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They’ve moved twice since they first came to Chicago, once midway through junior year of college for Billy and first year of academy training for Steve because their apartment building got condemned. Billy had sulked for weeks because he had loved their first apartment with its tiny kitchen and the bedroom that fit their bed and basically nothing else.
The second time they moved, it was into a goddamn penthouse.
“It is not,” Steve always said, because they weren’t on the top floor even if they had what Billy thought was a football field’s worth more space than they had two years ago.
“Entitled rich kid,” Billy always countered, just to hear him squawk that two more rooms are not a football field, Bill.
Steve had left their new address on the answering machine of the house in Hawkins, convinced he was more likely to erase the message the next time he was there than either of his parents were to ever hear it, much less give a shit. After Steve’s dad had told him he was a disappointment and a wasted investment, they’d only really talked on birthdays and Christmas. And by talked, Steve meant that he had called his mom, wished her a happy birthday, and then they’d said basically nothing for another three to five minutes before hanging up.
He hadn’t really thought she would ever call him first until she did.
“Hi honey,” she says, breezy like she talks to him all the time. “Listen, I'm in town, and I thought maybe I could stop by and see your new digs.”
“You thought you could stop by,” Steve repeats weakly, unable to process new digs.
“In about an hour?”
“In an hour,” Steve says.
“Great, see you then!”
The line clicks off before Steve fully comprehends that his mom is actually literally going to be there in an hour.
To say Steve panics would be an overstatement. He just picks up a little. It’s true, he and Billy keep a clean house – Robin say it’s freakishly clean, but Robin’s a slob – but there’s always something that could be neater. He folds the blankets on the couch into perfect squares, opens the windows to get fresh air in, makes sure the chairs at the kitchen table are aligned with the table, wipes down the counters.
He can hear Billy mocking him in his head already. You’re not fourteen anymore, Harrington. She’s not going to go looking under your bed for Playboys, and even if she does, who cares?
Steve still tidies a bit more.
Billy gets home about ten minutes before the hour Steve’s mom gave him is up, which is – it’s normal, actually, Billy works till six on Tuesdays, Steve just forgot because he’s a little stressed.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Billy asks as soon as he sees Steve, which doesn’t bode well for Steve’s ability to pretend he’s not panicking.
“My mom called and said she was stopping by in ten minutes.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Should I leave?” Billy asks, and Steve’s not sure whether to smack him on the back of the head or kiss him.
“Only if you take me with you,” he says, and he doesn’t add you idiot, but it’s implied.
Billy ducks his head, smiles that little secret smile he does whenever Steve reminds Billy he’s in this for the long haul and Billy thinks he’s gotten away with reassuring himself without Steve noticing. Steve still hasn’t figured out if he thinks it’s cute or terrible that five years into living together, Billy still does this.
Another thing on the long list of things Steve would love to punch Neil Hargrove for.
The phone rings, and Billy grabs it off the hook while Steve looks around for more things to move slightly to the left in an effort to stop his mom from finding invisible dirt.
“Yeah,” Billy’s saying. “Yeah, no, I get it, I do, I just think you’re being a little bitch about it.”
There’s a pause and then he’s holding the phone about a foot away from his ear while Max cusses a blue streak at him, grinning unrepentantly.
“Stevie,” he says, “I think this one’s more your area than mine.”
“Fuck you,” Steve says with feeling, and grabs the phone. “Hey Max.”
“Steve, thank god. Tell my brother he’s an assclown.”
“You can do that yourself, later. What’s up?”
“I was asking Billy if I could crash in your guest room tonight, but he’s such a dick that I don’t want to.”
“Understandable,” Steve says, glaring at Billy. “Did you and Lucas fight again?”
“No,” Max says. “Maybe. I guess.”
“The wedding’s in a week, kiddo.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I’m just saying, this seems like the classic time for cold feet.”
“Ugh, I know,” she sighs. “I’m such a cliché. It’s just…”
“Yeah?”
“We’ve been together since we were thirteen! What if he realizes there’s other girls with bigger boobs in two years?”
Steve debates reminding her that Lucas definitely noticed some girl with bigger boobs in their junior year of high school a little too obviously in the cafeteria, and that she had dumped him for two weeks over it, until he wrote a really terrible poem about how great Max’s boobs are and read it to her out loud on his radio without remembering to switch to their private frequency. Dustin still quotes it sometimes.
He decides against it. “I’m pretty sure Lucas isn’t dumb. He asked you to marry him, and you said yes. I’d say you both know what you’re doing. I know you’ve had other offers.”
“I guess,” Max says doubtfully. “But we’re really young. I mean, Nancy and Jonathan aren’t even married yet, and they’re super old.”
“Hey,” Steve says. “I’m not thirty yet, ergo Nancy and Jonathan definitely aren’t super old.”
Max snorts. “You’d have married my brother literally years ago if it were legal.”
Steve lets that one slide, because it’s kind of true.
“I mean, not even Mike and El are married!” Max basically yells down the phone line. “And they’re, like, the perfect couple.”
“Um,” Steve says. “Remember last year, when Mike made out with some other girl at MIT and Hopper wanted to murder him?”
“Oh yeah,” Max says. “But still, why are we the first? Won’t that, like, jinx us?”
The doorbell rings. Steve and Billy stare at each other.
Steve gestures towards the door. Billy shakes his head frantically. Steve gestures to the phone. Billy opts for the door.
“Listen, Max,” Steve says. “It sounds like you’re worrying that Lucas is going to change his mind, and that you’re both too young.”
“I’m not too young!”
There’s a murmur of voices from the hall. A shiver of dread works its way down his back.
“Great,” Steve says. “Are you going to change your mind about Lucas?”
“No!” Max says. “I know I dumped him a lot when we were younger, but I never meant it.”
Steve’s mom comes into the living room, and he cradles the phone in his shoulder to give her a hug. She smells like Estée Lauder and rain.
“Yeah,” Steve says into the phone. “Listen, Max, we’ve got company, do you wanna come over later and talk about it?”
“I’m gonna talk to Lucas. I’ll let you know.”
“Kay. Wanna talk to Billy again?”
She hangs up.
“Hi, ma,” Steve says.
“Steven,” his mom says. She’s wearing a very elegant grey dress. It matches the streaks in her hair that Steve doesn’t remember, and almost hides the extra little roll around her middle. He hasn’t seen her in more than four years.
“Do you want some coffee? Tea?” He offers. “Other than that, we only have water and beer.”
“Tea, thank you,” she says. “Why don’t you show me around, first, though?”
“I’ll get the tea,” Billy says. Coward.
Steve rubs the back of his neck. “There’s not much to see, ma. This is the living room.” He gestures around to the couch, the mismatched comfy chairs they got on sale when they moved for the first time that they could never quite get to fit in the apartment that came before this one. There’s a TV, too, a used one, nowhere near as big as any of the TVs in any of Steve’s parent’s houses.
She looks at him expectantly, so he leads her out into the hallway. “That’s the kitchen over there, Billy’s making the tea, I guess. It’s not that big, but you should have seen our first place, it’s huge by comparison. There’s a table, and chairs and everything.” He pokes his head in the kitchen, sees Billy leaning against the counter while the electric kettle boils. He grins, shark-like, but schools his expression back into bored neutrality when Steve’s mom follows him in.
“Oh, those are great dishes!” She exclaims. “Where did you find them?”
“IKEA,” Steve says.
Billy makes a noise that could potentially be a cough and hides his mouth by pretending to scratch his nose.
“So, uh,” Steve says. “On the left, that’s the study. I don’t really use it much, but Billy needs it for work sometimes, so.” The desk is the only space in the apartment that gets really messy with all of Billy’s papers and his arsenal of red pens, but the rest of the room is just bookshelves.
“Did you start reading?” Steve’s mom asks.
It’s always been a point of contention, Steve’s lack of intellectualism.
“Billy got me into some books,” Steve admits. “Mostly mysteries, though. They’re pretty much all his books.”
“Tea’s ready,” Billy says.
This saves Steve from having to show his mom the bedrooms, or rather, the master bedroom and the guest bedroom, which is good, because he really hadn’t thought that far. He’s never had to come out to his parents, because they’ve never really cared enough to be involved in his life.
Steve and Billy aren’t closeted. They’re friends with too many other gay people, for one, and for another, they’ve been together so long they’re just too much part of each other’s lives to pretend otherwise. Steve plays it close to the chest at work, because the police can be not great, but even there, he’s got a few friends who’ve come over and met Billy.
It’s easy with people from work, though. Steve just mentions Reagan or the AIDS crisis and watches their reaction. If they’re shitheads, he lets them keep thinking Billy is Billie and never talks to them again. He can’t exactly pull that with his mom.
As for Billy, that ship sailed long ago.
When Max was sixteen, she and Will and Dustin stayed with Billy and Steve for a week in the summer. It was about two months before their apartment building got condemned, and there was no room to move with three extra teenagers taking up space. It had been a great week. Will had shot up in height again since they’d seen him over Easter, and he’d finally ditched the bowl cut. He’d gotten them to see midnight screenings of obscure art movies three times that week, enthusing about reviews he’d read in the Chicago Tribune. Really, he’d been mostly enthusing about the cute guy who worked the concessions stand at midnight who kept flirting with him.
Max and Billy had sat side-by-side in the back row, combat boots up on the backrest of the empty seats in front of them, making shitty comments about the movies, inseparable in a way they never had been when they lived in the same house.
And Dustin, well, Dustin had shown up at their door with his fully-grown-in teeth in a shit-eating grin, said, “So, like, we’re all cool with you guys being a thing, now, and we can all stop pretending we don’t know?” Because he had figured them out more than a year ago and just couldn’t let Max and Will forget that they hadn’t.
It had been a great summer.
Until Neil Hargrove had shown up at their doorstep a few hours after the bus back to Hawkins left with the kids on it.
Until he was shouldering his way into their apartment, yelling at Billy that he was ruining his sister like he’d ruined his own life, that he was a disease, and useless, and worse than that. Until he’d grasped Steve by the neck, and Billy had finally had to find the spark of resistance still in him.
Billy had ended the night with a sprained wrist and glass shards sticking out of his thigh.
Neil had ended it with a broken nose and a restraining order.
So, this is a unique situation for them both.
“Steve’s gotten really into Agatha Christie,” Billy says as he hands Steve’s mom a Chicago PD mug. Billy’s kind of fussy about his tea, so it’s decent stuff at least, unlike the only coffee they have, which is shit.
“Really,” Steve’s mom says. “You know, we could never get you to read as a child. I’m so glad to hear you’ve found your own way there.”
“Well, yeah,” Steve says. “It turns out I’m dyslexic.”
“Oh,” Steve’s mom says. She looks poleaxed. “How did you, when…”
“I had a professor who said my papers only made sense if I was,” Steve says. “She got me tested for it. I’m not, like. Badly dyslexic. There are people who can’t even learn to read or write in school. I managed the reading fine, it was just spelling that was hard.”
His mom swallows heavily. “You know, you did have a primary school teacher who wondered about that. Your father didn’t believe her, but it makes sense, in retrospect.”
Steve inhales deeply and decides that it’s not worth getting upset about now.
Billy inhales deeply and gets pretty damn upset, but a warning look from Steve makes him subside.
“So, how is the police academy?”
“Oh, I finished that up last year,” Steve says. “I’m an officer now.”
“Detective, soon,” Billy says.
“Oh, really?” She actually looks interested, hooking her foot elegantly behind her other ankle, sipping her tea.
Steve shrugs. “If I’m lucky, yeah, I’ll get promoted in the new year.”
“You’ll get it,” Billy says.
“And what do you do?”
“Billy’s a writer,” Steve butts in.
“Oh really?” she asks, interested.
“I’m an editor,” Billy says. “For a small publishing company. I freelance writing book reviews sometimes.”
“You got published in the Tribune last month,” Steve argues. “You’re a writer now.”
“That’s very impressive,” she says, and they come to a standstill.
“So how are you?” Steve asks desperately.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she says. “You know. Traveling the world with your dad. He sends his love.”
It’s such a blatant lie that Steve sets his mug down a little too hard. The picture frame on the shelf behind him falls over. Steve takes another deep breath and sets it upright.
“Oh, honey, were you in the hospital?” His mom asks. “When was this?”
The picture in the frame shows him in a hospital gown, grinning loopily at the camera. Billy’s holding the camera with one arm, giving a thumbs up with the other one.
“That must have been two years ago, now,” Steve says.
“What happened?”
“Appendicitis,” Steve says. “No big.”
“No big,” Billy repeats. “Says the man who passed out in a CVS buying Tums for his appendicitis.”
Steve winces.
“They had to call an ambulance to the CVS,” Billy says. “His appendix basically exploded in the surgeon’s hand.”
“Oh my,” Steve’s mom says. “Honey, why didn’t you call?”
“Uh, I was unconscious for most of it,” Steve says. “I really only remember waking up after the surgery.”
“Why didn’t the hospital call us?” To her credit, she looks genuinely upset.
“Why would they?” Steve asks.
The thing is, he’s mostly playing dumb. He figures she still thinks she’s his emergency contact, that if something were to really, truly happen to him, she would swoop in and be his mom again. It would be sweet if it weren’t so painfully misguided.
Billy’s been his emergency contact since that night years ago, when Neil Hargrove actually followed them to Chicago.
They were sitting in the emergency room, hours later, after the neighbors had called the police, after they and Steve had both corroborated Billy’s story to the police that his dad had shown up and started threatening them both. After the police had taken Neil into custody, still spitting slurs at his own son, calling him a liar to anyone who would listen. The fact that Billy had thrown all of one punch at his dad and then taken whatever Neil shelled out, visible truth blooming red and blue and green on his skin, was probably all they would have needed to get the restraining order, but Steve had still felt satisfied in being able to tell someone in a uniform the truth after all that time.
Steve had accepted the admittance forms from the nurse because Billy couldn’t write, his right wrist already swollen and red. He’d gotten as far as filling in the insurance number on the card in Billy’s wallet and hadn’t dared ask any questions.
Once, way back when, when Billy was still climbing in through Steve’s window two or three times a week as if Steve’s parents were ever there, Steve had asked.
“Why don’t you hit back?”
Billy had looked at him, over his shoulder because Steve was spooned up against his back. “I’m trying really hard not to be him.”
So Steve was almost afraid to ask again, in the aftermath of whatever shitshow this had been, if Billy was still so unsure of his own worth that the only thing that got him to throw a punch at his dad was Steve being threatened.
“He’s been calling,” Billy told him abruptly, staring straight ahead at the Stop, Drop and Roll sign on the wall of the ER.
“What?”
“He called once,” Billy amended. “Before Max came. Told me to cancel, to not, not ruin her or whatever. I ignored it. I should’ve told her.”
“You should’ve told me,” Steve said, but he was careful to keep his tone even and not raise his voice. “I would have known better than to open the fucking door.”
“It’s not…” Billy trailed off, shifted on his chair. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
“Bill, I signed up to deal with this a long time ago and I want to deal with it with you, not just pick up the pieces.”
“He went after you,” Billy said. “You’ve got bruises.”
“He broke a glass on your leg,” Steve said. “I can take some bruising.”
“I wanted to be better than this.” Billy looked away, at the neon-lit exit signs. “You were always tryin’ to take care of me, back in Hawkins. I thought it was time for me to take care of you.”
Steve waved a hand in front of Billy’s line of sight. “Hey, look at me, dude. I want us to take care of each other. In fact,” he said triumphantly, “I’m putting myself down on this stupid form as your emergency contact. Try and stop me.”
Billy didn’t try and stop him, and Steve updated his own insurance information the next day.
“Well,” Steve’s mom says, put out, “what did they do then, just operate on an unconscious man without his consent?”
And Steve’s not entirely sure what comes over him or why it’s taken this long to come, but he grabs for Billy’s hand and says, “Billy gave consent. He’s my next of kin.”
Which makes no legal sense, Billy tells him later, an emergency contact is not your next of kin, and also ew, Steve, we’re not related, but it sounds a lot punchier for Steve to tell his own mom that Billy is closer to him than she ever was.
She says nothing for an incredibly long time. She’s not dumb, she went to Vassar and she speaks three languages, so she’s definitely caught the gist. Steve lets go of Billy’s hand eventually. It’s a really unnatural pose for them, all things considered. They’re not really a hand-holding couple.
“Didn’t you used to date Karen Wheeler’s daughter?”
Steve laughs. “Yeah. Nancy and I went out in high school.”
“Mm,” Steve’s mom nods. “Isn’t that her on that picture over there?” She gestures to another one of the shelves – Billy has a real problem with books and Steve is going to make him stop when they reach the bedroom – where a picture of Steve, Billy, Nancy and Jonathan grinning obnoxiously in festive sweaters (or, well, glowering, in Jonathan’s case) leans against a line of used paperback Norton’s Anthologies. It’s a little out of focus, but it’s one of Steve’s favorites.
“Yeah,” Steve says. “She was here for Thanksgiving last year, with Jonathan Byers. That’s her boyfriend. And Will Byers. And Max, that’s Billy’s sister, and Lucas, her fiancée. And Dustin.”
“Oh, how is Dustin?”
“Dustin’s good,” Steve says slowly. “He’s doing a fast-tracked dual-degree program at CalTech. He’s going to get a master’s degree in like two years.”
“He always was a smart kid,” Steve’s mom says approvingly. “Is he seeing anyone?”
“Probably,” Steve says vaguely, and Billy snorts. Dustin has a new love of his life about every three weeks.
Steve’s mom is quiet for a long while, then. “I’ve missed a lot of your life, Steve,” she says.
It seems impolite for Steve to answer that.
She leaves not long after, breezing out the door with promises to call soon. Steve is left at loose ends, staring blankly at the closed door, uncertain of what just happened. Billy asks him if he wants to talk about it, but Steve doesn’t even know what to say about it.
They get drunk instead.
Robin shows up when they’re only about two thirds of the way through the bottle of eight dollar wine Nancy brought for Thanksgiving three years ago. The Chardonnays of Thanksgivings ’89 and ’90 are already cooling in the fridge.
“Sweet,” she says. “Are we celebrating?”
“My mom was here,” Steve says darkly.
Robin drains the last of the wine into a coffee cup, takes a swig. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Billy looks between them. “Steve, I’m literally not even sure anything happened.”
“I came out to her!” Steve says, staring up at Billy wide-eyed. “I held your hand, and I said the thing!”
“You said that I signed some forms in a hospital. That could mean fucking anything.”
“She knows.”
Billy rolls his eyes. “I swear you are the most dramatic person I’ve ever met.”
Robin looks between them. “I mean,” she says. “Far be it from me to decide which of you two is more of a gay disaster, but like…what’s she gonna do, disinherit you? Didn’t that already happen in, like, ’85?”
Steve shrugs, maybe pouts a little.
They’re onto the second bottle when Max and Lucas show up. Steve and Billy really need to reconsider giving all these people keys. At least the rest of the kids don't go to school in Chicago, too, or they would never get any peace.
“Holy shit,” Lucas says, dropping his jacket over the blue comfy chair. “I thought you guys were the grown-ups.”
“Please,” Max snorts. “We’re getting married. Who’s grown-up now?”
They grin at each other, just a little delighted, just a little sickening.
“Great,” Steve drawls. “So no more cold feet for the next two hours. Woo! Party!”
Max glances at him, a tiny sliver of a frown, a little bit of hurt, but she hides it quickly. Steve still feels guilty, because he’s the gay disaster. Bi disaster. Whatever.
Anyway, Max is cooler than all of them. She can take it. She wears combat boots and jean jackets with patches from obscure rock concerts, and she still does her hair like she did when she was twelve, like a goddamn hippie, but it works for her. She’s always got the good weed because she’s not scared of hitting up dealers the way Steve always was back when he wasn’t a police officer and could smoke weed. She can do tequila shots without flinching. Steve wants to be her when he grows up.
“Wow,” Lucas says. “What happened to Dad Steve?”
“Dad Steve needs to drink some water,” Billy says from the vicinity of the kitchen. “Anyone else?”
“Oh my god,” Max says. “Dad Billy is here. It’s Dad Billy. I thought this day would never come.”
“Not to, like, rain on your parade,” Robin makes some air quotes around all the wrong words, “but this is about a syllable away from getting super fucking creepy and if it does, I’m out.”
“Ew,” Max says, nose scrunched up. “Billy, you got any beer? I feel like we need to catch up.”
“You’re not legal,” he tells her, handing Steve a glass of water.
By the time Max has led Billy through a twelve step leap of logic that means he should give her beer because she’s getting married, Steve finishes his water and manages to sit up straight.
“’M sorry, Max,” he mumbles.
“It’s whatever,” she says. “What the fuck happened to you? It’s Tuesday.”
“I think I just came out to my mom,” Steve says.
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, man,” Lucas says, “but, like, I wasn’t sure you had parents?”
“They were literally never there,” Robin agrees.
“I basically lived in their house for nine months. They didn’t notice,” Billy adds.
“So, yeah, they’re not winning any parenting awards,” Steve says, “and the last time I saw either of them was during the Reagan administration –”
“Fuck Reagan,” the rest chorus and take a sip from their drinks.
“—but, like, she’s still my mom.”
Billy reaches over to tousle Steve’s hair. He leaves his arm wrapped around Steve’s shoulders for much longer than he would otherwise, even when they inevitably move on to talking about the wedding. Steve lets himself remember that if anyone understands what it’s like to be hurt by your parents, it’s Billy. If anyone understands not wanting to hurt them back, it’s Billy. And if there’s anyone he shouldn’t be complaining about his coming out drama to, its definitely, definitely Billy.
-
The wedding is beautiful. Of course it is.
Max walks down the aisle on Billy’s arm, wearing a shiny new leather jacket and white tennis shoes. Her dress is gorgeous, and Steve is surprised despite himself at how she basically floats past him, her wide lacy skirt hissing past the pews. Billy’s smile widens fractionally as he passes Steve.
Billy’s less out there than he was, back in Hawkins. He gave up on the mullet when he was a sophomore, after Neil was gone for good, but he’s never cut it to anything either of their fathers would deem respectable. He’s still vain as shit, and he took about an hour in the bathroom this morning with wax and mousse to make it sit just right, but damn does it work for him. He’s wearing his glasses. Steve fucking loves the glasses. He almost looks respectable, like a proud big brother.
Lucas tears up the second they enter the room.
Dustin elbows Jonathan into taking a few snapshots for future reference, but he basically sobs through the entire ceremony himself.
Max only calls Lucas a stalker once in her vows. It’s beautiful.
“This was almost worth coming back to Hawkins for,” Steve tells Billy three hours later, loose on champagne and happiness.
“Almost,” Billy agrees.
The first time they came back to Hawkins, Billy had let Steve drive, after, headed to Chicago again. He’d been almost incandescent since Will and Max had both hugged him goodbye, promising to come visit in Chicago. Leaning back in the passenger’s seat with his eyes shut, he’d said, “Still pretty sure it wasn’t worth coming back here.”
Steve had tried his best not to laugh, had said, “Yeah, what a waste.”
After New Year’s ‘88/’89 at the Byers’ house, Steve had asked, “So, was it worth it this time?”
Billy, still full to the brim with Joyce’s surprise casserole that only he had liked and clutching the LP Will had gotten him for Christmas, had shaken his head. “Nothing is worth coming to Hawkins for.”
When the kids graduated high school, Neil had been in the wind for almost a year. Going to Hawkins had never felt so good. Billy’s eyes were still red-rimmed from happy tears when they hit the interstate back towards Chicago, Max and Lucas’s moving van close behind them, and he’d still said, “God, fucking Hawkins. Let’s never go back.”
“Hey,” Steve says. Billy looks over at him, eyebrows raised. He’s leaning back in his chair in the Hawkins Community Center like the delinquent he is, blue tie loosened, sleeves rolled up. The fish tattooed on his wrist is fully visible, the raven on his bicep is nothing but a silhouette through his dress shirt. “I love you.”
Billy grins at him. Steve fully expects him to say right back atcha or ditto like he usually does, but Billy grabs his hand loosely and says, “I love you, too, Steve.”
Steve’s whole face flushes red, which is really dumb because they’ve been dating for six years.
“You wanna dance with me?” He asks, like an idiot. He doesn’t know how to dance.
“Dance!” Max cheers from three chairs beside them. “C’mon, I wanna see my big brother dance!”
“She is so drunk,” Billy stage-whispers, like Max hasn’t gotten fucked up with them more than they can count. I’d rather she do it where I can see, Billy always says, even when he’s just as drunk.
“I’m married,” she giggles. “It’s my day! C’mon, dance!”
Billy shakes his head sadly. “Sinclair better know what he got himself into.” He gets up, holds out his hand for Steve.
“That’s what she said!” Erica Sinclair chimes in.
Steve takes Billy’s hand and lets himself be pulled up. “I think we’re the only adults left here,” he says.
Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair (Sr.), who have been rocking out on the dance floor for at least half an hour, cheer when Billy and Steve join them, which really only proves Steve’s point.
Steve hasn’t been to a whole lot of weddings, but this one is the best. Max is blushed cherry-red with pleasure the whole evening and Lucas can’t take his eyes off of her, as it should be. Mike is less butt-hurt about Lucas beating him to the punch than everyone thought he would be, probably because El is at least talking to him again. She even lets him kiss her cheek. Dustin brought a date. He gestures wildly to Steve behind her back to signal Steve, she’s the one!
It would be a lot more believable if he hadn’t said that the last four times.
Will drove in with them from LA, and Dustin is the worst when he has a girlfriend, all touchy-feely and mushy. Will deserves all the awards. He’s wearing suspenders. It’s the cutest thing Steve has ever seen.
Hopper is the most drunk person at the wedding.
Billy and Steve shuffle around the dance floor, stepping on each other’s feet and laughing in each other’s faces.
After, Billy and Will muddle through an energetic swing number to The Lady is a Tramp, Dustin and his girlfriend dance an irritatingly perfect foxtrot, Steve and Nancy share an awkward waltz, and, after a final slow dance for everyone, they load the happy couple into Max’s butt-ugly Honda civic, cans clattering against the pavement. Robin, who stole Jonathan’s camera hours ago, snaps a few pictures Steve just knows are going to come out at a weird angle but somehow still perfect, and yells something obscene at the happy couple.
“Later, losers!” Max yells out the window, and they’re gone.
Mrs. Sinclair (Sr.) links her arm through her husband’s. “I’m so glad he met that girl,” she says.
Steve wraps his arm around Billy’s waist and tries very hard not to think about how Susan didn’t show. About how it must feel to have parents like the Sinclairs, who accepted Max without a second thought when she was fourteen, who went along with all the ups and downs of a teenage relationship and always kept their door open for Max, who loved her for loving their son.
They spend the night in Steve’s old room in his parent’s house. It doesn’t seem as big and empty as it did when he was eighteen and dreaming of monsters every night.
“God, how did we used to sleep here?” Billy asks, squished into the wall.
“We were young and skinny,” Steve says sadly, patting at his belly. He has this new thing where alcohol makes him feel bloated and he hates it.
“Aw, you still do it for me, baby,” Billy says.
“Wanna prove it?”
Billy straddles him, hands either side of his head. They kiss, just a peck, then slowly. Billy had garlic at dinner.
“What do you want?” Billy asks.
“Mm…” Steve says. “You could fuck me? I don’t wanna move that much.”
“Lazy ass,” Billy says, pressing another kiss to Steve’s nose.
“Remember the first time we did this?” Steve asks.
“Did what?” Billy asks. “I remember a lot of firsts in this bed.”
“The first time you fucked me,” Steve says. “I was so nervous. I was so scared I hadn’t, like, cleaned up properly. I was scared I would hate it.”
“I didn’t even know it was going to happen,” Billy says. He slicks up his fingers with the lube he apparently packed – Steve always forgets – and slides them between Steve’s legs, thumbing gently at his hole. “You always called the shots.”
Steve laughs, moans a little. “I did not. Remember when you climbed through my window and rode me till I basically cried?”
“Good times,” Billy says. He’s got a finger in Steve, slowly moving in and out, loosening him up.
Steve sighs, spreading his legs further, hitching his hips up. “I wanted to know what it was like. You loved it so much, you were so hot.”
“Excuse me, were?”
“Are,” Steve says. “Were, are, always will be. Gorgeous. C’mon, give me another.”
“I love when you tell me what to do,” Billy says, and he gives Steve another.
“I know,” Steve says smugly, arching his back when Billy hits his prostate. “You were so obedient for me, opening me up for you. You took it so slow.”
“Damn near killed me,” Billy said. “You felt so good. I wanted to fuck you so bad and you made me go so slow.”
“You fucked me so good. Just how I wanted, so slow and so good.”
“Wanted to go so hard, baby, you drove me crazy.”
“Show me.”
Billy hitches Steve’s legs up around his waist, slides deep inside him. “Yeah?” he says.
“Yeah,” Steve says.
Billy fucks into him hard, knocking the metal headboard against the wall. They both laugh. Steve squirms, just a little, until Billy’s hitting his prostate just right, until Steve’s got his hand on his cock, stripping it while he gets fucked.
“Christ, you wanna go fast tonight, baby?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, tilting his head back. Billy follows his implicit demand, sets his lips to Steve’s neck.
Steve comes hard and fast, letting himself go for Billy. Billy follows just after, groaning against Steve’s collarbone.
They sleep badly, too little space in Steve’s old bed and too much champagne still in their systems, but Steve’s still in a good mood when he wakes up.
It’s early and Billy’s not a fan of mornings at the best of times, so Steve sneaks downstairs in his boxers, intent on rustling up some sort of hangover breakfast.
His mom is making coffee in the kitchen.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Steve yells, surprised when he sees her.
“Hi, Steve,” she says.
“Oh my god, mom,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s my house, last I checked.”
“You’re never here, though.”
“That’s a little harsh,” she says.
Steve elects to not answer that and go back upstairs to put on some pants instead.
“Is Billy here as well?” She asks him when he gets back down, handing him a coffee cup.
“Yeah,” Steve says. “He’ll be a while. Not much of a morning person.”
She hums. “I didn’t know you two came to Hawkins.”
“Only once a year or so. We would have gotten a hotel if we’d known you were going to be here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Steve is pretty sure he’s not being ridiculous, but he takes a sip of coffee and sits down at the kitchen table, willing to hear what comes next.
“I asked around a bit, you know,” his mom says. “About Billy.”
Steve raises an eyebrow.
“People around here remember him pretty well. Mrs. Wheeler said some nice things about him. Mrs. Byers did, too.”
“That’s nice,” Steve says, and remembers vividly how dolled up Mrs. Wheeler used to get to go to the public pool with her kids just because Billy was there.
“They also told me he was living here for his senior year of high school, with you, after being in the hospital for a whole month.”
Steve swallows around nothing, dry-throated and wrong-footed.
“Is that true?”
“Yeah, ma,” Steve tells her. “It’s true.”
She sits down across from him. “I have so many questions for you.”
Steve lets her ask.
He doesn’t answer everything, not fully. He won’t tell her what Billy’s dad used to do to him, because that’s not his to tell, but he’s pretty sure she knows anyway. Maybe Hopper told her. Maybe Steve just sucks at being subtle.
He tells her about how he got Billy installed in the downstairs guest room when he still couldn’t walk much, how he would drive Billy to and from physical therapy after his shifts at the video store two days a week. He talks about how Billy’s teachers had come by with packets of work for him to do from home every week for the first month of school, until he could keep upright for long enough to attend.
“How did you hide it from us?” She finally asks.
Steve laughs. He can’t help it. “It was so easy. You never even asked. You didn’t talk to the neighbors, or Mrs. Wheeler or whatever. You were home for all of three days for Christmas. Billy just hid in my room. I brought him food. You never wondered.”
She runs a hand through her hair. “I always thought I would know,” she says. “If you were hurt, or seriously ill. If you needed help.”
“I’ve been fine,” Steve says. “I haven’t needed help.”
“You were nineteen and had a boy who couldn’t walk by himself living with you. Of course you needed help.”
“Well, I had all the help I needed,” Steve says. Max used to come by to do her homework with Billy. Dustin would keep bringing by new shitty movies to watch and he always stayed to watch them, too, sprawled between them on the couch and talking through his popcorn. Will and Jonathan would go on the physical therapy mandated walks with Billy. Joyce brought them casseroles. It was fine.
“It should have been my help.” She sounds so fierce, so angry, that Steve looks at her properly for the first time since they started this conversation.
“I don’t know what to say, ma.”
“I know. I wasn’t there. That’s my fault.”
It is, but Steve can’t bring himself to say as much.
“Would it be alright if I tried to be there, now?” She asks.
Steve is so surprised he doesn’t know how to respond.
“I know you’re an adult now, and you probably don’t want your mom involved in your life, but—“
“You don’t mind?” Steve asks.
“Mind what?”
“That me and Billy are together. I always thought, for sure, that would be what would make you actually stop talking to me.”
She makes a dismissive noise, a cross between a hiss and a snort.
“But dad—“
“I am not your father,” she says.
Steve picks at the chipped corner of the cup. It used to be his favorite, before Billy dropped it once and was so scared Steve would somehow disinvite Billy from the house , from his bed, that he hid it under the guest room bed for a full week. Now, seeing it makes Steve feel a little of that old anger at Neil he could never quite shake.
“I’d love it if you were here, more. Or in Chicago, I guess. I’ve always wanted that.”
She looks like she’s about to start crying, so Steve shuts up and figures he should probably just accept whatever she's going to give him. Maybe it will be better than what he's gotten so far.
The last time Steve saw his dad, he was barely twenty and breaking the news that he hadn’t applied to any Ivy Leagues this year either, because he wasn’t getting in anyway, that he was moving to Chicago, going to community college and joining the police if they would take him.
His dad had asked if he was sure.
Steve had said he was.
“Damn waste of time,” his dad had said. He then finished his drink, walked out of the house and drove away again, maybe to Indianapolis, maybe to New York. Steve never found out which office it was. They haven’t spoken since and Steve’s been paying his own way ever since he left Hawkins.
It’s a strange change, to have his ma calling him every few days. She hasn’t left the house in Hawkins since they ran into each other there, and the Hawkins area code always alarms Steve just a little.
“I guess we’re just ships passing in the night,” she had joked as he and Billy packed up their car only a few hours after she and Steve had talked in the kitchen. She’d only gotten in late the night before, after they’d both been asleep (and Steve must have been drunker than he thought, to have missed the door opening. Usually, that shit has him waking up in a cold sweat imagining the Russians are coming for him after all). The joke was too true for Steve to laugh.
She’s called every three days exactly ever since.
Steve doesn’t realize what he’s doing until a few weeks in, when Billy comes home early, catches the tail end of their call, and says, “Dude,” when they hang up.
“What?”
“Why are you telling your mom about my life?”
“Uh, ‘cause you’re part of mine?”
“Yeah, but does she have to know about my tats?” Billy’s got his arms crossed over his chest, and for all Steve’s beefed up since becoming an officer, Bill’s definitely still stronger. Usually, Steve likes it, but not when they fight.
“It made sense in context,” Steve says, even though he’s pretty sure it didn’t.
“Yeah, well, it’s weird,” Billy says. “Talk about you. She’s your mom.”
“There’s nothing to say about me.”
“Oh my god.” Billy throws his hands up. “Steve Harrington and the endless font of self-deprecation, here we go.”
“Look, if she really gave a shit she’d have started this earlier,” Steve says.
“So, what, you’re trying to be so gay she admits she’s faking?”
“I,” Steve starts, but he realizes that’s it, that’s exactly what he’s doing.
“That’s fucked up, Stevie,” Billy says, but he’s less angry now, looking a Steve with something like pity in his eyes.
Steve runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
Billy sighs, like it’s a personal affront to him, and opens up his arms. “C’mere.”
Steve is a slut for cuddles, so he goes, lets Billy rub his shoulders and hold him close for a while.
“She could really mean it,” Billy says eventually.
“Ugh,” Steve says. “This was nice, but now you’ve ruined it.”
He goes and cooks dinner, and Billy tries to mention it again, later, but Steve’s done talking about it.
So of course, he ends up making a scene in a restaurant less than a week later.
She had called, had asked if he was free for lunch, because she just happened to be in Chicago, and then he found himself wasting his lunch break in a bistro that’s about twice as fancy as anything he feels comfortable with, eating the world’s smallest portion of pasta and stiltedly answering questions about his chances of getting a promotion.
“Are you planning on staying in Chicago?” She asks, spearing a cocktail tomato on her fork.
Steve abruptly loses every bit of cool he ever had.
“Look, why do you care?” He asks.
She sets down her fork.
“I really don't get why you’re doing this.”
“Because I missed you, and you’re my son,” she says.
“That’s never mattered to you before.”
“It’s always mattered,” she says, trying to look him in the eye, and he won’t let her.
“No, no it has not,” he says. “What about when I was fifteen and you were never home? Or when I was sixteen and you were never home? Or, oh hey, when I was seventeen and you were never home?”
She doesn’t answer.
“What about when Dad just told me over and over again that I was too dumb to be his son, and a waste of his time? What about when I was working for the fucking Hawkins video store for a full year and neither of you even noticed? What about me living with another man? That all matters.”
“I never wanted it to be that way,” she says.
“That’s not enough,” Steve tells her. “It was that way.”
“You’re right.”
“Right,” Steve says. “Fine.” He drops his napkin on the table and leaves.
She leaves a long message on the answering machine, explaining that she had thought his dad was at least paying his college tuition, and that she’s living in Hawkins alone because she doesn’t want to keep living with him, and that she’s sorry.
Steve listens to it once and almost destroys the answering machine.
Billy lets him wallow for about a week, gets drunk as shit with him on Friday and spends all of Saturday lying on the couch with Steve, watching shitty daytime TV wrapped up in each other.
On Sunday, he helps Steve cook eggs and bacon for breakfast, and once they’ve eaten, he says, very seriously, “Stevie, I would give so much for my mom to want to be around.”
Steve calls his mom back on Monday.