#yes the abs are drawn with a sharpie

[meelkiewee]

Desert duo average dialogue

Grian: Scar, for the 69th time, put on your shirt on or you're gonna get burnt to a crisp.

Scar: AHAH! Grian relaaaaaax, have some fuuuun, explode some thiiiiiings! Everything's just fine!

Grian: Ughhhhhhh *headache*

[p-artsypants]

I’ll Handle This (8)

I’ve always wanted to write a sleepover/truth or dare fic, but I never could come up with a plot. This is my wish fulfillment. 

Ao3 | FF.net

—

In Which Nino is Sus

“So what does one do at the beginning of a sleepover?” Asked Plagg. “Is it like it is in the movies?” 

“Some things are similar,” Alya provided, digging through her duffel. “First, one must change into their pajamas.” She held up an oversized t-shirt and red flannel pants. 

“Oh! I get it!” Plagg undid his button. 

“What are you doing?” Asked Nino, looking meaningfully to the girls in the room. 

“Changing?” And Plagg dropped his pants in one fluid motion. 

Alya saw it coming and turned away with a laugh. 

But Marinette caught an eyeful (as much as Adrien in boxer briefs could be considered an eyeful) before she too turned away with an ‘eep!’ 

“I change in front of people all the time,” Plagg explained. “As a model that is. Not my fault you’re all shy. I’ve got underwear on.” 

“Well if Sunshine isn’t ashamed, then I’m not going to make a big deal out of it.” Alya stopped shielding her face, though she didn’t look directly at him. 

Plagg peeled his shirts off next, eliciting another squeal from Marinette. 

“I, for one, will be changing in the bathroom,” said Alya, PJs in hand. 

Plagg bent over and ruffled through his bag, derrière within smacking distance to Marinette. 

“I-I-I’ll join you,” said Marinette, scrambling to get her PJs.

Alya was already halfway out the door. “Wait your turn, M.” 

And Marinette was forced to wait as Adrien stepped those long, beautifully toned legs into a pair of...oh, Ladybug spot patterned pants. Then he slipped on a shirt covering those perfect, sculpted abs. 

The shirt was red, and had words sharpied onto it, but it wasn’t until he got it on and smoothed it out that she could read what it said. 

“Ladybug’s sexiest fan.” 

She laughed. Not a laugh of, ‘oh, that’s funny’ but a laugh of ‘why me God?’

“Your turn, M!” Alya sang, coming into the room. Her eyes landed on Adrien. “Where did you get that shirt?? I need one!” 

Plagg puffed out his chest. “Sorry Alya, this is a one of a kind piece! I made it myself!” 

“It’s really good for being hand drawn!” 

“Thanks!” He beamed. 

From his bag, Adrien had to wonder when Plagg had the time to make such a thing.

Marinette excused herself to change, and immediately Alya and Nino whirled on him. “What was that??” 

“What was what?” 

“That strip tease! What the heck?!” 

“Oh that? Well, when you have a bod like mine, you gotta flaunt it on occasion.” 

“Sure Dude,” Nino raised a brow. “But like, we just talked last week about how you were having self confidence issues. Why the change?” 

Plagg had forgotten about that conversation. Granted, he had tried not to listen to it, since it wasn’t a conversation for him...

“Well, you know how it is when you’re around people you trust.” 

“You’ve got the hots for Marinette!” Alya blurted. 

Plagg played bashful. “Well...maybe a little...” 

She squealed in excitement, clapping her hands together. “Oh em gee! I’ve been waiting for this day for forever! You have to ask her out! She’ll say yes, I promise!” 

“Oh, I know about her crush.” Plagg explained, “I just wanted to...encourage her to confess herself.” 

Alya and Nino both went wide-eyed. “You knew? Since when?” 

“And you didn’t tell me?” Nino asked, slightly hurt. “I thought I was your wingman.” 

“It’s a recent thing.” At least for Adrien it was. “I haven’t really had to think things through. I’m just...having fun and flirting.” He quirked a smile. “I am flirting, right? I’m not coming off like a creep, right?” 

“Oh no no,” Alya insisted. “You’re a natural! How did you find out?” 

Plagg twirled a lock of hair close to his scalp. “I have my ways.” 

Nino narrowed his eyes, the action going unnoticed by Plagg. 

Marinette returned, wearing pink shorts and an oversized sweatshirt. 

From Adrien’s point of view, she looked adorable, and he wished he could just pull her into a hug and snuggle up with her...maybe press a kiss to her temple. 

“There you are, Princess. We missed you!” Plagg chirped. 

Marinette blushed. “I was gone for like a minute.” 

“Oh but it felt so much longer! Nino and Alya were making out the whole time! It was torture!” 

“We did not!” Alya barked. “Don’t you lie to my girl!” 

“Don’t listen to her,” Plagg insisted. “She was sucking the soul out of him.” 

Alya gasped in mock horror. “You keep your vulgar rebellion away from my innocent baby!” 

Plagg wrapped his arms around Marinette, pulling her towards him. “On the contrary, I think I’ll pull Marinette with me into the depths of my depravity!” 

“Nooo!” Alya cried. “What horrors do you plan to subject her to?” 

“Well, I know I can’t convince her to dress like me.” 

“Over my dead body,” Marinette agreed, her face red hot. 

“But perhaps she will sneak out of her house like me?” He leaned in closer to her ear and purred. “We can stay out all night doing who knows what?” 

Marinette gave a full body shiver, wriggling away from him. “Uh, you don’t—I’m not very good at—surely they’ll notice—“ 

Plagg smiled to himself. God it was so funny seeing her so flustered. 

“Alright,” said Alya, pulling him away. “Give her a break before she combusts.” 

Nino watched with narrowed eyes, but they softened before Plagg could notice. 

“So? What’s next on the agenda?” Asked Plagg, still in great spirits. 

“Since this is a first sleepover for Adrien,” began Alya, with bravado, “I have an assemblage of traditional sleepover games. Including,” she slammed down a box. “Truth or dare.” 

Nino and Marinette both moaned. 

Plagg sat a little straighter at the reaction. “Oh, a game that causes suffering. Do tell!” 

“You’ve never heard of truth or dare?” Asked Nino. 

Plagg shook his head. “Never been to a sleepover, remember?” 

“Yeah, but you’ve at least had to hear about it in movies or books, right?” 

Plagg shrugged. “Maybe I just don’t remember. What are the rules?” 

“Simple,” explained Alya. “On your turn, you get to pick between truth or dare. Dare is an action you must do, and truth is a confession you have to make. Once you do it, you get to come up with the next person’s truth or dare.” 

“Oh yes, this sounds familiar now. What is the box for?” 

“Suggestions.” She opened the lid to reveal two sets of cards. “I’m sure we can all come up with two or three really good truths or dares, but these are in case we run out.” 

“Passes?” Asked Marinette. 

“Everyone gets one pass.” 

Plagg had to keep that in mind. While this game could be really fun and he could lie his way through most of it, he had the potential of ruining his master plan. 

But these kids wouldn’t try to oust Adrien’s brand new crush on the same night they learned about it. 

Right? 

Alya set a bottle sideways on the floor. 

“What’s that?” Plagg asked. 

“Since we can’t play ‘Spin the Bottle’, we’ll use it as a player picker.” 

“What’s ‘Spin the Bottle’?” 

“A kissing game.” Marinette provided. “You spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on, you kiss.” 

“Sounds spicy, but not a good game for just the four of us if you two are dating...” Plagg gestured between Alya and Nino. 

“Now you get it!” 

“So who goes first?” 

“I’ll go, because I suggested the game.” Alya sang, spinning the bottle. 

Plagg glanced at Marinette, who had her fingers crossed. Obviously hoping that she wouldn’t face Alya’s wrath. 

The bottle slowed to a stop pointing at Nino. 

“Narts…” 

“Alright babe, Truth…or Dare?” 

“Dare I guess.” 

“Perfect! I dare you to shave your legs.” 

“What!” Nino cried. 

Plagg barked out a laugh. “Oh she got you good!” 

“I’m not going to shave my legs!” 

“You have to, it’s a dare.” Alya protested. 

“Fine, I’ll do it later.” 

“Nope. Right now, Mister. Hop to it!” 

Nino groaned in defeat before rising to his feet. “Fine, I’m going.” 

“Do you need help?” 

“I know how to shave!” And Nino stormed off to the bathroom. 

“That was a pretty extreme dare for our first round.” Said Marinette. “How are we going to beat it?” 

“Oh the hair will grow back, and he never wears shorts. I could have dared him to shave his head. I’m sure there will be more amazing opportunities!” Alya sang. 

“So, are we waiting for him before we keep going?” Asked Plagg. 

“Might as well, don’t want him to feel left out.” 

“So these dares...how extreme is extreme?” Plagg asked, curling his legs up underneath him. 

Alya and Marinette shared a look, entertained on Alya’s end, and fear on Marinette’s. 

“Well, we all have one pass...” mused Alya. 

“Nothing physically detrimental or permanent!” Marinette objected. “Like a tattoo or piercing or something!” 

“Pft, that leaves a whole lot of open space.” 

“And nothing traumatic or emotionally detrimental.”

Plagg flapped his lips like a horse. “Now you’re being a party pooper.” 

“Oh!” Said Alya with a snap. “Lila said you guys had a photoshoot yesterday, but she didn’t tell me anything else. She usually tells me all about it! What happened?” 

Plagg chuckled. “Oh nothing in particular. I was just telling her about Magic.” 

Alya groaned. “Oh don’t even get started on it. Ever since Nath introduced it to you guys, Nino won’t shut up about it! It’s ‘Blue Black’ this, and ‘tarmogoyf’ that. I’m glad you guys are all bonding, I am, I’m just so lost!” 

“So you talked to Lila about that card game?” Marinette probed. 

“Yeah, basically the whole time.” He sent her a wink on the sly. “I can’t imagine that would have given her a bad experience. I thought she was my friend...” he played sad. 

Thankfully, Alya bought it. “Aww, Sunshine, maybe something else happened when you weren’t there. Don’t take it too harshly.” 

“NINO MICHELE LAHIFFE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY RAZOR!?” 

“IT'S FOR A DARE MOM! I’LL CLEAN UP AFTERWARDS!” 

“THERE IS BLOOD ALL OVER THE TUB! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” 

“I’M SHAVING MY LEGS! I HAVE HAIRY ANKLES!” 

“GIVE ME THAT! I’LL SHOW YOU HOW TO DO IT!” 

“MOOOOM I KNOW HOW TO SHAVE!!” 

The three teens in the room sprawled on the floor, gasping for air and desperate not to laugh too loud. 

Alya had tears in her eyes. “Oh my god he’s going to kill me.” 

“We’ll plan a beautiful funeral for you.” Marinette teased. 

Eventually, Nino rejoined the group, hiking his pants up so his legs were visible. “Ba-BAM!” 

Alya dragged a hand up his calf. “Damn babe, you clean up nice!”

“Don’t get used to it.” 

“Now you know my struggle.” She sassed back. 

“Al, I never gave you a hard time about unshaved legs. If you can put up with mine, I can certainly put up with yours.” 

Plagg turned to Marinette. “It’s certainly fascinating what couples will argue about, Hmm?” 

“Uh, y-yeah. It’s funny...” 

“Alright Nino, your turn to spin the bottle.” Alya gestured. 

Nino cracked his knuckles. “Don’t mind if I do!” And he gave it a whirl.

It landed on Marinette. 

“Truth or Dare?” 

“Umm...truth?” 

Nino smiled fiendishly, a smile that was uncharacteristic for him. “Okay. What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done to get your crush to notice you?” 

Marinette gasped in horror. “NINO!” 

“You could pass.” 

“And then for the rest of the game I live in terror that I’m going to get something worse? No.” 

Plagg leaned in closer, head in his hands, trying and failing not to look extremely curious. “Soo?” 

“So what?” 

“What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done to get your crush to notice you?” 

Her face colored brightly, all the way up to the tips of her ears. 

“We’re all friends here, M.” Assured Alya. “And you don’t have to say who it is.” 

Finally, Marinette exhaled slowly and admitted, “there’s been a lot. And I’m not sure if I can pick just one above the others...but the least incriminating would be the voicemail.” 

Alya chuckled. “Ah, the voicemail.” 

Marinette covered her eyes with both hands, but continued. “It was normal at first. I rambled a little bit through it, stammered it out…just asked him if he wanted to go to the movies, and then…instead of hanging up like a normal, sane person. I threw my phone, while it was still recording. I then proceeded to say a bunch of stuff to Alya, like ‘I couldn’t have just said ‘blah blah blah’ and the phone recorded the whole thing.” 

“And he didn’t say anything about it?” Asked Nino.

“It gets better,” Alya smirked.

“No…because he never heard it…I stole his phone and deleted it.”

“YOU STOLE HIS PHONE?!” Plagg shouted. He was 1) Shocked that such an occurrence happened around him. He was pretty diligent around Adrien’s belongings. God knows the amount of times Lila had tried to rifle through his bag. And 2) Shocked and delighted that Marinette had the guts to do something so radical. “That’s amazing, Marinette!”

“It’s not amazing!” Marinette lamented. “I’m a phone thief!” 

“She stole mine too,” smiled Alya. “She’s a scoundrel.”

“I am! I am a scoundrel!”

“So what did the voicemail say?” Asked Plagg, much too invested in this story.

Marinette blushed even brighter, pulling her shoulders up to her ears. “You can’t ask that! You have to wait your turn!” 

“Oh clever. I see. Well then, I’ll hold on to that for now.” He chuckled. “It’s your turn to spin the bottle.” 

Marinette relaxed slightly, thrilled that she had made it through the question with minor embarrassment (and her secret crush unaware, as far as she knew.) She spun the bottle with gusto.

It landed on Plagg. 

“Oh boy.” Plagg winced. 

“Ha! Truth or dare?” 

“Hmm…I’ll do a dare.” 

“I dare you to call Principle Damocles, pretending to be your father.” 

“Oh my god yes!” Cheered Alya. “Anyone have his number?”

“I do, for student council purposes. Best not use my phone then.” 

Plagg took out Adrien’s phone, unlocking it, and handed it over to Marinette. 

She dialed the number. “All you have to do is start the call.” 

“What should I say?”

“Don’t get anyone in trouble.” Marinette warned. 

“Oh, and don’t give him a reason to call back and follow up.” 

“Okay…I got an idea.” He hit the call button. 

After a few heart pounding seconds, he answered. “Hello, Principle Damocles here!” 

“Yes, quite, this is Gabriel Agreste.” Plagg said, in his perfectly flawless impersonation. 

The other three in the room had to hold their breath to avoid laughing out loud. 

“Ah, Mr. Agreste! To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“I assure you, monsieur, this conversation will not be a pleasure. Do you think you’re a good administrator?” 

“I uh…” 

“No stammering, I hate stammering!” 

“Yes! I think I’m very accomplished!” 

“My son came home with a cold today.” Plagg narrowed his eyes, putting anger in his voice. 

“Oh well…I’m very sorry to hear that, sir. But after all, this is a school with many children, they’re bound to pass colds along.” 

“How is your sanitation? Do you regularly clean tables and desks?” 

“I-well, not usually the desks. The floors, yes, and the bathrooms…” 

“And the air system? Do you keep good air flow?”

“The courtyard is open air, so yes, there should be—“ 

“Is your heater running?” 

“It should be! It’s March after all!” 

“Well then, you better go catch it.” And he hung up. 

As soon as he pulled the phone away, all three of his friends were on the floor, crying with laughter. 

“OH MY GOD! THAT WAS THE BEST!” 

“Flawless setup, flawless execution.” Alya giggled. 

Marinette rubbed the tears from her cheeks. “Man, your impersonation of your dad is spot on.” 

“I have a lot of practice.” Plagg shrugged. Plagg’s impression in his own body was pretty good, but combined with Adrien’s vocal chords, it was just too good. Almost too much power.

The game continued onward. With the dares becoming even more crazy. Nino ingested a random concoction of sauces Alya had brewed in the kitchen, while Alya displayed her acting prowess in pretending to be a baby being born. The truths were pretty good, as Nino had confessed to having a secret Gumby fetish, and Marinette had to admit that she had accidentally peed her pants at a water park last summer. 

Then Alya spun the bottle, only for it to land on Plagg. 

“Dare.”

Alya grinned manically, and Marinette felt a chill creep down her spine. Alya had a tendency to go too far, and this would be one of those times where she tried to help Marinette out. 

“Adrien Agreste…I dare you…to kiss…Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” 

Plagg had seen it coming a mile away. It was so predictable. And yet he had been considering what to do. He still had a pass. Kissing humans, while he was human or not, was not up there on his list of things he enjoyed. 

Oh, what the hell. It wasn’t his body!

Marinette’s mouth dropped open in shock. “You can’t make him do that! Adrien, you can pass! I won’t be offend—“ 

Then she was laying on her back, with Adrien’s wonderful, perfect frame pressing her against the floor. His lips were on hers, full, and absent of any hesitation. 

Someone wolf-whistled. 

Before she could even think of how to respond, he clamored off of her, and sat up. “That good enough for you?” 

“Damn, I wish you had warned me so I could have got a picture!” 

“No way! What happens at Nino’s stays at Nino’s!” 

“You good down there, girl?”

Marinette let out a string of consonants.  

“You broke her,” Nino mused. 

“Worth it.” He slyly gazed back to his overnight bag, where Adrien was hiding for the evening. Only his eyes, glowing green slits, full of anger were visible.

Plagg just smirked, and then winked. 

— 

Marinette and Alya left at 9. Marinette because she had to ‘wake up early’ and Alya because she wanted to ‘get homework done’. Plagg saw it for what it really was. They were going to gossip about his little stunt for a while. 

“Wanna play UMS?” Nino asked, once the girls had left. 

“You know it!” 

Nino gestured him forward, letting him lead the way to Nino’s bedroom. 

But upon entering the bedroom, Plagg heard the door close, heard a bang, felt an extreme pain in his head, and then blacked out. 

—

When he awoke, the room was dark. 

He was sitting in a chair, Nino’s computer chair, with his hands and feet bound with duct tape. 

The pain in his head swelled again, as a bright light was flashed in his face. 

“Uh, what the hell?” He grouched. 

“Are you okay dude?” Nino asked, with sympathy. 

“Besides the concussion? Just peachy.” 

Nino sighed in relief. “Oh good.” Then his voice took on an edge he had never heard before. “Now, who are you, and what have you done with the real Adrien?” 

Plagg blinked once, twice. “Pardon?”

“You heard me. Where is my best friend?” 

“I...don’t know what you mean? I’m just me, Nino?” 

“Oh no no no,” anger creeped into his voice. “You may have everyone fooled, but I know better! Marinette thinks you’re having a crisis, Alya says the fame and fortune have gone to your head, but I know Adrien! And I know that you aren’t him!” 

Still slightly shocked, Plagg had to ask, “what makes you say that?” 

“Evidence A: you’ve been wearing sunglasses to hide your weird cat-pupils. And I know they aren’t colored contacts, because Adrien lamented to me that he couldn’t wear colored contacts with his astigmatism!” 

Plagg blinked again. “Shit dude, got me there.” 

“Evidence B: at dinner, Marinette offered an array of macrons, and instead of your hard and true first choice of passion fruit, you went with pumpkin spice! You never went for the passion fruit!” 

“I just...wanted to be adventurous?” 

“Evidence C: the kiss.” 

“Of course.” 

“Even if Adrien was head over heels madly in love with Marinette, he is far too meek to kiss her like you did tonight.” 

“Facts.” 

“So, I’ll ask you one more time. Who are you, and where’s the real Adrien?” 

Plagg considered this for a moment, but only a moment before answering. “Yeah, you got me. I’m not Adrien.” 

Nino pumped his fist in victory. “I knew it! I told the girls but they didn’t believe me!” 

“Adrien’s in my overnight bag.” 

Before Nino could check himself, Adrien came spiraling out to reprimand him. “Plagg! You can’t just give away our situation like that! What happened to secrecy? Secret identities?!” 

Plagg shrugged. “He obviously had me figured out. Mortals are particularly stubborn when they know a truth.” 

Adrien didn’t argue anymore as he was scooped out of the air and crushed to Nino’s chest. “Dude! I’ve been so worried!”

“I’m okay. A little traumatized, but okay.” Adrien squeaked out. 

Nino held him in his hands. “What happened? Why are you—hey, you’re a Kwami!” 

“The Black Cat Kwami,” Plagg clarified. 

“So that means...you’re Chat Noir!” 

“Yep. And now you’re the only other human that knows.” 

“I figured Carapace could keep the secret.” Plagg hummed. “Wayzz certainly trusts him enough.” 

“But Hawkmoth knows who Carapace is...or was...” 

“And he hasn’t bothered me since,” Nino offered. “I don’t think he cares?” 

“See? Everything is copacetic. Now unbind me mortal, or face the consequences.” 

“What consequences?” Asked Adrien with a laugh. “You’re in my body. You can’t do anything!” 

“I can still cast my lip chapping spell.” 

There was a brief knock at the door before Mrs. Lahiffe entered. It was enough time for Nino to hide Adrien in his hands. 

“Alright boys, dad has to wake up early tomorrow, so make sure to keep it down!” 

“MOOOOM! I’m in the middle of an interrogation!” 

“Well, interrogate quietly, honey.” And she closed the door. 

“Okay, one of you, explain what the heck is going on?” 

Adrien held his tail. “It’s my fault. I pissed Plagg off and he punished me.” 

“Sounds an awful lot like his fault, dude.” 

Plagg scoffed. “Fine, I’ll take responsibility for this amazing master plan! Adrien was complaining about his unrequited love life, his poor relationship with his father, and Lila’s constant sexual harassment. So I told him that could fix it all if he agreed to it.” 

“And the solution was to...swap bodies?” 

“I didn’t know!” Adrien defended. “I thought...well I don’t know what I thought. He just said he would fix it. I guess I didn’t imagine it would be this...” 

“In my defense...” started Plagg, “it is really fun to mess with Adrien.” 

Nino mostly ignored him. “So what has to happen to get you to switch back?” 

“Well, we have to get Marinette to confess to me, making our crushes mutual.” 

“Ah, I see.” Nino said sagely. “That makes sense. What else?” 

“I have to get Lila to leave me alone. Like, permanently.” 

“I guess I didn’t realize she was that much of a problem. I know you mentioned that she was harassing you...” 

“That’s not even the half of it. Marinette told me, Chat Noir me, that Lila has been actively threatening her.” 

Nino frowned. “Threatening her with what?” 

“Taking all of her friends and me away from her. I got Lila to lay off by allowing her to model with me, but since Plagg and I swapped bodies, she’s threatened to go back on our deal. If Plagg can get her to drop the whole thing, that would be ideal. But to fulfill the contract, he has to get her to leave me alone.” 

“And she’s been falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.” Said Plagg, with pride. 

“What did you do?” 

“I just explained Magic: The Gathering to her.” 

“...and? I mean, I know it’s a game that’s pretty hard to visualize in your head.” 

“I explained it badly, and gave her no chance to talk. For about four hours.” 

“Oh! So you’re annoying her?” 

“He’s annoying everyone.” Adrien clarified. 

“That’s how I got to school today. Gabriel put the house on lockdown and I serenaded him until he let me out.” 

“You were serious about that?” Nino chuckled. 

“Naturally!” 

“Wait, so the last thing is your dad?” 

“Yeah, Plagg has to fix our relationship.” 

“WOOF! That’s a tall order! Well, I better get used to having a Kwami as a best friend.” 

“Oh come on, Nino!” Plagg groaned, “have some faith in me, dude.” 

“Dude, I have all the faith in you. But I also know Adrien’s tyrant of a father. Unless you do brain surgery, you aren’t changing his mind.” 

Plagg seemed to consider this. “Hmm, brain surgery...” 

“No, NO!” Adrien reprimanded. 

“I’m just kidding. I know it’s going to be tough, but I know a thing or two about manipulation and lust for control. Gabriel is cracking. It’s more and more evident every time I push him. And once he cracks, he’ll listen.” 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Asked Nino. 

“Yes, but not right now. I have a great use for you soon, Nino Lahiffe.” 

“Don’t talk like that,” Adrien reprimanded. “It’s freaky.” 

“Oooo someone’s still bitter about not getting to kiss his crush~!” 

“I’M NOT BITTER!” Adrien yowled. 

“Bitter like an old grapefruit! I got to kiss pigtails and you’re grumpy!” 

“SHUT UP!” 

“Are you guys always like this?” Nino asked. 

“Sometimes, when Plagg is being annoying.” 

“Which is often. I am a creature of mischief and chaos.” 

“Which explains a lot…” Nino murmured. 

“Hey, are you going to teach me to play UMS or not?!”

[waitimcomingtoo]

Hello darling! Currently obsessed with your writing! Srsly best seller list is shaking. Could I possibly request a peter Parker x reader where she falls asleep on peter while he’s doing homework at his desk and may walks in and it’s just cute and fluffy? Idk run with it. Thank you for existing!!💕

thank you!!

A Soft Place to Land

Pairing: Best Friend Peter Parker x Reader

Synopsis: Aunt May finds you and Peter in a compromising position

Masterlist

Requests are CLOSED

“PP.” You cut off your own sentence with a yawn. “Do you have your physics notebook?”

Peter swiveled in his chair and looked at you. You were sprawled out on his bed, lying on your tummy with your laptop in front of you, eyes dropping from exhaustion. Peters own textbooks and papers were strewn across the bed, bordering your body like an outline of chalk. Peter couldn’t help but smile at the sight, knowing his sheets would smell your perfume once you went home.

“I do.” Peter confirmed. “Do you need it?”

“Would you mind if I copied your notes? Mr. Brighton writes too fast and I missed the section on force.” You said slowly, signaling to Peter that you were beyond tired.

“No problem.” Peter smiled kindly and tossed his notebook at you. You failed to catch it and were hit in the face at full speed, letting out a surprised “oof.” Peter winced at his mistake.

“Oops.” He grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” You laughed tiredly. “Woke me up a little.” You yawned again, this time turning away and disguising it into your shoulder so Peter wouldn’t see.

“Y/n, you should take a nap.” Peter suggested out of concern for you and your wellbeing, the only thing he was ever really concerned with. “I’ll move my stuff to the desk. You can sleep in my bed.”

Peters choice of words sent him back to another moment in time.

Peter saw you through you window and collapsed onto your fire escape. You were working diligently at your desk, and Peter hated the idea of taking you away from your work, but he needed you. Only you. Too weak to raise his arm, he hit his forehead against your window until it caught your attention.

“PP?” You asked in a hushed voice as you rushed to your window and opened it as quickly as you could. “How did you get up here? Did you climb the fire escape?”

“Not exactly.” Peter said with a pained smile as you helped him inside.

“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?” You asked, sounding like a parent as you sat Peter down on your bed. Peter gingerly sat down, wincing with every movement. He felt your heart rate pick up and he berated himself for worrying you.

“I climbed next to the fire escape.” Peter said sluggishly.

“On the wall?” You laughed, not believing him. You finally noticed how badly he was beaten. In the soft glow of your desk lamp, you could see bruises on Peters knuckles and under his eyes. He was sweaty and dirty, and definitely did not come from decathlon practice like he said he did. “What happened?” You asked calmly.

“I found the guy who killed Uncle Ben.” Peter have you a half hearted smile. It’d been three months since Peters uncle was shot right in front of him. Peter didn’t speak about it. He didn’t mention his name, or what happened. His casual drop of his deceased uncles name made You filly realize the extent of the situation. Peter was hurt, badly, and he had come to you. This wasn’t the time for questions. This was the time to help Peter.

“Okay.” You said calmly, looking into Peters tired eyes and giving him a comforting look. You sat down on the bed and placed a hand in his knee. “You found the guy who killed uncle Ben.” You repeated, so he knew you heard him.

“But he also found me.” Peter mumbled before collapsing forward into your arms. He was in and out of consciousness as you caught him and gently laid him on your bed, resting him against the headboard.

“Stay there.” You commanded, though he physically couldn’t disobey you. He couldn’t move. He let his aching body rest against your soft sheets, knowing they’d smell like his cologne when he went home. Peter opened one eye, the eye that wasn’t swollen shut, and watched you. You were in sleep shorts and an oversized decathlon t-shirt, looking as beautiful as ever. You paced back and forth around, collecting various things to patch Peter up. Your makeup free face was full of concern, which made Peters heart ache. Coincidentally, it was the only part of him not currently aching. He didn’t want you to worry. It wasn’t your responsibility. But he had no where else to go.

“Okay.” You said with medical supplies stacked up to your chin. “This is all I got.”

Peter wanted to tell you that it was more than enough, but he only had the strength for a weak, “Thank you.”

“Shh. Don’t waste your energy.” You hushed up as you propped him up against your headboard again, since he had begun to slouch. He wanted to take some of the work off of you, but could only be moved around like a rag doll. He gave you a grateful smile. In your eyes, it was enough.

“I’m gonna have to…um.” Your eyes darted down to his chest. He was wearing a huge, old fashioned looking brown jacket over some light blue sweat pants and red water shoes. Had he been in better condition, you would’ve questioned his outfit. Peter looked into your eyes and gave you a tired nod. You didn’t recognize the look in his eyes. He looked almost fearful, and a little hesitant. You unbuttoned his large jacket and slid it off his shoulders. You folded it neatly, noticing the initials “BFP” on the tag. So it was Bens, you thought. He was running around the city, in the dead of night, getting beat up in Bens jacket. You gave Peter a sorrowful look before your eyes trailed down to what was under the jacket. He wore a red hoodie with a spider drawn on it in sharpie. The sleeves were cut out and blue sleeves to match his sweatpants were poorly sewn in.

“Y/n-“ Peter croaked.

“I understand.” You cut him off. You looked him in the eyes and gave him a gentle smile. Your eyes told him that you were telling the truth. “You don’t have to explain anything to me until you’re ready. All that matters to me is getting you patched up, okay?”

“Okay.” Peter said weakly, wishing he could say more. He had so much he wanted to tell you. So much.

“I’m gonna have to unzip it now.” You warned him. “Is that okay?”

Peter gave you another nod. Not wanting to make the situation anymore awkward, you quickly unzipped the hoodie and slid it off his shoulders. Peters normally scrawny body was replaced with a six pack of abs. You gulped and felt your face heat up, hoping he couldn’t tell.

He could.

A deep gash, likely from a knife, was in his lower abdomen. He had other miscellaneous cuts and bruises covering his body. He was in bad shape, worse than you thought, but nothing you couldn’t fix. Your eyes slowly trailed up his body and met his eyes. Peter was staring at you, desperate to read your reaction.

“Are you scared?” He whispered. You laughed lightly and shook your head.

“Of you, PP? You wish.” You teased. You dampened a Cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide and gently dabbed it on the gash. It wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, and almost looked like it was healing in its own. You then applied some Neosporin and one by one, adhered a pink Hello Kitty band aid to the cut until it was covered. Peter noticed your choice of band aids and laughed, sending an ache through his chest.

“Cute.” He smiled.

“I couldn’t find the dinosaur ones.” You genuinely apologized, making Peters heart grow fonder for you.

“It’s okay.” Peter said, using all that was left if his strength to brush stray hair away from your face. You looked at him as he did it, and leaned into his hand. Peter smiled, grateful that through it all, he was still PP to you, the dumb nickname you gave him when you were kids when you couldn’t pronounce “Peter.”

“Should I be worried about you?” You whispered, your fingertips brushing his hand before closing you hand around his wrist, keeping his palm on your cheek.

“If I say no, will you be worried anyway?” Peter asked, feeling a little strength return.

“I’ll always worry about you, PP.” You said sincerely.

“I promise, I’ll explain it all one day.” Peter swore. You seemed content with his answer.

“Whenever you’re ready.” You told him as you tilted his chin towards your face. Peter froze, thinking you were going to kiss him. Instead, you pulled out a Cotten swab and gently dabbed it on the cut on Peters lip. A plus side to his powers, hydrogen peroxide didn’t sting anymore. After cleaning the cut, you leaned in to blow on it. Your puckered lips were almost touching Peters. Peter gulped and did his best to keep his pulse from getting to crazy. You then dabbed some Neosporin on his lip and got to work on the rest of his cuts.

Peter fell asleep in the middle of you playing nurse. When he woke up, he was in your biggest shirt, and a loose pair of sweatpants he’d seen your brother wearing before. He was fully under your covers now, and resting comfortably against your pillow. He slowly opened his eyes and saw you sitting at your desk.

“Y/n?” He called out, making you turn around.

“Yes, PP?” You said.

“I’m Spider-Man.” Peter admitted. His mouth moved faster than his brain. He didn’t think it through. He just told you.

“No.” You said sarcastically, and shot him a smile. Peter felt relived at your reaction.

“I feel better now. I can head home.” He groaned, and painfully tried to sit up. You rushed to his side and tried to get him to lie down again.

“You’re not going anywhere.” You laughed at his absurdity. “I texted May from your phone and said you were sleeping at Ned’s.”

“But I’m not.” Peter pointed out.

“I know.” You rolled your eyes. “You’re sleeping here.”

“Y/n, you don’t have to do that. That’s too much to ask.” Peter protested your hospitality.

“You’re not asking. I’m telling you.” You assured Peter. “And of course I do. You’re my best friend. And May can’t see you like this. You’re gonna stay here tonight.” You told him, absentmindedly tucking him in. Peter laughed at you slipping into motherly behavior. “You can sleep in my bed.”

“I can’t.” You said, breaking Peter away from the memory. “I have to finish this essay.”

“What you have to do is get some sleep.” Peter insisted, throwing a paper ball at you when he noticed you beginning to doze off. “How many hours did you get last night?”

“Dunno.” You said sleepily, resting your tired head on your hand. “One-teen.”

“One-teen?” Peter asked in concern.

“Mhm.” You nodded, head drooping further and further down until your arm slipped out from under you and you face planted into your textbook. “Maybe it was twelve-ty.”

“Y/n, you’re making me worried.” Peter chewed his bottom lip.

“The static on the TV makes you worried.” You pointed out.

“Because it makes a scary sound.” Peter defended. “Don’t change the subject. You need to get some sleep.”

“Sleep is for the weak.” You yawned.

“That can’t be true, because you’re the strongest person I know.” Peter quipped.

“Even stronger than that guy you fought who was made of sand?” You asked with hooded eyes.

“Yes, because he was made of sand.” Peter deadpanned.

“Mmm.” You laughed sleepily. “Sand. Yummy.”

“Okay, now I know you’re exhausted if you think sand is yummy.” Peter said, amazed that you were still in denial.

“What did you say, honey?” You murmured.

“No, not honey.” Peter laughed, cheeks hearing up at the accidental pet name. “I said yummy.”

“What’s funny?” You asked, now purposely misunderstanding him.

“Oh my goodness.” Peter laughed again. “Have you slept at all this week?”

“I have no time.” You sighed, eyes reluctantly going back to your essay.

“I can finish this essay for you.” Peter offered.

“I can’t ask you to do that.” You informed him.

“You’re not asking. I’m telling you.” Peter repeated your words from that night, wondering if you recalled that memory too.

“No, PP. You have your own work you need to do.” You insisted.

“My stuff isn’t due until next week.” Peter reminded you. “You always take care of me. Let me take care of you. Just this once.”

You seemed to consider his offer. “I won’t let you do my actual essay, because that’s cheating, but I’ll allow you to help me.”

“Fine by me.” Peter shrugged.

“Okay.” You gave in and went over to where he was sitting at his desk. “Scoot.”

Peter moved over in his swivel chair and let you share the seat with him. You rested your back against the arm rest and laid your legs on top of his before handing him your laptop. “I have my thesis statement and everything else, but I have no idea if it’s even coherent. It feels a little messy.”

“Here’s what I do.” Peter began to explain how he structured his essays. About halfway though his explanation, he felt pressure on his shoulder. You had rested your head there and were listening to him with a content smile.

“Keep going. I’m listening.” You assured him, letting out another yawn after. Peter kept going and soon picked up on your breathing slowing down. You stretched a little, your nose brushing his jawline and ended up even deeper in the crook of his neck. You began to lazily play with the buttons on his button down.

“Alright.” Peter said softly, not trusting his voice to be steady. “Then, I draw back to my thesis and make a connection. It should be a very obvious connection so that the person reading it-“ Peter stopped when he heard the soft whistle of your breath. He carefully adjusted himself and wrapped an arm around you, just so his arm wouldn’t fall asleep, or at least that’s what he told himself. He also didn’t want you to slip and fall off the chair. You ended up snuggling deeper into his side and throwing an arm around his waist. Peter smiled to himself and pulled your laptop in front of him. He revised your work and nodded in approval. You didn’t have much left, just needing proofreading. Peter took his time reading your essay, editing what needed to be fixed and making some corrections. He finished in about half an hour and emailed it to your teacher. He then picked up your planner and looked at what else you needed to get done. In your signature handwriting, was the following:

Write essay Copy(steal) PP’s physics notes Find quote for English project

Peter checked the time, and then your sleeping face. It was 11 now, and your curfew was 12. He could copy his notes into your notebook and find a quote in under an hour. He’d be damned if he couldn’t. And so, Peter took out your black marble notebook with the little Spider-Man stickers and began to copy his notes down. As he worked with his right hand, his left hand rubbed soothing circles onto your back. You let out soft noises in your sleep, that Peter found it hard not to fawn over. He got halfway through copying when he door opened.

“Are you guys-,” May said at full volume until Peter held a finger to his lips. A pretty harsh finger, one might add. May grimaced and nodded. “Are you guys alright? Need anything from me?” She said in a softer tone.

“We’re okay.” Peter whispered back. “I gotta get her home soon.”

“How long has she been out?” May asked.

“About an hour.” Peter replied.

“And how much sleep had she been getting?” May sighed, knowing you and your habits.

“None.” Peter sighed as well. “I don’t want to wake her so I’ll probably swing her back home, if that’s alright.”

“But that means you’ll have to swing back alone.” May reminded him. “I thought you hated swinging that late?”

Peter shrugged. “It’s okay. I’d rather get her home safely. That’s all that matters.”

“You’re a good boyfriend.” May smirked, already anticipated her nephews reaction. ���Holding her while she sleeps and helping her with her work.”

“I’m not her boyfriend.” Peter said quickly, and a little too loudly, causing you to stir in your sleep and hug Peter a little tighter. “I’m her best friend, who’s a boy. Not her boyfriend. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” May squinted her eyes.

“Yes.” Peter stated. “She doesn’t think of me like that.”

“But you think of her like that.” May said, as more of a statement than a question.

“Yes.” Peter nodded, then shut his eyes tightly. “I mean, no. No. She’s my friend.”

“Right. Of course.” May said sweetly. “Girlfriend.” She added under her breath.

“What was that?” Peter snapped.

“Peter, this is nothing to be ashamed of. You’re growing. Your body is flourishing now. It’s okay if your Peter tingle tingles just for her.” May teased.

“Please stop saying “tingle” May.” Peter groaned.

“All I’m saying is, I fell in love with my best friend too once.” May held up her hands in defense.

“Oh yeah?” Peter said sarcastically. “Then what happened?”

“Then I became Mrs. Parker.” May smiled.

Peter fell silent, focusing only on your breathing as he absentmindedly twirled your hair around his finger.

“May?” He said softly.

“Yes, Peter?” May answered.

“What do I do if she doesn’t feel the same?” Peter wondered out loud. It was his biggest fear. Him, finding the courage to tell you how he feels, and you rejecting him. Saying something like “aw, PP, you know I love you but-“ and then some recycled rejection that would utterly devastate Peter as he nodded along with a smile. He couldn’t bear the thought.

“Do you know how she feels?” May asked, knowing a little more than Peter. She had an outsider perspective on your relationship. She saw all the stolen glances and lingering looks that you two didn’t catch.

“Yes.” Peter huffed. May tilted her head to the side.

“Did you ask?” She continued.

“No.” Peter said sheepishly, knowing the point his aunt was trying to make.

“Then you don’t know.” May told him.

“We’ve been best friends for years. She would’ve said something by now if she felt that way about me.” Peter defended.

“Have you said something?” May folded her arms.

“No.” Peter said harshly, before realizing what May was trying to say.

“Then why would you expect her to?” May delivered the final blow. Peter knew he had lost the argument.

“I don’t like it when you get all omnipotent on me.” Peter grumbled. He looked at your sleeping face and sighed. He wanted to tell you. He did. And he wanted more times like this. He’d hold you every night if he could.

“That’s what aunts are for.” May smiled in triumph. Peter was quiet again.

“May?” He said finally.

“Yes, Peter?” She asked, having a feeling where he was going with it.

“I feel that way.” He admitted, without taking his eyes off your notes. “About her.”

“I know you do, Peter.” May nodded in understanding. She could tell her nephew had feelings for you long before he knew it himself.

“What do I do?” Peter asked, looking up sadly at May.

“Talk to her. You’ll know where to go from there.” May advised.

“And if I don’t?” Peter asked.

“She’ll know.” May said with an all knowing smile. She blew Peter a goodnight kiss and shut the door quietly. You stirred at the sound and slowly took your head off Peters shoulder. He went back to his work and pretended he never stopped it as you stretched.

“What time is it, PP?” You asked through a yawn.

“Quarter after 11.” Peter answered you, speaking in a low tone so you didn’t get startled.

“I gotta get home soon.” You sighed and adjusted your position, never taking your legs off his lap. You stretched towards the sky, but wrapped your seams around Peters neck this time when you finished. He felt his ears burn at your half asleep action. You were always clingy when you were tired, and right now, you were exhausted.

“I’ll swing you back.” Peter offered, pretending to be fully invested on your notes and not on the way your breath tickled his neck.

“You don’t have to.” You told him as you rubbed your eyes.

“And let you walk home in the dark all alone? I don’t think so.” Peter sounded almost insulted, but still had his signature playful tone.

You laughed lightly and rested your head back on Peters shoulder. He didn’t complain. He’d been missing the warmth you created.

“May was right.” You said quietly through a sleepy smile. Peter was a good boyfriend, you thought.

“What was that?” Peter asked. He had heard, but didn’t know what you meant.

“Nothing. Just a dream I had.” You shrugged and sighed in his ear, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Oh.” Peter said, not sure what else to say.

“Do you ever have those dreams that make you wake up with crushes on people you didn’t think you’d have a crush on?” You asked him, feeling a little more awake. The nap had helped, though you’d never admit it to Peter.

“Yeah, I do. Is that what you had? Do you have a crush on a boy at school?” Peter asked, jealously seeping into him like water through a crack in a boat.

“Kind of.” You nodded. “I had a dream a boy confessed his feelings for me, but not to me.”

“Oh.” Peter said simply. “How do you feel now?”

“Disappointed.” You laughed sadly.

“You’re disappointed that the boy likes you?” Peter said, barely covering up the sadness in his voice. He knew he was the boy. You must’ve heard the conversation with May in your sleep and thought you dreamed it.

“No.” You shook your head with a sleepy smile. “I’m disappointed that it was only a dream.”

Peter as quiet for awhile, thinking about what May had told him. “Y/n, I have to tell you something.” Peter looked you in your tired eyes. He nervously drummed his fingers on your leg.

“I wasn’t dreaming, PP, was I?” You realized suddenly. You looked to Peter for answers, who had that same look in his eyes as he did that night. Fearful, and a little hesitant.

“I like you, okay?” Peter admitted, knowing he was backed into a corner. “I like you and I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” You furrowed your eyebrows.

“Because I’m supposed to be your best friend. I’m meant to be a soft place for you to land. I’m not supposed to be complicating your life and adding to your stress by developing feelings for you.” Peter said softly.

“This doesn’t complicate my life.” You said pointedly as you put your hands on his cheeks and made him look at you. “This only makes it better.”

“You like me?” Peter asked, wondering now if he was the one dreaming. “You like me, like me?”

“I do.” You smiled, your gaze dropping to his lips quickly before coming back up to meet his eyes. “Are you gonna make my dream come true, PP?”

Tag List 🏷

@maybemona @sunrise-shawn @meghan-8520xx @writing-for-hours-on-end @lavender-writer

[angst-fairygodmother]

Okay I’m currently moving and going through old trinkets and stuff to see what to get rid of and I just now really would love a Ben Hargreeves x reader fic super fluffy going through old things of yours or his and just generally being super cute 😭 ily!

A/N: So this is a Ben didn’t die AU because that was the only way I could think of for “cute” not “sad.” Also, as someone who just moved herself, good luck on your move darling, may it be as smooth and frustration free as possible. I hope you enjoy it! :) Word Count: 1702 Content Warnings: Major cheese-factor? But other than that nothing

“I’m glad we decided to get a place together,” you said, leaning against Ben’s shoulder, looking around your empty apartment.

Yours, the two of you. When you had started discussing moving in with one another, maybe a year into your relationship, you considered just adding him onto your lease, which still had several months left on it (he did not consider asking you to move in with him, because he’d been living with Vanya, and Klaus when he showed up and couldn’t wait to get out). But eventually, you two had settled on starting fresh, somewhere you had picked out together, a place for both of you to build your lives together. It had been a challenge at first, but in the end, you knew it would be worth the effort to create a home together instead of merely adopting one of you into the other’s preexistent reality.

“Me too,” he said, pressing a kiss to your temple and smiling. “And I’ll be even more glad once we get some stuff in here.”

~

“Y/N, what about these?” Ben called to you, pulling out a battered black shoebox from the back of your closet. “You didn’t put this pair with the rest of your shoes?”

Confused what he was talking about, you set aside the plates you had been wrapping in newspaper and made your way to the bedroom.

“What are you talking ab—oh…” your eyes fell on the box in question and you felt a hot blush creep across your face and down your neck. “That’s um…”

Ben’s confusion at your discomfort only grew when the box rattled slightly, producing sounds of rustling paper rather than shoes.

“You can just ignore that. It’s just some old…I don’t even know why I kept…” you sighed in defeat as his curiosity got the better of him and he opened the box.

The box, which had laid buried in your closet for long that you’d nearly forgotten about it, was full of old newspaper and magazine clippings about the Umbrella Academy in their hay-day.

“I, uh, I can explain that?”

Ben laughed, grin wide and surprisingly nonjudgmental as he picked up the faded pages in gentle fingers, particularly when he came across one of a teen magazine quiz which said your soulmate was Diego and you had drawn frowning faces around it and marked it ‘WRONG’ in blue sharpie.

“Aw, babe, I had no idea you were such a fan,” he teased. “My brother will be so sad I stole his soulmate.”

“Yeah, I mean I guess I was into the whole Umbrella Academy thing as a kid…lots of people were…” you shrugged, hoping that your nonchalance would keep him from pressing further. “It’s nothing to make a big deal of.”

“Aw, hey, Y/N, I’m not trying to embarrass you,” he said, setting the box aside to come over and rest his hands on your shoulders. “I think it’s cute.”

You shoved his chest lightly, hearing the laughter in his voice. “Shut up.”

~

All of your things finally packed, you and Ben made your way to the apartment he shared with his siblings, which they had cleared out of for the day so you could have more space to work.

“Hey Ben,” you said, gesturing to an old-fashioned hatbox on one of his shelves. “I didn’t know you were a hat guy?”

You wished you could reach the box yourself so you could take him down and tease him properly for the contents the way he had had for your shoebox. Instead, you had to wait for him to come and be tall for you.

“Oh that. I took the box from the Academy. Although I think the hat was as likely to have been Pogo’s as it was Dad’s,” he explained.

“So if it’s not a hat, what’s in there?” you asked, practically vibrating with curiosity.

The box tucked under one arm, he pulled you closer with the other into a hug and pressed a lingering kiss to your cheek, before moving to sit in on the corner of his bed (piled high with the books which had been hiding this mystery box and which you were supposed to be packing at the moment), motioning for you to join him. Eagerly, you bounced across the small room to flop next to him on the floor, making him laugh as you nearly collapsed into his lap and he had to quickly lift the box above his head to keep you from crushing it.

“Well, it’s not quite the same as yours, but it turns out we were both hanging onto some things,” he explained almost shyly, carefully wiggling off the snug lid of the box.

“Oh really?” you couldn’t help the smirk that crept across your face.

The first thing he pulled out was a photobooth filmstrip. In the four little boxes were your smiling faces, your silly faces, and one where you had leaned over and kissed him, his eyes wide with shock, all in sepia, perfect moments frozen in time.

“That was our first date,” you said with surprise. “Our first official one anyway, unless you count you refusing to let go of my hand until you had escorted me safely out of the building when those lunatics decided a coffee shop was the best place to hold up for quick cash.”

“Well I couldn’t let them catch wind of priceless treasure that slipped through their fingers, and my siblings had everything under control.”

You rolled your eyes at his corniness, leaning your chin on his knee to see what else was in the box. It was full to the brim, practically overflowing with little bits of memorabilia from your time together: a newspaper clipping about the day you met, ticket stubs for concerts and movies, pictures you had taken together or of each other with his polaroid camera, love letters you’d sent each other and notes you’d left when one of you had to leave before the other woke or had something important coming up that you might need a little extra encouragement for. It was like your whole lives together so far were in that hat box and you felt your eyes welling up at the thought. It was so much better than your embarrassing childhood crush.

“You know, I thought you had only agreed to go to that carnival with me because you felt like you owed me for saving you or something,” he added softly as he leafed through.

You rolled your head to one side, cheek against his leg, so you could look up at him, sensing the insecurity in his voice.

“Ben, baby…” you sighed.

Even now, after all of this time, he still seemed to think that part of you was only there out of pity, seemed to expect you to flinch away in horror at his abilities. You knew that it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the way he and his siblings were raised and exploited by Reginald Hargreeves, but still your heart ached every time you sensed him withdrawing into those dark places.

“I know, Y/N, you don’t have to say it,” he said, guessing at how your sentence was going to finish based on your repeated past conversations about it.

“I don’t think you do,” you lifted your head up, sitting back to better look him in the eye. “I was stunned that you even noticed me let alone asked me out, because you are incredible. And I don’t just mean the superhero thing, although that is pretty sweet,” you face scrunched up and you grinned at him before sobering. “If I was only in it for pity or for fame or because I owed you, I would have bailed a long time ago, not be getting an apartment with you. You’re stuck with me. Because I love you Ben Hargreeves.”

He set the box in his hands aside, pulling you close so that he could kiss you, tender and sweet and so rawly, desperately full of love that it threatened to overwhelm you. You folded your arms over his shoulders drawing him in even more. When you pulled away, you rested your forehead against his, gently carding your fingers through his hair as he nuzzled his nose against yours.

“We should really get back to packing,” you said after sitting like that for a moment, more than a little regretful that you had to break the moment and return you both to reality.

“Wait, there’s one more thing I wanted to show you from the box,” he said sheepishly, pulling out a generic looking crumpled piece of lined paper.

“What’s this?” you asked, reaching for it.

Nervously, he handed it to you and you began to read. Almost immediately, your hand came up to cover your mouth as tears welled up in them. This wasn’t a letter, so much as the draft of a speech with words and lines and entire paragraphs crossed out, some scribbled over completely and others with a single mark through them and new words squeezed into the cramped space above them. Finally, at the bottom, circled in blue ink: Y/N, you’re incredible. Will you go out with me?

“Oh Ben,” you murmured, clutching the paper carefully to your chest, trying your hardest not to cry.

“I was so nervous to ask you out,” he explained, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “And Diego kept giving me shit about how you were way out of my league, which definitely didn’t help. But for some reason you said yes, and I thought I might die, I was so happy.”

~

“So I was thinking…” you said one night, wrapping your arms around Ben as he stood in the doorway of your new living room.

“Uh-oh,” he laughed, mirroring your hold.

“We have that big open wall-space over the sofa, right?”

He nodded, looking at you, eyebrows knit together in curiosity and confusion.

“We also have two boxes of stuff that would make a really nice collage…we could maybe put them there? Sort of a wall of memories?”

His eyes sparkled as he turned to you fully. “I love it.”

[platypanthewriter]

Strangest Chapter 11

chapter 1/chapter 2/chapter 3/chapter 4/chapter 5/chapter 6/chapter 7/chapter 8/chapter 9/chapter 10/ .../Chapter 12

(But really I’d recommend reading it on Ao3 under peterqpan, scrolling through it on Tumblr sounds crazymaking.  Thanks so much @tbehartoo​ and @perfectfestivalalienfish​!) 

After the accidentally-romantic reveal of Steve’s ceramic monstrosity, Billy was distracted in gym, until Steve leaned in to whisper “Can’t believe you’re ignoring my balls, Hargrove.”

“Believe me, I’m not,” Billy muttered back, his jaw working. He stumbled back into their gym teacher, his eyes fixed on Steve’s mouth, and Steve grinned at him, and licked his lips.

The next time they passed each other, Steve leaned to whisper “What kinda attention am I gonna get for a good present, Hargrove?”

“I dunno, I haven’t seen one yet,” Billy hissed back, and then, “Don’t diss Denise, asshole. I’ll pound your ass into— jesus christ,” he spun on his heel, neck flushed, and stomped off directly through the melee around the basketball hoop, elbowing his way to the locker rooms. By the time Steve got there, Billy was showered and clothed, leaning to talk to Tommy as Steve ducked into the showers.

When he got out, Billy was lying on his back on the bench, eyeing the water running down Steve’s legs, and Steve wanted to kiss him. He firmed his lips and determination, and decided to stay after school to work on a better Valentine’s Day present—Denise had been a joke, he ranted in his head, he could do better if he was trying—

Steve told Eleven this, when she popped up at his elbow in the locker room—right after he shrieked, scrambling for a towel. She surveyed the locker room with narrowed eyes, and more of the highschool boys screamed than would admit to it later, covering their dicks. As most of the class dove behind lockers, she allowed Steve to fling Billy’s towel over her head and shove her back towards the door. “So...if you’re busy, we can borrow Billy, right?” she asked, through the towel.

Billy was laughing his ass off, since he’d had pants on already, and his junk wasn’t vulnerable to the critical eye of a middle-school girl. “No cats,” he called over.

“You can keep him,” Steve muttered, shoving her out the door. When he stalked back in, Billy grinned at him, pointedly rubbing his thumb along his own inner elbow, where the Sharpie heart was, with the messy H+H.

Steve felt his cheeks heat. “Shut up.”

“Be honest about your feeblings, Harrington,” Billy whispered back, staggering as Steve thudded their shoulders together, yanking his jeans up over his briefs.

“Here?! I think we’d get expelled,” Steve whispered back, and Billy licked his lips, snickering.

“I’m your favorite,” Billy breathed in his ear, and Steve swiveled to face his locker, eyes wide as he popped a boner. Not now, he told his dick, straining against his pants, later, just wait until after school, I’ll get my fingers in his hair and pull him close, and when his knees start to get noodly with my mouth on his neck, we can fuck on the kitchen floor—

“Harrington,” Billy repeated, elbowing him, and Steve cleared his throat, rubbing his face. His cheeks were hot.

“Yeah, yes, I’m here,” he swallowed, “—here, right here.”

Billy squinted at him, halfway into a sweatshirt, so his biceps flexed against the fabric, and his chest and abs gleamed in the florescent lights of the locker room. He zipped it up. “...you sure?”

“Very very here, at school,” Steve muttered, staring into his locker again. “Very here where I can’t, uh. What?”

“You like me as much as Tommy, right,” Billy cocked his head, leaning in to murmur, “—what if I hit him, you gonna throw me out, or—”

“Wait, what?” Steve kept his eyes on Billy’s face, listening, instead of tracking the trickle of water from his wet hair down his neck and along his collarbone. “What’s going on?”

“He’s, uh,” Billy leaned back against the lockers, surveying the room with a too-wide grin. “—he’s thinking one of us is gonna spread it around I—I let him—we screwed, y’know. Says he’s not like me, he’s—he says he’s gonna tell everyone I’m a fag, that’s why I’m sniffing around Steve Harrington—”

“Christ.”

“I’m gonna feed him his own molars.” Billy rolled his shoulders. “Before he gets me drug behind some redneck meathead’s truck—”

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, wanting to spin his bat around his hand. He took a deep breath. “Okay, okay,” he whispered. “Okay, we can’t—we can’t kill him, we—we can’t murder him, Hargrove, we can’t. We can’t—we can’t just—just murder him, even if—”

“Jesus,” Billy whispered, glancing around. “Ssh!”

“We—we’d probably get caught,” Steve told Billy, grabbing his hands and squeezing them. “We’d—we’d get caught, mustard, uh, mustard pie, we’d—we’d definitely go to jail, we can’t kill him.”

“I didn’t say murder,” Billy hissed back, wide-eyed. “I said I was gonna punch his face, Harrington—”

“Okay,” Steve nodded, squeezing Billy’s hands so hard he winced. “Okay. Okay, god damn it. Damn, damn, damn damn it—”

“Holy helicopters,” Billy muttered, straight-faced, and Steve choked on a snort, and started coughing.

“Oh my god I love you,” he groaned into his hand, ignoring Billy suddenly closer, warm against his side. “Okay. Okay, wait, no.” Steve yanked his shirt on, got some of it in his mouth, and Billy yanked it down, leaning in.

Billy slid his hand up Steve’s side, hot and callused, and Steve shoved it down and away, trying to refocus his brain on Billy’s words. “I need to do something,” Billy hissed. “He’s gonna tell everybody I’m queer, your majesty.” His eyes were red. “You don’t need to—none of that shit’s gonna get on you—”

“No, jussec.” Steve set his shoulders, did a mental check of his anatomy, and decided he could turn around without everybody knowing he got hard when Billy Hargrove growled in his ear. “It’s—just—just a—just hold off, okay. I’ll—I won’t kill him. I’ll talk to him.”

“Talk to him?! Harrington,” Billy growled, grabbing his wrist, and Steve held still, feeling his bones grind together. They were starting to draw attention, so he asked the guy across the bench about his new shoes, and found out way more about Adidas Micropacers than he’d ever wanted to know, but the conversation kept going when he backed out. Billy let go of his wrist, but leaned close. “Your majesty. Whaddaya mean talk to him, talk to me, come on,” he said under his breath.

“I’ll handle it,” Steve whispered back, nodding and grinning at another kid showing off his sneakers. He watched Tommy fixing his hair, and tried to remember his past friend’s class schedule.

“Just a little worried about getting lynched, probably by the people in this room,” Billy hissed, as Steve started to walk away.

Steve bit his lips, turning back to pretend to check inside his locker. “Look. Dickhead,” he tried, and Billy covered a snort, swallowing. Steve tried to grin confidently. “Trespasser. Wait a sec, just—just wait a minute, let me—let me try something. We can’t kill him,” Steve sighed, and Billy’s jaw clenched.

“I wasn’t trying to kill him,” he hissed back.

“You beat him up, he’ll just get mad! Besides, you start throwing punches, they’ll call your dad—get him down here—”

Billy shrugged. His hands shook, and he clenched them in fists, laughing. “Win some, lose some—at least you won’t go to jail, Jesus H. Christ—”

“No, no—I—I, uh, you won’t, uh, he won’t, okay, babe, Ha-Hargrove, just—just gimme a minute, I—I’m not—if this doesn’t work we—I—I’ll hold him down. We’ll just kill him. You can—you can use my bat.”

Billy snorted, side-eyeing him. “...good use for it.” He rubbed his face, and nodded, tilting backto lean against the lockers. His knuckles were white on his forearms again, his nails digging into the sleeves of Steve’s sweatshirt against the hearts Steve had drawn up his arm. “As you fucking command, my leige. I hope your plan’s better than ‘murder’.”

Steve rolled his eyes, and jogged out of the locker room after Tommy, dropping an arm around his shoulders.

“Hey there,” Tommy grinned at him, his gaze dropping to Steve’s mouth and back up in a way Steve remembered, but hadn’t really registered before.

Steve smiled—it was easier to smile around Tommy than it was to remember what Tommy was like, and always had been—and tried to decide how to start.

“Hargrove get all shook up and remember who your real friends are?” Tommy elbowed Steve, then hailed Carol out of the crowd.

“He’s a friend,” Steve tried.

“Bet he didn’t tell you about the other night,” Tommy glanced up sideways, his jaw clenched, “—when we tried to get you to party.”

“He doesn’t remember most of it,” Steve blurted, and his stomach sank at Tommy’s widening grin. “Look, I know what happened, and, uh—”

“I bet you don’t,” Tommy hissed, glancing around. Carol came out of her class, but saw them and leaned against the wall, disentangling an earring from her hair. Tommy jerked away from Steve to walk backwards towards her. “Bet he didn’t tell you who he wanted to fuck.”

“He—he said—”

“Hate to break it to you,” Tommy’s voice rose, “—Billy Hargrove wants y—”

“I still talk to Carol’s sister,” Steve hissed at him. “Remember? She had a story about a party you guys left. When I was visiting my mom in Boston.”

“What?” Tommy stopped in the middle of the hallway, staring at him.

“Remember finding the keys in a backhoe? And a joyride?” Steve narrowed his eyes, as Tommy snorted a laugh. Steve lowered his voice. “—I know what happened with Billy, okay—”

Tommy’s freckles stood out as he paled. “No, you—you wouldn’t be—he lied,” he laughed shakily. “He must’ve, he’s a fucking liar— ”

“What?! He—he didn’t have to,” Steve raised his eyebrows, “—he called me, I picked him up. I was in there while you assholes were in the shower—”

Tommy’s breath caught, and his eyes got shiny, and Steve knew that look—from Billy smashing a plate in his face at the Byers’, but also from years of knowing Tommy, and he waved his hands, open palmed.

“I don’t care! I don’t care, I don’t care, but don’t—don’t try and—don’t say it was all Hargrove’s fault, it wasn’t—”

“You don’t...care,” Tommy took a deep breath, shoulders relaxing, then punched Steve’s arm. “The fuck do you mean, you don’t care, you moron, you still don’t get what I—why the hell did he call you, didn’t he kick your ass? You his bitch now?” he hissed, and Steve bit his lips.

“Yeah. No, I’m not—” Steve felt his cheeks warming, and cleared his throat. “He—he did that,” Steve kept nodding, running his fingers through his hair, “—he did, he beat me up. Yeah. So did you, asswipe. But. Um, if—if you try and—and tell everyone he—that he’s—”

“He’s a goddamn—”

Steve cut him off, clenching his fists. “If you tell people he did something to— to you, if you—if you say it’s—if you say it was all Billy, I—I won’t keep your secrets. Anymore.”

“...what,” Tommy choked.

“Any of them,” Steve emphasized, flailing his hands. “I know some shit. They try you now, you might get tried as an adult. You could go to actual prison, dude.”

“I will end you,” Tommy hissed, sputtering with rage, “I will end you and your fag friend—you—”

Steve flinched, but held his ground. “Bullshit. I won’t—I won’t say anything unless you...do,” he frowned, thinking through it, “—but...I think—I think between you, and Hargrove, and me,” he swallowed, “—I think—I think I’m who people will listen to here at school. If you—if you try to tell them. That. And—and you know Sheriff Hopper will hear me out, when I tell him who took the backhoe. Took it for a spin when they were putting in the new parking lot. You crashed the backhoe into the sheriff station that night, remember? I can’t—don’t quite remember how many thousands of dollars in damage that was, d’you?”

Tommy stepped closer, laughing. “And what, you’re gonna sell me out for the queer? Shouldn’t you be thinking about what I could do...Pussington?” Tommy growled, and Steve blinked at him, then snorted a laugh.

“I’ve fought scarier shit than you, Tommy Hagen,” he hissed. “I could walk over and use the pay phone right now. Call the police here. Don’t drop the soap when you get sent to prison , right? Because Billy’s the one who’s queer.”

“God, you’re dumb,” Tommy sneered, but he was staring at Steve’s face, wet-eyed. “You don’t even make sense. I can just see you on the witness stand.”

“Oh, you want me to do it?” Steve asked, setting his shoulders to turn away.

Tommy yelled “Fuck you, no!”, and Steve turned back to see him glaring, fists clenched. “I’ll leave your boyfriend alone,” he hissed.

Steve nodded, his jaw hurting as his teeth ground together, and he shoved by, walking as fast as he could back to the locker room.

Billy was still there, lying along a bench, and Steve wished everyone else had left, so he could crawl up between Billy’s knees, and flop on his chest. He kicked out and nudged Billy’s shoulder, instead. “You ready yet?”

“You gonna hold him down for me to punch?” Billy asked, without opening his eyes.

“No, I, uh.” Steve crouched down to whisper, hugging his knees. “I told him I know way too much shit about him for him to go mouthing off.”

“...you blackmailed him?!” Billy turned his head to stare over.

“Noooo,” Steve considered, “—yeah? I guess?”

“Is anybody looking?” Billy whispered back.

Steve frowned around, then shook his head, and Billy grabbed him by the nape of his neck and yanked him into a deep, soft kiss. Steve flailed his hands, teetering on the balls of his feet, then dropped to a kneel, and slid his thumb along Billy’s cheek.

Billy pulled back, licking his lips, and sat up. “Shit,” he rolled his shoulders, “I can’t really owe you more...everything.”

“...you don’t owe me anything,” Steve huffed a laugh, grimacing at a sudden memory of the way the world had wobbled around him, after days awake. How he’d heard Billy’s yelling from outside while he was lying on the floor of the shower, hoping the hot water would bake him to sleep. “My—my brain’s busted too. You…” he laughed, shaking his head.

“I what?” Billy kept his voice low, but they were drowned out anyway by some guys in the other corner having a pushup contest.

Steve cleared his throat, feeling the edges of the tile dig into his knees, and breathing in the stale smell of gym clothes, and towels that never quite dried. “You saved me. Too. I couldn’t—”

“How the hell—”

“I can’t sleep,” Steve snorted, shrugging, and keeping his eyes on the floor. “And then you showed up. Couldn’t—I wasn’t—eating, a lot, just because I couldn’t—I was so goddamn tired. I don’t know, it...”

Billy was quiet for a long few seconds, but when Steve risked a glance up, he had that expressionless face he got when something reminded him of his dad.

“Sorry—sorry, I’m—”

Billy shoved him, and Steve caught himself against a locker, laughing, and a little off-balance. Billy crossed his arms. “You’re not being dumb, if that’s what you’re gonna say.”

“Just making us miss lunch,” Steve tried, feeling something relax between his shoulders. He brushed himself off, getting to his feet, and let Billy drag him down to sit on the bench. Billy mouthed up under Steve’s ear, kissing open-mouthed up his neck. “Hope nobody’s looking,” Steve told him, leaning into it.

“They’re all being morons behind like five rows of lockers,” Billy whispered back, sliding an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and grabbing at Steve’s jeans with the other. “Lemme cheer you up,” he breathed against Steve’s jaw, biting along it, and Steve nearly choked on his own spit as Billy yanked his fly open and reached into his briefs, releasing the pressure on Steve’s suddenly shatteringly hard cock, and sliding a callused thumb over the wet slit in the tip. “They’re going to lunch,” Billy whispered. “No reason they’d come over here.”

“Christ,” Steve muttered, muffling his gasps against Billy’s sweatshirted shoulder, and clenching his fingers in the fabric. “Le-let me get you—” he whispered, sliding his hand down Billy’s stomach.

“Not the one crying in the locker room, Stevie,” Billy laughed, pushing the tight circle of his thumb and forefinger over Steve’s dick. Steve rolled his head against Billy’s shoulder, trying not to make a noise, and squirmed closer, his brain whiting out things like reciprocation, or witnesses, or dignity, as he faintly registered his own voice begging when Billy took his hand away for a second, returning it wetter. “Go ahead, they left,” Billy whispered in his ear, squeezing him closer until Steve was half in his lap.

“Prettiest trespasser,” Steve realized he was mumbling, along with even more nonsensical things like “—pie, sweet—sweet pie, mustard asshole pie—”, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” and, when Billy pulled away to lick his hand again, in an attempt to be more complimentary, “—nighty—knightliest nighty knight—”—but Billy’s hand was firm and a little rough against his hot skin, and Billy’s shoulders were shaking with laughter, so Steve didn’t care. He went still with a grunt, breathing smoke, cologne, and Billy, and just lay there, feeling sweat trickle down the back of his neck.

“There is so much wrong with you,” Billy muttered against his temple. “Knighty-knight? Seriously?”

“My hero,” Steve mumbled, opening one eye to assess the damage. Billy’d caught the mess in a paper towel. “...you planned that,” he realized, laughing.

“Malice aforethought,” Billy said, and Steve blinked muzzily. “Premeditation. First degree handjobbing. That’d just get me expelled, though, probably, your dirty talk’s gonna get you shot.”

“Mmm,” Steve hummed. “He called me ‘Pussington,’ he muttered. “Tommy. Sounds like ‘Puss in Boots’ more than—”

Billy cackled against his neck, then pulled him closer, and Steve felt his face heat. He let himself take a deep breath, curling a little against Billy, and Billy waited, and didn’t mention the time, or their stomachs growling.

After what seemed like hours, but not long enough, Steve pulled away, clenching his fingers on the bench and laughing. “Shit,” he said, looking at the lockers to avoid looking at Billy, after clinging to him like a koala. His breathing was even, which was a relief, even if he felt a little...shaky, threatening his oldest friend with jail. Because I’ve got so many, he thought, laughing again, and Billy leaned forward to frown into his face.

“Harrington,” he whispered. “D’I break you?”

Steve started giggling, and couldn’t stop.

Billy hung around, hunched in Steve’s sweatshirt, for the rest of the day. He was leaning across from Steve’s locker after third period, but vanished when Steve turned around. He was at the drinking fountain outside the open door of geometry, and Steve missed half the lesson, watching him bend over the faucet, and watching the stream of water fill his mouth and run off his chin.

Just when Steve thought he was free, in Typing 1, he glanced out the window and realized Billy Hargrove was sunning himself outside along the top of Steve’s parent’s BMW, sweatshirt unbuttoned, his tanning-bed-tan shining as his hair ruffled in the breeze.

Steve muffled his laughter, squeezing his thighs together as his dick woke up again. “Go back to sleep,” he growled at it, under his breath. Nancy shot him a glance, then looked out the window, and choked on a snort.

“What’s he doing?” she whispered, her elbow brushing his as she clacked away at the electric typewriter.

Being beautiful, Steve didn’t say. “Messing with me,” he muttered, which was equally true. “He hasn’t left me alone since El showed him, uh,” he squinted, trying to remember. “Nadine?”

“Denise!” Nancy muffled another snort, snickering. “Oh, lord, Steve, it’s so hideous.”

“He likes it!” Steve hissed back, feeling his cheeks heat. “He has awful taste!”

“He doesn’t,” she said, shooting a grin over, and his lungs clenched at the fondness in it even as she hissed, “Keep typing, why don’t you.”

He set his jaw, and pounded out All work and no play makes Steve a dull boy, one-fingered. “How’s Jonathan,” he asked petulantly.

“Oh, Steve,” she sighed. “Now you’ve got, uh, Billy, I can’t—listen, this goes no farther,” she angled her body towards him, dropping her voice to nearly inaudible.

“What?!” he whispered back, and she glanced around, holding her finger over her mouth.

“Ssh! Steve, I can’t tell anyone—things. I would have told Barb—”

Steve nodded, wincing.

She covered her mouth, looking around the extremely loud typing class. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the clacking keys, and Steve leaned closer. “Steve, when he’s about to come, he looks like he’s going to sneeze. He makes all these faces, Steve—”

Steve whooped with laughter, tears springing to his eyes, and nearly fell out of his seat as Nancy smacked his arm and shoulder, giggling herself.

“Shut up, shut up!” she hissed. “Don’t tell anyone!”

“I—I won’t,” he gasped, wiping his eyes. “Jesus. Who the hell would I even—”

“Like Tommy?” she hissed, raising her eyebrows, and he cleared his throat.

“Actually,” he said, tearing out the page he’d ruined, and typing away at his assignment with two fingers, “—Tommy, uh, he said he’d. Um, d’you remember when somebody took a joyride on the backhoe at the sheriff’s station?”

She snorted, glancing over. “...everybody remembers that, they had to redo half the road.”

“Yeah, uh, Tommy kinda...found out about Billy, he said he’d tell, just, everyone—”

“Found out Billy what?!” Nancy stared at the side of his head. “That he beat you up, or—?”

“Everybody keeps saying that, I got some hits in—” he grumbled, feeling his face heat.

“Wait, what? He found out about—” she lowered her voice to a hiss, glancing around, “—found out about you and Billy?”

Steve opened his mouth, and just breathed, then bit his lips. He couldn’t...quite...tell Nancy about Billy’s wild King Kong banana orgy, after what had happened in the locker room—and he wasn’t sure whether the sudden urge to hit something was directed at Tommy, for the bruises he’d left, or Billy, for getting bored and supplementing his sex-diet with jungle fruit, or the world at large, for making him keep a secret for somebody as awful as Tommy Hagen. “Uh, about—about, um, Billy. He—I, uh, I think he was kinda...drunk, and he’s—he’s—”

“He’s what, Steve?!” she whispered back, wide-eyed.

“He’s kind of gay,” Steve hissed back, through gritted teeth. “He was kinda gay at Tommy Hagen.”

“Oh my god, Steve,” she dropped her voice even lower, and reached over to squeeze his wrist. “He has to be careful.”

“He said he’d tell everyone—Tommy said,” Steve tried to explain, feeling like he was picking his way across a trapped floor, as he tried to avoid saying what Billy’d actually done. Tiptoing across the temple tiles like Indiana Jones, doing his best to keep the world from falling away around him. Not that Nancy’d say anything, he thought, but he remembered Billy’s shaking hands. I gotta get used to remembering what are my secrets to tell. “I, uh. Told him I’d tell Hopper it was him. Tommy. Joyriding in the backhoe. He spills about Billy, he’ll have to pay for all that. He’s not gonna—I won’t be telling him...things. Tommy.”

“That’s…” Nancy trailed off, and he narrowed his eyes at her, suspecting she was trying not to say “wonderful news”.

“I know, jesus,” he hissed at her, whacking at the typewriter keys with more force. “He’s bullshit, I get it, we were both—”

“No, uh,” she bit her lips, thumping her stack of typed pages to straighten them. “That’s not—it’s just, I mean. Yeah, he probably wasn’t a great friend. But now we both lost our best friends—” she flailed her arms, and he ducked, “—in this whole mess of bullshit. It—it sucks balls.”

He grinned at her, and she set her jaw. “It’s not funny, Steve. And—and don’t—don’t tell Dustin. Or Billy,” she narrowed her eyes. “You better not tell anyone! Jonathan’s never dated before, I’ll—it’s not his fault, Steve, he’s trying— ”

“How could you make me keep this secret,” he leaned his face in his hand, shoulders shaking with snickers.

“I had to tell someone,” she hissed. “He closes one eye, Steve! I can’t—”

Steve nearly fell out of his seat laughing, and she elbowed him over and over until he started to feel bruised.

“Shut up,” she muttered, wiping her own eyes as she tried to stop giggling. “Jesus.”

“Holy crap, what have you told him about me,” Steve hissed back, still laughing, but shuddering a little at the thought.

“Nothing! I’m dating him, I’m not going to compare and contrast, Steve, god. But—but you’ve—you’re—” she narrowed her eyes through the window at Billy, who’d finally huddled against the cold and zipped up the sweatshirt. “—you—”

“We’re—we’re friends. Uh. Just friends, now,” he supplied, the words feeling odd, and a little sad in his mouth. She hummed, frowning at her typewriter, and he glanced at Billy, thinking he might not have ever gotten to know him, if Nancy hadn’t lost her shit at that party. It was a weird thought, and Steve stared out the window, thinking of his house empty of Billy’s shoes, beer cans, lingering cigarette smoke, and the warm weight pressed against his back when he least expected it. No more slow kisses up his neck when he was stuck in his own head.

Nancy nudged him, and he pulled himself back from watching Billy tug at his earring.

“I meant, uh, we—me and you, we get to be friends now,” he tried, and she bit back a smile. “We can talk about boys now,” he pushed further, wrinkling his nose. “If...if you want? I, uh. I think I might be better at picking boyfriends than being one.”

“Maybe you needed the practise run,” Nancy followed his gaze so both of them were watching Billy, who’d given up on pin-up poses, and was trying to keep his textbook, binder, and pile of flashcards from blowing around in the January wind. “I think...I think maybe we both needed the practise run. But—I have to tell someone besides Barb, you know?”

“Yeah. Wait. What?” he turned his frown back to her.

She took a shaky sigh, digging into her backpack. She tossed a sandwich baggie of goldfish crackers on the desk between them, and then pulled out a composition book. She held it, white-knuckled, for a long second, then shoved it at him.

Steve accepted it—after digging for a handful of goldfish crackers—and opened the first page, propping it on his knee. In capital letters, it just said “I MISS YOU”.

“I—I sort of—tell Barb everything,” Nancy bit her lips, taking a slow breath through her nose. Her eyes shone. “It’s—it’s like this huge letter about everything I couldn’t—after she—there’s so much I want to tell her, Steve, so much has happened—”

“Uh,” he stared at it, reluctant to turn the page, and Nancy grabbed it back.

“Shut up,” she muttered. “I know it’s dumb.”

“N-no,” he blurted. “No, it’s not, it’s not dumb.” He wondered whether he should remind her about their assignment, but hers looked finished. I can finish mine later, he promised himself. “Uh, sorry I—it’s not dumb, I just don’t—when you’re sad I just—I don’t know what to—how can I, uh—”

She laughed, swallowing, and closed her eyes. “I—I thought I’d just—fill this. Write until I use all the pages, and the—and the margins, and the inside covers—” she made a soft, horrible gulping sound, and Steve’s nails dug into his palms with the urge to grab her, like he would have if they’d still been dating, and squeeze her thin shoulders. “I—I thought maybe I’d—feel better. Once—Once I say. Everything. Tell her everything. And then bury it. I—we—there wasn’t a body, I couldn’t bring her back to bury— I couldn’t even say what I wanted at her funeral—I can bury my bullshit letter instead— ”

“We can do that,” he said quickly, glad the typewriters were loud enough to drown them out. “We—we can say, uh, we can say—say things, write her letters? Find—find a nice spot? Bury, um, bury things, letters?”

“She didn’t have any other friends,” Nancy stared ahead, her eyes shining.

“I can write her a letter,” were the words that fell out of his mouth, like he could even remember more of Barbra Holland than a vague shape at Nancy’s elbow. “I can—I can thank her for being a good friend, anyway. To, um, you. To my friend Nancy?”

“Sh-she—she really was,” Nancy’s shoulders shook with a sob, and for the first and probably the last time, Steve wished Jonathan Byers was around to do— something, whatever it was he did that made Nancy less sad. Maybe it was worth the awful sex.

In the heat of the moment, Steve felt he’d easily trade his skill at orgasms with whatever made Nancy stop— stop looking so pinched around the eyes, and start teasing him again over Billy Hargrove.

She took a shaky breath, pressing her face to the back of her hand. “I—I was—I was nervous coming to your house, the—that night, the night she—in your—in your pool —to the party, your party, and she wanted to have my back—”

If Jonathan Byers couldn’t show up, Steve wished Billy would, remembering him explaining things to Will and El in IHOP, until Will relaxed, and smiled, and got brave enough to ask questions. “I—I’ll have your back,” Steve tried. “Now. I will. Um, she, uh, we can thank her for having your back. We can—”

He tried to remember what people did at funerals other than wear scratchy suits as Nancy nodded, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, then rubbing her wet face with her wrists. He clenched his fingers harder in his jeans. “Uh, flowers? We can—I’ll get flowers, did she have a favorite song? I have a boombox. I have batteries for it, I can get batteries for it—um, Billy, Billy will have a good idea,” he trailed off, trying to think what it could be, with Billy outside, instead of by Steve’s elbow where he belonged. “He’ll have a good idea, he’ll—he always has a good idea—”

Nancy snorted, smiling at him, but her eyes were red. Her voice was high and shaky. “Ye-yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Y-you’ll be a good best friend, Steve.”

Out the window, Billy was holding his textbook and homework, his pencil poised, but he was staring at them.

He met them in the hall outside typing class, leaning against the bank of lockers. His gaze flicked from Steve’s face, to Nancy’s, then dropped to their hands. Steve scooted away from her, then reached through the press of people and prodded her shoulder with two fingers. He beckoned her to follow him over to Billy.

“Harrington,” Billy crossed his arms, watching them. His cheeks and lips were pink with cold, and Steve wanted to kiss them, brush the melted snowflakes out of Billy’s hair, and rub the muscles of Billy’s arms through the sleeves of Steve’s own borrowed sweatshirt, feeling his boyfriend shiver, and hugging him close. Billy’s voice was flat as he said, “Wheeler,” and Steve jumped, jarred from his fantasy.

Steve opened his mouth to tell Billy that Nancy had practically admitted he was better in bed than Jonathan, and then stopped and thought for once, about how that would hit Billy’s brain. He lowered his voice. “Remember I told you about Barb, uh, Barbra Holland, Nancy’s friend, the monsters got her?”

“...I guess,” Billy had his gaze fixed on Nancy’s face, eyes narrowed.

“She wants to hold a funeral,” Steve started, but Billy’s glare didn’t shift. “Nancy does, uh, and I’m going, because I knew her, and Jonathan didn’t, because he’s not cool, and he makes these faces when—”

“Don’t you dare,” Nancy hissed.

“Wait, what,” Billy glanced at Steve, still keeping a wary eye on Nancy.

“Probably her boyfriend will still be there, because she’ll be sad, but I’m her friend so I’m going too—” Steve babbled, hoping someone else would talk.

“What,” Billy said flatly.

“Help,” Steve hissed, widening his eyes. “Help us, um.”

Nancy started snickering for no reason, and Billy’s frown darkened. “He panicked when I started to cry,” she snorted, rubbing her eyes. “He wants you to fix it.”

“What?!” Billy snorted, coughing.

“What do people do at funerals,” Steve hissed, glancing at Nancy again, and she snorted wetly, covered her nose, and dug in her backpack before yanking out a kleenex and blowing hard.

“Sexy,” Billy muttered, and Steve elbowed him. Billy glanced between them again, raising his eyebrows. “That’s what all that cozy whispering was about?”

Steve made a face. “Also she had goldfish crackers?”

“We were just talking,” Nancy said, laughing and wiping her eyes again “—and then I lost my shit. Sorry.”

“She had a whole cow about how much better I am at picking boyfriends than she is,” Steve waggled his eyebrows. Nancy elbowed him, and Billy’s snorted, his eyes narrowed as he glanced between them.

“Thought you were dumping my ass and leaving me with Denise.”

Steve shook his head, holding his hands up. “We know she makes weird faces.”

“It’s not her fault she has thirty-nine eyes!” Billy laughed, hugging himself in Steve’s sweatshirt. Steve wished he could hug his boyfriend, right there in the highschool hallway, but had to settle for his sweatshirt doing it. Billy didn’t seem to notice as Steve reached out, then yanked his hands back and stuck them in his pockets. Billy was still grinning about his awful gift. He leaned in, digging his chin into Steve’s shoulder and whispering, “Ask your buddy Dustin why his pockets are full of googly eyes, seems questionable to me—”

“Steve and I were talking about boys,” Nancy snorted, then sniffled, rubbing her nose and rummaging in her purse until she found another kleenex.

“Swapping stories,” Steve grinned, watching Billy’s head cock warily. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “My boy’s always sexy. He just melts against me. Like pizza cheese, y’know, in Little Caesar’s ads, it sort of—it sort of droops—”

Billy went as glowing red as the tail lights on his Camaro, and growled, as Nancy leaned into the lockers in a gale of laughter.

“Shut the hell up, Harrington,” Billy muttered, rubbing his face.

“Sexy Little Caesar’s boyfriend?!” Nancy wheezed. “Steve, that’s not sexy at all—”

“Or on lasagna. Or Velveeta, it’s—it’s all fluid, you know,” said Steve, trying to explain. “Um, ‘hot, fresh, and ready to go?’” he suggested, relying on Pizza Hut for his words, but they both turned away, Nancy pounding her fist on a locker, cackling and wiping tears, and Billy stomping off down the hall. Steve glared at Nancy. “Don’t you tell anyone either.”

“Oh no,” Nancy gasped. “I—I’m telling Barb. Oh my god, she’d have loved that. She kept telling me you were a moron—”

“Hey!” Steve pointed a finger at her. “She—she may be—she shouldn’t have said it!”

“I won’t tell anyone else you described your boyfriend as sexy mozzarella,” she snickered, blowing her nose. “But I am telling her that, aloud, at her funeral. Oh my god, I needed that. You better go find him.”

“Everyone likes pizza!” Steve yelled, stomping away after Billy.

As he walked around the corner, Billy grabbed him around the waist from behind and lifted him. Steve yelled and swore, wriggling and laughing. He tried to squirm enough to make Billy drop him, kicking wildly, then finally made a big show of bending his upper body over Billy’s arms to kick his leg up and retie his shoe, while Billy staggered and swore, leaning away to balance his weight and shaking with laughter. Finally, Billy sat him on his feet in an empty hallway, spun him around, and stuck his thumb in the fly of Steve’s pants, pressing close and panting in his ear.

Steve looked back the way they came and saw a girl from his class: Robin Buckley. She was staring.

Billy felt him freeze, and pulled back, eyes narrowed. “What?” When he started to look around, Steve panicked and grabbed his head, wanting to save some unrelated girl from being fed her own molars. He pressed their lips together, humming as Billy huffed a laugh.

Crisis somewhat averted, Steve told himself sternly to track her down later, before letting himself lean into Billy again. He rubbed his thumb over Billy’s moustache, pressing into its scratchiness, and licking into Billy’s hot mouth, then pushed him back, taking deep breaths through his nose. “Christ, gonna come in my pants,” he whispered, laughing.

“That’s fine,” Billy’s grin widened.

“It’s not! It’s not fine, it’s grody—” Steve panted, pushing back at Billy’s hands and shoulders as his boyfriend tried to wriggle closer, like an octopus.

“Come on my tongue,” Billy whispered.

“There’s no time, I gave you to El!” Steve hissed, holding his forearms up defensively. “She’ll show up again! You agreed! You’re hers and Max’s today!” His shoulderblades thudded against the lockers.

“When do I get my reward for following orders, your majesty,” Billy whispered, pulling Steve’s forearms close, so he could kiss along the soft inner side.

“Sometimes knights have duties,” Steve whispered back. “For the, uh, the kingdom.”

“And I’m your best knight,” Billy snorted, running his hands up Steve’s sides. “Gotta help the civilians. Do my quests, make you proud.”

“Mmmn,” Steve lost his train of thought, leaning into Billy’s chest, and sliding his arms around his neck. “Best knight.”

“Now Tommy’s been, what,” Billy laughed against his mouth, hugging him until Steve’s muscles went loose, and his bones felt like they’d creak. “Unshielded?”

“Dis-sworded?” Steve supplied muzzily, into another pause between kissing, his brain narrowing its world to Billy’s tongue. “God, love you, mustard...dipshit...cupcake,” he mumbled, then frowned, coming back to earth as Billy’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Shut up, dickhead. Wait, Tommy wasn’t ever my knight.”

“Thought he beat up Jonathan Byers for you,” Billy whispered, sliding both arms around Steve’s waist again, and lifting him off the ground.

“No,” Steve mumbled, half-listening as he tried to clamp his legs around Billy’s waist, but missed distractedly as he ran his hands up Billy’s neck, cupping the back of his head and licking into his mouth.

Billy pulled back to talk, and Steve huffed. “But he tried to get you over to his house. That time. With Carol,” Billy panted, searching Steve’s face.

Steve kicked, gasping as his lungs got squashed. “Holy shit,” he wheezed, laughing. “You—you’re—are you jealous?”

“No,” Billy whispered, suddenly interested in kissing again.

Steve pulled back from Billy’s mouth after just one more kiss. “Are you jealous of Tommy and Nancy,” he whispered, beaming.

“Fuck you,” Billy mumbled, biting gently up his neck.

Steve let his eyes close, forgetting about Robin, and El, and the extremely public hallway they were standing in. His face was so hot it felt tingly, and Billy’s arms were strong and gentle, holding him up. The world started to spin, a little, and he kicked his feet back, crossing them against his butt to curve his whole body against Billy’s.

“Can’t—can’t breathe, Knight,” he had to admit, finally, and Billy sat him back on his feet.

“As you wish, my King,” he whispered back, stepping back to look Steve over—he grinned as he assessed the tightness of Steve’s pants like an asshole, then leaned in again for one more close-mouthed kiss.

Steve laughed, unable to stop smiling. “You’re jealous. Want me all to yourself.”

“Nah,” Billy rubbed his thumb up Steve’s cheek, and yanked his head around by the earlobe. Steve yelled, flailing. “I can just get another one,” Billy whispered. “King Harringtons. On sale today. K-Mart Special.”

“No you can’t,” Steve grabbed Billy’s shirt, spinning him to smack up against a locker, and leaning close again for a messy kiss. He could feel Billy breathing against his chest. “You’re jealous. You—you’d—” Steve trailed off, watching Billy bare his teeth. “You—what the hell are you pissed for,” he whispered. “You went off and screwed Tommy, don’t be pissed at me —”

“I’m not jealous,” Billy snarled back. “I’m the only one who even pays attention to you, aren’t I, and I could get somebody else in—in a heartbeat—”

Steve took a sharp breath, wondering why he had to go and push things. “Right, yeah,” he said, slamming his hand into the locker next to Billy, who flinched. “Shit,” Steve groaned, stepping back. “Sorry, shit. The hell was I thinking. I’m too goddamn clingy, right? You’re just trying—trying to—” he stepped back a few steps and smacked another locker across the hall—the bang was satisfying—and Billy grabbed his wrist, digging his thumb in bruisingly tight.

“You gonna start hitting?” he asked, smiling his widest. “You don’t get to do that.”

“I hit the locker,” Steve hissed, yanking his arm, and Billy stepped closer.

“You don’t get to hit me,” Billy whispered, and Steve winced at the feel of fingernails. “You—you can’t pull that shit, Harrington.”

“I wasn’t gonna,” Steve tried to yank away again, feeling worse. “Screw you, I hit a locker —”

“After all that shit you said,” Billy said evenly, his smile and his eyes wide the way they went when he might do anything. “I’m a person, remember?”

“I remember,” Steve swallowed again against the burning in his throat and eyes, planting his feet to try and squirm away. “I wasn’t—”

“You change your mind?” Billy asked softly, and Steve did want to hit him, then.

“Let me go,” he hissed. “I wasn’t going to hit you, christ. I was hitting the fucking locker.” Billy let go and stepped back, and Steve spun to slam his fist into the locker again. His little finger was starting to go numb, and he wondered how other people—really awful people, some of them, like Billy’s dad—found people that loved them and trusted them and paid attention. He inhaled, and it made kind of a wet gasping noise. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Just—just g-go home.”

“Screw you,” Billy muttered, and Steve opened his mouth to growl back, when his gaze caught on Billy’s nails digging into his sleeve over where Steve had drawn the hearts.

“Fucking— stop ,” he hissed, grabbing Billy’s fingers, and forcing them to unbend. They were cold. “You’re gonna give yourself bruises. Stop it, dickhead— quit—”

“Quit what,” Billy snarled back, and Steve stared down at the hand he’d grabbed, then let go and stomped across the hall to kick somebody else’s locker.

“Screw you,” Steve muttered. “Fine, go the hell home.” He hunched his shoulders as Billy stepped closer, and banged his fist on the locker he’d just kicked. “Piss off.”

“The hell do you want me to say,” Billy asked, and Steve shut his eyes, and banged the locker again.

“Nothing,” Steve hissed. “I don’t want you to say anything, I��you can—you can go to hell—” Billy came up behind him, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut. They were stinging. He felt a touch on his arm, and flinched into the lockers, swallowing a few times to clear his throat of the bullshit trying to climb out of it. “It’s fine,” he forced out. “Just. Piss off. Go home. I’ll—I’ll get myself—together.” He opened his eyes, parting his lips in a smile, to see Billy standing close, frowning, so Steve was sandwiched between him and the lockers.

“Wha—” Billy started, and Steve smacked a hand over Billy’s mouth, then sidestepped, laughing.

He took a few steps down the hall before he managed to stop himself. “Just go,” he said, realizing he had his hands up between he and Billy, and lowering them. “It’s fine, it’s nothing, jesus—”

“What in the hell—” Billy stepped closer again, and Steve didn’t lunge to cover his mouth, or cover his own ears, or run away.

He kept smiling. “Max and El are probably looking for you.”

“...no,” Billy said, holding his hands out. “Come here, Harrington.”

“What,” Steve laughed, his sinuses burning as his vision went a little blurry. He blinked his eyes clear as Billy’s glare went thunderous.

“I’m not gonna chase you down, get your ass over here.”

“Why?” Steve asked, crossing his arms, uncrossing them, and touching his hair. It was fine. He thought fixedly about the project he was gonna start in ceramics. Probably it was dumb to make Billy something nice. Something with Steve’s feeblings just emblazoned over it. “Just go, jesus.”

“Harrington—” Billy sighed, and Steve’s stomach clenched.

“Sorry,” he grated out. “Sorry, I’ll get it together—” he cut off, raising his arms defensively as Billy walked close enough to grab him by the front of his pants and yank him in for a kiss. His hands were warm and gentle cradling Steve’s face, and Steve let himself be pulled in. “What—” he whispered, but Billy cut him off, tilting Steve’s head to get deeper into his mouth. “Mmf,” Steve tried next, slowly lowering his hands to where his sweatshirt stretched over Billy’s biceps.

“Two for flinching,” Billy told him, kissing him again. “Ssh,” Billy whispered, glancing around, and then pushing them both—slowly, and mostly by kissing Steve—across the hall again and into the bathroom. He stopped to check under the doors, and then grabbed Steve’s hand, and yanked him into the biggest stall. “Okay,” he said, “—go on.”

“...want me to try giving a blow job?” Steve asked, rubbing his eyes. “I mean. You let me jack you off, I wanna—”

Billy opened his mouth, cocked his head, and narrowed his eyes. “Shut up. Shit, that’s not —I’m not supposed to —to try and blow you when you’re pissed —what the fuck, Harrington—”

“I’m just trying to change the subject,” Steve gritted out. “You like blow jobs. Everybody likes blow jobs—”

“I mean,” Billy snorted, slowly nudging Steve against the wall, “—dicks like ‘em—”

“Everybody does, it’s just not called a blow job always,” Steve argued, feeling smart, as Billy kissed him again. It felt like Billy was laughing.

“S’ true—” Steve muttered, and Billy laughed harder, and yanked him closer, so Steve’s head was pressed against Billy’s shoulder, and Steve’s body was squeezed in Billy’s arms.

“Shut up, jesus,” he whispered, his earring tickling Steve’s neck. “What’s your problem.”

The thing was, Steve thought, there wasn’t one. He was freaking out for no reason—he knew his bullshit annoyed people, and everything Billy’d said was true. “Sorry,” he breathed. It was easier, in the heat of Billy squishing him against the wall.

“What do you want me to—”

“Nothing,” Steve cut him off. “Christ. Jesus. I’m gonna do better this time, and shut the hell up before I—”

“What,” Billy whispered, and Steve shook his head, smiling, and didn’t say before I ruin everything.

Billy pulled back, his jaw clenched. “I’ll get it out of you.” Steve choked on a laugh, clenching his fingers on Billy’s arms, and Billy stared into his eyes, thinking. “I could do what you did,” he whispered. “Get you so horny you’re dripping and then make you talk.”

“Oh shit, no,” Steve snickered harder, shaking his head. “No, don’t. I wouldn’t even—I wouldn’t be able to think enough.”

“That’s kind of the point,” Billy said against his mouth, and Steve’s heart started pounding.

“No, no, don’t, I really—I can’t even—” Steve tried to squirm away, every breath of Billy’s resonating with his dick. “I can’t tell you if I can’t make words!”

“Mmm,” Billy hummed thoughtfully, leaning in for another kiss. “You really want to hear I’m jealous of—of Tommy? That what you want me to say?”

“You’re not, though,” Steve shrugged.

“...Nancy, then,” Billy cleared his throat. “I keep waiting to hear you say you’re—that—that I’m not—that you took a better offer.”

“Fuck you,” Steve told him, sighing. “What the hell am I gonna do when you two actually talk and you—you start talking— elves or something and forget all about me.”

“...you’re jealous of me talking to Nancy Wheeler,” Billy said, with the vague tone of someone reading an incomprehensible line in English class.

“You’re both perfect,” Steve told him, grabbing him close, and Billy started laughing so hard he staggered.

“Oh my god, you are so fucking dumb,” he wheezed, and Steve licked his lips, pressed them to Billy’s neck, and blew to make the loudest fart noise he could. Billy yelped, shoving weakly at him, and Steve did it again. Finally, Billy got his hands over Steve’s mouth, and used his body weight to hold them there while he rubbed tears off onto his arms. “If you think I’m perfect you’re blind and stupid. Holy jesus,” he whispered.

It wasn’t that funny, Steve thought indignantly. “You’re perfect. You —you’re—you are. Sometimes. Most of the time! You —you’re better, you don’t—”

Billy kept snickering, like an asshole. “You’d run off with your queen in a second, your majesty,” he whispered, grinning. “She’ll whistle one day. She’ll just — crook her finger, and you’ll go.”

“Would not,” said Steve, automatically, but he considered. “I don’t…” He narrowed his eyes at the wall of the bathroom stall, where someone had written that the principal worshipped Satin. He thought about how his plans had always included Nancy, and how hers never seemed to include him.

What would it be like, he wondered, if she knocked on my door. ‘Follow me to the city,’ she’d say. ‘You can hold down the apartment, I can go to college. Someday I’ll have an important job— which was where it fell apart, because it would be something like war journalism, and she’d always be gone. He sighed, imagining the Dear Steve letter. ‘Dear Steve, I’ve gone to expose nuclear testing on smuggled baby alligators in Belgium, and...found love.’ Steve shook his head. “No. No, it’s —no. ”

“Whaddaya mean no,” Billy laughed. “You just sat there and imagined it.”

“Yeah, imagined it blowing up in my face. I want to —” Steve stopped, looking away from Billy’s eyes and down, until Billy started jerking Steve’s head up and around, trying to meet his eyes again. Steve laughed, and bit his lip.

“What d’you want, Harrington?” Billy asked.

“...wanna wait and see if you send me letters,” Steve told him, shrugging. “I —I guess. Once you leave.”

“Oh, I’m gonna,” Billy’s breath caught, and he pressed his hands to Steve’s cheeks, squishing them. “But you’re lying to both of us if you think you wouldn’t drop me—”

“Billy,” Steve said, muffledly through the fishface Billy was giving him, and grabbing Billy’s hands as he startled. “Billy Hargrove. I—I’d pick you.”

“Don’t bullshit me—”

“Pay attention,” Steve hissed. “Hargrove. Fuckface...trespasser. I’d pick you.” Billy shook his head, smirking, and Steve grabbed it by the curls, pressing their foreheads together to hold Billy’s gaze. “If I have to watch somebody leave, I’d still want you.”

“Shit,” Billy said hoarsely, trying to laugh. “I’ll come back, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t leave leave, you—you can’t get rid of me if you—if you don’t tell me to go.”

“Like I would,” Steve snorted. “If —if Nancy just—just walked in here, I mean, not here here,” he paused, his eyes focusing on the wall of the men’s bathroom, “—but y’know, if—if she said she’d changed, she—she wanted me back…”

“You’d go,” Billy shrugged.

“No, Nancy can’t—she doesn’t want—this.”

“She’s got shitty taste, then,” Billy growled, and Steve laughed, leaning to bury his face under Billy’s ear.

“No, I mean—she doesn’t want—” he sighed. “She sure doesn’t wanna drag me to the bathroom and grill me on what’s wrong. She’s got—things to do. Important stuff.”

“Her loss,” Billy shrugged, and Steve snorted wetly. Billy’s breaths sounded as catchy and uneven as his did, he realized, and squeezed him closer.

“Promise I wouldn’t go,” he mumbled.

“Promise Denise,” Billy hissed, growling over Steve’s bursting into semi-hysterical giggles. “Denise needs both her dads,” Billy whispered, his eyes brimming as Steve laughed and cried.

“You’re so weird,” he whispered. “So fucking glad you —not the rest of it—but I’m, uh. I’m so goddamn glad you ended up at my house.”

“You brought me home in a trunk,” Billy told him, sniffling, and frowning down to yank at Steve’s belt buckle.

“What if I hadn’t,” Steve asked, watching Billy fumble. “Maybe—maybe something else. Maybe you’d have kissed me in the locker room. Always trying to shove me around in there—why you always trying to jump me in bathrooms, you’re so — ”

“Maybe you’d have kissed me somewhere, fucking...Pussington,” Billy growled, undoing Steve’s belt, and laughing as the denim over Steve’s dick twitched against his hands. He ran his fingers up and down Steve’s fly.

“Jesus,” Steve whispered.

“Fuck me,” Billy whispered back. “I want this monster in me.”

“...you called it fun-size,” Steve hissed back, and Billy started giggling again, burying his face in Steve’s neck. “We’re in a bathroom, the floor is sticky —”

“I don’t wanna wait,” Billy told him, kissing him so enthusiastically Steve’s head thudded back against the wall. “You—you said—want me over Wheeler —”

“I know what I said,” Steve said, trying to sound strict, but he couldn’t help grinning. “ Want me to blow you? You always—”

“No, fuck my ass,” Billy ordered, leaning close, so Steve could feel the hard line of Billy’s cock pressing against his.

“...there’s no—it’ll hurt, knight, it—”

“Who cares,” Billy whispered, yanking the buttons open on Steve’s fly.

“Me!” Steve hissed, grabbing his wrists. “I care! Christ!”

“S’my ass,” Billy argued, looking pouty, and Steve snorted.

“S’my dick, wouldn’t feel good for me either—”

“Coward,” Billy said, frowning down. “Okay, okay—” he yanked at his own pants, hopping on one foot, and Steve started sniggering. He grabbed Billy’s face and pulled him in for a kiss, nearly knocking them both over when Billy tripped over the leg of his pants. “MMPH,” Billy yelped. “Shit. Okay. Just—uh, just—”

His face felt hot against Steve’s hands, and he realized the red was creeping clear down Billy’s chest where the sweatshirt hung open. “What?” Steve asked, his eyes lingering on Billy’s briefs, where a wet stain was spreading where the elastic strained over his cock.

“I’m gonna turn around,” Billy muttered, “—and—”

“No—” Steve repeated, running his hands along the elastic band of Billy’s Fruit of the Looms. “No, seriously, I’m not—”

“I’ll squeeze my legs together,” said Billy, with gritted teeth, his face flaming hot.

“Holy shit,” Steve whispered, his hips bucking against Billy’s hip as he turned around. “What—is—is that any good for you—”

“Just fuck me,” Billy hissed, bracing his hands against the wall, and Steve stepped close behind him, reaching down to yank his skivvies down, and then push Billy’s down over the warm muscley roundness of his ass. Billy yanked until his dick was freed, then braced himself again, and Steve buried his face in Billy’s shoulder, taking a deep breath.

“Can’t see how this is good for you,” he whispered against Billy’s neck, feeling him shiver.

“It’s not unless you get moving,” Billy snarled, then choked out a gasp as Steve slid his hand around to grab him by the cock.

“Just...between your thighs, then,” Steve whispered, rubbing some pre-come around the top of his dick, then frowning down, and licking his hand just in case.

“Come on,” Billy whispered. “Come on, come on, do me.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Steve nodded pointlessly, aimed, and pressed into the tight space between Billy’s muscled thighs. “Oh god, that’s good,” he mumbled against Billy’s shoulder, and he laughed.

“Shut up and move,” Billy muttered, since Steve was mostly clinging and muttering bullshit endearments.

“God,” Steve whispered, reaching around again. “Don’t fall, b-babe, uh, cookie.”

“Billy whe-when we’re fucking,” Billy told him, groaning as Steve tried to steady himself between his hips smacking Billy’s butt, his dick sandwiched in the heat of Billy’s thighs—it was slippery enough, he thought, flushing almost as red as Billy was—and dragging his fist up and down Billy’s dick.

“Billy,” Steve said against his ear, and Billy swallowed a moan, letting his head fall forward to thunk against the wall. “Billy Hargrove.”

“Nng,” Billy grunted.

“L-love you, Billy Hargrove,” Steve told him, and he whined, his shoulders flinching forward. Steve kissed the place where his shoulder joined his neck, feeling him shudder. “Love you, Billy.”

Billy came all over his fingers, and Steve started laughing, because of course Billy’s legs bent, and of course they collapsed to the floor of the highschool bathroom.

Steve let them tip sideways, pulling Billy close to slow their fall and ignoring the weird chemical smell as his jaw smushed against the tiles. Billy was swearing under his breath, squirming around, and Steve summoned enough brain to scoot back. “Ssh,” he whispered, snickering, with tears in his eyes. “Don’t break my dick.”

“Where you going, asshole,” Billy hissed, rolling over to lay half on top of Steve’s chest. He grabbed Steve’s cock, stroking it, and Steve bucked up against him, muttering just...noises, really.

He came to himself panting against Billy’s shoulder. “Mmnm,” he said, wondering whether they could just sleep on the floor, and wash their faces for class the next morning.

“...you really jealous?” Billy asked, at the ceiling, like he’d been thinking a while.

Steve groaned, tucking hair out of his eyes.

“Y’know I’d...fucking kill them—anyone—and step on their corpses to get to you,” Billy told the ceiling, and Steve started laughing again.

“S’not a bit creepy,” he said, his voice weirdly deep in his ears.

“Not sure wanting to kill Tommy Hagen is creepy at all,” Billy commented, rolling his head for a kiss. “I mean, that’s normal, right, anybody would—”

“Think I’ve got toilet paper stuck to my leg,” Steve whispered.

“I guess you wouldn’t know normal if it bit you on the ass,” Billy told him, and Steve hefted himself up the couple of inches for another kiss.

“Means I get you, though,” he mumbled, dropping to rest his face on Billy’s chest again. It went from warm to hot, and Steve grinned, rubbing his face in chest hair and muscle.

“Shut up, you’re such a freak,” Billy muttered, and pressed more kisses to Steve’s hair. “Tommy Hagen, seriously? You’re jealous of Tommy Hagen? That’s you being a moron.”

“Mmn,” Steve was sort of listening, so he politely made a noise.

“Just went over to Carol’s ‘cause I broke your door,” Billy said. “Thought you’d be pissed. Thought you’d—” he took a slow breath, swallowing. “An-anyway, I didn’t think you’d just...pick me up. Carry me on your back. Thought I’d have to, uh, bribe my way back in.”

“...you saying you got me a present?” Steve asked, waking up a little, and Billy squeezed him.

“I’m saying I didn’t care where I went, jesus. Could have been the gas station. Not running around on you with Exxon, either.”

You might, Steve thought, snorting, but he scooted closer. His shoes squeaked against the wet tile by the toilet. “We’re gonna stink,” he sighed.

“You saying you wanna go shower together?” Billy breathed against Steve’s temple, and Steve started sniggering.

“I mean, yeah,” he whispered back, grinning so hard his cheeks felt tired. “But probably we should like...go. You’re making your sister wait. And El.”

“And they’re important to my liege,” Billy groaned.

“They’re kinda violent when they’re pissed off,” Steve whispered back, and Billy started snickering into Steve’s hair. Steve grinned up at the dripping cracks in the ceiling, letting his eyes fall shut. “ I’ll—just—just take the car. Take it. Get the girls, whatever they want. I need to—better present. Than Denise.”

“No present’s better than Denise,” Billy’s grin went smirky, but he saluted Steve’s eyeroll, and once they managed to get upright, sauntered off with his hands in the pockets of Steve’s stolen sweatshirt.

Steve adjusted himself in his jeans, wishing he wasn’t quite so...sticky, and walked a bit awkwardly off to his locker, when he was grabbed for the second time that day.

“What?!” Robin flailed her arms, hissing. “What was that?!”

“There you are,” Steve hissed, then stopped dead, realizing he hadn’t thought up any kind of plan. “...nothing?” he answered, like a genius, smoothing his hair where Billy’d run his fingers through it. “Uh, what? What was...what.”

She stared at him. “I saw you, dingus.”

“No, you didn’t. Saw what?”

“How are you alive, you are so dumb,” she muttered, spinning away, then back. “That was—you were—” she clasped her hands together, taking a deep breath through her nose, and started to snicker. “You—that’s your cover? ‘What was what?’ You—that’s what you’re gonna say?”

Steve’s high from Billy’s kisses was gone, and he was trying not to imagine Billy’s reaction to someone seeing them. His stomach clenched. “Look, don’t, nothing—nothing was—your—it’s none of your business, jesus.”

“What?!” she cackled, her eyes widening. “Christ. You’re just gonna make out at school and ignore it when—what if—what if your pal Tommy sees you? He’s gonna—”

“I blackmailed him,” Steve folded his arms, leaning back against the locker. “I have dirt on him, he’s not gonna squeal—”

“You what?!” she squealed herself, leaning one arm to steady herself against the locker as she sniggered so hard she shook. “Have you been watching gangster movies?”

“Shut up! You didn’t see anything—”

“I sure did,” she made a face, shuddering. “Believe me, I would not have imagined you and Hargrove playing tonsil hockey, but it’s a nightmare I’ll take to the grave—”

“Shut up,” he hissed, swallowing. His throat felt dry. “I—you can’t tell anyone. I’ll say you’re lying. You’ll be that liar girl, I’ll—”

“God, I don’t want to remember it, let alone describe it,” she pretended to gag, melodramatically doubling over with her fingers in her throat. “Gag me, Steve. Gag me with a spoon.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “Great. Don’t tell anyone, and we’ll stay the hell away from each other.” He remembered wondering how people in his classes would react to finding out he was maybe-sort-of-gay, and he kind of wanted to punch her in the face. “Or I—I’ll get gay cooties on you.”

She turned to stare. “I don’t care about that, dipshit, I care I almost saw two entire penises when I was just trying to leave class. Here I thought I’d go to my grave without getting close to one of those—” she stuck her tongue out, flapping her hand at the wrist, her voice distorted by the face she was making, “—gross floppy baby injectors, and there they were—”

“What,” he stopped, arms up in a flail, but still. “Wait. What?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone, Steve Harrington,” she told him, rolling her eyes. “Besides, somebody else is going to figure you out, like, instantly, nothing to do with me.” She turned to stalk away, then spun on her heel to face him again. “But what the hell is wrong with you?! You don’t even—can’t you make some excuse and get the keys to the gym equipment room?! You can’t make out during class, when people aren’t wandering around?! Instead you’re sucking face right after the bell rings? I had to tell two different people there was a sewage leak down that hall, dumbass.”

Steve blinked at her. “Th—that’s a good idea. I didn’t—thanks, man.”

“I didn’t want them to have to see the gross sight I had to,” she narrowed her eyes at him. “Can’t you tell people you’re study buddies or something? Before I have to see more of Billy Hargrove’s hard-on in his jeans,” she shuddered, and Steve laughed.

“Somebody doesn’t think he’s hot?”

She took a deep breath, her eyes flicking to his face. “Yeah...no. Why would I.”

“I mean, he is,” he shrugged. “Anyway, thanks. Really. I got, uh, threatened today, kind of. I thought—thanks.”

She stilled. “You what,” she asked, her voice weirdly raspy.

“Uh, somebody figured us out, said he’d, y’know, tell everyone. I know.” Steve rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.

“What the shit,” she whispered. “And you—you’re—the same day?! You just—”

“Look, shut up, I’m not used to it yet,” he hissed back. “I forget he’s a secret, okay?!”

“You moron,” she whispered. “What’d you—are you—”

“I blackmailed him, uh, the guy, Tommy,” Steve whispered back, weirdly proud. “He won’t tell anyone.”

“Jesus, what a prick.” She took a deep breath, and blew through her cheeks. “Tommy Goddamn Hagen, huh. Good thing I wasn’t gonna tell anybody anyway.”

“Phew,” he laughed, grinning at her. “I wasn’t—I can’t even—was just, y’know, going to ask you not to, like, tell. Everyone.” He shrugged. Robin narrowed her eyes at him, watching as he kicked at the linoleum. His shoe squeaked. “Thanks for being cool,” he told her, feeling a little bit warm knowing there were people at school that wouldn’t treat him like he had leprosy. “I guess not everybody’s going to hate me.”

“Jesus,” she whispered, rubbing her face. “I—shut up, okay, I wasn’t—I’m not that—”

“It’s just nice,” Steve shrugged. “Bil—I, uh, I didn’t know how, um, I guess it can get pretty bad, it’s nice to—”

“Yes!” Robin hissed. “Yes, it can! Oh my god, shut up. Why are you—you don’t know me!”

“I do now,” Steve told her, grinning, but he watched her clench her hands in frustration, and recognized someone who wished he’d leave. “Sorry. Thanks. Sorry,” he smiled automatically, and turned away.

“Ugh,” she groaned.

“Thanks,” he called over his shoulder again. “I’m glad it was you!”

“Auuuugh,” she yelled after him. “Stop talking about it, you moron! Somebody could hear you!”

He couldn’t resist turning to face her, walking backwards down the hall and stage-whispering, “Now I know it’s safe to tell you, we can talk about boys.”

“I don’t want to talk about boys!” Robin screamed, soft and wheezily in the back of her throat.

“You know you want to,” Steve whisper-shouted back, waggling his eyebrows, and she smacked her own face. “Nancy and I are friends now,” he told her, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Gonna have all the gossip, right here, don’t change that channel!”

“Nancy Wheeler doesn’t have gossip,” she hissed back, “Nancy Wheeler has—she has flashcards, shut up, dipshit—”

“We’re gonna do all those—those things that—makeovers,” he said, unable to think of anything else. “Sleepovers. Talking about boyfriends.”

“Kill me first,” Robin replied, through gritted teeth. “I will puke, I swear to god.”

“I have all the locker room dirt on everybody,” Steve said, clapping his hands together as he realized. “I know how big—”

“Eugh!” she actually shouted over him. “Gross! I do not want to know! I don’t want to know what Tommy Hagen’s dick is like, holy shit!”

“Yeah, I kinda wish I didn’t either,” Steve said, reflecting, but Robin was on a tear.

“I don’t want to—I don’t even—I wouldn’t think Billy Hargrove was hot unless his name was spelled with an -ie,” she said through clenched teeth, and he mouthed the letters, frowning into space. “Like. If he was named Wilhelmina, Steve.”

“That’s an awful name,” he turned to frown at her doubtfully. “And—and it’s for girls, I think.”

“The penny drops,” she said crisply, which made no sense, but he ignored that, turning her disgust in his head against her insistence she didn’t have a problem with his gay cooties.

“You’re a lesbian,” he whispered, pointing, and she clapped her hand to her face. Steve thought. “I thought I was the only one at school! We were. The only queer people, at school. There’s, uh, there’s a kid, but he’s a middle-schooler. And Barbra Holland, maybe? She and Nancy watched some weird movies.”

“How do you know what kind of...ugh, y’know what, I’m going home,” Robin sighed. “Try not to get expelled, I guess?”

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said quickly, feeling the urge to lift his hand to pinky-swear. He snickered. “We should have a secret handshake.”

“You better not tell anyone,” she hissed back, but she looked relieved too, and they stood there for long awkward seconds before she spun and stomped off. “I still don’t like you!” she shouted back, and he bit back a grin.

Once he’d talked to the ceramics teacher, he sat down with his headphones and the potter’s wheel, trying to dig his fingers into the heavy wetness of the clay enough to bring up a thin edge, but not so much they went through. About the point it started to look like a deep cat dish instead of an ashtray, he realized there were knees facing his, and he shook his head to knock his headphones down to his shoulders, instead of getting clay on them.

The lovely and intelligent Nancy Wheeler had her chin on her hands, and her elbows on her knees, watching him spin the clay.

“Hi,” he said, suddenly wanting to fix his hair, and clenching his hands so he didn’t put streaks of clay in it.

“What’s that gonna be?”

“...I dunno,” he said, which was a lie, probably. “I might screw it up.” Which was true.

“I think I see it,” she cocked her head as he used his fingertips to draw it up taller, “—with Billy. I thought you might—need help, y’know. Sorry.”

“What?!” He blinked at her, letting the wheel slow to a stop.

“I see it now. He was freaking out, when you just—ran out of the library, that time. Mike said he’s been really good to Will, and Eleven. I mean, if he pulls any shit with you we should absolutely tie him to train tracks. But.”

“That’s very...evil of you.” Steve stared at her, wide-eyed.

She rolled her eyes, and waved a hand. “His dad too, obviously.”

Steve snorted, choking. “Obviously.” He pulled his clay cylinder up a little taller and thinner, his face warm. The clay had lines where he’d pressed too hard, almost giving it segments. “...argh, this is my third try, and it’s still not straight.”

“...neither are you,” she replied, levelly, and he nearly smashed it, flailing.

“Nancy,” he growled at her, and she shrugged, watching him wet his hands and try to even it out.

She followed him around as he sliced it off the wheel with wire, took it to a table, and sculpted a handle. When he got to rolling more clay out, and cutting a little plaque to press letters into, she came and leaned over his shoulder, and he flushed as he inhaled her shampoo. “...that looks good, actually,” she murmured in his ear, and he winced away. She wandered back around the table to drop onto the stool across from him.

“‘Actually’?!” he muttered, and she snorted. “Sorry I was a shitty boyfriend,” he told the little letters he was painstakingly carving.

“Mm.” She shrugged. “I mean, I was kinda shitty, too, there at the end.”

He opened his mouth, automatically, to tell her she was perfect and amazing, then shut it again. He bit his lips, frowning down, then blew air through his cheeks, and carefully peeled up the little clay plaque shape to press on the crosshatched side of his cylinder.

“We’re getting better at it,” she said, looking it over, and then reached across and prodded his shoulder. “That’s sweet, Steve.”

“Eugh,” he sighed, leaning his face on the table. “Hope he thinks so.”

She groaned. “He liked Denise, Steve.”

“How come everybody knows my dumb vase’s name,” he mumbled into his arms, and she laughed.

“I hear everything. Little bird told me you might need a ride.”

Steve lifted his head, frowning at her. “...what?”

“He took your car, right?”

“I think Eleven took him,” Steve defended Billy, and Nancy grinned at him, nudging his elbow.

“Yeah, in your car.”

“Who knows where they’ll end up,” Steve sighed. He tried not to think about kissing Billy Hargrove in the bathroom at the IHOP. “Uh, she keeps making him take her for waffles.” Billy’d flinched back when he walked in the IHOP bathroom, he thought, leaning his face in his arms again. How did I not stop and think about that.

Nancy got up and leaned against the table. “And it’s snowing again, so you need a ride. Thanks, Nancy. You’re such a good friend, Nancy.”

He looked up, and quailed under the weight of her raised eyebrows. “Thanks. Who’s the little bird?”

“Billy,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Or rather, he was asking how long Max and Eleven needed, and Eleven asked what I was doing after school.”

“Sorry,” Steve snickered, imagining Billy’s expression. “I could’ve walked.”

She shrugged. “I’m still here.”

Once he finished, and put his Valentine’s Day present to Billy on a rack to dry, they wandered out to Nancy’s mom’s car. As she checked the mirrors, and put on her seatbelt, Steve took a deep breath, couldn’t decide what to say, and sat there with his cheeks inflated like a chipmunk’s, squinting at the dashboard.

“...what are you doing,” she laughed.

“I, um. You know Robin Buckley?”

Nancy frowned at him, then at the rearview mirror to back out of the parking spot. “Yeeeah?”

“She, uh, she saw me and Billy. Earlier.”

“So?”

“Uh, we were, uh, she knows.” He leaned around to shove his bag in the back seat.

“...need me to go —talk to her?” Nancy asked, in a low voice, and Steve scrambled back up, wondering why he knew so many people willing to commit murder in his name.

“No! No! It’s, uh, it’s fine. She doesn’t like dick. I mean, she likes tits, you know. I mean, she’s like us. Billy and me. She’s queer. She, uh, she won’t tell anybody. Shit! I can’t tell you that, the whole point was—auuuugh,” he groaned, leaning his seat back to add some drama to it. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, don’t tell her I told you—”

“Oh!” Nancy blinked. “Is she?! I thought…” She frowned, pulling around a gaggle of freshmen in jerseys wandering through the parking lot.

“What?” Steve tried to get the seat to click back upright, and fell backwards again, his leg kicking up in the air.

“I thought she had a thing for you. She used to glare at us all the time.” Nancy rolled her eyes and groaned, slowing to a top again, and Steve wondered who else was blocking traffic out of the highschool parking lot.

“Did she? Weird.” Steve squinted at the roof of the car, and then remembered something. “Anyway, she won’t say anything. And I need advice. On blow jobs.”

The brakes squawked as Nancy stared over, Nancy opening her mouth to answer, but something banged at the window, and he sat up to see Lucas’ little sister glaring at them.

“Holy shit,” Nancy muttered, groaning. “Just don’t bite it off, you’ll get the hang of it, oh my god—” she hissed, leaning across his legs to roll the window down.

“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Steve muttered back, as Erica Sinclair stuck her face in the car.

“I fell asleep first period and got detention,” she yawned. “Marcenia Lyle Alberga snuck out again last night. Tomika and me were out until four this morning. And I missed the bus, and then I fell asleep in detention again...”

“You...what?” Nancy asked, looking lost. “Who?”

“Her friend’s cat sneaks out,” Steve translated.

“She doesn’t like the old Shireman house,” Erica told them, yanking the handle of Nancy’s car door and yawning again. “Lemme in. I missed the bus, I need a ride.”

“Sorry,” Steve said to Nancy, unable to stop his beaming grin. “She’s, uh, Billy’s kid now, I guess? Can we give her a ride?”

“Billy’s,” Nancy repeated, squinting at him, then Erica, and leaning behind Steve’s seat to unlock the door. Once they were all inside, she asked, “Isn’t the old Shireman place haunted, or something?”

“Yeah, Tommy and Carol and I used to…” Steve trailed off, his brain wandering back to being friends with Tommy Hagen, and getting high to run around screaming and giggling in the “haunted house”. “We used to...go there,” he finished, folding his arms.

“It’s creepy out there,” Erica said, leaning between their seats. “We’re not supposed to go, the floor’s falling in, but Marcenia’s just a kitten.”

“A mean one,” Steve snorted, and Erica snorted.

“She’s a killer. She can’t fight snow, though. I mean, she’d try. ”

Steve snickered, and they ended up explaining the afternoon Billy’d played Great White Hunter to Marcenia the Jungle Cat. He was dying to tell Nancy about El’s confusion over Hopper’s lousy sex talk, and trailed off, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad, really, life with Nancy as a friend.

As Nancy obeyed every traffic law, exactly at the speed limit, Steve saw Robin Buckley under the overhang of the gas station, hopping around as she knocked snow out of one of her shoes. She sighed, pulled it back on with a disgusted expression, hunched her shoulders, and walked on, just as some melting snow toppled off the edge and smacked into the back of her head and down the back of her collar. She yelled and flailed, dropping her bag, and fell on her butt in the snow, then threw her head back and yelled at the sky.

“Wait!” Steve yelled at Nancy, rolling his window down to stick his head out. “Hey! Oy! Robin Barclay!”

“Buckley,” Nancy corrected.

“Buckley!” Steve called, and Robin squinted over out of the pile of snow she’d landed in, her eyes flat with despair.

“What,” she glared over. “Qu-uh. Uh,” she glanced at Nancy, turning red, and her glower darkened. “Steve Harrington?” Ice dripped from the slush on her head down along her ear, and he heard both Nancy and Erica shudder.

“Can we give her a ride?” he asked Nancy, who was shaking her head slowly in bewilderment, eyes wide. “Please?”

“Sure, of course,” she said, turning up the heat and scrambling behind her to unlock the door. Erica scooted to one side.

“This is your fault,” was Robin’s first shivering line after she climbed in. “I missed the bus after, uh, running into you.”

“You’re another one of Steve’s friends?” Erica asked, eyes narrowed consideringly, and Steve yelled “Stop kidnapping my friends! No kidnapping!” back at her as Nancy hit the gas.

“I’m very resistant to being kidnapped,” Robin said, sniffling and shivering.

“Unstoppable force, immovable object,” Erica whispered, studying Robin as they drove.

“No,” Steve told her emphatically.

Robin studied Steve and Nancy. “I thought you two broke up,” she said, exaggeratedly innocent, and glared meaningfully at Steve when he turned around to stare at her.

“We did,” Nancy told her, checking her side mirror. “Steve’s my best friend now. He got a battlefield promotion.”

Robin sat back, nodding, and Steve laughed so hard he choked.

Billy’s car was out of the garage and blocking the drive, for some reason, with Steve’s behind it. Steve frowned at it, then raised his eyebrows at Nancy, who narrowed her eyes at him, then got out of the car and walked around as he disentangled his bag from the seatbelt and slammed the door.

“What,” she hissed. “You were making faces.”

“There’s gotta be more than “don’t bite it off,” he hissed back. “Come on!”

She made an offended gaspy noise, her mouth dropping open. “You’ve had blow jobs!” she squeaked back, flailing her arms. “You know more than me! I don’t even have a dick!”

“How do you not choke?” he asked, thinking hard.

“You just do!” she growled back, her face flaming red. “You’re putting a—a big—a thing down your—where you breathe, Steve, how do you think lungs work—oh my god—”

“Ohhhh,” Steve nodded, and she screamed into her hands.

“If you keep asking me for sex advice I’m gonna suggest you pull your mouth off real loud and sing ‘Pop Goes The Weasel,’” she snarled, and Steve started laughing, blushing nearly as hard as she was at the awkwardness of grilling his ex-girlfriend on blow jobs.

“I know it’s weird,” he laughed, wiping his eyes. “I know, I know, I got nobody else to ask, though, Nance, come on!”

She bit her lips together, glaring, then sighed. “...try, uh. Try, um, humming,” she squeaked.

“Humming,” he stared.

“Shut up, never mind!” she groaned, hiding her face.

“No, no, no no no!” he ran around to block her as she turned back to the car. “No, go on, tell me! Tell me, tell me!”

She sighed, smiling tensely at him. “God, Steve. You’re so—argh.”

“I am, I am,” he agreed, “—tell me your secrets, teach me, like, cock karate—”

“Oh my god,” she moaned.

“Do I need to wash cars,” he asked, miming circular hand movements, and she shoved him, laughing.

“We were, y’know, listening to music,” she mumbled, flushing even redder, “—and uh, I was um, y’know, kind of—kind of singing, humming—”

“Ew,” Steve said, waving her onward as he tried not to imagine the soundtrack of Jonathan’s approaching penis. “Yeah, go on—”

“It’s-nice-try-it!” she squeaked, all one noise, and ducked by him to dive into the car. He waved, but she bent close around the steering wheel as Erica ran around to take shotgun.

Steve crept in the front door to the caterwauling sounds of a circular saw.

The door to the garage from the kitchen was open, and his parent’s stuff—the stacks of boxed seventies clothes and albums he’d called and asked about, that they’d told him to throw out, that he felt weird throwing out, like there wouldn’t be anything of theirs left in the house if he threw the boxes out—had been pushed off to the side. Billy and Eleven were leaning over a long thin piece of wood trim balanced across the seats of two of the kitchen chairs. Billy had a foot on it, holding it secure across the seats, and Eleven had the saw, which she turned off, and carefully lowered to the floor.

“Angle’s perfect,” Billy told her, thumbing the edge, and she beamed at him. He bent over some more wood, but Steve’s brain was less aware of the wood, and more aware of his boyfriend’s ass in tight jeans.

Steve nearly stepped on Max, watching Billy, then blinked down to realize she was sitting in the doorway with her butt on the kitchen floor and her feet on the stair into the garage, glaring up at him and holding a plastic binder with shiny pages.

“Hey, moron, stop drooling,” she whispered. “It’s nasty.”

“What’re they doing?” he crouched to ask, watching El steeple her fingers thoughtfully at her nose, listening to Billy’s explanation of the different grits of sandpaper.

“He says he broke your door,” Max raised her eyebrows with all the judgement of Steve’s second-grade teacher, and he ducked his head.

“Wasn’t on purpose, he thought I was—I don’t know,” he muttered back at her. “He didn’t mean it.”

“That’s creepy, Steve,” she hissed back, flipping a page, and studying it intently. “He knows what he’s doing.” Through the reflection of the florescent lights of the garage, Steve couldn’t see what she was looking at, but he thought he and Max weren’t quite to the point where he could lean into her space.

“I mean,” Steve squinted, considering, and dropped to sit more comfortably next to her in the doorway, his legs sprawled into the garage. He remembered Billy drunk, throwing beer bottles at his house, and crying over his mom. “I mean, not—not always, not really. He, uh—”

“Don’t give me that shit,” she sighed. “Don’t let him get all, y’know, ‘Sorry, honey, you know I’ve got a temper,’ Steve, jesus. Bet he never breaks his own stuff.”

“Wait, what?” Steve drew his eyes away from Billy, who was smiling down at El marking length on a shorter piece of trim with a steel square. “He doesn’t break my stuff. Except the door. Did he break your stuff?”

She tensed, flipping another page, and holding both sides of the binder with white knuckles. “Maybe. Maybe I’m good at pattern recognition, Steve. He tell you not to make him mad? You being careful?”

Steve stared at the side of her head, then swung to face her, unable to focus while his eyes were full of Billy’s ass. “Max, you okay? Is—is everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” she snorted a laugh, rubbing her eyes with her wrist, and flipping another page. She studied it carefully.

“Max, did—did Billy say that to you? Did he—”

“No, he never—he— he says it. To my mom.”

Steve processed for a second, feeling like he was a dysfunctional blender. There were big things floating around out there he was fairly sure he didn’t understand, but he could manage the little pieces, sometimes, blend them into a whole that made sense. “Neil told your mom,” he translated, and Max swallowed, biting her lips together. “Neil...told your mom not to make him mad. Right?”

She shook her head. “He—he didn’t mean—like he gets with Billy. She wouldn’t—he wouldn’t get mad like that— just at Billy, he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t—”

“Billy told you what his mom said,” Steve felt like his engine was grinding, but he kept guessing, since Max kept pausing after each line. Maybe she doesn’t like what she put together, he thought. She’s seeing whether I get the same thing. “That Neil was...that he scared her.”

“Billy said he hit his mom,” Max grated out, and Steve cocked his head, trying to parse the language of the Hargrove siblings.

“Billy said his dad hit his mom,” he suggested, his eyes narrowed in thought, and Max made a weird hiccup noise, muffling it in the cuff of her sweatshirt. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Steve bit his lips together, and tried again. “...and his dad told your mom not to make him angry.” Like the Hulk, he thought, imagining Neil Hargrove tearing the house apart.

Max flipped another page, and bent to frown at it from inches away as Steve waited.

“What have you got there?” he finally asked, since apparently the conversation was over, and El and Billy were still busy. Max tipped the binder towards him with a tense smile.

Steve crouched. “...is that...is that Billy’s photo album? That’s Billy, oh jesus. Oh my god.” He muffled his wide-eyed mumbling with his hands, staring at child-Billy’s round cheeks.

“Shut up, he looks like a moron,” Max hissed back, flipping the page, as Billy and Eleven laid out more pieces of wood. “Look at their hair! And he definitely doesn’t want you seeing him in that sweater vest.”

Steve flipped it back and eyed the brown, orange, red, and off-white sweater vest—it was definitely ugly, and his time spent winding yarn for Ms. Williams meant he could accurately peg it as basically a sandwich of two enormous crocheted potholders, one front, one back, with straps sewn on. “Oh, god,” he mumbled through his hand. “Did he, like...make that himself?” He tried not to think about Neil’s fingers digging into Billy’s shoulder in the posed picture, or the way Billy was leaning away, into his mom.

“I think there was an aunt...or a grandma...Maybe we should blow up that picture and stick it on the bulletin board at school,” Max grinned, laughing shakily.

“Look at his fat little cheeks,” Steve whispered. “Oh no, look, he was surfing and he fell in the water.”

“Look how many pictures there are of him dragging his board out of the water,” Max snickered. “Like, one of him actually surfing. He looks like a drowned rat.”

From listening to Billy’s mom, Steve didn’t doubt either that she was as delighted by photos of him falling off surfboards as staying on, or that she ever let him live it down. “His mom calls him her Land Turtle,” he told her, and Max clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a snicker. “Oh no,” Steve hissed, elbowing her. “Look, Santa photos.”

Max stared at them for a long moment, then looked up at Steve, biting back a huge grin. Her eyes still shone wet, but she looked gleeful. “Steve. Steve,” she whispered in a high voice, drowned out by Billy showing El a box of finishing nails. “Steve,” she wheezed. “He was afraid of Santa. Look. Every picture. Oh my god.”

Billy’s mom looked thin, and paler than she had, and Steve tried to focus on her broad grin. “Those are amazing sweaters,” he whispered back, between his fingers, trying not to crack up aloud over toddler-Billy’s horrified eyes on Santa in every picture. In one, he was tilted sideways, wailing in his red-and-white striped sweater with the knitted green bowtie and matching mustard-yellow knitted overalls.

Suddenly Max yanked the album back to squint close, and Steve waited, then leaned his head down to try and see her face. “Huh,” she said, lifting her head, and pushing the album back toward him. “Leia there on the Halloween page,” she pointed. “His mom—does that—there on her arms, and her neck, do those look like bruises to you?”

Steve, staring at what had to be tiny Billy wedged in an awful R2-D2 costume made mostly of tinfoil, beaming up at the Leia from under—for some reason—a superhero-type mask, had to blink a few times to register Max’s voice. “Wha?”

“Do those look like bruises,” Max hissed. “Billy says he used to hit his mom—”

“Billy hit his mom?” Steve stared at her, then Billy, still stuck in their second conversation about family photos, where four-year-old Billy Hargrove was wearing potholders like they were clothes.

Max shook her head. “No, stupid, he hit Billy’s mom, Neil did. Billy says. Billy says—Billy says she was scared, she thought—there was an insurance thing—” she swallowed, the shine to her eyes no longer delighted. “I’m—I just—he doesn’t deserve him, nobody does, but just ‘cause he hits Billy doesn’t mean he’d hurt—”

Steve listened, really noticing for the first time that Max and Billy never called Neil Hargrove anything—not ‘dad’, or his name, just ‘he’. It was confusing for onlookers, who weren’t always thinking about the man, but Max and Billy always seemed to understand each other.

“I thought I’d check his pictures,” Max closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose, and when she looked back down at the photos, her eyes were drier. “See if—if he was right, and she—she looks—she’s really scared, Steve.”

“I was there when she told Billy,” Steve told Max, who pressed her knuckles to her mouth, making a muffled gulping noise.

“He’s gonna hurt my mom,” she whispered, taking a shaky breath. “Shit, Steve, he’s gonna—he’s gonna hurt my mom, it was true, those are bruises, he’s gonna—”

Steve realized the tools had gone silent, and looked up to see Billy, thin-lipped and pink-cheeked, glancing from the album, to Steve, to Max.

El followed his gaze, frowned hard, and sat the saw down. She walked over, and wedged herself between Max and Steve on the stair into the garage. “What happened?” El asked, sounding like she was doing the psychic equivalent of cracking her knuckles to ready herself for a fight.

Max shook her head, pressing her knuckles to her mouth.

Steve let himself be pushed aside, walking over to put an arm around Billy and kiss his ear. “Just found a picture of my new favorite robot,” he whispered, and Billy snorted, tense against him. “Why was R2-D2 wearing a mask,” Steve asked, and Billy rolled his eyes.

“Shut up, I was like seven, I didn’t know how to make a costume. Why the hell is Max showing you my fatass baby pictures?”

“She, um,” Steve stumbled, divided between wanting to answer, not wanting to admit Max didn’t believe Billy’s warnings, and mostly wanting a time-travel car to go back and pick up the chubby little curly-haired R2-D2 in his terrible tinfoil costume, give him hot chocolate, and keep him the hell away from Neil Hargrove. “You seriously calling R2-D2 fat?”

“What is going on,” asked El, narrowing her eyes at Steve’s arm around Billy, and tucking her own around Max.

“He hurt Billy’s mom, and he hurt Billy, and he’s gonna hurt my mom,” Max said, her voice gravelly with suppressed tears. “He hurts people, and he’s—” she took a few rapid breaths, and bit her lips together until they went white.

Eleven took Max’s hand, turning to face her. “We won’t let him.”

Billy swallowed, his jaw working.

“Hopper,” Steve said, squeezing Billy’s shoulders. “Hopper can—talk to Hopper, El, take Max to tell him—”

“He—he could be doing something—I need to get home,” Max stood, and nearly fell, trying to spin without watching the stair. She staggered, swearing in a high, broken voice.

Eleven caught her by the elbows. “Max,” she said slowly clearly, and Max’s head jerked up to frown at her, as Eleven waved a hand at the milk crates of old records and exploded them. Billy and Steve both yelled, diving for the floor as vinyl shrapnel rained down, and it snowed bits of cardboard. “We won’t let him,” Eleven said, bringing her hand back to squeeze Max’s, then lifting it to wipe a dribble of blood from her nose.

“Holy shit,” Max whispered, wiping her eyes. “Okay. Yeah. We can—we can threaten him, or something.”

“Or something,” El repeated darkly. “I saw a movie where they dropped a house on somebody.”

“C-can you do that?” Max snorted wetly, snickering probably half with stress, and half imagining Neil’s shoes sticking out from under a foundation like he was the Wicked Witch of the East.

El narrowed her eyes. “Do you want me to?”

“Holy shit,” Max started cackling through her tears, stumbling to sit down on the stair to the kitchen.

“Holy shit,” Billy echoed, staring at the mess, as Steve sighed and grabbed the broom. “What the fuck,” he whispered. “Luke fucking Skywalker.”

Steve had mostly forgotten Billy didn’t know about El. Of course that’s how he’d find out about Eleven, he thought, rubbing his face, and scrabbling at his hair. Billy knew every other detail of his stupid life. Of course he couldn’t find out when she lifted a toy spaceship. No, my boyfriend, that I promised to—to tell things—finds out El can move stuff with her mind when she explodes something four feet away and threatens to drop a house on his dad. “Babe,” he tried, turning to Billy. “Hey, dickhead, cupcake.”

Billy was staring at El—or past her, it was hard to tell. His hands were shaking. “You knew about this,” he whispered. “You—you said you wanted me safe, and then you sent me out with a—a fucking dark jedi. Lucky she didn’t explode my skull when I kicked Max under the table. Holy crap.”

“Shit, no, she—she wouldn’t hurt you,” Steve stared at him, then Eleven, who was watching Max take deep, shaky breaths.

“No wonder you wanted to check me over,” Billy whispered, sitting down on one of the chairs he’d been using as a sawhorse. “After you made me take them for waffles. How’d Billy do? She explode my brain?”

“No, no—” Steve argued, his stomach clenching as he remembered fearing exactly that, when Eleven climbed into Billy’s car while Dustin and Max drug him into a classroom for their intervention. He reached out, and Billy flinched, then laughed, baring his teeth.

“Any other big secrets, Steve?”

“No,” Steve shook his head frantically, hoping there weren’t. He couldn’t think of any, but then he’d never even thought to pull Eleven aside, and ask whether he could tell Billy. Some of the vinyl was melted to the floor, and Steve kicked at it.

“Do you want me to come home with you?” Eleven asked Max, and Steve tried to put Billy on hold with his hand and derail that situation.

“Wait, no, Eleven,” he called over. “Remember, I mean, you can’t—nobody can see your powers,” he said, wincing as Billy scrambled away. “They could take you away from Hopper, nobody can—”

She nodded. “It would look like an accident.”

Billy staggered over to sit down against the racks holding Steve’s backstock of marshmallows. “Holy hell fucking balls shit,” he mumbled, taking deep breaths in his steepled hands.

“I still need a ride home,” Max said grimly, and El nodded, taking a deep breath.

“Wait, wait, wait, no,” Steve dropped the broom, waving his hands. “Do you—do you really think you need to do anything, like, tonight?”

“He’s gonna hurt my mom, Steve,” Max hissed, and El nodded, crossing her arms.

“Whoa, whoa,” Steve waved his hands, glancing at Billy. “I mean, hell with Neil Hargrove, but come up with a plan. What if he tells someone about El? Talk to Hopper, think up—come up with a way that doesn’t—I mean, save Max’s mom, but make sure everybody’s safe, okay.”

“Everybody except him,” Max growled.

El considered Steve for a long moment, then nodded. “I will help you,” she told Max, nodding firmly.

“Jesus fucking christ hell,” Billy muttered, shoving past Max and out of the garage. His feet pounded up the stairs.

“I need to go home,” Max told Steve. “I need to tell her.”

“She’s still at work, isn’t she?! Don’t do anything,” Steve ordered the two girls. “Anything, I mean it. I have to—Billy didn’t know, I need to go and—”

“He didn’t know?” El asked, blinking from Steve, to Max, to the ceiling. “Why? You didn’t want Billy to know?”

“I didn’t know if you’d want him to know!” Steve told her, trying not to yell. “Now he’s pissed as hell, I have to go talk to him, just—El. Tell me you’d never hurt Billy. You wouldn’t hurt him.”

Eleven cocked her head, turning to Max. “...what did Billy do?” she asked, and Max gulped a laugh, shaking her head.

“Shit,” Steve rubbed his face. “I have to go talk to him, don’t do anything—”

Max sniffled, rubbing her nose. “You better gimme a ride by five, okay. I—I’ll just have El sh-show me how to use all the power tools. Practice for cutting his head off . Unsupervised with the power tools,” she emphasized casually, like a jackass, and Steve yelled incoherently and ran upstairs. As he turned onto the landing, he heard the slide lock on Billy's door catch, and stopped, one foot still in the air. Gravity happened, and he flailed his arms, put both feet on the ground, and turned to lean over the railing, leaning his face in his hands.

“The hell are you doing, Harrington,” Billy’s voice came through the door.

“What?!” Steve yelped, spinning in place. “Nothing! I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“I could hear you chasing me,” Billy said through the door, sounding amused, in the way he did before he set something on fire. “And the floor is creaking. What now, Harrington?”

“Uh,” Steve mumbled, grimacing. “You want me to fuck off?”

He could hear Billy take a long breath, and blow air out through his cheeks. “...what do you want?”

“I just—” Steve swallowed, dropping to sit on the floor. He took a deep breath to continue. “I just—I’m—shit. I’m so sorry, jesus. I’m—I can’t—I can’t believe I didn’t ask Eleven if I could tell you. I got...I forgot I didn’t tell you everything.”

“All your little shitheads got superpowers?” Billy asked, laughing. “Yeah. That actually snaps a lot of shit into place, Steve.” Steve flinched at his name, and wondered why, swallowing again.

“No,” he answered. “No, it’s, um, it’s just El. She’s, uh. Eleven’s what the lab was making,” Steve told him, dropping to press his cheek to the floor, and sigh under the door at Billy’s bare toes clenched in in the carpet. “I didn’t—I mean, it wasn’t my secret. We got talked to by the FBI, she—she could get taken away from Hopper, they—”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Billy said, dropping to sit crosslegged. His fingers drummed against the carpet. “Who the hell would I tell. You told me about the—about the goddamn blue bodybuilder bananas. I can—I can still smell the burning records, Steve.”

“El hurting you wasn’t—it wasn’t a plan,” Steve growled, trying not to yell. “You think—you think I’d get you away from your dad and just—just throw you—why would I want you to scare a little kid until she killed you, Hargrove, hon—honey mustard. Jesus.”

Through the gap in the door, Steve could see Billy picking at the carpet, and twitching his toes. “...just might blow up my head if I, like, took her by surprise.”

“She wouldn’t kill you for startling her,” Steve said, rolling his eyes, then bit his lips as he remembered Dustin talking about El straight-up murdering the people with guns. “She, uh, she’s never hurt anyone...accidentally, um, I don’t think.”

“You don’t think,” Billy laughed. “I’m filled with confidence.”

“I’m sorry, christ,” Steve whispered. “I didn’t even—”

“Don’t get pissed at me—” Billy’s voice cracked, and he kicked the door.

“No, I’m not—” Steve rolled onto his back staring at the ceiling. “Christ. I didn’t...I’m not—I did, I thought about it, I—I should’ve warned you. Kept you away from her. Sorry I—sorry I didn’t—sorry I suck,” he groaned into his hands. “Damn it.”

The floor creaked, and Billy’s voice got louder. “God, I’m such a moron,” Billy told Steve, the floor creaking by his door. “All this time, I thought—you didn’t trust me at all, did you. Never forgot I was Billy Fucking Hargrove for a second. You just knew little Ellie Hopper didn’t have to tell her sheriff dad I needed putting down. She didn’t need help from anybody, she could twist my head off my goddamn neck, right? I step out of line, she’d take care of it, right, Steve?”

“Sorry,” Steve said again. “I, um.”

“That’s why you’d let me take Max and her for waffles, right, but the second Will shows up you start acting like I’m—I’m the Zodiac killer, christ. Screw you.”

“I didn’t—you’re nice to El, there was no—”

“Why the fuck have you been pretending to give a shit about me,” Billy yelled through the door. It shuddered with a loud THUD on the other side, then creaked in its frame as Billy’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “You knew—you knew she could do that. You knew she’d—do that—for Max, you—you knew—” Steve was silent, grimacing, and wondering what he could say. He jumped as the door thumped again in its frame, and Billy snarled, “Did you fucking leave.”

“No! I’m—I’m sorry,” Steve told him, scooting closer. “I-I’m here, I didn’t—you just, uh, you locked the door.”

“Like you couldn’t bust this shitty lock off in a second. Like Eleven couldn’t rip it off its hinges, right? Make me fucking bleed from—from the eyes probably,” his voice shook with anger, fear, or a combination of both, and Steve didn’t point out the door wouldn’t protect him.

“What? No, you—you locked the door,” Steve flailed at it. “If you want me in there, you gotta open it up, I—I’m not gonna break your door down, I’m not—I’m not the fucking trespasser here—I didn’t mean that to—shit, forget I said that, don’t leave, I’m talking bullshit, tell—tell me what to do, Hargrove. Kings have—they have advisors, or something, right, tell me—”

“Advisors get all the goddamn information,” Billy hissed back.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again, groaning. “I’m so fucking sorry, I should—I should have known you—”

“Known I’d what, fly off the fucking handle?” The door thudded in its frame again, and Steve flinched back. “Right,” Billy whispered, “—I’m crazy, aren’t I, I’m acting insane right now, my brain doesn’t fucking work, I’m stupid, I’m losing my shit over nothing—” Billy’s laugh was wetter than Max’s.

“No!” Steve squirmed across the floor, closer to Billy’s locked door. “No, not—no, you’re—”

“Am I nuts?” Billy asked, his voice shaking. “Your royal majesty,” he laughed. “G-go on. Tell me to shut up and open the door. Wasn’t to lock you out, right? It’s not for that, that’s not—that’s not what you said to do—”

The lock clicked, like he had his hand on it, and Steve scrabbled at his hair. “N-no, wait, wait. Hargrove. Wait, I don’t—it’s—it’s your room, you can lock the door, you can lock it, it’s—it’s okay, you can lock the door—”

“Yell at me some more,” Billy said, laughing unsteadily. “I’ll open it. I’m opening it, jesus. Tell me I’m fucking nuts. Tell me to open up, King Harrington. I know I’m the asshole, I’m wrong, right? I’m—I’m wrong, somehow. Harrington,” he whispered, “—you—you keep—you go through so much shit for me, this is—this is my fault, right, you wouldn’t—”

“No, no, wait, Hargrove, listen—” Steve caught his breath as he recognized the metallic scrape of the lock sliding open. “Stop—”

A loud thump rattled the door in its frame. “It wasn’t even a big deal, right, I am, I’m acting insane. Jesus, I’m so dumb sometimes, I’m fucking crazy— I don’t know what to—let’s forget it,” Billy said thickly, turning the doorknob enough to click it unlocked. “Sorry,” he gritted out. “Y-you can come in if you want. We can—”

“No! No, no, no,” Steve yelped, scrambling to lie on his stomach on the floor, and slide his fingers under the door. He held it shut. He stared under the gap at Billy’s feet. “No! Be—don’t try and—babe—shit—you’re mad, you should be mad! You should be pissed, okay, be pissed, be—be fucking pissed as hell—okay—”

Billy was quiet for several seconds. “...okay,” he repeated softly, sniffling. “Whatcha doing, Harrington...you trying to fit under the door?”

“Fuck you, just—just—lock the door,” Steve told him. “Lock the door, babe. Don’t unlock the door until you wanna let me in, okay. Knight. Remember you’re pissed at me. I’m bullshit sometimes, okay. You’re pissed off.”

“Royal command,” Billy whispered, dropping so he was lying on the floor, one eye facing Steve through the gap underneath.

“You’re supposed to be mad,” Steve said again, and Billy laughed, a tear running out the side of his eye and dropping into the carpet. Steve scrambled for words. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t think—”

“I mean. You usually don’t,” Billy laughed hoarsely, and Steve wedged more of himself under the door, ignoring it scraping what felt like half the skin off his wrists, to brush the tips of his fingers against Billy’s toes. Billy jerked away, then grabbed Steve’s fingers in his cold, sweaty ones.

“No, I mean it, I’m a moron,” Steve hissed, pissed at himself, even if Billy wasn’t. “I know—with my bat,” Steve pointed at Billy under the door, and Billy laughed again. Steve squinted with concentration. “You had to—you had to know all about the bat, so you could figure out whether you were safe. I couldn’t just say you were safe. I had to tell you everything about the bat, so—so you could—decide.”

“Except about El,” Billy said, and Steve swallowed.

“Except about El,” he agreed, sighing. “I—I almost did, I—you asked if I was gonna lie, she’s—it’s a big secret—I-I’m sor—I’m so sorry. Honey-mustard. Hargrove. I’m—I’m so fucking sorry. I just—there was a lot happening, and—I should have made sure you were okay. First. First before anything.”

After what felt like a long silence, when Steve was starting to tense up again, Billy whispered, “You—you said you fucking forgot.” He rolled onto his back, shaking with laughter. “Did you seriously just— completely forget to tell me. Harrington. You did, didn’t you.”

“No! No, kind of,” Steve groaned again, into his arms, catching Billy’s half-hysterical snickering. “I thought—I mean, I freaked out that first time, when Dustin drug me off and you drove off with El in your car, but then—I mean, you were okay, nothing happened! I’m a fucking moron—”

“You’re so dumb,” Billy whispered, grinning under the door. “Holy shit. How could you—okay, I-I’ll open the door. I’m opening the door.”

“You don’t have to,” Steve told him, grimacing.

“Can’t lock you out in your own house,” Billy said, sounding weirdly flat. “S’not what that lock’s for, is it. It’s not—it’s not to st—” he took a shaky breath, swallowing. “It’s not to stop you,” he whispered, his fingers shaking in Steve’s.

“It’ll work!” Steve yelped. “It’ll stop me, it’s a sturdy door, right? The lock’s little but um, it’s uh, it’s latched! You’re safe from me in there!”

“Harrington, what are you gonna do when I open this door,” Billy asked, and Steve had the horrifying suspicion he was crying. “I won’t lock it again, I swear, jesus, please,” he mumbled, his words hitching, and Steve squeezed his hands harder.

“I—” Steve fumbled his words, trying to think of a way to prove he wasn’t angry, while also wanting to burn Neil Hargrove at the stake. “I’m not mad,” he said, trying to keep his voice soft. “I’m not mad, baby, you can lock the door, you can lock me out anytime—” He’d lost Billy for a while again, he realized, listening to the nonsensical mumbles and apologies on the other side of the door, and running his thumbs over Billy’s clenched fingers, so he just kept saying it was okay, and he wasn’t mad.

After what felt like the longest eleven minutes of Steve’s life—as he talked, he was staring at the watch on his wrist, wedged half under the door—Billy took a long shuddering breath.

“You back with me, Hargrove?” Steve whispered, his throat raw.

“...think so,” Billy whispered back. “I was...I was gonna open the door,” he said. “I won’t lock it again,” he promised, and Steve gave his now well-practiced speech.

“You can lock that door anytime,” he told Billy. “You can lock it for no reason, okay. I won’t be mad, you can lock your door.”

“I’m allowed to be crazy,” Billy laughed uncertainly.

“I don’t know if it’s crazy,” Steve told him, frowning under the door, but deciding not to bring up Neil Hargrove. “But you can lock the door, people lock doors, that’s what locks are for, dick—honey,” he said, changing his insult at the last minute, and ignoring Billy’s snickers and whispers of “Dick honey! I’m your dick honey.” “Billy Hargrove,” Steve whispered. “You can lock me out, I still love you—”

Billy choked, curling up on the floor around Steve’s fingers. “...okay.”

“Love you so much,” Steve told him, ignoring the heat in his cheeks. “Love works through doors, okay, I can wait ‘til you come out, jesus. It’s fine.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Billy laughed, crying. “Fuck you, stop making me—bawl, okay, jesus, you prick, christ. Fucking... hate how much I love you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve laughed, his eyes tearing up with relief, and the pain of his scraped knuckles wedged under the door.

“You’re really not pissed I locked you out,” Billy asked again, trying to sound casual.

“I showed you that lock,” Steve told him, trying not to sound pissed.

“Yeah, because—for if—if he comes, you wanna rescue me,” Billy laughed. “Protect what’s yours. Not supposed to lock you out.”

Feeling the exhaustion of another trip around the monopoly board, without passing Go, and without collecting $200, Steve closed his eyes and tried not to groan. “You can lock this door whenever you want,” he said for what sounded like the ninetieth time.

“Yeah,” Billy breathed, and they lay there, on opposite sides of the door, for nearly another five minutes. “...you pretending not to be pissed,” Billy hissed finally. “You—are you—I’ll open up and you’ll be mad as hell, you—you’ll—” he trailed off into sharp breaths, and Steve tried to squirm closer.

“Not gonna lie to you,” he said, and felt Billy’s fingers twitch. “I’m not, honey-mustard, I’ll tell you if I’m mad.” Billy took another long shaky breath, and Steve screwed his face up in thought, kicking his feet so they thudded lightly against the railing of the stairs. “...look, I could open the door,” he whispered, and Billy was silent. “You already unlocked it,” Steve reminded him. “All I’d have to do is turn the knob. But—”

“But what?” Billy asked.

“I don’t think you’re ready yet,” Steve told him. “I’m gonna let you open your door, okay?”

“God, I’m so crazy,” Billy sighed, muffled by the carpet.

“I think you’re just, y’know,” Steve flunked talking as usual, “—you think, um, you think stuff will happen that maybe...happened before. That’s, uh, that’s smart, actually. That’s smart.”

“I should trust you,” Billy groaned. “Shit.”

“I mean, I guess,” Steve made a face. “I just kind of...fucked up. Big. I didn’t—you have to be careful, I mean, you—” he groaned too, trying to fit the words together.

“Not with you,” Billy argued.

“No, with—with me, too, you have to be careful, you’re really important,” Steve huffed, his hackles rising as Billy started laughing again on the other side of the door. “You are! Steve hissed. “You’re so important, you’re the most important, and I’m really—I’m so shitty at this, you have to—you have to help me—”

“Oh my god,” Billy wheezed, and Steve opened his mouth to keep arguing, then blinked as Billy reached out to push Steve’s pointer finger back under the door.

“This lil’ piggy’s gonna get stomped, Harrington,” Billy whispered through the gap, and Steve snickered as Billy’s fingers lifted each of his and prodded them under the door, then stuck his own middle fingers under at Steve.

Steve laughed and rubbed his wrists, rolling onto his back.

Billy’s face disappeared from the gap, replaced by his hand, then his foot, and the sound of a door opening across carpet.

Steve pushed himself to his feet, and then got an armful of Billy Hargrove, breathing unsteadily against his shoulder, and yanking at the fly of his pants.

“Fucking moron,” Bily whispered, trying to unbutton Steve’s jeans as Steve tried to push his hands away.

“Max—Max and El,” he gasped. “They’re right downstairs, we can’t—”

“Sure we can,” Billy whispered against his mouth, and Steve grabbed his hands.

“Okay, but I’m the one apologizing, right,” Steve changed tactics, trying not to grin. “You didn’t screw up. I screwed up.” Billy’s eyes narrowed, then widened as Steve grabbed him by the fly, whispering. “Lemme choke on your dick.” As he’d expected, Billy froze, frowning at him, and Steve seized the opportunity to squeeze him until his bones creaked.

“Not sure how much you’re gonna like that when you’re sober,” Billy hissed in his ear, rocking their hips together.

With the hot pressure on his dick, Steve couldn’t think of an argument other than the truth. “I was,” he whispered, sliding a hand under Billy’s sweatshirt and up his warm side, feeling his muscles work. “I was—I was sober, cake, um, cake pie. I dumped the whiskey out. Didn’t drink it.”

“What,” Billy asked hoarsely.

“Sorry I lied,” Steve buried his face in Billy’s neck, dragging messy kisses over his collarbones. “Shouldn’t lie to you, I mean it, I—I’ll stop, but—but I knew you were freaked, didn’t wanna—didn’t wanna do some dumb drunk thing—” he bit gently under Billy’s jaw, and felt him shudder.

“You goddamn liar,” Billy breathed, grabbing the ass of Steve’s jeans with both hands.

“Sorry for that too,” Steve whispered, and Billy groaned melodramatically in his ear. “Am I out of the doghouse?” Steve asked, and Billy snorted.

“No, you are not,” Billy said, his gaze flicking uncertainly over Steve’s face. “I’m gonna make you work for it—”

“Oh, I can work for it,” Steve told him, his grin way too wide, he suspected, to look seductive at all.

“What the hell are you two doing up there?!” Max yelled, and they both started.

“Okay,” Steve said, tucking his laugh against Billy’s neck. “I’m gonna suck your dick. With feeblings.”

“Jesus christ,” Billy muttered back, relaxing against him. “Just a minute,” he shouted downstairs, and Max stomped away. “...El might actually come up and ask what we’re doing in a minute,” he groaned, sliding his arms around Steve’s waist to sway together, and muttering a string of profanity into his shoulder.

Steve rubbed his back, trying to remember the intense cold-shower effect El had had on his half-chub earlier, when she’d stomped into the locker room wanting Billy to teach Max to use tools. The idea of her throwing the bedroom door open as Steve tried to negotiate his first real blowjob didn’t sound appealing.

After standing there a while, Steve’s adrenaline bubble started merging with the relief of Billy choosing to trust him after he’d fucked up again, and he wanted to move— run, or dance Billy around, or carry him somewhere, listening to him yell, and kissing his hot blushing face. “Later tonight. I got blowjob tips from Nancy. But we should probably go back downstairs,” he whispered, rubbing his thumb across Billy’s tear-sticky cheek.

“Holy jesus. Is that—is that what you were talking about? Giving blowjobs?” Billy asked, his laugh warming Steve’s neck.

“Sort of,” Steve hedged, wishing Nancy hadn’t wanted him to keep secrets. “She decided to start telling me all the weird shit she used to tell Barb, and I’m not supposed to tell anybody, and—” he remembered Nancy shaking with laughter over Jonathan’s sex habits, and tried to smother his vindictive glee, “—I really, really want to tell you Nancy’s secrets, I swear.”

“Why the hell would I want to know any of that,” Billy slumped against him with a contented sigh.

“It’s hilarious,” Steve hissed. “Being friends with a girl is annoying.”

“You poor baby,” Billy snorted.

“She wants to check in all the time! She likes you,” Steve said, remembering abruptly, and Billy burst into a fit of snickering against his neck.

“She does, huh.”

“She does! She said you were all freaked out when I ran out of the library.”

“...Harrington,” Billy said, pulling back to narrow his eyes at Steve’s face. “I—”

“We should probably go downstairs,” Steve interrupted, his face heating as he remembered Billy knew he’d run off to cry. Like the five-year-old birthday boy, he thought, with a self-directed smirk, when he realizes everybody in the class just came because he’s got a pool. “Sorry I was acting like—an idiot. More of an idiot,” Steve shrugged. “We should go down.”

Billy opened his mouth, closed it, then pulled Steve’s face into a kiss that was warm and salty with tears. After a few seconds of hot breath and slick tongue that left Steve harder in his pants than ever, his sweaty hands clutching at Billy’s biceps, Billy pulled back. “You saying I should stop hiding from a little girl,” he asked, grinning, and Steve swallowed a couple times, gathering himself to speak.

“El’s pretty scary,” Steve rasped, “—they’re gonna start using the chainsaw or something, though—”

“You have a chainsaw?” Billy interrupted.

“Maybe?!” Steve stepped back to throw his hands in the air. “I didn’t know we had a circular saw!”

“We need a ride,” El’s voice carried up the stairs.

“Are your—” parents? Steve thought, and stalled out, “—are your uh, your adults even off work yet? Thought you were helping Billy fix my door,” Steve called back, leaning over the railing to look downstairs, and reaching back to squeeze Billy’s hand.

“...we should finish that first,” El said, after a second, and Billy turned him around and leaned in for one more kiss before squeezing his hand back and pulling away to jog down the stairs after Eleven.

Max was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Steve came down. She looked him up and down, then rolled her eyes, her shoulders lowering a little from their angry hunch.

“Hey, Max, uh,” Steve said, then stopped, thinking.

“What, did you run out of batteries?” she asked dryly.

“No, shut up. You know—you can still bring your mom here, if you need to, ever. Or call us, if you need help. We can—we can come pick you up, you and her. Anytime.”

“...Billy gonna second that?” she asked, and Steve considered.

“Yeah. Yeah, he said he’d help me out if my kids needed it. He offered. I mean, he might not stand between you and his dad—”

“No, he’s—he’s done that. Done something just as—just as I was—got himself hit.”

“...that’s…” Steve trailed off, unable to say it was good, Billy getting himself hurt.

“Weird is what that was, because usually he’s a total shithead,” Max hissed. “Which I didn’t tell El. And I won’t—” She stopped.

Because he’s your brother, Steve thought, then wondered whether it was just basic decency in Max, not wanting to hurt anyone if she could help it. Anyone but monsters, like Neil Hargrove.

“...El wants you both to come to the Byers’ for waffles,” she reported, sighing. “Soon. Every damn time anybody’s upset she wants waffles.”

“D’you want him there?” Steve asked, suspecting she didn’t.

“I don’t care,” Max sighed, setting her jaw, and frowning towards the garage. “If he keeps acting like a goddamn human being instead of an asshole. I think El wants to ask him about his mom.”

That will go great, Steve thought, wincing.

“Guess I better help them fix the door,” Max said, unmoving.

“You didn’t break it,” Steve told her, wandering over to the hot chocolate cupboard.

“I wanted to see his photo albums. Check his story, you know, so I lied,” she said, “...kind of.”

“You...lied,” he glanced back, eyebrows raised, before realizing he needed to get more marshmallows out of the garage, which would mean walking out on Max wanting to talk, which...didn’t seem like the right thing to do. He sighed.

“He won’t let me take shop. I signed up for shop and now I’m in home economics,” Max groaned, and Steve rewound the sentence in his head and substituted Neil in for he . “I told El, and said I wanted to talk to Billy, and she said Billy takes shop, since he’s a boy— and next thing I know, he’s waiting for us in your car after school. Trying to tell me how to use a saw. Billy fucking Hargrove, Shop Teacher—and of course Eleven’s having fun.” She squinted towards the garage. “I just wanted to see that photo album.”

“...want some hot chocolate?” Steve asked, feeling a keen empathy for El, and her urge to stuff waffles in the face of anyone having a problem.

“No,” Max said, burying her face in her arms. “Yeah. Damn it. Do I have to—I have to stop hating him now?! Just like that?” She snapped in the air, growling. “Because that asshole’s been beating his face in since he was like—” she held her hand flat a couple feet from the floor, glaring at Steve. “—that high? How come my mom had to fall for him. How come he can’t die of a heart attack. HEY MISTER GOD, THIS IS MAX,” she yelled suddenly, at the ceiling. “FIX YOUR SHIT.”

Steve was cracking up, leaning against the cupboard. “You tell him,” he held up a mug in a toast, and Max snorted.

“Listen to him in there,” she said, glaring at the table, and Steve leaned to listen to Billy laughing, and explaining something about the latch. “Being some rad older brother. You know, that’s what I thought I was getting. Will Byers loves him, musta asked me to invite him like twelve times. He got a cat out of a fucking tree, Steve, did he get brain trauma on your watch?!”

Steve thought about how tense Billy’d been, the afternoon Max had come over to learn to bake bread. Neil hadn’t helped, that morning, or calling that night, but Billy’d been a mass of barbed wire all afternoon.

“You finding the meaning of life in that cocoa mix?” Max asked, and Steve jumped, realizing he was staring into the jar.

“Yeah, kinda,” he leaned to look deeper, humming exaggerated noises like a Muppet, and she snorted, watching him spoon mix into mugs. “Nah. I, uh, I think he...I think maybe you make him nervous.”

“I make him nervous?!” Max smacked her hands on the table. “I make him nervous?! What in the hell kind of—”

“No, shush, I just mean—like I remember the floaty thingies, in the tunnels, you know,” he told her, waggling his fingers to indicate the wispy substance that had clogged their lungs, and ignoring Max biting back a grin. “In the snow, I—I can freak out a little. It’s not—it’s not the snow’s fault, snow never ate my friends—” Max snorted another laugh, but she was listening. “You haven’t...done anything, but you were—you were there, while things were happening, I think—”

“I remind him of home,” she said, chewing her lip. “Maybe. Gross.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, but when he glanced over again, she looked like she was thinking hard.

“He could still not be a dipshit,” she muttered at her mug, and Steve nodded, sighing.

“You—you can bring him for waffles,” she decided. “Will can just have him, I don’t care. He can be Will and Eleven’s brother, I don’t give a shit.”

Steve opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “I’m, uh, I’m pretty good at. Things.”

“Not English, apparently,” Max narrowed her eyes. “The hell does that mean?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged, turning back to turn off the kettle, and add the hot water to their mugs.

“You really want to be my brother?” she asked, sounding amused, and he turned to glare, but her eyes were kinda wider than her usual wary glower. “I mean, you—you said that, when you—when you wanted me to get him out of the house, but—”

“I’d be better at it than Billy,” he pointed out, and she tried to talk and laugh at the same time, and choked.

“Yeah,” she laughed, wiping her eyes. “Yeah, uh, you—you really would. Uh. I dunno. Do I really need a brother, right, I mean. I, um. I have some—friends. Now.”

“If you need one,” he said, keeping his tone cheerful, and ignoring her red face as she groaned into her sleeves. “Or just, y’know, want one. I can put Dustin down as a reference.” He turned back to the hot chocolate.

He gave Max the rest of the marshmallows, and sat her mug in front of her, watching her eyes well up as she looked at the little Garfield cartoon about spiders on the mug.

“Thanks, Steve,” she rasped, and he clinked their mugs together.

Next chapter

[platypan]

Strangest: finally an update!

Strangest: chapter 1/chapter 2/chapter 3/chapter 4/chapter 5/chapter 6/chapter 7/chapter 8/chapter 9/chapter 10/  But really I’d recommend reading it on Ao3 under peterqpan, scrolling through it on Tumblr sounds crazymaking

After the accidentally-romantic reveal of Steve’s ceramic monstrosity, Billy was distracted in gym, until Steve leaned in to whisper “Can’t believe you’re ignoring my balls, Hargrove.”

“Believe me, I’m not,” Billy muttered back, his jaw working. He stumbled back into their gym teacher, his eyes fixed on Steve’s mouth, and Steve grinned at him, and licked his lips.

The next time they passed each other, Steve leaned to whisper “What kinda attention am I gonna get for a good present, Hargrove?”

“I dunno, I haven’t seen one yet,” Billy hissed back, and then, “Don’t diss Denise, asshole. I’ll pound your ass into— jesus christ,” he spun on his heel, neck flushed, and stomped off directly through the melee around the basketball hoop, elbowing his way to the locker rooms. By the time Steve got there, Billy was showered and clothed, leaning to talk to Tommy as Steve ducked into the showers.

When he got out, Billy was lying on his back on the bench, eyeing the water running down Steve’s legs, and Steve wanted to kiss him. He firmed his lips and determination, and decided to stay after school to work on a better Valentine’s Day present—Denise had been a joke, he ranted in his head, he could do better if he was trying—

Steve told Eleven this, when she popped up at his elbow in the locker room—right after he shrieked, scrambling for a towel. She surveyed the locker room with narrowed eyes, and more of the highschool boys screamed than would admit to it later, covering their dicks. As most of the class dove behind lockers, she allowed Steve to fling Billy’s towel over her head and shove her back towards the door. “So...if you’re busy, we can borrow Billy, right?” she asked, through the towel.

Billy was laughing his ass off, since he’d had pants on already, and his junk wasn’t vulnerable to the critical eye of a middle-school girl. “No cats,” he called over.

“You can keep him,” Steve muttered, shoving her out the door. When he stalked back in, Billy grinned at him, pointedly rubbing his thumb along his own inner elbow, where the Sharpie heart was, with the messy H+H.

Steve felt his cheeks heat. “Shut up.”

“Be honest about your feeblings, Harrington,” Billy whispered back, staggering as Steve thudded their shoulders together, yanking his jeans up over his briefs.

“Here?! I think we’d get expelled,” Steve whispered back, and Billy licked his lips, snickering.

“I’m your favorite,” Billy breathed in his ear, and Steve swiveled to face his locker, eyes wide as he popped a boner. Not now, he told his dick, straining against his pants, later, just wait until after school, I’ll get my fingers in his hair and pull him close, and when his knees start to get noodly with my mouth on his neck, we can fuck on the kitchen floor—

“Harrington,” Billy repeated, elbowing him, and Steve cleared his throat, rubbing his face. His cheeks were hot.

“Yeah, yes, I’m here,” he swallowed, “—here, right here.”

Billy squinted at him, halfway into a sweatshirt, so his biceps flexed against the fabric, and his chest and abs gleamed in the florescent lights of the locker room. He zipped it up. “...you sure?”

“Very very here, at school,” Steve muttered, staring into his locker again. “Very here where I can’t, uh. What?”

“You like me as much as Tommy, right,” Billy cocked his head, leaning in to murmur, “—what if I hit him, you gonna throw me out, or—”

“Wait, what?” Steve kept his eyes on Billy’s face, listening, instead of tracking the trickle of water from his wet hair down his neck and along his collarbone. “What’s going on?”

“He’s, uh,” Billy leaned back against the lockers, surveying the room with a too-wide grin. “—he’s thinking one of us is gonna spread it around I—I let him—we screwed, y’know. Says he’s not like me, he’s—he says he’s gonna tell everyone I’m a fag, that’s why I’m sniffing around Steve Harrington—”

“Christ.”

“I’m gonna feed him his own molars.” Billy rolled his shoulders. “Before he gets me drug behind some redneck meathead’s truck—”

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, wanting to spin his bat around his hand. He took a deep breath. “Okay, okay,” he whispered. “Okay, we can’t—we can’t kill him, we—we can’t murder him, Hargrove, we can’t. We can’t—we can’t just—just murder him, even if—”

“Jesus,” Billy whispered, glancing around. “Ssh!”

“We—we’d probably get caught,” Steve told Billy, grabbing his hands and squeezing them. “We’d—we’d get caught, mustard, uh, mustard pie, we’d—we’d definitely go to jail, we can’t kill him.”

“I didn’t say murder,” Billy hissed back, wide-eyed. “I said I was gonna punch his face, Harrington—”

“Okay,” Steve nodded, squeezing Billy’s hands so hard he winced. “Okay. Okay, god damn it. Damn, damn, damn damn it—”

“Holy helicopters,” Billy muttered, straight-faced, and Steve choked on a snort, and started coughing.

“Oh my god I love you,” he groaned into his hand, ignoring Billy suddenly closer, warm against his side. “Okay. Okay, wait, no.” Steve yanked his shirt on, got some of it in his mouth, and Billy yanked it down, leaning in.

Billy slid his hand up Steve’s side, hot and callused, and Steve shoved it down and away, trying to refocus his brain on Billy’s words. “I need to do something,” Billy hissed. “He’s gonna tell everybody I’m queer, your majesty.” His eyes were red. “You don’t need to—none of that shit’s gonna get on you—”

“No, jussec.” Steve set his shoulders, did a mental check of his anatomy, and decided he could turn around without everybody knowing he got hard when Billy Hargrove growled in his ear. “It’s—just—just a—just hold off, okay. I’ll—I won’t kill him. I’ll talk to him.”

“Talk to him?! Harrington,” Billy growled, grabbing his wrist, and Steve held still, feeling his bones grind together. They were starting to draw attention, so he asked the guy across the bench about his new shoes, and found out way more about Adidas Micropacers than he’d ever wanted to know, but the conversation kept going when he backed out. Billy let go of his wrist, but leaned close. “Your majesty. Whaddaya mean talk to him, talk to me, come on,” he said under his breath.

“I’ll handle it,” Steve whispered back, nodding and grinning at another kid showing off his sneakers. He watched Tommy fixing his hair, and tried to remember his past friend’s class schedule.

“Just a little worried about getting lynched, probably by the people in this room,” Billy hissed, as Steve started to walk away.

Steve bit his lips, turning back to pretend to check inside his locker. “Look. Dickhead,” he tried, and Billy covered a snort, swallowing. Steve tried to grin confidently. “Trespasser. Wait a sec, just—just wait a minute, let me—let me try something. We can’t kill him,” Steve sighed, and Billy’s jaw clenched.

“I wasn’t trying to kill him,” he hissed back.

“You beat him up, he’ll just get mad! Besides, you start throwing punches, they’ll call your dad—get him down here—”

Billy shrugged. His hands shook, and he clenched them in fists, laughing. “Win some, lose some—at least you won’t go to jail, Jesus H. Christ—”

“No, no—I—I, uh, you won’t, uh, he won’t, okay, babe, Ha-Hargrove, just—just gimme a minute, I—I’m not—if this doesn’t work we—I—I’ll hold him down. We’ll just kill him. You can—you can use my bat.”

Billy snorted, side-eyeing him. “...good use for it.” He rubbed his face, and nodded, tilting backto lean against the lockers. His knuckles were white on his forearms again, his nails digging into the sleeves of Steve’s sweatshirt against the hearts Steve had drawn up his arm. “As you fucking command, my leige. I hope your plan’s better than ‘murder’.”

Steve rolled his eyes, and jogged out of the locker room after Tommy, dropping an arm around his shoulders.

“Hey there,” Tommy grinned at him, his gaze dropping to Steve’s mouth and back up in a way Steve remembered, but hadn’t really registered before.

Steve smiled—it was easier to smile around Tommy than it was to remember what Tommy was like, and always had been—and tried to decide how to start.

“Hargrove get all shook up and remember who your real friends are?” Tommy elbowed Steve, then hailed Carol out of the crowd.

“He’s a friend,” Steve tried.

“Bet he didn’t tell you about the other night,” Tommy glanced up sideways, his jaw clenched, “—when we tried to get you to party.”

“He doesn’t remember most of it,” Steve blurted, and his stomach sank at Tommy’s widening grin. “Look, I know what happened, and, uh—”

“I bet you don’t,” Tommy hissed, glancing around. Carol came out of her class, but saw them and leaned against the wall, disentangling an earring from her hair. Tommy jerked away from Steve to walk backwards towards her. “Bet he didn’t tell you who he wanted to fuck.”

“He—he said—”

“Hate to break it to you,” Tommy’s voice rose, “—Billy Hargrove wants y—”

“I still talk to Carol’s sister,” Steve hissed at him. “Remember? She had a story about a party you guys left. When I was visiting my mom in Boston.”

“What?” Tommy stopped in the middle of the hallway, staring at him.

“Remember finding the keys in a backhoe? And a joyride?” Steve narrowed his eyes, as Tommy snorted a laugh. Steve lowered his voice. “—I know what happened with Billy, okay—”

Tommy’s freckles stood out as he paled. “No, you—you wouldn’t be—he lied,” he laughed shakily. “He must’ve, he’s a fucking liar— ”

“What?! He—he didn’t have to,” Steve raised his eyebrows, “—he called me, I picked him up. I was in there while you assholes were in the shower—”

Tommy’s breath caught, and his eyes got shiny, and Steve knew that look—from Billy smashing a plate in his face at the Byers’, but also from years of knowing Tommy, and he waved his hands, open palmed.

“I don’t care! I don’t care, I don’t care, but don’t—don’t try and—don’t say it was all Hargrove’s fault, it wasn’t—”

“You don’t...care,” Tommy took a deep breath, shoulders relaxing, then punched Steve’s arm. “The fuck do you mean, you don’t care, you moron, you still don’t get what I—why the hell did he call you, didn’t he kick your ass? You his bitch now?” he hissed, and Steve bit his lips.

“Yeah. No, I’m not—” Steve felt his cheeks warming, and cleared his throat. “He—he did that,” Steve kept nodding, running his fingers through his hair, “—he did, he beat me up. Yeah. So did you, asswipe. But. Um, if—if you try and—and tell everyone he—that he’s—”

“He’s a goddamn—”

Steve cut him off, clenching his fists. “If you tell people he did something to— to you, if you—if you say it’s—if you say it was all Billy, I—I won’t keep your secrets. Anymore.”

“...what,” Tommy choked.

“Any of them,” Steve emphasized, flailing his hands. “I know some shit. They try you now, you might get tried as an adult. You could go to actual prison, dude.”

“I will end you,” Tommy hissed, sputtering with rage, “I will end you and your fag friend—you—”

Steve flinched, but held his ground. “Bullshit. I won’t—I won’t say anything unless you...do,” he frowned, thinking through it, “—but...I think—I think between you, and Hargrove, and me,” he swallowed, “—I think—I think I’m who people will listen to here at school. If you—if you try to tell them. That. And—and you know Sheriff Hopper will hear me out, when I tell him who took the backhoe. Took it for a spin when they were putting in the new parking lot. You crashed the backhoe into the sheriff station that night, remember? I can’t—don’t quite remember how many thousands of dollars in damage that was, d’you?”

Tommy stepped closer, laughing. “And what, you’re gonna sell me out for the queer? Shouldn’t you be thinking about what I could do...Pussington?” Tommy growled, and Steve blinked at him, then snorted a laugh.

“I’ve fought scarier shit than you, Tommy Hagen,” he hissed. “I could walk over and use the pay phone right now. Call the police here. Don’t drop the soap when you get sent to prison , right? Because Billy’s the one who’s queer.”

“God, you’re dumb,” Tommy sneered, but he was staring at Steve’s face, wet-eyed. “You don’t even make sense. I can just see you on the witness stand.”

“Oh, you want me to do it?” Steve asked, setting his shoulders to turn away.

Tommy yelled “Fuck you, no!”, and Steve turned back to see him glaring, fists clenched. “I’ll leave your boyfriend alone,” he hissed.

Steve nodded, his jaw hurting as his teeth ground together, and he shoved by, walking as fast as he could back to the locker room.

Billy was still there, lying along a bench, and Steve wished everyone else had left, so he could crawl up between Billy’s knees, and flop on his chest. He kicked out and nudged Billy’s shoulder, instead. “You ready yet?”

“You gonna hold him down for me to punch?” Billy asked, without opening his eyes.

“No, I, uh.” Steve crouched down to whisper, hugging his knees. “I told him I know way too much shit about him for him to go mouthing off.”

“...you blackmailed him?!” Billy turned his head to stare over.

“Noooo,” Steve considered, “—yeah? I guess?”

“Is anybody looking?” Billy whispered back.

Steve frowned around, then shook his head, and Billy grabbed him by the nape of his neck and yanked him into a deep, soft kiss. Steve flailed his hands, teetering on the balls of his feet, then dropped to a kneel, and slid his thumb along Billy’s cheek.

Billy pulled back, licking his lips, and sat up. “Shit,” he rolled his shoulders, “I can’t really owe you more...everything.”

“...you don’t owe me anything,” Steve huffed a laugh, grimacing at a sudden memory of the way the world had wobbled around him, after days awake. How he’d heard Billy’s yelling from outside while he was lying on the floor of the shower, hoping the hot water would bake him to sleep. “My—my brain’s busted too. You…” he laughed, shaking his head.

“I what?” Billy kept his voice low, but they were drowned out anyway by some guys in the other corner having a pushup contest.

Steve cleared his throat, feeling the edges of the tile dig into his knees, and breathing in the stale smell of gym clothes, and towels that never quite dried. “You saved me. Too. I couldn’t—”

“How the hell—”

“I can’t sleep,” Steve snorted, shrugging, and keeping his eyes on the floor. “And then you showed up. Couldn’t—I wasn’t—eating, a lot, just because I couldn’t—I was so goddamn tired. I don’t know, it...”

Billy was quiet for a long few seconds, but when Steve risked a glance up, he had that expressionless face he got when something reminded him of his dad.

“Sorry—sorry, I’m—”

Billy shoved him, and Steve caught himself against a locker, laughing, and a little off-balance. Billy crossed his arms. “You’re not being dumb, if that’s what you’re gonna say.”

“Just making us miss lunch,” Steve tried, feeling something relax between his shoulders. He brushed himself off, getting to his feet, and let Billy drag him down to sit on the bench. Billy mouthed up under Steve’s ear, kissing open-mouthed up his neck. “Hope nobody’s looking,” Steve told him, leaning into it.

“They’re all being morons behind like five rows of lockers,” Billy whispered back, sliding an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and grabbing at Steve’s jeans with the other. “Lemme cheer you up,” he breathed against Steve’s jaw, biting along it, and Steve nearly choked on his own spit as Billy yanked his fly open and reached into his briefs, releasing the pressure on Steve’s suddenly shatteringly hard cock, and sliding a callused thumb over the wet slit in the tip. “They’re going to lunch,” Billy whispered. “No reason they’d come over here.”

“Christ,” Steve muttered, muffling his gasps against Billy’s sweatshirted shoulder, and clenching his fingers in the fabric. “Le-let me get you—” he whispered, sliding his hand down Billy’s stomach.

“Not the one crying in the locker room, Stevie,” Billy laughed, pushing the tight circle of his thumb and forefinger over Steve’s dick. Steve rolled his head against Billy’s shoulder, trying not to make a noise, and squirmed closer, his brain whiting out things like reciprocation, or witnesses, or dignity, as he faintly registered his own voice begging when Billy took his hand away for a second, returning it wetter. “Go ahead, they left,” Billy whispered in his ear, squeezing him closer until Steve was half in his lap.

“Prettiest trespasser,” Steve realized he was mumbling, along with even more nonsensical things like “—pie, sweet—sweet pie, mustard asshole pie—”, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” and, when Billy pulled away to lick his hand again, in an attempt to be more complimentary, “—nighty—knightliest nighty knight—”—but Billy’s hand was firm and a little rough against his hot skin, and Billy’s shoulders were shaking with laughter, so Steve didn’t care. He went still with a grunt, breathing smoke, cologne, and Billy, and just lay there, feeling sweat trickle down the back of his neck.

“There is so much wrong with you,” Billy muttered against his temple. “Knighty-knight? Seriously?”

“My hero,” Steve mumbled, opening one eye to assess the damage. Billy’d caught the mess in a paper towel. “...you planned that,” he realized, laughing.

“Malice aforethought,” Billy said, and Steve blinked muzzily. “Premeditation. First degree handjobbing. That’d just get me expelled, though, probably, your dirty talk’s gonna get you shot.”

“Mmm,” Steve hummed. “He called me ‘Pussington,’ he muttered. “Tommy. Sounds like ‘Puss in Boots’ more than—”

Billy cackled against his neck, then pulled him closer, and Steve felt his face heat. He let himself take a deep breath, curling a little against Billy, and Billy waited, and didn’t mention the time, or their stomachs growling.

After what seemed like hours, but not long enough, Steve pulled away, clenching his fingers on the bench and laughing. “Shit,” he said, looking at the lockers to avoid looking at Billy, after clinging to him like a koala. His breathing was even, which was a relief, even if he felt a little...shaky, threatening his oldest friend with jail. Because I’ve got so many, he thought, laughing again, and Billy leaned forward to frown into his face.

“Harrington,” he whispered. “D’I break you?”

Steve started giggling, and couldn’t stop.

Billy hung around, hunched in Steve’s sweatshirt, for the rest of the day. He was leaning across from Steve’s locker after third period, but vanished when Steve turned around. He was at the drinking fountain outside the open door of geometry, and Steve missed half the lesson, watching him bend over the faucet, and watching the stream of water fill his mouth and run off his chin.

Just when Steve thought he was free, in Typing 1, he glanced out the window and realized Billy Hargrove was sunning himself outside along the top of Steve’s parent’s BMW, sweatshirt unbuttoned, his tanning-bed-tan shining as his hair ruffled in the breeze.

Steve muffled his laughter, squeezing his thighs together as his dick woke up again. “Go back to sleep,” he growled at it, under his breath. Nancy shot him a glance, then looked out the window, and choked on a snort.

“What’s he doing?” she whispered, her elbow brushing his as she clacked away at the electric typewriter.

Being beautiful, Steve didn’t say. “Messing with me,” he muttered, which was equally true. “He hasn’t left me alone since El showed him, uh,” he squinted, trying to remember. “Nadine?”

“Denise!” Nancy muffled another snort, snickering. “Oh, lord, Steve, it’s so hideous.”

“He likes it!” Steve hissed back, feeling his cheeks heat. “He has awful taste!”

“He doesn’t,” she said, shooting a grin over, and his lungs clenched at the fondness in it even as she hissed, “Keep typing, why don’t you.”

He set his jaw, and pounded out All work and no play makes Steve a dull boy, one-fingered. “How’s Jonathan,” he asked petulantly.

“Oh, Steve,” she sighed. “Now you’ve got, uh, Billy, I can’t—listen, this goes no farther,” she angled her body towards him, dropping her voice to nearly inaudible.

“What?!” he whispered back, and she glanced around, holding her finger over her mouth.

“Ssh! Steve, I can’t tell anyone—things. I would have told Barb—”

Steve nodded, wincing.

She covered her mouth, looking around the extremely loud typing class. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the clacking keys, and Steve leaned closer. “Steve, when he’s about to come, he looks like he’s going to sneeze. He makes all these faces, Steve—”

Steve whooped with laughter, tears springing to his eyes, and nearly fell out of his seat as Nancy smacked his arm and shoulder, giggling herself.

“Shut up, shut up!” she hissed. “Don’t tell anyone!”

“I—I won’t,” he gasped, wiping his eyes. “Jesus. Who the hell would I even—”

“Like Tommy?” she hissed, raising her eyebrows, and he cleared his throat.

“Actually,” he said, tearing out the page he’d ruined, and typing away at his assignment with two fingers, “—Tommy, uh, he said he’d. Um, d’you remember when somebody took a joyride on the backhoe at the sheriff’s station?”

She snorted, glancing over. “...everybody remembers that, they had to redo half the road.”

“Yeah, uh, Tommy kinda...found out about Billy, he said he’d tell, just, everyone—”

“Found out Billy what?!” Nancy stared at the side of his head. “That he beat you up, or—?”

“Everybody keeps saying that, I got some hits in—” he grumbled, feeling his face heat.

“Wait, what? He found out about—” she lowered her voice to a hiss, glancing around, “—found out about you and Billy?”

Steve opened his mouth, and just breathed, then bit his lips. He couldn’t...quite...tell Nancy about Billy’s wild King Kong banana orgy, after what had happened in the locker room—and he wasn’t sure whether the sudden urge to hit something was directed at Tommy, for the bruises he’d left, or Billy, for getting bored and supplementing his sex-diet with jungle fruit, or the world at large, for making him keep a secret for somebody as awful as Tommy Hagen. “Uh, about—about, um, Billy. He—I, uh, I think he was kinda...drunk, and he’s—he’s—”

“He’s what, Steve?!” she whispered back, wide-eyed.

“He’s kind of gay,” Steve hissed back, through gritted teeth. “He was kinda gay at Tommy Hagen.”

“Oh my god, Steve,” she dropped her voice even lower, and reached over to squeeze his wrist. “He has to be careful.”

“He said he’d tell everyone—Tommy said,” Steve tried to explain, feeling like he was picking his way across a trapped floor, as he tried to avoid saying what Billy’d actually done. Tiptoing across the temple tiles like Indiana Jones, doing his best to keep the world from falling away around him. Not that Nancy’d say anything, he thought, but he remembered Billy’s shaking hands. I gotta get used to remembering what are my secrets to tell. “I, uh. Told him I’d tell Hopper it was him. Tommy. Joyriding in the backhoe. He spills about Billy, he’ll have to pay for all that. He’s not gonna—I won’t be telling him...things. Tommy.”

“That’s…” Nancy trailed off, and he narrowed his eyes at her, suspecting she was trying not to say “wonderful news”.

“I know, jesus,” he hissed at her, whacking at the typewriter keys with more force. “He’s bullshit, I get it, we were both—”

“No, uh,” she bit her lips, thumping her stack of typed pages to straighten them. “That’s not—it’s just, I mean. Yeah, he probably wasn’t a great friend. But now we both lost our best friends—” she flailed her arms, and he ducked, “—in this whole mess of bullshit. It—it sucks balls.”

He grinned at her, and she set her jaw. “It’s not funny, Steve. And—and don’t—don’t tell Dustin. Or Billy,” she narrowed her eyes. “You better not tell anyone! Jonathan’s never dated before, I’ll—it’s not his fault, Steve, he’s trying— ”

“How could you make me keep this secret,” he leaned his face in his hand, shoulders shaking with snickers.

“I had to tell someone,” she hissed. “He closes one eye, Steve! I can’t—”

Steve nearly fell out of his seat laughing, and she elbowed him over and over until he started to feel bruised.

“Shut up,” she muttered, wiping her own eyes as she tried to stop giggling. “Jesus.”

“Holy crap, what have you told him about me,” Steve hissed back, still laughing, but shuddering a little at the thought.

“Nothing! I’m dating him, I’m not going to compare and contrast, Steve, god. But—but you’ve—you’re—” she narrowed her eyes through the window at Billy, who’d finally huddled against the cold and zipped up the sweatshirt. “—you—”

“We’re—we’re friends. Uh. Just friends, now,” he supplied, the words feeling odd, and a little sad in his mouth. She hummed, frowning at her typewriter, and he glanced at Billy, thinking he might not have ever gotten to know him, if Nancy hadn’t lost her shit at that party. It was a weird thought, and Steve stared out the window, thinking of his house empty of Billy’s shoes, beer cans, lingering cigarette smoke, and the warm weight pressed against his back when he least expected it. No more slow kisses up his neck when he was stuck in his own head.

Nancy nudged him, and he pulled himself back from watching Billy tug at his earring.

“I meant, uh, we—me and you, we get to be friends now,” he tried, and she bit back a smile. “We can talk about boys now,” he pushed further, wrinkling his nose. “If...if you want? I, uh. I think I might be better at picking boyfriends than being one.”

“Maybe you needed the practise run,” Nancy followed his gaze so both of them were watching Billy, who’d given up on pin-up poses, and was trying to keep his textbook, binder, and pile of flashcards from blowing around in the January wind. “I think...I think maybe we both needed the practise run. But—I have to tell someone besides Barb, you know?”

“Yeah. Wait. What?” he turned his frown back to her.

She took a shaky sigh, digging into her backpack. She tossed a sandwich baggie of goldfish crackers on the desk between them, and then pulled out a composition book. She held it, white-knuckled, for a long second, then shoved it at him.

Steve accepted it—after digging for a handful of goldfish crackers—and opened the first page, propping it on his knee. In capital letters, it just said “I MISS YOU”.

“I—I sort of—tell Barb everything,” Nancy bit her lips, taking a slow breath through her nose. Her eyes shone. “It’s—it’s like this huge letter about everything I couldn’t—after she—there’s so much I want to tell her, Steve, so much has happened—”

“Uh,” he stared at it, reluctant to turn the page, and Nancy grabbed it back.

“Shut up,” she muttered. “I know it’s dumb.”

“N-no,” he blurted. “No, it’s not, it’s not dumb.” He wondered whether he should remind her about their assignment, but hers looked finished. I can finish mine later, he promised himself. “Uh, sorry I—it’s not dumb, I just don’t—when you’re sad I just—I don’t know what to—how can I, uh—”

She laughed, swallowing, and closed her eyes. “I—I thought I’d just—fill this. Write until I use all the pages, and the—and the margins, and the inside covers—” she made a soft, horrible gulping sound, and Steve’s nails dug into his palms with the urge to grab her, like he would have if they’d still been dating, and squeeze her thin shoulders. “I—I thought maybe I’d—feel better. Once—Once I say. Everything. Tell her everything. And then bury it. I—we—there wasn’t a body, I couldn’t bring her back to bury— I couldn’t even say what I wanted at her funeral—I can bury my bullshit letter instead— ”

“We can do that,” he said quickly, glad the typewriters were loud enough to drown them out. “We—we can say, uh, we can say—say things, write her letters? Find—find a nice spot? Bury, um, bury things, letters?”

“She didn’t have any other friends,” Nancy stared ahead, her eyes shining.

“I can write her a letter,” were the words that fell out of his mouth, like he could even remember more of Barbra Holland than a vague shape at Nancy’s elbow. “I can—I can thank her for being a good friend, anyway. To, um, you. To my friend Nancy?”

“Sh-she—she really was,” Nancy’s shoulders shook with a sob, and for the first and probably the last time, Steve wished Jonathan Byers was around to do— something, whatever it was he did that made Nancy less sad. Maybe it was worth the awful sex.

In the heat of the moment, Steve felt he’d easily trade his skill at orgasms with whatever made Nancy stop— stop looking so pinched around the eyes, and start teasing him again over Billy Hargrove.

She took a shaky breath, pressing her face to the back of her hand. “I—I was—I was nervous coming to your house, the—that night, the night she—in your—in your pool —to the party, your party, and she wanted to have my back—”

If Jonathan Byers couldn’t show up, Steve wished Billy would, remembering him explaining things to Will and El in IHOP, until Will relaxed, and smiled, and got brave enough to ask questions. “I—I’ll have your back,” Steve tried. “Now. I will. Um, she, uh, we can thank her for having your back. We can—”

He tried to remember what people did at funerals other than wear scratchy suits as Nancy nodded, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, then rubbing her wet face with her wrists. He clenched his fingers harder in his jeans. “Uh, flowers? We can—I’ll get flowers, did she have a favorite song? I have a boombox. I have batteries for it, I can get batteries for it—um, Billy, Billy will have a good idea,” he trailed off, trying to think what it could be, with Billy outside, instead of by Steve’s elbow where he belonged. “He’ll have a good idea, he’ll—he always has a good idea—”

Nancy snorted, smiling at him, but her eyes were red. Her voice was high and shaky. “Ye-yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Y-you’ll be a good best friend, Steve.”

Out the window, Billy was holding his textbook and homework, his pencil poised, but he was staring at them.

He met them in the hall outside typing class, leaning against the bank of lockers. His gaze flicked from Steve’s face, to Nancy’s, then dropped to their hands. Steve scooted away from her, then reached through the press of people and prodded her shoulder with two fingers. He beckoned her to follow him over to Billy.

“Harrington,” Billy crossed his arms, watching them. His cheeks and lips were pink with cold, and Steve wanted to kiss them, brush the melted snowflakes out of Billy’s hair, and rub the muscles of Billy’s arms through the sleeves of Steve’s own borrowed sweatshirt, feeling his boyfriend shiver, and hugging him close. Billy’s voice was flat as he said, “Wheeler,” and Steve jumped, jarred from his fantasy.

Steve opened his mouth to tell Billy that Nancy had practically admitted he was better in bed than Jonathan, and then stopped and thought for once, about how that would hit Billy’s brain. He lowered his voice. “Remember I told you about Barb, uh, Barbra Holland, Nancy’s friend, the monsters got her?”

“...I guess,” Billy had his gaze fixed on Nancy’s face, eyes narrowed.

“She wants to hold a funeral,” Steve started, but Billy’s glare didn’t shift. “Nancy does, uh, and I’m going, because I knew her, and Jonathan didn’t, because he’s not cool, and he makes these faces when—”

“Don’t you dare,” Nancy hissed.

“Wait, what,” Billy glanced at Steve, still keeping a wary eye on Nancy.

“Probably her boyfriend will still be there, because she’ll be sad, but I’m her friend so I’m going too—” Steve babbled, hoping someone else would talk.

“What,” Billy said flatly.

“Help,” Steve hissed, widening his eyes. “Help us, um.”

Nancy started snickering for no reason, and Billy’s frown darkened. “He panicked when I started to cry,” she snorted, rubbing her eyes. “He wants you to fix it.”

“What?!” Billy snorted, coughing.

“What do people do at funerals,” Steve hissed, glancing at Nancy again, and she snorted wetly, covered her nose, and dug in her backpack before yanking out a kleenex and blowing hard.

“Sexy,” Billy muttered, and Steve elbowed him. Billy glanced between them again, raising his eyebrows. “That’s what all that cozy whispering was about?”

Steve made a face. “Also she had goldfish crackers?”

“We were just talking,” Nancy said, laughing and wiping her eyes again “—and then I lost my shit. Sorry.”

“She had a whole cow about how much better I am at picking boyfriends than she is,” Steve waggled his eyebrows. Nancy elbowed him, and Billy’s snorted, his eyes narrowed as he glanced between them.

“Thought you were dumping my ass and leaving me with Denise.”

Steve shook his head, holding his hands up. “We know she makes weird faces.”

“It’s not her fault she has thirty-nine eyes!” Billy laughed, hugging himself in Steve’s sweatshirt. Steve wished he could hug his boyfriend, right there in the highschool hallway, but had to settle for his sweatshirt doing it. Billy didn’t seem to notice as Steve reached out, then yanked his hands back and stuck them in his pockets. Billy was still grinning about his awful gift. He leaned in, digging his chin into Steve’s shoulder and whispering, “Ask your buddy Dustin why his pockets are full of googly eyes, seems questionable to me—”

“Steve and I were talking about boys,” Nancy snorted, then sniffled, rubbing her nose and rummaging in her purse until she found another kleenex.

“Swapping stories,” Steve grinned, watching Billy’s head cock warily. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “My boy’s always sexy. He just melts against me. Like pizza cheese, y’know, in Little Caesar’s ads, it sort of—it sort of droops—”

Billy went as glowing red as the tail lights on his Camaro, and growled, as Nancy leaned into the lockers in a gale of laughter.

“Shut the hell up, Harrington,” Billy muttered, rubbing his face.

“Sexy Little Caesar’s boyfriend?!” Nancy wheezed. “Steve, that’s not sexy at all—”

“Or on lasagna. Or Velveeta, it’s—it’s all fluid, you know,” said Steve, trying to explain. “Um, ‘hot, fresh, and ready to go?’” he suggested, relying on Pizza Hut for his words, but they both turned away, Nancy pounding her fist on a locker, cackling and wiping tears, and Billy stomping off down the hall. Steve glared at Nancy. “Don’t you tell anyone either.”

“Oh no,” Nancy gasped. “I—I’m telling Barb. Oh my god, she’d have loved that. She kept telling me you were a moron—”

“Hey!” Steve pointed a finger at her. “She—she may be—she shouldn’t have said it!”

“I won’t tell anyone else you described your boyfriend as sexy mozzarella,” she snickered, blowing her nose. “But I am telling her that, aloud, at her funeral. Oh my god, I needed that. You better go find him.”

“Everyone likes pizza!” Steve yelled, stomping away after Billy.

As he walked around the corner, Billy grabbed him around the waist from behind and lifted him. Steve yelled and swore, wriggling and laughing. He tried to squirm enough to make Billy drop him, kicking wildly, then finally made a big show of bending his upper body over Billy’s arms to kick his leg up and retie his shoe, while Billy staggered and swore, leaning away to balance his weight and shaking with laughter. Finally, Billy sat him on his feet in an empty hallway, spun him around, and stuck his thumb in the fly of Steve’s pants, pressing close and panting in his ear.

Steve looked back the way they came and saw a girl from his class: Robin Buckley. She was staring.

Billy felt him freeze, and pulled back, eyes narrowed. “What?” When he started to look around, Steve panicked and grabbed his head, wanting to save some unrelated girl from being fed her own molars. He pressed their lips together, humming as Billy huffed a laugh.

Crisis somewhat averted, Steve told himself sternly to track her down later, before letting himself lean into Billy again. He rubbed his thumb over Billy’s moustache, pressing into its scratchiness, and licking into Billy’s hot mouth, then pushed him back, taking deep breaths through his nose. “Christ, gonna come in my pants,” he whispered, laughing.

“That’s fine,” Billy’s grin widened.

“It’s not! It’s not fine, it’s grody—” Steve panted, pushing back at Billy’s hands and shoulders as his boyfriend tried to wriggle closer, like an octopus.

“Come on my tongue,” Billy whispered.

“There’s no time, I gave you to El!” Steve hissed, holding his forearms up defensively. “She’ll show up again! You agreed! You’re hers and Max’s today!” His shoulderblades thudded against the lockers.

“When do I get my reward for following orders, your majesty,” Billy whispered, pulling Steve’s forearms close, so he could kiss along the soft inner side.

“Sometimes knights have duties,” Steve whispered back. “For the, uh, the kingdom.”

“And I’m your best knight,” Billy snorted, running his hands up Steve’s sides. “Gotta help the civilians. Do my quests, make you proud.”

“Mmmn,” Steve lost his train of thought, leaning into Billy’s chest, and sliding his arms around his neck. “Best knight.”

“Now Tommy’s been, what,” Billy laughed against his mouth, hugging him until Steve’s muscles went loose, and his bones felt like they’d creak. “Unshielded?”

“Dis-sworded?” Steve supplied muzzily, into another pause between kissing, his brain narrowing its world to Billy’s tongue. “God, love you, mustard...dipshit...cupcake,” he mumbled, then frowned, coming back to earth as Billy’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Shut up, dickhead. Wait, Tommy wasn’t ever my knight.”

“Thought he beat up Jonathan Byers for you,” Billy whispered, sliding both arms around Steve’s waist again, and lifting him off the ground.

“No,” Steve mumbled, half-listening as he tried to clamp his legs around Billy’s waist, but missed distractedly as he ran his hands up Billy’s neck, cupping the back of his head and licking into his mouth.

Billy pulled back to talk, and Steve huffed. “But he tried to get you over to his house. That time. With Carol,” Billy panted, searching Steve’s face.

Steve kicked, gasping as his lungs got squashed. “Holy shit,” he wheezed, laughing. “You—you’re—are you jealous?”

“No,” Billy whispered, suddenly interested in kissing again.

Steve pulled back from Billy’s mouth after just one more kiss. “Are you jealous of Tommy and Nancy,” he whispered, beaming.

“Fuck you,” Billy mumbled, biting gently up his neck.

Steve let his eyes close, forgetting about Robin, and El, and the extremely public hallway they were standing in. His face was so hot it felt tingly, and Billy’s arms were strong and gentle, holding him up. The world started to spin, a little, and he kicked his feet back, crossing them against his butt to curve his whole body against Billy’s.

“Can’t—can’t breathe, Knight,” he had to admit, finally, and Billy sat him back on his feet.

“As you wish, my King,” he whispered back, stepping back to look Steve over—he grinned as he assessed the tightness of Steve’s pants like an asshole, then leaned in again for one more close-mouthed kiss.

Steve laughed, unable to stop smiling. “You’re jealous. Want me all to yourself.”

“Nah,” Billy rubbed his thumb up Steve’s cheek, and yanked his head around by the earlobe. Steve yelled, flailing. “I can just get another one,” Billy whispered. “King Harringtons. On sale today. K-Mart Special.”

“No you can’t,” Steve grabbed Billy’s shirt, spinning him to smack up against a locker, and leaning close again for a messy kiss. He could feel Billy breathing against his chest. “You’re jealous. You—you’d—” Steve trailed off, watching Billy bare his teeth. “You—what the hell are you pissed for,” he whispered. “You went off and screwed Tommy, don’t be pissed at me —”

“I’m not jealous,” Billy snarled back. “I’m the only one who even pays attention to you, aren’t I, and I could get somebody else in—in a heartbeat—”

Steve took a sharp breath, wondering why he had to go and push things. “Right, yeah,” he said, slamming his hand into the locker next to Billy, who flinched. “Shit,” Steve groaned, stepping back. “Sorry, shit. The hell was I thinking. I’m too goddamn clingy, right? You’re just trying—trying to—” he stepped back a few steps and smacked another locker across the hall—the bang was satisfying—and Billy grabbed his wrist, digging his thumb in bruisingly tight.

“You gonna start hitting?” he asked, smiling his widest. “You don’t get to do that.”

“I hit the locker,” Steve hissed, yanking his arm, and Billy stepped closer.

“You don’t get to hit me,” Billy whispered, and Steve winced at the feel of fingernails. “You—you can’t pull that shit, Harrington.”

“I wasn’t gonna,” Steve tried to yank away again, feeling worse. “Screw you, I hit a locker —”

“After all that shit you said,” Billy said evenly, his smile and his eyes wide the way they went when he might do anything. “I’m a person, remember?”

“I remember,” Steve swallowed again against the burning in his throat and eyes, planting his feet to try and squirm away. “I wasn’t—”

“You change your mind?” Billy asked softly, and Steve did want to hit him, then.

“Let me go,” he hissed. “I wasn’t going to hit you, christ. I was hitting the fucking locker.” Billy let go and stepped back, and Steve spun to slam his fist into the locker again. His little finger was starting to go numb, and he wondered how other people—really awful people, some of them, like Billy’s dad—found people that loved them and trusted them and paid attention. He inhaled, and it made kind of a wet gasping noise. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Just—just g-go home.”

“Screw you,” Billy muttered, and Steve opened his mouth to growl back, when his gaze caught on Billy’s nails digging into his sleeve over where Steve had drawn the hearts.

“Fucking— stop ,” he hissed, grabbing Billy’s fingers, and forcing them to unbend. They were cold. “You’re gonna give yourself bruises. Stop it, dickhead— quit—”

“Quit what,” Billy snarled back, and Steve stared down at the hand he’d grabbed, then let go and stomped across the hall to kick somebody else’s locker.

“Screw you,” Steve muttered. “Fine, go the hell home.” He hunched his shoulders as Billy stepped closer, and banged his fist on the locker he’d just kicked. “Piss off.”

“The hell do you want me to say,” Billy asked, and Steve shut his eyes, and banged the locker again.

“Nothing,” Steve hissed. “I don’t want you to say anything, I—you can—you can go to hell—” Billy came up behind him, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut. They were stinging. He felt a touch on his arm, and flinched into the lockers, swallowing a few times to clear his throat of the bullshit trying to climb out of it. “It’s fine,” he forced out. “Just. Piss off. Go home. I’ll—I’ll get myself—together.” He opened his eyes, parting his lips in a smile, to see Billy standing close, frowning, so Steve was sandwiched between him and the lockers.

“Wha—” Billy started, and Steve smacked a hand over Billy’s mouth, then sidestepped, laughing.

He took a few steps down the hall before he managed to stop himself. “Just go,” he said, realizing he had his hands up between he and Billy, and lowering them. “It’s fine, it’s nothing, jesus—”

“What in the hell—” Billy stepped closer again, and Steve didn’t lunge to cover his mouth, or cover his own ears, or run away.

He kept smiling. “Max and El are probably looking for you.”

“...no,” Billy said, holding his hands out. “Come here, Harrington.”

“What,” Steve laughed, his sinuses burning as his vision went a little blurry. He blinked his eyes clear as Billy’s glare went thunderous.

“I’m not gonna chase you down, get your ass over here.”

“Why?” Steve asked, crossing his arms, uncrossing them, and touching his hair. It was fine. He thought fixedly about the project he was gonna start in ceramics. Probably it was dumb to make Billy something nice. Something with Steve’s feeblings just emblazoned over it. “Just go, jesus.”

“Harrington—” Billy sighed, and Steve’s stomach clenched.

“Sorry,” he grated out. “Sorry, I’ll get it together—” he cut off, raising his arms defensively as Billy walked close enough to grab him by the front of his pants and yank him in for a kiss. His hands were warm and gentle cradling Steve’s face, and Steve let himself be pulled in. “What—” he whispered, but Billy cut him off, tilting Steve’s head to get deeper into his mouth. “Mmf,” Steve tried next, slowly lowering his hands to where his sweatshirt stretched over Billy’s biceps.

“Two for flinching,” Billy told him, kissing him again. “Ssh,” Billy whispered, glancing around, and then pushing them both—slowly, and mostly by kissing Steve—across the hall again and into the bathroom. He stopped to check under the doors, and then grabbed Steve’s hand, and yanked him into the biggest stall. “Okay,” he said, “—go on.”

“...want me to try giving a blow job?” Steve asked, rubbing his eyes. “I mean. You let me jack you off, I wanna—”

Billy opened his mouth, cocked his head, and narrowed his eyes. “Shut up. Shit, that’s not —I’m not supposed to —to try and blow you when you’re pissed —what the fuck, Harrington—”

“I’m just trying to change the subject,” Steve gritted out. “You like blow jobs. Everybody likes blow jobs—”

“I mean,” Billy snorted, slowly nudging Steve against the wall, “—dicks like ‘em—”

“Everybody does, it’s just not called a blow job always,” Steve argued, feeling smart, as Billy kissed him again. It felt like Billy was laughing.

“S’ true—” Steve muttered, and Billy laughed harder, and yanked him closer, so Steve’s head was pressed against Billy’s shoulder, and Steve’s body was squeezed in Billy’s arms.

“Shut up, jesus,” he whispered, his earring tickling Steve’s neck. “What’s your problem.”

The thing was, Steve thought, there wasn’t one. He was freaking out for no reason—he knew his bullshit annoyed people, and everything Billy’d said was true. “Sorry,” he breathed. It was easier, in the heat of Billy squishing him against the wall.

“What do you want me to—”

“Nothing,” Steve cut him off. “Christ. Jesus. I’m gonna do better this time, and shut the hell up before I—”

“What,” Billy whispered, and Steve shook his head, smiling, and didn’t say before I ruin everything.

Billy pulled back, his jaw clenched. “I’ll get it out of you.” Steve choked on a laugh, clenching his fingers on Billy’s arms, and Billy stared into his eyes, thinking. “I could do what you did,” he whispered. “Get you so horny you’re dripping and then make you talk.”

“Oh shit, no,” Steve snickered harder, shaking his head. “No, don’t. I wouldn’t even—I wouldn’t be able to think enough.”

“That’s kind of the point,” Billy said against his mouth, and Steve’s heart started pounding.

“No, no, don’t, I really—I can’t even—” Steve tried to squirm away, every breath of Billy’s resonating with his dick. “I can’t tell you if I can’t make words!”

“Mmm,” Billy hummed thoughtfully, leaning in for another kiss. “You really want to hear I’m jealous of—of Tommy? That what you want me to say?”

“You’re not, though,” Steve shrugged.

“...Nancy, then,” Billy cleared his throat. “I keep waiting to hear you say you’re—that—that I’m not—that you took a better offer.”

“Fuck you,” Steve told him, sighing. “What the hell am I gonna do when you two actually talk and you—you start talking— elves or something and forget all about me.”

“...you’re jealous of me talking to Nancy Wheeler,” Billy said, with the vague tone of someone reading an incomprehensible line in English class.

“You’re both perfect,” Steve told him, grabbing him close, and Billy started laughing so hard he staggered.

“Oh my god, you are so fucking dumb,” he wheezed, and Steve licked his lips, pressed them to Billy’s neck, and blew to make the loudest fart noise he could. Billy yelped, shoving weakly at him, and Steve did it again. Finally, Billy got his hands over Steve’s mouth, and used his body weight to hold them there while he rubbed tears off onto his arms. “If you think I’m perfect you’re blind and stupid. Holy jesus,” he whispered.

It wasn’t that funny, Steve thought indignantly. “You’re perfect. You —you’re—you are. Sometimes. Most of the time! You —you’re better, you don’t—”

Billy kept snickering, like an asshole. “You’d run off with your queen in a second, your majesty,” he whispered, grinning. “She’ll whistle one day. She’ll just — crook her finger, and you’ll go.”

“Would not,” said Steve, automatically, but he considered. “I don’t…” He narrowed his eyes at the wall of the bathroom stall, where someone had written that the principal worshipped Satin. He thought about how his plans had always included Nancy, and how hers never seemed to include him.

What would it be like, he wondered, if she knocked on my door. ‘Follow me to the city,’ she’d say. ‘You can hold down the apartment, I can go to college. Someday I’ll have an important job— which was where it fell apart, because it would be something like war journalism, and she’d always be gone. He sighed, imagining the Dear Steve letter. ‘Dear Steve, I’ve gone to expose nuclear testing on smuggled baby alligators in Belgium, and...found love.’ Steve shook his head. “No. No, it’s —no. ”

“Whaddaya mean no,” Billy laughed. “You just sat there and imagined it.”

“Yeah, imagined it blowing up in my face. I want to —” Steve stopped, looking away from Billy’s eyes and down, until Billy started jerking Steve’s head up and around, trying to meet his eyes again. Steve laughed, and bit his lip.

“What d’you want, Harrington?” Billy asked.

“...wanna wait and see if you send me letters,” Steve told him, shrugging. “I —I guess. Once you leave.”

“Oh, I’m gonna,” Billy’s breath caught, and he pressed his hands to Steve’s cheeks, squishing them. “But you’re lying to both of us if you think you wouldn’t drop me—”

“Billy,” Steve said, muffledly through the fishface Billy was giving him, and grabbing Billy’s hands as he startled. “Billy Hargrove. I—I’d pick you.”

“Don’t bullshit me—”

“Pay attention,” Steve hissed. “Hargrove. Fuckface...trespasser. I’d pick you.” Billy shook his head, smirking, and Steve grabbed it by the curls, pressing their foreheads together to hold Billy’s gaze. “If I have to watch somebody leave, I’d still want you.”

“Shit,” Billy said hoarsely, trying to laugh. “I’ll come back, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t leave leave, you—you can’t get rid of me if you—if you don’t tell me to go.”

“Like I would,” Steve snorted. “If —if Nancy just—just walked in here, I mean, not here here,” he paused, his eyes focusing on the wall of the men’s bathroom, “—but y’know, if—if she said she’d changed, she—she wanted me back…”

“You’d go,” Billy shrugged.

“No, Nancy can’t—she doesn’t want—this.”

“She’s got shitty taste, then,” Billy growled, and Steve laughed, leaning to bury his face under Billy’s ear.

“No, I mean—she doesn’t want—” he sighed. “She sure doesn’t wanna drag me to the bathroom and grill me on what’s wrong. She’s got—things to do. Important stuff.”

“Her loss,” Billy shrugged, and Steve snorted wetly. Billy’s breaths sounded as catchy and uneven as his did, he realized, and squeezed him closer.

“Promise I wouldn’t go,” he mumbled.

“Promise Denise,” Billy hissed, growling over Steve’s bursting into semi-hysterical giggles. “Denise needs both her dads,” Billy whispered, his eyes brimming as Steve laughed and cried.

“You’re so weird,” he whispered. “So fucking glad you —not the rest of it—but I’m, uh. I’m so goddamn glad you ended up at my house.”

“You brought me home in a trunk,” Billy told him, sniffling, and frowning down to yank at Steve’s belt buckle.

“What if I hadn’t,” Steve asked, watching Billy fumble. “Maybe—maybe something else. Maybe you’d have kissed me in the locker room. Always trying to shove me around in there—why you always trying to jump me in bathrooms, you’re so — ”

“Maybe you’d have kissed me somewhere, fucking...Pussington,” Billy growled, undoing Steve’s belt, and laughing as the denim over Steve’s dick twitched against his hands. He ran his fingers up and down Steve’s fly.

“Jesus,” Steve whispered.

“Fuck me,” Billy whispered back. “I want this monster in me.”

“...you called it fun-size,” Steve hissed back, and Billy started giggling again, burying his face in Steve’s neck. “We’re in a bathroom, the floor is sticky —”

“I don’t wanna wait,” Billy told him, kissing him so enthusiastically Steve’s head thudded back against the wall. “You—you said—want me over Wheeler —”

“I know what I said,” Steve said, trying to sound strict, but he couldn’t help grinning. “ Want me to blow you? You always—”

“No, fuck my ass,” Billy ordered, leaning close, so Steve could feel the hard line of Billy’s cock pressing against his.

“...there’s no—it’ll hurt, knight, it—”

“Who cares,” Billy whispered, yanking the buttons open on Steve’s fly.

“Me!” Steve hissed, grabbing his wrists. “I care! Christ!”

“S’my ass,” Billy argued, looking pouty, and Steve snorted.

“S’my dick, wouldn’t feel good for me either—”

“Coward,” Billy said, frowning down. “Okay, okay—” he yanked at his own pants, hopping on one foot, and Steve started sniggering. He grabbed Billy’s face and pulled him in for a kiss, nearly knocking them both over when Billy tripped over the leg of his pants. “MMPH,” Billy yelped. “Shit. Okay. Just—uh, just—”

His face felt hot against Steve’s hands, and he realized the red was creeping clear down Billy’s chest where the sweatshirt hung open. “What?” Steve asked, his eyes lingering on Billy’s briefs, where a wet stain was spreading where the elastic strained over his cock.

“I’m gonna turn around,” Billy muttered, “—and—”

“No—” Steve repeated, running his hands along the elastic band of Billy’s Fruit of the Looms. “No, seriously, I’m not—”

“I’ll squeeze my legs together,” said Billy, with gritted teeth, his face flaming hot.

“Holy shit,” Steve whispered, his hips bucking against Billy’s hip as he turned around. “What—is—is that any good for you—”

“Just fuck me,” Billy hissed, bracing his hands against the wall, and Steve stepped close behind him, reaching down to yank his skivvies down, and then push Billy’s down over the warm muscley roundness of his ass. Billy yanked until his dick was freed, then braced himself again, and Steve buried his face in Billy’s shoulder, taking a deep breath.

“Can’t see how this is good for you,” he whispered against Billy’s neck, feeling him shiver.

“It’s not unless you get moving,” Billy snarled, then choked out a gasp as Steve slid his hand around to grab him by the cock.

“Just...between your thighs, then,” Steve whispered, rubbing some pre-come around the top of his dick, then frowning down, and licking his hand just in case.

“Come on,” Billy whispered. “Come on, come on, do me.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Steve nodded pointlessly, aimed, and pressed into the tight space between Billy’s muscled thighs. “Oh god, that’s good,” he mumbled against Billy’s shoulder, and he laughed.

“Shut up and move,” Billy muttered, since Steve was mostly clinging and muttering bullshit endearments.

“God,” Steve whispered, reaching around again. “Don’t fall, b-babe, uh, cookie.”

“Billy whe-when we’re fucking,” Billy told him, groaning as Steve tried to steady himself between his hips smacking Billy’s butt, his dick sandwiched in the heat of Billy’s thighs—it was slippery enough, he thought, flushing almost as red as Billy was—and dragging his fist up and down Billy’s dick.

“Billy,” Steve said against his ear, and Billy swallowed a moan, letting his head fall forward to thunk against the wall. “Billy Hargrove.”

“Nng,” Billy grunted.

“L-love you, Billy Hargrove,” Steve told him, and he whined, his shoulders flinching forward. Steve kissed the place where his shoulder joined his neck, feeling him shudder. “Love you, Billy.”

Billy came all over his fingers, and Steve started laughing, because of course Billy’s legs bent, and of course they collapsed to the floor of the highschool bathroom.

Steve let them tip sideways, pulling Billy close to slow their fall and ignoring the weird chemical smell as his jaw smushed against the tiles. Billy was swearing under his breath, squirming around, and Steve summoned enough brain to scoot back. “Ssh,” he whispered, snickering, with tears in his eyes. “Don’t break my dick.”

“Where you going, asshole,” Billy hissed, rolling over to lay half on top of Steve’s chest. He grabbed Steve’s cock, stroking it, and Steve bucked up against him, muttering just...noises, really.

He came to himself panting against Billy’s shoulder. “Mmnm,” he said, wondering whether they could just sleep on the floor, and wash their faces for class the next morning.

“...you really jealous?” Billy asked, at the ceiling, like he’d been thinking a while.

Steve groaned, tucking hair out of his eyes.

“Y’know I’d...fucking kill them—anyone—and step on their corpses to get to you,” Billy told the ceiling, and Steve started laughing again.

“S’not a bit creepy,” he said, his voice weirdly deep in his ears.

“Not sure wanting to kill Tommy Hagen is creepy at all,” Billy commented, rolling his head for a kiss. “I mean, that’s normal, right, anybody would—”

“Think I’ve got toilet paper stuck to my leg,” Steve whispered.

“I guess you wouldn’t know normal if it bit you on the ass,” Billy told him, and Steve hefted himself up the couple of inches for another kiss.

“Means I get you, though,” he mumbled, dropping to rest his face on Billy’s chest again. It went from warm to hot, and Steve grinned, rubbing his face in chest hair and muscle.

“Shut up, you’re such a freak,” Billy muttered, and pressed more kisses to Steve’s hair. “Tommy Hagen, seriously? You’re jealous of Tommy Hagen? That’s you being a moron.”

“Mmn,” Steve was sort of listening, so he politely made a noise.

“Just went over to Carol’s ‘cause I broke your door,” Billy said. “Thought you’d be pissed. Thought you’d—” he took a slow breath, swallowing. “An-anyway, I didn’t think you’d just...pick me up. Carry me on your back. Thought I’d have to, uh, bribe my way back in.”

“...you saying you got me a present?” Steve asked, waking up a little, and Billy squeezed him.

“I’m saying I didn’t care where I went, jesus. Could have been the gas station. Not running around on you with Exxon, either.”

You might, Steve thought, snorting, but he scooted closer. His shoes squeaked against the wet tile by the toilet. “We’re gonna stink,” he sighed.

“You saying you wanna go shower together?” Billy breathed against Steve’s temple, and Steve started sniggering.

“I mean, yeah,” he whispered back, grinning so hard his cheeks felt tired. “But probably we should like...go. You’re making your sister wait. And El.”

“And they’re important to my liege,” Billy groaned.

“They’re kinda violent when they’re pissed off,” Steve whispered back, and Billy started snickering into Steve’s hair. Steve grinned up at the dripping cracks in the ceiling, letting his eyes fall shut. “ I’ll—just—just take the car. Take it. Get the girls, whatever they want. I need to—better present. Than Denise.”

“No present’s better than Denise,” Billy’s grin went smirky, but he saluted Steve’s eyeroll, and once they managed to get upright, sauntered off with his hands in the pockets of Steve’s stolen sweatshirt.

Steve adjusted himself in his jeans, wishing he wasn’t quite so...sticky, and walked a bit awkwardly off to his locker, when he was grabbed for the second time that day.

“What?!” Robin flailed her arms, hissing. “What was that?!”

“There you are,” Steve hissed, then stopped dead, realizing he hadn’t thought up any kind of plan. “...nothing?” he answered, like a genius, smoothing his hair where Billy’d run his fingers through it. “Uh, what? What was...what.”

She stared at him. “I saw you, dingus.”

“No, you didn’t. Saw what?”

“How are you alive, you are so dumb,” she muttered, spinning away, then back. “That was—you were—” she clasped her hands together, taking a deep breath through her nose, and started to snicker. “You—that’s your cover? ‘What was what?’ You—that’s what you’re gonna say?”

Steve’s high from Billy’s kisses was gone, and he was trying not to imagine Billy’s reaction to someone seeing them. His stomach clenched. “Look, don’t, nothing—nothing was—your—it’s none of your business, jesus.”

“What?!” she cackled, her eyes widening. “Christ. You’re just gonna make out at school and ignore it when—what if—what if your pal Tommy sees you? He’s gonna—”

“I blackmailed him,” Steve folded his arms, leaning back against the locker. “I have dirt on him, he’s not gonna squeal—”

“You what?!” she squealed herself, leaning one arm to steady herself against the locker as she sniggered so hard she shook. “Have you been watching gangster movies?”

“Shut up! You didn’t see anything—”

“I sure did,” she made a face, shuddering. “Believe me, I would not have imagined you and Hargrove playing tonsil hockey, but it’s a nightmare I’ll take to the grave—”

“Shut up,” he hissed, swallowing. His throat felt dry. “I—you can’t tell anyone. I’ll say you’re lying. You’ll be that liar girl, I’ll—”

“God, I don’t want to remember it, let alone describe it,” she pretended to gag, melodramatically doubling over with her fingers in her throat. “Gag me, Steve. Gag me with a spoon.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “Great. Don’t tell anyone, and we’ll stay the hell away from each other.” He remembered wondering how people in his classes would react to finding out he was maybe-sort-of-gay, and he kind of wanted to punch her in the face. “Or I—I’ll get gay cooties on you.”

She turned to stare. “I don’t care about that, dipshit, I care I almost saw two entire penises when I was just trying to leave class. Here I thought I’d go to my grave without getting close to one of those—” she stuck her tongue out, flapping her hand at the wrist, her voice distorted by the face she was making, “—gross floppy baby injectors, and there they were—”

“What,” he stopped, arms up in a flail, but still. “Wait. What?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone, Steve Harrington,” she told him, rolling her eyes. “Besides, somebody else is going to figure you out, like, instantly, nothing to do with me.” She turned to stalk away, then spun on her heel to face him again. “But what the hell is wrong with you?! You don’t even—can’t you make some excuse and get the keys to the gym equipment room?! You can’t make out during class, when people aren’t wandering around?! Instead you’re sucking face right after the bell rings? I had to tell two different people there was a sewage leak down that hall, dumbass.”

Steve blinked at her. “Th—that’s a good idea. I didn’t—thanks, man.”

“I didn’t want them to have to see the gross sight I had to,” she narrowed her eyes at him. “Can’t you tell people you’re study buddies or something? Before I have to see more of Billy Hargrove’s hard-on in his jeans,” she shuddered, and Steve laughed.

“Somebody doesn’t think he’s hot?”

She took a deep breath, her eyes flicking to his face. “Yeah...no. Why would I.”

“I mean, he is,” he shrugged. “Anyway, thanks. Really. I got, uh, threatened today, kind of. I thought—thanks.”

She stilled. “You what,” she asked, her voice weirdly raspy.

“Uh, somebody figured us out, said he’d, y’know, tell everyone. I know.” Steve rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.

“What the shit,” she whispered. “And you—you’re—the same day?! You just—”

“Look, shut up, I’m not used to it yet,” he hissed back. “I forget he’s a secret, okay?!”

“You moron,” she whispered. “What’d you—are you—”

“I blackmailed him, uh, the guy, Tommy,” Steve whispered back, weirdly proud. “He won’t tell anyone.”

“Jesus, what a prick.” She took a deep breath, and blew through her cheeks. “Tommy Goddamn Hagen, huh. Good thing I wasn’t gonna tell anybody anyway.”

“Phew,” he laughed, grinning at her. “I wasn’t—I can’t even—was just, y’know, going to ask you not to, like, tell. Everyone.” He shrugged. Robin narrowed her eyes at him, watching as he kicked at the linoleum. His shoe squeaked. “Thanks for being cool,” he told her, feeling a little bit warm knowing there were people at school that wouldn’t treat him like he had leprosy. “I guess not everybody’s going to hate me.”

“Jesus,” she whispered, rubbing her face. “I—shut up, okay, I wasn’t—I’m not that—”

“It’s just nice,” Steve shrugged. “Bil—I, uh, I didn’t know how, um, I guess it can get pretty bad, it’s nice to—”

“Yes!” Robin hissed. “Yes, it can! Oh my god, shut up. Why are you—you don’t know me!”

“I do now,” Steve told her, grinning, but he watched her clench her hands in frustration, and recognized someone who wished he’d leave. “Sorry. Thanks. Sorry,” he smiled automatically, and turned away.

“Ugh,” she groaned.

“Thanks,” he called over his shoulder again. “I’m glad it was you!”

“Auuuugh,” she yelled after him. “Stop talking about it, you moron! Somebody could hear you!”

He couldn’t resist turning to face her, walking backwards down the hall and stage-whispering, “Now I know it’s safe to tell you, we can talk about boys.”

“I don’t want to talk about boys!” Robin screamed, soft and wheezily in the back of her throat.

“You know you want to,” Steve whisper-shouted back, waggling his eyebrows, and she smacked her own face. “Nancy and I are friends now,” he told her, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Gonna have all the gossip, right here, don’t change that channel!”

“Nancy Wheeler doesn’t have gossip,” she hissed back, “Nancy Wheeler has—she has flashcards, shut up, dipshit—”

“We’re gonna do all those—those things that—makeovers,” he said, unable to think of anything else. “Sleepovers. Talking about boyfriends.”

“Kill me first,” Robin replied, through gritted teeth. “I will puke, I swear to god.”

“I have all the locker room dirt on everybody,” Steve said, clapping his hands together as he realized. “I know how big—”

“Eugh!” she actually shouted over him. “Gross! I do not want to know! I don’t want to know what Tommy Hagen’s dick is like, holy shit!”

“Yeah, I kinda wish I didn’t either,” Steve said, reflecting, but Robin was on a tear.

“I don’t want to—I don’t even—I wouldn’t think Billy Hargrove was hot unless his name was spelled with an -ie,” she said through clenched teeth, and he mouthed the letters, frowning into space. “Like. If he was named Wilhelmina, Steve.”

“That’s an awful name,” he turned to frown at her doubtfully. “And—and it’s for girls, I think.”

“The penny drops,” she said crisply, which made no sense, but he ignored that, turning her disgust in his head against her insistence she didn’t have a problem with his gay cooties.

“You’re a lesbian,” he whispered, pointing, and she clapped her hand to her face. Steve thought. “I thought I was the only one at school! We were. The only queer people, at school. There’s, uh, there’s a kid, but he’s a middle-schooler. And Barbra Holland, maybe? She and Nancy watched some weird movies.”

“How do you know what kind of...ugh, y’know what, I’m going home,” Robin sighed. “Try not to get expelled, I guess?”

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said quickly, feeling the urge to lift his hand to pinky-swear. He snickered. “We should have a secret handshake.”

“You better not tell anyone,” she hissed back, but she looked relieved too, and they stood there for long awkward seconds before she spun and stomped off. “I still don’t like you!” she shouted back, and he bit back a grin.

Once he’d talked to the ceramics teacher, he sat down with his headphones and the potter’s wheel, trying to dig his fingers into the heavy wetness of the clay enough to bring up a thin edge, but not so much they went through. About the point it started to look like a deep cat dish instead of an ashtray, he realized there were knees facing his, and he shook his head to knock his headphones down to his shoulders, instead of getting clay on them.

The lovely and intelligent Nancy Wheeler had her chin on her hands, and her elbows on her knees, watching him spin the clay.

“Hi,” he said, suddenly wanting to fix his hair, and clenching his hands so he didn’t put streaks of clay in it.

“What’s that gonna be?”

“...I dunno,” he said, which was a lie, probably. “I might screw it up.” Which was true.

“I think I see it,” she cocked her head as he used his fingertips to draw it up taller, “—with Billy. I thought you might—need help, y’know. Sorry.”

“What?!” He blinked at her, letting the wheel slow to a stop.

“I see it now. He was freaking out, when you just—ran out of the library, that time. Mike said he’s been really good to Will, and Eleven. I mean, if he pulls any shit with you we should absolutely tie him to train tracks. But.”

“That’s very...evil of you.” Steve stared at her, wide-eyed.

She rolled her eyes, and waved a hand. “His dad too, obviously.”

Steve snorted, choking. “Obviously.” He pulled his clay cylinder up a little taller and thinner, his face warm. The clay had lines where he’d pressed too hard, almost giving it segments. “...argh, this is my third try, and it’s still not straight.”

“...neither are you,” she replied, levelly, and he nearly smashed it, flailing.

“Nancy,” he growled at her, and she shrugged, watching him wet his hands and try to even it out.

She followed him around as he sliced it off the wheel with wire, took it to a table, and sculpted a handle. When he got to rolling more clay out, and cutting a little plaque to press letters into, she came and leaned over his shoulder, and he flushed as he inhaled her shampoo. “...that looks good, actually,” she murmured in his ear, and he winced away. She wandered back around the table to drop onto the stool across from him.

“‘Actually’?!” he muttered, and she snorted. “Sorry I was a shitty boyfriend,” he told the little letters he was painstakingly carving.

“Mm.” She shrugged. “I mean, I was kinda shitty, too, there at the end.”

He opened his mouth, automatically, to tell her she was perfect and amazing, then shut it again. He bit his lips, frowning down, then blew air through his cheeks, and carefully peeled up the little clay plaque shape to press on the crosshatched side of his cylinder.

“We’re getting better at it,” she said, looking it over, and then reached across and prodded his shoulder. “That’s sweet, Steve.”

“Eugh,” he sighed, leaning his face on the table. “Hope he thinks so.”

She groaned. “He liked Denise, Steve.”

“How come everybody knows my dumb vase’s name,” he mumbled into his arms, and she laughed.

“I hear everything. Little bird told me you might need a ride.”

Steve lifted his head, frowning at her. “...what?”

“He took your car, right?”

“I think Eleven took him,” Steve defended Billy, and Nancy grinned at him, nudging his elbow.

“Yeah, in your car.”

“Who knows where they’ll end up,” Steve sighed. He tried not to think about kissing Billy Hargrove in the bathroom at the IHOP. “Uh, she keeps making him take her for waffles.” Billy’d flinched back when he walked in the IHOP bathroom, he thought, leaning his face in his arms again. How did I not stop and think about that.

Nancy got up and leaned against the table. “And it’s snowing again, so you need a ride. Thanks, Nancy. You’re such a good friend, Nancy.”

He looked up, and quailed under the weight of her raised eyebrows. “Thanks. Who’s the little bird?”

“Billy,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Or rather, he was asking how long Max and Eleven needed, and Eleven asked what I was doing after school.”

“Sorry,” Steve snickered, imagining Billy’s expression. “I could’ve walked.”

She shrugged. “I’m still here.”

Once he finished, and put his Valentine’s Day present to Billy on a rack to dry, they wandered out to Nancy’s mom’s car. As she checked the mirrors, and put on her seatbelt, Steve took a deep breath, couldn’t decide what to say, and sat there with his cheeks inflated like a chipmunk’s, squinting at the dashboard.

“...what are you doing,” she laughed.

“I, um. You know Robin Buckley?”

Nancy frowned at him, then at the rearview mirror to back out of the parking spot. “Yeeeah?”

“She, uh, she saw me and Billy. Earlier.”

“So?”

“Uh, we were, uh, she knows.” He leaned around to shove his bag in the back seat.

“...need me to go —talk to her?” Nancy asked, in a low voice, and Steve scrambled back up, wondering why he knew so many people willing to commit murder in his name.

“No! No! It’s, uh, it’s fine. She doesn’t like dick. I mean, she likes tits, you know. I mean, she’s like us. Billy and me. She’s queer. She, uh, she won’t tell anybody. Shit! I can’t tell you that, the whole point was—auuuugh,” he groaned, leaning his seat back to add some drama to it. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, don’t tell her I told you—”

“Oh!” Nancy blinked. “Is she?! I thought…” She frowned, pulling around a gaggle of freshmen in jerseys wandering through the parking lot.

“What?” Steve tried to get the seat to click back upright, and fell backwards again, his leg kicking up in the air.

“I thought she had a thing for you. She used to glare at us all the time.” Nancy rolled her eyes and groaned, slowing to a top again, and Steve wondered who else was blocking traffic out of the highschool parking lot.

“Did she? Weird.” Steve squinted at the roof of the car, and then remembered something. “Anyway, she won’t say anything. And I need advice. On blow jobs.”

The brakes squawked as Nancy stared over, Nancy opening her mouth to answer, but something banged at the window, and he sat up to see Lucas’ little sister glaring at them.

“Holy shit,” Nancy muttered, groaning. “Just don’t bite it off, you’ll get the hang of it, oh my god—” she hissed, leaning across his legs to roll the window down.

“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Steve muttered back, as Erica Sinclair stuck her face in the car.

“I fell asleep first period and got detention,” she yawned. “Marcenia Lyle Alberga snuck out again last night. Tomika and me were out until four this morning. And I missed the bus, and then I fell asleep in detention again...”

“You...what?” Nancy asked, looking lost. “Who?”

“Her friend’s cat sneaks out,” Steve translated.

“She doesn’t like the old Shireman house,” Erica told them, yanking the handle of Nancy’s car door and yawning again. “Lemme in. I missed the bus, I need a ride.”

“Sorry,” Steve said to Nancy, unable to stop his beaming grin. “She’s, uh, Billy’s kid now, I guess? Can we give her a ride?”

“Billy’s,” Nancy repeated, squinting at him, then Erica, and leaning behind Steve’s seat to unlock the door. Once they were all inside, she asked, “Isn’t the old Shireman place haunted, or something?”

“Yeah, Tommy and Carol and I used to…” Steve trailed off, his brain wandering back to being friends with Tommy Hagen, and getting high to run around screaming and giggling in the “haunted house”. “We used to...go there,” he finished, folding his arms.

“It’s creepy out there,” Erica said, leaning between their seats. “We’re not supposed to go, the floor’s falling in, but Marcenia’s just a kitten.”

“A mean one,” Steve snorted, and Erica snorted.

“She’s a killer. She can’t fight snow, though. I mean, she’d try. ”

Steve snickered, and they ended up explaining the afternoon Billy’d played Great White Hunter to Marcenia the Jungle Cat. He was dying to tell Nancy about El’s confusion over Hopper’s lousy sex talk, and trailed off, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad, really, life with Nancy as a friend.

As Nancy obeyed every traffic law, exactly at the speed limit, Steve saw Robin Buckley under the overhang of the gas station, hopping around as she knocked snow out of one of her shoes. She sighed, pulled it back on with a disgusted expression, hunched her shoulders, and walked on, just as some melting snow toppled off the edge and smacked into the back of her head and down the back of her collar. She yelled and flailed, dropping her bag, and fell on her butt in the snow, then threw her head back and yelled at the sky.

“Wait!” Steve yelled at Nancy, rolling his window down to stick his head out. “Hey! Oy! Robin Barclay!”

“Buckley,” Nancy corrected.

“Buckley!” Steve called, and Robin squinted over out of the pile of snow she’d landed in, her eyes flat with despair.

“What,” she glared over. “Qu-uh. Uh,” she glanced at Nancy, turning red, and her glower darkened. “Steve Harrington?” Ice dripped from the slush on her head down along her ear, and he heard both Nancy and Erica shudder.

“Can we give her a ride?” he asked Nancy, who was shaking her head slowly in bewilderment, eyes wide. “Please?”

“Sure, of course,” she said, turning up the heat and scrambling behind her to unlock the door. Erica scooted to one side.

“This is your fault,” was Robin’s first shivering line after she climbed in. “I missed the bus after, uh, running into you.”

“You’re another one of Steve’s friends?” Erica asked, eyes narrowed consideringly, and Steve yelled “Stop kidnapping my friends! No kidnapping!” back at her as Nancy hit the gas.

“I’m very resistant to being kidnapped,” Robin said, sniffling and shivering.

“Unstoppable force, immovable object,” Erica whispered, studying Robin as they drove.

“No,” Steve told her emphatically.

Robin studied Steve and Nancy. “I thought you two broke up,” she said, exaggeratedly innocent, and glared meaningfully at Steve when he turned around to stare at her.

“We did,” Nancy told her, checking her side mirror. “Steve’s my best friend now. He got a battlefield promotion.”

Robin sat back, nodding, and Steve laughed so hard he choked.

Billy’s car was out of the garage and blocking the drive, for some reason, with Steve’s behind it. Steve frowned at it, then raised his eyebrows at Nancy, who narrowed her eyes at him, then got out of the car and walked around as he disentangled his bag from the seatbelt and slammed the door.

“What,” she hissed. “You were making faces.”

“There’s gotta be more than “don’t bite it off,” he hissed back. “Come on!”

She made an offended gaspy noise, her mouth dropping open. “You’ve had blow jobs!” she squeaked back, flailing her arms. “You know more than me! I don’t even have a dick!”

“How do you not choke?” he asked, thinking hard.

“You just do!” she growled back, her face flaming red. “You’re putting a—a big—a thing down your—where you breathe, Steve, how do you think lungs work—oh my god—”

“Ohhhh,” Steve nodded, and she screamed into her hands.

“If you keep asking me for sex advice I’m gonna suggest you pull your mouth off real loud and sing ‘Pop Goes The Weasel,’” she snarled, and Steve started laughing, blushing nearly as hard as she was at the awkwardness of grilling his ex-girlfriend on blow jobs.

“I know it’s weird,” he laughed, wiping his eyes. “I know, I know, I got nobody else to ask, though, Nance, come on!”

She bit her lips together, glaring, then sighed. “...try, uh. Try, um, humming,” she squeaked.

“Humming,” he stared.

“Shut up, never mind!” she groaned, hiding her face.

“No, no, no no no!” he ran around to block her as she turned back to the car. “No, go on, tell me! Tell me, tell me!”

She sighed, smiling tensely at him. “God, Steve. You’re so—argh.”

“I am, I am,” he agreed, “—tell me your secrets, teach me, like, cock karate—”

“Oh my god,” she moaned.

“Do I need to wash cars,” he asked, miming circular hand movements, and she shoved him, laughing.

“We were, y’know, listening to music,” she mumbled, flushing even redder, “—and uh, I was um, y’know, kind of—kind of singing, humming—”

“Ew,” Steve said, waving her onward as he tried not to imagine the soundtrack of Jonathan’s approaching penis. “Yeah, go on—”

“It’s-nice-try-it!” she squeaked, all one noise, and ducked by him to dive into the car. He waved, but she bent close around the steering wheel as Erica ran around to take shotgun.

Steve crept in the front door to the caterwauling sounds of a circular saw.

The door to the garage from the kitchen was open, and his parent’s stuff—the stacks of boxed seventies clothes and albums he’d called and asked about, that they’d told him to throw out, that he felt weird throwing out, like there wouldn’t be anything of theirs left in the house if he threw the boxes out—had been pushed off to the side. Billy and Eleven were leaning over a long thin piece of wood trim balanced across the seats of two of the kitchen chairs. Billy had a foot on it, holding it secure across the seats, and Eleven had the saw, which she turned off, and carefully lowered to the floor.

“Angle’s perfect,” Billy told her, thumbing the edge, and she beamed at him. He bent over some more wood, but Steve’s brain was less aware of the wood, and more aware of his boyfriend’s ass in tight jeans.

Steve nearly stepped on Max, watching Billy, then blinked down to realize she was sitting in the doorway with her butt on the kitchen floor and her feet on the stair into the garage, glaring up at him and holding a plastic binder with shiny pages.

“Hey, moron, stop drooling,” she whispered. “It’s nasty.”

“What’re they doing?” he crouched to ask, watching El steeple her fingers thoughtfully at her nose, listening to Billy’s explanation of the different grits of sandpaper.

“He says he broke your door,” Max raised her eyebrows with all the judgement of Steve’s second-grade teacher, and he ducked his head.

“Wasn’t on purpose, he thought I was—I don’t know,” he muttered back at her. “He didn’t mean it.”

“That’s creepy, Steve,” she hissed back, flipping a page, and studying it intently. “He knows what he’s doing.” Through the reflection of the florescent lights of the garage, Steve couldn’t see what she was looking at, but he thought he and Max weren’t quite to the point where he could lean into her space.

“I mean,” Steve squinted, considering, and dropped to sit more comfortably next to her in the doorway, his legs sprawled into the garage. He remembered Billy drunk, throwing beer bottles at his house, and crying over his mom. “I mean, not—not always, not really. He, uh—”

“Don’t give me that shit,” she sighed. “Don’t let him get all, y’know, ‘Sorry, honey, you know I’ve got a temper,’ Steve, jesus. Bet he never breaks his own stuff.”

“Wait, what?” Steve drew his eyes away from Billy, who was smiling down at El marking length on a shorter piece of trim with a steel square. “He doesn’t break my stuff. Except the door. Did he break your stuff?”

She tensed, flipping another page, and holding both sides of the binder with white knuckles. “Maybe. Maybe I’m good at pattern recognition, Steve. He tell you not to make him mad? You being careful?”

Steve stared at the side of her head, then swung to face her, unable to focus while his eyes were full of Billy’s ass. “Max, you okay? Is—is everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” she snorted a laugh, rubbing her eyes with her wrist, and flipping another page. She studied it carefully.

“Max, did—did Billy say that to you? Did he—”

“No, he never—he— he says it. To my mom.”

Steve processed for a second, feeling like he was a dysfunctional blender. There were big things floating around out there he was fairly sure he didn’t understand, but he could manage the little pieces, sometimes, blend them into a whole that made sense. “Neil told your mom,” he translated, and Max swallowed, biting her lips together. “Neil...told your mom not to make him mad. Right?”

She shook her head. “He—he didn’t mean—like he gets with Billy. She wouldn’t—he wouldn’t get mad like that— just at Billy, he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t—”

“Billy told you what his mom said,” Steve felt like his engine was grinding, but he kept guessing, since Max kept pausing after each line. Maybe she doesn’t like what she put together, he thought. She’s seeing whether I get the same thing. “That Neil was...that he scared her.”

“Billy said he hit his mom,” Max grated out, and Steve cocked his head, trying to parse the language of the Hargrove siblings.

“Billy said his dad hit his mom,” he suggested, his eyes narrowed in thought, and Max made a weird hiccup noise, muffling it in the cuff of her sweatshirt. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Steve bit his lips together, and tried again. “...and his dad told your mom not to make him angry.” Like the Hulk, he thought, imagining Neil Hargrove tearing the house apart.

Max flipped another page, and bent to frown at it from inches away as Steve waited.

“What have you got there?” he finally asked, since apparently the conversation was over, and El and Billy were still busy. Max tipped the binder towards him with a tense smile.

Steve crouched. “...is that...is that Billy’s photo album? That’s Billy, oh jesus. Oh my god.” He muffled his wide-eyed mumbling with his hands, staring at child-Billy’s round cheeks.

“Shut up, he looks like a moron,” Max hissed back, flipping the page, as Billy and Eleven laid out more pieces of wood. “Look at their hair! And he definitely doesn’t want you seeing him in that sweater vest.”

Steve flipped it back and eyed the brown, orange, red, and off-white sweater vest—it was definitely ugly, and his time spent winding yarn for Ms. Williams meant he could accurately peg it as basically a sandwich of two enormous crocheted potholders, one front, one back, with straps sewn on. “Oh, god,” he mumbled through his hand. “Did he, like...make that himself?” He tried not to think about Neil’s fingers digging into Billy’s shoulder in the posed picture, or the way Billy was leaning away, into his mom.

“I think there was an aunt...or a grandma...Maybe we should blow up that picture and stick it on the bulletin board at school,” Max grinned, laughing shakily.

“Look at his fat little cheeks,” Steve whispered. “Oh no, look, he was surfing and he fell in the water.”

“Look how many pictures there are of him dragging his board out of the water,” Max snickered. “Like, one of him actually surfing. He looks like a drowned rat.”

From listening to Billy’s mom, Steve didn’t doubt either that she was as delighted by photos of him falling off surfboards as staying on, or that she ever let him live it down. “His mom calls him her Land Turtle,” he told her, and Max clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a snicker. “Oh no,” Steve hissed, elbowing her. “Look, Santa photos.”

Max stared at them for a long moment, then looked up at Steve, biting back a huge grin. Her eyes still shone wet, but she looked gleeful. “Steve. Steve,” she whispered in a high voice, drowned out by Billy showing El a box of finishing nails. “Steve,” she wheezed. “He was afraid of Santa. Look. Every picture. Oh my god.”

Billy’s mom looked thin, and paler than she had, and Steve tried to focus on her broad grin. “Those are amazing sweaters,” he whispered back, between his fingers, trying not to crack up aloud over toddler-Billy’s horrified eyes on Santa in every picture. In one, he was tilted sideways, wailing in his red-and-white striped sweater with the knitted green bowtie and matching mustard-yellow knitted overalls.

Suddenly Max yanked the album back to squint close, and Steve waited, then leaned his head down to try and see her face. “Huh,” she said, lifting her head, and pushing the album back toward him. “Leia there on the Halloween page,” she pointed. “His mom—does that—there on her arms, and her neck, do those look like bruises to you?”

Steve, staring at what had to be tiny Billy wedged in an awful R2-D2 costume made mostly of tinfoil, beaming up at the Leia from under—for some reason—a superhero-type mask, had to blink a few times to register Max’s voice. “Wha?”

“Do those look like bruises,” Max hissed. “Billy says he used to hit his mom—”

“Billy hit his mom?” Steve stared at her, then Billy, still stuck in their second conversation about family photos, where four-year-old Billy Hargrove was wearing potholders like they were clothes.

Max shook her head. “No, stupid, he hit Billy’s mom, Neil did. Billy says. Billy says—Billy says she was scared, she thought—there was an insurance thing—” she swallowed, the shine to her eyes no longer delighted. “I’m—I just—he doesn’t deserve him, nobody does, but just ‘cause he hits Billy doesn’t mean he’d hurt—”

Steve listened, really noticing for the first time that Max and Billy never called Neil Hargrove anything—not ‘dad’, or his name, just ‘he’. It was confusing for onlookers, who weren’t always thinking about the man, but Max and Billy always seemed to understand each other.

“I thought I’d check his pictures,” Max closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose, and when she looked back down at the photos, her eyes were drier. “See if—if he was right, and she—she looks—she’s really scared, Steve.”

“I was there when she told Billy,” Steve told Max, who pressed her knuckles to her mouth, making a muffled gulping noise.

“He’s gonna hurt my mom,” she whispered, taking a shaky breath. “Shit, Steve, he’s gonna—he’s gonna hurt my mom, it was true, those are bruises, he’s gonna—”

Steve realized the tools had gone silent, and looked up to see Billy, thin-lipped and pink-cheeked, glancing from the album, to Steve, to Max.

El followed his gaze, frowned hard, and sat the saw down. She walked over, and wedged herself between Max and Steve on the stair into the garage. “What happened?” El asked, sounding like she was doing the psychic equivalent of cracking her knuckles to ready herself for a fight.

Max shook her head, pressing her knuckles to her mouth.

Steve let himself be pushed aside, walking over to put an arm around Billy and kiss his ear. “Just found a picture of my new favorite robot,” he whispered, and Billy snorted, tense against him. “Why was R2-D2 wearing a mask,” Steve asked, and Billy rolled his eyes.

“Shut up, I was like seven, I didn’t know how to make a costume. Why the hell is Max showing you my fatass baby pictures?”

“She, um,” Steve stumbled, divided between wanting to answer, not wanting to admit Max didn’t believe Billy’s warnings, and mostly wanting a time-travel car to go back and pick up the chubby little curly-haired R2-D2 in his terrible tinfoil costume, give him hot chocolate, and keep him the hell away from Neil Hargrove. “You seriously calling R2-D2 fat?”

“What is going on,” asked El, narrowing her eyes at Steve’s arm around Billy, and tucking her own around Max.

“He hurt Billy’s mom, and he hurt Billy, and he’s gonna hurt my mom,” Max said, her voice gravelly with suppressed tears. “He hurts people, and he’s—” she took a few rapid breaths, and bit her lips together until they went white.

Eleven took Max’s hand, turning to face her. “We won’t let him.”

Billy swallowed, his jaw working.

“Hopper,” Steve said, squeezing Billy’s shoulders. “Hopper can—talk to Hopper, El, take Max to tell him—”

“He—he could be doing something—I need to get home,” Max stood, and nearly fell, trying to spin without watching the stair. She staggered, swearing in a high, broken voice.

Eleven caught her by the elbows. “Max,” she said slowly clearly, and Max’s head jerked up to frown at her, as Eleven waved a hand at the milk crates of old records and exploded them. Billy and Steve both yelled, diving for the floor as vinyl shrapnel rained down, and it snowed bits of cardboard. “We won’t let him,” Eleven said, bringing her hand back to squeeze Max’s, then lifting it to wipe a dribble of blood from her nose.

“Holy shit,” Max whispered, wiping her eyes. “Okay. Yeah. We can—we can threaten him, or something.”

“Or something,” El repeated darkly. “I saw a movie where they dropped a house on somebody.”

“C-can you do that?” Max snorted wetly, snickering probably half with stress, and half imagining Neil’s shoes sticking out from under a foundation like he was the Wicked Witch of the East.

El narrowed her eyes. “Do you want me to?”

“Holy shit,” Max started cackling through her tears, stumbling to sit down on the stair to the kitchen.

“Holy shit,” Billy echoed, staring at the mess, as Steve sighed and grabbed the broom. “What the fuck,” he whispered. “Luke fucking Skywalker.”

Steve had mostly forgotten Billy didn’t know about El. Of course that��s how he’d find out about Eleven, he thought, rubbing his face, and scrabbling at his hair. Billy knew every other detail of his stupid life. Of course he couldn’t find out when she lifted a toy spaceship. No, my boyfriend, that I promised to—to tell things—finds out El can move stuff with her mind when she explodes something four feet away and threatens to drop a house on his dad. “Babe,” he tried, turning to Billy. “Hey, dickhead, cupcake.”

Billy was staring at El—or past her, it was hard to tell. His hands were shaking. “You knew about this,” he whispered. “You—you said you wanted me safe, and then you sent me out with a—a fucking dark jedi. Lucky she didn’t explode my skull when I kicked Max under the table. Holy crap.”

“Shit, no, she—she wouldn’t hurt you,” Steve stared at him, then Eleven, who was watching Max take deep, shaky breaths.

“No wonder you wanted to check me over,” Billy whispered, sitting down on one of the chairs he’d been using as a sawhorse. “After you made me take them for waffles. How’d Billy do? She explode my brain?”

“No, no—” Steve argued, his stomach clenching as he remembered fearing exactly that, when Eleven climbed into Billy’s car while Dustin and Max drug him into a classroom for their intervention. He reached out, and Billy flinched, then laughed, baring his teeth.

“Any other big secrets, Steve?”

“No,” Steve shook his head frantically, hoping there weren’t. He couldn’t think of any, but then he’d never even thought to pull Eleven aside, and ask whether he could tell Billy. Some of the vinyl was melted to the floor, and Steve kicked at it.

“Do you want me to come home with you?” Eleven asked Max, and Steve tried to put Billy on hold with his hand and derail that situation.

“Wait, no, Eleven,” he called over. “Remember, I mean, you can’t—nobody can see your powers,” he said, wincing as Billy scrambled away. “They could take you away from Hopper, nobody can—”

She nodded. “It would look like an accident.”

Billy staggered over to sit down against the racks holding Steve’s backstock of marshmallows. “Holy hell fucking balls shit,” he mumbled, taking deep breaths in his steepled hands.

“I still need a ride home,” Max said grimly, and El nodded, taking a deep breath.

“Wait, wait, wait, no,” Steve dropped the broom, waving his hands. “Do you—do you really think you need to do anything, like, tonight?”

“He’s gonna hurt my mom, Steve,” Max hissed, and El nodded, crossing her arms.

“Whoa, whoa,” Steve waved his hands, glancing at Billy. “I mean, hell with Neil Hargrove, but come up with a plan. What if he tells someone about El? Talk to Hopper, think up—come up with a way that doesn’t—I mean, save Max’s mom, but make sure everybody’s safe, okay.”

“Everybody except him,” Max growled.

El considered Steve for a long moment, then nodded. “I will help you,” she told Max, nodding firmly.

“Jesus fucking christ hell,” Billy muttered, shoving past Max and out of the garage. His feet pounded up the stairs.

“I need to go home,” Max told Steve. “I need to tell her.”

“She’s still at work, isn’t she?! Don’t do anything,” Steve ordered the two girls. “Anything, I mean it. I have to—Billy didn’t know, I need to go and—”

“He didn’t know?” El asked, blinking from Steve, to Max, to the ceiling. “Why? You didn’t want Billy to know?”

“I didn’t know if you’d want him to know!” Steve told her, trying not to yell. “Now he’s pissed as hell, I have to go talk to him, just—El. Tell me you’d never hurt Billy. You wouldn’t hurt him.”

Eleven cocked her head, turning to Max. “...what did Billy do?” she asked, and Max gulped a laugh, shaking her head.

“Shit,” Steve rubbed his face. “I have to go talk to him, don’t do anything—”

Max sniffled, rubbing her nose. “You better gimme a ride by five, okay. I—I’ll just have El sh-show me how to use all the power tools. Practice for cutting his head off . Unsupervised with the power tools,” she emphasized casually, like a jackass, and Steve yelled incoherently and ran upstairs. As he turned onto the landing, he heard the slide lock on Billy's door catch, and stopped, one foot still in the air. Gravity happened, and he flailed his arms, put both feet on the ground, and turned to lean over the railing, leaning his face in his hands.

“The hell are you doing, Harrington,” Billy’s voice came through the door.

“What?!” Steve yelped, spinning in place. “Nothing! I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“I could hear you chasing me,” Billy said through the door, sounding amused, in the way he did before he set something on fire. “And the floor is creaking. What now, Harrington?”

“Uh,” Steve mumbled, grimacing. “You want me to fuck off?”

He could hear Billy take a long breath, and blow air out through his cheeks. “...what do you want?”

“I just—” Steve swallowed, dropping to sit on the floor. He took a deep breath to continue. “I just—I’m—shit. I’m so sorry, jesus. I’m—I can’t—I can’t believe I didn’t ask Eleven if I could tell you. I got...I forgot I didn’t tell you everything.”

“All your little shitheads got superpowers?” Billy asked, laughing. “Yeah. That actually snaps a lot of shit into place, Steve.” Steve flinched at his name, and wondered why, swallowing again.

“No,” he answered. “No, it’s, um, it’s just El. She’s, uh. Eleven’s what the lab was making,” Steve told him, dropping to press his cheek to the floor, and sigh under the door at Billy’s bare toes clenched in in the carpet. “I didn’t—I mean, it wasn’t my secret. We got talked to by the FBI, she—she could get taken away from Hopper, they—”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Billy said, dropping to sit crosslegged. His fingers drummed against the carpet. “Who the hell would I tell. You told me about the—about the goddamn blue bodybuilder bananas. I can—I can still smell the burning records, Steve.”

“El hurting you wasn’t—it wasn’t a plan,” Steve growled, trying not to yell. “You think—you think I’d get you away from your dad and just—just throw you—why would I want you to scare a little kid until she killed you, Hargrove, hon—honey mustard. Jesus.”

Through the gap in the door, Steve could see Billy picking at the carpet, and twitching his toes. “...just might blow up my head if I, like, took her by surprise.”

“She wouldn’t kill you for startling her,” Steve said, rolling his eyes, then bit his lips as he remembered Dustin talking about El straight-up murdering the people with guns. “She, uh, she’s never hurt anyone...accidentally, um, I don’t think.”

“You don’t think,” Billy laughed. “I’m filled with confidence.”

“I’m sorry, christ,” Steve whispered. “I didn’t even—”

“Don’t get pissed at me—” Billy’s voice cracked, and he kicked the door.

“No, I’m not—” Steve rolled onto his back staring at the ceiling. “Christ. I didn’t...I’m not—I did, I thought about it, I—I should’ve warned you. Kept you away from her. Sorry I—sorry I didn’t—sorry I suck,” he groaned into his hands. “Damn it.”

The floor creaked, and Billy’s voice got louder. “God, I’m such a moron,” Billy told Steve, the floor creaking by his door. “All this time, I thought—you didn’t trust me at all, did you. Never forgot I was Billy Fucking Hargrove for a second. You just knew little Ellie Hopper didn’t have to tell her sheriff dad I needed putting down. She didn’t need help from anybody, she could twist my head off my goddamn neck, right? I step out of line, she’d take care of it, right, Steve?”

“Sorry,” Steve said again. “I, um.”

“That’s why you’d let me take Max and her for waffles, right, but the second Will shows up you start acting like I’m—I’m the Zodiac killer, christ. Screw you.”

“I didn’t—you’re nice to El, there was no—”

“Why the fuck have you been pretending to give a shit about me,” Billy yelled through the door. It shuddered with a loud THUD on the other side, then creaked in its frame as Billy’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “You knew—you knew she could do that. You knew she’d—do that—for Max, you—you knew—” Steve was silent, grimacing, and wondering what he could say. He jumped as the door thumped again in its frame, and Billy snarled, “Did you fucking leave.”

“No! I’m—I’m sorry,” Steve told him, scooting closer. “I-I’m here, I didn’t—you just, uh, you locked the door.”

“Like you couldn’t bust this shitty lock off in a second. Like Eleven couldn’t rip it off its hinges, right? Make me fucking bleed from—from the eyes probably,” his voice shook with anger, fear, or a combination of both, and Steve didn’t point out the door wouldn’t protect him.

“What? No, you—you locked the door,” Steve flailed at it. “If you want me in there, you gotta open it up, I—I’m not gonna break your door down, I’m not—I’m not the fucking trespasser here—I didn’t mean that to—shit, forget I said that, don’t leave, I’m talking bullshit, tell—tell me what to do, Hargrove. Kings have—they have advisors, or something, right, tell me—”

“Advisors get all the goddamn information,” Billy hissed back.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again, groaning. “I’m so fucking sorry, I should—I should have known you—”

“Known I’d what, fly off the fucking handle?” The door thudded in its frame again, and Steve flinched back. “Right,” Billy whispered, “—I’m crazy, aren’t I, I’m acting insane right now, my brain doesn’t fucking work, I’m stupid, I’m losing my shit over nothing—” Billy’s laugh was wetter than Max’s.

“No!” Steve squirmed across the floor, closer to Billy’s locked door. “No, not—no, you’re—”

“Am I nuts?” Billy asked, his voice shaking. “Your royal majesty,” he laughed. “G-go on. Tell me to shut up and open the door. Wasn’t to lock you out, right? It’s not for that, that’s not—that’s not what you said to do—”

The lock clicked, like he had his hand on it, and Steve scrabbled at his hair. “N-no, wait, wait. Hargrove. Wait, I don’t—it’s—it’s your room, you can lock the door, you can lock it, it’s—it’s okay, you can lock the door—”

“Yell at me some more,” Billy said, laughing unsteadily. “I’ll open it. I’m opening it, jesus. Tell me I’m fucking nuts. Tell me to open up, King Harrington. I know I’m the asshole, I’m wrong, right? I’m—I’m wrong, somehow. Harrington,” he whispered, “—you—you keep—you go through so much shit for me, this is—this is my fault, right, you wouldn’t—”

“No, no, wait, Hargrove, listen—” Steve caught his breath as he recognized the metallic scrape of the lock sliding open. “Stop—”

A loud thump rattled the door in its frame. “It wasn’t even a big deal, right, I am, I’m acting insane. Jesus, I’m so dumb sometimes, I’m fucking crazy— I don’t know what to—let’s forget it,” Billy said thickly, turning the doorknob enough to click it unlocked. “Sorry,” he gritted out. “Y-you can come in if you want. We can—”

“No! No, no, no,” Steve yelped, scrambling to lie on his stomach on the floor, and slide his fingers under the door. He held it shut. He stared under the gap at Billy’s feet. “No! Be—don’t try and—babe—shit—you’re mad, you should be mad! You should be pissed, okay, be pissed, be—be fucking pissed as hell—okay—”

Billy was quiet for several seconds. “...okay,” he repeated softly, sniffling. “Whatcha doing, Harrington...you trying to fit under the door?”

“Fuck you, just—just—lock the door,” Steve told him. “Lock the door, babe. Don’t unlock the door until you wanna let me in, okay. Knight. Remember you’re pissed at me. I’m bullshit sometimes, okay. You’re pissed off.”

“Royal command,” Billy whispered, dropping so he was lying on the floor, one eye facing Steve through the gap underneath.

“You’re supposed to be mad,” Steve said again, and Billy laughed, a tear running out the side of his eye and dropping into the carpet. Steve scrambled for words. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t think—”

“I mean. You usually don’t,” Billy laughed hoarsely, and Steve wedged more of himself under the door, ignoring it scraping what felt like half the skin off his wrists, to brush the tips of his fingers against Billy’s toes. Billy jerked away, then grabbed Steve’s fingers in his cold, sweaty ones.

“No, I mean it, I’m a moron,” Steve hissed, pissed at himself, even if Billy wasn’t. “I know—with my bat,” Steve pointed at Billy under the door, and Billy laughed again. Steve squinted with concentration. “You had to—you had to know all about the bat, so you could figure out whether you were safe. I couldn’t just say you were safe. I had to tell you everything about the bat, so—so you could—decide.”

“Except about El,” Billy said, and Steve swallowed.

“Except about El,” he agreed, sighing. “I—I almost did, I—you asked if I was gonna lie, she’s—it’s a big secret—I-I’m sor—I’m so sorry. Honey-mustard. Hargrove. I’m—I’m so fucking sorry. I just—there was a lot happening, and—I should have made sure you were okay. First. First before anything.”

After what felt like a long silence, when Steve was starting to tense up again, Billy whispered, “You—you said you fucking forgot.” He rolled onto his back, shaking with laughter. “Did you seriously just— completely forget to tell me. Harrington. You did, didn’t you.”

“No! No, kind of,” Steve groaned again, into his arms, catching Billy’s half-hysterical snickering. “I thought—I mean, I freaked out that first time, when Dustin drug me off and you drove off with El in your car, but then—I mean, you were okay, nothing happened! I’m a fucking moron—”

“You’re so dumb,” Billy whispered, grinning under the door. “Holy shit. How could you—okay, I-I’ll open the door. I’m opening the door.”

“You don’t have to,” Steve told him, grimacing.

“Can’t lock you out in your own house,” Billy said, sounding weirdly flat. “S’not what that lock’s for, is it. It’s not—it’s not to st—” he took a shaky breath, swallowing. “It’s not to stop you,” he whispered, his fingers shaking in Steve’s.

“It’ll work!” Steve yelped. “It’ll stop me, it’s a sturdy door, right? The lock’s little but um, it’s uh, it’s latched! You’re safe from me in there!”

“Harrington, what are you gonna do when I open this door,” Billy asked, and Steve had the horrifying suspicion he was crying. “I won’t lock it again, I swear, jesus, please,” he mumbled, his words hitching, and Steve squeezed his hands harder.

“I—” Steve fumbled his words, trying to think of a way to prove he wasn’t angry, while also wanting to burn Neil Hargrove at the stake. “I’m not mad,” he said, trying to keep his voice soft. “I’m not mad, baby, you can lock the door, you can lock me out anytime—” He’d lost Billy for a while again, he realized, listening to the nonsensical mumbles and apologies on the other side of the door, and running his thumbs over Billy’s clenched fingers, so he just kept saying it was okay, and he wasn’t mad.

After what felt like the longest eleven minutes of Steve’s life—as he talked, he was staring at the watch on his wrist, wedged half under the door—Billy took a long shuddering breath.

“You back with me, Hargrove?” Steve whispered, his throat raw.

“...think so,” Billy whispered back. “I was...I was gonna open the door,” he said. “I won’t lock it again,” he promised, and Steve gave his now well-practiced speech.

“You can lock that door anytime,” he told Billy. “You can lock it for no reason, okay. I won’t be mad, you can lock your door.”

“I’m allowed to be crazy,” Billy laughed uncertainly.

“I don’t know if it’s crazy,” Steve told him, frowning under the door, but deciding not to bring up Neil Hargrove. “But you can lock the door, people lock doors, that’s what locks are for, dick—honey,” he said, changing his insult at the last minute, and ignoring Billy’s snickers and whispers of “Dick honey! I’m your dick honey.” “Billy Hargrove,” Steve whispered. “You can lock me out, I still love you—”

Billy choked, curling up on the floor around Steve’s fingers. “...okay.”

“Love you so much,” Steve told him, ignoring the heat in his cheeks. “Love works through doors, okay, I can wait ‘til you come out, jesus. It’s fine.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Billy laughed, crying. “Fuck you, stop making me—bawl, okay, jesus, you prick, christ. Fucking... hate how much I love you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve laughed, his eyes tearing up with relief, and the pain of his scraped knuckles wedged under the door.

“You’re really not pissed I locked you out,” Billy asked again, trying to sound casual.

“I showed you that lock,” Steve told him, trying not to sound pissed.

“Yeah, because—for if—if he comes, you wanna rescue me,” Billy laughed. “Protect what’s yours. Not supposed to lock you out.”

Feeling the exhaustion of another trip around the monopoly board, without passing Go, and without collecting $200, Steve closed his eyes and tried not to groan. “You can lock this door whenever you want,” he said for what sounded like the ninetieth time.

“Yeah,” Billy breathed, and they lay there, on opposite sides of the door, for nearly another five minutes. “...you pretending not to be pissed,” Billy hissed finally. “You—are you—I’ll open up and you’ll be mad as hell, you—you’ll—” he trailed off into sharp breaths, and Steve tried to squirm closer.

“Not gonna lie to you,” he said, and felt Billy’s fingers twitch. “I’m not, honey-mustard, I’ll tell you if I’m mad.” Billy took another long shaky breath, and Steve screwed his face up in thought, kicking his feet so they thudded lightly against the railing of the stairs. “...look, I could open the door,” he whispered, and Billy was silent. “You already unlocked it,” Steve reminded him. “All I’d have to do is turn the knob. But—”

“But what?” Billy asked.

“I don’t think you’re ready yet,” Steve told him. “I’m gonna let you open your door, okay?”

“God, I’m so crazy,” Billy sighed, muffled by the carpet.

“I think you’re just, y’know,” Steve flunked talking as usual, “—you think, um, you think stuff will happen that maybe...happened before. That’s, uh, that’s smart, actually. That’s smart.”

“I should trust you,” Billy groaned. “Shit.”

“I mean, I guess,” Steve made a face. “I just kind of...fucked up. Big. I didn’t—you have to be careful, I mean, you—” he groaned too, trying to fit the words together.

“Not with you,” Billy argued.

“No, with—with me, too, you have to be careful, you’re really important,” Steve huffed, his hackles rising as Billy started laughing again on the other side of the door. “You are! Steve hissed. “You’re so important, you’re the most important, and I’m really—I’m so shitty at this, you have to—you have to help me—”

“Oh my god,” Billy wheezed, and Steve opened his mouth to keep arguing, then blinked as Billy reached out to push Steve’s pointer finger back under the door.

“This lil’ piggy’s gonna get stomped, Harrington,” Billy whispered through the gap, and Steve snickered as Billy’s fingers lifted each of his and prodded them under the door, then stuck his own middle fingers under at Steve.

Steve laughed and rubbed his wrists, rolling onto his back.

Billy’s face disappeared from the gap, replaced by his hand, then his foot, and the sound of a door opening across carpet.

Steve pushed himself to his feet, and then got an armful of Billy Hargrove, breathing unsteadily against his shoulder, and yanking at the fly of his pants.

“Fucking moron,” Bily whispered, trying to unbutton Steve’s jeans as Steve tried to push his hands away.

“Max—Max and El,” he gasped. “They’re right downstairs, we can’t—”

“Sure we can,” Billy whispered against his mouth, and Steve grabbed his hands.

“Okay, but I’m the one apologizing, right,” Steve changed tactics, trying not to grin. “You didn’t screw up. I screwed up.” Billy’s eyes narrowed, then widened as Steve grabbed him by the fly, whispering. “Lemme choke on your dick.” As he’d expected, Billy froze, frowning at him, and Steve seized the opportunity to squeeze him until his bones creaked.

“Not sure how much you’re gonna like that when you’re sober,” Billy hissed in his ear, rocking their hips together.

With the hot pressure on his dick, Steve couldn’t think of an argument other than the truth. “I was,” he whispered, sliding a hand under Billy’s sweatshirt and up his warm side, feeling his muscles work. “I was—I was sober, cake, um, cake pie. I dumped the whiskey out. Didn’t drink it.”

“What,” Billy asked hoarsely.

“Sorry I lied,” Steve buried his face in Billy’s neck, dragging messy kisses over his collarbones. “Shouldn’t lie to you, I mean it, I—I’ll stop, but—but I knew you were freaked, didn’t wanna—didn’t wanna do some dumb drunk thing—” he bit gently under Billy’s jaw, and felt him shudder.

“You goddamn liar,” Billy breathed, grabbing the ass of Steve’s jeans with both hands.

“Sorry for that too,” Steve whispered, and Billy groaned melodramatically in his ear. “Am I out of the doghouse?” Steve asked, and Billy snorted.

“No, you are not,” Billy said, his gaze flicking uncertainly over Steve’s face. “I’m gonna make you work for it—”

“Oh, I can work for it,” Steve told him, his grin way too wide, he suspected, to look seductive at all.

“What the hell are you two doing up there?!” Max yelled, and they both started.

“Okay,” Steve said, tucking his laugh against Billy’s neck. “I’m gonna suck your dick. With feeblings.”

“Jesus christ,” Billy muttered back, relaxing against him. “Just a minute,” he shouted downstairs, and Max stomped away. “...El might actually come up and ask what we’re doing in a minute,” he groaned, sliding his arms around Steve’s waist to sway together, and muttering a string of profanity into his shoulder.

Steve rubbed his back, trying to remember the intense cold-shower effect El had had on his half-chub earlier, when she’d stomped into the locker room wanting Billy to teach Max to use tools. The idea of her throwing the bedroom door open as Steve tried to negotiate his first real blowjob didn’t sound appealing.

After standing there a while, Steve’s adrenaline bubble started merging with the relief of Billy choosing to trust him after he’d fucked up again, and he wanted to move— run, or dance Billy around, or carry him somewhere, listening to him yell, and kissing his hot blushing face. “Later tonight. I got blowjob tips from Nancy. But we should probably go back downstairs,” he whispered, rubbing his thumb across Billy’s tear-sticky cheek.

“Holy jesus. Is that—is that what you were talking about? Giving blowjobs?” Billy asked, his laugh warming Steve’s neck.

“Sort of,” Steve hedged, wishing Nancy hadn’t wanted him to keep secrets. “She decided to start telling me all the weird shit she used to tell Barb, and I’m not supposed to tell anybody, and—” he remembered Nancy shaking with laughter over Jonathan’s sex habits, and tried to smother his vindictive glee, “—I really, really want to tell you Nancy’s secrets, I swear.”

“Why the hell would I want to know any of that,” Billy slumped against him with a contented sigh.

“It’s hilarious,” Steve hissed. “Being friends with a girl is annoying.”

“You poor baby,” Billy snorted.

“She wants to check in all the time! She likes you,” Steve said, remembering abruptly, and Billy burst into a fit of snickering against his neck.

“She does, huh.”

“She does! She said you were all freaked out when I ran out of the library.”

“...Harrington,” Billy said, pulling back to narrow his eyes at Steve’s face. “I—”

“We should probably go downstairs,” Steve interrupted, his face heating as he remembered Billy knew he’d run off to cry. Like the five-year-old birthday boy, he thought, with a self-directed smirk, when he realizes everybody in the class just came because he’s got a pool. “Sorry I was acting like—an idiot. More of an idiot,” Steve shrugged. “We should go down.”

Billy opened his mouth, closed it, then pulled Steve’s face into a kiss that was warm and salty with tears. After a few seconds of hot breath and slick tongue that left Steve harder in his pants than ever, his sweaty hands clutching at Billy’s biceps, Billy pulled back. “You saying I should stop hiding from a little girl,” he asked, grinning, and Steve swallowed a couple times, gathering himself to speak.

“El’s pretty scary,” Steve rasped, “—they’re gonna start using the chainsaw or something, though—”

“You have a chainsaw?” Billy interrupted.

“Maybe?!” Steve stepped back to throw his hands in the air. “I didn’t know we had a circular saw!”

“We need a ride,” El’s voice carried up the stairs.

“Are your—” parents? Steve thought, and stalled out, “—are your uh, your adults even off work yet? Thought you were helping Billy fix my door,” Steve called back, leaning over the railing to look downstairs, and reaching back to squeeze Billy’s hand.

“...we should finish that first,” El said, after a second, and Billy turned him around and leaned in for one more kiss before squeezing his hand back and pulling away to jog down the stairs after Eleven.

Max was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Steve came down. She looked him up and down, then rolled her eyes, her shoulders lowering a little from their angry hunch.

“Hey, Max, uh,” Steve said, then stopped, thinking.

“What, did you run out of batteries?” she asked dryly.

“No, shut up. You know—you can still bring your mom here, if you need to, ever. Or call us, if you need help. We can—we can come pick you up, you and her. Anytime.”

“...Billy gonna second that?” she asked, and Steve considered.

“Yeah. Yeah, he said he’d help me out if my kids needed it. He offered. I mean, he might not stand between you and his dad—”

“No, he’s—he’s done that. Done something just as—just as I was—got himself hit.”

“...that’s…” Steve trailed off, unable to say it was good, Billy getting himself hurt.

“Weird is what that was, because usually he’s a total shithead,” Max hissed. “Which I didn’t tell El. And I won’t—” She stopped.

Because he’s your brother, Steve thought, then wondered whether it was just basic decency in Max, not wanting to hurt anyone if she could help it. Anyone but monsters, like Neil Hargrove.

“...El wants you both to come to the Byers’ for waffles,” she reported, sighing. “Soon. Every damn time anybody’s upset she wants waffles.”

“D’you want him there?” Steve asked, suspecting she didn’t.

“I don’t care,” Max sighed, setting her jaw, and frowning towards the garage. “If he keeps acting like a goddamn human being instead of an asshole. I think El wants to ask him about his mom.”

That will go great, Steve thought, wincing.

“Guess I better help them fix the door,” Max said, unmoving.

“You didn’t break it,” Steve told her, wandering over to the hot chocolate cupboard.

“I wanted to see his photo albums. Check his story, you know, so I lied,” she said, “...kind of.”

“You...lied,” he glanced back, eyebrows raised, before realizing he needed to get more marshmallows out of the garage, which would mean walking out on Max wanting to talk, which...didn’t seem like the right thing to do. He sighed.

“He won’t let me take shop. I signed up for shop and now I’m in home economics,” Max groaned, and Steve rewound the sentence in his head and substituted Neil in for he . “I told El, and said I wanted to talk to Billy, and she said Billy takes shop, since he’s a boy— and next thing I know, he’s waiting for us in your car after school. Trying to tell me how to use a saw. Billy fucking Hargrove, Shop Teacher—and of course Eleven’s having fun.” She squinted towards the garage. “I just wanted to see that photo album.”

“...want some hot chocolate?” Steve asked, feeling a keen empathy for El, and her urge to stuff waffles in the face of anyone having a problem.

“No,” Max said, burying her face in her arms. “Yeah. Damn it. Do I have to—I have to stop hating him now?! Just like that?” She snapped in the air, growling. “Because that asshole’s been beating his face in since he was like—” she held her hand flat a couple feet from the floor, glaring at Steve. “—that high? How come my mom had to fall for him. How come he can’t die of a heart attack. HEY MISTER GOD, THIS IS MAX,” she yelled suddenly, at the ceiling. “FIX YOUR SHIT.”

Steve was cracking up, leaning against the cupboard. “You tell him,” he held up a mug in a toast, and Max snorted.

“Listen to him in there,” she said, glaring at the table, and Steve leaned to listen to Billy laughing, and explaining something about the latch. “Being some rad older brother. You know, that’s what I thought I was getting. Will Byers loves him, musta asked me to invite him like twelve times. He got a cat out of a fucking tree, Steve, did he get brain trauma on your watch?!”

Steve thought about how tense Billy’d been, the afternoon Max had come over to learn to bake bread. Neil hadn’t helped, that morning, or calling that night, but Billy’d been a mass of barbed wire all afternoon.

“You finding the meaning of life in that cocoa mix?” Max asked, and Steve jumped, realizing he was staring into the jar.

“Yeah, kinda,” he leaned to look deeper, humming exaggerated noises like a Muppet, and she snorted, watching him spoon mix into mugs. “Nah. I, uh, I think he...I think maybe you make him nervous.”

“I make him nervous?!” Max smacked her hands on the table. “I make him nervous?! What in the hell kind of—”

“No, shush, I just mean—like I remember the floaty thingies, in the tunnels, you know,” he told her, waggling his fingers to indicate the wispy substance that had clogged their lungs, and ignoring Max biting back a grin. “In the snow, I—I can freak out a little. It’s not—it’s not the snow’s fault, snow never ate my friends—” Max snorted another laugh, but she was listening. “You haven’t...done anything, but you were—you were there, while things were happening, I think—”

“I remind him of home,” she said, chewing her lip. “Maybe. Gross.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, but when he glanced over again, she looked like she was thinking hard.

“He could still not be a dipshit,” she muttered at her mug, and Steve nodded, sighing.

“You—you can bring him for waffles,” she decided. “Will can just have him, I don’t care. He can be Will and Eleven’s brother, I don’t give a shit.”

Steve opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “I’m, uh, I’m pretty good at. Things.”

“Not English, apparently,” Max narrowed her eyes. “The hell does that mean?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged, turning back to turn off the kettle, and add the hot water to their mugs.

“You really want to be my brother?” she asked, sounding amused, and he turned to glare, but her eyes were kinda wider than her usual wary glower. “I mean, you—you said that, when you—when you wanted me to get him out of the house, but—”

“I’d be better at it than Billy,” he pointed out, and she tried to talk and laugh at the same time, and choked.

“Yeah,” she laughed, wiping her eyes. “Yeah, uh, you—you really would. Uh. I dunno. Do I really need a brother, right, I mean. I, um. I have some—friends. Now.”

“If you need one,” he said, keeping his tone cheerful, and ignoring her red face as she groaned into her sleeves. “Or just, y’know, want one. I can put Dustin down as a reference.” He turned back to the hot chocolate.

He gave Max the rest of the marshmallows, and sat her mug in front of her, watching her eyes well up as she looked at the little Garfield cartoon about spiders on the mug.

“Thanks, Steve,” she rasped, and he clinked their mugs together.

[stony-feels1776]

Recovery - Safe (Chapter 4)

Hello all! Here’s chapter five of Recovery - A Stony fic!

Warnings: Angst

link to it on wattpad: x

more under the read more

Tony closed his eyes, expecting to hit the ground at any second.

And then someone yanked him upwards. The wind knocked out of him, Tony couldn't process anything. Fear pulsed through his veins and his head buzzed with pain and racing thoughts. He then was on the floor. It was cold. He curled up, groaning in pain. Gently rubbing his head, he attempted to open his eyes, only to see Clint with a knife pressing against Loki's throat, Steve watching Tony carefully, and Thor threatening his brother.

Tony groaned and turned over, away from Steve and the others.

The fall.

Memories from New York came flooding back. Tony wanted to scream and rip himself apart, but he was too weak and too shaky to do so, so he just started shaking on the floor, groaning quietly. Steve's soft arms wrapped around Tony as Steve pulled Tony's head carefully into his lap. "Shhhh," Steve whispered, "it's okay, Tony." Tony tried to snap himself out of this.

He forced himself upright, pushing away Steve's arms and ignoring the burning pains spreading throughout his entire body. His head pounded. "I'm fine," He hissed, but he was unbalanced on his feet.

"Brother, I told you not to kill any of my friends!" Thor yelled at Loki, who was stuck in a corner with Clint's knife against his neck. Loki shrugged and chuckled.

"Surely that one cannot be your friend?" Loki said, pointing at Tony, "He's weak, immature, and self-centred. And an idiot. Sure," Loki leaned forward, the knife pressing gently into his neck, "he may think he's so clever with all of these toys he made up, but that'll never account for how stupid and careless he is."

Tony took a step backwards. He's told himself the same thing, but now someone was openly stating it and his friends were hearing it. He took a shaky breath. Not here. Not now. He was fine. And if he wasn't, well, back to faking it. Steve took a step towards Tony, reaching his hand out. Straightening his back, Tony put on a sarcastic smile. "Ah, yes, I'm terribly offended by your opinion. I don't even take my friends' opinions into consideration - why would I take yours?" He said sharply. Ah, good. He sounded like Tony Stark again. Finally.

"Because you know I'm right," Loki hissed before Thor hit him hard.

"Loki, how dare you speak of my friends like that? They are all good people, Stark especially. He has the courage to stand up to fools like you!" Loki staggered and Clint pulled the knife away and held it tightly as if he might stab everyone at any second.

Tony felt shivers run down his spine. Right now, without his armour and a weakened body, anyone could take him out. Clint could stab Loki and Thor before anyone blinked and could take down Steve too.

Stabbing Tony would be so easy. But Clint wouldn't do that. Clint was a trained assassin and could give Nat a run for her money, sure, but he was also a dorky family man who cried at Disney movies and dogs. He tried to avoid murder as much as possible these days.

"Yes, Loki," Tony said sourly, "I may be narcissistic and foolish and impulsive, but I'm not the one attacked with a group of alien robots." Tony paused and raised his arms, "I own all of this. I do have a few little toys, though, which I'm sure you'd like to meet."

Loki raised his eyebrows. "You had nothing to save you from," the smirk on his face grew, "the fall."

Tony bit his tongue so hard he could taste metallic blood in his mouth. He raised his head some more, panic running through his body. He wanted to shut down. To sit down and give up and weep. But he couldn't.

He was Tony Stark.

"You're wrong," Tony said, pointing at Thor, "I have friends. What do you have? Nothing but spite and some weak bad guys who'll follow you around." Clint smiled at Tony. It was nice for everyone to see Tony being his sarcastic self.

Instead of a weak, poor, silent ass who could barely move.

Tony had to give credit to the doctor - who he had suspicions about who she could be - because if it weren't for her, his healing process would have been slowed up greatly - he may even be unconscious with broken bones in a hospital if she wasn't there to fix him up.

Tony didn't even know what had been broken or torn. Pepper wouldn't let him read it.

Pepper.

Tony's heart ached. Yes, sure, he might have been in love with both her and Steve while dating, but he did genuinely care for her and if they'd stayed together Tony would have stayed far away from Steve.

But it didn't matter. Pepper didn't want to be with Tony.

But Steve did.

Loki simply laughed. Thor picked him up by the neck. "I'll be punishing him," He said grimly, "I apologize. I thought he'd behave." Thor dragged Loki out and then with a crash of thunder, the two disappeared into the cloudy sky.

Tony rubbed his collarbone. "Well, wasn't that fun and predictable?" He said, walking over to the kitchen and sitting down on one of the bar stools. Sighing, he scanned Clint and Steve's faces.

"I'm sorry, Tony," Steve started, "he's wrong. You're so great, Tony."

Tony scoffed. "Hardly." He replied. "Steve, I'm famous. I get criticism often. It doesn't bother me. What I've learned is that you ignore the hate unless it's too bad. Then you sue that person. It's not very difficult." He explained easily. It did affect him. Every piece of hate. It made him re-think everything.

Now, he usually just had FRIDAY delete all of it. That was simpler.

"Tony, you are pretty good," Clint said, poking his finger on his arrow, "you keep us all together. And make us look cool. And pay for everything."

"I'm tired," Tony said, rubbing his eyes. Sleep did indeed sound good. Temporary death. And with that, Tony swept out of the room and into his bedroom, where he fell asleep before waking up and staring at the wall until morning.

---- next day ----

It was morning. Tony was awake. He'd been awake most of the night, sitting in his room, staring at the wall. Reviewing his regrets. Trying to figure out his feelings.

It was weird that he'd been in love with both Pepper and Steve. That was weird. It kind of made him feel like a cheating bastard. Seventeen years ago, Tony would have been fine with that. But not with Pepper. He took a deep breath. Why did he love Steve? Well, Steve was.... perfect. Kind. Strong. Just... Steve.

Why did Pepper leave him? Did she use her new job as an excuse? Tony didn't blame her. If he were her, he wouldn't want to date him either. Pepper could have just told him she didn't love him. Yes, he'd be heartbroken. But he's heartbroken now, too, right? He shook his head.

"Time, Friday?" Tony asked the room, sitting up straight and stretching.

"Seven o'clock, sir. It is also April Fools day. And Easter. I see we have no plans this year." Friday informed him. Tony sighed and rubbed the back of his head. Ah, yes. Easter. April Fools.

"Any pranks I should know about?" Tony asked.

Friday hesitated, goddamnit. "No, sir."

Sighing, Tony stood up. He was starting to feel more steady - but the lack of sleep caused a headache almost instantly. He winced and rubbed his head before walking out of the bedroom.

A sense of unease overcame him. Clint's face was on everything. "What in the fuck..." Tony whispered, picking up one that fell to the ground.  It was badly photoshopped and was a weak picture of Clint sticking out his tongue and winking. He turned it over, wherein cursive purple sharpie, it read 'top or bottom?' "God, Clint, if you weren't my friend I would have stabbed you," he added, looking at it fondly. Clint's cursive sucked.

"Heya," Clint said, walking out. Only, taped to his face was a picture of Tony. Laughing, Tony sat down, shaking his head. Clint came over to him, dressed in very tight pants (which, naturally, were neon lilac) and a blazer - no shirt on underneath.

"Dear god, Clint," Tony said. Clint picked up a pair of Tony's tinted glasses from the coffee table and put it on over the picture. He put his hand up to the picture and pretended to blow kisses to Tony. "That's such a bad picture of me, too, god - wow."

Tony looked up at Steve, who was wearing another pair of Tony's glasses and a graphic T-shirt, complete with a black blazer and black dress pants. The top of Steve's hair was also dusted dark brown - from makeup or something, Tony guessed. He looked... stunning. Absolutely stunning.

Natasha came out next, wearing all black, half her face painted to look like the Iron Man helmet and repulsers drawn on her palms. Clint whistled at her as she posed, pointing her hands at Clint. She made a whistling noise, and when she ceased to whistle, Clint pretended to get hit and flew backwards. He quickly fixed the picture as it moved on his face.

Thor flew out, fabulous facial hair drawn in his own facial hair with a black sharpie. He was also wearing a cardboard sign taped to his chest that said 'Tony Stark.' Bruce followed him, wearing a 'Stark Industries' shirt and colourful glasses, along with his curly grey hair slicked back. Vision had tiny pictures of Tony's face taped along his whole body, and Wanda had 'Stark' written on her cheek.  Rhodey came out, actually wearing Tony's suit. Sam followed, wearing an old iron man helmet.

Tony clapped. Clint unbuttoned the blazer and Tony put his hand over his eyes, "Clint, no one wants to see your pathetic abs, no offence." Clint made an offended noise and swatted Tony's hand away from his face. Turns out, in the time Tony had covered his eyes to when he uncovered them, Clint had managed to draw angry eyebrows on the picture. Tony laughed again, eyes wandering to Steve, who was leaning against the wall, smiling warmly.

Tony ripped the picture off of Clint's face which had sharpie all over it. He had 'Tony' on one cheek, 'Stark' on the other, Sharpie-made facial hair, and 'billionaire playboy' written on his forehead. "Clint-" Tony paused, raising his eyebrows, "-what even are you?"

"Billionaire playboy," Clint said. A few moments later, he added, "I wish."

"Question. Does this come off?" Thor interrupted, stroking his beard, mixing the blonde facial hair with the black sharpie. "I wish to show my friends back home. I believe they'll enjoy this. Plus, today is your... E-a-ster. I don't mean to intrude."

"No, no, don't worry. Easter isn't something people can ruin." Steve said quickly, putting a hand on Thor's arm, smiling. "Easter is fun. The Sharpie on your face should last a while, after all. You'll get candy today. Lots of it."

"Alright," Thor said, grinning, "I shall join you."

"Great. Friday, show me places we can go." Tony said, flicking his wrist. A screen popped up in front of them with lists of places charities were holding egg hunts. "That one," Tony said, pointing to one entitled 'The Northfolk Easter Egg Shenanigans'.

"Sir, this one is being held at a facility entitled 'Northfolk Charity for Cancer Research and Children's Hospitals'. It donates all money to research for cancer and other terminal illnesses and regularly donates to children's hospitals and schools around the world. I've sent a message asking them for permission to join them." Friday replied without missing a beat. "They replied that you and the Avengers were gladly welcomed as Easter is a day no one should miss out on, and the children there cannot wait to meet their favourite heroes and role models."

Steve smiled. "Tony Stark spends his Easters as charity events?" He said, eyebrows raised, cheeks a little pink as he adjusted the glasses. He walked so he was standing behind the couch where Tony was sitting.

"I secretly enjoy seeing children think I'm incredible because the adults either want my money, my body or want to kill me," Tony said simply, closing his eyes and motioning with his head to his body, "or are you guys, which is probably an unhealthy mix of all three."

He opened his eyes to hear his friends laughing and Steve's eyes sparkling. "I never knew you did this," Steve said, putting a hand on Tony's shoulder, "you always looked like the type of person who stayed home on Easter." He slipped off the glasses and slid them on Tony's face gently.

Tony adjusted them so they fit correctly on his face and looked up at Steve, touching his hand for a second before he realized the rest of the team was making 'awww' noises. He stood up and looked at them. "Okay, guys," Tony said, "I don't know if we should all go dressed like this," he motioned to the entirety of Clint. He looked down at himself. He'd thrown on a simple black t-shirt and some sweatpants for bed.

They all nodded and went off to separate rooms to grab clothes and make themselves look at least somewhat presentable. Tony walked into his room and took off the glasses, looking at them for a second. He kissed them gently before setting them down and taking out a suit to wear.

He quickly got changed. He adjusted the thing on his leg, sighing. He didn't want to wear it, but he was worried without it he'd be off balance and wouldn't be strong enough to walk. At least the brace-like mechanical thing wasn't that noticeable. He bit his lip and walked out, where Steve was standing. He didn't change his clothes - he didn't need to.

Natasha had washed her face but didn't change her outfit. Rhodey was wearing a simple suit. Sam was matching him. Thor and Vision were wearing their normal apparel, Wanda was wearing a not-so-fancy red dress with flowers on it, and Clint was wearing a fancy suit.

"Lovely. Now, all of you pile into the car, I'm going to prepare some candy to give out. Go." Tony said, shooing them out. When everyone was out, he turned and clicked a button and his DUM-E robots activated, coming up to him, making cute little robotic noises. "Protocol Easter. I want 53 eggs hidden in ridiculous places around the place. 109 little-stuffed chicks. 17 stuffed sheep. It better be done before I get home or I'll dismantle all of you. Friday, you're in charge, hon." He grabbed his keys, threw them into the air and caught them, and walked out the door.

"Happy! Lovely to see you. Is the kid here?" Tony said, greeting Happy, who was driving their extravagant limousine. Happy nodded, opening the door for Tony. Tony saw all of his friends sitting around awkwardly, along with Peter, whose eyes lit up when he saw Tony.

"Mr Stark!" Peter exclaimed. Tony sat down next to him, patting his knee.

"Hey, kid. Happy, Friday should be sending you the address. Northfolk. Quickly." Tony said, looking down at his watch. 10:00 am. They were five minutes late already.

Happy nodded and started to drive.

"Mr Stark, happy Easter! I'm so glad I get to spend it with you!" Peter said, bubbling with excitement.

"Yeah, kid," Tony said. I'm glad you're here too, his mind said. He smiled at Peter and pulled a few chocolate eggs from his pocket and gave them to Peter. White chocolate - Peter's favourite. Tony put his arm around Peter and hugged him.

Peter made a squealing noise and Tony let go, rubbing his ears. His head begun to spin. Breathe in, then out. Tony was fine. He pushed away the anxiety and smiled, looking at Steve, who stared back, a ghost of a smile on his face, blue eyes bright.

"Goddamnit!" Happy screamed as he slammed on the brakes, stopping short. Tony put his hand out, stopping Peter from flying forward.

"Peter! Put on your goddamned seat belt!" Tony yelled, pointing to his own seatbelt. Peter quickly scrambled to buckle up, eyes showing fear as he looked up at Tony, who was digging his fingernails into Peter's hand without realizing it. Peter winced in pain. Tony let go, shaking. He opened his hand and stretched his fingers. "Peter, I'm sorry-" Tony murmured, looking at Peter's shaking hand, where there were little red marks from Tony. Peter didn't say anything.

Tony took a deep breath as they arrived. He rubbed his arm vigorously, clenching his jaw. He prepared to put on a fake smile.

The children all stopped and stared in awe as their favourite heroes got out of the car. Happy popped the trunk and threw Steve his shield. "Captain America!" one girl exclaimed, jumping up and down. Tony was glad Steve was getting the attention. Steve sat down on the ground, and children came over, poking him and asking him questions. The rest of the team did the same.

A little girl came over to Tony. "Is Pepper going to come?" she asked sweetly. Tony looked up at her, smiled, and shook his head gently.

"No, she's busy this year." The little girl frowned and walked away towards Rhodey. Tony rubbed his head gently, still shaken. "Come on, Stark," Tony whispered to himself, "it's Easter. Don't ruin it." He remembered all the times his father had gotten mad on Easter and ruined the day. All the times his mother and father were gone on Easter.

All the times he used to be with Pepper on Easter, visiting hospitals, giving out candy and cash.

But now Pepper was gone.

He shook his head and punched his arm as discreetly as he could. Standing, he went to grab the buckets of candy Happy always had on Easter. He handed out the chocolate to every kiddo who wanted some. Only three kids said thank you, Tony noticed. He didn't say thank you ever, so he couldn't really talk, though.

"Alright, folks!" A tall man said. He was dressed in mom jeans and had flowers in his semi-long hair. "Oh, wow, hello Avengers! My name is Harlem, and I'm hosting tonight! Why don't we all go in for food?"

The children all cheered in response and ran into the building. Steve stood and walked over to Tony, extending his hand. Tony took it and Steve helped him up. Tony looked at Steve, brown eyes portraying sadness. Steve noticed. "What's wrong?"

"I-" Tony began, "-nothing. I'm hungry. Let's go." Tony said, patting Steve on the back before walking inside. He wasn't hungry. If he ate, he was afraid he'd get sick. His stomach ached. He followed Bruce around, muttering about electrons and how he missed his suits. Bruce said a few sympathetic comments now and then, but for the most part, he was focused on his food.

Clint was busy showing the kids how he could name any flower and Natasha was showing a group of eating children how to punch correctly - but also telling them that punching people was, in fact, not something you should do all the time.

"Mr Stark?"  A little boy asked, walking up to Tony, "How did it feel like the be in space?"

Tony tried to repress the memories. The fall. The cold. The feel of death. "Alright," Tony answered, looking at the ceiling. The kid smiled.

"How did you survive the falling? You fell a lot."

"I was caught," Tony said quickly, out of breath. Bruce noticed this.

"Hey, kiddo. I caught him. Well, the Hulk did. How about we talk about something else, hmm?" Bruce suggested softly.

"Oh, okay. Are you gay?" The kid asked.

"Wh- I- uh-" Tony began, stuttering. There were no cameras. No fans. Just a child and Bruce. "Sure."

"Are you dating Dr Banner?" The kid asked.

"No," Tony answered simply.

"Who, then?"

"Uh-" Tony paused, "no one."

"Oh, okay. What happened to Pepper? Did she not like you?"

"I've got to go-" Tony said, standing, rubbing his arm. Bruce began talking to the child firmly, but Tony didn't listen. He stumbled away. Once he was outside, he collapsed near a tree, taking shelter in its comforting shade.

Steve followed him, sitting down next to him silently. "You okay?" He asked gently.

"Always," Tony replied sharply, running a hand through his hair and exhaling. "It was getting tight in there. I don't do too well with lots of kids asking me questions left and right." He lied. Steve grabbed Tony's hand.

"Ever since we- uh- confirmed we were dating - did we confirm it? Between ourselves? - our relationship has gotten even more confusing and awkward. Tony, I won't be hurt if you don't want to - uh - date." Steve said, staring at the sky.

"I do," Tony confirmed softly, squeezing Steve's hand.

"I do too. So, now we're dating. Officially. Indefinitely. Unless you change your mind, of course," Steve said.

"Or if you change yours," Tony added, "I'm a handful."

"But now you're my- uh- handful. Sorry. I'm not too good at this whole romance thing." Steve admitted, rubbing the back of his head.

Tony moved quickly, grabbing the collar of Steve's shirt and pulling him close, "I don't care. You'll always be my Captain Romance." He didn't lean in to kiss him, though. Steve was old style. Slow, serious relationship - that's what he was probably looking for. Instead, Tony kissed Steve on the forehead and sat so his legs were touching Steve's.

"Egg hunt time!" The host of the event - Harlem - called out. The children ran out and lined up. "Now, because we have a visitor from another planet who's never experienced Easter, there are two egg hunts. The kiddos here," he motioned to the children, "will have their hunt in the backyard. The heroes will be doing it in a park just down the street. Heroes, it was fantastic having you here. And a big thank you to Mr Stark for his generous donation! Ms Hansen will escort you and host you."

A small lady with red hair walked over to them, face red. The Avengers nodded, saluting the children and Harlem, who did the same back. They then followed the lady down the street and to a large park. Tony scanned the area, finding the hidden eggs with his eyes so he could get them as fast as possible. It may seem childish - but Tony hates losing at anything, and egg hunts were no exception.

"Okay. So, for those of you who are new to this, the goal is to find all the eggs. It doesn't really matter who finds the most or who is the quickest, but if you wish to race, fine. But, in the end, we do make sure everyone has an equal amount." Ms Hansen explained. Thor nodded. "Also, please do not break anything. Now, there are baskets for each of you." She motioned to a table with baskets on it.

They each grabbed one. "Okay. Three, two, one... start!" She said.

Tony raced into action, limping as fast as he could, snatching up eggs from the ground. He picked up two from the grass and then one from under a table. He found three buried under some rocks. He ignored it when Thor snatched one from under his nose.

Then he spotted it. It was big, golden, and hidden in the leaves. His eyes widened. This one would get him the win, for sure. He walked over to the tree and started climbing, ignoring the burning pains in his arms and legs as he manoeuvred himself onto the first branch. Looking down, he took a shaky breath. Could he climb higher?

Could he risk the fall?

He pushed onward, onto the next branch. He stood on it slowly, reaching for it, as it was just above him. However, he just couldn't get it. Goddamn him being short. He gritted his teeth and pulled himself onto the next branch.

Crrrack. It made an ugly, unsettling noise.

"Tony!" Steve cried, running over to the tree, dropping his basket full of one (1) egg.

Tony reached for the egg. As he grabbed it, catastrophe occurred - as it always does.

The branch creaked and collapsed under him. Tony tried to grab the other branches - but his hands simply slipped off of them, bleeding and raw. Just as he prepared himself to hit the ground - he hit something else instead. Something much gentler.

Or maybe he had passed out or was hallucinating.

Steve caught him with a soft 'oof,' gently holding Tony and scanning him, looking for any injuries besides his scraped up hands. "Well, that was extravagant," Tony said, chuckling. Steve put him down gently, and Tony stood unsteadily on his feet. He picked up the big egg and showed Steve it. "Look! I think I win. I got nine eggs - ten if you count this beauty - and I literally fell out of a tree. I think I win," Tony explained, hands shaking and bleeding all over his's own shirt.

"God, fine! You win, Tony, good god! Hey, Ms Hansen, do you, by any chance, have a first aid kit?" Steve said hurriedly. Ms Hansen ran over, first aid kit in hand, looking extra pale as she stared down at the blood. Steve took it from her and slowly wrapped Tony's hands in gauze. Tony waited impatiently. Clint came over and grabbed one of Tony's hands that wasn't covered in gauze yet.

"And y'all think I'm the careless one," Clint huffed. He looked jealously at Tony's basket. "I guess you do win. I stole all of Natasha's and my basket still doesn't look as pathetic as yours."

Tony smirked, "I always win, Clint, you better step up your game," he didn't bother to tell Clint how Natasha was sneaking up behind him, water bottle in hand, eyes sparkling, eager for revenge.

"For fu- I mean- for heck's sake, Nat!" Clint cried as the cold water splashed on him. Natasha laughed at him, smacking the back of his head playfully and gently. Clint spun around and tried to grab the half-empty water bottle from her, but she grabbed his hand and poured the rest on him, dousing him with the cold liquid.

Tony chuckled. "Yes, congrats, Mr Stark, you got the most eggs, plus you found the lucky golden egg, so you win. Now, if all of you could dump your eggs out in a pile." Ms Hansen said. Tony dumped his and the other Avengers followed suit. "You can keep the golden egg, Mr Stark, you've earned it."

Tony gave the others a significant look and opened it. Inside was a picture of all the Avengers drawn in crayon. "A young child with cancer drew that," the host informed them, "he died earlier this week. It was his wish for his drawing to get to the Avengers - his heroes."

Tony stared down at it. It was intricate and he guessed it must have been something the child was working on for a long time. He ran his fingers over it gently. In the corner, there was a small signature. "His name was Pete. Pete Nunez." Ms Hansen added.

"Thank you for giving it to me - us," Tony said softly. Children and fanart were a weakness of his. Now to know the child who made this picture was dead - it hurt. He tore his eyes away from it. He could cry about it later. Not now.

Ms Hansen gave them each seven eggs. They all opened it, pleased to find chocolates of all kinds. Tony gave half of his to Peter - who wouldn't talk to him. He said a small 'thank you' to Tony and went to sit by Thor. Tony's heart ached. First Pepper, now the kid.

"Thank you, Ms Hansen. Friday will be transferring 10K to your account tonight." Tony said, shaking her hand. She smiled and lit up, nodding eagerly.

"Thank you, Mr Stark, your donation and the Avengers visit means the world to us," she said, shaking everyone's hand.

"You're quite welcome. Anytime." Clint said, bowing and kissing her hand, making her chuckle.

"Well, I must be going... Harlem probably can't last long with sugar-high kids alone for long..." She said before running off. Tony waved at her.

"Alright, let's go back home," Tony said, adjusting his coat. He glanced at Peter. "Hey, kid, can you come with me for a second?" He asked, eyes burning into Peter's. Peter gave a hard look at Tony before following him off to a corner. "You guys go ahead - Happy will get ya' situated," Tony called to his friends, pulling Peter off to the side. He grasped Peter's hand and examined it. There were no marks anymore.

"Mr Stark, I'm fine, I'm sorry--" Peter began.

"Don't. You have no reason to be sorry. It was my fault. I'm sorry, kid. I... I didn't mean to." Tony apologized, not looking at Peter.

"It's been a tough few weeks. Forget about it, okay? I'm okay." Peter said quickly, looking Tony in the eyes. Tony stared down at him.

"Okay. Done - forgotten. Let's go." Tony said, shrugging. They walked over to the car and hopped in, Happy driving them home.

----- time skip -----

As Tony stepped into the house, he grinned, already seeing eggs peak out of random places. Clint gasped as he stepped on one as he took off his shoes. Inside was a picture of Tony. Clint's eyes lit up. "How many did you hide?" he asked, thrilled.

"Twenty," Tony lied. "Exactly twenty. No more, no less."

Clint grinned, eyes flashing at Natasha competitively. Peter, however, jumped right into the hunt and jumped around the house, picking up five in the living room.

---- time skip, again (whoops) ----

Tony sat down next to Steve without looking at him. Peter had Clint had collected twenty-three eggs, yelled at Tony playfully for lying, and found three of both the chicks and sheep. Peter went home - he needed to get back to May. Clint and Natasha were fighting over chocolate in their room - they had a bunk bed. Clint had declared that 'he was a top' and so naturally he should get the top bunk. Natasha had smacked him but allowed him to claim the top bunk. Bruce was colouring - a stress reliever, he'd say but was really just because he was a talented artist and loved to draw and colour. So, with him being so talented, he was using watercolours instead of coloured pencils, pens, or markers, as less-talented people would. Tony had tried once, but the watercolour didn't agree with him and he ended up failing. Steve could draw but didn't like to colour his work. In fact, Tony had only ever seen one drawing Steve had made. It was one of all the Avengers, sketched in pencil, but it was fantastic.

Rhodey was commenting with Sam about some nonsense about missions they've flown. Thor had flown back to his people to show them his new facial hair made by the sharpie. "So, Steve," Tony began, "today was... interesting."

"Yeah," Steve said, smiling a little, "I had fun."

"So, are still sure you want to date me?" Tony whispered, smirking.

"Positive, Tony."

"You won't do a Pepper on me, will you? Make me all attached to you and then have to do life? Because I will become your life, Steve, I swear. Y'know, they say life is hell. I guess I am hellish." Tony said in a threatening way.

Steve laughed, "No, I won't - I don't really have much of a life anyways."

"God, you sound like Peter. 'I don't have a life, so please give me a mission,'" Tony mocked Peter's voice, "well, I have news for you, you do have a life, Captain America. America's Loveliest Hero." He playfully punched Steve's arm. Steve's laugh turned into a chuckle.

"Aw, you really think I'm lovely?"

"America does."

"America has good taste."

"America has awful taste - just look at the politics! Gun control! Steve, hold my beer, I'm going to shoot the next fucker who says that we don't need gun control - wait, that's not how I should solve my problems, especially this one."

"So I'm not lovely?" Steve asked, pouting.

"No," Tony replied, "you're alluring. Exquisite." He paused, "Delicious."

"De - what?" Steve said, raising his eyebrows, face turning red.

"I memorized the synonyms for 'lovely.' Delicious was one of them." Tony shrugged but was glad that made Steve blush.

"You're a dork."

"I prefer the term 'genius.'"

"You are a genius."

"No, you are."

"Tony!" Steve objected, but Tony simply smiled and Steve wrapped his arm around him, pulling him close. Tony felt the warmth from Steve's hands and melted into his touch. He was so warm. Warm - Tony checked Steve's forehead, worried he might be sick. "What are you doing, Tony?" Steve said, laughing a little as Tony rested his hand on Steve's forehead.

Tony was glad to feel that Steve's body was warm but he wasn't ill. "I was worried you were sick - I've had enough hospital time, I don't want to get sick and end back in that hellhole."

"Oh, of course. You aren't just concerned for me?"

Tony grinned, "Well, that comes along with you being mine - yes, I am concerned for you, but right now, more so for me." That was a lie - Tony wasn't concerned for himself at all. Not anymore. But he couldn't look like a total fucking softie.

Steve scoffed, "of course. Well, I wouldn't want to get you sick anyway."

Tony leaned away from Steve. Can't look soft or gentle. No cuddling. Gotta act tough. Completely tough. Stone cold. Cold but not too cold to not love. Tony grabbed Steve's hand. "Ooh! Gosh, Tony - your hands are freezing!" Steve exclaimed. He clasped his other hand over Tony's other hand. Tony stared down at their hands.

Pepper and Tony never really held hands. They had some gentle moments like this, but for the most part, they were swamped with business and usually just kissed or hugged. But this - the electricity - the love - that swam through they connected hands - it was spectacular. Tony felt warm - loved - special. He smiled to himself. "My hands are always cold. Like the machines I work on - well, used to. I wish you'd let me get back to work. This is stupid."

"Tony - you can't work yet. You've been home for what - three, four days? I know you've been acting like your usual self, but I can see it every time you're in pain. Your nose crinkles and you look almost... angry. You rub your hands and try to ignore it." Steve said.

Tony looked at him. "You're like a stalker. No - I don't do that when I'm hurting. I'm fine." It was a lie, of course, all of it.

"Tony, you can't keep lying to me..." Steve said. He sounded almost... disappointed. Tony's heart skipped a beat. Did he upset Steve? Was Steve mad at him for not telling the truth? Oh, God, was he ruining the relationship already.

"I'm honestly fine, Steve. The first day was rough, yes, but -" he paused, "I'm feeling better. Way better." It wasn't a total lie - he did feel much better. Occasionally he'd feel sick or be hurting, but hey, he wasn't puking everywhere now.

Tony's face flushed. That night, Steve and Clint had helped him get undressed. And into a tub.

"You're blushing. Why?" Steve asked, sounded half-amused, half-concerned.

"I just thought of something," Tony said, trying to make up a story - god, they couldn't talk about that night - it was too awkward, "1998. May. There was this girl -"

"Tony! I don't need to know about that."

"She was very... flexible."

"Tony!" Steve cried, covering his ears, hands leaving Tony's.

Clint walked back into the room, clearly drunk. "Didja know that if... Steve was named... Stove... your guys' names would match... Stove and Tones - sold-mates."

"How much did you drink, Clint?" Tony said, surprised. "And, dear, my name is Tony, not Tones."

"Ohhh, shut up, Toby, your names is Tones - Secret Agent Tones," Clint said, his wors slurring.

"Clint! Back in the bathroom before you puke again!" Natasha called, looking exceptionally angry. Tony cringed under her glare. "Sorry, guys. Clint got into a batch of serious stuff."

"How?" Steve asked.

"I don't know. I'll smack him until he tells me." She hissed. Steve shifted and looked down.

Clint sauntered over to her, stumbling, looking like a dramatic actor almost, before stopping right in front of her and putting a hand to his mouth. Natasha shoved him into the bathroom quickly.

Steve looked at Tony, concerned.

"I'm sure he's fine," Tony told him, patting him gently on the shoulder, missing their hands intertwined. But he wouldn't ask for the attention.

\\authors note//

heya! well, this is late. but!! happy easter/april fools!!

i was working on this a lot but i just couldn't end it and i had an,,,, eventful week.

word count:6161

date: 4-9-18

[anotherashley]

A Separate History //  a 1988 film for Hockey Goes to the Movies with @nuuclearshow

2017 ‧ Romance/Comedy ‧ 2h 4m 

Plot: When Patrick Kane falls asleep it’s June 9th 2010. He’s just won the Stanley Cup. When he wakes it’s 2025, he’s married to Jonathan Toews, and that’s just the beginning...

June 9th 2010

It’s late by the time they make it back to the hotel. So late it’s probably early and all of them still drunk. Patrick’s covered in, well, he’s not really sure what he’s covered in anymore. Beer? Probably. Sweat? Definitely. Tears? Check. Vomit? At least a little. Fucking awesomeness? Without a doubt.

He still has his under-armour on, the Stanley Cup Championship T-shirt over that, some kind of pants and a lopsided snapback. He feels seriously fucking disgusting, and sticky, and tired, as he makes his way off the bus and into the hotel lobby. He could sleep for a thousand peaceful years and yet he could never sleep again with the way his heart hasn’t stopped racing all night.

He scrubs a hand over his face and feels jittery and shaky as he laughs. There’s this feeling of insane euphoria that he can’t hold inside himself, not even if he tried. It’s a breathless, helpless sort of gasp that bubbles up out of his throat until he’s choking on it, eyes watery as Sharpy and Bur drunkenly argue beside him.

Sharpy stops mid-sentence when Patrick’s laughing has reached a high enough volume to filter through their bickering. “You okay, Kaner?”

He laughs again, loud and beaming and giddy. He’s not sure if he’s floating, but he could be with how weightless he feels.

“I’m fucking awesome,” he says, smile stretching his face wide.

“You’re smashed, Peekaboo,” Sharpy grins.

“That too,” he says and hiccups.

“Go to bed before you vomit on yourself,” Bur adds, pulling him in for a noogie.

The knuckles digging into his scalp are too rough and he bats them away as he tries to maneuver himself back into an upright position. The world tilts and spins a fraction, and he sways into a solid wall of a human being.

“Hey,” Jonny murmurs, arms cradling Patrick close.

They walk together like that for a bit, tangled and two-stepping down the mostly deserted hallway, until Patrick is steady on his feet again.

He grins dumbly, eyes glassy and unfocused, but still able to see Jonny’s pleased expression and horrible chin pubes. “We did it. I mean we did it, right? It's real?”

Jonny’s smile glows. “Yeah, Peeks, it's real. You did it.”

“We did it, dude. Both of us. All of us. I totally did it best, but still.”

“Well, except I won MVP so—“

“So you think the Conn Smythe is better than the Stanley Cup?”

“I don't have to choose because I've got both now,” Jonny smirks.

“Because of me and my game winning goal,” Patrick shoots back, smug.

“Oh, so what happened to ‘We did it, Tazer. Both of u—‘”

“Oh my god, shut the fuck up, you asshole. Let me have my moment. I deserve it.”

“You do.”

They smile at each other for a long beat.

“Fuck I'm thirsty,” Patrick says when they make it inside their room. “And I gotta piss like a race horse. I'm gonna take the first shower, k?

Jonny steps forward, cupping Patrick’s elbow so he won’t go far.

“Wait. Just... I wanted to say that. That I'm glad we got to do this. Together. I--yeah. I wouldn't have wanted to do this with anyone else.”

Patrick tries to breathe. It's sort of hard with the way that Jonny’s staring at him so intensely everything else around them has started to dissolve away. His chest hurts and his mouth is dry and he can't feel anything beyond the drumming inside his ribcage.

He tries to meet Jonny's gaze six times before their eyes manage to catch and each time he catalogues something new. The hole in Jonny’s left sock above his big toe, the dampness of his pants from all the champagne they'd been spraying in the locker room, the cling of his shirt to his abs, his pecs, his arms, his shoulders. The dumb mutton chops and wet matted down hair, the soft pink to his cheeks. Patrick swallows dry and tries to put the picture together, the sum of all these parts. It's sort of amazing that Jonny can look both so gross and yet so fucking hot at the same time.

He licks his lips and watches Jonny track the movement, eyes so very dark and wide. Patrick feels a sharp kind of twist in his gut at the inevitability of this moment.  

He’s not ready.

He’s not.

When Jonny moves closer Patrick turns abruptly, striding into the bathroom, flipping the faucet on and splashing water on his face, into his mouth. His stomach rolls violently as he bends over, head resting on his arms while he breathes shallowly. For a few minutes everything is blessedly silent in his head, in the room, and possibly in the whole world, and it's nice. It's exactly what he needs.

Then he feels a warm hand slide up his back and come to rest at the nape of his neck, warm and light.

“You okay? You need anything?” Jonny asks, soft, gentle.

“Water,” says Patrick. “Please.”

There’s some shuffling then the sound of the faucet turning on and off, before Patrick’s handed a glass of tepid water. He downs it slowly; mind racing so fast he can’t keep track of a single thought.

Standing takes more effort than he accounts for, but Jonny’s there to help him with that too, arm around his waist to tug him up. They still once he’s upright, bodies pressed close in an approximation of a hug. Jonny rests his forehead on Patrick’s temple, exhales slowly.

“Patrick,” he whispers. He’s moving closer, breath hot against Patrick’s jaw.

All Patrick would need to do is turn his head, just connect that fraction of space that’s empty between them.

“I can't,” he says instead, pulling away, head tucked down. “I can't, Jonny. I just...can't.”

There’s a long, awful pause.

Then Jonny’s stepping back.

“Okay, Kaner,” he murmurs.

Patrick doesn’t see him leave, but he does hear the door click open and shut.

He stands there in a daze, head foggy, body so very drained.

Dragging himself to bed and pulling off his sticky clothes takes more effort than he realizes and by the time he shoves his face into a pillow all he can think before he passes out is: winning and Cup and yes yes yes and Jonny.

*

There’s an alarm blaring in Patrick’s ear. Which is funny because he doesn’t even remember setting his phone to go off last night. The song is unfamiliar too, something low and melodic, but new. Still, it’s too early to be awake this early after how late he was up last night. He needs another five hours, at least.

“Mmm, not yet.” A sleep rough voice says beside him, as an arm reaches over him to hit silent on his phone that’s sitting on the bedside table.

An arm that belongs to a person. A person in bed with him. A male person.

One that sounds exactly like Jonny.

Patrick’s eyes flash open, head turning to look over at said man beside him, shirtless, beardless, and possibly pantsless. Although that is yet to be determined.

“Jonny?!” Patrick squeaks. Actually fucking squeaks because as he’s suddenly realizing he is also sans clothes and beard, and, in fact, in a totally different bed, in a completely different place than he went to sleep.

What the hell is going on?

He sits bolt upright. Eyes wide as he looks around.

This is not his hotel room. This is a bedroom, in a house, someone’s house, that he’s never been before with Jonny.

Jonny, who’s reaching out, eyes still closed, and attempting to pull him back down to the bed.

“No, don’t get up yet, baby. Five more minutes,“ he says, words muffled against his pillow.

Their bare legs touch underneath the sheets, then their hips as Jonny continues to tug, and yep, they’re both butt ass naked in this strange bed.

Before he can do or say anything there’s a quiet knock on the door followed by the turning of a doorknob. Patrick’s not sure what to expect at this point, Sharpy maybe, or Burish, jumping out and screaming a surprised ‘GOTCHA’ at him, maybe the whole team. One last prank to end the season on. It’s a good one, Patrick will give them that.

Except when the door opens it’s not Sharpy, or Bur, or Buff, or anyone Patrick’s ever seen in his life. It’s a small child, a little girl, with brown wavy hair and tiny hands in purple cloud pajamas.

She hops up on the bed without invitation, settling herself in between himself and Jonny as she lets out a drawn out yawn.

“Daddy,” she says. She’s looking right at Patrick. “Can I have pancakes please?”

“Um what?” Patrick says, lost. He clutches the comforter to his waist.

“You did tell her you’d make her strawberry pancakes yesterday,” Jonny cuts in, one eye cracking open barely.

“He promised, papa,” she says.

“You promised,” Jonny amends, his smile sleepy and soft.

They’re both looking at him now. Waiting for a response.

Waiting for something.

Patrick takes a breath.

Patrick is officially freaking the fuck out.

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

Got a few messages incorrectly debating my statement so lets break this down

1)

Like most things from this franchise: a product/victim of it's time. Looks like they just ripped up some basketballs and dyed them? The eyes are reflective for some reason? The big spider symbol looks like it was tacked on as an afterthought and could fall off if he moves too much. Silver-y web pattern doesn't quite work. Eyes look a bit threatening. But I DO appreciate the gratuitous pobably-edited-abs view and what it does for his thighs, and the shade of red isn't that bad. Basically, this could be so much worse, and I appreciate it for not being so much worse. Solid 6.5/10.

2)

Color Scheme: FUCKING A. Actually looks like spandex. The black spider design on front with the identical red spider design on back? Bitch, yes. Had sunglasses for eyes at first which isn't ideal but bounced into big, wide, non reflective eyes in the second. From this picture the gloves look like they might be leather which I don't love but is practical for punching so good for him. Black web detail instead of that silver mess to let you know he's Edgy(tm) lol. The way the colors are nice and dark but aren't solid and are capable of shine....like imagine being on a dark empty street and seeing him drop under a dim streetlight....bitch. Superhero Style Icon. If saving the world from genetically modified monsters doesn't pan out catch him at Fashion Week. Solid 9/10.

3)

GARBAGE. TOM DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS. The red has a weird-ass waxy look to it, and the blue looka like cheap fake denim. Like Tony Stark melted down a bunch of RoseArt(tm) crayons and parchment paper, and sewed it up with some $5 jeggings from Sam's Club. Tony Stark, like, sincerely, what the fuck. THE EYES MOVE??? WHY??? Like listen I know they do that in the comics and I know they gave Tony a reason to make the eyes move but....no one....wants to see that IRL. I don't mind the drone spider on the front, although it's too small, BUT THAT FUCKING RED SPIDER DESIGN SLAPPED ON HIS BACK.....are you kidding me??! I couldn't find a good pic but it looks so stupid, and even more in danger of falling off than Tobey's. Why is he wearing his web-shooters over the gloves...why is the web design on the red so faded looking? And WHAT is up with the random lines drawn over the blue??? They for real piss me off it looks like sharpie. Like they were tracing out a design and just didn't fucking finish? What are the black things on his waist did they just give him a fake belt? Why? Tony. Tony you made this multi-million dollar protective suit and you couldn't even make it look halfway decent??? Tom Holland if you're out there, know you deserve better and I am in your corner. 3/10, disgraceful.

* I don't currently have a strong opinion on the Iron Spider suit, but it looks a lot better than the normal one, so Tom can have that win I suppose

* I actually really liked the 'Underoos' look and found it a lot more believable than I did with Garfield making his own suit lmao (also more believable than Tobey's, but we also got a suit-making montage for him, so eh, I guess)

* The only reason Holland's suit isn't at a full zero is because I actually really enjoyed his AI Karen, it's not her fault she inhabits a suit of hot garbage.

Anyway, these are the Facts(tm) have a good night

from a purely aesthetic stand point Andrew Garfield has the best Spider-Man suit and you all know I’m right