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Billy looks down at the blood stain on the crotch of his jeans and he remembers. Day after day he has to put on the crisp, stained jeans that carry memories that practically have the denim burning his skin. No matter how much he washes up or soaks those jeans in warm clean water (or at least the modern equivalent in such shitty times), he still has to squeeze back into the too tight, crisp, stained jeans and try not to let that familiar ache pounding at the back of his skull gnaw on his heart too. He has three shirts left, the ripped tattered one he has on, and two of Steve’s, but the only pants that aren’t ripped in all the wrong places are those stupid fucking jeans; they would be the only other thing to survive that day.
Logically, he knows the stain has long since been covered by blood that isn’t his or Steve’s, but he remembers when the pants were stained with dirt and splattered with the guts of monsters, not stained burgundy with his own loss. Sometimes, if he closes his eyes for too long, he pictures the blood caked on and still trickling down his thigh as he washed up on his first night alone since the outbreak.
Alone. He remembers what it was like before, Steve holding him every night, promising to find somewhere safe for them to raise their little girl. Billy still has no idea why Steve thought she was a little girl, but if he focuses on that for too long, the only thing he’ll be able to think about is that she didn’t end up being a little girl, she ended up being nothing, and he won’t be able to keep himself alive if he goes down that path, not now that Steve’s left him.
That’s how he sees it. Steve left him. What kind of asshole gets themselves stabbed during the goddamn zombie apocalypse ?! Getting himself eaten would have been one thing, but stabbed with his own knife? That’s just bullshit, and Billy hasn’t been able to forgive him for it yet. Well, that and because Steve didn’t let him stay there and die with him.
“Everything is gonna be fine, you take the baby and hide somewhere, I’m right behind you,” Steve wheezes as he cradles his bleeding abdomen and kisses Billy one last time. Steve’s relieved that the last thing he tastes is Billy, his lips and his tears, rather than focusing on his own blood. He knows this is goodbye, and Billy should too, but they both know he won’t be able to leave Steve behind if he faces that truth.
Billy hates Steve. He lied to him; he told him things were going to be fine, but Billy was on his own, bleeding, and running, and bleeding some more as the child inside him, their child, died and left him too; his hope died with them and Billy hates Steve because he remembers. He remembers and he doesn’t want to. He remembers hope, and love, and dreams, he remembers it all like a sour taste in his mouth that no amount of water can wash away. He remembers and he is so desperate to forget because every memory of his lover is another harsh reminder that he can’t die, he’s not allowed because he swore he’d live and it’s not fair.
Billy has quite a few reasons to live, and by reasons I mean he’s got a list written in colored pencil on the ripped out cover page of a Dr. Seuss book that reminds him why he has to live despite his overwhelming desire to just end it; every excuse could be boiled down to one word — Steve, which incidentally he’s written on there three and a half times — but he took the time to write them out so that he wouldn’t cut himself open and lay in the street as a free buffet.
- You will not let those unworthy of your life kill you. You didn’t let Neil, you won’t let these assholes.
- If the kids are out there, if Wheeler, or Byers, or the chief are alive, he would want you to find them.
- Steve.
- Give Max back this stupid locket.
- Pick a name for your daughter.
- Make the world better like he always talked about.
- Steve Harrington
- You promised you’d never hurt yourself again. We don’t break promises.
- Burgers. It’s been so fucking long since burgers. No dying until I eat a fucking burger.
- Extra pickles. Obviously.
- CHOCOLATE
- If you die, he’ll never forgive you
- Fuck you Harrington.
- Ste
He never finishes the list, he’d had to take an ax to an already exposed brain in the middle of it and it hurts too much to go back. It was easier not to think, to keep swinging until the body was done twitching and there was nothing left of a skull to crush. He looks at it a lot, thinks maybe if he doesn’t finish the last one then Steve’s story won’t be over. He hates himself for still hoping that maybe he made it, maybe Steve will find him and he’ll have his family, his smile, his love back. He makes himself sick. He never used to hope before Steve, he should be able to stop now that he’s gone.
For awhile he thought Steve made his life better, but now that he’s gone, now that he’s left him hurting, scared, and all alone he realizes that he ruined it, he ruined everything. He really truly hates that dumbass…and yet he still can’t find it in him to break his promise, because he loves him too.
He remembers Steve, refuses to forget no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much he wants to. He carries around that stupid nail bat in his duffel bag, snuggled up with his axe when he’s carrying around his shotgun. He wears his mark, both in bite and in that stupid prison tattoo he gave himself on a dare because they were drunk, the world was ending, and the only thing he knew to be true was that Steve Harrington was, is, and always will be the love of his life. He carries his picture in the useless wallet settled in his back pocket. He wears the stupid charm bracelet Steve got him for their one year anniversary. He remembers making out in his car at that shitty old drive in, and laughing at Steve when he got brain freeze from drinking his milkshake too fast. He captures every fragile, fleeting memory and keeps it trapped inside him, refuses to let it go as he desperately tries to convince himself that he wants to live.
He remembers wanting to live, still feels it deep in his bones, thrumming along with the beat of his heart, riding through his veins. It’s different than the instinct to survive, the thing that kept him from fighting Neil too hard, the piece of him that dwindled day by day as time went on, the piece of him that had nearly rotted away until Steve nursed it back to health. Instinct is far different than desire, Billy had lost all genuine, substantial desire to live until he moved to Hawkins.
He remembers wanting to live because Steve was his reason for it, and Steve will continue to be the reason until one of two people come for him — death, or Steve Harrington himself. Who knows, maybe now that’s the same damn thing.