matters, not on what a fucking problem his step-sister is. “What the fuck happened last night?”
Steve turns fully to Billy, his face a black and blue nightmare. “I’ll show you.” Danger glitters in his brown eyes as he smiles.
What had Billy said last night? That Steve had some fire in him after all? He wasn’t wrong. Billy sees his own sharp-edged anger reflected in Steve’s doe eyes.
This is the Steve Billy has been dying to meet since first hearing about him. Someone to push back as hard as Billy pushes. Someone to try and break his nose when Billy feels like breaking someone else.
“Show me,” he agrees, jerking the car into reverse.
~*~*~*~
The tunnel is disgusting. Billy wishes he had worn his older pair of Converse instead of the new ones. “This is fucking sick, Harrington.”
It’s disgusting because they are underground surrounded by crawling many legged insects and stringy spider webs. It’s disgusting because Billy is thoroughly creeped out that this tunnel even exists in boring ass Hawkins.
Steve shrugs. He keeps putting his hand up to his face as if to block a bad smell. But it just smells like wet earth, so Billy doesn’t get it.
The steady beam of Steve’s flashlight leads them further into the tunnel beneath one of Hawkins’ interchangeable farms. “Why are these even here?” Billy asks. He trails a few steps behind Steve, taking in the strangeness of the tunnel. The space is wide and roundly carved out, the dirt sides riddled with dead roots snarling out to snag at clothes and bare skin. “How far do they go?”
Steve stops and turns around, tilting his flashlight down so it doesn’t shine directly into Billy’s face. “Have you ever seen that weird government building kind of off by the abandoned diner?”
Billy thinks it over and recalls the deserted looking building surrounded by barbed wire. “Yeah.”
“This leads there.” Steve turns back to the trail and they keep walking.
“What about the one behind us?” Billy asks.
“Will Byers drew a map of them. It’s still all over his house. There’s a bunch of tunnels, but I only know that this one goes to Hawkins Lab, the government looking building.”
“Byers? That’s the house we were at last night, right?” Billy’s thoughts shift to Steve’s black eye.
“Yeah. You know Jonathan Byers from our grade?” Steve asks.
Billy makes a face. He wouldn’t be caught dead in a conversation with someone like Jonathan Byers. “I know of him. I know everyone at school says he’s weird and Tommy said he stole your girl.”
Steve’s shoulders hitch up at the mention of the ex-girlfriend. “Yeah, well, Jonathan’s life is weird, I’m not sure if he isn’t just caught up in the weirdness.”
“But he did steal your girl, right?” Billy would never be so forgiving of a guy who took his girlfriend. He’d leave them with a face like Steve’s and spit whenever someone brought them up.
“Something can’t be stolen if it was never yours.”
“Poetic.” Billy rolls his eyes. “Do you have a martyr complex or something, Harrington? You give a pass to the guy who ditched school with the girl you thought you were dating. And, somehow, you don’t have a bad word to say about that same girl even though the whole school saw her ditch you at the Halloween party?”
“Nancy’s not -” Steve starts fiercely but breaks off. “I’m not talking about this with you”
“Whatever.” Billy honestly doesn’t care. But they are creeping through these dark, earthy tunnels, and he’s bored. “You never said what made these.” He gestures to the tunnels curving around them.
“Because I’m going to show you.” There’s the edge of danger in Steve’s voice. The same edge that made Billy let Steve direct them to this farm in the first place. Billy isn’t scared of anything in Hawkins. He has nothing but contempt for Hawkins. If there is something here that Steve can show him that will breathe any type of life into this place, Billy needs to see it.
When they hit the center chamber of the tunnels, Billy’s actually sort of impressed. It’s a large rounded space with tunnels spanning off in multiple directions. The rotting roots or vines or whatever hang down from the ceiling and coil limply against the walls. Steve shines his flashlight around the circular space and Billy turns to follow the light.
“There,” Steve says, flicking the beam back a few feet to the right.
Billy walks forward, following the light until something solid nudges against the tip of his Converse. He stares down, tries to see something in the pile of black sludge. It doesn’t look natural, this crumbled or melted pile. Looking at it raises the fine blonde hairs along his arms.
“What is it?” Billy’s question comes out as a whisper.
Steve crouches down more than a foot back from where Billy is standing. “That is a Demodog.”
“A what?” Billy reaches up and grabs one of the decayed vines. It breaks off with a snap. He ignores Steve’s protest at touching the vine and he ignores Steve again when he tries to stop Billy from poking at the pile of sludge.
As Billy traces the vine down the sludge, he discerns a tail, legs, and a thing that he thinks is supposed to be a head. Chills race down his spine. “What is that?” he demands, dropping the stick and backing away.
“Demodog,” Steve repeats warily.
“I know what a dog looks like, Harrington, and that - “ he jabs a finger empathetically at the disgusting carcass on the ground, “is not a fucking dog.”
“Did you ever see Alien?” Steve asks without segue.
“Yeah. Everyone did,” Billy bites out, annoyed at having his very important point ignored.
“Remember when that thing burst out of the guy’s chest?”
Billy feels his stomach turn nauseously. “What’s your point?”
“That’s kind of what a Demodog is like. Gross, not really right looking, starts off small, grows into a terrifying, walking, many teethed, monster.”
Billy turns and just stares at Steve. “You are fucking with me.”
Steve waves his flashlight at the carcass. At the decaying vined walls around them. “It’s not like this is some elaborate prank I cooked up just for you, Hargrove.”
Suddenly, Billy wants nothing more than to see the light of day. “I’m out of here, man.” He starts walking in what he hopes is the right direction.
When Steve tugs on the elbow of his black sweatshirt, Billy allows himself to be steered down the correct tunnel. Steve walks at his side this time, keeping the flashlight beam steady in front of them.
“Are there more of those - those things?” Billy glaces back over his shoulder. Without the flashlight, the tunnel is nothing but an ominous void.
“I don’t think so. They came in through this, like, tear in the fabric of reality or some shit. While you were busy drooling on the Byers’ living room floor, your kid sister and her dumb friends were with me, down here, trying to fight those things. Another friend of theirs sealed reality back up, I guess, and now Hawkins is back to its regularly scheduled programming,” Steve says casually, like this is a page five story in the newspaper.
“So, you killed that one?” Billy asks, keeping all emotion out of the question.
Because the thing is, Billy does not want to be impressed by Steve. He might have to believe him about the interdimensional monsters, because seeing is believing and all that shit, but he refuses to let that change how he thinks of Steve Harrington.
“The kids and I lit the place on fire, so yeah, I guess we killed it.”
Billy stops walking and after a second, so does Steve. “You brought my stupid step-sister into this death tunnel to light alien monsters on fire. Am I hearing this right, Harrington?”
Steve shines the flashlight into Billy’s eyes until Billy angrily bats it away. “Actually. Your step-sister and her clearly insane friends kidnapped me while I was unconscious due to you beating the shit out of me. When I woke up, your sister was driving the Camaro, my face was covered in band-aids when I should have been at the hospital, and the kids were gearing up to go battle the Demodogs in the tunnel. I didn’t have a choice in joining them. I was trying to make them stay home, but that all went to hell when you showed up and were just an absolute raging douchebag.”
Billy surprises them both by choking out a laugh. “Fuck.”
“Fuck,” Steve agrees. He points the flashlight in front of them again and they start walking.
“So who besides you and a bunch of kids knows about this bullshit?”
“The Sheriff, Hopper? Will’s mom. Jonathan, Nancy, the government, and now, you.”
“I fucking knew moving here was a shitty idea,” Billy says grimly.
Granted he was thinking more of loser midwestern teenagers and shitty step-siblings, not alien monsters and suicidal savior children. But, really, his point still stands.
They reach the place where they climbed down. Steve turns off the flashlight and sticks it in his back pocket. He turns to look at Billy in the dim light filtering down to them from up on the farm. “Was it worth it? Finding out about last night?”
Billy grabs some of the dead vines and starts hauling himself up out of the tunnel. It’s a good question. Is Billy going to choose to ignore something he’s seen but can’t quite believe? Or is he going to just go with it, let this weirdness change the course of his time in Hawkins?
Billy looks over his shoulder, down at where Steve is hesitating to follow Billy up out of the tunnel. “I mean, I still think you’re a fucking loser, Harrington. But I’ll give you credit for being a loser who lit alien monsters on fire. Maybe I won’t whoop your ass during practice on Monday.”
Beneath him, Steve laughs, a strangely bright sound for how dark the tunnels are below them. “Jesus, don’t do me any favors, Hargrove. I only showed you a whole new world and all that.”
~*~*~*~
Ian Kaligen, from the basketball team, calls on Sunday to ask if Billy is up to shoot hoops at his place. Susan had taken Max with her for some mother-daughter lunch and Billy’s dad is at some co-workers house to watch football. Everyone’s life is continuing as if Billy’s understanding of the world hadn’t shifted yesterday when Billy pulled into Steve’s driveway.
It’s surreal and leaves Billy feeling a little off center, but Billy isn’t about to let that show. “Yeah. See you in ten.” Billy hangs up and changes into a pair of shorts and a long sleeve shirt. It’s cold out, far colder than it ever gets in Los Angeles in early November.
Billy pulls the Camaro up to the curb outside Ian’s house. Ian is in the driveway taking practice free shots and failing miserably. Billy smirks as he gets out of the car. “How the hell are you even on the team, Kaligen?”
Ian laughs, flipping Billy off as he hurls the ball at him. “Shut the fuck up, man.”
Billy catches the ball and dribbles it up the driveway before taking a shot from an invisible three point line. He makes it with ease. Billy has always been gifted when it came to sports and he’s all for flaunting it.
Ian picks up the ball and spins it on the tip of his index finger. “Heard you ditched Gina.”
Billy jogs across to Ian and swipes the ball from him. He dribbles between his legs before chucking it hard into Ian’s chest. “Shit came up.”
“Must of. Gina’s a hot ticket. I heard she’s fucking pissed with you.” Ian grins at Billy. Then he aims at the basket and shoots. The ball rebounds off the backboard.
Billy jumps and grabs it. “She’ll get over it. I’ll ask her out again and she’ll say yes.”
“You sure?” Ian asks. “Maybe the girls in California fell over themselves for you but here in Hawkins -”
“Man, do you want to ask Gina out yourself or what?” Billy asks, cutting through the bullshit. He bounces the ball from hand to hand bored with this conversation.
Billy doesn’t give a shit about anyone here in Hawkins. If Ian wants to date Gina then he can have at her. Plenty of bitches in the sea, especially when Billy is the newest and hottest thing to come to Hawkins since fucking MTV.
Ian’s cheeks flush dark red. “No - Jesus, man - I -”
“Grow some balls and ask her out, Kaligen,” Billy scoffs. He turns his back to the hoop and shoots a perfect basket. Billy grew up playing basketball at a city park a few blocks from his place in L.A.. He, Andre, Benji, Jonsey, and Jose were absolute terrors on the court from ages ten to sixteen. Now he gets stuck playing fucking H-O-R-S-E with mediocre players like Ian. Another bullshit facet of Hawkins. Billy despises Hawkins and everything about it.
“Fuck off,” Ian say gruffly. He crosses to the neighbor’s lawn to pick up the basketball from where it’s rolled after Billy’s shot. He dribbles up and down the driveway before glancing over at Billy. “You’re really cool with me asking her out?”
Billy rolls his eyes. “Do whatever you want, man.”
“Right.” Ian nods. Then he tosses the ball to Billy and grins. “First to twelve points?”
Billy tosses the ball back. He spreads his legs wide and motions with his hand for Ian to start the game. “You’re going to fucking lose, Kaligen.” He swipes his tongue against his bottom lip.
It’s not the city park and Ian isn’t nearly as cool as Jose or Andre, but this is the best Hawkins has to offer.
Billy’s thoughts skitter for just a moment to Steve. Steve who is arguably a much better player than Ian. Second best to Billy, if Billy felt like being fair, which he rarely does. And Billy has seen Steve’s house, the asshole has a half court in his backyard, kiddy corner to his giant pool.
Annoyed with himself, Billy hip checks Ian and grabs the ball from him.
~*~*~*~
Monday morning, Billy makes up an extra-curricular that requires him to be at school a half hour earlier than usual. If he takes Max with him, she’ll be an hour early to school and even Saint Susan agrees that’s excessive. Billy’s dad might be seething about Billy ‘neglecting his brotherly duties,’ but once Saint Susan decides on something, it’s set in stone.
After the bullshit she pulled on Friday, she’s as good as dead to Billy. There is no way in hell he is going to cart her around like he’s her goddamn chauffeur.
So at seven am, Billy is sitting on the trunk of the Camaro smoking when Steve’s lame BMW pulls into the student parking lot. They aren’t the only ones here at school this early. Other students presumably have valid reasons for being at their pathetic high school at the crack of dawn. Still, when Steve steps out of his car, stretching his long legs, Billy feels like it’s just the two of them and the empty farmland of Hawkins.
Steve catches sight of Billy and lifts his hand in an awkward wave. Billy feels his life in Hawkins shift towards a new normal. Steve’s just as caught off guard as Billy at their changing orbit. After Friday and Saturday, ‘high school rivals’ feels childish.
Billy tips two fingers in Steve’s direction before resuming smoking in silence while glowering at the flat horizon of Hawkins. Everything in Hawkins is flat, bland, and lame as fuck. Billy hates it here today as much as he did before he found out that Hawkins had been home, however briefly, to literal killer monsters.
Steve steps in front Billy, blocking the offensively flat view.
Billy lifts an unimpressed brow. “What?”
Steve’s face is still a mess. His eye is an ugly purple and noticeably swollen. There’s a healing cut through his eyebrow. His lip is puffy where it split.
“I told you to plant your feet.” Billy smirks at Steve. “Might have landed a better hit then. Broken my nose instead of just bloodying it.”
Steve huffs a sigh. “Like I would ever want to take advice from you.”
Billy ignores this. He points his cigarette towards Steve’s face. “What are you going to say about your damage?”
Steve probes at his bruised eye and winces. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I got beat to hell last year too.”
This is news to Billy. “By who?”
“Jonathan.”
Billy groans on Steve’s behalf. “The guy fucking stole your girl and beat you up? Man, you suck, Harrington.”
“What can I say,” Steve says piously, “I’m a lover not a fighter.”
Billy cackles at Steve’s idiocy. “No, you’re a fucking dumbass who can’t fight worth a shit.”
Steve waves this off. “Have you been to the Quarry?”
If it was a girl asking, Billy would think he was being hit on. As it is, Billy gives Steve the once over. He’s wearing a blue sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and a pair of jeans that are obviously name brand but don’t look nearly as good on him as Billy’s jeans always look on him. Still, Billy isn’t lying when he says Steve’s a pretty boy, because he is very pretty and he’s a boy.
Billy curls his tongue against his teeth, smirking at Steve. “I fucked Trish Donally in the back of the Camaro at the Quarry.”
Steve’s nose scrunches up. “Dude. Her voice is so annoying.”
Billy scoffs, but he knows he sounds more amused than condescending. “Shut the fuck up. She’s hot.”
Steve waffles his hand. “She’s okay looking. But really, that voice is so high pitched and whiny. I sat next to her in Bio last year. Hand to god, listening to her during our “debate day” gave me a migraine. I got a sick note to go home early and everything.”
Billy starts laughing which pisses him off. He doesn’t want to think Steve is funny. He quickly takes a drag of his cigarette to stop himself. “Just because she didn’t want to sleep with you, Harrington, doesn’t make her damaged goods.”
Steve purses his lips, negating Billy’s claim. “At least Kelli Meyers is hot and sounds like Stevie Nicks. All smokey and sexy.” Steve leans back and rests his weight against the Camaro’s trunk, his hip lined up with Billy’s knee.
“You slept with Kelli Meyers?” Billy asks, grudgingly impressed.
“We dated for like a month last year,” Steve corrects. “Before I met Nancy.”
Billy weighs this information. “Kelli is way hotter than Nancy.”
Steve looks at Billy skeptically. “If you have bad taste, then I guess you’re right.”
Billy flips Steve off. “I’ve asked Kelli out twice and she’s been busy both times.”
“Plenty bitches in the sea, Hargrove,” Steve mocks, “I’ll be sure to save some for you.”
Billy kicks Steve hard in the calf with his shoe. “Fuck you, man. I bet Kelli’s just turned off from guys because of your lousy bedroom performance.”
Steve’s jaw drops. “That is fucking slander! I know you’re still kind of new here, but I wasn’t know as King Steve for my stellar personality.”
Smirking, Billy rolls his eyes. “You lost that title long before I even got here. I’m guessing your downfall started with that not so magical night between the sheets with Kelli Meyers.” Billy takes a drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke in Steve’s face.
“You’re a real piece of shit, Hargrove,” Steve says as he stands up and starts walking away from the Camaro. “A real piece of shit.” But his lips are curved up in a hazy smile.
Billy watches him walk away for far too long.
~*~*~*~
At lunch, Billy realizes the only flaw in his plan of Max-Avoidance. Beside him at the table, Tommy is telling a borderline obscene story. Normally, this would hold Billy’s attention. However, his own real life problem is distracting Billy from his less than captivating lunch crew. He still has to drive her home after school.
“Jesus. Look at Harrington.” Tommy elbows Billy hard.
Not appreciating being ripped from his thoughts, Billy slams his elbow into Tommy’s kidney, ignoring him when he starts sputtering and coughing in pain. Across the cafe from them, Steve is sitting by himself eating a sandwich. It’s pathetic. Especially with his face all busted up.
At their table, Ian and Eric look over at Steve as well. Ian’s mouth twists like he’s trying to picture what would have had to happen to cause the damage. Eric just shrugs and goes back to eating his pizza.
“What a loser,” Tommy enthuses, once he’s caught his breath again.
Billy takes a moment to evaluate this statement.
Steve has had more girls than Tommy could ever dream of. Steve is markedly better at basketball than Tommy will ever be. Steve has fought alien monster dogs that Tommy doesn’t even know exist. And when Billy shoves him, Steve is the only person who shoves back.
It’s like Ian’s driveway all over again. Everyone in Hawkins sucks. Except, possibly, Steve Harrington.
The legs of Billy’s chair screech against the linoleum as he pushes back from the table and stands up, lunch tray in hand. He crosses the cafeteria, feeling the weight of his classmates’ stares, only proving how fucking useless Hawkins is. His old high school had so many students it would have been impossible to even notice someone switching lunch tables.
Billy drops his tray down beside Steve’s little brown lunch bag, startling Steve into looking up at him. “The hell, Hargrove?”
Billy sits down. “Why were you asking me about the Quarry? You wanna take me there and show me the backseat of your dumbass BMW?” Billy lowers his eyelashes, biting at the corner of his bottom lip, playing the tease.
Steve flips him off and steals a handful of fries off Billy’s tray like they sit together all the time. Whatever. The fries are empty carbs with salt anyway. “No, you dickhead. But you said all of Hawkins is farmland. The Quarry clearly isn’t.”
If Steve’s free to take his food, Billy is free to steal his. Upending Steve’s brown bag, Billy fishes through its contents and pawns his apple. He takes a large crunching bite. “Hawkins could have a Hooters on every corner and it would still be the fucking pits.”
Steve squints at him. “Are sex and tits the only two things you think about?”
The easy answer is yes. The real answer is no. Billy spends the majority of time in his head wildly furious at being trapped in Hawkins, trapped with his dad, trapped with two strangers in a small shitty house. Billy’s fucking furious all the time. But he isn’t going to say that to Steve Harrington.
“I think about my Camaro too.” He smirks at Steve.
Steve rolls his big Bambi eyes. “Why are you sitting over here anyway? Haven’t you heard? I’m a social pariah who got beat up by Jonathan Byers for trying to beg Nancy to take me back.”
Billy flicks a disgusted look at the table in the far corner where Jonathan and Nancy are eating together. “Seriously? That’s better than having people know I whooped your ass?”
"I've faced down actual interdimensional monsters. After that, small town gossip really loses its threat."
"Sure, because it's better to be known as the loser that Byers tried to kill twice." Billy stares at Steve who has clearly lost his mind.
“Weirdly, I don’t hear you apologizing for nearly killing me,” Steve says pointedly.
“Why would I? You fought back.”
Steve levels him a look. Billy is unmoved. “Okay, then what about Lucas?”
Billy huffs a sigh. “The kid had it coming. I’ve fucking told Max to stay away from him. If she’s not going to listen to me, then maybe Sinclair will.”
“Well, that makes you disturbingly racist.” Steve inches his seat away from Billy.
“Oh, fuck off.” Billy takes a drink of his Coke. “I don’t fucking care about Sinclair. But I don’t live in my house alone.”
Steve is silent for a moment before bobbing his head. “My dad’s a real gem when it comes to anyone who isn’t white and rich.”
“I brought my friend Andre over two years ago, back in Cali,” Billy says, not knowing why he’s sharing this with Steve but somehow letting himself do it anyway, “Andre’s black and I didn’t know my dad was going to be home early. He threw Andre out of the house. Literally grabbed Andre by the back of the shirt and threw him out. Andre hit the ground right off our porch and fucking took off. He came to school the next day with stitches in his knee from where he’d clipped our cement steps. We didn’t talk after that.”
Billy leaves out what his dad did to him. A couple hard shakes on his upper arm. Areas his t-shirts would cover. Blue and purple finger prints that took a week to fade.
Steve hisses through his teeth. “Jesus, you’re dad is -”
“Yeah, I know,” Billy cuts him off. He feels stupid for having said anything in the first place.
Steve taps his long fingers against the table before tilting his face in Billy’s direction. “But, uh, not sure how you killing Lucas would be any different than what your dad did to Andre.”
Something cold and hard settles in Billy’s chest. He grimaces, Steve’s words play on a loop in his head. Sitting with Steve had been such a stupid fucking idea. He was better off with the dredges of Hawkins than its former king.
Billy grabs his tray and walks off without a word, dumping his lunch as he passes the garbage can, and heading to the parking lot for a smoke before the bell for next period rings. Fuck Steve Harrington and his holier than thou attitude.
~*~*~*~
Because he hasn’t thought of how to ditch Max, Billy waits for her at the end of the day. When she rolls up on her skateboard, her long red hair swaying at her shoulders, she regards him with narrow eyes. “Are you driving me home or not?”
Billy’s thought about it all day. If Billy can’t get out of driving her home from school, he sure as hell is drawing his line in the sand. “You can ride home in the Camaro but you find a new way to get to the arcade. I’m not your brother and I’m sure as hell not your fucking free ride”
Max yanks open the passenger side, dropping her backpack and skateboard into the foot well. She climbs inside and shuts the door. Billy stamps out his cigarette and then takes a seat behind the wheel.
“Why do you always have to be so horrible?” Max asks, glaring hard out the side window.
“Cry me a fucking river, Maxine,” Billy sneers. He twists the keys in the ignition and Camaro roars to life. “You’re the one who slammed a fucking deadly weapon between my legs. I think that makes you pretty fucking horrible too.”
Max fists her arms across her chest and doesn’t say another word for the rest of the ride. Billy basks in her silence while Cinderella blares through the speakers.
He ditches Max at the curb to their driveway, then he cranks up the volume and veers back onto the road. He cruises around the half paved and half gravel roads of Hawkins, tracing each of his possible escape routes. He never goes past the city limits though. In the back of his mind, Billy is sure his dad would know if he left.
At some point, Billy ends up at the Quarry. He pulls his car right up to the danger zone of water. If this was the ocean, his front wheels would be in the path of the incoming tide. But it’s a fucking quarry and the water never moves.
Billy gets out of the Camaro and walks around to the front of his car. He stretches out on the hood, takes his Marlboros from the front pocket of his jean jack. Flicking his lighter, Billy lights the cigarette and rests his head back on the windshield.
Billy fiddles with the lighter in his right hand. He scratches his thumb against the spark wheel, watching the flame gasp to life, then die away. Billy snaps his thumb against the wheel. A flame shoots up, burningly hot near Billy’s calloused skin. And then with a slip of his finger, the flame is gone.
Billy smokes. He fucks around with his lighter. He watches the sun slowly setting above the edge of Quarry’s far cliff edge. He listens as the crunch of gravel announces the arrival of another vehicle. He won’t admit to himself he was waiting for this.
“Funny finding you here.”
Billy closes his eyes. “Am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?” Billy parodies.
“Wasn’t funny the first time, isn’t funny the second.”
Steve stretches out on the hood next to Billy, his skinnier limbs knocking against Billy’s. Without asking, Steve pilfers the cigarettes from Billy’s jacket pocket and shakes one out.
“Lighter?” Steve holds out an open hand.
Billy waits before handing it over, long enough for Steve to snap his fingers impatiently. Billy smirks, dropping the lighter into Steve’s palm. “Pretty boy is a brat too, huh?”
“Better than a grouchy bastard,” Steve says around the cigarette between his lips.
They smoke quietly, grey trails curling up towards the darkening sky.
“Why’d you sit with me today?” Steve asks.
Billy bristles. “Do you want us to have a heart to heart or some shit? Because I would hope you know you came to the wrong fucking guy.”
“Well, you see, I used to be in your position. I used to sit in that exact same seat with Tommy. Then I stopped being a teenage asshole and started sitting with my girlfriend. Then I got dropped and I started sitting alone mostly. Why would I want to sit with a bunch of jock straps who have no idea that there are fucking monster prowling around Hawkins and killing people? Seemed kind of childish, you know?” Steve speaks to the velvety blue seeping into the sky, never even glancing in Billy’s direction.
Billy feels the weight of the words lift up, drift over them, and try to settle on top of Billy. He bats it away with a sharp exhale of smoke. “You are a teenage asshole, Harrington, before you get comfortable up on your high horse.”
Steve huffs a laugh. “Are you ever real? Or do you just spew bullshit until nothing else comes through?”
Billy rolls his head to the side, glaring at Steve’s profile. Steve is reclined with one hand folded behind his head. “What do you want from me, Harrington? You think because you showed me a dirty tunnel and a rotting alien that suddenly we are best buds?”
Steve taps the filter of his cigarette against his bottom lip. “No,” he says. “I just think it entitles me to some honesty.”
Billy drops his cigarette to the ground beside the car. “Honesty?” He sits up, hunching over his knees. “I honestly hate it here. I honestly hate Hawkins. I honestly hate my new fake family. I honestly hate everyone here. I honestly wanted to destroy you in Byers’ kitchen.”
Saying all of it out loud sends a rippling flame of irritation across his shoulder blades. He feels his heart hit a double beat, blood racing through his veins. Billy slides his teeth across his bottom lip, feels the sharp drag against soft skin.
Beside him, Steve exhales long and slow. Then he sits up and grins at Billy. “Me too.” He flips his hand casually. “Well, I mean, the stuff about Hawkins, not the Byers kitchen. And there are a handful of people here who I like a lot, actually.”
“Then why’d Little Miss Perfect drop you like a bag of shit?” Billy prods. It had been the talk of the locker room for a week after Halloween. Perfect Nancy Wheeler dumping King Steve for that Weirdo Byers. For Billy, it had been his official crash course in the social politics of Hawkins High.
“Well,” Steve voice is light and self-mocking, “apparently, I’m bullshit. So, you know. I guess she dropped me because I was a literal bag of shit.”
Billy blinks up at the sky. Then he frowns. “That’s fucked. Shouldn’t Nancy be bullshit since she cheated on you at the Halloween party?”
Steve makes a complicated gesture with his hand. “It doesn’t matter. I was an asshole before I dated Nancy. Even if we broke up and it sucked, I still, like, grew into a better version of me and that isn’t bullshit. So. It’s water under the bridge or whatever.”
“Wow,” Billy says after a beat. “How fucking dumb.”
Steve turns and stares at him. Then he bursts out laughing. “You are such an asshole, Hargrove. Jesus.”
Billy grins, curling his tongue over his teeth. “It’d be a shame if I ever gave the impression of being anything else.”
“So you’re an asshole,” Steve agrees. Then he grows serious, his mouth curving down at the edges. “Is that why you tried to kill Lucas?”
Billy rolls his shoulders, his jean jacket dragging against the fabric of his shirt. “Well,” Billy allows, “I’m also a piece of shit. And I was mad at Max for having snuck out and getting me in a ton of shit with my dad.” He presses his lips together, chews his cheek, then purses his mouth. Steve had said he was entitled to the truth.
Maybe he was. Billy blows out a hard breath. “No, I wasn’t mad at Max, I was fucking furious with her. And when I get mad, like really mad, I want to break things. But I can’t break Max because I’d get in even more shit at home. So I wanted to break Lucas because it was his fucking fault she was there.”
“And you wanted to break me because . . . ?” Steve asks, his cheek resting on his knees, scrunched up to his chest, his eyes watching Billy in the settling dark.
Billy knows he shouldn’t be out here trading secrets with Steve Harrington. But for the first time since he came to Hawkins, Billy feels like he can breathe without a chain pinched tight around his chest. “Because Max was at a house with a bunch of guys and you? Because that looks fucked up if you don’t know about aliens? Because breaking a little kid is lame? Because breaking you, pretty boy?” Billy licks his bottom lip. “It felt fucking amazing.”
“Wow,” Steve mocks. He lifts his brows. “Does this mean you’re, like, one of those freaks that gets off on hurting people?”
“No,” Billy says, “I wasn’t getting off thrashing you. But I was pissed off and you were the perfect punching bag.” Billy shrugs. “I’m a piece of shit, remember?”
Steve appears to mull this over. “Shouldn’t you try out for wrestling or something instead? You know, like, healthy outlets for rage.”
“I play basketball,” Billy says flatly.
“That’s kind of less of a contact sport.”
Steve is starting to irk Billy with all his questions. Billy wants to shut this conversation down. Get back in his car and drive home. Except he doesn’t want to do that either. He pulls out another cigarette and lights it.
Steve snatches the pack out of Billy’s hands before he can put it away, taking one for himself. Billy jabs him hard in the side with his elbow. Steve flips him off before grabbing Billy’s lighter as well.
“I used to skateboard,” Billy finally says. “When I was pissed off, I would try out new tricks. If I got hurt, so much the better.”
Steve sizes Billy up. “That’s kind of fucked up, dude.”
Billy gestures expansively with the hand holding his cigarette. “And so am I, pretty boy, if you hadn’t caught on yet.”
Steve takes a drag. Lets his gaze run over Billy again. “Who would have thought, Billy Hargrove has layers.”
Billy rolls his eyes. “You’re so soft, Harrington. It’s a miracle you don’t get beat up more often.”
The corner of Steve’s mouth quirks up. “Tell me, Billy, does your teenage angst bullshit have a body count?”
Billy cracks a smirk at Steve’s Heathers reference. “You’re a fucking loser, Harrington.”
Steve grins wide. “Uh-huh, whatever you say, Veronica.”
~*~*~*~
When Billy steps into second period the next day, he can’t help but look to the far left side of the classroom where he knows Steve always sits. Accordingly, Billy has always sat on the far right side. Today, he wavers. Tommy’s in his usual seat, staring at Billy like he’s being weird, which he is, he knows.
Then Steve looks up and rolls his big brown eyes at Billy like Billy is already annoying him without having said anything. Billy’s feet walk him straight to Steve. He drops down in the desk behind him, letting his books slam onto the desktop.
“Your fucking hair is blocking the blackboard, Harrington.”
Steve turns around in his seat. “Jealousy looks ugly on you, Hargrove.”
Billy shoves his hand in Steve’s face, vaguely unsure how to deal with Steve. He hasn’t tried to make new friends since middle school, but he’s pretty sure that’s what he’s doing with Steve.
Across the room, he hears Tommy audibly whisper, “What the fuck?”
Silently, Billy agrees.
At the front of the room, Mrs. Juratovac assesses the class with narrowed eyes. Then she fixes her grimace on Billy and Steve. “Mr. Harrington, I surely hope Mr. Hargrove will not be a distraction for you. Your grades could hardly bear anymore misunderstandings of basic algebraic principles.”
Naturally, Steve tenses uncomfortably. Naturally, Tommy guffaws loudly. Unnaturally, Billy wants to slash Mrs. Juratovac’s tires after school.
“Won’t be a problem,” Steve promises meekly.
Mrs. Juratovac’s just ‘hmms’ with clear disapproval.
By the time they hit independent work, though, Billy has a first hand understanding of Mrs. Juratovac’s scathing remark.
Billy chews on the cap of his black pen. Duncan Jonesy, back in California, had been shit at math too. He always came to lunch with his math book and a bribery slushy for Billy. Idly, Billy wonders who is helping Jonesy with his Algebra 2 class now. With an exasperated sigh, Billy tugs on a lock of Steve’s unruly hair.
“Ouch,” Steve bitches, swatting at Billy’s hand.
“Hey, Einstein, turn around.” Billy shifts his textbook and notebook so Steve can see it more clearly.
With visible annoyance, Steve turns and glances down at Billy’s pristine work. “I know you’re an asshole, but you don’t have to show off your math genius to me. I already know I’m dumb.”
Billy hisses through his teeth. “Okay, dumbass, then just be quiet while I talk.” Steve shoots him a dirty look, but doesn’t speak. Billy taps his pencil against the first question. “We need to solve for x, right?”
“Duh,” Steve scoffs.
“And you know PEMDAS, right?”
Steve sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. “Is that like the Polygon Theorem?”
Billy winces. “No, pretty boy, no, it’s not.”
Steve shoulders sag. “Okay, then what is Pem-Dis?”
Billy reaches around Steve and grabs his notebook. It’s covered in scratched out equations and an alarming amount of question marks where solutions should be. He writes out PEMDAS at the bottom half of the page. “Please Excuse My Dumb Ass Sister,” Billy says, pointing to each letter.
Steve gapes. “Billy, are you high right now?”
Billy shoves Steve’s shoulder. “No, dipshit. It’s a mnemonic device to help you remember parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition subtraction. The order of operations you should perform for equations like this.” He taps the equation in question.
Steve blinks rapidly. “Holy shit, you are coming at me with all this, like, Latin, and I’m already flunking French so - “
“Stop talking,” Billy interrupts. He writes the equation below PEMDAS. “Okay, so do you have any parenthesis here?”
Steve squints down at the notebook. “Uhm, yeah.”
“Okay, so we are going to start working from there. Now, do you have any exponents?”
Steve chews on his bottom lip. “Which are?”
Billy keeps his sigh internal. “The little carrot guy.”
“Oh!” Steve brightens, looks at the equation and shakes his head. “No.”
“Multiplication?”
It takes the whole period to work Steve through three of the problems, but it’s kind of worth it for how thrilled Steve looks at the end of class. Jonesy had looked the same way after Billy helped him through his math at lunch.
“I can’t begin to unravel why you’re helping me with my shitty algebra, but I’m way more into it than you shoving me to the ground during practice,” Steve says as they head for their lockers.
Billy slices a glance at him. “Don’t get all emotional about it, Harrington. You were bringing down the collective GPA of the room. I had to do something before your stupid became catching.”
“Jesus!” Steve turns and stalls in front of Billy. “Really let me have it, Hargrove.” He grins sharply at Billy and flips him off.
“Man, I don’t have to, Mrs. J basically bit your dick off in class,” Billy says with a smirk.
Steve pretends to collapse against the nearest locker before jumping back to his feet and laughing loudly. “Fuck you, Billy. I’m the next Einstein, just you and Mrs. J watch.” Steve turns on his heel and winds his way through the other high schoolers.
Billy doesn't watch him go. He makes a hard turn to join a group of guys from the basketball team slouching by the school payphones. Then he looks over to where Steve’s ducking into a classroom.
~*~*~*~
At lunch, Steve isn’t sitting alone like Billy expects. Instead there’s a girl with short brown hair sitting with him. Grinning widely at him. Laughing with him.
Billy hates her on instinct. He carries his tray over to their table and drops it down next to Steve’s. He lets himself fall into the seat so that his elbow knocks into Steve’s, causing Steve to spill some of his Coke.
“Asshole,” Steve grouses, grabbing napkins from the middle of the table and wiping up the mess.
Billy smirks. “Should have planted your feet.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Steve accuses. He glares at Billy before turning to the girl. “This is what I’m talking about, Robin. A total, inconsiderate, asshole.”
Robin’s bright blue eyes rake over Billy and very clearly find him lacking. Billy knew he was right to hate her. “You’re that bag of dicks from the basketball team, right?”
“Do you even go here?” Billy asks, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
“She’s a junior,” Steve supplies. “We’ve got French together. And the same lunch period twice a week.”
“Cool,” Billy says sarcastically. He picks up his hamburger and takes a savage bite, staring Robin down.
“I’m a vegetarian,” she says pointedly.
“Sucks to be you.” Billy takes another aggressive bite.
Steve surprises them both by laughing. “This is so fucked. Like, last year I had an entire table of sports guys I was sitting with and now I’m at a table with a band dork and Hawkins wannabe bad boy.”
Billy is affronted. “I am a bad boy.”
“Billy,” Steve says, pinning him with his big brown eyes, “until this week you drove your sister to and from school like a good big brother. That is not intimidating. That’s, like, wholesome.”
Billy files away that Steve pays enough attention to him to know that he’s not driving Max anymore, and then sets about correcting him. “I’m nobody’s bother. Max is not my sister.”
“Step-sister, right?” Robin asks. “That’s what Dustin said.”
“The fuck is Dustin?” Billy sneers. “My shitty dad married her shitty mom but that does not make us a family.” Billy decides he was an idiot to sit here. He lifts his tray and moves to stand up.
Steve grabs the back of his brown leather bomber jacket and pulls him down into the seat. “Don’t get so touchy. Robin’s just trying to run you off. As the resident bad boy, you aren’t scared of a band dork, are you?” Steve lifts a challenging brow.
Billy grits his teeth. “You’re both losers.”
“Uh-huh,” Steve allows. He nudges his Coke towards Billy, who grabs it, accepting it as the lame peace offering it’s meant to be. “Robin plays the french horn so . . .”
Billy makes a disgusted face. “Don’t you have any self-preservation instincts? This is a high school in America. You could at least play the fucking flute or something.”
“I’m an individual, you fucking yuppie,” Robin counters. “And the french horn is far more likely to get me a scholarship to college than the flute.”
“Whatever,” Billy scoffs. He hunches back over his hamburger and ignores Steve and Robin as they devolve into creating a hierarchy of musical instrument scholarships.
~*~*~*~
After school, Billy hops up on his trunk and taps out a cigarette. He’s got another fiften minutes of waiting until stupid Max gets out for the day. He’s glowering at the doors of the middle school when someone flicks his ear.
“What the fuck,” he growls, whipping his head around.
Steve is leaning over the Camaro’s trunk grinning at Billy. “So, what did you think of Robin?”
Billy rolls his eyes, turning back to Hawkins Middle School. “What do you care? She’s your dorky friend, not mine.”
“Aw, come on, Hargrove, tell me your deep, dark, bad boy thoughts.”
Billy hates how Steve crawls under his skin. He feels like their roles have reversed. When Billy got here, he had the upper hand, always ragging on Steve and keeping him off balance.
Billy wants to be pissed. He wants to rage. Instead, Billy drops his cigarette to the asphalt and grabs Steve in a headlock and muses Steve’s hair until Steve is squawking and bitching at him. Steve slaps at his thighs, trying to smack Billy off of him while Billy just laughs victoriously.
Finally, Steve gets a good kidney punch in and Billy lets him go with a grunt. Steve’s hair is sticking up like a porcupine and his face is flushed from being held down. “You are such a fucking dick!” Steve tries desperately to comb his fingers through his hair; it does nothing but make it stand up even more.
“You’re such a brat,” Billy complains, massaging his side where Steve got him good.
“Me?” Steve asks, astonished. “You - You are the biggest brat!”
Billy stares at Steve before bursting out laughing. “That was the lamest comeback ever, man.”
“You’re lame,” Steve mutters, hopping up on the trunk next to Billy.
When he’s done laughing, Billy glances sideways at Steve. It’s like they’ve got some weird mutual orbit going on. They won’t say what they’re doing, because becoming friends isn’t something you fucking announce like a loser, little girl in elementary school. But that’s what this is, and Billy will never admit it on pain of death, but he kind of likes it.
He shifts on the trunk to face Steve better. “Do you need something, Harrington?”
“Robin’s got work tonight. I don’t work because I’m a rich bitch.”
“Okay,” Billy drawls. “Good for you, rich bitch.”
Steve flutters his eyelashes like a southern belle, before he starts laughing at himself. Billy allows himself to smirk at Steve’s idiocy. “What are you doing tonight, Mr. Popularity?” Steve asks.
“Working out.”
The doors to the middle school open and quickly pour out a disarray of hormonal pre-teens.
Steve bobs his head. He slides off the trunk, turning to walk backwards. “Okay, later, man.”
Billy looks over at him, confused. “Yeah.”
Steve twists on his heel and heads to his car. Billy watches him go, wonders what Steve really wanted. Before he comes up with any ideas, a mop of red hair surges through the mass of middle schoolers. Billy scowls as Max weaves her way toward him on her stupid skateboard.
~*~*~*~
Billy hands Max a dripping dish. She dries it efficiently, sets it in the rack, and holds her hand out for another. Billy swishes soapy water around the pot Susan cooked the marinara sauce in. He passes it off to Max.
“You didn’t scrub it.” Max won’t take it from him. She edges sideways to avoid coming into contact with the wet pot.
“Then you wash the fucking dishes,” Billy bitches. “You always dry. It’s fucking bullshit.”
“Just scrub it, Billy.” She jabs her elbow towards the pot. “Look, there’s sauce caked on it still.”
He waggles the pot in her direction; she squeals and jerks backwards. Billy barks out a laugh at her discomfort. “So wash it yourself, Maxine.”
“You know I hate old, wet food!” She props her hands on her hips. “Mom said as long as I dry, we’re even.”
“I’m just trying to help you be ready to take care of yourself, Maxine” Billy says, syrupy sweet. “I’m not always going to be around to wash your nasty, food crusted dishes.”
“Stop being an asshole and wash the dish!” Max flips him off.
“Nah, I think I’m good here.” Billy drops the pot back into the sink and heads back out to the living room.
“Billy!” Max shouts after him.
Susan and Neil are sitting at the table still, talking and making fucking moon eyes at each other. But at Max’s shout, his dad fixes him with a black look. “What’s wrong with Max, Billy?”
“She doesn’t want to dry the last dish,” Billy says with a shrug. It’s been a quiet night at the Mayfair-Hargrove residence. He doesn’t have to worry about his dad’s temper right now.
“Max, honey,” Susan calls to her daughter. “Finish up the dishes so we can watch Golden Girls.”
Billy smirks, victorious. Max can be such a whining bitch. It feels fucking great to get one over on her. Because she’ll have to wash the stupid pot out herself or miss out on four old biddies making dates and talking about cheesecake.
He’s just shut the door to his room when the doorbell rings. Billy looks reflexively over his shoulder at the sound. The Mayfair-Hargrove’s don’t have a lot of visitors. Billy would never invite any of the guys from school over. Their house is in the distinctly shabby part of Hawkins and he isn’t going to hang around where Max is.
“Billy,” his dad calls sharply.
Grinding his teeth, because is it really that much to ask for to have one fucking hour to himself in this house, Billy goes to answer the door. When he pulls it open, ready to tell the dictionary salesman or who the fuck ever to get off his porch, he instead stares into big brown eyes and pristinely styled hair.
“Harrington?” Billy asks, slack jawed.
“Homework,” Steve announces, like this is a thing they planned. And then, Steve edges forward, like he wants to come into Billy’s house.
Which is insane. Billy blinks. Then he tries to put the situation into a perspective that makes sense. “Did your car break down or something?”
Steve’s nose crinkles up in confusion. “Uh, no.” He glances over his shoulder at his, apparently, working BMW. He lifts up his hands where he’s holding his math textbook and a notebook. “So, like, can I come in?”
“To . . . do math homework?” Billy asks, slowly.
Steve nods. A grin quirks the side of his mouth. “Although, you seemed a lot more knowledgeable in class than you do right now, so maybe I should have gone to Robin instead?”
“You want to come into my house so I can help you with your math homework?” Billy repeats. He needs to be sure he is understanding the chain of events happening right now.
“Is that okay?” Steve peers over Billy’s shoulder. “Or, are you, like, entertaining Trish Donally or something?” Steve grins at Billy, then pitches his voice to an impossibly high octave. “Like, oh my gosh, Billy!” Steve bats his eyelashes furiously.
Billy chokes on air, coughs out a semi-hysterical laugh, and shoves Steve off his porch before anything more bizarre can happen. “Fuck off, Harrington, I’m busy.”
“Billy!” Curved fingers clench around his shoulder, jerking him back a step. “You can either watch your language or you can find a new roof to sleep under.” His dad’s voice is like broken glass dragging against Billy’s bare skin.
Billy tenses his shoulders but doesn't pull away, willing himself not to react. “Sorry, sir.”
Across from him, Steve’s gaze is bouncing back and forth between Billy and his dad. Then his dad is shoving his free hand in Steve’s direction. “Neil Hargrove. And you are?”
“Uh,” Steve clears his throat, tucks his books under his left arm, and holds out his right hand, “Steve Harrington.”
Neil nods. “From the basketball team.” He squeezes Billy’s shoulder painfully. “Are you going to invite your friend in, Billy, or make him stand on the porch all night?”
Steve laughs, clearly trying to make things seem normal, but it’s nothing like his normal laugh and it sets Billy’s teeth on edge.
“No,” Billy says sharply. He needs to bullshit his way through this before it turns into something he can't handle. “Steve’s picking me up. We’re doing a study thing at his place for tomorrow’s test. Right, Steve?”
“Right,” Steve says immediately, not missing a beat.
“Why aren’t you taking the Camaro? Is there something wrong with it?” His dad grips tightens until Billy knows he'll bruise if his dad doesn't let up.
“Nothing,” Billy snaps, pissed. He shakes off his dad’s grip and steps outside. “Nothing’s wrong with the Camaro.”
His dad knows, he knows that car means more to Billy than anything else. Nothing has ever happened to the Camaro that Billy could prevent or that he hadn’t been able to fix himself. Neil’s just being a dick, like he always is, and if Billy doesn’t get out of here soon, he’s going to say something stupid, ruining the quiet night.
“Actually,” Steve interjects, mercifully forcing this horrible moment to end, “I wanted to take Billy for a spin in my car. Show him what he’s missing out on.” Steve flashes his most disarming smile.
It does nothing to ease the tension sparking between Billy and his dad. “Be home at nine,” Neil instructs.
“Yeah, nine,” Billy repeats. He ducks past his dad to grab his bomber jacket and leads the way to Steve’s car, Steve jogging a few steps to catch up.
“Jesus,” Steve mutters so only Billy will hear him, “I think our dads would have whole reams of advice on how to raise their shithead sons. And none of it would make it on the New York Times bestseller list.”
For some reason, Steve’s dumb comment cuts through the tension aching in Billy’s chest. He shakes out his shoulders, forces himself to relax, and kicks his Converse against Steve’s ankle. Steve trips and scowls at Billy, who is fully unrepentant. “The homework isn’t even that hard, Harrington.”
“Yeah, well, I had to look up how to spell pneumonia and when I did, it didn’t help me understand anything about parentheses or carrots.” Steve shoves his textbook and notebook into Billy’s chest. “Now hold those and go look pretty in my passenger seat.”
Billy scoffs but takes the books instead of letting them drop. He climbs into Steve’s lame car, shoving the seat all the way back so he can stretch out his legs obnoxiously. Billy knows his personality is loud and grating and he doesn’t believe in shying away from that, because that’s just who the fuck Billy is.
Steve turns on the car and the radio wails out some awful Flocking Seagulls. Billy groans and quickly flicks through the channels to his favorite station. Motley Crue is playing and Billy sits back satisfied, before tossing Steve’s books unceremoniously into the back seat.
“I said hold those,” Steve bitches.
“I’m sitting pretty, Harrington. You got one out of two, count yourself lucky.” Billy rolls down his window and enjoys the cool air as it shifts his curls away from his face.
~*~*~*~
Steve’s house is nothing like Billy’s house. He knew that already, having been to Tommy’s house and Ian’s and Eric’s. They all live on the ‘good’ side of Hawkins. But they don’t live on the rich side, like Steve.
Steve’s house is ridiculous. He hadn’t really paid attention to it last Saturday, but now, he stands outside Steve’s car staring up at it. It’s got a whole fucking forest behind it. Unreal.
“How many fucking rooms does this place have?”
“Four bedrooms, three baths, and a finished basement,” Steve recites. He slams his school books back into Billy’s chest for him to carry.
Billy accepts them more out of dazed instinct than anything else. “Do you have a, like, fucking butler or some shit?”
“We have a helper,” Steve says. “She, like, dusts and stuff. And makes food.”
“Holy shit,” Billy says in disbelief. “King Steve and his Palace.”
Steve turns around, walking backwards toward his house. He rolls his eyes dramatically. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“I’m not,” Billy defends. “I’m just a fucking pauper, King Steve. Please, sir, can I have some more?” he simpers, books held out like he’s waiting for Steve to pile more on top of them.
“If they hadn’t made that god awful musical, I wouldn’t even get that reference, shithead.” Steve jabs a finger in his direction. “We had to read it for English, obviously that wasn’t going to happen. But my ass got saved by that movie. I got a B- on my essay.”
Steve pours forth all this information while Billy’s still trying to take in the sheer ridiculous divide between his economic status and Steve’s. “Does your housekeeper have to wear one of those little french maid outfits?”
Steve’s eyes bug. “Of course not! This isn’t, like, 1900s England.”
Billy shrugs. “I dunno, Harrington. You could be a feudal king for all I know.” Then he smirks. “So, what kind of whiskey does your dad drink?”
~*~*~*~
Steve refuses to offer up the good stuff, but he does crack open a beer for each of them. They sit at Steve’s pretentiously large dining room table in it’s own very fancy dining room and spread out his math stuff.
“PEMDAS,” Billy says for the third time. “Please excuse my dumbass sister. It’s not that hard, Harrington.”
“I know,” Steve whines, “but everything math related just turns to mush in my brain, I swear.”
Billy shrugs and takes a drink of his beer. “Whatever, man. Just remember it the day of the test and you’re golden. We can write it on your arm or some shit.”
“Oh fuck, do we really have a test coming up?” Steve looks up, distressed, his perfect hair disheveled. “I thought you were just saying that to get your dad off your back.”
Billy reaches out and takes Steve’s pencil, erasing another incorrect equation. “Not this week, but yeah, eventually she’s going to test us. That’s how school works, Steve.”
Steve drops his head dramatically to the table while Billy corrects the equation, messing up his handwriting enough so it looks similar to Steve’s messy scrawl. “How is it fair that you are good at this stuff and I’m not?”
“Some people are just born with it all, pretty boy,” Billy teases. He leans back in his chair and surveys the thick drapes over the windows and actual china in the china cabinet. “You got the money, I got the brains and looks and everything else that counts.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Steve says, sitting upright and laughing. “Before you swaggered in with your gross, long, California surfer hair, I was top dog at Hawkins High.”
“I’ll gut you in your sleep,” Billy promises. “My hair is nothing but sunshine and masculinity.”
Steve busts up laughing. “Do you think they can see your ego from space, Hargrove?”
“They’d be fucking blessed if they could.” Billy grins.
He gets that twisty feeling again. The one that says it shouldn’t be this easy to be friends with Steve. A guy who last weekend, Billy attempted to destroy. But Steve’s not like the rest of this shitty town. He’s too pretty by far and he’s got edges where everyone else has only softness.
The next hour plays out the same way. Steve trying and failing to do his math, Billy masking his handwriting to complete the rest of the equations for Steve, and shooting barbs at each other that more often than not lead to laughter. It’s weird. It’s good.
~*~*~*~
When Steve hops up next to Billy on the trunk of the Camaro the next morning and holds out his hand for a lighter, it seems like the most normal thing that’s happened to Billy since he came to Hawkins.
Billy snaps the spark wheel and holds the flame out to Steve. “Why do you get here so early?”
Steve takes a puff before answering. “My house is either empty or filled with allegations of divorce proceedings. Either way, I think it’s preferable to hang out here instead.”
It’s weird to Billy that with his perfect house, perfect clothes, and perfect face, Steve’s life is still just as much of a shitshow as the next schmucks. “Sucks.”
“Yep,” Steve agrees. He tilts a look at Billy. “How’d you end up here?”
“I lied to get out of taking Max to school.”
“No, I meant Hawkins.”
Billy makes a face. “Susan wanted to be closer to her sister or some shit and I had just gotten cut from the basketball team after missing too many practices. Voila, Hawkins.”
Steve frowns. “But you’re good at basketball.”
Billy looks heavenward but doesn’t find any answers in the soft, puffy clouds lazing across the sky. “I liked skateboarding and surfing more.”
“Oh.” Steve blinks like this is a novel idea. “Yeah, California.” He shakes his head. “And all we’ve got is slushy winters.”
Billy laughs dryly. “Awesome.”
Steve reaches down and pulls his backpack up into his lap. “You aren’t taking French are you?”
“No hables francés,” Billy answers.
Steve groans. “Robin’s got band practice this morning so I’m fucked on the homework.”
Billy tugs Steve’s backpack over. He rifles through it and pulls out the french book with a slim sheet of notebook paper wedged between the pages. A few minutes later he hands the completed sheet back to Steve.
“It’s probably not perfect, but the Romance languages have got enough similarities you should still do okay.”
Steve’s mouth gapes open. He shuts it with an audible click. “Dude, why did you have to be such a dick when you moved here? You could have been saving me hours of homework headaches!”
“You’re such a loser, Harrington. I can’t believe I ever thought you were king of anything,” Billy laughs. Then he grabs Steve in a headlock and fucks with his hair until it’s a mess.
Steve’s screeching and flailing at him the whole time, and when he surfaces he looks like a porcupine. Angrily, Steve frantically finger combs at his hair. “What was I saying? You’re still a fucking dick! No wonder Kelli won’t go out with you.”
“Don’t have a coronary,” Billy mocks. ”Your hair still looks Harrington perfect.” And it does, all tousled and voluminous. Billy would be jealous if his own hair wasn’t fucking perfection. Sunshine and masculinity.
“What’s with you and the headlocks,” Steve complains. “Like, can’t you just strangle me instead.”
“If I get rid of you too soon it’ll be suspicious,” Billy confides, sliding off the back of the Camaro. “Couple more headlocks and it’ll look convincing when you suffocate from being too weak to break my hold.”
Steve slaps Billy in the back of the head. “You’re so fucked up, man,” he laughs.
Billy winks. “Now don’t go giving away all my secrets.”
They push and shove each other to the front of the school where Billy trips Steve and takes off down the hall for his first period before Steve can retaliate.
~*~*~*~
At lunch, Billy doesn’t think twice before setting his lunch down at Steve’s table. He doesn’t even look in the direction of Tommy and the other jocks. He just drops down next to Steve, takes his coke, hands over his fries, and ignores Robin’s existence.
Steve and Robin are caught up in some discussion about a possible mall coming to Hawkins next year. Steve’s excited by the prospect of actual culture coming to Hawkins, not that he puts it that way exactly.
“Name brand clothes,” he enunciates carefully, like he thinks Robin missed this point the first time around.
“Corporate annihilation,” Robin retorts, waving her carrot stick dramatically.
Billy won’t believe in this hypothetical mall until he sees it. He eats his chicken tenders in silence, slathering them in an unnecessary but delicious amount of ketchup.
At some point the conversation must change because Robin is laughing and tapping a pencil against Steve’s open chemistry book. “No, dingus, that is so not the right answer.”
Billy slants a look in the direction of Steve’s latest homework disaster. Billy took Chem in tenth grade back in Cali so he gets to skip that class at Hawkins. Instead he’s in some weird Honors Biology course with a bunch of fucking science nerds he never sees outside the classroom labs. He wouldn’t be surprised if he found them all living and sleeping in the hollows beneath the lab tables.
“Then help me fix it,” Steve begs Robin. “I’ll owe you big time.”
She rolls her eyes. “What do you even have to offer, Steve?”
“I’ll drive you to school,” he barters.
“Pass.”
“I’ll take you to the drive-in this weekend to see that movie you can’t stop talking about.”
“I already got tickets.”
“Oh my god, Robin!” Steve whines.
Billy narrows his eyes at Robin. She’s laughing merrily, clearly enjoying baiting Steve. And Billy - Billy is going to shut that shit down.
He grabs Steve’s chem book and shoves his tray away so he can look at the problems. Robin and Steve fall eerily silent as Billy gets to work crossing out Steve’s sorry attempts and writing in the correct answers in his fake Steve handwriting.
He passes it back to Steve when he’s finished and watches as Robin runs her eyes over the page. He smiles vindictively when she glares at him.
“He’s not going to learn anything if you do it for him,” she bitches.
“He’s never going to use this stuff anyway. What the fuck do any of us care about Chemistry?” Billy challenges.
Steve punches Billy hard in the arm and Billy thinks he’s about to be yelled at for bailing Steve out yet again, when instead Steve grabs him in a headlock and starts scrubbing the ever living shit out of his curls.
“Fuck! Fuck off, Harrington!” Billy shouts, scrambling quickly up and away from Steve’s grasp. “The fuck is wrong with you!”
Steve is grinning ecstatically. “Dude! Thank fuck you came to Hawkins. Mr. Dundle can kiss my ass!”
Billy swings his gaze to Robin for an explanation but she’s still glaring daggers at him. “Mr. Dundle?” Billy asks, tentatively sitting back down, but keeping a wary eye on Steve in case he plans on attacking again.
“Yeah! He said he was gonna get me benched from basketball if I couldn’t maintain my C in his class,” Steve explains. He brandishes the completed homework at Billy. “But he can’t if I’m turning in my homework correct for once.”
Billy boggles at Steve. “Is there any class you’re not barely surviving?”
“History,” Steve says readily. “I’m aces at history.”
“It’s true,” Robin says sagely before slurping her chocolate milk.
“Right.” He slides his gaze from Robin to Steve. Billy runs his fingers through his hair and detangles the curls Steve managed to fuck up. “But if you touch my hair again, you’re dead, Steve. I won’t help you with shit.”
Steve holds up his hands. “I won’t touch a single curl,” he promises. Then he smiles devilishly. “Even if it was the softest hair I’ve ever felt.”
Billy sniffs indifferently. “Of course it was. Sunshine and masculinity, dipshit.”
Billy ignores the warm glow in his stomach. It’s from the chicken tenders. They were fucking delicious.
~*~*~*~
After practice, Billy follows Steve out to the parking lot. “I’m just saying,” Steve says, continuing their argument from the locker room, “Susanna Hoffs is way hotter than Heather Locklear.”
Billy shoves Steve’s shoulder with his own. “You’re stupid, Harrington. No wonder you went out with Wheeler. Locklear is in a completely different league than Hoffs. It’s so fucking obvious.”
“Well, at least we’ll never be fighting over the same girl,” Steve says. “Not that Heather Locklear would go for you anyway.”
“The fuck does that mean,” Billy demands, offended on principle.
Steve smirks. “Come on, Billy. You’re all angsty and dickish. Heather would want a guy who's charming and suave.”
“I’m charming,” Billy snaps.
Steve laughs loudly. “To fucking who?”
“Not you, obviously,” Billy snarks. “I don’t need to be charming to assholes like you, Harrington. My sheer animal magnetism is enough to bowl over guys like you.”
Steve keeps laughing. “Animal magnetism! Where do you even come up with this shit? I hated you at first sight, Billy. Nothing magnetic about that.”
Billy slaps a hand over his heart. “You wound me, really, pretty boy.” He drops his hand and keeps walking next to Steve. “Besides, I never said being an asshole wasn’t part of my charm.”
“Now that,” Steve says, turning to point at Billy, “that’s way more on pace.”
Billy flaps this away. “And I don’t know who you’re calling charming, anyway. Because you weren’t exactly suave when you were hiding out Max.”
“You caught me on an off day,” Steve says easily. “Speaking of, you got anything going on tonight?”
“I’m not helping you with your homework every night,” Billy complains. “Just bring it in the morning and we can do it before school starts.”
Steve nods eagerly. “Done deal. But I wasn’t talking about that anyway. So, are you? Busy, I mean?”
Billy shrugs, not wanting to seem too available, because until this week he did have a social life that didn’t revolve around Steve Harrington. It’s a weird thought and makes him step up his pace to put some distance between him and Steve.
“Might call up Jillian. She was looking good in that skirt today.”
Steve pauses, clearly pulling up the mental image of Jillian and her neon pink skirt. He nods after a moment. “Yeah, she was.” Then he looks at Billy, tilting his head to the side like a fucking Yorkie. “Catch you later, Hargrove.”
Billy gives him a look, because Steve’s being weird, but Steve doesn’t offer anything else. “Later,” Billy agrees.
They separate at Steve’s BMW and Billy goes to lean up against the Camaro and wait for Max.
~*~*~*~
It’s four-thirty and Max has been suspiciously silent in her room since they got home. Billy never trusts Max, especially when she’s quiet. Billy’s got a damp towel wrapped around his waist as he paws through his dresser for the right pair of jeans to wear. He’s thinking about going to the pool hall that the rest of the high schoolers slum at during the week.
Jillian Connor has been looking especially hot the past few days. Billy knows she’s a Sheady’s Pool Hall regular. He also knows she’s been giving him long looks in Spanish.
Billy drops the towel, swapping it for a pair of boxer briefs. He’s in the middle of tugging on his most flattering and tight jeans when the phone rings. He grimaces. Without a doubt, it’s his dad or Susan calling to say they’ll be late, as usual.
What the fuck his dad and step-mom do on a daily basis is beyond Billy. All he knows is that it regularly involves not getting home until eight or nine pm. He’d bet drug dealers except he knows Susan is too straight laced for that. His dad’s also kind of a tight ass, so something radical like drugs doesn’t really match up there either.
“Get the phone, Max!” Billy yells.
“Asshole!” she yells back.
Billy makes a face and flips her off even though she can’t see him. Then he goes to his closet and rifles through his shirts until he finds a button up that will look best with half the buttons undone. He slips it up his arms and starts the buttons halfway down.
A knock at his bedroom door makes Billy stop and stare at the hard wood. “What?”
“It’s for you.”
He exhales harshly. “Tell your mom I’ll babysit you like I do every fucking night. Then sneak out your window like you do every single night. Just be back before eight, shithead.”
“No. It’s Steve.”
Billy stares incredulously at the door. Then he yanks it open and shoves Max out of the way. He heads into the kitchen and picks up the phone from where Max’s set it on the countertop. “Yeah?”
“You said you weren’t busy tonight, right?” Steve’s voice asks from down the line.
“I might be,” Billy counters.
“Well,” Steve says after a pause, “want to see some weird Hawkins shit instead?”
It’s not the stellar offer Steve is clearly trying to make it sound like. Still. Billy thinks of creepy vined tunnels and ashy piles of mush. “What’s in it for me?”
“Seeing weird stuff?” Without seeing him, Billy knows Steve’s brow is crinkled up in confusion. “Like I just said? Were you listening?”
“I want free beer,” Billy negotiates.
Steve huffs a sigh. “Sure, whatever. Just come to the Byers’ place. Bring Max.”
Billy looks over his shoulder and finds Max ready to go. She’s got her skateboard under one arm and his car keys hanging from the index finger of her other hand.
“Why?”
“The weird shit only happens when the kids are around,” Steve says. “Are you coming or what? If not, I’m going to need to call up some other douchebag and -”
“I’m coming,” Billy cuts him off. And it’s not that he’s jealous of the idea of Steve sharing the weird Hawkins shit with someone else. It’s just, if Max is going to be there, Billy could probably save his own ass by keeping her out of trouble that will inevitably become his own.
“Cool,” Steve says. There’s a click as he hangs up.
Billy rests the phone in its cradle. He jots a quick note to his dad that he and Max went to do homework at a friend’s. Then he stalks over to Max and snatches the keys from her.
She chases him out of the house and into the car. Billy revs the engine before backing out with a squeal of tires. The speakers blare Foreigner and Billy has a brief moment where he thinks he’ll be able to make the drive without having to acknowledge Max’s existence.
“So, what,” Max says, shattering this dream, “you’re just going to hate me forever now?”
“I already did,” Billy shoots back.
Max’s shoulders tense. “That’s not fair.”
Billy rolls his eyes and turns the volume up louder.
Max twists to face away from him and Billy thinks the conversation is over for good. Then she twists back around, staring fixedly at the side of his face. “Why do you always have to be so awful?”
He glances over at her and sneers. “Because I’m a monster.”
Max’s face crumples the way it always does when he lands a well placed verbal hit. “You don’t even know me! And - and you just treat me like shit. And I didn’t even do anything to you -”
Billy cuts that bullshit right in half. “You fucking stabbed me with a tranquilizer.”
“Because you were being insane! And awful! You tried to kill Lucas! Then you nearly beat Steve to death! Actual death. Like a complete psychopath.”
“Maybe I am one,” he challenges, not giving a shit about her stupid drama. “I told you to stay away from that kid. Do you know what my dad would do if he saw you with him? He’d fucking ream me out over it. It would be my fault you were going with a black kid.”
“What is wrong with you?” Max shouts, throwing her arms up. “So what if Lucas is black, you big fucking racist!”
Billy jerks the steering wheel to the left sending them swerving onto the shoulder. He slams on the breaks, gravel spitting out clouds in the rearview mirror. Enough is fucking enough. Billy is kind of sick of being called a racist. He’s an asshole, but in California, out of his core four friends, Andre was black, Jonsey was half-Chinese, and Jose’s parents were straight from Mexico.
Billy grits his teeth as he enunciates slowly, “I don’t give a single shit if Lucas is black, white, or fucking rainbow. But Neil Hargrove would take brass knuckles to my jaw if he caught his precious step-daughter so much as looking at someone like that.”
He cuts a look at Max and finds her gaping at him. Her big blue eyes saucer sized in her pale, freckled face. She’s so fucking stupid. It’s like they don’t even live in the same house. Like she lives in one where Billy doesn’t get smacked around for all of her little fucks up and all of his own.
“But - but my mom -” Max says, rallying.
“You’re mom what?” Billy snaps. “I haven’t seen Saint Susan step in once when my dad wants to remind me whose roof I’m living under.”
“That’s not the same,” Max says adamant.
Billy turns to glare at her. “I am really fucking aware that Susan and you are not my family. So I’m not exactly expecting you or Susan to give a shit that I’m my dad’s personal punching bag. But I fucking care and I’m not going to let you fuck that up for me by bringing Lucas over to the house.”
Max sits in shocked silence and Billy could not care less. He starts the car again and pulls back onto the road. It’s empty like all the roads in Hawkins seem to be. He hates how barren this town is.
Eventually, Max reaches for the volume and turns it down. “You don’t have to protect me,” she says.
Billy fights the urge to rub at his temples. “You are so fucking stupid. I am not protecting you, Maxine,” he says snidely. “I’m looking out for myself. Neil isn’t going to blame Susan’s precious daughter for affiliating with what Neil calls ‘the wrong type.’ He’s going to blame his piece of shit son. Like he always does. Anytime you do something stupid. And then he’ll take a hit, not hard enough to mark, because that would be sloppy. But hard enough that his piece of shit son will remember not to defy him next time.”
Max sinks silently against the passenger seat. Her eyes shimmer with tears and Billy feels viciously vindicated. He hopes she does cry. He hopes she’s scared. Of him, his dad, he doesn’t care which.
He snaps the volume back to painful levels. The sun is starting it’s slow descent because it’s fall and daylight dies before six as an affirmation of how shitty this midwestern town is. It takes ten more silent minutes to reach the Byers’ winding driveway.
~*~*~*~
Steve’s car is parked up near the house. Lingering on the porch and further up on the grass are a bunch of kids Billy vaguely recalls from the last time he was here. He has no fond memories of any of them. Billy is very much doubting his decision to come here at all, especially with Steve nowhere in sight.
Billy parks his Camaro at the halfway point of the driveway, refusing to commit to staying. Max barely waits for the car to come to a full stop before yanking open the door and racing over to her friends. Billy is much more sedate in his exit.
He eyes the kids as he crosses to them. One black kid - Lucas. The weird undead kid that’s related to Byers. Wheelers’ younger brother. And some idiot with no front teeth.
There’s also a girl with short curly brown hair who stares Billy straight in the face. "Mouth breather," she decrees scathingly.
Billy takes an intimidating step toward her. "What did you just say to me?" Because there is no way this random little kid just insulted him.
She narrows her eyes. "Mouth - breather,” she repeats slowly.
Billy is instantly over his desire to see anything weird in Hawkins. “Fuck this.” He turns on the heel of his Converse to head back to his car.
Max calls after him, "It's El's way of calling you an asshole, Billy."
“Enjoy skating home, Maxine,” Billy taunts without turning around. Someone grabs his wrist. Billy whips back around ready to push his step-sister into the dirt, but it’s Steve at his side.
"Hey, now,” Steve says hurriedly. “Let's not be too hasty. This is your one and only chance to see a non-mushy alien creature, right here in cozy ole Hawkins."
"You can keep it." Billy jerks his wrist out of Steve's grasp. "I'm not helping the brat brigade with shit."
"Then help the babysitter," Steve pleads. "Because that thing weighs a fuck ton and I can barely rely on these shitheads to dig a decent hole, let alone carry the damn alien a half mile into the woods."
Billy hesitates and that’s all it takes for Steve to start dragging him back up the driveway. “Hey, I promised you weird Hawkins’ shit, right? And I always deliver on my promises.”
“Why isn’t girl wonder helping you with this instead?” Billy asks, noting Robin’s absence.
Steve rubs the back of his neck. “She - uh - doesn’t know about the weirder side of Hawkins.”
“Lucky me,” Billy says flatly.
The kid with missing teeth narrows his eyes in Billy’s direction. “We don’t like you,” he calls out to them.
Billy looks at Steve. “Where’s my beer?”
“I said,” No Teeth starts again, “we don’t like you.”
“Yeah,” Billy drawls, “I heard you the first time. Just so happens I don’t give a shit what you or your little shithead friends think.” He turns to Steve. “Beer.”
Steve gives him this weird smile like Billy has performed a neat trick. It makes his skin feel itchy and Billy is thinking he’s made a really bad call with all of this. “It’s in the fridge. Just like the alien corpse.”
“Technically, the Demodog is in the freezer,” Byers’ brother corrects shyly.
“Jesus,” Billy mutters, following after Steve as he leads them into the Byers’ house.
Billy is rather appreciative of the fact the Byers’ house is a bigger shit hole than his own home. When Billy gets out of Hawkins he’s never going to live like this. He doesn’t care what he has to do, but he’s going to have a nice house and he’s going to be able to afford the brand name clothes and hair products he wants. And he’s going to have a big ass tape deck player.
“So,” Steve turns and makes jazz hands, “fair warning, this thing is fucking disgusting.”
“Worse than your face?” Billy hikes a brow.
Steve’s jaw drops. “Bullshit! You said - you called me - you’re such a fucking piece of shit, Hargrove.”
Billy cracks up, smashing his palm against Steve’s face and just rubbing his hand over Steve’s freakishly smooth skin. Does Steve have an amazing razor or is he still waiting to get facial hair? “Aw, baby, don’t be mad,” he teases.
Steve plays dirty, grabbing blindly and yanking hard on Billy’s hair.
“Bitch!” Billy hisses. He shoves Steve’s face away from him and messages his scalp.
Steve laughs at him, eyes squinty and happy. “You can throw a mean right hook, but you get all pissy when your hair is pulled?”
“You just didn’t pull it right, Harrington,” Billy says lewdly.
Steve stutter stops before his cheeks tinge pink. “Is that what you tell all the girls? Because I’ve never seen you go out with the same girl for more than a once.”
“You keeping track?” It gives Billy a weird thrill to think Steve’s been paying him that much attention. He shakes it off before it can settle too deep. “Besides, I want to see what Hawkins has to offer before I blow out of here to never come back.”
“You’re crass,” Steve says.
Billy points to the fridge, “And I’m starting to think you’re a liar. Where’s my beer?”
Steve pulls open the fridge and tosses Billy a cold can. Billy pops the tab and takes a drink. Steve sticks a second beer in the back pocket of his ill fitting jeans.
Billy knows that Steve isn’t quite as gifted in his assets as Billy is, but seriously. With the kind of money Steve is drowning in, there is no reason he shouldn’t be able to find a brand of jeans that frames him right. If he can afford that Members Only grey jacket, it’s outrageous he’s not paying top dollar for the rest of his wardrobe.
And it’s not even specifically Steve’s fashion that makes Billy mourn. It’s the whole of fucking Hawkins. California had style, distinct individual ones. Hawkins is the beige of style. The same acid-wash jeans and pastel color palette. Where the fuck are the Jams shorts? Vans shoes? Has anyone here even watched Fast Times At Ridgemont High? God, Spicoli would fucking die here.
“So when are we lugging out the carcass?” Billy asks, just to keep from depressing himself further.
“We need to dig the whole first. That thing is going to start melting as soon as we take it out and I have no doubt it smells like ass.” Steve wrinkles his nose.
Billy gestures with his beer can for Steve to lead the way.
After getting the shovels from a shitty shed, Steve and Billy trek their way out among the sparse trees abutting the Byers property. They are following the raucous sounds of the brat brigade.
“Why are the kids even here?” Billy asks. He would have been thrilled to drop Max off at the fucking arcade over spending any amount of extra time with her.
“They demanded to be here, so that’s the main reason, because there is literally no way to stop them from doing what they have decided on. It’s scary, actually. If I had that kind of single minded focus, I might be graduating with a 3.0 instead of a 2.5,” Steve muses. Beneath their feet, the fall leaves crackle pleasantly.
Which, to be fair, California doesn’t do fall, at least not the part Billy grew up in. But he’s also willing to say California skips the shitty seasons. He already knows winter is going to be the pits and spring is going to be nothing but disgusting, endless rain that will totally fuck with his hair.
“What are the other reasons?” Billy asks.
Steve slows down until he and Billy are shoulder to shoulder. “Well,” he pitches his voice low, “the kids have been having nightmares.”
Billy’s brow wrinkles. “And you know this how?”
“They talk to each other and Dustin talks to me. He’s, like, one of those stray cats you feed one time and then they keep coming back. And since I don’t exactly have a maxed out social card, I hear him out when he needs someone to talk to.” Steve doesn’t sound embarrassed that he’s basically adopted a little brother. He sounds - happy? Satisfied? Some emotion that Billy has never felt in relation to Max.
It’s a glaring reminder that his fucked up family now extends beyond just Billy and his dad. It’s swallowed Max and her mom too. Billy puts that in the same ‘ignore it’ pile he does with anything that will cease to matter once he leaves Hawkins in six months when he graduates.
They’ve stopped walking, but they can hear the kids screaming and shouting over what sounds like a leaf fight. Billy asks, “All the kids are having nightmares or just your goofy one? What’s wrong with his teeth?”
“There’s nothing wrong with his teeth,” Steve says defensively. “It’s this, like, genetic condition, his bones are like rubbery or something, it’s kind of cool.” Steve gives Billy a glance as if to make sure Billy isn’t going to make a thing of it.
Billy isn’t, he doesn’t really give a shit beyond it being weird to see a middle schooler who's still missing their two front teeth. “And the nightmares?” he prompts.
Steve shrugs. “Dustin, Will, and, uh, Max.” He glances over at Billy to see how he’ll take this information.
Billy takes a drink of his beer. “So what, we bury it and the nightmares stop?”
“No,” Steve says, “but I feel like if we bury it we are putting the, like, bad shit in the ground, and then maybe the kids can start letting themselves move on from it?”
Billy’s kind of blown away by this. He knows he’s a pretty self-centered bastard and he’s very much okay with that. He’s had to look out for himself his whole life. If everyone else doesn’t have to do that, then fucking great for them, but Billy isn’t about to rearrange his world for the sake of others when he knows how hard it is to be the only one who cares about his own life.
And here’s Steve. This seventeen year old high school jock who had to be used to being the center of his own world too. Now he’s trying to take care of a handful of middle schoolers, worrying about their, like, mental health when even their parents don’t seem to care? Coming up with grand schemes just to help some kids that aren’t even related to him sleep better at night?
It’s wild. Billy had heard from Tommy and some of the basketball guys that Steve used to be a totally different person before he started dating Nancy. This is his first time really seeing that as a reality. He wonders what it was about Nancy that changed Steve’s view.
How could Nancy ‘I’ll dump you for Jonathan Byers’ Wheeler; Nancy ‘my clothes are quintessential mid-west’ Wheeler; Nancy ‘my mom is honestly more of a babe than me’ Wheeler have had that profound of an impact on Steve?
Billy sizes Steve up. He’s lanky, he’s got great hair, he’s impossibly pretty, and his clothes are okay. He could reasonably have pretty much any girl he asked out. Which means he could reasonably be doing anything else with his night but this. “Why do you care so much about these kids?”
Steve looks surprised by the question. “I don’t know. I guess because who else is going to? I’ve been a dick before, and, uh, someone died and I didn’t even realize it had happened? So, I mean, I don’t want that to happen again. I can help them,” he gestures with the handle of his shovel towards the source of bright laughter deeper in the woods, “so I’m going to.” He shrugs. “It’s the right choice, you know?”
Billy really doesn’t. Billy has pretty much made his brand out of making the wrong choice. “I can’t fucking stand, Max,” he says in a rush. He doesn’t know what Steve means about someone dying and he’s not sure he really wants to know. Hawkins is fucked up enough as it is.
Steve tilts his head to consider Billy. “Isn’t that normal for siblings?”
“We aren’t siblings,” Billy refutes. “She’s just some pain in the ass who lives in my house because her mom was dumb enough to get married to my dad.”
“Way to not look through rose tinted glasses,” Steve says.
Billy regrets saying anything. Of course Steve wouldn’t get it. He doesn’t have Neil waiting at home to take out any of Max’s mistakes on him. “Are we digging this hole or what?” Billy starts walking again, ending their conversation.
Steve trails after him. “I mean she’s what, thirteen? And a girl. So that’s got to be weird for you. But, like, how long have her mom and your dad been married?”
Billy doesn’t want to answer, but he finds himself doing it anyway. “A year.”
Steve whistles. “Well, maybe you’re still getting used to each other or some shit?”
“Why are you even still talking?” Billy snaps.
The tip of a shovel pokes Billy in the shoulder. “Don’t get so pissed, man. We don’t have to talk about Max. We can talk about how we’re going to explain our blisters to coach at practice tomorrow. Because I definitely didn’t bring any gloves for this and that hole is going to need to be deep to fit this thing in it.”
~*~*~*~
The alien monster is just not what Billy was expecting. Somehow it’s worse. So much worse than whatever vague thing his mind has been picturing. The real thing is this weird, frozen hard, purple-grey skinned monstrosity. This head that fucking opens like a plant? Billy doesn’t know what to do with any of this.
“How did this not kill you?” Billy demands through gritted teeth as they start lugging the thing out of the Byers’ house.
The kids have a Little Red Ryder wagon waiting outside for them. But right now, the Demodog is in an old sheet with Billy at one end and Steve at the other.
“Luck,” Steve says plainly.
Billy shakes his head. “Fucking crazy.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Steve pants as they edge through the living room towards the front doorway.
“Here! Hey, I’ve got it!” No Teeth - Dustin, Billy mentally corrects - is trying to shove Billy out of the way to grab his end of the sheet.
“Fuck off,” Billy curses, elbowing the kid hard in the head as he fends him off.
“Dustin! Move,” Steve orders.
Dustin’s shoulders slump but at least he moves the fuck out of the way. “I’m trying to help, Steve.”
“Great, then push the wagon closer,” Billy bitches. The stupid wagon isn’t even at the front porch. It’s near the stupid shitty shed.
Dustin races over to pull the wagon over, but its tires get stuck in the dirt. “Uh, hold on, yep, I’ve got -”
Suddenly the wagon shoots towards them, its wheels turning as easily as if it was on hardwood. Billy freezes where he is, watching this impossibility. Steve makes a strangled sound as he hops back a step to keep from tripping over his own feet and dropping the alien dog.
“Jesus, Billy, a little heads up?”
“The wagon,” Billy says angrily. And yeah, Billy realizes he is the kind of guy that would be pissed off if he saw a ghost because he wouldn’t be able to explain how it exists. So right now, he’s pissed. “The wagon it -”
“Mouth breather,” scoffs the curly haired girl, stepping around the back of the shed with Max right beside her.
“El’s psychic,” Max says smugly.
Billy shoots a look to Steve for confirmation. Steve shrugs. “I mean, yeah?”
“What in the fuck,” Billy mutters, shaking his head at how fucking chaotic his life got since showing up at the Byers’, like, a fucking week ago.
“She made a kid pee his pants!” adds Dustin. “And she’ll do it to you too if you’re an asshole to us.”
Steve is tugging at the sheet to try and make Billy keep walking to the now very close wagon. Billy is not giving an inch. “That’s fucked up.” He stares hard at Steve. “Like what the hell, man?”
There’s honestly very little in this world left that scares Billy. He’s not scared of the alien monster and he knows he wouldn't be if it was still alive. He’d be pissed. Just like he is about this psychic bullshit. But a pre-teen with the ability to make him piss himself? That’s fucking terrifying.
“She won’t,” Steve hurriedly promises, but he sounds less than certain. Seeing Billy’s stormy expression, he darts a pleading look at El. “You won’t, right?”
“If you are an asshole,” El says to Billy, “I will. Friends take care of each other.”
Billy lifts his eyebrows sky high. “Whatever you want, Orphan Annie.”
“Her dad’s the sheriff, dumbass,” Max informs him snidely.
Billy’s not scared of cops. But he’s not exactly passe about them either. “Jesus. You had to fucking pick the weirdest group of friends, didn’t you, Maxine?”
For a weird moment, Max looks at him like he’s something other than her enemy. Then her expression shutters again. “Are you going to put that in the wagon or what? It’s starting to drip, you know.”
“Sick!” Steve shouts, thrusting the dog away from him and forcing Billy to swing his end too. The alien dog lands with a disgusting squishy thud in the wagon.
They stare down at it.
“Nasty,” Billy intones.
“Repulsive,” Steve agrees.
~*~*~*~
By the time Billy and Steve have finished piling dirt on the corpse of the alien dog, the sun is long down. The kids have scattered back to the Byers’ to watch shitty cable tv. Steve and Billy are sprawled out on the hood of the Camaro, a cooler of beer at their feet.
“So,” Steve says. Then he says nothing.
Billy rolls his head to the side against the windshield. “So what, Harrington?”
Steve huffs a breath, takes a drink from his beer. “So, like, we’re friends now, right? Like we buried a dead alien dog body together. That has to make us friends, right?”
In California, Billy had the same group of friends since elementary school. They were the friends Billy met the summer after his mom walked out. He’d met Andre, Benji, Jose, and Jonsey on his block. And when they’d tried out for basketball in middle school, they’d been the best players and that had been enough to cement lifelong friendship.
Until Billy got shipped out to Nowhere, Indiana. Billy might sit with the other jocks and he might take a girl out every weekend, but there is no one here that Billy gives a shit about. Which makes ‘friends’ a concept rather than a reality.
Because he’d have to care enough about living here in Hawkins to actually try for more than surface level friendship with the guys at school. It’s a real difficult thing since he hates everything about Hawkins. Including the people who live there.
But Steve - well, Billy thinks Andre would have liked his ridiculous house and rich bitch pool. Jonsey would have been willing to copy off even Steve’s shitty math because Jonsey was an absolute dunce when it came to anything but art and skateboarding. Benji would have thought Steve’s vacillation between dumb and jerk were hilarious. And Jose, he would have seen exactly the same thing Billy does. A really pretty guy. One whose dumb enough to put up with Billy’s shit.
Sighing aggressively, Billy blows a trail of smoke into the navy blue sky. “What, you need a fucking friendship bracelet or some shit, Steve?”
“Aw, Billy, I didn’t know you knew how to braid. Is that how you keep these curls so perfect?” Steve tugs playfully at a curl falling across Billy’s temple.
“You want your balls to stay attached, you keep your hands off my hair,” Billy threatens.
Steve turns so he’s on his side, grinning at Billy. “But your hair is so soft.” He twines another curl around his finger. “Sunshine and masculinity.”
Billy bites back a smile because it would be weird to smile Steve in a moment like this, where it’s just the two of them in the dark with only a few inches between them and Steve’s fingers are in his hair. So Billy decides to break apart the weirdness. “Who died that you knew?”
Steve jerks like he’s been shocked. He releases Billy’s hair, nervously wipes his palms against his ill-fitting jeans. “Oh. Uh, Nancy’s best friend, actually.”
Billy’s eyes widen. “No fucking way.”
“Way,” Steve says with a nervous nod. “She, uh, came to my place? It was a dumb party with me, Nancy, Tommy, and Carol. The four of us went in the house to fuck around, but Barb stayed out by the pool. And - “ he shrugs and doesn’t finish.
Billy waits him out. Steve takes a sip of his beer. He taps his fingers against his jeans. Then he exhales. “There’s another version of the alien. One that’s more like a person, I guess? Like it has arms and legs, still the same plant face, but it definitely didn’t talk or anything. Just kind of scream shriek. It was awful. But, yeah, that’s - uh - what got Barb? She was by my pool and then - then she wasn’t.”
Billy takes this all in. He tries to play it out in his mind. It leaves him with shivers. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” Steve murmurs. “It was really twisted. And - uhm, that was part of why Nancy and I broke up? Because Nancy said it was our fault that Barb died -”
Billy scoffs darkly. “Fat fucking chance. Literally, how could you know there was an alien lurking by your pool? Nancy’s a fucking bitch.”
Steve makes a choked off sound. “Dude. Nancy’s not a bitch.”
Billy fixes Steve with a look and lifts an unimpressed brow. “I thought we were all besties now, or whatever, Harrington. That means I get to tell you like it is and you listen to me. Nancy is a bitch, doesn’t matter what she’s like in real life. She dumped your ass and went out with Jonathan half a second afterwards. She’s a bitch.”
Steve presses his lips together and hums. “Robin might have said something similar.”
“Fuck off,” Billy says with disgust. “That’s where I draw the line, Harrington. I’ll call you my friend but Robin is going to remain a band dweeb a year behind us, got it?”
Steve laughs softly. “Yeah, whatever, Billy. As long as you keep bailing me out with my homework.”
Billy leans back against the Camaro and hides his smirk. For the first time, something in Hawkins doesn’t seem like complete shit.