#the harringrove brain rot is so real right now

[psychdelia]

feeling dramatic and thinking about post s3/s4 billy joining the party, specifically steve, robin, eddie, and nancy. he’s quieter now, a little paler, hair longer and chubbier (because i said so >>:)))

but the main difference is how he wears his heart on his sleeve now. has no energy for the anger that used to constantly simmer under his skin. he cries a lot more now, it’s the easiest and only release he can handle. the first time he cried in front of everyone was when he and max reunited, leaning heavily and sobbing into her shoulder, choking out apologies. the second time is when eddie tells them what happened to chrissy because this can’t be happening again and he’s terrified of the monsters that lie below hawkins, terrified to become their next victim again.

thinking about the way he watches steve and nancy, longing and yearning. wishing it was him who was able to talk to steve, laugh with him, touch him. even just be close to him. his expressions give away everything on his mind, and if they didn’t then his eyes wet with unshed tears surely does.

the third time he cries in front of them is when eddie and robin catch onto the way he looks at nancy and steve. at first they thought it was because he liked nancy, which billy stupidly snorted at. once they figured out it was actually steve, his heart dropped and he had to beg them through tears to not say anything. to just drop it and not tell anyone. because even though neil had fucked off when he was still dead to the world, he was still terrified. didn’t want people in hawkins to find out the new zombie boy raised from the dead was also a raging queer with a fat crush on the same guy he beat up years ago.

the fourth time is after steve got dragged back down into lover’s lake, billy being the first one to stupidly jump in after him. he barely reaches steve on time, practically straddling the guy as he rips the monsters on his torso away from him, out of him. when steve’s up and manages to slam and rip apart the one that had been choking him, billy breaks down into sobs. he’s overwhelmed and tired and his adrenaline is dropping just as fast as it came. he’s leaning heavily against steve, legs wobbly like jello as he cries into the guy’s bare chest, gripping at his shoulders so tight. even through his own pain steve comforts him, tells him he’s okay. they’re both okay. billy just cries harder, shoulders shaking as he shakes his head. he can’t handle losing anyone anymore, especially not steve.

robin and eddie awkwardly stare at the ground, looking anywhere but at steve who gives them confused looks as he cradles billy, not understanding why this is what sent billy into a meltdown. he always thought the guy still wasn’t too fond of him.

nancy, though. nancy’s not stupid or blind. she would catch billy’s longing looks, the way his eyes would drop the second nancy looked back when she felt him staring. she caught the way he would always be watching steve, eyes far too soft for them being just friends. it’s her turn to watch them now, frowning with her lips pursed as she connects the dots. steve seems to sense everyone knows something he doesn’t, but with an armful of crying billy hargrove in the upside down, he decides it’s best to wait to ask any questions.

[ariesbilly]

Do u have any new fredsythe stranger things au thoughts 👉👈

i feel like i had a really neat thought the other day but i cant remember it now lmfao

i want to say is something about fredsythe as harringrove kfsjbgjks the brain rot is so real right now i’ll be normal by december

you know what we SHOULD consider tho?

fp as a kid held up in a lab being experimented on and escapes only for baby fred to run into him and hide him out in his basement. i think thats something we have no explored and i would like to

and then fp can use his mind powers to break hirams arm when hes bullying fred. this started off as a joke and im quickly descending into madness....

[magniloquent-raven]

this is a harringrove for ukraine commission, feel free to check out my info post if you'd like me to write you something

tysm to @callieb for donating 💕💕 i really hope you enjoy your fic!!

(read on ao3)

(cw: brief suicidal ideation)

The Devil Held Me By My Sins

Twelve weeks, to the day.

That’s how long it’s been. They tell him once his breathing starts to level out. Once they’re sure he won’t attack anyone, maybe. He’s still crouched on the ground like a feral animal, coiled and tense and terrified, but he hasn’t moved and he doubts he looks like much of a threat right now, while he’s trembling like a leaf.

He couldn’t tell whose voice it was, not through the haze his ebbing panic attack left behind.

The faces around him are familiar but he barely recognizes them. Especially Max. Her teary stare and the mangled hope in her eyes. She looks older. Her hair is shorter. And she’s looking at him like she missed him.

Time didn’t mean much to the unchanging landscape of whatever hell he was trapped in, but he felt it nonetheless. Unavoidably. Monotonously. Survival was harrowing, scrounging for food and hiding from monsters, but the worst part was the hours blending together into one endless, desolate blur as he struggled to keep himself from crawling out of his own skin to escape the restlessness.

Boredom ate away at him. Loneliness. He started to consider letting one of the creatures he encountered attack him just to put a fucking end to it. Or at the very least remind him what it was like to touch another living being. He’d never gone so long without contact of any kind. He’d have welcomed a beating from his father if it meant being touched. Anything would be better than grasping at his own sides and pressing as hard as he could just to try and replicate the sensation of being held, wondering if this was just his life now. Wondering what he was even surviving for.

But then someone pulled him out, and…and it was all just too much. Being real again.

After twelve weeks.

It’s nearly October, his brain supplies like that means a damn thing.

He missed Max’s first day of high school. A revelation that he should be able to feel, but trying to squeeze emotion out of it is like trying to cry underwater. Pointless. Overwhelming. Filling his lungs with water to the point of numbness. He closes his eyes and reaches blindly for something to anchor him.

The air is too light, wherever they are. It doesn’t stick to the inside of his lungs, doesn’t coat the back of his throat with its sickly-sweet stench of rot and mold and copper. It smells earthy here. Dry and crumbly, like the handfuls of potting soil his mother would let him play with while she pretended he was helping her garden. Leaves crunch under his shins, bits clinging to his tattered jeans. A breeze moves stray curls on the back of his neck. His skin feels too tight, streaked with mud and tacky sweat. The wind makes him itchy.

No one tries to touch him again.

When someone finally speaks it punches a quiet wheeze out of Billy in one sharp breath.

“We should, um. My house is closest. We should take him there.”

Billy spent three months trying to remember what that voice sounded like.

Memories had plagued him in that place. Haunted him. Played over and over in his head. Heather’s final moments. His own father looking him in the eye and not noticing anything was wrong. Max pleading with him to remember who he is. Sitting in a parking lot revving his engine and hoping, desperately, that he won’t have to watch blood spatter across his windshield. And Steve…

The way he looked after basketball practice, flushed and dishevelled, peeling his sweaty shirt off unselfconsciously, like he didn’t know or didn’t care that Billy was watching. That glimmer in his eyes that he got right before he made a dumbass joke. His hands, gentle and firm and nimble-fingered, pressed to Billy’s chest, warming his skin. The look on his face after Billy kissed him for the first time. What his lips tasted like. What the rest of him tasted like.

The things Billy said to him the last time they saw each other.

He hated how they left things. Hated himself because it was his fucking fault. He had no right to the comfort he found thinking about Steve, but he was greedy. Couldn’t stop. Even though it always ended with him burying his face in his hands to muffle his ragged, gasping sobs, their parting words echoing soundlessly in his head.

Fuck, he’s missed Steve’s voice.

“Can—can you stand?” Max wavers, hands dangling at her sides, fingers clenching and unclenching as she waits. “Billy?”

“Yeah,” he rasps. Jesus, how long has it been since he heard his own voice? He’s sure it didn’t used to sound like that.

Everyone backs away to a respectful distance as he pushes himself to his feet. Steve stays the closest. Close enough that Billy can see the dark circles under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and his band geek friend is standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder that Billy’s trying to ignore. Looking at him hurts, but he can’t seem to stop.

El and Max hover in his periphery, where they stay the entire walk to Steve’s house. They whisper to each other, quietly enough that it’s white noise, but it’s distracting. When he was in that other place he could hear echoes sometimes. Whispers. Snippets of conversation between people who weren’t there. Hearing it now puts him on edge.

He keeps waiting for everything to go back. Every time he blinks he expects to see ruins when he opens his eyes again.

The little things, though. It’s the little things that almost make him believe this is really happening. It’s warmer here. The sun is setting, but still visible. He can hear birds overhead. The only thing that stinks like stale blood and slime mold is him.

If he imagined all this it probably wouldn’t be so detailed. Right?

It’s not quite comforting, but it’s something. Doesn’t stop him from jumping at shadows that look a little too much like teeth, but…still.

The sun has gone down by the time they make it to the outskirts of the woods. Steve left lights on in his house, and the soft yellow glow coming through drawn blinds is just about the most surreal thing Billy’s ever seen.

He spent a lot of time in Steve’s house. The other one. With its empty pool and broken windows. He’d curl up in Steve’s bed when he got tired, hating that it didn’t smell like the dryer sheets Steve used to hide his pot smoking, and the room wasn’t a thousand degrees because Steve always kept his heater cranked, and it was too fucking quiet.

He’d almost forgotten how clean the Harringtons’ house is supposed to be.

Steve pushes the sliding door open for them all, standing there nervously even though he doesn’t need to hold it open. Billy brushes past him, shrinking in on himself to avoid contact. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Steve wilt.

“You—you can borrow some of my stuff,” Steve offers. The lock clicks shut while Billy stares at a hanging lamp. He never could place what that was. It’s severed from its chain in the other place, laying on the floor with a vine growing through one of the decorative folds. “If you wanna take a shower. Or just…sleep. Or. Whatever. I have—y’know that sweater, um.” Steve’s gaze flickers to Max and El, who don’t seem to be listening, and his shoulders relax a fraction.

Billy never did get the chance to tell Steve that Max found out they were fucking. He’s surprised that Max didn’t say anything, though. And apparently neither did El, after she went rooting around in his head.

Steve and his friend exchange a glance that Billy can’t read. A second later she’s turning and calling out, “Hey, short people. Help me raid the fancy kitchen, I’m fuckin’ starving.”

She pats Steve’s shoulder, and throws a critical look at Billy, before she lopes off, Max and El in tow.

And then they’re alone.

Billy can’t breathe.

“Did…you wanna take a shower? I mean. Uh, no offence, just, I know you hate it when your hair gets all tangled. Still got some of your conditioner, um, somewhere. I—I think. So…” Steve fiddles with the zipper on his jacket. “Is there anything you want? Like. Food or whatever. I’m sure Robin’s just eating those weird chips my mom keeps in the house, there’s plenty of other stuff…”

Part of him wants Steve to keep going. The selfish, desperate part of him that warms when Steve frets over him. The part that does anything and everything to get closer to Steve. Longs for his attention, his time, his touch.

A part that refuses to fucking die, no matter how much he smothers it.

“You don’t have to pretend you care, Harrington,” Billy says quietly, voice still rough from disuse.

“Oh, fuck you,” Steve snaps, suddenly, a dour bitterness dulling the bite of his words despite the anger in his tense posture. “You don’t get to do that. After…after everything that happened? You scared the shit out of everyone, okay, we all care. And I—you were an asshole, but that didn’t…I wasn’t…Shit,” he hisses, swiping at his nose with the back of his hand. His eyes are wet. He won’t stop looking at Billy with his big, stupid doe-eyes all red-rimmed and swimming with things that make even less sense than tears. He sniffles, mouth tight at the corners, nose wrinkling a little as he tries to keep it together. The sight of him tugs at Billy, right in the centre of his chest. That grip on his heart squeezes when Steve starts talking again, his voice low, “I didn’t write you off. I was giving you space. It was just supposed to be, like, a couple weeks, but…”

A soft, pained noise catches in Billy’s throat. He purses his lips trying to contain it, but he sees Steve’s face soften, his gaze flicker down for a moment.

“I had a whole speech planned, y’know,” Steve admits after a pause, ire drained away entirely, leaving him slumped and exhausted. “Probably would’ve forgotten most of it when you were actually standing in front of me, but I…I kept trying to think of the exact right thing to say. To make it better. But I didn’t…I don’t know what I did…”

“Nothing,” Billy says grimly.

“I don’t—”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Steve gnaws on his bottom lip. “Then why…?”

And isn’t that the million dollar question.

When Max found Steve’s cassettes in his glove box he balked. Froze, like he’d been caught with his fucking pants down, like it wasn’t something he could’ve easily explained away. If he hadn’t freaked the fuck out over nothing…

But she knew. Immediately. Dropped the stupid R.E.M tape like it burned her and stared at him as it clattered to the floor and skittered under the passenger seat. She didn’t interrogate him like he half-expected her to. Neither of them said a word.

Still, it rattled him. Because this thing between him and Steve wasn’t even a relationship, not really, but he’d been head over heels since the beginning and he knew it. And the last time Max knew about a boy he liked she nearly got them both killed.

So he did what he’d always done when he was scared. He ran. Pushed Steve away and crawled as deep into the closet as he could. So goddamn deep he could almost convince himself that sleeping with Karen Wheeler was a good idea.

Until his shitty decisions ruined his life in ways he didn’t realize were possible.

“Because I’m a fucking idiot, that’s why,” Billy mutters. “And if you were gonna give me a second chance, so are you.”

“Yeah, well. Never said I wasn’t.” He pauses. “Would you have taken me back?”

In a heartbeat. “It’s not that simple.”

“Oh. Billy, if—if you meant what you said just tell me. I’m kind of fucking over chasing after people who will never love me back.”

“...What?”

“I saw you crying after you left, and I always sort of thought…like, you were just lashing out and then regretted it, maybe. I kinda hoped that’s what it was. ‘Cause it was better than the alternative. But if I was reading this, us, all wrong, then…”

“I—” Billy winces. He chews on what’s left of his thumbnail, and doesn’t stop when he tastes blood. This was…not how he expected his day to end, to say the least. Thinking about it makes him lightheaded. “You didn’t. I just…” His throat contracts, and his breath hitches. Tears start to sting his eyes.

“Shit—Billy, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up, like, immediately, shit…” Steve takes a step towards him, and stops, seeming to remember himself. He shoves his hands in his pockets, expression strained. “Sorry. I…bad timing.”

Billy waves a hand weakly, a half-hearted dismissal.

“Is it okay if I tell you I missed you?” Steve asks carefully, fidgeting and inching just a little bit closer. He’s doing his best to keep his face neutral but he’s failing miserably. “Not…expecting anything, just. Jesus, it’s good to see you. I thought…we all thought you were gone.”

Billy rubs a hand over the scars on his chest. His heart hammers against his palm. “I slept here whenever I could,” he admits after a prolonged pause. “When I was…over there. It was the only place I could almost feel safe. ‘Cause it reminded me of you.”

“...Oh.” Steve’s eyes are wide, wandering his face with something akin to wonder. “Can I…” He pauses, biting his lip. His hands flits anxiously, wavering in the space between them, brushing his bangs aside, gripping at his elbows. “Can I touch you? Billy, I—” something in his expression cracks open, nervousness giving way to something soft and vulnerable and wounded. “I want to touch you.”

Billy’s eyes fall shut as a shiver trickles down his spine.

It doesn’t sound like a lie. Not just because he knows Steve wouldn’t ever lie about something like that. He’s not like Billy, not like Nancy, not capable of stringing someone along when he doesn’t want to be there. Even at his worst he never lied about wanting someone. He’s never had to. And now. Now he’s too good a person to want to.

It’s not a lie.

But it feels like one. It shouldn’t, but it’s cold on his skin, hollow like a rotted thing, breaking apart when he tries to hold on to it. His doubts curdle in his guts. He breathes slow through his nose.

The darkness outside isn’t full of monsters anymore. He has to remind himself. He isn’t going to wake up if Steve touches him. This is real. He’s real.

“Yeah,” Billy croaks.

He braces himself, not sure what to expect this time. He doesn’t actually know who touched him during the rescue. Or if that makes a difference. Maybe it’ll be better when it’s Steve. Or worse, because he’s always felt more when Steve touched him than when anyone else did, and right now that might be…a problem.

It starts slow. Hesitant. Steve’s fingertips brushing his shoulder.

He still jolts, his whole body tensing, every goddamn nerve a live wire. Steve retreats a little but Billy’s hand shoots up to grab his wrist. And his grip is probably too tight, and it’s an awkward angle, and he’s so unsteady he’s pretty sure that one point of contact is the only thing keeping him upright, but…

God, he’s so fucking warm. Steve’s pulse pounds under his palm, and the muscles in his forearm shift a little as he readjusts, reaching out again. It’s all he can focus on.

Until Steve’s knuckle gently brushes his cheek, wiping away tears. And it’s like a dam breaking. Suddenly he can feel everything. The knot in his lower back that he’d just learned to ignore. The cut on his shin that his jeans are stuck to. His aching scalp, knotted curls brushing his shoulders, itching against his neck, his forehead. Every inch of grubby skin under clothes that he stole out of a dresser in some random house.

And Steve’s hands. Steady and grounding and here. Cupping his face like he used to right before pulling him in for a kiss.

A sob catches in his throat, and he collapses against Steve’s chest, twisting his fingers into the soft material of his t-shirt, burying his face in the crook of his neck.

He still smells like honey and clover. Like home. And when he murmurs, “Alright, let it out, it’s okay,” and other comforting nonsense into Billy’s matted curls, Billy almost believes him.

~~tag list lovelies @spreckle @growup-thatbeautiful 💕💕~~

[bird-in-a-cage]

71, 72, 51 harringrove please

Hi anon! Thanks for the requests, the rest of the list can be found here.

I enjoyed melding all these together, while I didn’t use the lines exactly the sentiment of them is there.

Please enjoy!

51 - I thought you died

71 - My throat feels tight

72 - I-I can’t breathe...

Turned

“Billy! Holy shit, you’re alive! I thought you’d died or something!” Steve’s voice echoed down the long back corridor behind Scoops. Employees only. But now wasn’t the time for rules. Now was the time for getting the hell out of here before it all went skyward even more than it already was. “Hey man, we gotta go, Max is-”

The rest of the sentence was choked off, Billy’s thick hand wrapped around Steve’s throat and pushed him up the wall, off his feet, barely on his toes. Impossibly strong. He’d only glanced away for a second, back through the doors from where he came, just to check everyone was still okay. A quick headcount. He didn’t know how Billy had gotten here, or even why he was here, Steve was just happy to see a familiar face after the nightmare of the Russians that had spiralled into this new nightmare of faceless monsters he thought were all in the past, but just kept coming back again and again. He just couldn’t wake up no matter how much he slept.

Seeing Billy this close though, something was horribly different. He was still wide and tough but his body was lined with black veins, stretching up into his face towards his eyes. Still blue but dark. Staring straight through him like Steve wasn’t even there. He wrapped his hands around Billy’s arm tight, trying to get him to let go. The world was starting to get blurry around the edges. Billy’s face split into a grin after a slow blink, pressing closer into Steve’s space.

“Pretty Boy,” he drawled in a recognising tone, like his tongue wasn’t his own anymore. Voice sounding like a backwards record. Fear raced up Steve’s spine as he dug his nails into muscle and skin, took the risk to kick at Billy to let go but it was like attacking a brick wall. The black was creeping in more and more into his vision, becoming nothing but pinpricks of shapes and colours.

Being thrown to the ground was a mercy. Steve gasped for air and scrambled to his knees, sneakers squeaking on the tile as a baser instinct kicked in. The one that was working overtime to keep him alive this long. Run. But being choked and drugged and tortured had worn him down. His brain was still foggy with whatever was left in his system, it wasn’t talking to all his limbs at the right time in the right way. It was like learning to walk after growing two feet in less than a month all over again.

Billy just took two confident steps forward and Steve was pinned to the floor between his legs as he knelt down, staring up at eyes that were too dark and skin that looked cracked and broken. There was something in there though, something that wasn’t whatever was happening on the outside. Something soft that Steve had maybe seen once or twice. Certainly not at their fight at the Byer’s though. In passing, when Billy had been dropping Max off at the arcade and Steve had been doing the same with the rest of the twerps. When they had just nodded at each other across the lot. A calm acceptance of each others’ presence in the aftermath. When there wasn’t a need for a tough front anymore.

Steve tried backing away, tried kicking his way out from underneath what was apparently just a deadweight of pure muscle, but it was useless. The fight in him was dying. He could barely see out of one eye, he could still feel Billy’s hands around his throat tight and unforgiving. All the fight left in him felt weak in comparison. He didn’t just let his arms get pinned to the floor above his head though. He tried breaking away one more time, but that just led to his head being slammed down hard to stop his squirming. The bright fluorescent lights in the ceiling swirling and creating shadows that couldn’t possibly be there, long and numerous like extra arms reaching the walls. Causing Steve to hear things clear as day that couldn’t possibly be real through the sharp ringing in his ears.

He likes you Pretty Boy.

Billy’s mouth didn’t move with the words. One hand held onto both of Steve’s wrists. The air felt thick. His body still couldn’t get enough, throat obviously bruised now, but he still kept fighting weakly. He didn’t want to die in a sailor’s uniform. Thought he’d at least escaped that horrific possibility. Someone was going to find him like this and he’d just die of embarrassment all over again. Billy sat more on his hips, heavy and unyielding, forcing more precious air out of his body. His free hand pressed the side of Steve's face into the cold floor. Everything was cold. The tile. Billy's hands. He looked like he should have been running hot like a furnace but he was freezing. Colder than ice. His thick thumb pulled at the tender skin around the cut on Steve's lip, ripping it back open. Steve could only hiss and try to wriggle out of it. Out of whatever was happening. Out of the damn mall and somewhere he could hide forever. Away from all of this. Away from the world that clearly wanted him dead.

Steve's eyes flew open in fright as he saw Billy lean down, lean in close, smelling like sweat and something musty and rotting, could only feel a tongue lapping up the blood that had dripped across his chin up to the cut that rang out raw at the rough intrusion in one long swipe.

We can use you.

"We can use you."

Don't be scared.

"Don't be scared."

Steve fought out of the grip on his head just enough to see what was happening. To see a voice echo down the hall before it left Billy's lips. Like broken stereo. Blue eyes were now drained of colour, just leaving behind completely black shadows, shiny and reflective enough that Steve could see his own fear in them. Billy smiled but it wasn't real. It was like he was a puppet and someone was pulling the strings too tight. A hand wrapped around Steve's throat again. Tighter and even more unforgiving. Choking him out for good. The world going dark. Causing his feet to twitch and sneakers to squeak pathetically at the weak movements.

"Don't be scared. You'll be safe with us," the voice mixed with Billy's as Steve gasped desperately.

The last thing Steve felt was Billy kissing him, rough and hard and mean before the world went black. He felt things grab his body, slick and smooth and cold, but everything just felt too far away. Didn't feel real. Felt like touching things through layers of cotton candy with numb fingers. Pinholes of light expanded into sight again. He was still in the hallway. Still on the floor. A lightbulb above blinked when he did. Billy wasn't smiling anymore. The lightbulb kept blinking as the pain seeped in. Endless, indescribable pain. Steve wanted to scream but his body didn't react. Didn't make a single peep of noise. Didn't even flinch to the sheer agony rattling over his brain. It was worse than the Russians. Worse than the torture. Worse than the drugs. It was worse than anything he'd ever felt before. Splitting apart and cracking and reforming. Something was tearing him apart from the inside out. He wanted to beg and cry, somehow do anything to make it stop. 

But Billy just looked at him, pulled Steve’s body and himself up off the floor so they were both standing again. A small amount of blue was back in his eyes.

“We get the girl,” two voices spoke at once. Billy’s lips moved and his voice was there but it wasn’t his words. Steve kind of understood that now. A fuzz in his brain reacted to it, calmed and soothed for only a second. It was bliss. He immediately needed more.

Steve didn’t recognise his own voice as it left his throat, desperate to just make the pain go away even a little, would say and do anything just to make it stop.

“We get the girl.”

[somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds]

The trash dumpster vessel Harringrove and “Holy shit”

Into the dumpster we go! Wow, season 3 was so good and literally just about kids growing up and finding themselves and nothing bad happened whatsoever.

 (AO3)

“Holy shit, Harrington.”

Steve whirls around so fast behind the counter that his hat nearly falls off. He wishes it had slipped down enough to cover his face so he didn’t have to meet Billy Hargrove’s eyes and smug grin. He shot a look towards Max, the one that said you know I said any of your asses were grass if he found out about this job, right?

She gave him a helpless sorry, nothing I could do look back at him.

Steve rolled his eyes at them both. “You can’t swear in here, there’s kids.”

Billy gestured around the store. “Not a damn kid in sight except Max.”

“She counts,” Steve said flatly. Robin was looking up from her magazine in the back to watch the events unfold before her. “So, what’ll you h-”

“Isn’t there something you’re supposed to say, pretty boy?”

Steve sighed through gritted teeth, then pasted on a big fake grin. “Ahoy.”

Billy mockingly saluted him, and Steve felt like dying as he said back, “Ahoy, sailor.”

Max shoved Billy’s arm. “Shut up. Steve, I want mint chocolate chip with Reese’s cups.”

Billy scoffed at that, earning another shove from her. Steve chose to let the siblings hash it out, scooping out Max’s ice cream and adding the toppings, passing it over to her. She accepted it with a smile from him, nudging Billy as she walked out to scan the magazine kiosk just outside the store. Billy looked Steve over, and Steve couldn’t read what that expression meant. He just knew that he didn’t want to deal with Billy right now. “What do you want?”

“Winning lotto numbers and a new fan belt for my car.”

“You can have rainbow sherbert,” Steve offered, and Billy cracked a grin at him, licking over his bottom lip the way he always seemed to do.

He smoothed his hair back from his face, and Steve’s eyes drifted to the whistle still hanging around his neck, the crop top and the swim trunks he was still wearing. “Are you really wearing a swimsuit to the mall?”

“Didn’t have time to change after the shift, pretty boy. Can’t all wear sailor suits.”

Steve closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Robin craned her head to watch this unfold. “Can you just tell me what you want so you can get out?”

Billy shrugged, pointing behind the glass at the ice cream closest to him. “Pistachio, two scoops. With hazelnuts, and a cherry.”

Steve smiled even faker, scooping out the ice cream and turning to the toppings bar. Robin watched him make it, and Billy noticed her as he was watching Steve from behind. “What do you think, babe?” he asked her with a smirk. “Good order?”

Robin licked her finger and turned the page, looking up at him with a faint glint in her eye, as her voice dripped in sarcasm and double entendre, “I don’t have an affinity for nuts, Hargrove.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, she smiled back with nothing behind it right as Steve turned back around with his cup, and handed it to Billy across the counter. “Two fifty.”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “I know that hairspray’s rotting your brain, pretty boy, but it’s more than that for two ice creams.”

“One’s on the house.” Billy’s expression changed into that weird one again, and Steve didn’t think about it, looking past him to point towards Max. “Hers. Pay up.”

Billy took the cherry from his cup and put the whole thing, stem and all, into his mouth as he got his wallet out of his pocket. Steve drummed his fingers on the counter. “I don’t have all day.”“Paying customer, Captain Crunch, watch the attitude,” Billy snarked back, pulling out a five and ignoring Steve’s outstretched hand to slap it on the counter. “Haven’t seen you around the pool lately.”

Steve sighed, picking up the five and opened the register to pull make change. “I have a pool, I don’t need to go to the public one.”

“Oh, sorry, King Steve, didn’t realize you’re too good to slum it with the plebeians down at the public pool.”

“I didn’t say that, asshole.”

“Ooh, watch it, there’s children here,” Billy mock gasped. Steve ignored it, but when he looked back up, Billy had the cherry stem tied in a knot on his tongue as he smirked, before he spat that onto the counter that Steve had just wiped down. He held out his hand for the change, but Steve kept it in his fist.

“I’m taking Dustin and Suzie there on Friday,” Steve told him. Why was he telling him this? “I better not see your smug ass there.”

Somehow Billy looked less smug, instead almost - surprised?  “Friday’s are my double shift, sucks for you.”

“Guess I’ll have to see you,” Steve smiled through his teeth, and Billy smiled back. Steve almost put the change in his outstretched hand, close enough they could feel the heat off each other, before he dropped two dollars and fifty cents (all in loose change) onto the counter. “Hasselhoff.”

Billy’s face broke into a grin, one that didn't feel as - mean, as his usual smiles, as he swept the change into his wallet. He took a few quarters and dropped them into the tip jar. He flashed a wink at him as he stuck his spoon of pistachio against his tongue. “Always like to tip the pretty ones after a show. See you around, Gilligan.”

Steve was glaring daggers into Billy as he walked out of the store, hoping he could feel it. He was so busy glaring that Robin had to raise her voice so he heard her.

“Earth to Steve, are you done staring at his ass and can clean the counter now?”

Steve’s eyes widened. “I - I was not staring at his ass, Robin! I was - thinking of how I can kill him.”

“While staring at his ass. You both do that, you know.”

“I - HE doesn't, I don't, you’re crazy.”

“I’m not the one who insulted the other guy into a date on Friday.”

Steve started sputtering, telling her that she was wrong, that she was crazy, there was nothing between him and Billy Hargrove but hatred, when he turned around and she was holding the damn whiteboard. So many tallies under YOU SUCK, but she was making direct eye contact as she dragged the squeaky marker under YOU RULE. One single, lone tally in that column.

It suddenly felt like waking up in the back of Billy’s car (fuck) and slamming into a mailbox.

“Holy SHIT.”

“LANGUAGE, young man!” called a disgusted mother who entered the shop with her two children, and Steve went as red as his stupid little tie on the uniform.

Fridays were Steve’s day off. He would have liked to have spent it at his own house, drinking from his parent’s supply, smoking weed, and watching TV in between doing laps. They were gone this weekend, like most weekends. It would have been perfect.

Instead, he was at a loud, crowded public pool watching two kids because he was their ride to and from this place. And Dustin, the shitbird, had just dumped his water bottle all over Steve’s hair.

“Holy shit!” he squealed when the ice-cold water ran down his back, and he sprang out of the chair and shoved Dustin.

PFTWEEEEEEET

Steve turned around sharply to see Billy fucking Hargrove with the whistle in his mouth, right behind him on his way to the lifeguard chair. Which, of fucking course, was right next to where Dustin had dumped their stuff on a few chairs. Great.

Billy was holding up two fingers as the whistle fell back against his chest. “No swearing and no horseplay in my pool, Harrington.”

Steve was sputtering because Billy Hargrove enforcing a no swearing rule was absolutely ridiculous, and then maybe he was sputtering at his abs.

What? Wait-

Billy brushed past him, his shoulder bumping against Steve’s own as he walked towards the chair, climbing up the ladder and taking a seat. Steve squinted up at him, hiding his eyes from the sun, “You’re a tyrant with a whistle, Hasselhoff.”

Billy smirked, before turning back to staring at the pool and the people swimming in it. Steve flopped back into his lounge chair, applying more sunscreen to his torso before picking back up his magazine with the Baywatch cast on the cover. He kept looking up from the pages to see if Billy was looking his way. Not because he wanted him to look, but - he was just curious, was all.

But he wasn’t looking his way.

So Steve got up from his lounge chair, stretching out, and walking towards the diving board. He bounced on the soles of his feet as he waited in line, before walking up the ladder. He looked up, and saw Billy watching him. He took a deep breath, and ran across the diving board, jumping high on the end of the board and doing two perfect flips before hitting the water in a dive, with all the grace of years and years being on a swim team.

Billy’s whistle dropped from his lips, falling against his chest again. “Holy shit,” he breathed out, soft enough nobody could hear him.

He watched Steve get out of the pool after splashing around with his weird kid friend, walking back to his spot. Billy got out of the lifeguard chair to go on his break, and he passed Steve, intending to throw an elbow at him. Steve caught his arm, though, and they got stuck in eye contact.

“You need something, pretty boy?” Billy managed to get out in the best snarky voice he could muster up. Steve didn’t move his hand, and for some reason Billy didn’t shove it off.

“Parents are out this weekend,” Steve told him. “Got some green and top shelf whiskey my dad won’t miss. And a quiet pool. If you’re interested.”

Billy stared at him, and this time, Steve could read that weird expression, even through the sunglasses. But it still helped when Billy slid them down his nose to meet his eyes, and he was smiling, not smug, but - real.

Steve realized that was the look he’d given him in Scoops, at the store Joyce worked, at the gas station.

“Shift’s over at five-thirty,” Billy told him as an answer. Steve nodded, thinking of something to say as Billy started to turn around. His eyes landed on the magazine. “Actually, with the way your flaunt your chest around, you’re more of a Pam Anderson.”

Billy snorted out a loud laugh, one that wasn’t angry or smug, sputtering out a, “holy SHIT, Harrington.”

“Language, please!” called a nearby mother, shooting them both a dirty look. Billy flashed a smile and wink at her to get her flustered before turning back to Steve.

He mouthed language at him.

Steve mouthed motherfucker back at him, and Billy shook his head, chuckling as he walked back to the snack bar.

Later that night, through the haze of too much weed and one too many shots of expensive whiskey, Steve’s nose was full of sunscreen and chlorine while Billy’s was full of vanilla and strawberry.

They didn’t realize how close they were until they were breaking apart from a kiss, staring at each other. Then they both burst into laughter, Steve’s arm around Billy’s shoulders as Billy’s hand rested on Steve’s thigh.

“Holy shit.”