Chapter Text
Robin goes to prom on Billy Hargrove’s arm, and everyone stares.
(Well. Maybe not everyone. Just about the twenty people in their immediate vicinity.
It’s still twenty more than the number of people who usually pay attention to her.)
“Billy,” Robin hisses. “I’m terrified.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Billy whispers back. “Your nails are digging into my fucking bone marrow.”
“Fuck, sorry.”
She lets go of Billy’s arm, and he loops an arm around her waist instead. The staring intensifies.
“Hargrove, dude!” Toby Miller had been on the basketball team, one of Steve’s ex-lapdogs that had immediately jumped ship to the S. S. Hargrove when Billy had come to town. And then immediately abandoned that after last summer. “It’s been a while!”
Billy grins. An ugly, predatory thing; the look in his eyes the same one he gets when he’s itching for a fight. “Has it?”
Toby’s built like a brick house and is about as smart as one, too. Billy’s sarcasm goes right over his head. “Heard you got hurt when the mall burned down, man.”
The fingers on Robin’s waist tighten. “Did you?”
Toby nods, like the big, dumb lug he is. “Yeah, man. But I’m glad you made it!”
He claps his big, dumb hand on Billy’s shoulder. Billy stares at it like he’s willing it to disintegrate. “Get your fuckin’ hand off me.”
Toby falters. When Billy doesn’t stop glaring, he backs up a few steps. “Man, what is your problem?”
There’s more than twenty pairs of eyes on them now. Robin squeezes the hand that’s not around her.
Billy’s grin fades and flickers out, until the look he’s giving Toby is one of vague disinterest. “Nothing, man. Absolutely nothing at all.”
He allows Robin to steer him away to a less crowded part of the gym. His grip gradually loosens until it falls away completely.
“You okay now, Rambo?” she asks.
Billy sighs. “As I’ll ever be.”
“Toby’s a jackass.”
“So’s everybody else here,” says Billy, and really, Robin can’t argue with that. “I’m a fuckin’ spectacle- you should’ve come with Steve.”
She feigns a gasp. “And deprive you of my splendid company?”
“Steve’s your best friend.”
“So are you.”
A pleased sort of grin appears on Billy’s face. He’s gotten better at taking genuine compliments. “You really mean it?”
Robin shrugs. “I like you, Billy Hargrove. You’re funny and smart and sweet when you think no one’s gonna notice, and best of all?” Billy leans down, blue eyes wide. “You’re slow dancing with me to Cyndi Lauper and you haven’t complained once.”
Billy freezes. “If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me,” Cyndi promises, and he groans. “I really fuckin’ hate you, Buckley.”
“No, you don’t,” she says easily.
Billy smiles, then, and yeah, Robin can see why Steve’s so head over heels for the guy. “You know, you’re the second person to ever say you like me.”
Robin blinks. “Yeah, I don’t buy it. You’re telling me you never had some pretty brunette tell you she liked you?” She sniffs the air. “I smell bullshit.”
Billy falls quiet. “If you fall, I will catch you; I will be waiting,” Cyndi sings in the background. Then, finally, he says, “Christopher was blond.”
Billy says ‘Christopher’ like Robin says ‘Tammy’. And even if she hadn’t heard it, she can see it in his eyes. “Billy…”
“Do you want to stay?”
Even if she did- “Nah. Let’s get out of here.”
Maybe everyone stares again. Maybe no one does. Robin has eyes only for Billy’s broad back as they walk out.
Billy had parked right next to a streetlight. It casts half his face in dim orange, the rest in shadow, like some surrealist painting titled WAR OF THE MIND. Or some pretentious bullshit like MAN BOY.
“Ze subject is at conflict with himself,” she pictures a lanky white guy with a faux French accent say. “He has been through so much, and yet none of it feels as difficult as this.”
The painting right next to it is an impressionist rendering of A Girl. Her eyes say she knows.
Billy takes a deep breath. “He lived next door. We were the only kids around the same age in the neighborhood, and pretty soon, we realized that wasn’t gonna change anytime soon. We used to go to the skate park together.” Pauses. Swallows. “On my fifteenth birthday, he kissed me.”
As he talks, Robin sees a younger Billy; blue eyes bright and wide and happy, holding hands with another boy. Christopher; Billy says his name in a whisper. A boy with sun-bleached hair and dimples and dark eyes bright and wide and happy and in love.
Robin sees a younger Billy, with an even younger Max, and balmy summer days at the skate park. There’s another boy right next to him, their arms brushing but never quite touching. They share a secret smile over Max’s head. She looks at him like he looks at Billy, and Billy looks away.
A younger Billy, but older than before, on the day his world crashes down on his shoulders. When a beautiful boy with sun-bleached hair and dimples and dark eyes meet blue and he says, “I like you,” and Billy runs. A younger Max, but older than before, asking her brother why they can’t go to the park, and he already pissed her off that morning and he shouldn’t yell at her but she’s being so bitchy that he tells her to fuck off. That they won’t see that boy again, because he wants something from Billy that Billy doesn’t think he can give him.
A younger Max running straight to Neil. “Christopher likes Billy,” she says through her tears, “but Billy won’t like him back.”
And Robin doesn’t want to, she wishes she couldn’t, but she sees Neil going still, the timber of his voice. “What do you mean, Maxine?” he asks, and Robin sees it all like she was there. “What are you saying about that boy your brother always hangs around?”
“Oh, they do more’n just hang around,” comes the answer, and the final nail in Billy’s coffin.
“Thank you, Maxine,” says the man, a virtuoso of respect and responsibility. “You’ve been a very good girl. Why don’t you go play with your dolls?” he says, to a girl who’s never had a doll her entire life.
But she goes to her room and she shuts the door and then it’s just Billy, and Neil, and the belt in his hands.
Robin’s blood runs cold. She wraps her clammy palm around Billy’s.
“He didn’t get me anyone would see,” Billy says, as if that’s supposed to make it any better. “I mean, I couldn’t go to the beach, but I don’t think anyone missed me.” His smile fades. “In a week, we were movin’ to Hawkins.”
“Billy,” she says, barely above a whisper. “You deserve good things.”
He jerks around to stare at her. “After everything I just told you?”
“Especially after everything you told me,” she says firmly. “Christopher’s not the only one who deserves people who like him. You do, too. And if you’ve been holding back on something that’ll make you happy out of guilt, or a sense of obligation, or whatever-” Billy’s breath hitches, “- you shouldn’t.”
Silence reigns again, until Billy says, real quiet, “I’m in love with him.”
Robin places her other hand on top of their laced fingers, and squeezes. “He won’t run away, Billy.”
Billy’s laugh comes out like a sob. “You really think so?”
“You’re my best friend, Billy,” she reminds him. “And friends don’t lie.”
(She calls Steve the next morning, and Billy picks up.)
June 29th, 1986
Asinine Astrid,
Turns out the Dingus does know a bit of Italian, because I asked him how to say, ‘Greetings, loved one’ and he said it was ‘succhiami il cazzo’. He thinks he’s sooo funny. Besides, he’s got Billy to do THAT, anyway. And BELIEVE ME when I say he does it a LOT.
(I say this with a fond roll of my eyes, a smile playing on my lips. A gentle breeze ruffles my hair. In the background, the Dingus squeals, “Oh, Billy!”)
How was Pride? Bet you went to the parade. Send me loads of pictures- I want to see what I can look forward to next year! The three of us had a small celebration yesterday at the Harringtons’. The boys let me do their makeup. I wore one of Billy’s shirts and Steve’s jeans, and they said, “You literally just look like you always do.” Which is blatant homophobia, even though they’re in big fat gay love.
Afterwards, we got drunk on Mr. Harrington’s expensive liquor. I’m still kind of hungover. I think I might’ve told the boys about that dream I had about Jane Fonda… oh no…
I’ve been slowly packing away the stuff in my room. So far, I’ve got two boxfuls for charity. Billy’s sister called dibs on the clothes that don’t fit me anymore, so at least ONE person in that household has a decent sense of style. Billy was eyeing a bunch of my old makeup, so I gave him a bag and told him to give it to his sister. I don’t think he will. I hope he won’t.
My parents think we’re dating. I had the most awkward conversation with them the other day-
Dad: “So, what happened to Steve?”
Me, dread creeping up my spine: “What about him?”
Dad: “I thought you were seeing each other. Now you’ve got that Hargrove boy in your room. I don’t like the looks of him.”
Mom: “What your father is trying to say, dear, is that boys like Billy might be tempting in the heat of the moment, but in the long run, Steve is the better choice. I know what it’s like to be young and swept off your feet by a handsome young man-”
Me, horrified: “Mom, what are you talking about?”
Dad, pissed: “Yes, Veronica; what ARE you talking about?”
I slipped out of the kitchen after that. No way was I going to stick around for THAT conversation.
Billy was even worse than Steve when I told him about it. “Your mom thinks I’m handsome and tempting?” he asked. “Hear that, babe? You’ve got competition!”
They’re so in love. It’s disgusting.
I kind of wish I could fit them in my box marked ‘CALIFORNIA’.
Rob xx
On the Fourth of July, they get shitfaced.
They’re in Billy’s room. Robin is starfished on Billy’s bed, idly playing with Steve’s hair while he lies half in her lap and half in Billy’s. They share a bottle of Mr. Harrington’s cognac between them, barely an inch left.
Max had spent most of the day glued to Billy’s side, quietly braiding his hair. His head is surrounded by tiny blond braids now, held together by scrunchies in every color of the rainbow. She’d fallen asleep a little while ago, and Billy carried her off to her room.
When he’d gotten back, Steve had produced the liquor with a flourish. “Care to get wasted?” he’d asked, looking around.
Neither of them had to be asked twice.
Robin doesn’t think it’s the alcohol that’s making everything so quiet. It’s a day of mourning for the whole town; the flag flies half-mast outside the mayor’s office, and there had been a bunch of people collecting donations for a memorial for ‘Remembering Those We Lost’. There won’t be any fireworks tonight.
“Can’t believe it’s been a year.” Billy punctuates this with a small sip from the bottle. Of the three, he’d been the one to drink the least, but he’d gotten drunk the fastest. Apparently, a side effect of being repeatedly stabbed by an interdimensional monstrosity is getting your kidneys all fucked up- who knew? “Gotta piss every hour,” he’d explained, with a dry chuckle.
“Yeah.” Robin scratches her belly. Her shirt’s ridden up. Steve’s stupid hair tickles her bare skin. “Me neither.”
“The first time it happened- all this crazy Upside-Down shit- I had Nancy.” Billy’s mouth pulls a little tight when Steve says her name. “The second time- I mean, shit, I guess I had Henderson, and we made a pair of heartbroken peas in a pod. And the third time-” He laughs to himself, “- Jesus, can’t believe I made it a third time- I found you guys. And you were the only ones who stuck this long around me afterwards.”
Robin twirls a hairspray-stiffened lock of brown hair between her fingers. Yanks a little, just to make Steve wince. “Ain’t no gettin’ rid of us, princess.”
Billy turns his head to her. A tiny blond braid tied with a tinier yellow hair elastic falls over his cheek. “Was that supposed to me, shitbird?”
Robin bites her cheek. “Maybe.”
“Fuck you.”
Steve whines. “Shut up.”
“Make me,” Billy challenges.
Steve sticks a finger in his nose. Billy yelps, and then they’re suddenly in a pillow fight that Robin finds herself roped into.
They’re finally home.
August 4th, 1986
Astrid,
I know we’ll be seeing each other very, very soon (!!!) but I’ve gotten so used to these correspondences of ours, I’ll almost miss not doing them anymore. Maybe we can communicate entirely in the written word for another couple of months when I’m there. For old time’s sake.
I finished packing the last of my stuff yesterday. Taped the boxes, wrote where they’re going to go in big, blocky letters. It’s the last night I’ll be sleeping in my room, which is just- surreal. The walls are bare, the décor’s all gone- there’s a big dark rectangle where my Janis Joplin poster used to be. Dad has plans on turning it into a recreation room. I have no doubts it will remain exactly as I left it when I come back for winter break.
You know what I’m going to do, first thing after I get there? SLEEP. These past few nights have not been kind to my sleep schedule, and it’s bound to get even worse until I adjust to the time difference. So if I fall asleep on you the minute I see you, forgive me. It’s not you, it’s me.
Mom made enough food for a small army to take along with me. It’ll last us past the millennium, I think. Maybe even the next, if we can be extra frugal. They (my parents) sat me down and gave me this long list of advice- don’t drink too much, just say no, study hard but don’t overwork yourself, have fun, make friends, don’t get too hung up on boys- don’t think they’ll have to worry about that last one, but hey. It made me tear up a little.
Can’t wait to see you again!
Love,
Rob xx
P.S. Hope you have enough space in your apartment for two stowaways!