Archive of Our Own

Now seemed perfect actually.

Hopper and Max had already gotten out of the car and it was just the two of them. Billy always dragged his feet going home after a fight. He was covered in black ooze and blood, dirt and leave.

They’re alone and now seemed like a good enough time.

“I’m really glad I met you,” Steve said in one breath.

It wasn’t like he was telling Billy he loves him or anything. He doesn’t love Billy...but he can sort of feel it coming. The feeling of it coming snuck up on him a week ago, he’s pretty sure he’s going to fall in love with Billy fucking Hargrove. He knows he could fall in love with him, he knows he will.

Billy stared at him and then his eyebrows lowered and his eyes narrowed. Not angry, Steve thought, confused. “Is this one of your things , Harrington?” He asked.

“ No ,” he said and he drew it out a little because he can’t help but get nervous and defensive when it actually is one of his things. One of his waxing poetic things where he gets all wooby eyed about life and the future and caring about people. “I’m just...I’m just saying that there’s a bunch of people and a lot of years and you and I ended up knowing each other,” he said, by the end of it he sentence was getting slower the more Billy looked less confused and more blanked face. “It’s...nice, you know? And I’m grateful . ”

Billy’s face is a clean slate except for his cheeks and ears which are red, red, red like apples, like spring flowers, like goddamn Fourth of July fireworks.  

“Got it,” he breathed.

“Yeah,” Steve studied a stain on the floor of Hopper’s cop car and realized this probably wasn’t a very good place to say anything like that to Billy.

“So what?” Billy said. Steve’s pretty sure he’s inched himself a little closer to him now, he feels closer than he was before, hotter against his skin, the air is practically vibrating from it. “This mean you got a thing for me now or something?”

Yup.

Steve played dumb, he’s good at that. “A thing?”

“Yeah,” he swallowed. “ A thing. ” The way Billy curled those words like cursive had floated from his lips made Steve squirm against the leather seat. He’s definitely closer. “Cause we’re all alone in this car, Harrington, and it sounds to me like you’re confessing something.”  The ‘and if you are, I’m going to do something about it’ is loud and clear in Billy tone, Steve’s just not sure if Billy’s going kiss him or kill him. His tongue glossed across his lips slowly, Steve’s eyes followed it unabashedly, he’s so close he couldn’t look away even if he tried.

He wasn’t sure until Billy’s fingers hooked around his jaw and pulled his face up to his. Billy’s definitely not going to kill him unless this is the most twisted prelude to murder on the planet. Steve’s eyes dropped to Billy’s lips and the dark red ‘V’ shaped cut, swelling his bottom lip. It made him want to kiss him even more, to kiss the violent red mark Neil gave him until Billy didn’t feel it anymore.

“I am,” Steve whispered against his lips. “What are you going to do about it, Hargrove?”

Billy smirked, his eyes sparkled. “Take a wild guess,” he said.

Steve was about to, which is stupid considering, his wild guess was going to be ‘kiss me silly?’ And Billy is, a little messy from sleep deprivation and desperation. It’s been awhile since Steve kissed anyone, kissed anyone sober, kissed anyone like Billy. And kissing someone like him makes his brain short-circuit. His fingers curled into his hair and the back of his neck to pull him closer.

His tongue tasted blood from the cut on Billy’s lip and cigarettes from his tongue and cherry from the lollipop he had been crunching on before this. He could taste it forever. Steve was pretty sure with the taste of blood, cigarettes and artificial cherry, with his short-circuited brain he’s definitely falling a little in love with Billy. It made Steve feel wanted . There's a little empty hole in himself he tries to ignore that Billy’s completely filling in only a few seconds like it’s his life’s mission. One of his legs slid off the cushion making room for him. Billy's lips dropped to the column of his neck, kissing over all the moles that speckled Steve’s pale skin and burning the already abused cut on salty perspiration from spending so long battling demodogs.

“Yeah, I’m really glad I met you,” Steve said breathlessly.

“My very own fucking Romeo,” Billy nipped at his neck just to see him flinch. He chuckled. “Lucky me.”

Steve figured for now on Billy would be kissing him to get the last word in all the time. He pulled Steve into his lap to keep up the kisses that were only getting more heated. 

He’s kissing Steve Harrington, it’s putting him over the goddamn moon, and he’s fucking great at it. Just like all the cows at Hawkins say, dream about kissing him and he’s the one doing it. Billy Hargrove is the one that gets to make out with Steve Harrington. It makes him delirious and light headed just thinking about it. “Need you on top of me more often, princess,” Billy crooned. “I could get used to this.”

Steve blushed a little, “yeah? Shit,” he hissed as Billy’s hands drifted under his shirt and explored from there. A trail of warmth followed all over Steve wherever Billy’s roaming hands went, flitting from one spot to next as if he only had a few seconds for each place-- the notches of his spine, the dimples just above his jeans. “ Shit. ” Billy rutted up against him.Billy’s hands drop to his hips, the new sensation of rough hands there brings a shiver up his spine. They’re going to fog up the window soon, he can tell.

THUD!

THUD!

THUD!

Steve’s head slammed into the ceiling of Hopper’s car. He’s pretty sure one of his damn vertebrae just jammed into his skull.

“Absolutely not!” They could hear Hopper yell from outside of the car. “Not in my damn car!” Hopper opened the driver door, “Hargrove, out. Now, ” he said between his teeth. Jane called the severe lack of sentence coherence ‘caveman Hopper.’ Billy paled. Steve slid off of his lap to the other side of the car, he could feel still Billy trembling the seat even with the distance. “Out of my damn car, now, Billy,” Hopper said sternly. That seemed to jumpstart Billy enough to process he was being given an order, a not negotiable, right-fucking-now-or-so-help-me-God order.

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled. Billy’s head stayed so low Steve wondered how his neck could manage it as he ducked out the car.

“It was my--” Steve started.

“I really don’t want to hear it right now,” Hopper said. He pinched the bridge of his nose, “goddamn kids, Jesus Christ,” Steve could hear him grumbling. “Let’s go, Hargrove, you’re supposed to be with Max.”

Billy nodded. “I know.”

The driver door shut and Steve couldn’t hear anything else Hopper was saying to him. Billy looked paled except in his splotchy red cheeks and the rings around his eyes. It made Steve a little sick to his stomach looking at him with his fists curled at his sides like he’s ready to fight the man.

He hasn’t tried to fight anyone in a while.

This was all his fault.

They started walking back towards the Hargrove household and Steve watched until he couldn’t see them anymore before slumping down in his seat with his head in his hands. He’s such a fucking idiot. Yeah, confess your gay feelings and then start making out in a cop’s car, that’ll go over perfectly.

He’s such an idiot.

Hopper was gone even longer than when he dropped off Max and when he came back, he looked even more tired. A little less angry though.

Steve felt bone tired now, the weight of the fight and the last twenty minutes weighed down on his eyelids. It made his brain fuzzy and his bones ache.

“Front seat, Harrington,” he said gruffly. “I’m not your chauffeur.”

He really would prefer the back seat, far from Hopper and his grimace. Steve also figured Hopper probably wouldn’t have preferred two horny teenagers making out in the back of his car. He dipped out of the car and got back in on the passenger side. As soon as he was buckled in, Hopper started back down Old Cherry Lane.

“He’s fine,” Hopper said, after a moment. “Spooked the holy hell out of him, but he’s fine.”

Steve nodded. His hammering heart slowed a little, he needed to know that Billy was okay before he could even begin to relax. He kept his eyes on the hands in his lap, it’s gonna be hard looking at the man for a while. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “That was dumb, I’m dumb.”

“Damn right it was,” Hopper said. “And you’re not dumb, Steve, you’re eighteen, it’s what you do.”

“Yeah.” He fidgeted with the fingers in his lap. He’d never heard that before, but he figured he’s probably still a kid in Hopper’s eyes and he knows for sure kids are such shit heads sometimes.

“I don’t care,” Hopper said with the same suddenness, but it was like he was reading Steve’s mind and answering out loud. “You hear me? I care that it was in my car that I use for work and everything else, but I don’t care that it was the two of you. It doesn’t change anything.”

On Steve’s end it changes nothing, on Hopper’s, he was already devising a million different ways he’d have to watch out and keep an eye on the two of them. Which makes the list a total of 10 goddamn children, he’s looking out for in one way or another.

In Hawkins, it’s dangerous to be the way they are. He shook his head, it just had to be Steve Harrington and Billy Hargrove as if their lives weren’t complicated enough already. He rubbed a hand over his face.“And be careful for Christ’s sake,” he groused.

Steve nodded. He was pale looking, had his head down but nodding meant enough to him. He’s probably just as spooked if not more than Billy and Lord knows they have very different ways of presenting their emotions.  

“I hate saying this to you,” he said. “But you can’t afford to be stupid, do you understand?”

Steve nodded again. “I understand,” he said in a choked voice. “Thanks...I...he…,” he shrugged. He didn’t really have a lot of words for the man without spilling out like a bucket filled to the brim and the last thing he wanted was to tell Hopper just how much he really really likes Billy Hargrove. “I don’t want him to get hurt,” Steve said. “We’ll be smarter.”

“That’s all I want to hear,” Hopper said solemnly. “Just be smart,” he sighed. “And I’m here, alright kid, in case you need my help.” Sure he doesn’t get it, but he’s familiar with the way they look at each other and the attachment they have. He wouldn’t let a single asshat in this town lay a fist on either of them for that sort of stuff he could help it.

That seemed to get the Harrington kid’s attention which he’s heard is actually pretty damn hard to keep. He has big brown doe eyes that remind him of Jane’s, they even glisten almost the same way when she’s on the edge of tears.

“Thanks,” he blinked a little and then palmed at his eyes. “That’s pretty cool of you.”

“Yeah?” Hopper snorted. “Tell Jane that for me.”