Chapter Text
Steve has spend 18 winters in Hawkins, Indiana. Which at this point, makes up his entire life. In hindsight he really should have known better.
He should have known better than to keep on driving when the snowflakes hitting his windshield started falling at such density, that it grew impossible to see more than a hundred feet ahead. He should have known to turn around then.
But this is where his dilemma starts. His dad expects him to show up at his company’s New Year’s party in Indianapolis. And when Walter Harrington expects things, Steve knows better than to disappoint him. After all, the entire revolving restaurant at the top floor of the Hyatt Regency has been booked to host the event. Its about the company image, a matter of presentation. An obligation. And the only occasion of the year when Mr. Harrington insists on his wife’s and son’s presence at his side.
The city is a bit more than an hour away by car and Steve knows the route in his sleep, has mastered the art of outsmarting traffic and weaseling his way into the center on secret back roads only a true local would know about. But right now he isn’t even sure how far outside of Hawkins he has made it. He suspects he must be a few miles south of Fairmouth but really, it’s hard to tell when everything around him looks like the white static of a TV screen.
His wipers have a hard time keeping up with the snow and it’s already starting to pile up on the hood of the BMW. 8:35 pm is glowing in orange digits on the car’s dashboard. There is still time, Steve can still make it before 12, even if he keeps crawling at 20mph. No reason to start panicking just yet. It doesn’t matter so much when he shows up as long as he does show up at all. And it’s all going to be worth it if it means he can skip a 40 min lecture from his father about privileges and commitments.
With every minute that passes it gets harder to see the road and Steve begins to wish he would’ve stayed on the interstate instead of opting for a bypass via the two lane country road he's on right now. There’s something comforting about having someone else's tail lights in front of you to hold on to. But according to the radio there are several miles of traffic jam on both I-90 and I-65. So here he is.
Steve keeps squinting through his windshield, his music turned so low that the “swoosh, swoosh” of his wipers and the crunching of his tires on the snow are the predominating noise. Somehow it feels like he’s not moving at all, it’s a bit like being stuck in the twilight zone.
So when without warning a figure appears in the beam of his headlights waving both arms, Steve all but screams in terror. The person comes straight out of nowhere and it happens so suddenly, he has to slam his breaks in order not to hit them. It’s surreal, like a jumpscare in a horror movie. He sees the silhouette drift by on his right and then disappear behind the curtain of snow again as the tires skid on the snowy road and the car does a light turn before it comes to a full stop.
That was close, just the blink of an eye later and he would have hit whoever that was. Steve’s frozen in shock, his knuckles are gripping the steering wheel so hard they crack, his heart is galloping in his chest. For a solid two minutes he just sits there, panting and staring into the white void, until a knock on his window finally wakes him from his stupor.
There’s a man by his driver’s door, face hidden behind a scarf, snow piling on the shoulders of his sherpa denim jacket and his hair as Steve watches. He knocks again, harder, and finally Steve regains enough of his composure to roll down his window. The cold air coming in is like a punch to the face.
“HEY! THE ROAD AHEAD IS....” the man shouts over the howling of the wind but stops there, a pair of blue eyes going wide before he pulls down his scarf to expose his face “... Harrington?”
“Hargrove?!” Steve blurts, incredulous, at the sight of his rival.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” Billy snaps, eyeing him suspiciously, as if for some reason Steve followed him out here.
Steve rolls his eyes he’d would love to give Hargrove a snarky comeback, but he’s kind of in a hurry and the longer he stops the deeper the snow gets.
“I’m going to Indy for a New Year’s party. What the hell are you doing in the middle of the road?”
Billy’s stomping his feet, hands tucked under his armpits, he looks like he’s about to turn into a human popsicle at any second. Snowflakes are starting to catch on his lashes and the curls framing his face are crusted with ice, but despite the cold he still manages to give Steve a toothy grin.
“You’re not going anywhere, pretty boy.” he says, full of glee “The road is blocked. You gonna have to turn around and drive back.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, walks around Steve’s car and rattles the handle on the passenger door. When it doesn’t open he knocks again, angry.
“Open the fuck up, Harrington!” he yells “You trying to let me freeze to death out here?”
And Steve sure as hell doesn’t want Billy Hargrove in his car but he also doesn’t want to get trialed for fucking murder because he let the denim-clad asshole croak in the cold, so he reluctantly reaches over and opens the door for him from the inside.
Billy curses wholeheartedly as he falls into the passenger seat. He ignores Steve for a few minutes and holds his hands in front of the vents, let’s the warm air blow on them, rubs them occasionally. The snow crusting his jacket and the cuffs of his pants starts melting in the warmth of the cabin and turns into dark patches on the fabric.
“How, long have you been out here?!” Steve asks honestly shocked about Billy’s condition “I could’ve hit you, you know?”
“About an hour?” Billy shrugs “I saw your headlights coming. If I didn’t get out of my car to stop you, you would’ve hit that goddamn tree blocking the street, smartass. So what you should be saying is ‘Thank you, Billy, for saving my fancy car and my stupid life.’ you know?”
“Yeah well shouldn’t you be thanking me? Because you sure look like you needed saving more” Steve retorts, sounding caustic and annoyed. “What happened to your car anyway?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Harrington. I’m peachy.” the lie is so obvious, Steve doesn’t even bother replying, he just rolls his eyes, waits for Billy to continue. “My car is over there.”
Steve leans forward squints through the windshield again, a few feet ahead he can make out a blue shape sitting, it seems, in the field next to the road.
“Did you drive off the road?”
“I’m not stupid, Harrington. I just saw the blockage too late in this weather and when I hit the breaks I slipped, ok?”
“Yeah, I bet you don’t even have snow tires.”
Billy’s upper lip curls into a snarl at Steve’s offhand remark, his eyes turning a colder, more vicious shade of blue.
“Damn right I don’t. Do you even know what a set of tires costs? I bet you have no idea. I bet daddy takes care of everything for you. And I bet he picks out your clothes too.” he gestures at the maroon suit Steve is wearing, dressed for a party in a five star hotel as he is, making him bristle both with anger and embarrassment because, shit, Billy isn’t completely wrong.
“God, you’re such an asshole! Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just kick you out of my car.” Steve scoffs.
Billy’s blindingly white grin is back, looking far too good on a half-frozen jerk like him.
“I dare you to try, Harrington.” he drawls, drags his tongue over a canine, eyes sizing Steve up. “Come on! Make my night, darling.”
The sheer amount of insolence makes Steve’s blood boil and his hands itch to punch Hargrove in the face but he doesn’t say anything, just ignores Billy’s comment because he knows that pisses him off more than any witty comeback ever could.
“I don’t have time for your bullshit, Hargrove.” he says, unimpressed, while he puts the car into reverse and starts turning. “I gotta be somewhere, you know? Either stay here with your car and wait for someone else to come by and put up with you, or shut up and I take you back to Fairmouth with me. You can call a tow or hitch a ride home from there, beats me. I have to be in Indianapolis by 12.”
The wheels spin for a second when goes back into drive and steps on the gas but then find purchase on the fresh snow and Steve lets out a relieved breath. Last thing he wants is to get stuck with Hargrove in a storm. Meanwhile Billy starts laughing, joyless and mean, the throaty sound filling the cabin for a few seconds. Steve considers getting the spiked bat from his trunk if that’s what it takes to make him stop.
“Jesus, you’re prissy. Alright I’ll take the ride, whatever.” Hargrove finally huffs, slides deeper into the passenger seat, getting comfy while arranging a shabby messenger bag he’s brought with him between his feet in the footwell. Then he adds, “That’s gotta be a killer party, if you’re willing to face a blizzard for it. Fucking rich kids.”
“I don’t care about the party, dickhead. But my dad will rip off my head if I don’t show up.” Steve snaps, defensive, because maybe he did look a tiny bit forward to a 5-star buffet, all-you-can-drink champagne and a night in a nice hotel room instead of all by himself in a nightmare infested house. Even if that comes attached to an obligatory performance of picture-book family with his parents. Sue him. Sometimes pretending isn’t all that bad.
“Tsk.” Billy crosses his arms and give Steve a scrutinizing look, like he sees right through him “Didn’t take you for a guy with daddy issues, Harrington.”
“Well, you were wrong.” Steve huffs, already irritated beyond measure even though he’s only spend what, 10 minutes, with Hargrove “Believe it or not we all have issues. But unlike you I’m trying not be an asshole about it.”
“Alright, alright. Don’t get your panties in a twist, princess.”
“Don’t. Call. Me. That.”
“Why not? You’re spoiled like one and just as pretty.”
Steve feels himself flush, heat rising slowly from below his collar and into his cheeks. He grits his teeth.
“Fuck you.”
Billy chuckles, leans over to study his profile intently.
“You’re really cute when you blush.” he purrs into Steve’s ear, hot breath fanning over the side of his face. It’s hard to keep the eyes on the road like that but he manages, keeps on driving at a steady pace.
This is the worst. Whenever Hargrove realizes he can’t get a rise out of him any other way, he starts flirting and Steve never knows how to deal with that. For some reason it’s the only thing that really gets under his skin.
“Get out of my face.” he mumbles, stoically staring ahead and trying to ignore Billy’s presence at his side, the way he faintly smells of incense and cigarette smoke but mostly of winter air and freshly fallen snow. He already regrets letting him into his car.
Ahead of them the tracks Steve’s car left earlier are disappearing quickly under more and more layers of white powder. They’re out in the open now, left and right of them nothing but farmland. It’s getting harder and harder to tell where the road ends and the fields begin. All Steve can do is try to drive slowly and in a line as straight as possible and hope for the best.
Next to him, Billy is starting to get bored and settles back into his seat. From the corner of his eye, Steve can see him gnawing on his thumbnail. Despite his cocky attitude from earlier, he looks pretty worried. But Billy Hargrove couldn’t sit still for longer than five minutes if his life depended on it so after a while that is significantly shorter than that, he starts fiddling with the radio until he’s found a news channel that’s in the middle of the weather report.
“... on top of that we’re expecting at least another 10 inches of snow tonight in the Greater Indianapolis area and neighbouring counties with temperatures as low a 5 F°.” the signal is kinda fuzzy and the voice of the announcer sounds far away and tinny “We advice everyone who doesn’t have to go out on this New Year’s Eve to stay home and keep the party inside where it’s warm and safe.”
“Great.” Steve mumbles, more to himself “Just what I had planned.”
“Bummed because you’re going to miss out on the champagne and the lobster tails?” Billy teases and Steve feels kinda called out even though he doesn’t think there are going to be any lobster tails, prawns maybe.
“Not as bummed as I would be if I had to spend New Year’s with you.” he retorts and sniffs dismissively.
“Hah!” Billy sounds honestly amused for a change “For once we feel the same about something, Harrington!”
“Don’t lie, Hargrove.” Steve’s kinda offended because unlike Billy he’s great company for any kind of party “You’re always up my ass, you’d be thrilled to spend New Year’s with me.”
“Right. In your dreams, pretty boy.”
“You know…” Steve turns his head to look at Billy, because he’s really getting into the flow with the sass now, and that moment of carelessness his all it takes.
There’s a series of little bumps when the front wheels leave the road and hit the small stretch of grass that separates what is a cornfield in summer from the street and Steve immediately loses control over the vehicle. There’s nothing he can do, they just slip and slide down the light slope and suddenly, there’s a loud “THUNK”, followed by a painful metallic screech as the entire car shakes with an impact from underneath. It all happens so fast, in the blink of an eye, one moment they’re on track, the next they come to an abrupt halt in the field.
“FUUUCK!” Steve screams.
“YOU HIT SOMETHING!” Billy shouts.
“I KNOW!!”
Steve kills the engine at once, tears the door open, gets a gush of wind and snow in the face and stumbles outside. The headlights of his car go a pretty long way, reflected by all the white around them and he can see immediately that the car is hopelessly stuck in the snow. On top of that the air smells overwhelmingly of gasoline.
With every step he takes Steve sinks in deeper, his perfectly shined leather shoes filling with snow, as he tries to walk around the car to assess the damage. Terror is clawing on his chest. Hargrove has followed him and they meet by his trunk to stare at a stream of liquid that’s welling up from somewhere underneath the BMW and forms a puddle at their feet.
“Congrats, Harrington! You ripped up your fuel tank when you hit that milestone!” Billy points at a rectangular shape that sticks out of the snow from between the tracks of their tires a few feet up the slope “Like, that was literally the only stone within a mile big enough to fuck up your car and you found it!”
“Oh fuck! Oh shit! Please no!” Steve is closer to tears than he’s been all year, he’s pulling at his hair in sheer despair until it stands up in wild tufts “Fucking hell! My old man is gonna kill me!”
“That’s what you’re worried about? We’re stuck in a blizzard with a car leaking gas and you worry about what your dad is gonna say?! What’s he gonna do, cut your allowance?! We’re probably gonna die out here!” Billy’s enraged gesturing wildly at their surroundings.
“Dying in a storm will be a mercy compared to the shit he’s gonna give me for this! What if the car explodes?!” Steve screams back, furious at himself and Hargrove.
“Don’t you know anything about cars? It’s not gonna explode.” Billy covers his face with his hands, gives a deep annoyed sigh, like he’s dealing with a child “It’s cold as balls out here! Let’s talk inside, while it’s still warm.”
There’s no way Steve’s gonna protest that, his feet are already starting to turn into ice blocks so they hurry to get back inside the BMW without another word. The coat Steve’s wearing is a beautiful wool-cashmere blend but while warm enough in moderate winter conditions it does very little against the biting cold out here. It mostly looks good and the color goes well with his suit, his mother called in this afternoon to specifically request he wear it. Well, at least if he actually dies out here, he’s gonna go out as a snazzy dresser.
“Shit.” he shudders once seated behind the steering wheel again and rubs his arms to get warm “This is all your fault Hargrove.”
“Oh that’s stunning! How is it my fault?!”
“You distracted me!”
“Has it occurred to you, that maybe you’re just a really shitty driver?”
“YOU ended up in a field as well!!”
“But I didn’t hit anything! That’s the difference! My car is still intact, I’m just stuck!!”
Steve takes a deep breath to reply but it fills his lungs with a nasty mix of stale air and gasoline. He ends up coughing and wrinkling his nose instead of saying anything.
“We can’t stay here.” Billy sighs again his voice is calm, more serious than Steve has ever heard him. “The car isn’t gonna explode but we can’t sit in the fumes of a full tank of gas, it’s gonna fuck us up. We’re gonna pass out and die.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“Shit. We can’t go out in a storm like this and look for help. I’ve got no idea how far we are from the next home. We’ll freeze out there.” Steve feels a light panic creeping up on him, a look outside makes him shudder, snowflakes are swirling around their car in the rising storm like a bad omen “If stuck in the snow don’t leave your shelter. That’s like Indiana Winter 101, they teach that to elementary kids.”
Billy’s looking out through the window as well, face grim and his strong jaw set.
“How far away from my car do you think we are? A mile? Maybe one and a half?” he says carefully “You were driving really slow. If we leave now we can maybe still make it back to it before the storm gets too bad. We’ll hole up there and wait till it’s over.”
“I don’t know. Sounds risky.”
“I say it’s the only chance we got.”
Steve hesitates, with the engine turned off it’s already getting colder in the cabin, he presses “temp” on the little board computer in his dash. 12F° it says, but it drops to 11 while Steve us still watching. The gasoline smell too is getting worse by the minute, Steve is already starting to feel dizzy.
“Shit, maybe you’re right.” he swallows audibly, feels dread settling in his stomach, boulder-heavy. “We’ll have to hurry.”
“Ok.” Billy nods and they exchange a long look, unspoken words passing between them, a temporary truce forged in a few heartbeats “Do you have any food in your car? Anything to drink? Some blankets?”
“Good call. Who knows how long we’ll have to hold out.”
They quickly turn the inside of Steve’s car upside down and come up with one granola bar, a snack-sized bag of peanuts with the Pan Am logo on it, a 3 Musketeers Dustin must’ve forgotten at some point, a tangerine that rolled underneath the driver’s seat but is still good, a bottle of Perrier which earns Steve judging looks from Billy, a woolen picnic blanket Steve’s kept in his trunk since summer and the flashlight that’s part of the luxury sedan’s emergency kit.
“Isn’t that great?” Billy snorts, looking at their meager provisions “All food groups are represented.”
“I don’t expect you have a 3 course meal waiting for us in your car?” Steve deadpans and stuffs the food deep into his pockets.
“Don’t lose that.” Billy eyes him warily and then squeezes the blanket into his messenger bag. When he sees the questioning look Steve gives him in return he explains “We gotta keep that dry.”
“Right.” Steve nods and then he reaches into the trunk through where they folded over one of the back seats and pulls his nail studded bat out.
“What do you have that for?!” Billy scowls at the sight of the weapon.
“Bears?” Steve lies, this is not the right time to explain why he never goes anywhere without it these days. As a matter of fact, the best time for that would be never.
“Ok, whatever. Just keep that thing away from me, weirdo.”
“Scared?”
“Of you? Dream on.”
It’s a small mercy, a little touch of normality to be back at their usual banter. It makes Steve grin and there’s an impish glint in Billy’s eyes as well.
“Ready?”
“Let’s do it!”
They both open their doors at the same time and plunge into the snowy darkness. It feels even colder than before and Steve casts one last wistful glance at his beloved BMW before he follows Billy. He scrambles up the slope, his dress shoes slipping on the snow, almost falls but manages to catch himself with his hands and on one knee, getting snow all over his nice but way too thin dress pants. Hargrove’s got a pair of engineer boots on that have way better grip on the slippery surface, he’s already a few steps ahead of Steve.
“Hey! Wait up!” he shouts but Billy doesn’t listen.
“Hurry, pretty boy!” is all he calls back over his shoulder, then he pops his collar and marches on, shining the flashlight through the storm.
Steve does his best to keep up but he never quite manages to close the distance between them. The cold wind rips at his clothes, makes his coat flap around his body like a pair of oversized bird wings. Some fashion designer in Italy must have thought 4 buttons were more than enough and Steve wants to kick himself for wearing the thing instead of that cozy waterproof down jacket he bought a few weeks ago. The fucking snow is getting everywhere, fat flakes blow into his eyes and the air cuts across his face and down his throat just like a blade. He’s walking as fast as he can, but is either slipping on the snow or getting trapped in it, almost loses his shoes a couple of times. Billy’s broad back in front of him disappears more and more into the darkness.
Step after step Steve drags himself forward, bracing himself against the storm valiantly, panting, dragging in ragged breaths that feel like they could freeze his lungs. How long is a mile in the dark? Steve wishes he knew. It feels like he’s been out here for a lifetime.
He’s not sure when or how far along the way it happens but suddenly he’s alone in the dark, the familiar glow of the flashlight and Billy’s hunched shape in front of him gone, the howling voices of the wind his only company.
Steve’s heart is heavy in his chest with dread but he keeps on walking thinks it’s maybe just a few feet until he catches up again, that surely Billy will wait for him when he notices he’s gone. But Steve stays alone and the night has swallowed him whole.
“HARGROVE!” he yells, desperate, but there is no answer. How far ahead is Billy? Is he already at the car? Steve doesn’t know, he doesn’t even know if he’s still going the right way. Without the light he’s completely lost without any sense of direction.
The spiked bat grows heavy in his hands, weighing him down and Steve half regrets taking it with him but it’s also the only thing he’s got to hold on to. The one thing anchoring him, saving him from slipping into mindless panic.
“BILLY!!” Steve tries again, voice cracking with distress “BILLYYYY!!!” but the void stays silent.
Steve can deal with a lot of things. He can deal with fear, he can deal with fights, hell, he can deal with actual monsters. But the one thing he cannot deal with is being left behind, being alone and being helpless.
In sheer despair he picks up his pace, starts running, but only a few steps in his left shoe finally comes off with a loud sucking sound and he stumbles, falls face first into the snow. It engulfs him like an icy blanket, gets everywhere, his eyes, his mouth, down his collar, slips past the hem of his trousers and even into the inside of his stupid flappy coat.
When Steve surfaces from his involuntary snow bath, he’s coughing and spitting slush. Blindly he feels around for his lost shoe only to find that the snacks have fallen out of his pockets and are strewn around him. He gathers them up one after the other with stiff fingers, sitting in his bed of ice. Finally he finds his missing shoe and slips it back on, but it’s not like he can still feel his feet anyway. He’s so cold, it hurts. His limbs are stiff when he finally picks himself up, swaying on his feet.
Tears are running down his cheeks and the part of his mind, that is already slipping into darker places, wonders how they can be so hot when his body feels so cold. Steve tries to wipe them away, smears his face with more snow in the process but they won’t stop coming.
Did Hargrove leave him behind? Leave him to perish in the storm? How could he even trust that guy?! Everyone knows Billy is a selfish jerk without conscience. When did he agree to let him have the damn flashlight anyway? And why?
The wind is howling around him like a hungry beast and Steve wonders how long he can hold on out here before the storm devours him. He’s lost all sense of time now too, isn’t sure if it’s been minutes or hours since he lost Hargrove.
“BIIIIILLYYYYYY!!” he screams again so loud he can feel the strain on his vocal cords, fear mixing with anger.
First, there’s nothing, Steve stares blindly into the dark straining his ears to pick up something else than his own harsh breathing and the gushing of the wind. Then, a sound drifts over from somewhere, faint and distorted but without a doubt a human voice.
“.... eve!”
“BILLY?!” Steve’s heart races, suddenly filled with hope again “CAN YOU HEAR ME?!”
“Steve!” the voice is coming closer but Steve can’t see the other boy anywhere.
“I’M OVER HERE!!!”
It seems to take an eternity but finally the glow of the flashlight appears ahead of him and shortly after Billy’s form peels out of the dark.
“Oh thank God!” Steve greets him, relief washing over him in a warm tide. “You fou…”
Billy cuts him off with a crude gesture, his face twisted in anger, and grabs his upper arm so hard it hurts.
“The fuck you think you’re doing?” he hisses, eyes sharp and teeth bared, gives Steve a rough shake. Veins are protruding on his forehead, Billy’s fuming, tightening his grip on his arm with bruising force, going “You’re a fucking moron, Harrington!! I lose sight of you for one second and you wander off in the middle of blizzard!”
“You were walking too fast I couldn’t…” Steve stammers, taken by surprise.
“Shut up!! Just shut up and come with me!” Billy turns around, keeping his hold on Steve, pulling him close to his side with a harsh tug and starts walking, half dragging the other boy along with him, half keeping him upright.
“Let me go! You’re hurting me, man!” Steve tries to free himself from Billy’s clasp but he holds him like a vice.
“I’m warning you Harrington!” he growls and gives him another painful yank. “Can’t believe you made me come back for you.”
Steve’s trapped somewhere between feeling indignated by the way Billy treats him and gratitude because, despite everything, he did come back. Unable to do anything else but follow, he keeps on stumbling forward, trying to keep up with Hargrove’s pace, kicking up snow, it’s more a controlled from of falling than walking. It’s brutal, it’s too much. Steve isn’t a weak boy, he’s an athlete for god’s sake and an Indiana native, but with every step his strength is dwindling. He’s starting to feel dizzy, uncertain somehow if all the white he sees is around him or in his head.
Suddenly the world tips and Steve is mildly surprised about that until his face hits the snow and he realizes he’s fallen again. From somewhere far away Billy’s shouting at him to keep on moving but that is the last thing Steve knows.