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I can’t move.
It was two o’clock in the morning. The fight had gone on and on for hours and even if it hadn’t involved a lot of running through tunnels and then panicked running in the Upside Down before they’d retrieved Dustin (who needed a serious talking to) the sheer energy exerted just by having to be so vigilant every second and being terrified that someone would get hurt was enough to exhaust Steve.
Also he’d gotten knocked around plenty, his entire body feeling like one big bruise.
He pulled his emergency break. His house was dark. Likely nobody had noticed he wasn’t home.
Billy was dead asleep in the passenger seat. Steve sighed and pushed a lock of Billy’s hair aside to see if his temple had stopped bleeding.
It had. Small mercies.
They were friends. They also fucked. Steve didn’t know what that meant. There was never time to talk about that which he considered a plus.
After a fight they usually fucked, still keyed up and high on the adrenaline, and then sometimes Billy would knock out on Steve’s couch if he didn’t feel like going home.
“Hey,” Steve croaked. He elbowed Billy who winced and shook his head. “Shit. Sorry. Ribs?”
“S’fine,” Billy mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “You coming in?”
Billy grunted in response and they both half-fell out of the Beemer. Steve wasn’t sure what Billy’s grunt meant exactly.
Steve discovered with some amount of shock that he didn’t feel like having sex on any level. He wasn’t sure he was physically able to. But the thought of going to bed alone felt impossible and Billy was always just around after a monster fight these days. Billy was always around in general. So if Billy wanted a little nookie, Steve was sure he could sum up some enthusiasm from…somewhere. Surely Billy would be fine with a blow-job. Steve could handle that much, he supposed.
Billy lagged on the stairs and Steve, unthinking, took his hand, and they trudged up step by step.
“Hate monsters,” Billy grumbled, sounding like a sleepy kid.
Steve snorted a little laugh at that. “You were real excited about fightin’ em’ a few months ago.”
“I was dumb.”
Steve chuckled and led Billy into his room, kicking the door shut. He took off his jacket, hissing as he discovered injuries in new places. Billy took off his jacket and threw it over a chair and he kicked off his shoes before approaching Steve.
“That arm…” Billy said, nodding at Steve.
Steve’s arm had gotten trapped inside a tree as a portal had closed before El had opened it again.
That had been an otherworldly kind of pain but nothing had broken.
“Hurts like a mother,” Steve muttered. Billy rubbed at the arm, making a face as if it were his own injury, his eyes roving over Steve. “Your eye’s fucked up.”
“Just a branch,” Steve said. “Your ribs?”
“Just bruised.”
“I feel dead,” Steve said.
Billy snorted. “Ditto, man.” Yet he took off his shirt as if they were about to go at it.
This would be interesting. Steve shook his head at the mottled purple along Billy’s chest, dried blood crusting where demodog claws had scratched through his clothes.
“Jesus,” Steve said.
“Eh.” Billy shrugged.
Steve kicked off his own shoes and plopped down on the bed. “Shit.”
“Mmm.” Billy plopped down next to him. He didn’t light a cigarette and he didn’t start kissing Steve’s neck like he usually did. He stared straight ahead.
Steve closed his eyes and said: “I can’t have sex right now. I can’t do shit.”
He heard Billy exhale and say, “Fuck, me either.” He glanced at Steve, brow furrowed. “You want me to go?”
Steve took a long time to answer. He felt like they were at some kind of turning point and he didn’t want things to turn in the wrong way. But fuck it, he was too tired to lie.
“No,” Steve said flatly. “I really don’t.”
“Couch?” Billy said.
Steve fell back on the bed. His parents had cranked up the AC and he’d taken off his shirt. But the chill was a little refreshing after the weird warm claminess of the tunnels.
“Can you just stay here?” Steve said. “I mean here. With me? Don’t laugh.”
“Too fuckin’ tired to laugh,” Billy said, his voice breaking with a yawn and he threw his shirt on the floor. “That’s good. Didn’t want to move.”
Billy lay down and even though this was entirely new territory somehow Steve automatically found himself curling behind Billy just as he rolled on his side to face the window. Steve had an eerie sense of deja vu as if they’d gone to sleep together a thousand times before even though they most certainly had not.
“Weird,” Billy said quietly, as Steve’s arm came around him and he rested a palm at Billy’s heart. Steve’s nose tickled at the sensation of hair that smelled like mud and Aqua Net and Upside Down and the chemical tang of monster goo, and he pushed it aside and absently pecked a kiss to the back of Billy’s neck.
“Mm? Really?” Steve said. “Feels so normal.”
“Yeah,” Billy murmured. “Exactly.”
“Go to sleep,” Steve whispered, his own eyes already slipping shut.
“Mmm.”
“Love you.”
“Mm. Love you too, Harrington.”