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Out of all my favorite people whose honor I’ve had to defend from thirsty people on Tumblr, I have to say that Teemu Keisteri is the most unexpected.
….I say while reading my own very thirsty posts.
#this has been a great distraction from the esc mess tho and I thank you#I love you all#windows95man#teemu keisteri#being ace and finding a new squish is a very weird experience#every time man. every time#at least none of you know who Dick Valentine is yet#keep your filthy hands off Weird Al btw
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Miles quaritch , Lyle Wainfleet and Tsu'tey kinks
Two kinks listed per character
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY
A little present for my friends @tarrynightss @villiansimpqueen @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed @nin3kyuu @milknhonies @xandy-toady
this kind of happened lol so i hope you enjoy. This is also a gift to al my followers!and feedback is much appreciated!! i would love to see yall in my ask box. Weather it just be requests or just comments and such in general!
BREEDING KINK
-you can't tell me this man doesn't have a breeding kink, you just can't. This man thoroughly enjoys seeing seeing his so fucked out and breed.
he loves the thought of filling you with his seed, staying seated within you just to ensure none of it leaks out. Pressing kisses to his mates temple while speaking words of praise. Telling them how good they did for him.
Other times he enjoys pushing his cum back into his mates dripping cunt with his fingers. On top of that it means he can try and coax another orgasm out of them. Watching his SO beg for another release by his hands really just builds his ego.
Cock warming is another kink of his however he enjoys using it as another way to try and ensure yet again that nothing is to leak from his lovers body. SCENTING
he will not let his SO leave the room without smelling like him. He wants everyone to know who they belong to, who they were with when they weren't in others presence.
he doesn't want anyone getting any ideas of claiming his SO as there or even just getting to close. If they smell like him others will know not to fuck around.
When his mate where to shower wearing his shirt after would suffice for a little while. It still ensured his smell lingered on them, subtle or not his mate wearing his clothes gets something stirring in him.
in the more dirty side of things not only dose he enjoy the breeding side of sex with his mate but also being able to smear his cum along his mates belly. Anything that’s leaked out the man uses it in order to spread his scent along their stomach. Even when cleaned up that scent lingers for quite some time at least for him and the other recoms.
SIZE KINK
Lyle has a massive size kink, his mate is smaller than him no doubt. He’s protective of them to, refuses to let any harm come to them in any way shape or form.
He loves being able to encompass his mate with his body, caging them in between his arms as he slowly thrusts his hips into their body. Dipping his head into the crook of their neck. The man can't help but groan into their ear. Ensuring they knew just how good they were for him. " Youre doing so good for me baby, taking me so well. " "Look how well you stretch for me, so beautiful.. "
stomach bulge, lyle goes feral being able to see his own dick bulge within his lover. The man might even go so far as to press down on his mates stomach in order to draw out moans form and pleasured whimpers from them. Only he can draw this sort of thing from his mate and it makes him go absolutely nuts.
Lyles hand encompasses his mates there's no doubt about that. Not only dose he enjoy comparing that difference he also enjoys teasing his SO with his fingers. Using it as a means to prepare his mate for him. However not before he draws out an orgasm or two from his lover as he simply enjoys watching them squirm below him. He is such a tease and he knows it, it fills him with pride knowing only he can do this to his SO.
SHOWER SEX/BATHTUB SEX
He loves how intimate these times with his mate can be. How close it brings him and his mate together. For him it not just about the sex. He wants to show his SO just how attentive and caring he can be towards them. He basically just wants to worship them. Outside of the shower he may be a little rough so he makes up for it here.
Lyle loves getting down on his knees before his mate, pleasing them is something he gets off on. What better way to do that than in the shower with them. One of their legs over his shoulder, his mates hands at the back of his head trying to pull him in closer between their legs. Sometimes letting out a soft hum as the water cascades over the both of them. This man loves it when his mate can't control the little bucks of their hips over his tounge.
Lyle for sure has a non-slip shower mat in the bottom of the tub, he wants to ensure that while they're having fun the love of his life is not in danger of slipping and falling on his watch. Despite it being there he's still careful, ensuring that he has some sort of hold on them or at the very least in arm's length so he can keep them from crumpling to the ground. Like when he's entirely over worked their body and their legs become like jelly after a session.
while shower sex is fun sometimes, he likes to fill the tub with water and just thoroughly enjoy a bath with them. That being said it doesn't always last as long as the both of them would like as ninety percent of the time it ends up with his mate straddling his hips as they ride him. Water threatening to tip over the edge of the tub and onto the floor.
OUTDOOR SEX
Hes not one for public sex but there is no stopping him from leading you out into the forest of pandora and having his way with his mate on a bed of moss. Something the two of you(his mate ) have previously discussed and really quite enjoyed the thought of being away from everyone in order to just thoroughly enjoy the company of just his mate with no interruptions.
Tsu'tey loves to pin his mates hands either above their head or on either side of them pressed into the soft plush ground beneath them. Rutting his hips into his mate just thoroughly lost in the throws of pleasure. No one can bother them here, no one can ask him about training or ask that he help the other warriors in something. Its just him and his mate with no distractions. Hes fully able to focus on nothing else but his lover and he quite enjoys that very much.
He also likes the fact that in the forest there really is no limitations of where he can have his mate. Hes practically had sex just about anywhere with them. Up against the tree, in the river where the water isn't running so fast. The sky's the limit really. No really the sky is a limit, he won't put his mate in danger by doing something so foolish as to having sex up in the air or on his Ikran. It's not something he's comfortable with and probably never will be.
He especially likes to go out towards eclipse, when the only light left out there is the bioluminescence of the forest. The low light of the plants around him and his mate is something he enjoys because it brings him into a focus. Its like a tunnel vision, he is at utter peace listening to his mate moan and cry out below him. Its all for him as well and he wouldn't have it any other way. Often times(you ) his mate will hear words of praise as he thrusts into them. Complimenting them on how well they're taking him. How beautiful they look below him. Oh how he wishes moments like these will never end.
ORGASM CONTROL/EDGING
Tsu'tey from time to time enjoys bringing his mate to the very edge of bliss and taking it away right at the last second. Seeing his lover cry out for him in frustration and need just really gets him going he can't help it. To have someone fully reliant on him in order to achieve an orgasm makes him feel wanted, needed even.
He loves to lay his mate over his legs so he can sit up and work his fingers along their body. Pressing his fingers into their wet heat an thrusting slowly at first before increasing his pace in order to start a steady rhythm. Curling his fingers in order to draw out all those pretty moans he loves so much. Stopping and starting over and over and over again, drawing them to the brink of release only for it to fall away from them like a ton of bricks. Only to be met with the sound of this man is fully amused chuckle.
If he's fully sheathed within his mate he preferers to take them from behind when trying to take control of exactly when he wants to allow his mate that state of exstacy. Threading his arm along the front of his lover, sliding slowly down their belly and to their clit. Massaging their clit as he thrusts himself upwards into their body. His other arm hooked around his SOs elbows in order to draw them back perfectly against him.
Once he dose allow his mate that sweet release of their orgasm Tsu'tey enjoys watching them come undone. Watching as their body shakes before him. The entire time he cradles them close, brushing their hair away from their face and carding through the strands as he speaks to them. " Ive got you yawne, you did so well for me" " So perfect, just rest now. Ive got you, im here. Ill never leave."
I plan on possibly doing some of these for Ja, mansk jake and maybe brown..., Let me know if yall would like that to! <3
#navi miles quaritch#miles quaritch x reader#miles quaritch smut#recom lyle wainfleet#lyle wainfleet x reader#lyle wainfleet smut#tsu'tey smut#tsu'tey x reader#tsu'tey#avatar the way of water#avatar 2#avatar#recom squad#recom#navi#ikran
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𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐅𝐔𝐋 | 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔.
in his six years of parenting—that he’s done all by himself, he might add—gojo satoru has never thought he’d see the day. but here’s megumi, standing before him and shyly pointing to a small arrangement of roses. long gone is his snarky, sarcastic, ruthless son—instead, now he’s blushing, staring up at gojo hopefully.
“what’d you say you needed these for?” he raises a brow at the boy, and megumi huffs, cheeks turning a deeper shade of crimson as he looks away bashfully.
“to give them to someone,” he mumbles, “it’s valentine’s day.”
gojo blinks, and then his lips twitch, and then he’s full on smiling. it’s the big, eye crinkling, nose twitching, and cheek stretching kind—except there’s a hint of smugness to it.
“so,” he wriggles his brows, crouching to his son’s height. he has to crouch rather low, given his towering height in comparison. “you got a crush, huh? what’s she like? she must be one hell of an angel to put up with a stinker like you,” he pinches the spikey haired boy’s nose.
megumi crinkles it in distaste, scowling at his father’s tendencies to insist on being the most insufferable man he’s known—and he’s not personally gotten to know a lot of grown men in his six years of life.
“she’s nice,” he crosses his arms, “and she’s not annoying like you.”
“hey,” gojo pouts, eyeing a worker in the flower shop that chuckles at the jab thrown at his expense, “i’m a catch. you wouldn’t get it, no one likes dicks—i mean, jerks like you,” he corrects himself, praying the six year old devil before him doesn’t pick up on the colorful words he tends to let slip.
gojo satoru loves his son.
well, megumi might not really be his son, but that doesn’t matter. he’s raised the boy since he was an infant, and he’s his son if gojo’s got something to say about it.
and gojo never pictured himself a single father in his early twenties, yet here he is—and he doesn’t think he’d ever look back. and sure, they have a bit of a push and pull relationship, but still, gojo pretends like he doesn’t know megumi crawls into his bed some nights and snuggles into his side, and he’s sure megumi looks the other way when he sniffles a little every time the boy’s height is a bit taller on the kitchen wall he marks it on.
“whatever,” the child grumbles, eyeing his little batman watch on his wrist, “can we get going soon? i don’t want to be late.”
gojo stifles a chuckle, ruffling megumi’s hair before grabbing the bouquet he’d picked out.
“alright, you little booger,” he walks up the the register, “lets get you a valentine so you don’t die alone.”
and because he’s a doting father, he simply bites his tongue and fights back the eye twitch when he sees the bill—who knew a small bouquet for a six year old could be so expensive?
“so,” gojo whispers, nudging the six year old’s shoulder gently, “which one is the unlucky kid you’re into? point ‘em out—but don’t be obvious okay? don’t let—”
megumi raises a brow, unimpressed before shyly pointing a small finger in your direction.
gojo blinks, looking to the right of you, then the left, and then he’s craning his neck to see if there’s anyone behind you.
nobody.
“you’re kidding right?” he asks flatly, turning back to his son.
“no,” he megumi grumbles, glaring up at his father.
“a teacher? you have a thing for a teacher? megumi, you can’t—hey! where are you going?”
megumi’s made a beeline for you, flowers clutched in his small hands as he walks away, and gojo follows swiftly, shocked to his core. none of the parenting tips on google ever had a suggestion for this, and he’s starting to think he didn’t do his research thoroughly enough.
“megumi, give me your flowers,” he whispers, looping his finger into the small handle of megumi’s backpack and pulling him back.
“why?”
“because i need them,” gojo insists, eyeing your figure up and down—it makes it a lot easier to not seem like a creep when you’re constantly wearing dark sunglasses. gojo thinks at least megumi’s got good taste, he can certainly see the appeal.
you’re perfect—your smile is radiant, sweet, it makes learning fractions seem like a fun activity. you turn and see them approaching, throwing a beam at the small child in front of him, and gojo pouts just the slightest bit that he doesn’t elicit such a response from you.
“hi, megumi! is this your father?” you wave cheerily at the small boy, and for the second time ever, megumi gets shy again. he nods, and gojo stares with his mouth slightly agape.
“yeah,” he mumbles quietly. “this is my dad. he’s a little weird sometimes,” he warns, and gojo sputters, staring at his traitor son with wide eyes.
“hi,” you smile warmly, holding a hand out for gojo to shake, “i’m megumi’s new teacher—his old one left,” you explain, and gojo nods, though he’s not sure he’s processed any of what you’d just said.
you’re pretty, and your voice is even prettier.
“i’m gojo satoru, megumi’s father,” he introduces himself, “and i’m not weird,” he explains through an awkward chuckle, shooting a glare at the mop of dark locks beside him.
megumi shoots back daggers his way, and before anything else can be done or said, gojo snatches the flowers from megumi’s hands and holds them out for you.
“hey—”
“here ya go,” gojo grins, flashing you his most charming smile. your knees buckle just a little bit, but you will yourself to take the small bouquet from the extremely attractive man in front of you. “here’s a little welcoming present for ya, for dealing with this handful here,” gojo grins widely at you as he points to the child next to him.
“thank you,” you beam, “but megumi is a very sweet child, he’s always on his best behavior.” said child beams at the praise, and even though a small part of gojo is proud to hear it, another part of him wants to roll his eyes.
“he’s nothing like that at home, don’t be fooled,” he flicks megumi’s forehead, and if not for you watching, he’s sure it would’ve landed him a bite to his finger from megumi.
he thinks he wants you around all the time if that’s the case.
and megumi’s face is puffed up in pure rage as he latches onto gojo’s leg—gojo tries his best not to wince from nails digging into his thigh.
“but it was my idea—”
“megumi insisted that i welcome you,” gojo interrupts with a chuckle, “he’s a thoughtful kid. i raised him to always put others first, you know?”
you blink before nodding slowly, eyeing the two as they seem to have a battle with each other through harsh stares.
“oh, uh…of course,” you say finally, “that was very thoughtful of the both of you.”
and you don’t know much about gojo, but you can instantly tell he’s just as much of a handful as his son. even so, something about it is as endearing as his smile. and maybe it’s a tad bit unprofessional to form a small crush on a student’s father—one you just met no less, but gojo satoru has a charm to him that’s hard to resist.
“well, you let me know if megumi gives you any trouble, he can be feisty when he wants—” he’s cut off by a sneeze, and gojo looks at you as you sniffle lightly. he’s only known you for five minutes, but even the sound of your sneeze makes his heart rate speed up, and he wonders if raising a (mean) kid for six years has really made him this lonely.
“sorry,” you chuckle quietly, sniffling once more. “i’m allergic to flowers.”
suddenly, megumi beams, grabbing your hand and pulling you in the direction of your classroom. “i told him not to do flowers, but he’s stubborn,” megumi explains, and gojo stares as his own son turns and sticks his tongue out at him with a smirk. “bye dad! see you after school,” he waves.
standing there and watching your face tug with a grin as you giggle, gojo waves slowly at the both of you as you walk off.
“okay noted,” he mumbles, ghost of a pout curling on his lips while his shoulders slump in defeat, “no flowers next time.”
BONUS:
“megumi, your teacher is way too old for you kiddo, you should let me have a shot—”
“my teacher is too pretty for you,” megumi grumbles, glaring at his father, “you’re ugly.”
gasping, gojo places a hand on his chest with hurt, pouting deeply. sometimes, megumi is left to wonder if his father is fit to raise a child when he’s too busy acting like one himself.
“now that’s just mean, i’ll have you know i was quite a favorite amongst the—”
“and you talk a lot. and you look old cause your hair is white,” megumi mumbles as he walks off to the pantry to grab a snack, and gojo stands at the doorway with a wounded pride and a backpack to carry up to megumi’s room himself.
ty ris for beta reading and for your big brain ideas sobsobsob
also this is not canon accurate before anyone starts
#jjk single dad chronicles#teepods.writings#drabbles.#gojo x reader#gojo fluff#gojo headcanons#gojo x you#gojo satoru x you#gojo satoru x reader#gojo satoru#gojo imagines#gojo scenarios#jjk x reader#jujutsu kaisen x you#jjk x you#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jjk fluff#jujutsu kaisen fluff#jujutsu kaisen headcanons
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21. “First one to make a noise loses.”
62. “I think that’s the first time i’ve heard you moan…it was like a fucking melody.”
notes; actor!scoups, actress!reader, cocky!scoups, dirty talk, degradation, rivals/enemies!au, cockwarming, lots of banter hehehe~ HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!! ✨💕❤️���🔥🌸💐 I forgot to post my updated schedule so that’s gonna go up tomorrow instead kjdkjs sorry 😭 I always get busy when I least expect it and that’s been so often lately lol… ☠️ bUT ANYWAY who else to write about except the biggest dick man himself mr seungcheol for valentines day heh~ 🥳😗 Thank you so much for requesting, as always! Enjoy! 💕
*queued post.
“There is not a kissing scene in this.”
“There is. Four of them to be precise.” Seungcheol grins.
You grit your teeth - eyes on your manager and Seungcheol’s as they both gulp.
“And the two of you agreed?” They nod shakily - both Seungkwan and Seokmin sharing a quick, nervous glance before they both open their mouths at the same time.
“We t-thought it’d be good for your careers!” They reply at the same time.
Seungcheol laughs, head thrown back against the sofa as you brood alone.
You had tons of kissing scenes in movies and tv shows, but none of them ever included Seungcheol; someone who you considered your rival in the industry.
He was good at what he did and so were you - which is why you sometimes found yourself losing gigs and deals to him when the production staff would pick him over you. But it was a two way street and Seungcheol would sometimes also find himself in the same position when you’d get selected instead of him.
“I–we, um, y’know, because the two of you are–are really up on top of it right now,” Seungkwan starts, “The two of you are booked and busy and–and really, just, y’know, it would just benefit the two of you so much!”
Seokmin nods feverishly as he agrees, “The biggest fan bases and the best reception from the media, it’d be a hit just having the two of you in the same show!”
You grit your teeth again - they were right even if you hated to admit it.
“Can you give us some time to discuss this? Alone.” Sighing, you run a hand through your hair as Seungcheol nods.
“How about you get us some lunch, Seungkwan? Put it on my card. It’s the least I can do for the ‘lil princess here~”
The two get up before they hear anything else; both of them just glad to be out of the room before the two of you potentially start arguing.
And once the door clicks shut, it’s only a matter of seconds before you’re climbing into Seungcheol’s lap - hands at the collar of his shirt as he grins up at your flustered face.
“Ah, well, we should get to discussing then, huh?”
“We’re supposed to only have a kissing scene, yet look at you~”
Your jaw clenches as you sit atop Seungcheol’s lap - his cock already sheathed inside your warmth as you sit and cockwarm him. “You can pretend to hate me all you want, but every time I’ve fucked you, it’s always the best fuck you ever get, isn’t it?”
“S–shut up, asshole…”
You bite down on your bottom lip, holding in your noises but you can’t help but let out a small, airy moan when the head of his cock nudges your sweet spot when you shift slightly.
“Oh? I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you moan… It was like a fucking melody~ You’re always too fuckin’ busy complaining or keeping in those noises, baby~ Let them out, I wanna hear how cute you sound when you’re getting my cock.”
“F–fuck you, I–I rather go f-fuck your manager…”
The shit-eating grin on Seungcheol’s face leaves and is replaced with a scowl; his grip on your waist tightening as he slowly readjusts and jostles you slightly.
“Oh? You think Seungkwan can fuck you this good, huh? He’s too soft, baby. We both know how rough you like it~ You like it when I treat you like my ‘lil fucktoy, don’t you? You’ll never beg but I know just how you like being under me~”
He uses his strength to lift your body up slightly - guiding you and thrusting up into you while simultaneously tugging you down towards himself.
“Fuh–fuck…!”
The head of his cock slams into your g-spot with each thrust and you can’t help but bite down harder onto your bottom lip as Seungcheol laughs.
“Awww, you’re so cute. You really don’t wanna give in, do you? You’re always the same~ You should switch it up, baby~ How else are you gonna grow in your career, hmm?”
The slight dig at your career makes you growl - walls clamping down onto Seungcheol’s cock hard as he grits his teeth.
“Much like how you had to do a lot of growing, yourself, huh, ‘Cheol? You would know~” You lick your lips, head thrown back as he tugs you down and halts his movements.
“I’d watch my tongue if I were–”
KNOCK KNOCK
“Seungcheol, I got lunch! Are you guys okay?”
Seungkwan’s voice is muffled through the door; the doorknob rattling before Seokmin’s voice joins in. “You guys a-aren’t arguing, right?”
You peer down at Seungcheol - the lust in your eyes just as obvious as Seungcheol’s as he licks his lips and smirks up at you.
“We’re fine. Just discussing some of the scenes before we agree to it. It’ll be, like, 15 more minutes? Can you leave the food in the other room and we’ll be there soon?”
“Okay! Don’t take too long!”
You hear their footsteps getting quieter and quieter and you let out a breath you didn’t even realize you were holding.
“And? Now what? You think you can get me to cum in that short of time? I’ll probably have to finish the job myself, to be honest.” You retort - already trying to pry his hands off of your waist to get dressed instead of finishing.
“Who says I can’t?”
He lifts your body once again; slamming you down onto his cock as you let out a surprised mewl.
“I would’ve said, ‘first one to make a noise, loses.’ but, ah, with the way I’m about to fuck you I already know it’s going to be you, baby~ So why don’t you start making up an excuse to our managers for the screams they’re about to hear, hmm?”
Seungcheol watches as your lips form an ‘o’ shape - eyebrows furrowed with the way his cock fills you up perfectly.
“You’re such a talented actress after all, aren’t you? You should be able to make something up~” He quips.
“Fuh–fuck you, Seungcheol...!”
#scoups smut#seventeen smut#svt smut#seungcheol smut#seventeen scenarios#svt scenarios#seventeen imagines#svt imagines#scoups#seungcheol#scoups fic#scoups imagines#scoups scenarios
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For you fic called Satisfied. I wasn’t even reading it and I couldn’t help but be curious about the alternative ending. I know you said that you didn’t plan on continuing it, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my head because I really want to see the batfam’s reaction to Marinette trying to kill Batman.
You know, I was going to do some cute fluff for Valentine’s Day... and then I got this and I was like neW PLAN
Also, I think I’ve gotten worse at angst since starting antidepressants. Now that it happened it's obvious, but >:(
original
batboys’ feelings
@solangelo252 wanted to be tagged if I ever continued so here’s how the bats would react
She swung her legs absently as she waited for the bats to come home. She’d turned on the fire, and then taken a seat on top of the fireplace. It was a testament to just how long she’d been there that she was pretty sure her legs would catch if nothing happened within the next few minutes.
Not that she would have cared, really.
Her eyes swept over the room for what felt like the millionth time in her boredom.
She decided she didn’t like this living room. Too many couches. Rich people are weird.
And then there was the pictures…
She eyed the picture frames from across the room. She’d turned all them around a few minutes after she’d come in. There was something uncomfortable about looking at them… or maybe her problem was them looking at her? Either way, she didn’t like it.
Besides, she was probably going to be seeing them in person in a few minutes, and they definitely wouldn’t be having those smiles then.
Marinette didn’t quite know who would get home and when. She could have figured it out if she’d wanted, could have studied them for days on end, but why would she?
She knew Cass and Duke were asleep in their apartment, at least. They’d patrolled together all day. They wouldn’t be involved.
But any of the other batboys were fair game to show up at any moment.
Not that Marinette wanted them to. She didn’t know how she felt about most things anymore, really, but she definitely didn’t feel like killing them.
She could. If she absolutely had to. With her powers it would be easy… but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
She was pulled out of her musing when she heard chatter coming down the hallway. They were close. Maybe. She couldn’t tell. Her ability to tell volume had been greatly diminished since her ears had been cut off.
She strained her not-ears to try and discern Bruce’s voice from the mix. She didn’t think she heard it…
They were definitely coming this way, though, so she’d know for sure in a few moments.
After all, there was no way that they wouldn’t hear the crackling of the fire. It was why she’d set it up, to bring them there.
The door swung open. Her legs stopped swinging.
Wow. Really? She knew her luck was bad, but really? How had she managed to get four out of the five people in the house to come in and not one of them was her actual target.
For a moment, the five of them stared at each other wordlessly.
She bit the inside of her cheek. Should she just portal out…?
No. They’d already seen her. If she left the bats would be more on guard the next time she saw them. This was probably her only chance.
But that meant --.
“Mari?” Dick’s voice broke through the silence.
Could she play this off as just her coming back? Sure, Harley likely wouldn’t approve of how long that would take her… but then again Harley likely wouldn’t approve of her coming home empty-handed, either.
She brought a hand up to rest over the tiny pin on her lapel. It was broadcasting everything that was happening straight to Harley and Joker…
She wondered, vaguely, what they were thinking.
They were probably laughing.
“Is that really you?” Said Jason.
She considered the question for a moment, then brought a smile to her face. “Maybe.”
Dick took a couple steps forward. A hand reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt, holding him back.
“You’re pale,” observed Tim.
Of course he would notice.
She giggled a little. “Yeah. Lack of sunlight and chemical baths do that.”
“Chemical baths?” Repeated Damian cautiously.
“Don’t worry, I was only thrown in chemicals… once? Well, I was thrown in once and pushed under twice.”
This didn’t seem to console anyone. Shockingly.
She hopped down from her spot on top of the fireplace. The bats tensed a little.
She gave a mock pout. “Don’t trust me?”
“Sorry, kid, you’re just acting… weird,” said Jason.
Weird? She hadn’t thought she was acting any different but, then again, she couldn’t really remember how she used to act.
“None taken,” Marinette said. “But, really, if I wanted you guys hurt, you already would be.”
Damian clicked his tongue. “Is that so?”
Her eyes narrowed.
Dick sighed. “Why would you challenge her? Why did you think that would be --?”
“Well, I might as well prove him wrong, don’t you think? I mean, I could kill you guys with a couple portals if I wanted. A little snip --”
Two portals appeared dangerously close to Damian’s head and then closed again.
“-- or a good hit --”
She opened a portal underneath herself and touched ground behind the bats. She poked Tim in the back and smiled when he turned around, reaching out and stealing the pen attached to his chest pocket.
“-- and then there was this thing I learned how to do a little bit ago!”
She tossed the pen in the air and, with a brief flash of blue light, it was gone.
“... I still don’t know where things go when I do that,” she admitted.
Everyone stared at where the pen had just been, more than a little concerned about their own safety.
“How…?” Said Tim carefully.
She tipped her head to the side as she considered the question. Should she tell him the truth? That Nygma had asked her what would happen to an object if she overlapped the portals? Or should she lie and say that she used it to escape?
… probably the escaping thing. That might make them less wary of her.
“Well, after…” How long had she been in there? She didn’t know. “... after a while, I figured I should take my escape into my own hands.”
The boys flinched a little at that. Odd.
“I figured out that when I press portals close enough together whatever I catch in them just kind of… collapses in on itself? Or, at least, they stop existing. It’s hard to tell.”
They were all silent.
Except for Jason, who shook his head. “Wait, that doesn’t make sense. You would have just escaped if you could have done that. And didn’t you say that you needed to know where you were to make a portal?”
And now they were all way more suspicious. She could see them all properly raising their guards.
Even if they were all dressed in their civvies, she knew them well enough to know they had to be hiding weapons on them. They were paranoid bastards, even in their own home. On the off-chance that they didn’t actually have anything on them, they were still trained in hand-to-hand combat. It wouldn’t be a fun fight.
“Where’s Bruce, by the way? If we’re going to have a reunion, he needs to be here, don’t you think?” She tried.
“You don’t need to know,” said Dick.
“... he’s in the Batcave, isn’t he?”
Jason shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t know how to get in.”
Damn. True.
“Any chance we could skip the next hour or so and you guys lead me there?”
“I think we all know the answer to that,” said Dick.
She sighed lightly. “Yeah…” She detached her lasso from her waist…
And then portaled behind them and took off running.
Marinette didn’t know where Bruce was, but they definitely did.
She waited until Dick had almost caught her before dropping through a new portal and clinging to the rafters of the next room. She watched him come to a halt, the rubber of his shoes screeching against the hardwood floors, and then look around.
The other bats weren’t far behind, coming to a stop beside him.
She watched their hands carefully to make sure they weren’t about to use their comms, straining her not-ears to hear what they were saying:
Damian checked the shadows of the room before clicking his tongue. “Does she know where to go? Should we report to father?”
“She’s on comms,” said Jason.
“Doubt it. If she still had access to comms she would have said something over the past five months,” Dick pointed out.
Damian raised a hand and she readied her lasso --.
Tim stopped him. “Don’t. It’ll put him on guard, but he’ll probably…” His blue eyes scanned the room as well. “... he’ll…” She tried not to move as his eyes passed over her. “... it might give up his location. She doesn’t know where Bruce is yet and she’s probably waiting for us to lead her to him trying to help.”
Alright. Fuck it. She may have had a crush on Tim back when things were good but he had to go.
“So what do we do?” Said Jason.
“Split up. We’ll text each other who is going to be the one to see him. She can’t follow all of us.”
Yep. Definitely had to go.
The four of them split off.
Tim and Jason had gone back the way they’d come, Dick and Damian had headed off in the opposite direction.
She waited for a while after Tim and Jason had split up, enough to make sure Jason wouldn’t hear and come to his aid, and then dropped from the rafters silently.
His steps came to a stop and he gave a tiny sigh.
“I know you’re there.”
“How’d you know?”
“Because, Bean, I know you.”
Her heart skipped a beat at the old nickname.
He pulled his hands from his pockets and she saw the outline of his collapsible bo staff extending even in the dim light of the hallway. He spun on his heel to look at her.
“Any chance we can talk this out?”
She took a short glance around. They were in a hallway, so he couldn’t wield his bo staff quite the way he liked.
Then again, he wasn’t really trying to beat her. If he’d known she was going to follow him, then he was just using himself to buy more time. That was probably why he hadn’t outright attacked her yet, too, the longer he could drag this out the better.
Should she leave…?
No. He was too big of a problem for her to leave.
“I… I just want you to know that none of this is personal.”
“I know,” he said gently.
She raised her fists to fight and advanced on him slowly. “Oh, and if you do somehow knock me out, be a dear and don’t take off my glasses? I’m pretty sure I’d die. Apparently, it’s been five months and I wasn’t fed much.”
He winced ever so slightly.
And then he changed his stance. Business mode, then.
“Noted.”
She dodged his first swing with ease, he always started with a right swing.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as he attempted to jab her with the staff. He nearly stumbled in her haste to get out of range. They both knew that it would be over if she got in close, she’d be able to get a hit in and he wouldn’t be able to get any force behind his attacks.
She took a chance to look back to see how far they were from the nearest room. A good bit, he’d have to force her back quite a lot to get into an open space…
She turned around just in time to get hit in the jaw. She groaned and fell back, then did a quick backroll to get back to her feet.
“You’re out of practice,” he said.
She swallowed back blood. “And you’re a bitch, but you don’t hear me saying anything about it.”
They looked at each other in silence for a few beats…
Their fight styles were both calculated, albeit in different ways; his attacks were always meant to do enough damage to bring someone down quickly, hers were meant to use other’s habits against them. Tim had the disadvantage, what with her miraculous making his attacks less effective and her knowledge of him beforehand, and they both knew it.
She ghosted her hand over the lasso on her waist, wishing for her yoyo. A weapon she was used to would have made this go by far faster...
But it wasn’t the time to be sad over her loss of Tikki, she had other things to do. People to beat.
He ran forward suddenly, bo staff swinging, and she narrowly dodged the right swing. However, that was apparently not his goal, because swiftly used the staff to vault over her and rush towards the room for better mobility.
She grit her teeth and opened a portal on either end of the hall and he narrowly avoided running through it.
His eyes met hers and she sent him a smile.
“Worth a shot,” he said.
“Was it?” She teased, slowly advancing on him.
“I think so,” he said smugly, his eyes focused on a place over her shoulder.
On instinct, she turned to look. Then, when she found nothing, she mumbled a curse.
The end of the bo staff slammed into the side of her head and she stumbled back to try and avoid the worst of the pain. Stars danced in her eyes from two consecutive blows to the head, but she couldn’t concentrate on that. She shook her head a bit and brought her hands up to fight again.
“That should have taken you out. I hate your miraculous right now,” he decided.
“Trust me, you’re not the only one.”
He frowned. “Isn’t it the only thing keeping you alive?”
“See? You get it.”
His frown, somehow deepened. For a moment, he dropped his guard a little.
“What happened to you?”
“I’m sure you have a guess.”
She lunged forward and for once he was the one taken off guard. He quickly dodged the blow to his face and brought his staff towards her shin. He was trying to sweep her legs out from under her, but she had been ready for that.
She hooked her leg around the staff and brought it up. His body jerked forward, pulled by the staff. She drove her elbow into his back and Tim fell to the floor.
She moved the bo staff to her hand and pressed it to the back of his neck before he could get up.
“Any chance you’ll tell me where your father is?”
“Jason would be sad to hear you call him my father.”
“I... don’t care about him right now. Tell me where Bruce is.”
“Nope.”
She felt a little annoyed despite knowing that was going to be the answer. She hit him as hard as she could in the back of the head and winced when he went slack. She dug in his pockets for his phone and turned it on.
Thank kwami you could see notifications even when the phone was locked.
Redhoodiewastaken: should be there soon
She bit the inside of her cheek and pushed herself back to her feet. Her eyes flicked over Tim’s still unmoving body.
It couldn’t be that easy…
Right?
She didn’t know.
She nudged him onto his back with her foot and delivered a blow to his knee to slow him if he woke up too soon (she had a rope, but she wasn’t fond of tying him up with her miraculous weapon, and killing him was off the table if she could help it).
She rolled him onto his side gently and tipped his head back to make sure he could breathe.
She started back the way she came. She needed to decide who she was going to follow next.
Marinette needed to logic this out. Dick would be the best option to go look for their father, he was the most experienced and could hold his own… but Damian would likely want to go for his father because of his weird ‘blood son’ thing… but Jason had sent the text… but Dick was the best fighter… but Damian had a complex… but --...
… aaaaand now she was going in circles. Literally and figuratively.
She stopped her pacing.
It didn’t really matter, did it? She didn’t quite know where any of the people were. She knew the general directions they had gone off in, but that wasn’t enough. The mansion was huge… because it was, y’know, a mansion.
Whatever. She’d open portals in random rooms throughout the house and see if she could find a batboy that way.
After a few more attempts than she’d like to admit, she’d managed to catch sight of someone right as they left a room. She silently dropped into the room and then followed after them, Tim’s stolen bo staff in hand. Maybe it would give whoever it is pause if they saw her.
Damian. She was tailing Damian, she realized as she noted the glint of his shuriken.
Great. The one who was most likely to outright kill her. She loved her luck.
He had opted not to turn on lights because he was currently sneaking and he’d been trained by the League to use the shadows to hide. This was good, she could also use it to hide.
This was unfortunate, too. It meant that she only caught brief flashes of him to follow.
A shuriken sailed past her head when she was halfway through the hallway and she froze up instinctively.
Damian stepped out of the shadows.
“What gave me away?”
He considered her for a second before shaking his head. “Nothing, I just happened to look back at a good time.”
She nodded her understanding and then raised the staff. “Just tell me where your dad is. I don’t want to fight you.”
“That’s your mistake,” he said.
She dodged his next shuriken and collapsed the bo staff for the confined space. If nothing else, she could use the metal to pack more of a punch.
They sized each other up. They both knew that the first hit was usually a disadvantage unless you could get a knock-out first try. Neither of them were eager to put themselves at a disadvantage when so much was on the line.
She’d let him attack first. He’d get impatient at some point, and she needed to think of a strategy.
She couldn’t take him down. Physically, yes, he was probably -- no, definitely -- better than her at fighting, he had years of training on her... but she also needed him to be taken out of the equation. The less people she had pretending to search for Bruce, the better. He likely wouldn’t go if he thought she was tailing him…
A portal opened at her feet. She sent him a wink and a wave before hopping through.
She’d meant it when she’d thought he was a paranoid bastard. Now that she knew where he was and had proven that she could tail him without him noticing (unless he was lucky, which hardly ever happened twice), he would constantly think she was after him.
Tim’s phone buzzed and she looked down.
Therealdamianwayne: Drake is down. She’s armed with his weapon. Assume she has his phone. Everyone else confirm.
Idontwantpicturesthatsjustmyname: haven't seen her
Redhoodiewastaken: me neither.
That was the entire chat.
Nothing about Bruce and who was looking for him. Fair enough, they were assuming she had the phone, but still disappointing.
She started checking rooms again, head resting on her hand as she looked for a flicker of movement and strained to hear anything.
She managed to catch sight of Jason inside his father’s study. He’d changed into his Red Hood gear. She wasn’t sure if she should interpret this as him going to protect Bruce and wanting to be as geared up as possible or him attempting to be as good a distraction as he possibly could be.
Either way...
She dropped down behind him, letting her feet hit the ground louder than usual.
Jason whipped around at the sound and she couldn’t see his face behind his helmet but she didn’t think she wanted to.
Her eyes scanned over him briefly. He was wearing thick padding and armor, she knew…
Wait, was his outfit different? She looked at the red bat on his chest, which was brighter than she remembered it.
He clenched his fists. “You don’t want to do this, Mari, you hardly ever beat me when we spar together.”
“I have more to lose than a bit of honor, now,” she said. She extended Tim’s staff.
“Same here.”
She scowled and twirled the staff in her fingers. She eyed Jason carefully. He wasn’t wrong about her track record. He was all about pins rather than actual hits (or, at least, he was when she was involved), and that was hard to use against him. There were too many variations, too many ways to improvise.
And he had a weight advantage.
And he had very few vulnerable parts at the moment with his outfit. None, possibly, but… she had an idea.
She swung the staff at him and a small groan of frustration left her lips when he let it hit him dead on without budging.
Okay. Fine.
She jabbed the bo staff at his helmet and watched him actually step back to avoid it.
Her eyes narrowed.
She opened a portal above him and dropped down, her bo staff aimed for his head, and she scowled when he ducked to the side.
No matter, she thought as she latched onto one of his shoulders on the way down. The sudden addition of weight, light as it may have been, pulled him off balance. He went crashing into the desk.
Hands struggled for purchase as he drowned in her dress. She grabbed his helmet and started attempting to remove it, bo staff discarded for the sake of getting even one viable place to hit him.
Straddling one of his shoulders, she felt it.
A jolt of electricity ran up her leg and her body seized up in a mix of shock and pain. This was definitely not a good reaction, because she was still touching the stupid taser that he’d had installed in his outfit kwamI DAMNIT THIS HURTS --.
She managed to tear herself off of him, every muscle aching in a way that was way closer to the way the chemicals had burned her for her liking.
And then the pain was gone. Or, at least, the thing administering it was. Her body still tingled with electricity. Every little involuntary spasm only seemed to make it worse.
Jason leaned over her, the bat on his chest back to the shade of red she was used to.
The fucker CHEATED.
He pulled off his helmet and looked down at her mostly unmoving body, his lips drawn in a frown.
She glared up at him as much as her face would allow through the pain. It would be so easy to kill him. A little portal was all it would take.
He reached out and closed her eyes for her.
~
She forced her eyes open and cringed at what she saw.
The walls and ceiling were white and featureless. She had no clue where she was.
She remembered, vaguely, that Jason had once told her Bruce had contingencies for everyone, including his kids. She’d laughed at the time. Now…
She shifted out of the bed they’d put her in, ignoring the dull ache of her muscles, and explored the room. There was a door on one wall, she wasn’t surprised when she found it to be locked. Beyond that… nothing.
Except for a speaker. Her breath caught as she looked at it and she tried to fight back the sudden wave of panic.
What if this wasn’t Bruce?
This could just as easily be her punishment from Harley and Joker for failing. They’d put her in a white room before, this could just be the upgraded one since she’d actively disappointed them.
Would they have given her a bed if they were mad at her? She was pretty sure they wouldn’t, but then again it could just be one of their experiments.
She shuddered a little bit at the memory and suddenly found herself wishing for a jacket.
What would help her figure out if this was Joker or Bruce?
Her eyes scanned the room for any glass and found there wasn’t any observation windows. Point towards the bats.
She looked at her lapel and she whimpered a little when she found that the bug Joker had put on her was gone. It had been mostly hidden by the natural ruffles of her outfit. It wasn’t impossible that the bats had noticed it, but it was definitely unlikely. Point towards Joker.
… what else was there?
She didn’t need to wonder for long, because the speaker crackled to life:
“Marinette, we’re going to come in to talk to you about some stuff we found out while you were out, if you can promise not to attack us.”
She bit the inside of her cheek as she considered it.
“Fine. As long as it’s not Jason, I won’t attack.”
She could practically hear Jason’s whines. And maybe she could. Who knows, the others might be just outside the door.
Probably not, because it took an entire minute before the door opened to reveal Tim.
Well, they appeared to be Tim, at least. She wasn’t going to discard the idea that this was some new fear toxin-induced nightmare just yet.
He stepped through and it closed behind him.
She took a seat on the bed and he came to a stop a few feet from her. They didn’t trust her.
Fair. Tim’s head and knee were still wrapped in bandages from when she’d attacked them.
She allowed herself to wonder, momentarily, why he had come in alone when he was injured. She brushed this off, though. She’d already proven her goal wasn’t really hurting him or the other batkids, and the way he had come in had made it clear he didn’t actually have a key or anything on him.
She rested her head on her hand, scrutinizing his expression. He was trying to maintain a neutral facade, but she recognized the slight downturn of his lips.
“So? You had some findings?” She prompted when he didn’t say anything.
“Right.” He looked down at the clipboard in his hands. “I checked your vitals, and…” He cleared his throat. “You were right. Your miraculous is the only thing keeping you going, your cells haven’t had anything to go on for a long time. You’re… pretty much dead.”
She decided that this had to be real, not fear toxin. Or, at least, if this was fear toxin it was the worst batch Scarecrow had whipped up in a long while.
“... yeah? What’s your point?” She said, waving for him to get on with it.
This only seemed to distress the man in front of her.
“Bean, I don’t think you heard me, you’re dead. Like… not going to come back dead.”
She giggled. “I’m dead inside. Literally.” She held up a hand for a high-five.
He high-fived her on instinct then gave his hand a betrayed expression.
She smiled and put her hands in her lap, running her thumb along where her hand had touched his.
“Please take this seriously,” he pleaded.
“It’s not news to me, I’m the one who brought it up to you. I had, I think, seven granola bars, a cookie, and a few glasses of water for five months. Not exactly three square meals and eight glasses of water a day.”
He gripped his clipboard so tightly his knuckles had turned white. “Your ears were also cut off.”
“No? Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Please just… react normally!” Said Tim, his voice a mix of exasperated and saddened.
She didn’t bother looking at him. “If you haven’t noticed already, I don’t care.”
“You should! You’re dead!”
“What’s the point? I’ll die when I take off these glasses, whenever I’m ready to do that, and that doesn’t change whether or not I want to overreact about it.”
“WE AREN’T OVERREACTING! YOU’RE UNDERREACTING!”
She flinched and reached up to wipe the tears trying to form behind her eyes.
The reaction was instantaneous. Tim dropped his clipboard and, despite her having recently attacked him, dove towards her. Hands locked around her wrists and forced them back into her lap.
She blinked a few times, her brain struggling to figure out why he’d done that. She stared at the hands that had moved down to gently rest over her own, at the thumbs rubbing circles into her skin. She hadn’t done anything good. Why was he…?
She saw the way he looked to be on the verge of tears as well and it clicked.
Ah. He’d thought she was going to kill herself.
Marinette swallowed thickly and looked back down at their hands, trying to ignore the wave of happiness that had decided to rush through her at the tiny action. It wasn’t because she was good, she told herself, it was because he’d thought she was going to die.
She’d be useless if she was dead.
Not that she was very useful right now. She hadn’t succeeded at the one thing she’d been asked to do.
Now she was definitely crying.
So was he, actually.
Wild. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him cry before.
She hesitated, unsure what she was allowed to do, and then slowly leaned her head on his shoulder.
He rested his head against hers.
“We were so… we thought you…” He trailed off, unable to finish any of the thoughts aloud.
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
She didn’t answer.
Time passed them by as they sat there, leaning into each other, their fingers intertwined.
But...
Should she ruin the moment? She had something she had to tell him. She was pretty sure he already knew, but if he didn’t...
She bit the inside of her cheek.
“Tim,” she whispered.
He nodded slightly to say he was listening.
“They have the ladybug miraculous.”
“We know,” he said quietly. To her surprise, he didn’t pull away. “That’s not what I’m worried about right now, though.”
“It should be.”
He shook his head slightly.
“What happened to you?” He repeated his question from when they’d fought.
Her eyes fell on their hands and she tried her hardest to ignore the tears sliding down her face. “Nothing much. Harley and Joker said they wanted to break me like they tried to do with you.”
He stiffened under her but didn’t say anything.
“But after one trip to the chemical vats Harley changed what they were doing. Put me in a white room like this one. Sometimes they’d dose me with fear toxin, most of the time I would just sit around waiting for Harley to come to try and talk me into killing Bruce. I think that was daily, I don’t really know.”
He drew back a little bit to look at her and she tried not to whine at the sudden cold that came over her.
“That’s… are you okay?”
“I think so. Like I said, it wasn’t much.”
He looked more than a little skeptical. “Okay, so why did they let you go?”
“Wanted me to kill Bruce.”
“But they trusted you to do it without running away, and you did.”
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
How do you say ‘I crave the validation of a supervillain’ without saying it? Because even saying it in her head makes it sound pretty bad.
And it wasn’t bad, just… abnormal?
Yeah. That was it. Abnormal.
Shit. He was looking at her for an answer and now that she was trying to think of literally any other sentence to say her mind was just blaring the same words over and over again.
“Uh… didn’t cross my mind?” She said lamely.
He stared at her for a few moments. “You want me to believe that you left the place they had been keeping you in, traveled all the way here, waited however long for us to come home, and fought us… and you didn’t think about leaving once?”
“... yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying happened.”
“I’m not buying it.”
“I’d be concerned about how stupid you thought I was if you did.”
He cracked a tentative half-smile before pulling her into him. “I don’t know what happened, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m just… I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Won’t be safe for long. Do you know who’s using the miraculous?”
“Catwoman. She was a little upset she couldn’t keep up the ‘cat’ thing, but I think she doesn’t mind much anymore because of the whole ‘can summon anything at any time and fix every mistake she makes’ thing.”
“Makes sense.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
She pressed against his chest to pull away from him. “Right. Can I have a marker or pen or something?”
He looked a little confused before he dug into his pockets and found a pen for her. He handed it over. “Sure. Why?”
She twirled the pen in her fingers as she considered the question.
“I need to make a plan to get it back. Obviously. Now get out, I need to think.”
She attempted to shoo him, only to have him catch her wrists again.
“You need to rest.”
“I’ll be fine. Can’t work myself to death if I’m already dead, right?”
He looked reluctant to leave her after that, but she was already pushing him to the door. She watched him step through, trying to catch sight of the space beyond where they’d trapped her, but he was careful to leave in a way that blocked her view.
They still didn’t trust her.
Fair enough. She clutched the pen tighter in her hands.
She fell back on the bed. Even if there wasn’t an observation window here, there was sure to be at least a few hidden cameras to make sure she didn’t do anything to contact Harley and Joker.
And she probably would have if she could. They’d taken the bug on her and the cheap pager she’d been given in case something like this had happened, though.
Her brain wandered to Tim’s question from earlier. Why was she so determined to help Harley?
She’d thought it was just affection. But that couldn’t be it. Tim had given her some affection while he was there and, while it was nice to have someone touch her in a way that wasn’t violent, it didn’t have nearly the same effect as Harley’s hugs and praise did.
Marinette scooted up until her head rested on a pillow and closed her eyes.
Whatever. She could plan. She was good at those.
The options were to a) behave until she was allowed out or b) wait to be visited by Bruce and then put the pen Tim had given her to good use.
She didn’t like either of those options, but they were the only ones that would have a chance of working if she wanted to kill Bruce.
She let herself drift off. She had a lot of waiting to do.
#alternate ending#satisfied#submitted prompt#marinette dupain cheng#ladybug#red robin#tim drake#harley quinn#harley quinzel#joker
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Valentine's Cherub Pt. 2
The noises from trucks clearing the road, I can sleep through that. Sunlight blaring through my eyelids, I can easily turn over. But the smoke of a cigarette catching in the back of my throat is something I can't ignore. I bolt upright pounding my chest as I cough up the carcinogens. Smoke stings my eyes as a fresh puff is directed towards me.
"Good morning my little warrior." She took another drag and blew away from my face this time. "I assume you aren't a smoker then?"
"You got me." Finally settled from my coughing fit I roll off the bed and walk to the bathroom. My bladder was close to bursting and a conversation was the last thing I wanted to have right now.
"I guess I can't call you little after your display last night." She let out a school girl giggle as she walked into the bathroom. The cigarette was absent from her hand. She reached a hand out and held me as I ejected my urine into the posh toilet. "Got some power behind this thing. Wish I could have exclusive access to this."
"Not gonna happen." I forced it out to get her hand off of me quickly. "Last night I was snowed in and my cards were all declined. I'm thankful for your help but what happened last night was a fluke."
I skipped the shower hoping to get away from her before something else was instigated. She turned it on and walked out behind me. Her hands wrapped around my waist to grab at my dick again. This time I stopped her and proceeded to my clothes.
"If you are going home you're gonna need a shower." She gave my ass a swift slap and licked her lips hungrily. "Besides, your bar tab hasn't been paid off yet. Last night was the release I needed after my recent dry spell. But that was only the tip. I bought your drinks and provided you a room."
My heart dropped at the realization that she was right. This hotel was top notch. Red carpet throughout the room, a bidet in the bathroom, and the thread count was higher than my monthly salary. I could end up indebted for a while. Sky wouldn't like it so I had to find a way out of this. I swiped to my bank app and checked the balance. My check cleared and $1850 was showing. It wasn't much but it would cover the rinks I had.
I turned to find her on her knees mouth open and eyes closed. The hormones and attraction couldn't be denied but this was wrong. At least last night could be blamed on the drinks and need for a place to stay besides out back by a dumpster. But now was entirely different. I could walk out right now and leave her on her knees as I shut the door.
"I don't normally offer this to anyone." As I was looking at the door her eyes looked up to me and it felt like my soul was ensnared. As she stood her hand trailed up my thigh to cup my balls and then get a firm hold of my hardening shaft. "We get dirty while getting cleaned up and then I will consider us square. No money, just sex."
My answer should have been hell no, all caps with about five exclamation marks behind it. However those eyes and that plump booty slowly walked me to the shower and I was stuck. My tears washed away by the shower as I surrendered to her once again. I could say it was to square the debt but I honestly wanted more.
As we kissed images of my wife flashed in my head. The good times, the bad, and the sex. True, experience was one hell of a teacher but my heart could never betray her. My mind arguing that this was just a release, purely physical. But the betrayal was there.
I dove into the deep end, pulling her closer and adding carnal passion to the kiss. I began to kiss down to her neck and she whispered into my ear.
"Use me. No limits just go crazy." Her voice husky with desire. "Please."
I'd pressed her against the wall and teased her with one hand while nibbling on her tit. The harder I bit the slicker she got. True to her words she didn't deny anything as I chomped down with force. Her yell turning into a muffled moan as she bit her bottom lip. My finger finding her inner folds while my thumb strummed her clit had her body trembling. This was something Sky relished and hated with a passion.
This woman welcomed the body trembling climax as I kissed my way down ignore the plea in her eyes. I scooped her up onto my shoulders giving full access of her lower extremities to my mouth. My goal was to keep it going as long as possible and possibly even give her another. Licking inside and out made her thighs squeeze as she pulled at my short dreads. Denying her the release of rolling my tongue along her clit until I felt her juices flowing down my chin.
An explosion went off in her body as I applied steady pressure to her clit. Her nails scratched at my scalp and her thighs blocked all sound as she locked them over my ears. As her climax came down she released her vice grip on me and breathed heavily. As I back away I flicked her clit one last time and felt her back away.
"Was that resistance?" A wicked smile spread across my face as she looked down sheepishly. I grabbed a towel from the rack and grabbed her hands. "I hope you can cover the damages."
I ripped the towel into several strips and soaked them with water and the hotel provided soap. With each one I would slowly slide them over another erogenous part of her body. I decided against the soap for the final strip. Opting instead to blindfold her with it. As I stood admiring this soapy piece of art I'd made her hands reached out for me. I sidestepped them and whispered into her ear.
"Not yet my pet."
She froze in place as the stream of water rained down on her. I quickly grabbed a cloth and bathed her body gently. Cleaning her from the neck down. She relaxed the longer this went on until she could no longer feel my touch. I watched as she tilted her head to listen for the faintest sound of me, searching for the smallest notion that I hadn't abandoned her.
As she reached for the blindfold I bound her hands and quietly shushed into her ears. These were the things I'd wanted to do with Sky but she didn't trust me to care for her this intimately. But here was this stranger willingly surrendering herself to me. Rubenesque body presented to me with no hesitation. I took her hands and placed them on my cock moving her hands to instruct her to stroke me.
I placed a hand on her shoulder and she instinctively went to her knees. Her face hovering inches away from me I pushed forward penetrating her lips. Her warm tongue swirling around my dick as I pushed in and out of her mouth.As her rhythm became steady I pulled back, forcing her to lean forward for me.
My deep chuckle was drowned out by the water. Her nose was pressed into my naval as she choked on my length. I forcefully pushed her off of me and watched as the water cleaned the spit and saliva from her face. I turned her around and pushed her onto all four. The water pounded on my back as I slowly eased inside of her. Building a steady motion and feeling her push back into me.
As I took over grabbing her hips and slamming into her the wet sounds echoed inside the bathroom. As much as I was enjoying this I needed to remember why I was doing it. I focused wholly on busting my nut and raising up out of here. Her clenching helped speed the process up and she could tell. She began to beg me not to pull out and I complied.
Exhausted I stayed in place as the water washed over me. I slowly pulled out cleaning my shaft as it shrank back to its flaccid state. I untied her and removed the blindfold. She eagerly fetched a washcloth to clean me up. I stood in place as she moved around me cleaning every inch. When she tried to get me hard again I swatted her hand away.
"That should square up our debt. And this hopefully remains a secret." I was rushing to get dressed and out of this blissful nightmare. "Please don't come looking for me."
"That's going to be hard considering how good pets are at finding their masters," she joked. "But I understand."
I winced at the nickname and bolted out of the door. With cleared street I cautiously steered to my home shaking my head at what I'd done. It couldn't be justified and I would be damned if she left me because of this. As I pulled into the parking garage a familiar powder blue Pontiac drove by me. The shirtless passenger was laughing as he turned to leave.
Shaking it off I walked through the halls of the apartment complex and fished out my keys to the door. Slow music could be heard through the door and the smell of fresh candles could be heard. I scrunched my brows in confusion because this was her post-coitus routine and I wasn't here last night. Then the realization hit me. He was here last night, snowed in with Sky, and we had just had our biggest fight ever.
My keys dropped to the floor as I slid down the opposite wall in dismay. I shook my head with doubt but the evidence was there. I couldn't accuse her after what I'd just done but for her to sleep with MY boss was a whole other level of betrayal. That smug bastard would probably be smiling every day just thinking about this. The rage took a hold of me as I forced myself up.
Shoving the key into the door I burst through it and saw her look of joy. It slowly faded as she saw the anger on my face. Her confused expression only made me feel worse.
"So I just saw Michael on his way out." Her realization didn't show as I began to explain. "He looked extremely happy considering he was snowed in 45 minutes away from his home. Any idea why that is?"
"He probably knows someone else who live nearby. I did tell you I saw him a few times in the neighborhood while I was out."
This brought up another realization in me. He was on lunch calls for two hours on those days. My apartment was 15 minutes away. Those lunch calls started when I got my promotion four months ago. She quit her job because I didn't want her to have to work again after she put me through college.
"I have all the addresses and contact information of all of his associates and sneaky links. None of them live near here. What was he doing HERE?"
Her face lost all expression as she shook her head. "You were gonna find out one way or another. Michael and I have been seeing each other and I think it's time you moved on as well."
There it was. The dagger through the heart I'd been waiting for. I clinched my fists as I paced through the front room. All the while she stood there with no expression or words. The tornado of thoughts going through my head landed on hurting her but I held it in. Looking back at her I could only ask one question.
"Why?"
"You're too nice to me. I need a man who can handle me, put me in my place and treat me how I want to be treated in private," She explained walking to the door. "He spoils me in public and uses me in private. Something a BOY like you wouldn't understand. And that's what I need in my life. Not someone who worships everything about me or is my every beckoning call."
"So I treated you like a queen and this is what you've wanted all along?" I slumped onto the chair shaking my head. The smile on my face scared me. "All this time and you said nothing."
"You're a great guy. And I'm sure someone out there would love to be with you." A bit of fear had entered her voice as she noticed the smile. "But I'm not the one you need. I'll be by to get my things later."
"So you hurt me and you're not even going to apologize?" I asked looking up at her.
"I'm pretty sure after last night we both knew this was where it was heading." She looked at me with a sly smile. "Although I may have broken you for the next poor girl."
The door closed behind her as I sat shaking my head. Her laughter should have done something to me, made me feel anything, but I could only think about the cougar. How I could use a stress reliever at this very moment. At that moment my phone buzzed. I sighed as I checked the notification.
An ad for therapy made me laugh to myself. After all of this I could do with some venting to help me get back to normal. I scrolled down and my jaw dropped. Dr. Clarice WIlliams had a picture of brunette hair flowing down to her shoulders and a pair of captivating green eyes hidden behind glasses. Was God sending me help or was the Devil tempting me? I shrugged and turned on my PS4 to play Paladins.
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Never alone - Chapter Twenty Three - Soulmate AU
AO3
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Master List
Marinette didn’t sleep that night. Neither did Damian. She had spent the night in his arms, doing her best to not break down. Cloud had been there too, offering her hugs to comfort her. The dog had gotten so much bigger now, almost bigger than her own small frame, and fluffier than ever.
Having both her boyfriend and Cloud to hug helped her a big deal.
Damian made sure to make her talk about small things to distract her. They watched movies, and Dick joined them, worried about his future sister-in-law.
Marinette and Dick ended up singing along the characters when they watched Mamma mia, while Damian watched from the couch, obviously wondering what he was doing there.
But the Eurasian girl was a bit happier than she was the night before, so it was a win for the youngest Wayne. He knew it wouldn’t last, but at least, Hawkmoth didn’t get to take advantage of her emotional state.
They all fell asleep on the couch in the early morning.
Marinette didn’t have the strength to face Plagg for a whole week. It was only after a day at school when she talked to Adrien for the first time since he gave the ring up, that she decided it was time to have a talk with Plagg.
Adrien had seemed happy when she talked to him. She didn’t know if genuinely was happy or if he was really good at faking it, but he had an entire conversation with her with a smile on his face.
It was like he was a different person than he was a week ago when he had his existential crisis over his father being his enemy.
So, when she went home after meeting with Chloé for their group project, she put the ring on, its aspect changing automatically to her own taste, and Plagg appeared in front of her, a sad smile on his tiny face.
“Hey, bug,” he began and she could feel her eyes water when she heard the sadness in his voice. “Hey, none of that now. I know we’re both having a hard time, but it’s better that way, really.”
Marinette frowned. “What do you mean?”
The cat-like kwami sighed. “I’ve lost some of my chosen in the past. Some died. Others used the Miraculous for bad things and had to be put down or lost their Miraculous. Adrien chose to give the ring up so he wasn’t tempted to help his father by giving him half of the Miraculous he’s seeking,” he let out a wet laugh. “Honestly, I didn’t know the kid had it in him to do that. He can’t stand up to his father, but he still did the right thing.”
The fashion designer nodded, knowing how hard it must have been for the model to make this decision.
Adrien Agreste wasn’t the perfect teenager that everyone believed he was. He knew how to make it seem like he was perfect, but he wasn’t. Adrien… Adrien was a bit of an enabler. Being isolated by his father for years didn’t help in his social abilities, and his friends had to explain a lot of things to him. Like, what sexual harassment was, or why it’s wrong to let a liar get her way. Why it’s wrong to put the feelings of a girl he barely knows above the feelings of one of his closest friends. Why it hurt said friend.
Sometimes, if it wasn’t explained to him, Adrien wouldn’t understand, and wouldn’t put the effort to.
So, no, Adrien wasn’t perfect.
He had hurt her, both as Chat Noir when he forced his feelings on Ladybug, and as Adrien, when he told Marinette to put her feelings aside so a liar wouldn’t get akumatized, without a care about the designer’s own risk at akumatization.
He had hurt her, but she had forgiven him because he was her friend and she cared about him.
But, just like Plagg, knowing Adrien, his decision surprised her at first.
She felt bad for it, but she had thought, for a moment, that he was going to betray her.
Taking a deep breath, she scratched Plagg behind his ear. “I’m sorry you lost your partner,” she apologized.
Plagg let out another wet laugh. “I’m sorry you lost your partner.”
Pursing her lips, she gathered the black kwami in her hands. “But you didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
The kwami of destruction floating up next to her cheek, nuzzling against it.
“It’s okay. You don’t always get the luxury to say goodbye,” he floated in front of her face so he could look at her in the eyes. “We’ll be fine. And Adrien will be too. Now, we just need to end this whole thing, alright?”
Marinette laughed, but it was empty. “Alright.”
They waited a little bit before acting. They didn’t want to act so soon after Gabriel revealed himself to his son. If they acted and something went wrong, then the man could think that his son denounced him and could do something to him.
They didn’t want to risk it, so they waited until mid-March.
There were some Akumas during February but they were easy, which meant that Hawkmoth had plans for a much stronger Akuma later on. Hopefully, they would defeat him before he could act on it.
February has been a good month for them, and they enjoyed life a bit more than usual. Her project with Chloé was done and at the end of their presentation, they got a good grade. She was still seeing Chloé outside of school from time to time, beginning a tentative friendship.
She was glad to witness Chloé’s change.
Alya and Nino were doing better and remained friends. They even met Léa, Nino’s soulmate. They weren’t dating yet, but Marinette could see that they liked each other. She just hoped that when they started dating, Alya would be able to handle it. She had made so much progress in accepting her break up, she would hate to see her go back to how she was just after the breakup.
Damian and she finally got to spend their first Valentine’s Day together. They kept it simple, though, going out for dinner in a cozy restaurant, walking back to the Wayne’s apartment, and ending the night with a movie, cuddling with each other, Alfred the cat on their laps and Cloud at their feet.
She has been working on a dress for Damian’s prom and couldn’t contain her excitement. It amused Damian to no end and he would tease her about it and they would banter for a while.
Marinette was happy, and the sooner they got to defeat Hawkmoth, the happier she was.
Damian observed his girlfriend from the chair in her room. She was working on her dress, almost finished with it. He couldn’t wait to see her wearing it, knowing that she would be gorgeous in it.
He smirked, knowing that him going to prom with a date would shock everyone at school. It would amuse him for five minutes before finding it annoying, but he was good at ignoring the stares.
He hoped that Marinette would be able to ignore them too.
Looking around the room — with so much pink — he couldn’t help but think that a week from now, they would fight with Hawkmoth. He had no idea what would happen, but somehow, he wasn’t worried.
He had a feeling that everything would be alright from them.
Still, Marinette was being anxious over it, and he wanted to do something to help her relax.
Perhaps a weekend outside of Paris would help? They hadn’t left Paris ever since their little trip back in fall, and it would only benefit them to leave the city for a day or two.
Plus, it was getting warmer — too much, if he was being honest, and, wow, was the planet in danger — so they could go hiking somewhere.
Getting up, he walked to her, hugging her from behind. She leaned into him and he kissed her softly on the neck, going up until he was kissing her temple.
“I was thinking,” he began in a whisper, not willing to break the silence by being too loud.
She hummed in answer, leaning more into his chest.
“We should go somewhere this weekend, you know, to relax a little.”
Marinette sighed, but it was a happy one. “That would be great,” she admitted, turning around so she was facing him. “What were you thinking about?”
Taking her hand in his, he pulled her up and brought her closer to him so he was hugging her. She returned the hug, putting her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
It was something that she did often, and Damian found out that it helped her relax.
“How about we go hiking somewhere? I heard there are great spots for it in Normandie.”
“It’s beautiful there. A bit cold and rainy though, but we should manage,” she looked up, smiling at him and he found himself smiling back.
“Good. We’re leaving tomorrow?”
She nodded and he leaned forward to kiss her.
The weekend has been great, but too short in Damian’s opinion. He didn’t get to spend time alone with Marinette too often. There was always someone to tag along with them, and this time, they had been able to enjoy each other much more than usual.
This is why, on their way back in Paris, he decided they could take the next step in their relationship.
“I was thinking,” he began, making Marinette look away from the train’s window to look at him. She smiled at him, much more relaxed than two days ago.
“We’ve been together for almost two years, now,” he said taking her hand in his. “I was thinking we could take the next step, you know?” He saw her nod, still smiling at him.
Looking into her eyes, he felt relieved that she wasn’t expecting him to propose. Good, because with the way he was speaking, it could have seemed like it, but it wasn’t.
“When I get back to Paris for College, would you like us to live together?”
Marinette beamed at him, this smiled he loved so much on her lips.
“Really?!”
“Really,” he nodded.
And then, his arms were full of his girlfriend, who was kissing him.
“I would love to,” she exclaimed once she put distance between them.
They met halfway for a kiss, sealing this promise.
Then, it was time to confront Hawkmoth.
The day before, they went to the police and presented their evidence against Gabriel Agreste. They told them that they would act the next day and would appreciate it if they could wait in front of the Agreste residence to arrest the man.
After reviewing the evidence, the police easily agreed.
Marinette chose to put the ring in the Miracle Box. If things were to go south, then Hawkmoth would only have one Miraculous and not both.
It was better to be safe than sorry.
She was so nervous that even Damian’s word and touch couldn’t relax her.
But she didn’t have to worry at all.
Defeating Hawkmoth was anti-climatic.
She had always imagined a great battle. Blood, destruction, screams. Something messy that would attract the city’s attention and would be followed by everyone.
But it wasn’t like that at all.
Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sanscœur were the former’s office, working on whatever it was they were working on.
They weren’t expecting them at all.
Robin and Nightwing were very good in combat. Way better than she was, and way better than Gabriel and Nathalie were.
They didn’t have time to transform before Robin and Nightwing took them down.
All she had to do, in the end, was to restrain them and take their Miraculous.
“Gabriel Agreste, Nathalie Sanscœur, you used the Miraculous for selfish reasons. As the Guardian of the Miraculous, I declare you unworthy of wielding one.”
Without waiting a bit, she took their Miraculous, stocking them in her yoyo.
Gabriel and Nathalie were escorted to the police to be properly arrested, and Ladybug could only stare after them.
It was over. Hawkmoth’s reign was finally over.
Paris was free.
“Are you alright?”
Robin’s hand on her shoulder was warm and when she turned around, the warmth and love in his eyes made her tear up.
And then, finally, she broke down.
She collapsed in his arms, crying for the first time in years, not having to worry about her feelings being taken advantage of.
She cried in her soulmate’s arms, and he held her.
He held her until she stopped crying.
Tag List:
@bigpicklebananatree @animegirlweeb @crazylittlemunchkin @northernbluetongue @cutechip @justafanwarrior @iloontjeboontje @resignedcatservant @maribat-is-lifeblood @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @toodaloo-kangaroo @mikantsume @dast218 @amayakans @zestyzealot @lunarwolfspn @corabeth11 @marinettepotterandplagg @olynix @aestheticnpoetic @hot-neighbour-nextdoor @thehufflepuffranger-blog @k-poplunardreams @tis-i-beanbandit @bluesimani @laurcad123 @notmycupoftea26
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chocolate hearts | lee chan
ミ★ synopsis: in which chan confesses to you on valentine’s day.
ミ★ genre: highschool!au, fluff, humor
ミ★ warnings: none!
ミ★ word count: 1,430
ミ★ pairings: chan x female reader
ミ★ notes: at first i didn’t like this at all, then i kept writing it and now it’s kinda grown on me. or maybe’s it’s cause i’m whipped for chan. it’s not even valentine’s day why am i writing about it?! oh god. anyways... i hope you guys like it!
“Why are we even making chocolates for Valentine’s day? You know this whole,” you pause to make air quotes with your fingers, “holiday is a marketing tactic right? And you’ve just fallen victim to capitalism.” Chan giggles at you, nudging you with his shoulder as he pours the melted chocolate into the heart shaped mold.
“You could’ve asked like, I don’t know, Mingyu to make these with you. He’s the better chef out of your whole group. Why me?” Chan huffs, placing the empty bowl that once held chocolate back on the counter after finishing pouring it into the molds. He swipes a part of the bowl, getting chocolate on his finger. He turns to you, a mischievous grin on his face.
“Don’t you dare.”
He rubs chocolate on your nose anyways.
“You kept complaining when all you did was melt the chocolate. I was the one who poured the chocolate into the molds and set up the box it’ll be placed in.” You smile, leaning down and rubbing your nose onto his shirt, making him cry out, “Yn! I just washed this!”
“You know I hate Valentine’s day, yet you shoved it in down my throat by making me make chocolate with you. What’s your motive here Channie?” You squint and he shrugs, turning around and placing the molds into the fridge.
“I’m going to confess to someone tomorrow.” He says, and you squeeze the counter tightly until your knuckle turns white, feeling oddly unhappy with that revelation.
“Oh? I didn’t know you had a crush.”
“Well the only time we talk is at lunch when we eat in the stairwell like losers. Hard to update you on my life in that short thirty minutes.” Chan comments as he begins cleaning the surface of the kitchen.
“Okay first of all, you totally could’ve told me in those thirty minutes. Second of all, you’re not even close to being a loser. You have girls falling for you left and right. Literally! I saw three girls fall to their knees after you smiled back at them in the hallway today. I truly don’t understand how you have so much power…” You mutter the last part, seriously thinking about how many girls and guys love him.
“Are you gonna help me clean or what yn?” Chan changes the subject, turning around with a smile on his face, showing that he holds no annoyance in his words.
“Only if you let me try a piece of chocolate.” You bargain and he rolls his eyes, shaking his head at you.
“If you don’t help me clean I won’t make you that grilled cheese you want.” Chan threatens and your eyes widen, hopping off the counter and making your way to the unwashed dishes.
“Can’t believe you threatened me with grilled cheese and it worked.” You joke, letting out a laugh when Chan rolls his eyes at you.
You fail to notice the fond look on Chan’s face as you laugh.
“Chan came to school with chocolates today! And it’s Valentine’s day! Who do you think he’s gonna confess to?” You hear the girls gossip in the seat behind you, and you let out a small sigh. Turning the page in your book, aiming your focus towards english.
“I don’t even know who it could be. He hardly spends time with girls, only does so when he needs to in class. I’m really curious as to who swooned him, I thought he was like... untouchable.”
You chuckle under your breath, “untouchable my ass.”
“Yn!” Your eyes immediately widen at the all too familiar voice. You slowly turn around in your seat to find Chan standing at the doorway of your classroom. He has a shy smile on his face, and you only notice the chocolates you both made yesterday in his hands when the girls start whisper-screeching.
“Chan… what are you doing here? I told you I can’t eat lunch with you today.” Those around you start whispering even more, making you realize that you just outed the fact that you and Chan have lunch together everyday.
am absolutely stupid luv
“Oh my GOD they have lunch together everyday?”
“How come we’ve never seen them?!”
“I had a feeling about her…”
“A feeling? Are you sure it wasn’t your dick twitching you horny bastard-”
Chan coughs into his sleeve to get everyone to hush, which works incredibly well because everyone quite literally pauses. He smiles as he walks over so that he’s right in front of you, still holding the beautifully wrapped chocolates that you both decorated. You tied the bow and added stickers as a way to make up for you only melting the chocolate.
“I know but it’s Valentine’s day.” You raise an eyebrow at his response, causing him to let out a shaky laugh once he realizes you don’t understand at all what he’s trying to do.
“And you know that we spent a lot of time on these chocolates.” Chan continues and you nod your head slowly. You’re still confused as to why he’s in your classroom right now during lunch when you specifically told him that you were going to work on English homework.
“Yeah… you said you were going to give them to your crush today.” You say and he nods his head, now feeling embarrassed at the fact that you truly cannot comprehend what he’s trying to do and that your whole class is watching this go down.
“Yes… do you see where I’m going with this?”
“No? Oh my god wait, is your crush in my class?”
“Jesus Christ yn-”
“No seriously like, is it Jisoo? Cause I don’t blame you! she’s really pretty-”
“Yn it’s you.” Chan says and you pause. The rest of the room does a collective gasp, and the whispers begin once again. You feel warmth flood your face as you direct your eyes towards the chocolates, refusing to look anywhere else as your brain processes the fact that Chan just confessed to you.
“I like you, yn. You’re very precious to me and I cherish the time I get to spend with you. I thought it would be even nicer to be able to spend more time together as a couple.” Your eyes widen at the compliment, continuing to not look at Chan while he pours his heart out to you. It’s not until he bends down so that his face is in your point of view, and his big smile overcomes his features.
“Why is my best friend hiding her face from me?”
“Shut up.” You mutter, looking away and covering your cheeks with each hand to try and cool them down. Chan places the chocolates on his desk and gives you his signature mischievous smile.
“You’re so cute.” Chan gushes, softly removing your hands from your cheeks just so he can squeeze your face. He coos and you roll your eyes at him, slapping his hands away. You take the box of chocolates, holding it carefully in your hands, and finally a small smile graces your features.
“Do you accept my feelings?” He asks, and you glance up at him. Chan’s staring at you with a hopeful expression on his face, a pink tinge to his cheeks. His blonde hair is slightly curly, giving him a softer appearance along with his uniform.
“Yeah, I do Channie.” You answer, and your heart warms as a big smile forms on his face. He nods his head, now placing his hands behind his back in a way to try and prevent himself from wrapping his arms around you.
“Good.”
“Great.”
“Wonderful.”
“Fantastic.” Chan raises his eyebrow at you and you stick your tongue out at him. He gives you a smile, glancing at the time he realizes he has to head back to class before lunch is over.
“I’ll see you later?” You nod your head, face still embarrassingly warm as you do so. He grins, before turning around and heading out of the room. You turn your head to shoot glares at all your classmates who are still staring, and they immediately look away and start up their own conversations again.
You move to sit down in your seat when you hear a loud, “WOOOO! YES!” come from the hallway. You easily recognize Chan’s voice, making you giggle at the prospect of him cheering at you returning his feelings. You shake your head, opening up the box of chocolates to reveal a sticky note.
sorry for making you help me make your own chocolates ! at least i know you like the packaging since you decorated it hehe. i hope this helps you enjoy valentine’s day a bit more yn <3
p.s. i stole a piece :p
yours, channie
#lee chan x reader#seventeen#seventeen scenarios#seventeen x reader#seventeen oneshot#seventeen au#seventeen fluff#seventeen dino#seventeen lee chan#lee chan scenarios#lee chan fluff#lee chan oneshot#lee chan au#dino x reader#dino scenarios#dino fluff#dino oneshot#dino au#lee chan
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Strangest Chapter 11
chapter 1/chapter 2/chapter 3/chapter 4/chapter 5/chapter 6/chapter 7/chapter 8/chapter 9/chapter 10/ .../Chapter 12
(But really I’d recommend reading it on Ao3 under peterqpan, scrolling through it on Tumblr sounds crazymaking. Thanks so much @tbehartoo and @perfectfestivalalienfish!)
After the accidentally-romantic reveal of Steve’s ceramic monstrosity, Billy was distracted in gym, until Steve leaned in to whisper “Can’t believe you’re ignoring my balls, Hargrove.”
“Believe me, I’m not,” Billy muttered back, his jaw working. He stumbled back into their gym teacher, his eyes fixed on Steve’s mouth, and Steve grinned at him, and licked his lips.
The next time they passed each other, Steve leaned to whisper “What kinda attention am I gonna get for a good present, Hargrove?”
“I dunno, I haven’t seen one yet,” Billy hissed back, and then, “Don’t diss Denise, asshole. I’ll pound your ass into— jesus christ,” he spun on his heel, neck flushed, and stomped off directly through the melee around the basketball hoop, elbowing his way to the locker rooms. By the time Steve got there, Billy was showered and clothed, leaning to talk to Tommy as Steve ducked into the showers.
When he got out, Billy was lying on his back on the bench, eyeing the water running down Steve’s legs, and Steve wanted to kiss him. He firmed his lips and determination, and decided to stay after school to work on a better Valentine’s Day present—Denise had been a joke, he ranted in his head, he could do better if he was trying—
Steve told Eleven this, when she popped up at his elbow in the locker room—right after he shrieked, scrambling for a towel. She surveyed the locker room with narrowed eyes, and more of the highschool boys screamed than would admit to it later, covering their dicks. As most of the class dove behind lockers, she allowed Steve to fling Billy’s towel over her head and shove her back towards the door. “So...if you’re busy, we can borrow Billy, right?” she asked, through the towel.
Billy was laughing his ass off, since he’d had pants on already, and his junk wasn’t vulnerable to the critical eye of a middle-school girl. “No cats,” he called over.
“You can keep him,” Steve muttered, shoving her out the door. When he stalked back in, Billy grinned at him, pointedly rubbing his thumb along his own inner elbow, where the Sharpie heart was, with the messy H+H.
Steve felt his cheeks heat. “Shut up.”
“Be honest about your feeblings, Harrington,” Billy whispered back, staggering as Steve thudded their shoulders together, yanking his jeans up over his briefs.
“Here?! I think we’d get expelled,” Steve whispered back, and Billy licked his lips, snickering.
“I’m your favorite,” Billy breathed in his ear, and Steve swiveled to face his locker, eyes wide as he popped a boner. Not now, he told his dick, straining against his pants, later, just wait until after school, I’ll get my fingers in his hair and pull him close, and when his knees start to get noodly with my mouth on his neck, we can fuck on the kitchen floor—
“Harrington,” Billy repeated, elbowing him, and Steve cleared his throat, rubbing his face. His cheeks were hot.
“Yeah, yes, I’m here,” he swallowed, “—here, right here.”
Billy squinted at him, halfway into a sweatshirt, so his biceps flexed against the fabric, and his chest and abs gleamed in the florescent lights of the locker room. He zipped it up. “...you sure?”
“Very very here, at school,” Steve muttered, staring into his locker again. “Very here where I can’t, uh. What?”
“You like me as much as Tommy, right,” Billy cocked his head, leaning in to murmur, “—what if I hit him, you gonna throw me out, or—”
“Wait, what?” Steve kept his eyes on Billy’s face, listening, instead of tracking the trickle of water from his wet hair down his neck and along his collarbone. “What’s going on?”
“He’s, uh,” Billy leaned back against the lockers, surveying the room with a too-wide grin. “—he’s thinking one of us is gonna spread it around I—I let him—we screwed, y’know. Says he’s not like me, he’s—he says he’s gonna tell everyone I’m a fag, that’s why I’m sniffing around Steve Harrington—”
“Christ.”
“I’m gonna feed him his own molars.” Billy rolled his shoulders. “Before he gets me drug behind some redneck meathead’s truck—”
“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, wanting to spin his bat around his hand. He took a deep breath. “Okay, okay,” he whispered. “Okay, we can’t—we can’t kill him, we—we can’t murder him, Hargrove, we can’t. We can’t—we can’t just—just murder him, even if—”
“Jesus,” Billy whispered, glancing around. “Ssh!”
“We—we’d probably get caught,” Steve told Billy, grabbing his hands and squeezing them. “We’d—we’d get caught, mustard, uh, mustard pie, we’d—we’d definitely go to jail, we can’t kill him.”
“I didn’t say murder,” Billy hissed back, wide-eyed. “I said I was gonna punch his face, Harrington—”
“Okay,” Steve nodded, squeezing Billy’s hands so hard he winced. “Okay. Okay, god damn it. Damn, damn, damn damn it—”
“Holy helicopters,” Billy muttered, straight-faced, and Steve choked on a snort, and started coughing.
“Oh my god I love you,” he groaned into his hand, ignoring Billy suddenly closer, warm against his side. “Okay. Okay, wait, no.” Steve yanked his shirt on, got some of it in his mouth, and Billy yanked it down, leaning in.
Billy slid his hand up Steve’s side, hot and callused, and Steve shoved it down and away, trying to refocus his brain on Billy’s words. “I need to do something,” Billy hissed. “He’s gonna tell everybody I’m queer, your majesty.” His eyes were red. “You don’t need to—none of that shit’s gonna get on you—”
“No, jussec.” Steve set his shoulders, did a mental check of his anatomy, and decided he could turn around without everybody knowing he got hard when Billy Hargrove growled in his ear. “It’s—just—just a—just hold off, okay. I’ll—I won’t kill him. I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to him?! Harrington,” Billy growled, grabbing his wrist, and Steve held still, feeling his bones grind together. They were starting to draw attention, so he asked the guy across the bench about his new shoes, and found out way more about Adidas Micropacers than he’d ever wanted to know, but the conversation kept going when he backed out. Billy let go of his wrist, but leaned close. “Your majesty. Whaddaya mean talk to him, talk to me, come on,” he said under his breath.
“I’ll handle it,” Steve whispered back, nodding and grinning at another kid showing off his sneakers. He watched Tommy fixing his hair, and tried to remember his past friend’s class schedule.
“Just a little worried about getting lynched, probably by the people in this room,” Billy hissed, as Steve started to walk away.
Steve bit his lips, turning back to pretend to check inside his locker. “Look. Dickhead,” he tried, and Billy covered a snort, swallowing. Steve tried to grin confidently. “Trespasser. Wait a sec, just—just wait a minute, let me—let me try something. We can’t kill him,” Steve sighed, and Billy’s jaw clenched.
“I wasn’t trying to kill him,” he hissed back.
“You beat him up, he’ll just get mad! Besides, you start throwing punches, they’ll call your dad—get him down here—”
Billy shrugged. His hands shook, and he clenched them in fists, laughing. “Win some, lose some—at least you won’t go to jail, Jesus H. Christ—”
“No, no—I—I, uh, you won’t, uh, he won’t, okay, babe, Ha-Hargrove, just—just gimme a minute, I—I’m not—if this doesn’t work we—I—I’ll hold him down. We’ll just kill him. You can—you can use my bat.”
Billy snorted, side-eyeing him. “...good use for it.” He rubbed his face, and nodded, tilting backto lean against the lockers. His knuckles were white on his forearms again, his nails digging into the sleeves of Steve’s sweatshirt against the hearts Steve had drawn up his arm. “As you fucking command, my leige. I hope your plan’s better than ‘murder’.”
Steve rolled his eyes, and jogged out of the locker room after Tommy, dropping an arm around his shoulders.
“Hey there,” Tommy grinned at him, his gaze dropping to Steve’s mouth and back up in a way Steve remembered, but hadn’t really registered before.
Steve smiled—it was easier to smile around Tommy than it was to remember what Tommy was like, and always had been—and tried to decide how to start.
“Hargrove get all shook up and remember who your real friends are?” Tommy elbowed Steve, then hailed Carol out of the crowd.
“He’s a friend,” Steve tried.
“Bet he didn’t tell you about the other night,” Tommy glanced up sideways, his jaw clenched, “—when we tried to get you to party.”
“He doesn’t remember most of it,” Steve blurted, and his stomach sank at Tommy’s widening grin. “Look, I know what happened, and, uh—”
“I bet you don’t,” Tommy hissed, glancing around. Carol came out of her class, but saw them and leaned against the wall, disentangling an earring from her hair. Tommy jerked away from Steve to walk backwards towards her. “Bet he didn’t tell you who he wanted to fuck.”
“He—he said—”
“Hate to break it to you,” Tommy’s voice rose, “—Billy Hargrove wants y—”
“I still talk to Carol’s sister,” Steve hissed at him. “Remember? She had a story about a party you guys left. When I was visiting my mom in Boston.”
“What?” Tommy stopped in the middle of the hallway, staring at him.
“Remember finding the keys in a backhoe? And a joyride?” Steve narrowed his eyes, as Tommy snorted a laugh. Steve lowered his voice. “—I know what happened with Billy, okay—”
Tommy’s freckles stood out as he paled. “No, you—you wouldn’t be—he lied,” he laughed shakily. “He must’ve, he’s a fucking liar— ”
“What?! He—he didn’t have to,” Steve raised his eyebrows, “—he called me, I picked him up. I was in there while you assholes were in the shower—”
Tommy���s breath caught, and his eyes got shiny, and Steve knew that look—from Billy smashing a plate in his face at the Byers’, but also from years of knowing Tommy, and he waved his hands, open palmed.
“I don’t care! I don’t care, I don’t care, but don’t—don’t try and—don’t say it was all Hargrove’s fault, it wasn’t—”
“You don’t...care,” Tommy took a deep breath, shoulders relaxing, then punched Steve’s arm. “The fuck do you mean, you don’t care, you moron, you still don’t get what I—why the hell did he call you, didn’t he kick your ass? You his bitch now?” he hissed, and Steve bit his lips.
“Yeah. No, I’m not—” Steve felt his cheeks warming, and cleared his throat. “He—he did that,” Steve kept nodding, running his fingers through his hair, “—he did, he beat me up. Yeah. So did you, asswipe. But. Um, if—if you try and—and tell everyone he—that he’s—”
“He’s a goddamn—”
Steve cut him off, clenching his fists. “If you tell people he did something to— to you, if you—if you say it’s—if you say it was all Billy, I—I won’t keep your secrets. Anymore.”
“...what,” Tommy choked.
“Any of them,” Steve emphasized, flailing his hands. “I know some shit. They try you now, you might get tried as an adult. You could go to actual prison, dude.”
“I will end you,” Tommy hissed, sputtering with rage, “I will end you and your fag friend—you—”
Steve flinched, but held his ground. “Bullshit. I won’t—I won’t say anything unless you...do,” he frowned, thinking through it, “—but...I think—I think between you, and Hargrove, and me,” he swallowed, “—I think—I think I’m who people will listen to here at school. If you—if you try to tell them. That. And—and you know Sheriff Hopper will hear me out, when I tell him who took the backhoe. Took it for a spin when they were putting in the new parking lot. You crashed the backhoe into the sheriff station that night, remember? I can’t—don’t quite remember how many thousands of dollars in damage that was, d’you?”
Tommy stepped closer, laughing. “And what, you’re gonna sell me out for the queer? Shouldn’t you be thinking about what I could do...Pussington?” Tommy growled, and Steve blinked at him, then snorted a laugh.
“I’ve fought scarier shit than you, Tommy Hagen,” he hissed. “I could walk over and use the pay phone right now. Call the police here. Don’t drop the soap when you get sent to prison , right? Because Billy’s the one who’s queer.”
“God, you’re dumb,” Tommy sneered, but he was staring at Steve’s face, wet-eyed. “You don’t even make sense. I can just see you on the witness stand.”
“Oh, you want me to do it?” Steve asked, setting his shoulders to turn away.
Tommy yelled “Fuck you, no!”, and Steve turned back to see him glaring, fists clenched. “I’ll leave your boyfriend alone,” he hissed.
Steve nodded, his jaw hurting as his teeth ground together, and he shoved by, walking as fast as he could back to the locker room.
Billy was still there, lying along a bench, and Steve wished everyone else had left, so he could crawl up between Billy’s knees, and flop on his chest. He kicked out and nudged Billy’s shoulder, instead. “You ready yet?”
“You gonna hold him down for me to punch?” Billy asked, without opening his eyes.
“No, I, uh.” Steve crouched down to whisper, hugging his knees. “I told him I know way too much shit about him for him to go mouthing off.”
“...you blackmailed him?!” Billy turned his head to stare over.
“Noooo,” Steve considered, “—yeah? I guess?”
“Is anybody looking?” Billy whispered back.
Steve frowned around, then shook his head, and Billy grabbed him by the nape of his neck and yanked him into a deep, soft kiss. Steve flailed his hands, teetering on the balls of his feet, then dropped to a kneel, and slid his thumb along Billy’s cheek.
Billy pulled back, licking his lips, and sat up. “Shit,” he rolled his shoulders, “I can’t really owe you more...everything.”
“...you don’t owe me anything,” Steve huffed a laugh, grimacing at a sudden memory of the way the world had wobbled around him, after days awake. How he’d heard Billy’s yelling from outside while he was lying on the floor of the shower, hoping the hot water would bake him to sleep. “My—my brain’s busted too. You…” he laughed, shaking his head.
“I what?” Billy kept his voice low, but they were drowned out anyway by some guys in the other corner having a pushup contest.
Steve cleared his throat, feeling the edges of the tile dig into his knees, and breathing in the stale smell of gym clothes, and towels that never quite dried. “You saved me. Too. I couldn’t—”
“How the hell—”
“I can’t sleep,” Steve snorted, shrugging, and keeping his eyes on the floor. “And then you showed up. Couldn’t—I wasn’t—eating, a lot, just because I couldn’t—I was so goddamn tired. I don’t know, it...”
Billy was quiet for a long few seconds, but when Steve risked a glance up, he had that expressionless face he got when something reminded him of his dad.
“Sorry—sorry, I’m—”
Billy shoved him, and Steve caught himself against a locker, laughing, and a little off-balance. Billy crossed his arms. “You’re not being dumb, if that’s what you’re gonna say.”
“Just making us miss lunch,” Steve tried, feeling something relax between his shoulders. He brushed himself off, getting to his feet, and let Billy drag him down to sit on the bench. Billy mouthed up under Steve’s ear, kissing open-mouthed up his neck. “Hope nobody’s looking,” Steve told him, leaning into it.
“They’re all being morons behind like five rows of lockers,” Billy whispered back, sliding an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and grabbing at Steve’s jeans with the other. “Lemme cheer you up,” he breathed against Steve’s jaw, biting along it, and Steve nearly choked on his own spit as Billy yanked his fly open and reached into his briefs, releasing the pressure on Steve’s suddenly shatteringly hard cock, and sliding a callused thumb over the wet slit in the tip. “They’re going to lunch,” Billy whispered. “No reason they’d come over here.”
“Christ,” Steve muttered, muffling his gasps against Billy’s sweatshirted shoulder, and clenching his fingers in the fabric. “Le-let me get you—” he whispered, sliding his hand down Billy’s stomach.
“Not the one crying in the locker room, Stevie,” Billy laughed, pushing the tight circle of his thumb and forefinger over Steve’s dick. Steve rolled his head against Billy’s shoulder, trying not to make a noise, and squirmed closer, his brain whiting out things like reciprocation, or witnesses, or dignity, as he faintly registered his own voice begging when Billy took his hand away for a second, returning it wetter. “Go ahead, they left,” Billy whispered in his ear, squeezing him closer until Steve was half in his lap.
“Prettiest trespasser,” Steve realized he was mumbling, along with even more nonsensical things like “—pie, sweet—sweet pie, mustard asshole pie—”, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” and, when Billy pulled away to lick his hand again, in an attempt to be more complimentary, “—nighty—knightliest nighty knight—”—but Billy’s hand was firm and a little rough against his hot skin, and Billy’s shoulders were shaking with laughter, so Steve didn’t care. He went still with a grunt, breathing smoke, cologne, and Billy, and just lay there, feeling sweat trickle down the back of his neck.
“There is so much wrong with you,” Billy muttered against his temple. “Knighty-knight? Seriously?”
“My hero,” Steve mumbled, opening one eye to assess the damage. Billy’d caught the mess in a paper towel. “...you planned that,” he realized, laughing.
“Malice aforethought,” Billy said, and Steve blinked muzzily. “Premeditation. First degree handjobbing. That’d just get me expelled, though, probably, your dirty talk’s gonna get you shot.”
“Mmm,” Steve hummed. “He called me ‘Pussington,’ he muttered. “Tommy. Sounds like ‘Puss in Boots’ more than—”
Billy cackled against his neck, then pulled him closer, and Steve felt his face heat. He let himself take a deep breath, curling a little against Billy, and Billy waited, and didn’t mention the time, or their stomachs growling.
After what seemed like hours, but not long enough, Steve pulled away, clenching his fingers on the bench and laughing. “Shit,” he said, looking at the lockers to avoid looking at Billy, after clinging to him like a koala. His breathing was even, which was a relief, even if he felt a little...shaky, threatening his oldest friend with jail. Because I’ve got so many, he thought, laughing again, and Billy leaned forward to frown into his face.
“Harrington,” he whispered. “D’I break you?”
Steve started giggling, and couldn’t stop.
Billy hung around, hunched in Steve’s sweatshirt, for the rest of the day. He was leaning across from Steve’s locker after third period, but vanished when Steve turned around. He was at the drinking fountain outside the open door of geometry, and Steve missed half the lesson, watching him bend over the faucet, and watching the stream of water fill his mouth and run off his chin.
Just when Steve thought he was free, in Typing 1, he glanced out the window and realized Billy Hargrove was sunning himself outside along the top of Steve’s parent’s BMW, sweatshirt unbuttoned, his tanning-bed-tan shining as his hair ruffled in the breeze.
Steve muffled his laughter, squeezing his thighs together as his dick woke up again. “Go back to sleep,” he growled at it, under his breath. Nancy shot him a glance, then looked out the window, and choked on a snort.
“What’s he doing?” she whispered, her elbow brushing his as she clacked away at the electric typewriter.
Being beautiful, Steve didn’t say. “Messing with me,” he muttered, which was equally true. “He hasn’t left me alone since El showed him, uh,” he squinted, trying to remember. “Nadine?”
“Denise!” Nancy muffled another snort, snickering. “Oh, lord, Steve, it’s so hideous.”
“He likes it!” Steve hissed back, feeling his cheeks heat. “He has awful taste!”
“He doesn’t,” she said, shooting a grin over, and his lungs clenched at the fondness in it even as she hissed, “Keep typing, why don’t you.”
He set his jaw, and pounded out All work and no play makes Steve a dull boy, one-fingered. “How’s Jonathan,” he asked petulantly.
“Oh, Steve,” she sighed. “Now you’ve got, uh, Billy, I can’t—listen, this goes no farther,” she angled her body towards him, dropping her voice to nearly inaudible.
“What?!” he whispered back, and she glanced around, holding her finger over her mouth.
“Ssh! Steve, I can’t tell anyone—things. I would have told Barb—”
Steve nodded, wincing.
She covered her mouth, looking around the extremely loud typing class. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the clacking keys, and Steve leaned closer. “Steve, when he’s about to come, he looks like he’s going to sneeze. He makes all these faces, Steve—”
Steve whooped with laughter, tears springing to his eyes, and nearly fell out of his seat as Nancy smacked his arm and shoulder, giggling herself.
“Shut up, shut up!” she hissed. “Don’t tell anyone!”
“I—I won’t,” he gasped, wiping his eyes. “Jesus. Who the hell would I even—”
“Like Tommy?” she hissed, raising her eyebrows, and he cleared his throat.
“Actually,” he said, tearing out the page he’d ruined, and typing away at his assignment with two fingers, “—Tommy, uh, he said he’d. Um, d’you remember when somebody took a joyride on the backhoe at the sheriff’s station?”
She snorted, glancing over. “...everybody remembers that, they had to redo half the road.”
“Yeah, uh, Tommy kinda...found out about Billy, he said he’d tell, just, everyone—”
“Found out Billy what?!” Nancy stared at the side of his head. “That he beat you up, or—?”
“Everybody keeps saying that, I got some hits in—” he grumbled, feeling his face heat.
“Wait, what? He found out about—” she lowered her voice to a hiss, glancing around, “—found out about you and Billy?”
Steve opened his mouth, and just breathed, then bit his lips. He couldn’t...quite...tell Nancy about Billy’s wild King Kong banana orgy, after what had happened in the locker room—and he wasn’t sure whether the sudden urge to hit something was directed at Tommy, for the bruises he’d left, or Billy, for getting bored and supplementing his sex-diet with jungle fruit, or the world at large, for making him keep a secret for somebody as awful as Tommy Hagen. “Uh, about—about, um, Billy. He—I, uh, I think he was kinda...drunk, and he’s—he’s—”
“He’s what, Steve?!” she whispered back, wide-eyed.
“He’s kind of gay,” Steve hissed back, through gritted teeth. “He was kinda gay at Tommy Hagen.”
“Oh my god, Steve,” she dropped her voice even lower, and reached over to squeeze his wrist. “He has to be careful.”
“He said he’d tell everyone—Tommy said,” Steve tried to explain, feeling like he was picking his way across a trapped floor, as he tried to avoid saying what Billy’d actually done. Tiptoing across the temple tiles like Indiana Jones, doing his best to keep the world from falling away around him. Not that Nancy’d say anything, he thought, but he remembered Billy’s shaking hands. I gotta get used to remembering what are my secrets to tell. “I, uh. Told him I’d tell Hopper it was him. Tommy. Joyriding in the backhoe. He spills about Billy, he’ll have to pay for all that. He’s not gonna—I won’t be telling him...things. Tommy.”
“That’s…” Nancy trailed off, and he narrowed his eyes at her, suspecting she was trying not to say “wonderful news”.
“I know, jesus,” he hissed at her, whacking at the typewriter keys with more force. “He’s bullshit, I get it, we were both—”
“No, uh,” she bit her lips, thumping her stack of typed pages to straighten them. “That’s not—it’s just, I mean. Yeah, he probably wasn’t a great friend. But now we both lost our best friends—” she flailed her arms, and he ducked, “—in this whole mess of bullshit. It—it sucks balls.”
He grinned at her, and she set her jaw. “It’s not funny, Steve. And—and don’t—don’t tell Dustin. Or Billy,” she narrowed her eyes. “You better not tell anyone! Jonathan’s never dated before, I’ll—it’s not his fault, Steve, he’s trying— ”
“How could you make me keep this secret,” he leaned his face in his hand, shoulders shaking with snickers.
“I had to tell someone,” she hissed. “He closes one eye, Steve! I can’t—”
Steve nearly fell out of his seat laughing, and she elbowed him over and over until he started to feel bruised.
“Shut up,” she muttered, wiping her own eyes as she tried to stop giggling. “Jesus.”
“Holy crap, what have you told him about me,” Steve hissed back, still laughing, but shuddering a little at the thought.
“Nothing! I’m dating him, I’m not going to compare and contrast, Steve, god. But—but you’ve—you’re—” she narrowed her eyes through the window at Billy, who’d finally huddled against the cold and zipped up the sweatshirt. “—you—”
“We’re—we’re friends. Uh. Just friends, now,” he supplied, the words feeling odd, and a little sad in his mouth. She hummed, frowning at her typewriter, and he glanced at Billy, thinking he might not have ever gotten to know him, if Nancy hadn’t lost her shit at that party. It was a weird thought, and Steve stared out the window, thinking of his house empty of Billy’s shoes, beer cans, lingering cigarette smoke, and the warm weight pressed against his back when he least expected it. No more slow kisses up his neck when he was stuck in his own head.
Nancy nudged him, and he pulled himself back from watching Billy tug at his earring.
“I meant, uh, we—me and you, we get to be friends now,” he tried, and she bit back a smile. “We can talk about boys now,” he pushed further, wrinkling his nose. “If...if you want? I, uh. I think I might be better at picking boyfriends than being one.”
“Maybe you needed the practise run,” Nancy followed his gaze so both of them were watching Billy, who’d given up on pin-up poses, and was trying to keep his textbook, binder, and pile of flashcards from blowing around in the January wind. “I think...I think maybe we both needed the practise run. But—I have to tell someone besides Barb, you know?”
“Yeah. Wait. What?” he turned his frown back to her.
She took a shaky sigh, digging into her backpack. She tossed a sandwich baggie of goldfish crackers on the desk between them, and then pulled out a composition book. She held it, white-knuckled, for a long second, then shoved it at him.
Steve accepted it—after digging for a handful of goldfish crackers—and opened the first page, propping it on his knee. In capital letters, it just said “I MISS YOU”.
“I—I sort of—tell Barb everything,” Nancy bit her lips, taking a slow breath through her nose. Her eyes shone. “It’s—it’s like this huge letter about everything I couldn’t—after she—there’s so much I want to tell her, Steve, so much has happened—”
“Uh,” he stared at it, reluctant to turn the page, and Nancy grabbed it back.
“Shut up,” she muttered. “I know it’s dumb.”
“N-no,” he blurted. “No, it’s not, it’s not dumb.” He wondered whether he should remind her about their assignment, but hers looked finished. I can finish mine later, he promised himself. “Uh, sorry I—it’s not dumb, I just don’t—when you’re sad I just—I don’t know what to—how can I, uh—”
She laughed, swallowing, and closed her eyes. “I—I thought I’d just—fill this. Write until I use all the pages, and the—and the margins, and the inside covers—” she made a soft, horrible gulping sound, and Steve’s nails dug into his palms with the urge to grab her, like he would have if they’d still been dating, and squeeze her thin shoulders. “I—I thought maybe I’d—feel better. Once—Once I say. Everything. Tell her everything. And then bury it. I—we—there wasn’t a body, I couldn’t bring her back to bury— I couldn’t even say what I wanted at her funeral—I can bury my bullshit letter instead— ”
“We can do that,” he said quickly, glad the typewriters were loud enough to drown them out. “We—we can say, uh, we can say—say things, write her letters? Find—find a nice spot? Bury, um, bury things, letters?”
“She didn’t have any other friends,” Nancy stared ahead, her eyes shining.
“I can write her a letter,” were the words that fell out of his mouth, like he could even remember more of Barbra Holland than a vague shape at Nancy’s elbow. “I can—I can thank her for being a good friend, anyway. To, um, you. To my friend Nancy?”
“Sh-she—she really was,” Nancy’s shoulders shook with a sob, and for the first and probably the last time, Steve wished Jonathan Byers was around to do— something, whatever it was he did that made Nancy less sad. Maybe it was worth the awful sex.
In the heat of the moment, Steve felt he’d easily trade his skill at orgasms with whatever made Nancy stop— stop looking so pinched around the eyes, and start teasing him again over Billy Hargrove.
She took a shaky breath, pressing her face to the back of her hand. “I—I was—I was nervous coming to your house, the—that night, the night she—in your—in your pool —to the party, your party, and she wanted to have my back—”
If Jonathan Byers couldn’t show up, Steve wished Billy would, remembering him explaining things to Will and El in IHOP, until Will relaxed, and smiled, and got brave enough to ask questions. “I—I’ll have your back,” Steve tried. “Now. I will. Um, she, uh, we can thank her for having your back. We can—”
He tried to remember what people did at funerals other than wear scratchy suits as Nancy nodded, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, then rubbing her wet face with her wrists. He clenched his fingers harder in his jeans. “Uh, flowers? We can—I’ll get flowers, did she have a favorite song? I have a boombox. I have batteries for it, I can get batteries for it—um, Billy, Billy will have a good idea,” he trailed off, trying to think what it could be, with Billy outside, instead of by Steve’s elbow where he belonged. “He’ll have a good idea, he’ll—he always has a good idea—”
Nancy snorted, smiling at him, but her eyes were red. Her voice was high and shaky. “Ye-yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Y-you’ll be a good best friend, Steve.”
Out the window, Billy was holding his textbook and homework, his pencil poised, but he was staring at them.
He met them in the hall outside typing class, leaning against the bank of lockers. His gaze flicked from Steve’s face, to Nancy’s, then dropped to their hands. Steve scooted away from her, then reached through the press of people and prodded her shoulder with two fingers. He beckoned her to follow him over to Billy.
“Harrington,” Billy crossed his arms, watching them. His cheeks and lips were pink with cold, and Steve wanted to kiss them, brush the melted snowflakes out of Billy’s hair, and rub the muscles of Billy’s arms through the sleeves of Steve’s own borrowed sweatshirt, feeling his boyfriend shiver, and hugging him close. Billy’s voice was flat as he said, “Wheeler,” and Steve jumped, jarred from his fantasy.
Steve opened his mouth to tell Billy that Nancy had practically admitted he was better in bed than Jonathan, and then stopped and thought for once, about how that would hit Billy’s brain. He lowered his voice. “Remember I told you about Barb, uh, Barbra Holland, Nancy’s friend, the monsters got her?”
“...I guess,” Billy had his gaze fixed on Nancy’s face, eyes narrowed.
“She wants to hold a funeral,” Steve started, but Billy’s glare didn’t shift. “Nancy does, uh, and I’m going, because I knew her, and Jonathan didn’t, because he’s not cool, and he makes these faces when—”
“Don’t you dare,” Nancy hissed.
“Wait, what,” Billy glanced at Steve, still keeping a wary eye on Nancy.
“Probably her boyfriend will still be there, because she’ll be sad, but I’m her friend so I’m going too—” Steve babbled, hoping someone else would talk.
“What,” Billy said flatly.
“Help,” Steve hissed, widening his eyes. “Help us, um.”
Nancy started snickering for no reason, and Billy’s frown darkened. “He panicked when I started to cry,” she snorted, rubbing her eyes. “He wants you to fix it.”
“What?!” Billy snorted, coughing.
“What do people do at funerals,” Steve hissed, glancing at Nancy again, and she snorted wetly, covered her nose, and dug in her backpack before yanking out a kleenex and blowing hard.
“Sexy,” Billy muttered, and Steve elbowed him. Billy glanced between them again, raising his eyebrows. “That’s what all that cozy whispering was about?”
Steve made a face. “Also she had goldfish crackers?”
“We were just talking,” Nancy said, laughing and wiping her eyes again “—and then I lost my shit. Sorry.”
“She had a whole cow about how much better I am at picking boyfriends than she is,” Steve waggled his eyebrows. Nancy elbowed him, and Billy’s snorted, his eyes narrowed as he glanced between them.
“Thought you were dumping my ass and leaving me with Denise.”
Steve shook his head, holding his hands up. “We know she makes weird faces.”
“It’s not her fault she has thirty-nine eyes!” Billy laughed, hugging himself in Steve’s sweatshirt. Steve wished he could hug his boyfriend, right there in the highschool hallway, but had to settle for his sweatshirt doing it. Billy didn’t seem to notice as Steve reached out, then yanked his hands back and stuck them in his pockets. Billy was still grinning about his awful gift. He leaned in, digging his chin into Steve’s shoulder and whispering, “Ask your buddy Dustin why his pockets are full of googly eyes, seems questionable to me—”
“Steve and I were talking about boys,” Nancy snorted, then sniffled, rubbing her nose and rummaging in her purse until she found another kleenex.
“Swapping stories,” Steve grinned, watching Billy’s head cock warily. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “My boy’s always sexy. He just melts against me. Like pizza cheese, y’know, in Little Caesar’s ads, it sort of—it sort of droops—”
Billy went as glowing red as the tail lights on his Camaro, and growled, as Nancy leaned into the lockers in a gale of laughter.
“Shut the hell up, Harrington,” Billy muttered, rubbing his face.
“Sexy Little Caesar’s boyfriend?!” Nancy wheezed. “Steve, that’s not sexy at all—”
“Or on lasagna. Or Velveeta, it’s—it’s all fluid, you know,” said Steve, trying to explain. “Um, ‘hot, fresh, and ready to go?’” he suggested, relying on Pizza Hut for his words, but they both turned away, Nancy pounding her fist on a locker, cackling and wiping tears, and Billy stomping off down the hall. Steve glared at Nancy. “Don’t you tell anyone either.”
“Oh no,” Nancy gasped. “I—I’m telling Barb. Oh my god, she’d have loved that. She kept telling me you were a moron—”
“Hey!” Steve pointed a finger at her. “She—she may be—she shouldn’t have said it!”
“I won’t tell anyone else you described your boyfriend as sexy mozzarella,” she snickered, blowing her nose. “But I am telling her that, aloud, at her funeral. Oh my god, I needed that. You better go find him.”
“Everyone likes pizza!” Steve yelled, stomping away after Billy.
As he walked around the corner, Billy grabbed him around the waist from behind and lifted him. Steve yelled and swore, wriggling and laughing. He tried to squirm enough to make Billy drop him, kicking wildly, then finally made a big show of bending his upper body over Billy’s arms to kick his leg up and retie his shoe, while Billy staggered and swore, leaning away to balance his weight and shaking with laughter. Finally, Billy sat him on his feet in an empty hallway, spun him around, and stuck his thumb in the fly of Steve’s pants, pressing close and panting in his ear.
Steve looked back the way they came and saw a girl from his class: Robin Buckley. She was staring.
Billy felt him freeze, and pulled back, eyes narrowed. “What?” When he started to look around, Steve panicked and grabbed his head, wanting to save some unrelated girl from being fed her own molars. He pressed their lips together, humming as Billy huffed a laugh.
Crisis somewhat averted, Steve told himself sternly to track her down later, before letting himself lean into Billy again. He rubbed his thumb over Billy’s moustache, pressing into its scratchiness, and licking into Billy’s hot mouth, then pushed him back, taking deep breaths through his nose. “Christ, gonna come in my pants,” he whispered, laughing.
“That’s fine,” Billy’s grin widened.
“It’s not! It’s not fine, it’s grody—” Steve panted, pushing back at Billy’s hands and shoulders as his boyfriend tried to wriggle closer, like an octopus.
“Come on my tongue,” Billy whispered.
“There’s no time, I gave you to El!” Steve hissed, holding his forearms up defensively. “She’ll show up again! You agreed! You’re hers and Max’s today!” His shoulderblades thudded against the lockers.
“When do I get my reward for following orders, your majesty,” Billy whispered, pulling Steve’s forearms close, so he could kiss along the soft inner side.
“Sometimes knights have duties,” Steve whispered back. “For the, uh, the kingdom.”
“And I’m your best knight,” Billy snorted, running his hands up Steve’s sides. “Gotta help the civilians. Do my quests, make you proud.”
“Mmmn,” Steve lost his train of thought, leaning into Billy’s chest, and sliding his arms around his neck. “Best knight.”
“Now Tommy’s been, what,” Billy laughed against his mouth, hugging him until Steve’s muscles went loose, and his bones felt like they’d creak. “Unshielded?”
“Dis-sworded?” Steve supplied muzzily, into another pause between kissing, his brain narrowing its world to Billy’s tongue. “God, love you, mustard...dipshit...cupcake,” he mumbled, then frowned, coming back to earth as Billy’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Shut up, dickhead. Wait, Tommy wasn’t ever my knight.”
“Thought he beat up Jonathan Byers for you,” Billy whispered, sliding both arms around Steve’s waist again, and lifting him off the ground.
“No,” Steve mumbled, half-listening as he tried to clamp his legs around Billy’s waist, but missed distractedly as he ran his hands up Billy’s neck, cupping the back of his head and licking into his mouth.
Billy pulled back to talk, and Steve huffed. “But he tried to get you over to his house. That time. With Carol,” Billy panted, searching Steve’s face.
Steve kicked, gasping as his lungs got squashed. “Holy shit,” he wheezed, laughing. “You—you’re—are you jealous?”
“No,” Billy whispered, suddenly interested in kissing again.
Steve pulled back from Billy’s mouth after just one more kiss. “Are you jealous of Tommy and Nancy,” he whispered, beaming.
“Fuck you,” Billy mumbled, biting gently up his neck.
Steve let his eyes close, forgetting about Robin, and El, and the extremely public hallway they were standing in. His face was so hot it felt tingly, and Billy’s arms were strong and gentle, holding him up. The world started to spin, a little, and he kicked his feet back, crossing them against his butt to curve his whole body against Billy’s.
“Can’t—can’t breathe, Knight,” he had to admit, finally, and Billy sat him back on his feet.
“As you wish, my King,” he whispered back, stepping back to look Steve over—he grinned as he assessed the tightness of Steve’s pants like an asshole, then leaned in again for one more close-mouthed kiss.
Steve laughed, unable to stop smiling. “You’re jealous. Want me all to yourself.”
“Nah,” Billy rubbed his thumb up Steve’s cheek, and yanked his head around by the earlobe. Steve yelled, flailing. “I can just get another one,” Billy whispered. “King Harringtons. On sale today. K-Mart Special.”
“No you can’t,” Steve grabbed Billy’s shirt, spinning him to smack up against a locker, and leaning close again for a messy kiss. He could feel Billy breathing against his chest. “You’re jealous. You—you’d—” Steve trailed off, watching Billy bare his teeth. “You—what the hell are you pissed for,” he whispered. “You went off and screwed Tommy, don’t be pissed at me —”
“I’m not jealous,” Billy snarled back. “I’m the only one who even pays attention to you, aren’t I, and I could get somebody else in—in a heartbeat—”
Steve took a sharp breath, wondering why he had to go and push things. “Right, yeah,” he said, slamming his hand into the locker next to Billy, who flinched. “Shit,” Steve groaned, stepping back. “Sorry, shit. The hell was I thinking. I’m too goddamn clingy, right? You’re just trying—trying to—” he stepped back a few steps and smacked another locker across the hall—the bang was satisfying—and Billy grabbed his wrist, digging his thumb in bruisingly tight.
“You gonna start hitting?” he asked, smiling his widest. “You don’t get to do that.”
“I hit the locker,” Steve hissed, yanking his arm, and Billy stepped closer.
“You don’t get to hit me,” Billy whispered, and Steve winced at the feel of fingernails. “You—you can’t pull that shit, Harrington.”
“I wasn’t gonna,” Steve tried to yank away again, feeling worse. “Screw you, I hit a locker —”
“After all that shit you said,” Billy said evenly, his smile and his eyes wide the way they went when he might do anything. “I’m a person, remember?”
“I remember,” Steve swallowed again against the burning in his throat and eyes, planting his feet to try and squirm away. “I wasn’t—”
“You change your mind?” Billy asked softly, and Steve did want to hit him, then.
“Let me go,” he hissed. “I wasn’t going to hit you, christ. I was hitting the fucking locker.” Billy let go and stepped back, and Steve spun to slam his fist into the locker again. His little finger was starting to go numb, and he wondered how other people—really awful people, some of them, like Billy’s dad—found people that loved them and trusted them and paid attention. He inhaled, and it made kind of a wet gasping noise. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Just—just g-go home.”
“Screw you,” Billy muttered, and Steve opened his mouth to growl back, when his gaze caught on Billy’s nails digging into his sleeve over where Steve had drawn the hearts.
“Fucking— stop ,” he hissed, grabbing Billy’s fingers, and forcing them to unbend. They were cold. “You’re gonna give yourself bruises. Stop it, dickhead— quit—”
“Quit what,” Billy snarled back, and Steve stared down at the hand he’d grabbed, then let go and stomped across the hall to kick somebody else’s locker.
“Screw you,” Steve muttered. “Fine, go the hell home.” He hunched his shoulders as Billy stepped closer, and banged his fist on the locker he’d just kicked. “Piss off.”
“The hell do you want me to say,” Billy asked, and Steve shut his eyes, and banged the locker again.
“Nothing,” Steve hissed. “I don’t want you to say anything, I—you can—you can go to hell—” Billy came up behind him, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut. They were stinging. He felt a touch on his arm, and flinched into the lockers, swallowing a few times to clear his throat of the bullshit trying to climb out of it. “It’s fine,” he forced out. “Just. Piss off. Go home. I’ll—I’ll get myself—together.” He opened his eyes, parting his lips in a smile, to see Billy standing close, frowning, so Steve was sandwiched between him and the lockers.
“Wha—” Billy started, and Steve smacked a hand over Billy’s mouth, then sidestepped, laughing.
He took a few steps down the hall before he managed to stop himself. “Just go,” he said, realizing he had his hands up between he and Billy, and lowering them. “It’s fine, it’s nothing, jesus—”
“What in the hell—” Billy stepped closer again, and Steve didn’t lunge to cover his mouth, or cover his own ears, or run away.
He kept smiling. “Max and El are probably looking for you.”
“...no,” Billy said, holding his hands out. “Come here, Harrington.”
“What,” Steve laughed, his sinuses burning as his vision went a little blurry. He blinked his eyes clear as Billy’s glare went thunderous.
“I’m not gonna chase you down, get your ass over here.”
“Why?” Steve asked, crossing his arms, uncrossing them, and touching his hair. It was fine. He thought fixedly about the project he was gonna start in ceramics. Probably it was dumb to make Billy something nice. Something with Steve’s feeblings just emblazoned over it. “Just go, jesus.”
“Harrington—” Billy sighed, and Steve’s stomach clenched.
“Sorry,” he grated out. “Sorry, I’ll get it together—” he cut off, raising his arms defensively as Billy walked close enough to grab him by the front of his pants and yank him in for a kiss. His hands were warm and gentle cradling Steve’s face, and Steve let himself be pulled in. “What—” he whispered, but Billy cut him off, tilting Steve’s head to get deeper into his mouth. “Mmf,” Steve tried next, slowly lowering his hands to where his sweatshirt stretched over Billy’s biceps.
“Two for flinching,” Billy told him, kissing him again. “Ssh,” Billy whispered, glancing around, and then pushing them both—slowly, and mostly by kissing Steve—across the hall again and into the bathroom. He stopped to check under the doors, and then grabbed Steve’s hand, and yanked him into the biggest stall. “Okay,” he said, “—go on.”
“...want me to try giving a blow job?” Steve asked, rubbing his eyes. “I mean. You let me jack you off, I wanna—”
Billy opened his mouth, cocked his head, and narrowed his eyes. “Shut up. Shit, that’s not —I’m not supposed to —to try and blow you when you’re pissed —what the fuck, Harrington—”
“I’m just trying to change the subject,” Steve gritted out. “You like blow jobs. Everybody likes blow jobs—”
“I mean,” Billy snorted, slowly nudging Steve against the wall, “—dicks like ‘em—”
“Everybody does, it’s just not called a blow job always,” Steve argued, feeling smart, as Billy kissed him again. It felt like Billy was laughing.
“S’ true—” Steve muttered, and Billy laughed harder, and yanked him closer, so Steve’s head was pressed against Billy’s shoulder, and Steve’s body was squeezed in Billy’s arms.
“Shut up, jesus,” he whispered, his earring tickling Steve’s neck. “What’s your problem.”
The thing was, Steve thought, there wasn’t one. He was freaking out for no reason—he knew his bullshit annoyed people, and everything Billy’d said was true. “Sorry,” he breathed. It was easier, in the heat of Billy squishing him against the wall.
“What do you want me to—”
“Nothing,” Steve cut him off. “Christ. Jesus. I’m gonna do better this time, and shut the hell up before I—”
“What,” Billy whispered, and Steve shook his head, smiling, and didn’t say before I ruin everything.
Billy pulled back, his jaw clenched. “I’ll get it out of you.” Steve choked on a laugh, clenching his fingers on Billy’s arms, and Billy stared into his eyes, thinking. “I could do what you did,” he whispered. “Get you so horny you’re dripping and then make you talk.”
“Oh shit, no,” Steve snickered harder, shaking his head. “No, don’t. I wouldn’t even—I wouldn’t be able to think enough.”
“That’s kind of the point,” Billy said against his mouth, and Steve’s heart started pounding.
“No, no, don’t, I really—I can’t even—” Steve tried to squirm away, every breath of Billy’s resonating with his dick. “I can’t tell you if I can’t make words!”
“Mmm,” Billy hummed thoughtfully, leaning in for another kiss. “You really want to hear I’m jealous of—of Tommy? That what you want me to say?”
“You’re not, though,” Steve shrugged.
“...Nancy, then,” Billy cleared his throat. “I keep waiting to hear you say you’re—that—that I’m not—that you took a better offer.”
“Fuck you,” Steve told him, sighing. “What the hell am I gonna do when you two actually talk and you—you start talking— elves or something and forget all about me.”
“...you’re jealous of me talking to Nancy Wheeler,” Billy said, with the vague tone of someone reading an incomprehensible line in English class.
“You’re both perfect,” Steve told him, grabbing him close, and Billy started laughing so hard he staggered.
“Oh my god, you are so fucking dumb,” he wheezed, and Steve licked his lips, pressed them to Billy’s neck, and blew to make the loudest fart noise he could. Billy yelped, shoving weakly at him, and Steve did it again. Finally, Billy got his hands over Steve’s mouth, and used his body weight to hold them there while he rubbed tears off onto his arms. “If you think I’m perfect you’re blind and stupid. Holy jesus,” he whispered.
It wasn’t that funny, Steve thought indignantly. “You’re perfect. You —you’re—you are. Sometimes. Most of the time! You —you’re better, you don’t—”
Billy kept snickering, like an asshole. “You’d run off with your queen in a second, your majesty,” he whispered, grinning. “She’ll whistle one day. She’ll just — crook her finger, and you’ll go.”
“Would not,” said Steve, automatically, but he considered. “I don’t…” He narrowed his eyes at the wall of the bathroom stall, where someone had written that the principal worshipped Satin. He thought about how his plans had always included Nancy, and how hers never seemed to include him.
What would it be like, he wondered, if she knocked on my door. ‘Follow me to the city,’ she’d say. ‘You can hold down the apartment, I can go to college. Someday I’ll have an important job— which was where it fell apart, because it would be something like war journalism, and she’d always be gone. He sighed, imagining the Dear Steve letter. ‘Dear Steve, I’ve gone to expose nuclear testing on smuggled baby alligators in Belgium, and...found love.’ Steve shook his head. “No. No, it’s —no. ”
“Whaddaya mean no,” Billy laughed. “You just sat there and imagined it.”
“Yeah, imagined it blowing up in my face. I want to —” Steve stopped, looking away from Billy’s eyes and down, until Billy started jerking Steve’s head up and around, trying to meet his eyes again. Steve laughed, and bit his lip.
“What d’you want, Harrington?” Billy asked.
“...wanna wait and see if you send me letters,” Steve told him, shrugging. “I —I guess. Once you leave.”
“Oh, I’m gonna,” Billy’s breath caught, and he pressed his hands to Steve’s cheeks, squishing them. “But you’re lying to both of us if you think you wouldn’t drop me—”
“Billy,” Steve said, muffledly through the fishface Billy was giving him, and grabbing Billy’s hands as he startled. “Billy Hargrove. I—I’d pick you.”
“Don’t bullshit me—”
“Pay attention,” Steve hissed. “Hargrove. Fuckface...trespasser. I’d pick you.” Billy shook his head, smirking, and Steve grabbed it by the curls, pressing their foreheads together to hold Billy’s gaze. “If I have to watch somebody leave, I’d still want you.”
“Shit,” Billy said hoarsely, trying to laugh. “I’ll come back, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t leave leave, you—you can’t get rid of me if you—if you don’t tell me to go.”
“Like I would,” Steve snorted. “If —if Nancy just—just walked in here, I mean, not here here,” he paused, his eyes focusing on the wall of the men’s bathroom, “—but y’know, if—if she said she’d changed, she—she wanted me back…”
“You’d go,” Billy shrugged.
“No, Nancy can’t—she doesn’t want—this.”
“She’s got shitty taste, then,” Billy growled, and Steve laughed, leaning to bury his face under Billy’s ear.
“No, I mean—she doesn’t want—” he sighed. “She sure doesn’t wanna drag me to the bathroom and grill me on what’s wrong. She’s got—things to do. Important stuff.”
“Her loss,” Billy shrugged, and Steve snorted wetly. Billy’s breaths sounded as catchy and uneven as his did, he realized, and squeezed him closer.
“Promise I wouldn’t go,” he mumbled.
“Promise Denise,” Billy hissed, growling over Steve’s bursting into semi-hysterical giggles. “Denise needs both her dads,” Billy whispered, his eyes brimming as Steve laughed and cried.
“You’re so weird,” he whispered. “So fucking glad you —not the rest of it—but I’m, uh. I’m so goddamn glad you ended up at my house.”
“You brought me home in a trunk,” Billy told him, sniffling, and frowning down to yank at Steve’s belt buckle.
“What if I hadn’t,” Steve asked, watching Billy fumble. “Maybe—maybe something else. Maybe you’d have kissed me in the locker room. Always trying to shove me around in there—why you always trying to jump me in bathrooms, you’re so — ”
“Maybe you’d have kissed me somewhere, fucking...Pussington,” Billy growled, undoing Steve’s belt, and laughing as the denim over Steve’s dick twitched against his hands. He ran his fingers up and down Steve’s fly.
“Jesus,” Steve whispered.
“Fuck me,” Billy whispered back. “I want this monster in me.”
“...you called it fun-size,” Steve hissed back, and Billy started giggling again, burying his face in Steve’s neck. “We’re in a bathroom, the floor is sticky —”
“I don’t wanna wait,” Billy told him, kissing him so enthusiastically Steve’s head thudded back against the wall. “You—you said—want me over Wheeler —”
“I know what I said,” Steve said, trying to sound strict, but he couldn’t help grinning. “ Want me to blow you? You always—”
“No, fuck my ass,” Billy ordered, leaning close, so Steve could feel the hard line of Billy’s cock pressing against his.
“...there’s no—it’ll hurt, knight, it—”
“Who cares,” Billy whispered, yanking the buttons open on Steve’s fly.
“Me!” Steve hissed, grabbing his wrists. “I care! Christ!”
“S’my ass,” Billy argued, looking pouty, and Steve snorted.
“S’my dick, wouldn’t feel good for me either—”
“Coward,” Billy said, frowning down. “Okay, okay—” he yanked at his own pants, hopping on one foot, and Steve started sniggering. He grabbed Billy’s face and pulled him in for a kiss, nearly knocking them both over when Billy tripped over the leg of his pants. “MMPH,” Billy yelped. “Shit. Okay. Just—uh, just—”
His face felt hot against Steve’s hands, and he realized the red was creeping clear down Billy’s chest where the sweatshirt hung open. “What?” Steve asked, his eyes lingering on Billy’s briefs, where a wet stain was spreading where the elastic strained over his cock.
“I’m gonna turn around,” Billy muttered, “—and—”
“No—” Steve repeated, running his hands along the elastic band of Billy’s Fruit of the Looms. “No, seriously, I’m not—”
“I’ll squeeze my legs together,” said Billy, with gritted teeth, his face flaming hot.
“Holy shit,” Steve whispered, his hips bucking against Billy’s hip as he turned around. “What—is—is that any good for you—”
“Just fuck me,” Billy hissed, bracing his hands against the wall, and Steve stepped close behind him, reaching down to yank his skivvies down, and then push Billy’s down over the warm muscley roundness of his ass. Billy yanked until his dick was freed, then braced himself again, and Steve buried his face in Billy’s shoulder, taking a deep breath.
“Can’t see how this is good for you,” he whispered against Billy’s neck, feeling him shiver.
“It’s not unless you get moving,” Billy snarled, then choked out a gasp as Steve slid his hand around to grab him by the cock.
“Just...between your thighs, then,” Steve whispered, rubbing some pre-come around the top of his dick, then frowning down, and licking his hand just in case.
“Come on,” Billy whispered. “Come on, come on, do me.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Steve nodded pointlessly, aimed, and pressed into the tight space between Billy’s muscled thighs. “Oh god, that’s good,” he mumbled against Billy’s shoulder, and he laughed.
“Shut up and move,” Billy muttered, since Steve was mostly clinging and muttering bullshit endearments.
“God,” Steve whispered, reaching around again. “Don’t fall, b-babe, uh, cookie.”
“Billy whe-when we’re fucking,” Billy told him, groaning as Steve tried to steady himself between his hips smacking Billy’s butt, his dick sandwiched in the heat of Billy’s thighs—it was slippery enough, he thought, flushing almost as red as Billy was—and dragging his fist up and down Billy’s dick.
“Billy,” Steve said against his ear, and Billy swallowed a moan, letting his head fall forward to thunk against the wall. “Billy Hargrove.”
“Nng,” Billy grunted.
“L-love you, Billy Hargrove,” Steve told him, and he whined, his shoulders flinching forward. Steve kissed the place where his shoulder joined his neck, feeling him shudder. “Love you, Billy.”
Billy came all over his fingers, and Steve started laughing, because of course Billy’s legs bent, and of course they collapsed to the floor of the highschool bathroom.
Steve let them tip sideways, pulling Billy close to slow their fall and ignoring the weird chemical smell as his jaw smushed against the tiles. Billy was swearing under his breath, squirming around, and Steve summoned enough brain to scoot back. “Ssh,” he whispered, snickering, with tears in his eyes. “Don’t break my dick.”
“Where you going, asshole,” Billy hissed, rolling over to lay half on top of Steve’s chest. He grabbed Steve’s cock, stroking it, and Steve bucked up against him, muttering just...noises, really.
He came to himself panting against Billy’s shoulder. “Mmnm,” he said, wondering whether they could just sleep on the floor, and wash their faces for class the next morning.
“...you really jealous?” Billy asked, at the ceiling, like he’d been thinking a while.
Steve groaned, tucking hair out of his eyes.
“Y’know I’d...fucking kill them—anyone—and step on their corpses to get to you,” Billy told the ceiling, and Steve started laughing again.
“S’not a bit creepy,” he said, his voice weirdly deep in his ears.
“Not sure wanting to kill Tommy Hagen is creepy at all,” Billy commented, rolling his head for a kiss. “I mean, that’s normal, right, anybody would—”
“Think I’ve got toilet paper stuck to my leg,” Steve whispered.
“I guess you wouldn’t know normal if it bit you on the ass,” Billy told him, and Steve hefted himself up the couple of inches for another kiss.
“Means I get you, though,” he mumbled, dropping to rest his face on Billy’s chest again. It went from warm to hot, and Steve grinned, rubbing his face in chest hair and muscle.
“Shut up, you’re such a freak,” Billy muttered, and pressed more kisses to Steve’s hair. “Tommy Hagen, seriously? You’re jealous of Tommy Hagen? That’s you being a moron.”
“Mmn,” Steve was sort of listening, so he politely made a noise.
“Just went over to Carol’s ‘cause I broke your door,” Billy said. “Thought you’d be pissed. Thought you’d—” he took a slow breath, swallowing. “An-anyway, I didn’t think you’d just...pick me up. Carry me on your back. Thought I’d have to, uh, bribe my way back in.”
“...you saying you got me a present?” Steve asked, waking up a little, and Billy squeezed him.
“I’m saying I didn’t care where I went, jesus. Could have been the gas station. Not running around on you with Exxon, either.”
You might, Steve thought, snorting, but he scooted closer. His shoes squeaked against the wet tile by the toilet. “We’re gonna stink,” he sighed.
“You saying you wanna go shower together?” Billy breathed against Steve’s temple, and Steve started sniggering.
“I mean, yeah,” he whispered back, grinning so hard his cheeks felt tired. “But probably we should like...go. You’re making your sister wait. And El.”
“And they’re important to my liege,” Billy groaned.
“They’re kinda violent when they’re pissed off,” Steve whispered back, and Billy started snickering into Steve’s hair. Steve grinned up at the dripping cracks in the ceiling, letting his eyes fall shut. “ I’ll—just—just take the car. Take it. Get the girls, whatever they want. I need to—better present. Than Denise.”
“No present’s better than Denise,” Billy’s grin went smirky, but he saluted Steve’s eyeroll, and once they managed to get upright, sauntered off with his hands in the pockets of Steve’s stolen sweatshirt.
Steve adjusted himself in his jeans, wishing he wasn’t quite so...sticky, and walked a bit awkwardly off to his locker, when he was grabbed for the second time that day.
“What?!” Robin flailed her arms, hissing. “What was that?!”
“There you are,” Steve hissed, then stopped dead, realizing he hadn’t thought up any kind of plan. “...nothing?” he answered, like a genius, smoothing his hair where Billy’d run his fingers through it. “Uh, what? What was...what.”
She stared at him. “I saw you, dingus.”
“No, you didn’t. Saw what?”
“How are you alive, you are so dumb,” she muttered, spinning away, then back. “That was—you were—” she clasped her hands together, taking a deep breath through her nose, and started to snicker. “You—that’s your cover? ‘What was what?’ You—that’s what you’re gonna say?”
Steve’s high from Billy’s kisses was gone, and he was trying not to imagine Billy’s reaction to someone seeing them. His stomach clenched. “Look, don’t, nothing—nothing was—your—it’s none of your business, jesus.”
“What?!” she cackled, her eyes widening. “Christ. You’re just gonna make out at school and ignore it when—what if—what if your pal Tommy sees you? He’s gonna—”
“I blackmailed him,” Steve folded his arms, leaning back against the locker. “I have dirt on him, he’s not gonna squeal—”
“You what?!” she squealed herself, leaning one arm to steady herself against the locker as she sniggered so hard she shook. “Have you been watching gangster movies?”
“Shut up! You didn’t see anything—”
“I sure did,” she made a face, shuddering. “Believe me, I would not have imagined you and Hargrove playing tonsil hockey, but it’s a nightmare I’ll take to the grave—”
“Shut up,” he hissed, swallowing. His throat felt dry. “I—you can’t tell anyone. I’ll say you’re lying. You’ll be that liar girl, I’ll—”
“God, I don’t want to remember it, let alone describe it,” she pretended to gag, melodramatically doubling over with her fingers in her throat. “Gag me, Steve. Gag me with a spoon.”
Steve wrinkled his nose. “Great. Don’t tell anyone, and we’ll stay the hell away from each other.” He remembered wondering how people in his classes would react to finding out he was maybe-sort-of-gay, and he kind of wanted to punch her in the face. “Or I—I’ll get gay cooties on you.”
She turned to stare. “I don’t care about that, dipshit, I care I almost saw two entire penises when I was just trying to leave class. Here I thought I’d go to my grave without getting close to one of those—” she stuck her tongue out, flapping her hand at the wrist, her voice distorted by the face she was making, “—gross floppy baby injectors, and there they were—”
“What,” he stopped, arms up in a flail, but still. “Wait. What?”
“I’m not going to tell anyone, Steve Harrington,” she told him, rolling her eyes. “Besides, somebody else is going to figure you out, like, instantly, nothing to do with me.” She turned to stalk away, then spun on her heel to face him again. “But what the hell is wrong with you?! You don’t even—can’t you make some excuse and get the keys to the gym equipment room?! You can’t make out during class, when people aren’t wandering around?! Instead you’re sucking face right after the bell rings? I had to tell two different people there was a sewage leak down that hall, dumbass.”
Steve blinked at her. “Th—that’s a good idea. I didn’t—thanks, man.”
“I didn’t want them to have to see the gross sight I had to,” she narrowed her eyes at him. “Can’t you tell people you’re study buddies or something? Before I have to see more of Billy Hargrove’s hard-on in his jeans,” she shuddered, and Steve laughed.
“Somebody doesn’t think he’s hot?”
She took a deep breath, her eyes flicking to his face. “Yeah...no. Why would I.”
“I mean, he is,” he shrugged. “Anyway, thanks. Really. I got, uh, threatened today, kind of. I thought—thanks.”
She stilled. “You what,” she asked, her voice weirdly raspy.
“Uh, somebody figured us out, said he’d, y’know, tell everyone. I know.” Steve rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.
“What the shit,” she whispered. “And you—you’re—the same day?! You just—”
“Look, shut up, I’m not used to it yet,” he hissed back. “I forget he’s a secret, okay?!”
“You moron,” she whispered. “What’d you—are you—”
“I blackmailed him, uh, the guy, Tommy,” Steve whispered back, weirdly proud. “He won’t tell anyone.”
“Jesus, what a prick.” She took a deep breath, and blew through her cheeks. “Tommy Goddamn Hagen, huh. Good thing I wasn’t gonna tell anybody anyway.”
“Phew,” he laughed, grinning at her. “I wasn’t—I can’t even—was just, y’know, going to ask you not to, like, tell. Everyone.” He shrugged. Robin narrowed her eyes at him, watching as he kicked at the linoleum. His shoe squeaked. “Thanks for being cool,” he told her, feeling a little bit warm knowing there were people at school that wouldn’t treat him like he had leprosy. “I guess not everybody’s going to hate me.”
“Jesus,” she whispered, rubbing her face. “I—shut up, okay, I wasn’t—I’m not that—”
“It’s just nice,” Steve shrugged. “Bil—I, uh, I didn’t know how, um, I guess it can get pretty bad, it’s nice to—”
“Yes!” Robin hissed. “Yes, it can! Oh my god, shut up. Why are you—you don’t know me!”
“I do now,” Steve told her, grinning, but he watched her clench her hands in frustration, and recognized someone who wished he’d leave. “Sorry. Thanks. Sorry,” he smiled automatically, and turned away.
“Ugh,” she groaned.
“Thanks,” he called over his shoulder again. “I’m glad it was you!”
“Auuuugh,” she yelled after him. “Stop talking about it, you moron! Somebody could hear you!”
He couldn’t resist turning to face her, walking backwards down the hall and stage-whispering, “Now I know it’s safe to tell you, we can talk about boys.”
“I don’t want to talk about boys!” Robin screamed, soft and wheezily in the back of her throat.
“You know you want to,” Steve whisper-shouted back, waggling his eyebrows, and she smacked her own face. “Nancy and I are friends now,” he told her, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Gonna have all the gossip, right here, don’t change that channel!”
“Nancy Wheeler doesn’t have gossip,” she hissed back, “Nancy Wheeler has—she has flashcards, shut up, dipshit—”
“We’re gonna do all those—those things that—makeovers,” he said, unable to think of anything else. “Sleepovers. Talking about boyfriends.”
“Kill me first,” Robin replied, through gritted teeth. “I will puke, I swear to god.”
“I have all the locker room dirt on everybody,” Steve said, clapping his hands together as he realized. “I know how big—”
“Eugh!” she actually shouted over him. “Gross! I do not want to know! I don’t want to know what Tommy Hagen’s dick is like, holy shit!”
“Yeah, I kinda wish I didn’t either,” Steve said, reflecting, but Robin was on a tear.
“I don’t want to—I don’t even—I wouldn’t think Billy Hargrove was hot unless his name was spelled with an -ie,” she said through clenched teeth, and he mouthed the letters, frowning into space. “Like. If he was named Wilhelmina, Steve.”
“That’s an awful name,” he turned to frown at her doubtfully. “And—and it’s for girls, I think.”
“The penny drops,” she said crisply, which made no sense, but he ignored that, turning her disgust in his head against her insistence she didn’t have a problem with his gay cooties.
“You’re a lesbian,” he whispered, pointing, and she clapped her hand to her face. Steve thought. “I thought I was the only one at school! We were. The only queer people, at school. There’s, uh, there’s a kid, but he’s a middle-schooler. And Barbra Holland, maybe? She and Nancy watched some weird movies.”
“How do you know what kind of...ugh, y’know what, I’m going home,” Robin sighed. “Try not to get expelled, I guess?”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he said quickly, feeling the urge to lift his hand to pinky-swear. He snickered. “We should have a secret handshake.”
“You better not tell anyone,” she hissed back, but she looked relieved too, and they stood there for long awkward seconds before she spun and stomped off. “I still don’t like you!” she shouted back, and he bit back a grin.
Once he’d talked to the ceramics teacher, he sat down with his headphones and the potter’s wheel, trying to dig his fingers into the heavy wetness of the clay enough to bring up a thin edge, but not so much they went through. About the point it started to look like a deep cat dish instead of an ashtray, he realized there were knees facing his, and he shook his head to knock his headphones down to his shoulders, instead of getting clay on them.
The lovely and intelligent Nancy Wheeler had her chin on her hands, and her elbows on her knees, watching him spin the clay.
“Hi,” he said, suddenly wanting to fix his hair, and clenching his hands so he didn’t put streaks of clay in it.
“What’s that gonna be?”
“...I dunno,” he said, which was a lie, probably. “I might screw it up.” Which was true.
“I think I see it,” she cocked her head as he used his fingertips to draw it up taller, “—with Billy. I thought you might—need help, y’know. Sorry.”
“What?!” He blinked at her, letting the wheel slow to a stop.
“I see it now. He was freaking out, when you just—ran out of the library, that time. Mike said he’s been really good to Will, and Eleven. I mean, if he pulls any shit with you we should absolutely tie him to train tracks. But.”
“That’s very...evil of you.” Steve stared at her, wide-eyed.
She rolled her eyes, and waved a hand. “His dad too, obviously.”
Steve snorted, choking. “Obviously.” He pulled his clay cylinder up a little taller and thinner, his face warm. The clay had lines where he’d pressed too hard, almost giving it segments. “...argh, this is my third try, and it’s still not straight.”
“...neither are you,” she replied, levelly, and he nearly smashed it, flailing.
“Nancy,” he growled at her, and she shrugged, watching him wet his hands and try to even it out.
She followed him around as he sliced it off the wheel with wire, took it to a table, and sculpted a handle. When he got to rolling more clay out, and cutting a little plaque to press letters into, she came and leaned over his shoulder, and he flushed as he inhaled her shampoo. “...that looks good, actually,” she murmured in his ear, and he winced away. She wandered back around the table to drop onto the stool across from him.
“‘Actually’?!” he muttered, and she snorted. “Sorry I was a shitty boyfriend,” he told the little letters he was painstakingly carving.
“Mm.” She shrugged. “I mean, I was kinda shitty, too, there at the end.”
He opened his mouth, automatically, to tell her she was perfect and amazing, then shut it again. He bit his lips, frowning down, then blew air through his cheeks, and carefully peeled up the little clay plaque shape to press on the crosshatched side of his cylinder.
“We’re getting better at it,” she said, looking it over, and then reached across and prodded his shoulder. “That’s sweet, Steve.”
“Eugh,” he sighed, leaning his face on the table. “Hope he thinks so.”
She groaned. “He liked Denise, Steve.”
“How come everybody knows my dumb vase’s name,” he mumbled into his arms, and she laughed.
“I hear everything. Little bird told me you might need a ride.”
Steve lifted his head, frowning at her. “...what?”
“He took your car, right?”
“I think Eleven took him,” Steve defended Billy, and Nancy grinned at him, nudging his elbow.
“Yeah, in your car.”
“Who knows where they’ll end up,” Steve sighed. He tried not to think about kissing Billy Hargrove in the bathroom at the IHOP. “Uh, she keeps making him take her for waffles.” Billy’d flinched back when he walked in the IHOP bathroom, he thought, leaning his face in his arms again. How did I not stop and think about that.
Nancy got up and leaned against the table. “And it’s snowing again, so you need a ride. Thanks, Nancy. You’re such a good friend, Nancy.”
He looked up, and quailed under the weight of her raised eyebrows. “Thanks. Who’s the little bird?”
“Billy,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Or rather, he was asking how long Max and Eleven needed, and Eleven asked what I was doing after school.”
“Sorry,” Steve snickered, imagining Billy’s expression. “I could’ve walked.”
She shrugged. “I’m still here.”
Once he finished, and put his Valentine’s Day present to Billy on a rack to dry, they wandered out to Nancy’s mom’s car. As she checked the mirrors, and put on her seatbelt, Steve took a deep breath, couldn’t decide what to say, and sat there with his cheeks inflated like a chipmunk’s, squinting at the dashboard.
“...what are you doing,” she laughed.
“I, um. You know Robin Buckley?”
Nancy frowned at him, then at the rearview mirror to back out of the parking spot. “Yeeeah?”
“She, uh, she saw me and Billy. Earlier.”
“So?”
“Uh, we were, uh, she knows.” He leaned around to shove his bag in the back seat.
“...need me to go —talk to her?” Nancy asked, in a low voice, and Steve scrambled back up, wondering why he knew so many people willing to commit murder in his name.
“No! No! It’s, uh, it’s fine. She doesn’t like dick. I mean, she likes tits, you know. I mean, she’s like us. Billy and me. She’s queer. She, uh, she won’t tell anybody. Shit! I can’t tell you that, the whole point was—auuuugh,” he groaned, leaning his seat back to add some drama to it. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, don’t tell her I told you—”
“Oh!” Nancy blinked. “Is she?! I thought…” She frowned, pulling around a gaggle of freshmen in jerseys wandering through the parking lot.
“What?” Steve tried to get the seat to click back upright, and fell backwards again, his leg kicking up in the air.
“I thought she had a thing for you. She used to glare at us all the time.” Nancy rolled her eyes and groaned, slowing to a top again, and Steve wondered who else was blocking traffic out of the highschool parking lot.
“Did she? Weird.” Steve squinted at the roof of the car, and then remembered something. “Anyway, she won’t say anything. And I need advice. On blow jobs.”
The brakes squawked as Nancy stared over, Nancy opening her mouth to answer, but something banged at the window, and he sat up to see Lucas’ little sister glaring at them.
“Holy shit,” Nancy muttered, groaning. “Just don’t bite it off, you’ll get the hang of it, oh my god—” she hissed, leaning across his legs to roll the window down.
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Steve muttered back, as Erica Sinclair stuck her face in the car.
“I fell asleep first period and got detention,” she yawned. “Marcenia Lyle Alberga snuck out again last night. Tomika and me were out until four this morning. And I missed the bus, and then I fell asleep in detention again...”
“You...what?” Nancy asked, looking lost. “Who?”
“Her friend’s cat sneaks out,” Steve translated.
“She doesn’t like the old Shireman house,” Erica told them, yanking the handle of Nancy’s car door and yawning again. “Lemme in. I missed the bus, I need a ride.”
“Sorry,” Steve said to Nancy, unable to stop his beaming grin. “She’s, uh, Billy’s kid now, I guess? Can we give her a ride?”
“Billy’s,” Nancy repeated, squinting at him, then Erica, and leaning behind Steve’s seat to unlock the door. Once they were all inside, she asked, “Isn’t the old Shireman place haunted, or something?”
“Yeah, Tommy and Carol and I used to…” Steve trailed off, his brain wandering back to being friends with Tommy Hagen, and getting high to run around screaming and giggling in the “haunted house”. “We used to...go there,” he finished, folding his arms.
“It’s creepy out there,” Erica said, leaning between their seats. “We’re not supposed to go, the floor’s falling in, but Marcenia’s just a kitten.”
“A mean one,” Steve snorted, and Erica snorted.
“She’s a killer. She can’t fight snow, though. I mean, she’d try. ”
Steve snickered, and they ended up explaining the afternoon Billy’d played Great White Hunter to Marcenia the Jungle Cat. He was dying to tell Nancy about El’s confusion over Hopper’s lousy sex talk, and trailed off, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad, really, life with Nancy as a friend.
As Nancy obeyed every traffic law, exactly at the speed limit, Steve saw Robin Buckley under the overhang of the gas station, hopping around as she knocked snow out of one of her shoes. She sighed, pulled it back on with a disgusted expression, hunched her shoulders, and walked on, just as some melting snow toppled off the edge and smacked into the back of her head and down the back of her collar. She yelled and flailed, dropping her bag, and fell on her butt in the snow, then threw her head back and yelled at the sky.
“Wait!” Steve yelled at Nancy, rolling his window down to stick his head out. “Hey! Oy! Robin Barclay!”
“Buckley,” Nancy corrected.
“Buckley!” Steve called, and Robin squinted over out of the pile of snow she’d landed in, her eyes flat with despair.
“What,” she glared over. “Qu-uh. Uh,” she glanced at Nancy, turning red, and her glower darkened. “Steve Harrington?” Ice dripped from the slush on her head down along her ear, and he heard both Nancy and Erica shudder.
“Can we give her a ride?” he asked Nancy, who was shaking her head slowly in bewilderment, eyes wide. “Please?”
“Sure, of course,” she said, turning up the heat and scrambling behind her to unlock the door. Erica scooted to one side.
“This is your fault,” was Robin’s first shivering line after she climbed in. “I missed the bus after, uh, running into you.”
“You’re another one of Steve’s friends?” Erica asked, eyes narrowed consideringly, and Steve yelled “Stop kidnapping my friends! No kidnapping!” back at her as Nancy hit the gas.
“I’m very resistant to being kidnapped,” Robin said, sniffling and shivering.
“Unstoppable force, immovable object,” Erica whispered, studying Robin as they drove.
“No,” Steve told her emphatically.
Robin studied Steve and Nancy. “I thought you two broke up,” she said, exaggeratedly innocent, and glared meaningfully at Steve when he turned around to stare at her.
“We did,” Nancy told her, checking her side mirror. “Steve’s my best friend now. He got a battlefield promotion.”
Robin sat back, nodding, and Steve laughed so hard he choked.
Billy’s car was out of the garage and blocking the drive, for some reason, with Steve’s behind it. Steve frowned at it, then raised his eyebrows at Nancy, who narrowed her eyes at him, then got out of the car and walked around as he disentangled his bag from the seatbelt and slammed the door.
“What,” she hissed. “You were making faces.”
“There’s gotta be more than “don’t bite it off,” he hissed back. “Come on!”
She made an offended gaspy noise, her mouth dropping open. “You’ve had blow jobs!” she squeaked back, flailing her arms. “You know more than me! I don’t even have a dick!”
“How do you not choke?” he asked, thinking hard.
“You just do!” she growled back, her face flaming red. “You’re putting a—a big—a thing down your—where you breathe, Steve, how do you think lungs work—oh my god—”
“Ohhhh,” Steve nodded, and she screamed into her hands.
“If you keep asking me for sex advice I’m gonna suggest you pull your mouth off real loud and sing ‘Pop Goes The Weasel,’” she snarled, and Steve started laughing, blushing nearly as hard as she was at the awkwardness of grilling his ex-girlfriend on blow jobs.
“I know it’s weird,” he laughed, wiping his eyes. “I know, I know, I got nobody else to ask, though, Nance, come on!”
She bit her lips together, glaring, then sighed. “...try, uh. Try, um, humming,” she squeaked.
“Humming,” he stared.
“Shut up, never mind!” she groaned, hiding her face.
“No, no, no no no!” he ran around to block her as she turned back to the car. “No, go on, tell me! Tell me, tell me!”
She sighed, smiling tensely at him. “God, Steve. You’re so—argh.”
“I am, I am,” he agreed, “—tell me your secrets, teach me, like, cock karate—”
“Oh my god,” she moaned.
“Do I need to wash cars,” he asked, miming circular hand movements, and she shoved him, laughing.
“We were, y’know, listening to music,” she mumbled, flushing even redder, “—and uh, I was um, y’know, kind of—kind of singing, humming—”
“Ew,” Steve said, waving her onward as he tried not to imagine the soundtrack of Jonathan’s approaching penis. “Yeah, go on—”
“It’s-nice-try-it!” she squeaked, all one noise, and ducked by him to dive into the car. He waved, but she bent close around the steering wheel as Erica ran around to take shotgun.
Steve crept in the front door to the caterwauling sounds of a circular saw.
The door to the garage from the kitchen was open, and his parent’s stuff—the stacks of boxed seventies clothes and albums he’d called and asked about, that they’d told him to throw out, that he felt weird throwing out, like there wouldn’t be anything of theirs left in the house if he threw the boxes out—had been pushed off to the side. Billy and Eleven were leaning over a long thin piece of wood trim balanced across the seats of two of the kitchen chairs. Billy had a foot on it, holding it secure across the seats, and Eleven had the saw, which she turned off, and carefully lowered to the floor.
“Angle’s perfect,” Billy told her, thumbing the edge, and she beamed at him. He bent over some more wood, but Steve’s brain was less aware of the wood, and more aware of his boyfriend’s ass in tight jeans.
Steve nearly stepped on Max, watching Billy, then blinked down to realize she was sitting in the doorway with her butt on the kitchen floor and her feet on the stair into the garage, glaring up at him and holding a plastic binder with shiny pages.
“Hey, moron, stop drooling,” she whispered. “It’s nasty.”
“What’re they doing?” he crouched to ask, watching El steeple her fingers thoughtfully at her nose, listening to Billy’s explanation of the different grits of sandpaper.
“He says he broke your door,” Max raised her eyebrows with all the judgement of Steve’s second-grade teacher, and he ducked his head.
“Wasn’t on purpose, he thought I was—I don’t know,” he muttered back at her. “He didn’t mean it.”
“That’s creepy, Steve,” she hissed back, flipping a page, and studying it intently. “He knows what he’s doing.” Through the reflection of the florescent lights of the garage, Steve couldn’t see what she was looking at, but he thought he and Max weren’t quite to the point where he could lean into her space.
“I mean,” Steve squinted, considering, and dropped to sit more comfortably next to her in the doorway, his legs sprawled into the garage. He remembered Billy drunk, throwing beer bottles at his house, and crying over his mom. “I mean, not—not always, not really. He, uh—”
“Don’t give me that shit,” she sighed. “Don’t let him get all, y’know, ‘Sorry, honey, you know I’ve got a temper,’ Steve, jesus. Bet he never breaks his own stuff.”
“Wait, what?” Steve drew his eyes away from Billy, who was smiling down at El marking length on a shorter piece of trim with a steel square. “He doesn’t break my stuff. Except the door. Did he break your stuff?”
She tensed, flipping another page, and holding both sides of the binder with white knuckles. “Maybe. Maybe I’m good at pattern recognition, Steve. He tell you not to make him mad? You being careful?”
Steve stared at the side of her head, then swung to face her, unable to focus while his eyes were full of Billy’s ass. “Max, you okay? Is—is everything okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” she snorted a laugh, rubbing her eyes with her wrist, and flipping another page. She studied it carefully.
“Max, did—did Billy say that to you? Did he—”
“No, he never—he— he says it. To my mom.”
Steve processed for a second, feeling like he was a dysfunctional blender. There were big things floating around out there he was fairly sure he didn’t understand, but he could manage the little pieces, sometimes, blend them into a whole that made sense. “Neil told your mom,” he translated, and Max swallowed, biting her lips together. “Neil...told your mom not to make him mad. Right?”
She shook her head. “He—he didn’t mean—like he gets with Billy. She wouldn’t—he wouldn’t get mad like that— just at Billy, he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t—”
“Billy told you what his mom said,” Steve felt like his engine was grinding, but he kept guessing, since Max kept pausing after each line. Maybe she doesn’t like what she put together, he thought. She’s seeing whether I get the same thing. “That Neil was...that he scared her.”
“Billy said he hit his mom,” Max grated out, and Steve cocked his head, trying to parse the language of the Hargrove siblings.
“Billy said his dad hit his mom,” he suggested, his eyes narrowed in thought, and Max made a weird hiccup noise, muffling it in the cuff of her sweatshirt. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Steve bit his lips together, and tried again. “...and his dad told your mom not to make him angry.” Like the Hulk, he thought, imagining Neil Hargrove tearing the house apart.
Max flipped another page, and bent to frown at it from inches away as Steve waited.
“What have you got there?” he finally asked, since apparently the conversation was over, and El and Billy were still busy. Max tipped the binder towards him with a tense smile.
Steve crouched. “...is that...is that Billy’s photo album? That’s Billy, oh jesus. Oh my god.” He muffled his wide-eyed mumbling with his hands, staring at child-Billy’s round cheeks.
“Shut up, he looks like a moron,” Max hissed back, flipping the page, as Billy and Eleven laid out more pieces of wood. “Look at their hair! And he definitely doesn’t want you seeing him in that sweater vest.”
Steve flipped it back and eyed the brown, orange, red, and off-white sweater vest—it was definitely ugly, and his time spent winding yarn for Ms. Williams meant he could accurately peg it as basically a sandwich of two enormous crocheted potholders, one front, one back, with straps sewn on. “Oh, god,” he mumbled through his hand. “Did he, like...make that himself?” He tried not to think about Neil’s fingers digging into Billy’s shoulder in the posed picture, or the way Billy was leaning away, into his mom.
“I think there was an aunt...or a grandma...Maybe we should blow up that picture and stick it on the bulletin board at school,” Max grinned, laughing shakily.
“Look at his fat little cheeks,” Steve whispered. “Oh no, look, he was surfing and he fell in the water.”
“Look how many pictures there are of him dragging his board out of the water,” Max snickered. “Like, one of him actually surfing. He looks like a drowned rat.”
From listening to Billy’s mom, Steve didn’t doubt either that she was as delighted by photos of him falling off surfboards as staying on, or that she ever let him live it down. “His mom calls him her Land Turtle,” he told her, and Max clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a snicker. “Oh no,” Steve hissed, elbowing her. “Look, Santa photos.”
Max stared at them for a long moment, then looked up at Steve, biting back a huge grin. Her eyes still shone wet, but she looked gleeful. “Steve. Steve,” she whispered in a high voice, drowned out by Billy showing El a box of finishing nails. “Steve,” she wheezed. “He was afraid of Santa. Look. Every picture. Oh my god.”
Billy’s mom looked thin, and paler than she had, and Steve tried to focus on her broad grin. “Those are amazing sweaters,” he whispered back, between his fingers, trying not to crack up aloud over toddler-Billy’s horrified eyes on Santa in every picture. In one, he was tilted sideways, wailing in his red-and-white striped sweater with the knitted green bowtie and matching mustard-yellow knitted overalls.
Suddenly Max yanked the album back to squint close, and Steve waited, then leaned his head down to try and see her face. “Huh,” she said, lifting her head, and pushing the album back toward him. “Leia there on the Halloween page,” she pointed. “His mom—does that—there on her arms, and her neck, do those look like bruises to you?”
Steve, staring at what had to be tiny Billy wedged in an awful R2-D2 costume made mostly of tinfoil, beaming up at the Leia from under—for some reason—a superhero-type mask, had to blink a few times to register Max’s voice. “Wha?”
“Do those look like bruises,” Max hissed. “Billy says he used to hit his mom—”
“Billy hit his mom?” Steve stared at her, then Billy, still stuck in their second conversation about family photos, where four-year-old Billy Hargrove was wearing potholders like they were clothes.
Max shook her head. “No, stupid, he hit Billy’s mom, Neil did. Billy says. Billy says—Billy says she was scared, she thought—there was an insurance thing—” she swallowed, the shine to her eyes no longer delighted. “I’m—I just—he doesn’t deserve him, nobody does, but just ‘cause he hits Billy doesn’t mean he’d hurt—”
Steve listened, really noticing for the first time that Max and Billy never called Neil Hargrove anything—not ‘dad’, or his name, just ‘he’. It was confusing for onlookers, who weren’t always thinking about the man, but Max and Billy always seemed to understand each other.
“I thought I’d check his pictures,” Max closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose, and when she looked back down at the photos, her eyes were drier. “See if—if he was right, and she—she looks—she’s really scared, Steve.”
“I was there when she told Billy,” Steve told Max, who pressed her knuckles to her mouth, making a muffled gulping noise.
“He’s gonna hurt my mom,” she whispered, taking a shaky breath. “Shit, Steve, he’s gonna—he’s gonna hurt my mom, it was true, those are bruises, he’s gonna—”
Steve realized the tools had gone silent, and looked up to see Billy, thin-lipped and pink-cheeked, glancing from the album, to Steve, to Max.
El followed his gaze, frowned hard, and sat the saw down. She walked over, and wedged herself between Max and Steve on the stair into the garage. “What happened?” El asked, sounding like she was doing the psychic equivalent of cracking her knuckles to ready herself for a fight.
Max shook her head, pressing her knuckles to her mouth.
Steve let himself be pushed aside, walking over to put an arm around Billy and kiss his ear. “Just found a picture of my new favorite robot,” he whispered, and Billy snorted, tense against him. “Why was R2-D2 wearing a mask,” Steve asked, and Billy rolled his eyes.
“Shut up, I was like seven, I didn’t know how to make a costume. Why the hell is Max showing you my fatass baby pictures?”
“She, um,” Steve stumbled, divided between wanting to answer, not wanting to admit Max didn’t believe Billy’s warnings, and mostly wanting a time-travel car to go back and pick up the chubby little curly-haired R2-D2 in his terrible tinfoil costume, give him hot chocolate, and keep him the hell away from Neil Hargrove. “You seriously calling R2-D2 fat?”
“What is going on,” asked El, narrowing her eyes at Steve’s arm around Billy, and tucking her own around Max.
“He hurt Billy’s mom, and he hurt Billy, and he’s gonna hurt my mom,” Max said, her voice gravelly with suppressed tears. “He hurts people, and he’s—” she took a few rapid breaths, and bit her lips together until they went white.
Eleven took Max’s hand, turning to face her. “We won’t let him.”
Billy swallowed, his jaw working.
“Hopper,” Steve said, squeezing Billy’s shoulders. “Hopper can—talk to Hopper, El, take Max to tell him—”
“He—he could be doing something—I need to get home,” Max stood, and nearly fell, trying to spin without watching the stair. She staggered, swearing in a high, broken voice.
Eleven caught her by the elbows. “Max,” she said slowly clearly, and Max’s head jerked up to frown at her, as Eleven waved a hand at the milk crates of old records and exploded them. Billy and Steve both yelled, diving for the floor as vinyl shrapnel rained down, and it snowed bits of cardboard. “We won’t let him,” Eleven said, bringing her hand back to squeeze Max’s, then lifting it to wipe a dribble of blood from her nose.
“Holy shit,” Max whispered, wiping her eyes. “Okay. Yeah. We can—we can threaten him, or something.”
“Or something,” El repeated darkly. “I saw a movie where they dropped a house on somebody.”
“C-can you do that?” Max snorted wetly, snickering probably half with stress, and half imagining Neil’s shoes sticking out from under a foundation like he was the Wicked Witch of the East.
El narrowed her eyes. “Do you want me to?”
“Holy shit,” Max started cackling through her tears, stumbling to sit down on the stair to the kitchen.
“Holy shit,” Billy echoed, staring at the mess, as Steve sighed and grabbed the broom. “What the fuck,” he whispered. “Luke fucking Skywalker.”
Steve had mostly forgotten Billy didn’t know about El. Of course that’s how he’d find out about Eleven, he thought, rubbing his face, and scrabbling at his hair. Billy knew every other detail of his stupid life. Of course he couldn’t find out when she lifted a toy spaceship. No, my boyfriend, that I promised to—to tell things—finds out El can move stuff with her mind when she explodes something four feet away and threatens to drop a house on his dad. “Babe,” he tried, turning to Billy. “Hey, dickhead, cupcake.”
Billy was staring at El—or past her, it was hard to tell. His hands were shaking. “You knew about this,” he whispered. “You—you said you wanted me safe, and then you sent me out with a—a fucking dark jedi. Lucky she didn’t explode my skull when I kicked Max under the table. Holy crap.”
“Shit, no, she—she wouldn’t hurt you,” Steve stared at him, then Eleven, who was watching Max take deep, shaky breaths.
“No wonder you wanted to check me over,” Billy whispered, sitting down on one of the chairs he’d been using as a sawhorse. “After you made me take them for waffles. How’d Billy do? She explode my brain?”
“No, no—” Steve argued, his stomach clenching as he remembered fearing exactly that, when Eleven climbed into Billy’s car while Dustin and Max drug him into a classroom for their intervention. He reached out, and Billy flinched, then laughed, baring his teeth.
“Any other big secrets, Steve?”
“No,” Steve shook his head frantically, hoping there weren’t. He couldn’t think of any, but then he’d never even thought to pull Eleven aside, and ask whether he could tell Billy. Some of the vinyl was melted to the floor, and Steve kicked at it.
“Do you want me to come home with you?” Eleven asked Max, and Steve tried to put Billy on hold with his hand and derail that situation.
“Wait, no, Eleven,” he called over. “Remember, I mean, you can’t—nobody can see your powers,” he said, wincing as Billy scrambled away. “They could take you away from Hopper, nobody can—”
She nodded. “It would look like an accident.”
Billy staggered over to sit down against the racks holding Steve’s backstock of marshmallows. “Holy hell fucking balls shit,” he mumbled, taking deep breaths in his steepled hands.
“I still need a ride home,” Max said grimly, and El nodded, taking a deep breath.
“Wait, wait, wait, no,” Steve dropped the broom, waving his hands. “Do you—do you really think you need to do anything, like, tonight?”
“He’s gonna hurt my mom, Steve,” Max hissed, and El nodded, crossing her arms.
“Whoa, whoa,” Steve waved his hands, glancing at Billy. “I mean, hell with Neil Hargrove, but come up with a plan. What if he tells someone about El? Talk to Hopper, think up—come up with a way that doesn’t—I mean, save Max’s mom, but make sure everybody’s safe, okay.”
“Everybody except him,” Max growled.
El considered Steve for a long moment, then nodded. “I will help you,” she told Max, nodding firmly.
“Jesus fucking christ hell,” Billy muttered, shoving past Max and out of the garage. His feet pounded up the stairs.
“I need to go home,” Max told Steve. “I need to tell her.”
“She’s still at work, isn’t she?! Don’t do anything,” Steve ordered the two girls. “Anything, I mean it. I have to—Billy didn’t know, I need to go and—”
“He didn’t know?” El asked, blinking from Steve, to Max, to the ceiling. “Why? You didn’t want Billy to know?”
“I didn’t know if you’d want him to know!” Steve told her, trying not to yell. “Now he’s pissed as hell, I have to go talk to him, just—El. Tell me you’d never hurt Billy. You wouldn’t hurt him.”
Eleven cocked her head, turning to Max. “...what did Billy do?” she asked, and Max gulped a laugh, shaking her head.
“Shit,” Steve rubbed his face. “I have to go talk to him, don’t do anything—”
Max sniffled, rubbing her nose. “You better gimme a ride by five, okay. I—I’ll just have El sh-show me how to use all the power tools. Practice for cutting his head off . Unsupervised with the power tools,” she emphasized casually, like a jackass, and Steve yelled incoherently and ran upstairs. As he turned onto the landing, he heard the slide lock on Billy's door catch, and stopped, one foot still in the air. Gravity happened, and he flailed his arms, put both feet on the ground, and turned to lean over the railing, leaning his face in his hands.
“The hell are you doing, Harrington,” Billy’s voice came through the door.
“What?!” Steve yelped, spinning in place. “Nothing! I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“I could hear you chasing me,” Billy said through the door, sounding amused, in the way he did before he set something on fire. “And the floor is creaking. What now, Harrington?”
“Uh,” Steve mumbled, grimacing. “You want me to fuck off?”
He could hear Billy take a long breath, and blow air out through his cheeks. “...what do you want?”
“I just—” Steve swallowed, dropping to sit on the floor. He took a deep breath to continue. “I just—I’m—shit. I’m so sorry, jesus. I’m—I can’t—I can’t believe I didn’t ask Eleven if I could tell you. I got...I forgot I didn’t tell you everything.”
“All your little shitheads got superpowers?” Billy asked, laughing. “Yeah. That actually snaps a lot of shit into place, Steve.” Steve flinched at his name, and wondered why, swallowing again.
“No,” he answered. “No, it’s, um, it’s just El. She’s, uh. Eleven’s what the lab was making,” Steve told him, dropping to press his cheek to the floor, and sigh under the door at Billy’s bare toes clenched in in the carpet. “I didn’t—I mean, it wasn’t my secret. We got talked to by the FBI, she—she could get taken away from Hopper, they—”
“Don’t give me that shit,” Billy said, dropping to sit crosslegged. His fingers drummed against the carpet. “Who the hell would I tell. You told me about the—about the goddamn blue bodybuilder bananas. I can—I can still smell the burning records, Steve.”
“El hurting you wasn’t—it wasn’t a plan,” Steve growled, trying not to yell. “You think—you think I’d get you away from your dad and just—just throw you—why would I want you to scare a little kid until she killed you, Hargrove, hon—honey mustard. Jesus.”
Through the gap in the door, Steve could see Billy picking at the carpet, and twitching his toes. “...just might blow up my head if I, like, took her by surprise.”
“She wouldn’t kill you for startling her,” Steve said, rolling his eyes, then bit his lips as he remembered Dustin talking about El straight-up murdering the people with guns. “She, uh, she’s never hurt anyone...accidentally, um, I don’t think.”
“You don’t think,” Billy laughed. “I’m filled with confidence.”
“I’m sorry, christ,” Steve whispered. “I didn’t even—”
“Don’t get pissed at me—” Billy’s voice cracked, and he kicked the door.
“No, I’m not—” Steve rolled onto his back staring at the ceiling. “Christ. I didn’t...I’m not—I did, I thought about it, I—I should’ve warned you. Kept you away from her. Sorry I—sorry I didn’t—sorry I suck,” he groaned into his hands. “Damn it.”
The floor creaked, and Billy’s voice got louder. “God, I’m such a moron,” Billy told Steve, the floor creaking by his door. “All this time, I thought—you didn’t trust me at all, did you. Never forgot I was Billy Fucking Hargrove for a second. You just knew little Ellie Hopper didn’t have to tell her sheriff dad I needed putting down. She didn’t need help from anybody, she could twist my head off my goddamn neck, right? I step out of line, she’d take care of it, right, Steve?”
“Sorry,” Steve said again. “I, um.”
“That’s why you’d let me take Max and her for waffles, right, but the second Will shows up you start acting like I’m—I’m the Zodiac killer, christ. Screw you.”
“I didn’t—you’re nice to El, there was no—”
“Why the fuck have you been pretending to give a shit about me,” Billy yelled through the door. It shuddered with a loud THUD on the other side, then creaked in its frame as Billy’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “You knew—you knew she could do that. You knew she’d—do that—for Max, you—you knew—” Steve was silent, grimacing, and wondering what he could say. He jumped as the door thumped again in its frame, and Billy snarled, “Did you fucking leave.”
“No! I’m—I’m sorry,” Steve told him, scooting closer. “I-I’m here, I didn’t—you just, uh, you locked the door.”
“Like you couldn’t bust this shitty lock off in a second. Like Eleven couldn’t rip it off its hinges, right? Make me fucking bleed from—from the eyes probably,” his voice shook with anger, fear, or a combination of both, and Steve didn’t point out the door wouldn’t protect him.
“What? No, you—you locked the door,” Steve flailed at it. “If you want me in there, you gotta open it up, I—I’m not gonna break your door down, I’m not—I’m not the fucking trespasser here—I didn’t mean that to—shit, forget I said that, don’t leave, I’m talking bullshit, tell—tell me what to do, Hargrove. Kings have—they have advisors, or something, right, tell me—”
“Advisors get all the goddamn information,” Billy hissed back.
“I’m sorry,” Steve said again, groaning. “I’m so fucking sorry, I should—I should have known you—”
“Known I’d what, fly off the fucking handle?” The door thudded in its frame again, and Steve flinched back. “Right,” Billy whispered, “—I’m crazy, aren’t I, I’m acting insane right now, my brain doesn’t fucking work, I’m stupid, I’m losing my shit over nothing—” Billy’s laugh was wetter than Max’s.
“No!” Steve squirmed across the floor, closer to Billy’s locked door. “No, not—no, you’re—”
“Am I nuts?” Billy asked, his voice shaking. “Your royal majesty,” he laughed. “G-go on. Tell me to shut up and open the door. Wasn’t to lock you out, right? It’s not for that, that’s not—that’s not what you said to do—”
The lock clicked, like he had his hand on it, and Steve scrabbled at his hair. “N-no, wait, wait. Hargrove. Wait, I don’t—it’s—it’s your room, you can lock the door, you can lock it, it’s—it’s okay, you can lock the door—”
“Yell at me some more,” Billy said, laughing unsteadily. “I’ll open it. I’m opening it, jesus. Tell me I’m fucking nuts. Tell me to open up, King Harrington. I know I’m the asshole, I’m wrong, right? I’m—I’m wrong, somehow. Harrington,” he whispered, “—you—you keep—you go through so much shit for me, this is—this is my fault, right, you wouldn’t—”
“No, no, wait, Hargrove, listen—” Steve caught his breath as he recognized the metallic scrape of the lock sliding open. “Stop—”
A loud thump rattled the door in its frame. “It wasn’t even a big deal, right, I am, I’m acting insane. Jesus, I’m so dumb sometimes, I’m fucking crazy— I don’t know what to—let’s forget it,” Billy said thickly, turning the doorknob enough to click it unlocked. “Sorry,” he gritted out. “Y-you can come in if you want. We can—”
“No! No, no, no,” Steve yelped, scrambling to lie on his stomach on the floor, and slide his fingers under the door. He held it shut. He stared under the gap at Billy’s feet. “No! Be—don’t try and—babe—shit—you’re mad, you should be mad! You should be pissed, okay, be pissed, be—be fucking pissed as hell—okay—”
Billy was quiet for several seconds. “...okay,” he repeated softly, sniffling. “Whatcha doing, Harrington...you trying to fit under the door?”
“Fuck you, just—just—lock the door,” Steve told him. “Lock the door, babe. Don’t unlock the door until you wanna let me in, okay. Knight. Remember you’re pissed at me. I’m bullshit sometimes, okay. You’re pissed off.”
“Royal command,” Billy whispered, dropping so he was lying on the floor, one eye facing Steve through the gap underneath.
“You’re supposed to be mad,” Steve said again, and Billy laughed, a tear running out the side of his eye and dropping into the carpet. Steve scrambled for words. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t think—”
“I mean. You usually don’t,” Billy laughed hoarsely, and Steve wedged more of himself under the door, ignoring it scraping what felt like half the skin off his wrists, to brush the tips of his fingers against Billy’s toes. Billy jerked away, then grabbed Steve’s fingers in his cold, sweaty ones.
“No, I mean it, I’m a moron,” Steve hissed, pissed at himself, even if Billy wasn’t. “I know—with my bat,” Steve pointed at Billy under the door, and Billy laughed again. Steve squinted with concentration. “You had to—you had to know all about the bat, so you could figure out whether you were safe. I couldn’t just say you were safe. I had to tell you everything about the bat, so—so you could—decide.”
“Except about El,” Billy said, and Steve swallowed.
“Except about El,” he agreed, sighing. “I—I almost did, I—you asked if I was gonna lie, she’s—it’s a big secret—I-I’m sor—I’m so sorry. Honey-mustard. Hargrove. I’m—I’m so fucking sorry. I just—there was a lot happening, and—I should have made sure you were okay. First. First before anything.”
After what felt like a long silence, when Steve was starting to tense up again, Billy whispered, “You—you said you fucking forgot.” He rolled onto his back, shaking with laughter. “Did you seriously just— completely forget to tell me. Harrington. You did, didn’t you.”
“No! No, kind of,” Steve groaned again, into his arms, catching Billy’s half-hysterical snickering. “I thought—I mean, I freaked out that first time, when Dustin drug me off and you drove off with El in your car, but then—I mean, you were okay, nothing happened! I’m a fucking moron—”
“You’re so dumb,” Billy whispered, grinning under the door. “Holy shit. How could you—okay, I-I’ll open the door. I’m opening the door.”
“You don’t have to,” Steve told him, grimacing.
“Can’t lock you out in your own house,” Billy said, sounding weirdly flat. “S’not what that lock’s for, is it. It’s not—it’s not to st—” he took a shaky breath, swallowing. “It’s not to stop you,” he whispered, his fingers shaking in Steve’s.
“It’ll work!” Steve yelped. “It’ll stop me, it’s a sturdy door, right? The lock’s little but um, it’s uh, it’s latched! You’re safe from me in there!”
“Harrington, what are you gonna do when I open this door,” Billy asked, and Steve had the horrifying suspicion he was crying. “I won’t lock it again, I swear, jesus, please,” he mumbled, his words hitching, and Steve squeezed his hands harder.
“I—” Steve fumbled his words, trying to think of a way to prove he wasn’t angry, while also wanting to burn Neil Hargrove at the stake. “I’m not mad,” he said, trying to keep his voice soft. “I’m not mad, baby, you can lock the door, you can lock me out anytime—” He’d lost Billy for a while again, he realized, listening to the nonsensical mumbles and apologies on the other side of the door, and running his thumbs over Billy’s clenched fingers, so he just kept saying it was okay, and he wasn’t mad.
After what felt like the longest eleven minutes of Steve’s life—as he talked, he was staring at the watch on his wrist, wedged half under the door—Billy took a long shuddering breath.
“You back with me, Hargrove?” Steve whispered, his throat raw.
“...think so,” Billy whispered back. “I was...I was gonna open the door,” he said. “I won’t lock it again,” he promised, and Steve gave his now well-practiced speech.
“You can lock that door anytime,” he told Billy. “You can lock it for no reason, okay. I won’t be mad, you can lock your door.”
“I’m allowed to be crazy,” Billy laughed uncertainly.
“I don’t know if it’s crazy,” Steve told him, frowning under the door, but deciding not to bring up Neil Hargrove. “But you can lock the door, people lock doors, that’s what locks are for, dick—honey,” he said, changing his insult at the last minute, and ignoring Billy’s snickers and whispers of “Dick honey! I’m your dick honey.” “Billy Hargrove,” Steve whispered. “You can lock me out, I still love you—”
Billy choked, curling up on the floor around Steve’s fingers. “...okay.”
“Love you so much,” Steve told him, ignoring the heat in his cheeks. “Love works through doors, okay, I can wait ‘til you come out, jesus. It’s fine.”
“You’re such an asshole,” Billy laughed, crying. “Fuck you, stop making me—bawl, okay, jesus, you prick, christ. Fucking... hate how much I love you.”
“Yeah, I know,” Steve laughed, his eyes tearing up with relief, and the pain of his scraped knuckles wedged under the door.
“You’re really not pissed I locked you out,” Billy asked again, trying to sound casual.
“I showed you that lock,” Steve told him, trying not to sound pissed.
“Yeah, because—for if—if he comes, you wanna rescue me,” Billy laughed. “Protect what’s yours. Not supposed to lock you out.”
Feeling the exhaustion of another trip around the monopoly board, without passing Go, and without collecting $200, Steve closed his eyes and tried not to groan. “You can lock this door whenever you want,” he said for what sounded like the ninetieth time.
“Yeah,” Billy breathed, and they lay there, on opposite sides of the door, for nearly another five minutes. “...you pretending not to be pissed,” Billy hissed finally. “You—are you—I’ll open up and you’ll be mad as hell, you—you’ll—” he trailed off into sharp breaths, and Steve tried to squirm closer.
“Not gonna lie to you,” he said, and felt Billy’s fingers twitch. “I’m not, honey-mustard, I’ll tell you if I’m mad.” Billy took another long shaky breath, and Steve screwed his face up in thought, kicking his feet so they thudded lightly against the railing of the stairs. “...look, I could open the door,” he whispered, and Billy was silent. “You already unlocked it,” Steve reminded him. “All I’d have to do is turn the knob. But—”
“But what?” Billy asked.
“I don’t think you’re ready yet,” Steve told him. “I’m gonna let you open your door, okay?”
“God, I’m so crazy,” Billy sighed, muffled by the carpet.
“I think you’re just, y’know,” Steve flunked talking as usual, “—you think, um, you think stuff will happen that maybe...happened before. That’s, uh, that’s smart, actually. That’s smart.”
“I should trust you,” Billy groaned. “Shit.”
“I mean, I guess,” Steve made a face. “I just kind of...fucked up. Big. I didn’t—you have to be careful, I mean, you—” he groaned too, trying to fit the words together.
“Not with you,” Billy argued.
“No, with—with me, too, you have to be careful, you’re really important,” Steve huffed, his hackles rising as Billy started laughing again on the other side of the door. “You are! Steve hissed. “You’re so important, you’re the most important, and I’m really—I’m so shitty at this, you have to—you have to help me—”
“Oh my god,” Billy wheezed, and Steve opened his mouth to keep arguing, then blinked as Billy reached out to push Steve’s pointer finger back under the door.
“This lil’ piggy’s gonna get stomped, Harrington,” Billy whispered through the gap, and Steve snickered as Billy’s fingers lifted each of his and prodded them under the door, then stuck his own middle fingers under at Steve.
Steve laughed and rubbed his wrists, rolling onto his back.
Billy’s face disappeared from the gap, replaced by his hand, then his foot, and the sound of a door opening across carpet.
Steve pushed himself to his feet, and then got an armful of Billy Hargrove, breathing unsteadily against his shoulder, and yanking at the fly of his pants.
“Fucking moron,” Bily whispered, trying to unbutton Steve’s jeans as Steve tried to push his hands away.
“Max—Max and El,” he gasped. “They’re right downstairs, we can’t—”
“Sure we can,” Billy whispered against his mouth, and Steve grabbed his hands.
“Okay, but I’m the one apologizing, right,” Steve changed tactics, trying not to grin. “You didn’t screw up. I screwed up.” Billy’s eyes narrowed, then widened as Steve grabbed him by the fly, whispering. “Lemme choke on your dick.” As he’d expected, Billy froze, frowning at him, and Steve seized the opportunity to squeeze him until his bones creaked.
“Not sure how much you’re gonna like that when you’re sober,” Billy hissed in his ear, rocking their hips together.
With the hot pressure on his dick, Steve couldn’t think of an argument other than the truth. “I was,” he whispered, sliding a hand under Billy’s sweatshirt and up his warm side, feeling his muscles work. “I was—I was sober, cake, um, cake pie. I dumped the whiskey out. Didn’t drink it.”
“What,” Billy asked hoarsely.
“Sorry I lied,” Steve buried his face in Billy’s neck, dragging messy kisses over his collarbones. “Shouldn’t lie to you, I mean it, I—I’ll stop, but—but I knew you were freaked, didn’t wanna—didn’t wanna do some dumb drunk thing—” he bit gently under Billy’s jaw, and felt him shudder.
“You goddamn liar,” Billy breathed, grabbing the ass of Steve’s jeans with both hands.
“Sorry for that too,” Steve whispered, and Billy groaned melodramatically in his ear. “Am I out of the doghouse?” Steve asked, and Billy snorted.
“No, you are not,” Billy said, his gaze flicking uncertainly over Steve’s face. “I’m gonna make you work for it—”
“Oh, I can work for it,” Steve told him, his grin way too wide, he suspected, to look seductive at all.
“What the hell are you two doing up there?!” Max yelled, and they both started.
“Okay,” Steve said, tucking his laugh against Billy’s neck. “I’m gonna suck your dick. With feeblings.”
“Jesus christ,” Billy muttered back, relaxing against him. “Just a minute,” he shouted downstairs, and Max stomped away. “...El might actually come up and ask what we’re doing in a minute,” he groaned, sliding his arms around Steve’s waist to sway together, and muttering a string of profanity into his shoulder.
Steve rubbed his back, trying to remember the intense cold-shower effect El had had on his half-chub earlier, when she’d stomped into the locker room wanting Billy to teach Max to use tools. The idea of her throwing the bedroom door open as Steve tried to negotiate his first real blowjob didn’t sound appealing.
After standing there a while, Steve’s adrenaline bubble started merging with the relief of Billy choosing to trust him after he’d fucked up again, and he wanted to move— run, or dance Billy around, or carry him somewhere, listening to him yell, and kissing his hot blushing face. “Later tonight. I got blowjob tips from Nancy. But we should probably go back downstairs,” he whispered, rubbing his thumb across Billy’s tear-sticky cheek.
“Holy jesus. Is that—is that what you were talking about? Giving blowjobs?” Billy asked, his laugh warming Steve’s neck.
“Sort of,” Steve hedged, wishing Nancy hadn’t wanted him to keep secrets. “She decided to start telling me all the weird shit she used to tell Barb, and I’m not supposed to tell anybody, and—” he remembered Nancy shaking with laughter over Jonathan’s sex habits, and tried to smother his vindictive glee, “—I really, really want to tell you Nancy’s secrets, I swear.”
“Why the hell would I want to know any of that,” Billy slumped against him with a contented sigh.
“It’s hilarious,” Steve hissed. “Being friends with a girl is annoying.”
“You poor baby,” Billy snorted.
“She wants to check in all the time! She likes you,” Steve said, remembering abruptly, and Billy burst into a fit of snickering against his neck.
“She does, huh.”
“She does! She said you were all freaked out when I ran out of the library.”
“...Harrington,” Billy said, pulling back to narrow his eyes at Steve’s face. “I—”
“We should probably go downstairs,” Steve interrupted, his face heating as he remembered Billy knew he’d run off to cry. Like the five-year-old birthday boy, he thought, with a self-directed smirk, when he realizes everybody in the class just came because he’s got a pool. “Sorry I was acting like—an idiot. More of an idiot,” Steve shrugged. “We should go down.”
Billy opened his mouth, closed it, then pulled Steve’s face into a kiss that was warm and salty with tears. After a few seconds of hot breath and slick tongue that left Steve harder in his pants than ever, his sweaty hands clutching at Billy’s biceps, Billy pulled back. “You saying I should stop hiding from a little girl,” he asked, grinning, and Steve swallowed a couple times, gathering himself to speak.
“El’s pretty scary,” Steve rasped, “—they’re gonna start using the chainsaw or something, though—”
“You have a chainsaw?” Billy interrupted.
“Maybe?!” Steve stepped back to throw his hands in the air. “I didn’t know we had a circular saw!”
“We need a ride,” El’s voice carried up the stairs.
“Are your—” parents? Steve thought, and stalled out, “—are your uh, your adults even off work yet? Thought you were helping Billy fix my door,” Steve called back, leaning over the railing to look downstairs, and reaching back to squeeze Billy’s hand.
“...we should finish that first,” El said, after a second, and Billy turned him around and leaned in for one more kiss before squeezing his hand back and pulling away to jog down the stairs after Eleven.
Max was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Steve came down. She looked him up and down, then rolled her eyes, her shoulders lowering a little from their angry hunch.
“Hey, Max, uh,” Steve said, then stopped, thinking.
“What, did you run out of batteries?” she asked dryly.
“No, shut up. You know—you can still bring your mom here, if you need to, ever. Or call us, if you need help. We can—we can come pick you up, you and her. Anytime.”
“...Billy gonna second that?” she asked, and Steve considered.
“Yeah. Yeah, he said he’d help me out if my kids needed it. He offered. I mean, he might not stand between you and his dad—”
“No, he’s—he’s done that. Done something just as—just as I was—got himself hit.”
“...that’s…” Steve trailed off, unable to say it was good, Billy getting himself hurt.
“Weird is what that was, because usually he’s a total shithead,” Max hissed. “Which I didn’t tell El. And I won’t—” She stopped.
Because he’s your brother, Steve thought, then wondered whether it was just basic decency in Max, not wanting to hurt anyone if she could help it. Anyone but monsters, like Neil Hargrove.
“...El wants you both to come to the Byers’ for waffles,” she reported, sighing. “Soon. Every damn time anybody’s upset she wants waffles.”
“D’you want him there?” Steve asked, suspecting she didn’t.
“I don’t care,” Max sighed, setting her jaw, and frowning towards the garage. “If he keeps acting like a goddamn human being instead of an asshole. I think El wants to ask him about his mom.”
That will go great, Steve thought, wincing.
“Guess I better help them fix the door,” Max said, unmoving.
“You didn’t break it,” Steve told her, wandering over to the hot chocolate cupboard.
“I wanted to see his photo albums. Check his story, you know, so I lied,” she said, “...kind of.”
“You...lied,” he glanced back, eyebrows raised, before realizing he needed to get more marshmallows out of the garage, which would mean walking out on Max wanting to talk, which...didn’t seem like the right thing to do. He sighed.
“He won’t let me take shop. I signed up for shop and now I’m in home economics,” Max groaned, and Steve rewound the sentence in his head and substituted Neil in for he . “I told El, and said I wanted to talk to Billy, and she said Billy takes shop, since he’s a boy— and next thing I know, he’s waiting for us in your car after school. Trying to tell me how to use a saw. Billy fucking Hargrove, Shop Teacher—and of course Eleven’s having fun.” She squinted towards the garage. “I just wanted to see that photo album.”
“...want some hot chocolate?” Steve asked, feeling a keen empathy for El, and her urge to stuff waffles in the face of anyone having a problem.
“No,” Max said, burying her face in her arms. “Yeah. Damn it. Do I have to—I have to stop hating him now?! Just like that?” She snapped in the air, growling. “Because that asshole’s been beating his face in since he was like—” she held her hand flat a couple feet from the floor, glaring at Steve. “—that high? How come my mom had to fall for him. How come he can’t die of a heart attack. HEY MISTER GOD, THIS IS MAX,” she yelled suddenly, at the ceiling. “FIX YOUR SHIT.”
Steve was cracking up, leaning against the cupboard. “You tell him,” he held up a mug in a toast, and Max snorted.
“Listen to him in there,” she said, glaring at the table, and Steve leaned to listen to Billy laughing, and explaining something about the latch. “Being some rad older brother. You know, that’s what I thought I was getting. Will Byers loves him, musta asked me to invite him like twelve times. He got a cat out of a fucking tree, Steve, did he get brain trauma on your watch?!”
Steve thought about how tense Billy’d been, the afternoon Max had come over to learn to bake bread. Neil hadn’t helped, that morning, or calling that night, but Billy’d been a mass of barbed wire all afternoon.
“You finding the meaning of life in that cocoa mix?” Max asked, and Steve jumped, realizing he was staring into the jar.
“Yeah, kinda,” he leaned to look deeper, humming exaggerated noises like a Muppet, and she snorted, watching him spoon mix into mugs. “Nah. I, uh, I think he...I think maybe you make him nervous.”
“I make him nervous?!” Max smacked her hands on the table. “I make him nervous?! What in the hell kind of—”
“No, shush, I just mean—like I remember the floaty thingies, in the tunnels, you know,” he told her, waggling his fingers to indicate the wispy substance that had clogged their lungs, and ignoring Max biting back a grin. “In the snow, I—I can freak out a little. It’s not—it’s not the snow’s fault, snow never ate my friends—” Max snorted another laugh, but she was listening. “You haven’t...done anything, but you were—you were there, while things were happening, I think—”
“I remind him of home,” she said, chewing her lip. “Maybe. Gross.”
“Maybe,” he shrugged, but when he glanced over again, she looked like she was thinking hard.
“He could still not be a dipshit,” she muttered at her mug, and Steve nodded, sighing.
“You—you can bring him for waffles,” she decided. “Will can just have him, I don’t care. He can be Will and Eleven’s brother, I don’t give a shit.”
Steve opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “I’m, uh, I’m pretty good at. Things.”
“Not English, apparently,” Max narrowed her eyes. “The hell does that mean?”
“Nothing,” he shrugged, turning back to turn off the kettle, and add the hot water to their mugs.
“You really want to be my brother?” she asked, sounding amused, and he turned to glare, but her eyes were kinda wider than her usual wary glower. “I mean, you—you said that, when you—when you wanted me to get him out of the house, but—”
“I’d be better at it than Billy,” he pointed out, and she tried to talk and laugh at the same time, and choked.
“Yeah,” she laughed, wiping her eyes. “Yeah, uh, you—you really would. Uh. I dunno. Do I really need a brother, right, I mean. I, um. I have some—friends. Now.”
“If you need one,” he said, keeping his tone cheerful, and ignoring her red face as she groaned into her sleeves. “Or just, y’know, want one. I can put Dustin down as a reference.” He turned back to the hot chocolate.
He gave Max the rest of the marshmallows, and sat her mug in front of her, watching her eyes well up as she looked at the little Garfield cartoon about spiders on the mug.
“Thanks, Steve,” she rasped, and he clinked their mugs together.
Next chapter
#harringrove#platypan#Fix-it#Season 2.5#Lovesick dorks#Friendship is magic#Strangest#platypan fic#peterqpan on Ao3
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Cliche but can I request flower shop owner Marinette with gang boi Jason?
Dear sweet Anon, you have no idea how weak I am for cliche tropes. I took some liberties here seeing as Red Hood is already a sorta gang leader and just used that! I hope you like my rambly headcanons! I had so many ideas for this au that I really had to try to hold back.
Ground Zero
1) There’s a flower shop right on the edge of Jason’s territory that’s essentially become an urban legend.
No one is actually sure how exactly it’s still standing, it borders two rival gangs, Red Robin’s usual patrol route, and Jason’s terf. There have been at least three gang wars raging on the same street, yet still Miraculous stands as the one neutral spot in all of Gotham. It’s a cute shop, don’t get Jason wrong, but the only miraculous thing about it is that no one has even tried to claim it.
He brings it up once, the keyword once. Because the shop has stood as neutral ground for at least a century, and no one wants to be the one to break that streak. The shop is also cursed apparently, or at least protected by some malevolent force. The building lost a shingle once in the ’80s to a member of the False Facers, and the very next day saw Gotham PD hauling in at least two-thirds of the Black Mask’s operation.
Which is probably exaggerated, right? None of the minor drug lords under Jason want to get into it. The Black Mask doesn’t want to get into it. (He clams up the moment Jason tells him the shop re-opened, apparently, it had closed a year after the shingle incident)
Miraculous, as well as the parking lot it sits on, is the ground zero of Gotham. No crime goes into the lot, no crime goes out. The pots are never tipped over, no one tries to steal even a single rose from the display. No one touches the cute building, even if it’s painted an obnoxious pastel pink that stands out like a sore thumb in the Gotham night. At least, as far as everyone knows—Jason is still kinda skeptical about that. Really, it’s the perfect set up for a smuggling ring.
Tim is there sometimes as Red Robin. All the time really, at least twice a week. Jason has caught him more than once staked out with a pair of binoculars in the windows. A couple of times he even catches him helping the clerk repot plants. Which, yeah, Jason’s met Tim a time or two, he doesn't make a habit of sticking around his family, but the kid never came off as the gardening type.
It’s especially funny though, to see the pictures of Red Robin in a pink apron behind the counter trending on twitter.
He’s tried to go in a handful of times, to offer the owner his protection and whatnot. But each time he tries he forgets what he’s doing before he even turns the handle. Whoever runs this place must have the best luck in the world because this shit has been happening since it was built.
You’re a wayward gang member attempting to talk to the owner, you end up forgetting what you’re doing mid-action, and only start to remember five days later. The building is damaged, so is whatever scheme you’ve been planning. Actually in the shop when you decide to talk business, nope, it’s time for the most inconvenient phone call of your life.
“Why Dick, did you have to call me? I was so close.”
“Jason, are you crying?”
“I finally made it into the door. I’ve been trying for months to get in. But no, your ass gets stuck in your suit, and suddenly it’s time to call Jason. Nope, lose my number.”
2) Apparently everyone, including the fucking demon spawn, has been to Miraculous.
They all get kind of quiet when he brings it up though, Alfred actually leaves the room. Jason may have issues with Bruce, and Dick, and Tim, and don’t even get him started on Damian, but Alfred’s always been the neutral party for them. He’s always been the one they go to, no matter what. Upsetting Alfred is a capital offense. Jason feels...shitty about it.
“Alfred used to go, and get a bouquet there every weak after you died,” Dick tells him, folding his hands together, and settling in. Tim looks uneasy, and far more awkward than usual—which is saying something. “He’d get some white lilies to put on your grave. I went with him a few times, but he hasn’t been back since. I think the shop reminds him of it. When you were...you know.”
“Oh.” Jason really feels like an asshole.
“Yeah, I can’t say I’ve been back either.” Dick rubs the back of his neck like he’s admitting to something secret. “It used to be on my patrol route, back when I was first Robin. It always used to creep me out so I'd avoid it.”
“Really, Grayson,” Damian says with the same air of condescending superiority he always has.
“Hey, back in those days it was an abandoned building. The one that the witch owned! I don’t know about you, but I don’t fuck with witches. No thank you! I like my limbs.”
Jason might actually remember something like that, it’s hard. Like all the memories from before are hard, but he thinks back to being a kid. To growing up in a scummy neighborhood, and hearing people talk about the witching house that no one was allowed near. The one spot Squatters and Junkies, no matter how desperate, wouldn’t step foot in.
“It’s not all that bad,” Tim says. “My mom remembered when it was open the first time around. Mr. Fu was really nice, he used to let her play in the pots.”
“That aside,” Dick says fixing Jason with a half-crazed look. “It re-opened like a month after you died, so yeah, I went there with Alfred a lot. Like once a month a lot. The shop has this thing. You go in, and you’re instantly wrapped up in this nostalgic warm-fuzzy-reliving-my-childhood feeling. It’s weird.”
Tim stares. “I think that’s a you problem. I go in all the time, and yeah, the shop has a nice vibe, but it’s more like a you’re-safe-here thing.”
“You’re both, as usual, utterly wrong.” Damian sniffs. “If anything, the shop feels like coming home.”
The entire table turns to stare at him with wide unbelieving eye’s. Jason can hardly believe his ears...did Damian really just say something like that. The shocked look on even Dick’s face goes a long way in saying just how much no one can believe something so well adjusted came out of the demon spawn’s mouth.
Damian’s blush is priceless, his stutter—yes it’s a stutter no matter how much he denies it—is even better. “I mean to say. It feels familiar. The shop, you walk in, even for the first time, and you feel like you’ve walked through the door hundreds of times.”
Which, huh, because. “I always thought it felt like a warning. You step one foot onto the lot, and it feels like the walls themselves are daring you to start shit.”
3) Despite the hype that's built up around Jason going in, his first visit—No, Marinette that one didn’t count I literally just turned the door handle—is really anticlimactic.
It works like this, Roy asks him to pick up flowers, because Valentine's Day is today, and Kori will know what he's doing the second he tries to make up some lame excuse. Jason will never know how the man could ever be such a bad liar. As far as Kori knows, Jason is doing a typical supply run. Which, he is doing a supply run, even if the thought of cheesy romantic comedy cliches makes him sick.
All the same, Jason takes his role as best bro seriously, even though he has doubts about being able to complete this task. If his previous 52 failures are anything to go by, Miraculous hates him. There are only so many times a man can get maimed before he comes to the conclusion that the building itself has it out for him.
The hornets were what sold him. Not the bees, the hornets.
So with the air of a man who has just been sent out to war, Jason puts on this thickest jacket, his gloves, leaves his phone behind—even if attempt 34 taught him that was a really stupid idea—and braces himself to step inside. Maybe it’s because this is the first time Jason has gone into the flower shop for actual flowers. Maybe his luck is improving. Maybe...maybe the universe is setting him up for something even worse. Either way, it’s the first time the hair on the back of his neck doesn’t stand up the moment his foot hits the floor.
The girl at the counter is cute, just around his age with the bluest eyes he’s ever seen. That says something, because Jason has met Superman. That man's eyes are literally otherworldly. But Marinette’s, Jason has a suspicion this is the Mari Tim is always talking about, her eyes look like they’re glowing.
Jason realizes he’s been standing in the doorway staring, way too hard, when Marinette, that’s what her name tags says, clears her throat. With an air of confidence—Jason is a firm believer in the inherent power of bull shitting your way to success—he walks up to the counter.
“I’m looking for a bouquet,” Her stare is piercing and Jason swears it burns all the way down to his soul. “For Valentine's day. One with roses, and all that shit.”
Marinette huffs, and points to a depressingly empty display shelf. “You, and just about everyone else. Did you place an order?”
“Did I place an..” Jason trails off under his breath. “Please tell me you have something with the name Roy Harper in your registry.”
Marinette takes a moment to glance down, to ruffle through her papers. “I’m sorry, I only have one left, and its got the last name Grayson on it.”
Jason sees his life flash devastatingly fast across his eyes. It ends with him being torn to shreds by one of Roy’s homemade bombs when he comes back empty-handed. There won’t even be enough of him left to throw in a Lazarus pit. Nope, he’ll be sidewalk chalk.
So really he feels no guilt in fleshing his most charming smile, the one that always makes the old ladies coo, and saying. “Perfect, I’m here to pick that one up.”
Marinette takes one look at him draped over the counter, and bursts out laughing. Today is not a good day for Jason’s ego. “I thought you were Roy Harper.”
“No, I’m Dick Grayson.” The words are bitter in his mouth. “But the bouquet is for my friend, and I wasn’t sure what name he put it under.”
“Oh,” Marinette says, a smirk playing across her lips. “You think I was born yesterday. Sorry hon, but you’re not an alternative pick up, and I'll need to see some ID.”
“You expect me to show ID for flowers?..... Really?”
“Yes, I expect you to show ID when you’ve given me two different names, and those flowers are worth over a hundred dollars,” Marinette bites back. “Sorry, but that’s been paid in full, and I’m not going to lose a customer.”
“Okay,” Jason says, taking two crisp bills out of his wallet. It hurts because Roy gave him a twenty, and Jason will always be a cheap bastard at heart. Nevertheless, he likes Kori, she deserves this, even if Roy, who will be begging for mercy later, does not. He has to very consciously remove his hand after sliding them over. The urge to snatch them back is strong. “Listen, I really need that fucking bouquet. I am prepared to pay you double the price Grayson paid.”
Marinette actually looks offended. “Just because everyone else in this city is okay with being bribed doesn’t mean I am. You can keep your money.”
“Everyone has a price.” Jason gives her a look. “Name it.”
“Well, I don’t,” Marinette snaps, reaching down for her phone. “You can take your money, and fuck off. Before I get Red Robin over here to flush you out.”
“And here I was, thinking this was neutral territory.”
“It is.” Marinette stiffens. “This place isn’t under Red Robin’s protection, but he’s still my friend. I won’t hesitate to get him over here.”
“How about this then. The bouquet for protection. I can get Red Hood to claim this place.”
“What part of neutral didn’t you get?” Marinette asks, leaning over the counter and getting into his space. From here, just inches apart, her eyes are iridescent. Blue light toxically dripping out of a cracked glow stick. “Miraculous doesn’t get involved in your shit. You all want to wage war on each other? You want to pedal drugs? You want to smuggle shit? That’s cool, but you keep that away from my fucking shop. Miraculous doesn't get involved, you can all kill each other outside.”
She’s kind of terrifying up close. If Jason wasn’t convinced she would disembowel him, he’d be tempted to kiss her. Consent, however, is sexy as fuck.
Jason knows when he’s fighting a losing battle. “Is there any way. Anyway in hell, that I can get my hands on those fucking flowers?”
“Yeah,” Marinette says sitting back down. “You can call Grayson, and have him give them to you. But aside from that, I’ve seen a lot of shit. Sorry buddy, but you can’t buy me or scare me into anything.”
“I’ll call the sorry bastard up right now.”
“I’m not giving you his number.”
“I don’t need you to give me his number, I have it right…” Jason trails off, suddenly he remembers leaving his phone behind.
4) Jason is a petty asshole who has learned that the secret to getting into the flower shop is to think flowers.
Listen, Jason had to make do with drugstore flowers, and Roy’s disappointed puppy eyes for a month after being kicked out on his ass. To add insult to injury, Tim tracked him down two days later, as he was mid drug bust, to tell him to stay away from Marinette.
Okay, it’s not like he hadn’t already been planning to go back, frankly, the shop is a strategic masterpiece. Half of its cred as an urban legend comes from the fact that whoever claimed it would be given an instant power-up. It’s the One Ring to rule them all. Jason has to go back, and convince Marinette that the Red Hood is the one to ally with. He has to.
So yeah he’s going to go back anyway, but now he really wants to. Because Tim, his replacement, dared him. Maybe a bigger person would back down, what with all the external forces building up around the shop, the legend, the neutrality, the many failed attempts, Tim somehow having a vested interest…well, Jason has never been the bigger person.
Not by a long shot.
The first three times he attempts to return, Marinette meets him at the door. She’s quick about flipping the sign from open to closed. Jason, the first time, had tried turning the handle, whatever magic makes that building hate him, makes it lock up the second the sign changes. It’s not Marinette, Jason watched her. Her hands never touched the lock.
The first person he complains to is Roy, of course, who actually gives him the idea. Roy is a genius sometimes. So attempt four ends with him buying a single sunflower. It’s gaudy as all hell, and also the first thing his hand touched after he spent an hour trying to get Marinette’s attention.
She apparently will only talk to him in the brief thirty seconds she spends cashing him out. Which, yeah, that’s fair.
And so it begins. Every day except Tuesday, the only day the shop is closed, Jason goes in, buys a single sunflower, and talks up the Red Hood.
Even if Miraculous never comes into his fold, this will all have been worth it just to have seen the look on Tim’s face the first time he comes in just as Jason's buying his daily flower.
There’s a small hole burned into his wallet, but Kori loves sunflowers.
Jason’s not the only regular, but he’s the most frequent, by the end of his fourth month he knows all the other regular’s sob stories, and everyone and their mother thinks he's sweet on Marinette. That may be the kind of true by this point. He’s worn her down to where she will talk to him as he browses. Even if she also complains that, “It’s pointless. I already have your sunflower set aside.”
Month six marks a distinct turning point in their relationship. He was upgraded from General-Creep to Recurring-Menace to Okay-I-Guess-We’re-Sorta-Friends-Now a while ago. Month six is the month he gains the title of Permanent-Fixture. It’s marked by him walking in and Marinette forcing an apron on him.
“I told Red Robin when he started coming by, that if he was going to hang around than he needed a reason to. So if you want to hang in Miraculous you’re going to work in Miraculous.”
“Unpaid labor is illegal.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just called volunteering.”
5) Getting together actually takes a while.
Jason is relentless when it comes to his recruitment pitches, but he has standards for fuck's sake. No woman actually enjoys it when men flirt with them on the clock. There’s a whole power imbalance thing that makes him sick to his stomach.
Sure Marinette can take care of herself. She’s a force of nature. Jason had offered to help carry potting soil for her once. One time. That was before he saw her lift the thirty pound bag over her shoulder like an empty sack of rice. Marinette can take care of herself, she just won’t.
Jason has seen more than one scummy fuck harass her. She gets quiet….she loses her confidence, and it’s just so wrong to see a person as strong as Marinette look small. He’s not sure what about blatant flirting and bad pick up lines bothers her so much but—Marinette can never know, and they’ll never tell her that the Red Hood tracked each one of them down. Threats are beautiful things. They just make it all come together.
He is a gentleman, even after he starts working with her. While co-workers flirting with each other isn’t as bad, it’s still kind of awful. The problem is that Marinette is always working, she never leaves Miraculous. Even on her off days.
So Jason, never finds the right time to ask her out himself. All the regulars already think they’re dating. His brothers think they’re dating. Alfred, Alfred thinks they’re dating after walking into the shop one time since Jason’s resurrection. He’s thankful his brothers gave him a heads up—not. Alfred walks in to find him behind the counter with a fluffy pink apron on, even his refined British manners are tested. Jason just knows he’s laughing. He knows.
It happens like this, Jason teams up with Batman and Co. to help with a standard smuggling ring. Nothing difficult, the only reason it should have required all of them was because of the shipment size. It should have been easy. It had been easy.
That is until the Joker shows up, Jason freezes, and takes a bullet straight to the stomach.
Stomachs bleed...a lot.
He doesn’t remember much of what happened after that. Stomachs also hurt a lot, and it’s hard to think coherently when you’re in excruciating pain. Jason, blacked out shortly after Dick started putting pressure on the wound. For future reference, while stopping the bleeding might be important, it hurts like fucking hell.
Marinette is the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes. She’s hunched over herself in the plastic chair next to his bed. Someone, probably Dick or Alfred, draped a blanket over her. She looks vastly out of place, like the room itself is sucking the life out of her. The lighting makes her skin almost translucent.
The second thing he sees is the sunflowers covering every inch of the hospital room. There must have been a couple dozen, at least. It was probably closer to a hundred if not more. Despite the pain that comes with laughing, Jason can’t help himself.
His laughter alerts the nurse, who alerts his family. Apparently, they’ve all been camping out in the waiting room. Much comfier couches there. His family wakes Marinette, who turns her piercingly otherworldly eyes on him.
Marinette stays quiet through all his family’s fussing. She stays quiet even after that. All she does is stare. Jason doesn’t think she’s actually seeing him.
“I didn’t think I missed this many days,” Jason jokes, gesturing to the multitude of flowers wrapped around every available surface.
“No, you didn’t.” Marinette’s answer is curt. She’s distracted, Jason really wishes he knew what she was seeing.
“Not a fan of Hospitals?” Jason tries.
Marinette blinks. The cloudy look on her face disappearing as she shakes her head. “No, I really can’t stand them.”
“Me either.” Jason feels an intense desire to continue the conversation, if only to keep Marinette from closing up again. “You know, you didn’t have to visit me.”
“I wanted to,” Marinette says. “Your brother called, and told me what happened. I came by just after you were finishing up in surgery.”
“What about the shop?”
Jason has been working at Miraculous—volunteering because Marinette still doesn’t pay him—for months. He’s invested in the place now.
"It can be closed for a few days,” Marinette says, reaching over to take his hand. Jason lets her, he’s always hated hospitals. It's gotten worse since he came back. The comfort is welcome. “This is more important.”
Jason wants to say something, to take his shot, and ask her out. Because she’s just as important to him, but it feels wrong so, he settles with, “You’re a really good friend Marinette.”
He does his best to ignore the way the words choke him.
“I think,” Marinette starts, only to stop herself. There’s a moment of internal debate before she continues, “I think we both know we’re a little more than just friends.”
6) Jason never does claim Miraculous, it remains perfectly neutral, despite having the Bat-Family practically living out of the apartment upstairs.
“Hey, do you think now that we're dating you can convince Tim to come by out of costume?”
Jason blanks. “What?”
“Tim, do you think you can get him to stop dropping by as Red Robin so much. People are starting to think Miraculous has been claimed as part of Batman’s terf.”
Jason does the most logical thing he can think of. He buries his face in his hands, and groans. “Why did you have to figure it out?”
“Was I…not supposed to?”
“No, no you weren’t. How did you?”
“Jason, there’s only one person you hate as much as Tim, and that’s Red Robin. I’ve seen how you look at both of them. No one makes your eyes scream murder as much as he does. Not even Dick.”
“Oh God,” Jason says wiping a hand across his face. “Does that mean—”
“That I know you’re the Red Hood?” Marinette asks, cutting him off. “Hmm, I’ve known that for longer. Probably since you first started coming around consistently. At first, I thought you had like, the biggest boner for the guy, but then you seemed really into me and well, you talked him up way too much to either not have a crush on him or be him so, I connected the dots.”
#maribat#jasonette#crow writes#I am powered by spite#Drabble drabble where this is 3k#flowershop au#headcanon#jason todd#tim drake#marinette dupain cheng
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Kermit And Friends: Tony Ricca WWE
Imagine a church where the reverend is threatened to be locked into a chicken coop by his fiancé at the beginning of service and then threated to be killed Nicole Simpson style by a love interest of said fiancé towards the end of service.
Ladies and gentleman, I welcome you to Kermit and Friends!
The show started off this week with both bad news and good news. The bad news was that Jennifer Lopez’s 6th engagement broke off, but the good news is Elisa’s very 1st engagement is still going strong!
That’s right, despite all the naysayers, Elisa Jordana and Andy Dick’s engagement has survived yet another week. Elisa even has 4 new rings to show for it! But let me tell you... it almost did not survive this show, literally.
First off, Elisa is getting fed up with not being able to reach Andy whenever she wants, so she came up with this brilliant idea of building a chicken coop to keep him locked in. I mean, why not? Andy’s skinny frame combined the long neck sort of does resemble a chicken, so it seems like the perfect fit! Andy doesn’t seem to keen to the idea though so he better just get his act together and start answering every time he’s blessed with a phone call from his gorgeous fiancé Elisa.
This week’s KAF special guest was none other than former WWE Superstar, Tony Ricca. Elisa has a little history in pro wrestling, appearing on WWE Monday Night Raw and starring in a reality show that was hosted by pro wrestling star Chris Jericho. Kermit and Friends also has big wrestling fans on the show such as Socky, Corey, Johnny B, and many more in the chatroom.
Elisa started the interview off by asking Tony about why he wanted to become a pro wrestler. Tony shared it was actually his friends who wanted him to do it, and Andy revealed that’s exactly how he got into acting.
There was more wrestling talk and Tony kindly answered questions from Socky the Sock Puppet, Corey, Eric and other KAF superstars like Trumpster Bob asking Tony to partake in his “Butthole Challenge.” Andy Dick also got Tony to show off his abs so he could gush over his hairy belly. The interview went swimmingly, if you ask me.
During the interview, Andy started facetiming with his handsome friend Lucas. This caught Elisa’s eye and she immediately pounced. “THE Lucas? Aren’t you Andy’s ex, Lucas?”
Lucas denied the claim but Elisa is no fool. She can read Andy like a book and she knows when Andy is really into someone. But Elisa put the claws away and started to have a nice normal chat with Lucas about Andy. As it turns out, Lucas is also a former pro wrestler so he asked Tony a couple of questions too. Maybe we’ll see Lucas back on the show very soon and get to the bottom of him and Andy’s true feelings toward one another.
Kermit’s old friend Kleenex (screenname Christopher Dick) made his return to Kermit and Friends this week. Sitting in his car smoking cigarettes, I could sense Kleenex was in prime form ready to steal the show as the premier Dick on it. After complaining about Elisa’s lack of enthusiasm in her introduction of Kleenex to Tony and Lucas, Kleenex hounded Elisa about the content the show was producing compared to when it first started back in November. Kleenex then set his sights on Elisa’s relationship with Andy Dick, and just as Kleenex’s meter was about to hit red... All. Hell. Broke. Loose.
But not from Kleenex... from ERIC RIGGS! That’s right, Elisa’s friend Eric came flying in like a bat out of Hell and relinquished his fury on Andy Dick.
It was unbelievable. To this point, Eric has perhaps been the sweetest guy on the show. Yeah, he’s out there and his love for Elisa has probably left people baffled, but he’s been consistent in his sweet nature. To see him snap like this was surprising, to say the least.
So what set Eric off? When he talked with Tony Ricca before, he seemed perfectly fine. What I personally believe got Eric’s blood boiling was when Andy bragged to his friend Lucas that Elisa invited Andy to spend the night at her apartment Sunday night.
I did a break down of Elisa’s love history on Kermit and Friends for Valentine’s Day. You can read it here. Eric is featured in the blog. Elisa first met Eric at work, and he became very smitten with Elisa. Hey, who can blame him? He even proposed to Elisa, but Eric had to move to Seattle not long after, so their 'relationship’ became a long distance 'relationship’ following that.
Did they really date? Was Elisa really engaged to Eric?
Elisa is too sensitive towards Eric’s feelings to give a straight answer to these questions, but I know the answers and I will give them to you.
Elisa hung out with Eric many times. His desk was right behind hers at work and naturally as a group they spent many lunches and ‘happy hours’ together with other co-workers. Is that dating? Eh, I’m fine with calling it that if Eric really wants to but you can see where the line is blurred.
As far as Eric’s proposal... there’s an episode of the 90′s sitcom Full House where DJ Tanner’s baby sister Michelle (who is 5 or 6-years-old at the time) falls in love with DJ’s boyfriend, Steve. Michelle asked Steve to marry her and of course Steve said yes to play along and to not hurt Michelle’s feelings. That episode pretty much describes what happened between Elisa and Eric.
Eric proposed in a public setting and Elisa did not want to embarrass Eric by saying no, but she also never led him on by making promises, flirting, doing anything sexual, etc. She genuinely adored Eric as a friend and knew he had a puppy dog crush on her and wanted to never hurt him.
Eric’s move to Seattle was a blessing for Elisa because it meant she never had to break his heart. If you remember the Forgiveness episode of Kermit and Friends, Eric told Susan Shapiro that he was finally over Elisa and looking to move on. Of course, since then Eric has professed his love again with poems, songs, and even a damn book, but still... you just had to think he was somewhat over the idea of truly marrying Elisa.
Boy, is that NOT the case. Not the case at all. Eric full on believes he’s the next Jeff Benzos and that he will help skyrocket Elisa’s career by booking her to perform with him as a duet at Madison Square Garden. And they will do this as husband and wife, despite the mafia, Vice Lords and the people who shot down Kobe Bryant’s plane all being against the idea. In Eric’s mind, the power of he and Elisa’s love can overcome anything. Including and especially Andy Dick, who is a part of the Satanic Cult of Walt Disney, according to Eric.
Eric claims to have super powerful Jewish friends in super powerful places. One phone call from Eric and he can have Andy wacked like OJ Simpson killed his wife Nicole. Or Eric will just do it himself. This would probably be a very scary threat if it wasn’t coming from someone as harmless as Eric Riggs, so it’s just funny. Very funny.
But it’s also a bit sad. Eric obviously has some issues upstairs and has created a fantasy World for himself. Honestly, Kermit and Friends is a wonderful fantasy World as well but most of us are capable of separating our fantasy Worlds from reality. We can tell which is which. Eric doesn’t seem to be able to tell the difference and that’s very unfortunate.
Eric’s rant lasted nearly 30 minutes straight. Non-stop. No one could get a word in edgewise. Elisa didn’t even try for the most part; she was completely silent for well over 10 minutes after it first started. Whenever Andy tried to chime in, Eric was not having it. Thankfully, Andy took it in stride and seemed amused by it all. It was one of the most surreal half hours you will ever witness if you’re lucky enough to watch this incredible show every week.
Elisa abruptly ended this week’s Kermit and Friends after asking Andy if he was ready to go to the Four Seasons during Eric’s tirade. This is one KAF episode that will never be forgotten. If you have not watched it yet, this review is nowhere near giving it justice. Just stop whatever you’re doing right now and click play.
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Sometimes A Girl Just Wants Some...
Falling in love with Riverdale, Theme 2: Spicy
Part 1/3
The 14th of February. A fraught time for the serially single in New Haven, to hear Veronica describe it.
“The end of Cuffing Season is nigh!” she proclaimed, holding an enormous dildo aloft.
(“That’s Colt,” their boss, Zelda Spellman, had explained when she hired Betty, upon seeing the younger woman’s wide-eyed fascination. “He’s a replica of a porn star’s penis. A very popular order, but also a very popular return.”)
In true Veronica Lodge fashion, she didn’t seem the least bit put out by this development. Next to her, Kevin Keller seemed markedly somber, but that was because his own casual boyfriend had ditched him on the very last day of January.
Betty, however, was indifferent in opinion to it all.
From her seat next to their workstation, she held up her pink mug with the penis-shaped handle in a toast. “Cheers, I deleted Findr from my phone,” she announced before taking a gulp of lukewarm coffee.
“Betty!”
“Betty!”
Both Veronica and Kevin were aghast.
“It’s barely February. What happened to TwentyTwenty being ‘The Year of Horny Betty’?” asked Kevin.
In her defense, she’d made that New Year’s Resolution last December, after one of those ‘look at your life, look at your choices’ epiphanies that left her life seeming very lacking. The reality of putting herself out there on a matchmaking app and meeting with the rare specimen who didn’t seem completely terrible and who seemed to have an actual body that was not 100% an ugly penis, however, had been nowhere near as exciting as she’d expected.
She was saved by Kevin’s computer chiming. “Sorry, satisfaction waits for no gossip.” He tapped a few keys and answered the incoming call. “Good afternoon and welcome to the Toyz R Us Customer Support Helpline. My name is Kevin. How may I help you today?”
Veronica’s computer chimed too and she pointed an expensively manicured, accusative finger in Betty’s direction. “Don’t think you’re getting away with this!” She hissed before taking the call.
Toyz R Us only had two brick-and-mortar stores, but it did fairly well with online sales in New England. Betty had only taken the job because she needed some extra spending money around the holidays, and she’d stuck with it into the following semester because she liked the new friends she’d made and found the atmosphere surprisingly enjoyable. At least she got to put her writing skills to good use, even if it was for composing informative, yet enticing descriptions of sex toys.
Of course, her parents had no idea she worked here, and if she was careful enough, they never would.
Veronica’s call ended much more quickly once the man on the other end realized she wasn’t Cheryl. Unfortunately, Cheryl Blossom’s brusque and insulting phoneside manner was such a turn-on to a specific subset of men that she really could’ve started her own side hustle and made bank. Ridiculous bank.
“No sir, I can’t tell you how much thicker it will make your penis. We do recommend that if you use a penis pump, you do so regularly and continually,” Kevin advised before tapping a few keys and removing his headset. To Veronica and Betty, he exclaimed. “That idiot just asked me how much bigger the penis pump would make his dick...my god, how would he think we’d know?”
Betty snorted as she stood, penis-mug in hand.
“Hey!” Kevin called after her. “We weren’t finished!”
“My break time’s over!”
There actually were a few minutes left of her break, but she had a good reason for being sneaky. You see, it might be Valentine’s Day, but it was also a Friday, and Fridays at Toyz R Us meant freebies in the Friday Reject Box. Due to the sheer volume of products that got moved between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, management had provided them with *two* Friday Reject Boxes.
Betty was a college student at heart—if she was going to support her newfound lingerie and sex toy habit, she had to avail herself of cheap and free products whenever possible.
Carefully sticking her head out around hallway corners, Betty tiptoed around the building like Nancy Drew herself, on the lookout for her coworkers.
It had taken her about a month of working here before she stopped feeling embarrassed by the products, although she tried to always approach it as any other job...with professionalism. Still, there was something illicitly thrilling about being twenty years-old and working at Toyz R Us that made Betty feel like a truly independent woman, more so than moving 350 miles away from her hometown.
Betty wasn’t inexperienced, exactly, but she’d been raised a very straitlaced 'good-girl-next-door' and while college had done wonders for her independence and self-affirmation, she still struggled with the idea of discussing sex with her friends/coworkers.
Luckily, she made it to the table holding the Friday Reject Boxes without running into anyone, and Betty wasted no time starting to rifle through them. Hurry, hurry, before anybody else comes and sees you.
In the first one, there was a Fingo Nubby finger vibrator, a very intimidating looking Booty Camp Training Kit that featured three sizes of anal plugs. She didn’t care for the pink crotchless tights but she grabbed the package with the lavender babydoll that had small slits for the nipples and a matching set of panties with an open crotch. That went on the table, and, after assessing the toys in the first box, the Sweetheart Choker and finger vibrator was added to the small but growing pile of goodies. Just the thought of playing with those was already turning her on. With hot cheeks, she turned to the second box.
Since she started working at Toyz R Us, Betty had been exploring her own sexuality, giving more consideration to what actually turned her on and put aside the time to make herself feel good.
She was distracted from the quick nature of her mission when she noticed a stack of dvd cases towards the bottom. “Ooh,” she cooed, intrigued. “The Seduction of Heidi.” That was added to her pile. She skipped The Best of Ron Jeremy and picked up 49 Positions for Lovers, whose cover promised better sex for couples. Well, the way her sex life had been going lately, Betty needed all the help she could get.
Deciding she had enough, and that she really should be nice enough to leave some things for her coworkers, Betty gathered up her loot and spun around, only to collide with the hard body of the man who had been standing behind her. She yelped and felt a few of her selections spill out of her arms as she nearly stumbled backwards into the table.
Strong arms grabbed ahold of her, righting her, and Betty’s eyes widened when she realized who it was.
“Jughead,” she croaked. “Have you come to look through the Reject Boxes?”
Jughead Jones was more or less her mentor on the Content team, in some ways her boss. It was him to whom she showed her first product descriptions for approval, him who she worked hard to please. Over the months, they’d gotten to chatting from time to time, and that had been how she found out he was working on writing his first novel.
Over the weeks, they had shared their personal work—chapters and articles—for the other to comment on. Jughead encouraged her, Betty cheerleaded him. She came to admire him...his intelligence, soul, personality...and she liked to believe he did so for her, as well. He was thoughtful, too, in a way that threw her because none of her boyfriends had been this attentive...it had always been her that listened and took care of people. Jughead turned the temperature up in their office and kept it relatively higher than he was comfortable with because Betty had kept shivering and working with thick cardigans and hoodies on. He remembered how she liked her coffee and made sure their room had a steady supply of scrap paper and colored pens so she could work out word choice and technical phrasing before typing anything up.
One thing was for certain: she was ponytail over heels in lust with him.
She wanted him to do things to her. Things.
Jughead stood there and adjusted his crown beanie ever so slightly. “Uh, yeah, I’ll just…” he trailed off and, to her horror, he bent down to pick up the things she’d just dropped. All she could do was watch as he straightened up and glanced at the educational dvd and the choker before handing them back to her. “Here, Betty.”
She couldn’t even look him in the eye, so she stood there, intensely aware of the flush climbing up her chest and into her cheeks.
Betty wanted to die.
“Thanks. Uh...I better go get back to work. I’ll see you when your break’s over. Bye!” She couldn’t get away fast enough.
Once she turned the corner, however, Betty did not head back to the Content room. Instead, she slowly craned her head around the corner, just enough to see Jughead as he bent over one of the Friday Reject Boxes. Scarcely daring to breathe, she watched as he quickly grabbed two dvds. Squinting, she recognized them. Scooby-Doo: A XXX Parody, and The Twenty: Self Pleasuring, which featured a bunch of solo female masturbation scenes.
Well.
She knew what tonight’s masturbatory fantasy was going to be about.
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Here I go again.......
I've had it with you fucking STRAIGHT crapmila shippers coming at me in my asks. You are NOT changing my mind. All you are doing is pissing me off. Those who follow me, know what happens, when I get pissed, so here we go.
I actually started writing this post, because of a funny moment in an interview. Then I watched another interview, and it got even funnier. I'll warn you now, this post is going to run the gamut, but don't worry, I'll finish it on a happy note.
I haven't really been keeping up with all of Camila's interviews lately, because like many of you, I'm tired of having to hear her promote all the bullshit, instead of HER music. It's ridiculous. I decided to give in and read a few and watch a few. It was worth it.
I watched the Capital FM, or whatever the fuck it's called, and it was a priceless moment. She went from happy to be there, to ready to throw herself off a fucking bridge in a matter of seconds.
Camila's whole demeanor changed, when they asked her about her "relationship" with Mawn Shendes. She gave her orchestrated response about how she "loves" him, and then the camera cut to the interviewer real quick. It's when the camera done another quick pan back to Camila, that the truth of all this shit, was really written all over her face. My mind went straight to her choking on her own lies, in the Liar music video. She can't even hide the truth. She is tired of all this shit.
Then I listened to the 15 minute Zane Lowe phone-in. That one had me rolling. Camila being Camila. If she can't tell us her whole truth, she tries to tell us little truths, as she tries to remember all the fake shit she's supposed to say.
Then, I read The Sun puff piece. Yeah, that was them dropping an elephant on her ass, for not being able to hide her disgust, and fumbling on some of her answers.
I tell ya, they are constantly trying to fix a mess, this era. Instead of concocting narratives and lies, why don't you just promote your Artist and HER damn music. For fucks sake, STOP promoting Shendes and this fake ass "relationship". Camila is about to lose her shit, over all this crap.
You know this shit is fake, when it's obvious she is sick and tired of talking about his ass. They started this shit show, with answers of wanting to keep it private and not talk publicly about it. That's the REAL Camila. Now, she is asked about it every fucking interview, and she is now having to actually answer it. She hates it, yet she HAS to. If she wasn't being contractually forced to answer this shit, she would simply do what she has always done, and not answer the damn questions.
Instead, she has a prepared stock answer ready for each interview. That's yet another way we can tell this shit is fake as fuck. One "I'm happy. I love him" is an aw moment. Two is a side eye moment. Three, is part of a fucking narrative.
He, after refusing to talk about their "relationship" before, is now finding a way to mention her name in every fucking meet & greet. He does this, even if he hasn't been asked about her, or their "relationship", at all. It's beyond absurd, at this point.
Let's get back to the Zane Lowe interview. If you haven't listened to it, you should. He asked her something along the lines of, how she handled her "break up" with the dickhead. Oh boy, did she stumble all over that one.
She did remember to say, she was devastated and upset about it. (Yay memory!) Then went on to say, it didn't really matter which one does the breaking up, it's still devastating either way, and lets you know just how much you really loved them. She then went on to say, she hasn't ever experienced the bad side of a break-up. She hasn't ever been the one broken up with.
That in itself tells us, she is the one who "dumped" the dickheads ass. (good riddance) The problem here is, you don't just dump someone you really love....especially if they really love you back. If two people really love each other, and they "make you the happiest you've ever been", there is no fucking reason to dump their ass......Unless someone else comes along, and offers you a better deal!!! Well, in this case, "a better deal" would be the equivalent of "fighting for the one you truly love"
Listen, if this fucking narrative happened, the way they want us to believe it did, then no one would have really loved anyone. If Camila really loved the dickhead, she wouldn't have dumped his ass, for Shendes. If Shendes really loved Camila, he wouldn't have even attempted to "steal" her away from someone who made her the "happiest she's ever been." That's the fucking tea!
That's why none of this shit makes any damn sense...at least not to most of us. If we were to believe this narrative, we would have to numb our brains enough to believe, Camila went from happier than she's ever been with one dickhead, to PUBLICLY sucking face with another dickhead, a few weeks later.
That's why all these damn dumbasses out there, are calling Camila a damn cheating slut. Because, if you believe this fucked up narrative, you would have to believe she is just a dick hopping fluzzy, that confuses like for love, and is a simple selfish bitch.
Some of you do believe that. Those of you who do, actually believe Shendes is a fucking saint. In reality, if you believe this fucking narrative, that means SHAWN MENDES IS A SELFISH NARCISSISTIC DICK, who "fought" for someone who was in a fucking relationship with someone else. That doesn't make him a nice guy. That would make him a fucking prick who thinks he's better than everyone else. That's the fucking tea!!
You fucking crapmila shippers like to say Camren shippers are "delusional" and "pathetic", for shipping such a "toxic" couple. You homophobic jackasses obviously don't know what toxic is, because crapmila would have Camren beat all to shit on the toxicity meter, IF YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS BULLSHIT NARRATIVE!
*breath*...Back to the Zane Lowe interview. After she said she had never experienced the getting dumped side of a relationship, she then went on to say, and I quote, "I've never been in a real relation..." Oh shit! Oops gotta fix it. after a pause..."I've only been in two relationships."
That's your real tea, Ladies and gents. That's her little truth to keep her from choking on all the lies. That she has never been in a real relationship..." If she had not had an elephant dropped on her head, and been allowed to finish that statement, she would have said, she's never been in a real relationship...with a boy/man. (She's gay, IN MY OPINION)
You know there was someone in the room, waving their hands in the air like a mad man, ready to fly drones at her head. But, that's OK, @rogergold and @shoshonnastone put together a puff piece for The Sun, to fix the narrative.
Hmm! I wonder which two "relationships" she was being forced to remember? Was it Austin and Ew? Well, it couldn't have been Austin. That FAKE narrative was destroyed a long damn time ago. First by Austin himself, then by Camila.
For shits and giggles, Camila decided to put another nail in that shit PR. How? The official narrative was that Austin DUMPED HER after she went public with their "relationship". But, she just said, she hadn't experienced getting dumped before. Oops again!
It wasn't the boy-bander. He was nothing more than propaganda for more bullshit. It wasn't early Shendes, because every time he tried to "kiss" her, she turned him down...because he kept calling her "kid". (Corden interview 2015)
The only two it could be, is the dickhead, because he was her "first real relationship", and Mawn Shendes now. Oh, I almost forgot, Mawn has publicly stated, that he can't wait to get his heart broken, so he can write his first really good album. No problem! Camila's all set to help you with that, too.
She already saved your fucking career by giving you Ceñorita, doing another duet with you, that gave you your first number 1 hit, agreeing to do a damn PR relationship with you, taking your crappy selling third album and making it Platinum, and followed your ass around on your tour, to put more asses in the seats.
She did all that for you SHAWN MENDES. All she had to do, was fuck up her own image to do it. That's a REAL FRIEND for you. How are you going to return the favor Shawn? I know, you'll probably wait for Taylor to fix it for you. Typical male behavior. Get great women to fix all your fucking problems!!!
Whatever. It's all bullshit. In my opinion, there is only one truth in all this bullshit. That truth, Camila hasn't been in a "real relationship" with Austin, Michael, Shawn, the Dickhead, or any other man/boy.
She has only been in ONE REAL RELATIONSHIP. It has been a rocky roller-coaster ride of emotions. It has gone through it's ups and downs. It's good times and bad. They have had their fights and break-ups, true love and make-ups. That's what true love is. For Camila, that's what true love is...with a woman. Not just any woman, but the woman...Lern Jergi!!!!!! !! !!!!
From first meeting at 15, to today at 22/23. From "dang she can sing" to "dang it, she's pretty, too", to "I like your shirt". From instant friendship, to immediate crushing...to "mine's Lauren". From "beautiful eyes", to longing stares. From covert booty grabs, to admiring each others butts in front of the world. From intertwined hands, to simply trying to touch each other without the cameras noticing. From skinny dipping in Puerto Rico, to Valentine's Day on an Aussie beach. From matching rings, to sharing clothes.
They were there for each other. They defended each other. They would trade brains with each other. Before they even knew how important they were going to be to each other, something in them knew, and something in them will always know.
From strangers to friends. From friendship to true love. That's Lauren and Camila. That's Camren. That can never be erased by a fake made up false narrative.
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Strangest: finally an update!
Strangest: chapter 1/chapter 2/chapter 3/chapter 4/chapter 5/chapter 6/chapter 7/chapter 8/chapter 9/chapter 10/ But really I’d recommend reading it on Ao3 under peterqpan, scrolling through it on Tumblr sounds crazymaking
After the accidentally-romantic reveal of Steve’s ceramic monstrosity, Billy was distracted in gym, until Steve leaned in to whisper “Can’t believe you’re ignoring my balls, Hargrove.”
“Believe me, I’m not,” Billy muttered back, his jaw working. He stumbled back into their gym teacher, his eyes fixed on Steve’s mouth, and Steve grinned at him, and licked his lips.
The next time they passed each other, Steve leaned to whisper “What kinda attention am I gonna get for a good present, Hargrove?”
“I dunno, I haven’t seen one yet,” Billy hissed back, and then, “Don’t diss Denise, asshole. I’ll pound your ass into— jesus christ,” he spun on his heel, neck flushed, and stomped off directly through the melee around the basketball hoop, elbowing his way to the locker rooms. By the time Steve got there, Billy was showered and clothed, leaning to talk to Tommy as Steve ducked into the showers.
When he got out, Billy was lying on his back on the bench, eyeing the water running down Steve’s legs, and Steve wanted to kiss him. He firmed his lips and determination, and decided to stay after school to work on a better Valentine’s Day present—Denise had been a joke, he ranted in his head, he could do better if he was trying—
Steve told Eleven this, when she popped up at his elbow in the locker room—right after he shrieked, scrambling for a towel. She surveyed the locker room with narrowed eyes, and more of the highschool boys screamed than would admit to it later, covering their dicks. As most of the class dove behind lockers, she allowed Steve to fling Billy’s towel over her head and shove her back towards the door. “So...if you’re busy, we can borrow Billy, right?” she asked, through the towel.
Billy was laughing his ass off, since he’d had pants on already, and his junk wasn’t vulnerable to the critical eye of a middle-school girl. “No cats,” he called over.
“You can keep him,” Steve muttered, shoving her out the door. When he stalked back in, Billy grinned at him, pointedly rubbing his thumb along his own inner elbow, where the Sharpie heart was, with the messy H+H.
Steve felt his cheeks heat. “Shut up.”
“Be honest about your feeblings, Harrington,” Billy whispered back, staggering as Steve thudded their shoulders together, yanking his jeans up over his briefs.
“Here?! I think we’d get expelled,” Steve whispered back, and Billy licked his lips, snickering.
“I’m your favorite,” Billy breathed in his ear, and Steve swiveled to face his locker, eyes wide as he popped a boner. Not now, he told his dick, straining against his pants, later, just wait until after school, I’ll get my fingers in his hair and pull him close, and when his knees start to get noodly with my mouth on his neck, we can fuck on the kitchen floor—
“Harrington,” Billy repeated, elbowing him, and Steve cleared his throat, rubbing his face. His cheeks were hot.
“Yeah, yes, I’m here,” he swallowed, “—here, right here.”
Billy squinted at him, halfway into a sweatshirt, so his biceps flexed against the fabric, and his chest and abs gleamed in the florescent lights of the locker room. He zipped it up. “...you sure?”
“Very very here, at school,” Steve muttered, staring into his locker again. “Very here where I can’t, uh. What?”
“You like me as much as Tommy, right,” Billy cocked his head, leaning in to murmur, “—what if I hit him, you gonna throw me out, or—”
“Wait, what?” Steve kept his eyes on Billy’s face, listening, instead of tracking the trickle of water from his wet hair down his neck and along his collarbone. “What’s going on?”
“He’s, uh,” Billy leaned back against the lockers, surveying the room with a too-wide grin. “—he’s thinking one of us is gonna spread it around I—I let him—we screwed, y’know. Says he’s not like me, he’s—he says he’s gonna tell everyone I’m a fag, that’s why I’m sniffing around Steve Harrington—”
“Christ.”
“I’m gonna feed him his own molars.” Billy rolled his shoulders. “Before he gets me drug behind some redneck meathead’s truck—”
“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, wanting to spin his bat around his hand. He took a deep breath. “Okay, okay,” he whispered. “Okay, we can’t—we can’t kill him, we—we can’t murder him, Hargrove, we can’t. We can’t—we can’t just—just murder him, even if—”
“Jesus,” Billy whispered, glancing around. “Ssh!”
“We—we’d probably get caught,” Steve told Billy, grabbing his hands and squeezing them. “We’d—we’d get caught, mustard, uh, mustard pie, we’d—we’d definitely go to jail, we can’t kill him.”
“I didn’t say murder,” Billy hissed back, wide-eyed. “I said I was gonna punch his face, Harrington—”
“Okay,” Steve nodded, squeezing Billy’s hands so hard he winced. “Okay. Okay, god damn it. Damn, damn, damn damn it—”
“Holy helicopters,” Billy muttered, straight-faced, and Steve choked on a snort, and started coughing.
“Oh my god I love you,” he groaned into his hand, ignoring Billy suddenly closer, warm against his side. “Okay. Okay, wait, no.” Steve yanked his shirt on, got some of it in his mouth, and Billy yanked it down, leaning in.
Billy slid his hand up Steve’s side, hot and callused, and Steve shoved it down and away, trying to refocus his brain on Billy’s words. “I need to do something,” Billy hissed. “He’s gonna tell everybody I’m queer, your majesty.” His eyes were red. “You don’t need to—none of that shit’s gonna get on you—”
“No, jussec.” Steve set his shoulders, did a mental check of his anatomy, and decided he could turn around without everybody knowing he got hard when Billy Hargrove growled in his ear. “It’s—just—just a—just hold off, okay. I’ll—I won’t kill him. I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to him?! Harrington,” Billy growled, grabbing his wrist, and Steve held still, feeling his bones grind together. They were starting to draw attention, so he asked the guy across the bench about his new shoes, and found out way more about Adidas Micropacers than he’d ever wanted to know, but the conversation kept going when he backed out. Billy let go of his wrist, but leaned close. “Your majesty. Whaddaya mean talk to him, talk to me, come on,” he said under his breath.
“I’ll handle it,” Steve whispered back, nodding and grinning at another kid showing off his sneakers. He watched Tommy fixing his hair, and tried to remember his past friend’s class schedule.
“Just a little worried about getting lynched, probably by the people in this room,” Billy hissed, as Steve started to walk away.
Steve bit his lips, turning back to pretend to check inside his locker. “Look. Dickhead,” he tried, and Billy covered a snort, swallowing. Steve tried to grin confidently. “Trespasser. Wait a sec, just—just wait a minute, let me—let me try something. We can’t kill him,” Steve sighed, and Billy’s jaw clenched.
“I wasn’t trying to kill him,” he hissed back.
“You beat him up, he’ll just get mad! Besides, you start throwing punches, they’ll call your dad—get him down here—”
Billy shrugged. His hands shook, and he clenched them in fists, laughing. “Win some, lose some—at least you won’t go to jail, Jesus H. Christ—”
“No, no—I—I, uh, you won’t, uh, he won’t, okay, babe, Ha-Hargrove, just—just gimme a minute, I—I’m not—if this doesn’t work we—I—I’ll hold him down. We’ll just kill him. You can—you can use my bat.”
Billy snorted, side-eyeing him. “...good use for it.” He rubbed his face, and nodded, tilting backto lean against the lockers. His knuckles were white on his forearms again, his nails digging into the sleeves of Steve’s sweatshirt against the hearts Steve had drawn up his arm. “As you fucking command, my leige. I hope your plan’s better than ‘murder’.”
Steve rolled his eyes, and jogged out of the locker room after Tommy, dropping an arm around his shoulders.
“Hey there,” Tommy grinned at him, his gaze dropping to Steve’s mouth and back up in a way Steve remembered, but hadn’t really registered before.
Steve smiled—it was easier to smile around Tommy than it was to remember what Tommy was like, and always had been—and tried to decide how to start.
“Hargrove get all shook up and remember who your real friends are?” Tommy elbowed Steve, then hailed Carol out of the crowd.
“He’s a friend,” Steve tried.
“Bet he didn’t tell you about the other night,” Tommy glanced up sideways, his jaw clenched, “—when we tried to get you to party.”
“He doesn’t remember most of it,” Steve blurted, and his stomach sank at Tommy’s widening grin. “Look, I know what happened, and, uh—”
“I bet you don’t,” Tommy hissed, glancing around. Carol came out of her class, but saw them and leaned against the wall, disentangling an earring from her hair. Tommy jerked away from Steve to walk backwards towards her. “Bet he didn’t tell you who he wanted to fuck.”
“He—he said—”
“Hate to break it to you,” Tommy’s voice rose, “—Billy Hargrove wants y—”
“I still talk to Carol’s sister,” Steve hissed at him. “Remember? She had a story about a party you guys left. When I was visiting my mom in Boston.”
“What?” Tommy stopped in the middle of the hallway, staring at him.
“Remember finding the keys in a backhoe? And a joyride?” Steve narrowed his eyes, as Tommy snorted a laugh. Steve lowered his voice. “—I know what happened with Billy, okay—”
Tommy’s freckles stood out as he paled. “No, you—you wouldn’t be—he lied,” he laughed shakily. “He must’ve, he’s a fucking liar— ”
“What?! He—he didn’t have to,” Steve raised his eyebrows, “—he called me, I picked him up. I was in there while you assholes were in the shower—”
Tommy’s breath caught, and his eyes got shiny, and Steve knew that look—from Billy smashing a plate in his face at the Byers’, but also from years of knowing Tommy, and he waved his hands, open palmed.
“I don’t care! I don’t care, I don’t care, but don’t—don’t try and—don’t say it was all Hargrove’s fault, it wasn’t—”
“You don’t...care,” Tommy took a deep breath, shoulders relaxing, then punched Steve’s arm. “The fuck do you mean, you don’t care, you moron, you still don’t get what I—why the hell did he call you, didn’t he kick your ass? You his bitch now?” he hissed, and Steve bit his lips.
“Yeah. No, I’m not—” Steve felt his cheeks warming, and cleared his throat. “He—he did that,” Steve kept nodding, running his fingers through his hair, “—he did, he beat me up. Yeah. So did you, asswipe. But. Um, if—if you try and—and tell everyone he—that he’s—”
“He’s a goddamn—”
Steve cut him off, clenching his fists. “If you tell people he did something to— to you, if you—if you say it’s—if you say it was all Billy, I—I won’t keep your secrets. Anymore.”
“...what,” Tommy choked.
“Any of them,” Steve emphasized, flailing his hands. “I know some shit. They try you now, you might get tried as an adult. You could go to actual prison, dude.”
“I will end you,” Tommy hissed, sputtering with rage, “I will end you and your fag friend—you—”
Steve flinched, but held his ground. “Bullshit. I won’t—I won’t say anything unless you...do,” he frowned, thinking through it, “—but...I think—I think between you, and Hargrove, and me,” he swallowed, “—I think—I think I’m who people will listen to here at school. If you—if you try to tell them. That. And—and you know Sheriff Hopper will hear me out, when I tell him who took the backhoe. Took it for a spin when they were putting in the new parking lot. You crashed the backhoe into the sheriff station that night, remember? I can’t—don’t quite remember how many thousands of dollars in damage that was, d’you?”
Tommy stepped closer, laughing. “And what, you’re gonna sell me out for the queer? Shouldn’t you be thinking about what I could do...Pussington?” Tommy growled, and Steve blinked at him, then snorted a laugh.
“I’ve fought scarier shit than you, Tommy Hagen,” he hissed. “I could walk over and use the pay phone right now. Call the police here. Don’t drop the soap when you get sent to prison , right? Because Billy’s the one who’s queer.”
“God, you’re dumb,” Tommy sneered, but he was staring at Steve’s face, wet-eyed. “You don’t even make sense. I can just see you on the witness stand.”
“Oh, you want me to do it?” Steve asked, setting his shoulders to turn away.
Tommy yelled “Fuck you, no!”, and Steve turned back to see him glaring, fists clenched. “I’ll leave your boyfriend alone,” he hissed.
Steve nodded, his jaw hurting as his teeth ground together, and he shoved by, walking as fast as he could back to the locker room.
Billy was still there, lying along a bench, and Steve wished everyone else had left, so he could crawl up between Billy’s knees, and flop on his chest. He kicked out and nudged Billy’s shoulder, instead. “You ready yet?”
“You gonna hold him down for me to punch?” Billy asked, without opening his eyes.
“No, I, uh.” Steve crouched down to whisper, hugging his knees. “I told him I know way too much shit about him for him to go mouthing off.”
“...you blackmailed him?!” Billy turned his head to stare over.
“Noooo,” Steve considered, “—yeah? I guess?”
“Is anybody looking?” Billy whispered back.
Steve frowned around, then shook his head, and Billy grabbed him by the nape of his neck and yanked him into a deep, soft kiss. Steve flailed his hands, teetering on the balls of his feet, then dropped to a kneel, and slid his thumb along Billy’s cheek.
Billy pulled back, licking his lips, and sat up. “Shit,” he rolled his shoulders, “I can’t really owe you more...everything.”
“...you don’t owe me anything,” Steve huffed a laugh, grimacing at a sudden memory of the way the world had wobbled around him, after days awake. How he’d heard Billy’s yelling from outside while he was lying on the floor of the shower, hoping the hot water would bake him to sleep. “My—my brain’s busted too. You…” he laughed, shaking his head.
“I what?” Billy kept his voice low, but they were drowned out anyway by some guys in the other corner having a pushup contest.
Steve cleared his throat, feeling the edges of the tile dig into his knees, and breathing in the stale smell of gym clothes, and towels that never quite dried. “You saved me. Too. I couldn’t—”
“How the hell—”
“I can’t sleep,” Steve snorted, shrugging, and keeping his eyes on the floor. “And then you showed up. Couldn’t—I wasn’t—eating, a lot, just because I couldn’t—I was so goddamn tired. I don’t know, it...”
Billy was quiet for a long few seconds, but when Steve risked a glance up, he had that expressionless face he got when something reminded him of his dad.
“Sorry—sorry, I’m—”
Billy shoved him, and Steve caught himself against a locker, laughing, and a little off-balance. Billy crossed his arms. “You’re not being dumb, if that’s what you’re gonna say.”
“Just making us miss lunch,” Steve tried, feeling something relax between his shoulders. He brushed himself off, getting to his feet, and let Billy drag him down to sit on the bench. Billy mouthed up under Steve’s ear, kissing open-mouthed up his neck. “Hope nobody’s looking,” Steve told him, leaning into it.
“They’re all being morons behind like five rows of lockers,” Billy whispered back, sliding an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and grabbing at Steve’s jeans with the other. “Lemme cheer you up,” he breathed against Steve’s jaw, biting along it, and Steve nearly choked on his own spit as Billy yanked his fly open and reached into his briefs, releasing the pressure on Steve’s suddenly shatteringly hard cock, and sliding a callused thumb over the wet slit in the tip. “They’re going to lunch,” Billy whispered. “No reason they’d come over here.”
“Christ,” Steve muttered, muffling his gasps against Billy’s sweatshirted shoulder, and clenching his fingers in the fabric. “Le-let me get you—” he whispered, sliding his hand down Billy’s stomach.
“Not the one crying in the locker room, Stevie,” Billy laughed, pushing the tight circle of his thumb and forefinger over Steve’s dick. Steve rolled his head against Billy’s shoulder, trying not to make a noise, and squirmed closer, his brain whiting out things like reciprocation, or witnesses, or dignity, as he faintly registered his own voice begging when Billy took his hand away for a second, returning it wetter. “Go ahead, they left,” Billy whispered in his ear, squeezing him closer until Steve was half in his lap.
“Prettiest trespasser,” Steve realized he was mumbling, along with even more nonsensical things like “—pie, sweet—sweet pie, mustard asshole pie—”, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” and, when Billy pulled away to lick his hand again, in an attempt to be more complimentary, “—nighty—knightliest nighty knight—”—but Billy’s hand was firm and a little rough against his hot skin, and Billy’s shoulders were shaking with laughter, so Steve didn’t care. He went still with a grunt, breathing smoke, cologne, and Billy, and just lay there, feeling sweat trickle down the back of his neck.
“There is so much wrong with you,” Billy muttered against his temple. “Knighty-knight? Seriously?”
“My hero,” Steve mumbled, opening one eye to assess the damage. Billy’d caught the mess in a paper towel. “...you planned that,” he realized, laughing.
“Malice aforethought,” Billy said, and Steve blinked muzzily. “Premeditation. First degree handjobbing. That’d just get me expelled, though, probably, your dirty talk’s gonna get you shot.”
“Mmm,” Steve hummed. “He called me ‘Pussington,’ he muttered. “Tommy. Sounds like ‘Puss in Boots’ more than—”
Billy cackled against his neck, then pulled him closer, and Steve felt his face heat. He let himself take a deep breath, curling a little against Billy, and Billy waited, and didn’t mention the time, or their stomachs growling.
After what seemed like hours, but not long enough, Steve pulled away, clenching his fingers on the bench and laughing. “Shit,” he said, looking at the lockers to avoid looking at Billy, after clinging to him like a koala. His breathing was even, which was a relief, even if he felt a little...shaky, threatening his oldest friend with jail. Because I’ve got so many, he thought, laughing again, and Billy leaned forward to frown into his face.
“Harrington,” he whispered. “D’I break you?”
Steve started giggling, and couldn’t stop.
Billy hung around, hunched in Steve’s sweatshirt, for the rest of the day. He was leaning across from Steve’s locker after third period, but vanished when Steve turned around. He was at the drinking fountain outside the open door of geometry, and Steve missed half the lesson, watching him bend over the faucet, and watching the stream of water fill his mouth and run off his chin.
Just when Steve thought he was free, in Typing 1, he glanced out the window and realized Billy Hargrove was sunning himself outside along the top of Steve’s parent’s BMW, sweatshirt unbuttoned, his tanning-bed-tan shining as his hair ruffled in the breeze.
Steve muffled his laughter, squeezing his thighs together as his dick woke up again. “Go back to sleep,” he growled at it, under his breath. Nancy shot him a glance, then looked out the window, and choked on a snort.
“What’s he doing?” she whispered, her elbow brushing his as she clacked away at the electric typewriter.
Being beautiful, Steve didn’t say. “Messing with me,” he muttered, which was equally true. “He hasn’t left me alone since El showed him, uh,” he squinted, trying to remember. “Nadine?”
“Denise!” Nancy muffled another snort, snickering. “Oh, lord, Steve, it’s so hideous.”
“He likes it!” Steve hissed back, feeling his cheeks heat. “He has awful taste!”
“He doesn’t,” she said, shooting a grin over, and his lungs clenched at the fondness in it even as she hissed, “Keep typing, why don’t you.”
He set his jaw, and pounded out All work and no play makes Steve a dull boy, one-fingered. “How’s Jonathan,” he asked petulantly.
“Oh, Steve,” she sighed. “Now you’ve got, uh, Billy, I can’t—listen, this goes no farther,” she angled her body towards him, dropping her voice to nearly inaudible.
“What?!” he whispered back, and she glanced around, holding her finger over her mouth.
“Ssh! Steve, I can’t tell anyone—things. I would have told Barb—”
Steve nodded, wincing.
She covered her mouth, looking around the extremely loud typing class. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the clacking keys, and Steve leaned closer. “Steve, when he’s about to come, he looks like he’s going to sneeze. He makes all these faces, Steve—”
Steve whooped with laughter, tears springing to his eyes, and nearly fell out of his seat as Nancy smacked his arm and shoulder, giggling herself.
“Shut up, shut up!” she hissed. “Don’t tell anyone!”
“I—I won’t,” he gasped, wiping his eyes. “Jesus. Who the hell would I even—”
“Like Tommy?” she hissed, raising her eyebrows, and he cleared his throat.
“Actually,” he said, tearing out the page he’d ruined, and typing away at his assignment with two fingers, “—Tommy, uh, he said he’d. Um, d’you remember when somebody took a joyride on the backhoe at the sheriff’s station?”
She snorted, glancing over. “...everybody remembers that, they had to redo half the road.”
“Yeah, uh, Tommy kinda...found out about Billy, he said he’d tell, just, everyone—”
“Found out Billy what?!” Nancy stared at the side of his head. “That he beat you up, or—?”
“Everybody keeps saying that, I got some hits in—” he grumbled, feeling his face heat.
“Wait, what? He found out about—” she lowered her voice to a hiss, glancing around, “—found out about you and Billy?”
Steve opened his mouth, and just breathed, then bit his lips. He couldn’t...quite...tell Nancy about Billy’s wild King Kong banana orgy, after what had happened in the locker room—and he wasn’t sure whether the sudden urge to hit something was directed at Tommy, for the bruises he’d left, or Billy, for getting bored and supplementing his sex-diet with jungle fruit, or the world at large, for making him keep a secret for somebody as awful as Tommy Hagen. “Uh, about—about, um, Billy. He—I, uh, I think he was kinda...drunk, and he’s—he’s—”
“He’s what, Steve?!” she whispered back, wide-eyed.
“He’s kind of gay,” Steve hissed back, through gritted teeth. “He was kinda gay at Tommy Hagen.”
“Oh my god, Steve,” she dropped her voice even lower, and reached over to squeeze his wrist. “He has to be careful.”
“He said he’d tell everyone—Tommy said,” Steve tried to explain, feeling like he was picking his way across a trapped floor, as he tried to avoid saying what Billy’d actually done. Tiptoing across the temple tiles like Indiana Jones, doing his best to keep the world from falling away around him. Not that Nancy’d say anything, he thought, but he remembered Billy’s shaking hands. I gotta get used to remembering what are my secrets to tell. “I, uh. Told him I’d tell Hopper it was him. Tommy. Joyriding in the backhoe. He spills about Billy, he’ll have to pay for all that. He’s not gonna—I won’t be telling him...things. Tommy.”
“That’s…” Nancy trailed off, and he narrowed his eyes at her, suspecting she was trying not to say “wonderful news”.
“I know, jesus,” he hissed at her, whacking at the typewriter keys with more force. “He’s bullshit, I get it, we were both—”
“No, uh,” she bit her lips, thumping her stack of typed pages to straighten them. “That’s not—it’s just, I mean. Yeah, he probably wasn’t a great friend. But now we both lost our best friends—” she flailed her arms, and he ducked, “—in this whole mess of bullshit. It—it sucks balls.”
He grinned at her, and she set her jaw. “It’s not funny, Steve. And—and don’t—don’t tell Dustin. Or Billy,” she narrowed her eyes. “You better not tell anyone! Jonathan’s never dated before, I’ll—it’s not his fault, Steve, he’s trying— ”
“How could you make me keep this secret,” he leaned his face in his hand, shoulders shaking with snickers.
“I had to tell someone,” she hissed. “He closes one eye, Steve! I can’t—”
Steve nearly fell out of his seat laughing, and she elbowed him over and over until he started to feel bruised.
“Shut up,” she muttered, wiping her own eyes as she tried to stop giggling. “Jesus.”
“Holy crap, what have you told him about me,” Steve hissed back, still laughing, but shuddering a little at the thought.
“Nothing! I’m dating him, I’m not going to compare and contrast, Steve, god. But—but you’ve—you’re—” she narrowed her eyes through the window at Billy, who’d finally huddled against the cold and zipped up the sweatshirt. “—you—”
“We’re—we’re friends. Uh. Just friends, now,” he supplied, the words feeling odd, and a little sad in his mouth. She hummed, frowning at her typewriter, and he glanced at Billy, thinking he might not have ever gotten to know him, if Nancy hadn’t lost her shit at that party. It was a weird thought, and Steve stared out the window, thinking of his house empty of Billy’s shoes, beer cans, lingering cigarette smoke, and the warm weight pressed against his back when he least expected it. No more slow kisses up his neck when he was stuck in his own head.
Nancy nudged him, and he pulled himself back from watching Billy tug at his earring.
“I meant, uh, we—me and you, we get to be friends now,” he tried, and she bit back a smile. “We can talk about boys now,” he pushed further, wrinkling his nose. “If...if you want? I, uh. I think I might be better at picking boyfriends than being one.”
“Maybe you needed the practise run,” Nancy followed his gaze so both of them were watching Billy, who’d given up on pin-up poses, and was trying to keep his textbook, binder, and pile of flashcards from blowing around in the January wind. “I think...I think maybe we both needed the practise run. But—I have to tell someone besides Barb, you know?”
“Yeah. Wait. What?” he turned his frown back to her.
She took a shaky sigh, digging into her backpack. She tossed a sandwich baggie of goldfish crackers on the desk between them, and then pulled out a composition book. She held it, white-knuckled, for a long second, then shoved it at him.
Steve accepted it—after digging for a handful of goldfish crackers—and opened the first page, propping it on his knee. In capital letters, it just said “I MISS YOU”.
“I—I sort of—tell Barb everything,” Nancy bit her lips, taking a slow breath through her nose. Her eyes shone. “It’s—it’s like this huge letter about everything I couldn’t—after she—there’s so much I want to tell her, Steve, so much has happened—”
“Uh,” he stared at it, reluctant to turn the page, and Nancy grabbed it back.
“Shut up,” she muttered. “I know it’s dumb.”
“N-no,” he blurted. “No, it’s not, it’s not dumb.” He wondered whether he should remind her about their assignment, but hers looked finished. I can finish mine later, he promised himself. “Uh, sorry I—it’s not dumb, I just don’t—when you’re sad I just—I don’t know what to—how can I, uh—”
She laughed, swallowing, and closed her eyes. “I—I thought I’d just—fill this. Write until I use all the pages, and the—and the margins, and the inside covers—” she made a soft, horrible gulping sound, and Steve’s nails dug into his palms with the urge to grab her, like he would have if they’d still been dating, and squeeze her thin shoulders. “I—I thought maybe I’d—feel better. Once—Once I say. Everything. Tell her everything. And then bury it. I—we—there wasn’t a body, I couldn’t bring her back to bury— I couldn’t even say what I wanted at her funeral—I can bury my bullshit letter instead— ”
“We can do that,” he said quickly, glad the typewriters were loud enough to drown them out. “We—we can say, uh, we can say—say things, write her letters? Find—find a nice spot? Bury, um, bury things, letters?”
“She didn’t have any other friends,” Nancy stared ahead, her eyes shining.
“I can write her a letter,” were the words that fell out of his mouth, like he could even remember more of Barbra Holland than a vague shape at Nancy’s elbow. “I can—I can thank her for being a good friend, anyway. To, um, you. To my friend Nancy?”
“Sh-she—she really was,” Nancy’s shoulders shook with a sob, and for the first and probably the last time, Steve wished Jonathan Byers was around to do— something, whatever it was he did that made Nancy less sad. Maybe it was worth the awful sex.
In the heat of the moment, Steve felt he’d easily trade his skill at orgasms with whatever made Nancy stop— stop looking so pinched around the eyes, and start teasing him again over Billy Hargrove.
She took a shaky breath, pressing her face to the back of her hand. “I—I was—I was nervous coming to your house, the—that night, the night she—in your—in your pool —to the party, your party, and she wanted to have my back—”
If Jonathan Byers couldn’t show up, Steve wished Billy would, remembering him explaining things to Will and El in IHOP, until Will relaxed, and smiled, and got brave enough to ask questions. “I—I’ll have your back,” Steve tried. “Now. I will. Um, she, uh, we can thank her for having your back. We can—”
He tried to remember what people did at funerals other than wear scratchy suits as Nancy nodded, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, then rubbing her wet face with her wrists. He clenched his fingers harder in his jeans. “Uh, flowers? We can—I’ll get flowers, did she have a favorite song? I have a boombox. I have batteries for it, I can get batteries for it—um, Billy, Billy will have a good idea,” he trailed off, trying to think what it could be, with Billy outside, instead of by Steve’s elbow where he belonged. “He’ll have a good idea, he’ll—he always has a good idea—”
Nancy snorted, smiling at him, but her eyes were red. Her voice was high and shaky. “Ye-yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Y-you’ll be a good best friend, Steve.”
Out the window, Billy was holding his textbook and homework, his pencil poised, but he was staring at them.
He met them in the hall outside typing class, leaning against the bank of lockers. His gaze flicked from Steve’s face, to Nancy’s, then dropped to their hands. Steve scooted away from her, then reached through the press of people and prodded her shoulder with two fingers. He beckoned her to follow him over to Billy.
“Harrington,” Billy crossed his arms, watching them. His cheeks and lips were pink with cold, and Steve wanted to kiss them, brush the melted snowflakes out of Billy’s hair, and rub the muscles of Billy’s arms through the sleeves of Steve’s own borrowed sweatshirt, feeling his boyfriend shiver, and hugging him close. Billy’s voice was flat as he said, “Wheeler,” and Steve jumped, jarred from his fantasy.
Steve opened his mouth to tell Billy that Nancy had practically admitted he was better in bed than Jonathan, and then stopped and thought for once, about how that would hit Billy’s brain. He lowered his voice. “Remember I told you about Barb, uh, Barbra Holland, Nancy’s friend, the monsters got her?”
“...I guess,” Billy had his gaze fixed on Nancy’s face, eyes narrowed.
“She wants to hold a funeral,” Steve started, but Billy’s glare didn’t shift. “Nancy does, uh, and I’m going, because I knew her, and Jonathan didn’t, because he’s not cool, and he makes these faces when—”
“Don’t you dare,” Nancy hissed.
“Wait, what,” Billy glanced at Steve, still keeping a wary eye on Nancy.
“Probably her boyfriend will still be there, because she’ll be sad, but I’m her friend so I’m going too—” Steve babbled, hoping someone else would talk.
“What,” Billy said flatly.
“Help,” Steve hissed, widening his eyes. “Help us, um.”
Nancy started snickering for no reason, and Billy’s frown darkened. “He panicked when I started to cry,” she snorted, rubbing her eyes. “He wants you to fix it.”
“What?!” Billy snorted, coughing.
“What do people do at funerals,” Steve hissed, glancing at Nancy again, and she snorted wetly, covered her nose, and dug in her backpack before yanking out a kleenex and blowing hard.
“Sexy,” Billy muttered, and Steve elbowed him. Billy glanced between them again, raising his eyebrows. “That’s what all that cozy whispering was about?”
Steve made a face. “Also she had goldfish crackers?”
“We were just talking,” Nancy said, laughing and wiping her eyes again “—and then I lost my shit. Sorry.”
“She had a whole cow about how much better I am at picking boyfriends than she is,” Steve waggled his eyebrows. Nancy elbowed him, and Billy’s snorted, his eyes narrowed as he glanced between them.
“Thought you were dumping my ass and leaving me with Denise.”
Steve shook his head, holding his hands up. “We know she makes weird faces.”
“It’s not her fault she has thirty-nine eyes!” Billy laughed, hugging himself in Steve’s sweatshirt. Steve wished he could hug his boyfriend, right there in the highschool hallway, but had to settle for his sweatshirt doing it. Billy didn’t seem to notice as Steve reached out, then yanked his hands back and stuck them in his pockets. Billy was still grinning about his awful gift. He leaned in, digging his chin into Steve’s shoulder and whispering, “Ask your buddy Dustin why his pockets are full of googly eyes, seems questionable to me—”
“Steve and I were talking about boys,” Nancy snorted, then sniffled, rubbing her nose and rummaging in her purse until she found another kleenex.
“Swapping stories,” Steve grinned, watching Billy’s head cock warily. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “My boy’s always sexy. He just melts against me. Like pizza cheese, y’know, in Little Caesar’s ads, it sort of—it sort of droops—”
Billy went as glowing red as the tail lights on his Camaro, and growled, as Nancy leaned into the lockers in a gale of laughter.
“Shut the hell up, Harrington,” Billy muttered, rubbing his face.
“Sexy Little Caesar’s boyfriend?!” Nancy wheezed. “Steve, that’s not sexy at all—”
“Or on lasagna. Or Velveeta, it’s—it’s all fluid, you know,” said Steve, trying to explain. “Um, ‘hot, fresh, and ready to go?’” he suggested, relying on Pizza Hut for his words, but they both turned away, Nancy pounding her fist on a locker, cackling and wiping tears, and Billy stomping off down the hall. Steve glared at Nancy. “Don’t you tell anyone either.”
“Oh no,” Nancy gasped. “I—I’m telling Barb. Oh my god, she’d have loved that. She kept telling me you were a moron—”
“Hey!” Steve pointed a finger at her. “She—she may be—she shouldn’t have said it!”
“I won’t tell anyone else you described your boyfriend as sexy mozzarella,” she snickered, blowing her nose. “But I am telling her that, aloud, at her funeral. Oh my god, I needed that. You better go find him.”
“Everyone likes pizza!” Steve yelled, stomping away after Billy.
As he walked around the corner, Billy grabbed him around the waist from behind and lifted him. Steve yelled and swore, wriggling and laughing. He tried to squirm enough to make Billy drop him, kicking wildly, then finally made a big show of bending his upper body over Billy’s arms to kick his leg up and retie his shoe, while Billy staggered and swore, leaning away to balance his weight and shaking with laughter. Finally, Billy sat him on his feet in an empty hallway, spun him around, and stuck his thumb in the fly of Steve’s pants, pressing close and panting in his ear.
Steve looked back the way they came and saw a girl from his class: Robin Buckley. She was staring.
Billy felt him freeze, and pulled back, eyes narrowed. “What?” When he started to look around, Steve panicked and grabbed his head, wanting to save some unrelated girl from being fed her own molars. He pressed their lips together, humming as Billy huffed a laugh.
Crisis somewhat averted, Steve told himself sternly to track her down later, before letting himself lean into Billy again. He rubbed his thumb over Billy’s moustache, pressing into its scratchiness, and licking into Billy’s hot mouth, then pushed him back, taking deep breaths through his nose. “Christ, gonna come in my pants,” he whispered, laughing.
“That’s fine,” Billy’s grin widened.
“It’s not! It’s not fine, it’s grody—” Steve panted, pushing back at Billy’s hands and shoulders as his boyfriend tried to wriggle closer, like an octopus.
“Come on my tongue,” Billy whispered.
“There’s no time, I gave you to El!” Steve hissed, holding his forearms up defensively. “She’ll show up again! You agreed! You’re hers and Max’s today!” His shoulderblades thudded against the lockers.
“When do I get my reward for following orders, your majesty,” Billy whispered, pulling Steve’s forearms close, so he could kiss along the soft inner side.
“Sometimes knights have duties,” Steve whispered back. “For the, uh, the kingdom.”
“And I’m your best knight,” Billy snorted, running his hands up Steve’s sides. “Gotta help the civilians. Do my quests, make you proud.”
“Mmmn,” Steve lost his train of thought, leaning into Billy’s chest, and sliding his arms around his neck. “Best knight.”
“Now Tommy’s been, what,” Billy laughed against his mouth, hugging him until Steve’s muscles went loose, and his bones felt like they’d creak. “Unshielded?”
“Dis-sworded?” Steve supplied muzzily, into another pause between kissing, his brain narrowing its world to Billy’s tongue. “God, love you, mustard...dipshit...cupcake,” he mumbled, then frowned, coming back to earth as Billy’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Shut up, dickhead. Wait, Tommy wasn’t ever my knight.”
“Thought he beat up Jonathan Byers for you,” Billy whispered, sliding both arms around Steve’s waist again, and lifting him off the ground.
“No,” Steve mumbled, half-listening as he tried to clamp his legs around Billy’s waist, but missed distractedly as he ran his hands up Billy’s neck, cupping the back of his head and licking into his mouth.
Billy pulled back to talk, and Steve huffed. “But he tried to get you over to his house. That time. With Carol,” Billy panted, searching Steve’s face.
Steve kicked, gasping as his lungs got squashed. “Holy shit,” he wheezed, laughing. “You—you’re—are you jealous?”
“No,” Billy whispered, suddenly interested in kissing again.
Steve pulled back from Billy’s mouth after just one more kiss. “Are you jealous of Tommy and Nancy,” he whispered, beaming.
“Fuck you,” Billy mumbled, biting gently up his neck.
Steve let his eyes close, forgetting about Robin, and El, and the extremely public hallway they were standing in. His face was so hot it felt tingly, and Billy’s arms were strong and gentle, holding him up. The world started to spin, a little, and he kicked his feet back, crossing them against his butt to curve his whole body against Billy’s.
“Can’t—can’t breathe, Knight,” he had to admit, finally, and Billy sat him back on his feet.
“As you wish, my King,” he whispered back, stepping back to look Steve over—he grinned as he assessed the tightness of Steve’s pants like an asshole, then leaned in again for one more close-mouthed kiss.
Steve laughed, unable to stop smiling. “You’re jealous. Want me all to yourself.”
“Nah,” Billy rubbed his thumb up Steve’s cheek, and yanked his head around by the earlobe. Steve yelled, flailing. “I can just get another one,” Billy whispered. “King Harringtons. On sale today. K-Mart Special.”
“No you can’t,” Steve grabbed Billy’s shirt, spinning him to smack up against a locker, and leaning close again for a messy kiss. He could feel Billy breathing against his chest. “You’re jealous. You—you’d—” Steve trailed off, watching Billy bare his teeth. “You—what the hell are you pissed for,” he whispered. “You went off and screwed Tommy, don’t be pissed at me —”
“I’m not jealous,” Billy snarled back. “I’m the only one who even pays attention to you, aren’t I, and I could get somebody else in—in a heartbeat—”
Steve took a sharp breath, wondering why he had to go and push things. “Right, yeah,” he said, slamming his hand into the locker next to Billy, who flinched. “Shit,” Steve groaned, stepping back. “Sorry, shit. The hell was I thinking. I’m too goddamn clingy, right? You’re just trying—trying to—” he stepped back a few steps and smacked another locker across the hall—the bang was satisfying—and Billy grabbed his wrist, digging his thumb in bruisingly tight.
“You gonna start hitting?” he asked, smiling his widest. “You don’t get to do that.”
“I hit the locker,” Steve hissed, yanking his arm, and Billy stepped closer.
“You don’t get to hit me,” Billy whispered, and Steve winced at the feel of fingernails. “You—you can’t pull that shit, Harrington.”
“I wasn’t gonna,” Steve tried to yank away again, feeling worse. “Screw you, I hit a locker —”
“After all that shit you said,” Billy said evenly, his smile and his eyes wide the way they went when he might do anything. “I’m a person, remember?”
“I remember,” Steve swallowed again against the burning in his throat and eyes, planting his feet to try and squirm away. “I wasn’t—”
“You change your mind?” Billy asked softly, and Steve did want to hit him, then.
“Let me go,” he hissed. “I wasn’t going to hit you, christ. I was hitting the fucking locker.” Billy let go and stepped back, and Steve spun to slam his fist into the locker again. His little finger was starting to go numb, and he wondered how other people—really awful people, some of them, like Billy’s dad—found people that loved them and trusted them and paid attention. He inhaled, and it made kind of a wet gasping noise. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Just—just g-go home.”
“Screw you,” Billy muttered, and Steve opened his mouth to growl back, when his gaze caught on Billy’s nails digging into his sleeve over where Steve had drawn the hearts.
“Fucking— stop ,” he hissed, grabbing Billy’s fingers, and forcing them to unbend. They were cold. “You’re gonna give yourself bruises. Stop it, dickhead— quit—”
“Quit what,” Billy snarled back, and Steve stared down at the hand he’d grabbed, then let go and stomped across the hall to kick somebody else’s locker.
“Screw you,” Steve muttered. “Fine, go the hell home.” He hunched his shoulders as Billy stepped closer, and banged his fist on the locker he’d just kicked. “Piss off.”
“The hell do you want me to say,” Billy asked, and Steve shut his eyes, and banged the locker again.
“Nothing,” Steve hissed. “I don’t want you to say anything, I—you can—you can go to hell—” Billy came up behind him, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut. They were stinging. He felt a touch on his arm, and flinched into the lockers, swallowing a few times to clear his throat of the bullshit trying to climb out of it. “It’s fine,” he forced out. “Just. Piss off. Go home. I’ll—I’ll get myself—together.” He opened his eyes, parting his lips in a smile, to see Billy standing close, frowning, so Steve was sandwiched between him and the lockers.
“Wha—” Billy started, and Steve smacked a hand over Billy’s mouth, then sidestepped, laughing.
He took a few steps down the hall before he managed to stop himself. “Just go,” he said, realizing he had his hands up between he and Billy, and lowering them. “It’s fine, it’s nothing, jesus—”
“What in the hell—” Billy stepped closer again, and Steve didn’t lunge to cover his mouth, or cover his own ears, or run away.
He kept smiling. “Max and El are probably looking for you.”
“...no,” Billy said, holding his hands out. “Come here, Harrington.”
“What,” Steve laughed, his sinuses burning as his vision went a little blurry. He blinked his eyes clear as Billy’s glare went thunderous.
“I’m not gonna chase you down, get your ass over here.”
“Why?” Steve asked, crossing his arms, uncrossing them, and touching his hair. It was fine. He thought fixedly about the project he was gonna start in ceramics. Probably it was dumb to make Billy something nice. Something with Steve’s feeblings just emblazoned over it. “Just go, jesus.”
“Harrington—” Billy sighed, and Steve’s stomach clenched.
“Sorry,” he grated out. “Sorry, I’ll get it together—” he cut off, raising his arms defensively as Billy walked close enough to grab him by the front of his pants and yank him in for a kiss. His hands were warm and gentle cradling Steve’s face, and Steve let himself be pulled in. “What—” he whispered, but Billy cut him off, tilting Steve’s head to get deeper into his mouth. “Mmf,” Steve tried next, slowly lowering his hands to where his sweatshirt stretched over Billy’s biceps.
“Two for flinching,” Billy told him, kissing him again. “Ssh,” Billy whispered, glancing around, and then pushing them both—slowly, and mostly by kissing Steve—across the hall again and into the bathroom. He stopped to check under the doors, and then grabbed Steve’s hand, and yanked him into the biggest stall. “Okay,” he said, “—go on.”
“...want me to try giving a blow job?” Steve asked, rubbing his eyes. “I mean. You let me jack you off, I wanna—”
Billy opened his mouth, cocked his head, and narrowed his eyes. “Shut up. Shit, that’s not —I’m not supposed to —to try and blow you when you’re pissed —what the fuck, Harrington—”
“I’m just trying to change the subject,” Steve gritted out. “You like blow jobs. Everybody likes blow jobs—”
“I mean,” Billy snorted, slowly nudging Steve against the wall, “—dicks like ‘em—”
“Everybody does, it’s just not called a blow job always,” Steve argued, feeling smart, as Billy kissed him again. It felt like Billy was laughing.
“S’ true—” Steve muttered, and Billy laughed harder, and yanked him closer, so Steve’s head was pressed against Billy’s shoulder, and Steve’s body was squeezed in Billy’s arms.
“Shut up, jesus,” he whispered, his earring tickling Steve’s neck. “What’s your problem.”
The thing was, Steve thought, there wasn’t one. He was freaking out for no reason—he knew his bullshit annoyed people, and everything Billy’d said was true. “Sorry,” he breathed. It was easier, in the heat of Billy squishing him against the wall.
“What do you want me to—”
“Nothing,” Steve cut him off. “Christ. Jesus. I’m gonna do better this time, and shut the hell up before I—”
“What,” Billy whispered, and Steve shook his head, smiling, and didn’t say before I ruin everything.
Billy pulled back, his jaw clenched. “I’ll get it out of you.” Steve choked on a laugh, clenching his fingers on Billy’s arms, and Billy stared into his eyes, thinking. “I could do what you did,” he whispered. “Get you so horny you’re dripping and then make you talk.”
“Oh shit, no,” Steve snickered harder, shaking his head. “No, don’t. I wouldn’t even—I wouldn’t be able to think enough.”
“That’s kind of the point,” Billy said against his mouth, and Steve’s heart started pounding.
“No, no, don’t, I really—I can’t even—” Steve tried to squirm away, every breath of Billy’s resonating with his dick. “I can’t tell you if I can’t make words!”
“Mmm,” Billy hummed thoughtfully, leaning in for another kiss. “You really want to hear I’m jealous of—of Tommy? That what you want me to say?”
“You’re not, though,” Steve shrugged.
“...Nancy, then,” Billy cleared his throat. “I keep waiting to hear you say you’re—that—that I’m not—that you took a better offer.”
“Fuck you,” Steve told him, sighing. “What the hell am I gonna do when you two actually talk and you—you start talking— elves or something and forget all about me.”
“...you’re jealous of me talking to Nancy Wheeler,” Billy said, with the vague tone of someone reading an incomprehensible line in English class.
“You’re both perfect,” Steve told him, grabbing him close, and Billy started laughing so hard he staggered.
“Oh my god, you are so fucking dumb,” he wheezed, and Steve licked his lips, pressed them to Billy’s neck, and blew to make the loudest fart noise he could. Billy yelped, shoving weakly at him, and Steve did it again. Finally, Billy got his hands over Steve’s mouth, and used his body weight to hold them there while he rubbed tears off onto his arms. “If you think I’m perfect you’re blind and stupid. Holy jesus,” he whispered.
It wasn’t that funny, Steve thought indignantly. “You’re perfect. You —you’re—you are. Sometimes. Most of the time! You —you’re better, you don’t—”
Billy kept snickering, like an asshole. “You’d run off with your queen in a second, your majesty,” he whispered, grinning. “She’ll whistle one day. She’ll just — crook her finger, and you’ll go.”
“Would not,” said Steve, automatically, but he considered. “I don’t…” He narrowed his eyes at the wall of the bathroom stall, where someone had written that the principal worshipped Satin. He thought about how his plans had always included Nancy, and how hers never seemed to include him.
What would it be like, he wondered, if she knocked on my door. ‘Follow me to the city,’ she’d say. ‘You can hold down the apartment, I can go to college. Someday I’ll have an important job— which was where it fell apart, because it would be something like war journalism, and she’d always be gone. He sighed, imagining the Dear Steve letter. ‘Dear Steve, I’ve gone to expose nuclear testing on smuggled baby alligators in Belgium, and...found love.’ Steve shook his head. “No. No, it’s —no. ”
“Whaddaya mean no,” Billy laughed. “You just sat there and imagined it.”
“Yeah, imagined it blowing up in my face. I want to —” Steve stopped, looking away from Billy’s eyes and down, until Billy started jerking Steve’s head up and around, trying to meet his eyes again. Steve laughed, and bit his lip.
“What d’you want, Harrington?” Billy asked.
“...wanna wait and see if you send me letters,” Steve told him, shrugging. “I —I guess. Once you leave.”
“Oh, I’m gonna,” Billy’s breath caught, and he pressed his hands to Steve’s cheeks, squishing them. “But you’re lying to both of us if you think you wouldn’t drop me—”
“Billy,” Steve said, muffledly through the fishface Billy was giving him, and grabbing Billy’s hands as he startled. “Billy Hargrove. I—I’d pick you.”
“Don’t bullshit me—”
“Pay attention,” Steve hissed. “Hargrove. Fuckface...trespasser. I’d pick you.” Billy shook his head, smirking, and Steve grabbed it by the curls, pressing their foreheads together to hold Billy’s gaze. “If I have to watch somebody leave, I’d still want you.”
“Shit,” Billy said hoarsely, trying to laugh. “I’ll come back, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t leave leave, you—you can’t get rid of me if you—if you don’t tell me to go.”
“Like I would,” Steve snorted. “If —if Nancy just—just walked in here, I mean, not here here,” he paused, his eyes focusing on the wall of the men’s bathroom, “—but y’know, if—if she said she’d changed, she—she wanted me back…”
“You’d go,” Billy shrugged.
“No, Nancy can’t—she doesn’t want—this.”
“She’s got shitty taste, then,” Billy growled, and Steve laughed, leaning to bury his face under Billy’s ear.
“No, I mean—she doesn’t want—” he sighed. “She sure doesn’t wanna drag me to the bathroom and grill me on what’s wrong. She’s got—things to do. Important stuff.”
“Her loss,” Billy shrugged, and Steve snorted wetly. Billy’s breaths sounded as catchy and uneven as his did, he realized, and squeezed him closer.
“Promise I wouldn’t go,” he mumbled.
“Promise Denise,” Billy hissed, growling over Steve’s bursting into semi-hysterical giggles. “Denise needs both her dads,” Billy whispered, his eyes brimming as Steve laughed and cried.
“You’re so weird,” he whispered. “So fucking glad you —not the rest of it—but I’m, uh. I’m so goddamn glad you ended up at my house.”
“You brought me home in a trunk,” Billy told him, sniffling, and frowning down to yank at Steve’s belt buckle.
“What if I hadn’t,” Steve asked, watching Billy fumble. “Maybe—maybe something else. Maybe you’d have kissed me in the locker room. Always trying to shove me around in there—why you always trying to jump me in bathrooms, you’re so — ”
“Maybe you’d have kissed me somewhere, fucking...Pussington,” Billy growled, undoing Steve’s belt, and laughing as the denim over Steve’s dick twitched against his hands. He ran his fingers up and down Steve’s fly.
“Jesus,” Steve whispered.
“Fuck me,” Billy whispered back. “I want this monster in me.”
“...you called it fun-size,” Steve hissed back, and Billy started giggling again, burying his face in Steve’s neck. “We’re in a bathroom, the floor is sticky —”
“I don’t wanna wait,” Billy told him, kissing him so enthusiastically Steve’s head thudded back against the wall. “You—you said—want me over Wheeler —”
“I know what I said,” Steve said, trying to sound strict, but he couldn’t help grinning. “ Want me to blow you? You always—”
“No, fuck my ass,” Billy ordered, leaning close, so Steve could feel the hard line of Billy’s cock pressing against his.
“...there’s no—it’ll hurt, knight, it—”
“Who cares,” Billy whispered, yanking the buttons open on Steve’s fly.
“Me!” Steve hissed, grabbing his wrists. “I care! Christ!”
“S’my ass,” Billy argued, looking pouty, and Steve snorted.
“S’my dick, wouldn’t feel good for me either—”
“Coward,” Billy said, frowning down. “Okay, okay—” he yanked at his own pants, hopping on one foot, and Steve started sniggering. He grabbed Billy’s face and pulled him in for a kiss, nearly knocking them both over when Billy tripped over the leg of his pants. “MMPH,” Billy yelped. “Shit. Okay. Just—uh, just—”
His face felt hot against Steve’s hands, and he realized the red was creeping clear down Billy’s chest where the sweatshirt hung open. “What?” Steve asked, his eyes lingering on Billy’s briefs, where a wet stain was spreading where the elastic strained over his cock.
“I’m gonna turn around,” Billy muttered, “—and—”
“No—” Steve repeated, running his hands along the elastic band of Billy’s Fruit of the Looms. “No, seriously, I’m not—”
“I’ll squeeze my legs together,” said Billy, with gritted teeth, his face flaming hot.
“Holy shit,” Steve whispered, his hips bucking against Billy’s hip as he turned around. “What—is—is that any good for you—”
“Just fuck me,” Billy hissed, bracing his hands against the wall, and Steve stepped close behind him, reaching down to yank his skivvies down, and then push Billy’s down over the warm muscley roundness of his ass. Billy yanked until his dick was freed, then braced himself again, and Steve buried his face in Billy’s shoulder, taking a deep breath.
“Can’t see how this is good for you,” he whispered against Billy’s neck, feeling him shiver.
“It’s not unless you get moving,” Billy snarled, then choked out a gasp as Steve slid his hand around to grab him by the cock.
“Just...between your thighs, then,” Steve whispered, rubbing some pre-come around the top of his dick, then frowning down, and licking his hand just in case.
“Come on,” Billy whispered. “Come on, come on, do me.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Steve nodded pointlessly, aimed, and pressed into the tight space between Billy’s muscled thighs. “Oh god, that’s good,” he mumbled against Billy’s shoulder, and he laughed.
“Shut up and move,” Billy muttered, since Steve was mostly clinging and muttering bullshit endearments.
“God,” Steve whispered, reaching around again. “Don’t fall, b-babe, uh, cookie.”
“Billy whe-when we’re fucking,” Billy told him, groaning as Steve tried to steady himself between his hips smacking Billy’s butt, his dick sandwiched in the heat of Billy’s thighs—it was slippery enough, he thought, flushing almost as red as Billy was—and dragging his fist up and down Billy’s dick.
“Billy,” Steve said against his ear, and Billy swallowed a moan, letting his head fall forward to thunk against the wall. “Billy Hargrove.”
“Nng,” Billy grunted.
“L-love you, Billy Hargrove,” Steve told him, and he whined, his shoulders flinching forward. Steve kissed the place where his shoulder joined his neck, feeling him shudder. “Love you, Billy.”
Billy came all over his fingers, and Steve started laughing, because of course Billy’s legs bent, and of course they collapsed to the floor of the highschool bathroom.
Steve let them tip sideways, pulling Billy close to slow their fall and ignoring the weird chemical smell as his jaw smushed against the tiles. Billy was swearing under his breath, squirming around, and Steve summoned enough brain to scoot back. “Ssh,” he whispered, snickering, with tears in his eyes. “Don’t break my dick.”
“Where you going, asshole,” Billy hissed, rolling over to lay half on top of Steve’s chest. He grabbed Steve’s cock, stroking it, and Steve bucked up against him, muttering just...noises, really.
He came to himself panting against Billy’s shoulder. “Mmnm,” he said, wondering whether they could just sleep on the floor, and wash their faces for class the next morning.
“...you really jealous?” Billy asked, at the ceiling, like he’d been thinking a while.
Steve groaned, tucking hair out of his eyes.
“Y’know I’d...fucking kill them—anyone—and step on their corpses to get to you,” Billy told the ceiling, and Steve started laughing again.
“S’not a bit creepy,” he said, his voice weirdly deep in his ears.
“Not sure wanting to kill Tommy Hagen is creepy at all,” Billy commented, rolling his head for a kiss. “I mean, that’s normal, right, anybody would—”
“Think I’ve got toilet paper stuck to my leg,” Steve whispered.
“I guess you wouldn’t know normal if it bit you on the ass,” Billy told him, and Steve hefted himself up the couple of inches for another kiss.
“Means I get you, though,” he mumbled, dropping to rest his face on Billy’s chest again. It went from warm to hot, and Steve grinned, rubbing his face in chest hair and muscle.
“Shut up, you’re such a freak,” Billy muttered, and pressed more kisses to Steve’s hair. “Tommy Hagen, seriously? You’re jealous of Tommy Hagen? That’s you being a moron.”
“Mmn,” Steve was sort of listening, so he politely made a noise.
“Just went over to Carol’s ‘cause I broke your door,” Billy said. “Thought you’d be pissed. Thought you’d—” he took a slow breath, swallowing. “An-anyway, I didn’t think you’d just...pick me up. Carry me on your back. Thought I’d have to, uh, bribe my way back in.”
“...you saying you got me a present?” Steve asked, waking up a little, and Billy squeezed him.
“I’m saying I didn’t care where I went, jesus. Could have been the gas station. Not running around on you with Exxon, either.”
You might, Steve thought, snorting, but he scooted closer. His shoes squeaked against the wet tile by the toilet. “We’re gonna stink,” he sighed.
“You saying you wanna go shower together?” Billy breathed against Steve’s temple, and Steve started sniggering.
“I mean, yeah,” he whispered back, grinning so hard his cheeks felt tired. “But probably we should like...go. You’re making your sister wait. And El.”
“And they’re important to my liege,” Billy groaned.
“They’re kinda violent when they’re pissed off,” Steve whispered back, and Billy started snickering into Steve’s hair. Steve grinned up at the dripping cracks in the ceiling, letting his eyes fall shut. “ I’ll—just—just take the car. Take it. Get the girls, whatever they want. I need to—better present. Than Denise.”
“No present’s better than Denise,” Billy’s grin went smirky, but he saluted Steve’s eyeroll, and once they managed to get upright, sauntered off with his hands in the pockets of Steve’s stolen sweatshirt.
Steve adjusted himself in his jeans, wishing he wasn’t quite so...sticky, and walked a bit awkwardly off to his locker, when he was grabbed for the second time that day.
“What?!” Robin flailed her arms, hissing. “What was that?!”
“There you are,” Steve hissed, then stopped dead, realizing he hadn’t thought up any kind of plan. “...nothing?” he answered, like a genius, smoothing his hair where Billy’d run his fingers through it. “Uh, what? What was...what.”
She stared at him. “I saw you, dingus.”
“No, you didn’t. Saw what?”
“How are you alive, you are so dumb,” she muttered, spinning away, then back. “That was—you were—” she clasped her hands together, taking a deep breath through her nose, and started to snicker. “You—that’s your cover? ‘What was what?’ You—that’s what you’re gonna say?”
Steve’s high from Billy’s kisses was gone, and he was trying not to imagine Billy’s reaction to someone seeing them. His stomach clenched. “Look, don’t, nothing—nothing was—your—it’s none of your business, jesus.”
“What?!” she cackled, her eyes widening. “Christ. You’re just gonna make out at school and ignore it when—what if—what if your pal Tommy sees you? He’s gonna—”
“I blackmailed him,” Steve folded his arms, leaning back against the locker. “I have dirt on him, he’s not gonna squeal—”
“You what?!” she squealed herself, leaning one arm to steady herself against the locker as she sniggered so hard she shook. “Have you been watching gangster movies?”
“Shut up! You didn’t see anything—”
“I sure did,” she made a face, shuddering. “Believe me, I would not have imagined you and Hargrove playing tonsil hockey, but it’s a nightmare I’ll take to the grave—”
“Shut up,” he hissed, swallowing. His throat felt dry. “I—you can’t tell anyone. I’ll say you’re lying. You’ll be that liar girl, I’ll—”
“God, I don’t want to remember it, let alone describe it,” she pretended to gag, melodramatically doubling over with her fingers in her throat. “Gag me, Steve. Gag me with a spoon.”
Steve wrinkled his nose. “Great. Don’t tell anyone, and we’ll stay the hell away from each other.” He remembered wondering how people in his classes would react to finding out he was maybe-sort-of-gay, and he kind of wanted to punch her in the face. “Or I—I’ll get gay cooties on you.”
She turned to stare. “I don’t care about that, dipshit, I care I almost saw two entire penises when I was just trying to leave class. Here I thought I’d go to my grave without getting close to one of those—” she stuck her tongue out, flapping her hand at the wrist, her voice distorted by the face she was making, “—gross floppy baby injectors, and there they were—”
“What,” he stopped, arms up in a flail, but still. “Wait. What?”
“I’m not going to tell anyone, Steve Harrington,” she told him, rolling her eyes. “Besides, somebody else is going to figure you out, like, instantly, nothing to do with me.” She turned to stalk away, then spun on her heel to face him again. “But what the hell is wrong with you?! You don’t even—can’t you make some excuse and get the keys to the gym equipment room?! You can’t make out during class, when people aren’t wandering around?! Instead you’re sucking face right after the bell rings? I had to tell two different people there was a sewage leak down that hall, dumbass.”
Steve blinked at her. “Th—that’s a good idea. I didn’t—thanks, man.”
“I didn’t want them to have to see the gross sight I had to,” she narrowed her eyes at him. “Can’t you tell people you’re study buddies or something? Before I have to see more of Billy Hargrove’s hard-on in his jeans,” she shuddered, and Steve laughed.
“Somebody doesn’t think he’s hot?”
She took a deep breath, her eyes flicking to his face. “Yeah...no. Why would I.”
“I mean, he is,” he shrugged. “Anyway, thanks. Really. I got, uh, threatened today, kind of. I thought—thanks.”
She stilled. “You what,” she asked, her voice weirdly raspy.
“Uh, somebody figured us out, said he’d, y’know, tell everyone. I know.” Steve rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.
“What the shit,” she whispered. “And you—you’re—the same day?! You just—”
“Look, shut up, I’m not used to it yet,” he hissed back. “I forget he’s a secret, okay?!”
“You moron,” she whispered. “What’d you—are you—”
“I blackmailed him, uh, the guy, Tommy,” Steve whispered back, weirdly proud. “He won’t tell anyone.”
“Jesus, what a prick.” She took a deep breath, and blew through her cheeks. “Tommy Goddamn Hagen, huh. Good thing I wasn’t gonna tell anybody anyway.”
“Phew,” he laughed, grinning at her. “I wasn’t—I can’t even—was just, y’know, going to ask you not to, like, tell. Everyone.” He shrugged. Robin narrowed her eyes at him, watching as he kicked at the linoleum. His shoe squeaked. “Thanks for being cool,” he told her, feeling a little bit warm knowing there were people at school that wouldn’t treat him like he had leprosy. “I guess not everybody’s going to hate me.”
“Jesus,” she whispered, rubbing her face. “I—shut up, okay, I wasn’t—I’m not that—”
“It’s just nice,” Steve shrugged. “Bil—I, uh, I didn’t know how, um, I guess it can get pretty bad, it’s nice to—”
“Yes!” Robin hissed. “Yes, it can! Oh my god, shut up. Why are you—you don’t know me!”
“I do now,” Steve told her, grinning, but he watched her clench her hands in frustration, and recognized someone who wished he’d leave. “Sorry. Thanks. Sorry,” he smiled automatically, and turned away.
“Ugh,” she groaned.
“Thanks,” he called over his shoulder again. “I’m glad it was you!”
“Auuuugh,” she yelled after him. “Stop talking about it, you moron! Somebody could hear you!”
He couldn’t resist turning to face her, walking backwards down the hall and stage-whispering, “Now I know it’s safe to tell you, we can talk about boys.”
“I don’t want to talk about boys!” Robin screamed, soft and wheezily in the back of her throat.
“You know you want to,” Steve whisper-shouted back, waggling his eyebrows, and she smacked her own face. “Nancy and I are friends now,” he told her, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Gonna have all the gossip, right here, don’t change that channel!”
“Nancy Wheeler doesn’t have gossip,” she hissed back, “Nancy Wheeler has—she has flashcards, shut up, dipshit—”
“We’re gonna do all those—those things that—makeovers,” he said, unable to think of anything else. “Sleepovers. Talking about boyfriends.”
“Kill me first,” Robin replied, through gritted teeth. “I will puke, I swear to god.”
“I have all the locker room dirt on everybody,” Steve said, clapping his hands together as he realized. “I know how big—”
“Eugh!” she actually shouted over him. “Gross! I do not want to know! I don’t want to know what Tommy Hagen’s dick is like, holy shit!”
“Yeah, I kinda wish I didn’t either,” Steve said, reflecting, but Robin was on a tear.
“I don’t want to—I don’t even—I wouldn’t think Billy Hargrove was hot unless his name was spelled with an -ie,” she said through clenched teeth, and he mouthed the letters, frowning into space. “Like. If he was named Wilhelmina, Steve.”
“That’s an awful name,” he turned to frown at her doubtfully. “And—and it’s for girls, I think.”
“The penny drops,” she said crisply, which made no sense, but he ignored that, turning her disgust in his head against her insistence she didn’t have a problem with his gay cooties.
“You’re a lesbian,” he whispered, pointing, and she clapped her hand to her face. Steve thought. “I thought I was the only one at school! We were. The only queer people, at school. There’s, uh, there’s a kid, but he’s a middle-schooler. And Barbra Holland, maybe? She and Nancy watched some weird movies.”
“How do you know what kind of...ugh, y’know what, I’m going home,” Robin sighed. “Try not to get expelled, I guess?”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he said quickly, feeling the urge to lift his hand to pinky-swear. He snickered. “We should have a secret handshake.”
“You better not tell anyone,” she hissed back, but she looked relieved too, and they stood there for long awkward seconds before she spun and stomped off. “I still don’t like you!” she shouted back, and he bit back a grin.
Once he’d talked to the ceramics teacher, he sat down with his headphones and the potter’s wheel, trying to dig his fingers into the heavy wetness of the clay enough to bring up a thin edge, but not so much they went through. About the point it started to look like a deep cat dish instead of an ashtray, he realized there were knees facing his, and he shook his head to knock his headphones down to his shoulders, instead of getting clay on them.
The lovely and intelligent Nancy Wheeler had her chin on her hands, and her elbows on her knees, watching him spin the clay.
“Hi,” he said, suddenly wanting to fix his hair, and clenching his hands so he didn’t put streaks of clay in it.
“What’s that gonna be?”
“...I dunno,” he said, which was a lie, probably. “I might screw it up.” Which was true.
“I think I see it,” she cocked her head as he used his fingertips to draw it up taller, “—with Billy. I thought you might—need help, y’know. Sorry.”
“What?!” He blinked at her, letting the wheel slow to a stop.
“I see it now. He was freaking out, when you just—ran out of the library, that time. Mike said he’s been really good to Will, and Eleven. I mean, if he pulls any shit with you we should absolutely tie him to train tracks. But.”
“That’s very...evil of you.” Steve stared at her, wide-eyed.
She rolled her eyes, and waved a hand. “His dad too, obviously.”
Steve snorted, choking. “Obviously.” He pulled his clay cylinder up a little taller and thinner, his face warm. The clay had lines where he’d pressed too hard, almost giving it segments. “...argh, this is my third try, and it’s still not straight.”
“...neither are you,” she replied, levelly, and he nearly smashed it, flailing.
“Nancy,” he growled at her, and she shrugged, watching him wet his hands and try to even it out.
She followed him around as he sliced it off the wheel with wire, took it to a table, and sculpted a handle. When he got to rolling more clay out, and cutting a little plaque to press letters into, she came and leaned over his shoulder, and he flushed as he inhaled her shampoo. “...that looks good, actually,” she murmured in his ear, and he winced away. She wandered back around the table to drop onto the stool across from him.
“‘Actually’?!” he muttered, and she snorted. “Sorry I was a shitty boyfriend,” he told the little letters he was painstakingly carving.
“Mm.” She shrugged. “I mean, I was kinda shitty, too, there at the end.”
He opened his mouth, automatically, to tell her she was perfect and amazing, then shut it again. He bit his lips, frowning down, then blew air through his cheeks, and carefully peeled up the little clay plaque shape to press on the crosshatched side of his cylinder.
“We’re getting better at it,” she said, looking it over, and then reached across and prodded his shoulder. “That’s sweet, Steve.”
“Eugh,” he sighed, leaning his face on the table. “Hope he thinks so.”
She groaned. “He liked Denise, Steve.”
“How come everybody knows my dumb vase’s name,” he mumbled into his arms, and she laughed.
“I hear everything. Little bird told me you might need a ride.”
Steve lifted his head, frowning at her. “...what?”
“He took your car, right?”
“I think Eleven took him,” Steve defended Billy, and Nancy grinned at him, nudging his elbow.
“Yeah, in your car.”
“Who knows where they’ll end up,” Steve sighed. He tried not to think about kissing Billy Hargrove in the bathroom at the IHOP. “Uh, she keeps making him take her for waffles.” Billy’d flinched back when he walked in the IHOP bathroom, he thought, leaning his face in his arms again. How did I not stop and think about that.
Nancy got up and leaned against the table. “And it’s snowing again, so you need a ride. Thanks, Nancy. You’re such a good friend, Nancy.”
He looked up, and quailed under the weight of her raised eyebrows. “Thanks. Who’s the little bird?”
“Billy,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Or rather, he was asking how long Max and Eleven needed, and Eleven asked what I was doing after school.”
“Sorry,” Steve snickered, imagining Billy’s expression. “I could’ve walked.”
She shrugged. “I’m still here.”
Once he finished, and put his Valentine’s Day present to Billy on a rack to dry, they wandered out to Nancy’s mom’s car. As she checked the mirrors, and put on her seatbelt, Steve took a deep breath, couldn’t decide what to say, and sat there with his cheeks inflated like a chipmunk’s, squinting at the dashboard.
“...what are you doing,” she laughed.
“I, um. You know Robin Buckley?”
Nancy frowned at him, then at the rearview mirror to back out of the parking spot. “Yeeeah?”
“She, uh, she saw me and Billy. Earlier.”
“So?”
“Uh, we were, uh, she knows.” He leaned around to shove his bag in the back seat.
“...need me to go —talk to her?” Nancy asked, in a low voice, and Steve scrambled back up, wondering why he knew so many people willing to commit murder in his name.
“No! No! It’s, uh, it’s fine. She doesn’t like dick. I mean, she likes tits, you know. I mean, she’s like us. Billy and me. She’s queer. She, uh, she won’t tell anybody. Shit! I can’t tell you that, the whole point was—auuuugh,” he groaned, leaning his seat back to add some drama to it. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, don’t tell her I told you—”
“Oh!” Nancy blinked. “Is she?! I thought…” She frowned, pulling around a gaggle of freshmen in jerseys wandering through the parking lot.
“What?” Steve tried to get the seat to click back upright, and fell backwards again, his leg kicking up in the air.
“I thought she had a thing for you. She used to glare at us all the time.” Nancy rolled her eyes and groaned, slowing to a top again, and Steve wondered who else was blocking traffic out of the highschool parking lot.
“Did she? Weird.” Steve squinted at the roof of the car, and then remembered something. “Anyway, she won’t say anything. And I need advice. On blow jobs.”
The brakes squawked as Nancy stared over, Nancy opening her mouth to answer, but something banged at the window, and he sat up to see Lucas’ little sister glaring at them.
“Holy shit,” Nancy muttered, groaning. “Just don’t bite it off, you’ll get the hang of it, oh my god—” she hissed, leaning across his legs to roll the window down.
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Steve muttered back, as Erica Sinclair stuck her face in the car.
“I fell asleep first period and got detention,” she yawned. “Marcenia Lyle Alberga snuck out again last night. Tomika and me were out until four this morning. And I missed the bus, and then I fell asleep in detention again...”
“You...what?” Nancy asked, looking lost. “Who?”
“Her friend’s cat sneaks out,” Steve translated.
“She doesn’t like the old Shireman house,” Erica told them, yanking the handle of Nancy’s car door and yawning again. “Lemme in. I missed the bus, I need a ride.”
“Sorry,” Steve said to Nancy, unable to stop his beaming grin. “She’s, uh, Billy’s kid now, I guess? Can we give her a ride?”
“Billy’s,” Nancy repeated, squinting at him, then Erica, and leaning behind Steve’s seat to unlock the door. Once they were all inside, she asked, “Isn’t the old Shireman place haunted, or something?”
“Yeah, Tommy and Carol and I used to…” Steve trailed off, his brain wandering back to being friends with Tommy Hagen, and getting high to run around screaming and giggling in the “haunted house”. “We used to...go there,” he finished, folding his arms.
“It’s creepy out there,” Erica said, leaning between their seats. “We’re not supposed to go, the floor’s falling in, but Marcenia’s just a kitten.”
“A mean one,” Steve snorted, and Erica snorted.
“She’s a killer. She can’t fight snow, though. I mean, she’d try. ”
Steve snickered, and they ended up explaining the afternoon Billy’d played Great White Hunter to Marcenia the Jungle Cat. He was dying to tell Nancy about El’s confusion over Hopper’s lousy sex talk, and trailed off, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad, really, life with Nancy as a friend.
As Nancy obeyed every traffic law, exactly at the speed limit, Steve saw Robin Buckley under the overhang of the gas station, hopping around as she knocked snow out of one of her shoes. She sighed, pulled it back on with a disgusted expression, hunched her shoulders, and walked on, just as some melting snow toppled off the edge and smacked into the back of her head and down the back of her collar. She yelled and flailed, dropping her bag, and fell on her butt in the snow, then threw her head back and yelled at the sky.
“Wait!” Steve yelled at Nancy, rolling his window down to stick his head out. “Hey! Oy! Robin Barclay!”
“Buckley,” Nancy corrected.
“Buckley!” Steve called, and Robin squinted over out of the pile of snow she’d landed in, her eyes flat with despair.
“What,” she glared over. “Qu-uh. Uh,” she glanced at Nancy, turning red, and her glower darkened. “Steve Harrington?” Ice dripped from the slush on her head down along her ear, and he heard both Nancy and Erica shudder.
“Can we give her a ride?” he asked Nancy, who was shaking her head slowly in bewilderment, eyes wide. “Please?”
“Sure, of course,” she said, turning up the heat and scrambling behind her to unlock the door. Erica scooted to one side.
“This is your fault,” was Robin’s first shivering line after she climbed in. “I missed the bus after, uh, running into you.”
“You’re another one of Steve’s friends?” Erica asked, eyes narrowed consideringly, and Steve yelled “Stop kidnapping my friends! No kidnapping!” back at her as Nancy hit the gas.
“I’m very resistant to being kidnapped,” Robin said, sniffling and shivering.
“Unstoppable force, immovable object,” Erica whispered, studying Robin as they drove.
“No,” Steve told her emphatically.
Robin studied Steve and Nancy. “I thought you two broke up,” she said, exaggeratedly innocent, and glared meaningfully at Steve when he turned around to stare at her.
“We did,” Nancy told her, checking her side mirror. “Steve’s my best friend now. He got a battlefield promotion.”
Robin sat back, nodding, and Steve laughed so hard he choked.
Billy’s car was out of the garage and blocking the drive, for some reason, with Steve’s behind it. Steve frowned at it, then raised his eyebrows at Nancy, who narrowed her eyes at him, then got out of the car and walked around as he disentangled his bag from the seatbelt and slammed the door.
“What,” she hissed. “You were making faces.”
“There’s gotta be more than “don’t bite it off,” he hissed back. “Come on!”
She made an offended gaspy noise, her mouth dropping open. “You’ve had blow jobs!” she squeaked back, flailing her arms. “You know more than me! I don’t even have a dick!”
“How do you not choke?” he asked, thinking hard.
“You just do!” she growled back, her face flaming red. “You’re putting a—a big—a thing down your—where you breathe, Steve, how do you think lungs work—oh my god—”
“Ohhhh,” Steve nodded, and she screamed into her hands.
“If you keep asking me for sex advice I’m gonna suggest you pull your mouth off real loud and sing ‘Pop Goes The Weasel,’” she snarled, and Steve started laughing, blushing nearly as hard as she was at the awkwardness of grilling his ex-girlfriend on blow jobs.
“I know it’s weird,” he laughed, wiping his eyes. “I know, I know, I got nobody else to ask, though, Nance, come on!”
She bit her lips together, glaring, then sighed. “...try, uh. Try, um, humming,” she squeaked.
“Humming,” he stared.
“Shut up, never mind!” she groaned, hiding her face.
“No, no, no no no!” he ran around to block her as she turned back to the car. “No, go on, tell me! Tell me, tell me!”
She sighed, smiling tensely at him. “God, Steve. You’re so—argh.”
“I am, I am,” he agreed, “—tell me your secrets, teach me, like, cock karate—”
“Oh my god,” she moaned.
“Do I need to wash cars,” he asked, miming circular hand movements, and she shoved him, laughing.
“We were, y’know, listening to music,” she mumbled, flushing even redder, “—and uh, I was um, y’know, kind of—kind of singing, humming—”
“Ew,” Steve said, waving her onward as he tried not to imagine the soundtrack of Jonathan’s approaching penis. “Yeah, go on—”
“It’s-nice-try-it!” she squeaked, all one noise, and ducked by him to dive into the car. He waved, but she bent close around the steering wheel as Erica ran around to take shotgun.
Steve crept in the front door to the caterwauling sounds of a circular saw.
The door to the garage from the kitchen was open, and his parent’s stuff—the stacks of boxed seventies clothes and albums he’d called and asked about, that they’d told him to throw out, that he felt weird throwing out, like there wouldn’t be anything of theirs left in the house if he threw the boxes out—had been pushed off to the side. Billy and Eleven were leaning over a long thin piece of wood trim balanced across the seats of two of the kitchen chairs. Billy had a foot on it, holding it secure across the seats, and Eleven had the saw, which she turned off, and carefully lowered to the floor.
“Angle’s perfect,” Billy told her, thumbing the edge, and she beamed at him. He bent over some more wood, but Steve’s brain was less aware of the wood, and more aware of his boyfriend’s ass in tight jeans.
Steve nearly stepped on Max, watching Billy, then blinked down to realize she was sitting in the doorway with her butt on the kitchen floor and her feet on the stair into the garage, glaring up at him and holding a plastic binder with shiny pages.
“Hey, moron, stop drooling,” she whispered. “It’s nasty.”
“What’re they doing?” he crouched to ask, watching El steeple her fingers thoughtfully at her nose, listening to Billy’s explanation of the different grits of sandpaper.
“He says he broke your door,” Max raised her eyebrows with all the judgement of Steve’s second-grade teacher, and he ducked his head.
“Wasn’t on purpose, he thought I was—I don’t know,” he muttered back at her. “He didn’t mean it.”
“That’s creepy, Steve,” she hissed back, flipping a page, and studying it intently. “He knows what he’s doing.” Through the reflection of the florescent lights of the garage, Steve couldn’t see what she was looking at, but he thought he and Max weren’t quite to the point where he could lean into her space.
“I mean,” Steve squinted, considering, and dropped to sit more comfortably next to her in the doorway, his legs sprawled into the garage. He remembered Billy drunk, throwing beer bottles at his house, and crying over his mom. “I mean, not—not always, not really. He, uh—”
“Don’t give me that shit,” she sighed. “Don’t let him get all, y’know, ‘Sorry, honey, you know I’ve got a temper,’ Steve, jesus. Bet he never breaks his own stuff.”
“Wait, what?” Steve drew his eyes away from Billy, who was smiling down at El marking length on a shorter piece of trim with a steel square. “He doesn’t break my stuff. Except the door. Did he break your stuff?”
She tensed, flipping another page, and holding both sides of the binder with white knuckles. “Maybe. Maybe I’m good at pattern recognition, Steve. He tell you not to make him mad? You being careful?”
Steve stared at the side of her head, then swung to face her, unable to focus while his eyes were full of Billy’s ass. “Max, you okay? Is—is everything okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” she snorted a laugh, rubbing her eyes with her wrist, and flipping another page. She studied it carefully.
“Max, did—did Billy say that to you? Did he—”
“No, he never—he— he says it. To my mom.”
Steve processed for a second, feeling like he was a dysfunctional blender. There were big things floating around out there he was fairly sure he didn’t understand, but he could manage the little pieces, sometimes, blend them into a whole that made sense. “Neil told your mom,” he translated, and Max swallowed, biting her lips together. “Neil...told your mom not to make him mad. Right?”
She shook her head. “He—he didn’t mean—like he gets with Billy. She wouldn’t—he wouldn’t get mad like that— just at Billy, he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t—”
“Billy told you what his mom said,” Steve felt like his engine was grinding, but he kept guessing, since Max kept pausing after each line. Maybe she doesn’t like what she put together, he thought. She’s seeing whether I get the same thing. ��That Neil was...that he scared her.”
“Billy said he hit his mom,” Max grated out, and Steve cocked his head, trying to parse the language of the Hargrove siblings.
“Billy said his dad hit his mom,” he suggested, his eyes narrowed in thought, and Max made a weird hiccup noise, muffling it in the cuff of her sweatshirt. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Steve bit his lips together, and tried again. “...and his dad told your mom not to make him angry.” Like the Hulk, he thought, imagining Neil Hargrove tearing the house apart.
Max flipped another page, and bent to frown at it from inches away as Steve waited.
“What have you got there?” he finally asked, since apparently the conversation was over, and El and Billy were still busy. Max tipped the binder towards him with a tense smile.
Steve crouched. “...is that...is that Billy’s photo album? That’s Billy, oh jesus. Oh my god.” He muffled his wide-eyed mumbling with his hands, staring at child-Billy’s round cheeks.
“Shut up, he looks like a moron,” Max hissed back, flipping the page, as Billy and Eleven laid out more pieces of wood. “Look at their hair! And he definitely doesn’t want you seeing him in that sweater vest.”
Steve flipped it back and eyed the brown, orange, red, and off-white sweater vest—it was definitely ugly, and his time spent winding yarn for Ms. Williams meant he could accurately peg it as basically a sandwich of two enormous crocheted potholders, one front, one back, with straps sewn on. “Oh, god,” he mumbled through his hand. “Did he, like...make that himself?” He tried not to think about Neil’s fingers digging into Billy’s shoulder in the posed picture, or the way Billy was leaning away, into his mom.
“I think there was an aunt...or a grandma...Maybe we should blow up that picture and stick it on the bulletin board at school,” Max grinned, laughing shakily.
“Look at his fat little cheeks,” Steve whispered. “Oh no, look, he was surfing and he fell in the water.”
“Look how many pictures there are of him dragging his board out of the water,” Max snickered. “Like, one of him actually surfing. He looks like a drowned rat.”
From listening to Billy’s mom, Steve didn’t doubt either that she was as delighted by photos of him falling off surfboards as staying on, or that she ever let him live it down. “His mom calls him her Land Turtle,” he told her, and Max clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a snicker. “Oh no,” Steve hissed, elbowing her. “Look, Santa photos.”
Max stared at them for a long moment, then looked up at Steve, biting back a huge grin. Her eyes still shone wet, but she looked gleeful. “Steve. Steve,” she whispered in a high voice, drowned out by Billy showing El a box of finishing nails. “Steve,” she wheezed. “He was afraid of Santa. Look. Every picture. Oh my god.”
Billy’s mom looked thin, and paler than she had, and Steve tried to focus on her broad grin. “Those are amazing sweaters,” he whispered back, between his fingers, trying not to crack up aloud over toddler-Billy’s horrified eyes on Santa in every picture. In one, he was tilted sideways, wailing in his red-and-white striped sweater with the knitted green bowtie and matching mustard-yellow knitted overalls.
Suddenly Max yanked the album back to squint close, and Steve waited, then leaned his head down to try and see her face. “Huh,” she said, lifting her head, and pushing the album back toward him. “Leia there on the Halloween page,” she pointed. “His mom—does that—there on her arms, and her neck, do those look like bruises to you?”
Steve, staring at what had to be tiny Billy wedged in an awful R2-D2 costume made mostly of tinfoil, beaming up at the Leia from under—for some reason—a superhero-type mask, had to blink a few times to register Max’s voice. “Wha?”
“Do those look like bruises,” Max hissed. “Billy says he used to hit his mom—”
“Billy hit his mom?” Steve stared at her, then Billy, still stuck in their second conversation about family photos, where four-year-old Billy Hargrove was wearing potholders like they were clothes.
Max shook her head. “No, stupid, he hit Billy’s mom, Neil did. Billy says. Billy says—Billy says she was scared, she thought—there was an insurance thing—” she swallowed, the shine to her eyes no longer delighted. “I’m—I just—he doesn’t deserve him, nobody does, but just ‘cause he hits Billy doesn’t mean he’d hurt—”
Steve listened, really noticing for the first time that Max and Billy never called Neil Hargrove anything—not ‘dad’, or his name, just ‘he’. It was confusing for onlookers, who weren’t always thinking about the man, but Max and Billy always seemed to understand each other.
“I thought I’d check his pictures,” Max closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose, and when she looked back down at the photos, her eyes were drier. “See if—if he was right, and she—she looks—she’s really scared, Steve.”
“I was there when she told Billy,” Steve told Max, who pressed her knuckles to her mouth, making a muffled gulping noise.
“He’s gonna hurt my mom,” she whispered, taking a shaky breath. “Shit, Steve, he’s gonna—he’s gonna hurt my mom, it was true, those are bruises, he’s gonna—”
Steve realized the tools had gone silent, and looked up to see Billy, thin-lipped and pink-cheeked, glancing from the album, to Steve, to Max.
El followed his gaze, frowned hard, and sat the saw down. She walked over, and wedged herself between Max and Steve on the stair into the garage. “What happened?” El asked, sounding like she was doing the psychic equivalent of cracking her knuckles to ready herself for a fight.
Max shook her head, pressing her knuckles to her mouth.
Steve let himself be pushed aside, walking over to put an arm around Billy and kiss his ear. “Just found a picture of my new favorite robot,” he whispered, and Billy snorted, tense against him. “Why was R2-D2 wearing a mask,” Steve asked, and Billy rolled his eyes.
“Shut up, I was like seven, I didn’t know how to make a costume. Why the hell is Max showing you my fatass baby pictures?”
“She, um,” Steve stumbled, divided between wanting to answer, not wanting to admit Max didn’t believe Billy’s warnings, and mostly wanting a time-travel car to go back and pick up the chubby little curly-haired R2-D2 in his terrible tinfoil costume, give him hot chocolate, and keep him the hell away from Neil Hargrove. “You seriously calling R2-D2 fat?”
“What is going on,” asked El, narrowing her eyes at Steve’s arm around Billy, and tucking her own around Max.
“He hurt Billy’s mom, and he hurt Billy, and he’s gonna hurt my mom,” Max said, her voice gravelly with suppressed tears. “He hurts people, and he’s—” she took a few rapid breaths, and bit her lips together until they went white.
Eleven took Max’s hand, turning to face her. “We won’t let him.”
Billy swallowed, his jaw working.
“Hopper,” Steve said, squeezing Billy’s shoulders. “Hopper can—talk to Hopper, El, take Max to tell him—”
“He—he could be doing something—I need to get home,” Max stood, and nearly fell, trying to spin without watching the stair. She staggered, swearing in a high, broken voice.
Eleven caught her by the elbows. “Max,” she said slowly clearly, and Max’s head jerked up to frown at her, as Eleven waved a hand at the milk crates of old records and exploded them. Billy and Steve both yelled, diving for the floor as vinyl shrapnel rained down, and it snowed bits of cardboard. “We won’t let him,” Eleven said, bringing her hand back to squeeze Max’s, then lifting it to wipe a dribble of blood from her nose.
“Holy shit,” Max whispered, wiping her eyes. “Okay. Yeah. We can—we can threaten him, or something.”
“Or something,” El repeated darkly. “I saw a movie where they dropped a house on somebody.”
“C-can you do that?” Max snorted wetly, snickering probably half with stress, and half imagining Neil’s shoes sticking out from under a foundation like he was the Wicked Witch of the East.
El narrowed her eyes. “Do you want me to?”
“Holy shit,” Max started cackling through her tears, stumbling to sit down on the stair to the kitchen.
“Holy shit,” Billy echoed, staring at the mess, as Steve sighed and grabbed the broom. “What the fuck,” he whispered. “Luke fucking Skywalker.”
Steve had mostly forgotten Billy didn’t know about El. Of course that’s how he’d find out about Eleven, he thought, rubbing his face, and scrabbling at his hair. Billy knew every other detail of his stupid life. Of course he couldn’t find out when she lifted a toy spaceship. No, my boyfriend, that I promised to—to tell things—finds out El can move stuff with her mind when she explodes something four feet away and threatens to drop a house on his dad. “Babe,” he tried, turning to Billy. “Hey, dickhead, cupcake.”
Billy was staring at El—or past her, it was hard to tell. His hands were shaking. “You knew about this,” he whispered. “You—you said you wanted me safe, and then you sent me out with a—a fucking dark jedi. Lucky she didn’t explode my skull when I kicked Max under the table. Holy crap.”
“Shit, no, she—she wouldn’t hurt you,” Steve stared at him, then Eleven, who was watching Max take deep, shaky breaths.
“No wonder you wanted to check me over,” Billy whispered, sitting down on one of the chairs he’d been using as a sawhorse. “After you made me take them for waffles. How’d Billy do? She explode my brain?”
“No, no—” Steve argued, his stomach clenching as he remembered fearing exactly that, when Eleven climbed into Billy’s car while Dustin and Max drug him into a classroom for their intervention. He reached out, and Billy flinched, then laughed, baring his teeth.
“Any other big secrets, Steve?”
“No,” Steve shook his head frantically, hoping there weren’t. He couldn’t think of any, but then he’d never even thought to pull Eleven aside, and ask whether he could tell Billy. Some of the vinyl was melted to the floor, and Steve kicked at it.
“Do you want me to come home with you?” Eleven asked Max, and Steve tried to put Billy on hold with his hand and derail that situation.
“Wait, no, Eleven,” he called over. “Remember, I mean, you can’t—nobody can see your powers,” he said, wincing as Billy scrambled away. “They could take you away from Hopper, nobody can—”
She nodded. “It would look like an accident.”
Billy staggered over to sit down against the racks holding Steve’s backstock of marshmallows. “Holy hell fucking balls shit,” he mumbled, taking deep breaths in his steepled hands.
“I still need a ride home,” Max said grimly, and El nodded, taking a deep breath.
“Wait, wait, wait, no,” Steve dropped the broom, waving his hands. “Do you—do you really think you need to do anything, like, tonight?”
“He’s gonna hurt my mom, Steve,” Max hissed, and El nodded, crossing her arms.
“Whoa, whoa,” Steve waved his hands, glancing at Billy. “I mean, hell with Neil Hargrove, but come up with a plan. What if he tells someone about El? Talk to Hopper, think up—come up with a way that doesn’t—I mean, save Max’s mom, but make sure everybody’s safe, okay.”
“Everybody except him,” Max growled.
El considered Steve for a long moment, then nodded. “I will help you,” she told Max, nodding firmly.
“Jesus fucking christ hell,” Billy muttered, shoving past Max and out of the garage. His feet pounded up the stairs.
“I need to go home,” Max told Steve. “I need to tell her.”
“She’s still at work, isn’t she?! Don’t do anything,” Steve ordered the two girls. “Anything, I mean it. I have to—Billy didn’t know, I need to go and—”
“He didn’t know?” El asked, blinking from Steve, to Max, to the ceiling. “Why? You didn’t want Billy to know?”
“I didn’t know if you’d want him to know!” Steve told her, trying not to yell. “Now he’s pissed as hell, I have to go talk to him, just—El. Tell me you’d never hurt Billy. You wouldn’t hurt him.”
Eleven cocked her head, turning to Max. “...what did Billy do?” she asked, and Max gulped a laugh, shaking her head.
“Shit,” Steve rubbed his face. “I have to go talk to him, don’t do anything—”
Max sniffled, rubbing her nose. “You better gimme a ride by five, okay. I—I’ll just have El sh-show me how to use all the power tools. Practice for cutting his head off . Unsupervised with the power tools,” she emphasized casually, like a jackass, and Steve yelled incoherently and ran upstairs. As he turned onto the landing, he heard the slide lock on Billy's door catch, and stopped, one foot still in the air. Gravity happened, and he flailed his arms, put both feet on the ground, and turned to lean over the railing, leaning his face in his hands.
“The hell are you doing, Harrington,” Billy’s voice came through the door.
“What?!” Steve yelped, spinning in place. “Nothing! I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“I could hear you chasing me,” Billy said through the door, sounding amused, in the way he did before he set something on fire. “And the floor is creaking. What now, Harrington?”
“Uh,” Steve mumbled, grimacing. “You want me to fuck off?”
He could hear Billy take a long breath, and blow air out through his cheeks. “...what do you want?”
“I just—” Steve swallowed, dropping to sit on the floor. He took a deep breath to continue. “I just—I’m—shit. I’m so sorry, jesus. I’m—I can’t—I can’t believe I didn’t ask Eleven if I could tell you. I got...I forgot I didn’t tell you everything.”
“All your little shitheads got superpowers?” Billy asked, laughing. “Yeah. That actually snaps a lot of shit into place, Steve.” Steve flinched at his name, and wondered why, swallowing again.
“No,” he answered. “No, it’s, um, it’s just El. She’s, uh. Eleven’s what the lab was making,” Steve told him, dropping to press his cheek to the floor, and sigh under the door at Billy’s bare toes clenched in in the carpet. “I didn’t—I mean, it wasn’t my secret. We got talked to by the FBI, she—she could get taken away from Hopper, they—”
“Don’t give me that shit,” Billy said, dropping to sit crosslegged. His fingers drummed against the carpet. “Who the hell would I tell. You told me about the—about the goddamn blue bodybuilder bananas. I can—I can still smell the burning records, Steve.”
“El hurting you wasn’t—it wasn’t a plan,” Steve growled, trying not to yell. “You think—you think I’d get you away from your dad and just—just throw you—why would I want you to scare a little kid until she killed you, Hargrove, hon—honey mustard. Jesus.”
Through the gap in the door, Steve could see Billy picking at the carpet, and twitching his toes. “...just might blow up my head if I, like, took her by surprise.”
“She wouldn’t kill you for startling her,” Steve said, rolling his eyes, then bit his lips as he remembered Dustin talking about El straight-up murdering the people with guns. “She, uh, she’s never hurt anyone...accidentally, um, I don’t think.”
“You don’t think,” Billy laughed. “I’m filled with confidence.”
“I’m sorry, christ,” Steve whispered. “I didn’t even—”
“Don’t get pissed at me—” Billy’s voice cracked, and he kicked the door.
“No, I’m not—” Steve rolled onto his back staring at the ceiling. “Christ. I didn’t...I’m not—I did, I thought about it, I—I should’ve warned you. Kept you away from her. Sorry I—sorry I didn’t—sorry I suck,” he groaned into his hands. “Damn it.”
The floor creaked, and Billy’s voice got louder. “God, I’m such a moron,” Billy told Steve, the floor creaking by his door. “All this time, I thought—you didn’t trust me at all, did you. Never forgot I was Billy Fucking Hargrove for a second. You just knew little Ellie Hopper didn’t have to tell her sheriff dad I needed putting down. She didn’t need help from anybody, she could twist my head off my goddamn neck, right? I step out of line, she’d take care of it, right, Steve?”
“Sorry,” Steve said again. “I, um.”
“That’s why you’d let me take Max and her for waffles, right, but the second Will shows up you start acting like I’m—I’m the Zodiac killer, christ. Screw you.”
“I didn’t—you’re nice to El, there was no—”
“Why the fuck have you been pretending to give a shit about me,” Billy yelled through the door. It shuddered with a loud THUD on the other side, then creaked in its frame as Billy’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “You knew—you knew she could do that. You knew she’d—do that—for Max, you—you knew—” Steve was silent, grimacing, and wondering what he could say. He jumped as the door thumped again in its frame, and Billy snarled, “Did you fucking leave.”
“No! I’m—I’m sorry,” Steve told him, scooting closer. “I-I’m here, I didn’t—you just, uh, you locked the door.”
“Like you couldn’t bust this shitty lock off in a second. Like Eleven couldn’t rip it off its hinges, right? Make me fucking bleed from—from the eyes probably,” his voice shook with anger, fear, or a combination of both, and Steve didn’t point out the door wouldn’t protect him.
“What? No, you—you locked the door,” Steve flailed at it. “If you want me in there, you gotta open it up, I—I’m not gonna break your door down, I’m not—I’m not the fucking trespasser here—I didn’t mean that to—shit, forget I said that, don’t leave, I’m talking bullshit, tell—tell me what to do, Hargrove. Kings have—they have advisors, or something, right, tell me—”
“Advisors get all the goddamn information,” Billy hissed back.
“I’m sorry,” Steve said again, groaning. “I’m so fucking sorry, I should—I should have known you—”
“Known I’d what, fly off the fucking handle?” The door thudded in its frame again, and Steve flinched back. “Right,” Billy whispered, “—I’m crazy, aren’t I, I’m acting insane right now, my brain doesn’t fucking work, I’m stupid, I’m losing my shit over nothing—” Billy’s laugh was wetter than Max’s.
“No!” Steve squirmed across the floor, closer to Billy’s locked door. “No, not—no, you’re—”
“Am I nuts?” Billy asked, his voice shaking. “Your royal majesty,” he laughed. “G-go on. Tell me to shut up and open the door. Wasn’t to lock you out, right? It’s not for that, that’s not—that’s not what you said to do—”
The lock clicked, like he had his hand on it, and Steve scrabbled at his hair. “N-no, wait, wait. Hargrove. Wait, I don’t—it’s—it’s your room, you can lock the door, you can lock it, it’s—it’s okay, you can lock the door—”
“Yell at me some more,” Billy said, laughing unsteadily. “I’ll open it. I’m opening it, jesus. Tell me I’m fucking nuts. Tell me to open up, King Harrington. I know I’m the asshole, I’m wrong, right? I’m—I’m wrong, somehow. Harrington,” he whispered, “—you—you keep—you go through so much shit for me, this is—this is my fault, right, you wouldn’t—”
“No, no, wait, Hargrove, listen—” Steve caught his breath as he recognized the metallic scrape of the lock sliding open. “Stop—”
A loud thump rattled the door in its frame. “It wasn’t even a big deal, right, I am, I’m acting insane. Jesus, I’m so dumb sometimes, I’m fucking crazy— I don’t know what to—let’s forget it,” Billy said thickly, turning the doorknob enough to click it unlocked. “Sorry,” he gritted out. “Y-you can come in if you want. We can—”
“No! No, no, no,” Steve yelped, scrambling to lie on his stomach on the floor, and slide his fingers under the door. He held it shut. He stared under the gap at Billy’s feet. “No! Be—don’t try and—babe—shit—you’re mad, you should be mad! You should be pissed, okay, be pissed, be—be fucking pissed as hell—okay—”
Billy was quiet for several seconds. “...okay,” he repeated softly, sniffling. “Whatcha doing, Harrington...you trying to fit under the door?”
“Fuck you, just—just—lock the door,” Steve told him. “Lock the door, babe. Don’t unlock the door until you wanna let me in, okay. Knight. Remember you’re pissed at me. I’m bullshit sometimes, okay. You’re pissed off.”
“Royal command,” Billy whispered, dropping so he was lying on the floor, one eye facing Steve through the gap underneath.
“You’re supposed to be mad,” Steve said again, and Billy laughed, a tear running out the side of his eye and dropping into the carpet. Steve scrambled for words. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t think—”
“I mean. You usually don’t,” Billy laughed hoarsely, and Steve wedged more of himself under the door, ignoring it scraping what felt like half the skin off his wrists, to brush the tips of his fingers against Billy’s toes. Billy jerked away, then grabbed Steve’s fingers in his cold, sweaty ones.
“No, I mean it, I’m a moron,” Steve hissed, pissed at himself, even if Billy wasn’t. “I know—with my bat,” Steve pointed at Billy under the door, and Billy laughed again. Steve squinted with concentration. “You had to—you had to know all about the bat, so you could figure out whether you were safe. I couldn’t just say you were safe. I had to tell you everything about the bat, so—so you could—decide.”
“Except about El,” Billy said, and Steve swallowed.
“Except about El,” he agreed, sighing. “I—I almost did, I—you asked if I was gonna lie, she’s—it’s a big secret—I-I’m sor—I’m so sorry. Honey-mustard. Hargrove. I’m—I’m so fucking sorry. I just—there was a lot happening, and—I should have made sure you were okay. First. First before anything.”
After what felt like a long silence, when Steve was starting to tense up again, Billy whispered, “You—you said you fucking forgot.” He rolled onto his back, shaking with laughter. “Did you seriously just— completely forget to tell me. Harrington. You did, didn’t you.”
“No! No, kind of,” Steve groaned again, into his arms, catching Billy’s half-hysterical snickering. “I thought—I mean, I freaked out that first time, when Dustin drug me off and you drove off with El in your car, but then—I mean, you were okay, nothing happened! I’m a fucking moron—”
“You’re so dumb,” Billy whispered, grinning under the door. “Holy shit. How could you—okay, I-I’ll open the door. I’m opening the door.”
“You don’t have to,” Steve told him, grimacing.
“Can’t lock you out in your own house,” Billy said, sounding weirdly flat. “S’not what that lock’s for, is it. It’s not—it’s not to st—” he took a shaky breath, swallowing. “It’s not to stop you,” he whispered, his fingers shaking in Steve’s.
“It’ll work!” Steve yelped. “It’ll stop me, it’s a sturdy door, right? The lock’s little but um, it’s uh, it’s latched! You’re safe from me in there!”
“Harrington, what are you gonna do when I open this door,” Billy asked, and Steve had the horrifying suspicion he was crying. “I won’t lock it again, I swear, jesus, please,” he mumbled, his words hitching, and Steve squeezed his hands harder.
“I—” Steve fumbled his words, trying to think of a way to prove he wasn’t angry, while also wanting to burn Neil Hargrove at the stake. “I’m not mad,” he said, trying to keep his voice soft. “I’m not mad, baby, you can lock the door, you can lock me out anytime—” He’d lost Billy for a while again, he realized, listening to the nonsensical mumbles and apologies on the other side of the door, and running his thumbs over Billy’s clenched fingers, so he just kept saying it was okay, and he wasn’t mad.
After what felt like the longest eleven minutes of Steve’s life—as he talked, he was staring at the watch on his wrist, wedged half under the door—Billy took a long shuddering breath.
“You back with me, Hargrove?” Steve whispered, his throat raw.
“...think so,” Billy whispered back. “I was...I was gonna open the door,” he said. “I won’t lock it again,” he promised, and Steve gave his now well-practiced speech.
“You can lock that door anytime,” he told Billy. “You can lock it for no reason, okay. I won’t be mad, you can lock your door.”
“I’m allowed to be crazy,” Billy laughed uncertainly.
“I don’t know if it’s crazy,” Steve told him, frowning under the door, but deciding not to bring up Neil Hargrove. “But you can lock the door, people lock doors, that’s what locks are for, dick—honey,” he said, changing his insult at the last minute, and ignoring Billy’s snickers and whispers of “Dick honey! I’m your dick honey.” “Billy Hargrove,” Steve whispered. “You can lock me out, I still love you—”
Billy choked, curling up on the floor around Steve’s fingers. “...okay.”
“Love you so much,” Steve told him, ignoring the heat in his cheeks. “Love works through doors, okay, I can wait ‘til you come out, jesus. It’s fine.”
“You’re such an asshole,” Billy laughed, crying. “Fuck you, stop making me—bawl, okay, jesus, you prick, christ. Fucking... hate how much I love you.”
“Yeah, I know,” Steve laughed, his eyes tearing up with relief, and the pain of his scraped knuckles wedged under the door.
“You’re really not pissed I locked you out,” Billy asked again, trying to sound casual.
“I showed you that lock,” Steve told him, trying not to sound pissed.
“Yeah, because—for if—if he comes, you wanna rescue me,” Billy laughed. “Protect what’s yours. Not supposed to lock you out.”
Feeling the exhaustion of another trip around the monopoly board, without passing Go, and without collecting $200, Steve closed his eyes and tried not to groan. “You can lock this door whenever you want,” he said for what sounded like the ninetieth time.
“Yeah,” Billy breathed, and they lay there, on opposite sides of the door, for nearly another five minutes. “...you pretending not to be pissed,” Billy hissed finally. “You—are you—I’ll open up and you’ll be mad as hell, you—you’ll—” he trailed off into sharp breaths, and Steve tried to squirm closer.
“Not gonna lie to you,” he said, and felt Billy’s fingers twitch. “I’m not, honey-mustard, I’ll tell you if I’m mad.” Billy took another long shaky breath, and Steve screwed his face up in thought, kicking his feet so they thudded lightly against the railing of the stairs. “...look, I could open the door,” he whispered, and Billy was silent. “You already unlocked it,” Steve reminded him. “All I’d have to do is turn the knob. But—”
“But what?” Billy asked.
“I don’t think you’re ready yet,” Steve told him. “I’m gonna let you open your door, okay?”
“God, I’m so crazy,” Billy sighed, muffled by the carpet.
“I think you’re just, y’know,” Steve flunked talking as usual, “—you think, um, you think stuff will happen that maybe...happened before. That’s, uh, that’s smart, actually. That’s smart.”
“I should trust you,” Billy groaned. “Shit.”
“I mean, I guess,” Steve made a face. “I just kind of...fucked up. Big. I didn’t—you have to be careful, I mean, you—” he groaned too, trying to fit the words together.
“Not with you,” Billy argued.
“No, with—with me, too, you have to be careful, you’re really important,” Steve huffed, his hackles rising as Billy started laughing again on the other side of the door. “You are! Steve hissed. “You’re so important, you’re the most important, and I’m really—I’m so shitty at this, you have to—you have to help me—”
“Oh my god,” Billy wheezed, and Steve opened his mouth to keep arguing, then blinked as Billy reached out to push Steve’s pointer finger back under the door.
“This lil’ piggy’s gonna get stomped, Harrington,” Billy whispered through the gap, and Steve snickered as Billy’s fingers lifted each of his and prodded them under the door, then stuck his own middle fingers under at Steve.
Steve laughed and rubbed his wrists, rolling onto his back.
Billy’s face disappeared from the gap, replaced by his hand, then his foot, and the sound of a door opening across carpet.
Steve pushed himself to his feet, and then got an armful of Billy Hargrove, breathing unsteadily against his shoulder, and yanking at the fly of his pants.
“Fucking moron,” Bily whispered, trying to unbutton Steve’s jeans as Steve tried to push his hands away.
“Max—Max and El,” he gasped. “They’re right downstairs, we can’t—”
“Sure we can,” Billy whispered against his mouth, and Steve grabbed his hands.
“Okay, but I’m the one apologizing, right,” Steve changed tactics, trying not to grin. “You didn’t screw up. I screwed up.” Billy’s eyes narrowed, then widened as Steve grabbed him by the fly, whispering. “Lemme choke on your dick.” As he’d expected, Billy froze, frowning at him, and Steve seized the opportunity to squeeze him until his bones creaked.
“Not sure how much you’re gonna like that when you’re sober,” Billy hissed in his ear, rocking their hips together.
With the hot pressure on his dick, Steve couldn’t think of an argument other than the truth. “I was,” he whispered, sliding a hand under Billy’s sweatshirt and up his warm side, feeling his muscles work. “I was—I was sober, cake, um, cake pie. I dumped the whiskey out. Didn’t drink it.”
“What,” Billy asked hoarsely.
“Sorry I lied,” Steve buried his face in Billy’s neck, dragging messy kisses over his collarbones. “Shouldn’t lie to you, I mean it, I—I’ll stop, but—but I knew you were freaked, didn’t wanna—didn’t wanna do some dumb drunk thing—” he bit gently under Billy’s jaw, and felt him shudder.
“You goddamn liar,” Billy breathed, grabbing the ass of Steve’s jeans with both hands.
“Sorry for that too,” Steve whispered, and Billy groaned melodramatically in his ear. “Am I out of the doghouse?” Steve asked, and Billy snorted.
“No, you are not,” Billy said, his gaze flicking uncertainly over Steve’s face. “I’m gonna make you work for it—”
“Oh, I can work for it,” Steve told him, his grin way too wide, he suspected, to look seductive at all.
“What the hell are you two doing up there?!” Max yelled, and they both started.
“Okay,” Steve said, tucking his laugh against Billy’s neck. “I’m gonna suck your dick. With feeblings.”
“Jesus christ,” Billy muttered back, relaxing against him. “Just a minute,” he shouted downstairs, and Max stomped away. “...El might actually come up and ask what we’re doing in a minute,” he groaned, sliding his arms around Steve’s waist to sway together, and muttering a string of profanity into his shoulder.
Steve rubbed his back, trying to remember the intense cold-shower effect El had had on his half-chub earlier, when she’d stomped into the locker room wanting Billy to teach Max to use tools. The idea of her throwing the bedroom door open as Steve tried to negotiate his first real blowjob didn’t sound appealing.
After standing there a while, Steve’s adrenaline bubble started merging with the relief of Billy choosing to trust him after he’d fucked up again, and he wanted to move— run, or dance Billy around, or carry him somewhere, listening to him yell, and kissing his hot blushing face. “Later tonight. I got blowjob tips from Nancy. But we should probably go back downstairs,” he whispered, rubbing his thumb across Billy’s tear-sticky cheek.
“Holy jesus. Is that—is that what you were talking about? Giving blowjobs?” Billy asked, his laugh warming Steve’s neck.
“Sort of,” Steve hedged, wishing Nancy hadn’t wanted him to keep secrets. “She decided to start telling me all the weird shit she used to tell Barb, and I’m not supposed to tell anybody, and—” he remembered Nancy shaking with laughter over Jonathan’s sex habits, and tried to smother his vindictive glee, “—I really, really want to tell you Nancy’s secrets, I swear.”
“Why the hell would I want to know any of that,” Billy slumped against him with a contented sigh.
“It’s hilarious,” Steve hissed. “Being friends with a girl is annoying.”
“You poor baby,” Billy snorted.
“She wants to check in all the time! She likes you,” Steve said, remembering abruptly, and Billy burst into a fit of snickering against his neck.
“She does, huh.”
“She does! She said you were all freaked out when I ran out of the library.”
“...Harrington,” Billy said, pulling back to narrow his eyes at Steve’s face. “I—”
“We should probably go downstairs,” Steve interrupted, his face heating as he remembered Billy knew he’d run off to cry. Like the five-year-old birthday boy, he thought, with a self-directed smirk, when he realizes everybody in the class just came because he’s got a pool. “Sorry I was acting like—an idiot. More of an idiot,” Steve shrugged. “We should go down.”
Billy opened his mouth, closed it, then pulled Steve’s face into a kiss that was warm and salty with tears. After a few seconds of hot breath and slick tongue that left Steve harder in his pants than ever, his sweaty hands clutching at Billy’s biceps, Billy pulled back. “You saying I should stop hiding from a little girl,” he asked, grinning, and Steve swallowed a couple times, gathering himself to speak.
“El’s pretty scary,” Steve rasped, “—they’re gonna start using the chainsaw or something, though—”
“You have a chainsaw?” Billy interrupted.
“Maybe?!” Steve stepped back to throw his hands in the air. “I didn’t know we had a circular saw!”
“We need a ride,” El’s voice carried up the stairs.
“Are your—” parents? Steve thought, and stalled out, “—are your uh, your adults even off work yet? Thought you were helping Billy fix my door,” Steve called back, leaning over the railing to look downstairs, and reaching back to squeeze Billy’s hand.
“...we should finish that first,” El said, after a second, and Billy turned him around and leaned in for one more kiss before squeezing his hand back and pulling away to jog down the stairs after Eleven.
Max was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Steve came down. She looked him up and down, then rolled her eyes, her shoulders lowering a little from their angry hunch.
“Hey, Max, uh,” Steve said, then stopped, thinking.
“What, did you run out of batteries?” she asked dryly.
“No, shut up. You know—you can still bring your mom here, if you need to, ever. Or call us, if you need help. We can—we can come pick you up, you and her. Anytime.”
“...Billy gonna second that?” she asked, and Steve considered.
“Yeah. Yeah, he said he’d help me out if my kids needed it. He offered. I mean, he might not stand between you and his dad—”
“No, he’s—he’s done that. Done something just as—just as I was—got himself hit.”
“...that’s…” Steve trailed off, unable to say it was good, Billy getting himself hurt.
“Weird is what that was, because usually he’s a total shithead,” Max hissed. “Which I didn’t tell El. And I won’t—” She stopped.
Because he’s your brother, Steve thought, then wondered whether it was just basic decency in Max, not wanting to hurt anyone if she could help it. Anyone but monsters, like Neil Hargrove.
“...El wants you both to come to the Byers’ for waffles,” she reported, sighing. “Soon. Every damn time anybody’s upset she wants waffles.”
“D’you want him there?” Steve asked, suspecting she didn’t.
“I don’t care,” Max sighed, setting her jaw, and frowning towards the garage. “If he keeps acting like a goddamn human being instead of an asshole. I think El wants to ask him about his mom.”
That will go great, Steve thought, wincing.
“Guess I better help them fix the door,” Max said, unmoving.
“You didn’t break it,” Steve told her, wandering over to the hot chocolate cupboard.
“I wanted to see his photo albums. Check his story, you know, so I lied,” she said, “...kind of.”
“You...lied,” he glanced back, eyebrows raised, before realizing he needed to get more marshmallows out of the garage, which would mean walking out on Max wanting to talk, which...didn’t seem like the right thing to do. He sighed.
“He won’t let me take shop. I signed up for shop and now I’m in home economics,” Max groaned, and Steve rewound the sentence in his head and substituted Neil in for he . “I told El, and said I wanted to talk to Billy, and she said Billy takes shop, since he’s a boy— and next thing I know, he’s waiting for us in your car after school. Trying to tell me how to use a saw. Billy fucking Hargrove, Shop Teacher—and of course Eleven’s having fun.” She squinted towards the garage. “I just wanted to see that photo album.”
“...want some hot chocolate?” Steve asked, feeling a keen empathy for El, and her urge to stuff waffles in the face of anyone having a problem.
“No,” Max said, burying her face in her arms. “Yeah. Damn it. Do I have to—I have to stop hating him now?! Just like that?” She snapped in the air, growling. “Because that asshole’s been beating his face in since he was like—” she held her hand flat a couple feet from the floor, glaring at Steve. “—that high? How come my mom had to fall for him. How come he can’t die of a heart attack. HEY MISTER GOD, THIS IS MAX,” she yelled suddenly, at the ceiling. “FIX YOUR SHIT.”
Steve was cracking up, leaning against the cupboard. “You tell him,” he held up a mug in a toast, and Max snorted.
“Listen to him in there,” she said, glaring at the table, and Steve leaned to listen to Billy laughing, and explaining something about the latch. “Being some rad older brother. You know, that’s what I thought I was getting. Will Byers loves him, musta asked me to invite him like twelve times. He got a cat out of a fucking tree, Steve, did he get brain trauma on your watch?!”
Steve thought about how tense Billy’d been, the afternoon Max had come over to learn to bake bread. Neil hadn’t helped, that morning, or calling that night, but Billy’d been a mass of barbed wire all afternoon.
“You finding the meaning of life in that cocoa mix?” Max asked, and Steve jumped, realizing he was staring into the jar.
“Yeah, kinda,” he leaned to look deeper, humming exaggerated noises like a Muppet, and she snorted, watching him spoon mix into mugs. “Nah. I, uh, I think he...I think maybe you make him nervous.”
“I make him nervous?!” Max smacked her hands on the table. “I make him nervous?! What in the hell kind of—”
“No, shush, I just mean—like I remember the floaty thingies, in the tunnels, you know,” he told her, waggling his fingers to indicate the wispy substance that had clogged their lungs, and ignoring Max biting back a grin. “In the snow, I—I can freak out a little. It’s not—it’s not the snow’s fault, snow never ate my friends—” Max snorted another laugh, but she was listening. “You haven’t...done anything, but you were—you were there, while things were happening, I think—”
“I remind him of home,” she said, chewing her lip. “Maybe. Gross.”
“Maybe,” he shrugged, but when he glanced over again, she looked like she was thinking hard.
“He could still not be a dipshit,” she muttered at her mug, and Steve nodded, sighing.
“You—you can bring him for waffles,” she decided. “Will can just have him, I don’t care. He can be Will and Eleven’s brother, I don’t give a shit.”
Steve opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “I’m, uh, I’m pretty good at. Things.”
“Not English, apparently,” Max narrowed her eyes. “The hell does that mean?”
“Nothing,” he shrugged, turning back to turn off the kettle, and add the hot water to their mugs.
“You really want to be my brother?” she asked, sounding amused, and he turned to glare, but her eyes were kinda wider than her usual wary glower. “I mean, you—you said that, when you—when you wanted me to get him out of the house, but—”
“I’d be better at it than Billy,” he pointed out, and she tried to talk and laugh at the same time, and choked.
“Yeah,” she laughed, wiping her eyes. “Yeah, uh, you—you really would. Uh. I dunno. Do I really need a brother, right, I mean. I, um. I have some—friends. Now.”
“If you need one,” he said, keeping his tone cheerful, and ignoring her red face as she groaned into her sleeves. “Or just, y’know, want one. I can put Dustin down as a reference.” He turned back to the hot chocolate.
He gave Max the rest of the marshmallows, and sat her mug in front of her, watching her eyes well up as she looked at the little Garfield cartoon about spiders on the mug.
“Thanks, Steve,” she rasped, and he clinked their mugs together.
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cloud 9 | 18+
Nine pairs of eyes devoured you, heady gazes dragging from head to toe. It sent heady arousal shooting through you just from the anticipation alone.
You had a long night ahead of you.
Smut: fem!reader x ot9
kink list: gangbang, dom!exo, size difference, cumplay, orgasm denial, exhibitionism (of sorts), overstimulation, degradation*****, choking (ok it’s not choking choking but mc chokes on dick does that count), double penetration/anal play, mentions of tears but it’s because that dick is bomb lol (i didn’t include anything that wasn’t asked for more than once, i got a lot of suggestions!) (this is the filthiest thing i’ve ever written eek)
*****(degradation = lots of use of the words slut, whore, and other really degrading names. this, along with everything else in this fic, is consensual)
ps: thank you for 1000 followers <3 and also happy late valentine’s day
You’d slept with all of them. At some point or another.
They were your neighbors and you were new in town. They were plenty attractive and you didn’t know anyone. And so the first few months that you spent in your new apartment, you were tumbling in and out of your neighbors’ beds, never with more than three of them at a time. You were open about who you slept with, and none of them seemed to have a problem with sharing. Which led you to today’s proposition. A simple message in a hastily made group chat.
what if all of u were to fuck me at once?
Chanyeol was the first to reply: an enthusiastic yes. Next was Baekhyun, and then Sehun. A couple of them had loosened up to the idea within the hour, and the last had been convinced through several begging messages from the first three who had replied so quickly. As soon as Minseok, the last to agree, finally typed out a simple yes, you sent what you hoped would be the final message of the day.
door’s open. i’m wet already.
You tossed your phone on your nightstand and lay back against the pillows, waiting for your front door to swing open. Your clothes had already been discarded and you spread your legs, dipping your finger shallowly into your wetness, your thumb brushing lightly over your clit.
You heard the soft click of the door opening and shuffled footsteps coming closer to your open bedroom door. You smirked to yourself and tilted your head back. You knew the exact moment that everyone had entered the room because the footsteps stopped abruptly. A deep voice muttered a curse.
“Afternoon, boys,” you purred, opening your eyes. “You all know I’m on the pill and lube is on the nightstand. Everyone knows the safewords, am I correct?”
Nine pairs of eyes devoured you, heady gazes dragging from head to toe. It sent heady arousal shooting through you just from the anticipation alone.
You had a long night ahead of you.
“So are you just going to stand there, or is someone going to come over here and touch me?”
As if snapped out of their reverie, Chanyeol and Baekhyun stepped forward. “You’re real naughty, you know that?” Baekhyun said, grabbing you by your ankles and tugging you forward. “Nine men at once? Can you handle that, baby?”
You opened your mouth to retort but you were stopped when you heard Chanyeol undoing his belt. “You wanna show them how your tiny little mouth takes my cock, sweetheart?”
Your mouth practically watered at the sight of Chanyeol’s cock, half hard and thick. You had spent so much time gagging on his length that your mouth opened obediently on its own. Someone watching chuckled in amusement.
You got onto your hands and knees so Chanyeol could stand on the side of the bed and feed you his cock. You took the head in your mouth gingerly, swirling your tongue around it. He hissed, fingers sinking into your hair as you lowered your head further.
“She takes it so well,” Jongin remarked softly, barely heard over the slick sounds of your lips sliding over Chanyeol’s dick.
You barely registered the weight on the bed shifting until you felt hot breath at your entrance. You immediately inhaled shakily through your nose, causing Baekhyun to laugh.
“Such a pretty pussy,” he cooed, licking a stripe up your folds. “So cute.” You flushed when you felt him pulling your cheeks apart so he could have better access, fucking you with his tongue.
Your jaw relaxed when you whined, and as a result, Chanyeol took the opportunity to thrust into the back of your throat and hold you there. Your throat clenched around his cock and he groaned. “Fuck, that’s it. You want me to fuck you face? Want me to fuck that pretty little face until you swallow my cum?”
He released his hold on you so you could take in a breath. You sputtered and coughed, blinking away the tears in your eyes as his cock slapped against your cheek, leaving a trail of wetness against your skin.
“Please,” you gasped. “Fuck my face, Yeol.”
He was ruthless, snapping his hips into you as Baekhyun continued to eat you out. In the corner of your eye, you could see the others waiting for their turn, shedding their clothing with enraptured eyes. “Give them a show,” Baekhyun said, shoving two fingers inside your soaked pussy. “Show them what’s waiting for them.”
You looked up at Chanyeol with watery eyes, hollowing your cheeks and sucking every time he thrusted in. Drool was slipping out of the corner of your mouth but you loved this, you loved just being fucking used like this.
Without warning, Baekhyun buried himself inside of you, and you gurgled around Chanyeol’s cock. Your fingers dug into the covers underneath you as you let out choked moan after choked moan. Baekhyun matched his pace with Chanyeol’s, thrusting in whenever Chanyeol pulled out. He stilled when Chanyeol’s pace began to stutter, fingering your clit as you writhed between them.
“F-Fuck,” Chanyeol groaned, pushing in until your nose was touching his skin. His cum shot down your throat so that you couldn’t even taste it. He pulled out with a satisfied grunt, but you didn’t even have a second to catch your breath before Baekhyun was pulling you up by your chest.
He fucked you from behind but held you vertically against his chest so that the others could fully see your fucked out expression. They eyed you hungrily, making you pulse around Baekhyun’s cock. He shoved two fingers in your mouth and spread them to pull your lips apart, forcing your noises to spill out unhindered.
“Who’s next?” Baekhyun asked. “Baby slut needs all her holes filled.”
Kyungsoo stepped forward, already naked. He climbed onto the bed and brushed Baekhyun’s hand off of you and replaced it with his mouth. His tongue shoved its way into your mouth, swallowing all of your moans. His hands traveled down your body as Baekhyun kept up his merciless pace, stopping at your breasts and then all the way down to your clit. You keened at the contact, and you would have fallen forward if not for Kyungsoo’s body against yours.
“You made me so hard,” he whispered against your lips. “Fucking other people like this while I watch?” He took his own cock in his hands and used the tip of it to lightly stimulate your clit, making you groan in frustration.
“It sounds like she wants to come,” Baekhyun said breathlessly. “Not before I fill this pussy up.”
“As soon as he comes, someone else is going to fuck you with his cum still inside of you,” Kyungsoo whispered harshly. He grabbed a fistful of your hair and yanked lightly, tilting your head to make you look at him. “Does that turn you on? You like being our filthy little cumdump?” You cried out brokenly, earning another pull on your hair. “You have to answer me with words.”
“Y-Yes,” you moaned. You were so desperately close to the edge now, the combination of Kyungsoo’s sinful words and Baekhyun’s fucking bringing you to your orgasm. “I love it, I love it, fuck.”
“Shit,” Baekhyun said, breath hitching. His arms scrambled around your waist and pulled you against him, his warm cum filling you up. Your pussy clenched around nothing as he pulled out, his cum already seeping out to make a mess between your thighs.
Kyungsoo arranged you so you were laying down with your head hanging off the bed and settled between your legs. “I think I’ll push his cum further inside of you,” he hummed, pressing a chaste kiss against your throbbing clit. You moaned, making to bury your hands in his hair before they were swatted away. “Don’t make me have to tie you down,” he teased. You settled for fisting the sheets as he inserted two fingers into your heat.
Before you knew it, Sehun was there with his cock hanging in front of your face. You accepted him with no protest, throat relaxing enough for him to immediately thrust as deep as he could go. Your back arched when Kyungsoo pressed his thumb steadily onto your clit, whining around the thick cock in your mouth.
“It feels so good when you moan like that,” Sehun gasped, pulling out to give you time to breathe. “I wonder what it would feel like if you came.”
“She isn’t coming yet,” Kyungsoo said sharply. “Not until at least half of us are satisfied. And,” he added, taking your clit into his mouth, “she has to beg for it.”
You breathed in raggedly before Sehun was thrusting inside your mouth again, pounding relentlessly into you. Three times you were brought to the edge only to be stopped by Kyungsoo’s relentless teasing. You were begging wordlessly now, openly crying out as best as you could with a dick stuffed in your mouth, hips raising to feel any kind of friction at all. Kyungsoo stilled you with a slap to your thigh.
It didn’t take much longer for Sehun to come, spilling ropes of the stuff all over your face. You swallowed what landed on your tongue and yelped when you were pulled upwards. Kyungsoo settled himself against the headboard and you lowered yourself slowly onto his cock, training your eyes on your audience. Junmyeon and Yixing both approached at the same time.
You took turns like that, stroking Junmyeon’s cock as Yixing fucked your face, switching every minute as you bounced on Kyungsoo’s cock. The room was a symphony of moans and the wet sounds of skin on skin. There was so much, too much going on yet you were so fucking content just to be like this, to be used.
But no matter how much you tried to ignore it, you could feel the heat building up in your stomach, rising each time you slam down onto Kyungsoo’s cock. You looked up at Junmyeon with desperate eyes as you hollowed your cheeks around his dick, dizzy with the impending feeling. You felt Kyungsoo reach around and you wanted to sob when he started to rub your clit in harsh, fast circles. “Fucking come,” Junmyeon growled. “Come on his cock like a good little slut.”
The waves overtook you finally, and it was so good you could have cried. You released Junmyeon’s cock from your mouth and threw your head back, crying out. You writhed and whimpered, babbling all kinds of nonsense spilling from your open mouth. Kyungsoo’s fingers didn’t stop, they kept touching you until you were screaming.
“Fuck, I can’t,” you sobbed. “Wait, Soo-”
“You can handle it, can’t you?” Yixing asked sweetly, fisting his cock in front of your face. “Can’t you come again for us?”
It took a few minutes, but you came again, and this time the tears were flowing freely down your face as you screamed. Your thighs shook and you nearly keened over, just barely able to hold yourself up. You were dimly aware of Kyungsoo shooting his load into your pussy, and of Junmyeon and Yixing coming all over your face and chest. When the three of them left, you felt cold with the absence.
“You’re doing so well,” Jongin said, climbing onto the bed next to you. “Can you use that pretty mouth on me?”
Blearily, you nodded, crawling forward shakily so you could reach his cock. He laid back while you went down on him, sucking him into your mouth as best as you could. Your body ached, but you could feel the beginnings of arousal coming back when Jongin rolled his hips into your mouth, groaning softly. “Just like that, princess. Suck it just like that, fuck.”
Behind you, you heard the lube being uncapped and then capped again. You yelped at the sharp smack against your ass and exhaled shakily when a wet finger circled your rim.
“I’ve never gotten to fuck your ass before,” Minseok says quietly. “Let’s change that now, hmm?”
The pair of them were different from the others in that they worked almost silently. Jongin praised you every so often and Minseok checked in to make sure that you can take another finger. It was a welcome change and it let you catch your breath after the two orgasms you’ve already had.
You caught the way that Jongin’s voice started to hitch and you sank deeper, taking most of his cock and looked up at him from underneath fluttering lashes. He groaned and thrusted up into the heat of your mouth once, twice, before he was coming inside your mouth.
“Don’t swallow it yet, I want you to show me,” he said. He pulled out and pried your bottom lip open with his thumb and groaned at the sight of his come on your tongue. “Beautiful, baby. Thank you.”
Minseok leaned over when Jongin left, pressing a hot kiss onto your shoulderblade. “Jongdae’s been waiting awfully patient,” he whispered. “Do you think you could take us both? Him in your pussy and me in your ass?”
You moaned softly, pushing back against Minseok in answer. He chuckled darkly and lightly smacked your thigh. “Good girl.”
Jongdae joined the two of you on the bed and took the spot where Jongin once was, laying back against the headboard. He looked painfully hard, his cock wet and laying against his stomach. “Haven’t had enough yet, have you?” he asked, running a finger through your soaking wetness. “You still want more?”
You whined, clambering up so you were perched and hovering above Jongdae’s cock. “Please,” you rasped. Your voice was hoarse from the abuse your throat took, but your pussy was throbbing, aching for one more release. “Fuck me until I can’t walk.”
Jongdae gripped your hips and guided you into sinking down on his cock, stuttering out a curse when he bottomed out. “How are you still so fucking tight?” he asked. “Even after being such a slut, you’re sucking me in.”
You moaned at his words and made to bounce on his cock but a pair of hands on your back stilled you. Minseok’s cock prodding at your ass reminded you of what his intentions were.
Slowly, he pushed inside of you, and the three of you moaned in sync when he had half of his cock inside of you. You were so full, so so full and you loved it, nearly doubled over when Minseok thrusted in.
“Fuck, I can feel you, Dae,” Minseok said, voice trembling.
“Yeah, yeah I know,” Jongdae said, sounding strained as well. “Come on, let’s get her to come one more time, yeah?”
They held you still as they fucked into you, matching each other’s relentless pace. You cried out, babbling incoherently as they pounded into you, your thighs slick with both your arousal and the other men’s cum as it seeped out of you. You had never felt anything so fucking euphoric. You felt so dirty, so absolutely fucking filthy covered in so much cum, but you loved it. Your mouth hung open as you tumbled closer and closer to your third orgasm, trembling in between the two men.
“I’m gonna-” you choked, tearing up at the intense feeling washing over you.
“Come for us,” Minseok whispered. You felt fingers at your clit and then you were gone, the wire in you snapping hard. Your back bowed as you came, as you whimpered, moaned, screamed at the sensation. Your nails dug into Jongdae’s shoulders as you came harder than you ever had in your whole life. During your orgasm, they came as well, coming with shouts of your name and burying themselves deep inside of you.
You collapsed onto the bed when they slid out of you, panting and whimpering. Your thighs were so sore and your throat was killing you, but you were completely and utterly satisfied.
“Done?” You opened your heavy eyes to see Baekhyun standing in the doorway. He had put his pants back on but was still shirtless. “Yixing is running you a bath right now and Jongin’s ordering pizza. Chanyeol went back to our place to grab a few movies.” His eyes widened and he flushed with embarrassment like he hadn’t just fucked your brains out a couple of hours ago. “That’s okay, right? We can stay over?”
You laughed tiredly, waving a hand at him. You nuzzled into Jongdae’s side and closed your eyes. “It’s fine. Just... give me a few minutes to recover.”
Minseok laughed and ran a hand through your sweaty hair. “You know... I had my doubts, but this is by far one of the best Saturday nights I’ve ever had.”
“I second that,” Jongdae groaned.
“I third that,” Baekhyun piped up.
You smiled and allowed yourself to drift off into a quick sleep. Yixing would wake you up for your bath later, and there would be pizza and movies and friends waiting when you were done.
You really, really liked your neighbors.
- fin -
oh god i need a shower.
(this is why i don’t write long pieces)
this is for all my kinky and horny and sweet as hell followers who have stuck with me! also for my mutuals i love youuuuuu
@thotantics @sweet-teeth-mfs @real-pcy-exo @baeklipse @junemyeon @exosthetik @loveeverydae @en-dorphinmachine @suhoerections @baekyung @byunfirstlady @princeyeolie @thesoondongiefiles @peachyletters @fruityjohnny @exosmutcafe @red-exo @psychobhyun @heterosexol @whitenoise-exo @thepuginator5000 @cyjvcucumbers
#exo smut#chanyeol smut#baekhyun smut#kyungsoo smut#sehun smut#junmyeon smut#yixing smut#jongin smut#minseok smut#jongdae smut#d.o. smut#suho smut#lay smut#kai smut#xiumin smut#chen smut
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Cocksucker-o-gram | Gunner/Buck
What: Buck enjoys his Valentines gram.
Where: Gunner’s suite.
@buckwildesub
Buck made his way over to Gunner’s suite, whistling happily to himself. He was excited to spend some time with the Dom, even if it was just for the Valentines gram. When he’d arrived, they’d flirted a bit, but had yet to connect. Not sure if the normal rules applied tonight, he got on his knees before knocking on the other man’s door.
Gunner was pretty sure his idea for a Valentines gram might have been the smartest idea he'd ever had. He got to interact with subs and switches, see them being a little sexually adventurous with him, and get to know them some more, all at the same time. He chuckled to himself as he heard a knock at this door, and knew it had to be Buck. He jogged over to the door, and opened it, revealing to Buck that all he was wearing were his black briefs. "Well, don't you look perfect on your knees?"
When the door swung open, Buck let his eyes move over the skin Gunner’s lack of clothing revealed. He grinned up at the other man and said, “Thank you, Sir. I figured it might start the night off right. Want me to stay down here or can I hop up and walk in?” Buck had no problem with either option and peered up at the other man through pale lashes.
Gunner smiled, catching how Buck was checking him out. "Stay down there for me, Wilde. Show me how beautifully you can crawl," he said, as he stepped aside to allow Buck room to move inside the suite. "Unless, of course, you'd rather stay kneeling there and let my neighbours see how much you're going to enjoy your Valentines gram?" he teased.
Arching a brow at Gunner, Buck chuckled. “I got no problem with public displays, Sir...though I prefer them outside in warm weather.” He rolled onto all fours and crawled into the room, feeling a bit over dressed in his Henley and jeans. “Would you like me to lose some layers, Sir.”
"Well, that's definitely something I'll have to remember when it's warmer," Gunner grinned as he watched Buck crawl into his suite. He closed the door behind him, and openly admired Buck's ass in front of him. "I would. You can stay in your underwear if you'd like, or you can strip all the way down. I know which I'd prefer from you, right now," he grinned.
“Like I’m gonna miss the opportunity to get naked with you, Sir,” Buck replied with a grin. Rolling up onto his knees, he slowly peeled off his shirt, revealing his trim waist that tapered out to his broad chest and shoulders. Then he wriggled out of his jeans and boxer briefs, unabashedly naked, cock resting half hard against his thigh.
Gunner chuckled at Buck's reply, and watched the submissive strip. "I knew you'd be gorgeous like this," Gunner smiled, as he rubbed himself through his briefs. He didn't hesitate to do the same though, and after a few moments, he pulled his own underwear down, and stepped out of them. His own cock was also half hard, though it was pointed straight at Buck. "This is your gram, Wilde. Come and enjoy yourself."
"Oh, I plan to, Sir...you wanna sit down? Or at least lean back against a wall," he suggested, eyeing the other man hungrily. "I could so support your weight while sucking your dick if you swung a leg over my shoulders while I'm down here on my knees." He peered up at Gunner, eyes wide and blue, but full of impish promise.
Gunner grinned at Buck's eagerness, and turned to walk over to the sofa, giving Buck a look at his bare ass. "Such an eager little cocksucker, aren't you?" he teased, as he sat down. He started to stroke himself as he watched the submissive. "Come on over, Wilde."
Shrugging, Buck crawled after the dominant, movements slow to display the bunch and roll of muscles under his lightly tanned skin. "Never saw a point in not being who I am. I'm a sub and I like it. I like guys, girls, non-binary...hot is hot and I like to have fun." He settled between Gunner's knees, big hand wrapping around the other man's dick and stroking with practiced ease.
Gunner licked his lips as he watched Buck crawl. "Glad to know you're not ashamed of your submissiveness, it's good to see," he smiled, and sat back as he watched the sub stroke his cock for him. "Show me what you can do, handsome. Enjoy yourself."
"I always knew I was gonna be a sub. Mom would have had a fit otherwise!" he chuckled, then grinned. "Oh, I plan to, Sir." He bent down, dragging his tongue up the length of Gunner's cock before wrapping his lips around the tip and sucking, humming happily as his mouth was filled.
Gunner chuckled too, and reached out to pet Buck on the head. "I bet you plan to," he grinned, before groaning as he felt Buck's tongue on his shaft. "Aw, fuck, that feels good," he moaned, as he sank back against the seat.
Now that he had his mouth on Gunner, Buck let his hands fall to the Dominant's thighs, squeezing and kneeding the muscular flesh as he began to bob his head, swallowing him deeper with each pass. Occasionally, he looked up, checking Gunner's expressions, figuring out what movements and touches worked best for him.
There wasn't much Gunner liked more than simply sitting back, and letting a submissive pleasure him. It was so simple, yet filled with the power dynamic Gunner loved. He kept a hand on Buck's head, but didn't control the sub's movements yet. "Don't ignore my balls, Wilde. Fucking love having my balls played with."
Buck arched a brow at the suggestion, knowing the man meant to use his hands...which he would. But first, he took a breath and pushed himself to swallow Gunner to the root. As his throat worked around his cock, Buck poked out his tongue, lapping at the aforementioned balls.
Gunner frowned for a moment, wondering why Buck wasn't already playing with his balls, before he saw what the submissive was doing. "Oh, fuck," he gasped out, sitting up quickly. "Fuck, love it when subs do that. Lick my balls, boy, lick those goddamn balls," he groaned.
Unable to respond with more than a little nod, Buck kept it up until he had to pull back or risk really gagging. He coughed for a moment, resuming stroking Gunner's dick before diving down to lick and suck at his balls. "Like this, Sir?" he asked, then pressed his tongue hard into the other man's perinium. "You want a rimjob too, or should I stick with dick and balls?"
Gunner was almost positive he saw stars when Buck unexpectedly licked at his taint. "Fuck," he hissed, his dick drooling against Buck's fingers now. "You might be one of the best fucking subs here, boy," he grinned. "God, I'm a fucking genius for setting this up," he said cockily, before nodding. "Like I said, enjoy yourself," he teased, as he changed angles a little, raising his ass up so Buck would have better access.
The praise made Buck beam, his own cock twitching, hard and flushed, between his legs. "Thank you, Sir!" he said happily, moving to cup Gunner's ass and lift his hips a bit higher. A benefit of being bigg and stronger than a lot of people was the ability to surprise those who were used to being the stronger ones in any pairing. Spreading the firm cheeks, he buried his face in them, tongue working over the crinkled pucker even as he nuzzled the man's balls.
Gunner grinned, thinking that Buck looked adorable when he received praise. He made a mental note to play with that a little more. He let out a surprised gasp at how easily Buck moved him, something he definitely wasn't used to, but he wasn't opposed to it at all. "Oh, god," he moaned, as he felt Buck's tongue running over his hole. "Get right in there, Wilde."
With that encouragment, Buck swirled his tongue around Gunner's tight hole before pressing the tip inside. He repeated the actions again and again, fingers squeezing his ass before licking a stripe from his ass, over his balls and back up his cock, which Buck then swallowed deep again as he let his finger rub at the spit slick hole, not breeching him, but offering extra stimulation.
Gunner sank back against the back of the sofa as Buck swallowed his cock down, while still teasing his hole. "Fuck...nobody's done this to me in like, a year," he gasped out, his hand reaching up without him even really thinking about it, and tweaking his own nipple. "Someone's a fucking natural, dude, a total fucking natural."
Arching a brow, buck pulled back long enough to gasp, "Really? I'd think subs would be lining up for you?" Then he resumed sucking Gunner's cock, his hands busy caressing his balls and playing between his cheeks. Glancing up at the Dom, Buck gave him a smile, full, pink lips stretched around the shaft of his cock.
"Oh they are," Gunner grinned. "But none of them played with my ass while sucking me," he explained. When Buck smiled up at him around his cock, Gunner winked at him and playfully messed up his hair. "Big finale time, Wilde. It's your gram, so where do you want it the most?" he teased.
Buck slid his mouth off of Gunner and slapped the other man's cock lightly against his cheek, pre-cum smearing on his skin. "I think I'd look good with a load on my face today, Sir," he said cheekily, then added, "They missed out then, Sir. You've got a great ass. I'd be happy to spend some time giving it the attention it deserves some time!"
Gunner laughed at Buck's eagerness. "I bet you would. That's a plan then, you cheeky little sub," he teased, as he reached out to run his finger through the smear of pre-cum on Buck's cheek, before wiping his finger on Buck's bottom lip. He took a deep breath. "We'll see about that. It takes a lot for me to be comfortable with more than rimming," he admitted, but smiled down at Buck all the same.
Licking Gunner's cum off his lip, Buck arched his brow. It had been a while since someone referred to him as little. "I didn't mean fucking you, Sir. I'm pretty much a bottom, though on rare occasions I enjoy topping. I just meant spending a lot more time than I did today worshiping your ass with my lips and tongue."
Gunner smiled at Buck's explanation, and nodded. He knew explaining his own reasoning behind his reluctance to casually bottom would be a giant mood-killer, but he could see himself having that serious conversation with someone as sweet as Buck, some day. "Because my ass deserves to have your lips and tongue worshipping it, doesn't it?" he smirked, happy to let his cocky side show every so often. "Make me cum, Wilde."
"It does, Sir," he said, nodding seriously, then throwing in a wink and a smile before beginning to stroke Gunner's cock. He wrapped his lips around the tip, teasing it with his tongue, using his free hand to massage Gunner's balls. He was paying attention, waiting for the feeling of the Dom's comming orgasm and, when he felt it beginning, he drew back, aiming Gunner's cock at his face even as he kept stroking.
With all the attention to detail Buck had shown in the time he'd been in Gunner's suite, he had no problem believing that Buck was going to take care of every little detail right now. He could see Buck watching him, paying attention to every little indication that Gunner might be ready to shoot. He was panting a little quickly, and as Buck took his mouth away and kept stroking him, Gunner lost it. He shot hard, all over Buck's handsome face.
His hand kept moving through the dominant's oragsm and Buck gave a moan of his own as the hot spurts of cum hit his cheeks. He closed his eyes to prevent getting any in it and felt some streak his eyelashes, probably hitting his brithmark. When it was over, he blinked up at Gunner and gave him a smile before licking the remaining drops of cum from the head of his cock. "Thank you, SIr."
Gunner was panting heavily, and felt like every bone has been sucked from his body. Buck was something else, he was coming to realise. He'd kept his eyes owned, watching Buck take his load over his face, and grinned as the submissive actually thanked him. Being thanked for something like this was something that Gunner adored. "This is how a boy like you should always look."
Buck licked a bit of cum from his lips, but otherwise made no move to wipe his face. His cheeks were flushed with pleasure and he nodded. "I like it too, Sir," he said, shifting, still ignoring his own cock, which was practically dripping pre-cum by now. "Like...everyone who sees me can see I was a good boy."
"That's exactly what I'm thinking, looking at you. That you've been a very good boy," Gunner smiled, as he watched Buck carefully. He glanced downwards, seeing how hard and eager Buck's own cock was. Teasingly, he nudged the sub's shaft with his foot. "If you can ignore that all day, I'll let you blow me again during lunch tomorrow," Gunner smirked wickedly.
A little whine of pleasure escaped Buck when Gunner said that he'd been a good boy...then he gasped as his cock was nudged, hips jerking reflexivly. "Oh fuck...you know how to temp a guy, Sir," he said, biting his lips and then giving a jerky nod. "I can do it. I can be good and earn your cock again."
Gunner definitely noticed how much the praise had affected Buck then, and chuckled as Buck cursed. "Yeah? You're on the honour system, so I'm trusting you not to jerk off and lie to me, Wilde," Gunner said, with a more firm tone to his voice. He reached out and cupped the back of Buck's head, gently guiding him to rest his head against Gunner's thigh. "You've got a thing for being praised, haven't you?"
"I wouldn't lie, Sir!" Buck said, sounding a little scandalized. Sure, he wanted to grab his dick, but he said he wouldn't, so he wouldn't. Feeling Gunner's hand on his head was soothing and he went with him, pressing his head to the other man's thigh and sighing. "Yes, Sir...who doesn't like to be told they're good?"
"How does someone with a load of cum on their face manage to sound so innocent?" Gunner smiled at Buck's reaction. He ran his fingers through Buck's short hair, as he looked down at him. "I'm going to give you the chance to earn some more praise today. I'm going to walk you back to your dorm, and you can put clothes back on because it's cold out, but you're not allowed to clean your face until after I've dropped you off."
Considering the question, Buck shrugged. "Maybe cuz I'm being honest? About it all. Lying just seems like way too much work to be worth it," he said, then smiled and nodded. "I can so that, Sir...Should I start getting dressed now?" He glanced across the room to where his clothes lay in a pile.
Buck's sweet earnestness was going to kill him, Gunner was sure of it. "Honesty is the best policy, especially for a good sub like you, Wilde," Gunner chuckled, and then nodded. "Go put your clothes on, and kneel for me at the door while I go get dressed too," Gunner nodded.
"Can do, Sir," Buck said, then crawled back over to his clothes. He stood to dress thoug, turning so Gunner could see him carefully tuck his dick into his boxer briefs and then pull on his jeans. The line of his cock was visible through the denim still, but he ignored it in favor of doning his boots and Henley, then crawling over to the door.
Gunner simply sat there as Buck got dressed. There was no way he was going to miss that show. He chuckled to himself as the submissive crawled over to the door, before he got up, and moved to his bedroom. He pulled on a pair of jeans, and a NYC sweater, before stepping into his Vans. He walked back out to the main room, and over to Buck. "You look like a work of art, kneeling for me," Gunner smiled, as he gestured for Buck to stand.
Buck rolled easily to his feet, bouncing a bit on his toes. "Thank you, Sir," he said appily. "You're not exactly a slouch in the looks department yourself. He stretched his arms up above his head and grinned as the joints gave a pop. "Is it bad I'm already looking forward to lunch tomorrow?"
"Thank you," Gunner smiled at the compliment, and opened the front door as Buck stood. He didn't hesitate to slip his hand into the back pocket of Buck's jeans, cupping his ass cheek as they walked out of the door. "Oh, definitely not," he laughed softly, as he closed the door and they began to walk down the hallway. "I love that you're this eager to serve me. Nothing turns me on more than a sub who's genuinely eager to do something for me, even if that thing is non-sexual."
The hand in his pocket made Buck smile and he nodded. "I like subbing. I feel bad when people don't like their marks. That's gotta be hard," he said, then chuckled, "Well, I'm definitely available for sexual or non-sexual needs. I'm a decent cook. Mom made sure our cook taught me, cuz she was sure I was gonna be the family sub and I'd need to knw how."
"And I like dominating," Gunner smiled. "Yeah, one of my brothers is struggling with that. But that's our father's fault. He did his best to set us all up as Doms, even though he knew it'd fuck over at least once of us," Gunner rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah? I'm definitely gonna have to put you to work in my kitchen then. Maybe have you kneel next to me while I eat it, too."
Wincing in sympathy for Gunner's brother, Buck said, "Oh, why would your Dad do that...no, you don't have to tell me, Sir. Parent expectations. At least I fit into Mom's world view. Though I don't think she thought I'd be this big." When Gunner mentioned cooking for him and kneeling, Buck grinned ar him, cum covers cheeks crinkling. "I can do that. I like to cook healthy and limit animal protien, but I do know how to cook meats if you like those best."
"That was definitely a big part of it," Gunner nodded. He smiled a little at the mention of Buck's size. "I've got to admit, I've never played with a submissive taller than me before, and more muscled. I've never even thought about it, but it is...a really big turn on," he chuckled. "I'm always going to love a good steak, but I'm happy to let you do whatever you do best in the kitchen, unless you cooking for me becomes a regular thing. Then I'd want you to learn some of my favourite recipes."
"A lot of Doms say that," Buck chuckled. "I never really thought too hard about it when I was younger, but then as I got older, people started assuming I was a Dom or a switch...but that is so not me. I'm totally a little spoon." He nodded happily when Gunner said he could make what he liked. "Do you like seafood, Sir? I have some nice fish recipes."
Gunner grinned, and playfully squeezed Buck's ass cheek through his jeans pocket. "Then when you sleep over, not if, I'll be sure to keep my little spoon safe and wrapped up in my arms," he teased gently. "Nobody who sees you right now will think you're a Dom though, Wilde," he added. "I do, so prepare some recipes and I'll make sure I've got the ingredients in."
Buck's cheeks fulshed when Gunner told him no one would think he was a Dom. A good, happy flush and he laughed, "Probably not too many doms happy to wear a load of cum on their face in public, huh?" He couldn't help but give a pleased wiggle when a sleepover was mentioned and he nodded. "I'll definitely do that, Sir!"
"Definitely not," Gunner chuckled, as they walked out of the Dom dorms, and walked the path to the sub dorms. "Which is why you should look like this as much as possible. Show everyone what an amazing boy you are," he grinned. "I'm sure I can donate to that cause as much as you need," he teased. He grinned to himself, pleased with how Buck was so excited about a sleepover that he wiggled. "Now, remember," Gunner said. "What are not to do for the rest of the day, and tomorrow morning?"
"Gonna paint my face again tomorrow, Sir?" he asked, arching a brow and wondering if he'd wind up spending the second half of the day like this. He didn't think he'd mind that at all. A littl huff escaped him. "No jerking off, no cumming," he said. "I won't touch it except to use the bathroom, wash and dress."
"I don't know, you'll need some lunch after all, and I'd be a bad Dom if I didn't let you get some protein inside you," Gunner grinned wickedly. "But the idea of you sitting through afternoon classes with my load on your face, well, that's a fucking good idea," Gunner laughed, as they walked into the sub dorms. "Good boy. You can consider that dick and balls my property until lunch tomorrow."
"I drink a protein shake in the morning, Sir," Buck said with a cheeky grin, tongue touching his lower lip again. He led the way to his room, stopping outside the door. "They're yours till then, Sir...and if you ever wanna try for longer let me know. I got a cock cage."
Gunner groaned dramatically at the mention of a cock cage, and pulled his hand from Buck's jeans. "Don't turn me on again, or I'll have to paint your face even more," he teased. "Get on your knees, and say goodbye like a good sub," Gunner ordered, curious to see what Buck would do with that slightly vague order.
Buck grinned at Gunner and said in a droll tone, "Oh no, wouldn't want to do that, Sir. Whatever would I do?" He sank to his knees, then sat his ass on his heels to make himself a little shorter, so as to better look up at Gunner. "Thank you for letting me suck your cock, Sir, and covering my face with your cum. I look forward to being a good boy for you again!"
Gunner laughed at Buck's tone, and resisted the urge to slap his ass once again. He watched the submissive move onto his knees, and smiled as Buck spoke. "You're welcome, Wilde. I'm looking forward to tomorrow too," Gunner reassured him. "Crawl on inside, you good little boy."
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