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prettybillycore · 2 years

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Finally Safe || Billy Hargrove x Short!Reader

Pairing(s): Billy Hargrove x Short!Reader (gender neutral)

Minor Steve x Nancy, Very Minor Steve x Billy

Universe: Stranger Things

Summary: While the same age as Nancy and Jonathan, you were substantially shorter. You, for some reason, were built smaller than your friends. You had been friends with the Byers family and the Wheelers for many years. Jonathan and Will were basically your family. This lead you to get involved in looking for Barb and Will when everything first happened in 1983. You became trapped in the Upside Down briefly and the experience left you in shock. You found your way out through a portal in the woods, but you were never quite the same afterward. Jonathan, Nancy, and even Steve (after learning about the Upside Down) became protective of you. It’s now 1984 and a certain Californian had his eyes on you.

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: Canon typical violence, the lab, descriptions of injury, depictions of a panic attack, PTSD from the upside down, and alcohol

Read it on Ao3 (or here on Tumblr below the cut!)

Everyone who knew about the Upside Down had been affected by it. The place was horrifying, after all. You had a closer encounter than some of the other teens though. You were helping Nancy and Jonathan look for traces of Barb when you cut yourself on a busted beer can in Steve’s backyard. You saw what was left of Barb plus the monster that killed her; who now wanted to kill you. You weren’t sure how you made it out alive, but one thing lead to another. One minute you were running through a hellscape from a monster like nothing you had ever seen, the next you were in the woods, screaming so loud it felt like your lungs were going to explode.

You keep running, screaming, and crying until you ran into a search party looking for Will. Joyce was among this particular party and you ran straight into her arms. She hugged you tightly and asked you what had happened, but you couldn’t get the words out. Hopper shined his flashlight over to the two of you, which lead him to realize that you were absolutely covered in your own blood. Cuts to your body had been made from something , but it looked different from every bear attack he had ever seen. One of the locals helped Joyce lower you to the ground and began to tend to your wounds. They were painful and sore, but they weren’t fatal. The person helping you said that the thing they should most be worried about was your blood supply and the fact that you ran while in this condition. The last thing you remember from that night was Joyce squeezing your arm as Jonathan came running over.

You couldn’t get yourself to talk about what happened to you for a long time. Jonathan and Nancy were able to figure out what happened to you based on the drawings that you gave. You were thrilled when Will was found a few days later. Your bond only became closer with the Byers family after that, because you and Will (unfortunately) had shared experiences. You knew that no one at school outside of Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve would believe what you had been through. You started to shrink away from even the three of them some days though. You had overall just become a much more quiet person after your experience. You never expected Billy Hargrove to be the source of light you needed to become your brighter self again.

He was brash, rude, and arrogant. You usually had a disdain toward popular jocks with god complexes, but you caught yourself staring at him from across the cafeteria and while in your shared chemistry lab. Something about him, in particular, was intriguing; and you absolutely hated the fact that you thought of him like that. He never seemed interested in you though. He had no reason to even know that you existed. You were just another person at this school to him and you were sure it was always going to be that way.

You watched him flirt with different girls every day. You saw the hatred in Steve’s eyes as he walked by you both in the parking lot one morning. That seemed to be the morning that Billy first noticed you. He scoffed in Steve’s general direction and rolled his eyes at the concern that was glimmering in Nancy’s eyes. When his eyes landed on you, though, his face became much more curious. He smiled at you and winked before turning his head back toward the direction that he was walking. You shot a confused look at the back of his head and then tossed the same look to Steve. What could he possibly see in you?

Steve pulled Nancy to his side and set his free hand gently on top of your head. “Billy Hargrove makes me feel… a lot.” You eyed Steve curiously, not fully knowing what he meant by that. You, he, Nancy, and Jonathan had had many late-night conversations about sexuality, but you were surprised that Steve would see Billy as his type. Not that you doubted Billy’s LGBT-ness; more that you were confused by Steve’s interest. You smiled a little bit. You knew that Steve had no intention of leaving Nancy for Billy, but it made you feel good that someone else was intrigued by Billy’s antics.

“He makes me feel a lot too. I think he just is a lot,” you responded. Steve nodded. It wasn’t long before you all decided to make your way into school after that.

It would be a little while before you saw a softer side of Billy Hargrove. He was good at keeping up his attitude and appearance. He did start paying more attention to you after the day in the parking lot; flirting with you while you stood at your locker, saying hi to you as he walked past you to get to his seat in class, and eventually openly flirting with you while you sat at your lunch table– no matter if you were alone or with your odd friend group. You really didn’t mind this attention though. It was sort of nice to have a jock treat you with some kind of respect (other than Steve, of course). But, it was actually one of your teachers that caused the softer side of Billy to show. Your chemistry teacher was a bit of a stickler for the rules and she hated when people would talk in her class. This caused her to every so often change the seating assignments in her room. She ended up pairing you and Billy together at the back of the classroom. Your table was just the two of you and it was the very last one. It surprised you a little bit that she put Billy all the way in the back corner, but, to be fair, he wasn’t the biggest troublemaker in the class. That title would have to go to Tommy Hagan; who she did place at the first table, right in the front by her desk. She probably just wanted to keep them as separated as possible. Besides, it’s not like you minded. You were curious about him, after all.

Being the only two members of your table for all the labs, meant that you two actually had to try pretty hard to keep up with the workload. Your teacher could see that you were both putting in the effort, so she did, at the end of the day, cut you some slack if you weren’t quite finished with something. Billy never complained about working on stuff; he genuinely seemed engaged with the activities and with you. As time went by, he became more open with you. He joked with you and continued to flirt. You began to look forward to your chemistry class and Billy started cutting his way into more of your daily school time. All of this was strongly disliked by Jonathan and Steve, but Nancy told them to keep it cool. She knew that if you needed help with Billy, you would come to them. Billy avoided hanging around you if you were with both Jonathan and Steve; he was just starting to like you and didn’t want to ruin that by pissing off your other friends.

The year kept progressing and you kept working with Billy. You could tell that he wasn’t really settling into Hawkins, but you decided not to push the matter. To your surprise, the next time the teacher moved seats, she kept you and Billy together at the back of the room. He was trying to hide it, but you could tell he was smiling.

He never let you come over to his house to do projects. He always insisted on working at your place or the library. Your parents were never really home and you liked the Hawkins library, so it was a problem for you. Though, it did cause you a pretty large amount of concern. As you continued to get closer, you met his step-sister Max. They seemed to have a pretty strained relationship, but they both seemed hesitant about going home. Your concern for them both only continued to grow.

Concern often goes both ways, though. Billy was much more observant than he let on. He noticed that you weren’t always up to talking, your eyes were often heavy from lack of sleep, and you were a rather jumpy person overall. He also noticed how much his “friends” picked on you. Tommy Hagan, especially. It got to a point where if Billy heard Tommy saying something about you, he would death glare at the boy. Tommy was an asshole who wasn’t afraid of much, but he was definitely afraid of Billy’s wrath. Billy learned from Tommy’s relentless bullying that you had been through something, something really bad . Tommy said you had been missing at some point during the previous year and you returned to Hawkins high “more of a freak” than ever before. Billy had no idea what that meant, but he could tell by the state of your mental health most days that you had been through something truly horrifying. He didn’t know what to do or how to bring it up to you, so he just did his best to keep Tommy off of your back and waited to see if you would open up to him.

You never expected things to get so bad that you would start sleeping at a friend's house. Much like Will; you had trips to the lab. You would go there and see the doctors for treatment. Nothing they did seemed to help much, but you held out hope. Your symptoms were keeping you from sleeping most of the time at this point, but you didn’t want to worry Joyce or Jonathan, or Will for that matter. This, is why you ended up getting help from Steve.

Your parents, much like Steve’s, weren’t around much and didn’t ask too many questions about what was going on in your life. They had a house in place for you to live in while they traveled the world writing journal articles. They did care about you, they just trusted that you would be okay on your own. They started traveling without you around the age of 9 when they would have Joyce or the Wheeler family watch you. Now, they just assumed you could handle things on your own. After what happened to you last year, you were having trouble being alone. You knew Nancy’s family had a full house and you also had a strong disdain for Mrs. Wheeler, but that was another story. You didn’t want to go there, so you made a deal with Steve starting in October. You would basically move into one of the spare rooms at his house and if you needed reassurance that you were safe, he would always be just down the hall in his room. Your childhood home would serve more as a connection point for you and your family when they were in town; when they weren’t you would stay with Steve. You started carpooling together and Billy definitely noticed, though he didn’t say anything. Your study sessions still went on at your family home or Hawkins library, but your move didn’t go over without Billy realizing that something had changed.

Since moving into Steve’s place, your mental health was better. Billy could tell that you were less foggy and were actually sleeping some nights. You had been open with him about your troubles with sleep, but you didn’t tell him why they improved. He didn’t learn anything about your stays at the lab or at Steve’s until he received a distressed phone call one night. “Billy… Hargrove, I need your help. It’s Y/n.” Steve’s voice made Billy’s skin crawl. He went from a dead sleep to running down to his car.

Billy arrived to Steve’s house far more quickly than he should have. When Steve saw the headlights of the Camaro coming through the window, he was slightly concerned about how the Camaro had arrived, but that concern was soon tossed out of his mind. Steve ran to the door to meet Billy, who was about to knock on it. Billy didn’t know anything about the situation other than you were at Steve’s and you had locked yourself in the bathroom. “Where are they?”

“Upstairs bathroom, follow me.” Steve replied, “How much do you know about what happened last year?”

The two were making their way through the house at a quick rate, but Steve was still using the little time they had to gauge Billy’s knowledge. “I know there was something bad. They’ve never told me what happened. Other people speculate, though.”

“It’s not my place to tell you everything, but just know that whatever you’re picturing; it was worse. Y/n struggles really hard sometimes with feeling safe. Normally I can convince them and everything settles down pretty quickly, but tonight is different. Nothing I’ve tried has helped and they’ve been in the bathroom for like an hour now. I’m really worried. Nancy, Jonathan, and Hopper didn’t answer their phones so I called you. I didn’t know what else to do,” Steve explained. “It’s this door here.”

“Steve?” You asked. Billy’s heart shattered at the sound. Your voice was small— smaller than he had ever heard it before. He could hear the dryness from crying and how much you were struggling to breathe.

“Yeah, it’s me. I’ve got someone else with me too. We’re worried about you, Y/n.”

Billy stepped up to the door and put his hand on the knob. He moved it around, but nothing much happened. Steve was right, you had locked yourself in. “Hey Doll. It’s Billy. Steve is so worried about you, he called me of all people… and now that I’m here; I’m pretty worried too.” He wiggled the knob again. He could feel his impatience crawling up his throat. It was like a spider was inching its way up from his stomach. He threw it back down by swallowing. “I’m gonna need you to open the door, Sweetheart.”

“Billy? You came?” Your tone was coated in surprise.

“Of course I did. You mean more to me than you fuckin know, Y/n.” He grimaced at his own vulnerability, but he needed to see you. He knew that he could bust down the door if absolutely necessary, but he wanted to avoid that. He didn’t know where you were inside of the bathroom and he didn’t want to risk hitting you.

He felt the knob turn under his hand and he immediately popped the door open. He peered inside. He pursed his lips and closed his eyes for a moment as an automatic response to the sight. You were curled up against the wall, knees pulled up to your chest. It was clear you had just reached up and unlocked the door; you hadn’t moved. Your eyes were bloodshot and your cheeks were carved with rivers. Billy sucked in a deep breath and let himself into the bathroom entirely and got down on your level. He leaned his back against the bathroom counter opposite you. He didn’t know what the best thing to do was to help you; he didn’t know the source of your panic, but he did know the most important things were to make you feel safe and to ground you in reality. “I am right here, okay? I don’t know what happened to make you feel like this, but you are safe as long as you are with me or Steve. Neither of us would let anything bad happen to you.”

Without saying anything, another sob wracked your body before your launched yourself toward him. He was surprised by your suddenness, but he pulled you into his chest without hesitation. Your hands were clinging onto the fabric of his jean jacket; his hands were around your back and on your head respectively. Your face was buried in his chest and he felt every sob dampen his T-shirt.

Steve pushed the door open entirely and sat himself down against the wall of the hallway. Billy could tell that he was exhausted, but relieved. Steve mouthed “thank you” to Billy. He gave him a curt nod before turning his attention back to you. He placed a small kiss on the top of your head. He told you to focus on the sound of his voice and he began to hum softly.

After a few minutes of this, your sobs started to quiet down, until you weren’t sobbing at all. You were resting peacefully in Billy’s arms and Steve fell asleep against that wall in the hallway.

Billy and Steve became a team after that night. They would take turns walking around with you during the day and made sure you always felt like you had someone to talk to. They both assured you that they loved you and that you were never too much for them. It made your heart swell and things got a little more stable in your life as the days passed. Billy wouldn’t admit it to himself, let alone to anyone else, but he was falling for you– hard.

Max was the first to notice, followed by Nancy, Steve, and Dustin. There was just something in the way that he looked at you. His expression softened whenever he was around you and the second anyone tried to say something bad about you– he would raise holy hell. You never saw that part, but it was happening. You did notice how Tommy and Jason both had stopped harassing you, but you didn’t put together that it was Billy who had stopped them. Well, you didn’t put it together until the Halloween Party that is.

Jonathan convinced you to come to the party. You originally didn’t want to go because parties weren’t really your scene, but Jonathan asked you to come with him so he wouldn’t be alone. You knew how he felt about Nancy and he didn’t want to be her and Steve’s third wheel. You grimaced, but you did agree in the end. You went dressed as an elf; a costume you already had from your DnD days. You felt pretty good when you waved goodbye to Will and the other party members, but as you and Jonathan approached Tina’s house, you didn’t feel so good. Steve and Nancy waved to you as your car pulled up; every inch of space was taken up by someone; somehow it looked like there were even more people inside of the house. They peeled their way through the crowd and Steve pulled open your door. “Somehow you're more sparkly than when you left my place.”

You laughed a bit. Some of the tension left your shoulders as you remember what Billy said to you. You are safe as long as you are with me or Steve. Neither of us would let anything bad happen to you. Billy wasn’t always soft with you, but he was a safe space. Steve was consistently gentle and patient. “Really? I haven’t added anymore glitter.”

Steve helped you out of the car and walked with you into the grassy front yard. “You haven’t? Could have fooled me.”

“You look fantastic Y/n! You should help me do my costume next time,” Nancy squealed.

You smiled brightly at her. “Thank you! And gladly.”

The air around you was abuzz with noise and high school life. It was overwhelming, but you were tucked into Jonathan’s side. Steve was on the other side of you and Nancy was in front of you. You did your best to focus on them and relax. Until Tommy cut in. “If it isn’t our fallen King Steve and his group of sorry peasants.”

“Wow… How long did it take you to come up with that insult, Tommy? How old are we? Six?” Nancy fired back. Her comment made you laugh.

“What are you laughing at, L/n? You look like a Christmas elf threw up glitter glue.”

You stopped laughing real quick. You knew you shouldn’t listen to anything Tommy had to say, but it was hard not to listen. You felt your eyes getting watery, but it all came to a halt when Tommy’s smirk was wiped off his face. Billy was seething. Everyone around you could see it. “What did I tell you about bothering Harrington and Y/n? That’s my job.” He grabbed Tommy by his collar and pulled him away from you. “Go bother somebody fucking else, Hagan,” Tommy grumbled something, but you didn’t bother listening.

Billy’s shirt was almost completely unbuttoned and his skin was glinsing with sweat. You could tell that he was more than a little bit drunk, but the way his hair fell on his face was just so pretty . “You look stunning, Doll.”

Jonathan backed away from you and so did Steve as Billy approached. He picked up one of your hands and planted a kiss on the top of it. His fingertips lingered on yours and he smirked at your flushed expression. “Thank you, Billy.” His frame towered over yours. He filled your entire view; you had no idea where any of your friends went, but honestly, you didn’t care at that moment. You felt so small at that moment, but for the first time in a while– that felt like a good thing.

He placed his free hand on your cheek. “Don’t let anything he says bother you, Darlin’. I love your height and I know nothing about the dungeon game, but you are adorable as your character.”

You leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek; standing on the tips of your toes to do so, but he had other plans. He tilted his head so your lips collided with his. The progression felt so smooth and natural though, it didn’t matter. He pulled away almost as quickly as he did it, chuckling softly under his breath. “Sorry, shoulda asked before I did that.”

“Please do it again–”

His eyes flicked between yours and your lips. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

And so there you were; kissing Billy Hargrove, your surprising knight.

End <3

Forever Tags: @whoringrove @bilqis-of-sheba

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