#okay it turned into harringrove bc my brain is so rotted for them

[sortasirius]

no but like...billy getting back to california for the first time after moving to hawkins

(where did this come from?  idk lmfao)

he’s finally graduated and scraped up enough to move out of neil’s house, and he swears to max he’ll write a letter and send it to henderson’s address so neil doesn't see it as soon as he gets settled.

he redlines it all the way there, barely stops for anything but gas, passes out once for three hours at a truck stop in the texas panhandle before hitting the road again.

he pulls to the side of the road the second he sees a beach inlet, the cool wind of san diego hitting his face, his breathing getting easier with every passing second as he puts the camaro in park and sees the water glittering before him.

he sprints down to the beach, ignoring the stares of people around him, and splashes into the water, sinking to his knees and letting it lap around him, feeling grounded for the first time since he was seventeen.

he stays there until the sun sets, watching and relishing the feel of the water on his skin, relishing the feeling of freedom that he’d been looking for his entire life.

and he finds a little place near the beach.  it’s shitty and rundown, but he’d always been pretty handy, so he fixes the fridge at least once a month and has already had to replace the showerhead twice, but he doesn't care, because he wakes up to the sound of the water every day.

he finds a job at a mechanic shop, and writes to max that he has friends when he really doesn’t.

he buys a cheap surfboard off a kid at the beach one weekend, and though it’s seen better days, he treats it like it’s made of gold anyway.

and then, when he’d just starting to get into a routine, when he’s got a library card and reads on the beach every evening until it gets too dark to see, and things are going well at the mechanic shop, a wrench gets thrown in his little life in the form of a burgundy beemer that has to be pushed into the shop late that summer

he recognizes it, because of course he does, but then again, what the fuck would steve harrington be doing here?  and anyway, there were probably thousands of those cars in that color in this state.  it couldn't be him.

until it was, and billy was staring at him, watching him smile slightly and shrug a little

“i think the chassis is shot,” he says, “it’s been shaking like a bitch since las vegas.”

“what’re you doin here?” billy mumbles, even as he peers under the car on the lift and realizes that the chassis is, in fact, shot

“always wanted to see california,” he says, “figured i could go somewhere with a tour guide.  show me the beach.”

that makes billy draw up short.

“you’ve never seen the beach?” he asks, figuring that steve might have to replace the entire underside of the car if he wants to make it back to hawkins in one piece.

“never been outside of hawkins, really,” he shrugs, “just out of town games and indianapolis a few times.”

“we’ll you aren’t going anywhere with this,” he gestures up to the car, “it shouldn't even be running, really.”

“how long will it take to fix?”

“fuck, if you’ve got the money?  i’ll have to order parts.  couple weeks at least.”

steve just shrugs.

“can i crash with you?”

billy just stares at him, and steve flushes a little.

“you said i could,” he reminds him, “before you left.”

it was true, billy had said that a few weeks before he’d left, when he and steve had gotten drunk at the quarry and billy had let things spill out of his mouth that he meant but couldn't take back.  he hadn’t thought that steve remembered that.

“yeah,” he said, “i guess i did.”

and so he takes steve home with him, staring straight ahead of him, music loud on the radio, trying to pretend that he always gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles showed white, and not because steve was sitting in the passenger seat, hair blowing in the wind and staring out at the waves.

billy pulls into the driveway, and turns back to the ocean, and steve follows like billy’s pulling him along.  he goes slower this time, watching steve carefully as they approach the water.

steve stands and watches it with wide eyes, inching closer, getting sand in his shoes as he shuffles forward bit by bit.

“it’s pretty,” he breathes, and if billy wasn’t so constantly fucking mesmerized by him he would have laughed.

“yeah,” he whispers back, voice lost in the sound of the waves, still staring at steve, “it is.”

and steve sinks down onto the sand, billy following his lead, and they sit and watch the sun set together.

and if their hands find each other in the sun-warmed sand, that’s nobody’s business but theirs.