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passivenovember · 2 years

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First chapter in Brush Fire, my shovel-talk fic wherein random adults and people in Billy’s life give Steve the shovel talk as the two fall, painfully, in love.

One: Carol

Thing is, Billy’s just Nancy Wheeler painted in contrasting shades of bullshit.

And Steve can’t pinpoint the day Hargrove turned into Billy, into a kaleidoscope that bleeds beyond asshole and dickwipe and evil step-brother, but really it’s all a side effect. A symptom of what’s coming, like a cough he doesn’t notice until it’s too late.

‘Cause at the end of the day Billy’s smart and Steve.

He’s got a thing for Brainiacs.

The kind of smarts that could win bar trivia. Pay for a vacation to Europe with the money from an episode of Pyramid. Even better if the guy’s got claws. Pretty eyes that narrow alongside cheeks that blush pink and red, like gumdrops.

“Help me write my essay,” Steve tells him, waiting outside Billy’s Advanced College Placement class with his collar popped.

Billy’s smiling before Steve speaks to him. He’s chatting, limbs soft and smile wide, dorky, and then he hears that voice. Goes shocked still. Looks like he’s gonna piss his pants.

“I’ll, uh, see ya later, Bills,” Says that girl. Barb Holland. She pokes at the bridge of her glasses and disappears around the corner, shooting these worried little glances at Billy like he can’t take care of himself. Like he isn’t Hawkins High’s resident bad boy, player, macho-nacho–-

“What do you want, Harrington?”

Billy’s teeth were pretty, Steve notes, when he was smiling. When he was happy. Now he's got this searing little twist to his lip, saddled with this sudden crash to reality. Steve shoves off the locker to make room for a pee-wee dork that says excuse me, calculating the way Billy’s baby blues have gone dry.

He’s exhausted and tired of it. Sick down to his fifteen-pack abs.

“I want you to write my essay,” Steve repeats, thinking if he’s more direct Billy will go for it.

Hargrove puffs out his chest. Squares his jaw. “Fuck no.” He says. Needing the fight.

“Wasn’t asking,” Steve says.

“I’m not writing your essay for you, dickweed.”

“Yeah? Why not?”

“'cause no one’s gonna believe you can spell multi-syllable words,” Billy spits, “And I’m not dumbing myself down to whatever kindergarten level class you’re taking–-”

“God, you’re a menace. You’re a forest fire.”

Billy’s cheeks flare at that. Bright red, freckles punching through like holes in notebook paper and Steve knows it.

He’s got him. Hook and line, just like Nancy, but then Billy’s walking off down the hallway. Leaning in a little hard with his boots, stomping holes into the cement.

Steve follows after him. Says, “I’ll pay you.”

And Billy says, “I don’t want your money.”

That makes Steve laugh. Loud and sudden. “Everyone wants my money.”

“Everyone wants you, right? King Steve. Whole place’d probably shut down if you graduated, right? Need the golden boy around. The gold eggs he lays in the shit-covered green just outside B-Hall,” Hargrove leads them round the corner, stopping to dial and yank his locker open. “God, you’re a fucker–”

“And you’ve got the highest marks in AP English,” Steve says. He leans against the metal closest to Billy, foot propped to pass the time.

He'll wait.

He’s already won. He’s got what he came here for, but Billy needs time to work it out for himself. All those brains behind pretty blonde princess curls and Billy devotes all his energy to the glare Steve's pinned with. Billy hisses and spits like a drowned kitten, thinking he’s tough.

“Not wasting my time on you, Harrington,” Billy says. Like it’s supposed to hurt. “You’re a lost cause. Might as well get Wheeler to suck your dick and write that shit for you-–”

“Watch your mouth," Steve says gently.

Gotta be patient. Give the boy room to think it over, run it back, mold his pretty pinks into an apology.

"Nancy and I broke up," Steve says, like it matters.

Like the way his voice still hitches a little, at the end, shaky and vulnerable, will make a difference.

It does and it doesn't. "What would you even write about," Billy demands, ignoring him. "Being rich? How it feels to be born with a silver fucking spoon in your mouth?"

Steve tenses all over, poised to take the heat of Billy's onslaught if it'll get him what he wants.

Billy lens in presses harder. "Oh, what about the way you're a washed-up beauty queen? You gonna cry about the hours and hours you put into impressing the cows around here only to have them run right over your perfect hair to get to the next freak on the list?"

Steve won't bite. "You think my hair's perfect?"

And maybe that's a step too far.

Billy grips the metal locker so tight the thing almost groans, baby blues laced with a challenge. That little lip twist has turned into a snarl and Steve.

Almost backs away.

Almost backs down.

But the flush is packed on like fresh snow, glittering and saturated with pinks and magentas. Steve really does need help with his essay, so he leans closer. Says, "What can I do to get your help on this?"

And waits for the walls to crumble around them.

“You’re not fooling anyone, Harrington,” Carol says. "You think you've got this whole school wrapped around your fingers but I see what you're doing."

And Steve knows it's Carol without having to look up from the pin-lanes scribbled in red across his essay. Knows it without swallowing the tucked-away mashed potatoes at the corner of his mouth. Knows her voice like he knew the chimes that signaled the end of nap time, all those years ago. The stick of a bandaid peeled from her skin and patted, harshly, onto his before another go on the tire swing.

He doesn’t look up at her to point out that, “If I were smart enough to fool anyone I wouldn’t need help editing this fuckin’ thing.”

But Carol doesn’t stop. Keeps rolling on. Says, in that special shade of periwinkle irritation that she used to save for Tommy, “You could’ve asked someone else.”

Steve glances at her. Notices her hair’s different. “What do you mean?”

“Billy,” Carol spits. Word travels fast. She looks over her shoulder. Scans the lunch room as if afraid that he’ll spring up from the linoleum. Knock the tray out of her fist, or something. She turns back, eyes narrowed. “You could’ve asked anyone else–-”

“He’s got the best marks in English.”

“So?”

“Like I’m gonna hinge my future on someone with anything less than a perfect grade,” Steve chuckles, trying to change its tune somewhere in the middle so Carol doesn’t take this as a notice of war. “Look, the guy’s my ticket outta this shithole.”

“Harrington, you’re stuck. Like the rest of us.” Carol says.

And the thing is? Carol was the first girl who proved chicks could be cool and dangerous and three-dimensional. They were flirts at one point and friends, way before that, giggles and weekend sleepovers stretching all the way back to a blue, cloud-covered room Steve can hardly remember, so.

He knows Carol.

Maybe not as well as he used to, but. He knows the girl. Feels like she’s got his neck in her fist, from how tight she’s gripping the lunch tray. Senses that if he makes one step out of line, she’ll dig her fangs into him.

“What’s your deal, Perkins?”

Carol’s eyes could melt through bone.

Steve takes the last bite of his mashed potatoes before shoving his tray to the other side of the table. “You got a crush on him or something?"

"What?" Carol says, incredulous.

"Look, I know you're sweet on him--"

"Harrington, you're such a skeez if you thought, for even a minute that I'd ever do that to Tommy--"

"Alright, you're friends will Billy, then," Steve says, exhausted from the theatrics. "You're like his scary big sister, protecting him from the wolf in GAP clothing."

"You're such a dumbass," Carol groans, like Steve's whole thing is getting old and she wishes he'd call it a day. "Why don't you beg Wheeler to tutor you?"

"This conversation is melting my brain."

"Seriously, it's not like she'd say no," Carol says, "She's still got a soft spot for you even if Byers is stuffing her full on a daily basis--"

"--Billy's got a better grade than Nance--"

"--I mean, seriously. Couldn't you pick on someone in your own academic caste?"

"Jesus, Carol, why do you care so much?" Steve drops the act, the good-natured small talk for old time's sake, and lets his words land like fists on the rickety table top.

All at once, Carol looks older. Wiser and mean and so, so worried.

"You know what your problem is, Harrington?"

"Enlighten me," Steve says, bored.

"You've never been told no a day in your life."

Billy walks through the lunchroom doors, then, a copy of Moby Dick under one arm and a spiral notebook snatched under the base of his lunch tray. His arms, stiff with forced swagger as he scans the crowd for Steve, jerk when they spot one another.

His cheeks are pink.

From a million miles away, swimming through a river of pissed-off Perkins, Steve can see it.

"That boy isn't any different from the rest of us," Carol says tightly. She grips her own lunch tray, and says, "He's sensitive."

Steve opens his mouth to shit all over the floor, and.

"He is," Carol tells him. "Think whatever you want to but I know him. Billy's rough around the edges but he's smart. Too smart for his own good--"

"Smart enough to deal with me?"

Carol's mouth snaps shut, frowning as Steve moves his lunch tray and Billy floats into view.

"Harrington," He says sharply. Then, to Carol, "Perch Perkins, looking frosty today."

"Fuck off, Malibu Barbie," Carol says, but there's a softness there that takes Steve back to kindergarten.

He swallows against a pang of jealousy, tracking the way her eyes go warm for this asshole.

Billy tacks a wet kiss to her forehead and then plops down onto the bench across from Steve, flipping to a blank page in his notebook, and Carol sulks away, looking every bit like she'd burn down the world to protect him.

Steve wishes he had been smart enough to recognize that conversation for what it was.

The first in a long line of people that, in the pit of themselves, for better or worse, whether they knew it or not: loved Billy Hargrove.

#harringrove #enemies to lovers #shovel talk #fic #chapter one #brush fire

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