Chapter Text
The money was still on the dresser in the morning.
Steve very carefully didn’t look at it as he made his way quietly into the shower, shaving haphazardly before tiptoeing to the kitchen.
He left Billy sprawled across the bed, drooling on the pillow and snoring loudly.
Steve had only spent five, maybe ten—Okay, twenty minutes just staring at him. Tracing over the lines of his face, soft with sleep, and so very dear.
He could have spent an hour or two, easily.
But he had plans.
Plans that involved getting the stepladder so he could disable the fire alarm.
Like all the best plans did.
Billy stumbled out of the bedroom in nothing but unbuttoned jeans, rubbing his eyes with a yawn.
His curls sprung in every direction, pulled this way and that by Steve’s fingers in the night. His cheek was creased with red pillow marks, shiny with drool.
Steve had never seen anything more lovely.
Billy stopped at the dining table, taking in the spread with a furrowed brow, arms freezing mid-stretch.
“You made breakfast?”
Steve stomach was trying to do something that felt very inadvisable, some kind of acrobatic feat that involved flipping over and over again.
He gestured weakly at the platters of charred bacon and pancakes that he had somehow managed to burn on one side even as they were doughy and undercooked on the other.
“Well, tried to, anyway.”
Billy took a bite of burnt bacon, barely wincing at the bitter crunch of char around the edges.
“Thanks, man. S’good.”
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head at the loud, painful-sounding crunch of Billy’s chewing.
He gave a deep sigh, letting his hand drop down in defeat.
“It isn’t, but thanks for eating it anyway.”
Billy’s eyes sparkled over his glass as he took a swig of orange juice to wash down the lump of charcoal he had just ingested.
“Holy shit, it really isn’t, sweetheart. But thanks for trying. It, uh. Means a lot, to me. That you would try.”
Steve watched in slack-mouthed aroused disgust as Billy noisily sucked the grease from his fingers, wiping off the excess on his jeans.
There were no lumps in his pockets the size of Steve’s stack of cash. Steve itched to go check the dresser again, just to see.
It felt important, to know if Billy had taken it.
He wasn’t sure why.
Billy peered around him into the kitchen with an exaggerated wince at the mess.
“You got any more eggs?”
Which, okay, the answer should have been yes, because Steve had bought half a dozen and the pancakes had only needed three, but.
“No. Shit, I broke all the ones I didn’t use for the pancakes.”
Steve had been astonished at how easy it was to break eggs without even trying, the little fuckers just seemed to crush themselves in his hands, “I can run to the corner store and pick some more up? If you. Will you still be here? When I get back?”
Billy watched him with soft eyes, body still loose and sleep-warm from Steve’s bed. It made Steve’s heart clench with terrified joy.
Billy’s hand twitched in Steve’s direction, fingers extending like he might reach out before curling back into his palm and jerking a thumb in the direction of the kitchen.
“Yeah. I’ll be here. Somebody’s got to clean up the kitchen, looks like a fucking bomb went off in there. What, did you throw the flour at the bowl from across the room?”
Steve carried the sound of Billy’s laughter and the shape of his wide, goofy grin all the way to the store with him.
“So, okay, hear me out. What if, instead of eggs, I just got a shit ton of potato chips? That’s like, practically the same, right?”
Steve had gotten both, actually, but he was desperate to hear Billy laugh again.
Billy didn’t laugh.
He was standing just inside the kitchen beside the trash can, flour-smudged arms crossed over his chest, watching Steve from under dour eyebrows.
Steve nearly broke the second batch of eggs, fumbling them in his hands at the harsh, closed-off expression on Billy’s face.
There was something poking out of the hinged lid of the trash can, the neck of an empty bottle of whiskey sticking up like evidence in a crime scene.
Steve’s heart plummeted to the tile floor, guilt squeezing his throat like a painful, frigid hand.
He hadn’t thrown that away.
It had been full. Unopened.
Steve had bought it two weeks ago after pacing outside the liquor store for an hour, brought it home and hidden it in his cabinet.
And then, every night, he would take it out, set it on the kitchen bar top, and sit in front of it for a while.
Just, sitting. Heart pounding. Fight or flight.
It had felt like all of those Hawkins nights that he had gone out into the woods alone at night with only his bat for company, just pacing, patrolling.
Like the danger wouldn’t come if he put himself right in front of it.
The bottle had a seal around the top, red wax dripping thick like gore. Steve had never touched the seal.
It had been viciously torn open before it went into the trash, edges raw like a fresh wound.
Billy spoke in short, clipped bursts, jaw jutting hard and defensive.
“I dumped that shit down the drain. Searched for more, but that’s all I found. You fall off the wagon while I was gone?”
Steve took a deep breath, being very careful with his body language, open and honest.
“No.”
He didn’t fall off. He might have leaned a bit too far over the edge, scrambling and tearing his nails up trying to hold on. But, he didn’t fall off.
Billy squinted at him like he might find evidence of a drinking binge in Steve’s morning hair. He dropped his arms with a tight roll of his shoulders. His hand clenched and released at his side, over and over as if he didn’t know what to do with it.
“You lying to me?”
Fair, but. Ouch.
Steve met Billy’s eyes, shaking his head slowly side to side as he set his groceries gently down on the table.
“No.”
Billy’s chest lifted with a deep, harsh inhale, letting it out again with a flare of his nostrils. He nodded once, sharply, and took a few steps closer. Close enough to reach out and brush the hair back from Steve’s forehead, fingers tracing around the curve of his ear.
“Alright. You’re done with that shit now, yeah?”
Steve leaned into his hand, spine melting with relief, voice raw from swallowing the weight of his guilt.
“Yeah.”
Billy let his hand slide down to rest on the side of Steve’s neck, one broad thumb caressing his jawline. His eyebrows pulled together, mouth dipping down in a worried frown that Steve ached to rub away with his lips.
“Do I—Do you want me to call somebody, or something? Henderson? I don’t—I don’t know how this shit is supposed to work.”
Steve held out his arms halfway, awkward and unsure, nauseous with hope.
“No. Just. C’mere.”
Billy approached slowly, body stiff when Steve wrapped his arms around, leaning his forehead on Billy’s shoulder. He whispered his confession into the fragrant silk of Billy’s skin, lips dragging across the line of his scars.
“It was hard. Really fucking hard, but. I didn’t. I swear, Billy. I shouldn’t have brought that into the apartment and I’m sorry.”
Billy’s hand came up to cup the base of Steve’s skull and it was like he unlocked something deep in Steve’s bones, pain leaking out from where it had collected over time.
“You can’t do that shit, okay? Fucking promise me.”
Steve rolled his head against Billy’s collarbone, up and down, hands clutching at the wings of his shoulder blades.
“Okay, Billy. I promise.”
Billy’s mouth brushed against the top of Steve’s head before he released him, snatching the eggs from the table and stomping back into the kitchen.
Steve leaned against the opposite counter to watch him work at the stove, eyes greedy on the strong lines of his back.
The question that had been beating at the walls of his mind with a thousand nail-bats stumbled from his lips, abrupt and halting. He dug his hands through his own hair like that might help to hold him together.
“Where have you been? If I-Can I ask that? Is it too much? It’s probably too much. I don’t want to overwhelm you. You don’t have to tell me. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable or—”
Billy paused before flipping the eggs, not even glancing back at Steve. Every muscle in his back went tense, scars pulling at his skin in different directions. His voice scraped as slow and matter-of-fact as his spatula.
“The holiday inn on fifth.”
Steve’s flimsy, ramshackle train of thought jumped the tracks, careening into the side of a mountain of disbelief in a spectacular explosion.
“What.”
That was only five blocks away from the apartment. Billy had been close by the entire time. Steve didn’t know why that made him feel better even as it tore through his chest like a cannonball.
The next question struggled its way from between his teeth before he could clench them shut around it.
“Were you working? Did you, with anyone? While you were gone?”
Billy half turned that time, shoulders jerking. He lifted the pan from the stove with a harsh laugh, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes.
“Does it matter? A couple more notches on my belt would be a fucking drop in a bucket, Steve.”
This was one of those times when Steve’s heart and head started an internal discussion that descended into flying fists.
He shoved the words his head had chosen through reluctant lips, heart screaming silently in protest.
“It doesn’t. We didn’t have any kind of, um, understanding. When you left, so,” he watched Billy carefully dish out the eggs onto a plate before replacing the pan and cracking two more effortlessly in one hand, “I know you don’t care, really, but I haven’t been with anyone but you since I first brought you home. I just—just thought you should know.”
Billy nodded, staring down at his eggs sizzling in the pan. When he spoke, it was so softly that Steve had to strain to hear him over them.
“Me neither.”
Steve tried to look through his skull, silently willing him to turn around with the force of his stare, desperate to see his face.
Billy stiffened at his silence, scraping up the eggs and slapping them down on the other plate. The yolks broke open, bleeding a golden mess over his carefully prepared breakfast.
“It’s fine if you don’t believe me. Once a whore, always a whore, right?”
Steve jumped off the counter to fling his arms around Billy, ignoring his muttered curse as he clicked off the stove and shoved them back from the burning pan.
He rubbed his face into Billy’s spine, voice trembling but hands firm.
“No, Billy. I believe you. I—thank you.”
Billy broke away to scoop up both plates, arching his eyebrow at Steve while he set them on the table, face carefully casual.
“For what? Giving my ass a break?”
Steve accepted the offered fork, slipping into the chair opposite Billy to watch him shovel an entire egg into his mouth.
He had given Steve the plate with the unbroken yolks.
Steve waited for Billy to glance up and catch his eye, smiling at the rounded lump of his cheek stuffed with egg.
“Thank you for being honest, when it counts.”
Billy swallowed the lump, eyes dropping shyly to the table. He guzzled half of his juice before looking back at Steve, hand tight around his glass. His face did something complicated before his expression firmed, like he was bracing himself.
“Talked to that doctor.”
There were many times in Steve’s life when he wished to be smarter, quicker on the uptake.
This was one of them.
“What?”
Billy’s leg was jiggling so hard under the table that the chairs beside him rattled metallically.
“The one from the facility, that I told you about? Gave me his card, or whatever. So, I called it. Told him I had hurt somebody I—somebody I really didn’t want to hurt, and. He’s gonna keep helping me. Shrink my head and stuff, you know?”
Oh.
The light in Steve’s chest that had always burned just for Billy flared hot and bright, leaving him feeling like he had swallowed a supernova. He tried to contain his enthusiasm, to dial his smile back from blinding.
“Billy. That’s great! Fantastic.”
Billy kept glancing at and looking away from Steve, like he couldn’t quite get this out with full eye contact.
Steve’s hands ached with the urge to reach for him, nails biting into his own palms as he forced them to keep still while Billy continued.
“Wants me to be, like, functional? I guess. So, I’m calling him every couple of days, now. He’s got me on like, a plan. Or something.”
A plan. Jesus.
Of all the things Steve had considered Billy might have been doing, this wasn’t even on the bottom of the list.
Steve wanted to punch himself in the face for his lack of faith.
He had to swallow back eggs and tears, knuckles white around his fork to keep him from reaching for Billy’s hand.
“That’s amazing, Billy. I’m so fucking proud of you, man.”
Billy shoved up from the table with a roll of his eyes, belied by the soft, pleased flush that spread across his cheeks.
“Don’t make it a big deal, Harrington.”
Steve scrambled up and followed him into the kitchen like there was an invisible string connecting them. He watched Billy take the orange juice out of the refrigerator, hesitating before setting it down on the counter and turning to face Steve.
Steve took a sharp breath when Billy planted his feet and met his eyes, determination written across his face.
“So. One of the things he helped me with, was, uh. I got a job. Working on cars. I start Monday.”
Steve didn’t understand why a foreboding shiver started to run down his spine, Billy’s eyes direct and measuring.
“Oh, yeah?”
There. Cool, relaxed. Totally normal response.
Billy nodded, gripping the counter behind him like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground.
“Yeah, it pays pretty well, so. So I won’t be needing two jobs.”
Steve’s throat clicked when he swallowed, chest aching. He knew what Billy meant by that, but he had to ask, compelled by the gnawing, howling fear of losing him for good.
“What do you mean, exactly?”
Billy stared him down with clear blue eyes, letting go of the counter and holding his arms stiff at his side as if he was resisting the urge to cross them over his chest.
“I mean I quit, Steve. You’re gonna need to find another hooker. I could give you some names, get a couple of recommendations for you if you want.”
Steve briefly and emphatically considered balling up his shirt and screaming into it for, like, an hour.
Instead, he held his hand out to Billy, slowly, letting it hover in the air between them in clear invitation.
“No, I—I don’t want. Billy, you have to know I don’t want that.”
Billy considered Steve’s hand like it was a coiled snake, pressing himself back against the counter so hard that it was going to leave a mark. His voice snapped out between them like cracking ice.
“Well, I’m not taking your money anymore. Getting out of the dick-slinging game for good.”
Deep breath, Steve. Toes on the edge of the cliff, looking down, and.
Leap.
“What if I didn’t pay you?”
Billy’s gaze was sharp, but fragile, like a shimmering shard of glass. His tongue peeked out to wet the line of his lips, brows drawn down. His voice hit hard and low, like a bare-knuckle punch.
“What the fuck are you saying?”
Steves heart was a battering ram, pulse pounding in his throat as he swallowed down the last of his doubt. The old familiar rush of sheer, stupid courage carried him the rest of the way, staring into Billy’s beautiful face.
“I’m saying, I want you to stay. I’m saying, I love you, Billy.”
One big, heavy step and Billy was in his space, close enough to feel his warm breath as he lifted his chin up at Steve, voice laced with challenge.
“So you want me to suck your dick and cook your dinner and alphabetize your cabinets for, what? Nothing?”
It was a good front, and it had worked before, but.
But now Steve saw the wavering corners of his lips and the bloody battle being waged by hope and fear in his eyes.
He lifted his hand to cup that stubborn chin, brushing his thumb just beneath the sweet swell of Billy’s lower lip.
He couldn’t muster more than a whisper, soft and earnest, strong for all that it was terrified.
“I just want you, even if all you’ll take in return is, well, me.”
Billys eyes glittered with tears, voice small and quiet, barely breathed between parted lips, grazing Steve’s thumb.
“Really?”
Relief hit Steve like a truck, leaving him reeling beneath the impact with a shy, growing smile.
“I shit you not, man. I’m crazy about you. Please don’t leave me.”
Billys arms came up around him like a benediction, cherry lips molded around his name.
“Steve.”
Steve clung to him, gathering close every ounce of Billy that he could reach, gently holding his cheek to gaze into his eyes, letting his truth flood out, those insurmountable walls nothing but rubble all around them.
“I love you, Billy. So much, please—”
Billy fisted both hands in Steve’s sweater, crowding him back until he was practically perched on the countertop, eyes burning.
“Pretty boy. Shut up.”
Certain parts of Steve knew certain things.
His ears knew the sound of Billy’s breathing when he was coming out of a nightmare, the cadence of his footsteps barefoot on the tile, the little hum he made when the first drag of a cigarette was exactly what he needed.
His eyes knew the precise golden shade of Billy’s hair in the sunlight, the deep ocean blue of his eyes, the silhouette of him spread across white sheets.
Steve’s body knew that Billy’s lips were soft and talented, that his teeth were sharp and his tongue was strong, but.
But he hadn’t known, not really, not entirely, not until this moment.
Not until Billy lifted his mouth to Steve’s, slow and sweet and devastating.
Every nerve in Steve’s lips sparked to life as they parted around a gasp, Billy wasting no time to slip inside for a taste.
He tasted like orange juice and Billy and dawning, shining hope.
Billy kissed like it was all they were put on this Earth to do. Like he never wanted to stop. Like kissing Steve was his version of paradise.
His hands came up to frame Steve’s face, tilting his head for a better angle as his talented tongue left Steve in ruins.
It was all Steve could do to hold on, grateful for the support of the counter as his knees buckled just a little, dropping him level with Billy, who responded by sucking Steve’s lower lip between his teeth, pulling back with a wet pop that Steve could feel in his dick.
Billy’s eyes were wild, lips red and swollen and Steve wanted nothing more than to dive right back in and stay there for another hour or twenty four.
But Billy’s lips were trembling, hands cupping Steve’s face to hold his gaze as he sucked in a long, painful sounding breath, letting it out in a rush of words.
“Fuck. You gotta know, baby. How gone I am on you. Just, obliterated.”
Something in Steve that had been aching and cold for longer then he could remember thawed, and softened, and opened up like the first fragile blossom of spring.
Billy must have seen it on his face because his lips tilted up in a tiny, sweet smile before Steve crashed down on him like a natural disaster, all desperate moans and magnetized lips and clumsy, clutching hands.
Billy met him on his level, teeth already coming into play as he scraped them over Steve’s tongue before sucking it better slowly, sloppily, tenderly.
Steve overturned the spice rack on the counter, scrambling for Billy’s shoulders as Billy hooked strong hands under his thighs, lifting Steve off the ground with an earthy grunt.
“C’mon, princess.”
Steve wound himself around Billy like a clinging vine, refusing to relinquish his lips as he carried him into the bedroom without a stumble, legs solid and feet sure.
Steve was already struggling out of his shirt and sweater by the time Billy dropped him onto the bed, dribbling off his own jeans with impatient hands before snagging Steve’s and ripping them off, seams popping in protest.
He paused with one knee on the bed between Steve’s splayed legs, just taking him in with heavy-lidded eyes, tongue tracing over his abused lips.
“Jesus. So fucking pretty.”
Steve whined and reached for him with grabby hands, hooking his ankle around the back of Billy’s thigh to pull him down to the bed.
He fell with a bubble of laughter pressed into Steve’s chest and Steve was bursting with joy.
His fingers combed through Billy’s riotous curls, lifting his head as he pushed up on his elbows, belly to belly.
“Love you. I know I keep saying it, but, god, I love you so much, Billy.”
Billy’s brow furrowed, little, unhappy lines appearing between his eyebrows and around his mouth. Steve tried to smooth them away with his thumb.
Billy caught his hand, speaking directly into Steve’s palm even as he stared into his eyes.
“I’ve never, like, said it. The words. Not to anyone, not since my mom left.”
Steve could live with that.
Had lived with that, most of his life, with his parents.
If anything, he was accustomed to never hearing the words.
He would rather Billy be honest and sincere than say something he may not mean, just to please Steve.
Steve buried the part of himself that clamored for the words, just to hear them, just once. He stomped that part down under the dirt where he wouldn’t have to hear it crying anymore, letting the rest of himself open up with a smile.
He shifted his palm to caress Billy’s cheek, pouring his love into every fingertip.
“That’s okay, you never have to say it if you don’t want to, Billy. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you. I love you just the way you are, and you don’t need to—”
Billy turned his head and nipped Steve’s thumb sharply, lips following after in a soft, sweet kiss.
“Would you shut up and let me finish? Goddamn, I’m in love with a motormouth.”
All of his life, Steve had heard the term ’heart skipped a beat’ and written it off as overblown poetic hyperbole.
Until his heart skipped a fucking beat.
“Billy. Oh, my god.”
Billy lifted his chin, eyes flashing at Steve from beneath thick, dark lashes. His hands tightened on Steve possessively, harsh with nerves.
“Yeah, you heard me. I fucking love you. Deal with it.”
The words went straight to Steve’s bloodstream, coursing through his body in a wild, ripping current, turning him inside out in all the best ways.
He didn’t know if he was laughing or crying or both but it didn’t matter because Billy was looking at him with love in his eyes and Steve never wanted to be anywhere but in this moment for the rest of his life.
He tugged Billy down to him with demanding hands, pulling on a springy curl just a touch too hard with a love-drunk grin.
“Shut up and kiss me, asshole.”
Billy resisted just long enough to get in the last word, growling with promise as his body rolled over Steve’s, hot and hard and ready.
“As if I’m ever gonna stop.”