Alone, No More (Harringrove)

Chapter 5//Returning the Favour

Chapter 5
Steve's eyes bulged as he was dragged away from the group and into the changing room. Dread overcame him. What had he done?!

"Get your shit, and lets go!" Steve heard a familiar voice demand. He turned around and stared at Billy, confusion in his eyes.

"Wh-what the fuck did I just do?" Steve asked him, hands on both sides of his head trying to calm himself down. This had to have been a dream!

Sadly it was not. Billy shook his head, his lips in a hard line. Steve watched as the blonde boy ripped his belongings from his own locker and whipped his signature jacket back on. He turned an groaned when he saw that Steve hadn't moved and was still staring at him in shock.

"Hurry up, Harrington, we gotta go before the coach gets back," He said, more gently this time, eye's flicking back to the door to the change room.

Steve complied, grabbing his bag and his jacket from his locker like his life depended on it. The two left the change room through the back and sprinted to the parking lot where Max sat on her skateboard, waiting.

"Woah, what's going on?" Max asked when she saw the two boys approaching her, standing from her board and hugging it to her body. A defense mechanism she had learned over the years of being with her father.

"Shut up and get in my car," Billy demanded. Not in an angry way like he usually did, but more urgently, then turned to Steve, who stood dazed and confused beside him. "Drive home, we'll be right behind you".

Steve nodded, eyes still wide, and walked like a zombie to his car. He grabbed his steering wheel, wincing at how his knuckles burned, and drove home. Blood began dripping from the open wounds on his fists. He had never had an outburst like that, especially not to a friend of his. He began to feel sick, and full of regret.

Once he was home, he let both Billy and Max in, then locked the door. Max sat on the couch and waited, worry in her eyes.

"Do you have a first aid kit?" She asked for Billy, who hovered around Steve, emotionless.

"Uh , yeah lemme go get it" he responded robotically, slowly walking to the main bathroom to retrieve the kit.

He looked at himself in the mirror and cringed. Tommy hadn't had a chance, yet somehow was able to hit him once in the nose. Steve hadn't even realized that until now, analyzing the dried blood coming from his nostril. He could only imagine what Tommy would look like on Monday.

After returning to the siblings left whispering to each other in the living room, Billy took the kit from his hands and began to sift through it's contents.

"Is it really something to have run away from?" Max asked, looming over Billy's shoulder while he dabbed away the dried blood on Steve's knuckles. "I mean it was just a  school fight, right?"

Billy, concentrating on cleaning all the wounds, shrugged. "Yeah but I've never seen someone pummeled like that".

"I overreacted..." Steve admitted sheepishly, coming back to reality, somewhat shocked billy was in his living room tending to his bloody hands.

"Hell yeah you did," Billy muffled, sounding almost proud, while rubbing a cream into the cuts. Then added lightheartedly, "I don't think you're making the team".

Steve had come to terms with that. He wanted to beat himself up for almost killing Tommy; he knew coach would tear him a new one as soon as he saw him on Monday morning. He was in deep shit for this, at least Billy had saved him from that for the weekend.

"Why'd you help me?" Steve found himself asking the curly haired boy hunched in front of him. Max sighed and left to go to the kitchen, leaving the two alone.

"Look, I get that we're rivals or some shit," Billy began, finally looking at Steve, pink in his cheeks. "But you helped me that one time. So now we're even".

Oh. 

Steve nodded mechanically, thinking back to seeing Billy's father abuse him, then looked up to the tv that Max had turned on at some point. A basketball game was playing, mocking him.

"But really, why'd yah beat him almost to death?" Billy asked in a hushed voice, watching Steve through his heavy lashes. He had stopped working on the wounds a moment before, but found himself stuck in place between Steve's legs.

Billy wouldn't lie, he had never seen such hatred in a man's eyes, not even in his own father's, when Steve was on top of that Tommy kid. It had freaked him out in a bad way; he wondered what had happened to Steve in that small window of time where he and the rest of his little friend group had gone missing.

"I really don't know," Steve said honestly, starting to worry that his aggression was something he had taken from the upside-down. "I just...I just snapped".

"No shit, eh?" Billy said, standing  and looking around. There were no photos up of Steve or his family, and dust had collected on almost everything in the house. He then observed max in the kitchen as she sifted through junk food as if she had lived here forever; she looked peaceful and not in fear of him nor his father.

He looked down at Steve, who stared at his knuckles emotionlessly, and felt his fingers ache to touch him. He wanted to make sure Steve was okay, because he knew he wasn't; especially not after watching him beat some kid to a pulp.

"Alrighty," Billy began, blushing from his thoughts, He collected his belongings and meandered to the front door. He almost felt like staying.

Steve looked over his shoulder, finally noticing Billy leave him, and felt a tug in his chest. He almost didn't want him to leave.

"Hey, uh, thanks for your help," Steve said, trudging to the front door where Billy stood, looking somewhat hesitant.

Billy grunted, then looked over Steve and yelled at his step sister, "Hey, I'm picking you up at 4 tomorrow. I got plans".

Max only rolled her eyes and went back to boiling something on the stove. Billy shrugged, quickly glanced to the brunette boy in front of him, then turned and left. Steve stared after him, making sure he got in his car safely.

"Steve?" Max chirped from the kitchen, drawing him out of his trance. Steve poked his head from around the corner, catching her eye. "Um, can we go to Will's place for the afternoon before my step-brother comes to pick me up?"

Steve's lips upturned at the mention of his little group of friends and nodded. She smiled too and went back to minding her own business. He bid her goodnight, locked the front door, then retreated to his bedroom.

Part of him was okay with the fact that he wouldn't be o the team; he had realized after today's events that maybe he should keep to himself. But part of him yearned for his old life, full of parties, girls, and petty fights with Billy. He missed the time where he had Nancy, and it didn't matter that his parents were absent all the time.

But then he thought of Hopper.

While he was babysitting Max and failing to join the basketball team, he was god knows where; possibly in trouble. Steve wished he could save him, he wished Mike and El would tell him, anything!

What was that annoying thing El always said? Something about friends not lying or some shit, but Steve couldn't help but feel as though hiding him from the truth was some sort of lying.

Steve decided then, laying in the dark on top of the sheets, that he'd help finding Hopper, even if it meant going against the kid's wishes. If there was no Hopper, Steve felt no safety.