#the drivers in this town are a fucking nightmare and I don't trust a single other vehicle on the road

[s17s17]

Had some girl speeding like shit blow past me on my way home, so at the next light I stopped like. RIGHT behind her. Someone who didn't see the way she drives thought I was just being a dick and they made a point of cutting me off to play traffic cop, then they saw her doing That Shit and they decided I wasn't that bad, sped up to normal. God I wish this town wasn't a constant dumbest motherfucker contest, and that people would quit volunteering me to judge

[mediocre--writing]

Hey! I just read a couple of your drabbles and I LOVE THEM!💙💙

So if you don't mind, could you please do a Harringrove drabble/ficlet based on either of the two (or a mix of both, if you can) Twenty One Pilots songs "Tear in My Heart" and/or "Smithereens"?

Because, for me, Tear in My Heart is very Billy and Smithereens is very Steve👉👈

Thank you!!💜

Ok so love this and you have an amazing mind, just so you know.

This is like a 2 in 1 fic post so :))))

So smithereens and steve work so well together, like

“I go step to a dude much bigger than me/ for you I know that I would get messed up, weigh 153/ For you I would get beat to smithereens”

Like this is just Steve's personality. He got into a fight every season and barely ever wins without intervention. And like i could see him just being so overcome with emotions that he just does what he knows, which is self destruct.

Like with his fight with Jonathan, he almost accepts that Nancy was too good for him and thinks that he might as well take other people with him.

Then with Tommy in the parking lot, it’s not really a fight, but it shows that he has a conscience and fixes his mistakes.

Then with his fight with Billy, he only tries to protect the kids, even if he’s losing miserably.

I could 100% see steve having snuck into billy’s room during the night once (before he really knew about neil), not to do anything nefarious, but just that he had a really bad nightmare, because there was a small power outage, and billy is really good at helping him sleep afterwards.

And let's just say that Billy's alarm clock (which is always set for 5:30am, half an hour before Neil wakes up just to give him peace of mind) doesn’t go off because of the power outage.

And Neil comes to wake up Billy for school because he hasn’t woken up yet, and sees Billy spooning Steve and both boys are snoring and pressing bare chest to bareback, and so deep asleep that Neil lets them sleep, letting them wake up on their own.

And they do. Billy wakes up around 8am, feeling insanely well rested. He smiles and squeezes Steve before turning to sit up from his bed to look at his alarm clock, that’s blinking on and off and reads 3:18am, but the sun’s up and… the house is quiet.

Billy feels the dread settle deep in his chest, and swears he could cry if he were .000000001% more worried.

He hears the creaking of work boots walking around the house and knows, just from the tension lingering in the air, that it’s just an angry Neil pacing in the kitchen/ dining room and waiting for Billy to wake up.

He doesn’t know whether to wake Steve up and tell him to escape out of the window and run or just let him lay there anyway, it’s obvious that Neil already saw.

He let’s Steve sleep and throws a shirt on and slowly walks out of the room into the pits of hell, seeing Neil turn to him with an angry face a brighter shade of red than a firetruck.

As slurs are screamed and Billy is thrown into the walls and has family tchotchkes launched at his face, Steve wakes up after a particularly painful shove makes the wall shake, pushing a single picture frame fall off the wall on the other side.

Steve shoots up after that loud bang and hears a wail and muffled yelling before something else hits the wall. He grabs his shirt and puts it on as he walks out the bedroom door, seeing glass shattered on the hardwood leading to the family room, but what he sees around the corner is so much worse.

Billy’s bleeding in about twenty different spots, body curled in a ball in the corner of the kitchen, Neil standing over him, but turning to Steve with a grin.

Steve feels his blood boil as dots connect and loose ends are tied up, making the connection between Billy's bad nights and the new bruises he’ll sport under his shirt. The way he tries to hide it when he flinches at loud, authoritative men who are bigger than him. Why he told Steve to never call his house and why he is the way he is.

So Steve doesn’t think for another second before launching himself at Neil, slamming him into the floor, but that’s about as much as he wins that fight, because Neil is slamming him back and beating him the same way he did his son.

And billy, let’s admit it, is probably much stronger and a better fighter than his dad, but it’s so hard to fight back against an abuser that has controlled your life for so long. Even when you know you could win and that they deserve it, neil hargrove is still his dad and he could never get it into his head to hit him back.

But Steve was trying too hard to take him down because he was doing the wrong thing and losing terribly, never having won a fight once in his damn life.

Billy’s sitting up against the wall, ribs in excruciating pain and vision blurry, but he sees Steve getting up and kicking Neil once before backing up, and Billy sees his camaro keys in the dish by the front door.

So he stands up as fast as he can, ignoring the dizziness as if that would make it go away, grabs steve’s arm and shoots to the door, grabbing the camaro keys and shooting outside

He takes the driver’s seat, despite his dizzying head, just knew that he’d have to drive for a few miles then they could reevaluate, and Steve was clumsily getting into the passenger side.

Billy had only just started the car when Neil came rushing out the door, screaming threats and slurs as if that would make them stop their escape.

The camaro backed out of the driveway and shot down cherry lane in record time, going to the center of town, the least likely place Neil would cause a scene.

It isn’t until Billy puts the car in park that he can bear to look at steve.

He’s got a bloody nose and his shirt sleeve is torn off, hair disheveled from both sleep and the fight.

But billy looks so much worse.

He’s still hunched to the left from his ribs, he’s got tons of cuts along his arms, legs, and face from, what steve suspects, the broken glass on the floor. He’s also got this wild-animal-look in his eyes. One that screams, I escaped alive, but at what cost?

“Bill-”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Why-- I’m sorry are you asking me why I attacked your dad when he was kicking you while you were, literally, on the floor?”

“Ye--no, I-- but you got hurt, why’d you do that?”

“Billy, what did you expect me to do?” a shrug is all he gets in response--”If you saw my dad doing that to me, can you honestly expect yourself to stand there and watch it happen, or walk away and let it happen?”

Billy turns to face the grocery store--Melvad’s-- that they were parked in front of.

“It’s all weaving together in my head. All the bruises, the jumpiness, how you like to control things, it all makes sense, but what doesn’t make sense is why you wouldn’t just tell me, Bill,”

“And what exactly would you have been able to do about it, huh? You gonna take care of the situation or some shit, Steve? Trust me, I’m used to it and--”

“But you shouldn’t have to be ‘used to it,’ Bill, that’s abuse, and you don’t deserve that shit, not ever,”

Their conversation is halted by a tap on the glass by Steve's window, and the boys turn to see Joyce Byers looking more motherly than ever.

Steve rolled the window down.

“The hell happened to you boys?” she asked but corrected herself with a shake of her head, “Doesn’t matter, just come in to clean up, we’ve got bandages and antiseptic, free of charge,”

Billy wiped away the tears he didn’t know had formed and nodded to her, “We’ll be out in a minute, Mrs. Byers.”

“Joyce, please,” she demanded softly.

“Joyce, of course,” Billy offered a subdued smile.

She walked off and Steve rolled the window back up.

“Thank you,” Billy spoke quietly after a moment. “I’m glad he didn’t hurt you worse,”

“Billy, for you I would get beat to smithereens,”

“Well of course you would, you weigh like 100 pounds, not like you could put up much of a fight,”

“Hey! I gave him a black eye, thank you very much!”

“Oh, well, my bad, baby, then maybe you weigh 150, huh?”

Steve grumbled from the passenger seat, “153,”

Billy chuckled and grabbed Steve's hand over the console, locking eyes and smiling at each other, enjoying their small moment.

“We should probably get in there before Joyce comes out herself?” Steve sighed as he moved to take his hand out of Billy's.

��One more minute, please,”

Steve just tightened his grip on Billy's hand and moved towards the center of the car to rest his head on Billy's shoulder, Billy's head falling onto his.

-

Billy and Tear In My Heart thooooooooo

Like it fits him so well, again this is amazing.

I also see billy as a resident hater of america and it’s fucking government becuase, well, they have a history between his myriad of speeding tickets and, oh what was it, oh yes, the tentacle monster that impaled and possessed him.

And in California, there’s no cold weather where he lives, so there’s not exactly potholes to avoid.

The first time he drives into the cooler states and has to avoid potholes, he decides that his car deserves a vacation after this.

But the potholes become the biggest issue after he and Steve start dating.

He’s absolutely enamoured by this boy, because who wouldn’t be. He respects Billy's limits and can hold his own in arguments, and they fit together like missing pieces of a puzzle.

Steve has changed Billy, not that he’d admit it, but he’s softer now and all of his sharp edges have been baby-proofed. They’re still there and dangerous, but they’re more difficult to be stabbed by.

All the cracks in his heart have been filled with gold, like Kintsugi (a Japanese technique of repairing broken pottery with gold).

And Billy can complain and complain about Steve's clinginess, about his intrusion into his life, and his persistence to stay, but deep inside Billy's never felt more loved or cared for in his life.

But these damn potholes might just make him lose it.

Because billy is anything but a bad driver, he can control the car even when it’s going 45 over the speed limit, but now that steve falls asleep after their movie dates or when they’re coming back from barbeques with the party, Joyce, and Hopper, he’s driving the speed limit.

Which is just appalling.

But some of these potholes are so deep you could dive into them and not hit the bottom.

Like what the fuck, Indiana?

And, one time, Max is with them after a barbeque when Steve falls asleep and Billy slows the car down to what feels like snail speed, but is just the speed limit.

“Why are we going so slow?” Max asked as she leaned forward from the backseat to whisper to billy.

“Steve’s sleepin’,” he said, as if it was the obvious reason.

“You’re whipped,”

“Shut up, Shitbird,”

Max leans back into her seat with a grin on her face at the absolute mush her big, tough brother has turned into for Steve Harrington.