bury me anywhere (but hawkins, indiana) | harringrove

chapter eleven: the comedown

JUNE 30TH, 1985

STEVE | NOW

Distant lightning cracks overhead. Even with the billowing rain the summer dark is stifling, lead and static weighting the air around the uneven circle that's looped around El and Billy. El sits cross legged at the edge of the hot tub Billy kneels in, Steve doing his best to brace him down as Billy struggles between his thighs. His shoulderblades are digging sharply into Steve's chest.

El flexes her fists, slowly, a sketch in tension. She's made occasional sounds, but she isn't speaking to them. Blood drips down her upper lip.

Billy's fighting has simmered to a slow burn since El put on her blindfold; it's less fighting Steve than the hazy, uncoordinated shoves of a sleepwalker, mumbling attempts at slithering from Steve's stubborn grip.

Sweat drips down Steve's temples despite the rain, air around him curling thick with steam. He's up to his torso in the bubbling water, overheated and tense.

Billy jerks back against him now, like he's stuck in a dream- nightmare, Steve corrects himself grimly. He can't see much of Billy from where he holds onto him, but he's close enough that he can see the micro-expressions flitting across Billy's face, illuminated in living color by the radiating underwater lights Steve can't even begin to figure out how to turn off. They go by too fast to really read, but none of them seem pleasant.

It makes Steve feel helpless, itching for a way to help. He's found himself talking to him, once or twice, quiet encouragements or just empty comforts, pitched low between them, forehead pressed against the back of Billy's head for lack of anything else to do. He doesn't spare a thought to the circle strung around them a million miles away, not the kids or even Robin.

He simply holds on tight, and hopes.

It's an endless wait that ends abruptly as Billy goes ice-cold against Steve, slumping loosely like he'd just slip under the bubbling surface and drown if Steve weren't keeping him upright.

In front of them El twists, jerking up into midair in a chilling sight. Billy stiffens against Steve's front, convulsing in his arms before he's rising up too, and no grip Steve has can stop his ascent. He slides out of Steve's reaching fingers.

The garden hose wrapped around Billy creaks ominously once and then bursts, spitting shards of green rubber in all directions as Steve throws up an arm to shield his eyes and across from Steve, one of the boys yelps, but he can't look away too long.

Billy and El's suspended bodies are a matching, twisting arc frozen in a strobe of watery neon. Billy's toes barely skim the deck, El's hand reaching out toward his-

And they fall as one, strings cut, slamming down into the deck.

Steve's feet are already moving without him, scraping his shin as he scrambles out of the hot tub. El comes gasping back to life, sitting up and ripping the blindfold off, others crowding around her as Steve skids to his knees at Billy's side.

Billy's deathly still, blue-lipped and drenched. The cold radiates off him in waves as Steve's own overheated skin steams against the rain, his hands burning as they race over Billy's wet shoulders, his face, quick darting touches as Steve's mind fully blanks in a momentary panic. A breath sticks in his chest.

It takes a second for summers of lifeguard training to sputter awake and kick in. He knows this, he knows this-

Steve tips Billy's chin back with two fingers; his head falls back just as limply. Steve leans in to listen for breath, ear above his tinged lips- and Billy nearly crashes up into Steve as he twists violently, choking up salt and bilgewater and greasy smoke.