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theladycarpathia · 1 year

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This time we're gonna see this through

Prompt: Steve Harrington’s closet during a spring break party

“I feel like this is a conspiracy,” Steve says. Billy slides down the length of the door and rolls his eyes.

“You think?” he says flatly. Steve tries the handle anyway, just to be sure. It just rattles, a sound that no one will hear over the thumping music.

“It’s locked, genius,” Billy says, with his eyes closed. Like it hurts to look at Steve. Maybe it does.

Which is fucked up, because Steve’s not the one who left.

“Those assholes,” Steve hisses, yanking at the handle. It’s his fucking party, and he’s been locked in here like a child with the one person he’d hoped not to see ever again.

“Those assholes are our friends,” Billy points out, and Steve snorts. Robin is going to pay for this. She owes him big time. And yeah, maybe she had good intentions. It’s been nearly a year and Steve has been less than himself for most of it. It’s been fine. It was a break up. He needed time to get over it and he’d thrown a huge spring break party to prove that he was not still fucking moping.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Steve says, slapping his palm against the door. If he was a betting man, he’d probably guess that someone has also wedged a chair under the handle. They’re going nowhere.

So he chooses to stalk to the opposite wall and sit down. It means he has to look at Billy but anything is going to be better than feeling the heat of Billy’s skin and remembering when they used to lie together in Steve’s bed.

“How did you even end up here anyway?” Steve asks, because he thinks he’d remember asking Billy along to the party. Billy shrugs and tips his head back against the door.

“Heather,” he says briefly. Steve sighs. Right. He should have known that his best friend and Billy’s best friend probably kept in touch after. At least that was one relationship that hadn’t shattered.

“You knew it was my house,” Steve says, because this is the thought that has bothered him since he spotted Billy’s Camaro. He and Billy have very carefully kept to their own circles since that day in July. “Why did you even agree to come?”

“Heather wanted to,” Billy mumbles and he won’t meet Steve’s eyes. He’s fiddling with that scrap of leather around his wrist. It hadn’t looked so pathetic when he and Steve had been dating and the sad realization of how much time has passed hits Steve like a punch to the chest.

Steve wraps his arms around himself. He wishes he could hate Billy, after everything.

“Plus you did always throw good parties,” Billy says, with a flicker of something that looks like the old Billy. The one who arrived midway Junior year and immediately got into Steve’s face. Who wanted to be seen and wanted and…

Steve isn’t even sure who Billy is anymore.

“Damn straight,” Steve retorts. He just has to deal until Robin or someone comes to let them out. If Nancy finds out, she might take pity on Steve. And she only knows the bare bones of it: the break up, what happened after, and the horrible, awful truth of it.

“Heard from Hagan that you kind of fell out of the party scene,” Billy says carefully and Steve recognizes it for what it is. It’s the same kind of tone that Steve uses when he wants information out of Max. At least, back when he used to ask.

“Yeah, well…” Steve says vaguely, because what is he meant to say?

“Just lost interest in it,” he says finally, after the silence hangs around like the dust motes in the air. “Do you still work at Benny’s?” He knows full well that Billy does, and that chafes because Benny’s burgers are still the best food in town. He hasn’t dared set foot there, now that he no longer knows Billy’s schedule.

“Yeah,” Billy says, and stretches out his long legs across the floor. Steve discreetly shifts his left leg, trying to avoid Billy’s knee pressing into his own. “He offered to keep me on full time but I’m not here for long when I get that diploma.”

Steve’s heart sinks. Of course not. He never really expected Billy to stay in Hawkins but hearing it for certain is like a knife. What is it now? March, so there’s barely any time at all before Billy’s gone for good.

“Will you go back to California?” Steve asks, because he has to keep talking. He feels like he’s going to be sick, that this cupboard and the boy in it is smothering him. No amount of convincing himself that it’s a good thing will do. Because yes, it will be easier to breathe once Billy has gone, when he no longer has to keep checking over his shoulder.

But it means that they’re done and the small hope Steve has kept alive for the last year - that maybe, maybe they’ll get back together - has finally been snuffed out.

“Yeah,” Billy says quietly. He still won’t look at Steve, hands folded in his lap. It’s fine. Steve got pretty used to the idea that he was someone to be ashamed of, when Billy told him to his face last year.

“Good,” Steve says, and everything tastes bitter as he says it. “Good. I know you missed it.”

“You always knew I’d be leaving,” Billy says, and there’s a faint razor line in his voice. And oh, fuck him for getting angry. He has no fucking right to be angry about this. He dumped Steve and now he’s leaving.

“Yes, I did,” Steve spits. “It’s fine. Glad I’m not getting in your way. Jesus Christ, when are they going to let us out of here?” Because the music is still pounding and it feels very much like they’ve been forgotten. And he can’t even leave when they get out of here because it’s his fucking house.

“You weren’t in my way!” Billy retorts, voice rising and Steve finally snaps his head back to stare Billy right in the eyes for the first time since the door locked behind them. And he must be pretty fucking screwed up to miss this: the flush in Billy’s face as they fight, how gorgeous Billy looks with that wild look in his eyes. But back then their fights were always made up. Not this time. “You were never in my way! Jesus, Steve, I loved you. Okay? I fucking loved you and I always wanted to take you with me.”

Steve stares at him wordlessly, feeling as though all his strings had been cut. He’s not sure what’s worse - that Billy apparently changed his mind or that Billy used the past tense.

“Okay,” he says slowly. “Great. Good for you. Thanks for telling me.” Billy’s lip curls in a sneer.

“Is that it?” he hisses. There’s a faint glimmer of hurt on his face that Steve doesn’t quite understand. “Jesus fucking…Fuck you, Steve Harrington!”

“You wish,” Steve bites out. Billy’s mouth twists and he slams at the door with a fist. Steve winces at the rattle. He wants out but not badly enough to explain to his parents why the door is broken.

“Guess I won’t ever see you again when we get out of here,” Billy mutters to his shoes. Steve feels bile crawl up his throat. So. That’s it then.

“No,” Steve says, trying to make it sound like he doesn’t give a shit. “No, I guess not.”

The door suddenly clicks and is yanked open, throwing Billy and Steve into sudden bright light. Steve blinks before he sees Robin and Heather’s curious faces in the doorway.

“So?” Robin asks expectantly, and Steve only feels crushing disappointment at the excitement on her face. Billy just stands up and pushes past them, without looking back once at Steve. Robin twists her head between Steve, still on the cupboard floor, and the rapidly vanishing Billy into the crowd.

“Billy!” Heather calls after him, her voice lost to the pounding music. “Wait! What happened?” She turns back to Steve, her and Robin wearing matching faces of confusion. “Didn’t he ask you?”

“Ask me what?” Steve asks, pulling himself up. His legs feel as though they’ve gone to sleep and he wonders how long they’ve been sitting in here.

“He didn’t ask you?” Robin demands furiously. “He was supposed to ask you!”

“Ask me what?!” Steve repeats, feeling a little like when he was in a ball pit as a kid. No matter how hard he tried, he always felt like the edge of the pit was too far away. It feels like that now, fighting constantly against a swirling mass, what he wants just a little bit out of his grasp.

Heather exhales, her face quietly disappointed. “Steve, what did you do?” she asks, quietly.

“Nothing!” Steve says defensively, instinctively. He used to fight with Billy a lot, about nothing, about stupid shit. Because it was part of who they were, because they enjoyed it. Because it ended in great sex. This was different. This is a fight where if Billy leaves now, he’s never coming back.

Steve looks up at two grave faces and feels like everyone else knows something he doesn’t.

“What was he supposed to ask me?” he says and Robin just shakes her head.

“Go ask him yourself,” she says shortly and disappears into the churning crowd. Steve watches her go, feeling frustrated.

“I don’t understand,” he says to Heather. He lost her too, when he and Billy broke up. People shouldn’t have to choose sides but somehow they always do.

“What’s new?” she mutters, dragging her fingers through her tousled dark hair. There’s glitter smeared across her collarbones, sparkling in the flashing lights above the lace edge of her corset.

“Heather!” Steve demands. He’s fucked up and he doesn’t even know how. “I don’t know what I did wrong! We were talking and then he said he was going to ask me to go with him…” Heather’s jaw drops.

“So he did ask?” she says, before her eyes turn cold and hard. “Fucking hell, Steve! Do you know how hard it was for me to get him to come here? He was sure that you hated him!”

But Steve doesn’t hear her.

Billy was supposed to ask Steve to go with him when he left for California? But he’d said it in the past tense…and so Steve had thought that Billy no longer wanted him to go. No longer wanted him. But that hadn’t been the case at all. Billy had come here and Robin had perhaps known that there was no way Steve would stop and listen unless he had to.

And it hadn’t worked anyway. Steve had heard Billy but he hadn’t listened. And now Billy was leaving, entirely certain that Steve didn’t love him.

Steve takes off at a run, pushing past the startled Heather. Billy’s had a good few minutes head start and he has to hope that the Camaro is blocked in. He skids down the corridor, shoves a few people on the stairs as he passes and accidentally treads on Patrick’s foot on his way out of the front door.

The front of the house is mainly empty, a few people hanging out on the porch under the twinkling lights. The driveway is packed, cars crammed in as close as they can get. The people who arrived first have no chance of leaving until the dozens of cars behind them have moved.

Steve leaps off the porch steps and weaves through the cars, looking for that familiar blue. He’s always loved that car. They’d had sex in that car. Kissed for the first time in that car. Lay out on the hood and watched the stars.

The Camaro is blocked in, by some piece of junk and a Toyota. Billy stands by the driver door, fiddling with a cigarette. Steve shouts his name and watches the shock on Billy’s face as he turns around.

“So you are stuck in,” Steve pants, because Family Video isn’t a hugely physical job. Jesus, maybe he should take up basketball again.

“Yeah,” Billy says shortly. He’s still twirling the cigarette between his fingers, like he can’t decide whether or not to light it. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gone soon. Hell, I can walk if needed.”

“Don’t,” Steve begs and takes a hesitant step forward. Christ, only he would have the man he loves come back to him and supremely fuck it up. “Please. Heather and Robin made me think that maybe I misunderstood you.” Billy’s jaw tightens.

“Maybe you did,” he says, leaning against the car. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what’s been misunderstood here?”

Steve licks his lips, looking for saliva and courage “I thought you were telling me you changed your mind. About me going with you.”

“Maybe I have,” Billy mutters churlishly, but there’s a delicate flush climbing his neck. Steve shakes his head. He’s pretty certain that’s untrue. It means that, despite Billy’s cold dismissal of him last year, Billy has always loved him.

“No, you haven’t,” Steve counters. “Do you? Want me to go with you?” Billy exhales slowly, and when he looks up, he’s the boy that Steve knew. Not the cruel one from last year, nor the one from the cupboard.

“Yes,” he admits. “Steve, I always wanted you to go with me. Robin wants to come too, but they knew that you probably wouldn’t if it was with me. I thought for sure after last year you hated me…”

“No,” Steve bursts out. “No. I didn’t. I didn’t understand why, but I didn’t.” Billy gives a sharp bark of laughter.

“You should have,” he says bitterly. “I deserved it. That was the worst way I could have…”

“Why did you?” Steve asks, edging closer. He resists the urge to shove his hands in his pockets, because there’s a bite to the air that he hadn’t noticed before. He wonders how Billy is standing there without shivering, before he remembers the constant warmth of Billy’s skin.

“Had to,” Billy says distantly. “I still had a full year of school left, even though you were about to graduate. Another year to live at home…” he cuts himself off but not before Steve catches his meaning.

“Neil knew?” he breathes, because Neil wasn’t supposed to know. They probably hadn’t been careful enough, given that most of Billy’s class, and a lot of Steve’s knew that they were together. All it would have taken was for someone to mention it to a parent and then for that person to mention it to Neil.

Neil didn’t care to have a gay son under his roof.

“So it had to be public and I couldn’t tell you,” Billy says, and the regret on his face is heart wrenching. “I wanted to but…” Steve nods. Billy’s life was already hell. If Neil had ever found out that he was still talking to Steve, life wouldn’t have been worth it.

“But you’re getting out?” Steve asks, because that’s clearly the plan. Billy’s going to turn eighteen soon, mere weeks away from graduating and being free of Neil. Billy nods, but he makes no mention of his former offer.

“He was going to hurt you,” Billy says, turning his face up to Steve’s. His blue eyes are huge in the moonlight, surrounded by full, pale lashes. Steve always thought that Billy’s distance this past year was down to indifference, rather than what it was. Guilt, regret, an act of protection. “I’m sorry. I just had to be sure it was public and he’d hear about it.”

Steve should hate him. The humiliation had been bad enough, being pushed away like he was something underfoot but the devastation had been even worse. The person he’d adored had just…stopped loving him.

“You still love me,” Steve says, unable to stop the dopey grin spreading across his face. Billy’s flush deepens.

“Yeah, well, you still love me,” he retorts. He stashes the cigarette away in a pocket, like it was a safety net that he no longer needs. He offers a hand and Steve doesn’t hesitate to take it.

It’s like they haven’t spent a year apart with the way that they fit together. Billy feels the same, from the soft spot under his ear, to the curls under Steve’s fingers, to the hips that slot into his. It’s fucking freezing but they kiss and kiss, under Steve can no longer feel his fingers and his mouth is a raw red.

“Come with me,” Billy breathes hopefully, struggling for the keys to open the Camaro. They can’t drive anywhere just yet, but they can make use of the backseat. The good kind of fights are made up with orgasms. Steve can pull Billy into his lap, like they used to, curled around each other to fit. Back then it used to feel like they were one person, connected all the way from head to heels to heart. No one will notice them while they take the time to relearn how to be together.

“Always,” Steve promises and shuts the door behind them.

#harringrove #harringroveweek #steve harrington #billy hargrove #spring break #billy's birthday bonanza #idiots in love #mutual pining #angst with a happy ending #miscommunication #neil hargrove is an ass #but billy's going to be free with his boyfriend and their friends #ngl this might be my favourite prompt for this week #robin buckley #heather holloway #steve will absolutely forgive them

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