Harringrove Ao3 Favorites Part 2

a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull

Triggers/Warnings: Child abuse, slurs, homophobic language, kinda smutty too, just a tad

Author: meglimeg

Author's Summary: And Steve wonders, sometimes, how they actually came to be friends in the first place. Because Billy hadn't apologised for months, but two weeks after the fight, they'd been lying out on the dirt by the quarry, passing a cigarette and a can of beer between them, sighing up at the night sky, and talking about monsters. Different kinds of monsters, sure. But monsters all the same.

Notes: They're cute as fuck but neil can get shot

Billy is waiting by Steve's locker when he arrives before first class, looking for the world like the sweetest wet dream imaginable. His white shirt is clinging tightly to his torso, his jeans are somehow tighter, and he's leaning against the metal with the kind of ease that could only come from someone with Billy's confidence. Steve can't help but smile when he sees him.

Billy looks up when Steve comes closer, and the side of his mouth twitches, ever so slightly, because he's happy to see Steve (he always is), but sometimes it's best to be subtle.

It takes Steve a moment to realise that Billy's actually leaning against his locker, stopping him from getting to it, and he sighs, painting his face with mock annoyance.

"Hargrove," he says, crossing his arms across his chest. "You're in my way."

Billy smirks, raising an eyebrow, pushing away from the locker so that he's toe-to-toe with Steve. "That so, Harrington?" he asks, crossing his arms too. It's all for show, and Steve is tempted to push further, to press harder, to start the day with the kind of mock fight that they break out every once in a while, when it looks like someone's looking too closely at their friendship.

Because they're friends, now, and everyone knows it. They eat lunch together and go to extra training together and go to the movies together and go to parties together, and it's strange, sure. It's been, what, five months since Billy almost killed him at the Byers' house? Five months since Billy took years' worth of frustration out on the person who'd been his only fixation for weeks, since Billy had woken up on a stranger's floor feeling emptier than he had in nearly a decade.

And Steve wonders, sometimes, how they actually came to be friends in the first place. Because Billy hadn't apologised for months, but two weeks after the fight, they'd been lying out on the dirt by the quarry, passing a cigarette and a can of beer between them, sighing up at the night sky, and talking about monsters. Different kinds of monsters, sure. But monsters all the same.

And it had started out like that, meeting late at night, drinking and talking, comparing nightmares and shitty parents, and wondering when the sun was going to rise. And then they started hanging out when the sun was up, at school, outside the arcade, gravitating towards each other like circling planets, that need to be closer tugging them nearer and nearer. No one else at the school knew how they'd sit together, trying not to cry, bracing themselves against the cold. Why would they want to sit with anyone else in the cafeteria? Why would they want to change next to someone who didn't know how little they slept at night?

People noticed, but didn't comment. Tommy said something to Billy, apparently, near the beginning, and Steve doesn't know what he said, but it was enough to make Billy's nostrils flare and his jaw clench, and Steve had to put a hand out to rest on his arm, out there in the dark under the trees, and he pressed his thumb into Billy's soft skin, until Billy's heartrate slowed and his chin dropped against his chest, defeated.

Steve doesn't know how Billy reacted to Tommy, but it was enough to stop anyone else from saying anything.

Billy had apologised that night, two months after the fight, and it was January, and they should have been wearing coats, but the cold was punishing, and they both felt like they needed punishing.