#clearly the s3 promo thing has poisoned my mind with scoops!steve just as much as everyone else

[humble-althemist]

Pay the Pool Boy, Darling

written long after i actually got my words for @rarsablack ‘s three words challenge, because of complications. i did write 1k, and in 2 hours once i actually sat down to write, so that’s something? 

still, totally not within the rules of 24-hours-after-words-are-recieved though, so whoops. don’t follow my example, kids.

my words were: waterslide, cleaning, and reflect.

The summer of '85 is incredibly hot and Dustin and the little brats are incredibly persuasive - with their complaints about sick toddlers and pissing babies in the Hawkins public pool - so by mid-July Steve's house has become the new hangout, whenever Steve isn't working at Scoops. Or rahter, his pool has. 

Even his parents are on board with it, somehow. Last week his dad even helped Sinclair and Wheeler set up a slide on the deep end, hooking the garden hose up to the top to make it a water slide. Steve is honestly mystified, but he doesn't question it out loud. Doesn't ask his father where this welcoming, free-spirit shit was when he wanted to do that five years ago. 

What is more in character, is that his mother agrees to all of this only on the condition that they hire a pool boy to start coming by twice a week and clean the kid off everything thoroughly.

And so it is that on the morning of July 20th, Steve wakes up to the sound of the side gate and his mother's high laugh out by the pool, quickly followed by a softer laugh he can't quite put his finger on. Steve isn't usually nosy exactly, but he rolls out of bed at that, stumbling over to look out his window down at the backyard. And what he sees makes him rub his eyes, hard, because that can't be...

"Hargrove?" His breath catches a little and he frowns.

Steve watches as his mom shows the half-naked blond at her side where everything he'll need is, and gestures to the house like "my son's in there, feel free to bother him for anything you need." 

He dodges behind the curtain as Billy's eyes trail up the house, and feels like an idiot when he realizes he's breathing hard at the thought that he might have seen him. Get yourself together, Steve, he thinks to himself. It's your damn house. What's he gonna do?

But still, that day Steve stays upstairs until he hears the click of the gate and sees that Billy's gone, and the next time he's out of the house before Billy even arrives.

He manages to avoid interacting with Billy in any way besides a couple shared glances through the sliding glass door for three whole weeks before his mother hands him a check one day "for the pool boy," and tells him to deliver it. 

He wants to ask why, why she can't give it to him, or why they can't just leave it in the back for him to find, but he knows how whiny that'd sound and besides - it's not like Steve can say he's busy. She knows he's not today. So Steve sighs and takes the check from her.

***

Billy's got his headphones on and his hair tied back, walkman already blasting Tank as he walks into the Harringtons’ backyard and pulls his shirt off over his head to get started on the pool. So it’s been about a minute before he glances up and spots him, reflected in the still water of the pool he’s about to clean like a fucking ghost.

"Jesus, Harrington," Billy jumps, pulling his headphones down around his neck and hitting stop on the music as he glances up across the pool at where Steve stands, next to the open door. 

"Make a fucking noise or something next time," he grumbles, looking back down at Harrington's soft, frowning reflection and shaking his head. It's the first time he's seen him out of his work uniform since summer started and boy is that a shame, but he looks good anyway, if totally scared of Billy and trying not to show it. Billy feels a bit of regret at that but does a better job of not showing it than Steve is. Just winks at him when their eyes meet, reflected in the water. 

"Thought you were avoiding me for a while there, pretty boy," he says, pulling a cigarette and his lighter out of the pockets of his little shorts and lighting up.

"I am," Steve responds, glaring. "My mom wanted me to give you this though." 

He holds up an envelope, not stepping forward so Billy can reach it or looking at all like he wants to hand it over to him.

Billy doesn't step forward either. Just smokes and watches Steve stand there.

"What is it?" he asks, and Steve shrugs.

"Birthday bonus or some shit?" he sighs. “I don’t actually fucking care."

Billy grins.

"You not gonna wish me a Happy Birthday, Harrington?" he asks. "Eighteen. 's a big one, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's great," Steve says with absolutely zero enthusiasm. "Now you can finally smoke," he deadpans.

Billy laughs, surprised by Steve’s humor, and turns to walk around the pool to join him at the door, biting his lip as he nears him.

"Yeah, and uh... fuck adults, vote in elections... get thrown in jail for fucking up a pretty boy's face till he needs four fucking stitches..." 

He reaches the corner of the pool, almost arm's length from Steve now and glances up at him, letting the regret show on his face at last. When he tries to cover it up again though, it's stuck.

Billy looks away and bites his bottom lip, sucking in another drag. Steve meets his eyes in their reflection on the sliding glass door this time, and this time his frown is different. More open, cautiously optimistic even. Idiot. Billy's heart clenches, and he glances up at the real thing, stepping toward him.

"I didn't mean to...” he tries, earnestly. “I was really fucked up last fall, Harrington, I shouldn't have... Did it scar?"

Steve just stares at him disbelievingly for a second, until his head seems to clear a bit and he nods, pulling his hair back a little to show the little white mark on his brow. Billy grins a little.

"Looks badass, at least," he says, trying to make light.

Steve rolls his eyes and puts his hair back down.

"Just take your fucking check, asshole," he sighs, pressing it into Billy's chest as he turns to leave.

But Billy stops him. Grabs his arm.

"Wait," he says. "D'you wanna..." he clears his throat and laughs a little uncomfortably. Glances back at the pool. "I've been wanting to try out your stupid waterslide since I started this fucking job, but I'm not supposed to go in the pools I clean, so uh..."

Steve looks at him blankly for a moment.

"What, you following the rules now, Hargrove?" he says drily, shoving his hand off, and Billy steps back. Tosses his cigarette to the ground and crushes the end beneath his sandal.

"Trying to," he says with a wry smile. "But if you break 'em with me, was there ever any rule to begin with?" he smirks.

Steve snorts and shakes his head like he’s never met anyone dumber than Billy and he probably hasn’t, but then he's closing the sliding door behind him and pulling his shirt off over his head, and Billy grins.

"Go turn on the hose. Spiggot's 'round the corner," Steve sighs, tossing Billy's check and his shirt onto a lounge chair away from the pool.

“Aye aye captain,” Billy winks, and does as he’s told, laughing when Steve turns to kick him.