Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Thanks for the call,” Steve says when he walks through the door. He’s dusted in snow. It’s blizzard conditions outside and his dad had warned him forty thousand times that he shouldn’t be driving. His dad also isn’t here this week, so.

Hopper looks up and frowns. “Just get him out of my station,” he says, sounding tired. He’s got a bruise on his cheek. Steve can see it under his beard. Thanks for the call probably doesn’t cover it. Hopper motions with one hand, heads down a hallway toward the back of the station.

Steve follows him into the back, still shaking off snow, but his steps slow to a stop when Hopper pushes open the last door and Steve’s left looking at the holding cells. There’s only two of them. Every time Steve’s been here--except this one--they’ve been empty.

Billy’s sitting in the last one, jammed up against bars and wall. When he hears the door open, he jumps to his feet, pushes hair out of his face, bares his teeth and--

“Oh,” he says. His voice is so carefully blank. Steve shuts his eyes for a second.

“You have ten minutes,” Hopper warns. “Then I want him gone.” Steve opens his eyes, nods.

“Yes, sir,” Billy says, snapping a salute behind the bars.

Steve wants to hit him in the fucking mouth and also hug him. He makes a face at Billy, but that means he’s really looking at him, the red in his cheeks, the bruises, his split lip. The way it seems like he hasn’t slept in a while. How thin he is.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Steve’s seen Billy Hargrove at all. It doesn’t seem like those weeks have been kind to him.

Steve walks up to the bars and braces his hands against them, over his head. Billy moves toward him like he’s drawn in, moves so that with Steve’s height, with his hands over his head like this, Billy is engulfed in Steve’s shadow.

He relaxes, there. Steve hadn’t really noticed the way he’d held himself tight, taut, until there’s no more tension in him at all. Billy steps close enough that he could touch, if he wanted to, but doesn’t.

“What’d you do this time?” Steve asks. He thinks that Hopper shouldn’t have called him, except that if he were Hopper, he’d have called him too, if he’d been out in a blizzard and seen this look in Billy’s eyes.

“I’m not your problem anymore,” Billy bites out.

Steve deserves that. Two months ago he’d been sitting on the couch and he’d pulled away and looked at Billy and said I think we should see other people and he’d said we’ve been out of high school for a while and he’d said I need to make real choices about my future and he’d pretended he didn’t see the way the light just sort of went out of Billy’s eyes and he’d pretended that he’d believed Billy when he said, “Whatever you want. It was just a good fuck for me anyway,” and slipped out of his house.

And then Steve had pretended, for five weeks, that he didn’t see Billy pick fights he shouldn’t pick. That he didn’t catalog new bruises every time they ran into each other at the grocery store.

And for the last three weeks, for three entire weeks, Steve’s been pretending that he hasn’t noticed Billy was--gone.

But here he is, not Steve’s problem anymore, except in all the ways that he is and everyone who knows either of them fucking knows it, which is why--“Hopper called,” Steve says. “What’d you do?”

“Fuck Hopper and fuck you,” Billy answers.

“I don’t see you walking away from me,” Steve says. It’s too true, too mean. Billy, still standing in his shadow, sets his jaw and looks away. “I don’t see you telling me to leave.”

It’s a challenge. They both know Billy won’t tell Steve to go away. “Leaving is usually your move, isn’t it?” Billy asks, and he’s still looking off to the side, still not moving away, still behind bars. It’s Steve’s turn to duck his gaze. “Who are you dating this week?” Billy asks. “Margie? Elizabeth?”

“I’m not seeing anyone right now,” Steve says, a little prim. “You’re clearly not, either.”

Billy finally steps closer, curls his hands around the bars. “Get me out of this fucking cage, Harrington.”

Harrington. It’s been a while since he’s been anything less than Steve to Billy, but he deserves it, probably.

Steve wants him out of that cage right the fuck now, even with all this in the air between them, but he knows the drill. “You want out of here you have to make nice with Hopper,” he says, instead of responding.

“Nobody fucking tells me what to do,” Billy says.

“You’re lucky he’s not actually arresting you! You took a swing at him!”

“He got in my way.”

“Are you fucking stupid, Billy? You could be in real trouble! What if he hadn’t called me? What’s your plan then? You got money to bail yourself out when you actually get arrested?”

“I’m not your fucking problem,” Billy says, pressing up close against the bars. Steve can feel his breath.

“You’re right,” Steve says. “You’re not. I’m out,” and then he turns and walks back toward the front.

It’s just.

He hesitates, stops, turns around. Billy’s already sitting down again, back in that corner. His face is pressed into his knees, his fingers locked behind his head. He’s curled into himself, and Steve’s seen that before, a hundred thousand times from Billy. Steve knows what he looks like when he’s holding himself together with nothing but the force of his will.

I think we should see other people, Steve had said, but what he’d meant was, I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but my dad says you can’t be a part of it and what he’d done is hate himself for two fucking months as he watched Billy spiral and eventually disappear.

And part of him, Steve admits, looking at Billy on the floor of that fucking cell, had been relieved. Billy had been his problem since the day he’d walked into Hawkins and then he’d just--he’d finally just gone away and Steve hadn’t really thought about him much, those three weeks, except to notice he wasn’t there, and Steve was worried, but only in a distant way.

The guilt hits him, then, how fucking easy it was for him to just pretend Billy wasn’t there.

Steve turns on his heel again and walks back up to the front of the station. There’s a moment where he thinks he might really do it, he might really just leave, but the wind howls outside and he’s not in high school anymore. He walks to the door of Hopper’s office. “What happens if I don’t take him?” Steve asks.

Hopper stares at him for a full silent minute. Steve counts it in his head. “Honestly,” Hopper says. “I don’t have a back up plan. I thought you’d take him.”

He means, I never thought you’d just abandon him like that and he doesn’t need to say it for Steve to know it. Steve had been relieved. Steve feels sick. “Can I have the keys, Hop?” he asks.

He catches them when Hopper tosses them to him and then he walks back, back, back to the cells, his heart thudding in his chest. Billy doesn’t look up when he walks in, doesn’t look up when Steve unlocks the cell or swings the door open, doesn’t look up when Steve walks across the floor, boots still wet, squelching a bit. He doesn’t look up when Steve crouches next to him, but he does, finally, when Steve rubs his thumb in little circles behind Billy’s ear. “What are you doing,” Billy asks, his voice not blank enough that Steve can’t hear the hurt in it. Billy is rigid in his grip, under the arm Steve’s got thrown around him. “Don’t,” he says, one hand shoving Steve back.

Steve stands up and holds out his hand. Billy, on the floor, looks up at him and then vaults to his feet, knocks Steve’s hand out of the way. He’s staring, Steve realizes, but he can’t look away. Billy not going to say it, he’s going to bite out these stupid, vicious little things he says, but Steve knows he’s hurting, knows he’s scared.

“Billy,” Steve says, stepping into his space and wondering if Billy’s going to hit him. “I’m not leaving. You just have to come with me.”

“That’s a big promise to make,” Billy says, tense, unbending under the hand Steve rests between his shoulders.

“Let me take you home.”

Billy isn’t exactly pliant, but he doesn’t say no, either. Steve steers him, hand still between his shoulders, out the front door of the station, tossing the keys at Hopper as he passes. Billy sinks into the passenger’s seat without comment, his spine rigid.

The wind howls. Steve leaves Billy alone in the car to brush away the snow. When he gets back in, his hair’s wet and his cheeks sting from the cold. Billy’s looking at him again, guarded. “We fucked for a year,” he says conversationally.

Steve chokes on air. “We did more than fuck,” he says.

“That’s not what you said. ‘We should see other people, this wasn’t serious, come on Billy, you must have known that.’ Isn’t that what you said?”

Steve curls his fingers around the steering wheel and drives carefully out onto the unplowed streets of Hawkins. There’s not much snow, yet, but it’s falling fast. He wants to be home. Also, Billy’s right. Steve did say that. So he doesn’t say anything now. He focuses on the road.

“Isn’t it?” Billy presses. He leans forward, across his seat, shoves at Steve’s shoulder. “You lookin’ for a good fuck tonight? Is that it?”

Billy’s hand is on his thigh, then, creeping higher. Steve grits his teeth. “Knock it off,” he says, ignoring the want twisting in his stomach.

“Why?” Billy says, leaning across the console, his lips brushing against Steve’s ear. Steve shivers. “Don’t you want me to touch you, Harrington?”

It’s the last name that does it, like being plunged in cold water. Steve smacks Billy’s hand away and shifts. “Knock it off,” he says again. “I’m driving. Have you ever fucking driven in the snow, Billy? No distractions.”

Billy grins, sharp and mean, and sinks against the door, palms up. “Yes sir,” he sing-songs, grinning wider when Steve’s knuckles go tighter on the wheel with recognition.

“Stop it,” Steve says and wonders why he’s doing this, why he’d turned around, why he’s taking Billy home. He asks a different question instead. “Why were you in there? Where have you been, Billy?” Steve glances away from the road in time to see Billy’s face shift to something closer to normal, something a little more like the Billy that Steve knows from early mornings and late nights.

“I was away,” Billy says. “I came back. I went to get a drink and I ran into Jeremy--you remember him?”

Steve remembers everyone. Jeremy was a year ahead of them in school, always around parties the year Billy moved here. On the football team. He’d never left Hawkins. “Yeah,” he says.

“Well,” Billy says, “He still talks a lot of shit.” Billy shrugs. “I didn’t fucking like what he had to say and I told him about it.”

Steve rolls to a stop under the red glow of a stoplight and glances at Billy. He’s looking down at his knuckles. They’re bruised and red. Billy’s grin grows sharp again. “I won,” he says. “So I got arrested. Seems fair.”

“He’s huge, Billy,” Steve says. “What the fuck could he have said that would make you want to pick that fucking fight?”

“Didn’t you hear me, pretty boy? I won. His size doesn’t matter,” Billy says. He’s still looking down at his knuckles when he says, “I never could stomach other people trying to talk shit about you.”

“Billy--”

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Billy asks, voice close to a growl. He slams his hand against the dashboard. “What the fuck did you do to me that I can’t stop fucking being in love with you? What the fuck did you--” Billy trails off when his voice breaks. Steve gives him a minute, takes the last turn, the last two hundred feet until he’s pulling into the driveway.

The car slides a bit on the snow, spins a bit, but not too much. Steve’s still going to blame his white knuckled grip on the steering wheel on that, though. “You don’t love me,” Steve says. “C’mon, Billy. You don’t love me.”

“Fuck you,” Billy whispers. “I’m going home.”

“Not in this, you’re not,” Steve says. “Look you can--you can sleep in a guest room. On the couch. I don’t care, just. I told Hopper I’d--”

“Fine,” Billy says. He gets out of the car and walks up to the house like he lives there. Once, Steve remembers, he basically had.

Steve takes a second in the snow to shut his eyes and let the cold make his ears burn. Then he follows Billy inside.

He finds Billy’s boots toed off in the middle of the hallway, wet tracks of snow on the floor. He finds his leather jacket on the stairs. Steve follows the trail, a little afraid of what he’s going to find, but the bathroom door is locked when he tries it, the shower running.

Steve goes to his room, leaves a change of clothes for Billy outside the bathroom and--even though it’s not late, he’s just so fucking tired--he goes to bed.

~

He wakes up to the sound of someone moving around in the house. Steve’s been sleeping alone for two months. It takes him a second to push down the panic and remember that Billy’s here.

He gets out of bed and walks downstairs. He finds Billy in the kitchen, shirtless, sweatpants low on his hips, digging around in the refrigerator. “You got any food in this fucking house?” he asks without looking up.

“How’d you know it was me?” Steve asks.

“I’d know your footsteps anywhere,” Billy says, and Steve’s heart beats painfully in his chest for the two beats it takes Billy to say, “Who the fuck else would it be?”

Steve’s heart, he’s surprised to realize, still beats painfully in his chest. Maybe it’s the way Billy looks digging around in his fridge.

“Billy,” he says, a little helpless, and there must be something in his voice, because Billy straightens up and looks at him, shuts the refrigerator slowly.

“What, Harrington?”

“You call me Steve,” Steve says. “You call me sweetheart.”

Billy’s jaw goes tight. “We’re seeing other people,” he says. “Your dad has a plan for you. We were just fucking, right?”

Steve takes a few steps forward. Billy takes a few steps back, hits the counter, has nowhere to go. “I don’t--we weren’t just fucking, Billy,” Steve says. “Jesus, you must know that.”

Billy lifts himself up so he’s sitting on the counter. Steve’s mom would hate that. Steve steps between the v of his legs. It’s easier, he thinks, when it’s this late at night and there’s a snowstorm outside, when Billy has bruises because he picked a dumb fight. No one has ever known him like Billy has, Steve realizes. He’s never been this much his--his own fucking person with anyone else.

It takes a second, but Billy slings his arms around Steve’s shoulders and slumps forward a bit, his necklace dangling in the air between them. Steve curls his fingers around it out of habit. It’s warm from Billy’s skin. “I shouldn’t be in love with you,” Steve murmurs. “But I am. So,” he shrugs, Billy’s arms moving with the motion.

Billy goes rigid at that, starts to pull back, but Steve drops the necklace to slide his hands over Billy’s shoulders, up and down his sides, touches like he hasn’t touched in two months, until Billy is loose underneath his fingers. Steve shifts closer, then. He tips his head up, brushes his nose against Billy’s jaw, follows it with his mouth, soft, careful, hesitant kisses that trail down the side of Billy’s throat.

Billy makes a quiet, pleading sound, not quite a word, but nearly one. Steve kisses lower, brushes his mouth over Billy’s shoulder, bites down into warm skin and soothes his tongue over the marks. Billy’s fingers grip his shoulders, then, dig in. They pull Steve closer. Billy doesn’t push him away.

“I love you,” Steve murmurs, turns his head to mouth at Billy’s throat, to kiss over his pulse when Billy tips his head back. Steve slides his hands up, tangles his fingers in Billy’s hair and pulls him down until their lips are almost touching. “I love you. I love you. I’m sorry.”

“Steve,” Billy says on an exhale, and then he’s pushing off the counter so that he’s standing there in Steve’s space, on his own two feet. Billy kisses him then, with desperation, all teeth and tongue and need, and Steve slows it down, keeps Billy close.

“Come to bed,” Steve murmurs. “You look like you haven’t seen a bed in--”

“Two months,” Billy says, but only half like he’s joking.

Steve leads him upstairs. He has a whole plan. It involves a lot of makeup sex, a lot of Steve making Billy feel fucking great, but--

It’s foiled when Billy falls asleep, drooling a little on Steve’s shoulder. It’s fine, Steve thinks. They’ve got time.

Chapter Text

Steve wakes up for the second time that night because Billy won’t stop squirming. He blinks awake in the cold black light before the sun rises and thinks about how he used to sleep with a light on, but doesn’t really anymore. He thinks about how he used to sleep with Billy every night, but doesn’t really anymore. He thinks about how one of those things is about becoming brave and the other is about giving in.

He used to sleep with Billy every night. There was a time when Steve knew every nightmare, but as he blinks Billy’s face into dim focus, he knows that he doesn’t know this one. Billy’s face is half in shadows, but Steve can see the way his brows twist tight. His eyes are wet. Billy never makes a sound in his nightmares, but he hisses out a breath and curls into himself, scoots away from Steve’s heat, out from under his arm.

Steve doesn’t know this nightmare, but he knows Billy’s nightmares all the same. He pushes himself up and away so they aren’t touching. He reaches over and flicks on the light, floods the room in warm yellow. He waits.

It takes longer than it used to, Steve thinks, watching the way Billy’s body slowly registers the light and pulls him out of sleep. Billy’s always been a light sleeper, always ready to wake up at the slightest change. Years of his dad barging into his room, Steve knows, had made him ready for anything, so this has always worked. Steve gives him space, turns on the light, waits for Billy to come back to himself in silence.

It’s just--it didn’t used to take this long and when Billy finally sits up, he swipes once at his eyes and then lies back down, on his side, his back to Steve and his spine rigid. Steve doesn’t know this nightmare and that’s his own fucking fault.

“Billy?” Steve says. “Can I--”

“Don’t touch me,” Billy bites out. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

Steve shuts his eyes against the hurt that blooms in his chest, because that’s not fucking fair of him, he doesn’t get to be hurt. “Do you want me to le--”

He jumps when Billy slams his fist into the headboard. “No,” Billy says, his voice as tight and rigid as his back. He’s got the blankets pushed down around his waist. Steve watches the muscles shift as Billy shakes his hand out.

“Right,” Steve says, still just staring. “I--I won’t leave, then.”

Billy shoulders relax at that. The hurt that blooms in Steve’s chest this time has nothing to do with his own hurt feelings.

“Where are your parents?” Billy asks.

Steve shifts in bed enough that he can peer over Billy’s side and check his hand. Red, again, but not bleeding. Steve thinks he should probably get ice for it, but he’d said he wouldn’t leave. “New York,” Steve says. “There’s a new client my dad’s trying to impress.”

“Mrs. Harrington will be wearing her diamonds,” Billy says, pitching his voice so that it sounds formal.

Steve grins, can’t help it. “And Mr. Harrington, of course, has the gold watch with the pearl face.”

Billy’s shoulders shift as he laughs. “But it’s their son,” he says, “Who really steals the show.”

Steve lifts the covers, “In Hawkins High sweats and a Metallica t-shirt, the youngest Harrington wows the crowd.”

It’s a bit they’ve done a million times. Billy rolls onto his back, then his other side so he’s finally facing Steve. He’s got his head pillowed on his arm as he squints at Steve’s chest. “You’re wearing a Metallica t-shirt?” he asks.

Steve shifts, pulls it off his chest a bit so that Billy can see it. “Can’t believe you didn’t notice.”

“I was distracted,” Billy says. Steve nods, lets the shirt fall back against his chest. “When are they coming back, Harrington?”

Steve does a bad job of hiding his wince at his last name on Billy’s lips. “Tuesday,” Steve says.

His eyes are still closed, but he doesn’t need to see Billy’s face to know how fucking uncertain he must look when he says, “Right. I’ll be outta here by then.”

Steve opens his eyes again and finds Billy staring at him. His eyes look darker when they’re lit by shitty bedroom lights and not the sun. His cheeks are winter pale, not a freckle in sight. “You don’t have to,” he says, which isn’t exactly true and they both know it.

“You made your choice, Harrington,” Billy says. “You’re doing me a favor tonight. I get it. Old time’s sake. Nostalgia. Whatever you want to call it.”

“That’s not what this is,” Steve hears himself saying. “C’mon, Billy. You wouldn’t be in my bed if that was what this is.”

“Where else would I be?” Billy asks. “You think I don’t know you’re not strong enough to put me out in the fucking streets with this storm?”

“You’re right about that,” Steve says, because he isn’t, because if he were he would’ve left Billy in that cell.

“Yeah,” Billy says. “I also know that you’re not strong enough to keep me around once your old man and his life plan get back into town, so.” Billy rolls away again, his back to Steve in bed, the tension back in his shoulders. “I’ll take what I can get,” Billy says, muffled by the pillow.

Billy had said not to touch him, but Steve’s not sure he’s strong enough not to do that, either. “Billy,” he says, but Billy doesn’t move, so Steve shifts closer in bed, curls his fingers around Billy’s upper arm, squeezes. “Billy,” he says again. Billy’s muscles are coiled under his fingers, like he’s getting ready to run. “C’mon--just--”

“I’m tired, Harrington,” Billy says. “Can we just go back to sleep?”

He doesn’t say don’t touch me so Steve, like Billy, will take what he can get. He reaches out and turns the light off, letting the room plunge back into darkness. When he gets back under the covers, he curls up around Billy from behind, an arm around his waist, his nose pressed against the back of Billy’s neck.

Billy doesn’t pull away. He does the opposite. Steve feels like Billy melts into him, like he’s trying to dissolve every inch of space between them. “I’m sorry,” Steve whispers against Billy’s skin.

Billy doesn’t say anything, his breathing evens out, but Steve knows Billy well enough to know when he’s only pretending to be asleep.

~

Steve wakes up again, but Billy’s out cold, his face smooth and young in the pale sunshine of a winter morning. Steve scoots away, slow, eases back from Billy and resists the urge to kiss his shoulder. It’s right there, it’s so close, and he wants to so badly, but it would wake Billy up and Steve doesn’t want to do that.

Also, he’s not sure he has the right anymore.

He’s almost to the door when he realizes he doesn’t want Billy to wake up alone and think that Steve’s left. He grabs a sticky note off his desk, pretends that he doesn’t see the folder of spreadsheets he’s supposed to--go through? Steve doesn’t even know what the fuck his job is, honestly.

Downstairs, he writes. Making breakfast. Come when you wake up.

He doesn’t sign it because he doesn’t know what name he could use that wouldn’t feel loaded. He remembers what it felt like when Billy called him sweetheart, his voice raspy from sleep, his skin warm against Steve’s.

Steve sticks the note to his pillow and throws on a sweater over his t-shirt before he walks on the quietest feet he can manage down to the kitchen. He opens the fridge and sighs. Billy wasn’t kidding last night. They really don’t have any fucking food.

There’s a cabinet in the back that his parents almost never look in or restock. He walks to that corner of the kitchen and digs around inside and--finds it.

Bisquick. Steve smiles and thinks about a summer morning, their skin sticky from heat and sweat, when Billy had confessed that he likes pancakes better than waffles, but he never says it out loud because he’s afraid El would kill him with her mind.

Steve has bought so many fucking boxes of Bisquick since then, just because it had made Billy smile.

He’s heating up the pan on the stove, watching butter melt, when Billy comes into the kitchen. Steve’s expecting him to be shirtless, but he isn’t. He’s got one of Steve’s old Hawkins Basketball sweatshirts on, and it doesn’t fit him right at all, but it’s not as tight as it had once been on him.

He looks tired, still.

“Hey,” Steve says, because he’s not sure where they left things last night. “I’m making breakfast.”

Billy’s staring at the stove. His hands curl into fists at his sides, but he walks to the table and sits down. He doesn’t say anything, but every now and against Steve glances up and catches Billy staring at him.

Steve goes around the corner to grab the plates his mom doesn’t keep for special guests--and so doesn’t keep in the fucking kitchen, she’s a loon--and when he comes back Billy isn’t at the table.

His heart stops beating for exactly twelve seconds, but then Billy appears holding two mugs and silverware and napkins. He’s setting the fucking table. “What are you--”

“It’s all in the same spot,” Billy says, shrugging.

Billy looks comfortable in the kitchen, at this stupid little table that his mom hates, but Steve loves, because it’s not formal or ostentatious and it just seems like a place where a family would eat. It’s where he and Billy have eaten what feels like ten thousand meals.

Billy sets the table. Steve flips the pancakes. Soon, they’re sitting across from each other, drinking coffee that Billy brewed and eating pancakes that Steve cooked and it feels like no time has passed at all.

Until Steve looks at Billy. Like, really looks at him and sees how tired he is. Steve knows Billy well enough to know what it looks like when he’s on edge, all anticipation, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waiting, this time, for Steve to tell him it’s time for him to leave.

The pancakes taste less good when Steve looks at Billy closely enough to see all that.

“I’ll get the dishes,” Billy says when they’re done, when they haven’t spoken a single word to each other, but they have no more food to eat. “You cooked.”

He’s taking the plates before Steve has time to process the words. Steve sits at the table and watches Billy clean, watches him grab for soap and sponge and dish towels and know where all of things are, because for a long time they spent time together in this kitchen, until Steve said that he wanted to see other people, because his dad said successful men don’t have--

Steve shuts his eyes and hates himself, because his dad had said awful things about Billy and Steve had nodded his head and gotten a job. Last night, apparently, Jeremy Rice had said awful things about Steve, and Billy had kicked his ass and gotten arrested.

“Harrington?”

Steve has never heard Billy sound so uncertain so many times before. He opens his eyes and has to blink too fast to keep from--what, crying in the kitchen? What fucking right does he have?

Billy takes a half step forward, his eyes searching Steve’s face. “Harrington--what--”

“I’m so sorry,” Steve says, the words torn out from somewhere deep inside his chest. “I didn’t mean it, Billy. I didn’t mean any of it.”

Billy’s still standing next to the sink. “I need a cigarette,” he says.

Steve doesn’t move to get him one, so Billy goes himself. He knows where Steve keeps them. He clomps back downstairs and goes for the slider, but it’s still snowing outside and Billy’s got his feet shoved into boots that weren’t made for snow and he’s only wearing Steve’s sweatshirt. “Don’t,” Steve says, when Billy reaches for the handle. “Just smoke it in here. You can’t go out in that.”

“Your mom will kill you,” Billy says, playing with Steve’s lighter.

“I don’t care,” Steve says, means it. “I don’t want--you can’t go out in that.”

Billy shrugs and lights the cigarette. He exhales smoke at the curtains. Steve swallows hard and then he’s standing up, moving across the room, crowding into Billy’s space until Billy’s got his back against the door, cigarette in his hand. Steve frames Billy’s face with both his hands, can feel the surprise in his expression underneath his palms, his fingers.

It isn’t as easy in the morning as it was last night in all the darkness. It’s harder to pretend he’s a good person, but he wants to, so badly. “I love you,” he says. Billy ducks his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he says, and Billy’s eyes flick back up. He’s so close. Steve is drowning in all that blue. “It isn’t--” he stops and says, “Fuck, Billy. I don’t know what to say.”

“Words were never really your thing,” Billy says, his voice a little hoarse.

When Steve kisses him, he tastes like cigarette and a little bit like syrup, sweet under all that smoke. Steve licks past the part in Billy’s lips and kisses him until he’s breathless with it, until Billy’s dropping the cigarette on his mother’s tile floor and stomping haphazardly at it, still wearing his boots, so that he can push his hands up under Steve’s t-shirt and drag his nails across Steve’s back.

Steve groans against Billy’s mouth, pushes closer. He bites down on Billy’s lip, then ducks his head to kiss down Billy’s throat. Billy shudders, rocks his hips against Steve’s. Steve drops his hands to Billy’s hips, pulls him in closer, rolls their hips together and hides his moan in Billy’s skin. They’re both hard, desperate for friction, Steve slots his leg between Billy’s and uses the hands he has on Billy’s hips to pull him in. Billy’s breath stutters out of him as he grinds against Steve’s thigh.

Steve lifts his head, crashes their lips together again, and it’s messy, and desperate, and so, so good, the drag of their tongues together, how soft Billy’s lips still are, how he tastes like Steve remembers, maybe the only thing about him that Steve feels is completely unchanged.

Billy makes this soft, desperate sound, and Steve feels the way the muscles of his stomach tense. Steve bites down on Billy’s lower lip, is on his knees before he really thinks it through. He pulls down Billy’s sweatpants and scrapes his teeth over the inside of Billy’s thigh.

Billy’s hips press forward and Steve grins, kisses where he’d bitten down, runs his fingers over Billy’s thighs. He’s giving Billy a chance to say no, but Billy doesn’t, he moans again and Steve shifts his weight, curls his fingers around Billy’s length and strokes before he wraps his lips around the head and sucks, just this side of not enough.

Steve knows this, too, knows how to take Billy apart with his mouth, knows where to drag his fingers across the skin of Billy’s hips and thighs, knows to look up at him as he swallows him down, as Billy’s hips twitch forward and his fingers curl tight in Steve’s hair.

“Fuck,” Billy’s saying, “Fuck, sweetheart, you feel so good,” and Steve’s stomach twists at the praise, at the name, and he swallows around Billy and Billy’s hand drops to his shoulders as he fucks into Steve’s mouth. “I’m--” Billy starts, a warning, and Steve drags his fingernails over Billy’s thighs.

Billy comes saying Steve like he always has, like it’s just for the two of them, like it’s something bigger than a name and Steve swallows, hands on Billy’s hips, bracing him through it.

He wipes his mouth on the corner of his sweater then tugs it off, feels like he’s on fire, doesn’t want the extra layer. He tosses it to the corner of the kitchen and stands on shaky legs, tugs Billy’s sweats back up, presses in close again. He hesitates, for a second, before he goes to kiss Billy. Billy’s eyes are wide, but he’s smiling. He guides Steve back to his mouth with a hand in his hair.

Billy kisses him and it’s a little obscene, all wet heat, chasing the taste of himself on Steve’s tongue. Steve’s so hard he’s aching, the heat in his belly coiled tight in anticipation. He’s desperate, pressing his hips against Billy’s for the friction, but then Billy’s hand is on his hip, his fingers are on the waistband of Steve’s sweats, then his fingers are wrapped around Steve and it’s rough and the angle is all wrong, but Steve can’t put enough distance between them to let Billy get something better, and anyway, it doesn’t take much, Steve’s too keyed up, every nerve frayed by how suddenly close Billy is again.

“Billy,” Steve says, “Billy, fuck, Billy,” and he presses his face into Billy’s shoulder as he comes apart in Billy’s hand. He doesn’t move, after, just stays there with his face pressed into Billy’s shoulder. Steve thinks, a little distantly, hazy at the edges, that he might be trembling.

He feels Billy pull him closer with his other hand, feels the palm of it sliding slowly up and down Steve’s back. Steve never wants to move from this spot, knows it’s selfish, doesn’t care. “Steve,” Billy says, turning his head so that his lips brush against Steve’s ear. “I’m not going to stand in the kitchen and get gross and sticky. C’mon,” and he drops his hand from Steve’s back and pushes him gently away.

Billy washes his hands in the sink and Steve stands there and watches him and doesn’t move, can’t move.

It’s only when Billy comes back over and takes his hands, pulls him upstairs and pushes him into the bathroom and says, “Clean up. You’re being gross,” that he feels like he comes back to himself. Billy walks away and Steve changes. He lingers in the bathroom, washes his face to chase the red flush off his cheeks.

When he goes back downstairs, he half expects Billy to be gone, but he’s sitting on the couch. Steve hesitates before he goes and sits next to him. Billy doesn’t pull away, so Steve shifts closer until he’s pressed against Billy, legs thrown across his lap. Billy gets an arm around him, then, and says, “You can’t do this to me,” but he’s holding on. “I can’t walk away from this,” Billy says. “I’ll take what I can get, Harrington.”

He’s Harrington again. Steve shuts his eyes and splays his fingers across Billy’s chest. “I got like, a certificate,” Steve says quietly, his eyes still shut.

Billy goes tense under his palm and Steve gets that, because Billy’s saying something real and Steve’s saying something weird, but it’s got a point. “What?” Billy says.

“It’s not a degree,” Steve says. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you about it. I thought you’d--I didn’t want--” he hesitates, “I was worried I wouldn’t pass and I didn’t want you to think I was stupid if I didn’t. But it’s like--I have a certificate and I think I could probably--get a degree, now, maybe, with the experience. If I wanted. And I’ve been--I get paid, so I’ve got some money saved.”

Steve opens his eyes and tilts his head back so he can see Billy’s face. He looks like he’s on the verge of falling apart. “What are you saying?” he asks.

“I’m saying,” Steve says, “That I don’t want you to leave and that I don’t care what my dad says and that I should have punched him in his fucking mouth when he said I couldn’t keep you around. I’m saying I won’t ever make that choice again. I’m saying my parents don’t get home until Tuesday and I don’t know what your plans are for the weekend, but I’d really like it if you’d help me pack my shit and find an apartment. And maybe help me with my resume.”

“A handjob in the kitchen doesn’t mean forever,” Billy says, a little bitter. “Sex is sex, Harrington.”

“This isn’t just sex,” Steve says. “I don’t care if you never want to touch me again. I want--I just want you, Billy. I always did, okay? I love you. I’ll prove it to you every fucking day from now on. I fucked up. I won’t do it again. I’m--” Steve shuts his eyes, “I wasn’t. I was scared. I won’t be anymore.”

“You don’t mean that,” Billy says. “You don’t--”

“I do,” Steve says. “I’ll prove it.”

Billy’s eyes are shut and he nods. Steve curls back up against him and falls asleep.

When he wakes up, Billy’s gone. Steve’s not surprised.

He’s not relieved, either. He wants him back.

~

Tuesday comes and goes. His parents come back. Steve has all the kids over and gets them pizza and doesn’t let them have any beer even though he has a fridge full of it and they’ve been very fucking helpful. He doesn’t hear from Billy and Steve sort of gets that, understands why, and so he throws himself into getting comfortable with the way things are now and tries not to remember that Billy smells like cold air and cigarettes and home. That he tastes like syrup.

The door to the apartment bangs against the wall and the sound makes him jump. El laughs at him from where she’s digging around in the box she’s unpacking. It’s the four hundredth time that’s happened and he still jumps every time. He can’t shut the door because Dustin and Lucas are carrying boxes up from the moving truck Steve has had for too long, he’s gonna owe late fees, but when your friends who help you move are a gang of barely teenagers, things go a little slower. It feels like that door has been open for ten million years, but he can’t really complain about it.

“Bisquick?” El asks, looking up and wrinkling her nose. She’s waving the box around.

“I like pancakes,” Steve lies.

“No you don’t,” she says. “We all like waffles.”

“I like pancakes,” Billy says from the doorway. Steve jumps about ten feet into the air and drops the book he’d been holding. Billy eyes him, a little nervous, his arms crossed over his chest. “I didn’t know you read,” he says, a little mocking.

Steve has eyes only for Billy, but he’s aware enough of his surroundings to hear El say, “I am--leaving now,” and watch her duck past Billy. Suddenly it’s just the two of them in this new space.

“I like books,” Steve says a little defensive, which is kind of a lie, but whatever.

“You moved out,” Billy says.

“My dad said you or the house and the job,” Steve says. “I made a choice.”

“What if I don’t want to do this again?” Billy says.

“Then I fucked up,” Steve says, heart in his throat, “And I deserve that, but I’m hoping you do want--you still want me because I really fucking love you, Billy.”

“Okay,” Billy says. He walks inside. “What box do you want me to start with?”

They get distracted, Billy pushed up against the wall and his hands in Steve’s hair as they kiss and kiss and kiss.

So when Lucas and Dustin come upstairs, they drop their boxes and scream bloody murder and Steve’s neighbors call the police and Hopper shows up and he has never looked more exasperated, Steve thinks, which is impressive because one time he had to fight off the apocalypse with a bunch of like, teenagers and eighth graders, but none of that matters.

Billy and Steve are making out on the couch Dustin helped Steve carry up the stairs and honestly, Steve can’t think of a good reason to stop, not one good reason.

“Listen,” Hopper says. “I’m happy for you, but kid, that moving truck is getting towed.”

Okay. He can think of one good reason, Steve admits as he scrambles down the stairs.

Billy gets into an argument with the tow guy because he doesn’t like his tone when he talks to Steve.

Hopper is, luckily, already there to fake-arrest them both.

It is the single most chaotic day of Steve’s life, but it ends with him and Billy in bed in an apartment that’s so much grosser than anywhere Steve’s ever lived, a box of pizza discarded on the floor, and Billy’s hands in his hair.

“I love you,” Steve murmurs, because he does, and there’s no shouldn’t about it.