Chapter Text
Fall is over in Hawkins, Indiana. Billy can feel it in the wind, the gusts sending fingers of ice beneath his open shirt, the chill of the Camaro’s hood palpable through the seat of his jeans. There’s no snow, not yet; instead the wind picks up dead leaves long stripped of their autumnal color, swirling them around in small tornadoes. The bare branches rattle above, casting shadows from the dying moon; somewhere in the distance, an owl hoots.
Billy rolls his eyes at the sheer pageantry of it all before flicking the butt of his cigarette off to the side. Like the woods in Indiana are going to spook a city boy from the coast, no matter how thick they lay it on. He’s seen scarier movies at the cineplex.
Besides. Billy knows for a fact that the most terrifying shit in life doesn’t come from out here.
There’s still a good hour or so before he can go home, so he lies back against the windshield, and looks up at the stars through the branches. He’d never admit it, but starscapes are the one thing Rural Bumfuck Nowhere has over southern California. He heard a story once, from a dude at a party who had a friend who knew someone that’d worked in emergency services, that during the massive blackout in New York in the 70s people were calling 911 about a weird silvery light in the sky. They were convinced it was aliens or a Russian plot…and it was just the Milky Way, which they’d never seen before. He’d laughed it off, assuming the dude was wasted and making shit up, but looking up at the night sky here in the land of no streetlights, he starts to wonder if there was some truth to the story. The silver glow is eerie, celestial.
His attention becomes abruptly earthbound again when he hears the crack of a breaking twig nearby. He rises up on his elbows, feels his shoulders stiffening—Neil’s never followed him out before—
He laughs aloud and sits up fully when the figure steps into the clearing; he’d recognize the silhouette of that ridiculous hair anywhere. The tightness in his back eases, some, is replaced by a different sort of tension, deeper and more pleasant; lazy, and yet somehow coiled, ready to spring. “Christ, Harrington, what’re you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
Harrington turns toward him, still mostly in shadow. There’s a pause as the other boy takes him in. “I could ask you the same thing. Is there even a road out here?”
“Shit, anywhere can be a road if you drive fast enough.” His fingers are suddenly itching for another cigarette, something to hold, to gesture with. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
A pause, and then a quiet chuckle from the other boy; he steps forward into the wan light, something swinging from one hand. The glint of teeth bared in a grin, made all the more ghastly by the shadow of faded bruises along his cheeks, his jaw. “Monster hunting.”
Billy takes a moment before responding, sizes the other boy up, notes the shadow of the bat that dangles by Steve’s leg—a bat he remembers all too well from their last encounter outside of school. It hasn’t even been two weeks, and the thought of that helplessness, that inability to move as the bat came down between his legs, still makes his blood boil, makes heat curl tight in his gut. “Sticks and stones, King Steve,” he says, his tone darkening.
Steve takes a step closer, the bat fully visible now. Billy avoids looking at it. Pastes his eyes to Steve’s face, instead. These past two weeks, Steve’s mostly ignored him. Avoided his eyes in the hallways, avoided even looking at him at practice. But tonight Steve meets Billy’s gaze, tilting his face slightly as if daring him to look, to admire the aftermath of his handiwork. The swelling is long gone, but there’s a dark mark at his hairline, the gash not quite healed yet…
His expression, though. The strange sublimated tension that’s been showing more and more often on Steve’s face. Insistent movement buried under frigid calm, a turbulent stream held captive beneath thick ice. “It’s not always all about you, Hargrove.”
Billy can feel something tightening in his gut; not fear, not exactly, but a cousin. He pulls another cigarette out of his jacket pocket, lights it up, all without taking his eyes off of Harrington, counting on the momentary glow of the lighter to give his features an infernal cast. “Of course it is,” he responds, leaning forward, snake-smile curving his lips upward. “I’m the only thing out here in these woods worth the time.”
Steve chuckles a little at that, the tension in his face easing a fraction. “Sure, Hargrove. Whatever you say.” He rests the bat on the ground, fingers twiddling with the ridge on its handle as he assesses the scene. “So what are you doing out here? Can’t sleep?”
Billy slides forward on the hood of the car, places the heel of one boot on the bumper. He inhales on the cigarette, eyeing Steve—the shadows under his eyes, the too-bright light behind them. Blows the smoke out in a long stream. “Guess we have that in common.”
“What tipped you off?”
“Aside from the fact that you’re out here at this hour? The way you dozed off in English class yesterday was a giveaway.”
Steve’s mouth curls upward at one corner. “I’m surprised more people don’t. Those desks are awfully comfortable.”
Billy grins, takes another drag on his cigarette. “F. Scott Fitzgerald puts you straight to sleep, huh?”
Steve shrugs. “Some people count sheep.”
“And some people hunt monsters in the woods.” Billy laughs, feeling he’s scored a point, somehow.
But Steve’s expression is perfectly serious. “Somebody’s got to keep the sheep safe.”
Billy tilts his head a little, eyeing the curve of Steve’s hair as it casts his face into partial shadow, almost covering one eye. “That why you’re always herding those kids around? You do look a little like a sheepdog.”
Steve, to his surprise, laughs—and in that laugh, Billy spies a flicker of the energy so often missing from the other boy’s demeanor. “Well, I’m apparently shitty royalty and a shittier boyfriend. Guess I’ve got to be good at something. Babysitting. Monster hunting.”
Billy’s lips part, teeth sharp in the moonlight. “Are you teaching them everything you know?”
“Really, they’re teaching me.” Maybe it’s just the moonlight, but there’s a look in Steve’s eye that Billy can’t quite place, that speaks to him. Hums along the base of his spine, vibrates along the coiled tension deep in his belly. “It takes guts, facing down a monster.”
“Guts, and fire.” Billy leans forward. “That fire in you is something else, when you let it out.”
To his surprise, Steve goes still. Cold. Something in his face closes off. “You don’t know me, Hargrove.”
“Feel like I know you a bit better than I did a couple weeks ago.”
“You beat my face in. That’s not the same as getting to know someone.”
“Says you.” In one fluid motion, Billy’s up and off the hood of the car, advancing on Steve, though he doesn’t miss the way Steve’s fingers tighten on the ridge of the bat. “You’re not that big a puzzle, King Steve. You miss being school royalty.” He takes another step closer. “You miss having your prissy little princess on your arm, though God knows why.”
“You’re an observant douchebag, aren’t you?” Steve hasn’t raised the bat, but he’s not backing down, either. Just standing his ground, steady, inevitable. Like a tree. Or an iceberg.
Billy steps closer again, until they’re barely a foot apart. “Everyone’s waiting, Harrington. The only thing people like more than a fall from grace is the return of the underdog.” He licks his lips, intentional, lewd. “When’s it going to happen? When are you going to be done playing bi—”
Almost too quickly to process, Steve’s eyes move from Billy’s lips to the forest behind him. A fraction of a second later, he’s surged forward, pressing Billy up against a nearby tree, his free hand up against Billy’s mouth. Billy is so surprised he doesn’t even respond, only stiffens beneath Steve’s grip.
“Be. Quiet.” Steve is barely whispering, eyes deadly serious, their bodies tense against each other. Billy’s eyes widen, and he can feel a flush of heat traveling up his spine. He’s weighing whether to struggle when Steve tilts his head to one side, his entire body focusing towards something behind them; either Steve’s a much better actor than Billy would have credited, or he’s genuinely afraid of something. A nod to indicate that he understands, and Steve drops his hand, still tense as a dog on point. Billy cranes his neck around the trunk, tries to ignore how very close his face is to Steve’s, strains to see what dumbass thing it is that has the other boy spooked.
He’s about to snort, half-convinced this is a prank, when he hears it. A flurry of staccato clicks, penetrating and weirdly…wet. It puts him in mind of those clickers that dog trainers on the Santa Monica Pier use, but different. Faster, and more organic. It stops, starts again, slows, speeds up.
“Harrington,” Billy says in an answering whisper. “What the fuck is that?”
In answer, Steve steps to the side, swings his bat up. Billy turns, watches him advance, slow and deliberate; some traitorous thought in the back of Billy’s mind admires his form. Billy follows a couple of paces behind him, because this is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened in Hawkins, and definitely not because, here in the dark in the theatrically spooky woods, he’s half-convinced Steve’s been telling the truth with the monster-hunting bit.
As they approach, however, the sound stops. No slowing this time, just a sharp cutoff, almost mid-click. Billy listens for a rustle, a snap of a twig, but doesn’t hear anything. He advances a pace or two further than Steve, just to prove a point, and there’s...nothing. The barely-there brush of a strand of spiderweb against his face. A momentary draft of colder air.
One big fat lot of nothing.
“We should go.” It’s only as Steve speaks that Billy realizes how quiet it’s gone. The wind has stopped, the occasional owl hoots and rustles of animals are missing. Steve’s voice feels far too loud, a slight tremor in the words made clearer by the sudden silence.
And while Billy had been thinking the same thing, he’s damned if he’s going to say it now. “What’s the matter, Harrington?” He turns around, contemptuous leer firmly fixed on his face. “Monster hunting suddenly not fun anymore? Maybe I should take over for you here, too.”
“Give me a break.” Steve’s attention rounds back on Billy. “You couldn’t be sneaky to save your life. Not in those stompy boots.”
“Hah,” Billy says, and takes the opportunity to stomp right back up to Steve, who stares him down, unmoving. “You really are afraid, aren’t you?” One corner of his mouth curls up. “No wonder your little princess left you for the freak. You’re even crazier than he is.”
For a moment, he thinks he’s won—Steve’s face is flushed, eyes glittering almost feral in the moonlight. But then, slowly, Steve’s mouth stretches in a smile. He laughs; not a wild, hysterical laugh, but cold, a thin stream of ice water trickling down Billy’s spine. “You’re so full of shit, Hargrove.”
Billy feels his jaw tighten, and some nasty little voice in the back of his mind pipes up your father’s jaw does the same thing when he’s angry. “Says the asshole out hunting for imaginary creatures in the middle of the night.” He shakes his head. “You’re nuts, Harrington. Batshit loco.”
“Yeah, well,” Steve turns away, as if bored by the conversation. “I guess we have that in common, too.”
Billy snarls his contempt as he stalks past Steve, back to the Camaro. “We do not have that in common.” He turns, tossing his head, baring his teeth at Steve’s half-shadowed expression. “You and me? Have nothing in common.”
The Harrington of two weeks ago would’ve flinched, would have apologized, would have placated or appeased or whatever shit they were talking about in history class. To Billy’s surprise, this Harrington stands his ground, meets his eyes, and underneath the anger, the frustration, Billy finds himself once again wondering what, exactly, happened that night. What it was that left his car scratched to shit, scuffed along one side. Whether it had anything to do with Harrington’s newfound glacial calm.
“Then why are we both out here in the middle of the night?” Steve asks, the words hanging icicle sharp and clear in the chilly air.
A pause. Billy glances down at the bat, then back at Steve’s face. Imagines, for just a moment, telling him the truth. About the monster in his life.
Or the truth beneath the truth. The monster that he never sees, that’s always looming in the back of his mind. The part of him that’s…wrong.
Billy envisions the arc that bat might describe through the air, the graceful whoosh it would make. That expression of icy disdain as it connects with Billy’s head. The visceral crack, sickening and strangely satisfying.
And then that laugh, that strange hyena giggling that he can never quite seem to control, just bubbles out of him, throwing his head back and escaping like pressurized steam into the air.
“Guess we have something in common after all,” he says, walking backwards to the door before turning back and popping it open. He laughs again, shaking his head as he gets into the driver’s seat and slams the door shut. A moment later, he sticks his head and shoulder out the window, crazed smile plastered across his face. “We’re both afraid of monsters.”
Then he’s looking over his shoulder and gunning the engine. Not turning back. And definitely not picturing Steve Harrington and his bat and his pretty pretty face briefly flooded with light before he turns the car around and roars back the way he came.