Chapter Text
Robin’s on break, grabbing them both oversized soft pretzels to combat the overwhelming sweetness of endless ice cream, and Steve thanks whoever is listening for small mercies because Billy would never step foot inside Scoops Ahoy unless it was completely empty on a Friday night.
“Who the fuck would buy ice cream at this time of night?” Billy asks and leans his whole body against the counter, hair still wet around the ends smelling of chlorine and sunshine. Steve’s been stuck inside the goddamn mall all day, wilting under the fluorescent lights. He leans in instinctively, chasing the high. “This is why everyone in Hawkins has cavities.”
“You’re such an old man,” Steve teases, a smile curling at his lips. He forces himself to lean back, to feign disinterest, like he doesn’t want to lick a stripe up Billy’s neck and chase the taste of coconut tanning lotion. The dude’s got his entire chest on display in an ice cream shop for fucks sake. At night. “Ice cream is an all-day food.”
“Corporate forcing you to say that?”
“If you think I’d ever willingly say any of this shit, you don’t know me half as well as you think you do.”
Billy’s face twists like he’s not sure what he wants to do with it before he settles on a knowing smirk.
“I know you well enough, pretty boy,” he teases, and his eyes dip down. “Nice shorts, by the way.”
Billy’s seen his shorts before. Billy’s taken his shorts off before. Doesn’t stop him from commenting on them every time, and yeah, they’re uncomfortably short. Steve knows it—Steve feels it every time the breeze catches the hair on his thighs.
“Not like yours are any better,” Steve gripes back, which is dumb because the shorts Billy wears to the community pool are fucking sinful and he knows it.
“Listen, if you actually submitted your application on time maybe you’d be the lifeguard and I’d be scooping ice cream.”
There isn’t a universe out there where Billy Hargrove slings ice cream, but Steve can dream.
Two kids walk in, loudly and obnoxiously discussing the merits of a sundae versus a waffle cone, and Billy peers down at the cabinet and pretends to look at the flavours on offer.
Steve serves the brats their ice cream—a sundae, the idiots, waffle cone always—and hopes Billy doesn’t fuck off. Get bored. Decide someone else is more interesting.
“Be sure to sail with us again!” Steve calls out as the kids leave, and his face warms under Billy’s mockery. “Shut your mouth, Hargrove.”
Billy raises his hands, as if he’s innocent, and laughs, deep and smoky. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
Steve can’t even find it in himself to be pissed off, he’s so fucking delighted to see Billy actually happy. Half the time it feels like he’s running against sand, fighting the goddamn ocean just to make him not so miserable.
It’s not his fault. There’s only so much Steve can accomplish during stolen moments at Scoops, inside the utility closet at the pool, in Billy’s car. Eventually their trysts come to a close, time marches on, and Billy has to go home. His smiles fade, his brow furrows, and he withdraws from Steve and it breaks his heart every time.
Steve’s never wanted to hurt anything like he did the Demogorgan.
Neil Hargrove comes close.
“You’re off early,” Steve says so he doesn’t look dumb just staring at Billy. “I thought you were on the closing shift until eight.”
“Heather offered to swap with me.” Billy leans in with one of those smiles, the crooked one he uses on all the girls at Hawkins High to make them swoon. Steve’s only half annoyed it works just as well on him. “I think she’s sweet on me.”
“Every single woman in Hawkins is sweet on you,” Steve says flatly, and doesn’t address the spike of jealousy in the pit of his stomach.
He’s not an idiot, despite what Mrs Click wrote on his report card last year. Billy’s the best looking person in the entire town.
“Every single woman,” Billy sings, “every taken woman, too.”
“You’re full of shit,” Steve replies fondly, hot and annoyed but incapable of saying otherwise.
“The lonely housewives at the pool think differently.” That infuriating cocky grin is back. “Mrs Wheeler especially.”
“That’s because Mr Wheeler hasn’t paid attention to her in, oh, five years.” Steve fights the scowl from his face. “She’ll go for anyone at this point.”
“Jealous, Harrington?”
Billy steals a maraschino cherry straight from the container, right under Steve’s nose. Steve doesn’t think about how gross it is. He follows the line it travels from Billy’s fingertips to his lips to his tongue. The asshole.
“Why aren’t you with Karen then?” Steve snipes.
He doesn’t work all day at a shitty ice cream shop to get Nancy’s mom thrown in his face.
Sure, his attention was usually taken by Nancy whenever he managed to wrangle a dinner out of the Wheelers, but he has eyes—Karen Wheeler was hot. Old, and a mom, but hot.
Billy rolls his eyes like he didn’t instigate this whole thing.
“Because I don’t want to fuck Mrs Wheeler,” he says, gaze heavy and full of promises. His lips stained red. “I don’t want to fuck any single or taken woman in this hick town, Harrington.”
There are words left unsaid, because he’s Billy Hargrove. Because they’re in Scoops Ahoy at Starcourt Mall. Because Steve knows what Billy wants to say, and that’s more than enough. It has to be.
“I can’t tonight,” Steve forces out like it hurts him. It kind of does, too, because Billy’s face crumples and Steve feels worse than dirt. Billy’s tried and true mask slips back over his face and Steve panics. “I’m sorry, but it’s Friday, Billy. The movies are open late and I promised I’d stay. It’s good cash.”
This thing they’ve got going on—it’s delicate. Fragile. Steve has to fight for it every time they talk, and he hopes Billy is doing the same. He wants them to fight together, but sometimes he swears he’s fighting Billy. Fighting himself. It’s exhausting, but Steve once lit an inter-dimensional monster on fire and faced half a dozen more with a baseball bat and some rusty nails. Nothing has proven as difficult as that.
Billy comes fucking close though.
Nancy wasn’t half as difficult as Billy, but she was also half as interesting. Thinking that makes him feel like a prick, but it’s the truth.
Him and Nancy were easy in comparison, at least in the early days. Nancy required a gentler approach than he normally took with his flings, but that was okay, Steve didn’t want to hit it once and fuck off like he did with all the other girls.
Steve genuinely liked Nancy. She was kind and smart and he melted whenever she sent him a little shy smile when he passed her in the halls.
Nancy made Steve feel like he was worth something, right up until she made him feel like he was worth nothing.
Billy is an inferno. Steve doesn’t know where he stands with him most days. It scares and excites him in equal measure.
“You don’t even need the money,” Billy grumbles, eyes downcast, and he’s half right.
Steve doesn’t need the money. Steve knows this bullshit his dad’s on is only temporary, that he’s going to make him suffer through a miserable summer serving ice cream to preteens before caving in.
There’s a cushy mailroom position ready for Steve at his dad’s work—whenever Steve apologises. Which he’s not going to do, so they’re at a stalemate.
So sure, Steve doesn’t need the shitty Scoops money in the long run, but he needs it now.
Billy, on the other hand, is frugal as fuck. There’s a good reason for it. Steve would also hoard every penny if he lived in that house.
Worse, Billy has one more year at Hawkins High, one more year living under the thumb of his dad. But Billy’s so fucking talented it boggles Steve’s mind. He’s smart as shit, charismatic like a bastard, and he wipes the floor with Steve every time they play basketball. He’s going places—without Steve, but he’s resigned to it.
It’ll probably kill him the day Billy packs up and leaves him behind, back to sunny California or Florida or fucking New York. Somewhere Steve can’t follow, because how could he possibly leave the kids?
He’s had a lot of time to think about it between the party stealing ice cream and Robin hurling insults his way. It drives him crazy most days.
Days like these are better, even if they do end up fighting. It’s still Billy. Billy in Hawkins, with Steve, where he can keep a hold of him a second longer.
Steve has maybe another year, tops. He wants to make it count.
Why did he take a stupid extra shift at Scoops?
“Tomorrow?” Steve asks, quiet. Private. “I finish at seven.”
The way Billy lights up is addictive, and Steve will do anything to keep that look on his face.
“Yeah,” he says, voice smooth as silk. “Yours?”
“Yeah, that’ll be—ah shit.” Fucking dumbass, Harrington. Fuck.
“What?”
“My parents are home,” he admits, a sinking feeling in his gut. He pulls off his stupid hat and runs a hand through his hair in frustration. Billy, on the other hand, is freakishly still. “They’re still—weird. After last year.”
Although Steve had nothing to do with the shit that went down last November—on paper, at least—his parents suddenly decided to stick around more. Barb’s apparent death via chemical leak freaked his mom out, and unleashed his dad’s paranoia.
Their initial apathy faded into worry after a dinner with Mayor Kline and his wife. Steve can only guess what horrors the man told them to cover it up.
The result was the both of them spending more time at home, something Steve used to wish for, once upon a time.
Now it just stops him getting laid.
“Fuck,” Billy hisses, his fists clenching.
Steve stares at them, at his silver ring. His white knuckled grip. It used to scare him, but now—
Fuck. Shit. He couldn’t wait.
“There’s a motel,” Steve blurts out, and feels himself flush bright red. What the actual fuck? “Off Cornwallis, on the edge of town.”
With his parents at home and Billy’s dad a fucking psychopath, a motel is their last resort. It’s not Steve’s first choice, not even his tenth, but it’s the best they’ve got with limited options.
It takes Billy a second to catch up.
“A Motel 6?” It sounds even more ridiculous when Billy says it. “I have a perfectly good car. So do you.”
Steve must make a face, because Billy’s throwing his hands up in the air like he’s sick of Steve’s shit. Steve’s kind of sick of his own shit to be fair.
The cops almost caught them last time they parked by the quarry, and the last thing they need is Neil Hargrove involved.
Besides, Billy’s car is hardly the most romantic location and shit, Steve deserves some romancing every now and then. Flowers, chocolate, a blowjob. Although it was his idea, so maybe he’s the one doing the romancing.
Okay, Billy deserves some romancing.
“Your car is cramped!” he tries instead. “I hit my head on the dash last time, and I bruise easily.”
Steve doesn’t know whether Billy’s thinking about their fight at the Byers’ house or the marks Billy constantly endeavours to leave on Steve’s skin, but his face squints like he’s remembering something. He licks his lips, and Steve flushes. Okay, the latter then.
“You’re paying,” Billy says after a moment, and leans in close. “Wine and dine me, Harrington.”
“Like I need to do that,” Steve teases, nervous anticipation building. He wants to lean in, to match Billy, to feed the spark between them. “You’re an easy lay, Hargrove.”
What a fucking lie. Steve’s never worked so hard in his life.
Billy laughs. It’s worth it.
“Eight o’clock,” he says and leans in even closer. Steve’s heart thunders in his chest. “Tomorrow night. The fucking Motel 6 on Cornwallis.”
Billy makes Steve want to throw away everything he owns and move to the beach.
Billy makes Steve want to say fuck you to his dad and get a job scooping ice cream in California.
Billy makes Steve want to kiss him in the middle of Scoops where anyone walking past could see.
“The movie’s finished,” Steve says instead, and gestures out into the mall. There’s always a lull between showings. “Some Nicholson flop. They’ll want ice cream to cheer them up.”
It’s a shit excuse, but Steve knows Billy. Steve knows he doesn’t actually want him to quit his job and follow him to California, and he definitely doesn’t want Steve to kiss him in public.
Billy purses his lips and sends him a smile. It’s not cocky, but it’s trying to be.
“Eight o’clock. Cornwallis,” he repeats, and steals another cherry before he turns and leaves without waiting for an answer. He doesn’t need one.
“Eight o’clock!” Steve shouts back anyway, and sure it gets him a few strange looks, but it’s totally worth it to see the tips of Billy’s ears go red.
Robin comes back from her break, ten minutes overdue, with a half-eaten pretzel and a scrunched up look on her face.
“Billy Hargrove is walking around the mall with his shirt open.” She looks vaguely disgusted. “He is aware of the no shirt, no service rule, right?”
Steve shrugs. “I dunno, dude. Now give me my pretzel.”