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thatgirlwithasquid · 2 years

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Harringrove Week - 2AM Conversations

(This fic is also posted on my AO3 account: here)

Words: 4,901

1:49 AM

It’s one of those nights, the nights where closing his eyes is the most dangerous thing he could possibly think of, the nights where every blink raises old nightmares from the dead. Everything is fine, Steve should be fine. He’s trembling.

It’s fine, though. He’s prepared. His bat, the one with the nails splitting wood like memories split through his skull on nights like tonight, is about three feet from his head. He doesn’t need it, but it’s there and he’s ready if anything were to go wrong. But it won't because he’s safe.

He’s safe he’s safe he’s safe-

Eleven closed the gate. What if it reopens?

The demodogs are dead. What if they survived?

Everyone’s safe. What if what if what if-?

So he’s safe. Everyone’s safe, and everything’s fine, and the silence of his home isn’t deafening, isn’t making him hyper aware of any creak as it settles, or any scratches or groans. A car door slams down the road, wind whistles outside his locked windows. Fingers twitch towards his lamp from where they’re twined into his bedsheets. Bedsheets that are twisted between his legs and bunched around his middle, evidencing his restlessness. Tossing and turning.

But he’s fine. Really, he’s fine. Please let him be fine, he can’t take this-

He’s so worked up that at first he thinks he’s imagined it. It’s 1:53 AM, the clock on his bedside table - the one he’s been staring at for the past seventy-two minutes straight, the one he can read through the overbearing darkness that chokes him because he’s been staring through it to the point his eyes are as adjusted as they can be - says so. No one knocks on the Harrington residence at nearly two in the morning. Hell, no one knocks on any house at two in the morning without good reason and Steve cannot think of a good reason. It’s not one of the kids because they’d have called first and, besides, there’s no reason for there to be an emergency. Everything has to be fine.

He imagined it. He’s not gotten enough sleep and he’s imagining things. Honestly, it would make a lot of sense, in the same way he knows that the shadows in the room don’t really look like the emptiness that had been in Will’s eyes when he’d been flayed. No one is outside and he really needs to sleep otherwise this will just get worse and he’ll pass out at school tomorrow. He doesn’t want that, refuses to humiliatingly wake up from a nightmare after having fallen asleep in class… again.

In fact, he’s just psyching himself up to cease his pointless surveyance of his empty room in this empty house, to stop casting glances at his clock like it will march the sun faster from its rest (oh, how he envies the sun in it’s neverending ability to give way to the silence of night when he’s stuck lying awake to the shrieking silence of his mind) any faster, when he hears it again.

The rapping on his door is more insistent this time, he can tell even from his room on practically the other side of the house. It puts him even further on edge, something he hadn’t even thought possible. Panic shoots like ice up his spine and he’s jolting upright in an instant, getting caught further in his mess of blankets.

What if it is the kids? What if they weren’t able to call him? What if they need his help?

His feet slide across his wooden floors as he bolts from his room, thundering down the stairs, half focused on where he’s going as he’s making a mental checklist of where all the possible weapons in his house are, as he figures out the optimal route to run to grab his bat and his emergency bag. He nearly falls in his hurry to get down the stairs. His breathing is uneven by the time he reaches the front door, though he’s working very hard to calm it even slightly as he reaches for the keys.

The door clicks unlocked and he opens it expecting to find the kids in trouble; to find Dustin terrified, and Max as pale as she’d been in face of the demodogs and Lucas and Mike arguing and-

And there stands Billy Hargrove.

He almost collapses in relief. Sure it’s odd that the guy is at his door, even if they’ve managed to reach something like a begrudging truce in the past weeks, and his posture is more tense than usual - and the guy is usually ready to start shit, so that’s saying something - but it’s not the kids.

Unless he’s here about Max. He pushes that thought aside harsher than all the rest.

“Hargrove?” he breathes, still feeling the fading edges of his breathless panic. And, though it’s dumb and the guy probably knows, adds; “dude, it’s - like - two in the morning.”

“Your observation astounds me,” the guy snarks, even more bitter than usual, and Steve quickly glances him over, expecting to see Billy’s stance shifting to come at him because of whatever shitty mood he’s in.

He’s not.

What Steve does notice, though, is that he’s not dressed nearly warm enough for the temperature tonight and, though he’s doing an admittedly good job at trying to suppress it, the guy is shaking. He also notices how stiff he’s holding himself. And the bruise blooming around his right eye.

A glance over his shoulder reveals his car in the driveway. Only his car. Telling him that Hargrove, who lives nowhere nearby, has walked here.

Something has happened. It might not be the alternate-dimension-face-opening-alien-trying-to-kill-them variety but something went down that means that Hargrove is now outside his house at - he glances at the clock in the hall - 2:03 AM without his car or even a jacket and at least one injury.

“Are you okay?” he asks, straightening from where he’s slumped against the doorframe, the exhaustion that had been slowly encroaching once more vanishing in the face of his trepidation.

Hargrove’s jaw ticks, eyes trained just to the side of his head.

“I just needed somewhere to go, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else.”

Somewhat baffled, Steve just nods. He guesses it made sense why the guy didn’t go to Tommy’s or another one of those guys’ places - they aren’t exactly the right kind of people to go to when you’re dealing with shit, as Steve learned the hard way during the Nancy incident. Those guys don’t really have the emotional maturity to understand when to quit the bulishit and just be a sturdy foundation. Still, though, Steve’s place? They aren’t exactly friends. Sure, Hargrove had come up to him at school and apologised - albeit with an air of 'but I don’t like you and will likely beat the shit out of you again if I need to' - and now they give each other stilted nods when they passed in the hall, or give each other a hand where needed at basketball practice, but that doesn’t really explain why Steve is familiar enough to be dubbed Solid Basis To Calm Down.

It’s kind beyond absurd, really, that Billy had practically smashed his face in three weeks ago and is now at his door for some kind of support in the ‘fuck it’s early’ hours of the morning. That doesn’t mean Steve is just going to shut the door in his face, but it does mean he just sort of stands there dumbly for a minute as Hargrove clearly grows increasingly agitated at the silence.

When the other guy finally meets his eye, a venomous frown in place, Steve finally snaps out of it.

“Uh - right,” he manages, rather eloquently. “Sure, dude. Come in, I guess.”

Hargrove keeps on glaring at him, but eventually does so, kicking off his shoes at the door when instructed. After shutting the door behind him, Steve becomes uncomfortably aware of how the chill from outside has crept into his house and once again realises that shit, right, Hargrove has been outside in a sleeveless shirt in the middle of the night in winter. He must be utterly freezing, so, benevolent as he is - reverting back into babysitter mode - Steve wanders into his kitchen, hearing the padding of Hargrove’s feet following him after only a second of hesitation, and sets about making hot chocolate. He’d have made coffee but he figures he probably shouldn’t dampen the chances of him getting any rest tonight any further and that shit had, like, a lot of caffeine.

“I’m going to hazard a guess and say you don’t want to talk about it?” Steve says, aiming for nonchalant as he nudges Hargrove’s mug towards him across the counter.

Hargrove doesn’t answer, just shoots him another withering glare that makes the phantom feeling of knuckles ghost against his face. Steve, though, just grits his teeth and pushes on - he’d done enough of being a hot-headed prick with the whole Jonathan-Nancy incident, this as him turning over a new leaf. He isn’t gonna be that asshole anymore.

“Okay, gotcha - but, just for the record, I think maybe you should-”

“Save it, Harrington-”

“Yeah, yeah,” he continues, rolling his eyes, pretending away the flash of fear those hostile eyes manage to rise in his chest, hands raised in a placating show of surrender. He’s not gonna push it, he’s just gonna lend the guy one of the guest rooms, get his good samaritan points and move on with his own shit. He doesn’t need Hargrove’s on top of his own. “Whatever, Hargrove. You’ve got your secrets? Cool, whatever. Everyone’s got them, and everyone’s got a right to them-”

Even if they don’t want them. Barbara Holland’s face flashes through his head and he has to shoulder through the familiar wave of guilt-induced nausea.

“I just gotta know, since you’re crashing here: do you need to talk to the police and are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No. And fuck you, that’s none of your business.”

“Jesus, fuck, fine,” Steve groans. “Just- Are you hurt bad?”

Hargrove seems to hesitate, frowning at him as if Steve has done something particularly perplexing and isn’t just trying to make sure the guy doesn’t - like - need a doctor or something.

“I’ve had worse. I’m fine.”

Steve nods, finally raising his mug to his lips.

“Cool,” he says after taking a swallow, eyes flicking to where Hargrove has his hands cupping his own mug, pressing as much of his skin to the ceramic as possible. “Well, I have a couple guest rooms upstairs so you’re free to pick whichever. I can lend you something to sleep in, if you’d be more comfortable, and there are plenty of extra blankets in the airing cupboard.”

Hargrove places his mug down, narrowing sceptical eyes in Steve’s direction.

“What the hell are you getting out of this, Harrington? If you think you can hold this over me, then you’re very much mistaken. You tell a single person and your ass is grass, you hear me?”

“Geez, dude,” Steve huffs, head falling backwards in exasperation. He is way too tired for this crap. Why doesn’t he just kick Hargrove’s unstable ass out of his house and be done with it?

…Right, turning over a new leaf. Plus, the guy has been almost tolerable recently, either that or Steve is just so desensitised to the woes of a normal highschool student now that life has thoroughly fucked him over. And there’s also the fact that those things could be out there, and Steve won’t be responsible for another death, for another empty coffin, for empty space in life.

“Look, I won’t tell anyone.” When Hargrove looks doubtful - and dangerously so - Steve impulsively, and he’ll blame this on his exhaustion-fogged mind, tacks on; “You wanna make this an even thing? I’ll tell you some embarrassing shit - that way we’ve got dirt on each other here and it’s mutually beneficial that we keep our mouths shut.”

“Go on then, pretty boy,” Hargrove challenges.

“I can’t sleep most nights.”

His eyes flicker down towards his own mug before he drags them back to meet Hargrove’s stunned blues. He needs this to be a serious moment. He hasn’t talked to anyone like this, about this. He’s supposed to be strong Steve, hero babysitter, not a teenager who honestly feels like he’s too young for this shit, who feels like he’s inches away from falling apart most days. Maybe that’s why he offered this up so easily; maybe he needs to talk about this.

“I can barely even shut my eyes because I get so scared. That’s why I fall asleep at school.”

“What, you scared of the dark, Harrington?”

“No-”

Snarling. Opening faces. Rows of teeth. The people he cares about in danger.

“I’m scared of things I think about in the dark.”

Hargrove sobers, eyes softening ever so slightly.

“You’re serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. Now we’ve got dirt on each other, so neither of us can spill, right?”

A pause.

“Right. So, where are these guest rooms, pretty boy?”

—

It’s just as quiet in his house. Steve used to try and hold parties as frequently as possible as a way to masque the absence of his parents, to forget how lonely this big house could be. Now he has the Party over whenever he can, both because he likes them and it drives away the silence and the thoughts that come with it. Dustin sleeps over sometimes, and that helps a little, but they sleep in the same room. With Hargrove in the next room, it feels like he’s just as alone as before.

There’s no other breathing, no other presence, nothing to trick his mind into thinking he’s safe enough to sleep, that if something were to happen, someone would have his back. He hates it. He feels like it should be a comfort, but there’s nothing.

It makes him want to get up, make his way into the other room, just so he wouldn’t be so alone. It feels too cruel that someone is so close and yet so far. It makes him restless, more so than usual. It makes him want to screw it all and just go. In fact, he’s just sitting up when-

There’s a knock, and then his door swings open.

His clock reads 2:24 AM.

“Harrington,” Hargrove greets in a whisper.

“You good, Hargrove?”

“I just- … I can’t sleep either.”

Steve huffs out a laugh. It’s oddly reliving to not be alone in that. They may have different monsters, but maybe they can be there for each other in this moment.

He sits up and scooches over in his bed.

“Come sit with me,” he tells him, gesturing the guy over with a tilt of his head.

Half a step. Hesitation. Crossing the room in quick strides.

The silence is tense. Charged. Not like they’re going to snap at each other, or fight again. No, there’s a… it’s almost a buzzing in the air. Like they’re both waiting for the other to break the silence, like they’re both searching for words. In these hazy early hours, alone together in the dark of Steve’s bedroom, waiting to cross that final barrier before finding comfort in each other, Steve thinks they’re the most vulnerable they’ve ever been. He certainly is, at least. And it’s terrifying. It’s almost freeing, almost like floating above it all.

Hargrove brakes the tension first, eyes flickering around until they land at the base of Steve’s bed and, right, yeah, the-

“Why’s this under your bed?” the guy asks, crouching down to pull it out from its hiding place.

“I always sleep with a baseball bat under the bed.”

“This has nails in it,” Hargrove deadpans and Steve winces; yeah, he can’t really explain that without sounding mad.

“It comforts me, jackass,” he huffs.

Hargrove seems to pause.

“You been through some shit, huh, Harrington?”

“You could say that,” he whispers, turning his face away as, humiliatingly, he feels tears sting in the back of his eyes.

Hargrove hums, and Steve sees the bat - which Hargrove seemingly forgets, or just doesn’t care, has nails - get tossed absently onto the bed. Then the bed dips, accommodating a new weight.

“Keep talking to me,” Hargrove whispers. It feels like a request, demand and plea all at once - a feat only Hargrove could accomplish.

“About what?” he asks, head falling back against his headboard because he just can’t look at Hargrove right now - he can’t. Just in case the guy asks what he’s been through. He can’t handle looking at the guy's face while he lies to him. He can’t handle lying at all, but it’s better than the alternative, better than opening that wound. Besides, he’s not allowed to talk about it. But he’s so desperate to have it out of his own head that he might, he just might. It would take barely a push and he’d spill his guts, wounded heart bleeding feebly in Hargrove’s cruel grasp.

“Anything. We’ll keep it even - we’ve both got dirt on each other, right? And I can’t fucking sleep, and you’ve already told me you won’t.”

Steve hums noncommittally.

“What d’you wanna know?” he asks the ceiling.

“...How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

“Gross,” Steve tells him, matter-of-fact. But, hey, he did open himself up for questions from Billy Hargrove, so what did he expect? “I don’t know- when I was fifteen?”

When he looks down, he finds Billy already grinning at him.

“Which bitch at that school can claim the honour?”

Steve wrinkles his nose.

“That’s two questions, that’s hardly an even trade.”

Hargrove scoffs, lowers himself onto his side on Steve’s bed so that he has to tilt his head in what looks to be an uncomfortable position, and makes a grand gesture.

“Ask away, then, pretty boy.”

Steve huffs, moving until he’s lying on his side, feet at the headboard, laying the opposite way to Hargrove whose feet are by the foot of the bed. He has to curl in on himself so that his face is even with Hargrove’s, who has his own legs half hanging off the end. He mirrors Hargrove, leaning on his elbow until they’re actually able to talk without the guy straining his neck.

“Do you really hate it here? ‘Cause you bitch about Hawkins constantly.”

Hargrove gives him an unimpressed look. “You think I wanted to move away from the beach, with my friends, where I could at least visit my mom, to this shitty town?”

Steve winces.

“Yeah, fair point. But I didn’t ask if you hated the move. I mean, I don’t love it here particularly but…”

He shrugs.

“Hawkins is boring. Fine for the town it is, I guess. Everyone at the school is easy to impress at least. Except you.”

Steve frowns.

“I’m not that tough to crack. I’m friends with a bunch of thirteen-year-olds, for God’s sake.”

Billy scoffs.

“Never been a fan of me.”

“Dude,” Steve laughs incredulously. “You purposely tried to press my buttons.”

“Yeah. And?” Hargrove glares at him. “You brushed me off from the start. At the Halloween party, at basketball practice…”

Steve cringes, flopping back until he’s staring up at the ceiling. This is getting dangerously close to confidential shit.

“I… had a lot going on. You’re impressive in basketball, dude, really. I just… shit was happening and I was not in the mood to care about shitty highschool drama.”

Hargrove is silent for a long moment.

The bed creaks. Hargrove lays down on his back too. Steve imagines him and Billy tracing the same patterns across the ceiling with their eyes. Unknowingly paralleling the other. Different and separate, so similar.

“I get that,” the guy says finally. “I’ve got baggage, too.”

“We all do, it seems,” Steve sighs. “The kids, Nancy, Jonathan, us. So much shit in this damn town, shit the adults just… don’t see, or do anything about.”

Hargrove hums.

“And my parents are never fucking here, so I’m taking care of myself, and making sure the dickheads I’ve unwittingly adopted don’t choke on their dice playing Dungeons and Dimwits, or whatever. It’d be nice if I could just be allowed to be a kid while I still have the chance.”

“Cheers to that,” Hargrove whispers, voice rough like gravel.

There’s another pause, a pause where Steve starts to think, shit, he overshared. He’s practically lined himself up to give Hargrove ammunition against him for the rest of school. Which would suck. But then Hargrove is whispering to him again, voice melting away that screaming silence in his room, silence that lets his own mind lash at himself.

“It was my dad.”

“Hm?”

“My face. It was him.”

Steve sucks in a sharp breath, rolling onto his side to look at him. Hargrove won’t meet his eye, still staring unseeingly up, up, up-

“Has he done it before?”

“Yeah. It used to be worse, before he married Susan. I think he toned it down for her, but it’s getting worse again.”

“Does he-” Steve has to swallow past the thickness of terror in his throat. “Max, does he-?”

Hargrove cuts him off with a humourless laugh.

“He wouldn’t. She’s his brilliant wife’s perfect little daughter. So it’s fine. No need to worry. Your little friend is fine, just her asshole step-brother-”

“No, Billy,” Steve says, reaching out unthinkingly, fingers pressing into Billy’s shoulder, gentle but there.

Blue eyes snap over to look at him, head whipping, startled, to the side. So dark in the dim light.

“No. It’s not okay, I didn’t- shit - I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Don’t stress over it, pretty boy-”

“No. If he does it again, you come straight here, okay? Fuck, we should just go to Hopper-”

“No. I don’t- I can’t-”

“Okay. Okay. We won’t. But you come straight the fuck here, okay? Shit, dude, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck off, Harrington,” he snarls. “I don’t want your pity-”

“Well, tough, asshole, because I’m not leaving you alone with that. I can hardly handle it when my dad yells at me whenever the fuck he actually decides to remember he has a son; I can’t imagine how- I’m not just gonna-” he cuts off, sighing. “And just… call me Steve, yeah?”

“Fine, Steve. This means it's your turn to share something big, right? So what else is there to King Steve?”

He cringes at the name.

“Still pining over that bitch Wheeler?”

“No,” he glares. “Nancy’s just my friend. I was for a while but… I’m getting over it. I’m pretty much over it.”

“Sights set on anyone else?”

“No.”

“What, no girls pretty enough for you?”

“It’s not that, I just-”

“No guys pretty enough for you?” Billy continues, tone cruelly teasing.

Steve’s words die on his tongue. He freezes. Says nothing.

Hargrove notices, eyes widening.

Face burning, Steve turns over, back to the guy. He can’t look at him. Shit. Why didn’t he just say no? It isn’t like he likes him, he can just admit that the guy is good looking. In an objective sense. He-

Shit!

The silence is awkward this time around. It drags on for hours, years, centuries. Steve just wishes he could pull the covers out from where they’re bunched beneath them, pull them over his head and pretend this all away, like he would when he imagined monsters when he was younger. But monsters are real, and this moment is irreversible. No covers will save him from this. Steve doesn’t get to be a kid.

He stares at the clock. 2:45AM

“I mean it.”

Hargrove’s voice is quiet, barely even a whisper this time around

“Mean what?” He snaps, trying not to hyperventilate. He doesn’t really care what Hargrove has to say. He just wants this moment over, wants this night to have never happened.

“When I call you pretty boy. I mean it.”

His breath catches.

“You’re fucking gorgeous, and I hate that I like you like that, so I try to make it an insult. But I mean it.”

Slowly, hesitantly, as if waiting for Billy’s seemingly calm act to shatter and the harassment to ensue, he rolls over.

Billy’s face is serious, slightly flushed.

“Shit,” he breathed out, utterly stunned. “Seriously?”

He nods.

“Fuck.”

It’s almost a laugh, relieved, disbelieving, slightly… slightly happy. Shit. And now Billy keeps looking at him like that and Steve just- he wants-

The buzzing becomes a crackling. Electricity before a storm.

Oh, fuck. He wants to kiss Billy Hargrove.

He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. The guy is still a dick, still half-smashed his face in, like, a month back. He hasn’t really changed, it’s just that Steve has context now. And he’s not alone in his empty house. And Billy is so fucking attractive with those curls and those damn blue eyes and he’s thought Steve is pretty all this time.

Steve needs to put space between them before he does something really stupid, like follow through on that impulse.

So he pushes up onto his elbow again, and Billy mirrors him. They're probably on the same page. Surely they’re on the same page. They should stop this.

Their faces have ended up closer than before and they both freeze, barely propped up. Billy moves. Steve tilts his head.

And they’re kissing.

Shit, they’re actually kissing. And it’s - fuck - it’s good. Billy’s hand comes up to cup his jaw, tilt his head for a better angle, thumb caressing just under his ear and- Yeah, Steve is gone. Just gone. No lights on upstairs except for the one blaring red alarm for ‘OH MY GOD, I’M KISSING BILLY HARGROVE AND IT’S AMAZING’.

It’s not even rough, like Steve had expected. There’s no battling for dominance, or biting, or tongue. They’re just… kissing. It’s not chaste but it’s sweet. It’s gentle and feels so fucking special, and Steve has never felt less alone cause Billy has him right now - and that thought is so bizarre that Steve can’t help but grin into the kiss, to start laughing slightly.

Billy pulls back, and Steve’s heart aches at the distance between them and, shit, he hasn’t felt like that since Nancy. Really? One kiss and he’s all in? But it’s hard to be mad because Billy is just looking at him with so much awe and wonder like Steve is something precious, like it’s unthinkable that he’s won this, and Steve melts.

He lets himself fall back fully onto the mattress except for one hand that he raises to trace Billy’s face with featherlight touches. His eyebrows, his nose, the shape of his lips, the bruise under his eye. And Billy’s eyes shine, and, crap, he’s tearing up.

“Oh, crap,” Steve rushes out, dropping his hand, rising onto his elbows. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”

“No- just- fuck-” Billy flops down next to him and Steve lowers himself back down, eyes scanning Billy’s face nervously. “I’m fine. Please, keep doing that.”

“Doing..?”

“Touching me like that.”

And Steve’s heart breaks because hasn’t Billy been treated like that before? He should have been. He should have been, and it makes Steve unthinkably angry that he hasn’t, so of course he will. He leans in and presses his lips to his forehead, between his brows, his temple, his cheeks, his jaw - all gentle kisses, as soft as he can manage, and Billy lets out a disbelieving huff of breath.

“Shit,” he says, like everything has just fallen into place. Like he gets something now, something that he’d missed before somehow.

And Steve brushes a curl back from Billy’s face. And then he’s leaning in and pressing his lips to Billy’s and it’s awkward, all noses butting chins because they’re still laying opposite ways, but it’s still, somehow, monumental.

When he goes to pull away, Billy’s fingers wind into his hair and guide him back for a marginally less awkward, longer kiss. He learns the taste of Billy’s lips, and that when he pauses to press a kiss to the corner of his smile he’ll sigh happily. It’s so fucking sweet. Sweeter than anything with Nancy had ever been, and it’s like this is the final thing that makes that persistent little ache at her absence flicker out. He doesn’t want Nancy, he wants this.

When, finally, they let each other actually pull away, they’re both smiling, eyes closed for a moment before they open and meet, leaning up to look into them better.

“That’s one hell of a goodnight kiss,” Steve tells him and Billy huffs out a disbelieving, startled, amused laugh.

“I don’t get you, pretty boy. But sleep with me?”

Steve nods, grinning so wide it makes his cheeks ache. He scrambles up, kicks that damn bat off the bed, ignoring the mildly concerning thump it makes against his bedroom floor, and realigns himself with Billy. For a moment, he just pauses to look at him because he doesn’t have to feel guilty about it now, and then he curls himself against Billy’s side, head on his shoulder as the guy’s arm curls around him and pulls him closer.

That night is the first in a long time that monsters don’t prowl behind his closed eyes, just blue eyes and the comfort of another’s breathing by his ear.

#harringroveweek #stranger things #harringrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove #fanfiction #fanart #squid writes #squid draws

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thatgirlwithasquid · 2 years

Text

Harringrove Week - Blind Date

(This fic is also posted on my AO3 account: here)

Words: 2,624

“Steve, please-”

“Not a chance. I am not letting you guys pimp me out just because you want to distract your brother.”

“But Steeeve,” Dustin jumps in, quickly coming to Max’s aid as the other kids continue to give him their best attempts at sad puppy eyes. “This is important.”

“You’re teaching Max to play Dungeons and Dumbasses-”

“Dragons,” they groan in sync.

“Whatever, shitheads,” he dismisses, trying to move round the group from where they’re blocking his way back into his own damn car. “I said I’d pick you guys up after school to go hang out in mini-Nancy-” Mike pulls an affronted face “-’s basement and play your loser game, but I’m not giving up my whole evening with Random Girl’s brother just because she wants to get out of having him keep an eye on her.”

“I’m old enough to look after myself!”

“Ha! Yeah, right,” he laughs. “You’re thirteen. Besides, with all the crazy demo-whatever shit that keeps going down, I don’t think I’m old enough to be going around without supervision. Hell, is anyone?”

The kids groan again, slumping dramatically into each other.

“But even El is coming,” Will chimes in, sounding heartbreakingly sad at the turn of events and- DAMNIT, STEVE, stay strong!

“We never all hang out as a group,” Mike agrees.

Lucas nods, before darting a look at Dustin who turns to Steve and- Shit, this is a coordinated effort to wear Steve down, isn't it? To make him pity the little shits and cave like some big softie. He’ll have to remind them that he took a bat to a swarm of demodogs - granted, he had thought it was the one but he’d still done it. Do they think they can break him so easily?

“Steve, please, man. We never all hang out. We’ll owe you big time - we’re only asking you because you’re the coolest person we know.”

…Well, they can.

“Fucking fine,” he growls out, most of his aggression directed at his own weak resolve and, from the elated look the little shits share, they very well know that. “Get in then - except you-” he waves a finger at Max. “Go get your brother to give you a lift. Where am I even meeting him?”

“Benny’s old place. It’s been gutted and redone.”

“Didn’t that guy kill himself? A little morbid don’t you think?”

“Suck it up, Steve,” Max calls over her shoulder as she whirls around to skate away.

Steve sighs, gesturing for the rest of the kids to hurry up in their scampering into Steve’s car. The doors shut with varying thunks before Steve swings into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition.

Steve drops the nuisances off and loiters in the Wheelers’ basement, half-praying that Max will show up and announce that the plan is off, that her brother isn’t even interested. It’s worrying him a little, to be honest - going on a date with a guy is risky shit, like, what if someone sees? Sure, Steve’s cool with it - he realised pretty recently that, yeah, definitely likes guys too - but not everyone is, and even then, even Steve had said some homophobic shit in the past.

He cringes at the thought.

And then there’s the fact that it’s a blind date. He has no idea who this guy is, or if the guy even knows he’s meeting Steve. Is it better or worse if they’re both in the dark? He can’t decide, shrugs it off, and goes back to his worrying.

Sure, they’re probably not gonna be obvious about the fact that this is a date, as has been established-

“Yes, Steve,” Max had said, rolling her eyes. “I mean a date as in a romantic date. With my brother.”

-but that doesn't mean no one around them will clock on. Steve is trying to calm himself, telling himself that it’ll just look like two dudes hanging out, being bros, totally platonically platonic. But then what if they do manage it but they do hit it off? Steve is an affectionate guy - that would suck! Not being able to reach over and touch and openly flirt is the worst thing Steve can imagine in that scenario.

Damn, being into guys is hard.

“For the kids,” he mutters to himself in an attempt to psych himself up, pacing a small circle.

“Mhmm, for the kids, Steve,” Dustin echoes absently, not even looking up from where he’s helping Mike set up for their campaign.

“You’re gonna do great man,” Lucas nods from his lounged position on the couch.

He shoots them a bitter smile and keeps pacing until the door is thrown open, footsteps racing down it until Max is revealed.

“Okay, all set,” she grins.

Steve dies inside just a little.

“Get moving!” she scolds, moving to drag Steve towards the stairs. “He’s on his way there now so you gotta go or you’ll be late!”

“Fuckkk,” he groans, letting himself be led with no small amount of reluctance. Maybe he can run to Nancy and she can hide him in her closet? He can be quiet in there, stealthy as a ninja.

“He’ll meet you at the far left of the counter,” Max says in lieu of goodbye as she shuts the basement door in his face.

Shit.

He pulls up outside what a neon sign proclaims to be “Frankie’s Diner”. It’s still Benny’s in Steve's head, though. He didn’t know the guy and had only come here once or twice before, but it’s hard to shake the feeling of how this place should be something else.

Other than that the place seems nice enough. New windows have been put in the front, bigger so that Steve can see the new booths inside. The white leather upholstery contrasts nicely against the walls painted, he doesn’t really know, some shade of light blue. It looks nice. Steve, though still unbearably anxious and feeling more than a little flighty, is admittedly a little excited to go inside.

It’s just because he hasn’t eaten out in a while. He hasn’t had the time, motivation or excuse.

A bell trills happily above the door as he pushes it open. A few of the diner’s inhabitants glance up as he enters, but most are happily chatting with their company or tucking into food that actually smells great - maybe that’s how the place is attracting a decent amount of clientele despite its gruesome backstory.

Or maybe, he thinks cynically, the gruesome history is the appeal - come see the diner where a guy killed himself! Tragedy can be sensationalised, after all.

He shudders, but presses on, scanning the faces at the counter, looking for the last at the left and-

Oh fuck no. No. No way. There must be some mistake. Somehow Max’s brother isn’t here yet, that’s the only explanation for why Hargrove is leaning against the far edge of the counter, chatting to the waitress behind it with his best Charming Smile.

There’s no way Steve has agreed to go on a date with Billy Hargrove.

But then Hargrove cuts his conversation with the waitress off and turns to glance at the door and when his eyes land on Steve he grins, and the look is utterly feral.

Hesitantly, Steve makes his way over to the counter beside Hargrove.

“No fucking way Max convinced King Steve to… hang out with me,” Billy smirks, eyes sparkling with a dangerous sort of mischief.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck-

“You’re Max’s brother?” he manages, because, quite frankly, that’s about all he’s capable of managing. On top of his horror and bafflement, he’s fucking drowning in how fuckin good Hargrove has cleaned himself up. The guy’s wearing a red shirt, half unbuttoned as standard, and the tightest jeans Steve’s ever fucking seen - damn, the guy’s ass… - with his jacket tossed over his shoulder from whenever he took it off. But that’s not all - that wouldn’t be all because life is out to make Steve suffer. Hargrove has clearly put more effort than usual into his hair and, yep, that’s eyeliner he’s wearing. It’s subtle, just a dark line framing his eyes in a way that makes them fucking sparkle.

Goddamnit, Max. Steve’s only a man, but making him this attracted to Billy? This is going to be the death of him.

“Through marriage only,” the guy huffs. “The little brat’s a major pain in my ass.”

“Clearly a lot of love there,” Steve is saying, before he can get over his shock enough to have any sort of a filter. “I can see why she was so desperate to get me to occupy your time so she didn't have to put up with you.”

“That the only reason you agreed, Harrington?” Billy says, continuing to smirk. Steve would’ve thought that would’ve offended the guy, but clearly he’s just having too much of a blast with who his current company is to care about his rudeness.

“Obviously,” he scoffs, willing his eyes to stay on Hargrove’s face and not to glance down.

Hargrove hums in response and then leans in, closer to Steve than he probably should since they’re in public. It’s in that moment, though, that Steve learns that Billy smells like cologne, cigarette smoke and something else unnamable.

“I guess I’ll just have to do a better job at convincing you it’s worth it for… other reasons…”

Then he’s leaning away and the waitress is back and Steve is just left standing there, gaping dumbly.

Holy shit.

That was hot.

Should that have been hot?

Oh, fuck. He’s so screwed.

It turns out that Billy’s chatting with the waitress had been him ordering a chocolate milkshake. She hands it over to the guy with a flirtatious smile that leaves Billy grinning in return. Steve doesn’t know what to make of that. He hopes, suddenly, this whole thing isn’t some kind of set up.

“And anything for you?” the waitress turns to ask him, eyes hesitant to leave Billy for a second.

“Uh, nothing for now. I’ll order when we get food. We - uh - gonna go sit, or what?”

Billy shoots him a grin.

“Sure thing.”

Sure thing? Why couldn’t things be this easy with Hargrove at school? It’d make Steve’s life so much easier.

Hargrove was fucking smooth. It just kept making everything worse. Steve was trying very hard not to obsess over how attractive the guy was being, because he might have agreed to the date but the guy was still Billy Hargrove, and he kept being even hotter with every minute.

“Wanna share, Pretty Boy?” he’d asked after Steve complained about being thirsty during the wait for their food and his drink to arrive.

It had made him flush red, but he couldn’t exactly back down from the offer or it’d be weird surely. So he’d taken a sip from the second straw the guy had apparently grabbed, trying to ignore the way he could feel Hargrove’s eyes on him the whole time.

“Thirsty there, Stevie?” the guy had mocked, leaning forward on his elbows onto the table. “You really-” his eyes flicked to Steve’s lips for a moment “-went for it.”

Steve cleared his throat, glancing away momentarily. When he looked back, Billy was reaching out for the straw Steve had used, then twirling it idly between his fingers. Hargrove’s eyes met Steve’s, blue and intense, ordering him to watch without words. Then, he ducked forward, never breaking eye contact, to suck from the straw Steve had just used.

Fuck-

When the guy pulled away, his tongue poked out to taste his lips, as if searching for a further taste. And, shit, that did things to Steve. If he hadn’t been sat down already, he’d have been on the floor. He was fucking shaking, and Billy made it worse by reaching out with his foot under the table to stroke Steve’s leg.

Luckily - or incredibly unluckily - it was at that moment the waitress reappeared with their food, breaking whatever was happening up.

And now they’re eating, chatting over their burgers that are as good as they smelled. It’s good. It’s really good. Billy’s still an asshole but he’s… funny. And he’s certainly got enough energy to leave Steve utterly enthralled as he bitches about anything and everything.

Steve’s having a lot of fun.

Steve’s having a lot of fun on a date with Billy Hargrove. It’s insane. He would almost be sure he’d imagined the fact that this was entirely not platonic if Billy didn’t keep blatantly flirting with him. But he did.

“Still can’t believe I’m taking out King Steve,” Billy grins this time, before it turns wicked. “Shall we see if I can do one better and take King Steve home with me? Y’know… I haven’t had a sleepover in so long-” he pointedly looks Steve up and down “and I’ve never had one with such… appealing company.”

Steve flushes. Again. He really can’t handle being flirted at, he’s just so used to doing all the flirting. It’s nice, and a little overwhelming.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” Steve smirks.

“Haven’t I taken you on a nice romantic outing, Harrington?” Billy asks, seductive smile still in place, quirking a brow.

“I don’t know if I’d say romantic,” he taunts, leaning forward, “since this little… hang out is going to be kept secret, and all your advances have been about getting in my pants.”

“You wanna see romantic, Pretty Boy?” Hargrove grins, slapping the money for their bill down on the table. “Then you’d better follow me.”

Steve doesn’t waste any time in following, sliding from his seat in the booth and following Billy out the door, hearing the bell jingle its farewell at them. He couldn’t care less, eyes roving over Billy’s back as he leads them around to the back of the building before he’s suddenly spinning to press Steve gently against the wall.

“You want romance?” Billy purrs, leaning in close, making Steve’s brain utterly shut down. The smell of cigarettes and cologne is back. “Want me to tell you how pretty you are, Stevie?” Billy ducks in and presses his lips to Steve’s cheek “How endless those brown eyes of yours are?” The other cheek “How I think about you all the time?” The corner of his mouth now, Steve’s breaths shallowly puffing against his lips where they hover less than an inch away “Well, I’m not much of a romantic, but I can make an exception just this once.”

And then he’s ducking in and pressing his lips to Steve’s so gentle and sweet. Chaste. He still tastes of chocolate milkshake.

When Billy pulls back he’s smirking again, eyes predatory.

“That romantic enough for you, pretty boy?” his voice rumbles.

Steve can barely string together enough words to even form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence, so he just nods.

Billy leans back in again, melting Steve’s brain entirely. He’s fairly sure he’s only upright because of the wall behind his back and Billy’s palm on his chest. Their lips brush together again and, embarrassingly, Steve whines.

And that must set Billy off because then he’s pressing harder, hungrier, more how Steve had expected him to be. The guy licks into his mouth and presses him into the wall with his weight and, fuck, Steve’s a gonner. He tries to kiss back but mostly just ends up panting into the space between them whenever Billy pulls back to breathe.

And then lips are on the skin of his neck, teeth dragging against the tendons and nipping beneath his jaw, and Steve’s knees pretty much buckle.

Fuck.

Yeah, he doesn’t think he’d mind keeping Billy occupied again. For Max and the Party, of course.

#harringroveweek #harringrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove #squid writes #squid draws #fanfiction #fanart

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