#just givin us the cute brotherly fluff we all deserve

[okaybutlikeimagine]

(a little fic where Billy has been adopted by Jim, Jim and Joyce are together, Billy doesn’t know how to call Joyce ‘mom’ yet, and Billy has to give Will “The Talk” TM. Based off of a tumblr post that briefly mentioned this idea! if anyone knows the post pls let me know so i can credit them ♥)

Billy drags Will out to get some ice cream so they can get away from the mess that is Joyce and Hopper trying to explain to their children how to have safe gay sex. Really, it was probably the most embarrassing thing Billy has ever seen, and it only lasted for a total of 60 seconds. He got that boy out of there as quickly as he could, throwing a promise back to Hopper and Joyce that he’ll tell the boy all he needs to know to be safe.

But now here they are in the little Mom and Pop ice cream parlor in the next town over because the mall was destroyed a month ago and Hawkins has no other place to get ice cream. And they got here a little later than Billy was planning on because he forgot Will gets a stomach ache if he drives too fast, so he had to drive a little under the limit. They’re at a small two person table eating ice cream across from each other. Billy tries to think about how to start this conversation. It’s not like anyone had an actual civil conversation with him about this stuff when he needed it so he just says the first thing he can think of which is:

“So, condoms.”

It’s not smooth. No part of it is smooth but he doesn’t know what else to say at the moment. Will just looks up from his sundae, eyes wider than Billy’s ever seen them. His face is turning the color of the two cherries sitting on his ice cream. It’s a little concerning, honestly.

“They’re important.” Billy starts again, tilting his ice cream cone a bit towards Will who merely nods in response.

Well this is fun. Billy thinks sourly, catching the eye of a teenage girl among a big group of friends a table over. She’s giving him an irritatingly judgemental look, and starts whispering to her other friends, who look over at the two of them and cackle. He looks back to Will, whose eyebrows are knitted in what’s probably anxiety as he looks down at his ice cream. 

Fuck this.

“Y’know what? Let’s go sit outside.” Billy says, standing up and waiting for Will to walk ahead of him so he can glare the girls down.

He knows Will’s body tends to run cold and the weather is a little cooler than he’d like it to be now that they’re nearing the end of summer, but it’s balmy and warm enough. He just wants to get Will comfortable and being away from people seems like the only way. And he promised Joyce and Hopper he’d do this. Lord knows why he promised Joyce and Hopper he’d do this, but he kinda likes this kid. He’s not as fucking irritating as the rest of the nerds.

Billy takes a deep breath before he sits down at the table that Will has chosen.

“You know you can talk to me, right pipsqueak?”

Will rolls his eyes at the nickname and slides down the chair a bit. He nods, eating a spoonful of ice cream.

“Great. Right. You probably know about condoms too, right?” Billy definitely knew about condoms at 14. He didn’t know everything, but he knew enough to know of their existence and how to put them on.

Lord save me from having to put a condom on a fucking banana.

“Yeah, I know.” Will says, looking at his ice cream like it’s trying to ask him something. The pause is so long that Billy thinks Will is done talking, until the boy takes a small breath. “I just… don’t understand why.”

It’s so quiet Billy’s surprised he heard it.

“What?”

Will’s struggling.

“Why are they so important?” He asks again, looking up at Billy. “I can’t… neither of us would be able to get… pregnant.”

Realization falls over Billy. “Yeah, but see, there are more worries than getting pregnant.”

Billy takes a few licks of his ice cream as he watches Will attempt to process his words.

“Really?” He asks quietly after a few beats.

Billy sighs. In all of his life, he truly never thought he’d be the one to explain STDs to a gay 14 year old boy. He never thought he’d be the one to explain this to any child, really, but definitely not a gay 14 year old boy that he now calls his… brother?

“Yup.” Billy tries to buy himself some time to figure out how to word this by licking his ice cream cone. “See, there’s these things called STDs.”

Will’s screwed up face makes Billy retrace his steps.

“They’re these… diseases that you get through sex. The big one right now is AIDS, so when you put a condom on, you’re making sure you don’t get it.”

“Oh… a disease? Really?” Will asks. The fear in his eyes pulls at Billy’s heart.

“That’s what condoms are for. You can’t get it if you put a condom on. And he does too. Depending on what you’re doing.” Billy hates his cheeks for heating up. Why did he offer up being the dad in this situation again?

Then again, maybe he’s not being the dad. Maybe this is him being the big brother.

Fuck, never thought it’d get to this.

“But how does that work?” Will asks, his dish of ice cream sitting almost abandoned on the table and his hands in his lap. “I don’t understand. Other diseases don’t work like that. Are you sure I can’t… there’s no other way to get it?”

Billy shakes his head, eating at the cone now. “Nope. They thought you could get it just by being around people for a little bit, but they were wrong.” He takes another bite of his cone and speaks around the crumbs. “Oh, and if you do some hardcore drugs or something, needles can give it to you. But I don’t think you’re going to be shooting up heroin.”

In his weird attempt to lighten the mood, Will just gives Billy a blank look before rolling his eyes with a small smile. But Billy can tell: the boy doesn’t understand half of what Billy just said. Will doesn’t know anything about hardcore drugs. Hell, he might not even know about weed, even though Jonathan smokes with Billy out in the woods every week. Jonathan’s a good brother though, an actual good brother; he probably doesn’t talk to this 14 year old kid about the drugs he uses.

Still, Billy is a little surprised to see that Will doesn’t seem to know about drugs yet. He doesn’t remember 14 like it was yesterday, but he’s pretty sure he had at least an inkling as to what heroin was, and he lived in San Diego, where there’s arguably a shitton of stuff to do. Hawkwins, Indiana may very well be the most boring town in America, save for crazy lab experiments that insist on tearing the town apart and enslaving mankind. But it’s not like more than a handful of people even knew that stuff existed here. Surely there’s a bunch of kids getting hammered and taking any drugs their older siblings’ sketchy friends will sell to them. That’s how small towns work, right? Nothing but a single movie theater in downtown and a mall that got obliterated so the next best step is to get wasted on anything in sight?

But Will… Will’s a good kid. He doesn’t do much but listen to music with his brother, play that nerd game with the gang of dorks, and draw and color like a maniac. Sometimes they come over and run around outside or something, they go to the arcade… and now that Billy thinks about it, he can’t imagine him ever being exposed to that scary world of illegal drugs.

“Who is ‘they’?” Will asks, eating a spoonful of his ice cream that is slowly soup-ifying.

“Ah, like doctors and stuff.”

“How do you know so much about all of this?” Will asks around another spoonful, looking up at Billy shyly.

Billy pauses a bit, taking more bites of his cone.

How does he explain? How does he tell this boy about those final years in California when the major burst of AIDS hit? When the one news outlet his dad had fallen asleep watching began talking about this new disease that was found in 5 young -and previously healthy- gay men up in Los Angeles? An emphasis on gay. When Billy tried to get it out of his mind but started to secretly record those newscasts when he wasn’t able to catch them, to check up on it and see what was happening? When he would steal newspapers and check on them religiously for any updates?

When gay men started dying, 1,292 of them by the end of ‘83, and no one seemed to care.

He felt possessed. Obsessed. He learned everything he could. A young gay boy who had just began to be sexually active now learning that his passion, his desires, were actually dangerous? Just like everyone said they were? It was torture. God condemning him -all of them- right? Proving once and for all that gayness really is sin.

Back then it seemed like the threat of AIDS was scarier than his dad, most days.

He still checks up on it now, avidly. Hopper doesn’t say anything, but he gives him an encouraging pat on the shoulder before he sits down next to him while he watches more news come up. The physical presence irritated him at first, but it’s slowly become comforting. Joyce gives him a warm glass of milk sometimes and reminds him that he’s a “smart boy”. Billy’s never really sure what she’s referring to when she says it.

Billy wonders how the two of them would have brought up this topic with Will.

“I’m well-educated.” Billy responds, as if that makes sense. “I keep up with the news.”

“It’s on the news?”

“Well, yeah, it’s getting pretty big…” Billy’s voice fades a bit at the end, feeling like an idiot. Who ever thought he’d be able to do this? 

God, Jonathan should have done this, he’s bisexual, right? Probably never had sex with a guy, though…

He looks up at Will, who looks way too nervous and scared for Billy’s liking. Never in his life did he think he’d be so concerned for this boy but here he is, wanting nothing more than to comfort the shit out of him.

“I mean, on the bright side, I hear they won’t let us donate blood anymore. No big scary needles.” Billy begins, keeping a lightness in his voice that Will seems a little unimpressed by.

“Because… we’re gay?”

“Yeah.”

Will sits silent for a second.

“That’s… kind of awful.” Will’s voice is quiet as he looks up at Billy with confused and sad eyes.

Fuck.

“Yeah, it’s kind of shit…” Billy admits. He knows he was pissed as hell when he read that the Red Cross enforced that. Not like he was dying to give blood or anything, but it’s the injustice of it that gets his non-donatable blood boiling. “But I mean, I heard Murray said the Red Cross is just a group of vampires trying to collect our blood for their feasts or something. So at least they won’t be pestering us to give into their evil plans. Or whatever.”

That makes Will laugh. Actually laugh. He sits forward and eats more of his sundae, scooping up some of the soupy parts.

They sit there at the table, laughing quietly to themselves with the little lights of the shop illuminating them, an occasional car passing by.

When their laughter fades, Billy’s smile remains as he takes the last bites of his cone. He looks to his right, enjoying the silence, feeling a little better about all of this, when Will asks:

“Do-… Do you and Steve use condoms?”

It takes Billy out of it for a second. He looks over in shock at this boy who’s now beet red and spinning the soupy parts of his ice cream around in the dish with his spoon.

He blinks a couple of times.

“Yeah. We do. But uhm… they made a test. So we’re… going to get tested soon and if we’re clean then we’ll probably stop using them.”

His face is burning up. If he was in his right mind he might wonder why the kid is asking something so personal, but right now he’s spinning away with thoughts of Steve Harrington.

“Why?”

“Because-” Billy starts answering immediately, and he’s a little surprised at himself but he can’t stop. The image of those big, wide, brown eyes are melting him down. “-because I think Steve and I are in it for the long haul.”

“Really?!” Will asks immediately, all of the excitement in the world in his voice.

Billy is sputtering like an idiot, looking into Will’s face as he looks at Billy like he’s just promised him a new puppy or something.

Shit, what did I just say?

“I…” Billy falls flat. He doesn’t even know what he was planning on saying. Did he really just admit that to this little pipsqueak? “Shut up and finish your ice cream.” Billy mutters, crossing his arms and sliding down the chair a bit, tapping his right boot on the ground in irritation.

Will is smirking, going back to his ice cream with an irritating as hell look. Like he knows something now. Like he knew something this whole time.

Billy’s mad, especially mad that he can’t hold back a chuckle.

“You know,” he says, not looking at Will. “You’re annoying as hell.”

There’s not a lot of bitterness in his voice, but he slides his eyes over to Will to gauge his reaction. The boy still has that dumb smirk on his face.

“I know.” He admits around a spoonful of ice cream. “But you don’t think I’m as bad as everyone else is.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I heard you talking to Max.” Will smiles like he’s won.

“You’re right, you’re not as bad. You’re worse.” Billy says it on a chuckle and kicks at Will’s foot, who laughs along with him.

“Well you’re worse than Steve.”

Billy sighs through his grin. “You’re not wrong about that.” He looks wistfully away, thinking about his boyfriend, wondering where he is right now. Thinking about the words he said to Will… about being in it for the long haul.

He meant them. He and Steve had talked about it a bit, albeit when they were both a little crossfaded and dizzy and pliant. But they talked about it. For like, three hours. Talked through plans and ideas and dreams.

Billy snaps out of it, looking back to the boy scooping up the whipped cream.

“Seriously, finish up. Mom’s going to get worried if we’re back late.”

And when the two boys share joint shocked, owlish looks with each other at the word that just came out of Billy’s mouth, they don’t talk about it. Not then as they let the sound of the occasional passing car fill in the silent space, and not on the ride home as they let the music fill in the space there. But there’s a feeling. It’s warm and it nearly suffocates Billy but… it’s good. It’s nice and soft and scary but… it’s good.

(find it on A03 here)