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Bullshit. Steve had figured out it was all bullshit. It was something Billy had always known and that's why he knew how to play the game so well. But he realized that Steve hadn't known. That he had been painfully earnest in his reign as King Steve. And when he found out just how fake and meaningless it all was, it had left him tumbling through the dark, lost, adrift. He had completely checked out from the everyday goings on of high school, treating his last semester like a spectator in a foreign land.
What Billy hadn’t expected was the twinge of guilt that accompanied these thoughts. He stubbed out his cigarette indignantly before shaking out a fresh one to light. Besides, what did Billy really have to feel guilty for anyway? As far as he was concerned, it was Nancy Wheeler who had started Harrington - Harrington , not Steve - off on this path of apathy. He still remembers that night clearly. Sticky, cheap beer was still dripping down his chin and front, mixing with his sweat, as his eyes found the dethroned King of Hawkins High in the crowd of students. Harrington's Princess, more wasted than Billy had ever expected from an uptight girl like her, was gesturing at Steve with exaggerated movements.
Billy hadn’t meant to listen in. The faint prickle at the back of his neck told him that this was a conversation that should be private, despite that bitch’s insistence at holding it in the middle of the fucking party. Billy had just wanted to rub his record-breaking kegstand in Harrington’s face, and maybe sling his arm around the taller boy as he gave him a conciliatory beer. But Nancy fucking Wheeler had aborted that plan before it could even take form.
The crowd of partygoers had all gasped and jeered as the sticky sweet red punch spilled down the front of Wheeler’s pretty white dress. Billy had to bite his cheek hard to keep from laughing in the ensuing silence. As far as Billy was concerned, the bitch deserved it, making a fool of Harrington like that. He wasn’t quite sure what Steve - Harrington - saw in her. She was all frail bones and pinched, disapproving expressions. And when she did finally loosen up? It was only to rip Steve’s heart out.
Billy really hadn’t meant to listen. Really. But he found himself sliding through the crowd like a well-oiled snake as he pursued the arguing couple from a safe distance. He convinced himself as he made his way across the room that he was only following along to see if he could help. Lend Harrington some support in getting his drunk girlfriend under control. But when the bathroom door shut behind them, Billy suddenly felt his mouth go dry and his hand stop just short of knocking. What was he doing? He honestly hadn’t been sure at the time… but sometimes Harrington did that to him: got him all confused and unsure of himself.
He had chalked it up to their high school rivalry. When Billy had come to Hawkins, he knew what he had to do to cement his status as top dog at the school. It was all too easy in a hick town like this where even a pierced ear or a tattoo was something exotic and wild. A rebellious reprieve from the stagnant surroundings of corn and cowshit, with the same Bob Seger shit still playing on their parents’ radios. Billy walked that fine line of masculinity: just enough femininity to keep the girls charmed despite his bad boy ways, but too feral for the boys to not respect him. He was a rockstar among the generic masses. Skintight jeans and long, long lashes juxtaposed against hard muscles and purpling bruises. A modern day Morrison for teens, setting trends that were already at least 5 years old on the coasts.
He didn’t even have to fake his confidence here, at least not most of the time, because really, how could he even be intimidated or remotely care about the opinions of all these bland automatons marching a straight line from cradle to grave? It wasn’t hard to hide behind a mask when surrounded by people who couldn’t begin to fathom that their peer might be trading in pretense and artifice. He should have been able to coast along until graduation and then get the hell out of this white trash town. What he hadn’t expected was for the king he dethroned to not fit this mold.
It was easy to mistake Harrington for just another pretty face, more privileged than the rest of these backwoods losers, but no different under the surface. A spoiled rich kid coasting along on his parents’ money and what laughable notoriety his last name gave him within the confines of the city limits. Billy assumed he’d be like the others: easy to dismiss, easy to forget. Another disappointing smear of beige compared to the vibrant colors of the people he’d left behind in California. But Harrington had fooled him. There was a fire in Harrington that matched Billy’s own.
It had almost been snuffed out that night, when Wheeler had screamed “bullshit” in the bathroom, Billy hanging out silent and unnoticed in the darkened hallway. But Billy could still see the embers smoldering behind those brown doe eyes. The spark flickering back to life for glorious moments at a time whenever Billy pushed him just a little too far. Making him practically addicted to pushing Harrington’s buttons just to see that light, that life , that made Hawkins, Indiana almost bearable. Never though, had it been more apparent than that night . And fuck him, but it hadn’t been worth it. Sometimes, on nights like this when his room swallowed him whole and the stars twinkling outside his window filled him with more anxiety than peace, he even maybe kind of wished he could take it back.