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"So the bad news is that the peanut butter didn't work."
Steve groans and covers his eyes with his hands. He'd drop his head back against the wall if he could, but unfortunately he's in the wrong position - currently, he's straddling the the closed lid of a toilet seat at the Byers'. He could drop his head forward into the wall, but his entire fucking head is covered in crunchy peanut butter and getting it on the wall sounds like a bad idea. Wouldn't that just be the cherry on the shit sundae of his evening?
Robin's standing behind him, poking at the mess of his hair with a fork in one hand and a butter knife in the other. "I don't think this was a good idea," she says. "I think you're supposed to use creamy peanut butter for this. Not chunky." She's supposed to be trying to get the gum out, but so far she's just succeeded in kind of pushing the goop around with horrified fascination.
"Do the peanuts make a difference?" Steve snaps, grips the edge of tank with more force than necessary when Robin snorts. "Chunky's what we had."
"Obviously." She pokes at Steve's head a little harder. Steve twists to bat her away, and there's a minor scuffle over the fork and butter knife. "The gum's mixed with peanuts now. If you had creamy, you'd just have gum with no peanuts."
"We should have used ice," Will pipes up from his seat on the edge of the tub.
Next to him, Lucas nods. "Or olive oil."
"Alright, there are too many people in this bathroom." Steve points a finger, wags it between where six kids and two teenagers are shoved into one tiny space. For Christ's sake, Dustin is literally sitting on the sink, and Jane is carefully balanced on a hamper. "Everyone out."
No one moves. They kind of glance at each other, and then at Dustin, who shrugs and has the decency to look a little apologetic. "Sorry, Steve, you're not very threatening right now. You kind of look like an ochre jelly."
There are noises of agreement from the rest of the kids. Steve's going to come unglued if this devolves into a fucking Dungeons & Dragons discussion right now. "I'm gonna count to three, and anyone who is still in here and under the age of sixteen is getting their ass kicked."
"Oh, it's his mom-voice," Dustin says ruefully from the sink.
Will sighs. "It's more like an older brother voice."
"I mean-" Dustin starts.
"One," Steve cuts in with force, and absolutely no one moves. "Two!" Some shifting now, a little uneasy. "Three, you better move it." He stands, which kickstarts a flurry of motion in the bathroom as preteens and barely-teenagers scramble to get out the door. In seconds, the bathroom is blissfully empty - save, of course, for Steve and Robin.
And, apparently, Max.
"You're not sixteen," Steve gripes at her, with a little less bite than before now that he's not being surrounded on all sides by people. It's anxiety, he's learned thanks to Nancy's supposedly "helpful" psychology course she's in for her first semester. The peanut butter in his hair isn't helping.
She rolls her eyes, but doesn't snipe back, instead chewing on her lip for a moment before she says, "Billy can help."
It takes a minute to process. Steve isn't sure he heard her correctly. Robin definitely did, though, and says, "Oh, you're right. I didn't even think of him, good idea." Which. What?
"Wait, what?" Steve's confused and a little alarmed.
Max bristles. "He's not mean any-"
"No, I know," Steve says quickly. "That's not it. I just." He has to stop.
Steve's not opposed, except that he kind of is. Not because he thinks it'll come to blows or anything like that, because he and Billy have, like, an understanding now. It's the kind of understanding where they don't beat the shit out of each other and occasionally share a smoke and a drink out at the quarry when they both just happen to be there at the same time running from their own personal reservoirs of nightmares. And it's become this standing appointment now, kind of, like it's expected that if one of them can't sleep, they'll go to the quarry, because more often than not, the other one also can't sleep.
"Then what is it?" Max says impatiently.
"I don't want anyone else to see me with, uh. My hair." It's not his smoothest moment. It's not even the situation that has Steve balking at the idea of seeing Billy. Like, the whole bubblegum and peanut butter disaster is a factor, yeah, but that's not the whole reason, not by a long shot.
Robin shoves at his shoulder. "Beggars can't be choosers, Steve," she says. "He's good with hair, you have a hair problem, Max is gonna go call Billy. Max, go call Billy."
"I'm the babysitter," Steve replies, jabbing Robin with a finger. He turns back to tell Max not to call Billy under any circumstances. She's already gone. Of course she is. "I'm the babysitter!"
"You got gum in your hair from a bubble-blowing contest that you encouraged." She's using the butter knife she still has to punctuate her words. "After Mike almost choked on a huge wad of bubblegum!"
"He only choked a little!" Steve doesn't resist as she grabs his arm and drags him over to the bathtub, sighing dramatically. "Not like, choking choking. He was coughing. If you can cough you can breathe."
The sigh that Robin blows out is equal parts exasperation and frustration. "You're being an ass about it. You want to live with gum in your hair forever?" She leans over and starts the water in the tub. "Come on, let's at least get the peanut butter out. Bend over."
Steve knows he's going to have to come clean. He fights with himself about it for all of thirty seconds before he closes the bathroom door and says, just loud enough to be heard over the water, "I kissed Billy."
The water running is the only sound for ten long, excruciating seconds. "I'm sorry," Robin finally replies, turning to give him an incredulous look. "Can you repeat that? It sounds like you said..."
"I kissed Billy," Steve repeats, and the rest of it falls out in a rush. "At the quarry last night. I kissed him, and then I ran away, so now he's going to see me looking like a-a jelly octopus, or whatever Henderson called it, and Billy will not want to kiss me again if he sees me with peanut butter and bubblegum in my hair!"
"You're a disaster." Robin buries her face in her hands. "Like, legitimately. You're, like, competing with the tornado we had two years ago at this point, but you're worse. How can you be such a disaster?"
Which. Ouch. Harsh, Robin. "That was unnecessary," he says, using his disappointed-babysitter voice. She sighs again into her hands, and then grabs him by the arms and drags him over. Steve is no, like, wilting daisy or whatever, but Robin is surprisingly strong. He drags his feet, still, because he's a contrary son-of-a-bitch. "What? Why?"
"Because I'm going to drown you and put you out of my misery," she says, shoving him down so his head is bent over the bathtub. At his alarmed noise, she just pushes at his neck harder. "We're going to wash the peanut butter out of your hair, at least. So maybe Billy will want to kiss you again. Did he even kiss you back? Or did you just plant one on him and take off?"
She chooses that moment to dump water over Steve's head, so his response is pretty much just garbling. Great, now he's going to be covered in peanut butter and soaked, with bubblegum in his hair. Maybe Robin actually will drown him and put him out of his own misery too.
"Of course you just ran, you dork," Robin mutters, and proceeds to waterboard Steve within an inch of his life.
That's what it feels like, at least. He's never actually been waterboarded, so like, no basis for comparison there. To her credit, Robin does actually manage to get the peanut butter out of his hair, peanuts and all - even around the giant knot that is the bubblegum on the side of Steve's head. She makes unfortunate-unhappy noises as she works on it, which isn't exactly reassuring. Then, when she's got the water off and a towel wrapped around Steve's head, she helps him back to his feet and wraps another towel around his shoulders.
"Okay, listen." Robin's still got him by the shoulders, patting him with the towel even though his shirt is a lost cause. She's using her serious-business voice, now, so Steve tries his best to tune in and pay attention, because when Robin uses her serious-business voice, business is usually serious. "I need you to realize that we might not be able to save your hair." He makes an outraged, argumentative noise, but she cuts him off before it can actually become a word. "No, Steve, you need to realize that gum in your hair means you might have to cut and-or shave part of it off. Like, I need you to come to terms with it."
"Please just drown me," Steve begs, vaguely registering the sound of the bathroom door opening over his general horror at what Robin has just said.
"Well, that would be a waste."
It's Billy. Steve's body does that weird thing where it both tenses and relaxes at the knowledge that Billy is somewhere in the vicinity, like it's excited to see him, relieved that he's there, and nervous about being around him all at once. Steve's kind of afraid to turn around, considering the last time he saw Billy was early this morning and much, much closer. His cheeks heat a little as he remembers just how much closer.
"Glad you could make it," Robin says, because Steve has just dropped the ball completely on conversations and greetings and being a person in general. "Please tell me you have scissors."
"No," Steve whines quietly, the sound drawn out of him by the mental image of someone, anyone at all, taking a pair of scissors to his hair.
They ignore him. "Shears." Billy apparently gives them a little snip, Steve can hear it. It's ominous, is what it is. "And clippers, just in case it comes to that."
"No!" Steve whines a little louder.
This time he gets a good, solid thump on the back from Robin as acknowledgment. "In that case, Hargrove, this big whiny baby is all yours." And then she leaves, because she's the worst friend ever. Steve wants a refund. (Not really. Robin's pretty great most of the time, even if Steve wants to throttle her just a little for living the two of them alone right now.)
"Oh joy," Billy deadpans as she leaves, and then after the door is closed behind her again, finishes with a much more amused and quieter, "All I've ever wanted."
Steve doesn't know what to say to that, but he does finally work up the courage to turn around. He's definitely not at his best here, with the towel around his shoulders and another around his head in a weird approximation of a hat. His shirt is soaked, and he can still smell peanut butter.
Billy holds it in for all of a second before he's laughing, doubling over and grabbing at the sink for support. "Oh my god, Harrington," he manages to gasp out between laughter. "Oh my god."
Well, now Billy's probably never going to see him without laughing again, let alone want to kiss him. Not that Steve had given him a chance to kiss back in the first place before he ran like a chicken. Steve huffs and throws his hands in the air before crossing them and sitting down hard on the edge of the tub. "Get it out of your system," he grumbles.
Eventually Billy seems to get a grip on himself, even if he's still smirking. "Alright, c'mon, take the towel off. I'm gonna have to see the damage if I'm gonna be able to fix it."
"No, you're gonna laugh again," Steve mutters petulantly, because his day so far has been absolutely terrible, and he has a feeling it's not going to get better.
Billy puts the shears and the clippers down on the counter. "Yep," he agrees, not even apologetic about it.
"Ugh." Steve can't argue with that, and he doesn't actually want to wear the towel for the rest of his life, so he whips it off, balls it up, and tosses it at the hamper with aggression. He waits for the laughter that he's sure will follow.
Except Billy doesn't laugh.
Turns out that Billy not laughing is somehow worse than Billy laughing. Like, significantly worse. Anxiety-inducing worse. "I know it's bad," Steve says, because he's looked in a mirror Billy isn't laughing anymore.
In fact, Billy is grimacing. Just blatant pity all over his face. Great. "You've gone past bad and straight into disaster."
"Always fun when I get called a 'disaster' twice in one day." Steve scrubs at his face, frowning when he realizes that he's still got peanut butter in his eyebrow. "Can you fix it?"
Billy hesitates, and then actually looks apologetic when he asks, "How do you feel about mohawks?"
Suffice to say, Steve doesn't feel great about them. Billy finally gets him back onto the closed lid of the toilet, and honestly, Steve's too wrapped up in this whole mess to even care that he kissed Billy and now Billy is here, or so he blatantly lies to himself. It's pretty much all he can think about, even as Billy quietly takes the clippers to the side the gum is stuck on.
It's not until Billy's buzzed the other side and the back too that Steve speaks again, when Billy's got the shears in one hand and someone else's comb in the other. "So where did you learn to do... this?"
"Had a friend in California who taught me a few tricks." Billy sounds preoccupied, which is probably why Steve gets a straight answer. "He probably could have saved your hair, not just triage-ed it, but whatever. Had to cut some out of Max's a while ago."
"Oh." Steve tries to think of something else to say. This is much more awkward than their comfortable, companionable silences at the quarry. That's probably his fault. He probably screwed it all up because he couldn't get a handle on his own stupid crush and kissed Billy.
But he can't think of anything to say that isn't just... dumb. He's not sure speaking would help the awkward moment, anyway. Besides, Billy's concentrating, or Billy would be talking. Maybe. Unless he's also feeling awkward and unhappy, which would also be Steve's fault. He's definitely a disaster, complete with a casualty - the tenuous friendship he had going with Billy Hargrove.
"I can literally hear you thinking," Billy finally says. He's still pulling the top of Steve's hair out and trimming it with the shears, delicate little snips.
Steve's never been great at keeping his mouth shut when his brain thinks too loudly, so he winds up saying, "I ruined everything." He doesn't mean to let that slip out, but it does. Now it's out there, being met by silence from Billy, broken only by the sound of the shears.
"It'll grow back," Billy finally replies, and sounds... sad? Just off somehow, even if Steve's not exactly sure how. He tries to twist, frowning, but Billy's hand stops him, comb held between his fingers. "Sit still, Harrington."
Steve stills, biting his lip. "I'm not talking about my hair."
"Yeah," Billy says, and yeah, that's definitely sad. "I know, Steve."
It's 'Steve,' not 'Harrington,' which is confusing. But Billy sounds sad, and Steve thinks about how he would feel if one of his few friends kissed him, and Steve didn't return those feelings. "It doesn't have to change anything," he offers around a lump in his throat, heart racing in his chest. "It really doesn't, we never have to talk about it. It was stupid, and I shouldn't have... I shouldn't have done it without, like. Making sure you felt the same way."
The snipping of the shears has stopped, but the comb is still moving through Steve's hair. Billy doesn't say anything. Steve's not doing a great job of 'not talking about it,' he knows, but he can't seem to stop.
"It's just a crush," Steve goes on, nervous talking now. "It's just, I won't, like. You don't have to be weird around me, okay, and I won't be weird around you, we can just go back to-"
"Done."
Billy's hands fall away, and then there's silence. Steve lifts a shaky hand to run through his hair, or, well. What's left of it anyway. It feels so short.
Billy nudges at his shoulder. "Come on, look at it and tell me what you think." He gets his hand in the back of Steve's shirt when Steve still doesn't move and tugs him back so that Steve can either fall on his ass or stand, albeit far more gently than Robin does. With all the reluctance of a man walking to his death, Steve lets himself be tugged-shoved until he's standing in front of the sink and facing the mirror. "Oh, for Chrissakes, open your eyes, drama queen. It's not that bad." He can hear Billy rolling his eyes, so Steve blows out a sigh, and does as he says.
It's.
It's not bad, is the thing. It's not bad at all. It's short on the sides, but the top is long and falling just right. Steve's never considered himself the kind of guy who can wear an undercut, but he's been proven wrong. He still misses his hair, if that makes sense, and this will take some getting used to, but it's so much better than when he thought he'd be wearing, like, wigs or walking around bald until it grew back to a flattering length. This is good. He can get on board with this.
Steve's been quiet just a little too long, and Billy's still watching him expectantly in the mirror.
"I like it," he says, turning to face Billy. It doesn't feel like enough, like it's not encompassing just how grateful he is, so he adds, "Thank you. Thank you so much, you have no idea how much this means to me."
Billy looks a lot like he does when he's trying not to smile, like his mouth can't quite keep up the could-care-less expression in the face of Steve's gratitude and exuberance. "You know how you can make it up to me, don't you?"
They're close. Like, really close. Like last night after midnight in the quarry close. Before Steve turned and ran, anyway. Steve kind of has a feeling, but he's not sure. He wants to be sure. "How?"
"Kiss me again," Billy says, and Steve watches as he gives into the impulse to grin. "And don't run away before I can kiss you back this time."
Okay, Steve thinks. He can do that.