maybe there is a beast - harringroveheart (2024)

Chapter 1: we are going to have fun on this island

Chapter Text

Steve Harrington punches like a rich kid and a puss*.

It’s more performance than anything, Billy can tell. A sort of resignation to the windup, the cheesy line. Like he’s only half-way committed to the role: Steve Harrington, fearless protector.

The idiot telegraphs the whole thing too, as if he’s never gotten into a brawl that wasn’t a show for some high-school cow, shaking out his fist like he’s already anticipating the sting in his knuckles. Billy lets it connect anyway. Because he’s been itching to get his evils out, sure—but also because this whole night has been f*cked all to hell—so upside down and frustrating and just plain weird: Max’s open window, the ugly little melodrama with his dad, the long dark drive to sh*thole Byers—and he just wants something he can understand.

Harrington’s first hit pops him right in the nose, gets the blood vessels going like same-sh*t-different-day, cinema perfect, all wallop and sound.

God. He’s going to cry—can’t ever seem to help it. It f*cking stings in a way that’s connected to his defective tear ducts. Even the most perfunctory of hard-handed slaps from his dad can get him going, especially if there’s an audience. He can already taste his own blood and feel the burn of tears in his eyes, the fearful murmuring of those weird kids as loud as a rocket in his ears. They were all cheering a moment ago, except for Max; she knows better.

Harrington is pushing his ridiculous prom-king hair out of his face, having that quiet moment of realization that he’s started something altogether more dangerous than what he’d pictured in his little hero fantasy—that he hasn’t got the juice for what Billy can take, that Billy is going to make them both play this thing out ugly. He'd figured Harrington was dumb as a bag of hammers, but the guy’s actually surprisingly composed, using the diminishing moment of entropy before one of them swings to size Billy up to put him down, eyes dark and intuitive.

Huh.

Selective intelligence, he guesses.

But...there’s something else there too.

He could just be imagining things. He did just take a direct hit to the face after all—but there’s something about Harrington, some barely perceptible shift from trying on a role to something more familiar, something that’s been kept sleeping. Billy can sense it like a snake tasting the air: Harrington’s awake now. Almost...eager. Like he needs this fight too.

The thought of it is so absurd it’s hysterical—has this choked-up exhausted laughter coming out of him. He was supposed to go on a date tonight, sink a few beers, maybe get lucky—but instead he’s here, in this crackpot house, with these weirdo middle schoolers, and finally, finally, he’s getting a glimpse at the guy who might have been king.

“Get out,” Harrington says, voice heavy with contempt. Touches two fingers to his chest.

It’s ballsy. Suicidal.

It’s more than Billy could have ever hoped for.

Harrington presses and Billy lets himself be pressed, feeling the slow unfurling of violence inside him, the weight of his arms, the thudding of his pulse in his ears. There’s a silence between them, sparking with anticipation; as magnetic as a kiss.

Honestly? He hopes Harrington doesn’t plant his feet for this one, because he’s going to want to roll with it.

It’s a fast swing, hard enough to take teeth out. He doesn’t bother disguising the throw, and—of course—Harrington ducks, fast and graceful, coming through with some of that agility that makes him such a vexing defensive player. Then he’s up and punching Billy in the mouth, and again across the jaw; meaner now that he knows he has to put Billy down and keep him down.

The third hit hurts just right, gets him tasting his own blood over his teeth, shorts him out, everything else falling away to white noise. Harrington getting laid out now is just an inevitability; he can keep dodging or he can take his licks early—Billy’s not going to be able to stop until he’s pulp.

In the end, Harrington goes belly up without much of a fuss, cradling his head like he’s still trapped in the moment of a plate breaking over it. Billy barely sees him—can’t hear a thing over the rush of adrenaline. He’ll remember details later: the drawn-out hurt sound Harrington couldn’t control; the way he’d staggered, tried to draw away out of Billy’s grip, instinctively afraid to get hit again; the limp roll of his head side to side and the slick spill of blood as his lip split open.

The unexpected sting of the needle.

Max.

It’s better than being high, whatevershe's just stuckhim with. He stumbles to his feet, the world turning syrupy in the time it takes to pull the syringe out of his neck, the ground tilting out from under him just as soon as he tries to step forward.

Yeah, this is definitely cheating.

Max is saying something, angry, suddenly taller than him—over him?—the colors of her hair and face bleeding together like a smeared oil painting. Billy’s mouth is cotton candy. He can’t hear her, is too busy melting down to particles to reply.

Then he’s underwater.

^^^

Once, Billy’s mom took him out of school so they could go to the beach. He doesn’t remember much about it, except for the anxious feeling of looking back to shore every so often, afraid she wouldn’t be able to see him so far out, and the sucking blackness of the current that pulled him under for a full minute.

He’s in that blackness now, one moment sinking, rolling, breathing water and then—jerking awake—Max slamming a bat full of nails between his legs, but then he blinks and—

Nothing.

He’s alone, the smack of the bat on the floorboards just an echo in his brain.

It takes him a long slew of moments to remember where he is, flat on his back, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, thoughts coalescing inside his aching skull. He has no idea how long he’s been out for but it’s long enough that his body is stiff with cold, the front door of the Byers’ house left wide open, paper sliding over the floor like dead leaves.

He’d registered that the place was a dump when he first pushed his way in. Beat-up furniture, busted window and glass on the floor, the psych ward drawings taped up everywhere—the Wheeler woman hadn’t given him the half of it. But now that he’s actually looking around the place is downright f*cking creepy. No way in hell he’s ever coming back here, or Max either, once this gets back to Neil.

He picks himself up, scrubbing at the blood crusted under his nose and testing his jaw while he waits for his half-frozen legs to cooperate. His face is throbbing and numb so he heads for the kitchen.

This sh*thole better have ice.

His hand is on the fridge door before he realizes he’s standing amidst the wreckage of all its scattered contents. Shelves and soggy ready meals, and something spilled and slimy. Something f*cking stinks. He scoops up a half-defrosted bag of peas, pressing it to his lip and then dropping it when he realizes the bag is more wet than cold. Peas explode everywhere, skittering over the floorboards, over the swathes of scribbled-on paper.

Jonathan Byers, he thinks with dim amusem*nt. Billy dismissed the guy as just some inconsequential loner type too cliché to warrant his attention—a fact which they’d both used to their advantage, sharing the occasional lunch break in the school darkroom, mutually disinterested in each other. When Billy next sees him they’re going to have a little chat. Anyone living in this level of f*cked up has layers.

Well. There’s no ice. And no food that Billy is interested in eating if the smell of rot coming off the fridge is any indicator. He’s wasted enough time here and he’s still not sure what his next move should be. When he steps out on the porch he’s half-expecting to see a police car, or Neil’s truck maybe. But there’s nothing. He's already patting his pocket for his keys before he even truly processes just how much nothing he’s seeing.

Bitch, he thinks.

Bitch.

His stomach goes cold and hollow at the shock of it—can barely process that she would dare. If Max thinks her little show of assertiveness is going to survive the night and letting Steve Harrington take his car out for a joy ride then she has another thing coming. Even his dad has never touched his car. It’s one of the few things they both respect.

God, his dad is really gonna let him have it over this—losing Max and now the Camaro. And losing a fight too. He doubts Neil will be too keen to hear Billy’s interpretation on that one.

He smokes two cigarettes on the porch delaying the inevitable. He can probably make it home in under an hour. The Byers are a little further out from the poor end of town but not too far from Cherry, and on foot there are some woods he can cut through.

He sticks his last cigarette in his mouth, jams his hands inside his shirt under his arms to keep them warm, and starts the long walk home.

^^^

He gets lost almost immediately after running out of smokes. He’s on some street that’s completely black, the street lights browned out. The houses either side of him are dark, people inside already fast asleep. He could go knock on somebody’s door and turn up the charm, maybe even score a lift home, but he honestly doesn’t have a smile left in him, and his face is probably too banged up anyway.

He’s so strung out from the cold that he’s no longer even angry at Maxine. He’s actually kind of impressed that she had the smarts to maroon him, keep him out of the house while she no-doubt spins her own stories to Susan and Neil about where she’s been all night and what Billy’s done. She might be a Mayfair but apparently she’s got the Hargrove spine.

He has plenty of time to figure out how he feels about this latest sucker punch to his ego on his walk.

When they’d first moved to Hawkins, he’d had this notion in his head that he could get all of the resentment and festering rage out of his system by giving it the reins. His anger was supposed to punish her—this is your fault—this is the brother you get now—and then, after it was spent, he was supposed to be able to forgive her, give her back the Billy she knew from before, like a sort of peace offering.

He’d really thought it would be that simple. Like maybe he’d wake up one day and what happened back in Cali wouldn’t—wouldn’t hurt so bad.Wouldn’t be this wound in him that he couldn’t even look at without feeling so hot-sick-embarrassed it made him want to rip out of his own skin.

The only thing that had made this sh*tstain excuse for a town bearable was knowing that she was suffering too, just as alone.

But then somehow she just...wasn’t. Against all odds she’d found something in Hawkins that got her out from under the same weight that was suffocating him. She’d made friends. As if Hawkins was her home. As if—

And Billy wasn’t even allowed to—

Billy was just—he swallows around the emotion. Left behind. Stranded. Empty. As if all the anger he’d let fuel him had hollowed him out, changed the fabric of him.

Timid little Maxine who’d been his burdensome shadow since their parents met, who’d dogged his every step like a hungry stray, cobbling together a personality out of his hobbies and his way of speaking and his music and his clothes. The girl who’d had to sneak into his schoolcafeteria because she didn’t have anyone else to eat lunch with.

She hadn’t been waiting around for his forgiveness.

She’d cut her losses.

The realization had only truly dawned on him once he was looking at her open window himself, needing proof, the night air ruffling the curtains, cool on his stinging cheek,brain swimming with the knowledge that she’d f*cked him over so spectacularly. Again. “We can’t find Maxine,” Susan had said, the words knocking him off-center,recoloring their conversation. He’d still miscalculated anyway, digging himself in deeper, pissed about being left to babysit, missing the moment when he should have played the penitent son.

Driving up and down half of Hawkins he'd realized how stupid he’d been not to see it happening right under his nose; how he already had a handful of names and places to start looking for her at: Lucas Sinclair, Dustin, Zombie Boy. The kid with the stink-eye... Billy used to sneak out his window too, back when it seemed like there was nothing Neil could do to him that would get in the way of him and a good time with his friends.

He tucks his hands in tighter under his arms and grits his teeth, feeling pretty damn sorry for himself. He doesn’t indulge in the feeling often.

He’s so absorbed in coming up with plausible excuses for his return that he misses the slowing approach of a car, not registering the slice of headlights until tires are crunching over the dirt shoulder beside him.

It’s a cop.

Of course. The cherry-on-topof his sh*t luck tonight.

The car pulls up alongside him, rolling to a stop. It’s dark in the cab but he can make out the driver: a gruff-looking older guy—Billy’s specialty.

“Get in, kid.”

“You arresting me?”he drawls, coming a little closer to where heat is spilling out of the cracked passenger window. “Sir,” he adds.

“Sooner or later, I’m sure,” the guy says wearily. “Look. It’s been a long night, just—get in the car would you?”

Billy doesn’t need to be told twice, shoving himself down into the seat and jamming his freezing fingers up against the vents. The cab smells like Camels. The cop leans over and cranks the heat up, eyeballing Billy’s instinctive wariness. He checks the guy’s badge out the corner of his eye.

Police Chief Hopper.

They drive in uncomfortable silence for a couple of blocks.

“I just got done dropping Steve Harrington home with two black eyes he’s going to have to explain to his momma in the morning,” Hopper says, taking his eyes off the road to give Billy a shrewd look. “You know anything about that?”

Billy swallows. Harrington better not have grassed on him. “He told you it was me?”

“No.” The man co*cks an eyebrow at his bruised face. “Just thought you looked like matching dance partners is all.” He eyes Billy’s near-open shirt. “There a good reason why you’re walking around at one in the morning without a jacket?”

Billy bares his teeth in the semblance of a grin. “Just looking for the nearest beach.”

Hopper sighs like he can’t be assed pushing the matter. “Okay, smartass. Where’s home then?”

Not f*cking here, Billy thinks, giving him an address.

Hopper darts a look at him. “You sure about that?”

“It look like I want to spend another hour walking around freezing my f*cking nuts off?”

“Okay, okay. Jesus,” he says, taking the next turn. “Your mother know you got a mouth on you?”

“I don’t know,” Billy deadpans. “Guess I’ll ask her if I ever see her ghost around.”

“Damn, kid, all right. Screw me for trying.” He runs a hand over his face. “Let’s not talk then. That’s just fine.”

Billy doesn’t push his luck by messing with the Chevy’s radio, but it’s a near thing and the drive takes an age, identical garden lawns and mailboxes sliding by his window as they navigate the sleepy suburban sprawl. It gets to him, how dark it gets out here. How quiet. In Hayward there was always someone with a light on, noise from people and cars in the street, televisions blaring away through shared walls. He used to hang a sheet over the top of his ratty curtains to keep out the glare of the streetlamp across from his bedroom window.

In Hawkins there are only stars—not that he’s ever going to take the time to stand around in some cow field to look at them.

Hopper lets him out on the curb without a fuss, so Billy doesn’t play the stroppy teenager either, giving the man a respectful nod once he’s shut the car door,hoping he’ll leave before drawing too much attention from the house.

He doesn’t go in through the front door but cuts around the side, stumbling a little in the darkness, fishingaround on the ground for a rock.

It takes three tries before the window opens.

“Carol?” Tommy says blearily, poking his head out, hair stuck up every which way.

“Hi Tommy,” Billy says dryly.

Tommy’s eyes blink properly open. “Oh. Uh...hey…man. What time is it?”

Billy takes an annoyed breath in through his nose. “Look, I need a place to crash. I don’t have time to get into it.”

“Oh,” Tommy says stupidly.

Billy raises his eyebrows after an awkward beat. “So…?”

Tommy frowns. “I mean, my parents are kind of uptight. Is there someone else you can hang with?”

Billy tries not to be disappointed. He sure as hell isn’t going to tell this glorified keg-stand assist he’s the closest thing to a friend Billy has in the whole world. He might not have much but he at least has his reputation.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, spitting into a rosebush to cover the tightness in his throat. “Catch you around, man.” He starts picking his way back towards the side gate.

“All right!” Tommy whisper-yells after him. “Jeez, yeah, okay, you can stay the night.”

Relief knots in his chest as he doubles back. Tommy hasn't moved, looking down at Billy, waiting. Billy stares back impatiently, following his gaze down to the sloping corner eave, to the nearby trellis and back to Tommy's stupid expectant face.

“This isn’t Romeo and Juliet, dumbass,” he hisses. “Get down here and unlock the door for me.”

“Fine! Fine!” Tommy says, shushing him. “Just keep your voice down okay. My dad’s a light sleeper.”

His head finally ducks out of the windowbut it’s quite a stretch of time before Billy hears him fiddling with the back door, his fingers turning numb in his balled fists. He ushers Billy in like they’re breaking into Fort Knox. As ifanyonecould hear sh*t in a house this big, he thinks as they march up the thickly carpeted stairs.

Tommy’s room is in the middle of the upstairs landing. It smells overwhelmingly of socks and something powdery Billy recognizes as Carol’s perfume. There’s a signed basketball jersey on the wall and a cabinet stuffed with little league trophies. It’s so tragically expected that it sucks the last dregs of adrenaline right out of him. Tommy has laid down a comforter at the foot of his bed like it’s a grade school sleepover and Billy’s so thankful he could just buckle onto it.

“Wait here,” Tommy says, disappearing into what Billy’d assumed was a closet but is apparently an ensuite bathroom. Christ. He cringes at the sight of Tommy’s freckly legs sticking out of his boxers when he returns holding out a wet flannel for Billy’s lip. Tommy whistles softly. “Oh man. What did Racy Lacey do to you?”

Billy frowns, taking the flannel. It’s dripping, freezing cold. What a f*cking moron. “Huh?”

“Your date? Guess you’re not taking her to prom then.”

Oh. Lacey Fieldman. Carol had set them up, promising Billy she’d be easy. Apparently she used to give out blowj*bs underthe basketball bleachers between classes. Dammit. What a waste of cologne. He wonders if she’s still awake somewhere, blowing out a candle in the window perhaps, complaining to her diary about him standing her up.

Billy dabs at his lip. Now that he’s out of the cold his face is starting to throb again and there’s a shaky feeling behind his eyes from whatever Max dosed him with. It’s messing with him, making him feel like he’s about to spill his guts right here in Tommy H’s childhood bedroom.

“So who’d you fight?” Tommy asks after a while, eyes flicking over his scraped knuckles.

Royalty, Billy thinks.

“Figure it out yourself Monday.”

Tommy snickers, crawling into his bed and turning the lamp off. Billy is left to crawl onto the comforter on the floor in the dark, his jeans stiff and cold and his belt biting into his hip. They’re both too uneasy around each other to actually sleep, but they lay in silence, letting the warm stillness of the room close in, listening to each other’s careful breathing, until, at some point, Billy must close his eyes.

^^^

Tommy kicks him out early. He gives him a waffle for the road at least, still warm. Billy eats it in four bites, hustled out of bed and down the stairs towards the front door with his boots in hand. He remembers only the vague outline of his dreams, a soup of confused half-memories: Lacey Fieldman waiting for him somewhere under the bleachers; the kaleidoscopic skittering of frozen peas over a kitchen floor; Steve Harrington ducking under his swinging fist, again, again, again…

Tommy is practically bouncing with excitement at getting to sneak Billy out of the house like Billy’shis girlfriend. He keeps bumping their arms together all jock-friendly, leaning in way too close and clapping his hand around Billy’s shoulder. Personal boundaries eroded by one night of poor judgment on Billy’s part. If his mouth wasn’t crammed full of dry waffle he’d tell the guy to push the f*ck back.

Tommy pauses at the foot of the stairs, peering around the open entrance where Billy can hear pre-coffee murmuring and the dull clink of cutlery. Tommy waves him past, like now—quick. There’s a flash of some woman with her back turned, pink towel robe, cordless phone hunched up under one ear—and then he’s across, pressing up against a row of hanging coats. He bends down to stuff his feet into his shoes. His body, still warm and clumsy from sleep, prickles at the thought of the cold walk ahead of him.

“Tommy, come help me with this bacon please,” Tommy’s dad says from the kitchen, spying his son in the open space between the stairs and the front door. “Your mother’s been called in for a settlement.”

“Sure, pa,” Tommy says. f*cking lame. He turns his head to mouth, See you at practice at Billy.

Billy gives him an exaggerated thumbs-up he hopes conveys how ambivalent he is towards that prospect—and, as he does so, one of the coats he’s leaned against falls off its hook and onto the floor with a thump.

They both freeze.

“Hold on Jan—Tommy?” a woman’s voice calls from the kitchen. “Who’s there, honey? Did Steve stay over?”

Tommy’s face goes from caught red-handed to hurt to embarrassed inside of a second. Billy doesn’t stick around to see it, grabbing up the coat and sliding out the door before he has tofind out any more than he already has. He doesn’t feel sorry for Tommy. Tommy’s about to sit down to a hot breakfast with his Betty Crocker family. What does Billy care if he’s still pining the loss of his friend? Billy’s about to get the strips torn off him. He’ll be lucky if Neil doesn’t make him shave his head again.

He books it over the lawn, slipping into the coat as he jogs. It’s Tommy’s ugly-ass letterman jacket. Great. Now he probably looks like a prick as well as a vagrant.

The walk home in broad daylight is actually infinitely more uncomfortable than the previous night because of the disturbing amount of Loch Nora residents up bright and early, fetching the paper and pushing lawnmowers around. They watch him with suspicion as he walks by, a garish stranger cutting through their cookie-cutter scenery, arms tense at his sides. He’s so focused on not making eye contact with anybody he walks right into the path of a sprinkler, the looping spray soaking the bottom of his jeans.

By the time he makes it home his head is pounding again, a headache settling like a band around his temples, his mouth dry and metallic. He stalks right past the Camaro parked neatly on the verge, taking note of the dented front, the side scraped down to the metal—nothing he can’t fix. Neil will probably relish the opportunity to get some quality father-son time out of it. Just about the only thing they have in common is a knack for fixing cars (and breaking things).

It’s actually a shock thathis dad isn’t being his usual huge asshole self and waiting for him in the doorway, but a quick scan of the driveway reveals his truck is gone, and the house is locked and empty. He fishes out the spare key Susan keeps under an ugly ceramic frog and lets himself in.

The first thing he does is strip off and head straight for the shower. There’s still hot water for once and he lingers, letting it stream over him, washing the itch out of his hair, stinging over his bruised face. It’s the first shower he’s had in forever without someone waiting in line or banging on the door for him to hurry up. It seems like a wasted opportunity not to jerk off, but he’s so wrung out and fried, and he knows better than to touch himself under Neil’s roof. He grabs the closest bottle—Susan’s herbal shampoo—and uses it to lather up, rinsing once he’s clean and the warm water has soothed the worst of the cold ache out of him.

He pads over to the sink with a towel wrapped around his waist to assess his reflection in the streaky mirror. His face isn’t half bad. There’s a splotch on his neck where Max stuck him with the syringe, and a dark bruise with a livid center on his jaw—nothing he needs to put iodine on. His eyes are bloodshot. He rakes a comb through his hair, thinking of those weird drawings again and the bitter look Tommy hadn’t even slightly been able to cover. He presses a finger to his chest under his pendant. He heals fast. In a week it will be like no one ever touched him.

When he finally comes out of the bathroom his dad is waiting for him, standing in the kitchen. He puts Billy’s keys down on the counter, next to Susan’s simmering pot-roast.

“Maxine came home at midnight last night,” he says.

Billy swallows, his grip tensing up around the knot of his towel. He can hear Max and Susan outside, Max whingeing, car doors slamming, getting groceries out of the car.

“Do you want to tell me where she was?”

It’s the same tactic as the cop had used: rope to hang himself with—except that it’s completely different stakes. Except that his dad wants him to lose. He’s watching Billy, jaw not ticking yet, but tense, waiting for Billy to make it easy for him to take the mask off.

Billy has no idea what line Max has already fed him about her disappearing act or how well their stories will line up. He has to think Maxine wouldn’t have told Neil about Sinclair, or stealing the car, or the bat full of nails. He still doesn’t know himself where she snuck off to before ending up at that creepy house. Or where she went after. Not that any of that really matters to his dad anyway, he couldn’t give less of a sh*t about where Max’s been—that’s just a show for Susan. No, it’s going to be about Billy not getting Maxine home himself, about failing his bullsh*t test.

“I’m waiting, Bill,” his dad says.

Billy licks his lips. “She was with her friends. I found her at the Byers’ place—off Cornwallis,” he adds lamely.

“She told us you got into a fight”—and didn’t win it, hangs unspoken in the air.

“So what?” he huffs. “I found her with some creep, dad. Some senior from school. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

His dad raises his eyebrows at his tone. “You telling me you don’t how to handle yourself without acting like some rabid animal, is that what you’re saying?”

“She got home didn’t she?”

“She got home, in some stranger’s car, after her mother was up the whole night, worried sick—”

“That’s her problem!” Billy says, voice coming out whiny and juvenile like it always does when he gets into it with his father. “It’s not my fault her kid wants to run around town with a bunch of freaks.”

“And her disappearing on your watch? You think that’s not your fault either? How do you think that looks? Like I can’t teach my own kid some basic damn responsibility.” He pauses, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “You know, I try and I try and I try with you, Billy. I give you every opportunity to prove to me you deserve to be a part of this family.”

Billy swallows. “Yeah, well I—”

“And all I ask is that you don’t embarrass me,” he says, voice gone quiet and dangerous. “All I ask is that you respect the rules of this house, respect that woman out there who is doing her best to raise you right, like you’re her own son.”

That’s laughable. Susan’s not his mother—not even close. His mother was a spitfire, a lousy cook. She had a laugh like a chainsaw.

Susan is just a fixture in his life, a piece of furniture. It makes Billy sneer, thinking of her waiting up in her slippers and hair rollers, acting as if Maxine’s some spoiled little doll who’s never run off before.

“Well maybe she should focus on raising her own kid right first.”

“Wrong answer,” Neil says.

“Well, what do you want me to say?”

Neil looks at him, disbelieving. “Say? I don’t want you to say anything.I want you to act like a man.” He leans in, eyes sliding over him slow and disdainful. “But that’s too much to ask of you, isn’t it, Bill.”

Billy’s heart squeezes in his chest. Neil’s insults never miss, he’s learned over the years what really gets under Billy’s skin. But even he draws the line at certain topics. They’ve both been so careful, stitched the memory of that last night in Hayward up so tight it’s like it never happened. Neil had wanted it that way too, and now he’s ripping off the scab, making them both acknowledge things that are best left alone. Like he can smell it all over Billy again. Like Billy’s slipped up somehow, and he hasn’t.

“Dad, I—”

He’s interrupted by Max bursting through the door, her arms full of bags.

“—never does chores and—Billy!”

She seems surprised to see him. Had she counted on him being smart enough to stay away? Her eyes dart between him and Neil, the tense space between them, her sharp little mind working as Susan bustles in behind her.

“What’s—oh,” Susan says. At the sight of him, her face goes tight and pale. “Hello, Billy.” She makes to close the door behind her and then seems to reconsider. “Maxine, I think we left something—"

Nice try, lady, Billy thinks bitterly. He’s learned not to expect much from her in terms of running interference. What little motherly backbone she has is exclusively for Max.

“No, Susan, let her see,” Neil says, not looking away from him. “It’s about time she learns.”

Billy feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. He hadn’t predicted this. Somehow this has gone wrong, just like the argument last night, sliding into more dangerous territory. Neilalmost never gets hands-on when his step-daughter is in the house. It’s like Billy’s North Star for how much he can get away with, whether he should brace for impact.

His dad is watching him carefully, waiting to see how he processes this development, if there’s something there he can use.

Susan frowns, putting her groceries down. “Can we talk about this first?”

“You want her to start running wild, with boys?” Neil scoffs. “You said it yourself, she needs to start thinking about how her behavior looks now that she’s a woman.”

“Mom!” Max hisses, turning furious red.

Oh Jesus. Now he wishes he’d choked on his own saliva and died on the Byers’ floor.

“Neil,” Susan says, wringing her hands. “She’s still tired from last night—”

“No,” Neil’s says, tone firm. “You want him embarrassing us again? Here, in this nice town? You want him teaching her his goddamn…aberrant behaviors, like that’s some way to act?” His nostrils flare. “It might take longer to stick with Billy, but it’s not too late for her. You’ve got to get them early, that was my mistake. I should have stepped in before Roxanne let him turn out—”

“My mom would—” Billy starts, but cuts himself off, biting his tongue.

Neil’s eyes light up with cunning understanding. “Your mom would what, Billy? Something you want to add?”

“No,” Billy says through grit teeth.

“‘No,’ what?”

“No—I f*cking said no!” he yells.

Neil shoves him, hard, sends him slipping all over the floor, trying to keep his towel up, his hip clipping the table. Max gasps and Susan says something low and urgent to her.

“So now you want to be tough?”his dadasks, shoving him again while he knows Billy can’t get his voice to come out right, getting all up in Billy’s face the way he knows Billy hates. “You a tough guy, huh, Billy?”

It’s like a goddamn magic trick, that combination. Billy locks his jaw, trying to keep a lid on it, but his eyes are already burning, Neil’s big square face blurring out of focus. He’d rather Neil put him through a wall than anyone see him like this.

Of course, Neil knows that too.

There really is something wrong with Billy. Maybe his mom really did raise him too soft or he’s too much of a sissy or something—and Neil knows that he doesn’t want to be, and this is his way of reminding him that he is—the slaps and shoves, they're just the most expedient way of getting there. He knows the part Billy really hates is the part immediately after, when he’s exposed and squirming, when the delusions he’s bought about himself are peeled away.

He glances at the doorway and, yes, they’ve both seen already. Susan is looking at the ground like she always does, and Maxine—Maxine is looking at him like she doesn’t know what she’s seeing exactly. He can feel his ears turning red, a sick tumbling feeling in his chest.

Neil’s eyes track the suppressed line of Billy’s mouth, trembling at the corners, his balled, useless hands. Whatever he sees is enough to satisfy him. f*ck you, Billy thinks, but he keeps his mouth shut, blisteringly aware that he’s about to cry, that there are always more humiliating parts of him that Neil can dig up and use.

“Remember this next time you want to play big man,” Neil says. “You just remember what you’re made of.” He turns away, dismissive. “Now, go put a shirt on. You’re dripping all over Susan’s clean floor.”

^^^

It was Tommy’s jacket.

That’s what set his dad off, he realizes, after, closing the door to his bedroom softly behind him and sinking against it. He bites into the side of his hand instead of screaming. It just gets so tangled up inside him, all the things he wants to say, all the ways he’s imagined he could win, could make Neil feel small instead. Neil’s right. They do this dance again and again and again and it never sticks.

Tommy’s stupid letterman jacket, so ostentatiously obviously not Billy’s. He’d left it strewn on top of his clothes when he went to take a shower. f*cking careless. It even smells like something else. Tommy’s aftershave, something clean and citrus, something a mom would keep throwing in her cart at the supermarket. It makes his skin crawl to think of Neil in here looking at it, picking it up, listening to Billy in the shower.

He shudders.

It’s coming up to the surface again.

He'd thought it was gone, but here it comes, out from under the wave, legs beating against the bottomless darkness, desperate, striving for air.

He needs to find a way to drown it.

Chapter 2: can't hunt, can't sing

Chapter Text

Harrington isn’t at school on Monday. Billy knows this because he takes the guy’s parking spot.

His ears are still buzzing with Max’s words when he pulls into the lot. She’s talking to him now. Really talking. Who knew little Maxine Mayfair had such a big mouth on her. For as long as he’s known her she’s mostly kept her thoughts to herself. Typical latchkey kid, like Billy, not used to playing with others. Now that she’s not so afraid of him—now that she thinks she has something over him—she talks, all the damn time.

She rifles through his glovebox while she’s at it too, playing with crumpled up cigarette cartons, f*cking with his tapes. Neil has the keys to his car and Billy doesn’t keep sh*t in there that he doesn’t want found but it still pisses him off, the easy way she does it, unhesitating, like no one ever told her she couldn’t just do whatever the hell she wants. He should call her out for being nosey but he lets it go because he can recognize an olive branch when he sees one, and because he’s bored of his own sulk.

She avoids him most of Sunday, picking up on the lines of tension between him and Neil, walking around on eggshells in a way so like her mother that itmakes Billy want to bark at her. By the time he’s pulled himself together and resurfaced from his room his dad has cooled off enough to serve him the usual line of hardass bullsh*t:

No missing curfew. No partying. No missing family dinner.

No lip.

So rote it’s almost comforting. Billy bucks just enough that Neil knows he’s still got a red-blooded son, and Neil lets Billy keep his car so that he can stay out of the house and chase skirt.

Neither of them are fooled that Billy will follow this latest regime for long. Neil doesn’t care about half of his rules anyway, they’re just things he thinks Susan would want. The upshot of this one is that he’s basically got to chaperone Max wherever her heart desires and keep any boys from getting at her.

And, no more allowance.

Billy had got his back up about that. Neil had told him zip it unless he wanted another lesson in manners. Then they’d gone down to fix his car.

Clearly the subtleties of their father-son relationshipwere lost on Max. She hovers the whole time, watching them anxiously while they work, circling on her skateboard at a wary distance until her mother calls her in. Even then he catches her watching from the window, her face a pale, worried smear.

She doesn’t get it. How could she?For both of them, cars are simpler. They do what they’re supposed to. They break and you can fix them.

And Neil might hate everything about Billy from his boots to his hairspray, but Billy’s a dark horse runner for Son of the Year when he’s working with cars. A real ‘chip off the old block’.

He’d been a hyper little sh*t when they first started living together and Neil’d figured out pretty quick he was best put to pulling things apart and putting them back together again—that and team sports. Baseball was Neil’s game, but Billy didn’t play all that nice with other little leaguers who got in the way of him and his time in the batting box, so basketball had been the next best thing they found that could tucker him out. Basketball is where all his anger goes, but fixing cars is the balm he needs for his restless mind and hands.

The damage to the Camaro isn’t all that complicated. Neil shows him how to pull out the dent with boiling water and a bucket and makes approving grunts while Billy gets his hands dirty, occasionally reminding Billy to stick his damned tongue back in his mouth when he concentrates too hard.

They set up a workhorse with sandpaper and primer for the scratches and his dad even brings out the radio, even though Billy isn’t allowed to touch it andNeil won’t listen to anything but classic rock. They have a good rhythm going, so after the scratches are buffed out and painted Billy pops the hood and goes about giving the girl an oil change too.

The weather is just starting to turn when they finish up, his fingers feeling the bite of the cold and his bruised nose starting to sting. Neil leaves him to do the rest on his own.

Billy expects the inside of the car to be a wreck—wouldn’t put it past Maxine to leave roadkill in there or something, but when he finally looks inside the cab it’s sparkling clean, the upholstery smelling faintly of chemicals and the half-dozen air fresheners dangling from the rearview mirror. His leather jacket is folded neatly in the passenger-side footwell. He runs his hands over the dash and the seatback and sits down.

Clean.

It’s such a stroke of good fortune, so unexpectedly considerate of her it’s got him stumped. His best guess is one of the geek squad shat themselves in his car.

He wants to ask, but he also kind of doesn’t want to know, and so far Max has been smart enough not to talk about that night or anything related to what she saw in the kitchen. Mostly what she wants to yap about is some girl who doesn’t want to be her friend—shocker—and the new mall half a town over. Susan’s promised to take her there to buy a new swimsuit for her Christmas present. And a new skateboard, since Billy snapped the last. And a pool. And does Billy think Neil will let them get a pool if he gets a raise? There’s room out the front and he won’t have to set it up, she’ll build it herself. Yeah, Billy thinks, dad’s real tight with money but he’ll definitely fork out for a goddamn pool so you and Sinclair can splash around in his front yard for all the world to see.

He about gnaws his thumb off trying to keep himself from cranking the radio up over her while she chatters, focusing instead on the long colorless stretch of road, jonesing for a cigarette. Then it really registers what she’s saying.

Summer. She’s talking like they’re still going to be here, in Hawkins, come summer.

The thought fills him with dread. Max might be drinking the Kool-Aid already but Billy hasn’t got the stamina to make it in Hawkins that long.

He’s still thinking about it when he pulls into Max’s school, waiting for her to kick herself out. He’s pissed her off somehow even though he didn’t speed or blast his music or even open his damn mouth. She shoves the door open and gets out, turning to glare at him.

“You have to try too, you know.”

Then she slams the door, because she’s thirteen.

He watches her with dull interest as she hurries across the lot to meet up with her friends. He didn’t think they’d be there waiting for her—at least not out in the open. Thought they’d at least hide if they heard him coming. They’re brave little assholes. Oddballs. She fits right in, doesn’t even turn around to see him leave.

They’d moved around enough times back in Cali that he’s got the new kid act down to a fine art. Make a big splash, smile at the right girls, get to the top of the ladder as fast and as brutally as possible so that the rest of it is handed to him on a platter. Not worth trying to get known by anybody, just give them the broad strokes and they’ll paint a picture of him that’s true enough anyway. He’s a closed book for a reason—he’s a dick. No question where he gets that from. Neil could only fool people for so long too, until Susan. That’s why they were always moving, his dad always running out the clock, shuffling their lives around a new girlfriend or a new job.

Hawkins is no different. The kids here are the same as anywhere really, just more inbred, hungrier for something shiny and new. It’s easy enough to enjoy what they want so badly to give him. Attention, jealousy, invites to parties with free booze and girls who think he can be gentle. But the shine always wears off Billy Hargrove eventually. Girls get wise. Guys get sick of his party tricks. Someone will start a rumor and no one will know enough about him or give enough of a sh*t to counter it.

Except, usually bythe time the wheels start falling off they’re already packing up to leave town. It changes things, knowing that he might not be able to cut and run this time.

Jesus Christ, does he live here now?

He’s still so distracted thinking about it when he pulls into the school that he almost runs Lacey Fieldman over with his car.

She’s standing in the middle of his usual spot with an extra big scrunchie in her hair and an extra pissed-off look on her face. Her arms are crossed, so, not a happy diary entry then. Definitely something he’s not dealing with before his first smoke of the day. He brakes with a start and slams on the reverse, wheeling out in a flurry of grit that sends a couple of loiterers scrambling, and pulling into the seniors’ end of the student bay instead.

There’s only one spot left, prime real estate—a straight shot to the school entrance—and so deliberately left empty it might as well have a plaque in front of it.

f*ck it, he thinks, turning in with a flourish. He’s taken Steve Harrington’s throne, he might as well take his parking spot too.

The bank of girls who usually line up for a glimpse at Harrington’s panty-dropper of a car seem taken aback by the Camaro, but they warm up to one of his smiles as he struts past. So maybe he hasn’t burnt all his bridges in Hawkins just yet.

^^^

Nancy Wheeler is skipping first period. It’s not something he would normally notice; she’s not his type. She always has a pinched look about her that gets worse when Billy’s around,for one thing. It’s an expression he’s come to expect from girls with glasses and headgear, the ones that think they can get his attention by glaring at him, fantasizing about the day he’s forced to seek them out for math tutoring. But on Wheeler he thinks itmight just mean she hates his guts. Maybe because he drunkenly made a pass at her at some party when she’d had punch alldown her front and seemed like a good time, or maybe because she thinks he’s the one who keeps flicking staples into her backpack during English.

Rumor is she’s Harrington’s girlfriend and if that’s true then Harrington is even stupider than he’d thought. Wheeler is boring. Certified uptight. She’s the type of girl who’ll only suck dick after marriage, and even then only once the kids have grown up and moved out. She’s a waste of the bimmer’s probably gorgeous backseat.

It’s because she sits in front of him in English that he notices her missing. That and because the moment the teacher starts giving out last week’s poetry assignments he projects himself right back into his car, chin in his hand, following the thought out the window, and sees her pacing around outside.

She’s clutching her books to her chest in a way that’s distinctly anxious. Waiting for someone. She’s cute, he guesses—if you’re into that kind of thing. Delicate-looking. Bird-boned and pretty. Too much work, he thinks idly. Maybe Harrington likes that. Billy prefers easy. Girls who are fun, or girls who are fun to wind up at least.

“—Billy... Mr. Hargrove.”

He looks up at that. Mrs. Wright, staring down at him with an exasperated set to her jowls. A few of his classmates have turned around to watch the spectacle. “Can I take it from your faraway expression that you’re considering how the school parking lot might be a microcosm for themes of savagery and civilization? Care to share?”

He gives her a tight look that says, not really, slumping back in his chair.

“Perhaps you’d like to read your poem to the class then,” she says, putting his homework down on his desk. There’s a large red D scrawled at the top of his cribbed Metallica lyrics. She’s really stiffed him. “No?” she continues. “Then maybe you’d like to lend your voice to a part in the assigned reading.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until Wheeler’s here?” he says. “Pretty sure she’ll want to do all the parts.”

Someone giggles at that. It’s some big repeat-year guy who could give Tommy H a run for Hawkins’ dumbest student. Billy’s never been interested in playing class clown, certainly not to a bunch of hicks, but she’s backed him into a corner here. He has no idea what book he’s supposed to have preread.

A girl at the front of the room turns around just slightly, pointing her chin towards a large fake seashell on the teacher’s desk. Billy squints at her. She blows out an irritated sigh and then lifts up her own novel, flashing him the cover—Lord of the Flies. Well, that’s easy. He’s already studied it, back in Cali. Not that he can remember a thing about it, but at least there are no girls on the island. He won’t have to read a chick’s part.

“Ok, I’ll do a part,” he says, giving the teacher his most charming smile. Her eyes narrow doubtfully but she’s interrupted by Nancy Wheeler hurrying into the classroom and taking her seat with an apologetic look, stripping out of her fussy little jacket.

“Thank you for joining us, Nancy. We were just assigning speaking parts. You’ll be pleased to learn Billy’s volunteered his talents for one of the central characters.” He tries not to scowl. He’d had his heart set on the pig’s head (or one of the flies). “So who will it be then?” she continues. “The side of democracy or dictatorship? Rules-based society or law of the jungle, or intellect in the face of—”

“Uh, not the fat one,” Billy says. “The cool one—the leader.”

Wheeler turns around in her seat to give him an icy look. “Well, one could argue that that’s Jack,” she says.

Billy snaps his fingers at her like, got it in one.

“It’s decided then,” Mrs. Wright says with an appreciative glance at Wheeler, placing a bent copy of the text in front of him. “Everyone open to page one.”

“Hey.” It’s the big guy, leaning over to pat Billy’s arm. “Good choice, man. Hunt and kill.”

“Yeah, sure,” Billy says neutrally, trying not to shake his hand off. “Hunt and kill.”

^^^

Harrington isn’t at basketball practice the next day either. Coach Green eyes Billy’s scraped knuckles with suspicion as he does his warm-up with the rest of the team, but otherwise doesn’t call him out.

Billy hasn’t said a word about the fight. He wants to say it’s because he’s above all the petty high-school gossip, but realistically that would only work in his favor. No, if he’s being honest it’s because he’s slightly nervous about the stories he’s heard about the Harrington family lawyer, Mrs. Harrington. Guy with a face like that probably has it insured for a hundred thousand dollars.

Without Harrington at practice to get his long legs in Billy’s way, Billy breaks out some of his best game of the year. They cycle through one-on-one pairs at first, then skins on shirts once they’re all fired up. Most of the guys love playing against Billy. He’s something new; a challenge they haven’t had for most of their sad little school careers. Coach puts him up against the junior guys to get them up to speed, and against some of the bigger more physical guys to get them playing serious ball.

Not every guy on the team is someone he can or should antagonize. Parker is too slow-blooded; impossible to bait. He responds to Billy’s nastier elbows by going placid, giving him a measuredly patronizing amount of space. When Billy takes trick shots on him he eyes the clock, like he’s impatient for another partner.

On the other end of the spectrum are the guys like Miller, desperate for their turn at him but so easy to tangle up and trip with a little bit of offensive footwork that Coach usually blasts his whistle before Billy can really get any satisfaction out of them.

The only one of them who would make it on a team back home is Tommy, who might be an idiot and a loudmouth, butwas apparently born to read a play. He fits into Billy’s game so seamlessly it’s like passing back and forth with his own shadow on a wall. He’s everywhere Billy needs him to be to cut in and make shots, one after the other, blowing through guards and into the key, zig-zagging up the center until the guys playing shirts are red in the face.

He guns up and down the court so fast and unimpeded it’s a joke, until his opponents are hanging back more and more. Until they’re not even really there with him at all. No one in front of him. No contact. Just Tommy, every time he turns to look, coming through with the assist.

They bring in one of the fresh guys from the bench to get some height on him but Billy charges him down, gets him fouled up in his own feet so he can take a sexy lay-up right under the hoop just to really kill morale.

The shriek of Coach’s whistle comes like a mercy blow, the ball from his last shot thudding away on the floor.Someone is dry-retching.

“All right, all right, we get it, Hargrove, you’re a real star,” Coach says dryly. “Hagan! Get over here!” Some of the guys snicker as Tommy lopes over. “You want to hold the ball yourself one day, son?” he hears the man say, not un-affectionately.

Billy wipes sweat out of his eyes. The kid Billy just mowed down is still on his ass, staring up at him like he’s a golden god but he doesn’t stick around to help him up, intent on getting in and out of the showers as quick as he can, before he has to listen to Tommy blowing smoke up his ass about how he should go pro.

Tommy catches up with him anyway just as he’s stepping out of the steam, obstructing Billy’s exit with his big pale body to engage him in a full-blown conversation while they’re both naked, like that’s normal. Billy gives him an irritated look, but apparently Tommy’s used up his smarts for the day because he doesn’t move, almost…deliberately blocks him. Maybe Billy is just paranoid. Locker rooms like this get him feeling claustrophobic, thrown in with a bunch of guys who all grew up looking at each others’ dicks. The smell of sweat and too much deodorant sets him on edge.

“So, is it true?” Tommy asks, smiling.

“Back off,” he says, not caring that it comes out harsh, echoing off the orange tile. Despite past (disastrous) lapses of judgment, Billy has a rule about not talking in the showers. Every time he does he regrets it. He has something defective between his brain and his mouth when he’s pumped up and co*cky, something that makes him take risks, say sh*t he shouldn’t—sh*t that could be misinterpreted. He doesn’t need to be testing the waters like that here, especially not if he’s staying.

“Is what true?”Miller asks, walking past with a towel over his shoulder.

“That your mom’s giving out handjobs in front of the Big Buy,” Tommy wisecracks, garnering a few whistles.

“Har-har.”

Billy uses the distraction to step around him, making a beeline for his locker. Most of the guys have started to filter in, stripping out of their uniforms and trading shampoo. Billy shoves his soap back in its plastic dish and throws it in his locker. To his dismay, Tommy has followed him.

“Man, put a towel on,” one of the guys moans.

Tommy leans closer, eyes big and serious as Billy towels off and steps into his jeans. “Coach wanted to know if I thought you’d run for team captain next year. Did you hear?” He licks his lips excitedly. “Harrington’s chickened out—he’s not playing for the rest of the season.”

Billy pauses in the middle of scrubbing his hair dry. Coach Green must really be reaching if he thinks Billy is made up of what it takes to hold a team this lousy together. He hasn’t even bothered to learn half their names. But then again, if he’s stuck in this sh*theap until he either graduates or saves enough to get out, maybe having team captain as a feather in his cap isn’t such a bad idea. He could even work it into a scholarship, maybe, so long as it doesn’t come with a bunch of small print. And the title of basketball captain comes with perks, probably has more longevity to it than keg king too.

The guys he plays with respect his skills, but he’s pretty sure most of them think he’s a douchebag. It’s not like he hangs out with them outside of practice, or goes to their preppy little team dinners. If he were to make a grab at team captain it might be a worthwhile way to pass the time. What are his other options here anyway? He’s not going to run for valedictorian as long as Nancy Wheeler and the stick up her ass live and breathe.

Tommy interrupts his thoughts, waving a hand under his face. “So?” He looks pointedly at Billy’s knuckles. “Was it Harrington? Did you teach that loser a lesson?”

“What do you think,” he says, just to get him off his back.

“Holy sh*t.” It’s the kid he knocked over on the court. Peterson. “You beat up Steve?”

“Guy never could take a hit,”Miller says. “Remember when Lacey’s dad caught them at it and chased him down the street?”

“Remember when he cried because Tommy K tagged him in the jewels with a softball?”

Billy tries not to roll his eyes. He’s not exactly proud of losing his sh*t on Harrington’s face now that there’s a good chance it might come back around to bite him in the ass, but it also stinks to know it wasn’t even that much of an accomplishment, burying a guy who was already on the way down.

His first week in Hawkins it was all anyone seemed to want to talk about. King Steve. Prom king, star athlete, a good time; a real crowd pleaser, like apple goddamn pie. He’d even sniffed Harrington out before they were introduced. But his instincts had been wrong, or maybe he’d just been too blitzed on sh*tty beer. Harrington wasn’t apple pie at all. He was like a mouthful of store-bought birthday cake, bland and dried out under the frosting. The closest to interesting Billy’s seen from him was when he was selling himself and those kids a lie, pretending he didn’t want to lay into Billy just to see if he had the balls to.But that had beenjust an afterimage; a glimpse of something already snuffed out and gone.

He accepts their slaps on the back and their high-fives anyway, laughs it up at their lame ‘the king is dead, long live the king’ jokes. He even breaks his no talking rule to set the record straight: He caught Harrington with his kid sister. Yeah, in the Byers’ house of horrors. No idea what they were doing but dude wasn’t right and Billy had to show him how to be.

Some of them don’t buy it, but the others, the guys who are still pissed off about all the tail they missed because of Harrington—it gets their respect. Suddenly he’s inside one of their stories, instead of just listening in.

Itreally isn’t...bad.

“So, you coming out with us Friday?” Tommy asks. “Whole team’s going to the movies, and Lacey will be there. She’s on a mission, you know. You’re probably the only guy in the tri-state area she hasn’t got her mouth on yet.”

“Can’t,” Billy grunts. “Gotta pick Max up from school—family dinner.” It’s the truth. He’s not that put out about it though. It’s not like he has the money to waste on some sh*tty movie Hawkins is probably the last town in America to get.

“Man,” one guy chimes in. “How have you not gotten any action from Racy Lacey already? Even Peterson’s been with her and he’s got a pindick.”

Peterson squeaks, going bright red. “f*ck you, Danny.”

“Hey,” Tommy says, throwing an arm over Billy’s shoulders, loving the chance to come to his defense even though Billy couldn’t care less. “You should be thanking this guy here. So long as Lacey keeps him busy there’s some left for the rest of you losers.”

Billy shoves him off. This kind of talk, guys squabbling over puss* they’ll probably never get anyway—bores the sh*t out of him. It’s always the same, in any locker room he’s ever been in, a complete minefield, exactly why he needs to keep his mouth shut and stay out of trouble. But he can’t be too quiet either, he’s learned. They’re all looking at him expectantly now.

“Maybe I’m saving myself for marriage,” he says.

“Yeah,” Tommy says, snorting, “Tell that to all the girls you’ve screwed already. Like, uh”—he counts off his fingers—“Nicole. And Ashley C. And Tiffany.”

“Not what I heard.” It’s Miller, edging into the conversation, eyes gleaming. Billy doesn’t know what it is about the guy but he doesn’t like him. He’s squirrely, too eager: a bottom feeder.

Tommy rolls his eyes. “You’re talking out your ass, dude.”

“Yeah, well my girl said Ashley C keeps a list on the door of the girls’ toilets and Hargrove ain’t on it.”

Billy sneers. “So some bitch is pissed off she didn’t get her turn. What else is new. I’m not gonna waste my time chasing some slu*t.” He throws his towel in his locker. “The cows here don’t exactly do it for me.”

That gets him a round of heckling, guys offended on behalf of girls they’ve had crushes on since grade school. He laughs it up with them, smirking. Tries to brush off the feeling of eyes on him—Parker, watching him carefully from across the room.

“It true about Ashley?” Tommy asks him later when the rest of the team has already left and Billy’s still fixing his hair. “She’s probably just pissed…you know, because you dumped her for Lacey. I could get Carol to set you up on another date.”

Billy doesn’t bother dignifying that with a response. His hair is f*cked, completely flat. Serves him right for gabbing it up instead of getting to it when it was still wet.

“Harrington and Lacey had a thing?” he asks instead. He doesn’t even know why he’s curious. Lacey Fieldman and then Nancy Wheeler. He can’t see a connection.

Tommy snorts, fisting either side of his towel and pulling it tight over the back of his neck. “Had a thing?” He gives Billy a sly look, lip curling. “He popped her cherry—told the whole school about how she went crazy on his dick their first date. Her parents had to pull her out of school and ship her off to Kerley County for a term. Not that it did her any good.”

Billy licks his lips. Tommy doesn’t realize it but his tone has gone from excitedabout raking dirt over his old friend, to something bordering on fond. Billy’s not going to call attention to it, especially when he’s telling stories about Harrington that have a darker, more savory flavor than the usual hero-worship bullsh*t.

Tommy obviously senses that he’s said something to pique Billy’s interest though, because he keeps talking, all the way out of the gym and across the schoolyard. Billy only listens to half of it. He kind of wishes Hawkins would just forget about Steve Harrington already. If he has to live here now he’d be better off without the ghost of some guy following him around, reminding him of all the ways he needs to measure up.

He tongues at the inside of his lip, where his teeth hadcut into the flesh. The rest of his face has already healed but it’s a wound he can’t stop reopening.

^^^

Susan has made polenta for dinner. Billy picks at his, letting it slop back onto the plate and catching Max’s eyes across the table. His dad shovels it into his mouth, expressionless and robotic, the sound of the spoon hitting the plate as steady as a metronome. Billy'smom would make burnt eggs on burnt toast and covered in ketchup, he thinks. She never cared if he wanted dessert first.

“Susan said there was a postcard in the mail today,” Neil says when he’s finished. “From California.”

Billy stiffens. Neil meets his eyes, relaxed as anything. “Returned to sender.”

“Who are you writing to in California?” Max asks, frowning. Susan leans over and smooths a flyaway piece of hair behind one of her ears, eyeing her cooling food pointedly.

“None of your business,” he says. He pushes his plate away. “Am I excused?”

“But you hardly touched your—”

“Susan," Neil says. "Let him go.”

“I’m done too,” Max says, rising out of her seat.

Susan grabs her arm to sit her back down. “No, you’re not, young lady. Remember what we talked about? You’re staying to clean dishes.”

“That’s not fair,” Max whines. “How come Billy doesn’t have to do chores?”

“You are my chore."

“Billy.”

“I got a team thing,” he explains. He needs to get out, right now. There’s a hot squeezing feeling in his throat. He wants to see it—the postcard—even if it’s just to confirm, just to see the stamp. It’s not a good idea. Not with all of them in the house. He needs to get in his car and go somewhere.

His dad nods, watching him.

“That’s not fair,” Max shouts. “He’s not going out with the team, he’s seeing some girl. Everyone at school knows about it. How come I can’t go to the arcade with my friends but Billy’s allowed to do whatever he wants?”

She throws her spoon into her food—polenta and gravy spattering—twisting out of Susan’s grip and storming off. Susan hurries after her, her chair squeaking over the linoleum. A moment later her door slams and he can hear Susan pounding on it. The sound of their caterwauling only strings him tighter. It’s a high-pitched noise he never gets used to.

He goes and grabs his keys. His dad’s still sitting at the table when he gets back. “Your girl…” Neil starts, then seems to change his mind. He takes a sip of his root beer, slow, staring at nothing. “I don’t need to remind you to be careful,” he says. “Nothing you can do if you get one of them pregnant.”

Yeah, Billy thinks hatefully, filling in the blanks. Wouldn’t want a mistake following me for the rest of my life.

He floors the gas the whole way into town, music blasting so loud he can feel the beat rattling his blood. Hawkins whizzes by, dark and uninteresting, bare-limbed trees bleached of color, nothing to look at but the long black streamer of road in front of him. By the time he gets to the cinema he’s got the worst of it out of him, but it’s still there in the agitated trip of his pulse.

The team is still milling around underneath the marquee, waiting for the previews to start. Tommy is there too, bearhugging Carol, trying to lift her off her feet while she tries to hold a bucket of popcorn away from him. And there, off to one side, looking around hopefully and ignoring one of the other guys, is Lacey Fieldman.

She clocks him before anyone else as he pulls up showily, rubber screeching. He doesn’t bother getting out, just leans over to shove the passenger door open.

“Get in,” he says with a dangerous smile. “Ditch the popcorn.”

“Maybe I wanted to see the movie,” she says as she slides into the seat, giving him a sultry look from under her curly bangs.

“I’ll tell you how it ends,” he says. “The princess and the criminal end up together.” It’s the story she wants—they all do—even if it’s not the whole point of the movie. Even if it’s not what she’s going to get out of him, really.

They don’t speak the rest of the drive out to Lovers’ Lake and he doesn’t let her touch the radio. He can tell he makes her nervous. Not in the way he makes Max nervous, when she holds onto the door handle like he’s a psycho who’s going to get them both killed. More like she had it in her head how the night would go and he’s skipped a few steps, put her on the back foot.

“So,” she says breathily once they’ve parked somewhere quiet and he’s turned the music off.

The seat creaks as he leans over and kisses her. She sighs into it, going pliant, clicking out of her seatbelt to crawl into his lap. She slides her hands up under his jacket, sucking his lip into her mouth gently. She’s good. He pushes her back a little so that he can get a look at the flush starting on her neck, kissing up under her ear and breathing in her perfume. It tastes like something under his tongue.

He looks at the dangling air fresheners while she takes her skivvy off, pulling his hands over her bra. He scrapes his thumbs over the lace, making her squirm, up and over the curve of her breasts and around over her shoulders to the fastening. She pushes him back just slightly, breathing heavy, eyes on his mouth.

“You’re a good kisser,” she says.

She’s better at it than him but he’ll take it.

“Do you want to slow down?” he asks, because she hasn’t tried for his belt yet and it seems like maybe she does. She shakes her head, no, and pushes him back into the seat, kisses turning hungry, coming faster, smearing along his jaw. Her hands come up to stroke at his new stubble, one thumb finding the tender spot where Harrington had really nailed him, even though the bruise has faded and gone. He’s quiet—has never allowed himself to be otherwise, but he gasps when she licks over it, sealing her mouth there and sliding her fingers up through his hair, pulling.

She’s smiling into his mouth when he really starts kissing back, his arms tightening against her, wrapping around her ribs to pull her closer, to keep her lips on his. She’s almost laughing. He doesn’t mind. Just keeps kissing and kissing and kissing her. Like he’s always going to be hungry.

Chapter 3: harmless and horrible

Chapter Text

“You will not believe what I just heard.”

Billy pauses with his meatloaf halfway to his mouth.

Carol is looking down at him expectantly over her lunch tray, her mouth ticked up in one corner betraying her excitement.

He sighs and drops his fork. “Get lost,” he says to the kid across from him so that she can slide in.

He doesn’t normally eat in the cafeteria for just this reason. Prefers to spend his lunch break in his car with the radio on and a three-course meal of Marlboros. Except now he has no allowance—and no smokes either since he smoked his last pack over a week ago. He’s aching for nicotine; his dreams all f*cked up and unnatural—have him waking up chewing away at his own fingers. He’s already tossed his room twice in the hope of finding a stray stick; even got up in the middle of the night to look under his car seats with a flashlight once the inspiration came to him—but, nada.

The cafeteria food tastes like dogsh*t, but it beats sitting alone in his car picking at Susan’s crummy health food and listening to his stomach growl.

Carol drops her tray down. Somehow she’s managed to sweet-talk her way into an extra pudding cup. She takes her time settling in, smirking, knowing that he doesn’t want to have to ask if her gossip is about him. He raises his eyebrows at her like, well?

“We missed you at the movies last Friday…”

“Get to the point, Carol.”

Her smile widens. “Word is you took Lacey Fieldman to Lovers’ Lake and didn’t—” She makes a gesture with her fingers, her tongue in her cheek.

He narrows his eyes. “Says who?”

“So it’s true?” Her eyes gleam.

He shrugs, aiming for indifference. “What’s it to you?” He stabs at his meatloaf. “I don’t screw and tell.”

Carol rests her face in her hands, practically glowing. “Yeah, that’s about what she said. So, what’s the deal—she special or something?”

He gives her a flat look. Lacey Fieldman is the furthest thing from special and Carol knows it, that’s why she promised him she would be a sure thing.

And look, he’s not a pig like some guys—isn’t interested in hurting some bitch’s feelings just for the reputation—but he doesn’t need the easiest girl in school going around running her mouth about him treating her like fine china.

“Didn’t have a rubber,” he says around a mouthful of food, letting the implications of that do the nasty work for him, which it does, if Carol’s delighted expression is any indicator. It’s a half-truth anyway.

He does a cursory scan of the cafeteria for Lacey’s bouncy ponytail, but his eyes land on Nancy Wheeler instead. She doesn’t look so pinched today. She’s sitting with Byers, her normally prissy little mouth stretched up into a wry smile. They make an odd pair. Byers especially looks out of place in the buzzing cafeteria, his satchel tucked between the table and his chest in case he needs to pack up and run.

Carol realizes she’s been tuned out and follows his line of sight to where Wheeler is tugging playfully at a book in Byers’ hands. “Little Miss Perfect?” she muses, turning to face him. “Forget it. She might look all sweet and dewy, but she’s very sloppy seconds from what I heard through Stevie’s bedroom wall. Not to mention, she’s dating the freak. Although…” She swivels back around. “You do have one thing in common.”

He tries not to bristle. They have something in common all right, but he doubts that’s what Carol has latched on to. And Byers thinks punk rock is music, so they’re practically a different species. He arches an eyebrow at her. “It look like I’m into wearing hand-me-downs?”

She snorts, prying open the lip of her milk carton. “No. But you’re both into punching King Steve in the face. Maybe that’s her type.”

“Well, she’s not mine,” he says. “And Harrington’s not king of sh*t anymore.”

Carol hums an agreement, twirling her hair. “He’s already in so much trouble with his parents about college applications. If he misses any more class they’re probably going to make him go to summer school.”

“Who’s going to special school?” Tommy asks, sliding in beside Carol and throwing his arm around her. He looks at Billy. “Carol’s going.” He adds out of the side of his mouth: “Otherwise they’re not going to let her graduate next year.”

Carol socks him in the shoulder. “It’s not my fault Mr. Mundy grades on a dumb curve. I would have passed if there weren’t so many squares in my class.”

“It’s baby algebra, Carol. I don’t think there’s that big of a curve.”

She gives Tommy a pouty look, dropping a pudding cup onto his tray. Billy averts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the rest of their little ritual before they start sucking face.

He finds himself staring at Byers again. It’s an affront to the natural order of things, he decides. No one with a haircut like that should be allowed to steal Harrington’s girl. He’s spent more time this last week puzzling over it than he even cares to examine; like if he works out how the two of them sucked all the fight out of Harrington he’ll be able to get over the feeling of dissatisfaction that’s been plaguing him since that night.

“So, who are we talking about?” Tommy asks.

“No one,” Billy says, but Carol talks over the top of him:

“Nancy Wheeler,” she says in a pointed tone. “Think she’ll set her sights on Billy now?” She walks her fingers up Tommy’s arm. “Sure seems like she has a thing for guys who beat Steve up.”

Tommy’s face darkens. “Yeah, but she also has a thing for losers, remember?”

The both of them turn to stare at Byers and Wheeler across the cafeteria.

Carol pats Tommy's arm to get his attention. “Hey, do you think they do it with the camera? Like, taking pictures?”

Tommy grimaces. “You know, I bet he kept all those pervert shots of you from the pool to beat off to.” He mimes taking a snap of her and she shoves him, gagging.Neither of them bother to explain what the hell they’re talking about to Billy, and he’s not going to ask. They do that all the time, get carried away with stories they forget he doesn’t have any context for.

It all fits so poorly, these spoils of Harrington’s life: his friends that have conversations around an empty seat when Billy’s right there across the table from them; the girls that probably recycle the same love letters to slip into his locker; the guys on the team who wait a beat too long for someone else to lead the huddle. It’s like Billy’s just some goddamn cuckoo bird that’s hatched itself in the nest meant for Harrington.

He needs Harrington to come back. He swallows around the sour taste of the realization. He needs Harrington to come back so he can stop thinking about when he's going to come back; can make sure he’s put down for good—so he doesn’t have to feel like an imposter in his own life.

“Are you gonna eat the rest of your meatloaf?” Carol asks, fork poised over his food.

He tugs his tray closer.

“Eat your own.”

^^^

He’s still thinking about it that weekend while he does his English homework, novel folded in one hand while he reads. Whatever kind of bird Harrington is, when Billy kicked him out of the nest, he should have made sure he broke his neck on the way down.

That’s the crux of his problem—or, at least, that’s what he’s gleaned from the book. The boys on the island can’t let themselves truly enjoy it until they realize there’s no escape and then get rid of the little buzzkill who keeps reminding them that they don’t belong.He uncaps a highlighter with his teeth and uses it to circle a chunk of text.

“Mom says you have to take me to look at Christmas trees.”

Billy doesn’t move from his spot under the car, pretending to be asleep. It’s freezing under there, the cold from the cement leaching right through his jeans, but it’s peaceful, and being upright after last night’s party makes him want to barf. He hears Max’s reluctant footsteps scraping closer over the driveway and then the dull impact of her kicking the sole of his boot.

“She gave me money for gas.”

He scoots out from under the chassis, squinting.

Looks like Susan has finished giving Max her biannual haircut with a pair of kitchen scissors—(which is what drove him under the Camaro in the first place)— her cropped locks as bright as copper wiring in the late afternoon sun.

She’s going to be a real beauty one day—just like her mother always tells her.

“Okay,” he says, dusting himself off. “But we’re sure as sh*t not going to look at trees.”

Max bugs her eyes at him, holding up the folded bills like, obviously.

“So, where are we going then?” he asks once they’re out of the driveway and he’s got the heat running.

Max reaches over and redirects one of the vents to her. “Downtown,” she says. “I need something for the dance.”

He eyeballs her. It’s hardly a topic of conversation he’s interested in, but it’s unusual for her to give two sh*ts about something like that either. It would seem Susan’s efforts to transform her into a little lady are beginning to have an effect.

He’s not sure how he feels about it.

One the one hand, it might be nice not to constantly get the blame for her acting like a feral animal. But on the other hand, he’s never particularly wanted to cohabitate with a girl—which was why he sunk so much time into teaching her how to skate in the first place.

He shoves the arm of his aviators into his mouth and chews at it while he drives, listening to her nattering on about the apparently mortifying ordeal of middle-school dance lessons.

The first thing he’s going to do with that money is buy a packet of smokes. Even with the heat blasting, he can feel the creep of cold through the glass, getting in under the sherpa lining of his jacket. The air has that kind of cold about it when there’s been no rain to take out the dry; the type that gets in your nose and throat. It makes Hawkins smell like wood-smoke instead of cow sh*t, which is okay.

“I mean, I don’t want to take her stupid lessons,” Max continues, “but what if someone asks me to dance?”

“Doubt it. Guys only want to dance with girls who are pretty.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Lacey Fieldman isn’t that pretty.”

“Well, you haven’t seen all of her,” he says dryly.

She’s dead wrong, too. Everyone thinks Lacey’s plenty pretty—hair with sun in it like Brooke Shields, lips that always turn up at the corners. Perky tit*. Lacey’s a hell of a lot prettier than Nancy Wheeler, that’s for sure. And she’s smarter than people give her credit for too, since she’s obviously figured out how to string him along for a few more dates.

There are plenty of empty parking spaces Downtown since everyone sensible has stayed indoors. Without the usual buzz of people doing their weekend shopping, the quaint shopfronts look like staged facades; like the set of an old western.

He trails Maxine into the thrift store. The clerk about dies of shock when she sees she has customers, hastily sweeping her knitting under the counter and giving them a welcoming smile. Max seems to know what she’s after, bypassing the ugly furniture and heading straight into a maze of crowded clothing racks. It smells freaking stale back there so he takes himself off to look at the same bin of tapes and records he’s already picked over a dozen times.

He doesn’t even know how a place like Hawkins has a second-hand store. Sure there’s a poor end of town, but it would be impossible to buy something here without eventually running into the original owner. It makes him wonder how many of Jonathan Byers’ clothes have somebody else’s name inked inside the collar.

Billy couldn’t do that. He likes the look and smell and feel of new, even if he can’t always have it: clothes that promise the whole package. He’d rather die than admit it, but he’s about as desperate as any bitch in Hawkins for the new mall to open.

He shuffles through the bin of cassettes and, yeah, all these tapes are the same crap from years back: disco, country, Christian learning for children. There’s a distinct hole in the selection of punk. He gives the clerk a sullen look while he flicks through rhythmically—clack, clack, clack. He doesn’t know why he bothers looking. It’s not like someone in Hawkins is going to buy Ride the Lightning and then donate it so Billy can get his hands on a copy.

He lasts about another ten seconds and Maxine is still sliding hangers around with intense focus, so he bails out of the thrift store and heads over to the RadioShack next door. The guy behind the counter goes on alert when Billy wanders in, eyes following him with open suspicion.

The Hawkins branch only stocks a barebones selection of metal, but the new Metallica album is there on display in its shiny jewel case. Billy doesn’t pick it up; only lets himself touch the corner of it. The cover art is so f*cking cool he’s already resigned to seeing it in his dreams—he doesn’t need to get too attached.

He thumbs the price sticker. It would be the dregs of his savings and whatever he can scrounge from Susan’s overly generous gas allowance. And he still needs smokes for the week.

It’s still tempting.

He makes himself move on, looking at the shelves of electronics, checking out the Walkman he’s already earmarked for his Christmas present this year. He never gave much of a sh*t about the holiday before Susan came into their lives. Now it’s the best day of the year, even if he rarely gets what he wants—it’s still more than what he and his dad used to do for each other.

Once he gets tired of making the RadioShack clerk nervous he wanders back out and idles up the strip, peering in at the display of guns in the bait and tackle place; a boutique with a suit and prom dress in the window.

When he was still living with his mom he used to take the bus down to the pier so he could cruise the boardwalk all day long, pigging out on ice cream. He did it day after day and it still felt like he’d never get enough time to explore all of it. He should have rationed Hawkins, he thinks, reaching the end of the strip.

Once he’s exhausted everything he wants to look at, he heads back to the thrift store, but Max still isn’t ready to leave, straight-up ignoring his pointed huffing while she peruses the crowded racks.

Billy frowns at the selection of ugly puffy dresses folded over one of her arms. “Christ, Maxine. What’s Susan put in your head now?”

She doesn’t look up from her browsing. “It’s not for me.”

“This gonna take much longer? I got places to be.” Like right back under his car avoiding Neil. He takes off without waiting around for her answer, hating the dry dusty smell of the place, bypassing the store clerk on the way out.

“Is there something in particular you’re looking for, hun?” she ask Max.

“Something...” he hears Max say just before the door closes behind him, bell chiming. “Bitchin’.”

Outside is still cold and gray, colder for having been inside the warm still of the shop. He tucks his hands into his armpits and starts walking back down the lot, checking out the handful of parked cars. There’s a cop car parked out front of the Hideaway, but the rest are pulled up in front of the supermarket and the RadioShack. He runs his hand over their tail lights as he walks aimlessly. A gray sedan. A patchy beater he half-recognizes. A green hatchback.

Deep red-brown.

He pauses with his hand over the rear badge of Harrington’s BMW.

He swallows, surprised, looking around the lot for its owner.

There’s no one, just some old lady struggling with a cart further down. He licks his lips, fingers tensing reflexively over the chrome lettering. It’s a 7-Series. He knew that at first glance, of course, but it’s different to see it up close. He’s only really seen one before in a magazine, and even then he’d flicked past the full-page spread with the same level of enthusiasm he would have for an ad for buying a timeshare in the Bahamas—no use looking at something you’re never going to have. He can almost feel the sharp rap on his knuckles for having touched it.

It’s just some rich kid car, he reminds himself. Why half the girls at school are always rubbing all over the thing like cats he has no idea. Although the paint job is top notch—like poured chocolate.

He pulls his fingers away, darting another quick look around the lot. It’s not like there’s ever going to be another chance to check one out so freely. He reaches out and traces a hand over the clean line of the trunk, following it up against the glossy shine of a door panel, stooping to look in at the backseat, and—

Yeah.

f*cking gorgeous. Legroom for miles. Big supple leather seats he can almost smell already—probably custom. Power windows... His sigh catches on the tinted glass, a shrinking fog of condensation with his reflection behind it.

When he straightens up Steve Harrington is watching him.

He’s standing a couple of meters away from the driver’s side door, keys in hand and paper bag tucked under one arm. It’s a testament to how nicotine deprived Billy is that the unlit cigarette perched on Harrington’s bottom lip sends him into some kind of immediate withdrawal, his face and chest breaking out in a prickling flush, pulse speeding.

Harrington is staring at him, face blank with surprise behind his movie-star sunglasses. He’s still wearing Billy’s colors, although they’re faded to yellow and green, only a nasty cut on his lip still vivid. He doesn’t look anywhere near as bad as he’d imagined or hoped.

He should say something—or Harrington should—but the moment stretches out too long and then they’ve both missed it.

“Hey, hey, Steve? Do you think she’ll be pissed off we didn’t get her like, a girl walkie talkie or should we—ahh!” It’s the curly-haired one, busy trying to wrench open the plastic shell on a package and bumping into Harrington from behind so that the paper bag lurches forward, spilling half a dozen blank tapes onto the ground with a clatter.

The tapes keep coming, sliding one after the other out of the sagging bag as Harrington fumbles with it, muttering a quiet, “f*ck.”

Billy doesn’t wait around, just turns on his heel and marches as fast as he can without looking like he’s running, barking, “Max!” over his shoulder, loud enough that she’ll hear it through the window; loud enough that the old lady packing her trunk turns to scowl at him. He slams his car door shut, fuming. It’s a f*cking disaster for his ego, running into Harrington like this, with his paws all over the guy’s douchey car.

He watches the BMW pull out and leave.

A minute later, Max comes trotting out, not from the thrift store but from Melvald’s over the street, looking unfazed by his glare.

“The f*ck took you so long,” he snarls, snatching the change off her. It’s enough for a full tank and more. Not enough for what the outing’s cost him.

^^^

He’s going to f*ck Lacey.

That’s his plan for the night, but also the general consensus of the guys on the team. It’s been two weeks. She must know there’s only so many times they can fool around in his car before he starts to lose interest, and if it stretches out any longer, then they’re both going to get confused about who is stalling who. Plus, everyone knows Billy’s girl puts out, so soon her little purity act is going to stop being a thrill and start being someone else’s gossip—probably Carol’s, if he’s not careful.

The party tonight is just another lame get-together in some kid’s cousin’s house while the folks are out of town, but he has it on good authority from Tommy that there’ll be enough booze and enough of a crowd to make it worth his while.

He spends so long getting ready in the bathroom that both Maxine and Susan are annoyed at him when he gets out. Maxine makes a face at the smell of his cologne but Susan looks taken aback. He’s wearing the baby blue button-down she’d bought for him a while back. He’d initially stuffed it in a bottom drawer, loathe to wear anything chosen by someone who voluntarily attended a fortnightly book club, but then he’d realized it actually fell very neatly into the category of shirts he could tuck into his jeans without having to do up at all. He spreads out in the doorframe so they can both soak it all up. Max might need her mom to promise her she’ll grow into her looks, but Billy’s always known he was hot sh*t.

“You’re such a girl,” Max growls, shoving past and gagging when she encounters the residue of his hair spray cloud.

Billy just laughs it up. He doesn’t hate Hawkins tonight. He’s got his music up as loud as he likes, his favorite earring in, his hair set just right – feeling like he fits in his skin for the first time in a long time. Neil is out on a shift at the plant and there’s no one around to tell him he shouldn’t spend time looking good in the mirror.

Even waiting for Susan to get done stuffing Maxine into whatever dress she’s picked out doesn’t put a dampener on his good mood. He heads down to the car early when Susan breaks out the camera and busies himself getting a Whitesnake tape queued up.

Max practically flies out of the house with Susan beaming behind her. The dress didn’t make it but Susan got her compromise in the form of a fussy-looking braid in the front of her hair.

He blows his smoke out the window while he drives since she’ll get at him if he makes her smell. It’s some kind of night. Cold but not biting. Warm enough to be in and out of his jacket, roll his windows up or down. The music makes it near-on perfect. Max is quiet, pissed probably, because of the volume, but even that doesn’t bother him. When he comes to a rolling stop in front of the gym doors and she doesn’t take a hint and jump out he realizes she’s not pissed at all. She’s biting her lip, nervous.

He clears his throat like, hey, are you okay and can you get out of my car?—but no reaction. She’s staring at the wedge of light spilling out from the open doors. He doesn’t have time for this. There’s free booze going somewhere in Hawkins and a house full of people waiting for Billy to drink his fill, so long as he does it upside down with a spout in his mouth.

Some kid’s parent behind them honks so Billy gives the lady a quick bashful wave and a grin and then takes his keys out of the ignition, settling in. Max is oblivious, fingers busy tugging at the knot Susan has put in her hair. He smacks her hand away.

“Leave it.”

She scowls at him. “I look stupid!”

“No sh*t.”

It’s not, apparently, the right thing to say. She looks at a couple of girls in frilly skirts wandering in through the doors together and hunches in on herself. “Can you just drop me off at the arcade?”

He blows out a breath. If he’s not supposed to smoke near her hairstyle then Susan’s probably not going to be cool with him shunting her out the car window. “Look,” he says, drumming his fingers even more impatiently. “Everyone at these things looks stupid. Your dork friends are gonna look stupid. At least we’re not from this sh*tty little cow town, and actually know how to dance.” He leans over her and shoves the door open. “Tell Sinclair to keep his hands above the waist.”

Max stares at him with her mouth pinched in a line. The lady behind is really laying on the horn now and one of the teachers has ducked his head outside the building to see what’s causing the pileup. Just when he thinks he’s going to have to army carry Max in, she unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out, striding off towards the gym all determined like there’s a limit on how many girls in sneakers are allowed to attend and she wants to make the cut. He waits until she disappears inside, a coyote among housecats, before putting his keys back in the ignition.

He’s supposed to wait around for Tommy and Carol so he can follow their car out of town, and he has time to kill, so he pulls up and parks on the outskirts, intending to smoke in peace. It’s still relatively warm out, balmy even, so long as he turns his collar up and ignores the sting in his exposed fingertips. He’s just got the end of his first Marlboro between his lips, patting himself down for a lighter, when a cop car turns into the lot. sh*t. He crouches instinctively, moving into the shadowy space between cars and slinking away, out of range of its headlights, cutting a quick path around the side of the building.

Hawkins is f*cking creepy at night—the school even more so, all the spaces normally filled with noise and light gone dark and stagnant, an invitation for something sinister; an abandoned world. It’s some comfort to know he’s the meanest thing walking in it, but it still makes the hair on the backs of his arms stand up.

Of course, it makes sense that Harrington’s there too.

Adrenaline fizzes at the base of his brain. Harrington’s leaned up against the brick, arms folded, one half of his pale face illuminated by a slice of light from the propped open door, one big sad doe-eye lit amber as honey. Whatever he’s looking at has him completely entranced, cigarette half-forgotten in one hand. Billy tugs his own unlit stick out of his mouth so that it doesn’t fall when he breaks into a grin.

“You should have stayed buried, Harrington,” he says from a distance, giving the guy a more than fair head start.

Harrington doesn’t even flinch, eyes flicking over him dismissively, mouth unhappy. “Man. Get away from me.”

“And let you stay here rubbing one out to my sister? I don’t think so.”

That gets more of a reaction, Harrington stiffening up against the brick, brow furrowing. “What—No. God, that’s—Don’t you have someone else you can pick a fight with?”

“None who bruise up quite so easy,” he says, reaching out to poke at his jaw. Harrington knocks his hand away with an annoyed sound. Up close, he can see Harrington’s face is actually completely healed—pretty as a picture. It’s like Billy never happened to him, like the bruises just came off with a bit of soap and water. Something about that makes him itch, makes him want to mark it all up again. He feels like he does after a good game, like he’s too high on himself to control what comes out of his mouth. He knows he’s smiling. Knows what that looks like.

Harrington is giving him a completely unimpressed look. He’s got to hand it to the guy, he does aloof well. It must be something, he thinks, to want the guy to like you – coming up against all that silver-spoon-cool superiority.

“Give me a light,” he says.

Harrington blows out a slow stream of smoke. “Sorry. Forgot my lighter.”

“Don’t be like that, amigo.” He squeezes in against the wall beside the door, way too close for friendly, blocking Harrington’s view. “I’m being real civil.”

“Yeah, you’re a real peach. Answer’s no.”

Billy plucks the cigarette out of his mouth. It’s only really possible because Harrington lets him, arms still crossed, deliberately unperturbed by Billy’s invasion of his personal space. He’s still playing by the rules of his world instead of the rules of the jungle, just like that night in front of the Byers’ house, thinking propriety will keep Billy from sinking his fangs in.

He uses the cherry of Harrington’s stick to light his own and offers it back, amicable-like. Harrington takes it from him just as casual, as if he never minded sharing. On his next exhale he makes a show of thumbing a stray fleck of tobacco off his tongue after, like Billy’s made it taste cheap with just a touch.

Billy’s never really learned to do that: use silence to do the dirty work instead of words or fists. Kids like Harrington and Tommy H do it without having to think about it. With their posture; with that look in their eyes like nothing you say or do to them is really going to leave a mark, secure in the knowledge that life is going to pick them back up and dust them off. Billy doesn’t have that luxury; has to win every fight he starts or he’d never get back up again.

He moves away from the wall abruptly and Harrington can’t quite hide the way he tenses.

“Relax, Harrington. I don’t want our first dance to be to Spandau Ballet.” He waves his cigarette in the direction of the filtering music. “Just wanted to know what’s got you out here in the dark peeping.” He backs up enough to peer in through the gym door. It takes him a while to find Wheeler in the crowd of swaying middle schoolers, but there she is, a foregone conclusion, hair all piled up and pretty, trying to tease Jonathan Byers away from his photographer's stand. Oh man, now he’s disappointed for Harrington.

“Yeah, that’s not what it looks like,” Harrington says, a little too defensive to be anything but exactly what it looks like.

He snorts. “Oh yeah? They know you’re out here? That’s too good, Harrington. You gonna be their driver for the night?”

Harrington’s eyes narrow. Got it in one.

Billy laughs, tongue working excitedly around a mouthful of smoke. “Damn, Harrington. If I knew I was just getting Byers’ leftovers I never would have taken a swing at you.”

“Yeah,” Harrington says, tired and angry, throwing the last of his cigarette on the ground. “Yeah, I don’t need this right now.”

“You can stare at him all you want,” Billy calls after him, following, helpless to his own desire to keep pulling Harrington’s pigtails. “You’re not gonna figure it out.”

“You’re f*cking deranged,” Harrington tosses nastily over his shoulder.

“You wanna know why she chose him, huh?” Billy says.

Harrington turns around and he can see the stiff set of his shoulders that says he does, more than anything. “I know why she chose him, asshole,” he says, eyes sliding away and fixing on the open door for a moment. “He’s a good guy.”

“You both are,” Billy says happily, blowing a line of smoke a calculated distance from Harrington’s cheek. puss*, he thinks when Harrington doesn’t rise to the bait. He flicks the butt away. “He just doesn’t have to try so hard at it.”

It lands better than he thought it would. Harrington’s eyes, so cool and disinterested, go big and round for a moment, flicking over him, darkening. He shakes his head as if to dislodge a thought. There’s anger there now—barely embers, but he’ll take it. Harrington probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s moved just infinitesimally closer, using every millimeter of the small height advantage he has. “You think just because you put me down once you know me? You don’t.”

“Nobody put you down but you, Harrington,” he says. “I just made sure you knew it. You ever want to drop this sheep’s clothing sh*t, this”—he gestures vaguely up and down—“good guy act, I’ll be here to put you down again.”

Harrington looks at him quietly for a moment. C’mon, Billy thinks. C’mon. But then, disastrously, whatever small spark was building between them just—dies out. “Man,” Harrington says, backing off, tired and sneering. “Whatever gets your rocks off. No one’s acting. This is just me.”

It’s infuriating. It’s such a f*cking lie. Harrington’s already turning away from him and Billy’s feet are still planted out of instinct. He didn’t misread sh*t. Harrington just turned it off like a switch, like it’s something he can choose. He’s spoiled it, for both of them.

It’s a real dent in an otherwise great night, is what it is.

Billy watches him walk away, licking his lips in search of the right words, but before he can come up with anything Tommy’s car is rounding the corner with a squeal of tires and pulling up beside them.

Harrington looks up at the sky, running a hand through his fluffed-up hair in frustration.

“Stevie-boy,” Tommy says, openly delighted, hooking an arm out the driver’s side window. Carol leans forward in the passenger seat, smacking gum. “They kick you out of the Snow Ball?”

“Get lost, Tommy.”

“Whoa, Stevie,” Carol says, putting her hand over her heart all mock-hurt. “What crawled up your ass and died?”

Harrington glowers at them. “Why don’t you ask your new friend?”

“What’s the matter, Harrington?” Tommy asks. “Feeling left out? Hey, maybe you should come with us tonight. Now that Byers is moving up in the world we’re in need of someone to laugh at.”

Harrington flips him the bird. “No thank you and go f*ck yourself.” He goes to reach for his car door and then seems to remember something, turning back. “And tell your girl thanks for the casserole.”

Tommy scowls, snarling, “You better get in daddy’s car and get out of here right now, Harrington, or—”

“Or what, Tommy?” Harrington says dryly. “You’ll get a nose bleed?”

Tommy ratchets the handbrake so hard it makes Billy cringe. He’s out of the car in a flash, pale face flush with color, stalking towards Harrington like he means business. “Big words for someone who goes down easier than a Kerley County prom queen.”

“Like you would know,” Carol mutters, slipping out of the car beside him with her hands stuffed in her pockets. She shoots an exasperated look at Billy like he’s supposed to do something about this. He doesn’t like that sh*t at all, being made to act the part of a bitch. But he also knows he doesn’t want Tommy to get the fight out of Harrington he couldn’t.

“We getting out of here or what?” he says to break it up, grabbing Tommy’s arm before he can get past. The slick fabric of Tommy’s jacket slides under his hand but it’s enough to stop him. He’s like Harrington: all theater, no actual force.

Tommyjabs a finger at his ex-friend. “I’m sick of this sad-sack bullsh*t, man.”

“Come on, Tommy,” Carol says, stomping her foot impatiently.

“You know what?” Tommy forces a laugh, shaking Billy off. “You belong out here. You know why you weren’t invited tonight? Everyone’s forgotten about you, man. You’re not what you used to be. You’re bullsh*t now. You’re a ghost.”

Harrington stares at him for a beat. It pisses him off, he realizes, how a dumbass like Tommy can know how to get under Harrington’s skin so easily.

“Yeah, well, at least I’m not an asshole.”

“Leave it,” Billy says, sensing Tommy winding up again. His good mood is all but vanished. He needs liquor. He needs noise. He needs a crowd of people cheering him as he follows Lacey Fieldman upstairs. The saxophone solo from Careless Whisper cuts across the darkened lot and it’s the lamest ambience for a showdown ever. He shoves Tommy back a step. Yeah, the guy’s definitely giving him a lift to his car after this nonsense. “Like you said,” he says so Harrington can hear. “He’s bullsh*t.”

Harrington doesn’t have a clever come back for that. He rubs a hand down one arm like he’s just now feeling the cold through his fine sweater. Tommy shrugs out of Billy’s grip again, storming off towards his car. Billy follows after one last scornful look over his shoulder.

“Don’t wait around for too long, okay, Stevie?” Carol calls, trailing after. “I don’t think Little Miss Perfect is coming out here to kiss you goodnight.”

Billy slides into the passenger seat, leaving Carol to climb into the back.

Tommy rounds on her the moment the door slams shut, smacking her arm. “Seriously? You made him a f*cking casserole?”

Carol makes a face. “What? His parents are in Malta. You know he’ll only eat pizza all week.”

“Big f*cking deal, he’s—”

They all jump at the sound of Harrington tapping on the glass. He’s standing by the passenger side, eyebrows raised, waiting for Billy to wind the window down.

Billy does it real slow. “Forget something, Your Highness?”

Harrington’s eyes flick over him in annoyance. Up this close with his arm up on thecar roof Billy can smell his laundry detergent. Christ. Harrington darts a look at the light spilling out of the gym door and then ducks his head to stare in at Tommy coldly.

“Where’s the party?”

Chapter 4: animals anyway (part one)

Chapter Text

It turns out the party is on an actual f*cking farm. The whole place stinks of fertilizer and he’s apparently the only one who can smell it. From outside, the house looks abandoned, empty, its windows dark even though its rooms are packed full of bodies and smoke and the agitated thump of pop music.

There’s no sign of Harrington.

Billy doesn’t care; not really. He’s drunk before they even get in the front door.

He didn’t mean for it to happen that way. That’s one of his rules too, like not talking in the locker room: don’t get drunk and stupid. But he’s broke, and Tommy has a slab of some fancy import beer that he can have as much as he wants of for as long as he can keep up the charade of teaching Carol to shotgun. They prop themselves up against his car out front, in between the headlights, watching cars pull up, one after the other, churning the scrubby lawn into dirt.

sh*tty two-doors. Trucks. Vans.

No BMW.

He can tell after the first can that Carol already knows how to shotgun; she sucks it down too neat and fast to be anything other than pro, but Tommy lets it happen anyway, too much of a puss* to get Billy’s hands off his beer or his girl. Hell, sometimes Tommy’ll get a look in his eye like he’ll let Billy teach him how to shotgun too.

Billy fumbles the next can on purpose, gets spray all over Carol’s chin just to make her squawk, just to piss Tommy off—just so he can down the foaming beer himself and crack another.

By the time the rest of the team arrives with the keg, he’s trashed and stumbling—the best and worst he’s been since Hayward. Thing is, he’s not the kind of guy who should be uninhibited; being a happy drunk probably isn’t part of his genetic makeup. But...

But maybe it doesn’t matter tonight. It isn’t the usual Hawkins crowd that’s turned out but something a little wilder, faces he doesn’t recognize; a healthy mix of older college-age kids too.

Tommy and Carol cling to him like ducklings as they make their way inside, brimming with nervous excitement.

The inside of the house is chaos, loud and smoky, dirt tracked all over the floor, gritty underfoot. The only light filters dimly from somewhere further in, the front rooms seething with people in the semidarkness punctuated by glowing cigarette tips and lighter flames. It loosens something in him: the undercurrent of danger and the anonymity of the crowd. He crows as he enters behind the keg, tripping in the long rut it makes pulled through the mud. Someone crows back as he catches himself on the door, shoving a red solo cup into his chest and spilling something all down his front. He sucks it up through his shirt—straight bourbon, sticky and sweet.

He was expecting to make more of an entrance but he’s swallowed up in the press of bodies immediately, rubbing up against shoulders and elbows as he shoves his way through. He can’t hear a goddamn thing even though people keep trying to talk to him, Tommy's grip pinching into his collarbone, steering him towards faces he's supposed to recognize. Someone’s playing a sh*tty pop hit at full volume, but there’s something more satisfying and thrashy coming from one of the other rooms and he feels the clash of it in his atoms.

They get him to the keg eventually, posted up in the kitchen where the light is coming from a single dim yellow bulb. Most of the team has congregated there already, asserting dominance over the punch bowl and all the pretty things in Hawkins that need the light to be noticed. He makes a beeline for Lacey sitting primly on the kitchen counter right under the light like something from a stage play. She draws him in with her legs and he shoves his nose straight into where she puts her perfume, breathing her in and working hard on not burping while she affectionately tucks his shirt back into his jeans. She’s even sweeter than the bourbon, the only thing in the whole goddamn world that isn’t spinning.

“You’re late, cowboy,” she says, pushing his face back to get a look at him. Her eyebrows pinch together. “You’re drunk.”

“I still got what you need,” he says, guiding her hands back down to his belt. One of her nails catches on the bare skin of his stomach as she reels him in. He shivers, trying to look down between them to see, but it makes him too dizzy.His body looks like someone else’s body between her legs, numb, hands like plasticine.

“Gonna make me wait for it any longer?” she breathes in his ear.

He shakes his head. “Gonna show you what’s worth waiting for.”

“Take me somewhere quiet then, so you can make me loud.”

The girl on the counter next to them dissolves into giggles and Lacey hits her on the arm. Hepushes up against the counter trying to get at her lips but she draws away, smirking, not wanting to smear her purple lipstick or maybe just teasing him.

A hand claps him on the back—one of the guys from the team who probably has a name that Billy can’t give a damn recalling right now. Real freckly. One giant freckle. Damn, if Billy stays in Indiana any longer there’s going to be nothing but freckles left of him too.

“There’s the man of the hour,” the guy shouts at him, shaking his shoulder and tugging him towards the keg. He tries to move but Lacey’s legs cinch around him.

“f*ck off, Toby. We’re busy.”

“What’s therace-y, Lacey?” the guy slurs. “You’ll get him after.”

“Later,” Billy says, pulling away, but her legs tighten again, grip firm on his belt.

“No, not later. Now.”

She’s frowning like it’s a big deal. One of the other guys has come to help, a big wet hand on the back of his neck. They’re chanting for him already. He’s the center of attention and it’s time to start the show. It dawns on him that he lost Tommy and Carol in the crowd some time ago, so they’re not going to be there to cheer him on. Someone not Tommy is going to hold his leg.

“Later,” he promises again, prying Lacey’s hands off him, maybe being a little rough. She hops off the counter, shooting him an indecipherable look before twisting away into the crowd, her friend chasing after. A round of jeers from the team follows her.

The keg is tapped, waiting patiently on a chair like the world’s ugliest dinner guest, the table next to it shaking under the weight of spectators who’ve climbed on top for the view. He’s nowhere near fighting fit. He’s going to puke if they tip him. But f*ck it, they’re chanting his name now—“Billy, Billy, Billy”—and he’s wasted, happy, everything he could learn to like about Hawkins under the one roof. He grabs up the keg line and showboats a little, putting the tap in between his teeth.

“What the f*ck do you think you’re doing, Peterson?” Tommy hisses, bulling his way through to Billy’s side and slapping the other guy’s hands away. “I’ve got this, man.” He wraps a possessive hand around Billy’s bicep, shouting something in his ear. Tommy’s grip there does something Pavlovian to him, gets him tilting forward into a headstand right away, grabbing for the lip of the keg, the world lurching as the guys scramble to boost his legs up.

Tommy’s words register as his mouth floods with beer.

“He’s here.”

He forgets to breathe through his nose for a moment, like a rookie, lukewarm beer spraying everywhere before he swallows, stinging in his sinuses. He can feel Tommy staggering against him, trying to keep him steady, trying to counter the kick of his legs. He’s carrying most of his own weight anyway, too vertical.

Being drunk actually helps, his focus funneling down to the rhythmic swallowing of beer, staring mindlessly at the crowd of inverted faces, a forest of denim-covered legs.

Five seconds…Seven seconds…Twelve seconds…

His temples start to pound, blood flooding to his face. He keeps chugging, keeps his throat open, sucking down foam without tasting it, nostrils full of bitter fumes. The crowd parts just a little and he can see that, yes, Steve Harrington’s Levi’s are here. He’s talking to some prim-looking college girl, drink in hand, looking far too neat and completely at ease. It’s enraging.

The crowd of onlookers roars as the count hits twenty and Harrington glances over at the noise without breaking conversation, eyes just barely catching on Billy, upside down, and then sliding away, returning to his conversation without pause.

Billy taps out.

He bails fast, the keg nozzle hissing, crowd booing, feet hitting the ground too hard. Getting upright is close to the worst thing he’s ever done. His insides slosh end-over-end, gravity coming back down on his shoulders like an anvil. He lets the guys prop him up, swallowing reflexively around the last mouthful of beer and scrubbing the lather off his chin with the back of his hand, waiting for the world to stop somersaulting.

Twenty-one. It’s not his record, but it is Harrington’s. He sways away from the ensuing press of admirers, snatching a cup of punch as he goes. He’s supposed to find Lacey now. That’s how it’s got to go.

Except that he can’t find her—gets lost, distracted somehow by a series of dark, crowded rooms and strangers who want to keep him upright, time listing sideways as the liquor hits his bloodstream.

What he does find is the room with the faster, harder music playing. He gets straight to dancing, sliding right into the thick of the crowd. He’s a good dancer, or, better than anyone here at least. This music he can shake himself out to. In moments some girl has her hands sliding over his wet chest and a cigarette she wants to share, sticky with lip-gloss around the filter but so damn good. They bump and grind together. He gets a hand down the back of her jeans and pulls hard at her panties, until she’s on tip-toes, gasping, trying to reach his mouth.

Carol is frowning at him at some point, getting in his face. “Billy,” she says again, annoyed. “Where’s Lacey, Billy?”

He looks down at his dance partner. She’s slumped half-way down his side, hair a mess covering her face, but she probably isn’t Lacey. He says something to Carol to make her go away. It’s weird watching her try to push through the throng of people without Tommy there to help her. He laughs. She’s so tiny. She looks like Maxine. He tries to forget about it, giving himself over to the music, jumping up and down in the crush of sweaty, clumsy-limbed bodies, something a little too close to fighting for some of the senior guys who don’t know him. One of them says something sharp and he says something filthy back.

He loses the girl for a bit and then they find each other again, the two of them jumping and stumbling against each other, carving through the crowd to find where the music is loudest, back and forth to the yellow-lit island of the kitchen to dip into the punch bowl. It’s good to feel her up against him. It’s good. He always runs so hot and there’s nobody to share it with. No one to touch him. She’s feeling the music the same way he is, wanting to be violent. She tangles a hand in his hair and yanks so rough he can hear guys cheering for it; gets bow-legged and hard.

A vaguely familiar face morphs out of the clamor of bodies, slapping him on the back. “There he is,” the guy, Miller, shouts at nobody listening. He throws his arm around Billy’s neck. “This istheman.”

“f*ck off,” the girl says, pissed at the interruption, trying to steer Billy deeper and away. Billy yanks the cup of beer out of Miller’s hand and gives him a warning shove back. Miller goes happy and easy but stumbles right into some guy who pushes back hard, sending him ping-ponging right back at them, the beer flying all over some girl.

“Hey, asshole,” her boyfriend snarls, puffing up and shoving Billy back. “You got my girlfriend wet.”

“Way I see it, I’m doing your job,” Billy says—slurs. (He might just be laughing).

It’s so good and so easy. The guy is shirtfronting him, spit flying. Billy’s girl is rubbing a hand along his stomach in support, tucking up under his arm, the crowd jostling him up and down like indifferent sea swell. The ceiling sways down to him, crawling with smoke. He’s pushed or he slips and someone strong but slippery is propping him up and saying, “Someone get him off me.”

Before he blacks out he feels the prick of the syringe in his neck again; the flood of sedative stoppering all his boundless directionless anger, soaking it up in a long warm wash.

They’re chanting again in the kitchen but it’s someone else’s name.

And that’s all there is after.

^^^

Billy jolts awake in his bed to the echo of a bat slamming into floorboards once more. Sun is filtering in through the curtains already, the room warm and full of dust. He swipes at the hair plastered to his face with sweat, salty in the corners of his mouth, and waits for his thumping heart to sync up with the steady tick of reticulation outside his window.

He breathes carefully as he gets up, still dressed in last night’s clothes, boots toppled on the floor. He doesn’t want to wake Neil or Susan so he creeps through the house, mouth flooding with saliva, waiting until he’s outside with the door shut behind him to vomit.

His car is parked in front of the garage. He shudders through a round of retching, hands braced on his knees. He doesn’t want to think about how he got home—whether it’s worse that he drove himself or that someone else might have found out where he lives and dropped him home. When he’s done upending the mostly liquid contents of his stomach Max is on the stoop waiting with an orange juice.

He takes it from her wordlessly, gargling and spitting a few times onto the lawn before swallowing it down. His temples throb sharply.

Maxine’s looking at him like how she did when she saw the fight between him and Neil. It’s a complicated expression: fearful and pitying, like she’s realizing he’s not the monster she thought he was, but he’s not something worth saving either. He takes a seat beside her. It’s too cold for her to be sitting out here in her dressing gown. If her mother comes out now this will be Billy’s fault.

“What do you want?” His voicecomes outraspy from someone else’s cigarettes.

“We could go somewhere today,” she says.

He grunts.

She goes quiet for a while, leaning down and folding her hands over her toes to keep them warm. His feet look like goblin feet next to hers, his all long-toed and bent, stark white where his tan ends, and hers still small and pretty.

He looks out at the quiet street. The trees have dropped most of their leaves but no one on this side of town rakes them up. The curbs are thick with banked up foliage, dry and brown. It’s too early for cars. His tired stare lands and fixes on a bird hopping around at the end of their driveway.

“Was it…” Max says, breaking the silence. “Was it really my fault we left Hayward?”

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. She’s resting her chin on her knees, face averted behind a curtain of hair. f*cking hell, what did he say last night? This is the last thing in the world he wants to deal with right now. He wants a hash brown, and coffee, and the smell of sea salt in the air. There’s a big black hole in his memory of last night and he’s afraid to explore what might have happened inside of it. He remembers only flashes: leaning up against the front of his car before the party, watching dust motes spin in the beam of headlights; the slick soapy taste of lipstick; being alone in the middle of a long, dark, empty road.

He leans over between his knees and half-spits-half-drools a long stringer of orange-juiceyellowspit onto the pavement. Nausea is building again, roiling in his stomach.

“Yeah,” he says. It was.

“That’s not fair.” She tucks her hair behind her ears, frowning. “That’s notfair,” she says more quietly. “I don’t even know what I did.”

“Sometimes it’s like that,” he says. Because it’s true. People don’t always need to explain why they hate you. You don’t always get to know what you need to fix. And sometimes it’s something you can’t fix anyway, and then it’s better not to know. He coughs to clear his throat. “How did I get home last night?”

Maxine eyes him, trying to gauge how much he remembers. “Your friends dropped you off,” she says after a beat. “Mom came out and brought you in.”

Well, sh*t. “Uh huh.”

“So...she’ll tell Neil.”

So they should go somewhere. Her words from earlier suddenly make sense. He shakes his head. “He doesn’t care about that sort of thing,” he says. “He used to drink too. Don’t sweat it.” He’s practically nostalgic at the thought of it. Neil was so much worse and so much simpler on the Schlitz. Cans on the coffee table? Smooth sailing. Open bottle of something dark and malt? Find somewhere else to be.

Max shakes her head a little, hugging her knees tighter. “You wanted to sleep outside so you, um, argued. You couldn’t speak, really, but you said some things to her.”

Ah. Well,thatNeil won’t like. Maxine’s usually pretty gleeful about repeating all the dumb sh*t that comes out of his mouth, loves picking up new curse words, and there’s only one word she won’t say, so he definitely called Susan a c*nt.

He watches the guy across the street open his front door in his pajamas, drudging forward to pick up the morning paper, shaking the dew off the plastic wrap. His face lights up when he sees them and he waves. Max and him just stare back awkwardly from their stoop. It’s unnatural, how friendly people in Hawkins are.

His stomach twists with the first flutter of nerves. Both him and Neil have managed to keep their tempers pretty well in check since the last incident. He’s been trying. He swallows around a thick feeling. This is what comes of letting his guard down, of breaking his own rules. He should have recognized the nascent signs, stopped himself the moment he started liking his reflection in the bathroom mirror. There’s never going to be a place big enough or far enough away for him. Maybe it won’t be too bad. The Christmas season tends to soften his dad around the edges.

“So, how’d the line dancing go, then?” he asks, just to have something else to think about.

“Lucas kissed me,” she says boldly. “Well, I kissed him.”

Billy looks over his shoulder at the kitchen window but it’s empty. He can hear the quiet sounds of Susan puttering around, cooking their breakfast. He looks back at Max and she’s watching him carefully. She’s told him to see this reaction, he realizes.

He stares at her, trying to get his brain to work. He still feels a little drunk. “Don’t talk about sh*t like that.”

“So you’re like him then?” She means Neil. “You hate people like Lucas. Like his family.”

Billy makes a face. “I don’t give a sh*t about your little boyfriend, Max, just—I don’t know.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Don’t bring it up around him.” He honestly doesn’t know. His dad might not bat an eye at Max hanging around with a black kid. It could be something or it could be nothing with Neil. Billy hadn’t known where the line was until it threw him through a door and cracked his rib.

“I’m not going to stop seeing my friends,” she says, chin picking up. “And I’m definitely not going to stop seeing Lucas.”

“Then get good at hiding.”

“What, like you?”

He gives her a warning look. He might be subdued enough and miserable-looking enough right now that she’s fine with sitting close to him, but he’s never completely defanged. He looks at her skinny arm in her robe. She’d be nothing. Sinclair had weighed nothing. He could punt her like a football. The impulse to do it dies in the same instant as he thinks it. His stomach clenches warningly.

“Maxine.” It’s Susan. She holds the screen door open. “Billy, your father’s up—he’s been called in for a shift. I made eggs.”

Neil is indeed already dressed for work and standing in front of the TV watching sports news when they follow Susan inside. Billy grabs his usual seat and tucks in. He might as well eat before he gets an earful. Susan’s flipped his eggs over, the way he likes them when he’s hungover. It’s not bacon and waffles but it’s like f*cking ambrosia after the scouring taste of his own bile.

He only half-follows their stilted conversation about pageants while he eats, keeping an eye on his dad.Neil ismuttering under his breath, so absorbed in the baseball stats that his coffee is going undrunk in his hand. Billy frowns. He knows all the forms of his father’s displeasure, including deceptive calm, but this is just unnatural. Susan repeats something completely inane about going to see Christmas lights, clearing her throat nervously when Billy doesn’t respond. He looks at Max. She’s acting weird too, eating her eggs quietly even though she normally has a sh*tfit if she can’t have Pac-Man cereal on the weekend. His eyes go again to the relaxed line of his father’s shoulders, his loose grip on the coffee mug.

Neil doesn’t know, he realizes, putting it all together. Neil doesn’t know he came home and woke Susan up, because Susan hasn’t told him.

It doesn’t make sense. He glares at her and then at Max. Stupid. His last mouthful of fried egg goes down like sandpaper, his gorge rising. He doesn’t want their pity. He doesn’t want them thinking they need to do misguided, treacherous sh*t like this; it will only complicate things. Susan and Max, they don’t ever need to be afraid of Neil, but they don’t need to give him a reason to make them afraid of him either. Not by muddying the waters. Not by being complicit. It’s a breathtakingly stupid move and neither of them seem to realize it, both looking at him like he’s supposed to play along with their little game.

His dad has a shift, so he’ll have to leave soon; it will be easier to just get it out of the way.

He drops his fork onto his plate with a clatter, startling everybody. Neil’s gaze finally breaks from the TV. Max gives him thetiniestshake of her head, lips going pale.

“Maybe just make toast next time,” Billy says, sneering, watching Susan’s face fall, “if you don’t know how to f*cking cook.”

^^^

He’d timed it right—gotten off easy. He scowls at his reflection in the mirror of the boys’ toilets, doing up his fly with unnecessary violence. He doesn’t feel like hot sh*t anymore. There’s new stubble on his jaw and lip and he still looks like a puss*, like a choir boy. He scrubs at his pink cheeks and pokes at the tender indigo mark concentrated in the corner of his eye where his dad’s club ring caught him. He can cover it with his sunglasses or he can play it off as a trick of the light if he tilts his head right and gets a curl falling there. It’s still annoying. His dad is usually more controlled, but Billy had puked on his work shirt halfway through.

The halls are buzzing with gossip when he steps out, laughter and hushed voices picking at the edges of the wound of his blackout. Lacey is nowhere to be found—isn’t waiting at his locker. He swaggers and leers whenever he meets someone’s eyes, but he finds himself picking a steady path out and away, escaping to his usual sanctuary.

“Some house you’ve got, Byers,” he says, when the other boy arrives a few minutes after him, wan in the red light of the darkroom. “You’ve been holding out on me."

Byers barely acknowledges him where he’s leaned up against the back wall, trying his best to look suitably gargoyle-like. He slips his satchel off his shoulder and starts getting out his camera equipment with tired resignation like always.

“I told you, you can’t smoke in here.”

Billy laughs twin streamers of smoke out of his nose. “And I told you to get a haircut that doesn’t involve a bowl but here we are.”

Byers gives him a mild look under his bangs. “It’s dangerous. The chemicals…”

“I promise you,” Billy says, rolling his eyes. “At any one time, they’re the least combustible thing in here. What you got for me today?”

Byers grimaces. “Do we have to do this? I have submissions due for the yearbook.”

He shrugs. “I can rough you up first if you need the foreplay.”

Byers gives him a flat look. “Have you considered just asking to see my photos instead of being a gigantic dick.”

“Guess it’s in my nature,” he says, laughing. It comes off a little fragile, and Byers picks up on it, of course, dark eyes tracing over Billy’s face. He looks away after a moment, busying himself with his little potions: develop, stop, fix. Billy wrinkles his nose at the smell, watching over his shoulder as the images resolve in their chemical baths: a staged picture of the cheerleading team in a pyramid formation, a close-up of some chess club nerds wearing medals, Nancy Wheeler’s profile caught in the aperture of a library shelf, bracketed by books.

“Please don’t touch those,” Byers says when Billy starts flicking around a pair of tongs. “Or those,” Byers says when he taps at the wet photo paper on the peg line. Billy rolls his eyes, shoving his cigarette back in his mouth to cover the sour smell of the room.

“So, what did you hear about the party?” he asks when he can stand the silence no longer.

“What party?” Byers asks without looking up from his work.

“Don’t play coy with me, Joan Jett. Whatever one you weren’t invited to.”

Byers looks up, frowning. “Is this about Steve?”

Billy frowns right back. “Why would it be?”

Byers gives him a slow look before returning to fussing over his negatives. “I just thought you meant about the keg stand.”

Billy’s stomach lurches. He sees Harrington’s upside-down face for a moment, eyes sliding over him disinterestedly; Lacey’s unimpressed face looming out of his reach, as elusive and as intangible as a bubble sucked away on a draft. He licks his lips and makes himself take a casual puff of his cigarette. “Harrington’s keg stand?”

Byers smiles wryly. “Isn’t that what everyone’s talking about? Here,” he says, holding out a stack of photographs.

The first one’s of Max, at the dance. She looks like one of those sullen Victorian ladies, spooked and unhappy, her arms held how she would never stand normally. Susan’s going to love it. He shuffles through the rest of them. She’s there again, looking more relaxed in the company of her friends. Sinclair. Gums. The Frog. The kid he recognizes as Byers’ brother, Zombie Boy. He does kind of see it. The kid’s real pale, dark circles under his eyes like he’s old enough to go on a bender. Then again, all these midwestern kids could use some sun.

“Nice duds,” Billy says sneeringly, tossing the picture of Byers' brother on the table. The kid’s vest is at least a decade old, too big for him.

Byers looks at the photo and then up at Billy warily. “Okay.”

Billy can feel his temper uncoiling. He knows there’s the same thing inside them: a bitterness, an understanding of what can be endured. They’re both full of the same scar tissue. Where does Byers get off, acting like he’s learned something from it. Like he can control it. He’s so unperturbable, so f*cking calm. It just makes Billy want to antagonize him.

He jiggers his leg against the table where he’s leaning until he has Byers’ full attention. “He looks like a real special kid,” he says unkindly.

Byers sighs, dropping his magnifying loop and looking at Billy expectantly.

Billy leers. “Father not in the picture I take it.”

Byerslooks Billy up and down coolly, gaze catching on his black eye. “No. Yours is, I take it?”

Billy laughs, tonguing the corner of his mouth. “What, this?” He angles his jaw so the dim light will pick out the ugly blot. “Just some party favor. Nothing like the love tap you gave Harrington—or so I heard.”

Byers twitches, looking down at the loop in his hands, something like shame flitting over his features. “Yeah, well. That was a long time ago. I was—we were, different people then.” He shakes his head. “What’s any of that got to do with Will?”

“Nothing. Just saying, I can tell he’s realdifferent.”

Byers lets out a slow breath, brow twitching into a frown. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, he is.” He puts the strip of negatives he’s holding down decisively, like he’s thinking of saying something.

He can’t pinpoint it but Byers changes, suddenly looks...menacing, gaunt face hollowed out with lengthening shadows under the red light; a molecular shift from victim to something else, like a blue-ringed octopus flashing its rings. It’s not an invitation, doesn’t make Billy want to fight him, not like with Harrington. It’s a change that says: danger, do not touch. But then Byers just shakes his head, turning back to his work. “I’m glad he is,” he says, quiet and furious.

Well what the f*ck is Billy supposed to do with that? He can feel disappointment tugging his mouth down at the corners. He’d been planning to blow off some steam, really rile Byers up about his sh*t music, but the conversation had gotten away from him. He feels mean. Not like, mean in a way he can apologize for. He feels ugly all the way down to his bones, like he’s something that should stay, here, in the dark.

He puts his cigarette out and shuts his mouth so Byers can make his pictures. It’s not an apology but it’s not being an asshole either, and that’s hard work because Byers ignores him for the rest of the hour, his turned cheek as smug as a Cheshire cat. Like he’s sitting on all of the answers to how to be a better person, working devotedly over his trays, his movements sure and steady.

Develop. Stop. Fix.

Chapter 5: animals anyway (part two)

Chapter Text

Tommy and Carol aren’t in the cafeteria at lunch and there’s nowhere to sit alone that doesn’t look like he didn’t have a choice about it, so he heads outside. The sun is out, taking some of the sting out of the air, and most of the seniors have made their way down to the football field, sprawledall overthe faded green and soaking it up like it’s Venice Beach and they’re not less than fifty meters from a staggeringly depressing tree line. He finds Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum parked halfway up the bleachers, Tommy with his head in Carol’s lap, and Harrington crunching away at an apple on the bench above them.

His first instinct is to pinch himself—make sure he hasn’t actually fallen asleep in the darkroom, or that he’s not still upside down over a keg. It’s surreal, seeing them both with Harrington. He hadn’t realized until this moment that they were part of a matching set.

“Hey,” Harrington says when he spots Billy, firing off one of his sh*tty playboy smiles. Billy wants to punch the wayfarers right off his face. “There he is.”

He tucks his hands into his jacket pockets andstarts trudgingup the stairs. Harrington has the sleeves of his navy-blue jumper rucked up as high on his arms as he can get them, trying to get some sun, which is real aspirational of him. Billy doesn’t like it. He stops an awkward distance away, then realizes it makes him look like one of Harrington’s nervous groupies, angling for a prom date, so he comes closer. Carol looks up when his shadow cuts across her, squinting against the light.

He says, “You drop my car off Friday night?” Because he can’t bring himself to ask how he got home, certainly not in front of Steve f*cking Harrington.

“You werewasted, man,” Tommy says cheerfully from Carol’s lap. “I thought we were gonna have to drop you off at emergency.”

“I thought I was gonna have to drop Tommy off at emergency after he carried you,” Carol says.

Tommy chuffs, shielding his eyes from the sun to look up at him. “Yeah, dude. You weigh a ton. You’re lucky Carol knows how to drive stick.”

Carol shrugs. “I mean, I figured it out. It wasn’t that hard.”

He bites down hard around a growl, thinking of Carol scraping along in the Camaro and f*cking with his transmission. “Thanks,” he says, even though it feels like pulling teeth, and even though it comes out quiet enough that it’s lost in the obscene sound of Harrington jamming half an apple in his maw.

“Your mom was really freaked out,” Tommy says like he can barely suppress his laughter, ignoring Carol pinching him warningly. “She wassoworried about you waking up the neighbors.”

He feels queasy at the thought of it. Meek, fretful Susan in her hair-rollers coming out of the house in the dark, trying to pull him out of Tommy’s car. Trying to keep him quiet so they didn’t wake Neil. Trying to drag him off the lawn.

“That was Susan,” he says, scowling. “My mom’s in Malibu.”

Carol frowns. “I thought you said your mom was in Miami.”

“She was,” he says quickly. “They’re shooting on the west coast now. She goes where the work is.”

Tommy whistles.

“Billy’s mom’s a model,” Carol explains to Harrington.

Harrington frowns, looking Billy up and down. “Sure, I guess.” He chews thoughtfully at his apple, swallowing. “For what magazine?”

Tommy laughs. “Nothing you can buy without ID and a paper bag—ow,f*ck, Carol.”

Billy smiles weakly. His mom was beautiful—more beautiful than Susan, anyway. And not a bitch. She always had plenty of boyfriends when he was growing up.

“Heard you took a shot at the keg, Harrington,” he says while Tommy and Carol are busy sniping at each other. “Felt like a walk down memory lane?”

“More like an exercise in humiliation,” Tommy chips in, wheezing. “Fifteenseconds!”

Fifteen seconds.

Billy releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The thought of Harrington beating his record has been gnawing at him since Byers mentioned it, but…fifteen seconds? It’s pathetic, laughable. Billy’s seen kids with asthma do better than that. He tries to reframe what he remembers of the night with this new knowledge and it still doesn’t fit with what he’s seeing: Harrington relaxed as anything, holding court with his old friends like he’s made his grand comeback already. The school is buzzing with his name and no one seems to be paying attention to the small matter of Billy beating him bysix whole seconds.

Harrington makes apained face. “It waswarm.I’m not an animal. And okay, yeah, Lacey didn’t exactly hold up her end of the assist.”

“Probably because she wasn’t holding your leg,” Carol says.

“Carol,” Harrington says warningly.

“Maybe she just wanted to skip toherfifteen seconds first.”

“Carol, shut up,” Tommy says, completely heatless.

Billy's heart skips a beat.

Lacey. Lacey and Harrington.

Heswallows, trying not to let anything show on his face. Harrington didn’t beat his keg stand record, because he was busy stealing his girl.

He rubs a hand over the pocket of his jeans, wishing he had his smokes on him, for something to do with his hands. Harrington’s probably watching him for a reaction. It turns his stomach to think of him with his hands all over her, with her purple lipstick all over his face. Everyone watching, making a fool of him. He grits his teeth to firm up his smile. He needs to say something before they think it’s getting to him.

“Didn’t know you liked your ponies broken in,” he says.

Tommy makes a sputtering noise but Harrington just stares back neutrally. “She’s not a horse, man.”

Carol clears her throat unsubtly. “Steve, you coming toTina'sparty tomorrow?”

“Can’t,” Harrington says after staring at Billy a beat longer. “Told you, I’ve already got plans.”

Tommy moans. “You’re seriously going to ditch the end of year party to hang out with a bunch of kids?”

“Yep,” Harrington says, lobbing his apple core down the stands. Figures, Billy thinks, that he doesn’t eat the whole thing.

Carol’s pouting. “You’re still coming onSaturdaythough, right?”

Billy frowns to himself, chewing on his tongue. There’s no party onSaturdaythat he knows of.His own weekend plansareto finish his assigned reading and take Max to the arcade so that she doesn’t drive them all crazy another week asking to go.

Harrington makes a face, sucking air through his teeth. “Only if Mr. Winkins lifts my lifetime ban from the bowling alley.”

“Bowling,” Billy says blandly without meaning to speak.

“You’re not coming?” Harrington asks, tone light, eyes flicking from him to Carol. It’s staged confusion,Billy realizes. A question he already knows the answer tobut wants Billy to hear. “I thought you already invited him.”

Carol’s hand flutters up to tug at the roll of her turtleneck guiltily. “No, I mean. I askedLacey, so…”

So he’s not going to be her plus one.

“Hey, man. Come if you want,” Tommy says, trying to make it less awkward.

“Nah,” Billy says. He can’t imagine a worse way to spend his dwindling funds than on watching Tommy and Carol swap chewing gum while Harrington teaches his girl how to bowl a strike. “Not my scene. Don’t want to crash your double date.”

Tommy snorts. “I don’t know, could be more the merrier with Lacey,” he says. “Maybe you can take turns.” He perks up, stumbling onto a joke. “Hey, hey, Stevie. What’s Racy Lacey got in common with a bowling ball?”

Harrington levers the toe of his Nike under Tommy’s hip and pushes him off the bench, Carol cackling.

“Right,” Billy says, rather than sticking around to see them chumming it up. The bleachersthunkloudly under his boots on the way down, not quite drowning out the sound of their laughter. He blows right through a pair of kids making out in the aisle, scattering them, ignoring their annoyed protests.

“Catch you guys later,” he hears Harrington say from back in the stands.

He picks up the pace. Harrington still catches up to him before he can make it much further than around the corner, grabbing at his sleeve.

“Hey. Don’t worry about them,” he says, kind of breathless like the brisk walk winded him, like he’s never played a full quarter of basketball in his life. Billy looks down at the hand on his arm until Harrington removes it. “They’re just being assholes, man. Don’t take it personally.”

“Whatever.” It pisses him off, Harrington acting like they’re his to apologize for. He can’t quite shake the feeling that Harrington knows what he’s doing—working condescension in under the guise of being friendly. If he could go back to the moment Harrington tapped on the glass outside Tommy’s car window he wouldn’t have wound it down and let Harrington in, not like this.

“Look.” Harrington runs a nervous hand through the front of his hair so that it breaks up and droops into his eyes. “I’m sorry about Lacey. I didn’t know—”

“Relax, Harrington,” Billy says, cutting through his bullsh*t, flashing his teeth in a menacing smile. “Plenty of bitches in the sea, right.”

Harrington’s frown is disapproving. “Hey,” he says softly.

Whatever he’s playing at, Billy’s not having it. He steps forward, drawing up to his full height. Harrington’s all limb. Billy knows from experience he goes over easy.

“Maybe I’ll go after one of yours next,” he says, letting Harrington do the math on which one.

Billy can tell the moment it sinks in and Harrington lets himself get angry, snatching the sunglasses off his face to glare at him.

He looks like crap. He’s been wearing the sunglasses to hide it, Billy realizes. The same way Billy is hiding a bruise behind his. It looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, his eyesexhausted and pouchy. Billy doesn’t remember him looking so worn-out the last time they spoke, but now that he thinks about it, Harrington had been moving slow, almost lethargic.

“Look, buddy—” Harrington says. But he doesn’t get to finish, because a baseball comes whistling past, hurtling right at Billy’s face.

Billy flinches. Horribly and embarrassingly. It’s just that it catches him out of the corner of his eye—a dark blur. He cowers away even as the ball smacks into Harrington’s outstretched hand, appearing there like magic, like it was there the whole time, Harrington spinning and pitching it back just as quick, the motion so fluid and effortless it takes a moment for Billy to realize it hasn’t hit him, still recoiling from the blow that’s not going to come.

“Ball,” someone calls, a moment and a lifetime later.

“Great batting, Dawkins,” Harrington calls out. “You aiming for a scholarship or just a strikeout?”

“f*ck you, Harrington.”

Harrington smiles back, waving like the world’s biggest asshole before turning back to Billy, shaking his hand out.

“Look,” he says again, friendliness dropping like a veil, face blank underneath, his easy tone all gone, “I know you’ve got this whole”—Harrington waves vaguely at him—“alpha dog thing going on. I get it. But there are things going on right now—things that would make your head spin, and picking a fight with you over some stupid high-school sh*t is not really a priority for me.” He pushes a hand through his hair again, a nervous tic, or maybe just wanting to show off his flashy watch. He laughs, bleak and humorless. “It’s not even in my top three.”

“What’s the third one?”

Harrington blinks at him.

He rolls his eyes. “You’re not that complex, Harrington. Getting Wheeler back. Pretending you’re Jonathan Byers. What’s your third priority? Renewing your country club membership?”

Harrington stares. Bingo. “That’s not…” His jaw tightens. “Screw you. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh.”

“Listen, asshole. I’m being as upfront with you as I can—I don’t need this. It doesn’t matter to me. Just take the out.”

Or else what, pretty boy, Billy thinks. Hebends slightly to one side and spits, to make his opinion on that clear, turning to leave.

Harrington grabs at him again, tugging him to a stop, holding his wrist, too soft. Billy dashes his hand off, body shot through with sudden nerves, sick, darting a look around the sunny field in case anyone is watching. Harringtonis holding his hands up like, whoa, my bad.

Billy’s lip curls at the sight of him. Harrington’s a mess. A fraud. Too tired and under-committed to be acting like he’s above this; a pale imitation of the challenger Billy wants him to be—one foot in both worlds and no contest at all. Not worth the six seconds it would take to outdrink him. He’s just a guy in need of a nap and a firm-hold hairspray.

Billy gets a grip on himself. “You do whatever you think you need to, Harrington,” he says, drawing in close. “Shed your skin as many times as it takes to find something underneath you like.” Harrington’s eyes shutter, darkening, and it makes Billy’s smile harden into something crueler. “You get in my way, we’re going to have a problem. And that there is a fight we both know you’re not ready for.” He leans forward just to make Harrington tense, patting imaginary dust off his shoulder. “Priorities, right,buddy?”

He backs up, content with the lost look on Harrington’s face. “Nice catch, by the way,” he adds. “Maybe they’ll let you try out for the team.”

Then he leaves, stalking back towards the school with the sun burning warm over his shoulders and his shadow stretched out in front of him like an arrow.

“Molting,” Harrington yells nonsensically after him. “It’s called molting.”

^^^

It’s not shorts weather. Billy glares at the back of Tommy’s knees while he jogs, feet sliding over icy patches where the rest of the team has already stamped the ground into slush. They track in and out of the gym, a lap around the court and then out the open doors into the freezing cold, down the sloping path to the field and back.

Billy phones it in, trailing behind (or in front, depending on who’s coming up on lapping him). For one thing, he wants no part in the little gossip circle that goes on in the pack of guys who are in the lead, and for another, the cold air makes him want to puke a lung up.

He calls it quits a lap short, trying to spit the taste of tar out of his mouth. Some of the quicker guys are already setting up for drills. He parks his ass on the floor and watches Parker dribbling a ball by himself while he relaces his sneakers and tries to rub the goosebumps off his cold legs. The older guy is apparently a shoo-in for this year’s scholarship. It’s heartening. Parker’s not particularly close with any of the other guys, doesn’t evoke team spirit, and yet he still got himself a golden ticket. So maybe it’s possible for Billy. He’d run the idea past Coach in as roundabout a way as he could, just feeling it out, asking about opportunities to play college ball. He knows he’s not the man’s first pick at team captain for next year no matter what the rumors are, but if there’s a way out of here on the table then Billy’s going to take it.

Tommy and the others finally make it back to the gym looking flush and ready. They go through the usual process of picking teams with Billy defaulting to leader of one side and Parker the other. They’re both at a standoff over who has to take Peterson when Coach’s door opens, Harrington following him out, in his uniform.

Billy’sgaze drops to his sneakers, not really registering what his eyes are telling him. There’s no logical reason why Harrington would come back to the team now,just over a week out from break. He’s supposed to be stepping back. He’s supposed to beconvalescing. Harrington doesn’t even care enough about basketball to be back here yet—had seemed more interested in sniffing after Wheeler at the few practices they shared. He’s not supposed to be back, not now when Billy needs to start putting down roots with these guys. And Billy’s already got designs on annexing his locker.

Maybe they’ll let you try out for the team.

He can’t possibly be that petty.

He looks at Harrington standing practically under Coach’s arm, at the tentatively awed faces of the team, at Tommy practically bouncing in place.

Oh no way. Harrington is—

Harrington is adick.

“Good news, gentlemen,” Coach says. Billy wants to kick something but there’s nothing at hand. “Your fearless leader here has made a miraculous recovery from being a lazy sadass and hasbeggedfor the honor of leading you to the bottom four himself.” Someone whoops and Coach shoots them a dark look. “Go easy on him. I don’t want the whole damn cheerleading squad in here again complaining about his face like last time."

Billy realizes he’s grinding his teeth. The palpable excitement and relief from the rest of the team feels like a betrayal, like a knife twisting in his back. Parker’s the first to step forward, pulling Harrington into a friendly head rub like he’s not the most stand-offish guy in the whole school. The rest of the guys follow suit, cheering, catcalling, Harrington soaking it up good-naturedly. His eyes hook on Billy glaring at him.

“Go Tigers,” he says.

Billy’s going to cut his head off and slam dunk it into a trashcan.

“All right, all right, save it for date night, ladies,” Coach says. “Let’s play some basketball, shall we. Who we got left?” He spots Peterson. “Oh, sweet Mother of Mary. Okay, your choice, Hargrove.”

Billy looks between Harrington and Peterson, agonized. Peterson’s got the shooting prowess of a baloney sandwich. Harrington isn’t even really paying attention, too busy dodging all the welcome back punches from his friends.

Billy ends up choosing Peterson, only because the alternative is so unpalatable.

Coach claps his hands together, moving off to the sideline. “Okay! Skins and shirts, one-on-one, let's go!”

Parker’s already crossed the half court, holding his fist out for Billy to bump.

“I’ll be—”

“Skins,” Parker finishes,dry as ever. “We know.”

Billy ignores the jab, stripping out of his shirt.

The next twenty minutes are carnage. He’s not particularly on form but he’spissed. He’s up against Parker first and the guy couldn’t make it more obvious he’d prefer to be playing as a team with his buddy Steve. They rotate under the hoop for a turn at shooting on each other and Billy does his best to get an elbow in his face. About halfway through defending he realizes he recognizes Parker as belonging to the pair of arms that’d picked him up off the floor at the party, and then things get downright ugly. Parker’s a lot bigger than him and he takes the impact like a pro but Coach swaps him out, smart enough to predict an injury and mindful of Parker’s scholarship season. Billy shakes off his gruff warning impatiently.

Miller is next, uncharacteristically quiet for once. Billy lets him try out some shady amateur move that he’s probably been practicing all week with his sisters, failing to pull it off when Billy proves to be a lot more muscle than he’d prepared for. He looks across the court and sees Tommy and Harrington playing keepy-off like a couple of sissies, barely playing serious. Miller usesthe moment of distraction to slap the ball out of his hands, ducking to get around him. Billy gets his foot planted right where the little weasel is going to want to be and waits for his misstep to throw his weight into him, wrenching the ball out of his grasp and sending him sprawling. Miller’s such a wimp he grabs at Billy’s waistinstead of going down clean, but he can’t find purchase, hand slipping right off of Billy’s sweaty back. He squeaks when he lands on his ass.

Coach Green moans.

“Harrington, would youpleaseget on Hargrove? I can’t watch this anymore.”

“Sure thing, Coach,” Harrington says, jogging over, already so covered in sweat he looks like a weight-loss commercial. Billy can’t help the savage grin that comes out at the sight of his hair completely wrecked.

“Yeah, shut up,” Harrington says, eye rolling.

“Perm not holding up, princess?”

Harrington scrubs a hand over his forehead, trying to push sweat around with more sweat. “I gotta quit smoking.”

Billy licks his lips. “Not gonna make you a better player.” He bounces the ball between them, slow enough that Harrington can snatch at it if he wants to take the bait.

And again.

And again, knowing Harrington’s going to call his bluff this time, already shifting his weight back as Harrington drops down into play. Billy can't help but smile. Harrington’s a f*cking menace of an opponent front-on. He’s got reach on him second only to Parker, which forces Billy low, seeking a quick-around. He tries to get through and Harrington blocks him, and then again when he cuts the other way. It’s about three seconds of play and the hardest he’s had to work all season.

Harrington’s definitely out of shape though, probably still feeling Billy’s boot-print on his ribs, having to think about his footwork and letting his dominant hand speak over the ball, telling Billy exactly where he’s going to be. Billy rips through his second screen and gets under the post in a textbook play, forgetting that it’s not their turn at the hoop. Peterson and his partner aren’t worthy of the spot anyway. They look like they’re playing f*cking claphand at the top of the key, unable to get past each other.

Harrington f*cks his topshot but can’t quite get his quick hands around the ball with enough conviction, Billy stealing the ball in close likemine. Coach nips his whistle from somewhere on the sideline, telling them to get the hell out, but they’re way too locked down with each other to break.

Harrington has shifty eyes when he plays, always working, too reflective of what’s going on in his head. Everyone in Billy’s family has blue eyes – pale like Maxine or summertime sky like Neil—all pinprick pupil all the time: a language all on its own. Harrington you can’t tell so much, can’t get a read. Scared or excited, resolved or blank.

Luckily, he’s real dumb. Definitely that kid that has to mouth along with the reading in class. Harrington’s big dark Bambi eyes slide over to Billy’s poised off hand, his mouth firms up like,fake right, and Billy knows he’s going to change his stance to put more weight in the way of a drive from the left. He’s enjoying himself too, Billy can tell, for now, in the moments he has before Billy atomizes him.

He slips in alongside Harrington’s guard before Harrington can read the double fake and fix his feet, spinning him out with a shoulder so that Harrington’s forced along his back where Billy doesn’t have to deal with his wingspan, bumping him back a few feet to get them both used to it.

Harrington gives good contact, present in a way that the other guys aren’t, secure enough in his form that he doesn’t need to be afraid of a foul, heavy on Billy’s hip to stop him from breaking. He’s made a tactical error getting Harrington front-to-back this close to the post. He can’t read Harrington’s tells like this, andhe's too tall for Billy to twist and take a shot over him without space – and Harrington’s got legs to eat up any space he makes, no matter how fast he can make it. Getting around him from this position would take an assist or some next level footwork. But Harrington knows that too, butting up against him rough enough to stop him from putting his weight down in his heels, preventing him from gaining traction.

Harrington gasps out something like a laugh right by his ear. “Can’t plant your feet?”

Billy gives him elbow, just a lick of it.

Harrington makes a smalloofsound before he pushes back, just as hard, not even slightly deterred by the slip of slick skin, wet fringe flopping down and brushing Billy’s shoulder.

“Having fun?” Billy asks.

“Man. Put your tongue back in.”

Billy jostles him back, clips him in the ribs with a foul elbow, dribbles the ball under his own leg before Harrington can recover—so that their audience has something to remember—and takes a bank shot at the backboard which goes in slick as a wet dream. He's so co*cky about it he could start dancing.

“Enough!” Coach Green blasts his whistle. The other guys have dropped their individual games to cheer. “Hargrove, what the hell was that?" Coach yells. "Don’t you bring that fancy California sh*t on my court, this isn’t Hollywood. So help me God if I eversee that ball go through your legs again...” Billy and some of the guys start laughing.

“And Harrington, don’t you sit down, son.” Harrington ignores him, folding down onto the ground, panting hard and wincing. “What the hell were you doing while you were sat out these last weeks, other than laying around stuffing yourself like a Christmas turkey?”

Harrington groans, flattening out on the floor.

“We should do this again sometime,” Billy says, only a little winded, bracing on his knees.

Harrington holds up a finger.

“Tommy—no, not you Kalkowski. Hagan,” Coach yells. “Please come scrape your captain up.” He turns and pins Billy with a look before he can escape ahead of the rest of the team. “Billy, come here, son. You heard of meditating? My wife says it’s supposed to help with anger.”

^^^

Coach chews him out for not being a team player and for trying to intentionally lame Parker. By the time Billy gets to the locker room, half the guys are on their way out. He hustles right past a knot of admirers, Tommy among them, orbiting around Harrington like he’s the belle of the ball. No one seems to care that he lost to Billy’s keg record and just got trounced at practice too.

“Hey, Billy,what’s the rush?” Peterson says from within the group.

It’s the first time any of them have called him out on his routine. He’s paralyzed suddenly by indecision over whether to ignore the jibe or trust his gut instinct to put the guy down. He ends up settling on shooting him a disdainful look, reminding himself—Don't. Talk.

He grabs a fresh towel and shucks out of his shorts, ditching his sweaty clothes in the hamper on the way to the showers. It’s crowded in there—exactly the reason he prefers to get in and out first. He ends up sandwiched in a corner shower between a couple of chatty cathies while he waits for the water to get hot, palming soap onto the back of his neck where his hair is stuck down with sweat and disentangling his earring from out of a stray curl. The room is clammy with steam but chill outside of the water. He tunes out the other guys and focuses on the inconstant water pressure as he rinses. It’s right on the edge of satisfying but never quite strong enough or hot enough to truly relax into. If he can ever afford his own place, he’s going to get a shower strong enough to grind him down to dust. And one of those wall brackets you can fill with shampoo. And he’s going to sit in it for an hour every day, morning and evening, getting pruney.

He’s getting low on soap, he realizes, making a note to ask Susan to get some more, the bar smoothing down to a sliver in between his knuckles.

“You got shampoo?” Tommy asks somewhere on his left. Billy opens his eyes and spits water, annoyed. “Okay, sorry,” Tommy says, hands up placatingly and then flinching badly when a bottle smacks into the side of his face, fumbling to catch it against his chest.

“Heads up,” Harrington says a beat later, sidling up next to him. Billy scrubs the last of his soap through his hair and roughly under his arms, closing his eyes and leaning into the spray so he doesn’t have to see so much goddamn orange.

“God, what is this?” Tommy asks, popping the cap on the bottle and smelling it. “Is this your mom’s?”

“Yeah,” Harrington says, snatching it off him and squeezing out a dollop before tossing it back without warning. This time Tommy catches it easy. “Why do you think her hair always looks so good?”

Tommy rolls his eyes. “You want?” he asks, shaking the bottle at Billy like it’s his to offer.

He shakes his head, no. No, he doesnotwant. It smells like hay and honey.

“You’re awful quiet, Hargrove,” Miller says, edging in. It’s six guys to five showerheads. After a shared look, the other two guys grab their stuff and dip out. Billy gives Miller a once-over he hopes conveys how little patience he has for conversating right now. He has the sinking feeling he’s about to break his no talking rule and it will be so he can hear that squeak again when he flattens the little punk. Miller doesn't take the hint. “Heard you made a pass at Steve’s girl.”

“Hey, easy,” Tommy says, looking annoyed.

“Way I heard it,” Billy says, ignoring Miller completely and making sure to catch Harrington’s eye, “she’s everybody’s girl.”

“Hey,easy,” Tommy says, this time directed at him.

Miller giggles. “Not yours though, right? Heard the only cherry you got on Friday was your street.”

Billy can’t quite bring himself to smile it off. It feels like the tiles are tilting under him. There are only two people at school who know where he lives. It scratches at him, imagining them on the long drive back from his house, laughing it up. He tilts his head back, letting the insult wash over himthe same aswater, keeping his expression cool. So he’s trash. So what. “Don’t know what you heard, Miller.” He leans forward a little threateningly. “Only cherry at that party was yours.”

Miller turns red. “Yeah, well my girl said—”

“Move,” Harrington says, turning Miller’s showerhead on and stepping under the spray like he didn’t already have his own. “Man, you got a big mouth for a junior. This your soap?” He picks Miller’s bar off the stand, sniffing at it, making a face and chucking it over his shoulder. “Yeesh, that cheap sh*t gives me hives. Danny,” he calls, “you got any soap?”

One of the seniors turns around. “You flirting with me, Steve?”

“Flirting?” Harrington says. “No, just trying to turn you on. It working?”

Miller flushes even darker, gaze fixed on his soap sliding towards the shower gutter in a slick of gray water, picking up pubes. His mouth works for a moment: “…Hey.”

“Nah,” the senior, Danny, says, coming over and handing over his soap dish. “I like ‘em dumb, but not that dumb.” He slaps Harrington lightly on the cheek and then claps his arm as he goes, leaving a sudsy handprint on him. Billy hates it. f*cking small-town hicks. Someone did that to him, he would kick their teeth in. Harrington just smiles back, completely unrattled.

“Hey!” Miller says again.

“Holy sh*t, you’re still here?” Harrington says dully. “Give me some space, man. Maybe come back later.” He makes a face at Tommy like, kids these days.

Miller leaves, giving Billy one last nervous look like he’s weighing up whether it’s worth getting beaten up to say what he’s sitting on. Billy gives him a look right back that says that it’s not.

Tommy and Harrington rib at each other for a bit before settling into the quieter business of actually getting clean. Their rapport chafes at him if he lets himself dwell on it. He doesn’t trust himself to say anything anyway. Keeps his mouth zipped so that he doesn’t give anyone the chance to shut him down like Miller. He needs more soap but he’s sure as hell not going to borrow any. The water's barely warm now and his scalpis starting to itch where the soap is drying. He fixes his eyes on nothing and works at it while the others continue shooting the sh*t.

Harrington hangs behind when Tommy leaves, lathering his shampoo through his hair with brisk, sure movements, messing it around and pushing it into a series of abstract shapes, seeming to enjoy himself. It’s like he’s at home, Billy thinks. Like he’s by himself, listening to whatever mainstream pop gets him going on the radio. It’s insulting, when Billy is right there—could get his hands on him inside of a second and crack his head open on the tiles so fast none of his little friends could save him.

Billy watches him, trying to find something to say and simultaneously aware that this isn’t the place for it. Harrington has the upper hand somehow, just by being so completely at ease—just by ignoring him. Billy wishes he could get up in under his guard, right here, and elbow him again, get them both in a position he knows how to win.

As if sensing his thoughts, Harrington opens his eyes, looking at him from under the spray, from under the wet spikes of his eyelashes, suds slipping over his shoulders.

Billy feels it just the same as an elbow to the solar plexus. He’s as clean as he’s going to get, he decides, reaching for his towel on its hook, covering himself, already shivering out of the warm water. He has five minutes until class and he’s not going to spend it having a staring match with a guy who smells like girls’ shampoo.

Chapter 6: fear can't hurt you (part one)

Chapter Text

He sleeps like sh*t, dreams unspooling faster than he can catch, slick and confusing, dredged up on the fringes of his blackout like a tide. Dreams of being small again, too small to reach the kitchen counter without a chair, and the sound of a can opener, round and round and round. Dreams of being roadkill caught in the sudden sweep of headlights, and of being the tires too, matted with guts.

He lies there for a moment after waking, palms over his eyes, trying to press the thoughts out of his head. Trying to forget the taste of them.

It’s so close to the surface today.

It’s going to be so bad.

He almost can’t breathe with the sudden certainty of it, his throat seizing up around the feeling. He doesn’t want to be angry—so frighteningly uncontrollably angry—but he is, or, rather, he will be. It’s drawing his skin tight over his bones, wiring his jaw shut. He gets like this, without rhyme or reason, like there’s a wound hidden somewhere on him that keeps popping its stitches and getting infected, and he never notices until the poison is already in his blood.

He opens his eyes. It’s still dark out, raining, his room heavy and quiet.

"sh*t," he murmurs, just to make sure he's really awake.

He could get in his car and go. He doesn’t have to walk into that school today. He doesn’t have to be Billy Hargrove. He could floor it the whole way out of Hawkins, go somewhere cheap and seedy where they play his music, where he could smoke a whole packet of cigarettes in a dark corner and no one would even look at him.

He’s already laughing at himself for thinking about it. This is the wild fantasy at the heart of him and it’s just some half-baked copy of another man’s escape plan, something poached from a Jack Kerouac story. He never lets himself imagine where it is he drives to, the bar that serves drinks to a minor, what happens after, when he’s finished the pack, when he gets up from the corner table.

He really does laugh at that, scrubbing the sound out his mouth with a rough hand and reaching for his cigarettes on top of his bedside table. He sucked at running away when he was kid too, never got much further than packing a slice of bread in a knapsack and hiding out on the fire escape until he cried himself inside, usually in the space of an hour. Billy’s not like Max, he doesn’t have anyone worth running to. Not anymore.

He sits up, kicking free of the warm sheets and smoking a cigarette to ease the tight feeling in his throat instead of thinking about all the same dull sh*t he can’t change.

Tina’s party can’t come soon enough.

He’s pent-up, he decides, has been for weeks. The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes. He never got anywhere with Lacey. The girl before her had always been on her period. The girl before that had just been some unmemorable hookup in an unmemorable bathroom, too much teeth and annoyed when he put a hickey on her for her boyfriend to see.

He can breathe a little easier with the answer in front of him. He’ll have a girl on him by the end of the night. That’s never been too difficult when he puts his mind to it, and there’s still plenty of bitches in Hawkins waiting for their spin around the dancefloor. He just has to make it until then. He just has to keep a lid on it until the sun goes down, until there’s some pretty face, a rich kid’s bathroom, and his blood turned effervescent with the thump of music on the other side of a locked door.

All he has to do is outlast the clock on this powder keg of a day, and he’s practiced enough at that by now. There’s no real routine to it, no sure thing that works. It’s more like he just throws every obstacle he can come up with in the way of it, and sometimes it holds up for just long enough for him to outrun himself.

He gets up and makes his bed with unimpeachably-neat military corners, opens the window so that the evidence of him smoking inside will clear out, and then hunts through the contained chaos of his drawers for a pair of shorts to work out in.

No one else in the house is awake, so he has to be quiet about setting up his bench press in the living room, the floorboards flexing under the old carpet. He misses his setup in the garage, but he can make do. He keeps an eye on the door at the end of the hall as he loads up, settling for light reps, curling until his biceps start to burn, listening to the first warbles of birdsong in the dark trees. When he gets his Walkman for Christmas he’ll be able to do this anytime he wants, with music as loud as he wants too. But for now, the muted clank of iron shifting on steel has a rhythm to it that gets him thinking about nothing in a way that works just fine.

By the time Susan creeps out of her bedroom he’s got quite a good sweat on. She seems a little taken aback by him being up so early, an irregular feature in her sad routine, but she keeps her mouth shut and gets on with making Neil’s breakfast: egg white omelet, half a tomato and baked beans. Billy’s made the same thing a hundred times back when it was his job, although, back then neither of them knew or cared what cholesterol was.

Billy can forgive Susan for being a lot of things, but getting in the way of Neil’s early heart attack is not going to be one of them.

The sound of the can lid prying open makes him pause for a moment, reminded uncomfortably of his dream. He shakes it off and pushes himself harder, until he’s breathing hard and brisk, the dumbbells rattling, sweat beading at his hairline and along the band of his shorts.

He’s finishing up when Maxine stumbles out of her room to sit in front of the TV and watch her morning cartoons. She’s barely with it enough to acknowledge the oddity of him awake, although she does eyeball his naked chest with disgust. She should count herself lucky. Billy’s been a paradigm of modesty since the Mayfairs moved in. He even sleeps with underwear on just in case he runs into one of them taking a midnight piss.

He’s in such a mood he can’t be bothered to dress nice; doesn’t bother with an earring or styling his hair after his shower, just throws a sweatshirt and yesterday’s denim on, forgets deodorant and dabs cologne under his ears and on his wrists and then on the back of his neck as an afterthought, since he’s going to get laid.

Maxine’s still not done in the bathroom when he’s ready to go. He does a lap and comes back, leans up against the door, flicking his keys around until his patience runs out (about ten seconds). He knocks.

“Max.”

No response. He can hear her messing around in there. He huffs, knocking again, a little harder. She really doesn’t need to be trying him like this. Even with the lassitude from his workout weighing his arms down he kind of feels like the best thing for him would be to put his fist through the nearest available hard surface, and he doesn’t need the excuse. He slumps against the door.

“C’mon, Max.”

“Just a minute.” She sounds odd, a little frantic.

He bangs once on the door, hard enough to be a proper warning, the flimsy wood reverberating in the frame, the palm of his hand stinging. “Now, Maxine. I’m not getting another tardy because you can’t do your sh*ts at school.”

She opens the door, scowling, trying to slink past him. “As if you’ve ever cared about getting to class on time.”

“Never too late to turn over a new—what’s with your face?” He grabs her elbow.

“It’s nothing.” She tries to tug out of his grip, eyes down, hiding behind her hair. There’s definitely something different about her, her face doesn’t look right.

He squints, a grin forming before he even fully processes what he’s looking at.

Her scowl deepens. “It’s just a little makeup.”

It’s not, just a little.

He starts laughing, low and mean in a way that makes her flush. What’s left of her face that isn’t already powdered pink starts pinking, bottom lip wobbling. “This is how the girls at school are doing it.”

“Yeah,” he wheezes, “the ugly ones. Christ, Maxine.”

She tries to push past him.

“What, now you’re in a rush?”He gets in her way, boxing her in. She’s holding something behind her back and he reaches for it. “What you got there?”

“Nothing,” she says, backing up. “Billy.”

“Nothing?” he purrs. “Show me.” He makes another grab for it. “What is it, your application to clown school?”

She makes a break for the door, trying to dart around him and he reaches over and yanks it out of her hand with pure force.

“Billy!” she yelps. “Give it back!”

He snigg*rs, holding it away from her to look at it properly.

It’s a magazine. Folded open to a sheeny close-up of a girl pressing a kiss against a powder compact, an ad for some tween makeup brand. It takes a moment to register what he’s looking at but when it does his good humor vanishes like smoke. He drops it as if he’s been stung, pages fluttering, hitting the tiles with a slap.

“Get rid of that now,” he hisses.

She startles back at the expression on his face. “What?”

He slams his hand against the doorjamb, making her jump. “Get rid of it,” he says through his teeth.

Her eyeswiden fearfully. “But—”

“What’s going on here, Bill?”

He spins around, stomach plummeting, moving to block as much of the view of the bathroom as he can. His father is in the middle of fastening his belt, the narrow hallway putting them closer together than they normally allow.

His throat bobs, working until he’s confident he can speak.

“Nothing."

Neil doesn’t look even slightly convinced. He tilts his head to look over Billy’s shoulder, eyes sliding over the scene in the cramped bathroom and back to his face. He must see his pulse beating in his throat. Must smell the fear coming off Billy in waves.

He runs a hand over his mustache and jaw, like a pause, like he’s exhausted already by the dance they’re going to have to go through. The hand drops. “You going to tell me why your sister’s crying?”

“Dad,” he says, choked. “It’s nothing."

“Move.”

Billy doesn’t move—can’t. He can’t let him see. His father’s eyes narrow at the uncharacteristic stubbornness and they stare at each other for a fraught moment, tension weighing heavy in the air between them, Billy’s pulse drumming in his ears. Neil pushes him aside. It’s just a hand on his shoulder but Billy still slumps awkwardly into the doorframe, legs stiff and uncooperative. He turns around, cringing already, unable to stop himself from looking, like a car crash.

Except, the magazine is gone.

He stares at the bare floor in shock, eyes darting over the tile, the bunched up shower curtain and the cluttered vanity, Max flushed and teary. She has her hand behind her back.

Neil’s flat gaze passes over the mess of the bathroom, catching on the sorts of things that typically spark at his anger like a flint on dry tinder: the comb full of hair, the spatter of toothpaste at the base of the mirror, the mat not hung up to dry properly, soggy with footprints.

His dad’s not stupid. Maxine’s hunched posture is so obvious. She’s withering under Neil’s scrutiny, shrinking down, so unlike herself it makes Billy want to shake her. But Neil won’t push it with her—not in here. Not when her suspicious behavior might be to conceal some mystery of feminine hygiene he’s better off not knowing.

They’re at a standoff.

Neil eyes Billy, the weak link.

His mouth goes dry.

“I’m going to be late for school,” Max says.

The lie hangs in the air as Neil keeps him pinned under his stare, drawing out the moment of decision while Billy swallows, trying to keep his face blank, heart banging around in his chest.

His dad looks around the bathroom one more time. Billy’s hanging so hard on his every tiny expression he can tell the exact moment he loses interest—if he ever had any in the first place, beyond putting a stop to the source of the interruption to his morning routine—the dangerous taut smoothness of his face relaxing into just plain tired.

There’s no relief in it. Billy’s still quailing on the inside as if he just took a hit to the guts. Reeling over how quickly his dayalmost went from bad to really f*cking horrifyingly bad;how insubstantial his efforts to control anything really are.

“Hurry up, then,” Neil says finally.

His hand lands heavy on Billy’s shoulder as he leaves, a paternal squeeze, like he’s concerned about his son frozen in place, rabbit-eyed and sweating. That’s what it probably looks like.

^^^

In the end they make it to their respective schools before first bell, but only because Billy stomps on the accelerator the whole way, refusing to look at her.

He pulls into the middle-school lot and brakes like an afterthought, hard enough to jerk them both forward, staring out past the scrape of the windscreen wipers at the gray and brown school building, wishing he could just keep driving right through it.

“Billy.”

“Get out of my car, Max.”

He doesn’t like the way his voice comes out, flat and dark, like there’s something else behind the wheel. She’s smart enough or just familiar enough to read the warning in it, dashing the tears from under her eyes and throwing the door open to scramble out. She leaves a bunch of balled-up tissues on his seat, smeared with fuchsia. Bitch, he thinks, flicking them off into the footwell, but it’s shaky instead of angry. He doesn’t want to be thankful to her—not over this, not when it’s her fault anyway.

She doesn’t even truly know what it was she was hiding behind her back just then. What Neil almost caught the scent of.

It’s just a magazine, he thinks, furious with himself, with all of them.

It was just a stupid magazine.

He ends up staring after her as she hurries all the way to the main entrance, too far down under the surface to blink, face stiff. She makes it to the doors and Sinclair and the rest of them there waiting for her, but this time she turns to look back. Don’t bother, he thinks dully. She takes one hand off the strap of her bag and flicks an awkward half-wave at him. His fingers tighten on the wheel, creaking, mouth hardening into a sneer. Don’t bother.

He wheels out of there all showy, like it’s going to make his day to impress a few thirteen-year-olds. The drive from the middle school to the high school is short but he guns it anyway, turning an Anvil track all the way up until the opening guitar riff is rattling his teeth, trying to vibrate the residue of his own fear out of his atoms.

It’s just six hours, he reminds himself. Six hours and he’ll be out of here and he’ll have booze, and a girl who wants him to screw her, and maybe even some sh*tty weed if Tommy’s guy is there. He doesn’t need to do anything to jeopardize that. He doesn’t need to burn it all to the ground just because he had a bad dream and woke up feeling sensitive about it.

He’s almost put himself back together—almost—when he pulls into the lot and sees Harrington’s car parked in his spot.

He pulls up behind it, hand hovering over the handbrake. The BMW is shiny as a cherry, dark windows dewed with rain.

It looks like an answer to something.

He lets it wash over him, letting it slip under his skin, set his blood to itching. The Camaro idles underneath him, engine thudding, urging him to do something about it.

Someone beeps their horn. Billy looks at them coolly in the rearview mirror before moving off. There are no spots left in the seniors bay so he parks in the next bay over with the rest of the juniors. He kills the music and sits for a moment, ears ringing, listening to the engine tick and settle, the drum of rain on the roof, trying to ignore the slow wind of his temper in his chest.

It’s no good.

His limbs are already pricking, anger stirring warm under the cold stone of his skin. He can’t stop his mind from turning to Steve Harrington; the upside-down violence of his dream. How good it would feel to get his hands in all that leonine-perfect hair and just pull pull pull until it comes out in his hands.

He wants a fight and there’s only one person in this sh*thole who can give it to him. And he just parked his stupid f*cking car in Billy’s spot.

^^^

People don’t exactly scatter, but they get out of his way once they’re close enough to see his face. It makes him feel slightly more in control, even as his feet drive him forward, hunting for something he’d be better off avoiding.

The halls are filled with a sort of boisterous energy he should be able to enjoy: kids shaking out raincoats and umbrellas, talking excitedly about the upcoming break, ready to party. He should be there among them, in the center of them. He should be leaning up against a locker with a girl fussing over the state of his hair. It should all be his but it isn’t—still belongs to a guy who can’t even care enough to fight for it, who can’t even hold his breath for fifteen seconds. He doesn’t need it like Billy does—needed it, this morning.

He tracks Harrington to the senior block toilets just as the bell for first period sounds and the halls start to empty. Lacey is waiting patiently outside with her giggling friend.

“Billy,” she says, surprised.

“Billy,” the friend says in a different tone, body going lax against the wall.

“Hey,” Lacey says more sharply when she sees he’s not going to stop, getting in his way, her eyes darting to the closed door of the boys’ toilets. Oh, that’s real cute.

“Move.”

She does a good job of not flinching at his tone. Her mouth sets into a stubborn shape. Unlike Max her lipstick is perfect, shiny burgundy like the lacquer on Harrington’s car, the bow of her upper lip starkly drawn and clean. Harrington hasn’t been on her yet. Or maybe he has and she’s just reapplied.

“Don’t,” she says. “He’s tired.”

Billy’s laugh is as dry as dust. “Yeah, me too.”

She looks at him, searching for something but whatever it is she doesn’t find it. “Get Tommy H,” she says to her friend.

He takes a step forward and she comes with him. He bites his lip at her, looming close. He can see the moment she catches the scent of him—the sweat and the too heavy cologne, her nostrils flaring. “Coming in?” he asks, voice just as dead and as mean as in the car with Max. He usually saves this for breaking up with the clingy ones, but f*ck it, she’s already washed her hands of him; it’s not like he needs to keep the act up around her anymore. He leans even closer. “Don’t act shy now,” he says, hand stroking up past her shoulder to press against the door. “From what I heard, you’ve spent plenty of time in here."

Her face shutters. “Sure, Billy. Want to do this here?”

“I’ll do this anywhere, Lacey. See”—he tilts his head, baring his teeth in the biggest smile he can manage, something just a little better than a sneer—“I’m easy too.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she says, flat-eyed. “Leave him alone, Billy.”

“No can do. Me and the king have business. You going to get out of my way now, or am I going to have to make you?”

She tenses at that. He can see her trying to figure him out, asking herself whether she should call his bluff. He doesn’t bluff. Doesn’t need to. He barks and he bites—it’s all the same to him, always ends with blood in his teeth. He doesn’t hit girls but he doesn’t need to hit her to hurt her.

Turns out he was right about her being smart though, because she glares, but steps aside.

“Better run and make sure your friend finds someone for when I’m done,” he says as he pushes past her, muttering, “maybe someone with a mop.”

She shouts a warning that gets cut off by the door swinging shut on her annoyed face.

Billy sniffs. Harrington’s in one of the three stalls, head poking up above the partition where he’s standing on the toilet and smoking out the window. There are two other guys at the urinal.

“Scram,” Billy says to the closest one, moving quick to block Harrington into his cubicle, hands up on the frame so he can’t close the door. Harrington finishes tapping his cigarette out on the ledge, twisting around on his throne to look down at him. He’s wearing probably three different layers of polo shirt.

One of the guys books it without even zipping up properly, but the other one lingers.

“Steve?”

“Take a hike or you’ll get the same,” Billy says, not bothering to look.

Harrington raises his eyebrows, shaking his head just slightly like, really? He breathes out a sigh through his nose, looking over Billy’s head to give his littledevotee the okay to flee.

“Do we have to do this right now?” he says once the door has swung shut again. “I don’t really feel like dealing with your complex today.”

“Too bad you picked a fight then, huh.”

Harrington’s brow pinches. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You parked in my spot.”

He’d chewed over the line in his head the whole way here, condensing it down, meaning for it come out like a reckoning, something to really make Harrington sh*t his pants. But he didn’t account for Harrington standing on top of a toilet, looking down at him, and it comes out kind of small and ridiculous.

Harrington makes a bland face. “Seriously?”

Billy’s grip on the stall tightens, rattling the frame. Harrington is less intimidated by it than Max was, probably because of his height advantage. He’s going to kick Harrington’s ankles from under him in a second if he doesn’t get down from there.

“Here’s the news, Hargrove,” Harrington says, stepping down, carefully, close enough to be a threat and distanced enough to be contemptuous about it. At this angle Billy can see that he really is tired, neat enough, but worn at the edges. He’s so pale under the fluorescent lighting he’s like an old photograph in sepia tones. “It’s just a parking spot,” he says, laying on the accent all mid-western darling. “But if it means so much to you, all you had to do was ask.”

Idiot. Playing by the wrong rules again. Thinking Billy won’t call his bluff. He should have stayed up there, crawled out the window when he saw Billy coming.

Billy snarls a hand in his collar and yanks, so hard his knuckles pop. Harrington stumbles into him a little but otherwise stays loose and uncooperative, putting in only enough spine to stay upright, to keep their faces apart, nostrils flaring.

“You grow some balls since last time, Harrington, or you just got a short f*cking memory?”

Harrington snorts, looking away like he’d rather be doing something more interesting, like the fringe of his hair isn’t trembling under Billy’s hot breath. Maybe he’s underestimating how much Billy woke up wanting to hurt someone. Or maybe this is just his way of getting what he wants too, making Billy do all the dirty work.

“Maybe I’m just not in the mood,” he says, eyes half-lidded.

Oh, yeah. He’s a real f*cking princess.

Billy grins. “I am. In the mood.” His grip tightens as he draws Harrington closer, grin widening. “So yougonnaput out or am I going to have to romance you?”

He doesn't wait for an answer. Uses his grip on Harrington’s collar to throw him around, slamming his shoulders hard into the cubical. Harrington’s head bounces off the wall with a thump, a shocked gasp coming out of him, shoes squeaking on the tile as he tries to get his legs back under him, too clumsy and too slow.

Billy huffs out a laugh. “Take a little too much of mommy’s Prozac, sweetheart?”

Harrington’s eyes widen. He’s spooked now, trying to put some space between them, prying at Billy’s hands in his shirt. “Get the f*ck off me."

Billy shoves him harder against the wall, just to show him he can. “What’s the matter, Harrington? Can’t get it up without an audience of little kids?” He shoves him again. It’s just like basketball. He just has to find the right combination to make Harrington play. Anticipation sparks along his skin, in his chest.

Harrington shakes his head, sneering faintly. “I told you, I don’t have time for this right now. There’s things out there—”

He shakes Harrington again, reminding him: here. Hissing, “There’s nothing out there that’s worse than this right now, I promise you.”

Harrington’s eyes go big, searching for a moment. “I—” His mouth seals up, angry at himself. “You don’t know sh*t,” he says. Billy can see the fight draining right out of him, can’t keep the desperation off his face as he watches the guy wilt, even as Billy shakes him again. “Look somewhere else for your fix, man.”

No. No.

“No.” He lets go of Harrington’s collar with one hand, screwing his fingers hard into the center of Harrington’s chest, a parody of that night, right where he knows there’s a fire burning, the same as in him. “No,” he says again, meaning: it’s right here, give me this, let me have this. He licks his lip, eyes scrolling over Harrington’s face, looking for some other vulnerability, an in. Already he can feel the adrenaline slowing to a stop, curdling in his veins, clammy cold settling over him like a shell. If he closes his eyes he might just wake up now, back in his bed, ready to start this day again.

It doesn’t make any sense. There’s nowhere for the guy to go. Billy’s got him cornered and caged. He has to fight his way out. He has to hit back.

Hit me, he thinks, face coloring. Harrington’s looking at him real tired, mouth ticked up on one side like he finds the whole thing distasteful. It’s…déjà vu. Or something he’s dreamed before.

Mistake. The whole thing’s a mistake. He’s not going to get what he needs. Harrington only makes it worse.

He’d have been better off to go to Byers, he sees that now. Byers is like a blue-ringed octopus, a bite smaller and deadlier than what Billy needs, but Harrington is like a big fat deep-sea shark. Billy keeps reopening the same wound, putting more and more blood in the water, and Harrington just—won’t take the bait.

Billy lets him go. His fingers ache, still clawed up.

They’re at an awkward distance now. Too close to not be fighting. It’s Harrington’s fault, Billy thinks miserably. They could have had something good and bloody, but Harrington spoilt it, like a fumbled shot.

The wind outside surges, blowing a gust of sharp rain in through the open window, spattering over their jacket sleeves.

“You’re a real tease, Harrington.”

“Yeah. This new for you? Someone not giving you what you want?”

Billy bares his teeth. He doesn’t even get to want what he wants.

“And what about what you want, huh.” He clicks his fingers under Harrington’s nose. “You even awake in there? What’s got Steve Harrington so scared he has to sleepwalk through his day?”

“Man, just leave me alone.”

“That's hysterical. Wake up and look around you. You are alone. You are so alone," he says, almost laughing because it's true.

He’s so close he sees the moment Harrington absorbs it and changes, his eyes sharpening, his lips parting with a small noise. Billy's heart speeds, catching in his throat. “That why youspend your nights playing make-believe with mystepsister and herlittle nerd friends?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”Harrington says, jaw going hard.

Billy’s breath rushes out of him shaky and excited, hands fluttering up between them, unsure, but ready, settling on the warm cotton of Harrington’s shirt.

“No. No, I think I do, Harrington." He tugs him closer,an idea gaining traction, smelling weakness. “The world got scary on you? Things out there change a little too fast for you to keep up? It’s natural you’d want your old life back.” He smirks. “Old friends, old girl... sh*t, the best parking spot in the whole damn school.” He crows, smiling, tongue stuck on the tip of his eyetooth. “Nice andeasy and safe. Like putting on old clothes. I bet they still fit just right, huh.”

Harrington tenses up under his hands, going quiet. The look on his face—it’s perfect. Gets right into his bloodstream.

Oh, yeah. This’ll do.

“You know,” he says, stepping back a little to look Harrington up and down. “I see it now, what all the fuss is about. You really are something special.” He reaches to touch the swoop of his hair admiringly but Harrington jerks back, wary. “King Steve.” He laughs. “Oh, man. You know, I think I’m gonna remember you when I get out of here.” He drops the smile, turning serious and intent. “Hell, maybeByers and his girl will too. Maybe those kids you hang out with, once they’re gone.”

Harrington’s mouth flattens into a hard line, eyes glassy, wounded. “f*ck you,” he says quietly.

“What’s the matter, Harrington? I’m giving you what you want, aren’t I? You can have it all back. Your friends, your spot…team captain. I wouldn’t take that away from you.” He gets in close, right in Harrington’s face. “These are the best years of your life after all.”

A small tremor goes through him. He’s awake again, suddenly, really looking at Billy like he’s something that needs to be dealt with, dark and livid. Billy lights up with it.

Yes.

Yes.

“There he is,” he says excitedly.

He slaps Harrington in the face.

It’s a gentlemen’s tap, nothing that will leave a bruise, just something to get them started, an invitation, an easy out for Harrington: he didn’t start sh*t, he didn’t have a choice. Anything to make sure that spark in Harrington’s eyes doesn’t go out again. Anything to keep Billy’s blood singing.

Harrington’s even nodding, just slightly, like he gets it, struck cheek turning red.

“Okay,” he says, low and vicious, rucking his sleeves up like a priss. “Okay. Do me a favor though—don’t cry like a bitch this time.” Then he punches Billy right in his already bruised eye.

“f*ck!” His shout echoes sharply off the tile. His eye—the whole side of his face—explodes with pain. It’s like he’s been shot. He stumbles away, the heel of his palm jammed reflexively against the socket, fetching up against the bank of sinks, half-blind.

“I’m gonna f*cking end you, Harrington,” he snarls, face burning white-hot under the streaming tears. There’s a throbbing glittering black spot superimposed over where he guesses Harrington is standing. His hands fumble over the sink for purchase.

“Looking for a plate?” Harrington asks dryly.

Billy laughs, manic,pushingforward.

“Yep, okay,” Tommy says, appearing between them. He has an arm outstretched in Billy’s direction only, like he trusts Harrington to stop on his own. “Enough, man.” It’s so non-committal, impossible to say which one he’s talking to.

“Get lost,” he snaps.

“Yeah, Tommy,” Harrington says, all dry, eyes like blackholes. “Get lost.”

“Steve, don’t be an asshole,” Tommy says. “Carol’s going to kill me if I let you get beat up again.”

Billy laughs. He doesn’t give a sh*t—not about Tommy or his loyalty. He’s probably been there the whole time, waiting in the doorway to see which horse to back, maybe enjoying the show, or maybe just sh*tting his pants, too scared to interfere. It doesn’t matter. Tommy's in his blind spot now and he can only see Harrington: his big dark eyes, wet under the lights, his open mouth. He’s looking at Billy like he can’t see Tommy either. Billy's heart is beating in his neck, his teeth sharp in his bottom lip.

“Looks like your rescue got here in time,” he says, even though he’s still breathing fire, feels like he could get his fists against Harrington’s skin and still want more.

“Or yours,” Harrington says. “You don’t look so good, buddy. Rough night?”

Billy leers, running his tongue along his teeth animal-like.

“sh*t, Billy,” Tommy says.

He sniffs, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth like he can rub the smile off. He probably looks psychotic; eyes watering. He should have brushed his hair. The searing white bathroom tile is still bouncing with black stars in the corners. He'snot going to get any more of what he wants out of Harrington, not now with Tommy here. But he has enough.

He points to his eye. It hasn’t puffed up but he’s going to have a grade-A shiner later, something to feel around the edges of at night and remember: Harrington can be got.

“Now I owe you one, Harrington.”

Harrington gives him a filthy look. “Promises, promises.”

Outside, the wind howls, shrieking in through the cracked window, rain drumming harder against the side of the building. One of the light panels overhead flickers and all three of them stare at it until it stabilizes.

Billy snickers, heading for the door. He makes sure to clip Tommy’s shoulder on his way. Just so he knows how inconsequential he is, how presumptuous, to think he could ever get in Billy’s way.

“Looks like it’s gonna be a wild night, Harrington,” he says in parting. “Pity you won’t be a part of it. Have fun playing babysitter.”

^^^

It’s almost enough to get him through the day.

He makes it all the way to last period, buzzing, his thumb pressed snug into the bruise in the corner of his eye as he stares at the slick of rain on the window, replaying the hungry look in Harrington’s eye, like he wanted to dig his fingers in and pull him apart like a rotisserie chicken. King Steve.

He’s still high off of it when the bell goes, drunk almost, piling his books up dreamy and rote, drifting after his classmates out the door.

Something’s wrong.

The halls are deafening, the narrow space echoing with shrieking laughter as the first boom of thunder rolls overhead. Lockers slam, people rush past him, chattering, excited. He can’thear their conversations buthis ears prick at the one word on repeat.

In the midst of the pandemonium and movement he spies Tina, a bubble of unhappiness. She’s talking furiously to some other girl, trapper keeper clutched to her chest, face dour, free hand slicing through the air sharply.

He already knows, deep down, but he reaches out anyway, snatching at the nearest arm.

“What’s going on?” he asks. It’s some thick-bodied guy already pink in the cheeks.

“You don’t know?” the guy says, walking backwards, pulling out of Billy’s grasp, too excited to stop. He makes a whooping sound,blending into the crowd. “Party at Harrington’s tonight, dude.” He whoops again, throwing a fist up. “Party at Harrington’s. Long live the king!”

Chapter 7: fear can't hurt you (part two)

Chapter Text

It’s not even that nice of a house.

Billy’s seen nicer.

He drains the last can of Old Style and crushes it, throwing it out the window with the rest of the six-pack. He’s been around Hawkins twice already, taken some sharp corners, played chicken with a sixteen-wheeler. Anything to avoid Loch Nora and the steady trickle of cars pouring into Harrington’s fancy cul-de-sac as it got dark.

But he’s here now, he thinks bitterly, blowing out an annoyed breath.

There’s no gate, no gold-capped fence, no gargoyles. Nothing to keep Billy out except for a long walk over the dark drive and a closed pair of doors lit up like the answer at the end of a hall at the end of a dream.

He scratches at his chest, contemplating driving back to the Fair Mart for more booze first.

He’s not a puss*. He’s crashed bigger better parties than this, with meaner hosts. He’s used to arriving alone too, it’s just that he’s f*cked the timing of the thing now. He’s sat too long in his car. Been seen my too many partygoers as they pull up, as they drift in and out of the house. He keeps waiting for someone—Tommy, Carol, Harrington—to come out, following a rumor to see if the Camaro is really there, parked on the curb with Billy Hargrove inside it smoking his way through next week’s gas allowance.

He’s already kind of drunk too, but not in a way that he needs. It just makes him worse, surlier, beer churning in his empty stomach.His skin itches under a patina of flop sweat: too much thwarted adrenaline in one day.

A pair of junior girls walk past, peering in through his window. He stares back at them vacantly when they catch sight of him, slow-eyed, not bothering to smile around his cigarette almost burnt down to the filter. They wave, one of them tottering closer, but her friend grabs her by the strap of her purse with a sharp word, a warning, tugging her away.

He exhales smoke, watching them stumble up the drive passing a flask between them, fluffing each other’s hair. One of them turns to look back at his car, hopeful. It reminds him of Max, of the stupid half-wave that morning, after he’d scared her. Stupid. Stupid like every other girl, even when she should know better. Even after she’d done the smart thing and sunk a baseball bat into the floor not two inches from his nuts.

The girls have made it inside, the big blood-red front doors clapping shut—darkness again. Maybe if he goes up there and rings the doorbell right now Harrington will be the one to answer and they can cut right to the chase.

“f*ck it.” He can’t sit still thinkingabout it any longer.

He yanks his keys out of the ignition and pusheshis way out of his car, ditching his cigarette butt,headed towards the lighted doorstep. The rain’s dried up for now but the air still smells electric with the promise of more. He tramps right up the steps, his bootscuttingdark tracks over the Harringtons’ silvery lawn, and pushes through the front doors like he belongs.

He doesn’t.

Christ,Harrington’s loaded.

If he didn’t know already, he knows now. He’d know it in the pitch dark. Somewhere in this house is a state-of-the-art sound system and it’s pumping out synth pop with a crystal clear edge, loud enough to make Billy’s heart trip into its rhythm.

The entrance is packed with familiar groups of people; the same crowd as Halloween but with different masks.A few heads turn at the opening of the door and the ensuing bite of cold air.

“Holy sh*t,” someone says, which is fair.

He shoulders his way into the thick of them quick-smart—like hell he’s going to be caught stood around in the doorway like he’s casing the joint—just a glimpse of lofty ceilings and a long master staircase, nice art on the walls—not movie posters or kids’ stuff.

The party itself is already on the messy side of full swing, the sort of atmosphere where one too many key players have taken themselves out of circulation, moved on to some other party with an older crew or just found someone to sneak away with and screw in a spare room. There's a girl crying in a huddle of her friends, a guy slumped too heavily against the wall. Some red-faced junior stumbles urgently past Billy with his hand clapped over his mouth.

So, okay, yeah, it was probably a decent f*cking party and he shouldn’t have spent the last hour in his car inventing reasons why it wouldn’t be sad if he parked out at the quarry and taught himself how to skim rocks. He has a limited time to enjoy it now. Someone will have gone running to Harrington already. His friend the Chief of Police is probably already on his way to scrape Billy out of the party like oyster sh*t.

Whatever. He doesn’t need much time, just enough for people to know he was here. Just enough to get a girl to look past his black eye and the mean set of his mouth. There’s plenty of pretty ones left. Plenty of desperate ones too. They eye him up and down as he slides past, wending his way towards the noise, skirting the edges of larger groups.

He locks eyes with a few familiar guys from his grade but they don’t reach out to him. He makes them uneasy when he’s not smiling. Tommy and Carol usually help with that, softening his edges, stupid enough to stay in his orbit and ply him with booze and flattery until he’sindulgent and approachable and fun.

He ends up bullying his way into a game of beer pong being played on top of an enormous dining table. As a Hargrove he’s genetically predisposed to abhor drinking games—drinking is its own sport—but there’s no keg here that he can see, and playing along seems like the fastest route to free booze.

It still takes some finessing. Even half-way trashed he’s too good of a shot. He manages to down a few cups of sour beer by martyring himself, drinking for his less coordinated teammates and their girlfriends, spitting the ping pong ball back across the table to a chorus of disgusted boos. A girl sidles up to him and presses a bottle of Stoli into his chest, waiting for him to take it before she smooths a hand over his chest, like it’s an even exchange. He’s indifferent to vodka, but it will have to do. He takes a swig and doesn’t make a face at the dry burn of it down his throat. Lets her hand be his center of balance while he tips his head back.

She says something. The music is too loud and she’s too short. He shakes his head—she's interfering with his turn at the game—but he lets her tug him down so she can shout into his ear. Whoever she is she’s wasted, her voice thick as honey:

“There’s no punch.”

“There’s no punch,” he repeats slowly.

“Tina’s place always has punch,” she whines. “Who throws a party with no punch? Typ—typ….”

He holds the bottle away from her grasping hands, scanning the room. “Typical.”

He has a pretty reliable sixth sense for rooms with Harrington in them. He’s not here, but the living area is a big space, open, surrounded by glass, overlooked by the second story landing, he realizes.

“Your car got heated seats?”

“No,” he says, eyes on the balustrade above. It makes him uneasy. There’s no one up there, but there could be. “Hold this,” he says, giving the girl her vodka back.

He grabs one of the beer pong players, mouthing a name. The guy points in the direction of thesliding doors.

To hell with it. He needs air anyway.

Harrington has a pool. He’d heard rumors of course, but seeing it is something else. It’s lit up, glowing blue, steaming in the cold air. It doesn’t look like the sort of place where a bear eats a girl, but given the wary distance people are keeping around the perimeter it must be true. There’s no fence before the darkened tree line. He supposes it’s not inconceivable something—something big and hungry—could wander out from the woods for a dip and a snack.

Harrington himself is easy to spot. He’s the only one sat down, relaxed back in one of his pool chairs, sunglasses on like he’s Corey-f*cking-Hart. No Lacey. Tommy and Carol are with him and not with him, standing a little ways off, watching. He’s not entirely sure why until he gets closer.

Wheeler—and Byers with her.

And now that he’s really looking, Harrington isn’t exactly relaxed so much as he’s reclined and sh*tfaced, a stack of empty cans on the ground beside him. Which explains why Wheeler looks pissed.

“…better than this,” she’s saying.

“Well, maybe I’m not,” Harrington says.

Wheeler shakes her head, ignoring Byers’ hand on her arm. He’s holding a red solo cup, which is just the most bizarre thing Billy’s seen all day. He’dhave put money on him being the type not to drink.

“I don’t believe you,” Wheeler carries on saying. “How can you sit here—here—knowing what happened?”

“It’s my house, Nance. I live here, in it. Next to it. Y’know.”

“And, so, what? You’re just going to be like this now?” She gestures at the party like, this, the party, people dancing, the pool. Like it all amounts to something lacking.

“Well, what would you like me to be, Nancy?”

Wheeler’s face screws up, curly ponytail swinging from side to side as she shakes her head with astonishment. “More than this.”

Jesus. What a bitch.

“Nancy,” Byers says. “C’mon.”

“No. No, I want to know why he’s acting like this. Like…like…”

Harrington could be looking at her any kind of way from behind his glasses. “Like what?”

“Like before,” she says, furious. “Like an asshole. Seriously, Steve. What’s wrong with you?”

What’s wrong with you?

Harrington just laughs it off—a bitter-sounding thing, more like a grunt. “Before,” he says slowly. “Yeah...You know, I kind of liked it, before? When I could sleep. When I didn’t have nightmares. When I wasn’t afraid of my next-door neighbor's dog. Yeah, those were good times.”

“Steve,” Byers says, sharing a look with Wheeler. “Hey. We get it.”

“Thanks, man,” Harrington says in a perfectly polite tone of voice.

“Steve.”

Harrington’s head lolls against the pool chair. “f*ck, what, Nancy? It’s just a party.” He waves the beer in his hand around. “Time was you wanted one, remember? I’ll be Good Steve tomorrow. Hey, sh*t, maybe if I get drunk enough Jonathan can take me home.”

“You—don’t take this out on him! And that’s not even nearly the same thing.”

“Why, because I’m bullsh*t and you’re not?”

Her face hardens up, mouth pinching into an unhappy line.

“Nothing to say?” Harrington says, real bitchy. “It’s okay, I get it now. Really. I am bullsh*t.”

“Steve—”

“No. No, no, no, no. You think I’m bullsh*t. You think I’m bullsh*t and all of Hawkins is bullsh*t and you’re not because you’re going to college.”

Billy looks around to see if anyone is going to step in and stop this train wreck, but only a handful of people near enough to overhear seem to be paying attention, and Tommy and Carol are hovering awkwardly on the fringes, iced out earlier perhaps, or just waiting for things to get more heated, more entertaining.

“No,” Wheeler says, stepping closer, serious. “I think it’s bullsh*t because we both know there’s more out there than just, I don’t know, being cool.”

Harrington snorts.

Wheeler’s eyes narrow down to slits. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Harrington shrugs. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

Billy’s breath escapes him in a rush of almost laughter. It’s so conceited it’s impressive. Kind of shocking. He’s moved close enough that Tommy has caught sight of him and they lock eyes, sharing a moment of understanding.

Wheelerhas gone still, mouth pinched tight. Then she starts nodding. “Okay. Okay, I want to leave,” she says to Byers, taking his hand. “Let’s go.”

“Enjoy your date.”

Wheeler rounds on him. “There’s no date, Steve!” she hisses. “We canceled. Joyce called the restaurant. You left Will.”

Zombie Boy?

“He’s…” Harrington actually sounds a little guilty. “He’s with the others. I walkied them. It’s not like he’s alone.”

“I’m sure he got home fine,” Byers saysfirmly, trying to be diplomatic. “My mom’s just...still kind of sensitive about stuff like that. But, Steve, man, you told them you’d take them to the movies. He didn’t bring his bike.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t feel like spending my night with a bunch of kids.”

“Sure, of course, I get that,” Byers says. “Just, don’t make promises you can’t keep with him, okay?”

“Whatever. It’s not like he’s my responsibility.”

That gets Byers frowning, annoyed, finally. “What do you know about responsibility?”

Yeah, Billy thinks, wincing, already stalking across thedamp pavement. Yeah, he’s had enough of this sh*tshow.

“Your pool party f*cking blows, Harrington,” he says, snatching the cup out of Byers’ hand and downing the last of it, ignoring Wheeler’s white-hot glare.

“It’s not a pool party,” Harrington says.

“Well, not with that attitude,” he says, ditching the empty cup and reaching back with a casual arm to shove Byers over the edge.

Byers only manages a gasp before he hits the water. Turns out he’s an actual pushover, no resistance at all.

The surrounding talk and laughter dries up sharply at the sound of the splash.

For a long moment it’s quiet, quiet enough to hear the first faint spit of rain on the pavement, water slopping up over the sides of the pool, bubbles hissing.

Byers breaks the surface spluttering, coughing, his face barely visible through the thick steam.

No one’s laughing yet. They’re watching Billy, nervous and expectant, a little eager; hot breath in the frosty air. They’re looking to Harrington too, for what to do next.

It’s Carol who makes the first move. Wheeler’s still caught in the motion of turning to glare at him in disbelief, mouth shocked open—then Carol is at her elbow, shoving her in hard.

That breaks it.

Someone yelps as they’re pushed from the other side of the pool, and then too many kids to keep track of are jumping in, falling in, pushing each other in, the pool swarming with them.A plume of water from someone’s cannonball sprays up and spatters over his boots.

The sliding door is yanked open, releasing the full blast of the music along with a stream of howling partygoers. He almost smiles as he shoulders his way through them. It’s the sort of chaos he likes. Just the wrong day, wrong place, wrong soundtrack. He’s not getting in that water for anything less than Van Halen, and no one is daring enough or stupid enough to push him.

He pauses on his way out, in the entrance, eyeing the foot of the stairs where a half-assed barricade of chairs has been toppled to one side.

He could just leave.

He should just leave. His eye is starting to ache again and the thought of trying it on with some girl, even one of the sloppy, desperate ones, suddenly seems more exhausting than it should be. He’s just drunk enough that if he leaves now he might be able to forget how he woke up when he puts his head on his pillow, and just sober enough that he should be able to make it home if he stays off the main roads.

No way is he drunk enough to play this game with someone who knows full well what guys like Billy Hargrove get up to if left unchaperoned in their nice big houses.

He takes the stairs, slow, like if it takes him long enough he’ll come to his senses.

Upstairs is just as sleek and flashy as the rest of the house, the slanted rafters lit up with the warm glow of the living room below. He peers over the edge at the handful of people still inside, strewn over couches, playing a game in a circle on the floor. Any of them could look up and see him, but they don’t, which seems like permission enough. He moves on after one last glance at the sliding door to the pool.

He finds Harrington’s parents’ room first. Doesn’t bother with the light switch, the wedge of light from the hall illuminating a king bed in the center of the room, stark and sharp-cornered as a piece of art. Strangely unmade on one side, he notices.

The next room he looks in is a home office, more lived in. Tracks in the carpet where the chair has been wheeled from computer to printer to fax machine behind a big L-shaped desk. There’s a bunch of diplomas on the wall but no embarrassing photos of Harrington on Santa’s lap. Disappointing.

Goldilocks is at the end of the hall.

And is a slob, he realizes, poking the door open and catching a whiff of pizza leftovers and damp laundry. No need to turn on the lights—they’re already on. A lamp on the desk and each bedside table too.

Nightmares huh.

He glances around. Preppy plaid wallpaper, matching curtains, a couple of posters. The pizza smell is coming from a greasy box on the floor underneath a butterflied biology textbook. There’s a pile of clothes kicked half under the bed, and another stuffed haphazardly into the desk well, as if Harrington only realized last-minute he might end up with company up here. The bed is unmade—maybe because his parents aren’t home, or maybe he’s just allowed to live like an animal. Either way, the sight of the tangled sheets makes Billy’s skin crawl.

Aticking noise draws his gaze to the window: rain tapping against the glass, justlightly and then harder, and then in a sweeping rush thatsendsup a wail of laughter and shouting outside.

He stifles a sigh, plucking a bottle of expensive-looking whisky off the dresser.

Harrington has an ensuite bathroom, same as Tommy, and the lights are on in there too. He pushes his way in, regretting it when he catches sight of himself in the mirror. He looks like hammered sh*t: hair frizzy and wetted down from being in and out of the rain all day, long and straggly over his shoulders, eyes raw.

He leans closer over the sink. The shiner’s come up nice. Looks like someone rolled their thumb in ink and pressed it just into the corner of his eye. One for the price of two.

“Don’t tell me. Looking for a blow-dryer,” Harrington says from the doorway.

Billy doesn’t bother looking at him properly. He doesn’t need more than a glance. No sunglasses, been in the pool. Wet. He sets the whisky down so he can pick up one of the pill bottles scattered on the vanity, squinting at the label.

“Hey, asshole. Want to keep your hands to yourself?”

He manages a half-smile. Not really.

“Depends," he says, tilting his head so the light will catch on Harrington’s handiwork. “You come to collect?”

Harrington sniffs. “Don’t you think it’s kind of poor form to beat someone up in their own home?”

“Never heard of home-field advantage?”

A dry laugh. “This whole town is my home field.”

“You—” he starts, the words dying in his throat. He’s right, of course. He has everything. But he's not supposed to just say it. It's so plainly arrogant, such a shockBilly forgets himself, turning to look.

Harrington’s leaned up against the doorframe, loose-limbed and princely, soaking wet, like a goddamn nightmare. Jeans, shirt, sweater, shoes. Hair. Eyes. The wet sweep of his fringe is dripping a steady bead of water onto the tile between them. He's co*cking an eyebrow at Billy like, yes?

Real top-tier asshole behavior.

Billy hates it.Has to shovehis tongue hard into the side of his cheek to stop from smiling.Harrington sees anyway.

He looks tired, just barely amused, maybe a little co*ck-eyed. About three rum and co*kes past Dutch courage, if Billy had to guess. He's staring, he realizes, feeling somehow ten times drunker.

“Did you come up here to piss me off, pretty boy?”

Harrington rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m having a real great day. Just wanted to end it finding you in my childhood bathroom.”

Billy shrugs. “You could always leave.”

“It’s my bathroom.”

“You asking me to get lost, Harrington?” he quirks his head. “Where are those upper-middle-class manners I’ve heard so much about?”

“Guess you knocked them out of me.”

Hehuffs out a laugh.“You got a smart mouth for someone who can’t throw a decent punch.”

“I don’t know,” Harrington says carefully. “Looks pretty decent to me.”

Billy flushes, bruised eye throbbing. He’d forgotten it, somehow, for a moment.

Oh, you think this is all you?—is what he wants to say. But he can’t. It’s different with Harrington than with Byers—he won’t get it.

Harrington takes a step forward and Billy tenses, but it’s just to grab a towel off the rail. He strings it over his shoulders, balling it up on one end to press under his dripping chin. Thunder grumbles somewhere outside, deeper, louder than the music and the sound of rain, rolling to a deafening crack over their heads. Harrington tilts his head to watch the bathroom light humming with current.

Harrington’s a f*cking dumbass, mouthing off when he’s too tired to offer up a fight. Billy licks the back of his teeth, thinking. He’s not going to hit him. Not now, when Harrington thinks he has him figured out, thinks Billy is a windup toy for when he feels like being bad. Good Steve, he’d told Wheeler. I’ll be Good Steve tomorrow. Well, Billy doesn’t get to choose—didn’t get to choose to wake up feeling like there’s saltwater burning a hole in him today—and neither should Harrington.

It wouldn’t be satisfying anyway. Harrington looks pale, about as substantial as cellophane.And Billy feels so brittle that punching him would still probably make his whole hand splinter apart.

“Okay then,”he says.

Harrington eyes him mistrustfully. “Okay...?”

“Okay.” He shakes the pill bottle. “I’llsave our next dancefor when you’ve had your beauty sleep.”

Harrington’s tone is doubtful. “You…aren’t going to hit me.”

He steps a little closer, just to test the boundaries of Harrington’s composure.Harrington does an admirable job of not reacting, like always. Billy’s close enough he can smell the beer on his breath, the chlorine on him, on the towel.He has the faintest pink mark of a scar at his hairline.Billy knows he just promised not to hit him but his heart is already squeezing behind his ribs at the sight of it, knuckles tingling with the memory.

“Notunless you ask me nice.”

There’s a moment where Billy thinks he’s really going to ask him to do it. Pretty please. But then hejust sort of—snorts.

“H’okay.”

Thunder rips overhead again, closer this time—a percussive BOOM—and the lights blink. Billy frowns up at the domed ceiling fixture and when he looks back down Harrington is staring at it again, flat-eyed.

Heruns his tongue between his teeth. “Scared of the dark?”

Harringtongives him a fed uplook. There’s no more laughter or splashing from the pool. People are shouting, rounding each other up, the sliding door banging open and closedan annoying amount of times. The music pauses, subsumed by the dull roar of rain as someone switches out the tape.

He supposes it’s too much to hope for something with a guitar solo but he keeps his ears pricked anyway: Hazy synth opener. Slow pulse of drums. He makes a face. Foreigner. The sentiment is apparently shared by Harrington who twists to slump more fully against the doorframe, muttering, “Great, great, that’s just. Great.”

“What’s the matter, Harrington? Someone find your Valentine’s Day mixtape?”

“Please leave.”

He snickers. Like hell he’s going out there now. He’s unlucky and he’s tall. He’ll probably get struck by lightning on the Harringtons’ lawn and turned into an ornamental coat-stand. He grabs up the bottle of whisky and sits his ass purposefully down on the edge of the bath, cracking the seal and taking a showy slug even though it tastes like horse piss.

Harrington holds out his hand for the bottle, eyebrows raised expectantly.

Billy ignores him. “Get your own.”

“That is my own, asshole. You’re drinking myChristmas present.”

Come to think of it, the sealdid have akind of ribbon on it.

Billy takes another draught,suckinghis teeth afterdisapprovingly. “YourChristmas present could use a mixer.”

That startles a weary sort of laugh out of Harrington. Billy’s not quite sure how he feels about it. He’s not really a funny guy—isn’t used to being laughed at. It's over quick enough though, before he can puzzle out whether or not he needs to get offended. Harrington smears a hand over his face and plucks a cigarette from behind his ear.

Billy’s lips part.

It’s not a cigarette.

It’s a joint—a neatly rolled joint. Smooth and even. A little damp from Harrington’s hair but otherwise professional work.

“Hey,” Billy says, before he even thinks it through. “Give me some of that.”

“Yeah,” Harrington says with the joint clenched between his teeth, distracted, looking for his lighter, “right.” He pats himself down—chest, hips—balancing precariously on the doorjamb as he struggles to get a hand in the back pocket of his wet jeans. He frowns, coming up empty.

Billy smiles until he has his attention, fetching out his own zippo and holding it lazily between his knees. He flicks it on and snaps it shut. Flicks it again.

Harrington lets out an exasperated sigh, hunching forward so Billy can reach up and light it. He lets Harrington get it started, just the edges of a cherry between his cupped hands, before stretching his fingers out for it in a clear demand. Harrington rolls his eyes but passes it over.

He’s almost too eager to get it in his mouth, licking his suddenly dry lips. The first draw is good. Fantastic. Dense and skunky, barreling around in his lungs as he holds it. He spares a glance at Harrington and sinks down onto the floor, tips his head back, eyes falling shut, spangles playing over the inside of his lids. He exhales out. And out and out, really registering just how good it is. It’s—

Really f*cking strong.

He coughs. Smothers it, or tries to, throat clamping, but something catches sharp and dry in his windpipe and he—

—coughs again, messier this time, smoke choking out the corners of his mouth.

“Smooth.”

“Get f*cked,” he rasps, giving up and coughing hard into his fist.

“You all right there, Hargrove? Need a shotgun?”

Billy glares as Harrington leans over to take the joint off him. His eyes are watering. “Not if you were the last mouth in Indiana. What the f*ck is that?”

Harrington laughs. “Welcome to Hawkins,” he says, taking a drag, thoughtful. “The weed is all right.”

It’s more than all right; it’s f*cking toxic, the best reefer he’s ever smoked.

He doesn’t cough the second time around, rolling his tongue around the taste. It makes all the smells of the bathroom leap into sharp relief: salty chlorine, the hay-honey smell of shampoo residue still in the tub, potpourri in a little dish on top of thetoilet tank. What kind of guy wants to look at rose petals when he’s taking a slash?

He can already feel the beginnings of a high swimming up from the base of his brain, his body loosening, fizzing at the edges. Harrington is definitely laughing at him, he decides, watching him from under his eyelashes. When he figures out if it pisses him off or not there’s going to be a price for that.

Somewhere between his third and fourth toke he must look sedate enough that Harrington slides downto the floor too,tuggingthe towel around his neck, one leg stuck out across the tiles dangerously close to Billy’s junk. Billy’s not an ambush predator, but even so, he feels the compulsion to grab Harrington’s sneaker and yank, just to see what happens.

Harrington smokes like a p*rnstar or a grand old society dame, showy and expert. Billy looks at his own hands, at the stiff, stubby fingers his dad gave him, no good for picking at guitar strings. There’s engine grease under one of his nails.

When he looks back up Harrington is watching him, blue smoke crawling over his top lip. It’s easy to miss, but there’s a smirk there.

Harrington catcheshim staring, breathing out a slowcloud of smoke. The scent of it is so dark and grassyit gets his dick hard. He reaches over and takes the joint back, sucking at it greedily, short and sharp, getting as much smoke into him as he can.

“So,” he says. “How come you’ve got this and Tommy’s weed is for sh*t?”

“Tommy has good weed,” Harrington says, tilting his head back against the door to look at the ceiling absently. “He can just be…” He grimaces. “A dick.”

Billy frowns.

Harrington looks at him. “He’s f*cking with you.”

Oh.

“Don’t take it personally,” Harrington says, tone careful. “It’s a small town.”

It rattles him more than he’d like to admit, the idea of Tommy pulling one over on him, amusing himself. He doesn’t think of Tommy, or Carol, or any of these hick kids, as getting bored. Not since he’s been here to shake their little lives up. He isn’t the type of new kid you’re supposed to mess with.

He takes a hard drag, paper burning, his lungs filling with dry smoke, waiting for his spine to re-soften. Harrington doesn’t seem overly fussed about Billy hogging it, eyes lambent, patient. f*cking rich kid. Billy smokes even more, just to be a prick, slotting it back in between Harrington’s lax fingers only once it dawns on him that he might be getting a little too high.

Harrington has the barest smirk on his face.

It’s a small town.

He settles self-consciously back against the tub, doing his best to not look like his head is floating off his shoulders.

“So...” He licks his lip, tentative. “What else do you smalltown kids get up to? Other than tipping cows and f*cking with out-of-towners.”

Harrington gives him a long look—long enough that Billy wants to suck the words back into his mouth. But then he shrugs and says, “Depends on the company.”

Billy nods, wishing he could take the joint back if only to have something to do with his hands.

“What about California?” Harrington says, taking a draw.

Billy wishes he could keep his mouth shut.

“No cows,” he says. “Parties were better, always had good weed. And co*ke, y’know.”

“Uh huh,” Harrington says, his interest dwindled and lost. Billy is surprised to realize he can feel it, the moment of its passing, a moment of cold sobriety in the warm haze of his high.

Jesus. Jesus, poor Tommy.

“I…” he scrubs his hand over his hot eyes. “You could hear the ocean at night.” It’s a lie. They moved plenty but never anywhere close to the beach. “Waves at night and sh*t,” he says, kind of lame. He needs to zip it. Weed makes him talky like a bitch.

Harrington’s nodding. “We stayed in Santa Cruz for a bit one summer. My parents were...There was nothing much for me to do, just, walk around the boardwalk, I guess.”

Billy can’t help but be interested. It’s weird, thinking of Harrington and him being in the same state at some point, on opposite ends of a beach, maybe. A dozen questions bottleneck in his throatand he’s grateful none of them actually make it out his mouth. It’s not like Steve Harrington is the right guy to pour his guts out to, bitching about how homesick he is for a place thathasn’t noticed him gone.

“You really afraid of the dark, Harrington?” he asks after a while.

Harrington doesn’t look away from the ceiling, watching the lazy curl of smoke, just barely nodding.

He’s got two moles, like a snake bite, just under his jaw. Such an obvious flaw.

You shouldn’t tell people stuff like that, Billy wants to say.

“Good thing I’m here then,” he says, waiting for Harrington’s eyes on him, smiling, rusty at it, maybe kind of f*cked up. He waggles his zippo. “I got a night light.”

Harrington frowns, lookingat Billy strangely for a long moment, then he shakes his head. “You are such an asshole.”

“Hey. Don't knock it ‘til you try it.”

Harrington snort-laughs smokethrough his nose and starts choking on it whichstarts Billylaughing too, loud and ugly.

The sound of it echoing off the brightly-lit tiles makes the bathroom feel smaller, closer, boxed in and cut off on all sides by rain. It makes him feel the way the cab of his car does sometimes. Like he could go anywhere. Like they’re not in Hawkins. Or like he doesn’t have to hate it.

He can’t seem to stop, laughing until he’s winded, his whole chest vibrating with it. Harrington’s weird asthmatic nose-wheezing keeps setting him off again until it’s almost f*cking painful.

They let the conversation die out after that, both of them too high and too tired. It’s...comfortable. It shouldn’t be. It won’t be, tomorrow. He doesn’t let himself imagine it. It’s probably a new day already anyway, which means school in a few hours. He zones out to the drum of rain on the roof and realizes after a while that Harrington is crooning along tonelessly to himself and the music has been off for some time.

Billy sits and Harringtonf*cks upevery verse ofREO Speedwagon’s hit singleCan’t Fight This Feelingand then ashes the joint; a punctuation mark.

Party’s over.

^^^

He has to catch himself on the wall, twice, as he zig-zags down the hall and into his room, his footsteps abominably loud on the thin carpet.He should have taken his boots off outside but it’s raining too hard and his fingers are clumsy from the cold and also he fell over when he leaned down to try.

“Billy?”

It’s just Max. Hovering in his doorway in her dressing gown, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She looks him up and down wearily as he moves around his room, fumbling his keys and wallet out of his pockets, peeling his jacket off. His boots come off with two too-loud thumps. He smells ripe, but maybe if he hangs his jeans on the windowsill the cold air will make them wearable tomorrow.

He stops with his hand on his fly, bugging his eyes at her like, well?

She bugs her eyes right back.

“What, Maxine?”

Her brow furrows. “Why are you smiling?”

He reaches up to his face, surprised, touching over his mouth.

Oh.

He digs his fingers in hard either side where his cheeks ache. Thinks of Tommy saying, sh*t, Billy. The way he smiles when he’s blooded and alive. He must be scaring her.

“I’m high as hell, Maxine,” he says, turning away. “Go back to bed.”

He feels her eyes on him amoment longer before the door closes.

He strips out of his shirt and jeans and climbs under the covers, shivering, dizzy and drained. He can still taste the sweet tang of smoke, smell it on his hair and the tips of his fingers as he runs them over his mouth, waiting for the feeling to fade.

Outside the thunder is low, bated. Rising and receding, almost like a tide.

Chapter 8: any more than a dream

Chapter Text

“Out,” he says as they jerk to a stop at the turn off for the middle school, the Camaro punching a draft into the early morning fog. The school building and the water tower are just dim outlines somewhere beyond the murky expanse of parking lot, the impatient rumble of the V-8 the only life for miles...

“Chop chop, little lady,” he says, pretty hilariously, when she doesn’t move.

Max crosses her arms and slumps further into her seat. “It’s so early,” she gripes. “There’s no one else here, Billy. What if the doors aren’t even open yet?”

“What, like you never picked a lock before?” he asks mildly, tilting his head to admire the lie of his hair in the side-mirror. He woke up late, later than Max for once, and spent most of his morning shower dry retching against the tiles, but all in all his hair’s turned out pretty great.

“What is that?” Max asks exasperated.

He sits back to look at her. Her nose is wrinkled. “What?”

“That song,” she says. “That song. You were singing it last night too!”

He wasn’t. He doesn’t even like that song.

He lolls his head to eyeball her. She’s got something on her lips, sheeny-shiny. “You’re looking very nice today, Maxine. Sinclair gonna get lucky?”

Her face crumples. “Can you be more gross?”

He sticks his tongue out. Yes. “Out you get, Strawberry Shortcake, time’s a-wasting.” He takes one hand off the wheel and punches the seatbelt buckle undone for her, but she’s still not getting out, looking him up and down suspiciously.

“Are you on drugs?”

He gives her a flat look like, No, are you?

She doesn’t look convinced.

And, okay, his mouth still tastes like Harrington’s richie-rich-boy weed. And somehow, even under the heavy clay of his hangover he still feels kind of high. But the only thing he’s on is the aspirin someone—Susan, probably—left out on the kitchen table for him. His dad was already gone when he finally did get out of the bathroom, but early indicators are good he didn’t notice Billy stumbling his way into the house at bullsh*t o’clock.

Max is still watching him. He clears his throat dramatically, making a show of looking at his watch.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” she grumbles, tugging her bag out of the footwell. God, she’s slow. She kicks the door open in a way that she knows he can’t stand and gets out, holding the door so she can stoop to glare at him. “Why do you have to be so early today, anyway?”

Modern warfare, he thinks.

“Choir practice,” he says with a grin, and leans over to yank the door shut.

She scowls at him, voice muffled through the glass. “Stop using my shampoo or I’m telling mom.”

He revs a warning, just to make her stumble back so he doesn’t actually take her toes off, and then gasses it, the Camaro tearing away with a roar, shooting down the long undulating road towards the high school like a bullet, scattering mist and leaves. He checks his rearview mirror and, yep, she’s still there on the scrubby strip, flipping him off. What a little psycho.

There are only a handful of cars in the high-school lot – nerds with extracurriculars and kids with early-morning detention. And Billy, swinging into Harrington’s parking spot at speed, neat and professional.

Early bird gets the worm.

He chuckles to himself, fishing around in his glovebox for a smoke and shoving it between his lips. First period isn’t for another half hour, but he has rattlesnake patience, can’t even tally up the hours upon hours of his life he’s spent self-entertaining in his front seat waiting for Max to get done at Pac Man or whatever-the-f*ck.

He fiddles idly with the radio, dialing from end to end, flipping past dull early-morning talk-radio voices, Christian honkytonk, local news. His daily ritual of hunting for a track he probably won’t hear until he works up the courage to rob the RadioShack.

He buzzes the window down to flick ash off the end of his cig, sucking in the damp-cold air, letting it quell the lingering dregs of his hangover. It’s nice—the quiet lot with the mist burning off the asphalt, the smell of wet leaves.

The radio host is announcing some rock ballad that’s not his taste, but he doesn’t bother changing the station.

^^^

It takes just about forever to find Harrington’s locker. He thought it would be easier, stand out more somehow, but it’s just a normal locker in the middle of a row of senior lockers, identical to his own and with exactly the same angled slot that he’s able to cram the envelope through. He darts a quick look around before he does it to make sure no one with too big of a mouth has seen, but the halls are still relatively empty. Just some band geek standing there, frozen in place like he’s just witnessed a mob hit and him and his clarinet are going to have to go into witness protection. Billy winks at him and goes back to wiggling his present through the gap, snickering at the dull clank it makes when it lands inside, smoothing his hand over the grate in farewell.

He’ll have to bum a light until he can buy a new zippo at the gas station.

It’s a long walk back to his own locker. He has to chew the smirk off his bottom lip the whole way, thinking about the flummoxed look on Harrington’s face when he finds it.

Harrington. In case the boogeyman shows.

First period is in the library and he makes it to class just moments before the teacher walks through the door, throwing himself into a seat beside Wheeler with a smirk, making sure to knock his knee into hers. She turns around pointedly, intent on giving him the full force of her glare.

“You have some nerve.”

He laughs, enjoying her scathing once-over and leering back. “Eyes up front, Wheeler. Unless you’re looking for a new boyfriend.”

She shakes her head, turning back to her note-taking. “You’re trash.”

“Yup,” he concedes. Mrs. Wright is making the rounds from desk to desk, seeing who has and hasn’t started the reading already, back turned. He takes the chance to lean a little closer, close enough that one of Wheeler’s flyaway curls moves under his breath when he talks. “But at least I can swim.”

The big guy across the table snickers nastily. Wheeler’s face puckers like she’s giving serious thought to spitting on him to test his theory.

He continues, “Loosen up, sweetheart. You know what they say—all’s fair, yada yada.”

“You are so—” She cuts herself off with a frustrated noise, picking up her pen with forced stiffness and pretending to work as Mrs. Wright ambles past them. Billy hasn’t even bothered to get his books out of his bag and she hovers until he does, slumping back into his chair and clapping the dog-eared text onto the table with a bang. She nods approvingly before she moves on, as if she doesn’t know he’s going to spend the whole class at the window sharpening his pencil down to a nub.

“Why Jonathan?” Wheeler says under her breath once the teacher’s out of earshot. “You never messed with him before.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I could give less of a sh*t about your bargain bin boyfriend.”

“Then why?”

He thinks on it, drumming his fingers on the ugly yellow book cover. “Rules of the jungle? Guess I’m kinda like my man Jack killing Piggy.”

A narrow-eyed look. “Maybe you should actually read the book, Billy.”

“Maybe,” he says, snatching up an overlong 2B. “But duty calls.”

The pencil sharpener is behind the stacks, tucked into a private corner of the building with a view of the parking lot, and Mrs. Wright won’t come looking for him no matter how long he takes. He does most of his quality napping in here.

He stares out the window while he works. The sun’s come out properly now, radiating off the glass and through the blinds onto his face and hands, cutting a square of warm light in the muted gray of the library. He watches absently as a few more cars pull into the half-empty parking lot. Seems like the entire senior year’s suffering from the same collective hangover, he thinks, yawning. puss*es. If Coach has them run drills later there’s an even chance he’s going to blow chunks, but otherwise he’s doing a standup job of keeping his own hangover tamped down.

He’s only just starting to find his rhythm on the hand crank when Carol finds him, sneaking up and pinching his side like he’s not the kind of guy to throw an elbow. He jumps, making a face when he realizes it’s her.

“Who told you how to find the library?”

“Ha ha,” she says, rolling her eyes under her shellacked fringe. “This was like, mine and Tommy’s favorite spot.” She has both her hands stuffed in the pockets of her windbreaker and she points them at the little study room in the corner. “Primo make-out real estate. We had to give it up once Steve and Nancy took it over.”

“Like I want to know that.”

“Right? I’ve already thrown up like, six times this morning.” And then, proving that she’s never actually spent any legitimate time in a library in her life, she pulls her hands out of her jacket and waggles a packet of chewing gum at him.

She scoffs at his raised eyebrows, folding a piece into her mouth and jumping up onto the sill next to the sharpener. The gum cracks obnoxiously loud as she gives him a scrolling once over, swinging her feet, enjoying his impatience.

“Get lucky last night?”

He gives her a flat look. “What do you want, Carol?”

A shrug. “Did Mindy find you?”

“Who?”

“Mindy Miller? I told her you’d show last night.” She gives him a lewd smile around her chewing. “She’s very interested in visiting the Golden State.”

Billy remembers, vaguely, the girl with the vodka. So she’s Miller’s sister.

“Not interested.”

Even as the words are out of his mouth he hears how flimsy they are, remembering how quick Carol was to push Wheeler into the pool last night, and how patient before that.

“I mean, you disappeared,” she continues, oblivious, preoccupied with her nails. “I thought maybe you’d taken her on the tour.” She changes tack. “Did you hear the rumor?”

He shakes his head.

She grins, reaching out to toy with the sherpa lining of his collar. “This is nice…”

“What rumor?” he sighs.

“Oh,” she cracks her gum smugly, sitting back. “Just that Stevie boy cheated on Lacey last night.”

He has to duck his head to disguise the insistent pull of a smile in the corners of his mouth. He hadn’t even known Lacey was at the party. The thought of her dripping on the foyer tiles, tapping her foot, fills him with warm satisfaction. “Maybe he just went to bed early like a good boy.”

“Yeah, I don’t buy it,” Carol says, cracking her gum, “But no one could find him during the brownout and he was supposed to walk her home.”

He can’t quite keep the smirk out of his voice. “Think he got eaten by a bear?”

“He’s going to wish he was when his parents get back tomorrow. And Lacey’s going to go nuclear if he doesn’t turn up with flowers.”

He snorts. “There a reason you’re not boring Tommy with this sh*t?”

She blows an unimpressed bubble, bursting it over her lip. “Can’t. He and Steve are skipping.”

He looks at her blankly.

“Boy time,” she says with an eye roll, as if that explains it.

He frowns, vaguely aware that Carol’s still talking, distracted with trying to find a place to stick her gum on the sill.

“—don’t know why I thought it would be different this time around. Like, what if I wanted to skip too, huh? And it’s not like either of them know how to clean a house properly, I’ve seen Steve try to use the creepy-crawly like a vacuum. They’re probably just gonna lie around all day watching their stupid karate movies and they’ll only invite me over when they need food—”

He tugs the window blinds apart so he can look up the slope to the parking lot and—

There’s his car; parked in Harrington’s spot. There’s an empty spot beside it.

It’s a dull feeling, in his chest, at seeing it. A weight, like his body’s just remembered how tired it is.

“—not like I spent months working on Tommy to get him to cool off—”

So Harrington’s skipping. Big deal. Of course he’s skipping. They were wasted. If Billy could afford the truancy he would skip too.

“Billy. You okay?”

Yeah. Yes, of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be?

Harrington was more wasted than him, if he remembers it right. He’s pretty sure he remembers it right—sharing the joint, the bottle. Harrington’s sh*tty taste in music.

Carol’s looking at him with her eyebrows raised questioningly and the sun behind her is making the edges of her blowout glow, burning it onto his retinas.

Maybe he’s a little queasy.

“I uh…” He grabs the blinds again, squinting out the window just to make sure. Yep. No bimmer. Just the Camaro, the sunlight reflecting off its powder-blue roof in a way that makes his eyes ache.

“I gotta hurl,” he says, turning his back on her, walking fast, ignoring the spangles of light playing over his eyes in the darkened stacks.

God, why’d he— They shared one joint. It’s not like... And parking in the guy’s spot like an invitation? And—

The zippo—his zippo, waiting in Harrington’s locker like—

Idiot.

Idiot.

^^^

How many sh*tty ceilings has he looked up at in his life, Billy wonders, head on his pillow, watching sundown play out on the stucco. He flicks the baseball up, spinning up, up in a straight line, and then down, landing in his palm with a soft thump.

How many does he still have to look forward to?

At least this one’s clean. A little slapdash on the paint, built up and crummy at the edges; maybe the work of a family just like this one needing to patch over their sins and get out quick. When they left Hayward it was so sudden they didn’t even have time to clean up after the roach bomb. Anything desperate enough to live crawled into their packing boxes during the night and made the trip to Hawkins with them. He wonders what the family who moved in after them thought of the faint signs of a life the Hargrove-Mayfields left behind. If they peeled Maxine’s stickers off the fridge. If they covered up the Billy-shaped dent in the drywall.

Flick, thump—a little wonky this time. He catches the ball by his temple. It’s old, smudged with fingerprints, polished smooth by two generations worth of being caught. He shuffles it in his fingers to find the coarse line of stitching, tossing it up again. Baseball’s not his game—but this is his ball, since he was a baby. His mom probably teethed him on the thing. He can still remember—six, maybe seven—the hitched breath feeling of discovering it in a tucked away shoebox, under his baby clothes. Under the letters from his dad.

Dad.

Billy had a dad, and he wrote love letters and drew little cartoons: doodles in the margins of newspaper cuttings and on motel notepads and on the back of postcards from places Billy could find on a map. With a name he could find in the phone book.

Flick, thump.

No putting the lid back on that shoebox. Not for him, anyway.

Flick, thump.

The radio hiccups. The station is just a blare of static somewhere between the twang of a country guitar and what seems to be a police dispatch – murmured retorts back and forth too fuzzy to decipher. Could be Chinese for all he can make them out. He could get up and change it but the in-between-ness suits him just fine. Whatever drowns out the stutter of canned laughter and studio applause coming from the living room.

His mind wanders to the envelope with the zippo inside sitting in Harrington’s locker and he groans, rubbing his palms into his eyes like he can press the image out of his brain. Idiot. The ball rolls off his chest, settling in the dip of his side.

“That’s some throwing arm you got there.”

Billy drops his hands, ignoring the faint tickle of instinct reminding him to get up, stand up straight.

His dad’s fresh from his shift, work clothes just a little creased at the elbows but otherwise neat as ever, in the doorway watching Billy like he’s got something he wants to say and doesn’t know how to say it unless Billy stands up.

“I already put the trash out,” he says, fishing the ball up onto his chest and looking at the ceiling again. The sun’s set and the circle of lamplight from his nightstand doesn’t reach all the way into the corners. There’s an empty beer can on the carpet not quite tucked out of sight that Neil might call him out for if the mood takes him.

“And you offered to help with the dishes?”

He grunts. Yes

His dad stays put in the doorframe. “Susan tells me you didn’t eat much of your dinner.”

Susan and her big mouth.

“It tastes like sh*t, dad.”

“Watch it.”

Billy clenches his jaw to stop from rolling his eyes. It’s not really Susan’s fault he has no appetite, but it’s not like it was going to make a valiant comeback for cabbage soup and ham steaks.

“Susan’s taking your sister to the new mall next week to shop for a summer frock,” Neil says. “She thinks it’s a good idea for you to join them.”

“I’m good.”

“You’ll go.”

He grits his teeth. Fine. Just how he wants to spend his first weekend out of school—playing chauffeur while Max picks out a f*cking trainer bra.

That should be it, pretty standard heart-to-heart, but his dad lingers, watching him. For just a second Billy entertains the idea of him saying something like, What’s up, sport? But it rings false, even in his head. As insincere as the laugh-track spilling from the TV down the hall. He just can’t make it fit—not any more than the idea of the man who sat in diner booths penning letters full of poetry and promises on the back of take-out menus.

He’s still there, one hand caught on the doorframe when Billy turns to look, eyes like cold lead.

“You’re not getting in trouble again are you, Billy?”

Trouble.

Would he even know what it looks like this time.

“No, dad.”

“Bill.”

“I said I’m not!”—in trouble. He’s not.

His dad breathes out through his nose and pushes off the frame, appeased for now. He points at the radio. “Turn that sh*t down. Susan’s trying to watch her shows.”

Billy turns it off.

^^^

She wasn’t there.

He remembers now, that day at the beach. He was under a full minute, panicking. Lost. And when he popped back up like a cork he was looking for her before he even realized he could breathe again, his throat choked so tight with fear he couldn’t even cry out.

But she wasn’t looking for him, because she wasn’t there.

That’s how it really feels. Drowning.

^^^

The Palace is okay as far as arcades go. Not really his thing but it’s not like he hates loud music or flashing lights. Problem is it’s full of kids and tourists and about a square dozen of Max’s little friends who can see him, Billy Hargrove, killing time on a perfectly good date night. But apparently this is what Respect and Responsibility looks like: flirting with the weirdo clerk girl for free co*kes and trying not to breathe in too much nerd sweat.

He posts up at his usual spot at the counter and keeps Max in the corner of his eye out of habit.

What a f*cking hellcat. He sips distractedly at his drink as he watches her jostle her way through the crowd to get from one game to the next. She probably thinks he can’t see Sinclair hiding in amongst the stalls with her. Is he supposed to believe she keeps looking up from her score to grin at the wall? The kid’s completely whipped, too, following her around, content just to watch as she plays.

“So, in that way, you could say Simon is their conscience, and when he dies, goodness on the island dies too,” clerk girl says cheerily.

Billy’s skeptical. “And…he’s Jesus?”

“Uh huh. Try these.” She hands him yet another pair of ugly sunglasses from the countertop display, standing back appraisingly while he tries them on, pulling a face. Get used to this, he says to himself. Might as well throw in with the rejects now. And it’s not like she’s that bad to talk to, even if she is certified loony-tunes crazy.

“So what about fatso then?” he asks, giving her the glasses back. “If goodness is already dead, why does Jack waste him with that rock?”

“What? No.” She looks up from her search. “Roger kills Piggy,” she says. “Look.” She slaps a napkin down on the counter, pulling a pen off of her lanyard to sketch a compass of intersecting lines with scribbled names at each point. “Roger is Simon’s foil the same way Jack is Ralph’s.” She taps the diagram. “Evil and good, order and chaos. They’re supposed to be balanced. When Simon dies there’s nothing to hold Roger in check.”

He squints at the diagram where she’s circled one of the names. “So now Roger’s the bad guy?”

She throws the pen down, grimacing. “You know, you’re lucky you look the way you do, because you are capital-D-dumb, my friend.”

He smirks, leaning forward to leer at her a little. “You know, this whole cold fish thing you got going on…I bet I could find you a guy thinks it’s a turn on.”

She leans forward too, arms crossing on the sticky red laminate in front of him. “Wow. That is flattering. Thank you.”

“De nada,” he says. “When—”

“Billy,” Max says at his elbow, giving him a filthy look when he sets his drink down in annoyance. “More quarters.”

“Maxine. Where are your manners?”

She doesn’t answer, holding out her hand.

He makes a show of checking his pockets unhurriedly, patting himself down. It’s Susan’s money—meant for gas and not games, and definitely not for his smokes. But Max is the one who keeps selling her mother the lie, and Billy is the one who knows how much they can skim and still make it to school and back, so basically they’re at a stalemate over who decides how to spend their cut.

“Billy,” she says impatiently, even after he’s dumped a handful of skin-warm change in her hand.

“Wha-at?” he says, masking the sharpness of his tone with his most fraternal smile.

“This is only enough for one game!”

“Cry me a river, Polly Pocket. Why don’t you go ask one of your friends for an advance?”

Her eyes narrow, fixing with determination on his front jean pocket like she’s contemplating whether it’s worth it to lose a hand making a try for the money. (Joke’s on her—Billy can barely fit his own hand in there.)

He’s sure she’s going to throw a fit, mouth hardening, cheeks turning red—but in the end she flounces off instead, ponytail flicking in a way that he doesn’t even remotely trust.

He leans back on the counter, watching her suspiciously as she reconvenes with the rest of the geek squad over near one of the claw machines. She’s having an animated conversation with the gummy one, who seems to think that whatever she’s saying is disastrously not okay, throwing his hands up in protest—and then all of them are turning as one to stare at him.

Billy starts. The f*ck.

He glares back.

“Oh wow,” clerk girl says behind him. “Think they’re gonna jump you for quarters?”

“They can try.”

She lets out an awed breath. “Which one do you think will give you the most trouble—the skinny one or the one with the He-Man backpack?”

He swivels around to turn his glare on her too. “Those little assholes—”

“Oh, yes, these,” she says with a gasp, interrupting to shove a pair of yellow-lensed aviators at him. “Oh yeah.” She nods, self-satisfied once he’s put them on. “That’s the money right there.” She looks at her watch. “And that, good sir, is my shift. Finish that before Keith sees,” she says, meaning the co*ke. “And, take this with you.” She pushes the scribbled-on napkin towards him.

“You sneak your number on here or something?”

“Funny. Enjoy your hot date.” She points two fingers guns at the napkin.

He scowls at her as she backs out the staff door.

Cer-ti-fiable.

He takes her advice and finishes the drink, crushing the can out of habit and laying it up into the bin to the exact appreciation of no one, the nearest audience laser-focused on rattling a joystick around. The psychopaths have dispersed when he looks up again so he pockets the napkin and does a lap.

It takes a while to find Max. There’s so many kids darting around each other to get at consoles it’s borderline claustrophobic. He’s right on the precipice of a bad temper, just about to holler, when he spots her on the other side of the room getting crowded out of a game by a couple of lanky tourist kids with trucker hats on.

“Hey,” Billy says sharply, getting their attention. “Find another game.” He makes sure he has Max’s eye to signal he’s going outside, and that he’s watching her, and that she and her friends better not pull any of their usual goonie-gang sh*t or he’s going to tie her skateboard to railway tracks. She gives him a sour look in reply which says she understands just fine.

He pushes his way outside. It’s cold; dry enough that his breath fogs in front of him, but the air tastes good. Crisp and clean, less B.O and old popcorn. He flips his collar up, leaning on one of the posts, tugging his jacket tight around his midsection. The kids’ bikes are right next to the entrance, all thrown on top of each other, unlocked. He ignores the impulse to do something about it, shaking his head. Small f*cking towns.

There’s nothing really to do without a smoke to count the minutes so he watches the strip instead, the people wandering in between parked cars, in and out of the streetlight, laughing and holding hands. It’s a busy night in Hawkins for anyone with a life.

“I’m not giving you any more money,” he says softly when Max appears at his elbow again. “Go leach off someone else.”

There’s a couple getting out of their car across from the video store. She needs help with her dress and he’s zipping it up, moving her hair out of the way like he doesn’t care it’s probably full of spray, putting his jacket around her shoulders. If it snowed right now they’d look like two figurines in a snow globe that Billy could shake and shake and shake. And Max still isn’t leaving, an insistent blot at the edge of his vision, refusing to be ignored, to just let him be.

“Max, what—”

It’s not Max.

“Whoa,” Harrington says. “Nice frames.”

Billy snatches the glasses off his face so fast it’s like they were never there, Harrington re-colorizing in front of his eyes, stark and real as dreaming. Billy’s eyes dart everywhere, all over him, remembering him wet and not dry, not dressed up in nice jeans, clean sneakers. He’s done himself up nice.

“The f*ck are you doing here, Harrington?”

Harrington makes a face, holding an enormous walkie-talkie up between them like it’s supposed to make some kind of sense. “You don’t have change for ten dollars in quarters, do you?”

“Quarters,” he says blankly, struggling to connect Harrington with the spill of light and noise from the arcade at his back, the electronic chime and rattle of machines. He chews his tongue for a second, thinking. “Didn’t take you for the arcade type.”

Harrington scoffs, scrubbing a hand into his hair. “Me? No. No, I’m not. This is... This is blackmail.” He frowns. “This is blackmail.”

Billy co*cks an eyebrow; doesn’t have anything to say to that.

“So,” Harrington says, good-boy manners picking up the slack. “What are you doing out here—planning your getaway?”

“What?”

“Your getaway?” Harrington repeats, a tired edge to his voice. “Escape from Hawkins, hightail it for the coast... Figured you’d want to outrun the snow.”

“It’s not snowing,” Billy says bluntly.

“Well, not with that attitude,” he says, an echo of Billy’s words from the other night, eyes snagging on the showy opening of Billy's shirt. “But it will soon. You might want to get a winter coat.”

“Why the f*ck would I need one if I’m running, huh?” he snaps. It comes out too hard. Too brittle. Harrington recoils a little, his face smoothing. He’d been smiling, Billy realizes. “I’m—” he tries, but stalls. There’s nothing he can say now to bring it back. “It’s too early,” he ends up muttering, meaning everything. Running and staying. Both. He turns away before something even lamer can come out of his mouth. The way Harrington is staring at him is all...something. Unbearable. He has to look at the parking lot for a bit.

God, he thinks, surveying the lot miserably, waiting for his face to get its sh*t together and wishing there was still something out there to look at and distract himself with. He’s some sort of pathetic. All he’s wanted from Harrington is a bite and now he can’t bear the thought of the sting.

Instead of just leaving like he should, Harrington draws up alongside him, quiet lathering up in the space between. “It’s almost Christmas,” he says after an awkward amount of time, casual enough, but he could mean it both ways too.

Billy snorts, eyes darting traitorously. “Don’t think I’m gonna get what I want under the tree."

A shrug. “I don’t have a tree. And some asshole crashed my party and drank my present.”

“Buy a new tree,” Billy says. “Buy a new present.”

Harrington sucks air through his teeth. “Yeah, see, I would..? But it’s gonna snow.”

Billy laughs, hides it with a cough, looking at Harrington out the side of his eye.

“Come on,” Harrington says, catching it anyway, tilting his head towards the arcade. “Show me around nerd city.”

Like that’ll go over well. “I think I’m good here.”

“Yeah I’m not going in there alone. Come on,” he says, and tosses him the walkie.

Billy rips his hands out of his pockets just in time to catch it, an objection sharp in his throat—f*cking—but Harrington’s already gone, the door swinging open behind him like a taunt, and Billy lasts all of two seconds before he has to follow.

Turns out Harrington doesn’t need him either way; guy only gets halfway to the counter before the brats are converging on him in an excited mob, the whole lot of them, even Max, and she has a sophisticated mistrust of guys Billy’s age and up.

“Hey, hey!” Harrington says, shimmying around to avoid their grasping hands. “Watch the threads, Henderson.”

“Steve. What the sh*t is this, Steve?” the gummy one says, holding up the ten-dollar bill. “This is not what we agreed.”

“Relax, okay. I’m going to change it.”

“Keith doesn’t do change,” Max moans at the same time Byers’ kid brother pipes up with a shy, “Thanks, Steve.”

“Thanks, Steve,” Wheeler’s brother simpers, yanking the bill back and putting it in Harrington’s hands. “Hurry up and bring our quarters.”

Harrington takes their mouthing off at him in his stride, comfortable in their midst even though he’s outnumbered and out of place, head and shoulders taller, starkly cool-looking against the backdrop of sweaty nerds and space-print carpet.

“Why’s he got your walkie, man?” Sinclair asks, noticing Billy.

Now that Billy looks, they’ve all got matching walkies on them. Max too—a big one he’s willing to bet is a perfect match for Harrington’s.

What kind of E.T. phone home bullsh*t…

“Steve. Steve, that’s not an approved use of the system. Get it back.”

Billy sneers, holding it out of reach.

“Give it back, asshole,” gums—Henderson—says, which is a hell of a lot braver than what Baby Byers can manage, the poor kid transfixed with terror, staring at a point on Billy’s chest like he can’t bring himself to look up into his eyes. Billy remembers now, Henderson’s the one who egged Harrington on that night—Kick his ass, Steve. His sneer firms up, grip on the thing tightening.

“Billy,” Max says petulantly.

“Oh my God,” Harrington says, nudging him hard in the ribs and swiping the walkie-talkie out of his hand. “Take this,” he says to one of them, shoving Billy towards the counter by the lapel of his jacket. Billy shakes his hands off with a sharp look but Harrington’s already past him again, expecting Billy to follow, pretty pleased with himself if the set of his shoulders is anything to go by, and—yep, looking over his shoulder with that sh*t-eating grin. “What was that team you told me to try out for?”

Billy scowls back, not trusting himself to speak, lungs caught. Harrington’s winded him with that elbow, his whole body stinging along one side.

“No freebies,” Keith says as Harrington approaches, watching Billy put the ugly sunglasses back on the display with wary disdain. First week in Hawkins he’d tried to tell Billy not to bring his smoking inside and Billy had answered with a lit butt flicked at his name badge. That should have earned him a pretty dependable degree of hatred out of the guy, but it’s nothing—nothing—compared to how much the guy seems to hate Harrington.

For his part, Harrington seems completely oblivious to it, smooth-talking his way through an explanation with the usual combination of charm and high-handed friendliness.

“No. Freebies,” Keith says again, impassive, once Harrington is done.

“Okay,” Harrington says, frowning, like he’s never had to have a backup plan for just being sweet. “What if I buy something? What about...uh…” He grabs a handful of twizzlers out of the display and puts them on the counter. “These.”

Keith stares at him and puts another frito in his mouth. “Strawberry milkshake,” he says when he’s done chewing.

They both recoil. “What?”

“Strawberry. Milkshake. You buy one, I’ll change a twenty.”

Harrington hisses, “Twenty—” And Billy thinks he’s going to spew, but he folds his wallet out with a dark look, grumbling. Twenty bucks. It’s enough quarters to not see Maxine outside of the arcade for a week.

“And it’s a dollar for the candy,” Keith adds, punching something into the till to make the drawer pop open.

Max and Sinclair pounce once Keith is done cleaning the register out of change, scraping the small fortune of quarters off the counter and snagging the twizzlers too, Sinclair keeping both eyes on Billy like it’s a real possibility he’s going to decide he wants their f*cking candy. He makes sure Sinclair knows he could if he wanted to, lazing on one elbow, casual but close enough to menace.

“Hold this,” Harrington says, startling him into grabbing the styrofoam cup that’s been shoved against his chest.

Once again he finds himself flummoxed, taking the drink out of shock, not wanting to spill it down his front. He pushes his way through the crowd, intent on giving Harrington his stupid drink back as violently as necessary, but by the time he catches up Harrington’s already busy slotting a quarter in one of the pinball machines.

“You’re sh*tting me.”

Harrington waggles his eyebrows at the start-up music, all co*cky, like Billy’s supposed to be impressed. He eyeballs the cup in Billy's hand. “Don’t drink that.”

Billy’s lip curls. “Don’t like sweet things.”

“Go figure,” Harrington says dryly, rubbing his hands together with a flourish like he’s about to perform surgery and not immediately sink that quarter.

Which he does—pretty spectacularly fast, one ball after the other racketing off the sides and slipping down the gutter past the flippers. It’s painful. Billy should cringe, but then he’d have to look away from Harrington sucking so hard at something. The alley’s too full of people busy with their own games and there’s no one watching to share his distress anyway.

Harrington isn’t put off. Doesn’t seem to mind too much finding out the game’s more of a challenge than he thought. Billy supposes he shouldn’t be too surprised; Harrington seems like he likes things easy—makes things look easy—but the guy did try it on with Nancy Wheeler after all.

He watches as Harrington pulls the launch pin and sends the ball arching in a slow loop over the playfield, managing to sweep it up with a flipper this time, only to have it chute down the center and through a moment later. The Game Over jingle sounds.

Harrington shrugs, feeding another quarter into the side of the machine.

Jesus H. Christ.

“Don’t bat so much,” Billy says.

Harrington smirks without taking his eyes off the table as the first ball loads, but he takes Billy’s advice and lays off the controllers, waiting for the ball. He keeps it in play for a good couple of minutes this time before he knocks it into the out-lane.

On the next turn he manages to stripe it up into the bonus target: beginner’s luck. Harrington crows, smacking the side of the cabinet in celebration and Billy grins back condescendingly, waiting for him to realize the ball’s still in play, which he does just in time, scrambling to get his fingers back on the controllers and catch the downward trajectory of the ball.

Harrington’s a quick learner, of course—natural at it. Quiet when he’s focused. He’s completely absorbed, eyes gleaming, trying to butt up against the table with his body like that’s gonna do anything other than get him a tilt warning. Billy watches him beat the flippers impatiently as he waits for the ball puttering around at the top of the board. He’s gotten some sleep since Billy saw him last, maybe, and he looks better for it—brighter, the tired cast from before bleached away by the funhouse twist of light from the game. Even his teeth look whiter where he’s biting his lip...

Billy could watch him forever, losing at something.

“f*ck—did you see that?”

He’s missed some sort of win somehow. Harrington’s beaming at him.

He clears his throat. “Yeah yeah. Don’t go signing up for the nerd Olympics just yet.”

Harrington snorts, fishing out another quarter. “That’s a shame.” He pulls one hand off the side of the cabinet, middle finger up. “I already got the gold medal for you right here.”

Billy rolls his eyes, thrusting the milkshake at him. “Move over, butterfingers. I can’t watch you drain another ball.”

Harrington bitches but he moves aside to let Billy knuckle the quarter in. He wipes the condensation on his jeans. The trick is to stand further out from the machine and put your weight forward. There’s a string of battered machines in sh*tty road stop diners all the way from Cali to Indiana that will testify to that.

“You do know you don’t get to beat anyone up at this game, right?”

Billy punches the launcher so hard Harrington actually jumps.

The ball fires over the playfield, chiming against the bumpers, zipping from one side to the other and finally slowing to settle in the bonus target. The machine trills, racking up his points.

Billy bites his tongue hard. Eat your heart out, pretty boy.

“I can see you smiling, asshole.”

He catches the ball on the tip of a flipper, showing off, and wings it back up into the target: textbook. He bites his tongue harder but it’s no use.

“Did you drink some of this?It feels lighter.”

“No,” Billy lies.

A few people turn to watch when the high scores board lights up a while later, but Billy’s too busy having fun, trying to stop the gloating laugh that comes out whenever he gets more points and makes Harrington gasp and scowl.

He takes a moment while the third ball is loading to check on Maxine, catching a glimpse of her hunched over a joystick. One of the guys from before is braced on an arm over her, observing.

“Hey, Cindy,” he barks. The guy looks up. “What’d I say? Touch that machine again and see what happens.”

Harrington follows his gaze, eyebrows raised. “Protective much?”

“Where’d all these f*cking tourists come from, huh?”

He looks back just in time to catch the bemused look on Harrington’s face, lips sealed shut like he’s trying not to laugh or say something that will get his ass beat.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Billy glares at him suspiciously but the game demands his attention, insisting he look as the ball ricochets off the bumpers noisily. He shouldn’t try his luck, but f*ck it, he’s already given Harrington a masterclass in winning, he might as well school him in cheating too. He waits for the right sweep of the ball over the playfield and bangs his hips up into the machine to force the ball into the bonus socket, nudging the cabinet off its feet just a little, careful not to trigger the tilt warning. The ball suckers in obediently and he looks up, victorious, prepared to say, and that’s how you treat a lady but—

Harrington’s smiling, like he doesn’t want to be, real nice. He’s stripped out of his jacket at some point, his t-shirt something expensive, fine material that catches, and Billy can smell his laundry detergent again, crisp and cottony—and the woodsy, peppery notes of his cologne where it’s drying off warm skin.

“Now who’s got butterfingers,” Harrington teases, eyeing the display. Billy follows his gaze down just in time to see the ball tip off the end of his dropped flipper and disappear down the chute, the machine buzzing angrily TILT, TILT, TILT.

“Aw, man. Amateur hour,” some kid spectating says, shaking his head and walking away.

He drops the machine, embarrassed.

Harrington hasn’t noticed. “There’s got to be something here I can kick your ass at.”

Billy snorts. “Yeah, whack-a-mole, maybe.”

“Sure. What are the rules?”

It stuns a laugh out of him. “I’ll give you a primer in the parking lot.”

Harrington snorts, looking at him quizzically, trying to catch up with the joke but content not to it seems like. It’s a look Billy can’t quite hold, heart hooked under his ribs. He fumbles a cigarette out of his pocket, putting it in between his lips, just to do something he knows how to do.

“I’m—match,” he explains, clearing his throat again, patting his pockets.

Harrington’s tone is easy. “Lost your night light?”

Billy stares.

His mouth is crooked up on one side, eyes gleaming. He’s smiling. Harrington knows and. And he’s f*cking with him. But he’s smiling too.

It doesn’t sting like he thought it would. The bite.

“Hey, quit it,” someone says loudly, forcing him to look away. Something’s happening, kids looking up from their games towards the entrance. The voice comes again, higher pitched this time, edged with desperation. “I said quit it, dickface.”

“Did you hear—” he turns to ask, frowning, but Harrington’s already moving, weaving his way towards the sounds. Billy swears under his breath, pushing down the alley after him, his skin burning all over with cold as they stumble outside.

“What the hell are you doing?” Harrington chokes out before Billy’s even fully taken in the scene.

Sinclair is down, he sees, spilled coins around him like spent shrapnel; Wheeler’s brother, scrambling on the ground next to him, trying to piece together a walkie-talkie that’s been smashed into about a hundred parts. There’s a big guy standing over them, arms on him like cannons. He’s got Zombie Boy by the bowl cut, shaking him down, and his buddy—the lanky one—has Henderson.

“What the hell are you doing?” Harrington says again, his voice so dark it shakes. “They’re just kids.”

Henderson makes a pitiful noise. The lanky guy’s slapping him around the face, not too hard, but faster than he can get his hands up for. That’s the fun of it, Billy remembers, from his days experimenting as a lunchtime bully.

Harrington lunges at them.

Ah, sh*t.

“Hey,” he says, resigned, to the one holding Byers. “You’re wasting your time—kid hasn’t got any money. Trust me, I’ve seen the house.”

The big guy’s face scrunches up. “What do you want, fa*ggot?”

That searing word, like a tug at the scruff of his neck. He’s struck dizzy with the shock of it, so surprised to hear it, here, tonight, that the cigarette almost drops right out of his mouth. He flicks it aside, stepping forward. “The f*ck you call me?”

“Oh, sh*t,” Henderson says.

“Billy don’t!”

The big guy tosses Byers aside too late. Billy’s got him by the shoulder, wrenching him down onto the fist aimed at his kidneys. He slugs him once, twice, nails him in the jaw as he slides down to the ground. Please stay down, Billy thinks, trying to shove him off where he’s folding, slumped against him. He looks around, catching sight of Maxine. She’s got her skateboard out like she’s honest-to-God thinking she’s going to do some serious damage with it (and probably get him boarded up in his room for the rest of his life).

“No f*cking way,” he barks at her, jabbing a finger at the car. “Get—” But he’s cut off, stumbling as Harrington knocks into him.

It takes him a stunned moment to realize Harrington’s not attacking him, that he only cares about getting his hands in the big guy’s shirt, hauling him up off his knees so he can slam his fist into his face, following him down. “They’re just kids,” he shouts again, wild-eyed, hitting him again. And again. Kind of maybe trying to brain him on the pavement.

Billy looks around and sees that the lanky guy has already been laid out cold.

Jesus, he thinks, trying to catch his breath, a little impressed. Harrington’s deranged.

“What the f*ck, Steve!” The familiar voice rings out in the lot, ending the fight like a gunshot.

It’s Lacey.

She has her arms crossed—maybe because she’s furious, maybe because she’s just really f*cking cold in her pretty dress. She has Tommy and Carol with her, he realizes, something about it sparking his memory. Something about bowling…

Harrington drops the guy, panting. Lanky guy must have got a hit in at some point because he’s bleeding from somewhere, his mouth bloody. Billy can see him swallowing, sucking air, trying to keep his sh*t together.

“You left an hour ago,” Lacey says.

Billy’s stomach does a back flip.

The date. The double date.

Harrington skipped out on their date.

“Inside, now,” he says to Max. Maybe there’s something about his tone but she listens for once, picking her friends up off the floor.

Harrington still hasn’t answered her, standing there like he’s been struck mute. Lacey looks him up and down, her mouth pursing. Billy’s suddenly irrationally afraid she’s going to spit on him—afraid that Harrington’s not going to be able to take it. But all she says is:

“You’re a piece of sh*t, Steve Harrington.”

She doesn't even sound angry about it; defeated maybe, but not surprised. Whatever small crowd had gathered is already dispersing, uncomfortable with the turn of events, filtering back inside to their games.

Lacey looks even more out of place next to the arcade than Harrington did, shivering in her thin dress, waiting for her date to come put a jacket on her. Whatever she sees when she looks across the lot at Harrington, seems like she realizes it’s not gonna be worth her time to stick around and wait for it. She swallows whatever was going to come next, shaking her head with disappointment. She leaves, hesitant at first like shes ready to change her mind but picking up speed the further she gets across the lot, high-heel shoes clicking, Carol firing off a quick imploring look back at Tommy as she tears off after her.

Harrington tests his jaw, silent.

“So...” Tommy tries. His eyes dart to Billy and back. “I guess you didn’t get that drink for her then.”

“Shut up, Tommy,” Harrington says harshly.

“Hey, man, it’s not so bad,” Tommy says, misreading, reaching for him. “We can fix this—”

Harrington slaps his hand away, shoving him to follow up. “Shut the f*ck up, Tommy! Shut up!”

Tommy’s not moving, stunned. His mouth flaps open to say something and Harrington shoves him again, snarling, and Billy’s sure he’s going to take a swing, but then he’s gone too, storming away across the lot.

Tommy rubs a shaky hand over his mouth and his eyes meet Billy’s. It’s too much silence to fill and he doesn’t even know where to start with the look on Tommy’s face, the layers of hurt and anger. Tommy’s embarrassed again, like that morning in his house—a sore spot he doesn’t want Billy to see. Billy knows that feeling well enough himself to let him go. Let him chase after his girlfriend, get in his car, and go home.

And just like that the lot’s empty again.

He darts a look at the arcade. There’s no one left watching. He shivers in the sudden quiet, the cold starting to bite. Even Max and her friends have been smart enough to retreat back inside where it’s probably nice and warm. It's goddamn freezing out and he’s not built for this sort of cold. He should head inside too.

It’s a long walk across the asphalt in the dark, the air chafing at his hands and throat. Harrington’s parked under the furthest street lamp, at the edge of the light, sitting on the lip of his open trunk, bowed over with his hands clasped in front of his head. Billy can see he’s shaking.

“So,” he says after it’s been quiet for long enough. “You’re kind of a psycho, Harrington.”

Harrington makes a bitter noise from between his legs. “Like I want to hear that from you.”

Billy nods understandingly.

“They’re just kids,” Harrington says after a while, quiet.

“I know.”

His voice is odd. “It’s f*cked up.”

Billy’s not sure what to say to that. He went through the same crucible as any other kid. Picked at and picked on until he could give back just as good as he got. He thinks of Max’s skinned palms. “They can handle themselves.”

“You don’t get it,” Harrington moans. “He was just some guy. Some regular guy, and I still couldn’t—couldn’t stop him.”

“Well,” Billy tries. “Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetheart. But you kind of can’t fight for sh*t.”

Harrington doesn’t laugh, but his shoulders tense, annoyed instead of just sad. Better.

Billy huffs. He can work with that.

“C’mon. Let me see.”

Harrington tilts his head up. It’s not so bad. There’s blood all down his nice shirt but it’s just from his nose, dripping over his lips and off his chin. The look in his eyes is where he’s really hurt, his jaw clenched so tight he’s trembling.

“Tip your head back,” he says.

“Actually, you’re not supposed to—Ow!” He flinches at the cuff off Billy’s jacket pushed up under his nose, forcing his head back. “Use something soft, asshole!”

“Jesus, what a f*cking princess,” Billy mutters, fumbling the napkin out of his pocket and pressing it to Harrington’s busted face as gentle as he’ll allow himself. Harrington slaps his hands out of the way anyway, taking it for himself, the white paper blossoming red through in seconds. He glares at Billy over the top of it. He’s got a fine shiver running through him, bare arms almost blue with cold, but he doesn’t seem to want to do anything about it or even care.

“Think you might have hurt Tommy’s feelings back there,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” Harrington says with a thin laugh. “He’s a sh*tty friend.”

“Not to you.”

Harrington blinks at him.

“You’re kind of the sh*tty friend,” Billy continues.

Harrington lets out an incredulous sound, staring.

Billy picks at the muddy stain on his jacket sleeve. He should go. He can still get it out, scrub it out, with cold water, if he gets to it before it dries. It’s not too late to do that.

The car creaks under his weight as he sits next to him. “How’re the goods?” he asks.

Harrington shows him. There’s just a bit of blood left ringed under each nostril, mostly smeared to pink over his top lip. Billy swallows. “You know, just because you found someone to thump you doesn’t mean you get out of me owing you one.”

Harrington snorts and then winces, pressing the napkin tighter under his nose and glaring at Billy like that’s somehow his fault. After a while his hands drop into his lap.

Billy rubs his own hands down his legs to get some feeling back in them and, after a thought, draws his smokes out of his pocket, tapping one out of the pack. Harrington smirks weakly and pulls Billy’s zippo out of the back of his jeans, passing it over.

It takes him three tries to light the damn thing, strangely self-conscious about it. Thankfully, mercifully, it catches, and he draws in a breath and offers it to Harrington without being asked. They smoke in silence. It’s a good cigarette, even if he only gets half of it.

“What the hell are you smiling at?” he asks after a while, catching the wry look on Harrington’s face.

Harrington says, “Nothing.” He snorts. “Told you.”

“Told me what?”

Harrington squints one eye, tilting his face up in profile. Billy follows suit, looking up. And up—at the night sky and the strange pinprick galaxy of eddying snowflakes falling and vanishing into the lamplight over their heads. He breathes out watching it, time going slow and quiet, the matched plumes of their breathing rising up to meet it.

When he finally looks away Harrington is watching him, eyebrow co*cked.

Billy doesn’t know what the hell he’s so smug about. It’s not even really snow. Delicate as dust. Barely there. Just a promise of a thing.

Chapter 9: everything adults would do (part one)

Chapter Text

He gets them both home before curfew, but it’s a long time after that before he can sleep, his head too full of noise, and his chest—too full of quiet. He spends most of the night under his bedroom window, sucking down cigarette after cigarette, waiting for it to take, not brave enough to lie down and let himself dream.

This is like a dream anyway.

He turns his lighter over in his palm, and over again, skin-warm, familiar and unfamiliar at once. Changed.

Maybe Harrington knows or maybe he doesn’t—what a gift this is, to have it back in his hands like he was never so damn stupid as to give it away. Maybe he wanted to do them both a kindness, or maybe he just forgot Billy was the one holding it when he got in his car and left... It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, jittery with relief, sparking the wheel over and over until the skin at the edge of his thumb is raw.

He falls asleep with it, balled in his fist under his pillow like an amulet, something to wish upon, his face mashed into the clammy fabric of his pillow, eyes pinched against the relentless creep of watery morning light.

Footsteps on the hallway carpet; bird claws scratching on the gutter... The world not waiting to start over.

This is a chance, he thinks dazedly, half pulled under. The best he could hope for—a way to make things how they should have been from the start. In his sleep, he almost smirks. Let Harrington have his crown. sh*t was too easy to win and too boring to keep fighting for anyway. Like this, things can be easier. Like this, things can be as they’re meant to.

Like this, he can almost see the surface, the way out, the wobbly patch of light where he’s supposed to go for air.

^^^

Sleeping helps, shakes him all up to let things settle the right way up inside him. He doesn’t remember much from his dreams except the ending: the long dark road from the night of the party and a car at the end under a streetlight with the light on inside.

^^^

The snow’s all but gone when he wakes up to look, and Max is avoiding him. He watches her grinding up and down the street on her board while he works on his car, the dull repetitive sound scoring a groove in his brain.

He’s not that surprised about the snow, he tells himself, wiping his nose on his bicep, hands busy and covered in engine oil and muck. It was hardly enough to stick anyway, and it’s not like this side of Hawkins was going to transform into a f*cking winter wonderland overnight either. Their lawn is still brown and patchy, the trees just as bleak and gray. When he got sent out to put last night’s garbage in the can before breakfast there was still a thin crust of ice at the edge of the front step, grimy and hard, but it scattered easily when kicked at.

A crunching noise draws him back.

Max. She’s graduated from trying to do one-eighties to trying to do kickflips, and she’s just as bad at it, the board shooting out from under her tangled feet to smack into the curb with a reverberating crack like a gunshot. Even at a distance he can tell she’s blushing, pretending she doesn’t know he’s watching her. She knows full well he’ll only show her how to do it properly if she swallows her pride and asks, and maybe not even then if she doesn’t ask nice.

Or maybe he’ll just teach her anyway so she’s not such an embarrassment. That’s how he ended up teaching her in the first place after all, when she used to hang around his friends getting all underfoot. He’s in a good enough mood for it and there’s limited time now, too, he figures, to teach her how to stick her landings. It seems kind of reckless, he thinks, in hindsight, to only teach her the flashy part and not the rest, especially since her board’s such a hunk of crap.

Not that he gives a rat’s ass, but one day it’s going to pop its duct tape and break in half, and when she skins her knees… Yeah, then it really is going to be his problem.

Case in point, she lands too heavy on the next trick and wipes out, the board scooting rudderless down the road without her. He watches as she darts a quick look at the house before swiping at her elbow, checking for blood: nothing. She hasn’t broken the skin, or, it won’t show through her sweater at least. She looks up again and their eyes meet for a second before she looks away quickly, cheeks flushed, chasing after her runaway board.

She’s been doing that a lot, since the arcade: avoiding eye contact—not for any good reason he can think of. She was quiet the whole way home except to ask whose blood was on his hands, and then completely silent after when he said “Harrington’s” and kind of implied that he killed the guy.

Then, the next morning, when he was stumbling his way to the bathroom, he’d run into her and she’d almost danced out of his path, eyes downcast, lips pressed together in a fraught line, not even a customary glare for the hand stuffed pre-emptively in his boxers—strange behavior for someone who can’t usually let him take a sh*t in peace.

Truthfully he’d only woken up enough to catch on after he got done slurping down his second bowl of soggy wheaties, enjoying an unusually long run of decent music on MTV when he realized she hadn’t tried to steal the remote out of his lap or bitched him out to Susan. Instead, she was just perched on the end of the couch, watching him, like maybe she had something she was stewing on. Except when he stared back at her like What? I’m wearing a shirt. What more do you want?—she just got kind of fidgety and pinch-lipped and left. Weird.

Initially he figured he’d just scared her a little, going after that big guy, but nah, he’s scared her plenty more than last night (with more determination) and she hadn’t seemed all that scared by the fight when it went down either, all gung ho about jumping in and getting her own ass beat.

He eyeballs her where she's fetching her board off the curb a few houses down. She lingers for a suspicious beat, crouching to peer in at the mouth of a storm drain.

Does she honestly think he can’t see her over there, sizing up her whole Ninja Turtle dream life? Christ, he could never take her to Sacramento...

“Where’s your head?” His dad nudges him with the bottle of antifreeze.

He sniffs, pulling his attention away from Max and back under the hood of his car. He reaches for the radiator until Neil’s grip stops him at the wrist, showing him where to press the back of his hand against the engine block first. “Always check,” his dad explains. “You drop a V-8 engine in a car like this and it’ll run hot enough to crack—give you a face full of steam.”

Billy nods and Neil lets go so he can unscrew the cap, checking the reservoir like he’s been taught. His dad nods approvingly.

They mix the coolant up together, Billy pausing to blow on his hands whenever Neil takes over, stamping his feet when the cold soaking up through bitumen gets to be too much. Neil eyes the skimpy cut of his workout shorts but he doesn’t say anything that Billy isn’t already thinking.

“Reckon the ’81 has a heavy-duty radiator could handle an even bigger engine.”

“You buy an ’81?”

He takes the offered funnel sulkily: No.

Neil leaves him to it.

Indiana and then Illinois, he reminds himself to tamp down on his annoyance while he pours the ruddy mixture in, thinking about the car at the end of his dream, the way it had been waiting for him, lit up under the streetlight, such an obvious answer.

Illinois and then Missouri, Missouri and then Kansas. He’ll take the big roads because he likes to go fast, and because he’ll need to go fast in the beginning. It was the other way round when they left California. He followed behind the movers’ van for as long as he could, thankful for every stoplight, dreading the moment the traffic would open up and the familiar snarl of city would run out. When he goes this time it’ll be pedal to the metal until he’s all the way clear of town—fast enough and far enough he won’t be able to change his mind.

He figures he’ll burn through a lot of fuel in the first couple of weeks. After that he’ll just have to make his way, work odd jobs to stay on the road. He’s not exactly proud about what he does. He can sling diner food somewhere for a while. Or maybe become like, a bouncer, at a bar. Yeah, he can do that easy. And like his mom always told him, the world gives you lots more chances when you’re good-looking.

He sniffs, nose running again in the cold. Maybe he should go south first, he thinks. He huffs. West, south... Either direction is going to need more money than what he can skim off Susan in the next few months.

He finishes up and trails over to the propped-open bonnet of Neil’s truck.

“Dad, about the mall next week...” The words get him a warning look: if it’s a complaint, Neil doesn’t want to hear it. It’s as good a sign as he’s going to get, so he continues, “Do you think I could get some money for tire chains?”

His dad is silent, working the grease from between his fingers with a rag.

He pushes on. “Susan might appreciate it, you know, if there’s ice on the roads, with Maxine in the car. Safety first.”

Amused creases appear at the corners of his Neil’s eyes. “It’s Indiana, Bill. You’re not going to need any tire chains.”

He swipes his hands down his sides instead of letting them ball up into fists. Tries not to let his frustration show. “Well, what if we get, you know, bogged down or some sh*t, out in the middle of f*cking nowhere.”

His dad snorts, ditching the rag and yanking the truck’s bonnet shut. “That’s why we do maintenance. So long as you put in the work, take care of things like you should—it won’t let you down on the road.” He claps Billy on the arm, ignoring his bristling. “You let things start to slide…” He looks meaningfully at the rime of ice built up on the windshields of both cars.

Billy fumes through his nose instead of growling like he wants to as Neil walks up the steps to the house.

“Can I at least get my allowance back?”

“Money’s like respect, Bill,” his dad calls back without turning around. “You earn it.”

f*ck.

f*ck you, he thinks, annoyed at himself for asking more than anything else. He marches away from the toolbox and away from the impulse to kick it and scatter its contents satisfyingly all over the drive.

Indiana to Illinois, he chants in his head instead. Illinois to Missouri, Missouri to Kansas.

He keeps going, keeps reciting it while he works his way around both cars in a sulk, drawing an imaginary route with the Camaro while he rubs and scrapes at the icy windows, getting into the corners as best he can with an old spatula. It comes off easy enough, in sheets for the most part, half-melted, but his hands get clumsier and clumsier in the cold, red and raw where he rings slush out of the rag. It’s not long before his fantasies have boiled down to not much more than getting inside, being able to put his hands in the kitchen sink, in the probably lukewarm dishwater left over from breakfast.

When he gets round to the back of the truck, what he sees pulls him up short. There are letters scraped into the frost of the rear window in big slanting letters:

A-S-S-H-O-L-E .

He takes a moment to admire it, half-pissed and half-impressed. It’s neat work. Sneaky. How she got close enough to pull it off while they were talking he doesn’t know. But she’s slipped up and left her calling card behind, one of her gloves limp on the lip of the truck bed, real obvious.

Dumbass.

He looks around to yell at her, but she’s gone already, just a distant scraping somewhere down the far end of Cherry.

^^^

The first half of practice is uneventful. Harrington is late, not that he notices, too busy rebounding a basketball off of Peterson, testing a theory that if he smacks him enough times in the face he’ll reveal a final form that can actually play basketball.

“Good of you to show up,” he hears Tommy say cattily, Harrington scoffing in reply. Billy shakes his head and renews his focus, chest-passing to Peterson so hard it forces the guy back a step, the ball smacking into his hands with an ugly sound. His own palms tingle with expectation, but Peterson throws the ball back like a limpdick, no legs behind it.

“Step to the pass,” he hisses, dribbling the ball to give the guy time to recollect before he passes again, in exactly the same spot. Easy as piss, but Peterson’s too spooked by the sting of it now. The ball punches into his timid receive and pops right back out.

“Hargrove!” Coach yells, stomping across the court. “I got to partner you with a wall the rest of the season like a five-year-old?”

He grits his teeth. Figures he’d get the blame for being too good at something.

“No, sir.”

“Then temper your passes,” Coach says. He adds, in a more private tone: “You keep taking their thumbs off with those rockets, son, and you’re going to end up alone on that court.”

“Yeah,” Billy grumbles, “and then maybe we’d stand a chance at winning.”

He regrets the words immediately, more insolent than he intended, downright disrespectful. He almost winces. The guys close enough to overhear stop in their tracks, ears pricked for the inevitable explosion. But Coach Green isn’t going off. The man’s just looking at him, tapping a knuckle against his mouth, assessing. Honestly it makes Billy more nervous than a blow.

“Okay,” he says after a tense wait, after Billy’s already swallowed half a dozen things he wants to say to make it worse or better. “Okay.” He blows his whistle, bringing the other practice groups to a stop. “Hagan, put your shirt back on, you’re up against Hargrove.”

What?

He struggles not to make a face, nerves replaced by flooding disappointment. Sure, Tommy can handle his passes better than most, but he’s hardly the right instrument to use to take him down a notch. If Coach is so keen to make an example of him he’d be better off pairing him up against a bigger blocker like Parker, someone with a height advantage. Or at least someone who doesn’t actively want Billy to have the ball.

Tommy gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder as he brushes past, settling into a loose guard in front of him. Too loose, Billy notes. It’s not like he’s pissed at Tommy for anything yet, but he’s still going to make him regret it. He’s still going to remind him—all of them—what he’s capable of.

He smacks the ball up into his hand, sinking down into his usual posture.

Poor Tommy. He looks playful, eager. Completely unaware that every freckle on him is about to get shaken off.

“Hargrove. You’re defense.”

“What?” he and Tommy both squawk at the same time.

He straightens out of his crouch, fingers tightening possessively over the ball, glancing at Tommy like, don’t even think about it, even though Tommy looks just as confused by this turn of events as he is.

“You heard me,” Coach says. His expression is flat, unimpressed with Billy’s hesitation.

Billy knows he’s glowering. It must really be something special because all the color blanches out from under Tommy’s freckles when he turns to face him. But—Billy realizes, incredulous—he actually has his dumb f*cking hand out for the ball.

Un-f*cking-believable. No way Tommy’s going to score on Billy. Not in a hundred years. No f*cking way.

He ditches the ball at the ground, childish, hoping it takes Tommy’s stupid head clean off, and makes a nasty sound when Tommy has to stumble to catch it just under his chin.

“Is this supposed to be a challenge?”

Coach raises his eyebrows, that same weighing look. “You’re right.” He blows his whistle again. “Harrington, get over here. Two on one.”

Billy shuts his mouth so fast his teeth clack, nostrils flaring, trying desperately not to blow his top with Coach staring at him coolly, daring him to talk back again as Harrington’s sneakers squeak closer over the polished floor.

“Well, this is nice,” Harrington says because he’s a jerk.

“Eat me,” Billy says, at the same time as Tommy says, “Stow it why don’t you.” So, probably not over their little spat from the other night then.

“Save the histrionics for your tea party, ladies,” Coach says, blowing his whistle to disperse the others back to their own games. “You’ve got ten minutes at the hoop and so help me God if any one of you pulls the other’s hair, I will have you running laps until nineteen-eighty-five.”

The three of them stand around awkwardly once Coach has moved on, sizing each other up. f*cking Harrington’s not even warmed up yet, he notices involuntarily, watching him fuss his hair into a hairband, eyes snagging on the bruised knuckles of his right hand, smears of raw strawberry-jam pink against the pale skin that makes his throat go dry.

Tommy clears his throat after a glance in Coach’s direction and bends his knees, and Billy resigns himself to crouching down to engage.

God. This is going to suck.

Tommy bounces the ball experimentally, like he’s not so sure he’s going to go through with it, eyeing the placement of Billy’s feet, his hands. He steps forward again, dribbling the ball a little more. Billy lets him come on a couple more steps. His form is a dead giveaway: a straightforward rip-and-drive he’s probably seen Billy pull off a dozen times. It’s kind of flattering. And sad, really, that Billy’s still going to break him in half like a Kit Kat.

He indulges Tommy three more steps, waits for him to get just a little confidence up, find his feet, and then on the fourth step—shoots forward, presses in so fast Tommy actually balks up out of his posture. Billy taps the ball out of his slack hands, lines up and shoots, unhurried and insultingly slow, turning so he can watch Tommy’s face flush a humiliated red while it rackets off the backboard and through.

“Best of three,” Billy offers. “Unless you want to drag this out?”

“Man,” Harrington says. “C’mon.”

“You his cheerleader or you here to play?”

Harrington makes a bitched-at face, ignoring him and looking for an answer from Tommy instead. Something about the gesture gets under Billy’s skin.

He takes the second basket off Tommy only a little slower, toying with him more than anything, letting him try out a whole range of plays that are all laughingly easy for Billy to stop cold. Tommy loses his smile and his nerves somewhere after the fourth or fifth block, sweat breaking out on his forehead, his mouth taking on a wobbly defeated set. He barely fights at all when Billy takes advantage of a misstep at the post to wrestle the ball out of his hands, stealing an easy layup off him.

He makes a show of stretching his legs while he fetches the rebound, just so Tommy can see the difference between the two of them. How Billy is fitter and harder and stronger, better footwork and faster hands. What has Tommy got against all that, huh? Jack. sh*t.

Billy turns around and Tommy’s just standing there, the spine gone out of him. He has his hand held out for the ball all lax as if he expects Billy to spoon-feed it to him, to take the win off him easy. It makes him....so suddenly angry, that resigned expectation, the dropping of his guard. Weak, Billy thinks viciously, and fires the ball back to him across the key as hard as he can, hard enough to regret it the moment it leaves his fingers, so hard he actually flinches when he hears the damning CRACK of contact.

Except that the sound is the ball striking Harrington’s palm—stopped—Harrington just barely wincing, drawing the ball down to write off the sting of impact with a neat two-handed flick, laying up for a perfect shot.

Billy watches dumbly as the ball sinks clean through the basket, as it bounces twice off the floor back towards Harrington like a loyal pet.

“Thanks for the setup,” Harrington says, swiping the ball on the up-bounce lazily. “Best of three?”

Heat floods through his body, down his arms, his heart thumping excitedly in his chest. Harrington like this… He makes himself look away, at anything else—at Tommy’s sweaty face. Tommy’s rolling his eyes at Harrington’s interference, but Billy can tell he’s relieved, face flushing happily when Harrington slips him the ball.

Tommy pushes the ball to Harrington and Harrington pushes it back: Tommy to Harrington, Harrington back to Tommy. They don’t even have to look at each other, he realizes, the ball traveling in familiar sweeps between their matched on and off hands, smooth as cream, distractingly efficient. He only remembers he has feet he’s supposed to be using when the ball snaps into Harrington’s dominant hand with sudden unambiguous purpose and then they’re both pressing forward, attacking.

Oh sh*t, he thinks breathlessly, scrambling to engage.

He’s seen guys do this, defend one-on-two. He never much bothered to learn because as far as he’s concerned the best defense is taking the ball for yourself and dunking all over the opposition until they tap out. But now he regrets not watching more carefully. What is that sh*t Parker’s always doing? Triangulating? The thoughts freeze him up a beat too long and Harrington’s coming at him—hard.

God-damn. He’s always grudgingly sort of thought Harrington was good at defense, or maybe just at getting in Billy’s way, but now he sees—Harrington’s been holding out on him.

As an offensive opponent he’s a whole new kind of animal.

One moment he’s at the line and the next he’s driving Billy backward, immediately threatening, graceful, surefooted, inside his guard like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like he doesn’t know firsthand what a bad idea it is to come within snapping distance.

Billy only just manages to screen him out of the circle, almost tripping to keep up with Harrington’s easy speed. Harrington moves the ball around fast, making him work to stay with it, trying to get him off-balanced. Billy snarls as his first attempt at a snatch is foiled.

Defense, he reminds himself, forcing himself away from the all-consuming need to wipe the smug look of Harrington’s face. He’s a great match for Billy’s reach and reflexes, fast when playing close to the ground but quick to get his hands up to shoot too. Exhilarating. Billy gets in close to stop both, one hand low and one high, and Harrington yanks the ball down low and tight so he has to stoop to follow it, working hard not to foul him, oddly conscious of his breath ragged and hot on Harrington’s ear.

“Did you forget to shave this morning?” Harrington taunts.

Ignore him. He swipes at the ball, hot in the face.

“I’m serious, man,” Harrington pants. “I think you missed a spot. Up late counting snowflakes?”

“Shut up,” Billy chokes, biting down hard on a smile.

He lunges, impatient—and misses by a hairsbreadth as the ball whizzes away from them to Tommy at the top of the key. He goes to follow it—not a f*cking chance—and locks up, realizing he’s caught.

He can’t move off Harrington. He can’t leave Tommy open to shoot.

Sure he can count on Tommy not to make a big play, not down the center where Billy can move to squash him, and not when his kamikaze idiot friend is ready on the wing with none of the same hesitation. But with enough space there’s nothing to prevent Tommy from at least trying for a three-point throw, which he does, while Billy is still stuck an indecisive distance between the two of them raging over it, powerless to stop it going in.

And then, just like that, they’re tied.

He glares, sucking on his teeth while he waits for them to stop cooing all over each other about it.

Harrington scrubs some of the sweat off his chin with his shirt, bouncing the ball idly to stall for time while they all privately catch their breaths. “You’re not a sore loser are you, Hargrove?”

“Wouldn’t know,” Billy says darkly. “Want to find out?”

“Uh...” Tommy says.

“Kind of,” Harrington says happily, and passes.

They work him into a corner like textbook predators. Billy’s good enough to push them, keep them moving, his calves burning, but he can’t gain an advantage. Not with Harrington there to press every moment of indecision, and Tommy everywhere just a beat before he thinks to look. They pivot around Billy all over the key, running him, wearing him down.

Twice Billy almost gets his hands on the ball, magnetized to it too hard to be apart from it for too long, snapping inside of Harrington’s plays. But both times Harrington pulls up and away at the last moment, gives him shoulder, snaps the ball up like a yoyo and away to Tommy’s waiting hands with unshakeable certainty, nothing like a retreat. Sweat rolls down his back, soaks through the band of his shorts. The collar of Harrington’s vest is dark and clinging.

They could both take a lot more shots, but he knows—just knows—Harrington’s waiting for the right one, the buzzer-beater, the one that’ll hurt Billy’s pride the most.

The opportunity comes a moment later, caught overreaching to intercept a pass. Billy moves in and Harrington flashes the ball away and back to Tommy. Don’t jump. Billy tells himself, even as his thighs tense to spring. Too late. He’s too far forward on the balls of his feet and Harrington’s low already, has the ball back from Tommy and tucked in tight, driving at him, the ball crossing at his feet, too tempting not to try for.

It’s an ankle breaker, or would be, if Billy was just a little lighter. If he didn’t always always always plant his feet.

It’s a near thing anyway.

There’s an adrenaline-spiking moment where he’s falling, one knee buckling, his grounding foot slid too far out and Harrington, his eyes, right there, way too close.

He doesn’t fall—won’t let himself. He braces down to correct his spread but his weight’s in the wrong place and Harrington knows it. He rams his shoulder into Billy, nudges him back a step and doesn’t wait for him to settle, inside his guard again, merciless, all along his side, slick, jostling him back, and Billy—forgets, just a moment, just long enough for Harrington to rip past him for the shot.

Harrington sinks the third basket and does a dumb victory high-five with Tommy and stands over Billy with the ball tucked under his arm and doesn’t apologize about almost spraining his ankle.

“I can keep going if you can,” he says, all charm, hair f*cked six ways to Sunday.

“I could go all day,” Billy says, drawing himself up, heart pounding.

“You suck,” Tommy gasps. It’s unclear which one of them he means. He’s hunched over, clutching his side and he lets Harrington throw an arm over his shoulders, tugging him down into a friendly headlock.

“Hargrove,” Coach Green says, snapping his attention away. The other teams have already broken up, ditching their balls back in the caddy en route to the showers. “Come see me in my office.”

Harrington takes a chip-shot at his sneaker on his way past, making him stumble. He’s smug. “Thought I had you for a second there.”

Billy licks his lips.

“In your dreams.”

^^^

He lets himself replay it alone in the showers, soaps up all over twice with the cheap school soap with no one to notice or comment on it. Breathes in and out in the steam in gusts, letting himself deflate, letting the feeling he carries with him always work its way out from the spaces between his ribs, letting himself smile, exhausted, into his hands.

They sting. They’re still stinging, hotter than the water. Hot against his mouth, where he presses them against his eyes. He almost laughs, breathing into them, the muscles of his arms aching from use, skin pricking excitedly. How can something you can’t see make you feel so much.

He lets the feeling build until it’s dangerous and twists the tap off, relishing the stillness for a moment, the drip of water on tiles, the cool air eating away at the warm shroud of steam as he wraps a towel around himself.

The locker room is cold and stale-smelling by the time he gets out and he’s so focussed on ignoring it, drawing himself back under his skin while he picks his way through the mess of strewn towels and discarded sneakers, that he doesn’t notice Harrington idling next to his locker until it’s too late.

“Jesus,” Harrington says, seeing him.

He tenses, defensive, hand tightening in the knot of his towel. “What?”

“You sure you weren’t held back a year? A couple,” Harrington says, voice strained, “of years?”

Oh. Billy tamps down hard on the urge to preen, tensing deliberately this time, because, well. “I work out.”

“Yeah, sure, okay,” Harrington scoffs. “Me too.”

Tommy rolls his eyes from where he’s kicking around in the doorway. “You just told me you wanted the door prize for the mall opening to be a lifetime supply of pretzels.”

“Watch the door would you,” Harrington snarks and Tommy rolls his eyes again, turning his back.

Billy feels a muscle tick in his jaw. What in the hell they’re still doing here so late after they’re supposed to have cleared out he isn’t sure he wants to know. Harrington’s in between him and his locker, being an asshole, lolling against it like he doesn’t know how uncomfortable it is to see him so close to all Billy’s possessions, to see him dried off and dressed while Billy’s still got water snaking down the back of his neck.

Don’t talk, he reminds himself like always. Kind of hard when Harrington apparently hasn’t got the memo about the truce and has decided a good answer to Billy generously not parking in his spot is to corner him in the guys’ locker room. And yeah, sure, maybe he started that, but his plan on making it out of this sh*thole incident free is pretty much dependent on keeping his interactions with Harrington to a practicable minimum from now on—which he thought Harrington would at least recognize, if not be grateful for, since he’s only been begging Billy for just that since they met.

The guy could at least meet him halfway, he thinks sourly, cutting close past him to yank his locker open, dropping his towel because it’s worse to be shy about it and there’s nothing badly made about him, but he keeps the locker door snapped open between them so he doesn’t have to know if Harrington does or doesn’t look.

Improbable. Harrington isn’t one of the ones who looks—doesn’t need to, pretty obviously.

Harrington presses the door out of the way anyway, leaning against it to watch him, idle, bored. Billy returns the look with banked annoyance, nose flaring at the sudden press of his cologne. He’s in fine form, Billy notices, eyeing the popped collar of his members-only jacket, the smug mouth, the hook of hair curled softly up under one ear.

This kind of sh*t is probably why he gets his ass beat so much.

Not your problem, he tells himself, channeling the sudden rush of nerves into stripping the water off his legs as quickly as possible, rough with the towel, shoving them one at a time, still too damp, into his jeans.

“Coach invite you to the Christmas wind-up?”

Ah. Not King Steve then—Captain Steve, he realizes dully. How dutiful.

And he did—invite him. The old hardass was weirdly fumbling about it, slow to pick his words, like he didn’t want Billy to think no one else on the team would ask him. They didn’t. But it’s not like he wants to spend a perfectly good night off in some lame pizza parlor watching a bunch of hicks slap each other on the back and drink ice-cream floats.

“Not my scene,” he grunts, doing his fly up.

“Well yeah,” Harrington says in a dry tone that rasps all the way down Billy’s spine. He gives Harrington a warning side-eye, stuffing his deodorant under each arm. Harrington ignores it, amusing himself peering half-interestedly in at the contents of Billy’s locker. “It’s a total snooze-fest. Thought maybe if you came this time I wouldn’t feel like blowing my brains out.”

“Not your entertainment.”

Harrington laughs, a small percussive noise mostly in his nose. It’s not confirmation but it’s not a denial either and Billy doesn’t know how to feel about it at all—same as always when Harrington is laughing at him. It should make him want to smack the guy in his stupid face. “Don’t be like that amigo,” Harrington says, that dry tone again, so laid-back it’s like sandpaper, rubbing up against all of Billy’s raw spots. “Come,” he says a little more sincerely. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“You that hard up for a date?” Billy sneers, throwing a towel over his hair.

“Maybe.”

He hates that it’s just that easy for him to say it like that.

“We’re meeting at Carol’s before the diner,” Harrington continues, sounding distracted. “Can’t promise there’ll be a keg but the den’s, you know, pretty well-stocked. And Carol’s mom makes a mean artichoke dip.”

Billy grunts noncomittally. “Smartened up about letting foxes into your henhouse?”

Harrington groans. “Worse—my parents are going to be home. My dad… He’s kind of a buzz kill.”

“That must be real hard for you.”

“You have no idea,” Harrington drawls, oblivious. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

Yeah, like that’s going to go down well, him waiting around on the front step of his sh*tty house for Harrington to come put a corsage on him like a horny goddamn prom date. Neil sees that car—sees the guy driving it—he’s going to hit Billy over the head with a shovel and bury him in the backyard.

“I can drive.”

“Huh,” Harrington says. “And here I was thinking Max was driving you to school every morning.”

“She can’t drive stick, smartass.”

Harrington makes an odd coughing sound.

Billy looks up from toweling his hair. Harrington’s distracting himself, turning a pack of smokes over in his hand, thumbing the crumpled lid open and shut. They’re Marlboros—they’re his Marlboros, he realizes a moment later, startling, his stomach fluttering at the sight of them in Harrington’s hands. He snatches them back with a scowl, shoving them in his locker. “Don’t you have class?”

Harrington blows out a breath, slumping. “Yeah. Double math. Like I can even keep up with single math.”

“Don’t you take the same math as Carol?”

“Yeah, why?”

Billy snorts. “Never mind.”

“Steve,” Tommy says impatiently from the doorway.

“Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses,” Harrington gripes. He straightens up, wincing, flexing his skinned knuckles. “Jesus. Showing up to practice was a mistake. My whole body hurts. Aren’t you sore? I saw you slug that big guy.”

Billy shrugs. “Yeah well...I actually know how to throw a punch.”

“Tell me about it.” He says it all coy, like Billy didn’t seriously hurt him. Like he didn’t make mincemeat of his pretty face not too long ago. He feels kind of sick about it now, looking at Harrington’s nice clean face. His easy smile. Struck with the tactile memory of Harrington’s hair caught and slipping in between his fingers, sticky with blood—of his heart knocking frantically under his ribs under Billy’s thighs. He swallows hard and looks away, but not before Harrington catches on.

“Hey,” he says, not ungently.

Take a hint, dumbass, he thinks miserably, glaring down at his fingers paused uselessly over the buttons of his shirt, forcing them to move. Harrington’s right. His knuckles...the skin isn’t even broken.

“Hey,” Harrington says again, voice thick like he wants to be saying something else, but can’t quite make up his mind. There’s a long pause and, a sigh. “I need a smoke,” he says, finally, decided. “You coming?”

“Steve,” Tommy whines. “C’mon man. I gotta copy the homework.”

Harrington ignores him and Billy feels his eyes on him, expectant.

“I got English. Second period,” he mutters, staring fixedly at the mess in his locker like there’s something in there that can save him.

Harrington tugs the locker door out of his hand.

Billy doesn’t look for as long as he can bear it. Then looks and wishes he hadn’t.

Harrington’s close. Way too close for off the court. And he’s smirking, just barely, eyes dark, slotting a cigarette—one of Billy’s cigarettes—behind his ear.

“Skip it.”

Chapter 10: everything adults would do (part two)

Chapter Text

A near-perfect school record, weeks of consecutive attendance—destroyed. Blown to smithereens for the lesser half of a cigarette.

The last time he got caught for playing truant his dad popped him in the jaw so hard he was sure one of his teeth had come loose. He spent the whole rest of the school week fuming with his lips clamped shut, sucking it into place, worried if he opened his mouth to speak it would just fall out.

He feels kind of like that now: jaw locked with mistrust, tramping up the frosty school lawn in the wake of their three-headed shadow, the only one of them to look back.

“Thought we were going for a smoke,” he says, trying not to sound like a nancy about it.

“We are,” says Harrington calls back cheerfully. Tommy turns to shoot him a conspiratorial grin.

Dumb, he thinks. This is a dumb idea and he’s annoyed at himself for getting caught up in it. The others are graduating; they can afford the fallout. They get caught at whatever bullsh*t stunt this is and he’s the one who’ll have to see out a whole school year with the principal riding his ass.

He turns to look again at the long span of windows facing the lot, blank and dark. Anyone could look out and see him and make a phone call...

The feel of an arm looping through his makes him jump: Carol. She’s not strong but she’s insistent and weirdly forceful, bullying him up the hill while he keeps his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, at a loss with that to do with them since it doesn’t seem like what he’s supposed to do is put an arm around her or something.

“Don’t worry,” she says, eyebrows up and reading him, cracking gum. “We never get caught.”

“Yeah, that’s because you’re you,” he says dourly.

(Billy always gets caught.)

“Hurry up,” Harrington says from up ahead, contradicting her with a scoping look around the lot as he rounds the BMW with his keys out. Tommy goes straight for the passenger door but then Carol’s dropping Billy’s arm to smack his hand away.

“Ow—what the f*ck, Carol,” he protests as she shoves him into the back ahead of her, shaking her head eye-rollingly.

That leaves the passenger seat for Billy, unless he wants to play corners with the odd couple the whole way to wherever-the-f*ck. He considers again what it would look like if he just took the out now. Sure, it would be a puss* move—critically damaging to his image; social kryptonite if it ever got out—but at least he’d still be on track to graduate with all his molars.

Harrington buzzes the window. The asshole’s got his shades on already. “Second thoughts, amigo?”

Oh yeah. No f*cking way is this gonna be worth it.

He stomps his boots on the asphalt to get the worst of the matted grass out of the tread and pries open the door—(it still feels like something illicit to touch the handle)—dumping his satchel inside and sliding in after it. Harrington’s looking at him once he gets done settling, amused, if the grin plucking at the corner of his mouth is anything to go by.

“What?”

He has manners.

“Nothing.” Harrington says, grinning harder. He turns the key in the ignition and the engine turns over velvety-smooth.

Once, back in Hayward, when Susan and Max had just moved in and Neil was giving Billy more of an allowance to stay out of the house so they could all play happy families without him, he spent an afternoon getting high under the pier and came home with the munchies so bad he ate Neil’s whole birthday cake right out of the fridge—dug right in with a fork and the fridge door open, letting all the cold out, the plastic shell-lid smudged with frosting and discarded on the floor.

He needed to eat that sh*tty cake so bad he barely even tasted it. But he still knew, even high, somewhere between the first bite and the last, that he shouldn’t be doing it, that the stolen moment of joy would cost him more than what he was willing to think about.

Luckily, Susan must have caught on faster than he gave her credit for even back then (even before the mask came off), because when he woke up the next day, the carnage was all gone. The crumbs, the fork. The sandy tracks. And there was a new cake—identical, store-bought, with the use-by sticker peeled off—in the fridge beside the cold lamb roast and Neil’s root beer, and no one said anything about it other than how nice it was, and later that night Neil blew out the candles on forty-three none the wiser.

Sitting in Harrington’s car is like eating that cake—odds are, there’s going to be consequences for it.

He slouches against the seat, eyes sliding over everything he can’t afford to touch—the dash, the big sexy wheel, the helicopter co*ckpit of features; power windows, power seats, power mirrors, front and rear A/C, Harrington reaching over to toggle one of the controls as they pull out of the lot.

He inhales and has to bite his tongue. Goddammit. No wonder Harrington gets laid so much; it even smells European in here: clean and leathery, the faintest bit like stale cologne.

Harrington pulls smoothly out into the lane headed away from town, indicator ticking because he’s a good boy. Billy scowls, averting his face. Short a couple of tense rides in the front of Neil’s truck or being clean passed out he hasn’t been on the bitch side of a car since before he learnt to drive, and it makes him antsy, not having control, not knowing what to do with his idle hands—same as having Carol on his arm with no set rules for what to do next. He settles for buzzing his window all the way down—an excuse to touch the glossy paneling, letting the cold air buffet his face and toss his damp hair around, shivering.

He heard a rumor Harrington’s old man got everything done custom, knew a guy let Harrington pick out whatever finish he wanted at the factory. It’s just a rumor. Might be that there’s a hundred cars off the belt with the exact same honey-brown wood-grain, but it’s real nice, and Billy’s hardly going to luck his way inside another 7-Series in his lifetime to do a compare and contrast.

It takes a moment to register that the warm glow he’s feeling is coming from the seats, the buttery-soft leather upholstery seductively warm under his ass. For all appearances, Harrington’s got his eyes fixed on the road, but Billy can tell he’s waiting for his chance to be smug about it.

“All right, Pogo,” he says, resigned. “Where you taking this clown car?”

Harrington’s smirk deepens. “Guess you’ll find out.”

“We’re going to Fair Mart,” Tommy answers, less mysteriously, from the back. “Carol wants Parliaments.”

“Parliaments are for puss*es,” he replies automatically—and because he knows little boy rich’s glovebox is probably full of them.

“Well, we’re not smoking your cigarettes again,” Carol says. Like he was going to offer. “They make Tommy’s breath smell like trash.”

“Oh, do they?” Tommy asks, followed by the sound of shuffling, the creak of the leather seat.

“Ew, gross, Tommy. Get off me.”

One of the two of them bumps into his headrest and Carol giggles, the giggle morphing into a sigh.

Christ. He frowns. Are they making out already? He doesn’t normally give a sh*t when he’s third-wheeling with them, even when they go at it hot and heavy, but having Harrington there to share in the awkwardness makes it embarrassing somehow, makes him hyper-aware of every little noise. He props his elbow up on the window to get more cold air on his face, grimacing into his palm, eyes darting compulsively to the rearview mirror.

And blinks.

There’s an air freshener dangling there. Tree-shaped. Familiar.

Huh.

He looks up and his eyes meet Harrington’s in the mirror, noticing him noticing, hard to read behind his shades.

Harrington’s eyes flick away at one of Tommy’s breathy sounds. “Can you guys quit it?” He turns in his seat to reach back there, trying to swat them apart. Billy watches the road shoulder grow closer as the BMW skews left. “I don’t want to have to have the seats dry-cleaned again, okay.”

Carol extricates herself out from under Tommy’s insistent kissing with a wet smack. She’s not listening to Harrington though, more interested in lurching forward to dig for something under the seat, sitting up with her find held out at arm’s length.

It’s a bottle of beer. A long-neck.

Carol waggles it apprehensively between the seats. “Ew, Steve. What lame-o dates are you taking Lacey on?”

Tommy pulls a face. “And since when do you need to butter that biscuit.”

“Hey,” Carol says, hitting Tommy to interrupt him, already snickering. “Hey, who am I? Think quick.” She tosses the bottle. Tommy’s not expecting it and he flinches back against the door siding, juggling it awkwardly against his chest like a hot potato before he bursts out laughing, realization breaking over his face. He turns to Billy—“Think quick!”—and tosses the bottle through the gap so that Billy has to twist awkwardly in his seat to catch it against his shoulder.

Oh.

He snorts.

“Can you guys cut it out?” Harrington grouches.

“Can you just pass stuff to people like a normal person,” Carol quips.

“Yeah, man, just hand things to people. Not all of life is a sport.” Tommy sticks his head between the seats. “Billy,” he says excitedly, flush from making out. “Man, do that thing—show Steve that thing with your teeth.”

He means the bottle cap, opening it with his teeth, just a party trick Billy showed them one time when they wanted to talk about some sh*t he wasn’t interested in sharing, something he can roll out when he needs people to stop asking nosey questions.

He shrugs, biting the cap, testing for the right spot. It’s way easier to do half-plastered when you don’t care so much about it going wrong—chipping a tooth or cutting your lip open—but he doesn’t get a chance to properly bite down because then Harrington’s going, “What? Jesus—hey, no!” and his hand is off the wheel, tugging at his arm, pulling the bottle neck out of reach of Billy’s mouth, frowning behind his wayfarers. “Don’t do that.”

Billy’s eyes drop to Harrington’s fingers snagged in his sleeve, at his wrist, right where the cuff is doubled back and his heart squeezes a warning.

“No, Steve, dude, you’ve got to see it—it’s so cool.”

Carol makes a bored squashed noise.

Harrington’s face is unreadable, his eyes behind the dark lenses darting between Billy and the road. He lets go right as Billy remembers he wants him to. “Whatever,” he says, finally, hand back on the wheel casual-cool, but his mouth on the side Billy can see is still turned down at the corner. “Just—don’t get beer all over my car.”

Or what?

“Don’t worry, princess,” he says after a beat, the flip tone striving for familiar ground. He reaches over and flicks the swaying air-freshener, making it bounce on its elastic. “I clean up my messes almost as good as you do.”

Harrington snorts and shifts gears, unfazed. “Low bar to jump, man.”

“You always are.”

“Funny. ”

“Oh my God, what are you even talking about?” Carol says from the back, critically bored. “And Steve is terrible at cleaning—have you seen his room?”

Yes. He has.

His eyes search around helplessly for something else to think about and snag on Harrington’s hand still on the gear stick, the sight of it putting a swoop in his gut, like déjà vu from what he doesn’t even want to think about. He hunches, leg jiggering impatiently. “You gonna keep her in third the whole way?”

Tommy bursts out laughing. “What’d I tell you? Pay up.”

“You said he’d just take the wheel!” Carol argues, smacking him.

Harrington just smirks. “You got somewhere to be?”

Walked right into that one, Billy thinks tetchily. But Harrington turns them off the main road, shifting gears, third to fourth, Billy letting himself follow the movement of his hand with its scraped knuckles out of the corner of his eye before looking away and out the window instead.

A lot of Hawkins is just woods and cornfields. It would be creepy if it weren’t so boring. Still, it being Hicksville means there’s plenty of roads long enough and empty enough to really floor it, and Harrington—does, surprisingly. He palms the gear into fifth with a light touch, the transmission doing it easy, no showy revving, sending them flying down the road, blasting apart the thick carpet of leaf litter.

The speed gets the adrenaline fizzing happily in his limbs. Would be better if he had his foot on the pedal, but he’ll take it. He lets himself relax a little, slouch a little more, arm on the door, tilting his face towards the window. He closes his eyes for a beat. And again, a beat longer, letting the cold air sting his cheeks. It still smells like cow sh*t, but it’s cut with something greener, sweeter: wet hay and smoky burn-off.

Tommy leans through the gap after a while and dials the volume up to catch the middle of the latest sad-sack pop hit, something Billy knows from a few parties, not half bad but not anywhere decent either. Harrington seems pretty relaxed for once, has the window cracked so a thin stream of cold wind ruffles just the top of his hair, one hand on the wheel, doing only the high parts.

Billy holds his tongue and glares out the window, ignoring Tommy’s seat drumming and Carol’s fingers walking teasingly down his sleeve to the beat.

“Not your style, Hargrove?”

Carol’s tone is all bait. “Maybe he’s Out of Touch.”

“Maybe I just got taste, unlike you backwater hicks.”

“Whoa,” Harrington says, delighted. “Backwater? We have a Dairy Queen.”

“I mean, not yet,” Tommy says. “When the mall opens.”

“Great. You can buy yourself some real music while you’re there and maybe learn something.”

“Like you?” Harrington asks, gaze wandering over to him and back to the road. “Do I have to sit in my car every lunch break too, you know, learning?”

He feels the back of his neck turn hot. Carol. It must be.

“Would if I could,” he mutters, spiky. “Nowhere in this sh*thole gets reception worth a damn.”

Instead of more smug laughter, Harrington goes quiet, chewing on his knuckle. He turns to look at Tommy, then back at Billy. He says, “I might know a place.”

“No. Steve,” Tommy whines. “C’mon, it’s probably closed up for the winter. Let’s just go to the quarry or something.”

“Shh, shut up.” There’s a smile growing on Harrington’s face, an idea solidifying. “Do you still have the key?”

Tommy sighs, throwing himself sulkily back into his seat. “Yeah.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Harrington turns the music up after that so there’s no argument and it isn’t long before they find something twangy and folksy to sing along to, going too fast for Billy to throw himself out of the car. He endures it, keeps the wind in his ears as much as he can, watching the road unspool ahead of them through the fields. Listens to the three of them belting out the sort of song he and Max had both been afraid country kids would sing out here—about chopping wood and ringing bells and Yankees—and the only part they all seem to remember enough to come together on is the chorus of naaa naa na-na-na naa which sounds like the sort of sh*t Neil would have taken Susan line dancing to back in the day.

They hit a dirt road and the bimmer handles it beautifully, tires grinding, clearly wouldn’t sweat another ten, twenty, fifty with Harrington’s foot flat on the gas. Not that it’s worth it since Harrington’s beauty queen car doesn’t put out no matter how hard you push her, but he likes this anyway, despite himself, soaring down a long single-lane road through some sort of pine farm, the dark trees crowding in at the shoulder.

They get him good and lost, one long backroad and then another, and then Harrington is pulling onto a road Billy actually vaguely recognizes—might have been down once, the opposite way, in the dark—and into the abandoned lot for the Hawkins Community Pool.

“What the hell, Harrington,” he says, mostly to himself, clambering out into the shock of cold Fall air and hunching into his jacket, missing the warmth of the car seat already, not that he’d ever say it. He does a three-sixty sweep of the empty lot. The BMW’s parked prim and proper in a bay but Harrington needn’t have bothered, there’s no one and nothing around for miles and the lot is empty, just faded asphalt and long snaking drifts of leaves, and the pool building, an ugly brown-brick with a yellow bore water stain up one side like a tide mark.

He watches Tommy chase Carol towards the pool fence as Harrington pops the trunk.

“Let me try,” he hears Carol say impatiently. They’ve come to a stop at a point further down the fence, huddled together, messing with the gate under a no trespassing sign.

“Steve,” Tommy calls.

“Yeah, hold on.”

Billy shuffles around to the back of the car to join Harrington where he’s got the trunk open and is stuffing something furtively into a backpack. He knows, logically, that Harrington’s got to carry school books around same as everybody else, but it still doesn’t fit with his image. Harrington’s kind of self-aware with stuff like that. Guy always dolls himself up and carries himself like he knows he’s being looked at. It doesn’t suit him to have some little kid backpack to cart his juice box around in or something. Billy himself ditches his satchel in his locker first thing in the morning and doesn’t revisit it until he leaves. Never carries more than a book at a time if he can help it. Has never brought his own pen.

Harrington zips the backpack shut and Billy’s eyes wander and suddenly he’s seeing it. The bat. The bat—in the trunk beside it.

Fear drops a cold slug all the way down his throat, into his stomach. His hand goes reflexively to the spot on his neck where Max stuck him.

There’s something dark and rusty—blood?—blood—all gunked up in the nails of the thing, and Billy’s recollection of that night is hazy, but he’s pretty sure it’s not his.

Harrington must see his mouth fall open because he says, “Oh, yeah, don’t look at that,” like Billy’s just supposed to not notice the very obviously used weapon in the trunk of his luxury car.

What the actual hell.

“Why’ve you got Max’s bat?” he asks, which is the least of his questions.

Harrington makes a face, clapping the trunk shut, slinging the backpack over his shoulder. “It’s uh, mine.” He makes a face. “Sort of.”

Billy gives him the stink-eye.

“Just, trust me.”

“Yeah,” Billy says sarcastically, following at a safe distance.

“What’s the hold-up?” Harrington asks, approaching Tommy and Carol at the gate. Tommy steps back to reveal the heavy chain cinching the two fence doors together.

“Oh,” Harrington says, sounding put out. “That’s new.”

Tommy pulls a face. “Mom’s key’s only good for the gate. What are we gonna do now?”

“Can’t one of you kick it or something?” Carol asks, chewing her gum, unimpressed.

“Oh, yeah, Carol. Because Tommy’s fourth-grade judo means he’s gonna be able to Ralph Macchio his way through solid steel.” Harrington tugs the chain in demonstration, rattling the heavy lock on it.

“You could at least try,” Carol says, unmoved.

Jesus, Billy rolls his eyes. f*cking losers. He walks away while they keep bitching at each other—something about whether or not Tommy ever got his black belt.

He hooks his fingers into the chain link and gives it a little test, his hand coming away peppered with rust. There’s a loose scroll of barbed wire at the top, barely prohibitive, but still kind of overkill for a place like Hawkins—nothing compared to some of the walls he’s scaled back in Cali.

Yeah. Okay.

Doable.

The cold is immediate as he shrugs out of his jacket, heavy, pressing hard at his ribs through the thin material of his shirt. He throws it over his shoulder. It would be easier to do this out of his boots, they’re too heavy and too big to really get a decent purchase in the fence and the whole things bows when he hoists himself up.

“—would have made green too, if crybaby here hadn’t gotten us—oh my God—” Tommy breaks off, cackling delightedly.

“What are you doing?” Carol sounds horrified.

He gets the toe of his boot hooked in good enough and pulls himself up higher, the cold metal cutting hard into the flesh at the base of his fingers, the fence drooping a little under his weight. He chances a look back at them, at their shocked faces: Carol’s skeptical frown; Tommy looking like he can’t wait to see how wrong it goes. Only Harrington is looking at him different, his sunglasses pushed into his hair and his big eyes darting over Billy with unschooled interest, mouth parted, on the precipice of a smile.

Billy rolls his eyes and goes back to climbing, reaching up as high as he can with one hand, kicking around at the chain-links until he finds a space for his toes, pushing himself up.

The fence bucks and rattles under his hands.

“Steve!” Carol hisses.

He looks down. Harrington’s got a good start on the fence, eyeing Billy, figuring out where to put his hands and feet with characteristic deftness. Billy shakes his head and continues to climb, just two more pushes to the top. It takes a moment to wrangle his jacket off his shoulder one-handed but he does manage it, throwing it over the anemic loop of wire and smothering it down with a few haphazard pushes so he can lever himself belly first over it.

The whole fence wobbles under him with something more than just the force of Harrington’s swift climbing.

“Uh-uh, no way,” he hears Carol say and the fence sways, shakes, and a pair of sneakers hit the ground with a dejected clump-clump. Tommy. He snickers to himself, shuffling past his tipping point, hinging at the hips, ignoring the dull jab of wire spikes under the denim, finding a place to hook his hands through the links a little further down and flipping himself over, dropping down on the other side in way that’s supposed to look effortless, that jars his knees real bad. He rights himself and smacks the worst of the dirt off his hands.

Harrington’s made it to the top too, nimble in his lighter sneakers, biting his tongue in concentration.

“Watch your shirt,” Billy says. It’s a nice shirt, soft-looking, easy to catch on part of the fence and rip.

Harrington hoists himself awkwardly over the top, sitting side-saddle with only Billy’s jean jacket between him and the wire, which is just not what Billy would ever recommend anyone with nuts doing. He’s looking around, trying to figure out the best way to get his other leg over without neutering himself

“Careful, princess.”

Harrington shoots him a co*cky look. Billy blows on his cold hands, smiling.

“Do you think he’s stuck?” says Carol beside him.

He blinks at her.

She rolls her eyes, hands in her pockets, pointing her chin towards the gate where Tommy’s squatted down, trying to squeeze himself side-on through the narrow opening, under the chain. “There’s like, a gap.”

He turns back just in time. Harrington hits the ground stumbling but quickly straightens up with a flourish like a gymnast sticking a landing, smiling, Billy’s jacket held victoriously in one hand.

Billy snorts. “Nice landing.”

“Like a ninja, right?”

“You’ve got sh*t all down your pants,” Billy says.

“Aw, man.” Harrington swipes at the powdery rust stains all down his nice jeans, making it worse. Carol makes a face and goes to pry Tommy out of the gap where he’s still struggling.

“C’mon,” Harrington says, shoving the jacket at him and clipping his shoulder as he pushes past.

Billy follows.

In Cali, they were always jumping fences looking for empty pools—abandoned ones with just a few puddles in the bottom to pump out, or smooth-edged new builds with no owners—whatever was clean enough to climb into and skate in. New pools were great, but what you really wanted to find was the type of setup where the house was a real sh*theap, somewhere the agent couldn’t sell without a lot of work. The kids Billy was running with would get in fast and spray it up, smash the windows in—nothing too serious, just rough it up enough that it was too much of a headache for the agent to do showings during the daylight hours. Then they’d have it all to themselves, sometimes for a few weeks.

No one’s jumping the fence to skate in the Hawkins community pool.

It’s way too big, for one thing, has only lost about three feet of water over the winter, no cover, and what’s left is brackish green at the bottom, full of leaves and branches, skeins of colored rope and what looks like an overturned pool chair.

Harrington skirts around it, leading him through the covered area. He seems to know exactly where he’s going even in the dim light, darting one glance back to make sure Billy’s following. They pass a toilet block and a staff-only sign and a canteen with the roller-door locked shut, cold and quiet as a morgue.

Through to the other side of the building, he follows Harrington along the back fence, down a narrow strip of packed dirt speckled with cigarette butts: the sort of place where the kids who work here during the summer probably come to smoke and make out and talk sh*t between shifts.

He kicks at a string of chewed up foam buoys and they scuttle over the ground, butting up against one of Harrington’s sneakers.

Harrington’s brought them to a set of dumpsters and Billy watches as he slings his backpack on top of one and clambers up after it, getting to his feet and holding his hand back for Billy to take. Billy eyes it with contempt and hoists himself up, the slanted plastic deceptively hard to stand on, buckling slightly under their weight.

“Give me a boost,” Harrington says.

He looks up at the daunting span of brick between them and the gutter and gives Harrington a flat look.

“Me and Tommy used to do it all the time,” Harrington reassures him.

He blows out a breath—fine—and makes a cradle for Harrington to step into.

The cold rubber of Harrington’s sneaker stings against the already raw skin of Billy’s palms and his own feet squeak loudly on the dumpster lid when Harrington throws his weight at him and up. He only catches his hair a bit, boosting off his shoulder, shooting up, all legs, to get his elbows onto the roof, heaving himself up. Billy jerks his head back in annoyance to avoid a knee to the face. Like hell Harrington and Tommy did this.

“Wait there,” Harrington says, disappearing. Billy can hear him scuffling around up there, throwing stuff, swearing under his breath. He wipes his hands on the ass of his jeans, looking around.

It’s quiet. There’s nothing past the back fence but grass and more woods, the trees shushing, frothing gently in the cold afternoon sun.

“Hey,” Harrington says, reappearing above him, smirking. He ducks back out of sight and then there’s an honest-to-God ladder being lowered, something that should have been welded to a diving board or a lifeguard’s chair: short, narrow, powder coat coming off it in big flakes.

Trust me.

The thing twists dangerously from side to side as he climbs, grating along the gutter, but Harrington helps, does his best to hold it steady by the arched handles until Billy can lever himself up and onto the roof.

“Nice digs,” he says, straightening up, meaning it only half-sarcastically. It’s a rooftop, a flat gray expanse broken up by a sparse grid of turbine vents, an electrical block in the middle. Harrington looks pleased as punch about it, co*cking his head for Billy to follow.

“Tommy’s mom used to do a lot of council stuff here in the summer,” he explains, dumping the backpack. “We got bored of swimming.”

Billy wanders over to join him at the edge, looking out over the pool and, yeah, okay, the view is kind of killer. He can see, all of a sudden, how it would look in summer: the parking lot jammed with gleaming cars, the pool lined with colorful umbrellas, people everywhere, swimming, running, eating ice-cream. He can smell it too, almost: tan oil and sunscreen, and the thick chemical tang of chlorine.

He hadn’t realized it driving in but they’re up pretty high. High enough to see most of Hawkins—the woods spreading out for miles, sloping down, and the long streamer of blacktop they must have taken here; a patch of pale limestone that must be the quarry. It looks nicer from up here, like something you could put on a postcard.

“I wouldn’t get bored,” he says.

“Huh?”

“Of swimming,” he says, sitting down, dropping his legs over the ledge. “Max and me used to go to a place back home—spent a few weekends there.” He has a feeling Harrington’s looking at him funny so he adds, “Kept her busy.”

Harrington nods, looking away, mulling something over. “There’s an indoor pool next county over that’s open during winter,” he says, careful. “If you need to keep her busy.”

It’s an interesting offer, Max would certainly lose her sh*t. “You been?”

“No,” Harrington snorts. “It’s for—” he stumbles. “I mean I—uh, have a pool.”

Oh. Of course.

Harrington breaks the awkward silence by rummaging around in his bag, pulling out a walkie talkie. Billy refrains from rolling his eyes. Does the weird sh*t never end with this guy?

“Yeah,” Harrington says at the look on his face. “Judge all you want, bucko, but this thing picks up everything.”

“Everything,” Billy repeats flatly.

“Uh huh.” Harrington gets to his feet, fiddling distractedly with the dial. “Better than the old radio me and Tommy had, anyway, back when we used to try and tune into Indians games—piece of sh*t belonged to his old man—was probably from the Viet Kong or something. Anyway, sometimes you can pick up stuff from the next state over up here.”

Harrington finishes messing with the walkie, propping it up on its base on the high point of the electrical block and stepping back, the static cutting away. They both pause expectantly to listen but it’s clear after a while that all they’ve picked up is some guy talking, dry and crunchy and fading. Harrington tweaks the dial once more and then sits down next to him, at a reasonable distance, legs dangling.

So maybe Harrington didn’t drive him all the way out here to ditch him. He only realizes he knows it to be true as the last few needles of wariness leave him on an exhale. There had been a part of him that was nervous about it, he realizes now, trying to clock every street sign and corner on the way up like breadcrumbs for the inevitable dejected journey home.

“It’s kind of nice, right?”

He looks at Harrington. He’s smirking. He means the view. Billy shrugs. “Beats school.”

“Yeah,” Harrington says, plucking the Marlboro out from behind his ear, finally, arching an eyebrow at Billy like, Yes?

Billy arches his like, Duh, asshole, it’s my damn cigarette, and shakes his hands out of his pockets to pinch it out of Harrington’s fingers, lighting up with a showy snap of his lighter.

The first inhale tingles, his body waking up for its first dose of nicotine for the day, lungs itching. He exhales with a gusty sigh. Does it again, a little slower, tongue rolling around the dry taste. He passes it back and tucks his hands back into his jacket while Harrington fishes around in his bag again, Billy’s cigarette clamped between his lips. A moment later he’s holding out the beer bottle from the car.

“One beer? Jesus, Harrington. For a rich kid you really are a cheap date.”

“You saying you don’t put out for Miller Lite?”

“Better than a strawberry milkshake I guess.”

Harrington coughs on his smoke, laughing. “Asshole,” he says when he’s done. “Here.”

Billy takes the cigarette, leaves it bobbing limply on his lip while he watches Harrington do the neat trick of taking the cap off the bottle on the ledge with a sharp tap of his palm, way too pleased with himself about it going by his smirk—hypocrite—bringing the foaming bottleneck up to his mouth with a wink. What a waste. Billy can’t even watch.

“Don’t drink all of that,” Tommy says from below, craning his neck to look up at them, finger pointing.

Billy makes a threatening hocking sound, leaning forward.

“Yuck,” Carol yelps, jumping out of range, dragging a reluctant Tommy with her.

Harrington snickers, passing him the beer. It’s warm, flat. He takes a sip and plants it between his legs, more interested in smoking his fill since Harrington’s characteristically lazy about asking for his turn, expecting Billy to pass it over right on the border of being selfish about it.

They smoke and pass the drink back and forth in silence for a while, both of them watching Tommy stalk Carol around the far perimeter of the pool.

“About the other night,” Harrington says, out of the blue. He darts an uncomfortable look at Billy and then back at the trees beyond the fence. “I kind of…” Billy hears his throat click. “I didn’t mean to just, lose it like that, you know.”

Billy shrugs. “Max thinks I killed you.”

Harrington laughs, the sound too thin. “Aw, man. Again?” He sounds embarrassed. He should be, Billy reminds himself. If he’d stopped to think before he picked a fight with someone twice as mean as him he might not have gotten his pretty face ruined.

He looks down at his knuckles flexing around the bottle neck, thumbing the corner of the label.

“Second time lucky,” he says, just as unfunnily. Somehow Harrington must pick up on it, the bitterness, because he nods but goes quiet for a bit and Billy can feel him stewing over what he wants to say.

“Messing with the kids like that,” he says, finally. “It brought up some stuff for me I can’t really talk about, because I—can’t. Talk to anyone about it. So I just. I took it all out on that guy, you know,” he says. “My anger.”

Does he think he’s being subtle?

“Uh huh.”

“So I, uh,” Harrington continues, blowing out a frustrated breath. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I get it, you know.” His eyes dart to Billy. “Not being in control of that sort of thing.”

Wrong. Billy’s in control, all the time. Has to be.

“Maybe I just wanted to beat the crap out of you, Harrington. You think about that?”

Harrington grimaces. “I, um.” He looks away, at the forest again, down at his hands. “I get that, too.”

Since f*cking when? Billy thinks, kind of unfairly. He’s seen the pills on the counter, the bags under the guy’s eyes.

“Something eating you, princess?”

Harrington pulls a face and says, “Stop calling me that,” but he looks at Billy like he wants to know if he’s being serious asking and then away, considering. Billy follows his gaze. He’s not just looking at the forest, it dawns on him. He’s looking at the trees—at the tree line, specifically; the spaces in between, where it gets dark.

He breathes out a low whistle. “Jesus, Harrington. There anything you’re not afraid of?”

Harrington squints, mouth curling up on one side. It’s a good look on him. “Heights.” He sneers at Billy. “Californians.”

He jumps badly when Billy flicks the cherry at him, pawing sparks frantically off the knee of his jeans. He’s still laughing though so Billy puts the cig back in his mouth and charley horse punches him hard as he can in the arm. Harrington pegs him back right on his bicep.

“Ow, sh*t. You looking to get bruised?” He rubs the spot, frowning. Harrington actually kind of nailed him.

“Maybe. Do I get a loyalty card or something?”

He curls his lip. “Like you’d go to someone else. I’m the best you ever had.”

“Oh, I don't know,” Harrington sighs. “Seems like I’m kind of an asshole these days. Could get a round two out of Jonathan.”

“Heard he laid you out pretty good.” As good as me?

“Yeah.” He knuckles his eye tiredly. “Yeah, I kinda deserved that one though. Tommy’ll tell you that. I was being a dick to Nance and…and I really hurt her.”

Billy croaks out a laugh, letting smoke plume up over his top lip, drawing it back in through his nose. “I'll bet. King Steve.”

Harrington rolls his eyes. “That’s not why they call me that.”

He knows. Of course he does. “So what,” he says. “Wheeler’s a bitch. ”

Harrington snorts but he gets a look to him that says Billy’s on thin ice. “Don’t call her that.”

“Why? She sweet on me or something? Think I have a chance?”

“Yeah,” Harrington drawls. “She’s not exactly your type right?”

“What is it you think my type is, Harrington?”

Harrington hums, smoking for a bit. “I dunno,” he says, grimacing a little on the inhale, releasing it in a rush. It’s pretty obvious he only smokes for show. “Carol says you’re not really into any of the girls at school.”

Jesus Christ does she ever mind her own business?

“Yeah, well,” he scoffs. “Cows here are all stuck up.”

A dry laugh. “What’s Cali like?”

“I told you,” he says. “It’s got beaches and sh*t.”

“I meant the girls.”

Oh. Billy’s throat bobs. “Easier,” he says. They were. Easy come, easy go.

Harrington huffs, amused. “You know, from when we first met, I thought you’d never shut up, but you don’t actually talk all that much.”

“You short on talkers?”

The implication only strikes him after he’s said it—the presumption. Harrington lets out a stunned laugh, maybe not realizing. He looks down at Tommy and Carol where they’re messing around at the edge of the pool, Tommy straining to counterbalance Carol while she leans out over the surface, trying to fish something out with a stick.

“I’m short on a lot these days.”

He nods. “Dire times, I get it.”

“No. Hey, no,” Harrington says. “No, I—" He scrapes a hand through his hair.

“Don’t sweat it, Harrington,” Billy says, passing his smoke back. “Not like I plan to stick around anyway.”

“Oh.” Harrington stares at the smoldering cherry pensively. He looks relieved, maybe. The static on the walkie talkie stutters and restarts. “So what’s the plan then?” Harrington asks in the ensuing quiet.

Billy shrugs. “Get in my car and get the f*ck out of this Podunk town.”

Harrington breathes out smoke, head bobbing in agreement. “Sure. Where to?”

“What?”

Harrington raises his eyebrows a fraction. “Where to after here? You get out of here and then what—all the way to Hollywood?”

“What the f*ck is it to you,” Billy says, voice traitorously gruff.

“I’m just asking, man.”

Billy swallows more beer to ease the tightness in his throat. “I guess Kansas,” he says, f*cking it up already. “Illinois and then Kansas,” he corrects quickly. “Whatever’s fastest—to Sacramento maybe. Get a gig there.” Shut up. Shut up.

Harrington nods appreciatively. “That’s cool, man. You looking to get into a college there or something?”

“College is for suckers.”

Harrington looks kind of impressed. “Are you gonna get a job or something, then?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I could be a musician.”

Harrington chokes. “You’re not in band.”

“Band’s for losers.”

“Do you sing?”

“Yeah,” he says defensively.

Harrington laughs. “Billy Hargrove, band geek.”

“f*ck off,” Billy says, shoving him. Harrington coughs, laughing, passes Billy the cigarette.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I guess I just thought…” he trails off. “Just thought you’d head straight for, I don’t know, Malibu or something.”

“Malibu?” Billy scoffs, picking at the stubborn bit of dirt under his thumbnail. “The f*ck’s there to do in Malibu?”

Harrington eyes him, shakes his head, smiling easily. “Nothing, man.”

Harrington breaks out his own cigarettes and they shoot the sh*t a while longer, mostly about what summer school involves—(a whole lot of puss* for Harrington, as he tells it, but also, a whole lot of being terminally bored and running out of snacks before the first bell)—and, once Harrington’s buttered him up enough about his costume the night of the Halloween Party, what Billy thinks of Terminator—(Harrington’s only seen half of it, the implication being that he was more involved watching Nancy Wheeler, his date).

Harrington pulls a face when Billy offers him the last swig of beer, which, fair enough, it’s probably mostly spit, so Billy winds up and pegs it as far as he safely can from his seat on the ledge, right out into the deep end of the pool. Harrington doesn’t applaud, just co*cks an eyebrow at the small splash.

He’s like that, Billy's coming to realize. Harrington has an odd way of talking that keeps leaving him at a loss. Billy gives the guy all the usual stories: days on the boardwalk, parties in parking lots, a guy who taught him how to do bong hits when he was twelve, the time he got a whole bunch of kids cheering him on to snort co*ke off some older girl’s perfect tit*—the stuff that Tommy can’t get enough of and the stuff he doesn’t dare tell Carol about. But Harrington just nods, only mildly interested, getting on his case about all the wrong stuff, like didn’t he get bored of just the beach all day every day? Who was his best friend? When’d he meet Max?

Billy tries to wow him with all the coolest places he’s been in Cali but Harrington’s already been there, or somewhere better. He talks about places all over the country his parents have dragged him only to leave him to his own devices, bored out of his skull, doing laps of country club golf courses while his parents schmoozed some new business partner or another. He tells Billy he’s been to Europe, once, when he was a kid, and like, an airport too, in Arabia, but there’s some story there between the lines about how maybe he was too much of a handful and now it’s easier—cooler—to just stay in Hawkins.

He’s a complete asshole about sh*t Billy actually cares about, too. Eggs him on a bunch about him and Byers starting a club because they like the same music even though Byers likes f*cking British music. Acting like he doesn’t know The Clash and Metallica are completely different bands in completely different movements, until Billy’s worked up and yelling, too far gone even after he realizes Harrington’s f*cking with him.

“Well, for one thing, those are punk bands,” Billy says, stabbing pointedly with his cigarette. “And Metallica is metal, retard. And for another, The Clash is bullsh*t. It’s worse than bullsh*t. It’s sh*tty talentless prom music for virgins and commies.”

“Huh,” Harrington says, smirking. “Guess I just always thought they sounded the same.”

“They’re not, the same,” he says through gritted teeth, determined not to let Harrington get his kicks any more than he already has. “Punk is…it’s got no story, no technique. It’s not cool. Metal is”—he swallows. God, can he ever shut up—“Metal is tighter, it’s smarter. It has—it’s f*cking romantic.”

The look on Harrington’s face is gonna get him punched.

It can’t be any later than four but it’s already starting to get dark, he realizes, the sun going down early in Hawkins these days, gloom creeping in at the edges of the woods, cold leaching out of the brick and turning his ass numb. Harrington doesn’t appear to notice it at all, seemingly unaffected in his light jacket, nose just a little bit pink.

Harrington’s passionately defending his choice of poptart when Billy’s ears prick, the static fuzzing away around the faintest plucking of something...something soft and melodic. “I’m just saying, if you want peanut butter and jelly you might as well make a sandwich. Chocolate fudge is—"

“Shut up,” Billy says.

He hears it again, the sound of the steel guitar: slow, celestial, impossible. He jumps up from the ledge to grab the walkie, staring at it in disbelief, tweaking the frequency dial.

“What’s the—”

“I said shut up,” he says urgently, zeroed in on the handset fixed on some innocuous station that never plays anything but static when Billy dials past it. He licks his lips. He’s not even one hundred percent sure. It’s too acoustic, too slow, could just be something similar… But then the first electric riff cuts in and he knows, he knows it, all throughout his paralimbic system.

It is. It’s James Hetfield’s voice: mournful, distorted, tinny on the walkie’s speakers. Could be anyone, but it really is him, and it’s—f*ck—something he hasn’t heard before, it’s... He holds his breath. Something from the new album, something...

f*cking beautiful.

Harrington appears at his side, reaches over to pluck the walkie out of his hands with a look, and for a moment Billy’s sure that he’s going to have to kill him, but then Harrington just slides the antenna out, doubling its length, the signal solidifying crystal clear on the opening chords of an electric guitar ascending straight up up up into nirvana.

Holy sh*t, he thinks. It is and isn’t like their other stuff. Sad and pretty, heavy riffs that get him right in the f*cking heart, that pull all the feelings out of him like taffy, the percussive grunt of the six-string vibrating in his throat. It’s so f*cking cool, so powerful it makes his heart ache. He wants it to go on forever. He wants it to end so he can somehow magically replay it from the start.

“That’s Kirk Hammett,” he shouts over the music, biting his lip, shaking his head out appreciatively to the climbing strum of the guitar solo, the urgent, pacing beat.

“Cool,” Harrington shouts back.

The sound on the walkie is too small to ever do it justice, but he has it cranked up loud enough to bang his head to. Loud enough to appreciate the plunging soaring screeching shred of Hammett’s solo when it starts, whining higher and higher ‘til it’s like it’s going to split his skull open. He reels happily.

“That’s the f*cking sh*t, man. That’s Hammett.”

“Cool,” Harrington says again, with a look in his eye.

Laughing at him again.

f*ck. f*ck, he likes it.

“Steve.”

Harrington gives him a look and crosses to the ledge, looking over to talk to Tommy. Billy fumbles the switch on the walkie off even though the final twang of the guitar is still whining, his ears still ringing with it, blood still racing around his veins in tempo.

“Come on,” Harrington says, taking it from him, sliding his backpack on. “Time to go.”

They don’t bother with the ladder on the way down, each twisting clumsily over the edge, fast but not fast enough to admit they’re racing. The rough brick just about takes Billy’s nipples off through his shirt but he makes it first, thumping down on the lid heavily, waiting for Harrington to give up trying to lower himself the whole way down with his mediocre upper body strength, sneakers straining a handspan away from the dumpster lid. Eventually he drops, coming down heel first on the slanted surface, pitching backwards, backpack swinging wildly off one shoulder. Billy grabs at the strap to steady him, tugging him close enough he can smell his cigarettes on Harrington’s breath.

“Smooth moves, Revenge of the Ninja.”

Harrington beams.

He rolls his eyes, turning around to clamber off the short-side of the thing, looking up at Harrington crouching to do the same, fully prepared for Harrington to use him like a step-ladder again, when Harrington suddenly freezes, eyes going wide as saucers, looking at—what the—

—something dark and fluid, barreling towards them low along the fence.

sh*t.

He doesn’t think it through. He yanks Harrington right off the top of the dumpster, Harrington’s elbows banging noisily on it like a drum, pulling him down,crushing him into the corner of the wall and the bin. Harrington’s trying to find his feet, head coming up, and Billy yanks him down out of sight, hissing, “Shut up. Be quiet.”

The dog is on the other side of the fence luckily but it’s still found them, tail wagging excitedly, all its teeth bared, barking, signaling.

“Come on out from there.”

The voice is unfamiliar, wearied, coming from somewhere further down the fence but way too close for Billy’s liking.

His grip on Harrington tightens. They’re so sprung. Harrington’s shaking so hard in his hands he’s hard to hold on to, making an odd hiccupping noise. The dog barks again, keeps barking, the sound bouncing off the brick, sharp and aggravating.

“Shh! Shut up,” Billy hisses urgently.

Harrington shakes harder. He’s—he’s laughing, Billy realizes. The psychopath’s laughing, can’t even hold it together enough to hold a squat, hands balled in Billy’s shirt for balance, laughing so hard it looks like he’s crying.

“The f*ck, Harrington,” he whispers angrily.

He can hear the security guard—cop, maybe—getting closer, heavy footsteps and the jogging of a chain. “Police. Come on out. I’ve got your car.” Billy risks a glance and catches just an outline, thick-set, broad brim hat. The dog’s panting, yapping turned shrill and rhythmic, bouncing on its paws impatient for its owner to catch up with its quarry.

“Picks up everything?” Billy mocks. “You couldn’t pick up cop radio?

“Looked like you were too busy coming your pants to Iron Maiden!” Harrington whispers back, hysterical.

“Metallica. It’s Metallica!”

“Tommy Hagan?” the voice shouts all of a sudden.

“Oh no way,” Tommy says from where he’s rounded the corner somewhere.

“Stop right there, you little punk! I warned you!”

Then Carol shrieks and Billy hears scrambling: she’s taken off running, Tommy with her going, “Go, go, go, go!”

Harrington shakes his grip off, popping up from their cover, just standing in full view, grinning like an idiot. “Hey,” he calls out.

What the f*ck are you doing? Billy tries to communicate in a glare. Harrington might have the sheriff in his back pocket but them getting caught is nothing but bad news for Billy’s quality father-son bonding time.

Harrington’s still grinning, yanking him up by the elbow. “C’mon,” he says, and takes off running.

“What the hell, Harrington,” Billy yells after him, stunned. The cop—a black guy with a big gun belt—is stuck between the two fleeing groups. On the other side of the fence, thank God, but paused in front of a padlock with what Billy would bet his bottom dollar on is a master key. He clocks Billy.

“Kid,” the cop says sternly. “Don’t even think about it.”

Harrington laughs up ahead, stumbling. “Keep up, Hargrove.”

Dammit.

He takes off stumbling in Harrington’s wake, jumping over stacks of old life-vests and clumps of pool rope, ricocheting between the brick and the fence, following desperately after the flash of Harrington’s sneakers. The dog is going crazy bounding up alongside them, frothing at the mouth, and Billy hears the clang of the fence door swinging open and the pounding of heavy footsteps behind them.

They burst out the other side of the building together, rounding the pool, Harrington going full-stick for the fence. Billy hits it only a moment later, scrambling to get up, trying not to think about the barbed wire waiting at the top. Harrington’s over it before him, impressively quick, shimmying over with none of the same hesitation from before, something catching and ripping, the fence bucking under Billy’s hands as Harrington throws himself over, half-climbing-half-dropping down the other side, strangely graceful.

“C’mon.” Harrington shakes the fence, impatient on the other side. “C’mon, c’mon.”

Tommy and Carol burst out from the covered area a moment later, catch sight of them, and dash towards the fence too, zipping straight past them for the gate, Tommy hustling Carol ahead of him.

“C’mon, move it,” Harrington says, eyes darting to the building and back.

Billy does. Swings himself up and over, ignoring the painful jab where he’s been stuck somewhere, in his ass cheek, he’s pretty sure. Goddamit, now he’s got tetanus because of this loser. The fence wobbles as he hooks one leg over.

“Get down from there right now,” the cop yells. He’s reached the fence, the dog on its lead with him. He jumps up, taking a swipe at Billy’s foot and Billy yanks it up and over just in time.

“Jump,” Harrington says.

Billy swears. He’s caught on something somewhere. He tries to push himself up off the fence to jump and something—the edge of his jacket catches. He slips, his foot banging uselessly against the fence instead of finding a purchase and his jump turns into a fall, the thud of impact in his ankles and knees secondary to the jarring force of crashing into Harrington on the way down, sending them both sprawling.

It knocks the wind right out of him, something crunching, his jaw knocking against the high point of Harrington’s shoulder so hard he almost bites his own damn tongue off. Harrington’s wheezing—laughing again, he realizes, already scrambling out from under where Billy’s trying not to knee him in the stomach. He pulls Billy up with him, flinching and laughing uncontrollably at the sudden snap of static electricity between them.

“You’re f*cking cracked, Harrington,” Billy says, even though his tongue feels ten times too big in his mouth.

“C’mon,” Harrington says, eyes flashing to the fence, turning to run, pulling hard on Billy’s jacket until he finds his feet.

“Steve!”

The cop’s already taken off down the fence after the easier target: Carol frantically trying to shove Tommy under and through the gate ahead of her, the dog baying and its owner closing in on them at an unhurried jog.

“Go! Just go, man!” Tommy gasps.

“Come on.” Harrington wrenches at his jacket again, starting to run, forcing Billy to stagger after him. “They’re screwed—come on!”

“sh*t,” Billy gasps, exhilaration turning it high and breathy. sh*t.

He lets out running.

Harrington propels them straight past his car, straight out of the lot, cornering out onto the road so fast Billy’s legs almost go out from under him for a second, boots stiff, too heavy, jeans too tight. There’s no time to get his bearings; he has no idea where Harrington thinks he’s taking them, why they’re still running when they’re so clearly busted. He can’t ask though, not with Harrington yanking him off-balance after him, pushing him to keep up, to go faster, fingers snarled in Billy’s jacket, the shoulder seam straining.

The dusk is quiet, empty except for the pounding of his boots and Harrington’s sneakers slapping hard and loud over the asphalt, their harsh breathing. He’s gassed inside of the first minute, lungs burning, air turning sharp in his throat, coming out of him like a gasp.

The road is just an empty road in Hawkins and it could go anywhere, and he’s laughing, wild and breathless, winded and hurting under his ribs, and Harrington turns just enough to look and he’s laughing too, the streetlights coming alive ahead of them, one after the other, like guideposts, and their shadows stretching and merging on the asphalt, chasing behind them like giants.

Chapter 11: not with claws and all that (part one)

Chapter Text

It takes him a while to figure out Harrington’s f*cking with him.

Detention should have been the first clue.

He wakes up when it’s still dark out and makes the drive to school in a haze, squinting blearily through the windscreen, blinking hard to stay awake, his legs stiff and freezing in his jeans. He’s so out of it he doesn’t make anything of the empty lot, just slip-staggers down the path to the gym and shoulders the door open in a huff of frosty air, wincing at the stab of yellow light.

It’s empty, fluorescent lights humming in their brackets, the floor gleaming yellow; the faintest whiff of bleach and old vending machine coffee.

He sniffs.

There’s no teacher yet either, just a row of mismatched putty knives laid out on the wooden bleachers next to an attendance sheet and an egg timer, already ticking. He dumps his satchel next to it and takes a seat, flicking his collar up against the cold.

The clock on the wall reads six-thirty and he’s chewed the hangnail on his thumb red and raw by the time he figures there’s no one else coming. He can’t sit still for one minute longer, so he takes his pick of the tools and gets to work. It’s stale-smelling and dusty under the bleachers, but it could be worse. He likes to have something to do with his hands, and it’s not like chiseling away at old gum is all that different from de-icing his dad’s truck, just grosser and more stubborn.

He’s grateful for the detention, he reminds himself, chipping away at a semi-calcified blob of grape bubblegum. They got off light. Honestly, he had been expecting much, much worse, something ending with him in cuffs in the back of the Chevy and an infinitely longer ride back from the station in his dad’s truck.

Harrington had given up easy when the cop finally caught up with them—like it was all fun and games, but Billy... The moment he saw that cop car pull up alongside them, that bright giddy feeling of running and running and running—it up and died on him like a bug flying into a zapper—poof, gone. He was all his weight and more back in shoes again, with a stitch in his side like a broken rib and the weight of all his mistakes crushing back down on him too.

Somehow—how, how, how?—he’d forgotten about Max. School would be out already and she’d be waiting for him to pick her up, or sitting on the bench outside the principal’s office. Maybe some well-meaning busybody was already placing the call, looking for a parent.

He was sweating all over by the time they got back to the lot, dry-mouthed and angry—at the three of them, at himself for ending up where he knew this would end up, for the way the nervousness was lathering up in him so sour he already knew he was gonna snap at the cop and get himself in more trouble.

And then. And then it just wasn’t that big of a deal anymore. Harrington was talking to the guy. Whatever that thing was in Billy that boiled him down to poison every damn time—he got to watch that same thing bring Harrington to life like a hothouse flower, got to sit flummoxed and swallowing as Harrington went to town sweet-talking the guy, convincing him they were up to nothing much more than good clean fun with all the ruthless charm of a homegrown politician. Somehow he got him onside enough to take it directly to the school instead of their parents, made it seem like a big hassle what with who Tommy’s mom is and who his parents are and where they are... And then none of them could seem to remember Billy’s last name, even though Harrington had definitely shouted it a couple of times when they were fleeing. He’s pretty sure the cop knew who he was anyway, since cops generally tend to know about Billy.

Max was smart for once and didn’t say sh*t when he got home, just passed him a dishtowel to scrub the dirt and rust off his hands before Neil pulled into the driveway. They ate Susan’s latest experiment in silence, staring at each other across the table, Billy waiting with bated breath for the inevitable meltdown—for at least some form of veiled threat.

But it didn’t come. The door to her room stayed closed after dinner and he ended up falling asleep thinking too hard on what he could do to either bully or buy her silence.

Not that he got much rest, ears ringing and ringing with the dying whine of the guitar, the ragged sound of breathing. Running in his sleep like a dog on a mat.

The shrill buzz of the egg timer breaks him out of it. He’s finished up and dusting himself off by the time the teacher arrives, thermos in hand, looking hungover as all get out. Billy hands him the clipboard and the guy twitches his mustache skeptically at the row of signatures all in the same hand but lets him go without a fuss.

He sits through two more classes after that before he gets round to thinking it over properly, spacing out during the whole of English, jigging his leg and staring at the aura of fine hairs glowing around Wheeler’s ponytail, listening to the teacher drone on about the kids on the island building a fire and the good kid in the story just sitting on his ass and doing nothing—“Against this weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why...”

And suddenly the Lego pieces clip together in his brain and he’s fuming.

f*cking Harrington.

f*cking Tommy. And Carol. f*cking half that gum probably came straight out her big fat mouth!

He’s halfway to his car for lunch before he realizes he needs to pick a fight and has to turn around and head back to the cafeteria. Lunch is in full swing and he cuts straight to the front of the line to grab up the first tray he sees, not caring what’s on it.

The three of them are at their usual table of course, Tommy in the middle of telling some dumb story with his fork. He makes a beeline for them, firing on all cylinders, not sure what he’s going to do exactly, but intent on doing something, something mean, and then Harrington sees him and—lights up.

“Hey,” he says sunnily, sliding his fruit cup across the table so it comes to a stop in front of him. “What took you so long?”

“I—” he barks before Harrington’s face disarms him. He wasn’t expecting... He looks down at the seat that’s been left open for him, at Tommy and Carol’s quietly expectant faces “—missed you in detention,” he grits out.

“Oh, sh*t,” Harrington says, just slightly too candied to be earnest. His eyes are gleaming. “You actually showed up for that?”

Tommy’s open-mouthed chewing slows as his eyes dart between them, a grin creeping in at the corners.

f*ckers.

He dumps his tray with a loud clap and sits down, ignoring the filthy look he gets from the next guy over who has to scoot away from his knee. “Just doing my civic duty,” he says, smiling through his teeth. He picks the fruit cup up and puts it back down on Harrington’s tray like, shove it up your ass, Molly Ringwald. “Figure once all Carol’s gum is gone it’ll be like the three of you were never here at all.”

Harrington co*cks an eyebrow like, touché.

“Hope you washed your hands after,” Carol says, completely impervious to the jab, eyes following Lacey and her friend as they saunter past with their trays. “There’s worse under those bleachers than just chewing gum.”

“Play nice,” Harrington says, placing the fruit cup back on Billy’s tray.

“Make me.”

“Why?” Carol asks, assuming the warning is for her. “She isn’t. You should see what she wrote about you in the bathroom.”

Harrington snorts. “I think I can take it.”

“Not according to what she wrote,” Carol sing-songs. “Not that it’s anything that hasn’t been taken before.”

“Yeah, by the whole team,” Tommy says with his mouth full of mashed food.

“Hey, I told you guys to lay off. Me and Lacey are cool.”

Tommy shrugs. “It was probably Ashley C. She’s the one who keeps a list.”

“whor*,” Carol says cheerfully, considering the peas speared on the end of her fork. “Maybe it was Billy she was talking about.”

He tenses. “I’m not a f*cking limp-dick—” But Tommy’s already shaking his head:

“Billy’s not on her list, remember?”

“She not your type, too?” Harrington asks.

He breathes out carefully, meeting his smirk. Harrington’s just toying with him, he knows—playing a game of chicken that Billy started. But it’s still dangerous. Dangerous because Billy knows exactly where the road of the game runs out for him. Where and when and how hard he’s supposed to lay on the brakes, and that was probably back a few miles ago.

He puts the fruit cup firmly back on Harrington’s side of the table. “Why don’t you just keep striking out with Lacey and you’ll find out what my type is.”

Harrington doesn’t miss a beat. “My rebounds?”

“Not my fault they come to me looking for a follow through.”

“Hey,” Harrington protests, tone firm. “I always follow through.”

“Nah,” Billy says, sitting back. “Nice boy like you?”

“I haven’t had any complaints.”

Billy let his mouth curl into a slow smile in place of an answer.

He can see the hook take, Harrington’s eyes narrowing. “I go down.”

Billy hums agreeably, pointing his chin over Harrington’s shoulder to where Wheeler and her beau are playing footsies at their table on the far side of the cafeteria. “Not as good as Byers does, apparently.” Tommy coughs into his food and Carol twists in her seat to look, but Harrington doesn’t take the bait this time, staring back at Billy with cool displeasure. “I wouldn’t go feeling too cut up about it, champ,” he continues, twisting the knife. “Girl like her is probably the finest thing he’s ever tasted. Any wonder he’d learn to eat it right?”

Carol snickers, whispering something into Tommy’s ear.

“Man,” Harrington says, a little too drawn out for unaffected. “Screw you.”

“No thanks.” A beat. “Word is you don’t follow through.”

Harrington’s face goes flat with annoyance.

He waggles his tongue.

It’s so much fun trying to get a rise out of Harrington he actually forgets for a second he was supposed to be getting back at him. Carol’s already launched into some story about a class she’s failing, diffusing the situation, Harrington breaking their staring contest with a final eye roll to offload a gray-looking cutlet onto her plate. “You can’t just flip Mrs. Wright off every time she asks for your homework, dipsh*t. Do you want to end up in summer school with me?” He turns to Tommy. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping her?”

Tommy makes a don’t ask face like maybe he’s already tried that and Carol ripped him a new one.

“I got her for English,” Billy contributes. “She’s a bitch.”

“Thank you!” Carol says, vindicated. “She’s from the Ice Age.” She hits Tommy in the arm. “Remember when we had her last year and she made us hold that stupid shell to talk?”

“The Conch,” Tommy says at the same time and in the same tone of dread as Billy. Billy continues, “She make you read all the parts out loud, too?”

The three of them nod like they’re remembering something traumatic. “It sucked total ass. Who’d you get?”

“Jesus, Carol,” Tommy says. “Who do you think he got?”

“Let me guess,” Billy says in retaliation for the derogatory noise Harrington makes. “Boy Wonder here got the part of Ralph.”

Carol snorts. “God, no. They didn’t give him lines.”

“I got to sharpen a stick,” Harrington says.

“We all got to sharpen sticks, dude,” Tommy says pityingly. “Did you even come to that class once on time or were you too busy—” He cuts himself off, eyes dropping to his plate, remembering maybe that he doesn’t want to remember what (or who) his friend was busy doing to miss all that class time.

“We’re not up to the stick sharpening yet,” Billy says. “I think we’re just about to do the bit where they think the beast is a kraken or something, and all the little kids won’t stop crying.”

“Gross. That book’s totally bogus,” Carol says, just as smooth, taking him up on the redirect. “They only go crazy like that because they’re all boys. It’s basically what’s going to happen at wind-up.” She gives Tommy a filthy look. “I don’t know why you can’t bring your girlfriend.”

“It’s tradition,” Tommy says.

“So’s having the party at Steve’s house, but look what happened.”

“Yeah, sorry, “ Harrington says, cringing a little. “It’s my parents’ sh*tty timing.”

Tommy makes a face. “Since when do they come back here for winter.”

“I know,” Harrington grouses. “Something to do with the mall opening early, and mom’s sick of the Hilton.” He rubs a knuckle into his temple, defeated. “When they find out how much of their booze is missing, my ass is grass. I’ll be lucky if I’m off curfew by the time I start college.”

“So never then,” Carol says.

Tommy perks up. “At least now you can drive us to the diner.”

“Yeah, sure,” Harrington sighs, then, turning to Billy, “Four-eight-one-nine Cherry Lane, right?”

Oh. Yeah. He already hates that Harrington knows where he lives.

“Told you, I prefer to drive.”

“Not for this one you don’t. I’ll give you a ride,” Harrington says, smiling in that barely detectable way. “Promise it’ll be worth your while.”

Carol raises her eyebrows doubtfully. “Again, not what Lacey says.”

Harrington ignores her. “It’s supposed to get down to four below, so wear a coat, okay, Don Juan?”

He co*cks an eyebrow. “You gonna take the night off from babysitting, Samantha?”

“Four below,” Harrington insists. “Can you count to four, Hargrove, or do you max out? Is that why you can’t do up a shirt—too many buttons?”

He laughs. “You wanna do some math, princess? Why don’t you count how many fingers I’m holding up right now.”

“Yeah, I think I got it. Thanks.”

“Round two?” he gloats. “Can’t let you go without at least one run on the board.”

“Oh, I think I already got one,” Harrington says, eyeing Billy’s tray pointedly. Billy follows his gaze down, blinking with confusion at the fruit cup that has somehow found its way back onto his tray. It must have been Tommy, he realizes, frowning; Tommy, picking up on the play without a word, just waiting for the right moment of distraction to carry out the assist.

Carol rolls her eyes, reaching over. “Billy doesn’t like sweet things,” she says.

He swats her fingers away from his tray. “Hands off.”

“Jeez. Constipated, much?”

“Yeah.” The voice he uses is thick with sarcasm. “Got kind of an early start.”

“Ahh, morning detention,” Harrington says, relaxing back in his seat like he’s reminiscing fondly. “Mr. Mundy still rocking the Tom Selleck ‘stache?” His eyes flick to the stubble coming in on Billy’s lip. “He give you any tips?”

Billy tongues his cheek, incredulous. Maybe there'd been a moment where he might have forgotten he was going to make Harrington pay for f*cking him over this morning, and now here Harrington was, choosing to pull his pigtails, and in just the right way to set himself up for what’s coming to him. He can’t hardly believe his luck.

“Ask him yourself,” he says, watching the smirk slide off Harrington’s face. “He’s expecting you there tomorrow for your make up. ‘Six am, on the dot’, I think he said.”

Harrington’s frozen. Tommy and Carol look up from their food too, stricken. “Wait. You…didn’t sign for us?”

“f*ck,” Harrington breathes. He drops his fork to press his palms into his eyes wearily. Tommy claps an unsympathetic hand on his back.

“Hope you got your beauty sleep,” Billy says, peeling the lid off his dessert and taking a bite, smiling around the spoon.

Huh. Revenge really does taste sweet.

^^^

He should be expecting it, but Harrington waiting at his locker the next morning like a reject take from The Shining still makes his heart skip a beat—maybe because he’s got something clasped in one hand that looks a whole lot like the banged-up copy of Lord of the Flies that’s supposed to be inside his locker.

Harrington’s making a scene, of course. Way more girls than usual finding a reason to loiter at their lockers all of a sudden, taking their sweet time putting their books away—real f*cking obvious.

“You should really get a lock,” Harrington muses, looking up from the page he’s reading when Billy gets close enough. His polo collar is neatly pressed and there’s not a hair out of place, but his eyes have the heavy, rubbed look of someone who had to wake up while it was still dark out. He doesn’t give Harrington the satisfaction of a response, snapping the locker door open right in his face.

Pretty much as expected, Harrington’s placed a cafeteria jello cup in the middle of his locker, sat on top of his empty trapper keeper like it’s a pedestal. Billy snorts, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Lame.

He was expecting more, but he’d be lying if he didn’t say he’s a little relieved. The way he riled Harrington up at lunch, he’d been sure something really nasty was coming his way. Turns out Harrington’s best effort is some pretty juvie-level stuff.

That’s what you get, he thinks, hanging around with grade-schoolers.

He picks the cup up and fixes Harrington with an unimpressed look as he slow pitches it into the closest trashcan.

Harrington’s characteristically unruffled, smiling calm and annoying until Billy has to bite his tongue not to say something stupid, snatching his book out of Harrington’s hands and stowing it, determined to ignore him.

“Wanna smoke?”

Billy snaps the door shut. “Yeah.”

^^^

Harrington can’t roll a joint for sh*t.

Whatever he’s used is smoking like crazy, burning down under their fingers almost too fast to smoke, all lopsided. And the skunk tastes like ass. He spends the whole time distinctly not enjoying it, glaring at Harrington between tokes and waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Harrington to reveal that they’re smoking a handful of roadside weeds or something.

They don’t talk much; it’s too cold behind the science block to have their hands outside of their pockets, so they mostly stand around coughing and stamping their feet and trying not to acknowledge how bad Harrington’s attempt at a peace offering is.

By the time he gets to class, his nose is running and he’s too buzzed and weirdly happy to even really care about Wheeler reading her part like she’s trying out for f*cking Talent Time. He only half follows along, the book propped open under his elbow, staring out the window trying to daydream like usual but unable to stop smelling Harrington’s gross skunk on his fingers. His part is almost up, just as soon as Wheeler winds up her pitch for the Academy Award for most irritating voice of the year.

“Last night I had a dream,” a boy at the front of the class says, stilted, following along with his finger on the text. “A horrid dream. Fighting. With things.”

Billy breathes in and out, face tingling, tuning him out.

“That was a nightmare, said Ralph,” Wheeler reads on crisply. “He was walking in his sleep.”

The teacher reads. Then Wheeler again. He’s up soon.

He stifles a yawn and starts flipping through the pages, looking for the part where the little kids remember home and start crying, where he gets to yell at them to shut up and…and—

He frowns. Flicks forwards again. And back.

It’s missing. The part he’s supposed to read, the page is somehow...not there.

He stares at the ragged, furred edge where the page has been hastily torn out, uncomprehending.

Stares at the silky square of rolling paper wedged into the spine of the book in its place.

“—Jack?”

He looks up.

The teacher’s staring at him, along with half the class. Even Wheeler’s turned around, brow furrowed questioningly.

“Uh,” he says, stalling. He looks down at the stump of the missing page and back up again. Man is he stoned.

“And what about the beast?” Wheeler mouths.

Oh. Yeah.

He clears his throat, thumbing the rolling paper over to read the biro print bleeding through from the other side, the handwriting surprisingly neat:

Enough of a follow through for you?

^^^

sh*t escalates after that.

He retaliates in the period after lunch. Uses a tactical hall pass to get out of Shop so he can find Harrington’s locker and jam a whole lot of superglue in the hinge. He’s not around to witness the results firsthand, but he figures Harrington’s pretty mad, because some geek kid shows up in the middle of Library the next day to ask him very f*cking loudly when he wants to set a date for the remedial math tutoring he requested. The teacher chews him out for barking at the guy, and the ensuing looks of consternation he has to endure from Nancy Wheeler while he’s forced to stew in silence—it puts a whole new level on the thing.

He doesn’t f*ck with Harrington’s car—that’s only going to escalate to Harrington f*cking with the Camaro and getting good and dead in return. Instead, he puts the hard lean on some theater dweeb with access to the PA system.

He’s in class when the call comes over the loudspeaker for Harrington to report to the nurse’s office for his medications, so, again, he doesn’t get to see the fruits of his labor—but he feels them when he gets to his car at the end of the day and some stress-head teacher is waiting to lay into him for parking in the seniors’ bay—an anonymous tip off, apparently.

Thursday rolls around and he’s too paranoid to open his textbooks, clear out his gym locker for the season, or even take a piss without looking both ways first. His biggest play yet is set to unfold during lunch: Geoff Dawkins, captain of the Hawkins baseball team, cap in hand by the entrance to the cafeteria, waiting eagerly for his latest recruit, who, rumor has it, is simply too shy to ask for a try-out directly. A real f*ckin’ tragedy, if you ask Billy.

He’s so busy blending in with the lunch crowd, waiting for Harrington to walk his dumb ass right into the trap, that he doesn’t see the junior girl and her face full of headgear coming at him until it’s too late. She’s seen him see her—has her hand closed tight around some sort of letter he’s willing to bet is filled with a whole lot of poetry he never wrote.

He spins on his heel and makes it barely two feet against the wave of hungry students before he’s colliding with Harrington.

“Where you running to, asshole?” Harrington grouches, clearly also running away.

“f*ck off,” Billy says, using the mob as an excuse to shove him. “Why don’t you go talk to Dawkins about your try-out.”

“Sure,” Harrington says, darting around an annoyed-looking big guy. “Come with. I have someone who wants to meet you. She’s getting her braces off in spring and she’s been waiting for the right guy to teach her how to french.”

Billy scowls, grabbing him hard by the sleeve and yanking him after him past a group of stragglers and through the nearest door. At first he doesn’t recognize where he’s brought them, but then Byers is going “Hey—!” and hunching over his precious work, protecting it from the light spilling in from the hall before Billy slams the door shut and plunges the three of them into the amniotic red glow of the darkroom.

Right away Harrington’s breathing like he’s asthmatic, way too loud in the dark. It takes him a beat to realize the guy’s laughing. That’s Harrington’s thing apparently—wheezing like he’s dying whenever he’s having a good time. Billy scrubs a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t start doing it too.

“Steve? You okay?” Byers asks, poised with a pair of tongs in one hand, eyeing Billy suspiciously, which is offensive for a lot of reasons, chief among them being that Byers thinks he could somehow take Billy in a fight.

“What’s your problem? We interrupt your jerk-*ff session or something?”

“Jesus,” Harrington says. “Leave him alone.” He claps a hand on Byers’ shoulder in a way he doesn’t seem to realize Byers probably doesn’t like much. “Sorry, man. We were just messing around. Hope we didn’t wreck your stuff.”

Byers’ gaze flicks between the two of them like he doesn’t quite take Harrington at his word. He looks down at his work in its chemical bath, wincing. “No, uh…it’s fine,” he says, obviously lying.

Billy scoffs. “Nice one, Harrington, you f*cking jerk.”

“Hey. You dragged me here.”

“Was I just supposed to stand around and let Tinsel Teeth tear up the moneymaker?”

“The nurse thinks I have a wheat sensitivity because of you!”

“Um,” Byers says, setting his tongs down. “I think I’m just going to go to lunch.” He eyes Billy one last time, trying to convey something to Harrington with a look. “Do you want me to save you a seat?”

“Oh,” Harrington says, catching on. “Nah. No, that’s okay. Sorry again. I really didn’t mean to…” He gestures hopelessly at the trays.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Byers says, infuriatingly gentle.

He stays put so that Byers has to edge around him to get to the door, reminding him that he doesn’t need a swimming pool to push him around if the mood takes him, that he’s being plenty polite right now. Harrington slumps when the door swings shut behind him, pinching his nose and cringing into his knuckles. “Yeah, that went well.”

“Not for me. Was kinda hoping he’d bite your head off.”

Harrington huffs, unamused. “Think it’s okay to smoke in here?”

“No sign says we can’t.”

“Yeah, but there’s also no windows.”

“Yeah, and no smoke detector,” he points out.

“Yeah, okay,” Harrington says, won over. He scuffs a hand through his hair. “So, you got any smokes?”

Billy breathes out bullishly through his nose: You better be kidding.

“Okay, okay,” Harrington says, patting himself down. His face lights up when he gets to his chest pocket and he pulls out a lone bent Parliament.

“Well aren’t you just the most charming Boy Scout in all of Indiana.”

Harrington snaps off a perfect three-fingered salute.

“What’s this one made out of,” he asks, eyeballing the cigarette. “My homework?”

“You do your homework?” Harrington mutters under his breath. “No, look.” He holds the crooked Parliament out like he’s a girl in a movie offering a sugar cube to a horse. “Truce?”

Billy sniffs disapprovingly but takes it.

“Lighter?” Harrington asks after an awkward pause.

“Don’t got it on me.”

Harrington sighs. “Of course,” he says, world-weary. He turns and starts ferreting around on the desk for an unlikely box of matches. Billy rolls his eyes but starts doing the same, tugging open cabinet drawers one after the other, full of paperwork and junk.

“It smells like B-O in here.”

“Chemicals,” Billy grunts around the cigarette, pawing through a drawer of jumbled film canisters. “Breathe it in while you can, princess. That’s pure unfiltered Eau de Nerd.”

“Don’t you like, hang out in here all the time?”

“When Byers lets me.” He looks up to find Harrington’s not even looking properly anymore, toying with an old Pentax. “Hey.” Billy snaps his fingers. “Focus.”

Harrington puts it down. “Want to see something cool?”

“There is nothing cool in here, Harrington.”

“Aw, don’t sell yourself short, bud,” Harrington says, pulling him out of the way by the shoulders so he can have at the cabinet himself. After a few seconds of riffling determinedly through a stack of manila folders, he extracts one with a flourish. “Here,” he says, moving to sit on the benchtop, under the globe where the light is strongest, leaning against the brick.

Billy dumps a couple of empty developing trays on the floor to make room and jumps up beside him and Harrington takes his unlit cigarette back, putting it in his mouth so he can pass Billy the first picture.

He frowns. What the hell?

It’s a photo of Tommy and Carol. They’re standing at the edge of Harrington’s pool. The image is slightly out of focus, gritty in the low light, but still recognizably them. The camera has caught Carol in a rare moment of contentedness, smiling to herself, eyes on something far off and distant; Tommy the same, but eyes on her.

He looks at Harrington, perplexed, but Harrington just shrugs and passes him the next one.

It’s the same pool, except now Tommy and Carol are in it. Harrington and Wheeler too. All of them messing around, splashing, wet hair and clothes. There’s so much steam coming off the water it’s like a vignette drawing the eye in.

“So when Carol says Byers is a creep…?”

“Nah, it’s a long story,” Harrington says. “He was doing it for the right reasons, I think. Maybe. I don’t know. That night was actually kind of a mess, it turned out. For everyone. Except me. I mean, I thought it was a pretty good night. Guess it wasn’t.” He trails off. “Jonathan only kept the photos because I asked him to.”

When it becomes clear Harrington’s not going to clarify whatever it is he’s talking around, Billy inhales like, okay then, and takes the next picture out of his hands, squinting at it.

They’re out of order because Wheeler is still dry in this one, standing beside the pool with her arms around herself, doing a bang-up job of looking like she’s not waiting for someone to push her in—someone just out of frame. Billy smudges his thumb over the slick paper as if he can rub a little of the steam away and reveal him. Harrington doesn’t say anything, fiddling absentmindedly with the end of cigarette stick, trying to work the kink out.

The next photo is a closeup: a girl he doesn’t recognize—the one that drowned, if he has to guess. She’s alone, all by herself on the end of the pool diving board, face unreadable. He can feel the weight of Harrington looking at that one too, the silence in the room becoming gradually unbearable with the both of them staring a picture of a dead girl until Harrington wets his mouth to speak:

“You’re not…gonna ask why I wanted him to keep them? They’re weird, right. It’s weird?”

His voice—there’s something fragile about the way he asks it.

Billy shrugs. “You said it was a good night for you.” He holds up the picture of Harrington splashing around in the pool with Wheeler, holding a shoe out of reach, teasing her, smiling. “You look like you’re happy.”

He looks up.

Harrington’s close, eyes like two black coins in his pale face, fixed on Billy. His mouth is parted like Billy’s answer caught him off guard, like he was ready for something else. His gaze drops to the photograph Billy’s tilted towards him. “Yeah,” he says, frowning.

Billy can see his Adam’s apple bobbing like he wants to talk some more, but then he just passes Billy the sheaf of photos and gets up. Billy watches him out of the corner of his eye for a while longer as he ambles around the room in some sort of directionless funk, poking at a desk of disassembled camera parts half-heartedly.

Some of the photos have been ripped into pieces and carefully sellotaped back together. He knows this part of the story: King Steve, defending his girlfriend’s honor. And losing her in the same stroke, if his read on Wheeler is worth anything—if it really went down how Tommy said it did. He can picture the version of Harrington that did it; probably with the same cruel ease with which he ripped the page out of Billy’s book.

It’s strange. If Billy had found these pictures on Byers he knows he would have beat the sh*t out of him, but he can’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for the guy—the way he’s so obviously followed Wheeler around with his camera lens, hiding in the dark just to get a chance to look at her the way he wanted to. Which is, yeah, creepy. But sad too, if the dry ache in his throat is anything to go by.

The last couple of pictures are of Harrington’s bedroom window—he recognizes the curtains, is shocked to realize what he’s looking at is the fragile shape of Nancy Wheeler’s bare shoulders. She’s undressing. And in the next photo—

His breath hitches in his chest.

The photo is such a patchwork of tape and torn pieces it feels natural that it folds in on itself in his tightening grip, crumpling into a ball in his fist until he’s staring at just his whitening knuckles, heart pounding.

“I saw you.”

He jumps, tensing. “Huh?”

“The night of the party?” Harrington says, not even looking at him, turning the cigarette over in his hands. “Out on the farm? I saw you that night. Or”—he snorts a little—“you saw me, I guess.”

“So?” He tries not to bristle. He knows what Harrington is driving at—that blank patch. The missing time, like a memory of a dream he’s been letting dissolve away a little more with every night of sleep, happy to forget. He drops the photos aside, cramming his hands in his pockets with a shrug, aiming for nonchalant. “Everyone saw me. That’s kinda how it is with me at parties.”

Harrington keeps staring at him.

“I figured you didn’t remember,” he says after a deciding beat. “When I saw you the day after, I thought for a second… But then you didn’t bring it up.”

“I’m holding my breath here, Harrington,” he says, slightly too strained.

Harrington stares at him a beat longer. He tucks a piece of hair behind his ear, a strangely feminine gesture—nerves, he realizes. “If you had to keep a secret, could you?”

“Nope.”

“I think you could. I think you do.”

His pulse is thumping in his ears. The room feels claustrophobic all of a sudden; ten degrees too warm. “Whatever it is you think you know about my secrets, Harrington? You don’t.”

“What about nightmares?”

“Only when your mouth is moving.”

Harrington laughs humourlessly. “If I told you something, would you trust that you’d already told me something too? That you have to keep it?”

“What is this?” he says, cotton-mouthed with fear. “You want to pinkie swear?” He can feel himself getting worked up, angry. “If you wanna f*cking threaten me, you better come on out and do it—"

“I’m not threatening you. Jesus. Would you relax? I’m trying to tell you I trust you,” he says, speaking with his hands. “It’s f*cking crazy—you’re a total asshole, but you’re the only person I can tell about—” He fumes through his nose. “I just need you to know that…that I know, okay? You didn’t tell me anything that night. You just said you had secrets. You just said that you had secrets and I had secrets and you could see them because you had secrets too, and then you threw up all over the porch and tried to walk home.”

“I…said I could see your secrets?” he says doubtfully.

“Yeah,” Harrington says. “‘I see you. I see you. You think I can’t see you, but I can.’” He drops the accent. “Lacey was there. She was really pissed. You were bleeding.” Billy touches his upper lip, remembering. “I had to leave her inside to catch up with you—you were already at the end of the drive. You said to f*ck off and you were going home but you were kind of… I don’t know. I went back and told Tommy and Carol to get the Camaro and then I got in my car and went after you.”

He remembers it a little better now—the long dry dirt road away from the farm, the sound of gravel crunching underfoot, and then the slick black stretch of asphalt. Walking. The swirl of dust in headlights, shielding his eyes against the glare. He thought he’d been alone, but now he remembers—Harrington was there too.

He has the uneasy feeling Harrington’s still holding out on him. Something he said that night’s got Harrington thinking Billy’s the right guy to spill his guts to. And, yeah, he’s not a f*cking gossip, but Harrington should know by now, Billy’s never not looking for a way under his armor. Even with the threat of mutually assured destruction he doesn’t half trust himself not to use whatever Harrington’s about to give him.

“I was blitzed,” he says, covering his bases. “I talk a lot of sh*t. Don’t take it so personal.” He changes tack. “This secret of yours...it got something to do with why you’re carrying a bat around in your car?”

Harrington blinks at him. “I forgot you knew about that.”

“We’re acquainted,” Billy says. “So, why you got Max’s bat? Playing softball with your demons?”

Harrington’s looking at him like he’s stunned Billy could be so astute. “It’s not Max’s,” he says. “It’s Nancy’s.” Billy feels his eyebrows shoot up. “Or Jonathan’s,” Harrington continues, frowning. “I think he put the nails in it.”

“Jesus Christ, Harrington. Just tell me.”

Harrington makes a small, frustrated gesture with the cigarette. “Do you remember that day there was that big storm? You told me I was alone? That I was sleepwalking through my day.”

He nods.

Harrington still doesn’t say anything for a long while—long enough that Billy’s opening his mouth to interrupt when Harrington says, “The night you came looking for Max.”

He sits up, ears pricked. Personally, he thinks of it as the night he got roofied by his step-sister and the local prom king stole his car, but he’s not going to split hairs when he’s as close as he’s ever been to getting an answer to the whole mess.

Harrington continues, “Me and the others and Max, we ended up in this, uh, kind of like a cave system? More like a sewer. Anyway. We went down there and—and there were these…things, down there with us. Like...big rats.” He swallows. “Giant ones.”

He checks for Billy’s reaction.

“Gnarly.”

He’s pretty sure he’d know if Hawkins had a giant rat problem.

“Yeah,” Harrington says.

“Were you…” He tries to think of the right question to ask. “Down there a long time?”

Harrington breathes out, sagging with relief. “Yeah,” he says. Then all in a rush, “Yeah, it was the longest night of my life.”

For you and me both, he thinks mildly, but he doesn’t say it out loud, waiting patiently for Harrington to build his nerve up to speak. He’s not an idiot, and neither’s Harrington, for that matter. He’s only going to get part of the story, no matter what crap Harrington says about sharing secrets. Billy’s plenty used to half-truths and he’s got all the time in the world for Harrington’s.

Harrington licks his lips and starts to talk:

“Things were—things got totally crazy. We climbed down this hole and it was—everything was just—upside down.” His throat clicks. “We got lost so fast and it was so dark, and cold, and the kids were scared and I… I was.” He swallows again. “I had this flashlight, and I just kept shining it on them, counting them, shining it on their faces, like if I didn’t keep doing it they’d just—disappear, get taken.”

“After a while the battery in my flashlight died and I couldn’t do that anymore andit was like… It was dark in this way where, I thought it was just going to be dark forever, you know, like a nightmare? Except it’s real, and there are these kids, and if you don’t do something about it then—”

“When we finally got out,” Harrington says after a while, a little less wobbly. “When it was all over. Everyone’s parents were so mad. Dustin’s mom… It was late. We must have been down in those tunnels for hours. Everyone had—” He lets out a shaky breath. “And just—nobody came looking for me, you know?”

He finally looks at Billy.

“Sometimes I think if I’d gone down there by myself I’d still be... And no one would look,” he says. “Or when I’m talking to Tommy and Carol and we’re just doing the same old thing, laughing about the same old stuff—it’s like déjà vu, you know. Like something I’m making up in my brain, because I’m really still down there and I don’t want to wake up. So, you know. That’s what the bat’s for—why I have to keep it. That’s what my nightmares are about.”

The irony is that Harrington barely looks real himself right now, spooky pale in the dull red light of the darkroom, his black eyes boring into Billy’s, like a specter Billy dreamed up to terrorize himself.

“Pretty metal, huh,” he says weakly.

Caves, sewers… Tunnels. He thinks about how Max had been poking around the storm drain in their street. Harrington’s story is definitely missing parts. A lot of parts.

“Pretty metal.”

The darkroom is so quiet in the breath of stillness after Harrington’s story that he can hear his own watch ticking.

“You just need sleep, Harrington,” he says. Because what else do you say to something like that? “You’re not sleepwalking,” he adds, softer than he even thought he could sound. “This’d be a pretty sh*tty dream if you were, right?” He points at the cigarette. “We don’t even got a light.”

Harrington laughs through his nose. “No. No, I know. I know I’m not dreaming. You’re not…I just, don’t think I’d be able to make you up. Does that make sense?”

He nods even though he’s not sure it does. “You know,” he says, careful. “I’m pretty okay with rats. Even big ones.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He can hear the almost smile returning to Harrington’s voice. “But, no. I think we took care of them.”

“But you have the bat.”

Harrington nods. “I have the bat.”

“Just in case.”

“Just in case.” He can hear people rushing past in the hall outside, talking and laughing, going to class. The bell must have gone some time ago. “You’re not going to tell anybody, right?”

“About you and a bunch of middle schoolers going postal on some mutant rats in the Hawkins sewers? Why would I tell anyone about your crackpot story, Harrington?” He huffs. “They’d only blame me for giving you the brain damage.”

Harrington laughs breathily. “Thanks.”

He scratches his mouth, feeling funny about it.

“We better go,” Harrington says, tucking the Parliament back into his pocket and opening the door, peering out into the busy hall. “You still owe me a secret, though.”

“Yeah,” Billy says, deflecting. “And a black eye, remember?”

“That too. Maybe if I play my cards right I’ll get both in one night.”

That tight feeling in his throat again. Why is Harrington so interested in his secrets? Why would he even care?

“Harrington,” he says. The door stays cracked open. “That night on the farm. Why’d you go after me?”

Harrington pauses. With his back to the open door he’s just a black shape, profile seamed with light, his expression unknowable. Billy can feel him thinking, weighing an answer. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “You wanted to leave, you just…looked like you didn’t know which way to go.”

His hand tightens around the photo in his pocket. “You don’t want to know my secrets, pretty boy. They’re not something you can swing a bat at.”

“Maybe.” A soft snort. “But rumor is I’m kind of a crack shot. See you tomorrow,” he says, with a wink Billy can’t see in the dark.

Chapter 12: not with claws and all that (part two)

Chapter Text

His mom had been beautiful. A real knockout. Billy got his eyes from his dad but he got the rest from her, her eyelashes and her smile, skin that likes the summer. She’d be really proud to see how he’s turned out, how his hair turned out, and his earring—she’d love that.

When he was small and she was in one of her romantic moods, she’d put a record on and he’d sneak out of bed to watch her at her vanity, fixing her hair and makeup, practicing her smile. She always put her earrings on in the exact same way: glamorous-slow, meeting his eyes in the mirror, and that was when he was allowed to come out of the doorway and climb into her lap.

She never cared how late it was, wasn’t stuck up about stuff like that. She’d sit and smoke at her reflection and stroke his hair, letting him play with all her stuff: her pins and velcro rollers, the smudgy pencils worn down to nubs, compacts with little sponges inside. He can still remember the smell of her powder. The sound of the ice tinkling in her old fashioned and the little pink cherries she put in it the same color as her lipstick.

“How’d you get so cute, huh?” she’d ask—their little joke—and he always gave the same answer, even after he figured out why it made her laugh: “I got good jeans.”

And yeah, so what if he didn’t get that apple-pie heartbreaker-type face that gets you everything handed to you on a silver platter, that makes people hopeless about you, but he’s got something at least—all the parts that make people look at you and like you without needing to know what’s underneath.

He puts the finishing touch on his best curl and leans back to admire the effect, winking to test his reflection winking back at him.

So maybe he got a little of that from his dad too.

“Can you stop looking at yourself in the mirror? You’re like a parakeet.”

Max.

“Knock first,” he says darkly, putting the cap back on his gel like a warning.

She rolls her eyes. “Neil says to tell you it’s seven o’clock.”

Oh. Well...

sh*t.

He frowns at his watch. He figured it was late. He just hadn’t thought it was that late.

Max continues: “Weren’t your friends supposed to pick you up?”

“sh*t,” he says, ignoring her, stubbing his cigarette out in a hurry. He casts around his messy room for his jacket.

Message delivered, Max doesn’t stick around, sulky about having her tight schedule of painting her toenails or whatever-the-f*ck disrupted. He tucks his necklace into his shirt, buttoning it the rest of the way up and fishing his denim jacket out from under a pile of dirty laundry to throw over the top. The rings he works off last—one, two, three. They get stuffed into his back pocket along with his wallet. He grabs his keys from the dish on the way out.

The door to Max’s room is open and he doubles back down the hall on a whim, looming over the threshold with both hands on the frame. By all appearances she’s flipping idly through one of her comic books, on her stomach on her bed with her feet up, but he can see the telltale lump of the walkie-talkie hastily hidden under her comforter.

She looks up with her chin in her hand, eyebrows arched impatiently. “What?”

He rubs a thumb over the doorjamb for a second, deciding, but then just goes for it. “You seen any rats since we been here?”

The eyebrow hikes a fraction higher. Her eyes skim over him derisively. “You mean besides you?”

Liar.

He pats the jamb, satisfied, leaving.

He still owes her for the other night. As far as he can tell she’s kept her mouth shut and no one is any the wiser about Billy’s little misadventure at the pool. His close call with the cops. She must have walked home. Or maybe she hitched a ride on a bike with one of her little friends. She’d covered for him with the detention the next morning too, letting her mom drive her to school so Billy could go to his early basketball practice. There’s a price for that too, he just knows it.

The TV is on already as he passes the living room on his way out—an old spaghetti western, thrumming hoof-beat track and shifting colors washing out onto the hallway carpet. His dad has his socked feet up and Susan tucked in against his side on the couch, her mending forgotten in her lap, the both of them engrossed in the movie.

“I’m heading out,” he says woodenly.

Neil drags his eyes away from the screen, giving Billy a slow up and down with all the dead-eyed interest of an alligator. He goes back to watching the movie. “Your friend lose his way?”

“Must have got a flat.”

Neil sniffs: permission to leave. “There’s beer in the fridge.”

“Thanks,” he says.

There are five cans of the six-pack remaining; an old, familiar brand. He stares at the empty loop for a moment, then he takes them.

^^^

Carol lives in a picture-perfect single story on Maple Street, the kind with a freshly painted letterbox and a Christmas wreath on the door already. It’s not Loch Nora, but it’s still nice—nicer than anything in his neck of the woods, that’s for sure.

He spots Harrington’s BMW right away, tetrised in on all sides by three unfamiliar cars. There’s no room left next to it on the driveway, so he pulls his car up over the curb and parks on the neat stretch of lawn beside it. He does a last hair check in the visor, scoping the joint out while he crams his rings back onto his fingers. Other than the small crowd of cars on the verge and the lights being on inside there are no obvious signs of a party.

Mrs. Perkins opens the door on the fourth knock.

“So you’re him,” she says huskily before he can even reel off a line.

“I’m sorry, I—” He blinks at the bright green drink in her hand. “Parked on your lawn,” he recovers, smiling reflexively, his register dropping down smooth and low. The six-pack under his arm is already sweating cold against his ribs. “I hope you don’t mind.”

She makes a sound like, pssh, flapping a hand, margarita sloshing dangerously in its glass. “Not my lawn. Not anymore.”

But whatever she’s on about with the lawn thing, Billy’s saved from having to come up with a reply by Carol suddenly appearing in the doorway, darting out from behind her mother—sprayed curls, big earrings, purple turtleneck—“Oh, thank God”—and grabbing him by the front of his shirt, yanking him inside after her. “Come with me. It’s bad.”

He stumbles over the threshold, flashing one last polite grin at her mother on the way past. “What?”

“You’ll see,” she says.

“You kids call out if you need any more of that dip!”

“We definitely wo-on’t,” Carol sings back under her breath, dragging Billy through a door and down a flight of basem*nt stairs.

He snickers. “Your mom sounds like she’s having fun.”

“Yeah, it’s margarita hour every day from four since she found out about dad’s new girlfriend.” She adds scathingly: “Marcy is in college.”

It surprises him. She’s never brought it up before.

“Didn’t know your folks had split.”

Carol comes to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the stair, turning to frown at him, boggled, as if he just said the dumbest thing ever. “Um duh, because it’s such a bummer. Why would I talk about it? Speaking of...” She waves an arm in reveal at the lackluster gathering in the den.

It’s immediately apparent what she means.

The party is bad. Too little people in too big of a space, keg untapped, a game of darts that’s already been won and abandoned. There’s music at least, something mellow and pop-y playing on the turntable, but it’s not nearly loud enough to cover the lack of conversation. Just a handful of guys from the team—Parker, Peterson, Danny—are there, sitting around eating chips and drinking beer from their solo cups in near silence, their girlfriends shooting them dirty looks from a huddle at the corner bar.

The dip bowl is f*cking huge.

“Hey, man,” Tommy says, suspiciously chipper, coming over to greet him. His eyes slide pointedly to one of the couches. “Glad you could make it.”

“Killer party,” Billy deadpans. “Where’s the team?” Where’s the rest of them?

“Oh, they already left,” Tommy grits through a phony smile, lifting his arm so Carol can slot back into place against him. Her face when she looks at Billy is strained, almost apologetic:

“Steve. Hey, look who’s here.”

Harrington looks up from where he’s sprawled, boneless, on one of the couches, a noticeable two-foot blast radius around him.

He blinks slowly at Billy. “Heyyyy.”

“Well, look at you,” Billy croons. His tongue crooks behind his teeth as he looks him over, predatory instinct tingling. “Someone been at the special punch?”

“Brought my own,” Harrington says, shaking a flask. “‘S’got m’name on it.”

“Your turn,” Parker says bluntly, getting up from his seat nearest him and side-stepping out of the way.

Billy flops down on the couch in his place, six-pack in his lap. “What’s the deal, princess? Thought you were supposed to make this worth my while.” He surveys the small table in front of them. Its surface is cluttered with empty soda bottles and tossed beer caps, rolling papers and mossy sprinkles of shake. “I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you smoked my present.”

Harrington frowns, trying to focus those big dark Bambi eyes. “I…did.”

“That’s f*cking great, Harrington.”

“Um, do you want to try some dip,” the mousy-looking girl on his other side asks.

Billy ignores her, pulling the flask out of Harrington’s limp hands, seizing the opportunity to look at him while he takes a long swig. The guy’s put together all wrong tonight. Nice smart jeans, black t-shirt that’s too thin even for the weedy-warm stillness of the den—Billy can see all the hair standing up on his arms. And he’s clean-shaven too: tender-skinned as a new peach, but bruised with fatigue under each eye; his hair styled up and sprayed, but oily, coming loose in the front. All of it, it only makes him more handsome somehow.

“Hey, look,” Harrington says, squinting at him. “Who am I?” He waggles his tongue, pink and wet.

Billy looks away, glaring at Tommy and Carol. “What’s wrong with him? What’s he on?”

“I don’t know,” Carol whines. “Just some pot.” She waves a hand at the little pipe on the table. “A couple of my mom’s Percocet…”

Billy bugs his eyes at her.

“He said he had a headache!”

“I gotta secret,” Harrington says.

“Nope, you already told me,” Billy says, scooping him up by the arm.

“Hey,” Harrington slurs. “I told you to wear a coat.”

“Bathroom?” he asks Carol.

“Upstairs. End of the hall.”

Harrington is no f*cking help at all as Billy heaves him up the stairs, jelly-legged and heavy, swaying dangerously far out over the open side of the stair one moment and then plastered onto Billy’s side the next, hot as blood. It’s a small miracle when Billy manages to push him up and over the threshold.

“Oh my!”

Carol’s mom startles, coming around the corner. She lifts up a platter full of carrot sticks. “I was just coming down with some more snacks for you boys.”

“No thanks.”

“You’re so nice,” Harrington laughs.

Mrs. Perkins brow furrows. “Well, Steve, darling, it’s just some croo-di-tay.”

“He’s talking to me,” Billy says.

“Oh.” Her frown deepens, nose flaring. Billy almost winces, realizing. Harrington stinks of grass; his eyes are like goddamn saucers. Billy can read the moment Mrs. Perkins catches on as clear as day, her lip firming into something more stern: “Steve, darling. Do you think maybe we should call your mom?”

Harrington laughs bitterly. “Sure. You got international dialing?”

She looks taken aback. “Oh, oh dear, but Carol told me...We thought perhaps Harry and Jack would be joining us for Christmas this year. That’s...such a shame.” She looks like she wants to put the tray down and reach out and touch him or something. “Are you sure there’s no one else I can call?”

Harrington’s mouth slants open, “Ghost—”

“He’s okay,” Billy says quickly, laying it on thick for Mrs. Perkins with his most charming smile. He doesn’t wait for her reply, hitching Harrington up where he’s starting to list and turning them both around towards the bathroom. “We just need to get some water into you, don’t we, darling?” Harrington shudders against him, maybe because he’s just realized whose care he’s ended up in, maybe because he’s going to chuck.

The hallway they stumble down is all apricot-pink stucco, so plastered with framed photos of Carol and her family there’s barely any free space left on the wall. Baby Carol, toddler Carol, Carol in middle school. Carol with a sunburn and an ugly bathing suit. Carol with birthday cake all over face.

The two of them stagger past a narrow console crowded with even more picture frames: Carol painting Easter eggs, building sandcastles, skiing, showing off a grazed knee. Plenty of the photos have Tommy and Harrington in them as well—together at tee-ball games and school camps and sleepovers. In one, the three of them posing stiffly together before a school dance.

None of the pictures are of medals or trophies. The girl hasn’t won so much as a participation award in her life and her parents have put her pictures up likes it’s the hall of fame.

For some reason the display makes him think about what he saw the night of the party at Harrington’s house—the art on the long creamy walls and the big empty rooms; the unmade side of his parents’ bed.

He pushes Harrington into the bathroom—(more shades of pink)—following after him and dumping his beers on the top of the toilet tank. There’s a neat line of empty cans already on the edge of the bathtub and Harrington sweeps them out of the way so he can sit while Billy closes the door behind them. He grabs a cup off the sink, ditching the toothbrushes out so he can fill it with water and shove it in Harrington’s hands, turning back to fumble the plug into the to the basin. The house is nice enough the pipes don’t groan, the water gushing out in a steady hiss.

He twists the faucet off after a minute.

Harrington’s motionless on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the cup in his hands. When he’s drunk it all Billy refills it for him and waits for him drink it again. He fixes him a third and cracks a can of beer for himself, slurping the foam off his wrist, watching him, feeling like he should probably say something.

“Your mom not so sick of the Hilton after all, huh.”

“They got a yacht,” Harrington says, like that’s a normal answer. He rubs a thumb along the rim of his cup. “Palermo is beautiful this time of year. ‘S'too good an opportunity to miss.”

He hums apathetically. “Your mom’s name is Harry?”

“Cece,” Harrington says. “Cecilia Harrington. They just call her Harry at the country club.”

Billy whistles.

“Don’t,” Harrington moans. “Don’t, I’m not like them.”

“Relax, junior. I already know you’re a psycho, remember?”

“f*ck,” Harrington says mournfully, slumping. “Why”—he mumbles something indecipherable—“always in a bathroom. This is bullsh*t.”

Billy ignores him, finishing his beer off in one long pull and crushing it.

“Splash,” he orders, cracking another and pointing it at the filled sink. Harrington glares at him balefully, looking more sober already and pissed about it, face flushed. Billy smirks at him. “You want a flannel or something, gorgeous?”

“f*ck you.”

He raises his beer in a toast.

It looks a whole lot to him like Harrington gets to his feet out of pure spite, leaning heavily on the sink for balance while he splashes cold water on his face and the back of his neck, getting water all over the tiles. Eventually, he grabs a hand towel off its ring and dunks that in the water too, sitting back down on the tub and throwing it over his face with a wet slap, leaving it there, dripping. He makes a loud pleased noise through the cloth.

Billy just keeps drinking quietly, watching the water bead down his front to his belt, the collar of his shirt get slowly soaked.

“Neither you or Tommy know how to wring out a rag?”

“Better this way,” Harrington says. “sh*t, I’m dizzy. Talk. Say something.”

He huffs. “Christ, you want me to sing you a lullaby next, too?”

“Metallica do any lullabies?” Harrington mumbles archly, a little of his usual wit returning. He lifts a corner of the flannel to peek at him. “Tell me something.”

Billy knows by the way he says it what he means:

Tell me a secret. A secret for a secret.

But he just—can’t.

He plays dumb. “Like what?”

Harrington gives him a look that says he’s not impressed by the side-step, but he drops the wet flannel back over his eyes. “I don’t know,” he says, muffled again. “Like, what about...when was your first fight?”

“First I won, or first I lost?”

“Uh, first one you won, I guess.”

“Jonny Pesquera,” he says. “Fifth grade. He had a pair of cleats I wanted.”

He can tell Harrington’s frowning under there.

“What about the first one you lost?”

Billy shrugs. “He had brothers.”

A pause. “Oh.”

Billy crushes his second can and starts another.

“You wanna slow down there?” Harrington murmurs. “You’re kinda looking at a cautionary tale.”

“Like father like son.”

It just comes out like that: flat.

He clears his throat. “Someone’s gotta be in fighting form for that keg downstairs. Might as well be me, seeing as the King’s a write-off.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

Billy scoffs. “And let you take another shot at the record? Nice try.”

Harrington tilts his head forward, the flannel sliding off his face and into his lap. “No, I mean you don’t have to do that—perform for those assholes.”

He snorts, cynical. “Just giving the people what they want, Harrington.”

“They don’t care,” Harrington says bitterly. He’s up again, re-wetting the hand towel at the sink. “They don’t give a sh*t, Hargrove. You do it and you do it and you do it the next time, and you just keep doing it and they don’t give a single sh*t about you.” He sits back down. “You try and change and they’ll pretend like you never did any of it anyway. f*ck this town.”

He tosses the flannel onto his face so angrily it flops right off. Catches it up off his chest in a flurry of frustration, throwing it viciously to smack against the wall. “f*ck! f*ck this town. f*cking stupid f*cking bat that gives me nightmares. Never being able to f*cking sleep.” He sinks his hands into the front of his hair, pulling. “Nance was right, this place is bullsh*t. Only bullsh*t people live here. They’re the only ones who stay.”

Billy takes a long considering draft of his beer, wiping his mouth after. It’s quiet and still enough in the bathroom he can hear the tick of water dripping from the thrown cloth, feel the warm glow of the ceiling lights.

There’s a small window above the toilet. He flicks the seat shut and climbs up. The frame is sealed shut with a crust of old dirt and new paint and it takes some muscle to winch it open, but once he has it cracked a nasty chill wind whistles through, cold enough to sting, and he hears Harrington sigh relievedly behind him.

He breaks out his smokes and lights up, sighing with relief himself on the first draw, the nicotine sparking behind his eyes, making him feel tired and inside of his skin all at once. Somewhere down below, someone slides open a window too. He smokes peacefully, listening to the drifts of talk and laughter, the pulse of music filtering softly up through the dark. It’s too cold for bugs, but the faint tap of a tambourine beat is almost like a cicada scratching its legs.

“I drowned this one time. When I was a kid.”

He puts the cigarette back on his lip, finished.

Then takes it out again in the same movement. “Not like, really drowned,” he clarifies. “There was this bit of chop I wasn’t supposed to be on. Waves for older kids. Pros. The swell got really big. I was kind of into that sh*t when I was little.” He clears his throat, flicks a little ash off the end of his stick, hearing the invitation to continue in Harrington’s silence. “Whatever. I went out too far with my board. Wiped out. Got dumped.” The End.

There’s a long pause.

“How long were you under for?”

He swallows. Just thinking about it, he can hear the rush of bubbles past his ears again, feel the saltwater in his nose, in his throat, burning in his eyes. That walloping red-black feeling of having to hold his breath for too long, his lungs seizing, chest crushed. Desperate for air even while he was still tumbling, still lost, no surface in sight…

“Don’t know. A minute?” He snorts. “Probably long enough to kill a few brain cells. The rip dragged me out a ways. That was probably the worst part,” he says, “being too tired and weak after to fight it, having to wait for it to let me go. Getting further and further away from shore...” He swallows. “The swim back took forever.”

“Jesus,” Harrington says quietly behind him. “Your mom must have been pissed when she found you.”

She wasn’t.

He just nods, smoke crawling from his open mouth on a slow exhale. A half-truth for a half-truth.

“The point is…” he says after a while. “It sucks. Knowing you gotta get yourself outta something because no one else is coming to do it for you.” Because no one else is looking. “I get it.”

Silence.

Then there’s a tug on his jacket sleeve, startling him, and Harrington is stepping onto the toilet lid beside him, using Billy to draw himself up, stepping on his feet, nudging him aside to get at the window.

Billy tsks, yanking his sleeve free. “Watch it.”

“Move over.”

“I was here first, asshole.”

Harrington ignores him, cramming himself in alongside him so he can get an elbow on the window too. “See that tree over there?” Billy drags his glare away from him to look. It’s just a stock-standard backyard tree; the type you put a swing on or build a treehouse in. Harrington continues, “I made it with Lacey behind that tree for the first time at Carol’s sweet sixteenth. Our first date.”

“Yeah. And told the whole school after, huh, Prince Charming.”

“Ha,” Harrington says. “No, that was Tommy. He’s the only one I told.” He sighs. “He’s my friend. He's my best friend. He just...can’t keep a secret.”

“Ah.” He remembers the throwaway remark Miller made in the showers about where he lives. How only Tommy and Carol could have known and how much it stung that it was them when it wasn’t supposed to. “And you think I can—that your point?”

“No, my point is...” He plucks the cigarette out of Billy’s fingers, and then—drops an elbow sharp into Billy’s ribs, knocking a gasp out of him. “I was here first.”

Billy hacks, clutching his side, sucking smoke in on a laugh. Harrington eyes him, smirking quietly, Billy’s cigarette crooked in the corner of his mouth.

He straightens up. Harrington lets himself be bullied aside so Billy can crowd back under the window, eyes watering, shuffling a new smoke out of the pack since Harrington is about down to the filter on his last. Harrington draws hard on the end of his stick, getting the paper to char so he can flick the embers out into the dark and they both watch the specs of paper swirl and scatter, tiny cinders winking out like stars. Pretty.

“How was the weed?” he asks after watching the last few sparks disappear.

“Phenomenal.”

He hisses jealously. “That freckle-faced sack of sh*t owes me.” He glances at Harrington to find him giving him a funny look, eyes all tired and whacky. “What?”

Harrington looks away, smiling privately to himself. “Nothing.” He scrunches his nose. “Well, nothing a little sun won’t fix, I’m sure.”

Ah, sh*t.

“f*ck you, Harrington, at least I can get a tan. Just you wait ‘til I get the f*ck out of this sh*thole and find a beach.”

Harrington blows out a shaky line of smoke. “At least you know you want to get out of here.” He shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s like, I know there has to be something else out there, but it’s always…There’s nowhere else I want to be, you know?”

Billy grunts, running his thumb over his teeth. “It’s home.”

“Yeah,” he says in that quietly confounded way that Billy’s coming to understand means something he’s said has thrown him.

“Doesn’t mean you have to stay forever,” he continues. “You can figure it out later, Harrington. You got options.”

Harrington slumps, tucking his chin into his arm on the sill. “It doesn’t matter. My asshole dad’s gonna cut me off the second he finds out I didn’t get into any of his colleges. Then I’ll really be stuck here.” He blows at a wet loop of hair frustratedly. “You’re lucky you can just leave.”

He doesn’t say what he wants to say. Lets it swell in his throat like a hot marble and says, “Get a job,” instead, sipping his beer.

Harrington coughs a little. “What?”

He co*cks an eyebrow. “Get a job? Work. Get your own money.”

Harrington taps his cigarette on the sill, frowning, nudging the clump of ash out the window with a knuckle. Billy sniffs and bites his tongue not to say anything, deciding it would be easier if he just didn’t watch it, the fussiness.

“Maybe,” Harrington says, adding wryly, “I’m good at babysitting. I just, I think I want to do something different, you know? Something that’s just me. Guess I just don’t know where to start.”

Billy shrugs loosely, draining his beer. “Throw the dice for an initiative spell or something.”

The look Harrington gives him is one of pure confusion.

“Your nerd-burger game?” he tries. “The one you play with my sister and her friends? Dorks and Dragons?”

“Dungeons and Dragons,” Harrington corrects amusedly. “And I don’t think that’s how it works. You don’t cast spells. You roll for, I don’t know, skills or something. I haven’t read the instructions yet.”

“Whatever. Roll for some sack.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if you can do that. There’s like, Strength, Wisdom….Being a Wizard? I don’t know. Henderson told me it has something to do with what kind of fighter you pick at the start, and then what score you have. And you’re not allowed to just make cool stuff up,” he says, clearly put out. “Maybe you can roll for Charisma, but you’d have to have a high score first.”

“What I gotta roll to make you shut up?”

Harrington laughs.

Downstairs, someone with a sick sense of humor has put on that Foreigner song Harrington hates, the ambient synthesizer notes of the intro wobbling up from below, but tonight it doesn’t seem to bother him so much. His color’s gone down, Billy notices, damp hair drying wavy at his temples.

He sniffles, taking the cigarette out of Billy’s fingers. “Don’t know about you but I could kill a whole pizza by myself right now,” he says.

Billy blows smoke out his nostrils, short and sharp, in agreement. Lunch was a long time ago. There’s nothing in his stomach now except beer. “What’s this diner joint like?”

“Think of like, Pizza Hut, but the food’s cold and you gotta fight Tommy for it.”

Billy makes a disdainful noise.

“God,” Harrington says, laughing, eyes falling shut, tilting his face into the cool air. “You’re right, this place is a sh*thole. You must hate it here.”

“…Not always.”

Harrington snorts doubtfully.

Billy looks away from him, taking his cigarette back and smoking out the window into the night instead, trying not to smile. It’s cold enough that his nose burns, but his denim jacket is snug and Harrington along one side is warm, their arms pressed together at the elbow, where Billy has his blood rolled up under the cuff.

^^^

They keep drinking on the way to the diner, passing Harrington’s flask and a fifth of someone’s gross peppermint schnapps back and forth along the row of guys squashed into the backseat of Parker’s totally crummy Ford Festiva. By the time they pull up to the gas station next to Sal’s, he’s good and sh*tfaced, dizzy, and sick of hotboxing it with six different kinds of cologne.

It takes him two tries to get his boots out the footwell, clambering out after Tommy in a spill of cans.

Parker’s at the hub with the fuel nozzle out, stamping his feet to stay warm and giving him the stink-eye—(for voicing his opinions about putting front-wheel steering on a f*cking toaster, probably)—but everyone else has already stumbled off in the direction of the diner, drawn by the promise of warmth and the inviting spill of light from its windows.

He flops against the car for a moment to light up, waiting for his sea legs to kick in, watching the others troop over the forecourt in a loose clump, shaking his head incredulously at the sight of Harrington amongst them in the goddamn nicest coat he’s ever seen, looking like he’s about to go tippy-tap-tap away at a computer on Wall Street or take calls on his car phone or something.

“f*ck,” he hisses through chattering teeth, trying to blow on his hands without losing his cig. Harrington wasn’t kidding about it being four below.

“Hey.”

He turns at the sound.

It’s…some girl. He vaguely recognizes her from the party at the farmhouse, before he blacked out—they were dancing together. She’s wearing an Iron Maiden ringer tonight, can of Schlitz in one hand, leaning out the back of a truck bed that’s loaded up with older guys; some of them a lot older, he realizes. Couple of guys with full beards.

They’re his kind of crowd—just a little further down the line.

He clocks the driver fueling up, wearing the sort of leather jacket Billy’d risk a knife for, but with a hard-pressed neatness about him same as Neil that says not to try, watching him with placid amusem*nt, cigarette burning away on his lip. If he’s not Iron Maiden’s father, he’s her boyfriend.

The girl nods her chin at him when she has his attention again. “I like your earring.”

Billy nods back. “I like your shirt.”

She bites her lip, eyes sparkling.

The wiry-looking dude across from her leans forward, speaking through a long fringe of hair. “You looking to party?”

Billy spits on the ground, shrugging. “Think I might already be at one.”

The girl tilts her head to look at last of his teammates bottlenecked in the entrance to Sal’s, fooling around. Some of them have their dumb letterman jackets on. Her face when she looks back is knowing.

“You from Cali?”

“Uh huh.”

“Right on,” someone says.

“Sure we can’t offer you a ride?” She sticks her tongue between her sharp little teeth, smiling. Christ. Is that what he looks like? “Promise it’ll be worth your while.”

Billy smiles back, polite. “Yeah, I heard that before.”

“We don’t bite.”

“Climb on up, kid.”

“It’s a school night,” Billy says, sharky, ditching his cig and scrubbing it out on the ground with his boot. f*cking figures he’d find his people on the one night of the year he’s committed himself to good clean fun with a bunch of small-town assholes.

“What are you some sort of puss*?”

“Willa,” leather jacket says softly.

“Maybe next time,” Billy says, walking away, ignoring the half-hearted jeering at his back.

It’s too f*cking cold anyway, he reminds himself, loping off towards the diner, head down. He’s going to sit somewhere warm and get the feeling back in his hands and eat enough mediocre pizza to soak up some of the booze he’s drunk. Cali was never cold like this; this sh*t gets in your bones. This is what it’s gonna feel like to be old.

He’s up the diner stoop and pushing through the door, smelling the grease from the fryer already, when he realizes the figure he just blew past is one with the exact shape of Steve Harrington.

He steps back, curious, to make sure.

Long camel coat with the collar turned up; smart leather gloves—it’s Harrington all right. He’s off to one side, staring in the window at something like Tiny Tim at a Christmas dinner, smoking. He barely acknowledges Billy when he approaches, only blinking permissively when Billy pinches the smoke out of his fingers and takes a drag.

Billy’s half expecting to see something horrifying in that diner window, what with the way Harrington can’t seem to tear his eyes away: a Wheeler-Byers date, maybe. But there’s only the team.

Harrington’s only looking at his friends.

Billy sniffles, observing. Nothing out of the ordinary. They’re just a regular bunch of jocks on a Friday night, clowning around, greeting each other with backslaps and high-fives, throwing napkins and cutlery at each other under the exasperated gaze of the waitress with her notepad out. It’s so…inviting, so easy-looking, so vividly perfectly normal it’s like something that’s been staged. A diorama someone made for a school project. Tommy’s fighting Peterson over a laminated menu in one of the booths and he looks up and spots them, saying something excitedly that makes Peterson look over and laugh too.

Harrington doesn’t respond except to accept his cigarette back from Billy, staring blankly at the scene inside the diner like it’s something playing on TV, something he can watch but isn’t a part of.

Billy…Yeah, he knows that feeling.

“Okay,” he says. He grabs Harrington by the shoulder of his nice coat. “Let’s go wake you up, princess.”

Harrington lets Billy twist him around by the arm, hustling them back over the patchy tarmac, the two of them legging it out of the way of the headlights of a turning car.

The truck is pulled up at the mouth of the road but the driver has his window down, arm hung out the side, tapping along with the beat of music in the cab, watching them approach.

Billy catches his breath. “Still room for one more?”

Leather jacket smiles slightly, giving Harrington a scrolling up-down, taking in his coat, his shiny white Nikes. The haircut. “Think you might be one off on the count, kid.”

“Princess here’s a lightweight,” Billy says. “She can sit on my lap.”

For once, Harrington doesn’t say anything, even though Billy can practically feel the drunken belligerence coming off him. The guy doesn’t look convinced even so, but then Harrington lifts his arm to show off the bottle he’s apparently kept a hold of, still half-full of godawful peppermint schnapps. And, yeah, it’s 90 proof, but Billy doesn’t feel good about having it in his stomach or on his resume, and he’s willing the bet Iron Maiden and her crew don’t make a habit of drinking grandma juice either.

The guy snorts, but turns away to face the road, truck idling as an answer.

He breathes out a muttered thanks and grabs Harrington again since he’s just standing there like a tool, dragging him round to the back of truck.

“Change of heart?” Iron Maiden girl—Willa, asks. “Thought it was a school night.”

“We’re honor roll students.”

“I’ll bet,” she says dryly, though her eyes linger, disapproving, on Harrington, like she could half buy it about him. Billy wishes he had the time or faculties to get into just how much of an honor student, or even a passing student, Harrington is not. How he’s obviously coasted by on some combination of charm and pity and having the face that’s on his face his whole life. But it’s cold and he’s freezing his nuts off, and if they stand still for much longer Harrington’s going to do something seriously f*cked up like try and throw a money clip at them.

“So, Rapunzel, you gonna throw your hair down or what?” he asks, a little gruff, hand hard around Harrington’s bicep so she knows it’s a package deal.

She looks him over coolly, sucking on her teeth, trying to figure out a price for the earlier brushoff.

“Kill ‘Em All, favorite track.”

“Whiplash,” he says without hesitation. And then, because he needs Harrington not to bomb: “But Hammett’s solo in Horsem*n? Gets me hot.”

She raises her eyebrows, mildly impressed, gaze shifting to Harrington next like, and you?

“Um,” Harrington says, obviously stalling despite Billy’s best effort to cut him in. Billy’s hand is clamped around his arm so hard he can’t feel his fingers anymore. “I guess I’m more a fan of their new stuff.”

Billy’s…actually kind of impressed at the dodge. Even when he’s loaded Harrington’s got some kind of mouth on him. They’re still sunk though, Willa doesn’t look one bit convinced. But then, wonder of wonders, the guy with the fringe twists around in his seat again, leaning forward. “Fade to Black? I f*cking dig that song, man. Right on.”

Just the name sends chills down his spine, puts sparks in his gut. He hadn’t realized that was its title. Fade to Black.

f*ck that’s cool.

Harrington says, “Yeah, that’s the one.” He relaxes in Billy’s hold, grinning slyly at Billy like he’s in on the joke. “It’s romantic, right?”

Willa sputters into her beer, missing Billy’s glare. “Sure, I guess.” She waves her hand. “Okay, passing marks. Climb on up, lover boy.”

To his surprise, Harrington bolts right up into the truck ahead of him—foot on the tire and up and over like it’s a hayride at the county fair. Billy blinks after him, trying to feel less drunk. He heaves himself over the side, settling between two guys. Harrington’s already drinking again, straight out of the bottle, wedged between Willa and some stoner in a denim vest staring openly at Harrington like he’s got to be some sort of hallucination. Yeah, me too, asshole, Billy thinks.

Willa mistakes his looking and quirks an eyebrow, producing a pill out of her bra. Now that he’s level with her, he can see how her blue eyes are eaten up by pupil. “You looking to roll?”

He wants to. f*ck. f*ck, if it was anyone else but Harrington across from him, he would (he could).

“Later,” he says, blinking slow so she knows he’s plenty trashed already. But Harrington just goes ahead and passes her his bottle like a fair trade. Licks the little white pill out of her palm as docile as a kitten, smiling at her after in a way he knows just stripped all the thorns off her. It’s hard to tell with how chafed her nose and cheeks are by the cold, but he thinks she’s blushing.

“Your friend’s kind of a square,” she says, eyes on Billy.

“He’s not,” Billy says, only sure which part he means once it’s out, but Harrington says, “I’m working on it,” at the same time, and then they’re just kind of staring at each other, too drunk to be anything but confused. He glares at his hands stuffed between his knees instead, hunching forward against the cold, the truck’s metal sides like ice burning through the seat of his jeans.

“Cali, huh?” the older guy on his left asks, noticing. He gestures for Billy to help himself to the slab of Schlitz at their feet. “No one tell you it’s December here?”

Billy takes one, throwing another at Harrington, trusting him to catch. “Yeah, well, the forecast wasn’t for f*cking snow.”

“No snow tonight, friend,” denim vest says, pointing up at the night sky. “Too f*cking cold for snow.”

“It’s bullsh*t is what it is,” Willa says, shivering.

“Yeah, it sucks hard.”

Harrington speaks: “I kind of like it. Sometimes you can see Orion’s Belt, if it’s clear out.”

Billy tenses, eyes bugging. f*cking Harrington.

Then the guy with the fringe reaches over and f*cks Harrington’s hair up and says, “I love this kid,” and Willa snickers into her beer and Billy lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He holds out his hand for a pill, throwing it back before he can think twice, before the smug daring look on Harrington’s face like this whole thing was his idea makes him forget who he’s got to be.

Bad idea, the little voice says.

His mouth is sour and gluey with beer and tobacco and sickly peppermint schnapps, and the pill doesn’t taste like anything at all.

“All right,” he says, cracking the can one-handed. “Let’s motor.”

“Righteous,” denim vest says, banging on the side, and the truck rumbles out onto the road.

Chapter 13: not with claws and all that (part three)

Chapter Text

The streetlights come more and more sparse as they head out of town, the white-yellow frizz of their trails jerking between one post and the next like stretched toffee, like slow lightening, streaming past his eyeballs and into his brain as cold as ice water.

Willa leans forward, tips something dark into his Schlitz, and time slip-slides forward again. He doesn’t think about it too hard. Keeps drinking, even though he forgot how to taste anything other than sweet a while back.

It’s against his rules, but it’s also way way past them. Maybe since he took the pill. Maybe since he pried Harrington off that couch back at Carol’s house, his hand under his jacket, shirt warm and damp in the small of his back where he’d been sweating in a way that made the whole of Billy’s hand feel like it was going to be stuck there forever.

Now...

Now it’s the first time he hasn’t had to think how to breathe since the day they rolled into town. Since that first night he spent prowling the neat, sleepy suburbs of Hawkins on his own with his balled hands trembling on the wheel, swallowing hard around his panic, looking for a place—any place—far enough away from their fresh start to just sit and suck air and try not to blub like a bitch.

But out here. Out here it comes effortless, his whole chest filling up with it, cold clear oxygen burning over his cheeks, stinging on the way past his teeth, glittering in his veins and arteries, all the way down to his fingertips.

And there’s music: steel guitars keening from the cab’s open windows, torn up and lost in the barreling thrash of wind that pummels through their coats, tosses his hair into his eyes and mouth and the collar of his jacket. Definitionless noise—but it’s drums and guitars in the buzz of his throat, in his heart beating high and fast right under his tongue, in the pump of blood under his skin that seems to race and skip along with the knock and grind of gears.

He slides around in the truck bed with the others, butting up against leather and denim shoulders and jeering when the driver corners hard without slowing, familiar with all the fastest roads out of Hawkins, even in the dark, even when the lights dry up and they’re blowing through woods and sky the same shade of blue-black with only the splash of pale asphalt a few taunting feet in front of the truck’s high beams.

It’s a wave, he decides, tipping his head back to watch the broken center-line feeding under the bonnet in a neon stripe, surfing the undulating black road out in front of the truck like it’s seven feet of swell. His eyes fall shut against the spray of saltwater, waiting for the pills to kick in.

“Where you going, Hargrove?”

He squints his eyes open against the memory of headlights: a different night, the dizzying drunk feeling of inertia and the world still spinning; the silhouette unfolding from behind the open car door.

Harrington’s spoken—is speaking. Billy blinks away the afterimage, seeing Harrington properly again—Harrington in his nice coat and jeans perched on the rusting side of the truck bed like the sum of every bad dream Billy’s ever had about him.

“Where’d you go?” Harrington yells again over the roar of sound, glassy-eyed and smiling knowingly. The wind keeps taking his hair and making it into new shapes.

Billy answers, tongue slow.

Harrington laughs. “Nowhere?”

“Yeah. Nowhere,” Billy says. He’s smiling now too. “Nowhere, Hawkins, Indiana. Surf’s great.”

“Tubular.”

“Tubular,” Billy says with Harrington’s voice.

Harrington lurches forward all of a sudden, leaning over the bed of the truck, yanking Billy down towards him by the wrist, his pupils so big and consuming in his face it’s like Billy keeps on falling for the space of a blink. “I think I’m high,” he shouts confidentially, loud enough for everyone to hear, his breath a warm wash over Billy’s numb cheeks. “I feel amazing right now.”

It’s hard to roll his eyes and talk at the same time; his words come out as slow as glue: “Get a grip, Harrington.”

But Harrington can’t get a grip, buckling forward between his own knees, wheezing, his laughter traveling up the bones of Billy’s arm like a tuning fork, vibrating around in his chest, shaking up out of his throat.

“Stop it,” he says, high and breathless between laughs. He can’t seem to shake the warm brand of Harrington’s glove off him either. It’s goddamn embarrassing how much of a lightweight the guy is. “Leggo’me, asshole.”

That just makes Harrington laugh even harder. His knees hit the truck bed as he tips forward, sending a spray of empty cans everywhere and almost pulling Billy out of his seat too. Willa and denim vest wrestle Harrington back, up off his knees back into place between them. “Okay, hotshot,” Willa says patronizingly even as she slips another beer into his hand. “Save some for the party.”

Billy’s own beer is half-crushed in his hand from when Harrington unbalanced him and he throws back the dregs of it, the wind putting most of it on his chin. He ditches the can, wondering idly if he should go another. He’s somewhere between eight and eighteen—lost count a while back, racing to black out before he starts to roll. Doesn’t matter so much either way, he figures, since however off the map sh*t gets, Harrington’s going to be the first one over the edge by a long shot. The empty bottle of schnapps is scuttling around in the truck bed somewhere as proof.

Their driver steps on the gas and the wind hardens, the truck speeding up on an open stretch of road. They’re really flying now. The feeling makes him want to crow, so he does—tips his head back and lets loose, finds the point where his voice cracks, the older guy at his side squawking out a laugh and joining in, howling. Fired up, he stands and—stumbles a little, a hand shooting out to steady him, someone cheering, the truck bed wavering under his feet, empty cans skittering—he does it again, not sure if he can hear himself or if it’s just the wind screaming in his ears, his jacket collar beating so hard against his neck it stings.

Then there are hands on him, yanking him down, someone shouting, “Far out, you’ve made your point, you psycho!” and shoving his shoulder admiringly. He flops down in his seat and takes the offered beer, fumbling it open, clumsy with adrenaline, slurping down silky foam to sooth the raw patch in his throat.

“You must think you’re hot sh*t, huh,” Willa says, her eyes sparkling a challenge.

Billy just pops an eyebrow at her in agreement, busy drinking.

“Well? Tell me.”

He smothers a belch. “What?”

“How’d you get stuck with PG thirteen over here?” She tilts her head at Harrington beside her. He’s nodding along good-naturedly at whatever burnout conversation denim vest is having, but he perks up when he realizes there’s more than one pair of eyes on him—guy’s got a sixth sense for it.

Billy shrugs. “Parents won’t let him out without a sitter.”

“Hey,” Harrington protests. “If either of us ‘s the sitter here it’s me. No one—" he points a finger that lists somewhat in Billy’s direction “—no one would trust you with their kids.” He turns to Willa, tone changing. “And I am not PG thirteen.”

Willa snorts skeptically into her drink like, uh huh.

“He’s right,” Billy says. No idea why he feels like he’s got to. It’s not like it wouldn’t be nice to see Harrington be the one out of his depth for once. He waves a hand, conceding. “Harrington here’s an action packed, surround sound, R-rated crazy—a bona fide horror show.”

Harrington nods.

“Oh yeah?” Willa says, eyes alight again. “Prove it.”

He has no idea what Harrington’s going to do; puke, maybe; snatch the rest of the booze out of her hand and down it. He’s definitely not expecting Harrington to turn in place, one hand dropping low between his knees, beer dangling, the other moving smoothly into the cropped side of Willa’s hair, leaning in close to murmur something in her ear with a smug glance at Billy that slides a fish hook into his stomach.

The laugh that’s been building up in him gets stuck halfway in his throat as he watches Willa go completely still, mouth parted, her eyes darkening—a hand clapping over her mouth finally to smother her delight. Harrington keeps talking, his eyes flicking over to Billy again, smile turning downright filthy, and the hook tugs.

Willa barks out a disbelieving sound, looking at Billy now too. “Really?” she purrs, gaze sweeping over him. Her eyebrows shoot up. “Go Tigers.”

“Huh?” Billy rasps.

“Nothing,” Willa says conspiratorially, sharing a look with her new beau. “You could have told me y—oh sh*t!” She cuts herself off, eyes going excitedly wide, her bottle hitting the truck bed with a clunk as she lurches unevenly to her feet. “f*ck, sh*t, f*ck. Here it comes!” She starts struggling with the hem of her top. They all wrench around in their seats.

It’s a car: a pair of headlights approaching out of the darkness, beams bleeding into long twin stars as it grows closer. The truck revs a warning as they near, music speeding, and Willa whoops, Billy turning just in time to catch her as she rips her shirt up, flashing her tit*. The driver lays on the horn as they blow past—a long appreciative blast, and the truck bed erupts in cheers as Willa shimmies, the beams painting her torso a searing corpse white, sliding over the curves and hollows of her tit* and stomach—over Harrington’s smiling face as he winces away from the cut of light.

Willa whoops again, jamming her shirt back down. “f*ck yeah!” She shakes her hair out, eyes alight. “You guys want to see something really crazy? Donny, help me with the gate.”

“No, f*ck, Willa!” the older guy says. “It’s too dangerous—”

But she’s already messing with one corner of the truck bed and the guy on Billy’s left leans over, resigned, and unlatches his side too, kicking the tailgate sharply so it falls open with a bang. At a look from Willa, denim vest bends to rap on the cab’s rear window and the truck shifts gears, Willa lowering herself onto her butt in the middle of the truck bed, turning her gaze on him daringly as she shuffles towards the edge.

Still, it isn’t until the older guy on his right nudges him that things click into place.

Oh. Oh, Jesus f*cking Christ. Okay.

He scrambles, dropping to his knees, too drunk to feel the impact except in the way his teeth clunk together, his fingers catching the fabric of her top and the hem of her jacket to stop her from sliding right on out the back of the open truck bed.

Despite all her talk, she’s stiff as a board against his knuckles, her arms clamped tight over her chest as he helps to shuffle her out over the lip, half-convinced he’s about to watch her get sucked out into space and spattered all over the road. He’s holding onto her shirt so tight he can’t feel his fingers, her body straining to hold in place, eyes pinched shut.

Then the truck starts wagging from side to side and she hiccups out a laugh that sounds a lot like a scream, her hair escaping the neck of her jacket in long bleached-white streamers.

Thank God she only lasts a minute before she taps out, a hand darting down her body quickly to bang a signal against the truck bed before snatching protectively back against her chest. Billy yanks her in as the truck winds down a gear and she lurches up and back into her seat gracelessly, grabbing for the nearest bottle and taking a fortifying swig, her face stung vivid pink with blood. “Crazy enough for you?”

Billy blinks at her, astounded. And still, in some stupid corner of his brain, he thinks: Not even close.

He doesn’t have time to reply though, because next thing he knows Harrington is throwing himself down in her place. Willa cackles, impressed at last but Billy just stares as Harrington finishes wrenching out of his coat, flopping down on the truck bed at Billy’s knees. He’s already grinning like an idiot.

“No way, Jose.”

“Please don’t drop me,” Harrington says.

Billy groans. “You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me.”

“C’mon,” Harrington needles. “You’re not scared are you?”

“How they gonna crown you prom king if you’ve only got half a head, dumbass?”

“My good half or my bad half?”

Billy gives him a raw look.

“Just kidding, I don’t have a bad half.”

“Not yet,” Billy says, tone loaded.

A snort. “What’s a little road burn. Chicks dig scars, right?”

Billy swallows, tries to sneer out an answer, his pulse leaping uncertainly. Harrington has his hand back at Billy’s wrist again, burning. I’m sh*tfaced, Billy tries to communicate through that grip, like the reverse of when Harrington had infected him with his laughter. sh*t always goes wrong with me, he pushes. I always break things, I always—

“Hargrove,” Harrington says. Billy blinks at him. His eyes are sincere, all swallowed up with pupil, gooseflesh breaking out on his exposed pale arms. “You got this,” he says. His grip tightens briefly, a squeeze: a message—and he lets go.

Billy’s hands tremble as he digs them into Harrington’s side, one snarled in the thin t-shirt, the other hand balled around his belt to help lever him down the truck bed. Harrington sucks in a breath and lets it out, crossing his arms over his chest, smile wobbling. Compared to Willa he’s a real heifer, so one of the other guys sinks down to grab hold of Harrington’s other leg, and together they work to shuffle him out over the lip.

Every afternoon of abject boredom spent staring at a wall and pumping iron is worth it for the moment Harrington’s upper body is suspended out over the road and Billy—Billy can take it. His biceps pull tight, engaging, shoulders drawing back. Harrington’s out, hanging, right there, and Billy—Harrington’s right, he’s got this. Billy’s got him.

At first, Harrington’s tense, arms pulled in tight, following Willa’s lead, but after a harrowing few seconds—stupidly, impossibly, recklessly—he starts to relax, going limp and terrifyingly heavy in Billy’s grip.

It’s all Billy can do to concentrate on keeping a hold of him. His arms lock, not daring to budge a muscle in case he loses control. His pulse pounds frantically in his throat as Harrington stretches, slow and experimental, his arms sweeping up and out over his head—cautious at first—then all at once. He goes lax, arms hinged limply at the elbow, hands draping dangerously close to the road, all the hesitance leaving him in something like a sigh that’s lost in the roar of the pickup’s exhaust.

Someone whistles, awed.

Billy’s holding his breath without realizing it, bearing the extra weight. His eyes are watering with how hard they’re fixed on his grip on Harrington’s side, unblinking, Harrington’s shirt riding up away from where Billy’s knuckles are burning into the soft skin of his stomach above his belt. Billy feels his whole face go numb, tongue thick and dry in his mouth. And that’s when he realizes that, yeah, maybe the pills have kicked in.

At a knock on the cab the truck starts swerving again, big lazy curves over the road, the center-line zipping past underneath Harrington’s head. His face is ghostly pale against the wet sheen of the blacktop sliding past underneath him, hair tossed around in a spiral of glittering dust in the rear lights, palms turned up. He looks like he’s floating.

God, Billy thinks. God, he’s so much further gone than he thought.

And Harrington, Billy realizes, shock detonating outward from his heart, stomach dropping—

His eyes are open. The psycho’s got his eyes open, watching the sky, f*cking—stargazing, probably; all the stars in all the sky spinning and sliding over his wide-open eyes. Not afraid at all. Happy.

Awake.

^^^

Harrington never taps out. Eventually, the other guy just up and calls it, drags Harrington back in by the knees, right when Billy was starting to lose feeling in his hands, his arms getting shaky, waiting years inside of seconds for Harrington to tap out so he could stop watching him with his heart in throat.

Harrington sits up, eyes wet and far away. He sees Billy in a series of slow blinks like he’s remembering him, his mouth turning up at the corners finally. “Hi,” he says, husky.

Oh man.

The high is on him in full force now, Billy realizes—a slow, unreckonable wave that buoys him up, skin buzzing, feelings swelling up like bubbles in his chest, just waiting for a moment of idiocy to come pouring out. He’s saved from responding by the music cutting out, the sudden quiet like a vacuum as the truck slows and comes to a stop.

He twists in his seat, looking around.

They’re in the middle of an empty road; no streetlights, no cars, no people—not even a shoulder to park on. Just the road pointed forward and back, the red wash of brake lights and the mass of dark tree trunks pressing in on either side, the truck’s engine hiccuping softly as it idles.

He hops out the back ahead of the others, boots thumping. “Why we stopping here?”

“End of the line,” Donny says, hiking the last of the beers under his arm and hopping out after him. The other guys are climbing over the sides, Harrington too, loping out of the open truck bed like he does it all the time, shoving his arms back into his coat.

“This is as close as we get in the truck,” Willa says more helpfully. She’s rummaging around in a duffel bag unzipped on the truck bed. “Cops keep an eye on the slip road. Reg’ll park somewhere else and meet us later. A-ha!” She straightens up holding a big boxy flashlight—the kind that needs winding up—that she passes off to one of the guys, and a paper lunch-bag that she tosses to Billy. “Put one of those on.”

He frowns, looking inside the bag, enjoying the crumpling sound of it in his hands. It’s full of dull plastic tubes—glowsticks, he realizes, the type you buy loose at the dollar store. Lame. “Think I’m good,” he says, disinterested, tossing the package back at her.

She scoffs. “It’s for the party. Just take one, you’re going to need it.”

He catches Harrington’s eye, his hesitance reflected perfectly in Harrington’s pained expression. Willa catches the look passing between them and rolls her eyes in comprehension, “Yeesh, okay.” She grabs a handful of sticks out of the bag and crunches them together demonstratively under Harrington’s nose, waving them around as they bleed from gray to vivid green and pink and orange. Harrington’s head quirks back on his neck, eyes widening. “Whoa,” he says, hand up and reaching, stoned out of his gourd.

Billy blinks hard, the streaks of neon repeating behind his closed eyelids.

Whoa.

In the end neither of them are willing to be the first to take any though—at a stalemate, both too committed to not looking uncool. (Sure, Harrington is going to stick out like a sore thumb dressed as he is like a junior accountant, and Billy’ll be lucky if he makes it through the night without frostbite, but appearances are appearances).

Willa gives up after a last offer and switches tack. She sidles up to Harrington, exposing her neck for him to connect a loop of glowsticks around it in a pretty glowing band. Harrington’s so smooth about it, brushing her hair out of the way like he did in the back of the truck. Billy’s own neck prickles at the sight, remembering the couple from in front of the arcade for no good reason; the intimacy of it—that spun-out, far away feeling like looking at two figures in a snow globe. Willa’s not some blushing dinner date though; her smile has a teasing edge to it. She’s playing some sort of game all for herself—testing Harrington’s boundaries, maybe.

“Gotta take a leak,” Billy says to nobody.

Seems like she’s warmed up to Harrington plenty, he thinks, sour about it, stumbling off towards the trees to piss out of range of the truck’s brake lights. It’s so cold he has to blow the feeling back into his hands before he can unzip, and his arms are all messed up, sore and too light. He hears Willa laugh breathily, saying something like" “Look, now you can find me even if we get separated in the dark.”

Billy mutters the words under his breath, not so sweetly. Harrington’s not even her type. Billy’s her type; she already left her mark on him at the party at the farmhouse, grinding up on his leg, kissing lipstick and cigarette smoke into his mouth.

Harrington sniffing loudly next to him all of a sudden startles him. He fetches up at the next tree over from Billy, unzipping, time going funny. Billy frowns down at his own dick. He’s supposed to be pissing. He scopes around for Willa but she’s over at the truck, talking to the driver through the open window, waving him off.

“What did you tell her about me?” he finds himself asking. He’s typically not one of those guys like Tommy who can piss and shoot the sh*t at the same time, but apparently he’s in the mood for a distraction.

Harrington looks up. “Hmm?”

Billy nods his head back at the road. The truck is gone already, just a glimpse of Willa’s glowstick necklace disappearing into the woods after the others. “What did you say to her, back in the truck?”

“Oh.” Harrington snickers. “Nothing. Nothing.” He sniffs to disguise a sharp grin. “Just told her you’re an animal, man.”

“…That it?” Billy asks flatly.

“Yeah, man.” Harrington sniffs purposefully again, but barely lasts a second before the laughter is wobbling out of him, adding, all in a rush, “Hit you with a tranquilizer and you purr like a puss*c—”

Billy pushes him so hard Harrington doesn’t have time to do up his fly, hands rushing out in front of his face just in time to not eat tree trunk.

Billy feels a dry laugh bubble out of him at the sound of his yelp, indignant and girly as hell. Harrington fusses grouchily, fumbling his zipper up, making a big deal of checking the soles of his sneakers, giving Billy a hot look once he’s straightened himself out which Billy ignores, in a good mood now that equilibrium has been restored. Harrington stumbles as he stalks off, shooting Billy a peeved look like that’s his fault too. “Try not to get lost without me,” he snipes, leaving Billy to piss in peace.

“I’m not the one afraid of the dark,” Billy retorts once he catches up with him a few moments later, crossing over the road and into the woods, a few yards behind the others, the flashlight up ahead skipping and bobbing, a pale stripe interrupted by the even black comb of plantation pines.

It’s cold—way too cold, but his blood is racing hot and fast under his skin, alcohol like fire on his tongue. He sucks a breath in through his nose, smelling crisp night air and dark soil, soft and loamy underfoot.

Harrington huffs an exhale of dense frost, marching steadily at his side, twigs popping. “Guess I’m not,” he says cheerfully. “I mean, normally, maybe, but tonight?” He hugs his coat tighter around him, smiling, teeth and eyes shining wet in the moonlight. “Tonight I guess I don’t give a sh*t.”

“Uh huh,” Billy says doubtfully. Even he’s a bit creeped out, out here. The others are far enough up ahead that he can only make out the hum of their voices, Willa’s pitched a little more shrill than the others.

A twig snaps somewhere and Billy can’t say for sure if it’s come from them or the group ahead or somewhere else. The pines are tall enough and spaced out enough that they don’t really need to duck or even pick their footing, but every now and then he gets the urgent brain nag of a feeling he’s about to tread on something irregular in the murk—a root or a dug-out animal den. Or a skeleton...

Didn’t some kid go missing out here before they got into town? Didn’t that girl get eaten by a bear?

Jesus, don’t think about stuff like that, he warns himself. You're just high.

Harrington bumps up against his elbow, catching onto his jacket sleeve. He giggles.

Billy misses a step, staggering a little. “What?”

“Nothing,” Harrington says, but he giggles again and this time it makes Billy laugh too.

The laugh turns into an annoyed groan as he tries to scrub the stupid smile off his face, cheeks rubbery. “Aww what the f*ck, Harrington.”

“I’m just really…” He lets out a big sigh.

“What?” Billy asks, trying for annoyed. “You’re just really what, you drunk sack of sh*t?”

“Just really. Like. You’re just like, a simple guy, you know?”

Something rustles nearby, a twig popping again, close enough to startle, and they both jump and Harrington’s hand slips off his sleeve, his knuckles snagging against Billy’s. They both flinch away at the rubber-band snap of static electricity.

Harrington laughs a frosty plume. “Zap.”

“Stop it.”

“You stop it. You’re the one going round electrocuting people.”

“It’s static, sh*tbrains,” he says, “It takes two.” But he grabs for him anyway, wanting to shock him again. Harrington dances out of reach, pulling some hilarious karate move sh*t to dodge Billy’s reaching fingers, his laughter turning raspy and manic, bouncing off the trees like music.

They stop for a breath and Billy feels light-headed, giddy, happiness diffusing through him like sparkling honey. If Harrington ran right now he would chase him. He could probably climb a tree after him if he had to. Everything smells green, like crushed needles and sap, the night so perfectly still without laughter to fill it, the trees leaning a little closer, maybe, only when he fixes his stare on them for long enough.

“I wonder why that happens,” Harrington gasps a little while later after they’ve both given up.

Billy snorts. “It’s basic science—electrons and sh*t. Because of the weather.”

“Gee thanks for the lesson, Mr. Mundy. What’s next, quadratic equations?”

“Like you would know one if you heard it.”

“Ha!” Harrington’s face scrunches up. “E equals the square root…”

“Don’t hurt yourself, Einstein.”

He shakes his head, wide-eyed, smiling when nothing comes. “Wow, I am like, really really high.”

“And drunk.”

“And drunk,” Harrington agrees. He rakes his hands up through his hair, sighing. “But I feel… Do you feel that?”

“Yeah,” Billy says gruffly.

Harrington’s shaking his head again. “I would have never done this, you know—not with Tommy, before. We always. I mean, it was my fault. I only wanted to go where I knew things would be easy. I always took us to the same places. The same people.”

Billy doesn’t answer, picking his way over a clod of turned earth.

Harrington waves his arms around at the woods. “Out here? Anything could happen.”

“Something bad could happen.”

“No. No, I don’t think so. I feel good.”

“Bad sh*t happens when you feel good sometimes.” He doesn’t know why he has to say it like that. He feels great. He does.

Harrington scoffs. “Do you ever have a good time?”

“I’m always having a good time, Harrington. No one’s having a better time than me.”

Harrington twists around, walking backwards, the doubtful arch of his eyebrow pretty judgmental for someone out of his tree. “Yeah, you’re the life of the party.”

Billy swallows down a disbelieving laugh. “You trying to start a fight?”

Harrington shrugs, spinning back around and only tripping a little bit. “Maybe. I really. I just…want to let go. I want to dance or something, man. Don’t you want to?”

He does. He really does. There’s a beat skipping just under is pulse, urging him to find some music, to move. The pill is fizzing away inside him, he knows, a promise right there waiting for him. It can pull him down and under if he’ll just let it.

He remembers now, that night—walking away from the party—drunk, his strides heavy and loose. He’d been hypnotized by the sight and sound of his own boots clump-clump-clumping along the neon line of the road shoulder, one foot after the other, programmed to just keep going somewhere, anywhere, so long as he didn’t look up or think about where.

And then Harrington had been there, behind the glare of headlights:

“Where you going, Hargrove?”

The ground under his feet now is just dirt. It doesn’t point in any direction at all. It doesn’t lead anywhere.

“I want to,” he says, catching the trailing thread of their conversation, forgetting what came before.

It’s too dark to tell for sure, but he knows Harrington’s beaming behind a warm cloud of breath.

“C’mon,” he says, rolling his eyes to shuck off the moment. “We better keep moving.” He shoves Harrington by the shoulder to turn him around, hand lingering in case he trips again. “We lose the others, we’ll never make it to the party.”

Harrington chuckles but he starts walking again, matching Billy’s strides. “I don’t mind,” he says next to him. “This is fine with me.”

They keep walking, the shush of their footsteps soothing, the trees starting to thin a little, laughter and noise up ahead. Billy’s glad for the small time he has left in the dark, glad no one can see his face—how he feels, like Harrington’s just snapped him like a glowstick—lit up, all the way through.

Chapter 14: not with claws and all that (part four)

Chapter Text

As raves go, it’s not the worst he’s ever seen.

He went to one under a bridge once—just something he stumbled onto by accident one summer, hanging around the strip mall when school was out, coded directions on the tear off part of a lost and found flyer. It couldn’t have been more than two dozen people, and some of those just the local homeless—more of an excuse for base heads to meet up and swap pills and tapes than anything else. He’d gone alone and been the youngest one there by far and it had been his first time getting high too; he came to the next morning in a sand dune, parched and covered in bug bites, his neck smeared with tacky blood from his newly pierced ear. He wasn’t going to let that happen to Harrington.

At least, that had definitely been his intention earlier in the night.

He’s sure he remembers deciding it, the mire of his thoughts crystallizing into a nice neat purpose—but somehow it’s dissolved away again, scattered, the beer blackout he’s been flirting with since they left the diner finally catching up with him, breathing down his neck, making a confusing soup out of things. One moment he’s playing Hansel and Gretel with Harrington in the woods, the both of them talking excitedly over each other, rabid and breathless, the distant clash of music growing closer, and then the next—

Bam. He’s at the party.

He gives up fumbling to get a spark out of his lighter, straightening, frowning around his unlit stick.

He’s in...some sort of factory—is what he’s put together so far. Dead machinery stacked up in vague shapes at the muddy-dark edges, a mosaic of broken windows, moonlight disappearing up into the rafters above. It smells rank, damp, like wet cardboard and rat sh*t...something faintly metallic that tickles the back of his sinuses like a burr.

The crowd fills the room wall to wall, a seething swamp of bodies packing tighter towards the center of the floor, more people than he ever would have thought lived in Hawkins. But of course they’re all out-of-towners—drifters from all over the county come to catch a show and party with their own kind. And the music...

The music—(holy f*cking sh*t). Sludgy amateur thrash metal. Beautiful. So loud it rattles his teeth.

His eyes snag on Willa on the fringes of the crowd at the same moment as the music cuts out, feedback whining. Someone taps the mic, slurs an apology that’s too fuzzed-out with static to decipher and a groan goes up all over. Willa’s one of them, shouting something crude before she clocks him, breaking away from her group.

“Took you long enough.” She hooks bodily into his side, hands sleeking under his jacket. “Thought maybe you’d ditched us. Where’s your boyfriend?”

He blinks at her. The room is cold but she’s sweating already—been dancing, his brain supplies—hair stuck to her neck in damp whorls, makeup smeary under her eyes. It hasn’t been that long—has it?

He scrapes back through his recent memory, running the tape: the diner, the truck, the road, the woods. Harrington. Harrington licking up the pill. Harrington laughing, walking next to him. Harrington sharing his heartfelt opinions on his dad’s buzzkill retail leasing business, on the prospects of the Indianapolis Colts, on the list of foods he thinks would taste better if they were waffle shaped. And then…Then what comes after is just a big stuttering mess.

He thinks Harrington might've said something about going to 'yackitally tactically.' Had Billy been supposed to wait? Had he been waiting and Harrington forgot about him? Maybe he went on ahead and he’s out amongst it already, in the crowd. He had said he wanted to dance...

He scours the mob of party-goers, the looser scatter of people smoking and talking in small groups on the outskirts, his eyes peeled for a familiar figure, but it’s too big of a space. Too many dark corners and too many people packed together in it. An indistinguishable thrashing jumping mob of teased and permed hair and black clothing.

Willa might have been onto something with the glowsticks.

And then it registers what she just said and he feels himself stiffen, lip curling.

“Whoa, kujo,” she starts at the hard look on his face, laughing, but stops short at his hand on her wrist, wrenching it slow but firm out from under his shirt. She winces but goes pliant in his grip, free hand snaking up to grab him by the chin, squeezing playfully at his frown. “It’s just a joke, curly. Come on, come party with me. Live a little.”

He goes to say something like, I don’t do anything little, but that’s when the music flares up again, reconnected, the pounding shred of an electric guitar rending the room apart and—holy sh*t. His eardrums throb. If it isn’t the best and loudest thing he’s ever heard. It draws a smile out of him instantly. He only realizes when he catches Willa’s face and she’s smiling back at him knowingly.

People have started moving again, dancing, moshing, cheering—although it’s inaudible over the wail of a second guitar joining in, dueling. The sound moves through the crowd like a pulse, drawing them in tighter, faster. It’s a shrieking thundering wave that crashes over them and around, nothing to absorb it, racketing off the concrete and steel.

It turns the ecstasy in his blood into warm seltzer.

He forgets about Willa, swept up in the clash and kerrang, the vivid assault of noise, gravitating towards it like a moth—until he feels her tugging on his belt, dragging him on a more purposeful route. He lets her weave them through the formless clumps of loners and loiterers, headed for the thick of it, the beating heart. Looking at the back of her head, getting pulled along in her wake—it gives him this feeling like they never left the party at the farmhouse. Like she’s been pulling him and he’s been lurching after her this whole time, through one giant unending party, and this is just the continuation of it.

Except then he remembers, and puts his heels down, looking.

“Leave him,” Willa shouts in his ear, tip-toeing up against him to do it. “He’ll be fine.”

He ignores her. It’s easy to do—the music so loud her words barely come together in his brain anyway. But it’s even harder to canvas the room from inside the beast, the crowd jumping, hemming him in, faces indistinct and hazy in the dark, streaked with glowing neon. None of them are him. He could be f*cking anywhere.

“He’s a big boy.” Her voice is harder this time, lips moving wet against his ear. “He can do what he wants. Let him figure it out himself.”

And the thing is…

The thing is, she’s right.

This is what Harrington wants—what he asked for. This is what he’s been hurtling towards the whole night, letting Billy steer him, trusting him of all people to be the guardrails on their little misadventure. A night to not give a sh*t—that’s what he’d as good as said. Fun with no consequences.

Well, Billy’s made good on the half he knows how to. Set him loose in this anonymous tangle of strangers who are gonna rough him up and show him a good time.

And it’s not like Harrington even really needs Billy to look out for him either; the world—even this one...it takes care of guys like Steve Harrington. He’ll come out the other side of this just fine—with a bit of whiplash and a sore head, sure, but nothing he can’t shower off.

And Billy?

A night like this is probably the best thing he could hope to find in a town like Hawkins: a small pocket of time and space where he actually fits.

It’s a party for f*ck’s sake. The only time he ever feels right. The only thing that works.

One of Willa’s nails scratches along his jaw, bringing him back.

She looks like the definition of a good time: her f*cked up yellow hair, her dirty laugh, her tit* under her t-shirt that he’s already seen once tonight and had pressed against him. She’s not wearing a bra. Maybe not wearing panties either. She’ll stomp all over his feet when they dance and not apologize. He remembers that pretty well, and he likes that about her too.

Fun with no consequences.

And now her hand is dropping away, impatient and she’s giving up, leaving, so he snatches at her, picks her up. If she yelps he can’t hear it. He spins her around—a quick whirl in the tight space between bodies—and sets her down again and she stumbles back against the wall of people dancing behind her, dizzy, pupils huge when they refocus on him, teeth pinched into her smiling bottom lip.

It’s him who pulls her this time, throwing them both straight into the crush of people, cutting a line to where it’s loudest—to where the crowd is thickest, most violent. That’s the best part. That’s the part he wants at.

The first few blows of elbows and shoulders jar him until he falls into rhythm with them, jumping, pushing back. Eventually he can drag them no further, the diehards closing ranks, packed in too tight. He’s brought them to where the heaving is hardest, the source of the music a small mountain of amplifiers and two guys with long curtains of hair bent over their rigs.

They’re still battling, the same filthy unending riff over and over and over and over, bashing out of the speakers so loud at this distance the distortion is like a saw in his brain, an ache in his jaw. Then one of them rips out into a squalling, luscious solo and the crowd sucks inwards and out, a line of people breaking through, sliding towards them like a white-water rapid.

Willa twists, stepping into his arms, using him like a shield against the worst of the crush and he takes it all down his back, colliding with her in a way he doesn’t need to worry about, that makes her grin turned up at him turn sharper.

It’s still cold but in the pack of bodies they dance until he’s sweat his hair flat, sweat through his shirt, lost the last few buttons. Willa’s bracketed in his arms, her hands slipping over his chest. Someone bumps into him so hard his chin clunks against the top of her head painfully and she surges up against him, her mouth reaching for his.

He opens his eyes and closes them again and her tongue is stroking up over his chin, teeth latching onto his lip, pulling. He chases the feeling down and kisses her. He can’t feel her tongue in his mouth, it’s just slick wet pressure, as easy as the music, the feeling trembling down the front of his body, sparking in his stomach. She pulls away, turning in his arms, wrapping them around her, and they’re dancing again.

It becomes a game. He’ll manhandle her around, wanting to kiss, wanting the dizzying up-down thud of the crowd with him and her in it and the rainbow glow of her necklace burning warm behind his eyelids, then she’ll want to dance, to shake her hair out and grind her ass up against him, waiting for his restless pulling, coming easy but teasing away too soon.

He’s so thirsty. For her mouth. For anything.

The guitar solo goes on and on, changes into something else; something else again.

“I’ll get us a drink,” Willa mouths into him, pushing the words straight into his mouth over the alien-frequency scream of a Fender. Maybe he’s telepathic. He doesn’t remember speaking. His body is singing out, pulsing, wanting water, beer, anything.

Willa’s gone a long time. Maybe not too long at all. It’s hard to tell with the way one song bleeds and growls into another.

He dances with a new girl for a while but she doesn’t give a sh*t about him or care about how thirsty he is and when he tries to kiss her, she slams a hand into his chest, pushing him away so hard he actually loses his footing, the crowd pummeling him until he finds his feet, the edge of his boot clipping over something hard and uneven, some fixture stripped down to bolts on the dusty concrete.

The music finally breaks for a moment, his ears ringing in the trough of fading reverb, but inside the same breath it kicks back up again, speedier this time. Harder, frenzied. Not something to dance to. Just raw angry, face-melting sound. It puts an energy out onto the floor you can feel buzzing in your marrow, welling up in his fault lines: a cup spilling over. Violence he needs to shake out.

When the fight breaks out—bursting through the wall of bodies in front of him—it’s like he caused it. Like he magnetized it to him—and he throws himself into the fray.

And really, it’s just another kind of dancing: a little angrier, a little more vicious. He feels so strong, his boots trying to find other boots to stomp on. A pocket of space opens up a few feet away and a guy spins loose into it, throwing punches, snarling. Billy squeezes himself free of the scrum to meet him—misses, overshoots, gets sucked up in the slipstream of bodies going the wrong way. And then Harrington is there.

They smile at each other in stunned recognition, Harrington caught brawling or dancing, Billy striving futilely against the current of the mosh pit like a cork in a thresher. It’s just a moment of friction in time: something that never had to happen inside of an even bigger storm of chance meetings and near misses...

And then the throng closes up between them again.

Harrington shouts something, jumping to keep sight of Billy above the swarm. But then hes gone. Pulled away with a tearaway wail of a high chord like an ice-pick between the eyes, his heart dropping inside his chest—

And then he’s back up again, just a glimpse of him, a little closer, desperate. An arm jags out from the melee, seeking, and Billy doesn’t need to think; he grabs a hold, blind, and wrenches, and—

Harrington slams into him like a f*cking line-backer. Billy just about bites through his tongue on impact, the two of them crashing together into a wall of shoving hands, a stumbling tangle, holding each other upright, laughing incredulously.

He’s lost the coat again, is Billy’s first cogent thought, his t-shirt soaked through and clinging, hair shattered in a dozen different directions. He’s already shouting a story at him, hands chopping through the air under Billy’s nose, stuffed in his fringe, waving. There’s a fresh pink scratch on his neck and his eyes are like two spinning dimes.

“What?” Billy shouts back, right in his face.

Harrington shouts something but Billy can’t hear him. Watches as he throws his head back and laughs, trying again, closer, his chin bumping Billy’s temple. “I’ve been in the pit!” he shouts. Billy shakes his head. “Been in the pit,” he tries again, more enunciated. His hands come to wrap around Billy’s biceps, tugging him away from the jostling horde at his back, bracing him from the press at his front.

“The pit?” Billy shouts into his ear in turn, grabbing him back, getting a mouthful of his hair. Harrington’s doing that magic tuning fork thing again, the music vibrating through him at every point of contact, his insides quivering like a guitar string that’s been strummed.

“Pit,” Harrington yells back, and pulls away.

He lets Harrington turn him, pointing him. Over the sea of heads he can just make out something: a tin roof, some sort of structure in the middle of the floor: a covered stair. The doorway yawns open, dark and smoky, the crush of people spilling down into it like a sinkhole.

Nope. No way. He shakes his head: Are you f*cking nuts? And then, because Harrington is giving him blown-out megawatt puppy eyes: “Bad idea!”

“Come with me,” Harrington yells, breath flammable, sweet as schnapps, wrenching Billy by the jacket.

He darts another glance at the stair, his mind jumping back to the quiet space of the school darkroom, the red light, Harrington and his eyes big and liquid and black in his pale face. “I thought it was going to be dark forever…”

“No bat!” he tries.

An uncomprehending smile: Harrington’s eyes locked on his mouth. “Huh?”

“Rats!” Billy shows with his hands: Giant ones, remember? He repeats, stronger, miming. “No bat.”

Harrington’s head tips back, laughing wildly, his grip on Billy’s denim jacket pulling tight. “You!” he shouts, shaking him to demonstrate, the force knocking their knees together. He pushes a knuckle into Billy’s solar plexus for punctuation: You.

Billy shakes his head. Without thinking, he grabs him by the neck, pressing the corner of his thumb into the scratch. Dangerous, he’s trying to say, without having to be Billy Hargrove saying that something is too dangerous. Harrington teeters towards him, dazed, and Billy can feel the jut of his voice box moving, swallowing, under his thumb—realizes he has his whole hand wrapped around the side of Harrington’s neck, pulse beating high and thready under the damp skin.

Harrington thinks he’s harmless—is opening his mouth to say: This? This is nothing. And Billy’s not going to fight him this time. He’s not going to be the one to decide what is and isn’t dangerous. Because apparently he doesn’t f*cking know anymore.

Which is, of course, when some drunk asshole careens away from a group of headbangers and slams into Harrington’s side, pitching him forward, his elbow colliding sharply with Billy’s ribs. Billy hauls him upright and out of the way, scowling.

I’m good, Harrington’s pat on his shoulder says. He’s already jumping up and down again, pulling Billy with him, dungeon quest forgotten.

For a handful of glorious seconds, Billy gets to just watch him. His eyes are closed, head banging, thrashing around in time with the relentless crunch of the guitarists trying to blow out a speaker. Christ, he’s even putting a groove on it somehow, shoulders and spine loose, hair bouncing.

Preppy prom king Steve Harrington jamming out to dirty garage spank metal:

It’s so f*cking far beyond his control how much he likes it.

He knows the laugh that comes out of him is unhinged. He can’t hear it and neither can anyone else. Although Harrington has heard it before, just the once. The music is a throb in his chest that spreads through him and it’s so good. So easy. Like putting his foot on the gas pedal, all the way to the floor, and letting go.

He closes his eyes.

Dancing next to Harrington is different than with Willa. Harrington doesn’t need him, doesn’t tuck himself inside Billy’s space away from the crowd. He seeks it out, trusts the heaving wall of bodies to keep them in place, bouncing into it, letting it squash them back together. Billy doesn’t even need to see him to know he’s there. He keeps his eyes shut, slams his head down and back up, curls heavy with sweat. Lets himself be buffeted, staggering into hard shoulders, a spine ribbing against his back—someone behind him thumping up and down to the same beat.

He’s jumping. And Harrington’s jumping; his sneakers keep coming down on Billy’s toes, out of sync, and finally—finally—Billy’s rolling too deep to care. He holds onto the sweaty crook of Harrington’s elbow. His wrist. His shoulder. The hem of his clammy t-shirt and the cap of his sleeve. Harrington is too much to hold and not ever enough. Slippery. Smiling.

Billy can feel the next solo coming on before it even happens, the chords bending through him and out, the soaring squealing bash of it when it comes like a kick in the ribs, his heart right there with it doing 220 bpm, tremolo wobbling in his ears.

Each song feels like it goes on forever, whining into something different—boundaryless frenetic sound that builds and builds and swallows itself around in a circle.

And then there’s some sort of commotion—a shriek—a girl falling off someone’s shoulders, finding air, pitching down on top and through the canopy of limbs. Everyone near enough piles in quick to get her up off the floor, Billy included, and when he trips free of the chaos, Harrington is gone again. Probably for good this time.

He carves back through the dancing looking for him anyway. Finds the rusted edge of a massive steel pillar to brace against for height. But every face that turns to look up at him is the wrong one; a confusing roiling mass of strangers.

Instead, he finds Willa, colliding with her by chance as he steps down.

“Water,” she shouts in his ear, pushing a bottle up to his mouth.

He takes it from her, chugging until the soft plastic collapses in on itself. He tosses the empty bottle overhead when he’s done, watching it bounce away into the crowd, disappearing. Lost.

Lost, lost, lost—f*ck!

Willa’s hands wind around him, drawing herself in close.

“Gotta find him,” he says even has she strokes a hand up over his chin, over his mouth, pushing it shut. Her skin is damp and salty and the touch makes him shiver all over, still thirsty, and he licks without thinking, pulling her in, seeking more.

He bends to kiss her, down, and down, until his eyes pop open and he sees she’s tilting her head away, creating a teasing distance between their mouths. He doesn’t want that any more. No more games, his hands on her hips say, yanking her weight up onto him, thigh sliding between hers. That gets a gasp, breath hot on the tingling skin of his lower lip: waxy lipstick and cigarettes.

They’re not kissing yet. One of her hands finds its way into the tangled hair at his nape and her eyes sparkle, remembering, fingers balling tight. His eyes fall shut. He probably makes a sound, pleasure spiking in his stomach, getting hard, finding the line of her fly to press against and rub up into and—

God, Christ, that’s—

Hands find his waist. She levers herself up tighter against him, turning the up-down jump of the crowd into a rhythm that’s something more grinding. His hands rub over the ass of her jeans, looking for purchase, trying to get her off her feet.

He forgets about the kiss, concentrating on the slow sharp friction of his groin against hers, his eyes snapping open in shock at the first lick of her tongue in his open mouth. It’s like closing a circuit, nerves lighting up, brain to balls. He groans loudly into her, kissing back.

He can feel her laughing against his lips, buzzing, the feeling spreading over his face. Ha-ha-ha.

He groans again, weak, no control over it, his fingers clawing hard, riding her up onto his thigh to get her gasping too, squirming on him. She moans, bucking hard and decisive up against him, her hand slipping down his chest, over his abs, the scratch of her nails almost making him lose it. She gets her hand between them somehow, palming him hot through his jeans.

Her hand tightens over him and she gasps, pleased, in his ear, “Oh, you like me again, huh?”

He barely registers her saying it, stuck on a loop of those nails stroking down his stomach, her palm so impossibly hot over his jeans, squeezing his dick like a pro.

They’ve found a beat now that’s just perfect, the sound like walloping, everyone around them moving with it, sinuous as a pulse in the semi-dark. She tugs his hair again, teeth finding his earlobe, scraping over the earring, pulling sharp, heel of her palm rubbing a firm line over his co*ck, and he feels his brain go loose.

“I like you,” he gasps into the bolt of her jaw. His forehead drops against her shoulder, rolling, eyes pinched shut. “I always like you.”

Laughter vibrating against his chest. “Yeah?”

He nods, mouth smearing over her collarbone, hips circling against her hands so that the seam works against him just right. The music is pounding in him like a heartbeat, stirring the awful shameful words up inside him, coming out of him all broken up:

“I think about you all the time.”

He hikes her up, straining.

“You’re all I think about.”

He rubs his stubble against the warm curve of her neck, hands pulling harder. “I want you,” he gasps, like a sob. “I want you—so bad.”

She grabs him hard through his jeans and his jaw drops open, wet against her neck. He didn’t know he was so close but now the feeling is like the snap of a giant rubber band in his gut, his skin growing tight all over.

“I hate it,” he chokes out, face hot, rutting up. “I hate it. I—”

The cold air is a shock on his back as she pushes him, walking him backwards out of the crowd. He flops backwards when his legs hit something soft—an old two-seater couch. They’re at the edge of the building already where the crowd is thinner, where the music isn’t so jarringly consumingly loud. He feels like he’s reeling without it.

“f*ck, it’s freezing,” Willa hisses, slipping into his lap, hands fussing inside his jacket, her teeth already chattering. An awkward slide of limbs and tangled hands and she’s on her feet again, standing over him—“Wait here”—followed by something that he doesn’t catch. He just nods, watching her pick her away across the floor, disappearing behind a knot of danced out, sweaty-faced bystanders.

He shifts on the couch, wedged in between the armrest and another couple going at it hot and heavy. Silvery torn-open condom wrappers and steel filings on the floor at his feet.

He tries not to think beyond his hard-on aching between his legs. It isn’t long at all before she’s back, changed, straddling him with a knee on either side, settling her full weight into his lap slow, like a reward, pinning him down into the crusty cushions.

He’s thirsty again but her mouth is right there this time, closing on him, her tongue curling slick behind his teeth. He wants to pull her thighs apart more, yank her down onto him where and how and how fast he needs her, but his arms feel too heavy, clumsy, body sinking, prickling all over like a slept-on arm.

It doesn’t matter. He can have this. This will work.

Like a goddamn angel of mercy she’s grabbing his hand, no nonsense, guiding it down between them, down the front of her jeans, his fingers slipping slick over her cl*t and down, the angle too tight to hook more than a fingertip inside her, but it doesn’t matter. It’s enough. She goes loose on him, hips moving quick and shuddery, jerking forward and back, doing the work for him.

He mouths at her neck. She smells different under the cigarettes now, something warm and familiar that goes straight to his dick. It makes him crazy for her, his hips seeking up for friction, his breath coming out in half groans on her damp skin, and just like that he knows he’s going to come in his pants—the relief of it making him shake, heat curling low and urgent in his gut, hips rubbing up against the crotch of her jeans tight and desperate and just right. He does it again, the pleasure knife-sharp, huffing greedily at that warm note of cologne under her ear. His free hand circles around her waist through the thick coat, grinding up again, trying to nose in past the collar, to get more—

His eyes snap open as he jerks back away from her. She’s already leaning in again, out of it, mouth open for another kiss. His knuckles tighten over her shoulders, jerking her back.

“How—?” His voice breaks, hoarse. He clenches his jaw, grits, “Where’d you get this?”

A snort. She brushes his grip off, trying to resettle in his lap, get them going again. But it’s knitting together in his brain now, even as he tries to pull it back apart. Too late. His hard-on is gone so fast he’s almost goddamn woozy in the wake of it, pleasure curdling, going cold like lead in his stomach. He lurches to his feet, dumping her out of his lap.

“What is your issue?” she whines, finally irritated.

“Where the f*ck did you get that?” he snarls, half reaching for the collar of the thick camel coat before he remembers himself, snatching his hand back.

Her eyebrows shoot up, looking at him like he’s insane, and maybe he is. He feels sick, seedy. He’s definitely not rolling anymore. Or maybe he is, but it’s turned bad—real bad.

Oh man, is he gonna ralph?

“Your friend gave it to me,” she explains, very slow. “I told you, he left it with Donny ages ago. It’s cool.”

“No,” he starts. “You—” His stomach wobbles—lurches, his throat locking shut.

Oh. Yeah. He’s gonna ralph.

Her face folds, a disgusted smear as he turns, staggering away towards the exit. Thank God it’s close: a cut-out of pale gray wavering in the center of his pin-holing vision; outside, the wash of thin cold air and ash.

He manages to walk pretty normally around the side of the building, staggering only the last few steps and sinking down into a squat behind the nearest pile of scrap. He braces against the wall, breathing hard, staring at the packed dirt.

Nothing comes when he tries to retch, his stomach twisting over empty.

It’s cool it’s cool it’s cool, a voice is chanting in his head—Willa’s words. “It’s cool.”

Inside the warehouse the music is still thumping, crashing out into the frigid night.

Just breathe, he tells himself, temples pounding, counting a rhythm, better with each claggy rasp of air. He’s not a puss*. He’s not going to puke. He’s high. He’s having a good time. He just needs to wait for the world to stop spinning, for the ground to stop tilting so much between his knees…

Slowly it dawns on him that he’s okay; the rough brick icy under his palms, cold stroking the skin of his lower back where his jacket is rucked. The vice grip of nausea has receded, enough to stand, which he does, blinking the last of the dizziness away, scrubbing a hand over his mouth.

Something metallic crunches underfoot when he rounds the corner, a can skittering, heads turning at the noise. Despite what Willa had told them about the truck not being able to get close enough to park, there are a few cars pulled up in the gravelly clearing out front. A loose circle of hard-faced older types hanging out beside them, swapping cigarettes. Having conversations that Billy definitely doesn’t want to be his business.

He kicks the can out of his way, deliberate this time so they know he’s not sneaking, head down. But as he reaches the door his eyes snag on a leather jacket familiar in a way that snags at his attention.

It’s their driver. He’s sure Willa called him something earlier in the night—one of those instantly forgettable names.

He’s at the edge of the clearing, a little further out than the others, and he’s with the cops.

Billy stills.

The three of them are talking, smoking, shooting the sh*t in a way that looks polite enough from afar—but it’s not right. There’s too big of a distance between them. The younger fuzz a few paces off is stone-faced, tense, not bothering to pretend.

Leather jacket murmurs something and the older cop, the chief—Hopper, Billy remembers—chuckles dryly and puts his cigarette out. Does a cop scan. And his eyes land on Billy.

Billy backs up, quick as he can.

No one inside the factory is any the wiser, the party now in full swing, crowd beating up against the walls. The smoke is so thick after the clear air of outside it’s like a film he wants to rub out of his eyes.

He doesn’t waste any time strategizing. Way he figures it, he’s got about two minutes before those cops decide they’ve got grounds to be in here looking for underage drinkers, so he plunges right in, cutting the rudest line he dares straight through the center of the dancing, stumbling, craning his neck to look back at the open door, eyes fixed like he can stop them from coming bursting in just so long as he keeps looking. And then he can’t see it anymore anyway, swallowed up in the press of people.

Everyone he pushes past—grabs at, turns—could be Harrington. Guys with similar builds, pale faces, dark eyes catching his—doped and surprised and hostile as he elbows and shoulders them aside. He already knows they’re not him though. He knows where he’ll be.

He’s almost made it to the stair when the first ripple reaches him.

Someone yelps, just a little higher than the bending scream of guitars. A girl pushes into him, drink slopping down his front and he pushes her away, rocking up on his toes, looking back towards the door, and now there’s a flashlight, sweeping.

sh*t.

A few other heads start to turn.

He drops back down, trying to pull his thoughts together, the one half of him screaming to run, to find an exit ahead of the crowd, and the other saying, Down. You’ve got to go—

Down.

The dark maw of the stair is right in front of him. There’s a group wedged in the entrance, a bottleneck, people feeding down and others coming up, emerging wild-eyed and battered. Scratched up.

The pit. It might not be a sewer, but Harrington’s baby psycho bat sure would come in handy right about now.

He bulls through the mess of people at the entrance, the push-back furious, ribs horribly compressed for one moment, breathing again when his hand snags onto a rail and he pulls himself after it. His foot has barely found the first step before someone is shoving him from behind, urging him down faster. Billy shrugs them off, throwing his weight around properly now, shoving the slower ones out of his way as he descends.

It’s too dark to see but there’s a guitar grunting down here too, slower, grungier—less skilled. Distortion yowling, drawing the walls and ceiling in closer in the pitch black, suffocating, stinking of weed and sweat.

His feet hit the bottom stair at the same time as the first slice of a flashlight cuts across the room illuminating a writhing swath of faces wreathed in smoke.

The music dies in a series of ugly disconnecting crunches—the ear-splitting thump of a pulled aux cord—the space suddenly full of the clump of shifting feet and the dull roar of protest, clamoring for sound.

The light carves a figure eight over the sea of heads and Billy follows it desperately, struggling to make headway against the rift of people sober enough to realize what’s happening, driving back towards the stair.

The light sweeps through the crowd again, hunting. It doesn’t matter if the cops don’t find who they’re after—this place is a f*cking fire hazard if ever he saw one, he thinks, following it. And then—

Then, there he is. Just one turned head among many, for just one split second, pale and glassy-faced in the trembling corona of light, squinting. His eyes find Billy’s, or maybe he’s seeing nothing at all, blinded, mouth making a shape—and then he’s gone, lost in the anonymous darkness as the flashlight moves on, stroking over new faces.

“Cops!” someone bellows, finally, loud enough over the din of storming feet and shouting that it carries, a cry going up, panic catching. All over people are calling for each other in the dark, jumping, waving glowsticks like tokens.

It’s pandemonium.

The crowd surges towards the stair. Crashes against and around him like a wave, and then he’s among it: hot breath and panicked shouting, the crowd seething in on every side, a cacophony of noise without music.

He drives forward against the fleeing tide. A shoulder catches him hard and he trips, spun, struggling for clear footing, coming down on something alive and spongy—an annoyed smack of hands on his chest. Someone latches onto him, paws at his wrist, seeking, and away.

Another weaving flashlight, sparking over him this time, sharp in his eyes. He winces, ducking, working himself further into the room. There’s cursing. Laughter: stoners and punks and degenerates enjoying the turmoil—the chaos—and he’s one of them. Letting the rush of bodies squash and batter him upstream, shoulders clipping, turning him around and around and around. He doesn’t care. Keeps pushing his way forwards and through, disoriented and grinning—lost, but it doesn’t matter.

In the dark they’ll find each other.

Chapter 15: not with claws and all that (part five)

Chapter Text

Harrington makes it one step onto his lawn and faceplants, Billy stumbling over his sprawled legs, their ride already pulling away from the curb, door rolling shut behind them with a snap. He rights himself just in time to watch the van circle out of the cul-de-sac at a paranoid crawl, windows full of blue smoke.

A light flicks on behind a pair of curtained windows.

f*cking Hawkins.

“Up you get.”

“M’up,” Harrington says, muffled.

Billy grunts back, meaning to disagree, but his own legs don’t seem to have gotten the message, feet sliding messily on the curb. He wobbles down next to Harrington’s shoes—(just for a second, just until everything stops see-sawing)—frowning at the seep of cold from the frosty grass bleeding right through the ass of his jeans.

“Night.”

Billy doesn’t answer, concentrating on breathing carefully between his knees. At some point during the ride he quit singing and started shivering, hard, getting dizzy in a mean way, mouth filling up with saliva he couldn’t spit out the window fast enough. He takes a breath in through his nose, heaving himself up, exhales long through his mouth, manages, “Neighbors.”

“Crap,” Harrington says, but he’s up on his feet in a sudden lurch of movement, legs like a baby colt, weaving some sort of line across the lawn towards his front door. Billy follows at an amused distance, waiting behind him under the downlights, simultaneously keeping an eye out for Harrington’s rubber-neck neighbors and trying to chafe the feeling back into his arms. A groan starts in the back of his throat: the sky is already that weird velvety indigo that comes close before sunrise and Harrington’s taking forever—long enough for Billy to realize that the annoying chattering noise he’s been hearing is the sound of his own damned teeth. The annoyed groan turns into a growl.

“I got it, I got it,” Harrington mutters to himself, bent over in front of the door, flapping at his pockets for his keys—coat, chest, jeans—coat again. He slides his hands into his seat pockets, shuffling back over the stoop a few paces, gaining momentum until Billy stops him with a not ungentle shove. “A-ha.”

Harrington holds up his keys, jingling them victoriously.

Billy glares at the big reveal, his hands tucked tight under his armpits. “In,” he says. “In, in, in.”

Harrington’s grin slides into something somewhere left of sh*tfaced. “Aw, you cold, California?”

“f*ck off,” he grits, but it’s too late—Harrington’s trying to hook an arm around his neck, the same sort of frisky jock move he occasionally pulls on Tommy. Billy shucks him off with a growl, snatching the keys off him. Harrington stays glued onto his back though, having a hell of a time to himself trying to stop Billy from getting the key near the door, reaching over his shoulder to hit the doorbell a bunch of times before Billy manages to cut him off with an elbow to the ribs.

“Hey sh*thead,” he says, incredulous, when the door swings open at the first push of the key in the lock. “Forget to lock up?”

Harrington says nothing, staggering past him into the house without a backwards glance, leaving Billy blinking on the stoop to close up after him.

He shuts the door and drops the keys on the side-table, squinting around the brightly lit entrance. Harrington’s house is just as flashy as the last time he saw it—lofty raked ceilings butterscotch yellow in the lamplight, shiny wooden floors and clean white walls; perfect as a picture out of a magazine. It’s bigger without all the people and music and something about it makes him feel uneasy. Maybe it’s just that he can’t seem to stop his eyes darting up to the top of the stairs, waiting for the picture to complete.

He rubs a hand down his face, trying to shake the feeling of being in a strange house in the middle of the night when everything is supposed to be dark and still and asleep, but all the lights are on and Harrington is thumping around somewhere around the corner, careless, the noise carrying around the airy space—and still the landing stays empty.

One more scoping look and he follows the sounds of thumping and muttering, stepping around the discarded inside-out lump of Harrington’s coat, past one dark splat of a glove and then the other.

Harrington’s halfway across his living room, down to just his t-shirt and jeans, trying to walk and tug one of his Nikes off at the same time. They’re not so pristine anymore, Billy finds himself thinking—smeared with mud and stamped-on tread prints, some of them probably Billy’s. Harrington catches his uncomprehending stare with a smile, yanking the sneaker off finally and tossing it aside. “I wanna swim.”

“It’s winter, asshole.”

Harrington scoffs.

Oh, that’s right: heated. He remembers. His eyes dart to the pool outside. It’s lit up already, glowing, steaming gently in the frigid air like something out of a p*rno or a horror movie.

It’s…kind of a great idea. A giant warm bathtub to sink his frozen limbs into. And he’d be lying if he said he hasn’t wanted in that pool since he first saw it—since he first heard about it. No way he’s going to admit that though.

“Gotta say, this is kind of a smooth move, Harrington.”

Harrington looks up from fumbling with the latch. “Huh?”

“This how you get all the good girls outta their panties?”

“Oh.” Harrington wavers on his feet. “No,” he says, but then frowns like he’s figuring out different. He snorts, considering. “Maybe.”

Billy rolls his eyes but starts winging out of his jacket like, invitation accepted, which makes Harrington beam.

Harrington is in such a rush he slams the pool door open hard enough it bounces half closed again, blinds swinging in Billy’s face when he steps out after him. He hisses. The cold is immediate; twice as bad for having escaped it for all of two minutes. His skin prickles as he strips out of his shirt, eyeing Harrington for cues only to see him flop boneless into the deep end of pool, still mostly dressed, sucked under in an ugly splash.

He blurts a laugh, kicking out of his boots, not bothering with his jeans and socks. He slides right in at the edge of the pool, the warm water closing in over his calves—thighs—waist—chest—as he lowers himself, a sigh of relief working its way up out of him as he releases the side, sinking in up to his neck.

Damn that’s...

He blinks warm steam out of his eyes, just enjoying the feeling of not being cold, letting the water take his weight for a moment, bones turning rubbery. The water moves around him the same temperature as blood, feeling like nothing at all as he takes an exploratory stroke forward.

“Good, right?” Harrington says, sliding over beside him.

“Yeah,” he admits, kicking to stay in place with his jeans awkward and heavy, spitting at the water that laps up over his chin and into mouth. “Yeah, it’s…” He catches the smug look Harrington’s trying to bury under the surface. “Okay,” he finishes, feeling too good to even muster up a decent scowl.

Harrington just smiles bigger, tilting his head up to speak. “Go under.”

“Huh?”

Harrington paddles, water rippling. “Go under,” he says again. “Look.” And he grabs his nose and ducks, sinking out of sight so that Billy’s left looking at a wobbling patch of bubbles.

He paddles, head blank, staring on the cloud of dark hair sinking down, down, down for an indeterminate span of seconds. Then he pinches his eyes shut and does the same. The water closes over his head and the world—

Falls away.

It’s almost as good as getting tranq’d. Warm water sweeps up over his face, lifting his hair at the roots, pressing light against his closed eyelids. The tinny whine of the amplifiers he hadn’t realized he was still hearing cuts out too, water plugging up his ears with its own softer sound, low and vast, shifting. He lets out a breath, bubbles streaming, tickling up over his cheeks. He can hear Harrington nearby, the warp and shift of water churning around him as he moves, the fizz of air bubbles escaping upwards. He floats, forgets about his see-sawing stomach, the hunger and nausea—how cold he was a minute ago. He’s still bone-tired, still sore all over from the mosh pit, but the slow thawing warmth of the water is working its way in, smoothing it all away.

He pops up, breaking the surface with a gasp, cool air kissing his wet cheeks. The inner-ear whine resumes immediately, but it’s dimmer now, somewhere underneath the shush and splash of water at the pool edges, the hum of the filter. Harrington pops up in front of him a moment later, smirking, though it’s kind of hard to tell underneath his hair stuck in a glossy sheet all the way down to his chin. He swats it away to speak, shaking his head like a dog. “See?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s the best.” Harrington pulls himself around in a circle, creating little waves with his hands. “S’too cold out. Let’s just stay here until we don’t want to die. Until morning.”

“Harrington. It is morning.”

And it is too. There’s a blush at the edges of the sky, that extra layer of stillness and quiet like the world is between exhale and inhale. He knows from experience how quickly it happens from here, how all of a sudden it’s light out and all the decent people are up and making noise, making a start on their new day when you’re still limping towards the finish line of yours. But for the time being, Harrington’s street is still quiet—still sleeping.

“Huh,” Harrington says, bemused. He flips onto his back, floating, to see for himself.

Billy leaves him to it. He does a lap. The pool is big enough for it. He sticks to the sides, breast-stroking around the perimeter, past the step ladder and under the diving board. There’s an enjoyable rhythm to it, the moments of strange warbled underwater quiet, and the bracing squeeze of cold as his head breaks the surface.

He checks on Harrington a couple of times, just to make sure he’s still floating the right way up.

He is. And goddamn if he isn’t stargazing again.

“You gotta try this man,” Harrington says, spaced out. “It’s like…dizzy...but good.”

Billy shakes his head, mouth and nose underwater, pulling himself along in smooth strokes. “No,” he says briefly on the next upstroke, circling back. He takes a deep breath and ducks underwater, swimming under Harrington’s starfish body, popping up the other side smoothly like a trained seal. Harrington doesn’t seem to notice, or at least he doesn’t mind enough to turn and look, so Billy does it again, coming up on his other side.

There’s a kernel of temptation in him to do something terrible to him. Harrington’s left himself wide open to attack. Billy could pull his leg, sharp and sudden. Or maybe he could body-slam him, an arm bar right in the stomach. That would make a satisfyingly big splash. But the energy to do it, or maybe the right time, never comes, and the feeling stays at a simmer, a thing he can ignore in favor of watching Harrington do nothing but drift.

“Too cool for stars, huh,” Harrington says after a while.

“I seen ‘em.”

Harrington snorts. “I used to watch them all the time when I was little.” His hands swish lazily in the water, keeping him in place against the slight current. “It was this whole thing with my dad, like, something for us to do together because he was always busy during the day. He learned it from his dad I think—all the names.” He laughs to himself, then cringes. “I was so annoying at sleepovers. I used to wake the other kids up, force them to come outside and look at them with me.”

“Wonder what that must be like.”

The side of Harrington’s mouth pulls into a wry smile. “There were complaints.” He lifts one hand up out of the water at his side, describing. “My parents even got me a telescope for one of my birthdays. This big nerdy thing? I loved it. I don’t know when I… Guess I got rid of it sometime before middle school—took up too much space, you know?”

Billy nods.

“It’s stupid but it still makes me feel…” He pauses, licking his lips. “I guess I just like to imagine they’re out there somewhere, looking. At the same time, maybe—even if they’re far away. Somewhere different, looking at different stars.”

“They’re the same.”

Harrington tweaks his head a little to frown at him.

“The stars,” Billy explains. “Same hemisphere, same stars.” And because Harrington is just staring at him now, he adds, “Unless they go to like, I don’t know…Australia.”

“Oh,” Harrington says after a long time. He seems kind of happy about it though, face turned up at the sky again, smiling softly, as if he’s seeing them different. Billy tears his eyes away, darts a glance upwards.

You can go out on the water at night in Cali, take a board out past the break where it’s calm and sit and look up at the stars—the exact same ones—and they’re probably just as clear and as pretty as they are above Hawkins right now. Harrington would dig it.

Looking at the sky like now just makes Billy feel small. Makes him think about all the shooting stars he hung out for as a kid that did sweet f*ck all for him. And...

And Harrington’s right. They do make him dizzy.

He swims over to the side of the pool to rest his arms on the edge and close his eyes for a bit.

It must be nice, he thinks, to have a heated pool to paddle around in whenever you’re bored or hungover or just want to impress some out-of-towner. It must be nice to be able to imagine something like that—a place out there in the world with someone looking up and thinking of you too.

Dammit. He shouldn’t have thought about his mom. Not when he’s coming down. He makes himself concentrate on other things instead. Like the weightless slow kick of his feet, the smell of chlorine drying on his skin, warm water lapping against his midsection, steam rising up under his chin.

The water at his side shifts. He slits his eyes open just enough to watch Harrington draw up at the pool wall beside him. He mimics Billy’s posture, laying his head on one arm, flicking a little water at Billy’s side, too limp to really get a rise out of him.

Billy snorts, closing his eyes again to ignore him. Maybe they really can stay here until sunrise…

A grumbling noise from Harrington.

Billy hums a warning.

“Man,” Harrington whines, undeterred. “I’m so hungry.”

Yeah, Billy’s hungry too. And thirsty, desperately. But if Harrington can just shut up for five seconds he’ll go to sleep right here and it won’t be a problem. He’s so tired it feels like the world skitters when he closes his eyes, head heavy where it rests on his arms, the lull of warm water as gentle as a lullaby.

“Pizza,” Harrington says. “I think I have some leftover in the fridge.”

He squints his eyes open.

In wordless agreement, they pull themselves out of the pool, slopping water. It’s a race, but a sad one, both of them gassed and gasping, shuddering in the cold.

“Wait here,” Harrington says. He strips his shirt off, ditching it on the paving with a splat as he hobbles inside, awkward in his wet jeans.

Billy waits. The warmth of the water is already sloughing off him, cold pressing in on his damp skin as he hugs himself, shifting from one foot to the other, dripping. It’s brighter again. The trees at the edge of the yard are determinedly trees now, a mottled blue-green texture of points and branches instead of a shapeless black wall. He finds himself listening, ears pricked for the first sounds of life, but Harrington returns with towels before any solitary bird can work up the courage.

Apparently Harrington doesn’t give a sh*t about leaving puddles all over his living room’s plush carpet, so Billy only pauses at the door long enough to chammy the worst of the water off, wrapping the towel around his bare shoulders. It’s unexpectedly warm inside. Harrington must have turned the heat on at some point.

He catches up with Harrington in the kitchen where he’s leaning heavily on the open fridge door, peering inside, towel hooked around his neck but jeans dripping a steady bead on the floor. Billy watches him stare vacantly for a long moment before he realizes Harrington’s completely zoned out.

“Christ. Move it.”

He doesn’t put up a fight when Billy shoulders him out of the way.

Other than the door jam-packed with soda and condiments, the fridge is a winter wonderland of near-on empty. Disbelieving, he rummages through the sad cluster of surviving food on the top shelf: a jumbo jar of pickles with only the brine left, a can of Easy Cheese, a casserole dish that’s been picked clean and left with the fork still in the bottom and the Saran wrap balled up to one side.

There are two pizza boxes on the next shelf down and he grabs one, opening it. Empty. He tries the next. There’s a clump of picked-off olives and a smear of cheese on the greasy cardboard and nothing else. He closes the fridge with a rattle, turning to give Harrington a withering look only to find he’s alone in the kitchen. Harrington’s disappeared. He blinks, feeling suddenly kind of weird left alone in the middle of a someone else’s kitchen, squinting against the light sparkling off the white floor tiles and gleaming black countertops. He frowns when he spots the third pizza box by the sink.

Desperation makes him stow his judgment, flipping open the top and—he breathes out through his nose—there’s two slices left over in the tray. Lots of toppings, classic crust. He can’t even bring himself to care how long they might have been sitting there congealing—he’s eaten worse. Way worse, a small voice reminds him. So long as it stops the gnawing pit of hunger in his stomach, he’ll take it.

“Score,” Harrington says from over his shoulder, like he’s surprised by the contents of his own damn kitchen. He brushes past, hopping up on the counter. He still smells tangy like chlorine but he’s dried off and found a soft-looking pair of sweats to wear, his wet hair combed back, curling a little under his ears where it’s starting to dry.

Billy unsticks his tongue and says, “Microwave?”

Harrington points him at it. He watches on idly while Billy dumps the two rubbery slices of pie on a plate, picking the olives off one and dumping them on the other before he zaps them.

Harrington spaces out again, useless, letting Billy find them some paper towel to eat off, too busy being mesmerized by the sight of their food turning in slow circles, the cheese starting to bubble promisingly. Even though he’s watching Harrington watch it, the sharp ping! of the microwave still comes as a surprise, jolting him awake.

They eat with their hands.

“Man, this is great,” Harrington huffs contentedly after his first bite. “You’re a good cook.”

“Like I wanna hear that from you,” Billy says around a mouthful of molten cheese.

Harrington snorts, his mouth too crammed full of food for a comeback. He reaches over and flicks Billy’s earring viciously instead. Billy claps a hand over the sting, glaring, too tired and too busy chewing to work out if he should get pissed off about it.

Harrington smirks, tonguing up a long stretch of cheese with gusto. He doesn’t seem to be coming down too hard, Billy thinks, chewing. He’s probably still mostly sh*tfaced—keeps staring glassy-eyed at Billy while he eats without seeming to realize he’s doing it, fringe come loose and dripping water in his food and down his chest in a way that would be the work of a moment to fix.

The first time Billy laid eyes on him he’d seemed so goddamned neat. The neatest thing at the party. The neatest-looking guy he’d ever seen; so put together. The suit and the girl and the hair. The straight-backed quiet cool. Billy hadn’t even registered the costume at first, because of course guys like them didn’t really wear any costume to Halloween but themselves—and then he’d pulled the sunglasses off and…and Billy’d been out of breath from the keg stand and the beer and the sea of new faces and ugly costumes, and maybe that’s why he couldn’t say anything. Maybe that’s why he’d just stared back.

You’re not keg king material, had been Billy’s second ever thought about him.

Harrington finishes his pizza first, jumping off the counter to search the fridge for something to drink. He comes back with the jumbo jar of pickles, taking a long draught, breathing noisily into the container. Billy eyes his throat bobbing in long pulls. The scratch on his neck is still there, angrier now, a long sweeping hook shape. Billy had his hand there.

Harrington misreads his stare, offering him the jar with a questioning look, scrubbing drips off his chin with the back of his hand. Billy shakes his head, wolfing down the last of his slice and sucking his fingers clean after, like if he’s noisy enough about it he can somehow break apart the weird quiet intimacy of the Harrington family kitchen at dawn—how agonizingly tired he feels all of a sudden with his own stupid fried brain and all the thoughts it feels like have been banking up waiting for a crack to spill out of. But Harrington just shrugs and takes another swig of the disgusting neon pickle brine, sighing.

“I can’t believe I did that.”

“Me neither,” Billy says. “Pretty sure you still had some milk in there or something.”

Harrington snorts. “It’s off. And I didn’t meant the pickles, asshole. I meant the party, the truck, just...everything.” He throws his head back to laugh, but pulls up short, wincing. “Damn.” He rubs at his neck. “I think I hurt myself.”

Billy raises his eyebrows like, I think so too.

“And the cops were there?” Harrington makes a face. “What for, do you think?”

“Maybe they saw you trying to bust a move.”

Harrington shoves him with greasy fingers. “Shut up. I can dance.” Yes, Billy thinks. Unfortunately, you can. Harrington continues, “Man, that was just—not how I expected the night to go, you know? Didn’t think I’d end up at the old steelworks with you, dancing to, I don’t know…” He bobs his head, doing some half-assed yokel thing. “Devil music.”

Smothering a yawn, he says without thinking, “Holding out for Spandau Ballet, huh?”

Harrington’s eyes crease with confusion, smiling. “What?”

sh*t! He sucks his lip into his mouth, biting, shaking his head. Goddam moron.

Harrington just lets out a sigh, balling up his paper towel serviette and making a three-pointer into the sink. “I’m not even tired yet.”

“Me neither,” Billy lies. His eyes feel bloodshot.

Harrington nods, wiping his hands off on his chest. “Wanna watch a movie?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

He ends up letting Harrington guide him, not to the den, but down a short hall to the laundry to get a change of clothes. The lights are all on, he realizes absently, trailing behind him, squinting against the brightness—in the hall and in each of the rooms they pass. Harrington must have gone room to room turning them on before he left for the party, the whole house lit up like a 24-hour diner on the interstate.

He stares at the sopping pile of wet clothes Harrington’s dumped in front of one of the machines while Harrington digs around in a basket full of jumbled laundry. Harrington snares a pair of baggy gym shorts and a t-shirt finally, tossing them at him and rolling his eyes at Billy’s doubtful face (“They’re clean”), directing him towards the bathroom to change.

Door closed at his back, Billy sniffs the shirt. Harrington’s not lying. It’s clean, a little linty, only the very faintest smell of detergent lingering. He peels out of his wet jeans and slips the shorts on, and then the tee, even though it’s a size too small, the thick dry cotton like a dream on his tacky skin.

He meets his eyes in the mirror, finger-combing his hair out of his face. He doesn’t look as wrecked as he feels, eyes just a little red-rimmed, lips a little puffy from Willa. There’s new stubble coming in already at the edge of his jaw. He scratches at it tiredly, a knuckle knocking against his earring. He lets a finger brush the skin there for a moment, a phantom sting.

Don’t, he tells his reflection firmly.

He drops his hand, staring at the lame little arrangement of soaps on the vanity instead, eyes fuzzing in their sockets.

He finds himself taking the long way to the den, turning all of the lights off as he goes. There’s enough daylight leaking in already that it doesn’t make all that much of a difference. Looking around, there’s a lot of stuff he’s just noticing now he should have been more careful around—things that break easy: teetering figurines with fragile beaks and wings, sleek top-heavy vases that look like they’re wobbling just from being looked at.

Susan’s big on decorating with beach sh*t—hideous dollar store crap that’s probably supposed to remind them all of Cali: jars of shells and little life preserver knick-knacks, clusters of starfish painted white and blue. He pokes at a lacquered fan on the wall. Harrington’s mom must be into karate or something.

He stoops to look at a family photo of the Harringtons on a side table under the fan, their faces disappeared by the shine of watery daylight on the glass, a lonely pattern of fingerprints smudged down one edge.

Harrington clearing his throat startles him. He straightens, moving to stuff his hands in pockets he doesn’t have, leaving them hanging awkwardly in front of his borrowed shorts.

“Shirt’s too small,” he says to fill the silence.

Harrington just snorts like, no damage, co*cking his head. “C’mon.”

The den is obviously where Harrington’s been spending most of his time. The coffee table is covered in crap: chip crumbs and crushed beer cans and half-empty gallon soda bottles. Another empty freaking pizza box. A couple of Atari game cartridges. Something that might even be homework. Billy wiggles his toes in the thick carpet.

“Horror?” Harrington says holding up a generic rental tape. He holds up another, sizing Billy up, reassessing. “Action?”

“Whatever floats your boat, hefe.” He sinks down on the floor in front of the TV.

He says that, but he nixes the next five of Harrington’s choices.

(“Gremlins, Harrington?”

“You’ve seen it already?”

“I drive one to school every morning.”)

Eventually Harrington gives up, leaving him to sort through the pile of generic plastic tapes from Family Video while he goes to fetch them drinks, coming back with two Big Gulp-sized cups of water.

Billy holds up his choice and Harrington rolls his eyes: Of course.

Harrington finishes up, slotting the tape into the player. He gets up off his knees and flops down into the territorial groove he’s worn into one of the couch cushions, remote in hand.

Guess that leaves Billy to turn the lights out then.

He hesitates at the switch though, looking Harrington over speculatively, deciding to be polite: “You gonna puss* out?”

Harrington looks at him with glazed eyes and snorts a no, so Billy shrugs and flips the switch, the room plunged into stuffy warm darkness except for a line of sunlight glowing hotly at the edge of the curtains. The TV fuzzes awake. He picks his way around the coffee table and dumps himself into the opposite corner of the couch from Harrington with enough room to stretch a leg out, heel digging into the cushion. As an afterthought, he reaches for his drink, settling back against the armrest, making himself nice and comfy.

Harrington’s already slumping and blank-faced when he chances a look at the other end of the couch, a throw cushion pulled over his chest, knees sprawled, eyes fixed on the opening titles on the screen: the camera sweeping underwater through the seaweed.

Duunn-dunn, duunn-dunn…

Billy snickers and settles in further, taking a swig of his water to stave off the warning tingle behind his heavy eyes. He wants to stay awake, at least until the girl gets chomped. That’s the best part. And Harrington’s going to jump so bad, even if he’s seen it before. Guy’s definitely a jumper. No way in hell Billy’s gonna miss his face when he sees it.

The heater is churning noisily overhead, washing hot dry air over his skin. He’s already sweating a little into the underarms of Harrington’s too tight t-shirt, having to tug it away where it chafes his pits.

“What’s your name again?”

He scratches at the itch of chlorine drying on his stomach. The cushions are soft and scratchy against his back and he sinks down a little more, yawning.

“Chrissie.”

He yawns again. He should have done the thing with the leg, in the pool; that would have really f*cked with him. She’s running along the sand dunes now, along the buckled fence, water sparkling in the moonlight.

Billy blinks.

“Where are we going?”

He blinks again, longer.

Chapter 16: there aren’t any grownups (part one)

Chapter Text

His gameplan for the mall is to be so obnoxious he gets abandoned by the Mayfield women inside of ten minutes, spend his lunch allowance on smokes, and maybe burn an hour or two looking at crap he can’t afford and hoping no one from school sees him. He’s so determined to make it work he bites his tongue the whole way out of town, queuing for a parking spot along with what feels like just about all of Hawkins, pretending not to hear all about Max’s girl problems, and letting Susan needle him politely about his music and his language and speed limits and speed bumps and seat belts.

He recognizes Parker’s crapshack Festiva looking for a spare inch to merge into and closes the gap with a threatening rev of his engine, hanging an arm out, lax and casual. Someone further down the line honks.

“Oh,” Susan says from the passenger seat, rubbing her arms ruefully instead of just saying she’s cold, bracelets rattling against her sleeves. He rolls his eyes and powers the window up. Now he’s trapped inside with her choice of sh*tty Christmas music and the smell of her perfume that he hated long before he ever met her—something plummy and cloying, like a jasmine bush on the seedy end of summer. She lets out a relieved sigh. “Isn’t that so much nicer? Thank you, Billy.”

His eyes flick to Max’s in the rearview and she looks away quickly, smirking.

In the moment he’s distracted, Susan reaches for the volume on the tape deck, but at his sharp tsk of warning she snatches her hand back to her chest, wide-eyed. He dials the volume up a fraction as a concession, just because he’s annoyed at how she flinched. She turns to share a weak smile with her daughter at the dulcet jingle of tambourine bells, seat creaking.

What a drip. He won’t ever figure how his dad ended up with such a doormat.

Maybe that was the point, after Billy’s mom.

A cascade of car horns from somewhere up ahead and they start crawling forward again, finally making it into the glacial-moving chaos of the parking lot. He chews a knuckle, eyes on the sputter of frosty exhaust from the bumper in front, thoughts straying. No one to blame for getting stuck in this sh*tshow but himself, he guesses. Maybe Harrington a little bit, too. That feels like kind of a stretch, though, given the only reason he even woke up before noon was the Harrington family phone ringing deafeningly in the front hall for what seemed like forever before he heard Harrington croak a reply into the receiver.

Harrington’d still been on the phone when he stumbled his way back from the bathroom after pissing and splashing water on his face, the phone cord stretched to its limit, rolling up and down the gap in the sliding door. Billy’d helped himself to some weird old man cereal in the back of the pantry, eating it with a glug of not-too-expired milk topped up with water from the sink and watching Harrington pace beside the pool as a way to postpone looking at the time on his watch. It already seemed like a nice day out, clear, a light breeze pushing a skein of ripples across the surface of the water, a little bird shaped like a finch hopping curiously around his discarded boots.

Harrington tucked the receiver between his shoulder and ear for a moment to pick up the big blue creepy-crawly at his feet and lug it sulkily into the pool.

So, a parent, then.

Billy can read between the lines—has learned to, all kinds of ways. So he knew without Harrington having to come inside and ask it would be appreciated if he got gone. There was a sort of plodding familiarity to everything after that; fetching his sh*t out of the laundry, grabbing his boots and responding to Harrington’s stressed-out apologetic look with a salute as he ditched out the back gate. He’d still needed to make the long walk to Carol’s to get his car, but even that didn’t seem so bad. He’d made longer walks in worse weather and worse moods. At least this time he knew where his car was.

Thinking back on it, he could have chosen any number of routes out of Harrington’s neighborhood that didn’t end with Harrington catching up to him, winded and barefoot.

He gives up trying to ignore the smile Susan’s edging at him. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” she says. “You must be excited to see your new school friends at the mall.”

Whatever the f*ck that means.

“Billy doesn’t have friends,” Max says reliably.

“Maxine.”

Save it, lady, he thinks tiredly. It’s not like he gives a sh*t. So what if he has to find a way to spend the break by himself. He’s been an only child for the preferred half of his life—he’s got contingencies. All he really wants is time to work on his car, anyway. Maybe he’ll set up his weights on the front drive too so he can Crisco up, try to catch a few meager winter rays. If he’s bored enough he’ll build Max a ramp or something, just to see her wipe out.

“Well,” Susan continues, weirdly smug. “I’m sure there’s a very special girl Billy will be looking at gifts for today.”

He returns Max’s glower in the mirror, confused. Max? He was just planning on getting her some deodorant, same as last year. But then she rolls her eyes and mouths, Lacey, and the dots connect. Jesus. She must have weaseled it out of Max a while back. He considers telling her her intel’s old, but, then again—if she thinks they’re dating, then so does his dad.

He resumes gnawing at his thumb. There’s got to be a way to spin this so he can shake loose a little more of an allowance, maybe get a new pair of jeans. There’s a seam busted in the ones he wore last night—from the rave or from Harrington’s drunk attempt at laundry he can’t be sure. When he took off that morning he’d had to crack the dryer door open while the machine was still running. They were still warm when he crammed them on, stiff from baked-on pool water. He didn’t notice the hole until it started chafing his thigh on the walk home.

He turns down the next lane rammed full of impatient cars. The mall looms ahead of them, sandstone and neon, entrance milling with people. He sinks a little in his seat, recognizing a few guys from the team. The girls are nattering again already, arguing about how Maxine goes through the things her mom buys for her too fast—hair elastics, razors, soap, shampoo, Vaseline.

“It’s Billy!” Max protests. “He’s always using my stuff.”

“Yeah right,” he says distractedly, eyes peeled for a parking spot. Grandpa in the beater in front is moving like he’s keeping a hand log of every car he passes. Maybe he can just kick them out here and park on his own...

“I literally caught you using my razor just today!”

Reminded, he smooths a hand over his slightly raw chin, picking off a tiny dab of toilet paper. “Yeah,” he grouches. “And it was f*cking blunt. Maybe ask Susan for a pair of shears next time you gotta bushwhack or whatever.”

Susan makes one of her mild objecting noises, drowned out by Maxine’s frustrated growl. “That’s so gross, Billy.”

“Yeah, well, so was your Gillette. Learn to rinse.”

^^^

Right on cue, Susan and Max get sick of him at the nine minute mark and ditch him on the mezzanine floor of Starcourt with strict instructions not to leave without them—which is pretty condescending seeing as they both know he’s only here because Neil told him to be.

He slides his hands into his pockets, fingering the extra change Susan gave him, watching them glide away from him down the escalator towards the swamped food court and considering the best way to stretch this good fortune. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep but he actually feels a little giddy—left to his own devices for once, and with cash to burn.

And the mall isn’t half bad, even if everywhere is too crowded already. He finds himself dawdling along the railing, watching the crush below while he figures out where he wants to go first. It looks like any other mall in America. Outside it’s cold and wet, the sky full of smudgy white cloud, but inside under the vaulted glass ceiling it’s warm, tropical even, couples holding hands and feeding each other ice cream, frazzled-looking women waiting in line to get their screaming kids orange juice and pretzels. Every spare inch of space around the center fountain has been taken over by high-school girls and their shopping—freshman mall rats.

He does a lap, trailing aimlessly in and out of stores, dodging the swarm of girls in front of Claire’s, checking out the window display of high-tops at the shoe store. A pair of girls from the cheerleading team clock him as he cruises past the aerobics studio, identical ponytails swiveling in appreciation. He shoots them a token half smile, stepping onto the escalator as an excuse not to stick around and make small talk.

If he runs into one of the guys from the team they’re probably going to talk his ear off about how crazy the wind-up got, and that’s fine, but then he’ll have to explain where he and Harrington ended up, and the party was only a couple of hours of the night and he doesn’t really know how to talk about the rest of it—all the time either side when they really didn’t do anything worth bragging about.

He buys a co*ke from the food hall just for something to do. Then a carton of smokes and Max’s Lady Speed Stick from the relatively quiet drug store. And then, while he’s at the counter waiting for the clerk to scan his stuff, he grabs a postcard from the display and adds that too, watching the girl slip it into a little brown paper bag without pause. It’s just some lame shot of the woods, a sea of blue-green trees and a hazy blue sky, a road snaking through the middle—Hello From The Heart of Indiana! It’s probably not the same view but it makes him feel the same way for an impulsive moment.

He’s back on the second floor, trying on a pair of aviators and pretending not to notice the price tag, when he spots Max and her mother again. They’re coming out of the RadioShack, bags swinging. He puts the glasses back, waiting for them to disappear around the corner before he follows their tracks back to the mouth of the store, dumping his empty soda cup and heading inside to accost the guy at the register.

“You see a pair of redheads in here just now?”

The kid frowns, picking at the collar of his sweaty polo. “Uh, sure, dude.”

Billy eyes the wall of ghetto blasters and walkmans behind him. “They looking at anything?”

“I guess?”

Billy nods, biting his lip to smother a grin. He pats the counter in thanks, moving aside to let the next customer through. It’s kind of too good to be true, but it adds up; Susan’s been complaining about his music more than ever since they moved—she could have talked Neil around. And his dad’s been good too, since his ball team made it to the state playoffs.

With a kick in his step, he wanders the store. It’s twice as big as the one in town, aisles teeming with castoff husbands and dads looking to burn time, and on the back wall there’s a blue and purple stripe of real-estate dedicated to Ride the Lightning—more cassettes than could ever sell full price in a place like Hawkins.

He rolls some dork in skates away from the tape deck and puts the headphones on, dialing through the tracks until he lands on the song he listened to on the rooftop. He runs a fingernail over the printed title on the jewel case, wishing he could pry it open to read the lyrics. At the first punch of heavy metal chords, his eyes fall shut, the clamor of voices and dull mall music disappearing.

He lets himself picture it, just for a while—having this, anywhere.

The song’s less romantic than he remembers it being the first time, somehow, but still beautiful in a way that hurts between his ribs. Back then he didn’t have a feeling to put with it, but now it’s like…

It’s like…

Legging it through two lanes of traffic in a breathless rush. The white bleach of gas station lights. Stars spinning over the top of Willa’s truck. Slick black asphalt like a mirror. Cold wind stinging his teeth.

He’s so lost in his second re-run that he jerks badly when a hand pulls the cup away from his ear, mall noises rushing back in, music still beating in the headphone small and tinny.

“Whoa, sorry.” It’s the clerk from the arcade, the girl one—Robin Buckley, he thinks, and then dislikes that he knows that without her wearing her nametag. “Didn’t want to interrupt,” she says, one eyebrow raised in wry amusem*nt. “Seemed like you were kinda having an experience over here.”

“And?” He can feel his ears starting to burn. “What’s it to you?”

“You’re hogging the ‘phones, man.” She lets him turn around, taking in the scatter of guys doing their best to not look like they’ve been hovering behind him at the headphone bank.

He directs his scowl at her. “You work here or something.”

Her response is irritatingly chipper. “Hopefully.” She points a thumb in the direction of the register. “Just put my resume in with Sir Sweats-A-Lot over there, fingers crossed. If I have to work at the Palace again this summer I’m actually going to stick my head in the popcorn machine.”

He hangs up the headset gruffly, shooting a nasty look at the guy who immediately grabs for it. Buckley tails him up the aisle and out of the store. “Gotta say, didn’t expect to see you at the mall of all places.”

“Not my choice,” he says, looking at his watch: still an hour left, time enough to find a pair of jeans. “What about you? Don’t you have…clarinet practice or something?”

“Wow-ee, witty as advertised,” she says dryly. She swings onto the escalator a step ahead of him, leaning on the banister. “Your dating record makes so much more sense now. Tell me, are you just choosing the ones with brain damage, or do you accept anyone with less than a C average?”

He snorts. “No one ever tell you sarcasm ain’t hot on a chick?”

“Says you.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” he asks, taking in her outfit: baggy overalls with an old camp ringer tee underneath, beat-up tennis shoes with writing on them. He figured she was kind of an oddball, but seeing her outside of the arcade makes it suddenly starkly apparent. “You’re not exactly mall material either.”

“Correctomundo,” she says, proving his point. “Told you, I’m applying for jobs. Keith pays us both out of money from the till. You know what those kids do to quarters, Hargrove? They lick them. I’ve been sick five times this year already.”

“That sucks.”

She shakes her head fondly. “Do you ever worry that girls just want you for your conversation?”

“All the time.” He draws to a halt when she follows him off the escalator. “You stalking me or something? I don’t remember asking for a shopping buddy.”

“Relax, okay. I’m only using you for your brain.” She holds up a piece of paper in a plastic sleeve and wobbles it under his nose. “I’ve got one more of these bad boys left. I know, I know, I should have printed more copies, but the library was closing—the point is, I need you, good sir, to help me pick the site of my last stand.”

“Ice cream joint.”

The look she gives him is flat. “Very funny.”

He shrugs. They’re walking past the food court, which is the only reason he suggested it, but free ice cream seems like a good enough reason to work somewhere to him, even if the uniform is real cheesy.

“Look,” she says. “I’ve already applied everywhere I might actually have a shot of getting a call back. I’ve got to put my hat in the ring somewhere I at least have a statistical chance of a vacancy. So what’s it going to be? The soulless old lady beige of JCPenney, or”—she almost winces—“The Gap?”

“What if you just washed the quarters?”

She deflates. “C’mon, dude. I need this. I can’t spend another summer with those rugrats.”

“They even let people like you into The Gap?”

They’re standing just inside the eye-wateringly bright entrance to the store and Buckley’s like a sore thumb, already drawing looks from a pack of junior girls on their way in. One of them does a double-take, eyes snagging on Billy, turning appreciative, and then confused, measuring the distance between the two of them like she’s trying to do the math on whether they’re here together.

Buckley waves her hands around dramatically, not seeming to realize she’s being judged. “Oh look, I didn’t explode. And what about you, huh? You’re not exactly the polo-wearing type. You know they’ll kick you out if you start cutting the sleeves off their stuff, right?”

“Fine,” he says, ignoring the jab. The group of girls are talking amongst themselves now, matching perms huddled close over a trestle of neatly stacked t-shirts. One of them says something out the corner of her mouth and the other two turn to look unsubtly at Buckley’s shoes, dissolving into giggles.

Buckley should just move to somewhere like California where no one would look twice at her or the girls who think they’re better than her. Maxine dresses like sh*t and no one back home ever bothered her about it. “Apply here,” he says. “They got an employee discount. You can buy a dress or something, maybe ask one of the mannequins to take you to prom.”

“Hmm, compelling. Pretty sure The Gap has a strict anti-fraternization policy though.”

“Then don’t take the one that’s your brother,” he says flatly. And she’s wrong about the policy thing. Only hot people work at The Gap. And hot people screw.

“You know.” She bops him on the arm with the rolled up paper. “I’m really coming round on this whole dumb jock schtick. It’s actually kind of charming.”

“Whatever,” he says, more interested in feeling up a rack of leather jackets, hoping she’ll take the hint and leave him alone before someone really does think they’re friendly. There’s one jacket he actually likes a lot, drawing it out on its hanger. It’s expensive, smooth, flashy silver hardware—something Harrington would wear if he wasn’t such a momma’s boy, but it would look good on Billy too if he just scrubbed up a bit. Too bad it’s about five times what he’s got in his pocket.

Buckley wasn’t exactly wrong about him not belonging in here. Anyone back in Cali saw him at a store like this, he’d never live it down. Hell, no one he ran with back in Hayward ever went anywhere near a mall unless it meant hanging out in a parking lot bumming cigs off people.

But none of them are here now, in this bumf*ck town that only has one thrift store. And Byers has clearly mined everything decent out of there too; even stuff that would’ve fit Billy better. Suppose he’s lucky he’s got a mom who can mend sh*t to fit him or whatever.

Not that Billy would want a chance at the same ratty-ass clothes as Byers. That was the thing about the thrift stores on the boardwalk—you knew the sh*t you were getting was primo, even if it kinda smelled like it got fished off a guy who died in a bar. Nothing in Hawkins but flannel and old cowboy shirts.

Buckley’s disappeared by the time he looks up again. He catches a flash of her bobbed haircut cornering one of the manically peppy sales staff on the other side of the store. He shakes his head. She’ll be lucky if they don’t throw her resume in the trash in front of her.

He pokes around the store for a bit and ends up trying on a pair of jeans that are almost exactly the same as the pair he put a hole in, except not second-hand and worn to sh*t at the hems. They’re uncomfortably stiff, tight around his waist and thighs. He’ll have to break them in himself, he realizes, smiling.

First time for everything.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, surprised. How’d he even get here? Here—the first day of winter break, feeling like a million bucks on about three hours’ sleep, trying on new jeans in a stall in a changeroom at the goddamn Starcourt Mall.

He tries on one of the belts hanging on the back of the door, leering a little at the effect in the mirror. Damn. Maybe it’s just firm press of the denim or the unexpected, rare moment of privacy but he’s actually kind of making himself horny.

“Thought I saw you in here,” Tommy says from over the top of the cubicle.

“The f*ck, Hagan!”

Billy trips on one of his boots, crashing into the side of the stall with a bang.

He rights himself, heart pounding, kicking the boot out of the way angrily like it was responsible for making him yelp. Tommy grins, peering over a little further, eyeing the Billy’s jeans. “Hey, nice pick,” he says.

“f*ck off and get your head out of my stall.”

“Okay, okay. Give me a second,” he mumbles sinking down behind the partition. “I gotta move slowly or I’ll sh*t my pants.”

His voice when it comes again is from the other side of the stall curtain. “It’s touch and go, man. Danny brought his girlfriend and her college friends—got us into the Hideaway with a fake ID. It was wild. Almost worth the hangover,” he says ruefully. “I totally forgot I’d promised Carol we’d go to the mall opening together.”

“She here too?” Billy asks, heartbeat still returning to normal.

“Nah, lingerie shopping. She told me to get lost. Think she might still be pissed at me for the other night. Like that was my fault. Speaking of…”

sh*t. Here it comes, he thinks, mind going unhelpfully blank—the story Billy hasn’t figured out the right way to tell yet.

Tommy’s still talking but Billy’s only half paying attention, yanking his old jeans on like it’s an all-consuming struggle, like it can prolong having to come up with something. He rehearses it in his head: He had a better offer for a party. Nothing personal. Harrington tagged along, got himself wasted. Billy was wasted too, needed a couch to crash on...

“—thanks, I guess, on behalf of the team,” Tommy finishes saying.

Buttoning his fly, he pauses. “Huh?”

“Thanks?” Tommy repeats.

He frowns, pushing the curtain aside. Tommy’s definitely looking peaky, extra pale under his freckles. Billy’s eyes scan curiously over the fan of girly shopping bags hooked over one elbow, glimpses of ribbon and tissue paper. “For what?”

Tommy scoffs. “For what do you think? For jumping on the grenade last night, man,” he says. “Thought the night was gonna be a doozy for sure. We owe you one.”

Oh. Well. He’s hardly gonna argue when it’s put so neatly.

“But,” Tommy continues, grin wobbling just the tiniest bit at the edges—nervous? “I guess I, uh, also wanted to say thanks, from, uh, you know...just me.”

Billy stares.

Tommy stares back at him, eyes bloodshot but earnest. He blows out a short breath, laughing at himself. “f*ck, dude. I don’t know. Steve’s kind of always been a bad drunk—moody, you know? I thought he’d been doing better since the Wheeler thing but…” He clears his throat. “Anyway. I’m just saying, I’m glad it was someone else’s problem last night, is all. Thanks for, uh. For looking out for him.”

Worry, Billy realizes. That’s what he’s getting from the words not used. Tommy was worried. Tommy worries, about Harrington.

“No sweat,” he says just to diffuse the weirdness.

He thinks about Harrington licking the pill out of Willa’s open palm. Harrington kind of looked out for himself.

“You want to go check out the food court after this, get a burger or something?” Tommy asks, voice normal again, changing the subject. “I was too busy blowing chunks earlier to eat anything and Carol’s gonna be at it for a few more hours.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, launching into a long-winded complaint about all the pretty panties Carol spends her money on that he never even sees.

Billy nods, gathering his stuff and bundling up the jeans. He wasn’t so sure about getting them—they’re basically all the allowance he’s got left—but now that Tommy’s seen him with them it would probably be a thing to put them back. When he looks up again Buckley’s there just behind Tommy, waiting. She’s still holding her resume, so he’s guessing whoever she talked to managed to convince her in the politest, most upbeat possible way that they’d rather burn the store and all its merchandise to the ground than let her be the face of their stuff.

It’s also clear to him that Tommy knows she’s standing there, but he keeps talking, rambling through the Burger King menu. Finally he pretends to just now notice her, turning with a dismissive: “I think we’re good for now, thanks.”

Buckley co*cks an unimpressed eyebrow. “I don’t work here.”

Tommy makes a face at Billy like, you seeing this?

“Uh, okay?” he says, smiling, but unfriendly. “You mind? This is kind of the guys’ changerooms, so...”

Billy’s surprised to see her cheeks actually flush a little at that. He’s taken aback. She’s never been like that around him. But then again, he supposes they haven’t ever really crossed paths at school. They don’t have much of a history.

Still, he hadn’t thought she was so low down on the totem pole that she’d be shy around a small fish like Tommy. Guy’s a pushover. It makes Billy see him in a different light. He’s always so eager around Billy, so talky, so easily brought to heel. Seeing him next to Buckley is like seeing Carol in the moment she knew she could push Wheeler in the pool. He’s not sure he knows him.

“Oh, sh*t,” Tommy says, pressing a fist against his mouth like he’s containing his laughter. He looks between the two of them, grin widening. “Did I get in the way of something? You come in here to ask him out?” He whistles lowly. “That a love letter? Coming on a little strong don’t you think.”

It’s not even any worse than how Billy ribs her, but somehow it’s getting at her, he can see, her walls going up, face going blank, mouth flat.

“Tommy,” he says, voice heavy with annoyance. “You wanna shut up? Leave me out of this middle-school sh*t.”

Tommy holds his hands up. “Hey, man, just looking out for you.” He simpers at Buckley again. “Sorry, don’t think he’s interested.”

He can tell they’re both watching him, expecting different things, as he finishes stuffing his Henley back into his jeans.

“See you around,” he says curtly without looking up, giving her an out.

Except when he does look up there’s a weird expression on her face like she’s actually pissed at him for the assist or something, eyebrows pinched up. She puts a full stop on the awkward moment with a nod and a stilted wave goodbye with the baton of rolled-up paper, echoing his words, “Yeah. See you around.”

Disappointment, he realizes, a beat after she leaves—that’s what he saw on her face.

Tommy makes a show of checking out her ass as she walks away, something he seems to think he should do around Billy whenever he doesn’t have Carol on his arm.

“You know she’s in your year at school, right,” he says, making it so Tommy has to dodge out of the way as he steps out of the stall.

“Yeah, no sh*t,” Tommy snorts. “She’s a freak, dude. But maybe not a bad idea for a rebound. I heard some of the band girls can be pretty slu*tty.” He chuffs. “Oh man, Steve is gonna be so crushed when he finds out. He was convinced she was secretly in love with him for most of last year.”

^^^

The phone’s ringing already when they get home. Susan hurries to dump her bags on the table, flustered, but Billy beats her to it. “It’s for me,” he says, picking up. “Hello.”

There’s a longish pause, then:

“Aren’t you supposed to say your name or something, so I know it’s you?”

He huffs a laugh. “Who else would it be, asshole?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never called your house before. You could have given me a fake number.”

“You ain’t got a phone book?”

“Looks like I trust you.”

“I haven’t led you astray so far, right.”

“Debatable.”

He flicks a self-conscious glance at Susan, and Max now too since she’s clattered through the screen door with her own bags, staring at him like she’s never see a person use a phone before or something. He turns away for a little privacy. “You did that to yourself.”

“Yeah, well. I stand by what I said about you being a terrible babysitter.”

He laughs and it’s embarrassingly breathless from having run up the stairs.

“…So.”

“So.”

“Who’s he talking to?” Maxine whispers furiously.

“That Max?”

“Yup.”

“Tell her hi from me.”

“Little young for you, don’t you think.”

Harrington laughs, the sound echoing around his big empty front hall. Billy waits for him to speak again. “So, apparently one of my neighbors called the watch.”

“Concerned an interloper was knocking off their garden gnomes?”

“No, actually. Concerned by sightings of a half-naked man running down the street.”

“Think they might bring in a sketch artist?”

“Nah, think I’m safe for now.”

“I could always rat you out.”

“You could, but, uh...I’m kind of cool with the Sheriff.”

He pulls a hand over his mouth, cheeks starting to hurt. “Ah.”

“My home field, right?”

Susan catches his eye, gaze questioning. He clears his throat, turning around again to ignore her. “You just calling to brag, then?”

More laughter. “Hey, no. You know I prefer to do that in person.” A sound that might be him licking his lips. “I um…I meant what I said earlier, about the sleep thing.”

Like he needs to clarify. Billy can still picture him how he was that morning, hunched over with his hands on his knees after chasing Billy halfway down his own street, panting like he just played a round of pick up basketball.

“You slept,” Billy confirms.

“Yup.”

He snorts. “You still seem to think that’s a big deal.”

“I don’t know if you’ve met me? I’m pretty f*cked up.”

“Only in a lot of ways.”

“Well,” Harrington hedges, offended. “Not on the outside.”

“That where I come in?”

Harrington laughs. He pauses but it’s an easy one, his exhale just static on the line. “Thanks man,” he says.

Billy covers the thickness in his throat with a cough. “Any time.”

“Yeah, about that.” Another nervous lip lick. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

Chapter 17: there aren’t any grownups (part two)

Chapter Text

Maybe it’s the snow. Maybe he’s getting a nose for it now—knows when it’s coming, what the air smells like when it’s damp and heavy, pressing close under a blanket of grubby white sky almost low enough to the world to touch. It’s some sort of feeling, he thinks, chewing his cig over to one side of his mouth to avoid a smile: to be excited just to wait for something that might not even happen.

A surge of wind sends an empty can bouncing and scraping over the cracked welter of asphalt in front of the Kerley County Recreation Center. He hunches further inside his jacket, collar turned up against the misting rain, ass freezing against his car. In his opinion it’s a sh*t day for a swim, but this is Indiana and the parking lot is near full already—station wagons and boxy mommy vans that got here to vie for a spot at the asscrack of dawn, dark windows beaded with rain, plastered over with wet leaves.

He sniffs to suppress a shiver, scoping the lot, watching a woman fight her umbrella the short distance up from her car, up the shallow stairs to the center doors, forgetting to jigger his leg for a moment when he catches sight of her porker kid waddling after her in nothing but a suit and floaties like it’s a summer day in July.

Not for the first time he considers the wisdom of crawling back inside the cab with Max and her weird ungrateful questioning. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Like he didn’t rescue her from Sunday morning church with her mother. She’s in a bad mood, even for her.

He hears the nerd squad before he sees them, their squabbling voices carrying over the grind and squelch of tires on the frigid air. They’re a familiar formation of three walking their bikes across the lot, Henderson and Sinclair up front, Wheeler’s frog-faced brother a few steps behind with his funny loping walk, legs getting long too fast for him. Billy grew like that, legs first, going through jeans and sneakers faster than Neil would buy them for him; the tallest kid on his little league team overnight. Wheeler’s probably not outgrowing any sports outside of chess club, but he’s got someone in his life making sure his pants go all the way down to the ankle at least. He’s the only one of them wearing a raincoat, too—and sour about it, going off his expression.

They notice the bright blue of the Camaro first, and then Billy with it a moment later, like spotting the yellow eyes of a tiger attached to some previously inoffensive stripes in the grass. They slow down, talk falling away, apprehensive even though he’s doing his best to look well-fed and lazy. He gives up and ditches the last of his smoke, tapping Max’s window with a knuckle: showtime.

The passenger-side door kicks open with a rock-and-snap, Max up and out like a shot, leaving Billy to close the door behind her like he’s her goddamn butler. Her hair snaking out of her hoodie and blowing all over the place is like a truce flag, the others pulling their rides in alongside the Camaro, knuckles clenched warily around their handlebars.

It’s a long way to bike in the cold, he thinks grouchily, watching them greet each other with a kind of stilted excitement—trying to play it cool. Another reason Max could maybe try to stow the attitude.

“You’re sh*tting me, right,” Wheeler says loudly, once they’re all done getting acquainted. “What the hell is he doing here?”

Billy shows a little tooth.

“Don’t worry,” Max says, rolling her eyes. “He’s not coming with us.”

“He better not be,” Wheeler snarls, about as threatening as a puppy.

Max gives him an up-down look that says she thinks about as much too, her eyes snaring on the green plastic raincoat down up stiffly under Wheeler’s chin. “What are you wearing?”

“Yeah,” Sinclair simpers. “Nice raincoat, Mikey.”

“His mom made him wear it,” Henderson says, oblivious to how Wheeler’s face flushes.

“Aw, is she afraid her ‘widdle Mikey might catch a cold.”

Wheeler sputters a comeback that’s so lame it’s immediately pounced on, the three of them sniping at each other while Henderson launches into some lecture about death by exposure. This is just exactly the sort of sh*t he needs to be able to tune out with a Walkman.

They’re so obnoxiously unselfconsciously loud and nerdy Billy’s half-tempted to offer around one of his smokes—see if it mellows them out, bumps them up an age marker.

“Don’t take it personal, kid,” he says, interrupting. The others hush at the unexpected sound of his voice, starkly lower-pitched, Wheeler’s face flushing even harder at being singled out. Billy makes him wait while he taps out a new cig and lights it, shoving the lighter back in his pocket, talking around the stick. “She made me wear one too.”

Wheeler’s an easy touch, like his sister, his face crumpling in pinch-mouthed fury—gratifyingly familiar. He’ll be tall enough to follow through one day soon, but for now, Billy breathes his smoke politely away over the top of his head: a dismissal. He can feel the flat look Max is boring into the side of his head: You promised. And yeah, he did. But not to her.

And Harrington only told him to go easy; he didn’t say Billy had to play nice...

“Why is he here?” Sinclair asks, eyes narrowed.

Billy shrugs. “Any of you assholes know CPR?”

“I do,” Sinclair says.

“They have lifeguards at the pool,” Henderson says.

Max turns on her boyfriend. “Oh yeah? Where’d you learn mouth-to-mouth, huh, loser?”

“I know mouth-to-mouth,” Wheeler says a beat too late, tongue swiveling. “I learned it off your mom.”

Henderson dodges, trying to shake him off. “That’s disgusting.”

Max ignores them both. “Can we go inside already? It’s freezing. And where’s Will anyway? Isn’t he with you?”

“Harrington’s bringing him,” Sinclair says, frowning when he catches Billy’s placid non-reaction, smoke leaking from the upturned corner of his mouth.

“Steve?” Henderson frowns.

He looks from Sinclair, to Billy, to Max.

To Billy again, and his jaw drops—the first to put two and two together. “You’re joking.” He turns to Max. “He’s joking, right? Max? Tell me he’s joking.”

Max just shrugs, glum-faced and uncomfortable. He’s had to deal with that look since Harrington’s call. Following him from room to room, nagging at him from the other end of the sofa while he watched TV, from across the kitchen table over dinner—overcooked Chicken Divan.

She cornered him finally when he was getting ready for bed, appearing like a specter in the bathroom doorway. Neil and Susan had retired to their room already, Susan’s reading light a dull seam around the closed door.

He met her eyes in the mirror, pulling his toothbrush out to spit a clump of foam into the sink. “What?”

“Nothing.”

He kept on staring, eyebrow co*cked expectantly, waiting for her to just come out with it already.

“You’re not going to…hurt Steve are you?”

“Worried about his pretty face?”

“Dustin said last time he had to get stitches.”

Billy snorted, shoving the toothbrush back in his mouth and scrubbing, talking around it. “He healed up just fine. Not a scratch on ‘im.”

“Dustin says he loses every time.”

“Maybe he just picks fights he can’t win.” He spat again, pointing the toothbrush at her reflection to make a point. “And so do you. Mind your own business.”

Her chin firmed up, resolute. “I won’t let you hurt my friends.”

He rolled his eyes. “Really? Way I see it you’re fresh outta horse tranquilizer, sh*tbird.” But then, more seriously since she really did look like she was about to have some sort of conniption right there in the hall with their parents just one thin plywood door away: “Harrington’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

Worry about me, he added privately later, his thoughts a skittering whirlpool of music, water, skin, neon and television static—sucking him down into sleep.

The appearance of Zombie Boy Byers hustling across the asphalt towards them interrupts his train of thought. The kid’s looking extra undersized today in one his brother’s jackets, his shortness and shyness more obvious among the noisy circle of his friends as they close ranks around him.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Wheeler asks, compulsively obnoxious. Henderson’s right behind him though, peering curiously at Byers’ red cheeks. The kid’s more than just chafed, Billy realizes—face pink all over and getting worse under the scrutiny of his friends.

“It was warm, in the car,” he says.

“You should have asked Steve to turn the heat down.”

Byers shakes his head. “Um, no, it’s all right.”

“Harrington around?” Billy asks.

Byers blinks, realizing it’s him Billy’s asking. “He said he was going to find parking,” he says, steady enough, under his blushing.

He’s not a nervous kid, Billy realizes for the first time, the kid staring at him with old eyes in his baby face—just kind of quiet, and without the slow-to-the-surface mean streak his older brother likes to pretend he doesn’t have.

Billy smothers an eye-roll. Figures Harrington wouldn’t trust the lawless citizens one whole county over with daddy’s paintjob. Guy’s probably circling the block looking for a valet. He stubs his smoke out on the packet, stowing it for later. “Okay. No chicken-fights, thunderthighs,” he reminds Max, but making sure Sinclair gets the message too. “I come in there, I better not see you on anyone’s shoulders.”

“Who died and made you boss?”

“You want ice-cream money or not?”

She zips it, holding her hand out.

Lack of patience makes him dump what’s probably too much change in her hand—enough for all the little squirts to get a popsicle. Probably putting as much together at the same time, Max snatches her hand back and takes off for the rec center like her tail’s on fire, the others following, dragging their bikes up the long switchback ramp after her.

He’s half-tempted to follow them, imagining the relief of muggy warm air beyond the automatic doors—has taken an unthinking step forward, when a sharp whistle draws his attention to the edge of the lot.

Harrington’s found a space far out enough to park the BMW prissily across two bays. Him and his car stick out like a sore thumb against the bleak gray of the lot, built on different lines, polished up. Harrington’s wearing his douchebag sunglasses and matching smile.

“What, no suit?” Billy calls out as he crosses the lot, weaving between cars. “Was kinda looking forward to seeing you in a two-piece.”

Harrington gives him the finger. By the time Billy slumps against his car beside him he’s fished a cigarette from behind his ear, trying to light it. “No way I’m getting in that soup bowl,” he says dryly, the stick bobbing on his bottom lip between his cupped hands. He snicks the lighter once, twice—no dice—tugging the stick out of his mouth to continue speaking: “Last year they cheaped out on chlorine and half of Hawkins got pinkeye.”

“Why’d you pick it then?”

Harrington makes a non-committal gesture with one shoulder. “Dunno. I mean, I owed Byers for the other night, you said you liked the pool back home…”

“I said Max liked it.”

Harrington grins. “Still got you out here though, didn’t it.”

“Barely,” Billy says.

“Oh yeah?” Harrington points the unlit cig lazily at Billy’s wind-chafed knuckles. “Been out here long?”

Billy crams his hands back in his jacket pockets, fighting down a smile. “You said eight.”

“You said ‘don’t count on it.’”

“It’s called playing hard to get—not familiar with it?”

Harrington’s grin parts, a flash of white teeth. “Why would I be?”

Asshole. Billy huffs. “Well maybe that’s because you only date the easy ones.”

“There any other type?” It comes out maybe just a touch bitter. “Besides, thought you liked the easy ones.”

“Exactly,” he says. If only. “Leave some out in the field for me.”

Harrington’s drawl is bone dry. “Yeahhh, you’re about two years too late for that.”

Billy tilts his head. “That why we’re all the way out here in Kerley County—fresh pickings? We gonna hit up the nuthouse on the way back?”

Harrington co*cks an eyebrow. “Getting you in there: not a problem, getting you out…” He see-saws his hand.

“And you think they’ll let you just waltz outta there once you wow them with your mutant rat story?”

Harrington tugs the cigarette off his lip just in time for a stunned laugh—something low and throaty Billy feels in his own chest like a reverberation.

He watches as Harrington tries to light up again, flubbing another two strikes. On the third, he knocks Harrington’s hand out of the way, snapping his own lighter out with a loud snick of noise, irrationally smug when it sparks on the first go, Harrington drawing up a cherry even as he rolls his eyes behind his shades.

He only really gets one inhale before Billy pinches the stick out of his mouth, taking a much longer, harder drag—and another, just to be an asshole, feeling the wrath of Harrington’s ratcheting impatience on him like a sunlamp. He smacks his lips appreciatively around the filter. “You know what? I think I might be getting a taste for these sissy cigarettes of yours, Harrington.”

“Give it.”

“Give it? What are you, five?”

Harrington gives him a flat look. “Rich from the guy who’s playing Keepy Off.”

“Think I’m kinda winning Keepy Off, actually,” he corrects, already holding the cigarette out of reach, anticipating Harrington’s lame swipe. Harrington makes a frustrated noise, “Don’t—” already swiping again and coming up short on Billy’s blocking hand. He steps back, frowning. “You seriously want to do this right now?”

Billy rolls his tongue against his bottom lip, excited, knowing what a feint looks like on Harrington. “No time like the present,” he manages to get out before Harrington’s lunging properly, matching his height, fingers almost brushing before Billy stretches, putting it just a little more out of reach.

“You’re off your game, amigo,” he pants, twisting a little to counter Harrington getting up on tip-toe. “What are we gonna tell Coach?”

Harrington’s not baited into talking. Billy can feel his breath in an annoyed puff on the back of his neck as he weighs up his options. He yanks on Billy’s jacket sleeve, trying to pull him down and use him for leverage at the same and the sound of something metallic like a jean rivet pinching against the bimmer door makes them both freeze, stepping away to check for damage. There’s nothing—thank God, although Billy still hands the cigarette to Harrington so he can squat down and get a closer look, rubbing his thumb over the dark paint.

“Relax,” Harrington says. “I need to take it to the shop, anyway.”

“That why you parked half way to Timbuktu?”

Harrington hasn’t got a good comeback for that but Billy nods anyway, standing up. He appreciates the sentiment, and it’s not like he wants to feel guilty about putting a blemish on Harrington’s f*cking gorgeous car the first chance he gets near it.

“Don’t take it to the shop,” he says gruffly. “Ones out here don’t know sh*t anyway. I’ll look at it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Harrington says, easy as that.

Billy rights his jacket, pulling it shut against the crowding cold. He’d forgotten about it for a moment there. Harrington’s typically unaffected, of course; maybe a little pink in the nose, but otherwise loose-limbed and easy now he’s got his smoke.

Billy resettles next him against the side of the car, taking the cigarette when it’s offered, so determined to be polite about it this time he almost fumbles. It’s misting rain steadily enough now it’s starting to bead up on the leather of his sleeves; he can feel it settling on his hair, too, in a way that’s gonna need to get fixed if they don’t head inside soon.

He wasn’t lying about the taste of Harrington’s cigarettes. They’re still a little too light-on for him, but there’s a flavor to them he can’t place that he’s willing to keep trying to.

“You gonna lose the shades?” he says, twitching a finger to point at Harrington’s wayfarers. “You know this isn’t Venice Beach right? You hungover or some sh*t?”

He’s only teasing, but Harrington pulls his shades up, shelving them in his hair, turning to glower and Billy feels his eyebrows shoot up. He sucks air through his teeth. “sh*t, Harrington. Maybe not sleeping was doing you good.”

Harrington gives him a bleary hateful look, eyes red-rimmed, miserably slitted against the light.

Fascinated, Billy hands him the cigarette back, watching as Harrington takes a long draw and exhales, the wince melting off his face, replaced by something Billy’s coming to recognize as the wary welcoming of being made fun of. “I think maybe I’m...coming down,” he says.

Billy indulges him. “From being hit by a bus?”

“From all that dumb sh*t you let me do,” Harrington groans.

“Hey, slow down there, party monster. You made your own choices.”

“Yeah, well you…” Harrington smokes busily, taking his time to find the words “...enabled me.”

“Uh huh. ‘Cos I’m the guy who puts the handbrake on?”

Harrington squints an eye, a smile tugging up on the side of his face closest to Billy. He offers the cigarette back. “Was kinda just hoping at least one of us was behind the wheel.”

“You wanted one of us to drive maybe you shouldn’t’ve hung out the back of the truck.”

“f*ck,” Harrington swears, smile growing some more. “Kinda thought maybe I hallucinated that part.”

Billy nods, sympathetic. If he replays it in his mind, it kind of feels like something he hallucinated too. “That why you were late? Catching up on your beauty sleep?”

Harrington shakes his head. “Picking Will up.” That makes sense. Billy’s been out that way before—remembers vividly how far out it is from the nice end of town. “His mom, Joyce,” Harrington continues. “She uh…” He tilts his head from side-to-side considering, debating how truthful he wants to be. “She kind of chewed me out for what happened last time.”

When Harrington left the kid to make his own way home after school so he could get trashed at his own party.

“Sounds like a bitch,” Billy says.

“She’s not. Just a mom, I guess.”

He hums. It’s not like he can relate. Weirdly, he doesn’t think Harrington can either. “Kid’s kind of got a track record for drowning though,” he says, gesturing with his head towards the center “You sure he’s okay in there?”

Harrington’s laughter wobbles out in a line of smoke.

“What?”

“No, it’s nothing, just—you, worrying. He’ll be fine. Trust me, I found out the hard way he doesn’t like people fussing over him. Only time he opened his mouth the whole ride over was to tell me to stop treating him like a baby,” he says.

Yeah, I bet he did, Billy thinks a little meanly, recalling Byers’ flushed cheeks.

“So I’m the entertainment while you do your whatchamacallit.” He jitters a hand. “Penance.”

“I was gonna say company, but sure.”

“That’s worse,” he says, raising an eyebrow at Harrington’s querying look. He clarifies, “Means you got bad taste.”

He finishes off the last of the cigarette, ditching the soggy filter while Harrington watches on, amused. He shakes out his own smokes, offering.

Harrington shakes his head. “Gotta cut down. Can’t keep letting you win on the court.”

Billy looks him up and down contemptuously: long and lean and built for driving fancy cars and not much else. “Probably gonna take more than one cigarette,” he says.

Harrington scoffs, firing back, “You considered cutting some weight? You stretched out my t-shirt, you know.” He rubs one tired eye with a knuckle, snickering. “I must have been really trashed to think that would fit you.”

“That thing wouldn’t fit a ten-year-old.”

Harrington snorts. “Try fourteen. What are they even feeding you guys over there?”

“We swapping diet secrets here, cheese supreme?”

Harrington just snorts, stretching out a leg to cross at the ankle, jeans riding low, looking not a whole lot like a guy who lives off pizza takeout.

Billy clears his throat. “I can bench two-twenty.”

Harrington hums, eyes caught on something more interesting across the lot.

Billy thumbs the packet of smokes in his pocket. “You work out?” God, that’s worse. “You got a home gym or something?”

“Dad bought mom a treadmill after they got back from their trip to Paris a couple of years back.” He makes a face like he’s remembering something mildly traumatic. “I think it’s still in the box somewhere in the garage... Maybe I’ll just come to yours, play some Eye of the Tiger, lift whatever you’re lifting.”

Billy bites the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. “Sure, if you wanna rip your arms off.”

“Don’t underestimate me,” Harrington teases. “Besides, isn’t that basically a dream of yours?”

Billy’s about to answer when the wind kicks up, icy cold, and a leaf splats, wet, onto Harrington’s cheek. Already laughing, he reaches to swipe it off and—Harrington flinches.

It’s not even a big flinch; it’s the dark look that follows, that’s what’s worse: Harrington instantly annoyed at himself for having done it, averting his eyes.

Billy drops the leaf, jams his stupid hands back into his pockets.

“Told you,” he jokes. “Bad taste.”

Harrington laughs weakly and the silence after makes the lot too cold to bear.

“It’s cool, man,” Harrington says after a while. “Don’t worry about it.”

Billy nods, swallowing down all the dumb sh*t he could say that neither of them would buy out of Billy’s mouth, and which probably wouldn’t make things any less awkward anyway.

Harrington makes a frustrated sound, close to a laugh, surprising him. He turns his head to see him rubbing his hands over his face, rough and quick. “Okay,” he says when he’s done, sounding steadier.

“Okay?”

“Okay, let’s go get high.”

^^^

They end up at the top of the pool’s concrete bleachers, eating a bunch of tiny sandwiches Joyce Byers put in a Ziploc bag. Billy can’t quit eating them, one after the other.

“It’s the triangles,” Harrington explains, making an excuse for them both once they’re gone.

Billy hugs one of his knees closer. They have to hunch over in order to fit between the top row and the roof, the ceiling pushing down on their heads, a squat panel of yellowing PVC louvers leaking cold air at their backs. Because there’s not enough headspace for it to really be used as a seat, most of the row has been taken up with life-vests and stacks of old foam kickboards that probably only get broken out for school swimming lessons. The rest of the bleachers are near empty, save for some towels and discarded backpacks, and an old man in a speedo and swim cap on the bottom row who’s been patting himself dry for what feels like an hour.

“You think he’s jerking off down there?”

“Leave him alone, man,” Harrington says, not looking up from his work. He’s given up trying to sit, sprawled out on the painted cement like it’s a park bench, one leg propped on the other, one of his sneakers bouncing inches from Billy’s nose. “How do I say, like, I have a car, so I can get places if they need me to?”

“You got your driver’s license.”

“Yeah, obviously.”

“No, I mean, write down you got your driver’s license. That’s all they care about.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s good,” Harrington says, jotting it down. Billy watches the composition book he’s holding in front of his face bob with the force of the pen.

Harrington’s not going to get a job that needs him to drive. Harrington’s going to get a job at The Gap. They’ll probably hire him on sight once they realize he’s not one of the goddamn mannequins.

Harrington really wasn’t kidding when he said the plan for the day was to get high and write a job application. Billy had only promised to bring his summer homework sort of jokingly, thinking Harrington was just being an asshole. And—not that Harrington’s ever what he expects—but the two of them doing bookwork right out the gate on school holidays has got to be some sort of death blow to their respective images. Only thing worse would be getting spotted doing this at the public library—which he’s sure is how Harrington rationalized it too. Luckily, he had his copy of the English text in his glovebox and it turns out reading it goes down a lot easier after half a blunt.

“Enjoy,” Harrington had said while he suppressed a cough on an overambitious lungful of grassy smoke, the two of them taking turns to crouch out of sight behind Harrington’s bumper. “Pretty sure I’m getting cut off after the other night.”

Despite the air seeping through the closed louvers, their hideaway is armpit warm, the air funky with chemicals, humidity not doing much to dry the damp parts of his hair. He can smell the weed smoke stuck to his shirt, and taste it too, when he licks the backs of his teeth.

The echo-y clamor of splashing and laughter fades away so long as he’s reading, spacing out some, coming the fore every now and then with the shrill of the lifeguard’s whistle. Every so often he’ll remember to look up from the page to keep an eye out for Max. She’s showing off for her friends in one of the lanes the older kids usually use for laps, wearing the yellow suit her and Susan fought over just about the whole way to the mall.

She’s a strong swimmer. You only really notice it from up this high where you can see the way all the other kids need to hang all over the ropes while they talk and catch their breath. Max doesn’t do that. It’s kind of a waste she’ll never get into surfing since they’re a million miles away from a decent wave out here.

He keeps an eye out for Will Byers too. Harrington might be confident the little pipsqueak isn’t gonna bite it on his watch, but Billy’s seen his forward crawl. The kid’s a goner if he ever makes it out of the shallow end.

Billy says as much under his breath.

Harrington snorts, dropping the wilted composition book on his face, one arm tucked under his head. “Maybe you should get a job here. You’re gonna worry, you might as well get paid for it.”

“I ain't worried.”

“Seriously, Hargrove,” he says, muffled under the paper. “You gotta learn to relax. Isn’t that what you guys do in California—‘chill out’?” His hair is starting to curl at the temples, damp with humidity. Billy hooks a finger into one of the old louvers and cracks it open a fraction, the wind hissing through the gap, ruffling the folded pages, but Harrington just sighs in relief, going even more boneless, like he’s comfortable enough to fall asleep.

“You like being up high or something?”

“Huh?”

Billy shrugs even though Harrington can’t see it, toying with a chipped edge on the murky plastic, ignoring the sting of cold over his knuckles, counting on it to keep him from getting too hazy. “Here,” he says. “The old pool, the bleachers at track. You’re always finding somewhere up outta the way.” Harrington’s quiet for so long Billy thinks he might have actually fallen asleep, so he continues, half talking to himself, “Guess everywhere’s so boring here, there’s nowhere else to go but up.”

Harrington’s silent a while longer. And then:

“You’re a weird guy, Hargrove.”

He wonders if he should tell Harrington words like that kind of sting coming from someone as nuts as him.

Harrington’s tone when he speaks again is self-satisfied. “You bored right now?”

Billy doesn’t answer. Harrington better not be smiling under that f*cking book.

He gets through another chapter while Harrington snoozes, the boys pretending to hunt pigs. Not long now ‘til the pig head starts talking—(the only good bit). Max and her crew have worked their way over to a corner lane with a diving block, right under the nose of the college-girl lifeguard, which means he can clock off for a while.

“They killed Piggy yet?”

Billy hadn’t noticed him sitting up, close enough to peer over his shoulder at the page. He tweaks the book away instinctively. “Why—you never make it that far?”

“Ha-ha, I did pass that class you know. I could give you some pointers.”

“No thanks.”

But Harrington’s already snatching the book out of his hands, flopping back out of reach. “The pig-track was a dark tunnel,” he reads dryly. “For the sun was sliding quickly toward the edge of the world and in the forest shadows were never far to seek...” he trails off into a snore, winking one eye open for a reaction.

Billy shakes his head, tongue pressed hard against the inside of his cheek. Harrington takes it as invitation enough to go on reading, smooth and bored, too cool to do any voices. He turns the book over to look at the cover after a particularly flowery turn of prose. “Man, you think this Golding guy ever got laid?”

“Chicks like words.”

Harrington makes a skeptical sound, turning the page. He has to tilt the book up towards the window to read, the pale winter light bleaching everything too bright. Billy’s just high enough still to be distracted by the angular shadow it casts over half of his face, his eyes roving over the page, one dark and one lit up red as copper, the eyelashes tipped in gold. “Once more they set out to climb the slope of the mountain—huh,” Harrington says, amused, interrupting himself. “Guess they’re friends now. The darkness seemed to flow round them like a tide...”

That feeling again, like in the changerooms at the mall, except worse, because he’s high—high as a kite, or a balloon. Full of helium, just barely holding on to the surface of the earth. He definitely had a rule about getting high around Harrington and this might be why.

“Oh hey,” Harrington says, taking a break from reading to scan the pool. “Where’d Max go?”

And just like that the last of the high dries up. He jerks his gaze away, scanning the pool.

They’re still at the dive blocks: Henderson, Sinclair, Wheeler, Byers... But Harrington’s right; Max isn’t with them.

He waits a beat in case she’s underwater somewhere, but her little friends aren’t looking, talking amongst themselves, so she’s not doing some kind of trick. He scans the rest of the pool, annoyed. She’s nowhere he thinks to look. Not at the edges, not in the lanes. Not near the group of crepey-skinned old ladies doing their aerobics or toweling off at the foot of the bleachers or in line in front of the small canteen.

Harrington starts to sit, catching his eye, but Billy shakes his head. He scoots forward so he can straighten up, getting to his feet. “I’ll go find her.”

“Probably time to go anyway.”

Billy’s already loping down the stepped rows. “Meet you outside.”

Goddamn it Maxine. She didn’t even want to come and now she wants to play hide and seek? He forces a smile for the lifeguard, ignoring the slow appreciative look she slides down his body as he passes by on his way to the corner dive block. The gang’s all there, minus Max, four bobbing heads looking up at him when he looms over them at the edge.

“Hey, pindicks, where is she?”

Henderson breaks treading water to shrug. “Max? We don’t know, she just left all of a sudden.”

Billy stares.

“She did!”

“She probably had to take a mega dump or something,” Wheeler says, thinking he’s funny, getting a splash in the face from Byers for his rudeness. Sinclair bobs in the water, giving him a filthy look, but it’s clear he doesn’t know any more than the others. Billy exhales slowly though his nose. Seems like she gave them the slip too.

He cuts a line for the showers, leaving it to Harrington to break it to them that swim-time’s over.

A little girl streaking out of the Ladies’ as he turns the corner almost takes him out, her feet slapping on the wet tiles as she races back to the pool. It makes him pause, looking up at the sign over the entrance and swearing.

“Maxine,” he barks from the doorway. “Time to go. Zip it up.” A woman in a towel-turban shoots him a dirty look as she squeezes past. He tries to return her look like, You think I want to be here?

“Max,” he tries again once she’s gone. “Max, you in there?”

“Go away.”

It’s quiet, from somewhere inside one of the stalls maybe—but it’s Max’s voice. Relief threads it’s way in among the annoyance. “The f*ck you doing in there—baking a loaf? Hurry up.”

He’s expecting her to screech at him but it doesn’t come.

Jesus. He pinches the bridge of his nose. This is a whole new level of sulk.

“C’mon, Max. I don’t wanna do this today.”

“So don’t. Go away.”

“Maxine—”

“I said leave me alone! f*ck off!”

He snorts. “Language, little lady. No need to get hysterical—yeesh. You on your period or something?” He scuffs a hand through his hair.

Silence.

“Max.”

“I can’t come out,” she says again, and this time there’s a keen edge on her anger, something closer to fear.

“Jesus,” he hisses, realization hitting him like a swallowed brick. “You’re really chumming the waters.”

Her voice is tiny. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He takes a wary step inside, looking around, figuring it’s safe since no one else has weighed in on their conversation. He’s right, thankfully, and all the shower stalls are empty except one.

“Can’t you just”—he pulls a face, coming as close as he dares—“plug it up or something?”

She murmurs something so quiet he doesn’t catch it.

“What?”

“It’s already…” she says, just barely louder. “It’s already…on stuff.”

He makes a muted retching sound, then jumps, when the door bangs, like she’s punched it. “Don’t—please don’t, Billy.”

“Okay, okay. Christ. Just, uh, I’ll meet you at the car or something.”

Jesus, his seats.

“I can’t leave,” she says through gritted teeth, annoyed, but it ends with a little sucked in gasp like she’s—

Oh man.

“sh*tbird? You crying in there?”

“Um,” a voice says from the doorway, two girls staring at him, hair dripping. “This is the girls’…”

“No kidding,” Billy says, scrubbing a hand over the nape of his neck in frustration. Just look at the mess she’s gotten him in now. “Look, just give us a minute.”

“That Max?” Wheeler asks, poking his head around the corner past the girls, eyes darting everywhere in wonderment.

“Hey pervert, take one more step in here and find out what happens,” he says darkly.

Wheeler’s face crumples. “You’re the one who’s in there! You gross creepzoid.”

“Just go, Mike,” Max says from her stall, miserable. “I’ll…I’ll see you guys outside.”

“You heard her,” Billy says peaceably. “Get lost.”

Wheeler glares a beat too long for Billy’s liking, but he obeys, head disappearing.

Billy sniffs. “He’s gone.”

Max stays quiet on the other side of the door. If she really is crying, he can’t hear it. He scrubs a little harder at his neck, waiting for a solution to magically appear in his brain, disappointed when nothing comes.

“Look,” he says finally. “Just…” He strips out of his jacket and—cringing only a little—hangs it over the door. “Take this and wait here.”

More silence. Then, the jacket moves, dragged over, the heavy leather settling with a soft thump.

“Where are you going?”

“To the newspaper, Maxine, where d’you think? I’m going to get help.”

“Don’t tell Steve!”

“Keep your hair on would you? I wasn’t going to,” he grouches, wondering how she knew.

Back at the pool, he spots Harrington chatting up the college-girl lifeguard.

Of course.

He catches sight of Billy and begs off with a smile and a quip that makes her tilt her head to one side, watching him bemusedly as he makes his way towards the shower block.

“Hey,” he says. “So I think I might have found you a summer job.” He drops the easy tone at seeing Billy’s face. “Max okay?”

“Yeah,” he says. “She’s uh. She’s—” He shows with his hands. “Y’know?”

“No?”

“She’s—” He makes a face. Another hand gesture. Sighs when Harrington just keeps on staring at him. “Surfing the crimson wave,” he says bluntly.

“Oh,” Harrington says. “Yeah, okay.” And then he turns around and heads back the way he came.

Billy goes from nervous to confused to pissed so fast it feels like he’s got the spins.

Harrington goes back to flirting with the lifeguard, the sounds of the pool crashing in Billy’s ears so that he doesn’t hear a word of what they’re saying, but he doesn’t needs to. It’s pretty obvious. The girl is listening intently while Harrington lays on the charm like he was never interrupted, toying with the string of her whistle like she doesn’t have an actual job to do.

Billy actually starts thinking it might be his best option to go over there and take it off her—sound the alarm for a code brown, clear the pool out so he can get Max and him the f*ck out of here—but in the end he doesn’t have to. Harrington comes hustling back, flirting a success, going by the smug look on his face.

Billy tries not to sound like he’s gritting his teeth. “Got her number that fast, huh?”

“That and a Tampax,” Harrington says roguishly.

Billy blinks at him, trying to connect the dots in a way that gives a different picture from what he expected.

“Heather,” Harrington says, jerking his head in the direction of the lifeguard. She’s already heading for the showers at an important clip, ponytail bouncing. “She’ll sort it out,” Harrington says. He knocks Billy’s arm when he doesn’t speak. “Come on, I’ll go get the guys outta here. She says there’s a spot you can pull the Camaro up around back.”

Billy follows him outside, skirting the edge of the pool, across the wet tiles, still trying to put it together. The doors winch open and the bite of cold after the stuffy pool air feels like a gasp, fresh and sharp in his throat.

He’s relieved, he realizes, placing the feeling. He’s so goddamn relieved he doesn’t know what to say.

He always gets into sh*t and there’s always one way out of it and that’s bad—even when it’s not his fault. He’s caught enough fists and sat in enough cop cars and slapped peroxide on his own scabby knees as a kid enough to know that that’s just the way it goes. That’s just what he’s got to wear, being the way he is. He’s used to it.

He watches numbly as the kids pack up their bikes, yapping animatedly despite the pressing cold. The wind’s died down some, the sky still blanketed white. They set off across the lot, headed for Harrington’s car to see Byers off, and Harrington just goes on standing there next to him, waiting around for Billy to remember how to say thank you.

“Guess I owe you one,” he says.

“No thanks,” Harrington says, wry. “You already owe me one, remember?” He mimes throwing a punch at his own cheek.

I don’t know how to do that to you anymore.

The thought is sudden and unstoppable. Un-unknowable.

Harrington flinched. He made Harrington flinch.

“You better jet,” he says, stiff. He swallows, wishing he at least had his jacket to put his hands into. He can feel Harrington’s eyes on him, turned serious. Always so perceptive when he shouldn’t be.

If he’s so smart—he shouldn’t have picked a fight he couldn’t win, Billy reasons, the same argument he gave Max.

“Yeah, okay,” Harrington says finally, casual as ever. He heaves in a deep breath. “Looks like it’s gonna snow.”

“You angling for a career in weather now?” Billy says, a little too harsh, still all tangled.

Harrington just laughs and knocks his arm goodbye, then seems to rethink it and socks him in the shoulder hard instead, playful, but enough to bruise. Billy rocks away from it, struck. “The f*ck was that for?”

“Leaf,” Harrington explains.

There’s not even anything in his hand.

Billy’s heart clangs in his chest as he rubs a hand over the sore spot.

Harrington smiles. “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Billy repeats tonelessly.

“Yeah, tomorrow. My house is empty, I still got all those rentals...” Harrington explains, like he’s slow. “What, you have better plans?”

Billy stares at him.

He’s serious. The asshole’s actually serious.

He feels a grin starting in the corner of his mouth and scratches at the stubble on his lip before Harrington can see it. “Maybe.”

Harrington just wrinkles his nose, flicking his shades back down. “Come over after nine. I’m not a morning person.”

Like Billy doesn’t already know.

Chapter 18: there aren’t any grownups (part three)

Chapter Text

On Monday morning, Neil gets him up early to shift his weights out of the living room so Susan can put up the tree. It’s really the only thing he can clearly point to do doing with his holiday break before his days are sucked up into the black hole that is hanging out with Steve Harrington.

He’s pretty sure neither of them mean for the week to go like it does: like the way the school day skips forward in bursts when there’s something you’re dreading at the end, time dragging you closer and closer to the pop quiz or the suicide drills or whatever, no matter how much you dig your heels in—like that, except the opposite. Time stretches, folds on top of and into itself like thick honey off a spoon.

The curtains in Harrington’s den are drawn when Harrington shows him in around mid-morning the first day, and stay drawn for Commando and Re-animator and Rocky IV, the arguments over what to watch next taking them all the way through the end credits of each, the den stuffy and dark and honestly starting to smell—neither of them willing to be the one to open up the blinds and let fresh air and the passage of time back into the room.

Around lunch or maybe dinner-time, they both get kind of hungry and drag themselves out to raid Harrington’s kitchen for something more substantial than Diet co*ke and popcorn. Of course, the only thing Harrington’s got left to eat is a freezer-burnt box of pizza pockets that he digs up and microwaves. Whatever time it actually is, the sun has set already when they head outside to eat them, the pool glowing blue under a veil of shifting steam, the cleaner chugging noisily around the bottom.

Harrington wasn’t lying about being out of weed either, though neither of them bring it up—like drawing attention to the lack of reason for Billy to be here will break the spell somehow. Harrington’s out of beer too, which he actually seems kind of embarrassed about even though Billy just shrugs and says soda’s fine; he’s starting to feel kind of drunk already anyway, buzzy from too much junk food, sluggish from sitting on his ass all day.

They watch two more movies before his eyes start to get sore. When the second movie ends and the credits roll all the way to blue static without Harrington opening his mouth to say something pithy, Billy realizes he’s dozed off, his head propped on his hand but his eyes shut. He gets up quietly, careful not to upset Harrington on the other end of the sofa so he can sneak out, headed to the downstairs bathroom to piss. He takes his time wandering back, feeling kind of strangely comfortable compared to his first time in Harrington’s house, flat-footed on the warm clean tile.

When he gets back to the den, Harrington’s in the middle of a full-body yawn, stretching out backwards over the sofa arm. “You staying over?” he asks, sitting up.

He sleeps in Harrington’s parents’ room this time, Harrington throwing an extra pillow at him at the top of the stairs.

Billy’s a solid sleeper and he’s managed to knock out in some pretty sketchy, borderline hostile places, but Harrington’s folks apparently don’t need a door between where they sleep and sh*t, and the moonlight leaking in from the bathroom window puts just enough of an edge on the unfamiliar shapes of the dark room to keep him awake and guessing. In the end, he lets the steady gurgle of the pool filter outside lull him to sleep, grinding his face further into the pillow, smelling only detergent.

^^^

He doesn’t look at his watch again until noon the next day, making a serviceable excuse about going home and showing his face after they finish the last of the rented movies. Harrington’s out of food anyway and Billy needs a shower.

It’s snowed again overnight, enough this time that the lawn is still white in patches, the ground icy. To be safe, he sits for a good two minutes in Harrington’s driveway letting the motor warm up, windshield wipers pushing aside a thin layer of frost.

Susan’s doing laundry when he walks in the door, the machine already going on one load. “Oh, Billy,” she says over the noise, looking up briefly from sorting through a basket of linens. “Did you have a nice time with your friend?”

He hadn’t said he was spending the night out, which isn’t something his dad gives much of a sh*t about, knowing Billy’s easier kept on a longer leash. Susan’s a different story, though. If she hand-wrings enough over it, she’ll spend what little latitude he has with his dad without even realizing she’s doing it.

“Just watched movies,” he says, which is pretty much the truth and just detailed enough to get her off his back. “You doing colors next?”

Her eyes widen in shock. She knows he hates her touching his stuff. The worst fight they ever got into was early days when she tried to do his laundry for him like he was some sort of infant. Now, she watches with tentative hope as he peels his ripe shirt off, holding it out for her to take. “Do you…” she says, tucking her hair busily behind her ears. “Do you need anything else? I could put some starch in the collar.”

Billy resists making a face like, Why the f*ck would I need that? —annoyed at her for always pushing it. “No thanks,” he says, already walking away so he doesn’t have to see just how much he’s made her goddamn day or whatever.

After his shower he flops down on his bed, happy. A little strung out, but with most of the day still ahead of him. He scratches his stomach.

He’s got a whole week to do anything with it he likes—all the things school normally gets in the way of him doing. For once he’s got the ideal habitat for it too—Max out somewhere bothering someone else, and Neil working a double.

So he does. Or, he makes a start, at least.

First off, he works out. He does a decent set for the first time in a long time, uninterrupted, getting a sweat up, muscles in his arms promisingly taxed after. Then he has a cigarette, as a reward, watching the drive from his bedroom window and considering whether it’s too cold out to work on his car.

All the sh*t he ate at Harrington’s has left him with a weird sort of appetite so he ends up deciding on making a late lunch for himself instead.

Susan’s done a grocery shop, so he makes a sandwich with everything on it: baloney, lettuce, tomato, sliced cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise. Because the house is basically empty he doesn’t even need to escape to his room to eat it; he sits down in front of the TV and watches a re-run and gets crumbs all over.

At about three, he finds himself in front of the phone. Harrington answers on the fourth ring.

“This sh*thole got a hardware store?”

Harrington laughs. “I’ll come get you.”

^^^

In total, it takes them five days to build the ramp out by the quarry.

Harrington promises him no one comes up this way, since it’s the less popular and less scenic side where some kids got attacked a while back—scrubby and open—and not the nice side where you can bring a girl to make out.

It would be easier to build it in Billy’s backyard, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of surprising Max on Christmas. Also, they’re avoiding each other since the thing at the pool with her becoming a woman and neither of them wanting to talk about it ever again, dodging each other in the hallway like Pac-Man ghosts. The only time they’ve made eye contact since was when Susan asked where Max’s new suit got to since she didn’t see it in with the laundry, and Billy just about coughed up his mashed potatoes trying not to say something that would get him murdered.

Also, he can’t let his dad see whatever the f*ck it is Harrington thinks he’s doing with a hammer.

“You even build a tree-house before?” he asks on their second trip back from the store, unloading two-by-fours out of the BMW’s trunk and dumping them on the gravel where Harrington is tapping away already before Billy’s even chalked out a plan.

“Yeah, of course,” Harrington scoffs, lisping around a nail. “Summer of fourth grade Tommy and I just about lived out of one. Think Carol’s still raw about it.”

They get the beginnings of a pretty sturdy base going by the time is starts getting dark. Harrington is not much help at all after he breaks out a six-pack of beers and starts waxing poetic about all the time he’s spent at the quarry, steering tactfully around Lacey. Billy lets him have at it, since half his work is quietly unpicking Harrington’s anyway, and since Harrington’s got a nice enough voice to listen to when he gets going.

Like Billy, Harrington’s not actually that big of a talker. Except Billy’s type of quiet comes from not having anything much to say, and Harrington’s is probably because he never got a word in edgewise between his chatterbox friends. Uninterrupted, he talks like he reads: light and steady and dry-toned. The quarry used to be a limestone mine, Harrington tells him. In seventh grade, they take you on a field-trip to the museum and make you look at all the old tools and poisons and sh*t they used to use and let you take home chunks of rock. There’s a tailgate party each year on the nice side to celebrate the start of spring, and there’s an old tradition where every kid who got their cherry popped that year makes the jump from The Point, even though the owner put a fence up a few years back and the cops have told them not to do it.

Billy works until the light runs out and takes a beer, content to let Harrington tell his stories even after it’s gotten so cold he has to hook the sleeves of his Henley over his knuckles to protect them from the first few drifts of snow. It’s nice. Peaceful, the way sitting on a pier can be. And the quarry’s actually more beautiful at night when you can’t see it.

Of course, Harrington doesn’t let him off the hook for trying to articulate that, laughing his head off practicing his swing with the psycho-killer bat while Billy drinks his beer sulkily on the hood of his car.

“Hey, come check it out,” Harrington says after he’s done needling Billy for his choice of words.

He makes his way over to where Harrington’s standing at the edge of the pit where the scrub cuts away into open space, the water down below just a giant black shadow where even starlight doesn’t reach—which is what he was trying to say in the first place, but he keeps his mouth shut this time in case Harrington decides to suplex his ego into the mat again.

What Harrington’s called him over to look at is the way the snow disappears into the pit. It’s...disorienting: pretty the way looking up into it is, except this time it doesn’t vanish just overhead but spirals down into nothing in a chaotic storm, like salt from a giant saltshaker.

He could look at it forever.

“Cool,” he says instead of saying that.

^^^

He gets to the quarry early the next day to think through the rest of the ramp without distraction. They haven’t got enough wood for anything fancy, which is fine since Max can’t even ollie without eating pavement yet, but he’d at least like to build something with a little lasting power—maybe a smallish half-pipe if he can rummage up enough ply. He’s just deciding on what else he’s going to need from the store and how much cash he doesn’t have for it when Harrington pulls up.

“So I have an idea,” is the first thing he says.

Which is how they end up pulling plywood off the sides of an old bus in the middle of a field.

“This would go a lot faster if you’d stop looking at me like that,” Harrington says from inside the carriage where he’s trying to peel up a board.

It would also go a lot faster if you knew what the f*ck you’re doing, Billy thinks, using the power drill Harrington found in his garage to unscrew a sheet of tin cladding from the exterior of the bus. “What the f*ck is this place, Harrington?”

Harrington looks up, pushing hair out of his sweaty face. “Uh, look around you, man,” he says. “It’s obviously an old...junkyard.”

“Why was it taped off then?”

It hasn’t been lost on him that Harrington took his bat out for the short trip through the woods, using it to push aside a tattered cordon as they entered the clearing. And the bus is a wreck—more so than it should be, stapled over with scrap metal like it’s been armored for a siege—too menacing to pass as a kid’s fort. It’s punched through all over with ragged little holes like it’s taken a bunch of buckshot too.

Harrington pshaws. “That tape’s old.” He quits picking ineffectively at a stuck nail, falling back on his ass. “Yeah, I can’t get that. You bring anything to eat?”

Billy rolls his eyes, clambering into the cab of the bus. “Give it here,” he says, taking the hammer off him. Harrington gives it up easy, shifting aside so Billy can get an angle on the problem nail, which is still pretty much flush with the old board. He sniffs, wiping his sweaty chin on his shoulder. “Not like this,” he says, showing how Harrington had been trying to lever the claw under the nail head and gouge it out. He pulls the hammer back to show how to do it right, ramming the claw backhanded into the soft wood to hook the nail shaft, changing his grip to hold it like a crank, yanking it hard to one side and then the other. The nail comes free with a neat pull. “Chip in, left, right, out,” he says, dropping the nail into Harrington’s hand. “If it takes more than that, it’s stuck.” Thanks Neil Hargrove.

Harrington blinks at him and down at the bent nail in his palm.

By mid-afternoon they’ve salvaged enough to build something halfway decent, working up a sweat despite the chill settling over the clearing, marching the scrap back along an old goat path through the overgrown woods, back to the car.

Harrington’s quiet on the trip back. Noticeably less jumpy than on their way in.

Back at the quarry, the ramp starts taking shape.

The sun is out, burning off last night’s snow, and Harrington leaves his keys in the ignition so they can listen to the radio even though the signal isn’t so great out here. It feels good to use his hands for something that’s not just fixing cars. Harrington has a short attention span for everything he tries, but he picks up a rhythm quick enough and is actually a deft hand with the power drill once he talks Billy round to letting him have it.

By sundown they have two opposing frames of two-by-fours and a pile of plywood measured and cut down to size. He’s also starving, but it turns out neither of them thought to bring any food, so in the end they just drink the rest of the beers and let it get dark around them.

“You played, right?” Harrington asks at the end of the six-pack. He’s got the murder bat out again, pretending the square up in-between the BMW’s high beams. He scuffs a foot in the gravel, sending up a smokescreen of fine dust in the light.

“Uh huh,” Billy says, turning his empty can around between his palms. His hands are filthy, knuckles smeared with black dirt and rust from the bus, chafed raw where holding the saw has started to build a new callus. There’s something annoying like a splinter in the meat of his thumb that he’ll need to wait for better light to chew out.

“You think you could throw further than I could hit one of these cans?”

Billy hums, curiosity piqued. He doubts it. But then again, Harrington’s bat isn’t exactly game standard. He pushes off the hood of the car, drink in hand, gravel crunching under his boots. “What does the winner get?”

Harrington bites his lip, thinking. He brightens, pointing the bat at Billy. “Winner picks the music tomorrow.”

“Ha!” Billy crushes the can. “I’ll bring my tapes.”

Harrington scoffs. “Hope you like the Best of Springsteen.”

Harrington changes the rules on him after the first failed swing, the missed can clattering in the dust. “Best of three?”

“You need a tee to swing off?”

Harrington f*cking nails the next one.

It’s a perfect hit—pure magic—the crack of sound pinging like a gunshot off the quarry walls. They both follow its passage out into space, the can gone forever into the sucking blackness beyond the headlight beams. For all they know, it made it to the other side.

“Well sh*t,” Billy says, realizing their conundrum.

“What do you mean 'well sh*t'—that’s a home run, asshole!”

“Or it went five f*cking feet and down the hole.”

“Okay, your turn then,” Harrington snarks, moving aside.

Billy lines up with his own can, testing the roll of his shoulder, trying to remember his little league pitching form. There’s nothing to aim for out in front of him, which is probably what got Harrington the first swing. He tries to imagine a catcher’s mitt somewhere out in the dark, eyes straining.

“Anytime, Hargrove.”

He winds up and pitches as hard as he can, Harrington grabbing onto him as he stumbles on the follow through, just a step too close to the edge. The can whistles out into the night and they both wait with held breath for the sound of a splash.

^^^

He wakes to rain sliding down his window and the power out. The sky is overcast, the house quiet and gloomy.

Susan and Max are whispering excitedly in the kitchen when he comes out, trying not to wake Neil, fast asleep after his shift. Apparently the whole street is browned out since some time in the night—a downed power line, maybe. He sits down at the table with them and eats cereal, since he can’t have toast, eyeing the phone on the wall.

There’s no way they can work on the ramp today. The rain outside is coming down in a steady, suppressing drizzle—the kind that starts quietly when everyone’s asleep and goes all day. Billy hasn’t had to do the gutters since they moved in, but he can hear the uneven splat of water coming off the eave over the front door and knows without a doubt that Neil’s going to have him up a ladder real soon.

He wonders what the quarry looks like—if the rain stirs up the silty bottom, the water turning pale and aspirin-cloudy. There’s no point in going out there, even if he did want to brave it; he stacked their ply under a piece of scavenged tin just in case, but they left their tools where they dropped them and the gravel patch is probably water-logged, puddles forming in the tire ruts on the sloping drive, their footprints full of mud.

He snatches another glance at the dead phone when Susan and Max aren’t looking.

Maybe...

Maybe the power’s out in Loch Nora too.

After washing up, Susan makes them both participate in decorating the tree, since neither of them have anywhere better to be. It’s a sh*tty plastic thing she dragged with them from Hayward, along with a cardboard mover’s box full of sentimental junk she wants to put on it. Max is reluctant too, at first, but she’s quickly suckered in by Susan fussing over all her ugly little baubles made from kindergarten clay.

The whole of Billy’s participation is sitting on the arm of the sofa and staring at the TV, wishing it worked and feeding tinsel out of the box in a steady line like a robot.

He’s just escaped to his room, scrubbing at his cheeks and toying with the idea of a shave (if he can find where Max has hidden their razor this time), when the bleat of a car horn cuts through the muffling rain.

He scrambles for the window.

The BMW is in his driveway, headlights and wipers on. He can’t see Harrington behind the sheeting rain over the windshield, but if Harrington can see him, he’s grinning so hard he must look deranged. He grabs the first pair of jeans at hand, zipping into them.

Susan’s opening the front door with confused concern when he hops past with his jacket and shoes, almost bowling her over. “Don’t know,” he says nonsensically, trying to anticipate any one of her pointless worrywart questions, using his jacket like an umbrella as he races down the front steps.

Harrington shoves the passenger door open with good timing and he throws himself in, yanking the door shut against the drizzle.

“Can Billy come play?” Harrington says around a Parliament.

^^^

“Don’t honk the horn next time,” Billy says once they’re on the road. He takes a drag of smoke and winds the window down just a touch to blow it out, cinching it shut again immediately after, face speckled with rain.

“Sure,” Harrington says easily. “I’ll just climb right in your window.”

“If you want a kick in the teeth.”

He tries to remember if he looked back at the house when they reversed—if the blinds on the third window stayed shut.

They park and he and Harrington duck under the awning of the video store, intent on staying dry even though the shoulders of Billy’s jacket are still a little damp from his run to the car. Billy makes a bee-line for the New Release wall while Harrington goes to unload his returns on the clerk. They’re a day late and the guy at the counter is Keith from the arcade, so it’s unlikely Harrington’s gonna sweet talk his way out of the fee.

“What is time, really, when you think about it?” Billy hears him say from across the store. He shakes his head, tuning out Keith’s monotone reply, reading the blurb on a satisfactorily bloody-looking slasher and adding it to the small stack under his arm.

“I think Keith is Tommy’s weed guy,” Harrington says under his breath on their way out almost thirty minutes later, the bell on the door tinkling behind them. He wants to go to Melvald’s next and get some latex paint; they’re going to need to waterproof the ramp once it’s finished.

“Take these,” Billy says, dumping their hard-won selections in Harrington’s hands alongside the bag of peanuts Harrington was extorted into buying to make up for not rewinding any of the tapes.

They get the paint for cheap at Melvald’s because it’s an ugly raspberry-purple color nobody wants to buy, the lid of the tin grown felty with dust. Harrington cruises around the store being useless while Billy’s making his decision, probably looking for someone to flirt with, but when he makes his way over to the register, Harrington has beaten him there, unloading an armful of junk food and soda onto the belt.

Because Harrington paid for everything else, Billy buys the beer. They have to go a little out of the way for it, making a pit stop at a run-down liquor joint where Harrington promises him they won’t check for ID. It’s the last of his allowance and he’s glad Harrington waits in the car so he doesn’t have to see the clerk sighing tiredly over the small mountain of quarters Billy dumps on him.

As it turns out, the power is definitely not out on Harrington’s end of town.

Harrington’s left most of the lights on again, of course, and the heater too—the whole house cheerily bright and startlingly warm after the wet gray of the drive over. The dining-room table is covered in crap that wasn’t there the last time—bags of nails and socket screws and jumbled bolt nuts, the tipped out contents of a tool box, a hot glue gun—the results of Harrington sifting through his dad’s supplies for something useful, Billy puts together. Harrington shifts the worst of it aside so they can kick their feet up and drink.

They’re in the den watching the first of their new rentals when the hall phone rings, startling them both. Harrington answers but it’s for Billy.

Slow with apprehension, he holds it up to his ear, trying not to sound like one of the bimbos in the movie they were just watching. “Hello?”

The voice on the other side is tinny.

It’s Max.

She hesitates for a second like she’s surprised he’s really there, even though she’s the one who apparently looked up Harrington’s number in the phone book and knew to ask for him. “The power’s back on our street,” she says.

“Good for you.”

“Mom wants to know if you’re coming home for dinner.”

He looks at Harrington questioningly who shakes his head holding up a pizza takeout menu. Billy rolls his eyes, mouthing, You don’t know their number off by heart? To Max, he says: “It really her asking?”

There’s a fuzzy sweep of sound: Max placing her hand over the receiver to ask her mother something. She comes back with a firm: “Yep.”

“Tell her I got other plans,” he says.

More stifled urgent murmuring followed by an annoyed sigh. “She says…she says you should try to come back in time for breakfast.”

Okay then.

He hangs up.

^^^

The bed in Harrington’s parents’ room is still unmade from last time, on both sides now. The power outage must travel overnight because when he wakes the sun is already out on a crisp clear morning, pale daylight filtering in through the bathroom window, the red digits on the bedside alarm clock flashing, reset to 00:00.

He lifts a cheek from the pillow to squint at his watch. It’s early still. Plenty of time to make it back before Neil wakes up wanting his eggs.

He needs a ride home, so he changes and rinses the rank taste out of his mouth with water from the bathroom faucet before going to wake up Harrington.

Harrington’s door at the end of the hall is cracked open—dark inside, surprisingly, the curtains drawn and the lights turned out.

He knocks softly with a knuckle. “Harrington.”

He waits, hearing zeroing in on the sound of slow, even breathing from the bed, in and out, the faintest sticking point of a snore at the top of each inhale. He pushes the door open another handspan, light from the hall widening in a wedge over the edge of the mattress, rumpled sheets, a slice of pale shoulder studded with moles.

“Harrington,” he says, a little louder, eyes on the plaid wallpaper.

Harrington makes a muffled sound, face mashed into his pillow. It sounds a bit like, f*ck off.

“I need a ride.”

No response.

“Harrington.”

“M’up,” Harrington says mushily, twisting a little further away from the light, exposing the fluff of soft-looking baby hair on the nape of his neck and the tugged down line of his sweats.

Billy backs away from the threshold, pulling the door shut.

Downstairs, he stands dumbly by the sliding pool door, watching a marbling of dead leaves drift over the surface of the water, contemplating just taking Harrington’s keys out of the dish and driving himself home. There’s a start-stop rumbling noise growing closer that he realizes is an approaching garbage truck. It’s close enough now he can hear the clank and whine of the hydraulic arm.

He starts when Harrington’s door bangs open upstairs, followed by a storm of heavy footsteps on carpet and Harrington skidding around the corner a moment later, chanting, “sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t.”

“Morning, sleeping beauty.”

“Take this,” Harrington says, ignoring the jibe, shoving a black trash bag in his hands.

It takes Billy an embarrassingly long moment to catch on, but between the two of them they clear the kitchen in less than twenty seconds. Billy sweeps pizza boxes and paper plates off the counter while Harrington throws all their empty beer cans at him almost too frantic for him to catch, straining to lever an already full bag of trash out of the bin in the pantry. That’s about all they have time for before Harrington’s shoving him bodily out the front door.

The truck’s been and gone already, curving around the other side of the cul-de-sac. The sight doesn’t stop Harrington one bit, hauling ass over the frosty lawn, dragging Billy with him while he’s trying to walk and tie off his bag at the same time. Harrington yanks the lid off his neighbor’s trashcan and slam dunks his bag of garbage in right after Billy’s, just as the front loader pulls up alongside them.

“Morning,” Harrington says chipperly in response to the driver’s flat stare, rosy-cheeked and panting, hands on his hips like it’s a perfectly normal morning in middle America and he’s not half-naked on someone else’s property.

Don’t look at me, I’m not his keeper, Billy projects at the guy when he turns to survey Billy next to him.

Back in the house, Harrington putters around putting the kitchen to rights, throwing an open box of Eggos and a new bottle of syrup on the counter.

“Well, TV’s out,” he muses, chewing around a mouthful of cold waffle a little while later. “Wanna go to the mall? I could put my application in.”

Billy thumbs syrup off his lip. “I oughta head back.” Every time he looks at his watch he’s a little closer to being out of time but he can’t seem to stop stuffing his face, licking up all the globs of syrup that drip right onto the countertop since Harrington didn’t bother get them plates. “I said I would.”

“Power’s out,” Harrington says, shrugging like it’s self-explanatory, helping himself to some of Billy’s drippings like every single well of his waffle isn’t overflowing already. “Tell them you tried to call.”

^^^

Saturday they head back to the quarry to finish the ramp.

Thankfully, the makeshift shelter he built for the plywood did the trick and the boards are dry enough to start tacking down. They work on one side each—fast, since there’s a menacing cloud on the horizon and a storm forecast to roll in. Harrington uses the power drill, which by pure luck didn’t end up in the same puddle as the rest of the tools, and Billy uses the hammer, working with the nails pursed between his lips, trying with fiendish concentration to get a pattern going despite Harrington’s best attempts to derail them both.

It’s late noon when they bend the last board of ply into place, tamping it down with nails on each end. As a finishing touch, Billy borrows the power drill to seal the sides of the pipe with sheets of scrap metal, putting his shoulder behind each screw to make sure it bites.

He steps back, satisfied, passing Harrington the drill back.

It’s done. It’ll still need some sanding and a coat of paint, but it’s finished.

“We done?” Harrington asks. He bumps up against Billy when he holds out on answering, trying to coax it out of him. “Holy sh*t, it’s done isn’t it?”

Billy rams his tongue behind his teeth, shaking his head but he can’t quite hide a smile.

Harrington shoves him, laughing. “Holy sh*t! Holy sh*t, I can’t believe we made this.” He steps into the bowl of the ramp, getting a run up to jump and sit on one end.

“I can’t believe you took shop,” Billy snarks back, hiking himself up too. It’s beginning to rain a little but they both need a minute to just enjoy it. He hangs his feet over the drop, feeling the old compulsion to push off and let himself fall with a board underneath him. He gives it a day before Max or one of her little friends takes their front teeth out.

Sniffing, chafing the calluses on his hands together, he tells Harrington about the skate park back in Hayward he used to ditch Max at so he could go hang out with people his own age. It gets Harrington laughing, and maybe that’s why he keeps talking, running his mouth even though he’s never been one to fill silences. Help me out here, asshole, he thinks, staring hard at the other side of the ramp, talking and talking and talking. Tell me to shut up or something. “—and that’s how I found out her new friend “Monica” was actually just Boney Money—this old crackhead who used to jump people at the vending machines,” he finishes.

Harrington’s wheezing so hard he hasn’t been able to take a puff of his cigarette in the last minute. He keeps trying though, folding just about in half every time he gets close. Billy has to look away at the quarry, his mouth doing all sorts of things without his permission, even with his tongue tucked in his cheek.

“Why do you always do that?” Harrington says, catching his breath, still kinda teared up.

“Do what?”

Harrington lets out an incredulous huff. “You know. You do that—” He circles the cigarette at Billy’s face. “That. ”

For a stunned moment the only answer he has is to push Harrington off the ramp. He’s saved, however, by the sudden crack of thunder, the sky opening up and bucketing icy rain down, soaking them through in a handful of seconds.

Harrington’s whoop turns into a cringe as he ducks, the next boom sounding right over their heads, the air going frizzy, the rain hardening into a downpour. They both scramble to get off the ramp, Harrington jumping out one side of the bowl and Billy the other, laughing hysterically because Harrington lands badly and loses a sneaker—only to slip on a muddy patch himself a second later.

He slams into the Camaro, still laughing about it. Gets the key in on the second try, spitting hair out of his face, the radio springing to life. In the same moment, the passenger door wrenches open, Harrington throwing himself down in the other seat in a blast of cold air and pelting rain.

“Jesus. Where the f*ck did that come from?” he says, fighting the door shut with a clap, slapping rainwater off his windbreaker and trying to rake the worst of it out of his hair. “Thanks for leaving me to die out there, asshole. I think I sprained my ankle.” He blows on his hands, flipping an A/C vent his way, shivering. “You know what? That thing’s a death-trap. Someone should call the authorities to come tear it down.” He settles back against the seat with a damp scrape of denim and a sigh, reaching for the dash. “Do you mind?”

He’s dripping from somewhere—Billy can hear the plink plink plink of it on the leather—looking expectantly at Billy with his forelock hanging in a wet hook over one eye.

His mouth is dry. “What?”

“The music—you mind?” Harrington repeats, eyebrows raised.

Billy follows the line of his arm to where his hand is hovering over the dial.

He’s in Billy’s car.

“Uh,” Billy says in the affirmative.

Harrington takes up a lot more legroom in the foot well than Max does. That’s probably, he thinks absurdly, because he has more leg. Harrington keeps messing with the dial, the signal worse than usual in the storm, and Billy finds himself...looking. The knees of Harrington’s jeans are dirty just like Billy’s are from working on the ground all day, the denim across his thighs a darker shade when wet, sprawled unselfconsciously apart. Billy can smell his cologne, and it smells different in the small space of the cab.

A drip of water snakes past the collar of his shirt.

Harrington makes a contented noise, settling more heavily in his seat. He’s found a station playing The Cars—weak yearning crap Billy should kick him out over, the voice almost too gentle to decipher under the waves of static and the clatter of rain on the Camaro roof, closing in around them like a shroud.

“Let me guess, you like this song better when you can’t hear it,” Harrington says, making fun of him again. He pushes his dripping fringe back, tilting his head back against the headrest, eyes falling shut.

Billy finds his voice. “It’s not bad.”

Harrington hmms, notch bobbing in the long line of his throat.

Billy lets himself look without looking.

The storm’s bad now, but it will pass.

^^^

He stops on the way home. Parks the Camaro on the shoulder of the road and lets the cold air wash in until it smells like nothing more than rain, windows down and hands tight on the wheel, breathing normal, just like he’s always done—just like he’s always known how to do. In and out, and in—

And in—

And in—

Chapter 19: there aren’t any grownups (part four)

Chapter Text

The day before Christmas, Billy wakes up and the world is dusted with snow and he has no plans to hang out with Harrington but he knows he’s probably going to anyway.

Max is in the kitchen being forced to make a gingerbread house from Susan’s revered copy of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls when he emerges after his workout. Going by the hat and scarf, and the sulky violence with which she’s beating eggs, she was on her way out the door when her mom intercepted her. She makes a face at Billy scratching himself through his shorts while he hunts through the fridge.

“Oh, Billy, it’s snowing outside,” Susan says, catching sight of him. “I wish you’d put some proper clothes on.”

Billy snags the carton of OJ out of the door. “If wishes were fishes, Susan.”

“You stink,” Max says more bluntly.

He flashes an armpit at her. “Soak it up, sh*tbird. This is like catnip for the cows at school—you can’t bottle it.”

“That’s because no one wants to bottle it because you smell like dogsh*t.”

“Maxine,” Susan says disapprovingly.

Max dumps her bowl of gingerbread batter on the counter. “But Billy just said—”

The phone rings and Billy’s the closest, snatching it off the cradle before the first ring is even through.

“Max home?” Harrington asks.

“Shuddup.”

And maybe it’s not what Billy says but the way he says it, half smothered into the handset, turning away from Max glaring a hole in his head and Susan wiping her hands off on her apron—maybe that’s what draws his dad’s gaze away from the TV.

It’s only for a moment—a casual glance over so fast it’s like he imagined it—like bending a holographic card in your hand to make the picture shift. One of the Dodgers knocks it out of the park and Neil is the version of himself that’s always been watching the game again.

The rest of the call is curt. If Harrington notices the change in tone he doesn’t say, just gets on with telling Billy the plan: He’s stuck at the same turkey dinner Max is going to at the Byers’ house with all the rest of them; it will only go until eight at the latest; Billy’s going to play the getaway driver.

Billy grunts an okay to that, grunts again to agree to the party Harrington wants to go to after.

“I better go clean the pool,” Harrington says, maybe catching on that he should wind things up. “Parents are back for real this week. My old man’s gonna murder me when he finds out I Ieft the cover off all winter—it’s basically the only thing he asked me to remember to do.”

You need a hand? Billy wants to say but just swallows instead,

Harrington can be clueless with stuff like that, just like Carol told him. Billy can already picture him out there trying to pry gunk out of the filter with a pair of kitchen tongs.

Thing is, if he headed over now it would only mean he’d spend the whole day cleaning—working with Harrington to get rid of all the crap they let pile up over the last week with the sort of careless disregard of living out of a motel room—and, like, who would even want to spend their day like that when it’s school break and there’s snow on the ground for the first time?

He holds his tongue for another round of tinny cheering from the television, knuckled snarled in the coiled wire, waiting, in case Harrington asks.

But he doesn’t, so Billy says, “I’ll be there at eight”—and hangs up.

^^^

The closest he’s willing to bring the Camaro to Byers’ house of horrors is the patch of snow at the end of the driveway where it turns into the street. He parks with the heat still running and gets back to gnawing at the splinter lodged in his hand. What he really needs is to rip it out with some duct tape, but for now his teeth will have to do.

It’s a little after eight when the front door opens and Harrington slips out, waving at someone out of sight to stay indoors out of the cold—a quick exit made gracefully. Billy takes in the pressed chinos and ugly Christmas knit sweater with a disapproving breath as Harrington comes tramping up the drive, a slightly too-cheery shape to his smile that falls away and comes back softer and easier once the door is closed and he’s settled into the warm front seat of Billy’s car with a sigh.

“Don’t say anything,” he says, meaning his outfit. He dumps a plate onto Billy’s lap before he can anyway. Skeptical, Billy plucks at the foil cover. There's a whole meal underneath: turkey and baked spuds and carrots swimming in gravy, stuck all over with peas. He’s not really into food, so it’s a surprise when his mouth waters at the smell of it. “From Joyce,” Harrington explains. “She heard you liked her sandwiches.”

Billy snorts, shoving a piece of turkey in his mouth. “You ate half of ‘em.”

“That’s not what I told her,” Harrington says. He tugs his gloves off, reaching for the car stereo and hitting fast-forward on the mixtape Billy’s been listening to. Harrington can’t get into Motörhead at all. He probably doesn’t even know there’s a common theme to the songs he skips—certainly he’s never f*cking asked, just fast-forwards through them when they come on like a reflex. It’s always worth it to see what he lands on instead though.

Nine times out of ten, Harrington picks Metallica. He can’t tell if Harrington genuinely likes the sound, or if he’s just figured out they’re Billy’s favorite and likes to mess with him. Best guess is, it’s a little of both. Harrington’s a jerk like that. It makes his old mixtape feel like a new one when he doesn’t get to choose what comes next on it, and that wasn’t something he ever knew he’d like, so he’ll let it slide for now.

He eats while he waits for Harrington to find something he’s willing to compromise on. The turkey’s good—still hot, and there’s even a little leg meat, which is more than he deserves given what he’s done with her flatware in the past. He finds himself wolfing it down, hungry enough to put aside his reservations about whatever it is that woman keeps in her fridge.

He sucks his fingers clean appreciatively when he’s done. “Max coming out?”

Harrington nods. “Saying her goodbyes. She was pretty pissed you got here early.”

That’s kinda embarrassing. He figured no one would notice, since he parked pretty far back.

They shoot the sh*t for a while waiting on Maxine, Harrington coming up with a well-thought-out argument for why eating Christmas dinner with a bunch of middle-school rejects isn’t as lame as it sounds, and Billy explaining all the ways in which being forced to take turns listening to Harrington’s preferred new wave tapes makes him feel like he’s a two-hundred-horsepower car going five mile per hour on the interstate—until finally the front door of the house swings open again, emitting Max. She can’t get away quite as easy as Harrington, Byers’ five-foot-nothing wisp of a mother fussing over her in the doorway, tightening her scarf, acting like she’s a toddler. Harrington must see his leg going because he socks him in the shoulder just in time to stop him from laying on the horn.

Max slips and slides her way contentedly over the snowy drive and waits impatiently for Harrington lever out of the passenger seat so she can scramble into the back, pissy about her usual spot being taken. “You could have at least waited until after dessert”—is the first thing out of her mouth. “Will’s mom made a pie.”

“She definitely bought one,” Harrington says dryly, probably not realizing it makes him a snob.

Billy checks his plate. “Why didn’t I get any?”

“You don’t like sweet things, remember?”

Asshole. He snorts, twisting in his seat to face Maxine. “You got a whole gingerbread condo you can pig out on at home.”

“Well that’s cute,” Harrington says.

“She built it, not me.”

“I’m sure you supervised,” Harrington says, tongue in cheek, playing with Billy’s nerves. He’s been going to great lengths to put Max off the scent of the ramp, even going so far as to wrap her usual gift of a Lady Speedstick and put it under the tree to throw her off.

He gives Harrington a sharp warning look, shoving the last of the turkey in his mouth, balling up the foil. “So,” he says to Max, chewing. “You corner Sinclair under the mistletoe or what.”

“No.”

“Maxine,” he drawls. “Where’s your Christmas spirit?”

“Where’s yours?” she fires back. “You look like you’re going on one of your stupid dates.”

He grits his teeth. “You keen to walk back?”

“No. And Nancy said she’d give me a lift home if I wanted, anyway,” she says airily. “Steve too.”

Ah. He connects the tight expression that was on Harrington’s face with the vaguely familiar station wagon pulled up close to the porch. Makes sense that it’s Wheeler, now that he has all the pieces of the puzzle. The opening sting of Ace of Spades plays and, like clockwork, Harrington reaches over and switches from cassette to radio. Billy shakes his head. “I had to stake out nearly two nights no sleep to get that, y’know.”

Harrington ignores him, continuing to dial, scanning pointlessly through the mire of Christmas jingles for something passable—like Billy hasn’t tried that already. He rolls his eyes and catches sight of Max in the mirror, staring bug-eyed at the stereo like it’s her first time seeing one and she doesn’t like having to figure out what it is.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She chews her lip for a moment, thinking. “Can I listen to Madonna?”

“No,” Billy says, even as Harrington scrolls back to it and stops, the cab filling up with the rancid sound of pop. Max settles back, satisfied, and Harrington bops his head, grooving a little in his seat in a way Billy knows is specifically to annoy him.

^^^

They kick Max out on the corner of Cherry and shoot through to Harrington’s house to sink a few beers before the party, since it’s still way too early for either of them to show face. The party Harrington got them an invite to is at Lifeguard Girl’s house while her folks are out of town. Turns out she lives only a couple of blocks away, so the plan is to get just drunk enough to brave the cold and then walk there—which Billy has his thoughts about three hours later once they’re both head-spinningly drunk already and he’s starting to really like being inside where it’s warm.

“Oh, come on,” Harrington says, clattering around his bathroom. “It’s like, five minutes, tops, and I know the way. My parents used to drag me over there all the time.”

“Yeah, in a car,” Billy says, flipping through one of Harrington’s old yearbooks, looking for pictures of Harrington before he learned to always look bored and cool-eyed. So far all he’s found is Tommy with braces. “How do you know her anyway?”

“Heather? I don’t really. At least, not anymore,” Harrington says. “I mean, our parents used to golf together, so…” He’s changing out of his sweater—flashes of an elbow and stretching blue-green fabric through the doorway before Billy returns his interest to Harrington’s bedroom ceiling.

“You and her bang?”

Two short bursts of hairspray aerosol, followed by a longer, firmer spray. “Nah. I think we both kind of felt like our moms wanted it to happened too much, y’know?” More spraying. When he speaks again it’s tight, the air choked thin. “She’s in college now, anyway.”

“Older ain’t bad.”

That’s not exactly true. College girls have always been the worst sort of smart for Billy.

From the bathroom, Harrington makes a scoffing noise. “Maybe ask her how she feels about dumb.”

Billy keeps his eyes on the ceiling, eyes tracing the oblong of light from Harrington’s desk lamp, swallowing against the sticky-sweet rise of liquor in the back of his throat. He has to breathe a little deeper around it, stop the dizziness from swelling up, but each breath he draws brings the room in a little closer: hairspray and cologne and sheets that need a wash.

“You can’t have it all,” he hears himself say, flopping his hand around over his head, searching for the bottle of whisky Harrington dug up from a drawer in his dad’s study when he was cleaning.

Brains or beauty, not both—that’s what his mom used to say, anyway.

Don’t let me get old, okay?

He starts when something small and cold lands on his stomach, straining his neck to look, the yearbook slithering off his chest. Harrington’s thrown a pair of tweezers at him. “For your hand,” he says, already disappearing into the bathroom again.

Billy props up on his elbows, frowning down at the tweezers in his lap.

That’s not fair. Harrington’s not even that dumb.

It’s a struggle to get upright, the room lurching and his new jeans pinching in all the wrong places when he slides his boots onto the floor, hunching over his hand, squinting. The lighting in the room is too dim, his own shadow falling over his palm every time he thinks he’s close enough to see. He starts digging at the already tender spot with the tweezers.

Something metallic clatters in the bathroom, rolling around in the sink, Harrington swearing softly to himself.

He’s not quite sure how they got so drunk so fast—Harrington especially, bypassing his usual flat-eyed funk and straight into the smirking, laughing, dizzyingly conceited version of himself that knows the night is going to work out in his favor. Actually, now that he’s thinking on it, that’s definitely how Billy got drunk—trying to keep up with Harrington hogging the bottle right up until the point where the guy decided he needed a half a goddamn hour to do his hair before they could leave.

“You making out with your reflection in there or something?” he calls out, hissing when the tweezers pinch wrong, the splinter riding around so deep under the skin now he’s not even sure it’s still in there except that it hurts. He sucks the wound angrily, muttering to himself. “We even gonna get to this party?”

“Relax would you,” Harrington says, emerging from the bathroom finally to rummage through his dresser. “I’ve waited my whole life to get an invite to this thing, I’m not going in half-co*cked.” He smirks a little at his own words like he’s just realized the double entendre, trying to glue together a joke.

“Since when does King Steve not get an invite?” he asks, since Harrington’s already at cruising altitude with his ego.

“I did get an invite, last year,” Harrington says, distracted. “It was just...bad timing.”

“Big night of caroling with Wheeler?”

Harrington gives him a filthy look in the mirror where he’s stooped to fluff his hair.

“She jingle your bells or you jingle hers?”

That gets a can of deodorant pegged at him which Billy’s too drunk and too preoccupied with his tweezers to bat away. He dodges instead, letting it smack into the wall over his shoulder. It lands with a thump on the carpet among the strewn record sleeves and magazines and socks. Harrington’s already tried unsuccessfully to explain to him how his folks expecting the place to be in order when they get back doesn’t mean cleaning his room, even though—as Billy explained—his room is a room in their home.

“Yeah, but it’s my room,” had been Harrington’s argument.

“But it’s their house.”

“So?”

“So what about when they come in here and it’s a f*cking pigsty?”

“Why would they come in here?”

Even thinking about it again makes his head hurt. Not that he could give less of a sh*t about the mess. He doesn’t even care about his own except that he has to—at least, for as long as Neil thinks it’s a vital part of Susan’s panties staying untwisted. Even then, he can usually get away with his bed being made—and his door staying shut if it’s not.

The rest of the house is clean—spotless, actually. Harrington’s been real cagey about it, which Billy can only assume means the rumors are true about them having a maid—like he couldn’t’ve figured that out from the housekeeping magnet on the fridge or the bowl of new potpourri in the can. The whole place is sparkling now in a way that makes it obvious it must have been dirty before, the carpets powdery and fresh, tiles and bannisters gleaming, dust bunnies whisked out of the corners.

He toys half-heartedly with the tweezers, watching Harrington fuss with his hair some more even though he doesn’t need to, batting his fringe to one side with a frustrated noise, yanking one of the top drawers open in search of his cologne. He’s changed into a shirt with the collar pulled up out of the neck of his sweater, high and rumpled, like some private school asshole who just got done roughhousing.

Billy didn’t even know that was a look you could have. Maybe the trick to it is to find some girl in the room who wants to set it straight, make it all neat again.

He gives up on the tweezers, flopping backwards over the side of the bed again, his pendant unsticking from his chest and tickling up his neck and into his hair. He palms his eyes until there’s nothing but red and black spangles, then gives up on that too. It just makes him feel more drunk, the splinter throbbing insistently in his hand.

Upside-down Harrington catches his eyes in the mirror, vain concentration replaced by a not-quite smirk. “What?” he says, smile deepening. That thing again, where he doesn’t seem to mind Billy taking a shot on him, his ego something he cares so little about he’ll let Billy bat at it like a cat with a toy. Billy must take too long to come up with something though, because Harrington turns around to face him, tone turning drawling and predatory: “Hold on—Hargrove, are you drunk?” He tsks. “And here I thought you could hold your liquor.”

“Tell your pops his hooch’s gone bad.” That’s a lie: the stuff tastes like molten honey—went down too easy.

Harrington snorts. “It’s cognac.”

“Gesundheit.”

Harrington laughs outright, snatching the bottle up off the floor away from Billy’s seeking fingers. “Why don’t you sit this one out, huh, amigo?” he goads. “Take a breather. I’m sure there’s a keg out there with your name on it.”

Billy makes a disapproving growl in his throat. “And let you get a running start? I don’t think so.”

Harrington snorts. “You get the splinter out?”

“S’fine how it is,” Billy says.

“Yeah, okay,” Harrington says. “I’m cutting you off.”

“You couldn’t cut me off if you tried,” Billy snipes, pretty confident he can back it up just as soon as he can figure out how to get the right way up.

Harrington just eyes him coolly, one eyebrow co*cked.

Billy chokes out a noise, catching on, his pulse beating excitedly in his throat. “You gotta be sh*tting me.”

Harrington shrugs. “Might be an even match, is all I’m saying.”

Sheer disbelief makes his words come out in a pleased rush. “On what planet, princess?”

“I don’t know…” Harrington says, nonchalant. “Kind of like my odds about now.”

Billy sucks on his teeth, considering. “You ever heard of biting off more than you can chew?”

“Have you?” Harrington fires back.

To his credit, Harrington doesn’t take much more than a step back when Billy heaves himself up and off the bed, using Harrington as his focal point when the rest of the world keeps on lurching a beat later. He sucks in a hard breath through his nose until everything stops swimming. “How those odds looking now?”

For an answer, Harrington just takes a deliberate, instigating swig from the bottle of his dad’s booze, and another, co*cky, just the same as he bounces a ball in front of Billy’s feet on the court, knowing the exact count of Billy’s patience. But Billy doesn't miss the faint wince of distaste when he swallows. He leers. “Too good for the hard stuff, huh?”

“Could use a mixer,” Harrington rasps.

“Uh huh. How ‘bout you hand it over—since you don’t like the taste—and I’ll find you a nice lite beer, maybe even take you out on the town for a Shirley Temple.” He takes a step forward and Harrington squints at the small amount of space left between them, doing whatever crazed math he does that gives him downing the rest of the bottle as the only solution.

Billy watches in helpless delight as Harrington slugs the last of the whisky, killing the bottle in a series of long messy pulls. It’s a hell of a lot of liquor, and Billy knows it burns on the way down.

“Freak,” he says, amazed.

Harrington drags a hand across his chin, a smile lighting up his face all the way.

^^^

Harrington gets them lost.

His shortcut turns out to be twenty of the coldest minutes of Billy’s life. They should be some of the longest too, but they’re not. Mostly he remembers his hands tucked under his arms and his teeth chattering and Harrington having a great time in his nice warm coat and gloves, kicking snow drifts all over the leg of Billy’s jeans just to piss him off. By the time they make it indoors again his jeans are soaked around the ankle and his chest is stinging red all over from cold and his throat is raw from laughing.

He knocks his boots against the doorjamb on the way in, sprinkling the Happy Holidays doormat with ice, pushing ahead of Harrington inside. Heather Holloway is there to greet him with a kiss on the cheek and a shot of eggnog that smells like turpentine and snuffs his higher thinking out like a pinched candle wick. She gets stuck into Harrington right away, the two of them hugging and flirting, so Billy lets himself get drawn into the house in search of a good time.

He doesn’t have to go very far. The party’s in full swing, George Michael blasting, the ritzy gold and red rooms packed full of college kids and townies, clean-cut and friendly—the same faces he’s seen at every other party in Hawkins, just a couple of years older, a few more blazers and letter jackets.

Warm air, laughter, music, the tang of beer breath, eyes on him—it’s all the base ingredients of a good night. He’s not friendly but everyone else is: older kids who like his look, jock types who are plastered enough to welcome him in and share their beer, girls who sidle up to him in pairs, trying to get a read. He lets himself get pulled from group to group, not bothering to learn any new names.

His next solid memory is of getting cornered next to the stereo rack by Lacey’s pretty friend, the one who’s always giggling. She’s wearing a red turtleneck tonight that she keeps toying with while she talks, wringing the neck of it with a finger, touching his arm. It’s supposed to distract him from the calculated slack she leaves at the end of each sentence for him to spill his guts into, but he’s drunk, not stupid, and she’s got nothing on Carol when it comes to wheedling out information.

Still, she’s not bad to look at. Big sparkling dark eyes and a full smirking mouth. She probably looks like that girl that’s not his type but is ‘the one’, braver and bolder than the others. An even match for all his bad habits, maybe.

She keeps talking and he finds himself looking around the room and finding Harrington for the first time in a while.

He’s hemmed in against the wall, yucking it up amongst a knot of college guys and their girlfriends. No one’s straightened his collar out yet but it’s only a matter of time, a girl in the group edging inexorably closer to him like a magnetic filing. Seeing him around people for the first time all week hits Billy like a whole new wave of drunkenness, realizing that he’s looking at the version of Harrington that used to be the only version he knew. It makes him laugh: a brash cough of sound like he’s been winded. The girl frowns, waiting for him to tell her what he finds so funny, but he can’t tell her that he’s just realized he kind of...he kind of knows Steve Harrington.

Cutting through the crowd towards him feels like he’s at that Halloween Party again, the world still tilting from the keg, Harrington like an eyesore of stillness amongst the froth of color and dancing. This time Harrington sees him coming though, his eyes catching and holding, like they’re sharing a joke from across the room.

What had been his first ever thought about Harrington? It feels like maybe it was something he’s better off forgetting.

He pushes past a guy in a letter jacket who’s talking, propping himself up in front of Harrington with a hand on the flocked wallpaper so that he doesn’t just keep pitching forward, the cognac in his stomach sloshing warningly. “Well aren’t you the belle of the ball.”

“Just being friendly,” Harrington says, dry as ever. “You tried it?”

“Not lately,” he says after a dry belch.

Harrington co*cks an eyebrow that says he knows he’s lying. “Cool party, right?”

“Yeah,” Billy says, watching him take a sip of punch from his plastic cup. “You bored?”

Harrington stops mid-sip, eyes flicking. He looks at Billy for long enough that Billy knows he’s totally and utterly blitzed, a smile quirking in the corner of his mouth. “Well not now,” he drawls, ignoring the faintest bristle of uncertainty in the laughter of the group around them. Billy doesn’t bother with them either, watching as Harrington holds up the hand that had been hidden at his side, revealing his grip on a dusty bottle of port wine with the cork still in it. “Fix you a drink?”

“Thanks,” Billy says, pulling the cup of punch out of his other hand instead and downing the last of it in two loud swallows.

“Punch bowl’s right there, my dude,” one of the others says, laughing and easy.

Harrington just blinks languidly instead of getting nice and worked up. “Anyone ever told you you have an attitude problem?”

“A few. Why? You got a spin you wanna put on it?”

“Depends.”

He tilts his head to one side like, Oh?

“On what you did to the others,” Harrington explains.

Billy smiles, leaning closer even though the music's not that loud to breathe in his ear threateningly. “Nothing permanent.”

“Uh huh,” Harrington says, doubtful, pushing him back a touch, amused but not intimidated. “So I’ll be fighting fit for ball season, then.”

“Someone’s gotta keep up with me.”

“Thought you were kind of a solo act.”

“What can I say? It gets lonely at the top.”

Harrington’s eyes sparkle. “Not in my experience.”

“That so?”

“You’re on the team?” one of the guys asks, butting in good-naturedly, straight white teeth gleaming. Billy takes in the Captain pin on his Class of ‘83 letter jacket with a dismissive glance.

“I am the team.”

“He’s new,” Harrington says apologetically.

Harrington’s little circle of admirers aren’t too bad to hang out with. For the most part they’re coupled off and more interested in reminiscing about the good times at school and dancing with each other than bothering him. He’s not going to dance to whatever sh*t is on Heather Holloway’s stereo but it’s still good to be in amongst it, losing track of time.

It must be Christmas day already. Kids from out of town keep arriving in carloads that pour into the house until the living room is a cheery comfortable crush of people. The music cuts for a while and comes back once someone’s successfully transplanted in some cheesy seasonal jazz music that sparks a wave of booing.

Another couple hours and the punch bowl finally runs dry. He finds himself squeezed into a hall with Lacey’s friend again, her pushing into his space, angling for him in a way that makes him feel like he’s about five seconds away from losing Joyce Byers’ turkey dinner all over her. But then Harrington’s there too, using him to prop himself up, slinging an arm around Billy’s shoulders to stop himself from going face first into the carpet. They waste a couple of songs in the queue for the bathroom, arguing over how to get the cork out of the lifted port wine, Harrington trying unsuccessfully to pry it out with his keys, and Billy insisting he can get it out with his teeth.

He sobers up a little once he’s standing in front of the toilet, trying to take a slash—but can’t, for some reason—realizing it’s because Harrington’s in there with him, talking his head off. He’s poking around in the cabinet over the sink for an unlikely corkscrew while he blabs, typically nosy.

“Shut up a sec,” Billy says, swaying, trying to concentrate; someone’s pounding on the bathroom door impatiently and maybe has been for a while.

“I’m just saying,” Harrington continues, undeterred. “He was like, a legend, y’know? And now he’s—” He pauses to swallow a drunken hiccup “—still here? And wearing that pin? That’s lame right?”

“Seems like he’s doing fine.”

Good hair, pretty girl—the whole package. Probably drives something nice too. He finishes pissing, zipping up.

“A-ha!” Harrington flourishes a pair of nail scissors at him.

Billy snorts. “Don’t think that’s gonna cut it.”

“It’s not for that,” Harrington says, glaring at him for the pun, not waiting to snatch Billy’s hand out from under the faucet, bending his palm out in a way it’s not supposed to go, trying to find the light with it.

“Like you can get at it any better than I can,” Billy says tightly, trying not to flinch, fighting the urge to wrench his arm away.

“Shut up, stop—moving.”

Billy’s not in control of that. His elbow keeps trying to pull back in close to his body, away from Harrington’s prying, Harrington’s grip on his wrist tightening further. Harrington hunches over his upturned hand, thumbs pressing his palm flat, exposing the nick of flesh where Billy’s worried through the skin.

He makes himself go still finally, letting Harrington tug him around so he’s got his arm in a lock, Billy trying to see over his shoulder, the burnt-sugar scent of his hairspray tickling Billy’s nose.

Billy blinks slowly. Harrington...he’s got nice hands. Long boyish fingers, clean blunt nails; a small callus from holding the hammer wrong all week. He doesn’t know if Harrington’s making a special effort to be gentle or if that’s just how his hands are—how they feel: soft—even when he’s holding on tight as a vise.

“Hurry up,” Billy grits, someone thumping on the bathroom door in agreement.

“Yeah yeah,” Harrington mutters, his breath prickling on the wet skin of his palm, bending over it once again, the shadow of his head getting in the way. “Jesus, what have you been doing to it?” he says, tsking under his breath. He scrapes a nail over the hair-fine splinter and Billy jumps, hand jerking absolutely nowhere in Harrington’s grip.

Harrington’s eyes dart up—the same color as his dad’s expensive whisky—large with concern for a split-second, then dark, smirking. He’s so close Billy’s watching his mouth form the shape of the word before he hears it—“puss*”—before it’s cut off in a gasp, Billy reacting, shoving him so hard he trips, his shoulder colliding with the cabinet mirror, slamming it shut with a crunch.

They both jerk back at the same time, hands clapped over mouths as the broken door flops open, grains of glass tinkling in the sink.

The knocking has stopped. There’s a chant going up over the top of the muffled Christmas music in the living room: someone’s brought a keg.

“Look what you did,” Harrington whispers at last, moving to place the scissors carefully back on the shelf behind the cracked mirror and closing it gently, like that’s even important at this stage.

They stare at the spiderweb puzzle of their reflections in the mirror until they’re both wearing matching smiles between the cracks.

“You bleeding?” Billy asks.

“No,” Harrington says after rubbing a hand over the high point of his shoulder to check. “You?”

Billy tests his hand—sucks the blood off where it’s beaded up in the wound, shaking his head.

“Freak,” Harrington breathes.

Billy smiles around the meat of his thumb. The splinter’s still in there, maybe, but nothing hurts.

^^^

They leave the party before it even really gets good and Harrington gets them lost on the way back too. The second time they pass the Loch Nora sign he pushes Harrington into a snowbank, cackling when Harrington just lays there face-down like a starfish, too drunk to register his new horizontal state. Billy laughs so hard at the sight he can’t run straight, taking off down the road in what he hopes is the right direction this time, moving at more of a stagger than a run, his knees refusing to cooperate. He slows to a walk, enjoying the smell of cold and the sight of his breath coming out in frosty plumes in the clear night.

They did eventually somehow manage to push the cork in on the stolen port wine, and running brings the sour taste of it up on his tongue, makes it so he has to stop and get a handle on his gag reflex for a crucial minute in which Harrington catches up to him, slamming him off the road and onto someone’s lawn.

The bottle goes flying.

“How you like them odds?” Harrington says, winded, scrabbling around on the icy lawn above his head for something to ruin his hair with, his leg digging into Billy’s stomach.

Billy fights the lurch of nausea in his sternum, the world turning over like a tumble dryer. The wet has soaked straight through his jacket and shirt, the back of his pants. He heaves Harrington off and over, clumsy with cold and slow from alcohol, but Harrington’s just as bad off, flopping around for a purchase he hasn’t got the coordination to pull off. His back hits the ground, air escaping his lungs in a dazed woof of sound as Billy climbs on top.

Billy scrapes up a bunch of ice from the grass and smothers it into Harrington’s hair while he’s powerless, laughing.

“Now who’s the puss*, puss*?” he says, panting, putting more weight on his knees to make Harrington give up squirming.

Harrington’s laughter stutters into a series of gasps, ribs heaving under Billy’s weight. “Okay, okay,” he huffs, batting at Billy’s legs with his gloved hands, trying to tap out.

There’s a moment of déjà vu that hits him like a freight train that he’s done this before—less playful, more bloody—but this time, this Harrington…is smiling, laughing too much to catch his breath and struggle properly, one of his hands patting around on the grass still trying to find enough snow to retaliate. His eyes light up and Billy smacks his hand down before he can smash a clump of snow in his face, pinning his other hand too for good measure, smug about it.

“You suck,” Harrington gasps cheerily, the words a puff of hot frost, his nose and cheeks stung red.

And just like that, he’s through the storm of it, the faint ghost of guilt burnt away by warm glowing heat all the way down, like he’s just swallowed down a whole new bottle of fancy whisky, like someone’s stuck him with something again, except, he looks around and there’s no one—no Max, no kids, no creepy house, just the long sloping lawns and big dark houses of Loch Nora, the quiet street sheened with wet.

“Hey, check it out,” Harrington says, shoving him off while he’s distracted. Billy tips onto his ass on the wet lawn, watching Harrington scramble to his feet, half-tripping half-walking up the lawn towards a kids’ swing set.

Billy groans, crouching to fetch the bottle where it’s rolled to a stop at the curb. Surprisingly, there’s still booze left sloshing around inside.

His boots make a satisfying crunching sound on the frozen grass as he lopes over to where Harrington is already climbing the play equipment. He snickers at the sight of Harrington’s long legs marching importantly up the tiny ladder steps. Harrington can barely cram himself into the little plastic house at the top, shoulders too broad, trying to go through feet first next.

He takes another swig of wine, reaching for the side of the swing set for balance when the world twists traitorously, staggering around to the other side in time to see Harrington feeding his legs out onto the little slide. The whole structure wobbles as Harrington works his head and shoulders through, plastic creaking. Harrington’s already past the point of laughter, wheezing, bent in half trying to wiggle out of the door above the slide with his head and knees poking out.

From somewhere inside the house of whoever it is whose lawn they’re on, a dog starts yipping inquisitively.

“Eugh, I’m stuck.”

“No, you’re not,” Billy says, eyeing the house, unsurprised when a light snaps on behind the front curtains. “Move your ass.”

“Oh my God,” Harrington says sadly. “I’m stuck. I have to live here now.”

“No, no, that’s not your house, dumbass,” Billy says, trying to tug him out by the wrist. He doesn’t budge.

“It is. It’s my house,” Harrington insists, too bent over to laugh anything bigger than a hiccup. Billy grabs him by the shoe next, pulling it right off, stumbling, the wine slicking down his front in a cold purple blot. He swears, trying to suck the worst of it off his sleeve. “Oh gee thanks, that’s helpful,” Harrington says sarcastically, staring at his cast-off shoe.

“It’s a nice neighborhood. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Billy says, giving up.

The front door opens, spilling light in a long stripe of butter yellow down the dark lawn.

“Oh, no,” Harrington laughs, struggling uselessly. “Oh nnno-no-no.”

“Who is that out there?”

Resigning himself, Billy sets the bottle down at a precarious lean, returning to yank Harrington by the arm with both hands this time, bracing a foot on the slide for more leverage. The plastic bows and shakes under his boot, the structure squeaking, shifting on its pegs. Harrington’s f*cking impossible to get a grip on, his jacket sliding under Billy’s frozen hands.

“I said, who is that!” the voice comes again, trying for firm and coming out shrill.

“We’re leaving,” Billy barks, focused on getting a good grip on Harrington under the hinge of his knees this time. He braces with all his weight behind it and Harrington pops free, the back of his head hitting the slide on his way down as Billy falls on his ass over the edge, knocking the bottle over and losing the last of their booze into the grass.

He blinks, rolling over, half-stunned. Harrington’s coughing behind him so hard it sounds like he’s retching. When Billy gets the right way up it’s to find him hopping around trying to put his shoe on, the little dog yipping like a stuck record.

Billy sticks around only long enough to make sure Harrington’s with him, yanking him along by the sleeve so that he’s slip-sliding after Billy over the lawn towards the road, shouting some sort of hare-brained apology back at his neighbor. He starts pushing Billy more urgently once they hit the asphalt, trying to drag him along this time, but Billy’s got no more running left in him, his knees uncooperative, like cold cement in his jeans. Harrington could take off without him, but he throws an arm over his shoulder instead, lurching into him and dragging him into an ungainly lockstep, the two of them pitching forward a few steps with the force of Harrington’s laughter before Billy straightens them up, smiling so hard he can’t feel it. Harrington’s not any warmer than Billy and his hair’s wet where it brushes Billy’s ear; Billy’s going to shove him away just as soon as he’s found his feet—in just one more step.

In just two, three, four…

Chapter 20: there aren’t any grownups (part five)

Chapter Text

He’s zoning out brushing his teeth, trying to figure out if he’s still a little bit drunk, when Susan knocks on the door the second time.

Trust Harrington to pick wine that’s got actual poison in it. It must be almost noon already and the world’s still queasy and lilting, the smell of whatever Susan’s got roasting in the oven turning his stomach since he woke up. His skin itches all over too, from having to defrost himself under scorching hot water. Apparently he walked home.

“Billy?”

He takes a fortifying annoyed breath, tugging the toothbrush out of his mouth to brace against the bathroom counter. “Yeah.”

“We’re opening the presents now.”

What he can’t figure out is how he doesn’t look worse. His hangover’s pressing behind the eyes with an old familiar weight he can’t quite place; he’s got maybe four hours sleep in the bank, and he’s breathing ninety proof... And yet somehow he looks like a spring f*cking daisy. A little pale maybe; red-eyed; freckles on his nose he hasn’t seen since he was a kid.

“Be right out,” he says flatly to his reflection, spitting a clump of purple foam into the sink.

In the TV room, he has to sit next to Susan on the couch, Neil taking the chair.

It’s times like these he realizes their house doesn’t really fit all of them in it at the same time. He slumps on his side of the two-seater, the soft cushion making him sink and hunch, belt buckle biting into his stomach, and Susan sits primly on the edge of hers, nose wrinkling. He threw on the same clothes from last night and with the gas heater churning in the corner he keeps catching a whiff of old booze and sour cologne from one of the two of them.

Max doesn’t seem like she’s exactly having a blast either. This time last year she was in her pajamas hounding them all to get the show on the road before eight o’clock, and now she looks like her mother had to pry her out of bed. She actually rolls her eyes, moaning, when Susan makes her sit on the floor to play Christmas elf.

She does a good job of acting like she still thinks Santa’s real, though, once she’s opened a couple of presents, forgetting she’s too grown up to get excited about free sh*t magicked down the chimney they don’t have. Susan gets up with a giddy noise when Max unwraps a blue and pink caboodle, moving to sit with her, and Neil seizes the opportunity to check the score on the muted TV, the fond obliging smile still fixed in place.

Billy scratches absently at the hinge of his jaw.

He gets presents too: a dartboard and darts, which is pretty cool; a nice smart shirt from Susan that he’s not going to wear the way she wants him to.

And a shaving kit.

But there’s nothing else for him under the tree.

While Max and Susan coo over the caboodle, he handles the nice leather pouch of the shaving kit, testing the weight. Unlikely there’s a Walkman hiding in there. He opens it anyway. It’s a proper kit—like the kind Neil uses: a steel safety razor with a stumpy little badger brush for getting a lather and a miniature bottle of aftershave.

Susan’s glowing at him when he looks up.

“Thought it was about time you had your own,” his dad says, not watching the TV anymore. Watching him. “A man needs his own razor.”

“Yep,” Billy says.

“What do you say?”

He turns to look at him.

I hate you, he thinks dully, just testing—like dropping a match in an empty can of kerosene and seeing if the fumes alone are enough to take. Except—it is. The nausea he’s been pushing down all morning twists, blossoms into something else, something hot that weaves thicker and thicker into the blanket of exhaustion until he’s crawling all over with it.

“Thank you,” he says to Susan.

He watches Maxine open a couple more presents, gasping happily when she gets a pencil-case with She-Ra on it. Pretending to like a frilly church dress Neil picked out for her.

He stands up a respectful amount of time later. Leaves his sh*t on the table. “Gotta get my jacket,” he says when his dad doesn’t move his feet to let him out. His mouth feels foamy, like he’s actually swallowed poison. But it’s just his own, welling up in his stomach, dripping down the back of his throat. His dad can tell of course; he uncrosses his legs, unhurried, moves his feet out of the way just slowly enough that Billy feels like he’s about to kick him to get free.

“The one you were wearing last night?” Susan pipes up. She’s already tidying up wrapping paper even though Max is still going. “It’s in the wash,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind. I think I got the worst of the stain out.” He remembers falling on the grass, the cold splash of wine down his sleeve. “I don’t know what you got on the cuff, though,” she continues, shaking her head bemusedly at him. “We’ll just have to wait and see how it comes out.”

The washing machine thumps, extra loud. Or maybe he’s just hearing it for the first time.

Okay then.

He supposes that’s just gonna have to be okay. She’s trying so hard and he set himself up for that one too, when he thinks about it—letting her think it was okay to touch his sh*t.

It’s still...

It still sucks though.

And he really wanted that Walkman.

Dammit, that’s not—

He’s not thinking straight.

Neil’s eyes are in him. He needs to make smart decisions. He needs for his anger not to be this thing that gets away from him like a tire bouncing down a hill. He needs not to be able to taste it like sick in his mouth.

He manages a nod at Susan and keeps moving.

You’re okay, he says in his head for the first time. He doesn’t even know whose voice it is—where it comes from. What did Coach say? Do some breathing? He tries to imagine something nice instead, like counting sheep, except he imagines he’s still out in the freezing cold with Harrington, walking skew-legged under the weight of his arm over his shoulders, one foot in front of the other...

“Wipe that sour look off your face when you’re ready to come back out.”

Neil unmutes the TV and Susan immediately says something soft and imploring like, She’s still unwrapping her presents, Neil. But he’s not hearing her, muttering along with the commentary.

Billy walks down the hall like an unhappy ghost and slams his bedroom door, because his hands have a got palsy to them out of nowhere and that helps sometimes. But this time it doesn’t.

Don’t be a baby, he says to himself, tugging his jacket on, trying not to think about how he hasn’t got his car. He’s going to go root around in his room on the off chance there’s a smoke in any of his empty cigarette packs and come back out and eat whatever Susan has cooked for lunch and then the whole thing is going to be over.

It’s just a damn present.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? That’s the part that he’s really angry about. Not the stupid f*cking present but the fact that he sat there for so long even after he’d done the math on what was under the tree, pretending he didn’t care, and really... Really...

Really, he was just quietly hoping.

Since when does he do that? For how long has he been doing that? He knows better.

A soft knock comes at the door before he’s even cooled off any. He opens it.

“Um,” Max says, taken off guard by whatever she sees on his face. She’s holding her hands behind her back, jittery, like how she used to be when they were still new to each other. “I know it’s not the one you wanted,” she starts off. “But it’s still better than what you got me!”

She means the stick of deodorant he watched her unwrap just now. He’d reacted with a resigned glare that was supposed to be satisfying when he’d planned it all out. But it doesn’t mean sh*t to him now. (The whole thing seems pointless now).

Max gives up on waiting for him to play along, swallowing nervously, revealing her hand. She pushes a cassette tape at him, unwrapped. He sniffs, taking it, turning it over in his hand, not really seeing it, and not really caring to.

Don’t, the voice says.

Was this what she was doing in the RadioShack that day? Was this why he got dragged along to the mall?

It doesn’t matter.

See, her present’s pointless too: Billy didn’t get a Walkman to play it on.

“The f*ck am I supposed to do with this?” he says, and drops it on the carpet. And steps on it with his boot until the plastic splinters, Maxine’s face wobbling into a horrified shape that he really doesn’t want to see anymore. He slams the door shut on her so he doesn’t have to. Slams it so hard it bounces open again, and—yep, there’s her face again. He wishes she wouldn’t look like that. And here comes Neil.

He turns his back and keeps it turned, letting himself imagine for just one more second that he’s not coming in. But he is. Death and taxes and Neil Hargrove if you slam a door twice in his house.

It’s what Billy did it for after all.

His dad pushes into his room, fills it up like a great white shark dropped in a fishbowl, a step too close before Billy’s even had time to get scared. That’s on the way though, catching up to him in a cold wave.

He thought he wanted this but he doesn’t now—not when it’s really happening. There’s something wrong with him, how he forgets in the time in between, makes it into something easier, something that could have gone different. It never goes different. It’s always the same. It always hurts and he’s always so scared before it does. Now his brain lets go of the lie and his body remembers all the other times, going weak and tense all over, bracing for pain that’s only gonna come when he’s not ready for it.

“Closet first,” his dad says.

sh*t.

sh*t. They haven’t done this since Hayward.

“Dad, there’s nothing…" he tries, stops at the grim expression on Neil’s face.

So.

Okay, so it’s gonna be bad.

Susan is hovering in the doorway with Max at her side, half-shielding her with her body. The realization that Max is going to see it happen—really happen—lands all of a sudden, face going hot, fear settling like lead in his stomach.

Better to make it go easier.

He swallows. Starts pulling the shoeboxes out of the top of his closet, dumping them out on the floor: tissue and scrap paper and beat up old sneakers that don’t fit anymore. He keeps going.

Max’s face screws up. “What are you doing?”

“Neil,” Susan says, wringing her hands. “Maybe this should be private.”

“No need,” Neil’s says, firm “We’re not going to find anything, are we?” This last directed at Billy as he stalks over to the bed.

His heart hammers painfully in his chest. “Dad.”

It never works. The bed—covers, pillow—all of it—gets wrenched up and off the slats, a cursory once over. He can feel his ears burning. The mattress slumps against the dresser, bottles clattering to the floor. “Dad, c’mon.”

“Drawers.”

“What’s he looking for?” Max asks from the doorway, face all puckered up and pissed off, but scared now, too. “Mom, what’s he doing?” Susan pulls her back, edges her out of view, but Billy can still hear her whining. “Why’s he doing that? Mom!”

Shut up, he thinks, vicious, desperate, his hands balled at his sides in front of his dresser. He reaches for the top drawer, turning it out: underwear and socks. Neil eyes the pile, displeased. Billy upends another drawer. Another. Please shut up.

His dad kicks through the scattered laundry, tosses the crate of records casually onto the floor. He starts on the bedside table. “I going to find anything if I look in this?”

f*ck you, Billy thinks but he keeps his mouth shut, uncertain of how his voice is going to come out and suddenly blisteringly aware that he doesn’t want this sh*t to escalate any further. It’s so bad already. Bad in ways he can’t even think about, his face burning, a sick tumbling feeling in his chest.

“No sir,” Billy says, even though it burns him, his whole body pulsing with shame and anger.

“Neil, I don’t see how this is—” Susan tries. “Hawkins is a nice town. You said so yourself.”

“It is a nice town,” his dad concedes, watching him for a reaction as he tosses out Billy’s favorite cassette tapes, pieces of forgotten jewelry, bottle caps and quarters and crushed cigarette packs, a scribbled-on paper napkin with a red blot in the center. “But you don’t know what they’re like. They’re”—he pulls the drawer all the way out, turning it over to check the underside—“resourceful.” He picks up a discarded cassette, turning it over.

“It’s just a cover,” Billy blurts, heart pounding.

His dad tosses it aside, moving on. He runs his hand over the poster on the wall, picks up an empty beer can and puts it back down, shaking his head. “I’m worried about you, Billy.”

“I haven’t—” He bites his tongue. “I’m not doing anything.”

But of course, he doesn’t need to do anything. It’s not about that. It’s not about what he does.

Neil surveys the chaos in the room, all the sad impersonal detritus of Billy’s so-called life that he keeps tidied away out of sight because he’s supposed to, that’s the work of a couple of minutes to expose, and it’s just old workout clothes and homework and dirty laundry and trash he’s too lazy to throw in the bin. Nothing that couldn’t fit in a moving box again.

Billy lets himself think that maybe it’s going to be enough. And then his dad starts working the bedside table away from the wall.

He can’t help the step he takes forward, stomach dropping. Neil wrenches it away from the wall and they fall out, the postcards, a lump of them at first, the tacky surfaces stuck together. And then they knock against the foot of the bed and go loose, sprawling in a slick fan across the carpet, dozens of them: fall landscapes and summer sunsets and cheery colorful season’s greetings—returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender, returned to sender—

He hears Maxine say: “What…what is that?”

His dad snorts, picks one up. Billy’s hands clench.

“She respond to any of them?”

“Stop it,” he says tightly.

“She doesn’t, does she?”

“Stop—”

“Who?” Maxine asks.

“His mother,” Neil says. “Isn’t that right, Bill? You even know where she is?” He turns the postcard over to read the back, tutting. “Christ Billy. You think she’s going to come out here all this way to see a bit of snow? That woman’s not interested in anything but herself.”

“What the hell would you know about it?” he chokes.

His dad tilts his head in warning, eyebrows raised.

Max’s voice from the hallway is small, uncertain. “But…Billy’s mom’s…dead,” she says. Susan shakes her head.

Neil is shaking his head too. “You wish I’d left you there, is that it? After you begged me to come get you?” Billy cringes. That’s...That's not how it happened. “Some mother,” Neil continues. “She abandoned you, you little idiot! Out gallivanting with her whor* friends for God knows how long.” That’s not true. That’s not what it was like. “That’s what you want to go back to—being alone? You miss the taste of goddamn dog food that much?”

Someone gasps.

“f*ck you! I didn’t—” he starts, face flaming nuclear-hot, but Neil cuts him off taking a step forward, finger pointed in warning.

“I get...” His dad stops himself, inhaling controlled through his nose. “I get so tired,” he says, “of waiting for you to grow up. Why is it so goddamned hard for you to be a man?”

“I—”

I am, he tries again but his dad’s eyebrows are raised, unimpressed, and nothing comes out. He swallows, swats just quickly at a new tear on his cheek so it doesn’t get in the way, grimacing. He can’t say anything either of them will believe, so he drops his shoulders, wets his mouth for the only truth he has, shrugs:

“Maybe I’m just your son.”

He hits him.

His dad hits him.

The punch jars his head back. Explodes the world into black and yellow stars, instant pain, driving through his cheek, his whole head caving in with it. A scream. He clips the empty bed frame and goes sprawling onto the slats with a crunch of splintering wood.

“On your feet,” his dad says.

Billy doesn’t want to get up. His hip stings where it’s caught on a slat.

He tries to get his feet on the floor, one knee bending, moving tenderly.

That’s not true what he said about the dog food. That didn’t happen.

He hoists himself up, staggers to his feet, wondering when he got so tall—so much bigger than when he was eight—how tall he’ll be next time, and the time after that.

He gets vertical and takes a step for balance and just—keeps going, stumbles over the threshold, Susan wrenching Max out of the way, his stupid heart lurching hopefully in his chest like he can leave what just happened in the room behind him. As if the sound of the wooden slats breaking isn’t still ringing in his ears louder than Susan’s panicked scream. As if his cheek isn’t burning already, and his hip too.

He makes it out into the hall and his dad comes straight over that magic line and pops him again: barely anything. It’s a blessing really—glances off his already stinging cheek and wipes some of the tears off before they make it to his chin.

Billy turns his back on him even though he knows that’s a mistake too. He hasn’t got his car. He’s not running anywhere. His dad doesn’t care if they see.

He stumbles into the living room and Neil’s right behind him and it’s going to be the drywall again.

Panic makes him grab the first thing he sees on the corner of the table: the stupid f*cking shaving kit instead of the box of darts—just one more wrong choice in a series of wrong choices. He twists around holding it up threateningly anyway, trying to get space, and Neil actually starts back for a second—but it’s only for the second it takes him to realize what he’s got.

He frowns, almost pityingly, when Billy threatens with it again, as if it’s gonna make a dent. “You’re just going to hurt yourself, kid.”

Billy snorts nastily. “Gotta learn some time. You’re not gonna be around forever.”

“Stop, stop, please stop!” Max bleats from the doorway. He doesn’t know if she’s asking him or Neil, wanting one of them to make it all be over already. Her face is bleached white, scared, her mom a step behind her, hands clapped over her mouth. She meets Billy’s eyes for the first time and her hands drop away, mouth working. She’s saying Neil but nothing comes out.

Jeez. He almost laughs. Finally. What a nice Christmas present. Just too little too late.

He points the kit at his dad. Neil’s calmed all the way down, just his nostrils flaring—knows it’s over, that Billy’s just choosing how bad he wants the punishment to be. “You throw that and you’re out,” he says, like he’s disappointed, his mouth curling into the barest of smirks. “Where are you going to go, Bill?”

He doesn’t know.

He hasn’t got anywhere.

He hasn’t got anyone.

“Um. Hope I’m not interrupting.”

For a second he thinks he’s just hallucinated Harrington’s voice.

Harrington can’t be standing there.

But he is.

Billy’s so shocked to see him he doesn’t even worry about all the stuff he thought he would: Harrington. How he looks. How he looks to Neil. How he looks to Neil with Billy looking at him.

None of it registers.

Harrington’s in his house. Harrington’s come through the open front door, wearing last night’s clothes as well: his smart camel coat over the top with the collar turned up and a scarf, his nose pink like he’s been out in the cold for a while. “I, uh...brought this,” he says, when none of them say anything, holding up a pudding-shaped Tupperware bowl with a lid on it. “Merry Christmas.”

Susan’s the first to get a grip. She makes a shrill airy noise, puncturing the frozen horror of the room. “Oh, how…” she starts, her hands fluttering to her hair as she comes forward to take the dish out of his hands. “How thoughtful,” she says stiffly, putting it on the counter, making eyes at all of them. Billy drops his throwing arm.

“It’s just cake, I think,” Harrington says, being polite. It’s probably something Carol’s mom left on his doorstep. His eyes land on Max in the hallway looking like she wishes she could disappear herself. “I can’t eat it all myself. Hi Max.”

Maxine musters up a pale smile, nodding just slightly at the unasked question. “Hi.”

“I know you?” Neil asks, borderline unfriendly. He can tell his dad doesn’t know what to make of Harrington, taking him all in for the first time: the outfit, the hair.

“Uh,” Harrington says. “I go to school with—Billy?” His eyes dart over to him uncertainly but Billy’s already turned his messed-up face to the wall, ears burning. Dammit. “Yep,” Harrington says with no help coming. “So…I’m Steve Harrington.”

Neil’s eyes track out the open front door to Harrington’s car, like he’s validating the claim. “Nice of you to come out of your way.”

“Oh, no, it was nothing,” Harrington says smoothly. “Just thought I’d come by, see if you wanted to pick up your car.” He’s speaking to Billy even though Billy can’t give him much more than his profile.

“We were just about to have lunch,” Neil says, not an invitation exactly. He’s still sizing him up, but he’s lost the tick in his jaw.

“It won’t take long,” Harrington says easily.

“That so?” His dad’s gaze moves beyond to the parked car again. “That car out there yours?”

“Uh,” Harrington turns to look, hand scuffing the hair at the back of his neck. “Yeah. Birthday present a couple of years back.”

Neil nods. “Looks like she’s in good shape,” he says appreciatively. “You obviously take good care of her.”

That part’s for Billy, and it works its way under his cracked armor and hurts. Billy’s spent hours upon hours of his life getting grease and engine oil under his nails in pursuit of that stern softly approving tone like it’s ambrosia but...

He likes him, he realizes. His dad likes Harrington—is won over already. And Billy, he can’t even blame Harrington for it. That’s just his nature, his default: charming, likeable. It’s what he’s made up of. He doesn’t need to use it like a mask like Neil and Billy do.

And Billy can see his dad getting a read on him, shoulders relaxing, the control in the room tilting back towards him like a see-saw. He fooled Billy once. Susan too. The cop back in Hayward. He’s doing it now, making Harrington understand. He’s a strict dad, but a good man. He recognizes a good kid when he sees one.

“Not really,” Harrington says instead of, Thanks, sir. “It was my dad’s choice, not mine. But you gotta drive something, right?” He laughs, easy, just a touch bashful. “That truck out there yours? The Chevy?”

“GMC,” his dad says permissively. “Can’t beat American-made.” Harrington doesn’t pick up on the buried insult. “You’re a Chevrolet fan.”

“Only recently,” Harrington says, eyes flicking to Billy again and staying this time. If Billy weren’t so busy staring a hole in the living room wall, swallowing hard, starting to shake, he’d roll his eyes. Harrington doesn’t know sh*t about cars. “Couldn’t drive something like that though,” Harrington says after a decisive breath, turning back.

“My wife used to say the same thing.”

Susan smiles back weakly. “It’s just so large. Really, I don’t know why they don’t make all cars automatic.”

“Oh, no, I don’t mean that. I drive stick,” Harrington says. “I just meant I don’t have the patience, you know—for a fixer upper? My dad’s got this thing about buying new.”

Billy blinks.

It’s Harrington picking the taste of Billy’s cheap tobacco of his lip. It’s the subtle way he moves the bland cafeteria lunch around his tray without eating a bite. It’s Miller and the soap: a blow that’s covered in so much silk you feel stupid for even trying to prove it happened.

Neil’s brow pinches. “I…see,” he says, stumped, a hand coming up to swipe over his mustache, hiding the way he has to work the annoyance out of his jaw. Even Max is frowning, looking from Neil to Harrington to her mother, trying to figure out what just happened, the see-saw tilting back the other way.

“Yeah,” Harrington says, pulling a face. “Good luck, though,” he says. “I gotta say, it’s looking...” He makes an encouraging gesture with his pointer finger and thumb, so appallingly condescending Billy feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. Neil’s got a vein going in his temple he’s never seen before.

“We going?”

He means Billy—is speaking, to Billy. In his shock, Billy turns and looks at him head-on finally. Harrington’s eyes tick over his cheek but he doesn’t react. He’s holding his keys already, casual but determined, like he’s willing to stand there all day until he gets an answer.

Neil must say something in protest but he doesn’t hear it or stick around to find out what, the room turning to white noise around him, narrowing down to the space between him and the front door. He’s shaking inside so hard he can’t figure out how it is he actually gets through it, his feet going down those stairs so fast, straight over the drive and past his dad’s truck and around to the passenger side of Harrington’s car in a series of decisions he doesn’t remember making.

“Where do you want to go?” Harrington asks instead of saying anything about the way Billy just yanked his car door shut too hard, rude.

“I don’t know,” he says, like he’s shivering or something. “I don’t know,” he says, even worse.

“Okay,” Harrington says, cutting him off so he doesn’t have to keep saying it. He puts the BMW in reverse, tearing out of the driveway with the sort of rough flare Billy’s wouldn’t expect from him, tires spinning on wet asphalt, the torque pressing him into the seat, his first clear breath coming with the wrench and scrape of noise.

They drive.

Billy jiggers his leg, chews his lip until it’s pulp, throat clenching. It’s cold outside but he keeps the window cracked, keeps the wind stinging on his face for an excuse, turned away. He can hear Harrington shifting gears and it helps somehow, the rhythm of it, the car going faster and faster. It’s not as good as his foot on the pedal but it’s almost enough, Harrington gunning it on every open strait, taking corners harder than he needs to until Billy’s hands stop shaking so bad in his lap.

^^^

Harrington takes them to the quarry.

For a few beats they’re still, the car settling, Harrington breathing across from him quiet and measured. He makes a bullsh*t attempt at doing the same, already knowing it won’t work, and then his temper catches up with him and he has to move, has to throw himself out the car door, turning one way and then the other, aimless. Delaying the inevitable.

Harrington’s gotten out too, hovering, resigned to being ready for something he hasn’t got the tools for. He’s a step behind Billy as he marches around to the back of the car and pops the trunk, taking up the bat. It has a weight to it. Anger making his movements short and choppy. He swipes hard at the first piece of scrap he sees, kicking it furiously when he misses and it gets underfoot, makes him stumble.

f*ck you, he thinks viciously, the words shaking him inside out, building up in his chest like a scream. f*ck you.

His attention snares on the ramp next. The stupid f*cking ramp. Just sitting there. So pointless. So stupid. Piece of sh*t. The thought comes to him with a flood of violence, his arms vibrating with it. Worthless, pointless, stupid piece of sh*t.

He can hear Harrington saying something but the roar of his thoughts is louder. He wants to wreck it. He wants to pull it apart. He wants to swing and feel the impact all the way through him and hear the crack of something breaking. It’s the only thing that feels right in the whole world, stomping over the icy ground towards it, swinging hard, wishing he was strong enough he could obliterate it with one blow, but knowing he could swing a hundred times and it wouldn’t be enough.

Harrington’s getting in his way, a hand at his elbow, not fast enough. Billy wrenches away and hauls back and swings and Harrington’s—

—in the way. Harrington’s in front of him, between him and the ramp, and—

He throws wide at the last second, his whole world whiting out in fear—visions of splattered blood and chunks of hair strewn with brains. The bat slices through the air inches from Harrington’s shoulder—comes loose from his hands, smacking into the ground at an angle that sends it bouncing.

It spins, rolling to a stop over a patch of gravel.

Billy’s breathing is like a chainsaw, in and out, deafening in his ears, his heart stopped. He blinks and Harrington’s still there, almost killed, but alive, breathing hard too, his hands up. “Hey,” he says, gentle.

“Hey,” he says again.

Billy’s hands sting where the bat left them.

“It’s okay,” Harrington’s saying. “It’s okay. You’re okay, man.”

Is it?

He doesn’t think—

He turns away, hands in his hair, fingers pressing hard against his scalp. The bat collides with Harrington’s skull again and Billy hears the crack of it, jumping in his skin.

God.

This feeling… It’s so much worse without the anger—without anywhere for it to go. There’s just—swallowing black. The empty shaking feeling, making his legs go to rubber.

Somehow he finds his way over to the half-pipe, climbs up and sits, hands pinched between his knees so he can’t hurt anyone. Harrington’s there too, finding a seat beside him, and Billy keeps his head turned, more interested in staring out at the quarry pit until it turns filmy.

“You hurt?” he asks, gruff, tight as a rubber band, all he can manage before his throat goes.

“No,” Harrington says. “Are you?”

He turns to answer but his mouth’s clammed shut already, throat stinging, and he can’t, so he glares instead. He probably looks furious. He probably looks like he thinks this is all Harrington’s fault—his face like hateful trembling stone, but he’s just trying to keep it all in—the being afraid, being trapped in—the wobble insistent in his throat that wants to keep growing.

Except Harrington just keeps staring back at him, eyes as deep and calm as quarry water.

He turns away again, testing his jaw, knowing he can’t talk yet. He thought it was getting smaller in the car but the quiet out here made it bigger again. He swipes at his cheek with the neck of his shirt, the skin sticky-hot, but it comes away clean. He shakes his head: No.

He can feel Harrington watching him though, waiting on more of answer. Billy’s almost holding his breath waiting for it. If he asks it again, he doesn’t know what he’ll say—what kind of awful is going to come out of him. If it’ll ever stop.

Harrington doesn’t ask, just keeps looking at him like he wants to, and Billy keeps staring the other way, pretending not to give a sh*t.

It’s a nice clear day, pale sunlight sparkling off the limestone, a pair of birds darting in and out of the pines. No pattern to it.

“So…” Harrington says. “Your dad’s kind of an asshole.”

Billy opens his mouth but—no, not yet. He shuts it with a faint click of noise of his throat trying anyway. In the end he just shrugs like, apple, tree.

“I’m sorry.”

Billy feels his face crumple, scowling at his hands, annoyed he can’t tell Harrington he has nothing to be sorry for.

Billy’s the one who’s sorry. Sorry he stepped on the cassette that he can see clearly now: Max’s blotchy handwriting, a track list of all the music she hates. Sorry he scared a kid so bad women like Joyce Byers won’t invite him to come inside for dinner. Sorry he got scared and hungry and found his dad’s number in the phone-book all those years ago. Sorry Steve Harrington doesn’t sleep at night, flinches from him, has a face Billy had to wreck.

Mostly he’s just sorry he can’t ever seem to get it right. Can’t seem to be without swimming against the tide.

“That wasn’t true,” he says finally. “What he said, about my mom.”

Harrington says, careful, “Okay.”

He swallows, the tight feeling loosening some. “She didn’t ditch me or whatever you heard,” he says. “She just… She’s a free spirit, you know?” He’s told himself those words so many times it’s become the whole truth, but now here’s Harrington just nodding quietly and it’s like a thumb pressed coaxingly into the hinge of his jaw.

“Some people aren’t meant to be stuck down doing one thing for the rest of their lives. I get that. She’s gotta...go where life takes her. See it all.” He plucks at the inseam of his jeans. “It’s hard for her to write.”

Harrington nods. “What’s she like?”

“Uh,” Billy blurts out in a surprised rush, taken off-guard by the question, not sure he knows how to answer. He doesn’t get to talk about her much. “Well…she’s a total bombshell,” he starts with, since that’s easiest. Harrington snorts so he continues, “Guys are always calling on her, y’know. But she’s picky.” Harrington laughs softly. “I mean, she falls in love easily,” he adds, aware he’s contradicting himself. “But, no one’s ever good enough.”

He could say more.

She loved fancy food but couldn’t cook for sh*t, would dress up—her hair and makeup, all of it—just to put canned spaghetti on for him, sitting across from him at their two-person table with an ash tray instead of a dinner plate, making sure he enjoyed every bite. She would wake him up with music on the turntable in the middle of the night, would let him stay up and watch her new friends dancing and smoking and laughing and talking.

She kept roses—on her dressing table, or hung to dry up into a memory in her closet, or thrown in the trash still wet and dripping in their plastic, or, just once, burned to long-stemmed ash in the sink.

She was always singing. She was always minding her figure. She always carried both their shoes at the beach.

In the end, it’s just a collection of things he remembers about her that don’t add up to the real thing, as lackluster and contemptible as Susan’s jar of seashells.

“Does she still live in Cali?” Harrington asks.

He nods. As far as he knows; he wasn’t lying about that part. “She was a model, too.” Sometimes. Had a real good thing going with a guy who was a photographer for a while.

“That’s cool.” Harrington says encouraging.

“Yeah. She, uh. A guy wrote a song about her once,” he says, bragging—his favorite thing.

Harrington nods, impressed. “What a babe.”

Billy snorts. “You got no idea.”

“Oh, wow. You got a picture I could borrow or…?”

He nudges Harrington back. “No way, asshole.”

“How long since you’ve seen her?” Harrington asks.

“A while,” he admits. He gives up on picking at his jeans. “She probably wouldn’t even recognize me, now.”

Harrington laughs softly through his nose. “Doubt it. You look just like her, right?”

“Oh, yeah?” he scoffs, eyebrow co*cked, ready to preen. “How’d you figure?”

“Well, you’re not much like your dad.”

He huffs, smile skewing uncertain while it registers what Harrington’s just said. And Harrington’s looking at him, quiet and sincere.

He—

Billy makes himself look away, back down at his hands.

They’ve stopped shaking. The black feeling’s gone, feels like it’s been bled out of him. Just the heavy all over bruise of embarrassment left. A hot ember of something foreign in his chest. He works his jaw, looks at Harrington again to see if he’s joking.

He licks his lips, but nothing comes.

What are you supposed to say to something like that? What are the right words for when someone pulls a splinter out you didn’t even know you had?

Billy hasn’t got the words. He’s only got his hands that barely know how to do anything but break things.

“Stay put,” he says, dropping to his feet, boots thumping on the thin ply of the bowl, ignoring Harrington’s mild stare.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing exactly. Hasn’t really thought it through, except that he hasn’t got anything else to offer, and this was an idea he had a while back that it makes sense to try and do now. It is Christmas, after all.

The bimmer’s trunk is still open, still full of all the damp and dirty junk they used to build the ramp. He sifts through, testing a couple of tools for weight before he settles on the old claw hammer. Not ideal, but it’ll do.

Harrington watches as he crunches over the gravel, back towards the ramp, stooping to pick up the bat on the way.

It takes him a couple of tries to find a way that works, bracing the head of the bat with a foot and bending to work the nails out with the claw, struggling to get leverage. A pry-bar would work better. They’re big nails—nasty ones—driven all the way through in places. He works single-mindedly, ripping them out, yanking them free, putting his back into the ones that are stuck. One by one they drop to the ply, rolling to gather in a rusty clump in the center of the bowl.

It takes him a good amount of time until he wrenches the last nail out. He tosses the hammer to one side, tired, taxed muscles making him clumsy about it. The bat is strangely light in his hands without the crown of spikes, diminished somehow, the wood of the barrel scuffed dull. Harrington goes on staring at him while he retakes his seat.

“There,” he says, handing it over with a hard sniff. “Now it’s just a bat.”

Harrington doesn’t say anything immediately, his hands curled loosely at barrel and taper. Billy can feel his eyes on him while he chafes a bit of dirt off his hand onto the knee of his jeans, keen on watching the quarry again.

Harrington opens his mouth and then closes it, looking away finally, down at his lap. Billy sees his hand tighten, fingertips and thumb lining up with five rust-stained pockmarks, pressing hard.

He doesn’t say anything.

That’s okay.

For Billy, it’s enough.

Chapter 21: the mask is a thing (part one)

Chapter Text

Love hurts.

—that’s Susan’s bullsh*t excuse for Max, said with her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes down, toying with the ring Neil put on her finger like maybe if she just keeps twisting it she can get it to unlock a better answer. Looks like whatever small fire she had going for a moment there has burnt away to cinders already—a week of church and romance and husband-by-numbers moves from Neil.

First thing the morning after Christmas, he went out and came back with a truck bed full of rosebushes—the same ones Susan’s been fantasizing out loud about since they drove past the nursery on the way into town.

Billy can’t exactly hold it against her. If there’s a version of his dad that’s easier to live with, it’s the one that knows how to play penitent. It probably doesn’t hurt that it’s a two-for-one deal, with Billy on his best behavior thrown in as a bonus; too busy keeping his head down and playing his own role to have much of an opinion about the whole thing. And sure, it’s the same tired old routine, but at least he knows how to make it work.

Susan gets her flowers and Neil gets his eggs and Billy gets to wear his dad’s gloves and spatula a season of gunk and dead sh*t out of the gutter so that it doesn’t come down on their heads in the next storm. Neil stands around and supervises and steadies the ladder, and if they talk, it’s only when Susan comes out to watch.

In the afternoon, they cart the last of the movers’ boxes from Hayward out of the garage—only just starting to get soggy in the corners. Billy wasn’t around when they were packed up and taped shut, but he helps out now without being asked, keeping his relief under wraps like an itch he’s not supposed to scratch, carefully expressionless when he dumps them wherever Susan wants.

Neil and Susan have a pow-wow and decide he should get to keep the stereo from their old living room: a clunky Panasonic with two full-size box speakers and a snarl of dusty cords attached. Neil doesn’t make him say thank you, but over breakfast the next morning he does his part when Neil makes a show of pouring the six-pack of Schlitz down the sink, acting put out about it like the beers were ever his.

Give and take. Things are simple because he needs them to be. At night he ices his face and in the morning he gives himself a nice close shave with his new razor and mostly he stays out of the way.

The only one who can’t seem to get with the program is Max.

Normally, any given break from school—long or short—Max is a ghost. Only time you see her is when she drags herself in before dark to eat and sleep, or maybe make the occasional pit-stop for a bandage. And even then, that’s only if you can catch her at it. Not that he ever had much of an opportunity to, keeping up with his own busy schedule of sleeping all day. Last summer he only knew she was still around by the number of steadily depleting popsicles in the freezer.

Now—she’s everywhere, inside and underfoot at all hours, like a ghost again, but the kind you gotta exorcize. Instead of running wild all over town with her little friends, she’s her mother’s constant shadow, tailing her everywhere she goes, sulking, trying to bend her ear in the fleeting moments she’s away from Billy’s dad.

She won’t have any luck with that. Susan’ll let him weevil his way into her good graces for the next week, at least until he follows through on his promise of a night on the town, just the two of them, somewhere with white tablecloths and a candle in a Chianti bottle—same old icing on the same old cake. Hawkins doesn’t have any five-star hotels but it’s not like Susan ever aims that high anyway, which is how she ended up with a guy like Neil in the first place.

On his way in to wash up before dinner he catches Max hovering in the hallway outside his room, the door cracked open. She’s standing on the spot where he ground her mixtape into the carpet with his boot, her expression vacant as she stares in at his unmade bed and the chest of drawers restored to its usual state, his records returned to their crates, clothes and dirty laundry bundled into a heap in the bottom of the closet.

She doesn’t jump at being caught staring but her eyes flick nervously to his bruised cheek and away, lips pursed into a hard frown, chin wobbling, holding back her many unanswerable questions. Neil’s shovel keeps chipping and scraping away at the icy dirt outside, a steady line of punctuation underneath Susan’s excited chatter.

“Try to forget.”

It’s maybe the best advice he’s ever given her, but she doesn’t take it.

He gets volunteered to take the girls grocery shopping the next day and Max holds out for only as long as it takes to put Neil in the rear-view mirror before she blows, the words coming out in a vague accusatory jumble, stuttering to a stop whenever they come too close to what she can’t say with him in the car. It’s not exactly a plea to cut and run, but it is if you read between the lines—which is kinda what his English class has been teaching him to do—so maybe it is.

Either way he doesn’t take it personal, just sort of wishes he didn’t have to be a hostage listener.

“Love…hurts sometimes,” Susan says hesitantly, to the last and worst of Max’s questions. She’s given up on her wedding ring, eyes fixed on some distant point out the window. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Max is pissed. He can feel her fuming away in the backseat, but when he steals a glance, he wishes he didn’t. She’s worse than pissed, glaring a hole in the back of her mother’s head like she desperately needs there to be a punchline—afraid there is none. Maybe she thinks it’s the truth. He should tell her it’s total horsesh*t. Love is as easy as you want it to be—as easy as you make it. Even easier if you don’t give a sh*t.

He should tell her that, but it’s not his job, and no one laid it all out for him nice and neat either, so he keeps his eyes on the road and his sneer to himself, and at the supermarket he stands outside and smokes so Max can say whatever sad-sack sh*t she couldn’t say with him in the car—that she’s probably whispered in her mom’s ear a hundred times since meeting the Hargroves—full-textual or whatever, just—on a page he’s better off not reading.

Neil’s finished planting the rosebushes by the time they get back—a neat row along the driveway, the turned earth stark black under a thin smattering of snow.

“Looks dead to me.”

They do. Dry and stunted, gnarled all over with thorns.

Susan juggles her armful of groceries to one side to follow his gaze, her surprise at being spoken to softening into a smile of patient admiration when she lays eyes on the ugly tangle. “Just dormant,” she corrects fondly. “They need the frost to grow.”

If you say so, he says with a shrug, never really interested in the first place, keeping his head down and loading up on the last of the paper bags so he can ignore the whacko way she’s looking at him. When he slams the trunk shut, she’s looking at the roses again.

“Give it time,” she says. “With a little love, they’ll be beautiful come spring.”

^^^

So, Susan prunes her dead rosebushes, and Neil works extra shifts so that he doesn’t overstay his nice guy act with her, and Max finally grows tired of sulking and not getting any answers and starts disappearing wherever her and her little friends disappear to in Hawkins—which is probably just the arcade, or the basem*nt of the Wheeler house, or Hawkins’ apparently lively sewer network.

And Billy? Billy couldn’t give a crap, because he’s too busy being the person he is when he’s hanging out with Steve f*cking Harrington of all people.

For his part, Harrington can’t seem to think of anything better to do than hang out with Billy either.

More so than ever since his parents blew back into town.

Billy knew they were headed back—Harrington said as much—but he only fully understands they’re home when he comes by to pick Harrington up to drive around and do nothing—and Harrington beats him to the doorbell. He meets Billy’s skeptical eyebrow with the same insistent too-tight bullsh*t grin from Christmas Eve at the Byers’, pulling his coat on and the door shut behind him, all easy-breezy forward momentum.

Billy twigs immediately of course. No hard feelings about the intercept; he knows what he looks like—especially with his face all banged up. It’s not like he can work his magic with Mrs. Harrington either, since she probably still blames him for putting a hairline fracture in her darling boy.

So he plays dumb and lets himself be hustled back towards the Camaro, at his usual heavy-footed pace that he knows has got to have Harrington wishing he could drop the act and start sticking him with a cattle prod. When Harrington throws himself eagerly into the passenger seat, Billy lets him stew, takes his sweet time tapping a cigarette out on top of the cab, smirk growing in a mean hook the longer he ignores the conspicuously vacant front windows of the Harrington house. When he does finally slide inside, Harrington’s got his shades on already and an elbow propped up on the door—the picture of composure, except for the dead giveaway of a knuckle pressed into the corner of his mouth to fix the smile there like a tack.

Billy turns the ignition on and bites his cheek at the oh-so-casual way Harrington reaches out and twists the volume down, counting on Billy to have the good graces to let it slide.

“Maybe next time you can just let your hair down and I’ll climb up.”

The pasted-on cheer sloughs off Harrington’s face. “Would you just f*cking drive already?”

“Weird,” Billy says. He chafes a bit of imaginary lint off the steering wheel. “Don’t remember you calling a cab…”

“You’re seriously going to be an asshole right now?”

“You tell me, champ. 'M not the one sneaking out like I got an ugly date.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harrington mutters, but he reaches over and turns the music back up like he doesn’t care at all, electric guitar thrashing out of the speakers and flooding the warm cab, beating up against the fogging windows.

“Wow-wee, Stevie. What’re the neighbors gonna think?”

“Shut up,” Harrington says. “Just drive.”

“What, no ‘pretty please’?”

Harrington slaps his hands over his face, slouching in his seat with a ragged noise—a muffled: “Please just drive.”

Billy tilts his head consideringly like, guess that’s pretty enough—and steps on it.

The car squeals forward, tires frothing before he pops the clutch, reversing them out at a vicious angle that has the Camaro eating its own smoke; Harrington throwing out an arm to brace against the dash. “Screw you,” he says, a little breathless, a real smile creeping in at the corners of his mouth.

Billy puts them into drive and they peal out of the cul-de-sac.

Here’s the thing he’s coming to learn about hanging out with Harrington:

Harrington’s better at maneuvering Billy’s bad moods than Billy is at his.

Maybe because he gets more practice. Because, when it comes down to it, Billy’s always kinda in a bad mood—(except when he’s doing this). But Harrington… He’s wired different. Has the confusing knack for being able to cover up whatever it is that’s bugging him with a sort of brittle good mood that’s like a spun sugar wasp nest to be around.

It makes it hard to press his buttons.

It makes it even harder to know when not to press them—which is a concept Billy never thought he’d have to contend with in the first place. But here he is anyway, on days like this, wishing he knew the magic to make Harrington leave his bad mood in the dust.

“Maybe I should learn how to make the climb down,” Harrington says once they’re clear of Loch Nora. He blows out a breath of almost-laughter, forcing himself to relax properly into his seat, snorting with wry amusem*nt. “Can’t be any harder than climbing up.”

Billy shrugs, unlit cigarette wagging on his lip. “Depends on what your motivation is, I guess.”

“Or who,” Harrington says.

“They can’t be that bad.”

Harrington makes a face. He’s stroking a knuckle against his window, drawing a little path. “They’re not,” he says. “I just…forgot I like them more when I get to miss them, you know?”

He does. Harrington kind of knows he does.

“Whatever,” Harrington says, upbeat again, maybe realizing as much. “At least now they’re back I don’t have to take care of the house by myself.”

Billy snorts. “‘Yeah, ‘cos you were doing such a great job.”

“Thanks.” Harrington’s voice is thick with sarcasm. “You know, I didn’t see you playing maid all that much either.”

“I need to explain to you what a house guest is, genius?”

“Someone who drinks all your beer and eats all your cereal and doesn’t let you choose what you watch on your own TV?”

“And turns all your lights out at night,” he adds. “They say anything about the liquor?”

“Mmhmm,” Harrington says, a little tightly.

“They say anything about you looking for a summer job?”

Harrington puts the finishing touches on the little doodle he’s made in the fog and smooths a palm over the whole thing, erasing it. He sits up but doesn’t answer, his bad mood like a third passenger Billy forgot was in the cab with them.

“You even put your application in yet?” Billy asks, testing the length of his temper for no reason at all.

“Have you?” Harrington snarks back.

Billy shrugs a shoulder, unconcerned. “Figure I’ll just show up at the pool once it opens up. Bring a suit—that’s what Heather said.”

“Are you even qualified to be a lifeguard?”

“You mean, can I get a tan and look at Mrs Wheeler’s life preservers all day?”

Harrington laughs. “Pretty sure you’ve got to jump in and rescue kids from sharks and riptides and stuff.”

“It’s a pool, dumbass. There’s no current.”

“Yeah,” Harrington says archly, relentless. “But isn’t that how you get stuck in a rip in the first place? You don’t realize ‘til it’s too late and you’re out too far...”

“Not if you swim against it hard enough.”

Harrington chokes. “That’s terrible advice! You’re not supposed to swim against the current—it’s too strong. Even I know that.”

Billy sneers. “Sure, if you don’t work out, maybe.”

“Oh my God,” Harrington groans. “This is why you almost drowned.”

“Nah. My mom was just too busy with some guy on the pier to keep an eye on me,” he says, carefully light, but still not looking anywhere but the road after he says it. It’s just this new thing he’s trying with Harrington where he speaks about her and waits to feel any particular way about it.

“Good thing you’re a strong swimmer, huh.”

He chances a look. Harrington’s gaze is out the window again and he lets himself smile. Sometimes he’s not even sure how he feels about it until Harrington says something like that.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe Heather could get me a job at the pool, too.”

Distracted, he chews the Marlboro to the middle of his front teeth, eyes searching the console for his lighter. “As what, a life raft?”

“Ha-ha. I can swim.”

“You can float.” If there’s stars to be watched, he doesn’t add.

“Great, I’ll put you down as a reference.”

“Sure thing. Tell ‘em to dial 1-800-Kiss-My-Ass, Get-Your-Own-Job.”

Harrington huffs. “I don’t know, man. What if I get some lame gig at the mall and I have to work inside all summer?”

“Who cares so long as it pays?” He checks his chest pocket while he talks and then the inside of his jacket, cig pinched between his teeth. “Take whatever gets you off daddy's dime—I’m not gonna sponsor your bad boy habit forever.”

“I think it’d be a pretty even split if you just smoked mine too.”

“I don’t want your puss* smokes, Harrington.” He checks his chest pocket a second time.

“Need a light?” Harrington asks. Billy can hear the smirk in his voice.

Of course Harrington’s got his lighter.

Seems like he always does, nowadays. Billy catches himself patting himself down for it half a dozen times a day, racking his brain for when and how it ended up with him. It’s gotten so bad he hardly even smokes outside of when they hang out—working himself into a frustrated lather over it late at night when all he wants is a drag.

“You could get your own, you know.”

“Thought you gave this one to me,” Harrington says, sly, probably knowing it’s the one thing Billy’s f*cking embarrassed about. Then, once he figures out Billy’s going to give him the silent treatment for it—jaw hardening up (flushing all the way down to his toes)—he reaches over and punches him in the shoulder, playful, and when Billy turns to give him an unimpressed look for being handsy, the lighter is right there in his face: a snip of orange flame; Harrington smiling teasingly.

Billy holds still for just as long as it takes to light, his annoyance only partially quelled by the first inhale of acrid-sweet nicotine. He cracks the window a little and switches the stick to his left hand so Harrington can’t get at it without asking: payback for being smooth.

As they drive, the neat houses and Christmas lawn decorations give way to the spread of dull brown fields and dry asphalt, the Camaro tearing up a path of blown leaves, the sky a long low roof of dark cloud with no edges. There are only a few main roads out of Hawkins. He’s pretty sure they’ve never come this way before. Not that you can tell with Harrington, though; he never offers directions or says whether Billy’s getting them lost. It’s become sort of the whole point—how far he can go taking random turns before they find some chained-off dirt road or dead end to turn around in, or just park and sit in for a while until they get sick of being still.

“Max talking to you yet?” Harrington asks.

Not really. “Still cooling off,” he says. Not that he blames her.

“She’d probably cool off a lot faster if you gave her her present.”

Harrington’s probably right. Billy knows he is, when he thinks about it, logically-speaking. Thing is though...he wasn’t there: he didn’t see her face—what Billy did to the gift she tried to give him. How he has to keep it stashed in the bottom of his glovebox so he doesn’t have to look at it and remember how he f*cked up and ruined it.

It’s actually a pretty all right tape, as far as mixtapes go. He supposes he can admit that now that he’s listened to it a couple of times all the way through. She’s put a bunch of stuff on there that he already has; some hard rock that’s just mean enough and fast enough she probably thought it was his thing; that one Foreigner song he couldn’t give less of a crap about.

The best track is the first one. Somehow she’s managed to hit record just in time to catch the final minute of Fade to Black. So now Billy knows just the best part off by heart. It’s kinda badass of her to have stayed up however late at night she must have stayed up to catch it on the radio. Hard to do under Neil’s roof. And a hell of a lot harder than just putting a bunch of nails in a bunch of scrap.

“I’ll paint it first,” Billy says—the same excuse he’s been using for days.

“Uh huh.”

Harrington’s quiet for a beat too long and Billy knows without having to look that he’s staring at the black eye again. The bruise prickles hot under scrutiny, the skin coming alive underneath. He’s not used to it—the staring. Trust Harrington to have the manners to pretend it’s not there and still do the opposite.

“Cut it out.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It’s fine.”

Hell, a couple more sleeps and another round of ice and he’ll forget it’s even there—if Harrington can maybe keep his eyes in his head.

“Not what I asked,” Harrington says.

Billy bites his tongue, eyes fixed on the road, stalling for time. He knows what Harrington’s asking. He just never practiced having to answer because he got so good at making sure no one ever felt like they could ask.

Did it hurt?

Does it hurt, every time?

He takes his eyes off the road just long enough to eye the spot where Harrington was wearing his colors not too long ago. “You tell me.”

Harrington can’t hide the reflex, fingers moving to hover at the high point of his cheek where the skin is just as perfect as how it’s supposed to be. He looks away, lost in thought, hand falling back to his lap, forgotten.

“Nah,” he says, squinting out the window, the word drawn out and dry.

Billy smiles and tries not to wince at the pull.

Liar.

Sensing he’s being laughed at, Harrington reaches over and shoves him. Billy swats his hand away and shoves him right back twice as hard, the car swerving wildly in the road, Harrington bursting into delighted laughter instead of being spooked.

More proof Billy gave him some sort of brain damage at least.

^^^

It’s Harrington’s idea to use the walkie-talkies.

Billy’s minding his own business, ass planted on the carpet in front of his new stereo, trying to untangle the wad of snarled A/V cables, when Max knocks just softly on his bedroom door.

Before he has a chance to ignore it, she knocks again.

“Yep,” he says, not interested in getting up. None of the cords he’s tried so far are a match for the terminal in the back of either box speaker.

The door pokes open. “Steve Harrington’s in my room.”

He frowns, wiping a dust bunny off on the knee of his jeans. “Huh?”

“Steve Harrington,” she says again, just as quiet, but a little more urgent, “is in my room.”

He’s on his feet before he even fully thinks it through. “What?” he hisses, following tight on her heels into the hall. Out of reflex, his eyes go straight to the closed door of the master bedroom and fix there. He checks his watch: almost noon.

“He’s asleep,” Max says, annoyed but careful. “Mom’s gone to her group.”

His heart doesn’t stop its urgent hammering as he follows close behind to her door, half expecting for it to be some kind of joke. But Harrington’s really there, the window still open at his back, flustering to put a comic book back on Max’s nightstand when he sees them. His hair is tousled, cheeks the way they are when he’s been out in the cold. He tugs his sweater down where it’s ridden up under his windbreaker and makes a sheepish gesture like, Look who it is!

“What—” Billy starts, and then takes it down a notch: “What the hell, Harrington?”

“Yeah, look—so it turns out I got your rooms wrong.”

Max makes a face. “What are you even doing here?”

“Uhmm.” Harrington looks to Billy for help, getting a flat stare for his efforts. “Home…work?”

“Homework,” Max repeats, doubtful.

“Jesus Christ,” Billy interrupts, grabbing Harrington before any new stupid can come out of his mouth, herding him impatiently down the hall towards his bedroom, one eye on the still-closed door at the end.

“Now who’s got the ugly date?” Harrington says, pithy.

Billy glares, pulling the door shut behind him. “The f*ck happened to the plan?”

“Hey, ease up, okay?” Harrington rucks his jacket up at the back and pulls the walkie out from the waist of his jeans, waving it at Billy placatingly. “The plan is intact. We just had to improvise some.” He’s looking around Billy’s room, openly curious. His eyes skip from the Kill ‘Em All poster on the wall over to the pinup of Shauna Grant, eyebrows picking up in surprise and amusem*nt. “Nice. Favorite of yours?”

“Eat me.”

Harrington shrugs, the barest impression of an apology, already scoping the room for more.

“So,” Billy says, heart still pounding, trying to reconcile the unreality of the situation, the red and blue of Harrington’s jacket against the beige wallpaint like something he cooked up in a fever dream. “What are we doing, then? Are you going to call her from in here or what?”

“Yeah, about that,” Harrington says, grimacing. “I kind of…got my access revoked.”

“Huh?”

“Kicked off party comms,” Harrington explains, making a face. “Abuse of privileges. It’s a long story. Basically, they’re using a different frequency and we’re—I’m, not allowed on it.” He dodges Billy’s perplexed stare, running a finger over one of the window blinds, stooping to admire the postcard Billy’s tacked to the wall there: a picture of a beach at sunset; a wave dotted all over with surfers.

That’s a thing that’s new, too. He keeps his room the way he wants it now. Or, more accurately, he gets to. Just so long as he keeps his door shut on the mess so no one has to see it. He just...hadn’t counted on anyone wanting to come inside and look.

He scratches at the edge of his jaw to disguise his nerves. “So—what? Do we have some other way to get her out there you’re not telling me about? She’s not gonna get in the car with me to go freaking nowhere.”

“Why not, I do it all the time,” Harrington says absentmindedly. He’s picked the cologne up off Billy’s bedside table and Billy watches helplessly as sniffs at the cap, reading the label with mild interest.

It’s like when he’s in his locker—only so much worse.

“Well, Maxine’s not a moron,” Billy says, swallowing. “And she’s pissed at me, remember?”

“Yeah yeah, relax, would you? I’ve got it under control.” He puts the cologne down with finality, pulling a gap in the same blinds he’d been toying with, smirking at whatever he can see out of the makeshift view. He co*cks an eyebrow at Billy. “Come see for yourself.”

He steps out of the way so Billy can yank a hole in the blinds and glare outside. It takes him a moment to scan past the lifeless brown sprawl of grass before he spots the front wheel of a familiar bike and a familiar face above it, poking out from behind the overgrown hibiscus by their neighbors’ letterbox.

He lets go of the blinds, frowning. “What the hell is Lucas Sinclair doing on my lawn?”

“Plan B,” Harrington breathes victoriously, crowding in over Billy’s shoulder to slot the blinds open again. He holds the walkie up to his mouth. “Alpha Leader, this is Alpha One. Over.”

Billy closes his eyes.

The response comes after a small pop of static: “We talked about this—you’re not on Team Alpha.” Sinclair’s sarcastic tone is startlingly on a par with Max’s. “And if you were, you wouldn’t be Alpha One! What took you so long anyway?”

Harrington dodges Billy’s half-assed swipe at the walkie. “Uh…sorry about that. Let’s just say there was a slight mix-up on the intel.”

Billy can’t actually see it clearly from this distance, but he’s pretty sure Sinclair just rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” the kid says scathingly. “Is she in there?”

“Affirmative,” Harrington says, clearly having the time of his life. “The target is cleared for extraction.”

Sinclair doesn’t bother respond this time. Through the blinds, Billy can see him tweaking something on his handset, the antenna yanked all the way out, speaking into it busily while Harrington’s receiver fuzzes, quiet.

“Ask him if they finished painting it,” Billy demands while they wait.

Harrington tsks. “That’s not how it works.”

“They better’ve put the flames on it.”

“They’re middle schoolers, man,” Harrington says. “Not, I don’t know…Michelangelo. We’ll be lucky if it’s even dry on time.”

Billy inhales hard through his nose, but Harrington nudges him before he can work himself up, the fabric of his windbreaker slicking against the arm of his Henley with a sound like a hush. Billy breathes out, eyes fixed on Sinclair as he messes with the dial on his handset again.

“Steve?” Sinclair’s voice crackles. “They’re ready. I’m switching to the other frequency now. Over.”

Billy grits his teeth. Max and Sinclair better not have their own damn frequency.

Harrington nudges him again like, easy, smiling into the receiver. “Roger.”

They’re both quiet for an agonizing minute, ears pricked for the tell-tale buzz of a walkie in Max’s room.

“Wait,” Billy whispers, a thought dawning on him. “Did you drive here?”

“What do you take me for?” Harrington whispers back. “She’d have spotted my car.”

“I think she spotted you, climbing into her room like the f*cking bogeyman.”

And it’s not Max seeing Harrington’s car he’s worried about.

“In my defense, her window’s the natural choice—much easier to climb into.”

“And out of,” Billy gripes. “So,” he says, picking up his earlier question. “How’d you get here then?”

“Oh, uh, Sinclair let me borrow a bike,” Harrington says, just a touch too airy for Billy not to pick at it.

“What bike?”

Harrington scowls. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He’s about to press for more when he catches a faint sound: the soft scrape of a window opening and closing. Max rounds the corner a handful of seconds later and the two of them duck away just in time for her to come striding across the lawn right under his window, heading purposefully for Sinclair, her skateboard sticking out the top of her backpack.

Billy chances a look from his hiding spot behind a curtain to find she’s jumped on the back of Sinclair’s bike already, the two of them pedaling hard up Cherry.

He breathes out a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe I let you put me through this nerd sh*t.”

“They’re not that bad,” Harrington says, his words slowed down around a yawn. “And they’re doing you a favor. You’re the one who was too chickensh*t to give your sister a damn present.” He continues, “Do you think it’s too early to follow?”

“Give it another minute,” Billy says, watching them disappear from view. “I don’t want to get there before her.”

“You’re gonna miss the surprise,” Harrington sing-songs.

“Yeah.” He lets go of the blinds, turning around. “That’s the p—”

The word dries up in his mouth like burnt rolling paper.

“Get off,” he says.

Harrington’s thrown himself down sideways over Billy’s unmade bed, one arm cast over his face like a fainted damsel, the other outstretched towards the discarded walkie, breathing slow. “Uh huh.”

“Harrington,” he says, an edge to his voice he can’t control.

Harrington rolls his eyes, sitting up and getting to his feet, unfazed. “Yeesh, okay. Don’t lose your mind, I was just resting my eyes.”

Billy grabs his keys from the dish, the metal teeth digging hard into his palm. (Almost as good as pinching himself).

“Don’t do stupid sh*t like come here again,” he says, as normal as he can, not wanting it to sound like a threat, or worse—like he’s sh*t scared. “It’s…” He tries to find the right words. “It’ll be trouble.”

Harrington’s already at the window by his stereo when he turns around, yanking the blinds up out of the way and the windowpane too, a moment later. He dusts his hands off on his jeans, sparing the barest glance at Billy like he’s not even gonna bother with what was just said, sizing up the best way to get a leg over the frame.

“Gimme a hand here,” he says, shoving the stereo Billy just set up to one side of the makeshift bench.

“You hearing me?”

“Yeah.” Harrington rolls his eyes. “Read you loud and clear,” he says mockingly. “Bad Steve. No more ninja. Bring this with you.” He passes Billy one of his record crates.

He watches dumbly as Harrington hops up on the bench, surprisingly practiced, one foot perched on the frame and one leg out already, lowering himself down. Billy frowns at his empty crate. “What’s this for?”

Harrington looks up from his business of searching for a foothold. “Next time,” he says.

“You—” Billy starts, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, yeah, no trouble, I got it. Thing is—”

There’s a scuff of noise as Harrington drops out of view, sneakers hitting the hard dirt beneath his window with a messy thump. Billy lurches out to see if he landed okay.

He has. He’s on his feet still, looking real smug about it.

He holds his hands up to Billy for the crate. “Trouble,” he says, smiling, “is my middle name.”

^^^

The paint’s still wet.

Billy has to stay in the car so he doesn’t start cracking skulls.

Max doesn’t seem to have noticed, the knees of her jeans streaked with muddy purple, too busy showing off for her friends, clipping from one side of the half-pipe to the other with almost manic focus.

“You think she likes it?”

Harrington sits up a little where he’s been mellowing out in his seat, forgetting to smoke one of Billy’s cigarettes. He wipes a little condensation off the windshield, peering out. “She gonna let the others have a turn?”

The others in question have brought their bikes, edging impatiently closer with them. Someone back in Cali definitely should’ve told her not to hog.

“Doubt it,” he says.

“Then she probably likes it,” Harrington says, relaxing back again, the Marlboro smoldering away over the open beer can in his lap.

Billy finds himself stuck watching it turn slowly to ash in Harrington’s still hands, smoke coalescing into a thin steady stream. A wayward speckle of rain taps over the window, their shadows spotting the pale skin of Harrington’s still hands and long fingers, the chewed-raw edge of a thumb...

Harrington cracks an eye open.

“Quit wasting my smokes,” Billy says.

Harrington snorts and hands it over, unhurried, and Billy takes it and tweaks the volume up for something to do.

“School tomorrow,” Harrington says.

He suppresses a wince. If he’s honest with himself, he’s maybe been trying pretty hard not to think about it. Harrington’s the one of them who sighs though, an exhale that gets worse as it goes until it’s almost a snarl. His leg jigs once and stops. “I really don’t wanna go back,” he says finally.

Billy nods instead of saying something ridiculous. He points his cig at the dash. “We ain’t got the gas for a getaway, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Harrington raises an eyebrow goadingly. “We could still get pretty far.”

Excitement prickles in his legs. “Yeah?” If he was driving right now, he’d be stepping on the accelerator. “How you gonna hold up your end, huh? I’m providing the wheels. You gonna call in your chips with the sheriff, get us a police escort out of town?”

Harrington chuckles, sitting forward to snap the glovebox open. “Think you can probably manage that without my help.” He starts picking through the jumbled selection of tapes. “How ’bout I pick the music.”

“So long as it’s my music,” Billy says darkly.

Harrington snorts, shaking his head. “Of course.”

A moment later he’s made a choice, flashing Max’s mixtape.

“Hey,” he says happily, folding the tape out of its broken jewel case and pressing it into the player. “You kept it.”

Yeah, he kept it. And he kept the broken case too, because apparently he can’t take his own advice.

Harrington presses play and of course it’s the middle of Kirk Hammett’s guitar solo. He perks up, recognizing it. “No way.”

“Yeah,” Billy says, like his heart hasn’t started beating double time.

“Go Max,” Harrington says, consulting the back of the case for the track list. “This is pretty cool.”

“Yeah. Guess it was.”

Harrington raises an eyebrow in question.

Billy waves the stub of his cigarette at it vaguely, annoyed at himself. He slots the window down just enough to flick it out, sealing it shut again. “f*cked it up.”

Harrington tilts his head, thoughtful. He turns the empty case over again in his hand, a thumb sweeping over the splintered plastic. “I don’t know… Kind of makes it look like the real thing, don’t you think?”

What?

Frowning, doubtful, he reaches over to pluck the cassette out of Harrington’s fingers. He rubs the pad of his thumb along one of the bigger cracks, spidery and jagged, almost like—

Like lightning.

“Kind of like the real thing,” he repeats.

“Kind of metal, right?”

Billy’s head jerks up to look at him—catching the smug look on his face. He tosses the cassette in his lap, just a little too happy to be annoyed. “Fine. Put on whatever you like.”

“Well,” Harrington says, and Billy can hear the smirk in his voice again. “So long as it’s your music.” He points his chin at the window over Billy’s shoulder and Billy twists in his seat to see Max standing there, board in hand, waiting.

He buzzes the window down, squinting against the sudden bracing mist of cold. “What?”

Max looks at him, pale eyes and clamped-shut mouth unreadable. She goes on looking at him for so long he actually gets annoyed at the both of them for having nothing to say, Harrington fast-forwarding through the mixtape tracks one after the other behind him, searching for something he likes.

Max scuffs her sneaker into the dirt, shooting a look over at the ramp where Henderson’s about to get a hard lesson in physics.

“Would’ve looked cooler with flames,” she says.

Oh.

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Hey,” Harrington says, having landed on a track finally. “It’s my song!”

Chapter 22: the mask is a thing (part two)

Chapter Text

First day back at school and he’s late for first period. Not that he’s all that cut up about it, breezing into English and clipping some slowpoke kid into the door on his way in, keen on getting a rise out of Wheeler with his fading shiner if nothing else.

The teacher isn’t impressed; she pauses chalking instructions on the board, eyebrow tilting up in displeasure but not surprise as she clocks his lack of bag, his smokes showing out the top of his chest pocket. “Late already, Mr. Hargrove? You have a wristwatch. You might consider using it.”

He bats his head with the rolled-up end of his book, smiling glibly at her on his way to his seat. “Still running on island time, I guess.”

Someone snickers. Mrs. Wright’s frown doesn’t budge, but when she turns back to the board it’s with a permissive shake of her head, so he can tell he’s sweetened her up.

He dumps his battered copy of Lord of the Flies on the desk behind Wheeler and follows it down into his seat, slotting a toothpick into his mouth while he waits for her to give in to her curiosity and turn around.

“Happy New Year,” he says, all teeth, when she does.

Her eyebrows pinch together, little mouth downturned. “You’re in a good mood.”

“Sweet of you to notice,” he says, chomping on his toothpick good-naturedly. “Not going to ask me how my break was?”

Her gaze skims shrewdly over the livid yellow edges of the bruise. “Seems like you didn’t get up to anything good.”

“Well, not a whole lot,” he says, fighting down a smirk. Driving around going nowhere with your ex-loverboy making poor music choices in the passenger seat .

“Well then.” She twists in her seat some to flap a stack of paper stapled in one-corner at him, her dense cursive neatly measured one inch from the margin at each new paragraph. “Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but we had homework over the break.”

He pops the cover of the book, revealing the folded notepaper inside. “Good thing I already did it then, huh.”

She rolls her eyes. “One page?”

“Guess I’m a man of few words, unlike Golding.”

“Oh.” Wheeler doesn’t break eye contact, her tight-edged smile as patronizing as they come. “I think you can talk a lot. When you have something to say.”

Mrs. Wright puts the chalk down with a clack of noise. “Okay, that’s time, hand your thesis statements up to the front of the class.”

“Something eating at you, Wheeler?” He leans forward on his arms some to ask, close enough to boop her on the nose with the folded-up square of paper if he were feeling friendly. “Or someone…not?”

As usual, he gets a laugh out of the dumb-as-bricks guy to his right. He’s queuing up today’s staples with a thumb, sweeping them into a little pile at the edge of his desk with a sightline to Wheeler’s open book bag. Billy shares just the corner of an allowing smile with him.

Wheeler plucks his homework out from between his knuckles with an unhappy squeak of noise, wrenching back around in her seat to unfold it. Damn busybody.

“You’re kidding,” she says a moment later, twisting back around, dumbfounded. She holds his paper up. “This is completely insane, you know that right?

“Hm, don’t remember asking for your analysis there, teach.”

“‘Jack and Ralph should team up and kick the beast’s ass together’?” she reads off the page.

He shrugs. “Problem, solution. Not my fault you didn’t think of it first.”

“Your thesis is supposed to…to interpret the reading,” she says, sounding almost distraught. “You can’t just make something up.”

“Says you.”

“No, says the rules. Did you even read them?”

Billy snorts. “You ever think maybe the point is we’re supposed to make our own rules?”

Wheeler stares at him.

“You should rewrite this,” she says finally, tone firm and odd, holding the page out for him to take back. “She’ll let you submit it late for a half mark if you ask.”

“Is that everyone?” Mrs. Wright says at the front of the class.

The page hangs between them, Billy smug and persistent and Wheeler warring with her own impatience to hand in her masterwork. The girl in the seat behind stands up and walks around them to hand the other collected papers up.

Billy taps his watch, cutting it a little close aren’t you?

Wheeler shakes her head, twisting almost mechanically back around in her seat, smoothing his paper out on top of hers with a stilted, reluctant movement before she passes it up. “Why were you so late, anyway?” she says faintly without turning around again as Mrs. Wright picks up the chalk and starts to scribble the day’s lesson plan on the board.

He doesn’t answer, sinking back some more in his seat spread-legged so he can get a good look out the window. The parking lot is near-on full, but Harrington’s found the spot Billy held for him, his bimmer the only other color in the lot besides the vivid blue of the Camaro and the pale pink of his pretty new polo.

One of the teachers has hung around to hassle latecomers and Harrington’s already working his bullsh*t charm on him, saluting as he stumbles his way down the icy slope with coltish grace, sunglasses on even though it’s overcast.

Billy can feel the grin on his face turning into something else.

“It’s a jungle out there.”

^^^

“Ho-lee sh*t,” Tommy says and tries to poke his eye out in the same moment that Carol slams Harrington into a bank of lockers. Billy jerks his head out of the way of Tommy’s prying hand with a sharp look, but Harrington isn’t so lucky, his shoulders hitting the metal with a loud bang.

“Hey,” he laughs, breathless, hands up in surrender, catching Carol’s next swing on the meat of his shoulder. “Hey—easy! It wasn’t me.”

Tommy takes his hand back, still staring.

“It wasn’t him,” Billy says.

“Who messed up your face, then?” Carol asks, still poised to swing on Harrington’s other shoulder, obviously enjoying herself.

“Not Harrington,” Billy says, realizing in the same moment that he hasn’t got anything in the chamber for the obvious question that follows, doesn’t know what excuse is going to come out if—

“Okay,” Tommy allows. “Then who?”

Billy stares at him mulishly. Tommy’s got a good serious face—a little mean, even. Pity he doesn’t use it so much—always clowning around and smiling like a moron. He’s serious now though—eyes flat and near black, rogue hand tucked obediently into his jacket pocket—right when Billy doesn’t need him to be.

Uh, who f*cking cares? he wants to say. That should be enough for a guy like Tommy. Both him and Carol have seen his face busted before and not asked questions.

“I—”

“It was uhh, your mom, Tommy,” Harrington says, airy and dismissive, slinging an arm over Billy’s shoulder to draw him away, handsy in that way of his that’s a lot more deliberate than what people give him credit for. Billy should probably shuck him off. “Or was it your barber?” he asks Billy in a quieter, more private tone—a joke between the two of them. He feels a tug at the nape of his neck where his hair is getting way too long. “When you told him you wanted to look like Sean Connor’s mom?”

“Picking a fight already?” Billy says into his locker, ditching his toothpick inside and slamming it shut to distract him from the warm flush of gratitude at Harrington’s interference. There’s a purple flyer for prom stuck to the door—Vote for your Prom King and Queen!—that he yanks off, dropping it onto the floor. “Thought you’d want to turn over a new leaf.”

“Who says I’m not?” Harrington says, his arm heavy on the back of Billy’s neck as he leans to pluck another flyer off a passing girl, smiling winsomely at her when she stops in her tracks to chew him out, her reprimand buckling up in her mouth and turning into a shy smile as she keeps stumbling on her way.

Tommy takes the flyer off him, lighting up with interest. “You putting your name in?”

Harrington shrugs. “Figure someone’s gotta do it now that Blondie’s out of the race.”

“I heal up quick,” Billy says.

“Hey, uh,” Harrington says into his ear, his dark eyes deceptively serious. “You know one of the qualifiers is people have to like you, right?”

Billy eyes him without turning his head. “So I got your vote, then.”

Harrington lets out a surprised laugh.

Billy stays stoic, tucks his tongue behind his teeth so he won’t laugh too, catching Carol’s probing look. “Relax. I’m not gonna get in the way of pretty boy’s dreams of making Prom Queen.”

She doesn’t seem convinced, her eyes on Billy as she chews her gum pensively. She blows a bubble and pops it, her gaze switching over to Harrington. “You get up to much during the break?”

“Nah, not much,” Harrington says easily.

Billy keeps his smirk to himself.

Unpersuaded, Carol doesn’t look away, her gum stretching slowly over tongue as she thinks. Billy thinks for a second she’s gonna say something, but then her face breaks into a bright grin. “That’s too bad.” She tucks herself into Tommy’s side, gum cracking at normal speed. “I hope you weren’t too bored.”

Harrington shrugs again and says, even easier, “I don’t know, ask Hargrove.”

Tommy and Carol look at him.

Billy opens his mouth and—can’t think of anything to say, surprised. He settles for throwing Harrington’s arm off instead, finally, rubbing a palm over the back of his neck where Harrington’s broken him out in goosebumps. “You’re pretty f*cking boring, Harrington.”

Harrington winks. “Worse ways to kill time though, right?”

Billy gives him nothing, still kind of reeling.

“Ugh, speaking of, we’re going to be super late for lunch,” Carol moans, swinging her backpack. “Remind me why we had to come all the way over here?”

Tommy grumbles his agreement, pulling her close.

“You guys go ahead,” Harrington says, making sure Billy catches his wink and the flash of Billy’s zippo in his hand. “I gotta see a man about a Marlboro.”

^^^

If there was some part of him that was dreading going back to school because of all the hours upon hours of time stolen away from him and Harrington’s budding nicotine addiction, he hadn’t counted on Harrington’s absolute determination to seek him out and bum all his smokes.

The first few days back at Hawkins, Billy goes through cigarettes faster than he can chain-smoke, in no small part because, wherever Harrington goes, Tommy and Carol go too—the two of them seeming to have decided they like the sour-edged sear of Billy’s Marlboros as much as their own cigs—even if Carol still only inhales for show.

They don’t actually shake Tommy and Carol the first day, or any time after that, but Billy’s okay with it. It seems like at least one of them is everywhere he goes in the school. Like they’re constantly being swept along in different directions—Billy on the way to his classes and Tommy and Carol and Harrington on the way to theirs—colliding all over the school to form up and skip out on lunch or class.

Without putting a voice to it, it becomes the game: for him and Harrington to find somewhere to smoke alone.

He doesn’t even realize that’s what they’re doing until one too many shared glances when Carol whines about always having to hide out in the men’s room, or when Tommy gets jumpy at the drop of a hat and drops their smokes in the toilet, or just when they’re all talking and sniping at each other and it seems like the right moment.

Tommy and Carol are different to him now too. Maybe something about him and Harrington being cool has changed them—or changed him, but he finds he looks for them now, can pick them out of the crowd of faces in the hall between bells; keeps an eye out for Tommy’s distinctive loping walk and waits around when he needs to tie his shoelaces; knows which groups of girls he can find Carol in the center of, and where to find her bored sketches in the library bookshelves: Carol + Tommy H.

Harrington talks less around them, and Billy less than that. But that’s okay by him too. With Harrington around, their dumbass stories and feuds start to point forward instead of back. Their bickering sticks in his brain all through his classes and follows him home. Sometimes he has to keep the music playing on his new stereo just to cover over the silence at night.

Tommy stops asking about his bruise, but Billy can tell he still wants to—buzzing every time he’s on Billy’s wrong side long enough to get a good uninterrupted look at it. Even then, it doesn’t bug Billy the way he might have thought it would.

“It’s fine,” he says, answering the question he knows Tommy’s asking with his puppy dog stare.

“I can put some coverup on it, if you want,” Carol says—her way of cutting Tommy off before he pushes too far. Billy snorts and takes his cig back off her when she urges so she can dig around in her bag, coming up with a smudgy turquoise compact.

“Why the f*ck would I do that?” he says, firm enough that she won’t keep wheedling him on it.

But…

He scowls at the familiar packaging, connecting where he’s seen it before. “Max uses this sh*t.”

She left something just like it behind on her seat this morning—must have dropped it when he kicked her out at school. By the time he figured out what the hell he was looking at and got pissed about her carelessness, it was already too late to throw it out the window after her. He had to stuff it into his center console with the rest of his sh*t, so no one would see it and get ideas.

“Neato. Use hers then,” Carol says, flippant, slipping the compact back into her bag. “But it’s probably not your color. You’re more of a spring.”

“What am I, then?” Tommy asks, mocking, tugging at the strap of her bag.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Carol says, letting herself be pulled closer in the already narrow stall doorway. “I’d have to see more of you to make a decision.”

Tommy and Carol keep on flirting with each other, but he’s not really paying attention, the air pouring in through the high windows cold enough and sharp enough to damp down the smell of bleach and urinal cake, the cig burning away between his knuckles, thinking of an icy morning working on his car and the yellow glove abandoned in the back of his dad’s truck…

“Now who’s wasting it,” Harrington says softly, stepping down from his perch on top of the lid, plucking the smoldering filter from Billy’s lax grip and killing it with a sharp pull, Carol and Tommy already turning on their heels, ready to follow.

“C’mon,” he says, bullying Billy out of the stall ahead of him. “Can’t have you missing the bell again. They’ll start thinking we’re a bad influence.”

^^^

Billy is late to just about every class that week, anyway.

Even the ones he does make on time he can hardly pay attention to. Normally he’d find a happy medium between zoning out and entertaining himself watching some four-eyes squirm around in their seat with him in their peripheral. Now it feels like his attention span keeps condensing down, getting shorter and shorter, counting the second hand on the wall clock like his hard-jawed apathy can make it move faster.

He cracks in double science on a Tuesday afternoon—using a hall pass to dodge the latter half of a lesson on tidal gravity. Mr. Mundy watches hopelessly as Billy gives the globe a lackadaisical spin on its axis on his way out.

He finds Harrington in the library, sleeping on top of a book.

Going by the strewn books and two abandoned backpacks beside him, he’s been left behind as lookout. And he’s doing a pretty bad job of it, since Billy’s able to sneak across the library carpet and into a seat across from him without so much as a twitch.

He pulls one of the books towards him in case one of the circling librarians takes an interest, quietly amused when Harrington goes on breathing, shallow and steady, face propped in his hand, a ballpoint pen dangling from his parted lips.

He’s been getting more sleep, Billy thinks idly.

If he hadn’t seen so much of it—on the couch, bathed in the gray-blue light of Harrington’s TV; in the stuffy rained-in cab of Billy’s car, in the passenger seat—he’d have known anyway. Harrington’s starting to look like himself again; or, like the version of himself Billy never got to see—before all the nightmares and the weird sh*t and the dinner plate. It’s a subtle difference, the smudgy cast of exhaustion scrubbed away; no shadows under his eyes except for the stark sweep of his eyelashes.

Maybe it’s having his parents home.

It’s not like he could miss the nice new clothes Harrington’s been wearing since they got back or the clean laundry smell that lingers under his deodorant and cologne at the end of the day.

He’s probably not eating what he can microwave seven nights a week either.

As he watches, a blot of ink starts to bleed from the chewed-on cap of the pen into the corner of Harrington’s mouth. Before it can fall, Billy reaches forward and tugs it off his lip.

Harrington’s eyes open. He registers the pen first, and then Billy, attached to it, holding it up for him to see with a smug look. He swats reflexively at his face, trying to lick up the damage, checking his hands. “Did I get it on me?”

“Nah.”

Relieved, Harrington relaxes back in his seat, mindful of getting his stained palms near his sweater.

“Sweet dreams?” Billy asks.

“If you’d let me finish, maybe,” Harrington says grouchily, swiping at his mouth again. He frowns, darting a look at the turned back of the nearest library monitor. “Wait—what are you doing here?”

“That hurts, amigo. Thought we were study buddies.”

“Way I remember it, you’re the one who needed a tutor.”

“You would remember it that way,” Billy says. “Since you’re the one who started all that sh*t.”

Harrington scoffs. “You have a short memory.”

He raps his temple with a knuckle. “Must be all the knocks I keep takin’.”

“Hey, hey,” Harrington soothes, hand outstretched. “Don’t be like that, I’m sure you’re stupid underneath, too.”

Billy barks out a laugh, not deterred by the pair of raised heads the next table over, typically uncooperative when the bee-hived librarian who’d been watching over someone else turns around, and Harrington sinks deeper into his seat, trying to avoid her search for the source of the disruption.

He shrugs, nonchalant, at Harrington’s baleful glare. “I got a pass.”

“Does the pass give you free range to harass your fellow students?”

“Like I’d need a pass for that,” he bluffs. “And yeah, you really looked like you were about to crack the code on”—he drags Harrington’s textbook a little closer, tilting his head to read the title before Harrington snatches it back—"Baseball’s Great Moments?”

Harrington makes a wry face. “Between you and me, I thought there’d be more pictures,” he confesses.

Billy smiles nastily. “Maybe stick to comics next time.”

“Thanks for the tip. I should have come to you sooner, since you’re such a whiz.”

He pinches his tongue between his teeth happily. “I ain’t smart, Harrington. I just look it.”

“Wow,” Harrington says, saccharine. “Got any more free advice?”

He sniffs, rocking back in his chair, considering. “Don’t take pills from strangers.”

Harrington chuffs. “Okay, got it, wrote it down. And?”

“Always date dumber than you.”

Harrington laughs softly, the laugh tailing off into an exaggerated grimace. He scrapes some of his hair back. “Guess that’s why Nancy was with me, huh.”

“Pretty sure it wasn’t.”

He realizes his mistake a beat later when Harrington’s eyebrows perk up with amusem*nt—but is saved by the bell ringing, the library breaking up into noise and movement, kids eagerly scraping their things into their bags to get out as fast as possible.

He blinks at the clock above the stacks, surprised.

Three o’clock: school’s out.

Carol and Tommy appear from the direction of the study room in the back, both of them looking kind of flush for an hour of pencil sharpening. Carol flicks her hair out from the neck of her sweater, shameless, Tommy following behind trying to readjust his flies. “He’s a winter,” she announces.

Harrington throws the nearest thing to hand—an eraser—at Tommy, Tommy catching it in his stomach and pegging it right back, but losing momentum when he spots Billy, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“Hall pass,” Billy explains at the same time as Harrington.

“And you chose to spend it in the library?” Carol says, dumping herself on the edge of the table, knees swinging. “What a bummer.”

“Worse ways to kill time,” he says.

Harrington looks up from where he’s sliding books off the desk and into his bag and smiles, wide, his teeth shining a glossy blue-black.

^^^

It’s Thursday before they actually make it to the cafeteria for lunch. Billy forgets he even normally hates the joint—busy following his stomach. He’s hungry all time now, despite the extra smokes—chowing down on whatever Susan puts on his plate at home and whatever he can get away with in the pantry after—bread and cereal mostly; eating whatever she puts out in a brown paper bag and whatever Tommy and Carol throw at him on the bleachers, and whatever Harrington puts in his locker as a joke.

He’s jamming the better half of Carol’s lunch in his mouth before he realizes Harrington’s not with them. He drops his fork, scoping the room while he tries to chew down the mouthful of dry meatloaf.

“He’s with the squares,” Carol says catching on. She leans to one side at his questioning look, opening up a path for him to see across the crowded cafeteria where Harrington is looming over one of the far tables near the bins, lunch tray in his hands, talking to Byers and Wheeler. He doesn’t seem too concerned about the attention from some of the surrounding lunch-goers either; kids waiting with bated breath to see if there’s about to be a fight or a breakup—if Steve Harrington’s about to sit and eat lunch with the girl who cheated on him and the guy she cheated on him with.

Tommy doesn’t turn to look, sucking on his juice box with pointed indifference, but Carol slides her seat a little closer to him anyway.

Harrington looks up and catches sight of him mid-sentence, smiling lopsidedly through whatever story he’s telling. Wheeler twists in her seat with a swish of her curly ponytail to follow his gaze, but Harrington’s already making his excuses, the noise in the cafeteria ratcheting up a few decibels as people at other tables turn back to their gossip and their food, disappointed.

Harrington making his way through the churn of people to the long table by the windows where Tommy, Carol and Billy have staked out the best spot.

“New leaf,” he explains simply, meeting Billy’s expectant stare.

Well, all right then.

He nods at the chair next to him. “Saved you a seat.”

“Uh huh.” Harrington looks at the guy currently in the chair, obliviously shoveling meatloaf into his face. “Doesn’t look it.”

Billy nudges the guy’s chair leg to get his attention. “That’s you, spanky.”

Tommy chews his food to one side of his mouth, hunching to smother a laugh as the guy scrambles to get up and out of the way, milk slopping on his tray.

Billy kicks the empty seat out invitingly.

With an amused smile, Harrington drops his tray. He flops down into his seat a moment later and Billy pretends not to notice the jello cup held tauntingly in his far hand. Harrington rests his elbow on the table and tucks it under his chin, dangling loose in his fingers, pretending he hasn’t noticed Billy pretending.

“What’s new on planet loser?” Carol asks, sick of biting her tongue for a whole minute.

“Not much,” Harrington says, and then, catching the way Carol’s stabbing imaginatively at the plastic cover of her own jello cup with a fork. “Hey, no, uh-uh,” he says, lifting a finger at her. “Leave them alone.”

“Sure.”

“Carol.”

“Steve.”

“Drop it, Carol,” Tommy says, surprising the hell out of everyone. He puts his untouched jello on her plate, the lid peeled off for her.

Carol looks kind of shocked, her usual conniving grin turning wobbly at the edges until it’s replaced by something a little softer, a little annoyed. She turns back to her food, darts another look at Tommy that tells Billy he’s just pressed his knee against hers under the table.

Harrington kicks him a little like, well look at that.

“You can’t feel guilty about it forever, you know,” Billy says quietly once Tommy and Carol have started up bickering again, watching Wheeler and Byers hunched together over their trays on the other side of the room, unable to stop smiling at each other now that Harrington’s left them to it.

Harrington looks just a little taken aback, like he wasn’t expecting Billy to get a read on him so fast. He fidgets his juice carton around on the tray and leaves it, mouth tugging down in the corners. “My dad made me clean the pool last night.”

“So?”

“So,” Harrington says tightly. “I found his shoe.”

Billy bites his tongue so he won’t laugh. Harrington catches it anyway, groaning. “Oh my God, I’m an asshole.”

“Self-discovery looks good on you, Harrington.”

“Shut up,” Harrington says, slumping in his seat and giving up on his tray entirely, like he ever eats the cafeteria food.

“Look, you didn’t push him. That one’s on me and I don’t feel bad about it.” Billy forks some more meatloaf into his mouth, chewing. “Plus, we took his kid brother swimming. Way I see it, you’re even.”

Harrington stares at him.

Billy continues, “You planning on stealing your girl back or something?”

Harrington actually jerks back a little, horrified. “No. What? No. And she’s not—” His eyes dart over to the far table, brow creasing, thoughtful. “No.”

Vindicated, Billy holds his hand out for the jello cup. “See? Even.”

^^^

Woodshop should be a class he likes but they’re making birdhouses, which is a total drag, and the teacher’s got a stick up her ass about him using the chop-saw outside of the buddy system.

“You gotta stop being so afraid of it,” he says from his bench, bored of hot-glue-gunning his fingers together and watching Byers struggle to pull the blade down on a piece of two-by-four.

“I’m not afraid,” Byers says. He looks up from his work to frown at Billy from behind his protective goggles. “I’m trying to be precise.”

“That’s what your five hundred drawings are for, Picasso. Now sh*t or get off the pot, you’re painful to watch.”

“Are you supervising everyone who uses the saw now?”

“Perks of the seat,” he says, even though he only picked it because it’s the furthest from the front and he can tool around in relative peace.

Most everyone else has done the smart thing of designing their birdhouses around not needing the chop-saw in his corner, but apparently Byers didn’t get the memo. He shakes his head, determined to ignore Billy’s judgmental stare and return his concentration to his work.

He can practically see the cogs turning under that limp haircut, probably wondering if he should spend another period running through all the pencil work again.

“It’s just wood,” Billy says, snagging his attention after another agonizing half-minute of watching him check his measurements. “Don’t overthink it.” He darts a look at their teacher’s turned back, since the old witch seems to have a sixth sense about him being near power tools. “If you really can’t do it, I could help you out some—if you ask nice.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Byers says skeptically. He eyes Billy’s tabletop Roman catapult. “What kind of birdhouse even is that?”

“A fun one.”

Byers lets out an amused huff, shaking his head. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

Billy sucks a tooth. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of your little love nest for Wheeler. Just thought you might appreciate some fatherly advice.”

He has a smile waiting for the tired look of warning Byers levels at him, his gaze hitching for a split-second on the bruise, not needing to ask about it. The jab still gets the desired effect; Byers flicks the machine on and starts pushing his two-by-four through with slow purpose.

Billy would criticize his technique except that he’s distracted the next moment by a pair of seniors entering through the open shop door—one girl and one guy. The girl is one of Carol’s friends, Tina, carrying a shoebox, and the guy is Harrington, carrying a couple of flyers.

“No shades, no grades,” the teacher drones, pointing to the safety goggles sign on the wall, preoccupied with a listing turret on Tommy K’s henhouse.

“We’re campaigning, ma’am,” Tina says, just on the sweet side of insolent. She rattles her shoebox so the badges insides skitter over each other. Harrington hasn’t even bothered to stick around and make a case with her, already wending his way between benches towards the back of the room.

The teacher gives a tiny, exasperated shake of her head, turning back to her assessment. “Five minutes, tops.”

“Hi,” Harrington says, dumping himself on the stool across from Billy’s workspace.

“Steve?” Byers says, blinking at him from his spot on the saw.

“Hey,” Harrington says briefly. He turns back to Billy. “So, this is your natural habitat, huh? Dig the specs.”

Billy squints. “Aren’t you supposed to be in sing-a-long math?”

“Does Gruesson give you extra credit the more denim you wear?” Harrington shoots back, eyeing his jean jacket and the denim shirt he’s wearing over an old blue Henley.

“Steve,” Byers says, tentative. “Are you…in this class?”

“Uhh,” Harrington leans back on his stool to scope out the array of students taking workshop. “Nah, nope. Just passing through.”

“Sure you don’t wanna stick around?” Billy asks dryly. “You might learn something.”

Harrington hums disinterestedly: “Like what?”

“Like how to build a ramp,” he says out the side of his mouth, thinking of all Harrington’s crooked nails he had to work out while Harrington dithered around singing to himself and being a giant distraction, making the job stretch twice as long as it needed to.

"Yeah, yeah, think I got it. In, left, right, out—right? Harrington says, making a loose gesture with his hand that’s deliberately not what Billy showed him with the hammer and which makes Byers’ eyebrows shoot up under his fringe, the saw whirring impatiently with nothing under its blade.

There’re a few things Billy could say to that, but most of them involve Wheeler, and Byers is right there manning a power tool after all, so he says instead, “Figures you’d be a fast learner when it comes to how to nail something.”

Harrington’s smile is downright evil. “Or how to un-nail things,” he says, leaning over to press a knuckle into Billy’s arm, coquettish and slow. “Right?”

Billy bites the inside of his cheek—(there he goes, being handsy again)—but Harrington is already drawing back across the bench, his eyes landing on Billy’s project. “Whoa, cool egg launcher.”

“I’m calling it The Scrambler,” Billy says, ignoring the little thrill of Harrington’s immediate understanding.

Harrington nods appreciatively, his voice dropping a theatrical octave: “It’s fly or get kicked out of the nest!”

He laughs, ducking his head.

“You’re on thin ice over there!” the teacher belts out over the clatter and buzz of tools.

Harrington flaps his small stack of flyers at her placatingly.

“Steve,” Byers says once she’s turned away again. “Man, what’re you doing here?”

“Uh, didn’t you hear,” Harrington says leaning forward on his elbows. “Winning hearts and minds? Vote Steve Harrington for Prom King.”

“What’s your pitch?” Billy asks, unimpressed.

Harrington’s eyes dart from side to side. “What do you mean?”

“Your pitch?” Billy points his hot-glue gun at Tina where she’s handing out her buttons with an objectively menacing smile.

Harrington’s nose wrinkles. “Yeah, no, I’m good.” He turns back to admiring Billy’s catapult, moving to touch.

Billy snaps his free hand to catch him by the wrist, yanking his reaching fingers away from the trigger. “It hasn’t got a shock absorber on it yet, dumbass.”

Harrington laughs, trying for it still even though he’s already losing the arm wrestle, badly, following the angle of his arm almost off the stool. “Ow, okay, okay—I got it. Let me go.”

“What for?” Billy asks dryly, not seeing the appeal. Harrington hasn’t got the leverage to overpower his grip, but he hasn’t gone limp either.

“Uh,” Harrington says, thinking. “Common decency?”

“Not familiar.”

Harrington deflates, his forearm bending just a little closer to the benchtop. “Fine, you win. Truce?”

“You got nothing to bargain with.”

Harrington grins, flashing one of the flyers he’s holding in his other hand. It’s one of Tina’s infamous party invites: neon green this time, with a border of tropical fruit printed all the way around.

Billy lets go. “Your hick party supposed to mean something to me?”

“Not just any party,” Harrington says, straightening up, fixing his hair. “The party. Midwinter Mayhem. It’s the party of the year.”

“I thought that was for seniors only,” Byers says over his still idling machine.

“It is,” Harrington says. He flicks the corner of a flyer. “Unless you have one of these.”

Billy doesn’t take the bait. “Sounds lame.”

Harrington just smiles indulgently and, without breaking eye contact, holds one of the two flyers out for Byers to take.

Byers just blinks at it. From what Billy knows about him, Byers is the type of guy to make sure everyone knows he thinks parties—and the kids who go to them—are stupid, so that he never has to feel like a loser about not being invited to one. He probably didn’t have Steve Harrington being the one to invite him to the biggest party of the year on his bingo card.

Now, Byers finally snaps out of it, flicking the saw off and reaching for the flyer hesitantly, mouth pulled thing, like he thinks it’s still some sort of prank. “Um, thanks?”

“Yeah, I’m a real saint, you’re welcome,” Harrington scoffs. “Here,” he says, surprising the both of them further, handing Byers the other flyer after a small decisive shake of his head. “Bring Nance.”

“I don’t get an invite?”

“You won’t need one,” Harrington says, turning to him. “It’s on Saturday. I’ll pick you up at six.”

“Seems kind of early.”

Harrington flashes a grin. “Not for what we’re doing.”

He co*cks an eyebrow and Harrington leans forward a little more, voice lowered conspiratorially, “A few of us are meeting up here beforehand. Just a small matter of tradition before the real party starts.”

Byers’ voice is even more hushed than normal: “Please tell me we’re not breaking into the school.”

Harrington makes a face. “No, what? Of course not, I care about your education.” He turns back to Billy. “You in?”

“Depends what I’m getting into.”

Harrington’s eyes sparkle.

“Fine,” Billy says.

Chapter 23: the mask is a thing (part three)

Chapter Text

It snows again—just a little more, but enough to make it stick this time, powder thick enough to leave footprints in, icing curbs and piling up on top of fence posts. It makes Hawkins smell good, crisp and earthy, like after a rain. He can’t seem to stop himself seeking it out, cracking open his bedroom window to smoke, waiting on Max with the Camaro windows down, standing around putting gas in his car and thinking about any number of unimportant things that make him feel quiet in his own skin.

Everyone keeps saying it won’t last, that the winters here are short. It’s not supposed to get much colder from here on out, is what he’s heard said, but it doesn’t feel that way. Especially not when he’s out in it at horse-sh*t o’clock in the morning running drills, icy slush soaking straight through the canvas of his sneakers.

As always, he keeps his distance from the rest of the team, content to keep his own pace behind the bulk of the pack so long as it means not having to talk, Parker ranging way out in front doing his own thing too, a lap ahead of all of them.

“Looking kind of ragged there, Hargrove,” Miller pipes up, falling back from the group some just to annoy him, practically wagging his tail.

Billy sets his jaw, concentrating on keeping the steady cadence of his jog, his feet starting to go numb. He’s not sure he can be bothered getting into a scrap with Miller if it means getting snow anywhere close to his junk.

“sh*t, you got another black eye?” Miller laughs, his hot breath making a cloud in the frosty air between them, keeping pace with a bandy side-step that makes Billy want to cut his ankles out from under him. Miller’s one of the quickest on the team; he could be out there chasing Parker, but he’s back here, using up his talking allowance with Billy. “How’d you get this one?” Miller goes on, smiling irritatingly.

Billy grits his teeth. “Why? You want one too?”

Without meaning to, they’ve almost caught up to the back of the group, the flurry of sneakers in front of him beating the ground into a slippery mash of dirt and snow, slush pelting his shins.

“Ha!” Miller chuffs. “No thanks. Wouldn’t want to make your boyfriend jealous.”

His hands clench into fists.

“Milton,” Harrington says coldly, coming up on Billy’s left on fresh legs, slipping into place. Another two strides and Tommy’s with him, taking up the spot on his right, matching Miller’s dumbass smile with one that’s just a shade nastier. “It’s six o’clock. Can you keep your crush in your pants for five seconds?”

A couple of guys ahead of them turn to look, chuckling.

“My name’s—”

“Yeah, Peewee,” Tommy interrupts, reaching across to ruffle Miller’s hair. “No one wants to see your morning wood.”

Miller ducks free, his face gone a splotchy red.

“Especially not in those shorts,” Harrington adds, his elbow nudging Billy’s.

“You know they opened up a Gap in town, right?” Tommy laughs. “You don’t need to borrow your sister’s clothes.”

“Or at least ask her first,” Harrington says, nudging him to speed up some more, starting to cut through the center of the pack where a few of the guys have written off some of their pace in order to eavesdrop.

“I know I always do,” Tommy muses, lurching again to land an arm properly over Miller’s shoulders, pulling him close. “She never says no, you know?”

“Keep your mouth off my sister, Hagan,” Miller snarls, throwing Tommy’s arm off and staggering back a few paces away, legs losing rhythm as the rest of the pack moves around and past him.

Billy twists around, taunting, “Thought you wanted to know how I got my black-eye.”

A delighted crow goes up from the rest of the team, even Peterson—who can’t run a mile without dry-retching—gasping out a laugh. Billy lets one of the guys give him a high-five before he switches back, the ground too uneven with slush to jog backwards for long. Only Parker, lapping alongside the larger group at his own pace, doesn’t join in, eyeing the three of them with something like disdain as he passes.

Harrington bugs his eyes at Billy once he’s out of range like, well, no pleasing everyone, right?

“You took your time,” he says, tight, trying not to pant at the new speed. “Putting your face on?”

“Gotta keep up appearances,” Harrington says cheerfully, eyes cutting across to Billy with some sly significance.

Billy blanks him. “Just admit you slept through your alarm.”

“Or I could say I had car trouble.”

Billy snorts.

“What?” Harrington laughs, knocking into his shoulder, trying to bump an answer out of him.

“You don’t got car trouble, princess.”

Harrington scoffs. “You saying my car’s too nice to break down?”

“No,” he says with the last of his air. “I’m saying you couldn’t fix it.”

Harrington laughs again. He says lowly, “You could, though, right?”

Billy doesn’t respond, preoccupied with trying to run and breathe at the same time.

f*ck this, he thinks hotly, wishing there was a car he could slide under and mess with right now so Harrington wouldn’t see his face turning red.

And, because Harrington always knows how to make things worse, he hops around, jogging backwards, amusing himself. “You doing anything tonight?”

He shoots Harrington a look.

“Come see a movie with me,” Harrington says. He waits for Billy to meet his eyes, his grin widening, turning the right way around with a neat twist that puts him a stride ahead already. “If you can keep up.”

He takes a shot at the back of Harrington’s sneaker just to make him stop.

“Since when,” Coach hollers through the megaphone. “Does Billy Hargrove do the warmup?”

“Just keeping the captain on his toes!” Billy yells across the field, lungs torched.

“Harrington is out there?” Coach calls back, his consonants full of static. “Steve Harrington?” he booms, incredulous. “Someone get the school nurse, I’m seeing things again.”

“Aw, c’mon Coach,” Harrington yells, panting. “I’ve done laps before!”

The megaphone snaps on. “To your girlfriend’s locker maybe.”

The guys in the pack behind snigg*r, Tommy missing a step.

“Don’t know what you’re laughing at Hagan,” Coach booms. “I seen debutantes can run better’n you. First game’s a week away, ladies! Pick up those heels!”

The pack cracks up into howling laughter.

“C’mon,” Harrington huffs, clipping Billy with an elbow as the others fall apart, Peterson veering off to the side and into a crouch, coughing miserably at his own knees. They pick up speed, pushing out to the front of the group and slowly pulling away.

The challenge has him grinning, teeth stinging in the icy air. He has to work for a few seconds to keep pace, drawing up alongside only to have Harrington pull away again with his vain smile only partially disguised by a cloud of frosty breath—the advantage of longer legs.

Not on his f*cking watch.

Lungs and legs starting to burn, Billy pushes forward and clips him back, knowing Harrington’s just going to push them even faster, but wanting him to anyway, smiling—the only one who can keep up.

^^^

He forgot about Lacey.

“Billy, can we get popcorn?”

“Uh huh.”

Beyond the foyer doors, Harrington’s got both hands out, chopping sharp and frustrated as he talks, hair bobbing. Lacey’s not having it. She says something, one arm extending out from under the sharp-shouldered blazer perched on her shoulders, pointing firmly at the theater, and they both turn to stare in through the glass.

“It’s cheaper in a combo. Can we get a co*ke too?”

He digs his hand in his pocket for the change.

They do kind of make a good couple, even when they’re fighting. Lacey’s that kind of polished, well-brushed pretty that fits Harrington just perfect, every part of her soft to the touch. She’s at just the right height to fit under his arm.

“What about you?”

He frowns. “Huh?”

“Your combo?” Max says, like he’s slow. “Do you want co*ke or Seven-Up?”

The hell? He snatches the hand with the cash in it back, scowling. “No way, sh*thead. Don’t you have enough snacks already?”

She does. He knows she does, because he had to wait around on her while she raided the pantry, stuffing bags of peanuts and pretzels and a whole box of Hostess cakes into the bottom of her backpack while Susan was busy in the garden.

Max tosses her head back, exasperated past words for a whole second. “Everyone else is getting popcorn,” she whines. “I was going to get you some, too.”

By ‘everyone else’, she means the usual gang of preteens horsing around and sniping at each other at the bank of soda machines, oblivious to the other cinema guests giving them a wide berth. As he watches, Wheeler’s pain-in-the-ass little brother lurches forward and grabs a whole handful of popcorn off of Henderson, kernels spilling in a buttery-white curtain all over the floor.

He turns his back. “Ask Sinclair to get you some.”

“It’s not a date.”

Outside, Lacey has turned around, looking to cross the street. “Yeah,” he says. Harrington has legged it in front of her, still making his case. He looks a little too calm to be pleading with her, but Billy couldn’t really guess at what’s coming out of his mouth. “Yeah. Think that’s pretty clear.”

The attendant starts ushering people in for the next session, the small crowd in the foyer converging on the ticket check. Reluctantly, he lets himself get drawn into the queue with Max, her friends barging in ahead of them as an ungainly group that displaces an annoyed-looking couple and forces him back a step.

God, are they multiplying?

“Evening, sir,” Henderson says musically, extricating himself from some heated debate Sinclair and Wheeler are having over Milk Duds.

Max rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to talk to him.”

“Hi,” Baby Byers says, quiet but determined.

Billy ignores them both, checking his watch and scoping the foyer doors over his shoulder as they move down the line some. He catches Max eyeing him critically when he turns around. “What?”

She frowns. “Haven’t you already seen this movie?”

“So?”

“And you want to see it again?”

“Jesus, Max, what’s with the third degree?” he snaps. “You wanna see a movie or not? Harrington picked it, okay.”

“It’s just,” she continues, completely unaffected by his temper. “You don’t even like these kinds of movies. You never let me get Sixteen Candles from the store...”

“You an expert on what I like all of a sudden?” he says with a derisory snort, jerking his chin at Sinclair. “You want popcorn—ask your boyfriend.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but seems to think better of it, brow smoothing. “Fine,” she says, ambivalent. “Guess I’ll just ask Steve.”

“f*ck. Fine, get whatever you want,” he says, shoving the money at her so she’ll shut up. She takes off like a shot, headed for the candy bar as the line shuffles forward without her, funneling past the ticket check. “Don’t blame me when you turn into a lardass,” he mutters, holding out their tickets.

“Seven for The Breakfast Club,” the girl says blandly. “You’re in Cinema Two.”

“Six,” he corrects distractedly, taking the torn stubs. Him...plus Max…plus the other brats. Six tickets.

He cranes his head around to get a look past the queue to the street front. Harrington has his ticket on him.

“Seven,” Wheeler corrects, pushing Henderson out of the way to grab at the tickets impatiently, getting nowhere when Billy turns to keep his grip on them. Wheeler tugs harder at the tickets, pale cheeks blooming red, like he’s about to pop.

Unyielding, Billy squints at the lot of them, counting. There’s a family in front of them with a bunch of kids in tow running around and getting underfoot that makes it hard to tell, but the little punk kid hanging off to one side of the group might be new. Trust f*cking Harrington to not even tell him how many kids he’s supposed to be babysitting.

He chances one last look at the foyer doors: Lacey has one of her hands curled into the lapel of Harrington’s jacket now, setting it into place affectionately while she talks, pressing it smooth. Billy stares, not feeling any particular way about it. He can’t for the life of him remember what color nail polish she wore when she was with him.

“Billy?”

He turns around and almost jumps, coming face to face with the life-size cutout of Molly Ringwald that’s beside the theater doors like an usher, Max standing beside her with her arms full of popcorn, staring at him expectantly along with the others.

Yeah. sh*t, okay.

“You nerds really gonna make me sit through this sh*t, or you wanna see something with some actual tit* in it?”

^^^

“Don’t talk during the trailers, okay?” Max says as they clomp down the ramp in the semi-darkness, her little friends scrambling ahead to take their seats near the front, keen to get as close as possible to all the R-rated action. “It’s embarrassing.”

He grunts.

She glares at him. “And don’t follow us.”

“Yeah, because that’s at the top of my list of things to do.”

He snatches his bucket of popcorn off her, retreating into one of the wings so that the couple making out in the center won’t think he’s there to creep on them. Rolling his eyes, he dumps himself into a seat, ignoring something sticky on the armrest. Little wonder the place is closing down; it’s a Friday night but only half the seats in the cinema are full. The new joint over at the mall is probably packed out; probably has a screen twice the size.

Max and her brat pack are still filing along one of the front rows, squabbling loudly amongst themselves about who gets to sit where. They take forever to get settled, Henderson creating some sort of issue by sitting where Wheeler wants the new kid to sit and getting shunted to the end of the row.

He exhales, trying to at least feel relieved at getting out of that lame f*cking chick-flick. Now he doesn’t have to sit through two hours of Harrington and Lacey watching themselves fall in love on the big screen. Max and Sinclair have found their seats, leaning close to whisper at each other excitedly, their gigantic popcorn tubs knocking together as they giggle.

He swallows down something like a sigh, eyes seeking out the dimly glowing sign for the emergency exit.

Maybe he’ll wait for enough darkness and just slip out.

The thought’s only just occurred to him when the theater darkens another notch, a hush falling over the room as the first of the trailers starts to play, sound swelling, resonating through the floor.

The first trailer is for some schmaltzy romantic comedy: John Cusack sliding into bed next to a pretty piece of ass he’s supposed to be all chivalrous and platonic with, right before it fades out on a cheesy Coming Soon...

Billy snorts. “Yeah, I’ll bet he is.”

Down at the front of the cinema Max’s head swivels around. He ignores her glare, kicking his feet up onto the seat in front of him and stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

The movie’s trash.

He’s hooked immediately, the pretty blonde in her nightshirt getting corn-syrup’d right away, flung all over her bedroom; a laugh startling out of him when her chest rips open. The nerd brigade down the front have gone dead silent under all the screaming and clanging, too afraid to look away.

The girl’s writhing around on the wallpaper and Billy’s so zeroed in on her boyfriend doing f*ck all to save her in his tighty-whities that Harrington flopping into the seat beside him actually scares the bejeezus out of him.

“Jesus,” Harrington says wearily, reaching over and grabbing a handful of popcorn without asking. “I got so lost. What’d I miss? Are they in detention?”

Billy blinks, his surprised shout still lodged in his throat. “Wrong movie,” he says finally.

“Oh great. Dustin’s mom’s gonna kill me.”

“Shh!” someone hisses.

Harrington makes a snotty face in reply, yanking his jacket off, wearing only a fine white t-shirt underneath, arms bare. He fishes a flask out of his pocket, wagging it at Billy in invitation.

“Where’s Lacey?” he asks, aiming for nonchalant. He takes a short pull from the flask, does his best not to wince at the malted too-sweet taste of rum.

“Uh,” Harrington says simply, taking his flask back. His eyes are already fixed on the screen, widening as blondie gets splattered all over the bed. He dumps a few glugs in his soda, screwing the cap back on. “She, uh, wasn’t really feeling the date.”

“You’re sh*tting me,” Billy deadpans.

Harrington snaffles another handful of popcorn, grimacing. “I maybe could have told her about the…” He toasts his flask in the direction of the front row, the liquor inside sloshing. “And the…” He waves the flask at Billy.

“You think?”

Harrington shrugs, making a face as he crunches through his mouthful, his eyes shifting over to Billy, affronted. “Man, you skimp on butter or something? Here.” Without asking, he dumps half a box of candy on top of the popcorn.

Billy hisses, reacting too late. “The f*ck, Harrington! You raised in a barn or something?”

“You can talk,” Harrington scoffs. “Why don’t you get your feet off the seat, you animal.” He draws up a knee and kicks lazily at one of Billy’s boots so his feet hit the floor with a loud thump.

“Shut up,” someone a few rows down yells, losing it. “For God’s sake.”

Harrington snickers, ducking lower in his seat and kicking Billy’s foot again—like it’s his fault. Billy keeps his face carefully blank, pulling the popcorn bucket out of range when Harrington reaches for it again.

Harrington gives up after a couple of swipes, shoving his shoulder and contenting himself with slurping obnoxiously at his spiked co*ke. Billy bites his lip at the noise.

The shusher a couple of rows down stands up and pointedly moves to the other side of the cinema.

After that, they settle; the movie’s too good and too gory not to watch, even if he loses track of the plot pretty much instantly, busy keeping track of Harrington’s offered flask and his hand feeling around blindly for Billy’s popcorn every ten seconds.

Lacey’s really dodged a bullet.

He can sense Harrington not watching the movie with him. Keeps catching the smug look on his face out of the corner of his eye that makes it harder and harder to concentrate on the main character shrieking her way through each scene, the rum burning hot and syrupy in his stomach, weighing him down into his seat.

Freddy Krueger chases a bunch of horny kids around in their nightmares and he can feel a laugh building up like a bubble between the two of them, getting worse and worse, until he’s grinning like a psycho when the dipstick boyfriend gets swallowed by his own bed, helpless to contain himself when the blood comes spewing out, gushing up and all over the ceiling, leaning over to growl in Harrington’s ear, “Some wet dream”—Harrington’s laughter swept up and soundless in the boom of slasher music and screaming.

At some point the flask stops coming and Billy turns when Harrington’s elbow bumps his and he realizes Harrington’s nodded off like any number of the dumbass teenagers getting shredded on screen. He’s out cold, too, slumped all over Billy’s side of the armrest.

Disbelieving, he glances at the screen. The heroine is tiptoeing down the stairs in her white pajamas, oblivious to the tell-tale keen of ominous music and Harrington…

Harrington is still asleep.

Oh.

Billy can only see the top of his head, his hair. He’s slouched down in his seat, chest gently rising and falling. In his slack hand, his drink is tilting dangerously towards his lap, ice burbling around inside like a siren song to all of Billy’s worst instincts. Rookie mistake—letting his guard down. Billy’s pathologically obligated to let him spill that drink in his lap. He keeps watching, not quite sure what it is he’s waiting to happen.

Harrington shifts a little in the flicker and slap of light from the screen, and Billy can see the way his eyes move restlessly under the thin skin of his eyelids, under the sweep of hair come loose from its gel, the seam of his eyelashes twitching along with the pitch and boom of the soundtrack.

In the library he looked how he always looks, but in the wan screen light he looks….

He looks…

His near arm is slack on Billy’s side of the armrest, hand draped over the empty cup holder. His fingers are almost brushing Billy’s knee.

The cinema booms, rattling, music clanging as the main girl stumbles and runs, the finger knives flashing silver in the moonlight, the screen plunging in and out of blackness.

Harrington’s head nods and his arm slips a little more. Just a little more.

Billy lets out a slow breath, so quiet he’s not even sure he’s really breathing.

Two fingertips.

Pressure so barely there he might just have imagined it on top of his knee.

The next sweep of light catches on the dull edge of Harrington’s fingernail pressed against the denim, Billy’s own hand frozen and strange-looking next to it. It makes him feel lightheaded to see it: his little finger right there, almost touching, a hairsbreadth away. A guilty twitch closer in the next blossom of dark relief.

“Steve, wake up. We’re out of Milk Duds.”

Billy starts so bad the popcorn bucket jolts in his lap.

Fear is a hard cold net slamming him back down inside his skin, his blood racing hot and shameful all over, stomach twisting. Harrington’s already fumbling around on the other side of his seat as if he was never asleep at all, bitching at Henderson for eating his own candy too fast, his words an indecipherable slur under the searing white noise of Billy’s brain and the shriek of music.

He must say something, shoving the popcorn aside, stumbling out of his seat and over Harrington’s legs and dodging Henderson blindly on his way out.

He doesn’t even really realize he’s holding his breath until the doors clap shut behind him and he’s left blinking at the tacky patterned carpet of the foyer, chest heaving. Behind him, in the theater, a dull booming sounds—muffled screams.

He’s going to throw up.

No, he’s not.

His mouth wets with spit.

Yeah, he is.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, following some pattern in the carpet as he walks, unthinking, waiting for his heart to stop beating high and tight in his throat, his skin burning.

f*ck.

f*ck. What the hell is wrong with him.

He scrubs his clammy palm over his shirt to stop it shaking, coming to a stop in front of a bank of gaudy vending machines, bracing against one to press his face into the crook of his elbow, seeing it again—again—again—the blue stripe of light over Henderson’s impassive face.

It wouldn’t have looked like anything.

He roughs a hand over his mouth, fumbling a coin into the machine and pressing any one of the buttons. The soda doesn’t move—stuck—and he bangs the side of the machine.

Bangs it again.

It wouldn’t have looked like anything.

It wouldn’t—

The can shakes free with a thump.

“Hurts,” an odd voice says behind him, making him jump.

It’s the new kid.

He’s already moving to touch his cheek out of reflex. "It’s fine,” he says, the usual. All that’s left of the bruise is a faint green-gray smudge the size of a knuckle.

The kid—a girl, he realizes, really looking at her for the first time—just looks more confused. “Hurts,” she repeats, soft and uncertain.

He lets out a resigned sigh, bending to retrieve his can of Coca-Cola out of the bottom of the machine. “What hurts, kid?”

The kid’s just staring at him now, kinda unnerving. As he watches, her nose starts to bleed a little, and she presses the cuff of her oversized flannel to it without breaking her stare.

Christ, Max really is set on collecting only Hawkins’ wackiest and weirdest, huh.

“Yeah, okay, curly-top,” he says, eyes darting around the foyer for literally anyone else whose problem this can be. “I ain’t a doctor, so…”

She frowns.

Billy makes a face. “You home-schooled or something? Go find a first-aid kit, I can’t fix that.” He points his soda can at the fresh bead of blood rolling over her lip.

The doors across the foyer burst open, people starting to filter out, talking excitedly, dumping their trash. The movie must be over.

The girl is still frowning at him. “You…can’t fix it,” she says slowly, like she’s explaining a fundamental truth to herself.

“Yeah, kid,” he says testily. “That’s what I just said.”

He can’t fix it.

Harrington’s emerged, a respectable distance behind the others, carrying his jacket over one arm. He’s easy to spot in a way Billy wishes he wasn’t—just a little taller, a little more striking than everyone and everything around him; real under the stark foyer lights in a way that makes his heart sink.

He’d thought maybe out here, in the light, he would look less like a dream.

But he doesn’t.

And Billy can’t fix that either.

Chapter 24: you knew, didn't you? i'm part of you? (part one)

Chapter Text

“Okay, so, this might end badly.”

Harrington swivels back into place behind the bimmer's rear bumper, the tread of his sneakers scraping on the frosty asphalt, knee knocking against Billy’s. Billy fires an unimpressed stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “You think?”

“Hey, c’mon,” Harrington’s tone is only barely apologetic. “How was I supposed to know they’d have band practice on a Saturday?” He steals the cigarette off Billy’s lip, ignoring his warning glower—Billy’s hands tucked safely away under his armpits—adding, under his breath: “Someone should tell them it’s the weekend.”

“They’re nerds, Harrington. This is their f*cking weekend.” And look how I’m spending mine, he thinks. It’s late enough the sun has gone down already. The student parking lot is near-empty, except for a handful of cars besides Harrington’s drawn up as close as possible to the school, the lone streetlight glowing wanly against the blue gloam.

He lurches around Harrington to get another look at their chief obstacle: yep, still there—a teacher's dorky Chevy Citation, spoilt-milk-yellow, parked beside the main doors to the school, the dull clamor of brass instruments tuning up somewhere inside.

He returns to his squat. “Well, you wanted mayhem.”

“Mayhem, not detention.” Harrington passes the Marlboro back, knuckles pink from cold. “Heather’s year they all got suspended until someone put the staff-room door back.”

"Great,” he deadpans.

“Worried about your flawless record?” Harrington teases, nudging him. “Relax, would you? We’re not gonna get caught.” The side of his mouth dimples. “I mean…so long as you don’t get your panties stuck on a fence again.”

Billy could hit him. He chafes his hands together between his knees instead. At least he knows first-hand, even if they do get caught, Harrington can probably talk them out of it. He sniffs. “Think anyone’ll believe I got peer pressured into it?”

Harrington barks out a short laugh.

“Worth a shot,” Billy says, stubbing the last of the cig out on the ground, already feeling the cold more without it. He tucks his hands back under his arms. “Okay then, Octopuss*. What’s the master plan?”

“Get in, steal something, get out.”

“Wow, you been working on that one for a while or just since we got here?”

“What—you wanna go back to Mike’s basem*nt and hash it out some more? Go over the blueprints?” Harrington says sarcastically. “I’m sure if you asked nicely they’d let you use their D 'n D table. Mrs. Wheeler could bring you a nightcap.”

“At least it’s warm in there,” Billy gripes.

“Yeah, and it smells like hotdogs,” Harrington reminds him.

It had. Even Maxine had made a face in the doorway—(as far as he had been allowed to go, confronted by a gaggle of hostile faces peering up at him from the bottom of the stairs). Mrs. Wheeler had been hovering with a plate of cookies and a besotted look, so he couldn’t do much more than stand there inhaling with mock relish through his nose until Max snatched her sleeping bag off him.

“Don’t drink too much soda before bed,” he called after her as she traipsed grimly down the stairs, trusting her to get the veiled warning. “Don’t want mom to have to come pick you up!”

No hijinks.

No calls.

This night never happened.

“Why don’t you go brush your hair some more, dipwad,” Wheeler snarked from the bottom of the stairs.

“Mike!” Mrs. Wheeler shrilled, her voice softening for Billy, tucking a curl, embarrassed, behind one ear. “I am so sorry about that. He’s at that age...”

A car horn beeped outside.

“That’s okay, Mrs. Wheeler,” he said, leaning forward conspiratorially, smiling slow and crooked, for Wheeler’s benefit as much as his mother’s. “I promise I was much much worse.”

She bit her lip, taking in his outfit. “Well,” she said wistfully. “I don’t want to keep you from your date.”

He took a cookie, winking. “Another time, maybe.”

Or never.

With any luck, Max would hold off on the sewer-diving for one night so he could go to the only party worth having in Hawkins, and Neil and Susan would be none the wiser when they got back into town on Monday.

“Got you a cookie,” he said to Harrington back at the car, sliding into the passenger seat after hawking his own mouthful into the dirt.

“She buy it?” Harrington asked.

“Yeah. Think she ate up the whole protective big brother act.” He took one last look at the Wheeler house. “They’re not gonna do weird sh*t in there are they?”

Harrington snorted. “Define weird.” At Billy’s serious look he swallowed his bite of snicker-doodle and laughed. “Oh yeah, some ‘act’—sure.”

Billy frowned. “Y’know, technically she’s not not supervised.”

Harrington wolfed down the rest of the cookie, dusting the crumbs off his hands pedantically out the window before he turned the keys in the ignition, eyeing Billy wryly. “Your dad the type to argue interpretation?”

Billy scratched the edge of jaw, uncomfortable. “In a way.”

He’d have an interpretation on the way Billy’d dressed up tonight, that’s for sure: his open shirt and his jewellery (all of it), and his jeans that still need breaking in, too tight to get a wallet in the back pocket.

He gave Harrington a brief once over. He looked nice.

“No curfew for Hawkins’ Prom King?”

“Told them I had a chaperone,” Harrington joked. Then, shrugging a little too easily: “They’re gone already.” He plucked another imaginary crumb off his lap. “House all to myself again.”

Billy nodded, said carefully, “Guess that means you can leave the lights on all night, huh.”

Harrington turned his head to look at him. His fake grin turned into a real one. “Won’t need to if we’re out ‘til sunrise.”

Billy’s felt the first small thrill of possibility like a shot of whisky diffusing in his blood. No parents. No rules. No babysitting. If they never made it to the party he would be okay with just this—getting to feel like this, even just for one night.

Of course, that was before Harrington roped him into his little stakeout...

He straightens out of his squat, knees creaking from cold, standing to hunch over the back of the bimmer and get a proper look, Harrington joining him. Short of army-crawling or cutting the power, there’s no way to break in through the front that hasn’t got them strolling around with no cover and in full view of whoever the hell’s inside and cares to look. He shares a dry look with Harrington that expresses as much.

Harrington sighs, nodding. “Okay. Maybe we can get in through the back.”

“No can do,” Tommy says, startling both of them into turning around. “Janitor’s ‘round back. Tracey almost ran into him taking a leak.” Under his arm, Carol tongues her popped gum back into her mouth, frowning at them. “What are you guys doing?”

“Espionage,” Billy says drolly.

“Yeah, would you—?” Harrington gestures for them to keep it down.

Carol rolls a sardonic hand around at the empty lot. “Uh, newsflash, geniuses—it’s totally dark out. Nobody’s looking.” Her gaze follows the slope of the lot to the school and lands on the hatchback parked in the teachers’ bay, eyes narrowing. “Gross. Is that Mr. Mundy’s car? No wonder he’s a virgin.”

Harrington groans. “Oh man, don’t get him started again.”

“No one’s getting started, Harrington,” Billy says, adding, because he’s compelled to: “Least of all that piece of sh*t eyesore with three f*cking doors.”

“How much horsepower is in that thing, d’you think?” Tommy asks, flexing away from Carol’s elbow to the ribs.

“On a four-cylinder? Ninety, tops—before it shakes apart.”

“Yeah yeah,” Harrington says, giving up on keeping a low profile, tugging his jacket straight. “We got it—it’s a stain on the reputation of all cars everywhere for all time. Can we move already? Maybe we can get in through the gym. Danny says he’s jimmied the doors before.”

The rest of the seniors have already converged in the alley next to the gym by the time they hightail it across the lot and around the far side of the school. There’s more people than can comfortably hide behind the dumpsters—most of senior class—almost all the basketball team and their girlfriends—so they’re not hard to spot.

And, as it turns out, they don’t need Danny to jimmy the door open either; Coach Green hasn’t even bothered to lock up.

They take turns ducking under the loose chain, one by one, slipping out of the chill and into the murky black of the gym, stale and quiet.

He butts his way in before Harrington and immediately loses his bearings inside, stepping to one side to avoid colliding with the indistinct shape of the girl in front of him.

The gym is unfamiliar in the dark, the mop-water and old rubber smell stronger. He blinks, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the feeble moonlight filtering in from the high windows, excitement fizzing, hyper-aware of the hushed murmuring and laughter from the others and the sound of sneakers squeaking softly over the waxed floor.

The door closes as the last of their group hustles inside.

“Hey,” Carol says, off to his left. He squints. She’s pointing at one of the basketball hoops. “What if we just took that?”

“No,” Billy says at the same time as Tommy and Harrington and half a dozen other guys from the team. “The hoop stays,” he says firmly.

Carol huffs. “I don’t see you guys coming up with any bright ideas.”

“How about we split off and look?” Tracey suggests. “That way if we get caught, the others might still make it out with something.”

“My brothers are bringing the keg at nine,” a curly-top girl pipes up from nearby. “So we have to meet back here some time before then.”

Someone starts to argue, forgetting to whisper, and there’s a sudden rush of voices, the girls trying to calm things down, a couple of guys breaking off from the group and headed deeper into the school already with plans of their own.

He’s on the edge of the group, behind Tommy and Carol, opening his mouth to contribute to the general chaos, when he feels the clasp of a hand on his elbow. He follows the hand to an arm and a shoulder—and finally to Harrington, nodding his head in the direction of the bleachers.

“Where we going?” Billy asks once they’re out of earshot.

Harrington pushes open the door, scoping out the hallway on the other side. “I had an idea.”

Billy slips out of the gym after him.

The hall beyond is eerie, the space unfamiliar in dim blues and grays, vacant, lockers looming on one side, each open classroom door an yawning black splotch.

Billy flips his collar up against the chill. “And you didn’t want to share with the class?”

“Oh, I want to share—just not yet,” Harrington says. “You remember my theory in the video store, about Keith?”

Billy rolls his eyes at Harrington’s back. “You think he’s Tommy’s weed guy.”

“Uh huh.” Harrington pokes his head in the doorway of a classroom, scanning. Behind a closed door somewhere not too far away, the muffled clang of instruments crescendos and cuts out, a trumpet skewing awkwardly for a beat longer. Harrington stops, turning to look at him with a devious slice of a grin. “How much you wanna bet Keith is in band?”

He feels his mouth go dry.

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like an idea he can get behind.

Harrington’s deranged if he thinks they’re going to share whatever party favor they shake out of Keith, though.

The idea of getting his hands on a joint and the house to himself for a few hours before he has to pick Maxine up tomorrow morning is like a drug all of its own; a chain reaction in his body that makes his pulse speed up.

Harrington’s already disappearing into a classroom a few doors down. Billy catches up to him drifting between the empty desks, looking absently for something to steal. “Okay,” he says, licking his lips. “So, what, we just wait to jump him in the toilets?”

Harrington shrugs, drawing a finger along a desktop. Behind him the window that runs the full length of the room looks out on the dark parking lot, the streetlight a point of foggy brightness shining down on Harrington’s car. “They gotta be finishing soon, right?” Harrington says. “I say we just wait, see who comes out. Corner him before he can vamoose.”

Billy snorts, coming to lean against the window, tilting his head against the cool glass. “You ever roughed anyone up, Harrington?”

“No.” Harrington settles across from him, the moonlight doing him all kinds of favors. “Got any pointers?”

“Look mean,” Billy says.

Harrington stops smiling.

Billy looks away out the window, throat tight, eyes sliding traitorously back to look again.

“Needs work,” he says.

Harrington co*cks an eyebrow. “Okay, tough guy. Show me what you got then, if you’re such a pro.”

He unhooks an arm from across his chest to point a finger up at his face, lazy, like, isn’t it obvious?

“Shaking in my boots,” Harrington says and doesn’t look away.

Billy hasn’t got anything to say to that so he clears his throat and even then Harrington doesn’t look away, a smirk creeping in at the eyes—so maybe he knows how to be mean after all.

“Hey,” he says finally, eyes latching on to the first familiar thing he sees, resting on the teacher’s desk. “What about that?”

Harrington turns.

“What the hell is that?”

Billy grins. “It’s a conch.”

^^^

Give it here, Harrington signals with a hand.

Billy tosses it the width of the hall, Harrington stretching to catch it from his seat on the floor, fumbling the awkward shape down into his arms.

“Care—” Billy starts to say, but Harrington cuts him off.

“Ah-ah-ah.” He points the papier-mâché conch reproachfully, arm propped on his drawn-up knee. “Not your turn.”

Tongue-in-cheek, Billy knocks his head back against the cinderblock wall at his back with a dull thunk. The others have probably found something worth stealing or vandalizing and left already. For all he knows, the party’s already in full swing and they’re going to be the last ones to arrive—the only interlopers left in the school.

He doesn’t mind so much.

They’ve parked themselves dangerously close to the source of the music, on the shadowy edge of a hallway that opens onto the main hall, band practice still thumping and see-sawing away behind a pair of closed double doors that could swing open at any moment. Billy’s not gonna pretend like he doesn’t know this is exactly the reason their exploring brought them here; Harrington loves a high-stakes chase.

“You know, I was thinking about what you said about Mr. Mundy’s car,” Harrington says, butter-wouldn’t-melt smile, sneaker lolling teasingly on the vinyl between them, “and I think you’re onto something—maybe it really will be the end of General Motors.”

Billy tucks the tip of his tongue against a molar, shakes his head just once.

When he had his turn he made Harrington listen to his knee-drum rendition of the Rocky theme song, so he supposes he had this coming.

Harrington laughs. “You’re not mad about it are you? I mean, I heard Japanese cars are the future anyway. Hey!” He snaps his fingers. “You could trade in your pony car for a Mitsubishi—what d’ya think?”

I think I’m about to take that dumb freaking seashell off you and make you swallow it, Billy thinks pleasantly, baring his teeth.

Harrington laughs. Lets the smile fade off his face naturally. He swivels the conch around between his hands like a basketball, considering. “How many generations do you think this thing’s been at Hawkins?”

Billy shrugs.

Harrington frowns. “I bet this thing’s never even seen the outside of a classroom.” He trades a look with Billy. “I bet it’s never even seen a real beach.”

Billy’s opening his mouth to say something stupid—rules of the conch forgotten—when the speaker on the wall above crackles to life: a harsh crunch and a fuzzy “—not that switch!” in what sounds like Carol’s voice, followed by a deafening whine of feedback, and then—abrupt ringing silence.

“Holy sh*t,” Harrington says, staring at the speaker wonderingly. “They’re stealing the PA?”

Before Billy can answer, the doors at the end of the hall slam open.

They scramble to their feet, Billy going one way and Harrington the other until Billy doubles back with a half-lunge and yanks him by the back of his jacket, Harrington juggling the conch for one heart-stopping second before he gets his limbs all going the same way.

Billy shoulders them both through the first door he sees—fluorescent lights, white tiles—toilets, his brain supplies.

Girls’ toilets, he registers a beat later, shoving Harrington into the nearest stall and startling Robin Buckley into dropping her joint with a confused yelp.

Billy slams his finger against his lips—quiet!—stepping up onto the toilet at the same time as Harrington, the both of them wrestling to find some configuration that doesn’t end up with both of them on the floor or in the toilet bowl. The bathroom door bursts open just as Billy finds a place for his left boot and they freeze.

“Who’s in there?” a male voice demands.

Harrington makes an urgent gesture, Buckley’s mouth still flapping. “Uh…” she croaks, scrabbling to get her headset off, the wire snagging in her short hair. “Uh-m, it’s just—just me, Mr. Mundy.”

Harrington’s shoe slips on the porcelain with a piercing squeak and Billy shoves him back into place against the stall wall, the conch between them, Harrington’s eyes huge and round.

“Are—” Mr. Mundy sounds vaguely uncomfortable. “Are you okay in there, Robin?”

Tell him you’re taking a sh*t, Billy mouths.

Buckley makes an affronted face, nose wrinkling. Her eyes dart to Harrington nodding encouragingly at her. “It’s—” She closes her eyes: an embarrassed wince. “It’s just…lady business, Mr. Mundy.” She bites her lip, waiting.

A tap drips, over loud in the echoey silence.

Finally, Mr. Mundy coughs. “I see. Well. Well, that’s—” he blusters. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

The door bangs closed.

Harrington heaves out the breath he was apparently holding, slumping against the wall. “Jesus,” he says. “That was way too close.”

“What,” Buckley says, face turning pink under her freckles, “the hell.”

“Robin Buckley,” Billy purrs, more interested in disentangling himself so he can retrieve the joint off the floor next to her shoes with their trailing laces, inspecting it for pubes. It’s a big joint, twisted off neatly; familiar work. He runs it under his nose appreciatively.

“Give it back,” Buckley says.

He laughs. “What’s a goody-goody like you doing with this much grass, huh? Did someone put you up to this?”

She folds her hands over arms, unimpressed. “Give it back,” she threatens, tone lofty, “or I’ll start screaming.”

Billy hands it over with an amused snort. She did just save their skins after all. “You gonna share at least?”

She glances at Harrington. “I only share with my friends.”

“That’s perfect,” Harrington chimes in, jumping down and half on top of Billy in the crowded stall, arm slipped around his neck. Harrington points the conch around between the three of them, holding it one-handed like a pigskin, Buckley to Billy, Billy to him. “Friends?” he pronounces. “Friends. See? You work at The Palace, right—with Keith?”

Buckley’s stare is mildly offended. “Since when does Steve Harrington go to the arcade?”

“Well,” Harrington says, oblivious. “Not when I can help it,”

Billy elbows him gently. “Only when you’re dodging your dates, right?”

“Or if you need your ass kicked at pinball.”

Billy scoffs. “You are outta your mind if you think that’s how it went down, Harrington.”

“What, are you angling for a rematch? You can just ask for me for a milkshake, you know.”

Billy rolls his eyes, trying not to smile too hard. Harrington’s arm is hooked almost too tight around his neck, dragging, the smell of his hairspray tickling his nose.

When he looks at Buckley again she has a strange look on her face, mouth parted. She looks...surprised, maybe. What was it Tommy had said—that Harrington thought she’d had a crush on him?

He shrugs Harrington off, just in case. A reflex he shouldn’t have forgotten anyway.

“So, how about it, Mary Jane?” He flirts a finger around her drooping Walkman cable. “Got enough to share?”

“Smooth,” she says dryly, smacking his hand away.

“C’mon,” Harrington says at his back, nudging him to give it up already. “We gotta go. Tammy said keg’s at nine, remember?”

Inexplicably, Buckley stiffens, eyes suddenly alight with interest. “Tammy T or Tammy G?”

Harrington makes a face. “There’s two of them?” He pushes Billy out ahead of him, the both of them squeezing past Buckley and her bulky trumpet case to get out of the stall.

“I could—come,” she says, stilted, stopping them in their tracks. “To the party.”

Billy frowns at the uncharacteristically shy tone in her voice. But then again, he remembers the way she got around Tommy—how he hadn’t realized someone like Tommy could make her nervous. Sharing oxygen with Hawkins’ Numero Uno must have her creaming her pants.

“Uhhh,” Harrington idles rudely, caught out. “Sorry. Seniors only.”

Her face flattens. “We have history together, dipsh*t.”

Harrington’s eyes flash to Billy, seeking help. “Uh, I mean, our time just now was great but—”

“No,” Buckley says scathingly. “We have History together? Mrs. Click?”

Billy tries not to roll his eyes while Harrington laughs, snapping his fingers like an idiot. “Oh, sure. Clickety-Clack, right?”

“Look,” Buckley says, picking her gear up. “I don’t want to be seen with you.” She eyeballs Billy like he’s on thin ice but doesn’t say, Or you. “But I need a ride, and—” She digs in the pocket of her khakis for a second, coming up with a second identical spliff. “I can pay.”

Harrington actually gasps.

Chapter 25: you knew, didn't you? i'm part of you? (part two)

Chapter Text

Billy’s been in this bathroom before—once, a long time ago. Alone.

Now he’s here with Harrington.

And about twenty other people.

Probably, Tina’s bathroom wasn’t meant to accommodate that many, but when the rain finally came down and drove everyone inside, everything previously off-limits became fair game, and this is the crowd Billy let himself get snarled up in during the chaos, mostly just following the keg where it ended up dumped in the bathtub along with the rest of the beers and bagged ice from outside.

The floral wallpaper is nauseatingly familiar the more he drinks, and he’s got himself hemmed in on all sides with his back to the shower curtain, but so long as he has a steady stream of people squeezing through the pack of bodies to ply him with beers and cups of punch, he’s not going to complain. Tina throws a hell of a party—a lot better than Harrington’s, anyway, even though Billy only ever saw the waning end of that one.

It seems like everyone at Hawkins worth a damn has turned up tonight, rooms packed wall to wall with kids having a good time without being too determined about it—no pockets of crying girls or guys ranging with bruised tempers looking for a fight. The crowd is seniors mostly, and kids cool enough to get a flyer or tag along with someone—and Byers and Nancy Wheeler too, leaned together in a quiet corner and looking at each other like the only two people at the party the last time he saw them.

He’d thought Byers would look like a fish out of water in a crowd like this, and maybe he does, but with Wheeler at his side he doesn’t seem to have noticed, and Billy’s been too busy getting drunk and enjoying himself to go bother him over it.

The night the same feel to it as Halloween, except for instead of wearing costumes or masks, everyone’s wearing a face that Billy knows.

The realization goes down easy, like a shot of liquor on an empty stomach. He’s at some lame house party in the middle of Indiana with breathy seventies soft-rock blasting on loop and no one’s even asked him to get on a keg yet and—

And he doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

He cranes his neck to see over the press of bodies in the crowded bathroom.

Putting Harrington in a space as small as this is like putting a camp light in a tent full of moths, but at least it makes him easy to keep track of. He’s holding court from a corner near the door, jacket collar popped, hair polished up on one side from having a hand in it all night, Buckley’s joint tucked smugly behind his ear. Harrington might not give a sh*t about being popular, but it suits him. Makes him even easier in his skin somehow, getting bigger and brighter with the attention like a performer on a soapbox—except there’s no box, and Harrington’s magic trick is a sloe-eyed smile that makes Billy want to pull all his teeth out.

“He thinks he’s so good-looking,” Buckley had said sulkily a little while back—before he lost track of her for her own good—when Harrington had been making the rounds, blowing the conch like an actual f*cking trumpet before someone took it off him.

Across the room, Harrington nails last of his drink in one go, the stark line of his throat exposed for a long moment, showing off, Tracey and all her bimbo friends too entranced to look anywhere else.

“Billy.”

He jerks, slopping his punch. “Huh?”

Carol makes an exasperated face. “Loverboy?” she repeats, enunciating loudly over the music. “I said, he looks different lately, don’t you think?”

He follows her chin pointed at Harrington. He’s showing one of the girls a good time now, spinning her out even though there isn’t enough space to do it properly—even though there’s a lull in the song that isn’t much more than heartbeats, drawing her in close—that romantic sh*t chicks always dig.

“Looks the same to me.”

“Hmm,” Carol says into the rim of her own cup.

“Maybe he’s screwing someone,” Tommy says, throwing an arm over Billy’s shoulders, gambling on Billy being drunk enough to tolerate it.

Carol hums again, doubtful, her eyes sweeping the room as if one of the people in it might provide an answer. “Maybe,” she says, gaze returning to Harrington with none of her usual malevolent focus, drawing Tommy’s other arm over her by their intertwined fingers.

“Maybe his folks are home again,” Tommy muses.

“I don’t think so,” Carol says.

They’re not, and Billy knows so. But before he can say, the music cuts out without warning.

There’s a surge of confused chatter and booing in its absence, the noise racketing off the tiles, until someone the next room over drops a needle on something brash and bouncy—music to dance to—and the mood in the room shifts, the crowd thinning towards the door.

“Bring the keg,” someone yells and Billy shrugs free of Tommy to help wrench it free of the tub, lugging it over and passing it off to some guys from the team, ice slopping over the tiles.

“Heyyy, Hargrove,” Harrington says, shouldering himself and his dance partner against the current—a pretty girl Billy recognizes from gossip as another one of Harrington’s old flames, blonde blowout starting to get limp, long damp strands of it stuck on top of her sweaty tit*. Harrington slips the joint from behind his ear, tucking it between his teeth. “You ready to get the real party started?”

Billy returns his smirk. “Only if you are.”

“I’m game,” the girl under his arm says breathlessly.

“Are you?” Carol asks, voice as sweet as Tina’s punch and with about as much undiluted turpentine underneath.

“Where’d you get the bud, Stevie-boy?” Tommy asks pointedly before blonde and busty can take the bait, his eyes narrowed at Keith’s handiwork bobbing on Harrington’s lip. “Anyone I know?”

The room is near empty already, the vanity top covered in discarded solo cups and beer suds. Billy shares a look with Peterson on his way out with the last of the guys from the team and he obediently pulls the door shut behind him.

“Why?” Harrington asks, playing dumb. “You want me to hook you up?”

Smart—not giving Buckley up. Billy might enjoy her company but Tommy and Carol spent the first half of the night staring at her like barely friendly sharks every time she opened her mouth to say something stuck-up or sarcastic, laughing awkwardly in the wrong places and squinting at everyone through bloodshot eyes.

“Hey, I have an idea,” Carol says, not taking her eyes off her new prey. “Why don’t we shotgun?”

In his chest, his heart starts to thump: a dull warning tempo. Harrington makes a wry disinterested face, but blondie—Becky, he thinks her name is—perks up, oblivious. “Can we?”

“Mm-hmm,” Harrington says, eyes wide with mock enthusiasm, fetching Billy’s zippo out of his chest pocket. He tilts his head, lighter snapping, and his eyes snag on Billy’s over the cup of his hands. “You wanna?”

Billy scoffs, cheeks hot and numb at the same time. “Not if—”

“—you were the last mouth in Indiana,” the others finish for him in a chorused monotone.

Billy’s mouth clamps shut, a feeling welling up in him he can only express by seizing Carol—since she’s nearest—picking her up and dumping her on the other side of him. She shrieks happily, play-shoving him back, Tommy and Harrington choking on their laughter instead of coming to her rescue.

The girl—Becky, blinks, smiling with polite incomprehension.

In the end, Billy doesn’t join in—just watches them do it, trying to feel like he’s watching the wallpaper instead.

Tommy starts while Harrington’s still exhaling his first hit, the smoke dissipating before Billy can get a good whiff of it. His mouth is watering already anyway. Tommy swaps smoke with Carol the easy way—blowing it directly between her smiling lips. She has to stand on tip-toe in her sneakers to do it, her hands folded in the center of his chest for balance, weirdly more intimate than seeing them neck.

When it’s Carol’s turn to pass to Harrington, things go pear-shaped real quick. He would’ve thought for all Carol’s bluster she’d be able to at least keep it together—but she can’t. Harrington puts up a hand between them like a snorkel to make it easier and still she can’t seem to bring herself to come within kissing distance of him, neck straining back, smoke chirring out of her mouth in little puffs with her stifled giggling until there’s next to nothing left and Harrington’s going, “Goddamit, Carol”—laughing, snatching the blunt from her to take another hit instead.

Harrington does the snorkel thing with Becky too, something which sets Carol off into an even worse fit of giggles. The smell of grass in the air is thick enough to smell now and Billy’s head spins as he watches them, the points at which they don’t touch and the points at which they do, punch burning sickly-sweet on the back of his tongue and the ugly floral wallpaper sliding distractingly behind them.

He blinks, trying to get it to stay put.

Oh yeah—that’s right. Last time he was in here he’d just met Harrington for the first time and gotten so sh*tfaced immediately after he had to stick his head under the tap and relearn how to breathe.

He f*cking hates this wallpaper.

He takes the joint off Becky before she can do anything stupid and embarrass herself, taking a long hard drag to make up for whatever it is he might have given away by not being a part of their stupid game, lips peeled back from the damp filter for the most part.

The weed is good, of course. Outside the bathroom, the rain keeps hammering, music and laughter banking up against the closed door. They’ll go out and dance soon, once they’re all high. Billy won’t admit to it, later—it’s not his kind of music. But the song that’s playing now is the same sh*tty George Michael song that was playing the night of the middle-school dance, when Billy could have had a fun night, and a lot of totally okay, totally forgettable nights after, except that he had to go and pull Harrington’s pigtails instead. Seems fitting he should go out there and do something about it tonight.

He keeps the smoke in his lungs for as long as he can, watched, letting the bitter-dry taste of it creep up in his throat, tickling. Meets Harrington’s smile, and Tommy’s, and Carol’s, catching sight of himself in the mirror, surprised: Billy Hargrove with the contrast turned up, starting to grin in a way that he thought he only did when he was already high.

“Good sh*t, right?” Tommy says, smothering a laugh.

Harrington’s smile twitches expectantly. Carol’s too.

He blinks.

“You guys are assholes,” he croaks finally, all in a rush so that he doesn’t cough, and their laughter fills the room all the way up to the ceiling like smoke.

^^^

Hawkins ain’t bad tonight.

It’s quiet, finally. Too late for cars and too cold for bugs, the only sound for miles the scuff of their shoes on the wet road and the arrhythmic huff of their breathing, the dim whine of music residue in his ears.

Billy’s not so high anymore, but he’s plenty drunk, and there’s a feeling under his ribs he’s gotta keep walking to figure out.

He remembers going for air with Harrington—just air, even though maybe the excuse was for a smoke—but he doesn’t remember making a decision to leave the party, that’s just something that happened when the rain let up, him and Harrington the only ones outside to see it, like a magic trick, like a sign to start going somewhere. So he did. And even though there was no one chasing them and no fences to jump, Harrington came too.

The walk is a long one but even the long walks in Hawkins aren’t that long to him anymore, really. He’s spent so much time on these roads going nowhere it’s a trick to even feel lost. Even the cold isn’t so bad since the wet took some of the bite out of it. There's a smell in the air like more rain is on the way, and he doesn’t need to look to know the stars are out, Harrington’s path weaving, distracted, into his, their shoulders bumping until they don’t need to anymore, propping each other up, making something like a straight line down the middle of Cherry Lane.

Harrington needs a moment over Susan’s rosebushes, laughing at himself loud enough to wake the neighbors, the conch tucked under his arm.

Billy smiles at him, trying to stand still in one place. “Get a hold of yourself, princess.”

Harrington spits to clear his mouth, laughing again. “Hey,” he says, pulling himself upright with a hand clasped around Billy’s arm like Billy’s got any more of a grip on the spinning rock of the world than he does. “That was a pretty awesome party, right?”

Billy shrugs, smiling. “It was all right.”

“Uh-huh,” Harrington says, not buying it. “What was your favorite part?”

Billy shrugs again, Harrington’s hand on his sleeve warm and dragging. “It’s a secret,” he says.

Harrington sucks in a cheek, smiling rakishly. “A secret, huh?”

“Yeah,” Billy says, tight-lipped, enjoying himself too much to quite pull it off.

“H’okay,” Harrington says, patting him patronizingly. “Well, sorry you didn’t get to make keg king.”

Billy snorts. “Like you weren’t gonna put up a fight.”

“Nah,” Harrington says, winking at him, charmingly lopsided. “I’d have let you have it.”

“Kind of you,” Billy says, amused, because it doesn’t mean anything to him anymore either. He still won back when it did matter though, and Harrington of all people won’t mind if he’s co*cky about it, so he tacks on, “Think I already got the record, though. By a lot.”

Harrington scoffs. “Forty-two seconds?”

That swallowed-liquor feeling again, warm all the way down. It’s just a stupid number—his keg record, but he hadn’t thought Harrington knew. He clears his throat. “Yeah.”

Harrington’s eyes sparkle. “I could beat that in my sleep.”

“It’s double your best time, asshole.”

“Well yeah, but I could probably go longer if I wasn’t, you know...” Harrington gestures with his free hand. “Upside down.”

The laughter shakes out of Billy easy, like it has done all night. “It’s a keg stand, Harrington. That’s the whole point. sh*t, that’s the only f*cking rule.”

Harrington doesn’t respond. His grip tightens on Billy’s shoulder, eyes intense, mouth buttoned shut. It takes a second for Billy to realize what he’s doing.

“That’s f*cking cheating,” he says. Though really it’s him who’s getting the head start so long as Harrington is already holding his breath.

Harrington blinks wonkily at him.

Fine, Billy thinks, too unsteady on his feet to roll his eyes. He makes a show of exhaling what little air he has to make things even and holds his breath, eyebrows raised like, Happy?

Harrington’s sealed mouth ticks up in the corner. Yes.

One of them should probably be counting, he realizes after a while, guessing where to start: Eight seconds…nine seconds…ten seconds…

Maybe Harrington’s counting too, but he doesn’t look it. He’s watching Billy with that deviant set to his mouth that makes Billy feel like he’s going crazy all the time—like he’s the only one who sees it.

Maybe he is.

Maybe this is all Billy’s fault for goading Harrington into shedding his perfect prom king skin and finding out there’s a version underneath that’s even worse. That he likes even more.

A lock of Harrington’s hair unwinds from its gel, uncurling over his brow.

Billy’s lungs aren’t even burning yet and he already knows he’s going to lose.

Harrington checks his watch, eyes scanning over Billy, aiming for impatient, the conceit undone by his hand on Billy’s arm squeezing tighter as he sways in place. Billy sways with him, close enough to leer: Looking pretty wobbly there, sweetheart.

Harrington blinks again, starting to look peaky. Billy’s grin gets wider, right on the edge of laughing and losing the last of his air, throat burred up with weed smoke—but still Harrington doesn’t crack, glaring at him like it’s Billy’s fault he can’t hold his breath for longer than thirty seconds.

Billy points mockingly at the giveaway bob of Harrington’s larynx and Harrington bats his finger away, going on the offensive, hand feinting towards Billy’s hair—or maybe his earring—darting at his ribs instead. Billy falls for it, sucking in air as he tries to bend out of the way, trapped at the shoulder by Harrington’s grip.

“Ha!” Harrington gasps, victorious, breath leaving him in a cough of white frost as Billy pitches him backwards into the rosebushes.

Billy tries to save him.

He gets a handful of Harrington’s slick nylon jacket, trying to throw him back the other way, putting his weight between Harrington and the spiny hedgerow—but then Harrington tries to save him right back—dumbass, twisting to grab him too, the conch hurled free—and then they’re both falling.

Something crunches, a series of small wet snaps, stems flexing and breaking under his shoulder where he takes the worst of the fall, Harrington’s weight—chest, knees, sneakers—colliding with Billy’s, taking him down harder and faster.

They hit the ground with a jarring thump, kicked soil scattering over the driveway.

He’s too drunk to be in pain but the rush of noise stuns him—has Harrington stunned too—the both of them frozen and silent, taking stock. His sleeve is snagged on something, thorns pricking through the denim, something cold and damp under his head—but it’s just the iced-over ground, the smell of turned earth and fertilizer tangy in his nose.

On top of him, Harrington inhales slowly, testing. His ribs line up with Billy’s, one-by-one, pressing, like they might slot together. If there wasn’t a very real possibility he’s been impaled by whatever part of Susan’s rosebush is jabbing unyieldingly into the small of his back, Billy’d be doing something about it. As it is, he grits his teeth and exerts himself staying still.

“sh*t,” Harrington says finally, looking for somewhere to place his hand and hissing when he comes up against thorns.

“Ow,” Billy says because Harrington is on him in a way that’s squashing his knee in a direction it’s not supposed to go.

“You wanted to dance with me, you could’ve just asked,” Harrington jokes. He finds a place to brace his hand by Billy’s ear, moving again, more tenderly.

Get off me, Billy thinks. Those are the words he should say.

At his lack of response, Harrington’s smile drops away. He shifts his weight back, eyes searching. “sh*t,” he says, voice dropped down deep, flat with worry. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Hurt?

No.

He swallows against the resurgent swell of too-sweet punch in the back of his throat, skin coming alive, blood flushing to all his new bruises, pulse beating fast in his stomach.

“‘M fine,” he manages.

Susan’s gonna flip her lid over this.

Harrington breathes out a relieved laugh, pushing off him, a knee in the ground and enough leverage to drag Billy up with him. The rosebushes shake and rattle, brittle stems catching. Billy’s legs are uncooperative for a second as Harrington heaves them both free, the two of them stumbling onto the marginally steadier ground of the driveway.

Harrington has the back of his hand pressed against his mouth, like he’s about to puke, but smiling, staring at Billy like he can’t believe the two of them just got out of that unscathed. Billy shakes his head, teeth sunk into his bottom lip, too late to stop the same incredulous smile.

“You are such a sore loser,” Harrington wheezes.

“Soak it up. You’re not gonna see it again.”

Harrington smiles even harder, infectious—that smile like a finger hooked under his rib and tugging. “I dunno,” Harrington teases, mock whispering even though they’ve already made plenty of noise and none of his neighbors have come snooping. Everyone on this end of town works too hard to be interested in whatever sh*t goes on in the small hours. “Feels like I might be on a winning streak.”

“Feels like you might be on a cheating streak,” Billy mutters, not unhappily, fishing the conch up from where it’s rolled to a stop by the garage door. He dusts it off, checking it over for dings. Thing’s gonna need a scour and a fresh coat of paint before they put it back. If they put it back.

“You gotta make your own luck, y’know.”

“By cheating.”

Harrington’s followed him over the driveway, standing right by the oily patch where Neil’s truck is missing. It probably doesn’t mean anything to him. He’s got his arms crossed against the cold and his head tilted back, eyes up again like that’s not how he got sick the first time.

“They’ll still be there tomorrow night, Harrington.”

Harrington shakes his head, amused, pointing his smile back down. “You ever happy?”

“Are you?”

“Yeah,” Harrington scoffs, like obviously, and then blinks at himself. “Yeah,” he says again, rougher, surprised. “It’s…” he starts to say, but then he just smiles and shakes his head again, and Billy knows it’s ‘cos guys like them don’t talk about things, especially not around guys like Billy, who can’t hardly say anything at all, let alone anything serious. He kind of wishes he was that guy right now though—someone sensitive, like Byers maybe, who could probably say, I really liked tonight.

“You need to barf again or something?”

Harrington snorts, hugging himself tighter. His breath comes out in a white plume when he speaks. “I think…I think I’m good.”

Good.

Billy’s good too.

“Wanna break into my house?” he asks.

“Wanna go through the front door?” Harrington asks right back, maybe knowing, in that surprising, astute, Harrington way, that Billy might want to.

There’s no one home: a thought that’s been simmering in the back of his brain all night, that only got more appealing the more drunk he got. He could stagger right in through the front door with Harrington under his arm, make as much noise as he wanted, turn all the lights on, turn his music on, turn the TV on. Show Harrington his weights set. Make a giant sandwich out of all the ingredients in the fridge while Harrington poked around being useless…

Harrington made him a promise though, so Billy tilts his head at his bedroom window and the crate Harrington left there: for next time.

“Any time before the sun comes up,” he says a short while later, after watching Harrington struggle with the heavy window for near-on a full minute, teetering dangerously on top of the crate.

“The air’s a lot thinner up here, okay.”

“If you couldn’t get it up, you shoulda just said.”

“Ha-ha.” Harrington jimmies the pane free finally, slotting into place. He gives Billy a filthy victorious look. “Told you, I always come through.”

Billy tosses him the conch and Harrington hot-potatoes it carelessly through the window ahead of them, offering an arm for Billy to pull himself up alongside. The plastic bows under his boots, wobbling.

Turns out Harrington wasn’t lying about the altitude. Being one foot taller and on uncertain footing does something to drain all the strength out of him like a pulled plug, his legs suddenly shaky, alcohol unwinding through the muscles of his arms and back, the base of his neck.

It takes Billy has left to force Harrington up and over the window ledge, catching himself against the wall once he’s tipped over into Billy’s bedroom with a thump and a secondary slip-slide-clatter of knocked-over records. Billy goes right after him and gets stuck folded halfway over the sill, head spinning with booze, totally sapped—before Harrington grabs the back of his shirt and pulls him over.

When the world inverts again he’s sitting on the carpet in front of his stereo and Harrington’s shuffling around in his room, knocking into things, looking for a lamp.

“Leave it,” he says, getting up, dizzy.

Harrington mumbles his agreement, yawning.

The ringing in his ears is louder in the stagnant quiet of his room. Somehow, he gets his boots off, tripping out of them, struggling out of his jacket just in time to hit the bed. The frame squeaks under his thrown weight.

He heaves in a breath, smelling his sheets and old deodorant and hairspray, willing the walls to stop spinning like Mr. Mundy’s classroom globe as Harrington stumbles around somewhere in his room behind him, sneakers flopping on the floor one after the other, jeans unzipping with a noise that puts a frisson up Billy’s spine.

“God yes,” Harrington says, thumping face-first down on the bed next to him, face mashed in Billy’s pillow, the mattress bouncing.

Billy smooths his palms over his eyes, sighing sticky-warm fumes. “Heard of top ‘n tail, asshole?”

For an answer, Harrington hooks his arm around the pillow and wrenches it more certainly onto his side of the bed. “Heard of a bigger bed?”

Billy rolls his eyes at the ceiling, bending over to drag his other pillow off the floor, too tired even to punch it into shape. The room twists slowly in the dark, nagging at him to close his eyes before it gets any worse. His blanket’s somewhere underneath the two of them but it doesn’t seem so important right now; his bed’s too small and he’s too sh*tfaced and Harrington’s giving off heat like a furnace, Billy’s skin warm down one side, clammy all over: spent adrenaline and too long in the cold.

“Harrington.”

“Ngh.”

He rolls his tongue around in his dry mouth. “That thing you said to Buckley earlier, in the bathroom. That true?”

Harrington makes a soft noise like he’s asleep already.

That’s okay. He smiles anyway. It feels like maybe he already knows the answer.

He breathes out, drunk and happy.

“California...” he says a little while later, like an afterthought, the word rolling slow off his tongue. “We could go this summer, take the Camaro...” Sleep tugs gently behind his eyes. “Take the conch out there...leave it on some beach...”

Harrington snores gently.

I’d let you drive some of the time, he says. Or maybe just dreams he does.

^^^

Billy doesn’t touch other guys, but if he did, it would be in a dream, like this.

Nausea wakes him, rolling through him, bringing him up to the surface and back into his skin too early. He fights it for a long time without knowing that’s what he’s doing, breathing in and out through his teeth at the crest of each sea-sick lull until his eyes are sliding open, searching for a fixed point on the slowly undulating popcorn ceiling somewhere in the gloom above.

Something warm tickles his ear.

He turns on his side.

Harrington sleeps like someone who’s used to a bigger bed, and used to being alone in it. When Billy turns on his side—careful—his knee angles up, sprawls out to take up even more space, pointing Billy back, or maybe just following him across the sheets for warmth. In the near dark he’s just handsome shapes and shadows, the lines of him blurred and shifting, like television static, his hair a messy blot against the pale cotton of Billy’s pillowcase. He breathes, in and out, slow, warm sweet air that licks over Billy’s bottom lip making it sting.

Billy sniffs, shifts a little closer, head pillowed on his arm. The mattress creaks softly underneath his shoulder.

When he picks out postcards to send to his mom, it always has to be the right one. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just—just something that’s beautiful in a way she'll know he looked at it and wished she could see it too.

Harrington has that sort of face. The sort that’s like looking at a postcard and knowing it’s the right one.

Billy watches his eyelashes move, a pitch-black butterfly smudge, a trick of the light. Harrington turns over onto his other side, restless and slow, moving closer when Billy draws his arm out from the shrinking space between their bodies, with nowhere else to rest it but over Harrington’s hip.

He does it without thinking but it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels like…

He lets his wrist go slack, hand draping, fingers skimming lightly over warm skin, soft hair against his thumb, fingertips just barely catching on the soft fabric of his underwear. His breath catches and stops in his chest, eyes fluttering shut against the sudden stopped gravity of the room.

In the dream, he draws his hand down more, just a little more, and…and up. Closes it softly over the hot shape of Harrington’s co*ck through the fabric.

Oh.

Oh, he—

Harrington makes a helpless sound, a stuck moan.

He rips his hand away. Rolls over and up and off the bed and onto his feet in one dizzying movement, face burning, brain full of horrified white-noise.

No. No, that didn’t—

The room is full of dense damning silence beyond the sickening squeeze-thud of his heart in his chest as he stands there, frozen, face burning, straining to hear—

And—

There. His stomach trembles when he hears it again: Harrington breathing, un-self-conscious and slow. Asleep.

He exhales, shaky.

Idiot. How could he—?

He doesn’t let himself finish the thought, feet scuffing on the carpet as he lurches the seemingly endless few feet down the hall to the bathroom, hitting the light on the second try, shutting the door behind him with a hand that won’t stop shaking. The hand he just—

Shame spikes low in his stomach, his dick hardening up in his pants as he shoves a palm over his mouth to stop the breath that comes out of him like a sob.

f*cking idiot.

f*cking moron.

He reaches out to steady himself against the vanity, fumbling the tap on. He turns his face into his shoulder, the sound of water from the faucet not quite enough to cover the ragged sound of his breathing.

Closing his eyes just makes it worse.

“What was your favorite part?”

All of it.

Just now.

Something that didn’t even happen that he wanted to.

He pinches his eyes shut harder but he can’t block it out—images from the party and before running together like spilled paint on the flashing arterial red of his eyelids: Harrington’s mouth full of blue ink, full of flashing white teeth—streaked with rain—the suggestive shape of his lips parting around smoke—

“You wanna...?”

He does. He always does.

His stomach floods with heat, skin crawling.

Don’t.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything. Don’t think about—

—Harrington’s lips forming the words again around a blossom of thick blue smoke—

Stop it.

He jogs his leg a little, forces himself to focus on the steady glug of water in the sink, his knuckles turning white against the vanity countertop.

Déjà vu.

The thought comes to him as clear as a bell—what he thought the very first time he saw Harrington, in that stupid costume next to Nancy Wheeler—what he thought with his head under the tap after:

Please.

Please don’t be real.

He laughs a little at that, a pathetic noise. Harrington’s so much worse than real.

Calm down, he tells himself. He tucks a hand against his ribs, feeling the traitorous hopeful limp of his heart, willing it to slow down.

The faucet runs and runs and he keeps breathing, waiting, his pulse slowly, slowly returning to normal.

It could just be a dream, the little voice says as he waits. He’s still hard, stomach hollowed out and starting to ache with spoilt arousal, but he won’t do anything about it. It’ll go away. Another minute and he’ll forget about it. Another minute and he’ll be able to go back to bed and pretend it was a dream and it will be like…

Like it never happened.

He can do that. (He knows he can).

He turns the tap off. Leaves the light on, afraid of what his imagination might let loose in the dark.

He draws the bathroom door almost-shut behind him, leaving it open just a crack, just enough to see where he’s going, and when he turns around, Harrington is there, letting himself out of Billy’s room.

“Hey,” Harrington says, caught, voice strange in the hushed quiet of the hallway. His feet are bare on the carpet, his belt hanging undone out of his jeans.

Billy’s heart beats in his chest, steady, even as something scratches at the back of his brain, dull and familiar.

“Uh, so I’m...” Harrington waves his sneakers in the direction of the door, swallowing. “I think I’m gonna head, so…”

Billy blinks at him.

“Everything okay?” His voice comes out strange too. They don’t need to whisper. There’s no one here.

They’re alone.

Harrington’s still as a painting in the snare of wan yellow light from the bathroom, eyes unknowably dark. He’s more than just good-looking. Billy’s shadow hulks towards him over the carpet, stretching.

“Yeah,” Harrington says, so certain. “Yeah, everything’s cool, man. I just…think I’ll sleep better in my own bed, y’know.”

No. No, he doesn’t know, because that’s not true.

That familiar feeling breaks over his skin in a cold rush, blooms like grease in stomach.

“Wait,” he says numbly.

“Hey,” Harrington says, easy easy easy. “Hey, it’s cool, man.” He puts on a smile. And it’s the smile that’s friendly and perfect and that he can make stick even when he’s tired and—

And.

And he knows.

“Wait,” he says, not much louder than a breath, just to fill the heavy gnawing quiet—says it in his head a half-dozen times more: Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait—

Harrington’s smile fixes a little tighter. “Look I, uh…I should go.”

He knows.

Billy must say something back like, Yeah, sure, but, unthinking, he takes a step forward and Harrington—

He takes a step back.

Into the thick, horrified silence between them, Harrington makes a dry noise, too forced to be a laugh. “It’s cool, man,” he says, again, taking another casual step towards the door, his shadow lurching away from Billy’s on the carpet. “I’ll see you at school, okay?”

“Okay,” Billy says, hoarse, not much louder than the insistent knock of his heart in his throat. He licks his lip, tries shakily for the same easy kind of smile Harrington uses, an imitation that founders badly, buckles right off before it can even really take—

“Harrington.”

He shouldn’t—

He shouldn’t have said it like that—his voice like that, hitching at the start. He’s made it worse.

That wasn’t real, just now.

That didn’t happen.

Panic bottlenecks the words in his throat, hands trembling useless at his sides, stomach sinking.

Harrington’s smile wavers, hardens in one corner, his eyes dark and flat. “It’s cool, man,” he says again, one more time. “I’ll see you Monday.” And then he lets himself out. Closes the door behind him on the lie.

Billy stands there for a long time after.

He’s not sure why. Waiting for something to happen, maybe. For time to reverse and for the door to open and Harrington to come back through it. For anything but this.

But it doesn’t. And it doesn’t. And he doesn’t.

Eventually, he makes it back to his bedroom. It’s not so dark anymore, the first blush of gray dawn creeping in through the blinds, across the carpet.

There’s no one home but he closes his door anyway; goes and sits on the end of his bed in the quiet dark, waiting for daylight, waiting for the dream to end and sleep to bear him up on the back of a wave that doesn’t come.

Chapter 26: it's a good island

Chapter Text

So, here’s the thing.

Here’s what happened, what he’s going to tell Harrington:

Nothing. He’s going to tell him nothing.

Because nothing happened.

At least, nothing worth remembering—right?

Does Harrington remember something? Billy doesn’t.

And if Harrington does, which he won’t, then—so what? It’s not like it’d be worth his time to wanna try and talk about it.

No.

No, Harrington’s not gonna bother say anything about it, and so Billy won’t either, and that’s how it’ll be.

Easy.

He takes one last breath into the stale privacy of his locker and snaps the door shut, and the excited chaos of the crowded hall comes crushing back in on him.

The bubble of mild weather from the night of the party seems to have burst—a harder, meaner sort of cold settling over Hawkins over the weekend, the air so dense with cold it has a weight to it that might as well be snow. Even the most die-hard of parking-lot loiterers have been driven inside by it, seeking out the draughty warmth of the school building, the halls overcrowded with jostling bodies, nylon puffer jackets shushing and scraping, sneakers catching on the tacky linoleum.

Billy likes a crowd, but not this one. Not today.

There’s something…off about it. A nervy sort of energy that travels from group to group like an infection; the usual raucous drone spiked with frustrating half-snatches of gossip, yelped laughter that sets his teeth on edge. He’d give just about anything to be back in his car with the heat running. But Harrington has his lighter—will be waiting on Billy for his morning fix.

His eyes travel the length of the hall to the main doors, the glass shored up with dense gray fog. Beyond, the yellow school bus just a faint outline, lurking.

Nothing yet.

A high-pitched gasp pricks his attention, gaze jerking over to where a pair of girls are huddled together by the water fountain, sharing the sort of gossip that can’t wait for them to get to their lockers. He watches as one of them glances around, her trapper-keeper clutched to her chest. She looks around conspicuously. Leans in closer. Says something that has her friend snapping a hand over her mouth in delight...

The speaker overhead crackles to life with an ugly blurt of noise followed by the shuffle of someone adjusting a microphone: “Good morning high-school students!”

The frenzy of conversation in the hall swells determinedly louder.

“Those of you wearing watches will no doubt have noticed that your classes started five minutes ago,” the principal continues in a dry monotone. The crowd responds with an annoyed groan. “In the absence of the school PA system, which appears to have gone missing”—a ripple of amused laughter—"and which I expect will be returned immediately—”

Billy’s heart stalls at the sight of the main doors blowing open—but it’s just some kid he doesn’t know, the crowd nearest the entry cringing reproachfully away from the sudden blast of cold that has followed him in.

He lets the rest of the morning announcement wash over him: veiled threats for the person or persons responsible for stealing the PA, cheer tryouts, prom.

The sharp bleat of a makeshift bell signals the start of first period and the crowd clears out pretty quick after that, bags swinging onto shoulders and locker doors banging shut.

Within a minute, the hall is abandoned. Empty save for ringing silence, the floor a vacated patchwork of litter and trod-on flyers, a locker door slowly swinging back open.

Billy waits but the main doors stay shut.

So, Harrington’s running late.

Tommy and Carol too.

Doesn’t matter. He’ll catch them at lunch.

^^^

Wheeler’s ratted him out.

The teacher wants to speak to him after class.

She doesn’t say what it’s about exactly, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out: the shiny-clean patch on the dusty surface of her desk as damning as a chalk outline at a crime scene, everyone stealing glances at the empty spot where the conch should be.

Everyone but Wheeler.

He sprawls back in his chair, staring consideringly at her turned back while the rest of the class follows along with the reading.

Nancy Wheeler.What was he expecting, really?

Her shoulders stiffen minutely as he watches, her eyes fixed determinedly on her work, ignoring the counter tempo tap-tap-tap of his pencil eraser against the desk.

No. He’s not surprised. Thing is though, he can’t really afford the detention right now, or even a meddling phone call from some do gooder; he’s on thin ice at home since Neil and Susan got back into town and found half her precious hedgerow noticeably squashed, and that was after Billy trashed what he could prune.

(He’s still kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one, but maybe that won’t come ‘til spring, when all the roses start blooming and there’s a Billy-and-Harrington-shaped hole where nothing grows).

The class ends and he catches Wheeler’s eye at last, when the bell rings and she has to turn around to collect her book bag only to find it a foot from where she left it, the strap hooked on the toe of his boot.

“Hope it was worth it,” he says with the barest threat of a smile, unmoving.

Her mouth purses into an unhappy line, not her typical sanctimonious glare: a look he can’t immediately place. He doesn’t get the chance to though, because the teacher clears her throat, hovering expectantly, and Wheeler yanks her bag clear and files out with the others, pausing in the doorway to flick one last worried look over her shoulder that he returns with a blank stare.

“I assume you know why you’re here,” Mrs. Wright says once she’s gone.

“Yeah,” he says. “This gonna take long? I got somewhere to be.” Somewhere with a lit cigarette in his mouth, ideally. He doesn’t want to keep Harrington waiting any more than he already has. Carol’ll be nagging him about the walk over already, and Tommy’ll be whining about whatever’s on the menu for lunch.

“Well, I don’t know, Billy,” she says disapprovingly, coming to perch on the edge of Wheeler’s desk in the faux-personable way teachers like to do, like this whole thing isn’t a prelude to her slapping him with the piece of paper she’s holding in her lap—a detention slip if ever he’s seen one. “I suppose I’d need to understand your thinking first.”

His thinking? She oughta ask Harrington. Billy wasn’t doing any thinking at all. It was Harrington who wanted to steal something; Billy just wanted to have something to do other than look at him.

Anyway, the point is, he’s got her dumb seashell sitting in the back of his car. He can go out and get it and they can be done with this whole mess inside of five minutes if she would just cut the crap and dish out his punishment instead of sitting there goggling at him like a sideshow attraction.

He sniffs. “You waiting for me to apologize or something?”

“Apologize?” She frowns, perplexed. “I don’t need an apology, Billy—if this is your best effort. But I don’t think it is. And it would appear one of your classmates doesn’t think it is either, which is why I’m trying to offer you a chance to improve.”

And before she can confuse him any further, she puts the paper she’s holding on the desk for him to see. But it’s not a detention slip.

It’s his homework.

He blinks. Huh?

It’s his thesis statement from the week before, his own blocky handwriting interspersed with lines upon lines of red cursive and question marks, a bold red D circled at the top of the page.

“I’ll give you a moment to review my—”

“What’s wrong with it?” he interrupts, eyes snagging on the first collection of words to make sense:

…interesting perspective…needs development…lacks supporting argument…

“Okay,” Mrs. Wright says circ*mspectly. “Well, I can see that you certainly have some unique ideas, and I appreciate your creativity, but I think you may have misunderstood the scope of the task that was given.”

Does the evil on the island manifest in a way that the characters are meant to overcome through physical strength?

“You said we could write whatever we wanted.”

“Well, yes, and that’s true…” she says placatingly. “But if you recall, my instructions were for you to develop a statement that can be proved using the text—not a statement of what you would have liked to see in the novel.” She sighs. “Billy, what you’ve written… I think you’re going to struggle to find enough supporting material for your essay assignment.”

Her words bounce off him, his eyes scanning down the page to the last of her comments, squashed into the bottom margin:

How is the lack of friendship between Ralph and Jack a theme that is explored in the novel?

“You may want to start with giving this some more thought,” she says, pointing at that last line. “The protagonist and antagonist relationship.” She ignores his grimace at her choice of words. “What role do you think Jack plays? Does it matter if he is good or evil? Does he makes choices the way Ralph makes choices? Does the author indicate things would be different if Jack made different choices?”

He resists screwing up his face at the barrage of questions. Kinda seems like maybe she wants to write the essay herself.

“Well, I mean, he’s the bad guy,” he says, forced into talking by the gentle-stern way she goes on staring at him. “I just.” He takes a moment to scratch the back of his neck. It sounds f*cking stupid now he’s voicing it. “He’s strong, so, you know, things could be different if he was…brought on-side and they like—” He makes a gesture like, team up to fight evil.

That makes her sit back a little, jowls bunching like she can’t chew over what she wants to say to that fast enough.

Well, she can f*cking save it.

“Got it,” he says, swiping the paper up as he stands. “I’ll change it up for the essay.”

“Well, hang on now—” she starts, arms falling uncrossed, but he’s already halfway out the door, the paper crumpling as he stuffs it carelessly in his jacket pocket.

Goddamn Wheeler.

He recognizes the look that was on her face now:

Pity.

The sentiment makes his skin crawl. It’s worse, somehow, than if she’d tattled on him for the conch. He’s fuming about it the whole journey back to the locker hall, bruising his way through the throng of bodies going the other way, trying to come up with an excuse for being late that isn’t the humiliating sh*tshow that just happened because of Wheeler’s interference.

Turns out he needn’t have bothered though.

Harrington’s not there. And neither are Tommy and Carol.

And they’re not in the cafeteria already either.

Or at the bleachers.

Or behind the gym.

Or—

^^^

“Billy, have you seen my walkie?” Max asks from his bedroom doorway, pulling her pajama robe closed against the chill seeping in from his open window.

“Nope,” he says from his seat on the ledge, sinking a dart into the board a foot to the left of her. She rolls her eyes, scanning the room with undisguised disgust: the new normal of his strewn jocks and socks, a discarded hand weight, his stereo, jarringly silent and the room oddly claustrophobic without any music to fill it.

“Mom told me to tell you there are leftovers in the fridge,” she says finally.

He sniffs. “Chicken?”

“Veal.”

He sinks another dart for an answer.

Max makes a face at his choice of target practice, the darts concentrated around the circled red D. He knows what she’s thinking, but Neil has a shift, and Billy’ll take it down before he sees. Or maybe he’ll leave it up and just get the whole song and dance underway early, since it can’t be any worse than the feeling that keeps trying to make itself known to him in queasy lurches whenever he’s not paying attention to snuff it out.

“So, are you going to tell me where you were?” she asks. “After school?”

He toys with the point of another dart.

“I waited for over an hour,” she continues.

He scoffs lightly. “I’m sure you had company.”

“Lucas gave me a lift home,” she says, pointedly reasonable. “I told mom our club went late, but she still wants to know where you were.”

He goes on pressing the point of the dart harder into the pad of his thumb, not feeling it, his fingers almost all the way numb already. It doesn’t bother him—the cold; he’s been out in it for so much of the night that being inside makes him feel clammy all over, like he’s defrosting. “Just tell her I was out driving or something,” he says.

“Driving?” Max asks doubtfully. “Driving where?”

Just to the quarry.

Just in case.

He shrugs.

Max huffs. “You’re going to get a cold.”

Good, he thinks. Maybe then he won’t have to go to school tomorrow and find some reason to eat lunch in the dark room. He knocks his head back against the wall, eyes falling shut, jaw locked and mouth gluey. There’s that feeling again, skittering to the surface.

It’ll be fine.

It’s not going to be what he thinks.

It’s not.

He opens his eyes and Max is still there watching him, intent on her nagging having some sort of response she’s not going to get. “Wanna maybe hang out in your own room?” he says dully, with what feels like the last of his effort.

She turns on her heel after an exasperated beat. “At least use a different frequency,” she calls back at him over her shoulder. “Dustin says you’re blowing up his comms.”

In her wake, the room is quiet again.

He tilts the back of his head against the window frame once more, pulling the walkie out from its spot by his hip and tweaking the dial.

Nothing.

He lines up another dart, waiting on static.

^^^

Okay. Okay, so, here’s the thing:

Here’s the truth, okay? What really happened.

They were drunk.

They were both really really drunk, okay?

(And that’s important).

(It’s not like that sh*t would happen any other way).

So Harrington cuddled up to him in his sleep and Billy mistook him for some babe. Big deal. That sort of thing happens when you’re wasted and one of you is wearing women’s hairspray.

Maybe lay off next time, huh, Harrington, unless you’re looking to get fresh.

No.

No, actually, it’s not even worth joking over. Harrington’s probably all tangled up about it as is, blaming himself...

Billy’ll talk to him.

Billy’ll talk to him and let him know they can square this away, and they can both get back to how it should be.

Easy.

Easy-freaking-peasy.

He flips his visor up, dropping his smile.

A flash of familiar ginger-brown hair down by the school makes him lean forward in his car seat. He swipes a palm through the fog on his windscreen:

Carol.

He dumps his cheese and pickle sandwich on the passenger seat, still in the Saran wrap. The air outside is bracingly cold after the warm fug of the Camaro, skinning right through his jeans and jacket on the short walk across the lot. He finds Carol over by the vending machines, sipping on a Diet co*ke for lunch along with a group of girls he’s slow realizes are probably the friends she hangs out with when she’s not hanging out with him and Harrington and Tommy.

“You seen Harrington?” he asks on the fringe of the group, interrupting one of Tracey’s longwinded stories.

“Not as much of him as I’d like to,” one of the girls says in a syrupy tone.

“Nice to see you too,” Carol quips back at him, ignoring the rippling laughter. She’s slouched against the red brick with her hip co*cked and her hands tucked into the front of her windbreaker, insouciant. For just a heartbeat he entertains the thought that maybe she—

Maybe they all—

But then Carol just shares a look with her friends, dramatic and put-upon—like normal—passing her co*ke off to one of them so she can push off the wall and come walk with him.

“Must have missed you at lunch yesterday,” he grits out once they’re out of earshot.

“Aw,” she goofs, socking him in the arm with her fist still tucked in her windbreaker pocket. “I skipped,” she says simply. “Not that I was planning to—Tommy never showed to pick me up. Asshole.” She sniffles, tugging her jacket zipper the rest of the way up, the tag wagging under her chin. “Anyway, my mom ran out of margarita mix and figured out it wasn’t a snow day right before fourth period, so I still had to sit through Mrs. Click going on and on about how depressed everyone was in the thirties—”

“He get a flat or something?”

Her nose wrinkles. “Tommy? No. Maybe? I think he was hungover. He spent the night at Steve’s.”

He nods, focusing on swallowing against the anxious flip-flop of his stomach. Something must show on his face though, becomes she comes to a stop beside him, and when he turns around she’s giving him a scrolling top-to-toe, gum paused in her mouth.

“What?”

“Are you okay?” she asks, her usual sarcasm cut through with the faintest thread of concern. “You look kind of…pale.” That’s polite, from her. He knows he looks like hammered sh*t, eyes raw and stubble shaved off dry, a restless tic in one hand when it’s not bunched up in a fist.

A low gust of wind streaks alongside the school building, sparking all the hair up on the back of his neck, leaf-litter scuttling. He shivers, tugging his jacket collar up irately against the feeling. “Harrington say anything to you about…about the party?”

Carol snorts. “You mean like how you guys ditched us with Becky The Bummer? No. Why?”

“He didn’t say anything to you?”

“No.” She eyes him with new interest. “I mean, I haven’t seen him since the party. Tommy says he has a cold or something.”

A cold? He turns the possibility over in his brain. Maybe that makes sense; Harrington walked home. He could have caught a chill or something. But…

But, a memory: The night quiet and thick with cold; Harrington with his head tilted back, breathing—an endless line of white frost that ended in a smirk…

Harrington’s never cold.

“Seriously,” Carol says. “What’s up with you? You look like you’re bugging.” Her gaze sharpens. “Did something happen at the party?”

“Just drop it,” he says.

“After the party?”

“Drop it, Carol.”

She laughs. “Oh my God. Do I have to ask Steve—?”

“I said f*cking drop it!” he barks.

It comes out louder than he meant it to, into a lull in the wind. Several heads turn.

Carol gawps at him, offended. “The hell, Billy?” She tugs her arm out of his grasp, darting a look around the lot, wary for both their reputations. He didn’t even realize he’d grabbed her, just like how he used to grab Maxine, too snared-up to use his words.

The bell has gone already: lunch is over.

He can fix this. If Harrington has told Tommy…

What, that Billy tried to—

That Billy’s—

Just at the thought, his throat clams up with disgust.

“Carol,” he tries, voice flat with urgency, loath to grab her again even though he can see her recoiling from him—looking at him like he’s lost his mind. “Tell Harrington when you see him. Tell him—”

“Tell him yourself,” she says, pulling away, leaving him to follow her parting look up the slope to the lot—to where the BMW is parked at the far end, its windows still bloomed with fog, like it hasn’t been there for long.

^^^

The rest of the day feels like it passes in agony, one long hostile slew of boring classes and his own snarled thoughts for company. Only the dim hope of basketball practice at the end of the day keeps him from chewing clean through his pendant chain.

He gets to the gym early for once—so early he catches Coach Green off guard, the older man kicked back in his office with a mug of soup, watching reruns on the old black-and-white. For his effort, Billy gets cussed out, given the dubious task of laying out traffic cones for the afternoon’s drills, which is fine by him with how his head is, except that being on the court means he’s there front and center for every last team member who walks through the gym doors: on-time, like Parker, and late, like everybody else—and not at all, like Harrington, and Tommy.

The missing players aren’t lost on Coach either. His black mood moves on from Billy, to their missing captain, to the rest of the team and their prospects at the first game of the season. He switches out their usual warm-up for a sad*stic obstacle course of running drills, stalking up and down the length of the bleachers with his whistle in his mouth blasting non-stop for most of the hour.

Billy’s out in front or behind everyone else, depending on how you look at it: doing bad, if you go by the sweat-through state of his shirt, but doing okay, if you judge him by the yardstick of Peterson.

“Kill me,” the other player wheezes as he passes Billy going the other way over the court floor. “Kill me.”

Billy ignores him, hitting his marker and catching a ball from Parker. He lines up a shot from the three-pointer line that swirls the ring for an aggravating half-second while he waits for it to sink so he can move on to his next lap.

“Great shot, Hargrove,” Coach Green yells with a sarcastic slow clap. “Remind me to put you down for player of the year, under twelves.” He blasts the whistle. “Don’t you die on my court, Peterson!”

“Where the hell is Harrington?” Danny grouches when they land on the next marker together, racing each other up to the half-court line and back, hot on Parker’s heels. “The away game’s next week,” he pants. “Shouldn’t he be here?”

Billy huffs a beats me, too breathless to speak.

“You seen Tommy?”

“Yo,” a voice pipes up behind them.

“Not you,” Danny says, disgusted. “Hagan. Where the hell is Hagan?”

“Save the chit chat for my funeral, boys,” Coach belts. He lobs a ball at them from the basket, followed swiftly by another. “Fifty passes. First pair done gets to run laps.”

None of them ask what happens to the pair that comes second. They move into a loose quad formation, Danny across from Tommy K and Billy handicapped with Peterson.

“Stop using your fingers,” he bites out, willing him to pick up the pace, Peterson taking even his half-soft passes all the way back to his chest, writing off all their speed. The others seem to have found a rhythm already, the ball zapping light and fast between them.

“Don’t pass so hard,” Peterson whines.

“Stop trying to catch it,” Billy insists, blinking sweat out of his eyes. “Just send it right back.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do! You’re passing too hard, man.”

“Then pass hard back.”

“Can you guys shut up? I’m trying to count.”

Billy tunes them out, focusing on the rapid back-and-forth slap of rubber hitting skin, counting. Somewhere around the count of thirty-five, the gym doors bounce open, and Tommy hustles through.

He’s changed out already, Billy notes, tucking his hair into a headband while he walks. With half an eye and without losing count, Billy tracks his path down the full length of the sideline, but Tommy makes it all the way to Coach Green without looking his way.

“This better be good, Hagan,” Coach says, arms crossed high and tight over his chest. “He better be in a goddamn body bag.”

Billy’s ears strain to pick up whatever bullsh*t excuse Tommy gives him but he’s too far away and the cadence of basketballs smacking into the court floor blocks it out. Whatever Tommy’s got to say, Coach Green has dropped the bluster, bending an ear to listen while he follows the drills, his whistle pulled to one side.

Billy’s heart skips a bit, his next throw coming off weak.

Tommy says something else, face dour, and his eyes flick up and hook on Billy’s.

“Fifty!” Peterson shouts victoriously.

The ball hits him in the face, walloping all the sound out of the world, vision black and red for a dizzying second before white-hot pain fans out from his nose.

“Oh sh*t,” someone close by says. He shrugs their pawing hands off with a sharp gesture, blood streaking hot and salty over his top lip. He dabs at it with the back of his hand, annoyed. That was probably the first decent pass Peterson’s ever made.

“Gnarly,” someone else says further off.

“Jesus H Christ,” Coach growls. “Hargrove, you okay? Do I need to call the nurse?”

Billy shakes his head and Coach clamps a hand down on his shoulder in gratitude. “Good man,” he says. “Go grab a pew for five.” He rounds on the others while Billy makes his way off court, a fistful of t-shirt wadded up under his nose to catch any stray blood drops. “Back at it, ladies! I don’t remember standing around looking useless being one of my drills!”

“Hey,” Tommy says, catching up to him where he’s taken a seat on the bleachers, head hung between his knees. Tommy’s fetched an ice pack from the first aid kit they never use and he holds it out lamely for Billy to take.

Maybe it’s just the aftereffects of having taken a ball to the face, but Billy’s struck with the déjà vu of the moment: Tommy once upon a time, in his childhood bedroom with a barely wrung-out flannel dripping on the carpet.

Billy’s stopped bleeding already but he takes the pack anyway, slapping it messily against his throbbing face, the freezer burn stinging his fingertips. He can feel the hesitancy coming off Tommy in waves, translating down to his sneakers moving restlessly in front of Billy’s eyes.

“What’s going on with you, man?” Tommy asks, which is about the last thing he was expecting.

He jerks his head up to stare at him. Tommy actually looks sincere, his gaze disconcertingly assessing. Like Carol.

Billy forgets sometimes, who they are when they’re not playing their roles, who they can be to him, if he forgets to play his.

Tommy’s Harrington’s best friend.

Harrington probably didn’t spend the night frozen and uncomfortable on Tommy’s floor, praying Tommy wouldn’t open in his mouth and speak, wondering if maybe he’d ask the right questions so Billy could.

Harrington might have talked. Might have said something. Might have told him—

And Tommy can’t keep a secret. Harrington told him that too.

“I gotta go,” he says, getting to his feet, the motion jerky with dread-spiked adrenaline.

“Dude, wait—” Tommy starts. He reaches for him, but Billy’s already halfway down the court.

“Hargrove, where do you think you’re going?” Coach calls after him.

“Walking it off,” Billy shouts back, voice only just loud enough to cover the jagged edge, the gym doors swinging closed behind him with a disjointed thump, just in time. He turns on his heel, and back again, whole body frustrated with stifling the noise that’s been wanting out of him all day and longer, nothing close enough to punch.

Tommy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

He slings the ice pack at the towel drop on his way to the locker room, dissatisfied when it goes right in instead of exploding against the wall.

Dammit. Just—

No. No, look, okay. Here’s the thing?

Tommy doesn’t know because he wasn’t there and he only has Harrington to tell him, and Harrington…

Harrington’s got it twisted, okay?

What, does he think Billy—

Does Harrington think Billy tried to—

He thumps a hand against his skull to knock the thought out of him before it gets any shape to it, a cold ribbon of meltwater trailing from wrist to elbow.

Don’t.

Don’t think about it. It wasn’t like that. Billy’s not—

You know what? Maybe Harrington’s the one who needs Billy to keep his mouth shut.

Yeah. Maybe Harrington—

His soaked ringer catches on his chin on the way up and off, the movement choppy with distraction. Maybe Harrington’s—

Here.

He yanks his shirt back down fast, heart pounding.

Harrington’s…here, in the locker room. He’s half-reclined against Billy’s locker, like he’s been waiting on him, facing the other way, but at the sound of Billy’s footsteps, he starts to turn, and for one horrible lurching moment, Billy thinks it’s gonna be how it is in nightmares sometimes, when the guy keeps on turning around and around and you never see his face—but Harrington just turns around, not surprised to see Billy at all, and says:

“Hey.”

He says it normal, friendly. A little tired, like maybe he missed a couple nights’ sleep—the thin skin under his eyes a shade darker than it should be.

Here’s what Billy’s gonna tell him.

Here’s what he’s gotta say.

Here’s the thing.

“Hey,” he says.

Harrington’s wearing his blue sweater with a polo underneath, the pastel-pink collar turned up to meet the soft edge of his hair. Has he had a haircut? Something about him looks neater—preppier, the version of Harrington that had already been roughed up and stretched thin by the time Billy got to town.

“Think you mighta missed practice,” he says, heart in his throat, hardly trusting himself to get it out normal—but he does, just a little breathless.

“Yeah, well,” Harrington drawls, smirking lightly. “Had to give you a chance to shine somehow, right?”

The breath in his chest wobbles, on the edge of relief.

“Heard you weren’t feeling so slick.”

Harrington grimaces. “Must be some sort of bug going around or something.”

Billy licks his lip, tentative. “But you’re…okay, now?

“Yeah,” Harrington says, eyes flat above his smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Billy can almost make himself believe.

Almost.

“I…” he starts before he’s even really ready, the word falling out into the awkward distance between them—the span of bleached tile a space he won’t try to close this time, not like that night, in the hallway.

There’s nobody but them in the locker room, but he’s still breaking his rule.

It’s just…

It’s just, Harrington will make it okay. He always seems to know how to do that, even when Billy doesn’t deserve it.

No one knows this about Harrington like Billy does. That he can be bruised and beat and let down and afraid and exhausted, and still make space to listen to the words Billy’s trying to say without saying.

He thought they were the same kind of animal, but they’re not. He knows that now.

Harrington’s better: Smarter. More patient. Generous.

Harrington’s worse: So much more than just a pretty face.

He’s kind of f*cking incredible—Steve Harrington.

And Billy needs him to know. Needs him to understand. They don’t need to do this. Billy will do anything—anything. Will break his stupid rule—will forget he ever made it—if it means he can make things go back to how they were. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more. But the way Harrington’s looking at him now, taking in the blood streaked down the front of his shirt, his sweaty face, waiting for him to speak with the polite amusem*nt of a stranger: it dries all his rehearsed words up in his mouth like dust.

“Harrington, I…” he tries.

“Hey, look,” Harrington says coolly. “Here’s the thing—”

“Yuck, I think I picked up an STD just coming in here!”

Billy starts at the shrill of a familiar female voice.

It’s Becky, the girl from Tina’s party.

His mouth clamps shut as she crosses the locker room, scoping the place nosily, coming to a stop at Harrington’s side and linking a hand in his. “I don’t know why we had to meet in here of all places,” she continues, pulling a face. “It smells like fish fingers.”

Harrington hasn’t taken his eyes off Billy’s. He says, “We’re not staying long.”

“Thank God,” Becky says, oblivious, cinching herself in a little tighter under his arm, seeming to only just now register Billy. “Hi,” she says sweetly.

She looks different from the night of the party, dressed up more, her hair done up like how she probably thinks Harrington likes on girls, big and flippy. How he probably does like on girls, Billy makes himself admit. She’s got something about her that’s the kind of pink-cheeked farm fresh pretty that guys can’t help but look at. He guesses he should have noticed that about her, the other night. His eyes catch on the locket on her neck, shaped like a tied-bow. It’s none of Billy’s business if it’s new. If Harrington gave it to her.

“Um, you know you’re bleeding, right?”

More out of shock than anything, he touches his lip, quick and reflexive, but there’s nothing. She’s talking about the blood on his shirt. “Got into it with a ball,” he says jokingly, eyes darting to Harrington’s. “Word to the wise, don’t piss Peterson off.

Harrington snorts, his manicured smile unbreakable. “Didn’t know he could aim.”

“Not as good as you,” Billy says, swallowing where he should laugh. “Don’t think I’m not keeping score though. I still owe you one.”

Becky makes an uncomfortable face. “Um...what?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harrington says to her, but aimed at Billy too. “I’d say we’re even. Wouldn’t you?”

Billy doesn’t flinch at the words but his heart sinks like a stone. That’s not fair. He didn’t hit him. He was trying to—

He swallows again, mind casting about, desperate and directionless. He just needs some more time. He just needs an excuse to get Harrington alone for a minute—away from her—just a moment to find the right words.

He thinks of all the ways Harrington’s always been the one to ask: You wanna?

“You wanna…?” His hand, still cold and wet, goes to his chest, looking for the packet of Marlboros he doesn’t have on him.

Harrington goes on staring at him, as blandly polite as Becky, one eyebrow just a little raised. “Wanna…?” he echoes, like he has no idea what Billy’s talking about.

But Billy has to try. “You wanna grab a smoke before your date?” he asks.

Harrington’s eyes slide away, fixing with deliberate intent on Billy’s locker, and then come back, resolved and dark. “No,” he says. “No, I think I’m good.”

“He’s trying to cut down,” Becky says, smoothing a hand into the center of his chest. Billy can’t help but look, numb, and when he meets Harrington’s eyes he knows Harrington knows. And he knows Harrington minds. The hard flat look is so foreign on his pretty face it makes the bottom fall out of Billy’s stomach, like an unplugged sink. He looks away, keeps his eyes on his locker instead, the roof of his mouth aching with the sting of humiliation, throat bobbing.

“Nothing personal,” Harrington says. “Just not my thing.”

“Okay,” he hears himself say. “No problem.”

“Didn’t think so,” Harrington says coldly, making sure.

“Can we go already?” Becky pouts, tugging on his arm.

“See you around,” Harrington says.

“Yep,” he says tightly, because he can’t say anything else. “Okay.”

Harrington doesn’t look back, and Becky only spares him the briefest side-eye on the way out, sweet act dropping away for a measured half-beat, more wary of him than she’d let on.

He doesn’t open his locker when they’re gone.

He doesn’t need to; he knows what he’ll find inside.

Chapter 27: close, close, close! (part one)

Chapter Text

Following the team bus out of Hawkins feels a whole lot like following the moving van into it—except for the anger. He was angry the day they arrived in Hawkins—resigned to it, and so black all the way through with hatred it left a taste on the back of his tongue like tar.

Now? Now there's nothing—a boundless sort of void where his anger should be; emotions that snake over each other too fast to be just one thing to feel. Honestly, if he had to put a name to it, he’d say he just feels kinda...off his food.

That’s all, really. And it’s not like that’s even that rare a phenomenon in the Hargrove-Mayfield household, especially now Susan’s decided she wants to explore the orient and everything they eat raw right out the sea. Last night’s seaweed salad threw even Neil for six, Billy could tell. Maxine mostly only picked at hers, too, even though she’ll choose sushi as many times as a cheeseburger at the mall food-court. She kept shooting Billy peeved glances as he shoveled his own plate down, chewing and swallowing and tasting nothing at all—an old skill.

“Are you still seeing that girl?” Neil had asked him, suspicious, maybe recognizing the particular practiced nothingness stretched thin over the temper Billy’s not allowed to have under his roof.

Billy shook his head.

“She’ll come around,” Susan said kindly. Billy just kept chewing, nodding his head like he was agreeing. Susan pushed on, oblivious, “Maybe you can come to church with us on Sunday.”

Neil considered him over his plate. He put a hand over Susan’s to quell her. “Stay home and work on your car,” he told Billy, picking his fork back up. “I didn’t give it to you to neglect.”

Billy watched him spear a mouthful of slimy green hash into his mouth and swallow, his face a more perfect neutral than Billy’s own.

It's not just Susan’s cooking though. Nowadays he hasn’t got much of a stomach for the school lunches either. The first couple of days after their standoff in the locker room, he sits across from Harrington in the cafeteria, or, more accurately, Harrington shows up and sits across from him—unexpected but not quite a surprise—an equal commitment to habit and expectation. Harrington’s polite with him and nonchalant and as insubstantial and unfamiliar as a reflection in a fun-house mirror.

And Billy’s grateful for it: the lockstep routine of two guys who are expected to share the top of the pyramid together. It’s sure as sh*t easier than whatever it was they became over the winter break, that whole mess spiraling quicker than Billy could keep up with. It’s kind of a relief not to have to speak so much, too, now that Harrington’s not so interested in listening or provoking him into it. Harrington’s quieter now as well—a million miles away behind the aloof facade—and Becky’s always with him or on her way to be.

It’s hard to tell if Carol makes herself scarce because of her, or because she’s still pissed at Billy for losing his cool the other day, but she only joins them the first day and not after; and when Billy runs into her in the hall between classes she makes a point of being easily distracted by everything going on around them—her gum, her nails, her split ends—anything that’s not him trying to say hello to her and realizing he doesn’t even know how to do that.

Tommy’s worst out of all of them—no grudge of his own, trying to keep up with Harrington’s strange good mood and Billy’s new kind of quiet. Off-kilter with a new addition to their group and no Carol to share judgmental side-eyes with—only Billy, who can’t stand the sight of him for what he’s pretty sure he doesn’t know but might guess at.

So, by Thursday, Billy’s back to spending the lunch break in his car.

It’s easier. Harrington’s started making excuses to leave lunch early anyway, even when Becky’s there, vanishing to hang out with any number of friends he has outside of Tommy and Carol that Billy never paid much attention to. Billy doesn’t ever see him after school or in-between classes anymore, so, he guesses Harrington’s going out of his way to avoid him. But he doesn’t think that’s exactly true either. More like, he was going out of his way before—which makes Billy sick and sour to think about—and now he’s just letting things self-correct, like water finding its way around a dam.

Billy wants that too. All this? This is the price of forgetting his rules. Could’ve been avoided if Billy hadn’t let himself get swept up experimenting with being someone he’s not.

So, he goes back to playing his part. Wakes up before Max so he can get some hot water. Goes to school and parks wherever he wants without it being important. Sits in his car for the full lunch hour listening to every tape bar one.

He lets the unfeeling machinery of the day and all the people in it chew him up and spit him out the other side of the school bell, and at night he goes home and flicks his zippo on and off in his window, thinking about being somewhere warm instead.

What to do between school and sundown is the slowest to come back to him. He feels weak and distracted when he messes with his weights, like his brain wants to use the time to go places it shouldn’t, so he gives up after a couple reps.

In the end, it’s easier just to drive Max around and do whatever she wants to do, since Billy wants nothing. He spends a lot of time fixing his homework in the arcade parking lot, since Buckley made it clear with a look she thinks he’s dirt for ditching her at the party.

Up ahead, the bus veers off the main road and Billy follows it as it takes the left turn towards Kerley County; a faded sign with an out-of-date population count that’s even smaller than Hawkins’ announcing: Home of the Pennhurst Loons.

They pass the rec center and Billy breathes in hard through his nose, not smelling chlorine, not thinking about light full of dust. Harrington had stolen his book off him. He’d meant to make Max sit on her towel the whole way home, but in the end he’d been too happy to care.

He keeps his gaze locked on the orange tiger-head print emblazoned under the rear window.

Not too long ago, Harrington said he’d rather die than be stuck taking the bus to the away game, like some middle-school lame-o—had been his exact words. He’d made elaborate plans for how he and Billy and Billy’s tapes could make a thing out of it, roll up late and leave late, too, in case there was a party worth finding in the area, or a liquor store where Harrington hadn’t burnt out his fake ID. Billy hadn’t agreed to it, per se, but he’d let Harrington paint his picture—kind of liked how Harrington assumed they’d take his car.

Now Harrington’s in there, probably hamming it up with Tommy and the others, talking the sort of big game sh*t guys do when they’re trying to ignore each other’s nerves and get pumped up. If Billy was in there he’d probably find a seat by himself since he can’t stand that sh*t and since he doesn’t get nervous before games. He wouldn’t mind if Harrington came to hang out and wind him up about it though.

Doesn’t matter. They’re in there and Billy’s out here, following behind in his car because Susan’s rabbit food put Neil in a bad mood and Billy couldn’t bring himself to ask him to sign the stupid form in time. Technically, Billy’s skipping school too, since he doesn’t have permission to miss the chunk of school he’s going to miss to be at this game. He’s not technically allowed to play, either, but Coach won’t stop him from playing when he turns up. Hell, he’ll be counting on it, what with the poor shape they’re in as a side.

The team bus makes a short winding journey through some rundown old strip malls and past a few winter cornfields and then finally, pulls into the far end of a school parking lot, behind a small gym striped with the white and green checker motif of the Loons.

Billy pulls the Camaro in after it and turns the ignition off.

The team is filing off the bus already, lining up to grab their duffels. Harrington’s the last one off. Billy watches him take the step, heavy-footed and listless amid the others’ milling excitement, already changed out in his shorts and jersey. Coach is barking orders over a clipboard but most of the team have dispersed already, antsy after the long trip, stretching their legs and messing with each other. Tommy and Peterson have broken off from the larger group to ogle a pair of girls with their letter jackets pulled tight over cheer dresses, their sneakers and hair ribbons sparkling white.

They don’t make ‘em like that in Hawkins, Billy imagines Tommy saying when he smacks Peterson in the chest to share his appreciation.

You know what they say about, Pennhurst chicks? Peterson would say back. If you’re not in the nuthouse yet, they’ll make you wish you were.

Miller has ambled over to join them, gawking too. He whistles, a sound that cuts across the lot, shrill and real so Billy doesn’t have to imagine it, the girls turning as one to throw identical glares. New rules, my dudes, Miller says, maybe a little more nasal than his real voice. What happens at the away game, stays at the away game.

He watches Tommy reach out and pat him on the back patronizingly. Guess again, dipsh*t, Billy imagines him saying. Think they might be interested in bigger fish.

The cheerleaders have stopped in their tracks, looking back towards the bus. Like a pantomime of Tommy and Peterson, one knocks a hand against her friend’s arm, getting her attention. Billy knows they’re looking at Harrington before he even follows their gaze.

The girls exchange whispers but Harrington doesn’t seem to have noticed. He’s not watching them back. Instead, he’s still, eyes fixed on Billy’s car across the lot, staring blankly through the windshield like he can hear the dumb little skit Billy’s making up in his head.

sh*t.

Billy clenches his hand around his keys, but even from afar, he doesn’t dare say anything.

^^^

Coach stages a rote sort of protest when Billy shows up on the sidelines already changed out, but he subs him in for Peterson before he’s even done with his tirade, the other player so green with nerves he actually says thank you when Billy snatches his number off him.

Harrington keeps his face blank across the huddle, his dull mood making Tommy extra talky, the rest of the players sharing wary glances with each other. Seems like Peterson’s not alone with his nerves; half the team has the jitters. Billy keeps his eye-roll to himself. This might be the only place that’s more of a backwater then Hawkins. Billy’s old team would be pissed just to have to show up in a gym this small.

The game starts after the cheer squad for Pennhurst do their thing and Parker wins the toss up by virtue of being a half-head taller than everyone else. He passes off to Harrington, who ignores Billy’s open lead and takes a long shot from midcourt that rebounds shockingly hard off the hoop, both teams caught running the wrong way, not expecting it—and that’s about as good as the game gets.

For a few plays, Pennhurst gives them space, chalking Harrington’s miss up to a fluke of ballsy overconfidence, trying to gauge how big of a threat their opposition really is, but they figure out pretty quick after that that it wasn’t actually a precursor to greatness.

It’s hard to avoid a guy on a five-guy team, but Billy’s got to hand it to Harrington, he puts his heart and soul into it. Still, there are only so many plays Harrington can make that don’t involve one of his four options, and once the other side figures out they don’t need a man on Billy, those options get whittled down hard. Parker gets two friends to shake if he wants a play; and Miller’s a bad pair up with a guy who can apparently run circles around him, even though Miller is fast; and Tommy and Harrington can’t pass back and forth to each other all game, especially once that becomes the game, with every other option cut off.

Harrington’s got his player outclassed, at least, and he gets a couple of nets off him that are showy only because they’re all Harrington all the way—but nobody’s cheering for him, not even the cheer-squad girls who were checking him out by the bus. The bleachers swell with an uncomfortable restless quiet, unhappy and expectant: it’s a bad game to watch and Harrington’s being a bad sport, making a fool of some half-baked hometown hero. He steals another three-pointer and takes Tommy’s high-five with lax indifference.

Billy’s not seeing any action, but he still chews through his legs like a rookie, frustrated beyond what he can control—because this was supposed to be something he could control. Now he’s stuck pacing around in a corner, trapped and lamed and riled-up, gritting his teeth for the moment Coach blows his whistle to sub him out.

But the first whistle comes for Miller instead, who takes it with an odd sneer of relief. He shares pained eye contact with each of them on his way off court like he’s trying to transmit something by telepathy.

It doesn’t take long for Billy to figure out what it is.

Danny comes on for Miller and has just as much trouble with his player as Miller did, even though he’s got fresh legs and is senior enough to know his way around a good blocker. Billy keeps any eye on them, since it’s not like he’s got to keep a lookout for an incoming pass. The guy from Pennhurst—Number Five—isn’t some secret powerhouse; he’s just some kid with hair the kind of white kids are supposed to grow out of and a jersey two sizes too big that makes his arms look frail and limp-wristed.

It’s the limp-wristed thing that’s the problem.

Danny, like Miller, is squeamish about getting up in his space, his face pinched as the guy defends too much with his hands darting everywhere, too timid and glancing to engage with.

Now that Billy’s clued in, he notices how the guy’s own team doesn’t seem to like him much, not calling for him, not giving him any play that they don’t strictly have to. When Pennhurst scores a clean net, the guy gets caught on the perimeter of the celebratory huddle and dumped on his ass somehow, his teammates stepping over him to resume play.

Billy swallows down the bullfrog surge of an insult and muscles in on the next pass between Tommy and Parker, Harrington busy being as far away from Billy as the court will let him. He drives a line that picks up Danny’s player on the way, accepts his weird skittery defense for about half a second before he flattens him, foot where the guy’s sneaker comes down for balance so he goes down properly.

The whistle shrills a foul and the crowd heaves in an apprehensive breath—but nobody comes running. Someone even snickers, and even though the guy bounces right back up, ready to keep fighting, Pennhurst’s coach flags him out, the substitute taking a free point.

Thanks, Danny signals him with a look.

“Switch with me,” Billy orders, which was why he did it in the first place.

Danny eyes the sidelines nervously for Coach but does as Billy says, swapping their opponents so that Billy gets the sub with strapped-on sports glasses and an arm still pale from a freshly removed cast. Danny’s got his hands full with the guy who’s been marking Billy all game, but Billy—Billy’s a free agent, finally.

By second quarter, Billy’s managed to edge in on a few more passes, putting himself in the way of one of Coach’s basic drill formations so that Tommy has no choice but to slip him the ball so he can take a shot on goal. He’s not even sure if Tommy’s been meaning to avoid him or if he’s just following Harrington’s plays out of loyalty—but in the moment, pressed on all sides, he takes the path of least resistance, and Billy sinks it.

It feels good, scoring, finally—but it makes him forget. The next play, in the heat of the moment, sweat in his eyes—he looks for a pass that’s not there.

Harrington’s an intuitive menace and a savant at being everywhere Billy doesn’t want to see him. His absence in the one place on the court he needs to be is a shock like surfacing after huge wave exactly where you started. Billy loses a second he doesn’t have, blinking at the spot where Harrington has chosen not to be. He snaps for Tommy to get his player off him and find a space—but, in the end, he’s stumped and he turns the ball over, his opponent swiping it out from under him while he’s distracted.

Billy’s never done that. Billy’s taken shots from the opposite baseline that miss by a mile rather than lose a ball looking for backup—and he gives this one up like a toddler just learning how to dribble.

It’s the first time in the game Harrington’s straight-up ignored him.

The second time, Parker picks up on it too. He stops in his tracks at the top of the circle, looking at all of them in turn, breathing hard as the ball heads the other way. Guess no one told him they were playing something other than basketball today.

“Call your plays,” he snaps at Billy, confused.

Caught swatting sweat off his chin with his bib, Billy can’t help but laugh, a sarcastic huff: “I look like I’m losing this game on my own?”

Parker looks taken aback for a second before he doubles down, high horse-y as ever. “You think you’re winning it?”

Well, sh*t. Billy can admit he’s got a point there.

After the halftime break, no one does anything Coach asked them to do. Billy sees more of the ball, but it’s only because he starts cutting in, spoiling his own team’s plays to the astonishment of just about everyone going by the tense murmuring from the bleachers.

The time for bitching at each other comes and goes. Soon enough they’re all too gassed to keep strategizing. They get sloppy, Pennhurst getting a read on them, tightening the net. Maybe as punishment, Coach doesn’t make any more substitutions, the guys on the bench left to get bored of the game altogether, scoping out the home crowd for girls instead.

By the third quarter, Coach isn’t even yelling any more. The next goal from Pennhurst puts them at a draw, and then Danny gets a foul against him that will put the home team out in front at last—but there’s no contest from their side of the bench; Coach holds his tongue, frowning, his arms crossed high on his chest. Seems like he’s done all the early steps of the grieving process already and gotten to whatever step is letting them get their asses handed to them so they can spend the bus ride home together in disappointed silence.

Thank God Billy won’t be on it.

Actually, if they do lose, it might be safer for him if he was on it. This piggy-in-the-middle bullsh*t blew past the sort of frustration 70 miles per hour can fix a few markers back, and Billy hasn’t got the cash to burn on that kind of gas, or on a ticket, for that matter.

Pennhurst are up by six points with five minutes left in the game. Billy keeps an eye on the clock, time slowing down with every missed opportunity. Both teams hustle up towards the circle under Hawkins’ goal, following Harrington with the ball, and then Tommy, and then Harrington again, and then Parker who can’t get around the two guys all over him.

The ball goes back to Harrington, zigzags between him and Tommy, the same formation they’ve been running all night. Even as he watches, one of the Pennhurst players catches wise and intercepts the ball at the top of the circle, smacking it free, darting around Tommy on his way to steal another goal.

On auto, Billy blocks him. He has to foul Tommy up to do it but he cuts the guy off with his shoulders squared, makes him wobble, momentum aborted. The pass comes off too desperate and Billy stops that too. He has the ball, his player in position already, ready to jump for the shot. He passes out to Danny and guns left, calls for it back—but Danny has already bounced it to Tommy, and Harrington’s waiting right under the hoop.

Tommy’s going to pass it without Harrington needing to call for it, and they’re going to turn the ball over, because Billy’s player is still in the circle simply because he’s too f*cking slow to keep on Billy like he should, and he’s got just enough reach on him to spoil the pass.

“Here!” Billy barks, urgent.

It all happens inside of a second, but to Billy Tommy’s decision plays out like one of Susan’s midday soaps. He looks to pass to Billy. Harrington doesn’t call for it, but Tommy looks to him next anyway, a reflex or loyalty or both. Billy’s player stretches that extra half-inch to get his fingers in line with the pass.

Tommy chooses Harrington.

“No!”

In slow-motion, Billy’s player snags it.

Billy does what he has to do to stop him, the court squeaking under his sneakers, his footwork all over the place. He gets Harrington boxed in with both their players under the hoop, the four of them in such a tight mess of shoulders and elbows it’s not even clear who’s fouling who, the referee jogging down the baseline to see.

Harrington and him come up with the ball at the same time and

—drop it, somehow.

For the life of him, Billy couldn’t say how it happens. One moment the rubber’s stinging rough under his fingertips and Harrington’s hand is there, exerting pressure—and the next, it’s popped clear, rolling, getting scooped up by Harrington’s player and passed off. The other team's point guard takes off running for the home goal at an ungainly stagger, surprised by his good luck.

“Oh man,” Billy’s player scoffs, shuffling against Billy’s barring elbow. “You guys know you’re playing for the same team, right?”

For the first time all day—all week—Harrington’s mask twitches. His eyes snap to Billy with a dark look that feels like a kick in the ribs before the words even register. It’s there and gone in an instant, but Billy’s fingers have already snarled in the guy’s shirt, bunching.

“Wh—hey!” he says as Billy bounces him off the post.

To his surprise, the kid grapples with him, seeking purchase for a swing. Billy swings right back but Harrington’s player is on him now, yanking on the back of his jersey, making him miss, fist glancing the pole instead. Doesn’t matter. Billy’s got plenty of punches left in him to go round if this guy wants a piece too.

The whistle shrieks.

Except it’s not the ref calling a foul, but Coach Green.

Billy yanks himself free, ignoring a retaliatory swat from glasses. He clips Miller’s shoulder hard as he passes him on the way to the bench, since he can’t go anywhere near Harrington, humiliation a hot rash up his neck.

“You’re benching me?” It comes out like a snarl, disbelieving, breathing hot and hard. There’s only two minutes left in the game. He’s trembling all over with stymied effort and the queasy residue of the look on Harrington’s face just now.

“Take a seat,” Coach says firmly. “You’ve done enough damage for one day.”

“He’s fine,” Billy protests, waving a hand back at his opponent on the court, already fully devoted to hassling Miller. “I didn’t even hurt him.”

“Not what I’m talking about,” Coach says. His gaze slides away from the game for just long enough to eye Billy’s split knuckles pointedly, expression grim. Billy hadn’t even noticed the skin breaking.

“It’s—” Something completely unfamiliar has welled up in his throat like acid reflux, sweat prickling uncomfortably all over his body. “It’s nothing,” he chokes. Goddammit. Coach knows he’s tough—that he can handle a little bloodshed. “I can still play.”

“No, son,” Coach says. “You can’t.” He doesn’t look away from the game this time, face hard with resolve. He scrubs a hand over his scalp. “I don’t have a slip for you. Someone gets hurt out there, it’s on me.”

You’re not supposed to be here, Billy hears.

On the court, the ball changes hands, Danny giving it up without a fight, Pennhurst tearing away with the ball again. There’s a buzz in the crowd, finally, excited by the eleventh-hour change of momentum, smelling a win.

“We’ll lose,” he says.

“Then we’ll lose.”

Billy sneers. “You’re not going to do something about it?”

Coach doesn’t look away from the game, saying nothing for just long enough that Billy thinks he’s been dismissed, shuffling awkwardly on his feet, still simmering. “You drove here, right?” Coach asks finally.

Billy scowls. Now he wants to bust Billy’s balls over breaking the rules? He rolls his tongue against his cheek, pushing down the urge to say something flip. “Wouldn’t’ve come if I knew I was gonna be on the side that lost.”

Coach hums consideringly. “Did you want to win?”

Billy lets out a shallow breath, strained with annoyance. Of course he wanted to win. He still wants to, even though there’s less than a minute left to do it.

“Do me a favor, son. Think on it, on the ride home. If you had a chance to do it all again from the toss—play the same game, just like y’all did today, but come out on top.” He eyes Billy. “Would you want to win? Would you feel like you won?”

“Win’s a win,” Billy says, his knuckles stinging in agreement. “Doesn’t matter how I feel.”

Anyway, he’d probably feel just the same as he feels now, which is an answer he can’t give.

“Think on it,” Coach says, a wry smile in the corner of his mouth. “Come find me when you’ve got an answer.”

That really is a dismissal, and Billy takes it, not bothering to look back at the sound of the buzzer, the muted roar of the crowd, the disjointed thump of a basketball discarded and rolling away, forgotten about the moment the game ended, like it never mattered at all.

“Orange?” Peterson offers from the bench, the Tupperware in his lap.

“Not hungry,” Billy says.

^^^

The mood in the showers after getting their asses kicked is pretty jovial, all things considered. Most of the guys aren’t on the team for any good reason other than they’ve always been on it—and to get a free bus ride out of town every now and then—so, they don’t take the loss hard.

Billy drove himself out here thinking they needed him—that he would make a difference—something he only realized when Coach said he wouldn’t—so, he kind of does.

Except, like everything now, that feeling just goes straight down the pipe with all the others—right into the fathomless pit of nothing he’s rapidly discovering he’s pretty good at keeping a lid on, keeping everything in the dark to look at only in glimpses, like fast-dialing through microfiche. Like the way Harrington flinched at those words on the court just now; and the memory Billy has of the smile on his face the night in Billy’s hallway, hollowed out behind the eyes. Other things too, more complicated. Worse. The way Harrington had looked at him when Billy took the nails out of his bat—how he couldn’t have known that that was the first time anyone looked at him like he was a good guy. That time him and Harrington were just killing a cigarette in the school bathrooms on a day when nothing interesting happened and Harrington had been half-humming along with some song in his head, soaking up the thin winter sunlight like a cat, and Billy didn’t want anything to change so bad he let his cig burn down to nothing between his fingers, putting itself out on his skin.

Stuff like that.

Harrington’s the last one into the showers, held back by Coach for a debrief—probably the same head-shrink crap he gave Billy. He picks a spot on the bench, slumping down to tackle his shoelaces.

Everyone’s taking their time, washing up. Pennhurst only has the one locker room and they’ve done the gracious thing as hosts and offered it to Hawkins first. Might be the other team is using the girls’ showers right now instead. Either way, it’s put most of the guys in good spirits, drawing out the routine, the usual horseplay bullsh*t dialed up a notch.

There’s gonna be a party out by the quarry: a start of season tradition that’s never depended on them winning—since they haven’t won much of anything since seventy-nine. Actually the whole thing is built on their unbroken losing streak, since, as Harrington explained it to him back when they were building the ramp, they gotta jump in the water if they actually do win a game.

Peterson and a couple other benchwarmers who got bored of being moral support and spent the whole game goofing off and making plans for the night are talking all sorts of improbable sh*t about the girls in the Pennhurst crowd—how they were making eyes, dropping hints they’d be down for a party, even with the losing side, if it meant a chance at some action outside of their first cousins.

Harrington doesn’t join in the chatter, stripping off his gear at the edge of Billy’s vision, quiet.

Billy doesn’t contribute either. He concentrates on his breathing instead, on the feeble stream of warm water threatening to go cold any moment. He hits the pump on the dispenser for a handful of watery pink soap, sudsing up everywhere—hair, face, neck, pits—so that he’s wearing suds like horse-blinkers.

He doesn’t look.

But it doesn’t stop him knowing.

Harrington got lazy about shaving over winter break. He’s let his chest hair come in—more than most guys on the team can grow, even though he doesn’t get a beard on him like Billy does after two days without a razor. It has a pattern to it: light and sparse, darker and furrier toward the center, thickest where it stripes down into the crisp white waistband of his Calvin’s as he bends to pull them off—

Billy doesn’t look.

Harrington’s shower hisses on.

Billy looks, just a little, just to know where he shouldn’t.

When he sees Harrington, he thinks about what he always thinks about when he’s in the locker room with him: he thinks about Shauna Grant.

He thinks about his poster of her and how many sit ups and jumping jacks and hula-hoop workouts she must have done to get a perfect body like that, a body for guys—guys like Billy—to put on their wall and think about when they jack it—how much effort, how much work, she must put in, to look like that.

Not like Harrington, who he knows doesn’t work out, who lives off pizza and can’t be convinced to walk anywhere further than his driveway without the promise of a co*ke at the end. Harrington who makes fun of Billy’s weights and jokes about being weak and having arms like a girl. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t have arms like a girl. He doesn’t look anything like a girl, to Billy.

He takes a hard breath in through his nose and curbs his thoughts, thinking about dull sh*t instead: his homework, last night’s dinner, Peterson next to him who doesn’t look like the kind of guy Max and Susan fawn over on TV, the kind of guy his dad sneers at.

“Better get a move on, boys,” Miller announces, finding a shower and unslinging his towel. “Think I saw Number Five by the peephole on my way in here. Might wanna change out under your towels.”

“I wish you’d change out under a towel, man,” Tommy says. “With a bag over your head, too.” Someone chuckles.

Miller scoffs. “Pretty sure he wants to do a lot more than just look, eh, Danny?”

Danny heaves an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know, Miller. Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one who couldn’t shake him.”

Miller turns red, scrubbing angrily at his pits. “Just didn’t wanna catch anything s’all.” He scopes around the room, looking for another outlet, spotting Billy. “What about you, Hargrove? You shut him down hard, man. He try to get a feel or something?”

Something shakier than fury has ossified Billy’s jaw shut and he can’t answer, wishing the water pressure was better so he could at least have something to lean into. Miller continues anyway. “I’m just glad Coach benched me when he did or I would’ve had to show him what’s what, y’know?”

A few guys swap disparaging looks.

“Suppose things might have gone different if he got put on Harrington from the jump. We could’ve won. Guy would’ve ji*zzed his pants in about five seconds. What kind of foul d’you call that?”

That gets a round of low laughter.

“Do me a favor, Miller,” Harrington says disinterestedly, the first thing he’s said since his arrival. The laughter dies down at the sound of his voice. “Leave me out of that queer sh*t.”

The warm water runs out.

Billy keeps his gaze fixed on the wall in front of him, the swimming green band of tile. The temperature-less water streams over his brow and chin, through his hair and down his spine.

A shower turns off with a sharp squeak.

Billy glances to the side, just enough to see Parker picking his way over the wet floor, towel over his shoulder. He pauses behind Harrington. “Aren’t you sick of this?”

Every ear in the room pricks at the question, Harrington only reacting enough to spare Parker a cool look over one shoulder, but Billy can tell it’s given him pause. In the locker room, Harrington is always the version of himself that can laugh anything off. Now, he keeps a bland look on his face, same as when Billy used to try to get under his skin, like Parker’s earnest question is less interesting than rinsing soap off his chest.

But Parker isn’t fishing for a reaction like how Billy did. He endures the tense beat of Harrington’s un-amusem*nt like it’s nothing, waiting patiently for his full attention. “Captain up,” he says when he has it. “Or give it to someone who deserves it.”

“Hey…” Tommy says uneasily.

Parker doesn’t acknowledge him. He gives Harrington a final, disapproving once-over and leaves.

The eyes of half the team follow him out, darting back to Harrington to get a read on what to think about it, but Harrington just shrugs, busying himself with his soap. His eyes go to Billy and Billy looks away, deliberately slow, so it doesn’t look like he got caught looking.

Someone clears their throat.

“So…Hargrove, you in?”

The party. To celebrate losing with a bunch of small-town second-raters? No f*cking way.

“Sounds lame,” he grits out, voice thick.

“You should come.”

It’s Harrington who’s spoken. Billy’s eyes slide down the row of showers, fixing on him, letting everything else but his face be out of focus. Harrington keeps soaping up his arms, casual.

“I got a curfew.”

“No you don’t.”

Billy keeps his breathing in check. If it were just a little less flat it would be like how they used to rib each other. He can feel the mood shift in the room, the other guys interested in his answer.

“Whatever,” Billy says, his pulse beating hard at the base of his throat.

“Good,” Harrington says. He slaps his shower off. “Be there at eight, at The Point.”

Tommy’s head jerks up.

Billy tilts his head into the water in place of an answer. Nothing good can come of this. He doesn’t have to go—can just not show up. Drive home and spend the time pondering Coach’s question like he’s supposed to.

His chest—stomach—aches, hollow, his heart already beating a hopeful tempo in his chest under the tepid spray of water.

How’s winning supposed to feel?

Maybe it’s just the opposite of being alone.

Chapter 28: close, close, close! (part two)

Chapter Text

Billy sees what Harrington meant about there being a nicer side of the quarry.

They picked where they did to build the ramp because it was easy to get to. Just a short drive uphill, space to park and space to work; not scenic enough or private enough to get much traffic from bored tourists, or kids looking for somewhere to huff paint or make out.

The Point is the opposite of that. Secluded and pretty like something out of a slasher movie—as high up in the quarry as you can go before the access road gets blocked off with fences and rusted-over trespassing signs. The only way to get to it is on foot, parking where the Sattler Company abandoned its trailer offices, and following a narrow track through a dense snarl of woods.

He supposes if he was a girl he’d put out for a view like this.

He shivers, hunching inside his leather jacket, pulling it closed tight over his shirt and flannel, shuffling a little closer to the edge where the trees lean away from the sheer drop, propping one boot on a low log rail to get a proper look, cig burning forgotten on his lip.

The first thing he notices is that he’s not that far away from the skate ramp on the other side of the water. Funny to think they spent so much of winter break doing lame Goonies sh*t only a couple yards away from some place as nice and romantic as this. From up this high, the woods that bracket the quarry seem to stretch on forever—miles and miles of formless trees frothing against the gloom, the fairy-light glow of houses clumped together where the suburban grid starts; and further out, a path of laddering red radio towers leading out of town. If he squints, he can make out the purple neon monolith of the mall.

The view from the top of the community pool building had been the promise of something: summer—everything that that might bring. But this view doesn’t need to be anything but what it is to be beautiful.

“Save it,” he murmurs to himself. He’s sick of all the beautiful views in Hawkins but one.

Sniffing hard against the cold, he leans forward, inching a little further out. The party is happening at the bottom of the quarry, right where the water starts eating the road. He’s not so high up he can’t make out the usual crowd, spread thin over the scrubby gravel, spilling out from the wagon circle of cars and pickups and a couple small drumfires. Pop music drifts up from a car radio, bouncing of the soaring limestone walls, faint and ringing.

He zeroes in on one of the trucks parked just a little higher up the slope, close to one of the fires, wondering if Harrington wishes he could see him up here in the dark as well as Billy can see him down there in the light.

Trust me.

But he didn’t say that this time, did he?

That too-far-away anger again, like a storm you only think you might see on the horizon; no telling when it’ll blow in.

He releases a final exhale of smoke, considering the cherry-end of his cig for one moment before he flicks it carelessly out into the void, a small explosion of cinders that drop away to nothing—letting Harrington know, he’s here.

Back in his car, he lights a new cigarette, waiting for the storm to get closer or further out.

Harrington was right about this being a nice quiet place to park. Billy supposes that’s when he knew he’d been set up, the turn off wintered over and devoid of life, asphalt so matted with leaf-litter he almost missed it. It’s just...

He just figured he might as well check out the view while he was here, before he goes home.

And now he can’t stand the idea of it. Doesn’t understand how he got so bad at killing time by himself so fast. He’s always been good at it. Built for it. It sort of comes with the job description. Latchkey kid, stepbrother, tough guy. All Billy’s ever needed is his own company. That and a full pack of smokes, maybe. And an empty parking lot to stare at. Or a beach. There’s only one of those things he can’t get in Hawkins—so how come the idea of passing the night and all the nothing he has planned for this weekend and ever after has him feeling like he’s gonna come out of his skin?

It's Harrington’s fault, somehow.

A feeling comfortingly like anger stoppers up in his throat. He feels his face contorting around it, settling in a bitter shape, the stale quiet of his car suddenly suffocating. He buzzes the window down with a rough jab before he turns the key in the ignition, the Camaro rousing eagerly under his thighs, inflamed skin over his knuckles pulling taut.

He doesn’t feel like a fight, tonight, but it’s the only answer he has.

^^^

He’s worked up something like a sweat by the time he pulls his car around on a bare patch of scrub at the base of the quarry, headlights sweeping over the party, picking surprised pale faces out of the dusky dark. He parks next to Tommy’s car, killing the engine, heaving himself out before he can lose too much momentum.

Gravel skitter-slides trickily under his boots on his way up the drive, ignoring the friendly hails and offers of beer from some guys from the team, feet carrying him pas the main group, inside the warm radius of the drumfire and right out the other side with single-minded focus.

Harrington’s perched on the cab of some big ugly pickup, the truck bed full of people Billy couldn’t give two sh*ts about. His eyes track Billy’ approach up the slope with slow disinterest.

“Having fun?” Billy asks, unfriendly, his chest tight.

Harrington finishes taking a pull off his beer. He eyes Billy up and down, taking in his balled-up fists, the scuffed hems of his jeans from finding his way to the lookout in the dark. “View’s all right,” he says.

“So long as you’re entertained.”

I’m not, is the answer in Harrington’s flat look, firelight shadows quavering over his face.

“Hey, look who made it!” Tommy claps him on the shoulder in greeting. “What took you so long?” He leans over and snags a beer from the cooler on the tailgate, pressing it into Billy’s hand: an apology for the unspoken betrayal, asking a question he could have guessed the answer to. Billy takes it but doesn’t drink.

He doesn’t take his eyes of Harrington’s. “Must’ve took a wrong turn.”

“Should’ve brought a flashlight,” Harrington says dryly.

“Not afraid of the dark.”

If the blow lands, it doesn’t register, Harrington’s face as blank as ever, like one of those girls’ dolls you gotta shake to make their eyes roll back in their head. “Maybe you should be,” Harrington says finally.

“Why?” Billy asks, mouth twitching: the start of mean smile. “You don’t think I’m gonna go missing or something, do you? Or does that only happen to girls in your pool?”

Next to him, Tommy stiffens. He lets out a nervous laugh, eyes darting to Harrington for his cue, but Harrington has paused with his mouth poised above his beer, face darkening in warning.

“C’mon Harrington, don’t hold out on us now,” Billy continues. “Share with the group. What’s out there, huh—that I gotta be so afraid of?” He gestures around with his unopened can of Schlitz. “Bugs? Bogeymen?” He tilts his head conspiratorially. “Rats?”

He can see Harrington absorb the hit this time, his jaw working, eyes glassy with anger above the sneer-smile he’s got stuck on his face. Billy knows this version of him; just hasn’t seen it in a while. “Man,” Harrington says, drawn out and dry. “You just love hearing yourself talk, don’t you?”

Billy sets his drink down on the tailgate, snorts up an answer and makes sure he has Harrington’s attention when he spits it out on the ground. “I can do plenty more than talk if you wanna come down here and find out.”

He’s really only going through the motions, counting on the hot thoughtlessness of rage to follow close behind the old pattern of gearing up for a fight. But one of the guys nearest him in the truck bed twigs first, tuning out the conversation going on around him to eye Billy’s body language warily, even as the others keep fooling around, gassing each other up.

Harrington only rolls his eyes. “I’m happy where I am, thanks.”

“I don’t think so.”

“No?”

“No,” Billy says. “I think you’re bored out of your skin. You look it.” He points his chin at the truck bed full of familiar-unfamiliar faces. “Who are your new friends, huh? Or are they old ones?”

A handful of uncertain laughs.

Harrington makes a wry dismissive noise through his teeth, face tilted away. “This sh*t again. When are you gonna catch a clue, buddy? I’m not interested.”

“I ask if you were?”

“You look like you are,” Harrington says, eyeing him again with just the barest spark of amusem*nt. “Asking,” he clarifies, making a point of the distance between them. And maybe you could look at it like that—like Billy’s waiting on his permission to come up there.

“Hey, Stevie?” Tommy tries. “Maybe you should slow down on the beers some? I think Becky’s been asking after you.”

Harrington gives Tommy a dull look that slides over to the edge of the quarry basin where Carol and her friends are throwing rocks at an old tractor tire, Becky hovering with them, out of place. Harrington probably asked her out here and then dumped her on them right away. Billy watches him ignore Tommy’s suggestion, rattling his beer can for dregs, tossing it at his feet with the small mountain of other empties. One of the flunkies in the truck bed passes him up a new one, and Harrington cracks it with a bratty look. His gaze swivels back to Billy, sours. “Are you still here?”

Billy shakes his head, showing some tooth. “Where else would I be?”

Harrington returns his grin a little, taking a sip of beer. “I don’t know. Somewhere you could jump off?”

“Steve,” Tommy says.

“Didn’t feel like getting my feet wet,” Billy says. “You know, I gotta say, Harrington.” His nose wrinkles. “I didn’t think you were into this”—he draws it out, sibilant, flicking his hand around—“small-town hazing bullsh*t. That what gets you off?”

“What would you know about it?”

Harrington’s tone is about five shades too dark to be anything but hostile. The conversation in the truck falls away.

“You don’t know me,” he goes on, seemingly uncaring of the uneasy silence he’s created. “You don’t know this town. You don’t know anything.”

“I know plenty.”

“He’s done plenty,” someone attempts, getting a weak round of laughter.

“Yeah,” Harrington says thickly, eyes pinning him. “I’ll bet.”

That one hurts. Harrington’s just guessing. Billy’s done enough—been with enough.

“Here,” he says to cover the feeling welling up, threatening to make it onto his face. He rips his finding from the lookout out of his jacket pocket and tosses it carelessly into the truck bed, the flattened disc of an old beer can skittering to a stop at Harrington’s feet, faded, but recognizable. “Found this up there. Looks like you got a home run after all.”

Harrington stares at the piece of trash. It’s impossible to say if he’s moved, his jaw bunching, unhappy. But when his stare returns to Billy there’s nothing there at all. “What can I say,” he says, gaze steady. “Guess I know which way to swing.”

“Yeah,” Billy says, automatic and threatening, limbering out an arm. “Same here.”

Harrington laughs at that: a sharp, abrupt sound. Drunk.

“Something you wanna add, princess?”

The humor goes out of his eyes like a blown globe. “Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry,” Billy says. “You prefer prom queen, right.”

Harrington’s mouth curls at the corner, too bitter to be amused, the obvious comeback unsaid in the air between them, making Billy slow-bristle all over, the implication circling tighter and closer to what he can’t stand to think about himself.

“You got things confused,” he grits out.

“No. No, I think I got a pretty good grasp on things.” Harrington says. He tilts his head, considering. “Well, maybe not as good a grasp as you...”

Billy’s sneer tightens. “You should lay off the hard stuff, amigo. You’re not making whole lot of sense.”

Harrington snorts argumentatively. “Hey, uh, that reminds me. No hard feelings about Becky, right?”

“Hard feelings,” Billy repeats, dull. He couldn’t give a sh*t about Becky.

“Well, she’s your type, right?”

Billy returns his stare.

He can’t look anywhere else.

“No,” he says. “She isn’t.”

Harrington’s nostrils flare.

Billy’s not even sure what he’s trying to do here. He’s terrified of what he’s even trying to say, the full meaning catching up to him, body frozen under the weight of possibility.

Harrington gets to his feet, the light from the fire pulling shadows left and right over his face. The truck bed is silent as he picks his way through the sprawled legs and discarded six-packs, everyone riding the sharp increase in tension, beers paused in hands.

Infuriatingly graceful, Harrington drops down in front of him, sneakers hitting the dirt. He straightens up to his full height—that extra inch he has on Billy even on equal footing. For all his talk, Billy can hardly meet his eyes—and can’t look away either, Harrington close enough to get his hands on, the impartial firelight painting him a dozen shades of dangerous.

It doesn’t matter; Harrington’s misjudged this. He’s slow, swaying, almost. Operating on however much false confidence he’s had to drink, breathing the hot fumes of it over Billy’s cheeks. The feel of it has his anger slipping distressingly through his fingers, spilling over into something less familiar, more perilous, his skin blossoming with it, drawing tight all over.

His voice comes out breathier than he would have wished for: “You sure you’re drunk enough for this, pretty boy?”

Dead-eyed, Harrington leans a little closer, so he has Billy’s ear. “That gonna be a problem for you?”

Billy wills himself not to flinch, Harrington drawing back.

“You got the wrong end of this,” he says tightly. He hates himself for saying it, stalling in a fight he needs like nothing else.

Harrington’s stare is dark, daring him. “Got the wrong end of what?”

Tommy puts his hand on Harrington’s shoulder but Harrington shakes it off. “Got the wrong end of what, Hargrove?”

Billy tries to sneer.

Harrington snorts, disappointed, backing off. “Guess you don’t follow through after all.”

He watches Harrington walk away, heart pounding. “Next time you wanna pick a fight, I’ll be here, Harrington,” he calls after him, desperate. “Anytime you wanna remember how to lose!”

“Look around you, Hargrove,” Harrington calls back. He twists around, walking, throwing his arms out at the whole quarry, the crowd gathered around the fire. “We’re all losers,” he says, turning heads. A couple guys from the team toast Harrington with their beers. “That’s the party,” he spits acidly. And quieter, like he doesn’t care if he’s heard or not, walking away again: “That’s the whole f*cking point.”

A murmur starts in the truck, the party resuming, uncertain.

Tommy scruffs a hand up the back of his neck.

“Don’t sweat it,” Billy says, before he can babble some sort of apology.

Tommy nods, toying with the tab on his beer. He shoots a glance down to the edge of the water where Becky is trying to pry her way into Harrington’s feelings, going by the stiff way he’s standing while she tugs on his jacket, paws at his collar, trying to soften him up.

“Any of those girls from Pennhurst show up?” he asks, watching Becky try to touch Harrington’s cheek, getting an irritated flinch for her efforts.

Tommy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, uh, no? But, well—” He clears his throat, his always-grin returning, back on familiar ground. “Miller’s sister—she’s here.” He points over by one of the fires where a clump of girls are huddled around drinking wine coolers. One of them tips her head back to laugh, self-consciously showy, stealing an obvious glance in their direction right after like she’s checking to make sure it’s been appreciated. “And you know,” Tommy continues, “Carol says she’s had a thing for you since the party in her basem*nt…”

Billy doesn’t remember any girl from the party at Carol’s, but then again, they’re all pretty much the same.

“What’s she like?” he asks, cracking his beer finally.

Tommy nudges him, relieved. “Well, I mean, if your type is easy…?”

Mindy looks again and this time he makes sure she knows he’s looking back.

“Sure,” he says. Easy’s his type.

Easy’s not what he came here for.

Easy’ll do.

^^^

Billy kisses Mindy Miller. Kissing’s a waste of time and not really what he’s into, and he’s not anywhere near drunk enough to like it any better with her, but it just makes sense to do—like taking a piss when you don’t really need to ahead of a long ride.

Tommy’s wrong about her being easy. She’s surprised by the kiss, and stiff about it, her hands fluttering lightly over his arms like she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to grab on. And she’s a prude too, when tries to put his hand up the back of her shirt to feel at the clasp of her bra, just testing—not her, but Miller, prowling around the perimeter of the firepit like a hyena with a stick up its ass.

He figures she’s a virgin or close to it. If he doesn’t f*ck it up tonight, and if he paces things right, he can probably string it out for a month or two, keep Susan and his dad off his back. That’s where he went wrong with Lacey—good to go from day one.

They make out for…he doesn’t know how long. He can’t even zone out because of the way she kisses, pulling away every few seconds to smile, giddy and sheepish, disbelieving. He’s running out of all the types of smile he has in the bank at this point, neck getting a crick in it from bending down to her, his legs numb from being locked in place for so long. The ground’s too cold to sit on, and he’s not gonna move them somewhere more private for more reasons than he wants to do the math on tonight.

Eventually the party dies out without ever really getting going, no new blood to make things interesting and all the guys from the team flagging early. The next time he surfaces the fire has dwindled down to almost nothing in the drum, the cold cinching closer, making him shiver under all his layers.

In the end, he does the smart thing, packing her off with her brother in the back of one of the last pickups to leave, waiting for the smokescreen of pale quarry dust chirred up in its wake to wipe the taste of her chapstick off his mouth—forgetting the flavor the moment it’s gone.

He should give his car a minute to warm up but he doesn’t bother, cranking his headlights on and just about jumping out of his skin at the ghostly apparition of Becky in front of him, hugging herself in her cardigan.

She holds a hand up against the glare. He knocks his skull back against the headrest tiredly. f*cking figures.

He cuts the ignition, throwing his door open to plant one foot on the ground, arm over the top of the cab. Becky sniffles, wrapping her cardigan tighter around her. “Can I get a ride?”

“Where’s your boyfriend?”

She opens her mouth to answer—

“—Steve! C’mon man, you’re acting like an asshole.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Harrington scoffs back, stomping across the path of Billy’s headlights to Tommy’s car, parked nose-to-nose next to the Camaro, yanking on the locked door. “Carol, open the door!” Billy can’t see past the tinted glass, but he’s pretty sure Carol gives Harrington the finger, because Harrington smacks the window irately a moment later, yanking frustratedly at his hair. He tries the handle again, tugging it futilely again and again.

“Think that’s your ride,” Billy tells Becky.

“C’mon, buddy,” Tommy says, muscling Harrington away from the door. “Why don’t you take a walk, huh? Cool off some. Then I’ll take you home.” At Harrington snagging his hands in his hair again Tommy changes tack: “Or we can all crash at mine,” he corrects. “C’mon, it’ll be like old times.”

“No,” Harrington moans. “No, I don’t want old times.”

“Then what do you want?” Tommy asks, exasperated.

Harrington gives him a stroppy distressed look. Billy knows he wants to say something like what he said in Carol’s bathroom—I can’t stand it here. I can’t f*cking stand it. But he can’t say that to Tommy. He can’t say that to anyone but Billy.

“Tommy,” Carol says impatiently, her window rolled down an inch.

“Just—” Tommy barks, voice softening. “Gimme a minute.”

“Give her ten, man,” Harrington says sneeringly. “It’s not seventh grade.”

“Hey!” Tommy barks, shoving him just once, a warning, the force of it enough to send Harrington back a step.

“What the f*ck, Tommy?”

“I’ve had it with this crap, man. What the hell is going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Harrington says sulkily. “Nothing. Everything’s hunky-f*cking-dory, Tommy, okay?”

“Is this…” Tommy’s voice drops, an unusually serious tone Billy hasn’t heard out of him before. “Is this about Nancy Wheeler?”

Harrington looks like he’s going to spew. “No,” he says, gutted. “What the hell, Tommy? No!”

“Then tell me what it’s about, man! Jesus Christ, I’m trying. We’re both—” he points at the opaque passenger window “—trying. Can’t you see that? Do you even care?”

Harrington gapes, shell-shocked. His eyes slide to Billy, noticing him for the first time, face souring. Tommy follows his gaze, frowning. Anger’s a good look on him, Billy wishes he could borrow some of it.

“You know what,” Tommy says, bulling around Harrington with his keys. “Find your own ride.” Becky takes her cue, hustling around the other side of the car with him and throwing herself in the back seat. With the door open and the cab light on Billy can see Carol properly, staring at him through the glass with an unreadable look.

“Tommy,” Harrington says, plaintive.

Tommy ignores him, closing his door. He winds his window down. “I’ll see you at practice.”

“f*ck you, Tommy!” Harrington spits.

“Sleep it off, Stevie-boy!” Tommy fires back, reversing out fast, gravel crunching under his tires.

Billy lowers himself back into his seat, closing the door, alone for only a few beats of his heart frantically pounding, doomed, fine dust spinning in his headlights pointed at the still black water. Harrington throws himself in the passenger seat a moment later. “Just take me home,” he says thickly.

“All right,” Billy says.

“Knock it off.”

Billy slots his tongue angrily behind his teeth and turns the engine over.

They drive.

Well, Billy drives. Harrington’s not a part of it like how Billy guesses he got used to him being.

It’s a beautiful night out, with a beautiful sky, but Harrington doesn’t seem to notice or care much. He doesn’t tip his head against the glass to watch or hold his arm out against the zip of the wind or do some dumb sh*t like stick his head out the window, crowing like how he did once only because he was making fun of how Billy would do it. Instead, he sits in festering gnashing silence, breathing quiet but angry, focused, like he’s white-knuckle trying to not barf or start a fight. The tension in the cab is excruciating. Billy thinks about putting his music on, and then thinks about what it’ll feel like if Harrington reaches over—how he thinks he’s allowed to, in Billy’s car—and turns it off, or sneers at it, or says he hates it now.

He didn’t realize how much time he spent driving around Hawkins with Harrington wishing the road would never run out until Harrington made a fifteen-minute ride to Loch Nora feel like an hour.

Every second draws out to its full length and more, Billy praying they can both keep their mouths shut long enough for Billy to do a soft brake and kick Harrington out on his lawn.

Finally, they’re in front of Harrington’s house. Billy wrenches the handbrake on, kills the engine.

The silence in the car gets worse without the noise of momentum to cover over it, the quiet of Harrington’s street claustrophobic, resentment lathering up between them in the cab like a physical thing, a weight to it, the engine ticking uneasily in the bonnet. Harrington breathes unhappily loud against the glass of his own reflection.

Billy keeps his hands on the wheel. “You waiting for me to walk you inside or something?”

Harrington releases a bottled scoff at that, his mouth making a mean shape. “You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

Billy doesn’t let himself feel anything. He grits his teeth, knuckles creaking on the wheel. “I don’t know what the f*ck you’re talking about.” He ignores Harrington’s disbelieving snort. “I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but you got it twisted.”

“Mmhmm,” Harrington hums, sarcastic, lip pinched between his teeth angrily. He stays twisted away, facing out the window at the lit facade of his home like he’s looking at just some stranger’s house, hands still in his lap.

“Get out,” Billy says.

“Make me.”

“You’re wasted.”

The noise Harrington makes is full of scorn. “Yep.” His head lolls on his neck, his eyes locking on Billy’s. “Why? You gonna do something about it?”

The unsaid word hangs between them:

Again.

Billy ignores the sensation of blood draining out of his face, the pit opening up in the bottom of his stomach.

Because Harrington’s looking at him, finally, just at him, and Billy’s only had one beer all night but getting looked at like that—when Harrington’s got eyes on him like that—it’s like a slug of top-shelf bourbon—poison he can’t get enough of now he knows the taste of it.

The air in the cab changes between them. Thickens with something.

It’s a mistake, but Billy looks anyway—is compelled to, the way he always is these days, like a dog running the full length of its chain. The cab is dark and Harrington’s jeans are tight and he’s big enough you can’t really tell if he’s hard in them, but Billy looks long enough to imagine he is anyway—his brain offline, body spinning for just the space of one heartbeat—that pit in his stomach turning in on itself with heat.

And then…

And then he just keeps on looking, helpless, like being too tired not to stare at something—looking, even though he knows he shouldn’t. Even though Harrington’s watching him back.

Billy can smell him: woodsmoke and sour beer and the fainter headier smell of his cologne that sticks to his clothes and his hair even when it’s been sweat off and scrubbed away with cheap locker-room soap. It hijacks his senses, makes him dumb and hot all over.

One of them swallows, the click of it humiliatingly loud in the quiet.

Harrington’s…

Billy could swear…

He stops breathing.

His hand not on the wheel twitches, and Harrington sees, the small movement snapping the trance like a rubber band. He tenses, sucking in a surprised breath, eyes darting, searching. Then he turns away like he’s been stung while Billy goes on holding onto the wheel like it’s the only thing in the whole world, face burning.

“Hey,” Harrington says a tense span of seconds later, finding his voice while Billy keeps on concentrating on breathing right. “Hey,” Harrington says, harder, a vindictive slur to it. “Tell me a secret.”

Billy twitches in his seat.

“You owe me,” Harrington says.

A black eye and a secret.

God. Billy could almost laugh. He remembers Becky’s confusion from the other day and Harrington’s blank stare, making a point of uncomprehending. “I don’t owe you sh*t, remember?”

Harrington snorts, the sound loaded.

Billy feels a tremble of real anger under the warm wash of shame. He tests his jaw out on nothing. “You wanna say something to me you better out and f*cking say it or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” Harrington cuts him off, voice low and dull. “Try to jerk me off again?”

Billy’s brain stalls like hung transmission, the rest of him sinking in on itself. “That’s f*cking…disgusting,” he croaks, the word falling apart somewhere in his throat. The next words come out quiet—a hollow tone he didn’t know he had: “Don’t say that kind of sh*t around me.”

For all it cost him to say it, it only makes Harrington laugh, a single disbelieving sound that rasps up Billy like sandpaper. “You’re kidding, right?”

Billy’s teeth creak in his head. “Don’t,” he warns.

“Jesus.”

“Get—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” Harrington says, throwing his seatbelt off and the door open, messy and too hard. “Don’t cream your pants.”

“Don’t—” Billy barks, to stop Harrington from slamming the door shut how he hates, but Harrington’s already wrenching the door open again. He leers in at Billy, eyes scrolling a pointed line down Billy’s chest to his lap. “Unless you already did,” he says.

Then he slams the door again, twice as hard.

Billy throws his own door open and heaves himself out before he can think it through, the sudden fierce press of cold night air barely registering. Harrington turns at the noise, halfway across his lawn. “Oh, thank God!” he yells, carelessly loud. Billy comes around the car, following him up over the curb, momentum threatening. Harrington throws his arms out wide like a curtsy, sarcastic, staggering. “There he is. Better late than never, never-have-I-ever.”

“Screw you,” Billy hisses, meeting him halfway as Harrington stumbles towards him, shoes slipping on the wet grass.

“C’mon, Hargrove, don’t puss* out now.” He comes up against Billy with two fingers jabbed into his sternum, holding him back. Billy feels his chest straining against them, the pressure almost sharp. “You get one for free all right?” he says, fingers pressing with slow accusation. His face screws up into a sneer. “I might even be awake this time.”

“f*ck you,” Billy breathes, tensing. “You’re so f*cking wrong.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. I owe you one, I owe you one,” Harrington mocks, making it ugly, not how it was between them.

“Don’t—”

“—f*cking, get some balls, man,” Harrington continues, pressing provokingly hard. “I know you’re a f*cking crybaby. But I figured you’d at least be good for one lousy punch.”

“I’m gonna f*ck you up, Harrington,” he snarls, hands balling into fists. His voice booms in the quiet cul-de-sac. He sounds dangerous. He sounds out of control.

Somehow, it just makes Harrington laugh. “f*ck me up?” He grabs onto Billy’s jacket, yanking. His face wavers from drunk to serious, sliding into something else: a hard mask over roiling anger. “f*ck me up? You already did.”

Harrington shoves him away, turning. He makes it two steps up the slope before he’s turning around again. “You know what? You’re a coward.”

“No, I’m not,” Billy lies.

“Oh yeah?” Harrington’s face goes flat. “Tell me a secret.”

“Stop it.”

“No? How about a joke?”

“Harrington. I’m warning you...”

“Okay,” Harrington goes on jeeringly. “I’ll tell you one.” He pretends to think. “Hmm. Oh, I know! What—” He leans closer, the volume dropping out of his voice, low and spiteful. “What do you call a guy who gets hard looking at another guy’s dick?”

Billy tenses all the way up. “Don’t—”

Harrington takes a step closer, his two fingers landing again with drunk precision in the exact same spot. Billy’s heart lurches sickeningly at the closeness of his lips as they shape the words. Harrington says:

“You call him Billy.”

Billy decks him.

Billy…

Billy tries to deck him. Billy grabs hold of him by the front of his jacket and takes them both down on the ground, sliding, frozen grass jarring wet under the knees of his jeans, neither of them with any air in their lungs to get knocked out of them.

Billy has his hands on him and on him and—and he’s going to hit him. He’s going to. He wrenches Harrington up by the front of his jacket, nylon rending in his grip, Harrington stunned under him, pawing at his hands, too slow—and slams him back down with a messy thump.

Does it again—thump—Harrington tensed up this time, heavier—Billy…Billy wanting...something—something—waiting for the black haze of anger to descend and take over and do the right thing here.

Billy’s going to hit him.

He’s going to.

He will.

His necklace hangs between them, swinging.

Under him, Harrington’s expression changes, his eyes widening.

“Oh my God.” It comes out like a moan, a wobble of real panic in his voice as he starts to struggle, twisting out from under Billy’s numb hands. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” His sneakers slip on the slick lawn, gummed up with grass, kicking under Billy’s nose as he finds his feet.

Billy can’t move to stop him, watches him stumble clear, still on his knees.

Harrington turns around. He’s disheveled, his jacket rucked up in the front, his hair is a mess too, flopped to one side, wet at the edges—and Billy did that. His eyes dart all over Billy’s face.

“It’s not like that.”

He didn’t know he’d spoken, but he must have, because Harrington’s staring at him in half-sober horror. As Billy gets to his feet, he backs up an unconscious step. It’s like trying not to scare a deer, except Billy’s the one that’s frightened; Billy’s the one paralyzed.

“It’s not like that,” he says again. They’re not the right words. They didn’t work in Hayward, and they won’t work now, here, with Harrington.

“sh*t,” Harrington says like a hiccup, too fast. “sh*t. It is, isn’t it?”

“Harrington,” he says, urgent. “It’s not.”

Then, because he’s deranged or something—because the situation’s so bizarre and he sounds so desperately serious, because Harrington’s so totally utterly wrong about him, about it all—he laughs. It just bubbles right out of him, forced and dry and too-loud. Harrington stares at him like he’s gone totally loco.

The laugh tapers off with a weird rasp, Billy roughing a hand over his mouth to kill whatever might come after it, his throat twisting with the threat of something much worse. He sniffs hard to get it under control, takes a moment to tuck his shirt back into his jeans where it’s come loose in the tussle.

“You better go,” he says finally to Harrington, voice steady. “Don’t wanna keep your folks up.”

“They’re not—” Harrington says. “They’re not home, I’m…” He makes a face, realizing what he’s saying, and to whom. “I’m alone.”

“I know,” Billy says. All the lights are on in Harrington’s house. So Harrington’s not sleeping all that much either. Billy wishes he didn’t have to know he knows stuff like that about Harrington at a time like this.

He wants to say…

He wants to say, I’m alone, too. All the time.

But it’s okay, somehow, when I’m with you.

Harrington says, “Stay away from me.”

Billy tries to say something but there’s nothing in the pipe, the words—the confession: I’m not going to hurt you—something he can’t say yet, even though he’s realizing—horrified—it’s true; has been true, for a while now.

Friends.

Harrington’s the one who said it.

He said they were friends, and it’s meant more to Billy than what he’s willing to look at in daylight. It’s meant more to him than what Mrs. Wright’s English class has given him the words for. Billy didn’t even need one—a friend—until Harrington told him he was one.

Now, Harrington backs away from him, unsteady on the icy lawn, eyes on Billy to make sure he stays put.

Billy still wants to go after him—so bad. He wants to shake him again—feels like he could get it right this time, if Harrington just gave him a little more time. But he can’t even be sure of that—can’t lie to himself that he can guarantee what’s going to come out of him is a fight and not the burning-hot-humiliating not-fight that just happened.

Harrington’s backed up all the way up into the doorway, the light above illuminating him close-encounter strange, far away.

In another world, he dangles his keys at Billy—bullies him into coming inside. Billy makes himself forget it, like yanking the film out of a reel, putting a stop to the movie that wants to play out behind his eyes.

In this world, Harrington opens the door and goes through it and closes it on Billy’s face, leaving him alone in what remains of the dark.

Chapter 29: a civilization that knew nothing of him (part one)

Chapter Text

The storm Billy was waiting on never comes, but it does rain all week—driving torrential rain that never seems to go away, only eases up a little at odd hours, never enough to make anyone hope it’s going to stop. The first couple of days back after the night at the quarry, the school feels like it’s holding its breath, the constant shush of rain not quite loud enough to cover the whispers that follow him through the corridors.

By Wednesday the bigger rumors have eaten the smaller ones and the school is so rife with excitement over something new to gossip about that no one much bothers to keep their voice down anymore. And in any case, if the rumors are true—and all of them end the same way—Steve Harrington has washed his hands of Billy Hargrove; they don’t have to care if he overhears.

To Billy, it makes no difference. He’s been the new kid in school enough he knows how to carry himself. How to get through the day with eyes on him all the time. He’d be lying if he said he couldn’t feel a shift though, in the way they stare, now—more eager than curious, searching for the flaw that made Harrington find him lacking, looking for an opening, for entertainment.

Billy ignores it. He’s used to being sized up and used to persuading people he’s too big a fish to wanna try and take a bite out of. Besides, the only thing that occupies his mind these days is granting Harrington’s wish and staying the hell away from him, the threat of what Harrington might say or do if he doesn’t hanging over his head like a sledgehammer.

And staying out of Harrington’s way is much easier than he thought. Easier than it should be. Harrington’s conspicuously, disappointingly absent from his new undisputed role as King of Hawkins, just like he was after their collision at the Byers house: a ghost that the whole school revolves around. He replaces Tommy and Carol with Becky and her friends, a group of loudmouthed middle-tier kids who catch an attitude real fast with Harrington to orbit around.

It’s none of Billy’s business. Turns out, when things run how they’re supposed to, and him and Harrington let themselves get swept along with the respective tides of their day instead of doing all kinds of dumb reckless sh*t to hang out with each other, they don’t actually cross paths all that much. Billy only really encounters him at basketball practice and after last bell, when everyone floods the main hall in an impatient crush of umbrellas and Billy has to lock his jaw and pretend he can’t see him the way Harrington seems to be content pretending he can’t see Billy.

The hardest part of the day is lunch. Because of the rain, he has to get creative. On days when he can be sure he’ll get to the cafeteria first, he eats there, taking his usual spot at the table. Tommy and Carol join him, although they don’t enjoy each other’s company all that much, Harrington’s empty seat making Tommy surly, as usual, and Carol still sore at Billy over snapping at her, even though Harrington’s beaten him out for first place on her sh*tlist.

On days when he can’t be sure Harrington won’t already have beaten him to there, Billy takes his lunch to the corner room of the library and kicks out whichever randy couple are in there swapping spit so he can eat in peace. He doesn’t go to the darkroom, since that looks and feels like hiding.

By the end of the week, with the news officially out that him and Harrington aren’t tight anymore, everything easy about the school day that he’d taken for granted—friendly greetings and favors and allowances borrowed off Harrington’s good credit—turns off like a faucet. Guys who at least gave him a nod as they passed in the hall now ignore him. The reliable cluster of girls who used to dawdle around his car and locker to check him out vanish. The love letters in his locker dry up. Billy’s never cared much about being liked, but he supposes he was, for a while there, and it’s hard not to miss it.

The party invites are the least of it. They stop coming from anyone who wants Harrington to show up. So, they all stop coming. He crashes a couple anyway, bringing Mindy Miller with him as a date and using her as an excuse to leave when he gets bored since she doesn’t drink and hates crowds and is generally known to be a goody-goody buzzkill.

Seeing Harrington outside of school, even just in increments, Billy can tell he’s not doing well. He’s got shadows under his eyes again: not sleeping—sometimes looks like a life-sized sex doll Becky made for herself to fondle in public, smiling placidly, nothing but rock-solid boredom behind the eyes. At some house party not worth naming, he looks around the room and catches sight of Billy helping himself to a beer from the fridge and... And there’s nothing there. Just blank loathing, the faintest twitch of a frown, like Billy’s reminded him of something upsetting he was almost almost about to forget.

Even if he didn’t know what to look for, he’d still know Harrington isn’t in his right mind, because Billy only shows to the parties that don’t matter, the bottom of the barrel sh*t he’s banking on Harrington not being at, and Harrington’s still there, letting himself get carted around and trotted out by his new friends, getting suckered into juvenile party games that Billy would need a frontal lobotomy to play past age fourteen and which Harrington once confessed he’s never been game to play again since ninth grade when he had to french kiss Carol at spin the bottle.

Dating Mindy is kind of a catch twenty-two for his reputation, as precarious as it is right now. She’s a shut-in; not popular. The way she tells it, Miller kept her hidden away in her house like something out of a fairy tale the second she got pretty enough for his buddies to start sniffing around, so she hasn’t been to a lot of parties or on a lot of dates. She’s a backwards step for him on the lady-killing roster. But on the upside, she likes to move slow, and she hasn’t got much of an opinion on what they do with their time together, which works out perfectly, since all Billy wants to do is drive around listening to Motörhead until she works up the guts to ask if they’re supposed to be going somewhere special. Then he’ll take her home and park in her driveway and put on a show for Miller, feeling her up over her sweater-vest until she gets breathless and then sending her off like a gentleman.

In basketball the following week, they play Indianapolis High, but on their own turf this time. It doesn’t make a difference. Parker does his hamstring in the first quarter and Billy gets benched. Not for being too much, but for being not enough, for the first time in his high-school basketball career—getting backboard rebounds on five shots in a row by half time—that and the way he takes his frustration out on Miller, coming after him so fast the little pissant jumps a bench to get away from him. When Coach tells him to walk it off, he doesn’t argue it this time, trailing past the cold stares of his teammates and heading right out the gym and to his car instead without hitting the showers or anything.

It’s small consolation, but Harrington misses some of his shots too, and takes a pretty nasty fall colliding with Tommy.

After the walk-out, he stops showering after practices too. Going straight home sweating and stinking and going to bed without showering so that by the end of the week his bed smells like the grey glue that ends up in the bowls of cereal Max leaves in her room for a season. Now, he only showers in the morning, and whether the water is cold or hot doesn’t bother him.

Things get worse after they lose the game to Indianapolis. Someone rats on him for real and he gets a detention—not for stealing the conch but for the PA, which he didn’t do.

He knows it’s Harrington who did it. And it’s Neil who takes the call. Trying to delay the consequences, Billy asks Mindy to dinner the same day, like a gift horse. But instead, Mindy freaking Miller breaks it off with him. She does it to him in his car, too, which is the worst part. Even Lacey had had the good manners not to do that to him.

“Look, I’m really sorry,” she says, which is about when he realizes she’s not babbling about the usual bible-camp-prom-dress sort of sh*t he normally tunes out and is actually somehow breaking up with him instead of agreeing to Susan’s pot roast. “I just feel like maybe...you’re not that interested.”

“What makes you say that?” Billy asks thinly.

Her cheeks pink up. “I don’t know,” she says, losing her nerve. “I thought you’d be…different.”

“Uh huh.”

She shrugs, glancing at him. “I sort of thought you’d be more… I just thought that maybe before college…”

He snorts meanly.

She’s hurt by his laughter, shrinking in her seat. “I guess maybe we’re not compatible.”

“Well,” Billy says mockingly. “I guess maybe you’re a frigid bitch.”

Her mouth flaps open, offended. He ignores her, reaching over to turn his music up as she scrambles out of her seat. “You know,” she huffs, mascara running already, letting in an annoying spray of rain. “I defended you. But—but I guess it’s true what they write about you in the bathroom! You’re a—” She bunches up, too nice to spit out the word “—crappy date,” she finishes, storming off.

Billy stares blankly after her, breathing high and tight, his music not doing anything to take the edge off. It’s not the first time he’s been broken up with, but it is the first time it’s happened before even getting past first base. She could have at least slapped him. How’s he supposed to make sense of things if she’s not gonna walk out on a slap?

He goes home in a foul mood because of it and mouths off and gets his wish, in a way.

The fat lip he has to sport at school the next day is like the breaking of the dam. Everyone knows he has detention—that he’s the fall guy for the PA, and everyone knows someone slugged him, and they think it was Harrington. And because that means picking a side, everyone picks the side they were already on.

In English he gets called on to read and caught without his book open. The girl up front who usually prompts him just eyeballs him up and down like he’s tiresome, like he’s dumb, and someone in the back of the class giggles when the teacher gives him a minute to find his place.

“Loser,” someone murmurs, gone in the crowd before Billy can make them rethink the threat.

It’s like there’s blood in the water and Billy’s gotta spend twice as much energy as he normally does to pretend there isn’t—or at least to pretend he doesn’t care.

That means fitting himself back into the role that fits this situation best, which is just the version of himself that he rolled into town with, except keeping his big mouth shut this time, and not pulling pigtails for something to do.

It means working out every day after school and eating lunch wherever the f*ck he wants, which includes the cafeteria, even if it means sitting alone, shoving food into his mouth and pretending he can’t see Harrington across the room with Becky doing all the textbook possessive girlfriend sh*t like tweaking his hair and wrapping herself around his arm.

It also means doing sh*t like shoulder-checking dweebs like Jonathan Byers when they cross paths, knocking their textbooks to the ground, avoiding the disapproving stare of nerds like Nancy Wheeler and Robin Buckley.

The whole thing is so mundane it takes his breath away, literally, all day long, like he’s breathing through a bent straw at high altitude or something, the air thin and useless to him. It’s like he’s getting towed under that wave again, somersaulting over and over and over until his lungs are starting to bruise, trying to get used to it, since it’s not worthwhile trying for the surface.

At night though…

At night he plugs his long-lead headphones into the stereo in his room and lies in bed on his dirty sheets and listens to the radio all night long, hunting for a new song to fall in love with, since counting sheep doesn’t work, and while he does that, he imagines scenarios in which he got the thing with Harrington that night right.

He runs over a version of events where he gets up and drags Harrington out of his car so that things are violent from the start how they should have been. The way he remembers it, Harrington was so drunk he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep his legs under him, and maybe Billy could have dragged him all the way up his lawn, kicking and flailing, thrown him over the threshold of his big empty house with all the lights turned on, dump him on the hard floor. Except sometimes that one goes pear-shaped at the end.

He tries one where Harrington says he’s going for a swim, since that’s what he likes to do in his nice heated pool when he’s drunk, and Billy lets him go and that’s the end. But then he can’t make that one work either because he imagines Harrington drowning and Billy having to jump the fence and come save him, pull him out of the pool all wet and slick and gasping and hanging onto him for dear life.

It’s better to keep things realistic.

He doesn’t always change big things. Sometimes the details he changes are just small.

In one, when Billy’s got him on the ground and he’s shaking him—when Harrington’s staring up at him, stunned—Billy lets go. Takes his hands off him to make a point. Steps away and says something cool like, Yeah, I didn’t think so—and then he’d watch Harrington scramble into his house like a f*cking scaredy cat.

Or, before that, back in the car, when he’s staring at Harrington and Harrington’s staring and staring and staring back at him, and his whole body is plunging all over with white-hot nerves, instead of moving—instead of ruining it like he did—Billy just… Billy just…closes his eyes, and waits.

That one’s the worst. That one’s so much worse. Because when he opens his eyes in his bed, with his headphones playing the end of some tinny country song, it’s like he’s brought that feeling with him, tingling all over his skin—except he’s alone, and it didn’t happen that way, and it would have been the worst possible thing to have happened, except that Billy—

Except that Billy wanted it to.

It feels so suffocatingly dangerous to even let it cross his mind, at two am with his door closed, in the dark—even just as part of making the fight happen how it should have. He’s too tired not to go down all he rabbit holes of what it means about him, his thoughts clamoring, pulling ideas and fantasies out of him like ribbons until he has to put a pillow over his face and smother himself to sleep.

All of his scenarios end the same way but one:

Stay away from me.

Billy should have been the one to say it first. Billy should have blamed Harrington for it. He wants to. It’s Harrington’s fault. Harrington shouldn’t have closed the door on him. Shouldn’t have locked it behind him. Billy didn’t deserve that. Billy can blame him for that, at least.

But he doesn’t. And now he has to make this work—the way things are. Has to walk around Hawkins along a predetermined groove, like an animatronic at a funfair attraction, doing and saying what he’s supposed to in order to look and feel like Billy Hargrove.

It doesn’t matter. He does the right things and looks and talks the same, but he feels different.

Awake or dreaming, he wears Harrington’s stare on him, all the time now.

^^^

Friday night. There’s a party going on somewhere in Hawkins he’s not invited to and Billy’s stuck taking Max on one of her lame dates. He pulls up out the front of the arcade but the rain is coming down so hard it’s like being inside a drive-thru car wash, the open door of The Palace an indistinct wavering blob of yellow beyond the rain sheeting down the windshield.

There was another away game today. He doesn’t know if it was raining over there because he wasn’t allowed to go this time; Coach made that clear after his little hissy fit: no permission slip from home, no play. The bus would have got back a couple hours ago. He doesn’t know if they won or lost, but he knows which outcome he’d like less.

He can sense Max getting antsy in her seat, tweaking the toggle on her raincoat, waiting for him to snap and kick her out into the downpour while he goes on scratching idly at the side of his mouth with his thumb, half lost in thought. “Just wait,” he says. “It’ll blow over.”

He can’t even say why he says it. The parking lot is half-flooded, rain sloshing up over the curb, sluicing down the road. For all he knows it’s going to go on forever until the whole of Hawkins is one big lake. He just wants her to chill out. Maybe he just wants an excuse to sit here a little while longer instead of going home where his dad is going to nag him about all the repairs he’s gotta do on the weekend.

Max’s friends haven’t arrived yet from what he can see, the arcade nearly empty, no bikes parked outside. Keith is working tonight, which is just as well, seeing as how the last time he saw Buckley he was headed the other way while she was looking around desperately for someone to help her wrestle a bunch of band gear through a fire door. Billy tries not to feel too guilty about it, seeing as how the him that was letting her act chummy with him probably wouldn’t have stopped to help either.

Max relaxes back into her seat hesitantly, the rain continuing to drum on his car roof.

What if he’d gone back? What if Harrington hadn’t locked the door? (Billy doesn’t know for sure that he did). What if Billy went back and went inside and turned all the lights out so Harrington could sleep.

“You don’t scare me,” Harrington would say, in the dark.

“I don’t want to,” Billy would say back.

Max tweaks the glovebox open, rifling around for gum or whatever; who knows. She huffs. “Do you have my compact?”

“Hm?”

“My makeup? I think I left it in here a while back.”

He lifts his elbow off the center console distractedly for an answer. He supposes that particular re-imagining is just as dumb as the others. It ends the same way too, just, with a nice bit in the middle.

“Billy,” Max says, and her voice is so odd it pulls him from his thoughts. “Why do you have a picture of Nancy Wheeler in your car?”

Billy freezes in place, arm propped against the door, thumb in the corner of his lip. His blood turns to ice.

“Oh,” Max says, voice small and far away. “Is that—?”

“Max,” he says. “Give that to me.”

Her head snaps up, looking at him, mouth dropped open in realization. “You—”

“Max,” he says again, strained.

She hands the photo over and Billy’s fist seizes around it, automatic, compressing into a ball, the paper so well-loved it folds right up like tissue.

The rain continues drumming on the roof of the cab, uncaring of how his world just got turned upside down, again.

He wants to say so many things at once—lies, excuses, pleas, threats—they bottleneck in his throat and nothing comes out, staring at her, wall-eyed, doing nothing while Max stares back at him, brow pinched, dots connecting. He can’t do anything to make her stop.

“Please.” The word is rusty in his mouth.

Max blinks, frowning. “Do you—?”

“No.”

She breathes in, shaky. “Billy.”

“Don’t,” he says harshly. “Don’t.”

She takes another quick breath. “Is he—?”

“No. Stop, Max. It’s not what you think.”

“What is it?” she asks, desperate.

He blinks hard at her, waiting for inspiration, fear burning it right out of him. He’s had so much time to prepare for this. So much time, since Hayward. How is it happening again? How has he f*cked up this bad, with her, again?

“I…” he says, making a sound that might just pass for a laugh. “So…I got a thing, for Wheeler,” he says, stilted. “So what?”

Maxine’s mouth pulls thin like she’s gonna bawl. Her eyes dart to his hand clutching the photo, to his face. She swallows. “Okay.”

He gasps out a breath, chest aching from holding it too long. “Don’t…don’t tell him.”

“Steve?”

“Neil,” he rasps.

“Oh.”

She looks away finally, tucking her hands between her knees, hunching in on herself. She flicks a glance at him. “Do…” Her voice is tiny. “Do you…like her?”

Billy shakes his head, the denial sticking on his tongue, brain short-circuiting under the weight of the confession, on top of the roiling pit of emotions he’s always snubbed out in smears before he could know the shape of them, so that what comes out is just a breath that hurts him like coughing up a razor to say:

“Yeah.”

One word.

He’s so high on his own fear from saying that one small easy word he’s floating, queasy with it, waiting for the sky to fall in. More afraid of Max now than he ever was when she was standing over him with a bat.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Max says.

He jerks his head around to stare at her, surprised. He still remembers her face, behind her mother, the first time, when his dad found the magazine because of what she told him—just some snide grievance she’d been keeping to herself after snooping in his room, that she told to the wrong person at the wrong time because Billy ran over her stupid f*cking board. He remembers how annoyed he’d been at how scared and confused she was when things played out how they did, hating her for not knowing how bad it would go, hating himself more for not knowing either, and for not thinking through what putting it under his mattress meant about him in the first place.

But she doesn’t look frightened now; she doesn’t say it like she’s frightened. She says it like she’s trying to make a promise. “I can keep a secret,” she says, chin tilted up, firm. “I can…I know how to keep a secret, now.”

He waits for the ultimatum. The threat. The bat between the legs.

But it doesn’t come.

“Max,” he says, shaky, because he’s too caught up in the receding tide of terror to say: Thanks.

The rain keeps sliding down the windshield, a familiar pack of figures sloshing their way up over the storm drain, running for the near cover of the arcade. Max watches them but stays put.

He keeps his gaze fixed forward, dreading all the questions shes going to ask about it, heart pounding with the knowledge that she has questions.

“Are you okay?”

Surprised, again, he finds himself nodding. “Don’t tell your friends.”

She scowls. “I said I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Okay,” he says, clearing his throat, at a loss with how to respond to her conviction. “Uh. Enjoy your date.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not a date.”

“Playing it casual,” he jokes weakly. “Very cool.”

She shakes her head, heaving herself out of the car.

He clears his throat again. “Tell Sinclair to put a raincoat on.”

Max folds the hood up on her yellow raincoat, bangs already plastered down with rain, flicking him the double bird before she pops the door shut.

He watches her duck under the eave of the arcade building, disappearing inside. Once she’s gone, he uncurls his hand around the photo, letting himself look, since there’s no rush for him to be anywhere—since the whole world outside his car might as well not exist, the rain sealing him off inside with the suffocating weight of his feelings loosed from out under his skin.

The paper’s eroding along its creases, the slick surface broken by creases, the deepest in the center down the middle of Nancy Wheeler’s back where he always folds it. It’s hard to tell what Max saw, looking at it. The image is indistinct and grainy, the two figures in the bedroom unidentifiable to a stranger. Billy sometimes feels like he’s spent so much time staring at it, willing it to make him feel any other way than what he does, that he’s got it stamped into his brain.

He rubs the pad of his thumb tenderly over the black and white shape of Harrington’s shoulder, the line of his elbow. His gut pulls taut, heart skipping a beat, the way it always does.

He lets out a shaky breath and folds the photo carefully. Puts it back in the console as deep down as it goes.

Chapter 30: a civilization that knew nothing of him (part two)

Chapter Text

The conversation with Max rattles him so bad he turns the wrong way out of the arcade and ends up doing under the speed limit on some endless backroad, forgetting he’s supposed to be looking for somewhere to turn around.

Already he’s been over what he thinks came out of his mouth so many times it might not be anything close to what he really said to her—memory shoring up the walls of plausible deniability with the secret already loosed outside.

A familiar sign looms into place between strokes of his windscreen wipers, blinking to life against the dusk.

He’s come as far as the Fair Mart, which isn’t that far at all.

He exhales, relieved, feeling up his shirt for his smokes and tossing the empty packet on the other seat, taking the turn off. He needs gas anyway.

There’s something like a break in the rain at least, just drizzling miserably, spotting the shoulders of his jacket while he hooks his car up to the pump. It’s a quiet sort of night, everyone boring or sensible tucked up indoors or everyone else probably packed into Main Street for movies and bowling. The Fair Mart is on the other side of town, serviced by a road that only really gets used by people passing through or kids doing a beer run.

As he watches a lone sedan blow past, the sky blinkers white and then purple with distant lightening. He tucks his chin to his collar, trying not to let his teeth chatter, scoping the joint idly while he waits for the ensuing thunder. There’s only one other car parked at the Fair Mart: a hulking square-bodied Chevy C/K Billy last saw when he was hanging Harrington out the back of it, his stomach full of butterflies from the pill Willa gave him.

The dim roll of thunder somewhere far off brings him back, the gas dial winding past nine dollars.

Crap. He only meant to put in a half tank. He’s got ten dollars in bills in his wallet at most. He pats himself down out of habit, coming up with nothing.

Swearing under his breath, he cracks the Camaro’s back door, searching the backseat, but there’s only his bookbag and the stupid conch that he keeps forgetting to return—and probably won’t ever, now that he’s going down for the PA thing too. He ignores it, shoving the passenger seat forward, relieved to see there’s a scatter of quarters amongst all the other trash Max has been dropping or stuffing down the side of her seat for years: crumbs and candy wrappers and ketchup packets, a string of arcade tokens she accused him of stealing a while back. He rears out of the backseat to straighten up and count, scrubbing at his running nose with the back of his jacket cuff, eyeing the climbing price on the pump.

Swearing again, he rips the nozzle out at the mark three quarter mark and re-holsters it. He’s got just enough for the gas and not enough for his smokes. He does the math hustling across the forecourt, keeping his face turned away from the rain. Looks like he’ll have to spend the weekend chewing his nails down to stumps.

“Need a helping hand?”

Billy slows just beyond the reach of the Fair Mart’s light, rain beading on his cheeks. The voice comes from the shadow of the ice machine, a man there, smoking. It’s the driver of the Chevy. Billy recognizes his leather jacket—the sort you gotta clean the blood out of if you’re lucky enough to find it at the thrift store. There’s a smattering of cigarette butts in the puddle of rainwater at his feet.

At Billy’s stare, the man tugs the cigarette off his lip, tilting it in the direction of Billy’s car. “Looked like maybe you got caught a little short there.”

Billy squeezes his hand around the change in his pocket. “I got it.”

The man—what had Willa called him? One of those names you’re supposed to forget instantly after hearing it—nods, sucking in another lungful of smoke and letting it boil out of his nose. “If you’re sure...”

Billy swallows, eyes drawn to the pack of reds cupped in the man’s other hand, palms itching for a cig of his own. Leather Jacket just goes on watching him back, but he doesn’t offer. “Well,” he says, with just the hint of a smirk. “You just let me know, if you change your mind.”

Billy suppresses a shiver, pushing the door open with a noxious bleat of the store bell.

The kid at the register eyes Billy’s ratty Whitesnake tee and flannel over the top of his comic book, tracking Billy with open suspicion as he cruises by on his usual path towards the beer fridge, flicking the wet ends of his hair out of his jacket collar and dragging his wet fingers over the rack of stag mags and jerky since he’s putting on a show.

One of the spinning racks on the end of the aisle has an array of sunglasses. He picks up an ugly wraparound pair with polarized green lenses, mouth hooking to one side in a wry smile, catching the clerk’s eye and stuffing them back into place.

Maybe if he had the cash to burn he could’ve hung around a little longer and sweet-talked the guy outside into helping him buy some booze. Maxine doesn’t need picking up for another couple hours and it’s not like he ever really fell out of practice drinking by himself—that sh*t comes back like a riding a bike when you’re a Hargrove.

Just a couple more years now ‘til he can buy his own and get started being an even bigger piece of sh*t than his father. But tonight, all he can do is kill a little time under the questionable warmth of the fluorescents, taking in the array of familiar labels while he does the math in his head on whether he can get a Slim Jim or something with what’s left after gas.

Behind him, the bell chimes and Billy lifts his gaze automatically—and immediately curses his bad luck as the reflection in the fridge door shows him a semi-familiar group of kids from school hustling in from the cold: Miller and a pair of guys from the team, and one of Becky’s climber friends.

None of them notice him right away. They’re in high spirits, making a performance out of getting supplies for whatever party they’re obviously headed to, animated and hyper in that way that’s only not obnoxious when you’re a part of it.

“Well, you take a shot then,” Miller says sulkily, trying to hold his own against the older guys ribbing him. “If Coach ever lets you off the bench.”

“Can’t do any worse than you guys,” the other guy says. “It’s like you’re actually trying to lose.”

So that settles how the game went without him then.

Right on cue, Becky strolls through after them, bouncing on her heels. He watches her pluck some random candy bar off the nearest display, tossing it to Harrington as he steps over the threshold behind her, continuing some flirtation that started outside.

Dammit.

Harrington tosses the chocolate on the counter, a bland smile on his face. He’s turned the collar of his bomber up as a concession to the cold but his hair is still enviably dry. Billy feels his own hair stuck to his cheeks, clammy with rain, and doesn’t look away, even though he wants to.

Overhead, the thunder rolls a little closer and the display of Coors and Miller Lite blinkers, the overheads battering in their fixtures so that Billy’s looking at his own stranded reflection in the smudged glass for a disorienting moment—and when it solidifies, Harrington’s looking at him back.

It’s not hard to do; the Fair Mart’s too small and Billy’s not short enough or meek enough to hide behind the racks. The others go on talking, but Becky picks up on Harrington’s distracted gaze, following it to where Billy’s yanking just any old six-pack out of the fridge for something to do with his hands. She nudges one of her friends and the group falls quiet, scoping around to see.

“Pump one,” Harrington says to the clerk. Becky slumps herself over his back, neatening his collar, toying with the lock of hair that always curls up from behind his ear, probably not realizing she’s undoing all the hard work of Farah Fawcett. Billy closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, it’s only to stare at the label on the beer like it’s a novel, ears pricking at the way Becky’s friends whisper to each other, their giggles only half-stifled, for his benefit.

Annoyance—at the situation, at his bad luck and bad timing—at his own sh*tty promise to himself to keep his mouth shut, to keep away—draws his spine up tight, shoulders tensing together. He makes himself do nothing with it, waiting to go numb instead, like how he’s always doing now that it seems like this mess with Harrington’s broken some small but vital fuse between him and his anger.

The others are hamming up talking about the party he’s not invited to and he’s pretending he can’t see them out the corner of his eye—doesn’t care. He got a Walkman for Christmas and he has his headphones in so he can’t hear them—is playing just whatever song won’t make him think of Harrington next time he hears it.

The clerk seems to hate Harrington’s guts just about as much as any loser guy in town who can’t get any ass because of him, taking his cash and stowing it in the register with menacing blankness.

Billy throws the beers back in the fridge the moment they’re gone, approaching the register, twice as eager to be gone. He dumps his bills on the counter, quarters scattering after. The guy heaves a sigh, leaning forward on his stool to scrape it all up.

“Just the gas,” Billy mutters, thumbing one of the postcards on the counter display. Honestly, he’s been thinking lately how it’s a waste of money—buying them to send to her. What he was trying to say with them was that there was something here worth seeing, but now he’s been thinking—maybe you can think something’s beautiful or special and it’s only you who thinks it, or it’s just that way because you told yourself it was, until you get over it. This one’s just some sh*tty leftover anyway, with a sale sticker on it: a vista of a beach and a palm tree Hawkins doesn’t have.

The guy finishes up dumping Billy’s change in the machine and slaps a pack of Marlboros down on the counter. At Billy’s blank stare, he points out the window. “Hotshot paid for ‘em.”

Billy’s head snaps around to look. Harrington’s still making his way to his car, a little behind the others. Billy snatches the cigs up with a sharp movement, leaving his change and storming out the door without a second thought, the bell clanging angrily at his back. It’s still only misting outside, his furious breath spiraling out in front of him on the frigid air as he storms across the asphalt towards Harrington’s car. Miller’s clown car is there too, Becky’s friends fooling around and taking their time piling into it.

“Hey!” he barks, hoarse, turning heads. He catches up with Harrington before he can get his door open, wrenches him around by the shoulder and shoves him back a step, Harrington going easy, like he was expecting as much.

Billy flicks the pack of cigarettes dismissively at his chest, letting it flop to the ground between them, settling in a puddle of oily rainwater. “Keep ‘em. You need the bad habit more than I do.”

Harrington makes a humorless noise through his nose. “Whatever, man. I was just being polite.”

“Yeah, you can keep that, too. I don’t f*cking want it. Not from you.”

Harrington’s expression is the same blank mask he’s been wearing all week, mouth turned down in the corners, mildly annoyed at Billy’s finger threatening under his nose. Billy shoves him again so he bounces off the car door.

“Watch it,” Harrington says coldly, meaning his car.

“Why don’t you leave him alone, dude?”

It’s one of the other guys from the team who’s spoken, leaning an impatient arm out the truck.

You think he’s not alone with you already? Billy thinks viciously, ignoring him.

“This the crowd you’re running with now?” he asks Harrington, pointing his chin at the safe distance Harrington’s new friends have put between them and whatever might happen—nowhere near close enough to stop anything, but close enough to enjoy the show. Even Becky’s keeping the car between them, spectating like she wouldn’t mind a fight either if only it didn’t mean standing around getting her blowout ruined. “Tommy not taking your calls?”

Harrington just looks at him, dark-eyed. “I don’t want to fight you, man.”

Billy snorts. “Believe me, if I wanted a fight you’d know.”

“Would I?” Harrington mutters, looking away, jaw mulish. “Would you?”

“Hargrove, dude—”

“Two strikes, shortstack,” Billy barks, indicating with a threatening jab of his fingers. “I gotta hear your voice again, you better be able to wind that window up faster’n I can get over there.”

The guy rolls his eyes, but he hurries to pull his arm back inside, the window cranking up a moment later. Harrington lets out an annoyed sigh, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Something to say?”

“Not to you.”

“Oh, that’s right.” He snaps his fingers. “You’re a wallflower now, huh? See, that works for me just fine—you keeping your mouth shut about what you don’t know.”

Harrington does scoff this time. “Do you even hear yourself? You think you can threaten me?”

“I think you don’t know me,” Billy says, using Harrington’s words from the other night, not wanting to know if it’s a lie or not—but knowing anyway, once the words are out—that it is.

“I know enough,” Harrington says.

“That’s where you’re wrong. I got far worse in the tank if you wanna try me.”

“You’re bluffing.”

Billy huffs a mean sound. “You don’t even know what I can do to you.”

“Yeah,” Harrington says darkly. “I do.” A nervous edge enters his voice: “Do you?”

Billy feels himself flinch all over, his stomach twisting at the insinuation. Again, he bumps Harrington warningly against his car, both hands wrenched in the front of his jacket this time, upsetting his neatened collar. “You say you don’t wanna talk, but you sure as sh*t look like someone with something on their mind to me.”

Harrington’s eyes slide back to look at him, head-on. “Oh yeah? And whose fault is that?”

Billy tries to let him go but he can’t. “You think it’s mine?” he prompts, dangerous.

Harrington’s jaw clenches.

So that’s a yes then.

“You know,” Billy says quietly, lip curled, sneering. “You coulda saved Joyce Byers a plate—if this was all it took, to break you.”

“You—” Harrington reacts, getting his arms up, batting Billy’s hands off him with a sharp movement. He jerks his head away, glaring at nothing, tongue working angrily in his cheek. “You know, you were supposed to—” He shakes his head: a bleak smirk. “You were supposed to be normal.”

“I am,” Billy says, hot bile under the surface of the words.

“No, you— Harrington starts but cuts himself off again, like he’s not even gonna bother get it out. Like he’s spent all week hashing over all his betrayal and disgust to come up with just this: this disjointed accusation Billy’s not supposed to be able to understand. “You made me believe— You made everything—” His mouth stretches oddly, pained. “You just made everything worse,” he croaks.

Billy finds himself nodding in agreement, feeling nothing.

Okay.

It’s not like it’s not true. It’s not like he doesn’t feel the same.

“Yeah, well,” he says, sniffing hard to work the hurt shape off his mouth. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s just what I do.”

It’s just in his blood.

The others have gotten bored of whatever sort of exchange this has turned out to be, hanging around Billy’s car in a loose predatory formation that should take all of his attention, except that he doesn’t give two sh*ts about anything, let alone them, right now. A raindrop slops cold down the back of one ear and Billy follows it up, searching, but there’s nothing up there with an answer.

“Guess I forgot there for a moment.”

Harrington frowns, opens his mouth—

Lightening snaps across the sky, right overhead this time, big spidering tendrils that make the hair stand up on his arms. The sky’s still camera-click white when the power in the grid shuts off with a clunk, pitching the forecourt into near-perfect darkness under the gloomy night sky. Someone from Becky’s group lets out an excited howl.

“They’ll have a generator,” Billy says softly, feeling Harrington tense up in front of him. Predictably, the light in the Fair Mart blinks back to life, the road sign following with a delayed flicker of neon.

Thunder booms overhead again, even closer, but Harrington doesn’t flinch this time, staring at him. His big dark eyes flick searchingly over Billy’s, dropping to the cut on his upper lip. The swelling’s gone down, but the mark is still livid, bruised yellow at the edges, taking longer than normal to heal because Billy keeps absently picking the scab off with all the time he has to do nothing now. Harrington’s jaw clenches sullenly.

“Feeling guilty?”

Harrington frowns.

“Don’t worry about it, pretty boy,” Billy says, wanting to annoy him. Wanting them both to ignore the stupid tired note in his voice. “You were right,” he says. “It doesn’t hurt, not anymore. This one I didn’t even bitch out after.” He smiles, even though there’s no humor in it. Even though it draws the cut on his lip tight to the point of bleeding. “Think that means I’m growing up?”

Silent, Harrington’s throat bobs, his eyes stuck fast on Billy’s instead of the obvious wound.

Truth is, he did cry after, just like every time before—the usual slow crocodile tears that just keep coming even when you don’t feel anything but cold hard hatred—that only started this time because Susan tried to come at him with some ice when he wasn’t ready. And he knows Harrington was only lying to him back when he said it didn’t hurt. He knows that; Harrington only wanted to make him feel better. It’s not fair Billy should want to make him feel better when he only got socked in the first place because of Harrington’s big mouth.

“Next time you wanna get me a detention, at least have the balls to give me a heads up.”

“What?” Harrington’s hand snags over his wrist. It’s the first real contact from him all evening. “I didn’t get you in trouble.”

Billy scoffs, trying to take his hand back. “Whatever you say.”

“No,” Harrington says, his grip on Billy’s wrist insistent. “I didn’t tattle on you. I got detention too.”

“Me too,” Becky says, surprising them into remembering she’s there. “It wasn’t him.”

Billy narrows his eyes at the both of them, his tongue wedged unhappily behind his teeth. What difference does it make though really—who narked on him? Harrington or Wheeler or someone else who doesn’t matter—he still gets to pay what he paid for it.

Enough, he thinks. There’s a familiar tightness in his chest that says it’s time to go.

“Ask your girlfriend to fix your hair before the party,” he says for a goodbye, yanking his arm back. “You look like sh*t.”

“Yeah, well,” Harrington says, unusually petty. “No one asked you to look at me.”

It shouldn’t get at him the way it does, after he’s already decided to put this—the whole thing—to rest, the words burrowing under his skin and gouging right at the part of him it seems he can’t ever bury deep enough.

“Look at you?” Billy snarls disbelievingly, rounding on him. “Look at you?” he hisses. “Harrington, I wish I never laid eyes on you.” Someone from the group of onlookers sucks in a loud anticipatory breath but Billy pushes on, leaning close enough Harrington has to back up against his car. “I can’t f*cking wait to forget you,” he says. “Like everyone else in this town.”

“Then tell me why you’re always looking!” Harrington blurts, hard and flat, eyes sparkling with something too hurt to be anger. “Tell me what that is, huh? What is it, Hargrove? Tell me!” His nostrils flare. “What the hell do you want from me?”

Billy twitches, opens his mouth to sneer something, anything. But...

But how’s he supposed to answer a question like that?

What’s he supposed to tell him, when he doesn’t even have the right words to tell Max? To tell himself.

How he thinks of him in the smallest of moments when he forgets to be afraid.

How he’s kinder to him—more eloquent, somehow—in his dreams, when he gets to just be all the things he doesn’t get to be like everyone else.

How at first he thought he’d like him best hot and angry, but he’s been so many things since that Billy likes even more: vain and daring and impulsive, and yeah, pretty in a way that means he doesn’t have to be anything else—but he is anyway—has shown him, as if it’s something Billy deserves—to know all the ways he can wait and listen and make Billy feel like he’s not always only gonna be thorns.

What are the words for a feeling like that?

You’re different. You’re gentle.

You’re so good.

You’re brave, and afraid of something, and I wish I could tear it apart for you. I wish it could be the same thing I’m afraid of so I wouldn’t have to be afraid of it anymore.

You make it okay to talk when I’m no good at it.

You laugh at me and I like it better than my own music.

I don’t even know what I am, but I think if you told me, I’d try to be that.

How’s he supposed to say that? How’s someone built like Billy supposed to carry all that inside?

What does Billy want from him?

He doesn’t know.

But he can forget. See, that’s in his blood too.

He laughs: a drawn-out rasp about as convincing as a death rattle. He sniffs to put an end to it, shaking a finger at Harrington like, you got me. “I uh…” He tries for a smile and drops it. Won’t fool Harrington anyway. “I was just messing with you, Harrington,” he says dully. “You smalltown hicks are too easy to rile.”

“What?”

“Gotta stay entertained somehow, right? Beats tipping cows.”

“That’s bullsh*t,” Harrington says, catching on.

“Yeah,” Billy says. “Exactly. Glad you’re keeping up.”

Harrington swallows, something like hurt on his face, searching Billy for some meaning, some truth.

I’ll stop, Billy promises him, although he can’t say it to him just yet. I won’t look at you.

I won’t go looking for you.

Not even when it gets dark.

“Do me a favor. Next time you see me walking, don’t go after me, okay? Just keep driving.” He tries for a smile; doesn’t do half-bad at it. “I might not know where I’m going, but I’m sure as sh*t better off going there without you.”

Harrington stares at him, his chest rising and falling, but for all intents and purposes frozen in place.

Billy claps him on the shoulder—a brief thing, not lingering. “Thanks, y’know,” he says, determined to talk right through the traitorous wobble in his voice. “For helping me pass the time.”

The others have finally grown sick of messing around waiting for a show that won’t happen and have piled back into the truck for the most part, Miller left scrambling to find a seat to clamber into. The driver revs the truck, its big exhaust chugging boisterously. His window rolls down again, despite Billy’s threat. “We gonna party tonight or what, Harrington?”

Becky is still hovering by the passenger side of the BMW, her arms crossed tight under her jacket, earrings trembling from the cold. “Babe,” she says. “C’mon.”

“Let’s motor, Harrington!” Miller yells, less subtle, banging a rallying arm against the truck door. “Keg ain’t gonna kill itself! Keg King!” he chants jeeringly, the others picking it up, chanting with him:

“Keg King! Keg King! Keg King!”

The fine rain’s doing its work on Harrington finally, weighing his hair down, wetting the shoulders of his jacket. He’s staring at Billy like he’s waiting for more lightening, his frown something less angry now, that Billy’s not going to bother figure out—doesn’t have a use for, anymore.

“That’s you,” Billy says.

Then he makes good on his promise, finally, and walks away.

“Where are you going?” Harrington calls after him.

“Weren’t you listening, Harrington?” he yells back carelessly. “Away from you!” He hooks the Camaro door open, muttering to himself. “The way things should’ve been from the start.”

The sky flashes purple on the horizon, thunder chasing behind it at a dim roll somewhere further out—the storm blown over already, like he told Max it would.

“Steve,” Becky says. “C’mon, he’s not worth it.”

Billy keeps his eyes fixed over the Camaro’s roof, waiting for the sound of Harrington leaving.

“Come on, Steve,” Becky says again, more of a whine to it. “It’s just bullsh*t, like you said. Let it go.”

There’s a long pause.

Then Harrington moves. Billy hears his sneakers scrape on the ground, car door pulling open, snapping shut, followed a moment later by Becky’s. Finally, with a neat purr, the bimmer starts.

Billy lets out a breath, concentrating on the bite of his key in his palm instead of the sight of Harrington’s taillights pulling out of the Fair Mart and cutting out onto the empty road, the truck circling around after it.

“Hey Toto!”

He looks up.

Miller’s upper body is hanging precariously out the passenger window of the truck. He’s holding—Billy’s stomach twists angrily—he’s holding the conch.

He curses himself for the moment of carelessness—for the invasion, Miller’s dirty mitts in his car.

The truck revs nosily at the edge of the road, tires grinding, the passengers crowing inside. Miller’s grin stretches wide. “You weren’t gonna put this back were you?” Someone inside cackles, the sound carrying out the open window.

Billy grits his teeth so hard something pops in his jaw, his hand seized tight around his keys.

“Maybe start locking your doors, man,” Miller hoots, pointing the conch victoriously at him. “You’re not in Kansas anymore!” The truck grunts again, loping out, suspension ungainly, mounting the curb that separates the station from the road. Miller almost falls, slamming a hand over the roof for balance.

Give it back, Billy thinks—can’t bring himself to say. Maybe there was only a tiny part of him that believed he’d put it back, but seeing it in Miller’s hands…it makes his blood boil, remembering his promise to get that stupid f*cking seashell to a beach—bullsh*t, like everything else that came out of his mouth that night.

“Since you didn’t get a chance to play today,” Miller calls out. “You can thank me later!” He lines the conch up like a pigskin, swaying dangerously out of the window of the truck as it swerves. “Go fetch!”

The conch arcs up over the two-lane, as high and far as Miller can manage—which isn’t much, but is enough. It zips, spinning, overhead, gone in a flash of white into the tree line, the truck already fishtailing into the road, pointed after Harrington’s car, tires squealing.

Billy doesn’t think—stopped thinking when the conch went airborne. He throws himself into his seat with his key already finding the ignition, hardly feeling the engine come to life. He slams his boot on the accelerator, Camaro bucking up and over the median strip, scattering mud and old snow, ice rattling in the undercarriage like skittles, V-8 snarling. Rain streaks one way and then the other across the windshield as he wrenches the wheel, swerving out onto the road after them.

Up in front of the truck, Harrington’s car speeds up, pulling away, but the truck hangs back, Miller’s arm hung out the back like a flag. He shifts gears, pushing, the Camaro skipping a beat, engine gasping for a tense moment before it bottoms out into a hungry growl, the dark roadside streaking past his window. In front of him, the truck weaves, teasing, and he presses the Camaro forward, threatening.

One after the other, all three cars blow past the cop car parked with its lights off beside the road—empty or just dormant; they go past too quick to tell. The part of Billy not consumed with single-minded purpose cringes with the anticipation of sirens and flashing lights: a chase that doesn’t come even as he shifts gears again, urging his car to close the gap, the speedometer climbing.

The truck gasses it with an ugly rev, gaining ground by inches and then feet, skirting the reach of the Camaro’s lights: cheering from inside that Billy can’t hear above his pulse thumping in his ears as he plants the accelerator on the floor.

The last time he did this kind of speed he was chasing Maxine’s friends down this same road on their bikes; he remembers the swooping up-down length of it. Except this time there’s no Max to get in his way; no one in the passenger seat he’s taunting. Nothing but the white-noise crush of all his returned anger for company in the cab with him, pressing his foot down harder and harder on the pedal, feeling like he’s going to rattle apart before he can get as fast as he wants.

And this time, instead of speeding up, the Camaro drops away. The engine stutters, his foot trashing the pedal to no effect.

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

The air in the cab blooms with bitter smoke, something scorched, his eyes and nose stinging with it even as he jams the accelerator again, shifting gears on nothing. The engine coughs a warning, a crude squeal of something locking up, his dashboard lighting up.

No! No, no!

This can’t be happening.

But he’s losing speed already. The truck weaves madly up ahead, victorious, starting to tear away.

Billy slams the brakes, beating his frustration against the wheel. He wrenches the Camaro onto the shoulder, speed written off with a gruelling scrape of gravel, engine clattering. He wrenches the parking brake on the bare moment it’s stopped, kicking his way free to stumble out into the road just in time to see the truck and Harrington’s bimmer disappearing into the distant gloom, taillights dwindling.

The muffled roar of their engines echoes in the wet frosty silence left behind. Hands in his hair, he looks to his car.

Okay.

Okay. He sniffs.

Okay.

He makes himself go through the motions, reaching back inside to pop the hood, rounding the front, his legs unsteady with the need to kick something that’s not gonna be his stupid piece of sh*t car—not if he can fix it.

There’s smoke pouring out of the grill, the bonnet ticking crossly as he yanks the prop into place. He bats the acrid cloud of smoke away, squinting. It’s too dark to see much of anything but he reaches anyway, intending to tag the battery terminal off, and something—the engine block, he’ll realize, later—grazes against the knob of his wrist—his brain jerking his hand away before the pain even registers—burning hot. Swearing, he reels up, banging his head against the bonnet, wincing away from the whole mess.

He twists away, stumbling, something like a scream lodged in his throat with such immediacy it’s like he’s going to choke on it.

“f*ck,” he bellows, since there’s no one around to hear. Since he’s lonely enough to imagine it mattering to someone. But it doesn’t even slightly release the pressure, so he growls it again, harder, cradling his stinging hand: “f*ck!”

f*cking—

He kicks the Camaro door shut with a snap that rocks the whole chassis and a scream comes out him like a roar, using all of his chest, bending him in two.

“f*ck!” he screams, once he can form words again, wishing it could shake something loose in him—wishing it changed anything. It goes on and on until he can’t sustain it anymore, hollowing him out, stripping his voice to cracking. And it’s still not enough—not anywhere close. There’s no answer but the soft sprinkle of rain on the blacktop, his own ragged breathing.

f*ck his stupid car.

f*ck this town.

f*ck f*ck f*ck Harrington.

“I didn’t get you in trouble.”

What a f*cking joke.

Harrington doesn’t even know the half of what a lie that is. Billy didn’t even know until it was too late: frog boiled by it.

Steve ‘Trouble Is My Middle Name’ Harrington.

And his dad tried to warn him. He tried to tell him, and Billy thought he could handle it this time, but he couldn’t. He thought he had it under control, pretending he could throw all his thoughts and feelings in a pit and covering over it to stop it adding up to something more and—and—and he forgot. He forgot. He forgot he was supposed to be doing that; all the hundred little things he’s done and not done and done wrong, one on top of the other, building up like Tetris blocks inside him, too many too fast to undo.

And it’s Harrington’s fault.

And Billy blames him for it. That’s it, isn’t it? Billy can’t forgive him—for the way he looks and speaks and laughs and cares and pushes and keeps coming back. For the door he shut, but most of all, for the one he opened that Billy can’t even hate him enough to close.

The awareness stuns him, sucks the air out of his lungs in a wretched gasp.

Does it hurt?

Does it hurt?

Susan was right.

It hurts so bad he doesn’t know what to do with it.

A pair of headlights snake into view from further down the road, drawing close, slowing to a stop on the yellow midline. Billy squints against the bright light, shielding his face with a hand, but the headlights stay on, and the truck doesn’t come any closer, engine popping expectantly as it idles.

It’s the truck from the Fair Mart.

The door pops open with a leisurely creak, the driver stepping down from the cab. He lights a new cigarette, unhurried, rain speckling the sleeves of his leather jacket. He looks up and down the empty road as if following the direction of Billy’s earlier screams, seeing what all the fuss is about. Satisfied, he blows a short, amused breath of smoke that ends in something too flat to be a grin. “Looks like you could use that helping hand now, huh?”

“I got it,” Billy says breathlessly, chest still shaky.

The guy leans a little to see around Billy at the propped hood of his car, still steaming. “Doesn’t look like you got it,” he says. Billy doesn’t have an answer for that and this guy—this guy knows it. His long mouth curls up in the corner. “I can give you a ride. Friend of Willa’s is a friend of mine.”

Billy swallows trying not to shiver under a cold bead of rain making its way down the back of his neck. “I, uh…” He thinks of the curfew his dad set and Max needing someone to pick her up after her date. “I gotta get home.”

The man’s smile deepens, a bracket up one side of his leathery cheek. “Home? C’mon now,” he drawls. “On a Friday night? That doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun, cowboy. Plenty of parties going if you know where to look.”

“I…”

There’s nothing around for miles—no streetlights, fields on one side and woods on the other. His best bet is hoping the worst of the rain holds off for a while longer so he can make the walk back to the gas station, maybe bum some change off the clerk to make a phone call. But he doesn’t want to do that; not the walk, but the call.

“I don’t bite,” the guy says wryly. “Here.” He tosses Billy something and Billy catches it, surprised at the damp pack of cigarettes, the lid half-squashed. “Saw you drop those. You’re a Marlboro man, right?”

Billy doesn’t know exactly what’s being asked. “Yeah,” he says, unsure.

The man laughs.

Ignoring it, Billy glances considering the hulking shape of the pickup, the black paint job and trim gleaming with rain. Billy’s been in the back of that truck before. Would it be so lonely, without Harrington?

What if he just ends up at the steelworks again?

And, when it comes down to it, is there really anything this guy can do to him that he can’t handle—that he hasn’t sought out at one time or another for himself? Billy knows the type, same as the smack dealers who’ll give you a freebie at some sh*tty house party so long as you come back and ask for more one day when you’re a little more desperate. This guy just wants to set Billy loose for his own entertainment—get a gage on how much rope he has left to run.

“Where—?” he starts and then winces at the flash of a new pair of high beams, another car grinding to a stop behind them, tires squelching on the wet road.

The shape of another man gets out, door creaking on its hinge. He makes a big shadow, approaching, a long flashlight in his hand and a sheriff’s hat on.

It’s the Chief.

Hopper, he thinks.

Billy’s heart sinks.

So the old cop’s decided to pick him up after all.

The flashlight hovers over Billy for long enough he has to put a hand up again, cringing. His heart is beating high and nervous in his throat, already anticipating the cost of the ticket and the cost of the ride home with Neil after. The rain spots against the exposed edge of his hand, stinging the burnt skin.

But ultimately, the flashlight moves on. Fixes on Leather Jacket.

“Move along means move along, Reg,” the cop says.

Leather Jacket—Reg—that’s what Willa had called him, Billy remembers now—smiles. “Just being friendly, Jimbo.”

The cop laughs, but it’s not a nice one. “Be friendly in any other county but mine,” he says flatly. “In fact”—he shines the flashlight on the truck’s plates—“be friendly in any other state.”

“Just trying to do my civic duty, Chief,” the guys says, smirking. “Thought the boy might be in need of a ride, s’all.”

“Oh really,” the other man says dryly. “Where to? The old Brimborn place?”

“Can’t say I’m familiar with it,” Reg says with an easy smile.

“How about that.”

“Look, Chief,” the guy reasons. “I’m just trying get the boy where he wants to go. Thought he might be looking to get out of town.”

“Well, he’s not,” the cop says bluntly.

The guy holds his hands up. “Okay, okay. Mea culpa. Kid just got the look about him, you know? Doesn’t look like he’s from here.”

The flashlight turns on Billy.

“You from Hawkins kid?”

Billy’s mouth flaps, thinking he has the answer even as it changes in him, the truth coming out in a hoarse croak: “Yeah,” he says—and only a little bit better. “Yes.”

“Well, there you have it,” the cop says, thick with sarcasm. He twitches the flashlight at the truck. “Mind your speed getting out of here, Reg. I wont clock you just this once if you wanna put some pedal on it.”

The guy gives the chief of police a last unimpressed look, the thin veneer of civility dropping away, nothing behind the mask but stony nothingness and a net of wrinkles around his mouth that make him look older than he probably is.

He doesn’t hustle at all on his way back to his truck, climbing in and shutting the door without so much as a backwards glance at Billy—as if he was never the point at all, and it’s only once his taillights are a red haze disappearing in the distance that Billy’s realizes Chief Hopper has had his hand next to his gun on his belt the whole time. He tilts his flashlight down, finally, once Reg is gone, so Billy can make out his face. He’s staring steadily at Billy beneath the brim of his hat. “You were going pretty fast back there, Hargrove,” he says. “Trying out for the Daytona Five-Hundred?”

Billy can’t quite suppress a wince at the use of his name. For a moment there, he’d thought maybe the chief had forgotten and was just bluffing about knowing him. He supposes it makes more sense he was just keeping it to himself.

“Got turned around,” he says stiffly.

The chief hums under his breath, his head turned in the direction of the disappearing truck—the direction Harrington and his friends disappeared. “Kinda looked like maybe you were chasing after that BMW.”

“Buddy o’mine forgot his geometry homework,” Billy says sharkily.

“Well that’s cute.”

“You gonna write me a ticket?”

“Since you asked so nicely,” the cop says, whipping his pad out, making Billy’s heart sink even further. “Anyone around can give you a lift home?”

Billy sets his jaw. “I can make a call. “

The cop doesn’t break from his scribbling. “Uh-huh, from what payphone?”

“I’ll walk.”

That makes the chief pause, eyeballing him sternly over the top of his notepad. “I asked you this before,” he says. “And you didn’t give me a straight answer.” He points the end of his pen at Billy’s lip. “Steve Harrington responsible for that?”

Billy sneers. “You think I’d let that puss* land one on me?”

“Then who did?” Chief Hopper comes right back with instead of being a lazy goddamned cop.

“I…” He stops. The older man has this way of looking at him from under his heavy brow that’s making it hard to come up with the right answer. Dammit, he thinks, running his tongue over his teeth to buy time, casting around for something that isn’t the truth and isn’t mouthy either. “So I…get into fights.”

“No sh*t, kid.” The cop starts writing again, but he keeps one eye fixed skeptically on Billy. “He come out as bad as you? The other guy?”

Billy scowls to disguise the way he swallows. “Guess he…got the best of me. Just this once.”

The cop keeps staring at him, breathing loudly through his nose like what Billy’s saying is annoying him real bad or something. “Just the once,” he repeats doubtfully.

Billy buttons his lip. Can’t anyone in this town mind their own damn business? Is this guy talking about the time he picked Billy up on the walk back from Byers’ house? Because that time, it really was Harrington. Is that what the cop’s getting at? He wants dirt on Harrington or something…? Or does he just want to prove that Billy’s a no-good piece of trash.

“I know how to fight,” Billy says, choosing the words carefully. “I’m not some loser kid, okay?”

“Didn’t say that. Kid.”

“Well I ain’t.”

The cop goes on staring at Billy, the rain drooling noisily on the wide brim of his hat. “Okay,” he says, finally, putting the notepad away. “Let’s take a look then.”

Billy rears back, scowling.

“Hey,” the cop says softly. “Your car,” he explains, making Billy feel stupid for flinching like he’s some middle-school dork who can’t take a beating—who can’t deal one out.

And then… And then it’s like the ‘feeling stupid’ thing—the disorienting lurch and retreat of premature adrenaline—it twists the cap off all the other stuff.

His scowl wobbles—keeps wobbling.

He has to turn around, abruptly, mortified, his whole chest hitching with the urge to blab or blubber or both—and it doesn’t make any sense. There’s no reason for it. There’s no punch. There’s no Neil. It’s just some pig asking questions and it feels like someone’s pulled a ripcord on him releasing the big balloon of sad-sack sh*t that’s been wanting to spill out all week, throat clenching like he’s trying to bring up a hairball.

And for some reason, the old cop just lets him have it. Billy hears his boots on the wet asphalt, making his way round to the front of the Camaro, ignoring Billy standing there in the middle of the road with his back turned and his fists balled up with nothing to lash out at, his throat still working.

The rain has thickened to the point that he can feel it in his hair, on his cheeks. Hear it on the leaves, sluicing through the detritus built up in the deep shoulder between the road and the woods. He wants to scream again but it didn’t do him any good the first time and he knows the quiet comes right back.

When he turns around the chief has his flashlight pointed under the hood of his car, frowning. The grill’s stopped smoking at least.

The cop glances at him. “What happened?”

“I’m—" Billy says, working his jaw to get his voice to stop sounding like that, off-key and muddy. “It’s all—f*cked up.”

“You f*cked your car up,” the cop repeats.

“It’s a piece of sh*t.”

“I don’t know, kid. It’s a pretty good-looking car.”

“It doesn’t work!” Billy shouts, spitting frost, sniffing hard, trying to put all his tears back where they came from. “Okay? It doesn’t work! It doesn’t— I was supposed to keep it— I let it get all”—he takes an involuntary breath—“f*cked up, and broken, and it’s not my fault, okay?”

“All right, kid,” the cop says

Billy turns on his heel in the middle of the road again, shaking all over for no good reason.

“Okay,” the cop says. “See, here’s the problem—”

“I know what my problem is,” Billy yells back, too hoarse this time. “I know what I did, okay? I f*cking—choked the carb. It’s the”—he sucks air through his teeth, getting nothing out of it, his throat clamming up—“cold,” he says, voice stretched perilously thin, pathetic. “I got lean air.”

The chief stares at him, eyebrows raised. “You know a lot about cars, huh?”

His chest heaves, managing a bleak laugh. “My dad taught me.”

“Okay, well, your dad should’ve taught you to give it a minute to warm up in this sort of weather. Your carburetor is—”

“I know!” Billy interrupts. “I know. I throttled the f*cking carb, okay? I get it.”

“Yeah, you did,” the cop says firmly. “But your pops is wrong.”

Billy glares.

“Okay, cool off. I’m not saying your old man doesn’t know his cars, all right? I’m saying he’s wrong.”

Billy blinks at him, lips pressed hard into a frown, trying to let the words sink in.

“Your carb’s fine,” the cop says once he seems certain Billy’s not gonna chew his head off. “You coulda eased up on the pedal, I’ll give you that advice for free—but that’s not your problem. See here?” He clunks his flashlight against the Camaro’s distributor, showing Billy. “Your Optispark’s probably wet.”

Billy frowns between the Camaro’s suddenly unfamiliar guts and the cop’s bland expression, waiting for him to comprehend.

“What?”

The cop nods up the road. “You get into a snowball fight with your geography buddies?”

“I caught some ice going over a… Going over a bump,” he says.

The cop shrugs, taking the prop out and closing the bonnet. “That’ll do it. Finnicky piece of junk but it doesn’t stop you hotheads buying ‘em. Can’t tell for certain without cracking it open, but if you got ice in your radiator, it’ll throw enough of a tantrum to take your distributor out with it—rust up real nice too. You know how to take the cap off?” At Billy’s sour face, he rolls his eyes. “Jesus, why did I even ask? Take the cap off when you get home and let it air out for a day. Put a heater on in your garage if you got one. Can’t do anything about the rust, but it’ll run fine.”

“Get home?” Billy asks numbly. “You can get it running?”

“Thought you said you were good with cars,” the cops says for an answer.

Billy frowns at him.

“C’mon, hot-rod. Are we camping out for the night, or do you want me to show you how to get your car started? I don’t know about you but I’ve got a TV dinner waiting for me at home.”

Billy shakes off his surprise at the idea of getting behind the wheel again so soon, hope turning in him like an unused gear. He throws himself in his seat, cramming his keys in the ignition.

“Okay,” the cop says, leaning down to instruct him through the open window. “Here’s what we’re gonna do, and here’s the trick: I want you to listen to me carefully, okay?”

Billy grits his teeth, following the chief’s instructions, determined to prove how subtle he can be—how good he normally is at this one thing.

“Fea-ther,” the chief articulates patronizingly a few minutes later, when Billy skips ahead, foot planted on the pedal. “I said, feather the gas.”

Billy bites his tongue instead of snapping. He takes a deep breath, taps the accelerator just lightly with the toe of his boot, giving it some little pumps. The starter motor stutters and stutters and stutters, seeking, painful to listen to, and Billy’s about to let go, his hand starting to cramp with how tight he’s twisting the key—and then—and then…

Billy holds his breath, holds his foot still, the motor spinning again until—it catches—careening into a level, rough, growling thud that Billy knows better than his own heartbeat.

“Jesus, kid. Don’t look too thrilled.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, kid, I told you. It just happens with these models in the wet—nothing doing for it. General Motors just makes ‘em that way.”

Billy’s hands clench around the wheel. “Why?” he asks, voice rough.

The chief huffs. “I don’t know, kid. It’s your car. You wanna drive a Pontiac?”

Billy jerks to look at him.

The chief smiles, just a little bit. The expression makes him look surprisingly soft. “Give it a little extra TLC when it gets icy,” he says. “You’ll be okay.” He straightens up to finish writing Billy’s ticket. “But maybe let her idle for a few minutes next time you wanna chase Steve Harrington out of town.” He holds the ticket out for Billy to take, hunching again to catch Billy’s eye. “And when you do catch up to him, do me a favor—give the brawling a rest, okay? So’s we’re clear, I see your face busted up again, I’m going to ask you a question and you’re gonna give me an answer. A real one. Got it?”

Billy nods, the ticket crumpling in his hand. “Yeah, I got it.” It comes out so quiet Billy barely hears himself, feels himself bunching up already at the way the guy is gonna demand he speak up.

But the chief reaches in through the window and pats Billy’s arm instead, just once, and walks away.

For a long moment all Billy can do is blink, checking himself in the rearview, stunned and red-eyed and rained-on. He unfolds the tissue-thin carbon paper in his hand, frowning at the long nonsense string of figures scrawled across the whole of the ticket.

He flings his door open, wrenching out of the seat. “Hey,” he rasps. “Hey, I don’t have this kind of money!”

“It’s a number for a mechanic, kid,” the chief tosses over his shoulder without looking back. “Your dad doesn’t know sh*t about your car. Guy off Main Street will put a seal on it for a decent rate if you tell him Jim Hopper sent you.”

Billy gawps after him.

“And get a real coat would you, you’re not new in town anymore.”

Chapter 31: baffled in love and hate (part one)

Chapter Text

The bus to school is about what you’d expect of a town like Hawkins, only a quarter of the way full, just the spazzes and trailer trash, and losers who don’t have their license yet, like Robin Buckley, who at least has a Walkman to pass the time.

They make eye contact when he climbs aboard, taking his time ambling down the aisle, trying to chafe some feeling back into his hands after ten minutes standing around in the rimy-wet morning air. Buckley has her cheek mashed into the heel of her hand, staring idly out the window, but she flicks him a sour look as he passes, drawing her bag onto the seat next to her.

Yeah right.

He ditches his satchel at the seat no one wants over the tire well, throwing down with his back against the glass and his boot hooked up to make it clear he’s not looking for a buddy.

Billy hates riding the bus; it’s f*cking humiliating. He hasn’t had to schlep it since he was a kid, and at least he was dumb enough back then to enjoy pretending he was driving it. Now the only thing that makes it remotely bearable is knowing Max is having an even worse time on the middle school bus, since she hates everyone and everything before noon, and since she and her mom got into it over breakfast over whether she should be allowed to hitch a ride on the back of Sinclair’s bike until Billy gets his wheels back.

The bus pulls out of a Cherry with a relieved whine and he finds himself staring at the back of Buckley’s head for something to do, her headphones leaking the melody of some tinny power ballad. He figured she was still pissed at him. Short of him setting her up with some dude, he doesn’t see her thawing towards him any time soon.

Good thing he’s not gonna be riding the bus for long enough to need someone to chit-chat with. The cop was right about the auto shop off of Main Street, the old grease monkey there cutting him a good rate since Billy showed him how he could do half the work himself if he just had the tools, smiling wryly out he corner of his mouth and sharing his rag for Billy to get the grease out from between his fingers.

Well, he has more on his mind today than playing nice with Buckley anyway.

Stay away from me.

Weird that the answer to all his problems would be just one more rule to follow to make every go back to how it ought to have been from the start. Like putting one of those gigantic boat propellers in reverse, slow and inevitable. He should’ve listened when Harrington said it the first time—back when Billy was so set on giving him the opposite of what he wanted he went and forgot he had rules in the first place.

And yeah, Billy’s been only half good at keeping to his rules—but he can keep a promise. Keeping a promise is like keeping a secret—and he’s maybe kinda great at doing that.

The bus squeezes into a roundabout behind some dawdling hatchback and Billy tries not to notice the driver shifting gears labored and ugly, the pneumatic stop-start wheeze of the transmission as close to music as he’s going to get. He flicks his shades down with a sigh.

At least with a promise you don’t have to hate yourself for keeping it.

^^^

Billy keeps his promise.

He stays away from Steve Harrington.

Right up until Monday lunch, when Harrington dumps his tray on the table beside Billy’s and throws down in the seat next to him.

He tenses, carton of orange juice halfway to his mouth, Harrington’s knee pressing dangerously close to his as he settles into his usual sprawl.

“So, uh…” Harrington says, breathy and casual. “Is this the committee for Carol’s surprise birthday party? Because I kinda thought there’d be more people.”

Carol dangles her fork over her tray, unimpressed. “You know it’s not a surprise if I’m here while you’re planning it, right?”

“You trust us to plan a party without you?”

“I trust you to get me a present,” Carol says sweetly, eyes narrowed. “A big one.”

Harrington hums, noncommittal, already peeling the top off his sandwich like there’s gonna be something under the white bread he wants to eat for once, putting it right back down with a predictable prissy grumble. He slumps back in his seat. “Mall trip?”

“Take Becky,” Tommy says around a mouthful of mashed peas.

Harrington grins, sly. “But she doesn’t know Carol’s cup size.”

“Ew, Steve.”

Across the table, Tommy keeps chewing his food, determinedly straight-faced—but there’s an upward tic in one corner of his mouth that looks a lot like forgiveness.

Billy concentrates on keeping his grip on the juice carton steady while the others carry on chatting, frozen in his chair, racking his brain for the right move to make in this situation that isn’t just standing up and hightailing it out of the cafeteria like a bitch.

If Harrington’s plan is to just ignore him, he—

“What about you, Hargrove?

Billy feels the question like a hand clapped over the back of his neck, the sudden low tone of Harrington’s voice as startling as being spoken to. “Wanna take some time out of your busy schedule,” Harrington continues. “Come be a mallrat?”

He keeps his eyes determinedly on his tray. “Thought you were afraid of rats.”

“Since when?”

“Yeah,” Harrington says musingly, ignoring the question from Tommy. Billy can feel his eyes on the side of his face. “Maybe not so much, anymore.”

“Tell it to someone who cares.”

“Okay. When’s good for you?”

“You are coming to my birthday party though, right?” Carol interjects, circling her fork at Billy threateningly.

Billy does his best to ignore Harrington’s attention on him as obvious as a lamp on a hothouse plant. “There gonna be booze?”

“Have you met my mom?”

“There gonna be booze other than margaritas?” At Carol’s bland face, he shrugs. “I’ll bring my own.”

“Gee, what a priceless gift.”

“I’ll get you a gift,” he says before anyone can accuse him of being a cheapskate.

“Hey.” Tommy jerks his chin at something over Billy’s shoulder. “Check it out.”

Harrington turns first, hooking an arm over the back of his chair to look. Billy makes sure to twist the other way, following Tommy’s gaze across the cafeteria where Mindy Miller has stopped at Lacey Fieldman’s table, waiting expectantly, her tray clutched nervously in front of her.

Whatever it is Mindy’s come to say has the attention of half the cafeteria, upsetting the delicate ecosystem in much the same way as when Harrington makes a point of eating with Wheeler and Byers—except worse, because at least Byers doesn’t try and invite himself to sit with them at their table.

“What’s that about, d’you think?”

Mindy has stopped talking and Lacey is staring at her, polite smile turned brittle at the edges. The only person close enough to eavesdrop—Lacey’s giggly friend—is smiling with open delight. She gestures for Mindy to take a seat, leaning close to whisper in her friend’s ear, her eyes tracking across the cafeteria.

Billy turns back to his food, keenly disinterested.

“Mindy Mouse and Racey Lacey…” Carol ponders out loud, eyes narrowed: a dog with a new bone. “Since when do those two have anything in common?”

“Maybe it’s something they don’t have in common,” Harrington says, adding, under his breath: “Right Hargrove?”

Under the table, Billy’s other hand clenches in his lap. He can’t have meant it like that.

“Maybe they go to the same bible camp,” Tommy snickers.

Carol hums, dissatisfied. “Maybe Lacey ‘baptized’ her big brother.”

“Are you kidding? Lacey would eat Milton for breakfast.” Tommy cranes his neck around, scoping the empty spot at the table where most of the guys on the team eat lunch. “Huh. Where is the little pipsqueak?”

“Hiding,” Harrington says. “Probably.”

Carol’s attention snaps away from Lacey’s table at once. “Oh?” she says archly, her gaze flicking calculatingly between them, fixing, on Billy. “Did something happen?

“Nope,” Billy says, stabbing his food into whatever shape will allow him to eat it faster, loading up his fork. “He messed with my car,” he adds, since Carol won’t let it go otherwise. It’s the least of the sh*t that went wrong that night, but he’d rather tell it his way than whatever Harrington might feel like saying next.

Carol gasps. “And you didn’t kick his ass?”

He shrugs. “Car broke down.”

Tommy sits back with a low whistle. “sh*t. Maybe it didn’t like Miller putting his dirty mitts on it.”

Billy chomps down on a mouthful of peas but a smile catches the side of his mouth anyway. It’s f*cking stupid, but he does like the idea.

After that, the conversation turns once more to Carol’s birthday, Carol going on about all the myriad ways Harrington and Tommy have failed her in the past, including the time Tommy got her the same lipstick as what his mom wears, the time Harrington showed up two hours late with one of his floozies, and the incident that got all three of them kicked out of the bowling alley before Carol could blow out the candles on her cake.

It’s one of those nothing conversations he could still tune out without trying if he wanted to—but he listens, since it’s for his benefit anyway, puffed up and exaggerated, and since the alternative is crawling out of his skin trying to ignore whatever it is Harrington thinks he’s doing: sitting, like normal, and playing with his food instead of eating it, like normal, and laughing softly through his nose, or chiming in to protest whenever the others’ stories features a version of him that might have existed prior to high school—acting how he always does—except Billy knows full well he doesn’t have any good reason to.

With his car in the shop all weekend, he had plenty of time to think it over; folding the same chain of events over in his head a hundred different ways like he could make something different with it—always ending with the conch exploded into parts in amongst the trees, somewhere out there, in the dark, dissolving back into a shapeless lump of paper under two days of constant uncaring rain.

He's startled back to the present by long fingers brushing the edge of his vision, draped over the top of a fruit cup, putting it down on Billy’s tray. Breathing slow, through his nose, he picks the cup up. Puts it firmly back on Harrington’s tray. “Told you, I don’t like sweet things.” He doesn’t need to look up to see Carol rolling her eyes across the table.

“Well, yeah,” Harrington drawls, picking the cup up. “But uh…” His voice drops, hushed enough to be private, loud enough to be cruel. He puts the cup back on Billy’s tray. “You don’t really know what you like, do you?”

Billy stares at his tray, brain full of hot white noise.

Okay.

So, it’s gonna be like that then.

^^^

The conversation from the cafeteria follows him all the way through his afternoon classes and to fourth period in the library, stuck on replay in his head like a lyric you listen to so much you wear the tape out. He catches himself rubbing his ear like he can get Harrington’s not-whisper off him.

It’s not like he didn’t know Harrington is more than capable of throwing a curveball, literally, and figuratively. Whatever this new game Harrington’s playing at is though, it’s not going to work. Not for Billy. Not with his plan to put a civil amount of space between them—and not with the kind of week he’s got ahead of him either: class and basketball practice and chores and Neil back on dayshift and home at the same time as Billy, filling up the house at night with a particular kind of silence—wound tight enough already just the busy hush of the library is getting on his nerves.

He gives up trying to do the reading, letting the book fall out his bored-numb hands and slumping in his chair, scoping the room. The librarian on watch has her back to the room, fussing with the copier—which is all the excuse he needs to sweep his homework up off the table and disappear into the stacks, on the prowl for one of his usual forms of distraction.

He finds Wheeler sequestered away in one of the study rooms, some beanstalk kid in glasses bothering her over an open book.

“Move it along, four-eyes. I got an appointment.”

The kid jumps at Billy’s approach, eyes darting around nervously for backup—realizing he’s far from the watchful eye and relative safety of the librarian. Billy waits patiently for him to realize he’s better off getting lost, snatching his book up and giving Billy such a wide berth on the way out he just about ping-pongs off the doorframe.

“Howdy,” Billy says pleasantly once he’s gone. He flicks the chewed-up stump of an old eraser off the table so he can park his ass on the edge, firing it into the wastepaper basket in the corner of the room: hole-in-one.

Wheeler stares up at him dully. “That was mine,” she says.

Oh.

He rolls his eyes at the ceiling but gets up to fetch the eraser out of the trash, making a show of dusting it off before he puts it back right where he found it. He clears his throat to start again. “Got a minute?”

“It’s supposed to be silent study.”

“I strike you as a loudmouth?”

Her gaze flattens.

“Hey,” he reasons. “I can shut the door if you want. Just being considerate of your reputation, s’all.”

She smiles, pinched and sarcastic. “Somehow I think I’ll be okay.”

He snorts. “Yeah, I’m probably the one who’s gotta look out, right? You and Byers come here to get freaky or can he only do it under a blacklight?”

Her pinched look tightens, unimpressed, waiting him out.

Jesus. Okay.

He scratches at the corner of his mouth, thinking. “So, I had this idea. Well—more of a revelation, you might say.”

“Please just get to the point.”

“You are all work and no foreplay,” he says reprovingly. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

She heaves an annoyed sigh, dropping her pen into the spine of her workbook finally, sitting back to give him her full attention. “Okay. Tell me about your revelation.”

“Well not if you’re gonna be all persnickety about it.”

“Remind me, which one of us is asking for help here?”

He drops the smile. “Hey. Just so we’re clear, I’m not asking for charity.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “And what is it you think you have to offer me?”

“Nancy Wheeler. Not above a little quid pro quo, huh?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “You’ll forgive me if I have doubts about what you bring to the table.”

He makes a sweeping gesture. “What about what I bring on the table?”

“Okay,” she says lightly, stumping him. She tilts her head up, haughty. “I’ll help you.”

“Appreciate it,” he says tightly.

She continues: “And in return you’ll stop bothering Jonathan on break.”

He can’t help the twitch of a frown that rolls over his brow—surprised—a little stung, maybe. It’s not like he even spends all that much time there—only on days when he’s out of options to eat Susan’s sh*tty packed lunch in relative peace. “Joan Jett’s got a problem with where I eat lunch?”

“He told me he found an apple core in one of the tanks.”

Billy stonewalls her. “It’s dark in there.”

“And he said you smoke in there, too.”

“Well, isn’t he just the little reporter.” He rolls his eyes at her dour face. “Fine. You got it—I’ll leave Byers alone.”

What’s one more name on his list, anyway?

“That’s not what I said,” Wheeler says, surprising him again. “I said to stop bothering him. If he doesn’t want you there, he’ll tell you himself, believe me.” She eyeballs him like she’s not even slightly concerned about her boyfriend’s ability to follow through on that, and Billy remembers something Harrington once said, about Byers being the one to put the nails in the bat—and does, believe it.

“And I’m not going to write your essay for you,” Wheeler continues. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“C’mon Wheeler,” he scoffs. “What d’you take me for?”

She gives him a look.

“Okay, look,” he starts. “After your little freak out about my thesis statement”—he ignores the annoyed pursing of her lips—“I got to thinking…maybe my paper could do with a little spit shine after all.” She co*cks an eyebrow at him, so he says: “Maybe more like a remix.”