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Billy’s hands are burning. Which is funny because he’s been walking in the cold for a while now. Had pushed on through as the sun set and the sky had gotten dark, and the temperature had dropped to below freezing. Continued walking after the snow had started falling, light at first. Now it's getting heavier.
But he couldn’t turn back around to go home at this point. Even if he wanted to. Neil had been dogging him earlier and when Billy had the nerve to snap back, his old man had thrown him out of the house, sneering as Billy landed on his ass, with a and don’t come back. In Neil-speak, this usually meant his dad didn’t want to see Billy in the house for the rest of the day.
Billy shoves his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket — the one thing Neil had deigned to throw in his face while Billy had struggled to his feet in the driveway. But the pockets aren’t very deep and where the material rides up, his wrists aren’t protected from the bite of the frosty air.
He tries walking faster as the snow piles up around him but it’s not long before his jacket is sopping wet, making his hands that much colder. Billy recalls once hearing that humans lose the most heat through their extremities. It must be true Billy thinks as the rest of his body starts to chill.
So when he sees his destination in the distance — the large house at the dead end of the street he’s turned on to, with its lights on thank god — he breathes a sigh of relief. Slogs through the snow, finally hitting the driveway, passing by the Beemer before he steps up to the front door. Billy reaches a tremoring hand out to ring the doorbell.
Steve answers a moment later, as if he knew Billy was heading towards his house this whole time and was waiting right there for him.
“Billy?” he says, his eyes wide as he takes in the soaked-through boy standing on his doorstep. Billy’s got his arms wrapped around himself now, thumping his hands against his shoulders in an attempt to get some feeling back in his fingers.
“Hey,” Billy trembles out. Steve continues to gawk at him.
“Are you gonna just stand there and stare or are you gonna let me in?” Billy tries to tease but his voice comes out too weak. He’s so fucking cold.
“God, yeah,” Steve says, snapping to. He moves aside. “Sorry. Come in, Billy.”
As he takes his first step inside Steve’s house, Billy’s hit by a wall of warmth. He must have the heat blasting. Or maybe not. Any heat right now is going to feel extreme to him.
Billy shuffles in further, shaking his head. The snowflakes clinging to his hair fall to the floor of the Harrington’s foyer. He stomps his feet next to get the snow caked onto his boots off.
There’s already a puddle forming on the floor right beneath where he’s standing but Steve doesn’t say anything. He lets Billy shake out like he’s a wet dog and when he stops, Steve gently ushers him into the kitchen.
Billy plops himself down in one of the kitchen table chairs, presses his hands in between his thighs to stop them from jittering, clenches his jaw tight so his teeth stop clattering around in his mouth. He watches Steve while he rummages around in the cabinets. Steve finds what he’s looking for with an ah, bringing out a big pot that he puts on the stove.
“I’ll make you soup or something. We gotta get you warmed up,” Steve says. He searches around in a different set of cabinets and pulls out two cans of soup, pours them both into the pot.
Steve walks over to Billy as the soup begins heating up. He squats down, reaching forward to guide Billy’s hands into his. Billy can barely feel the touch, only a numb sort of pressure. Steve starts rubbing his hands over Billy’s.
There’s the friction of it, and then there’s that burning sensation again. Steve blows onto their hands. The rush of heat makes it burn even more but Billy doesn’t say anything. He figures feeling something is better than nothing.
“Jesusssss, Billy. You’re like an icicle,” Steve laments, rubbing his hands some more. “C’mon, let’s get you outta those clothes. You’re sopping wet. Jeans really aren’t the best choice for trudging through the snow, you know.”
If Billy wasn’t so completely focused on keeping himself together right now, he’d open his mouth, spit back a snarky reply about Steve trying to get him naked. Instead he grunts in reply. Lets Steve start with his jacket. It gets thrown on one of the chairs. With the cold, wet weight of it no longer pressing down on him, Billy feels slightly better.
“Can’t I just take a hot shower or something?” Billy asks through gritted teeth as he begrudgingly maneuvers his arms up so Steve can slip his shirt over his head.
“No,” Steve says. “That’s one of the worst things you could do to warm someone up.”
Billy raises an eyebrow.
“Don’t give me that look,” Steve tuts. “I know what I’m talking about. I do remember a thing or two from wilderness training when I was in Boy Scouts.
“Of course you were a Boy Scout,” Billy retorts. “Looks like we’ve got Mr. Wilderness Survivor here with us tonight.”
“If you weren’t half frozen to death, I’d tell you to shut up ,” Steve snips.
Billy’s wet boots and drenched socks come off next. And finally, with a bit of effort on both their parts, Steve is able to peel Billy’s jeans off. They land on the tiled floor with a wet plop. If this was happening under any different circumstance, Billy’s alarm bells would be going off – ending up in front of Steve, shivering and close to naked, in nothing but his briefs.
Vulnerable. In a way he tries never to appear in front of people.
Steve doesn’t make it weird though. He goes into mother hen mode, clucking at Billy with You really need warmer clothing for the winter and I've got a winter jacket you can take because my aunt got me a new one for Christmas and God, you do know gloves are a thing you can wear, right ?
“Fuck off, Harrington,” Billy snaps. “I know what gloves are.”
Steve gives him an unimpressed look.
“I’ll go get some blankets,” he says. “Be right back.”
Billy hears him bound up the stairs, then a thumping from the floor above. Two minutes later, Steve comes into the kitchen with a pile of blankets.
“My grandma knitted some of these,” Steve says as he starts wrapping them around Billy.
“Impressive,” Billy replies. When Steve’s done, Billy feels like a burrito, his head the only thing poking out from the blankets. Steve rubs his hands up and down the blankets, pats the top of Billy’s blanketed head.
“Watch it,” Billy warns, but with little bite. And Steve ignores him anyway, goes over to the stove to check on the soup.
The soup must be heated up to Steve’s liking because a moment later he brings a bowl of it over. He pulls a chair up close to him and without even asking, brings a spoon of soup straight to Billy’s mouth like he’s some sick child. Billy should be indignant at this point. But Steve doing this means that Billy can stay in his cocoon of blankets, so he’ll allow it.
And it’s actually nice — someone taking care of him for once.
“Feeling any better?” Steve asks after a few spoonfuls. Billy hums in reply. He isn’t feeling absolutely miserable anymore. Definitely warming up a bit now.
Steve sets the bowl down on the table, looking Billy square in the eye and asks him a question Billy knew he would.
“So want to tell me why you decided to walk to my house in the middle of a blizzard?”
The question is fair. Billy will give him that.
“My old man. He was trying to pick a fight with me before. Smacked me around some and then threw me outta the house,” Billy answers. “It’s better I stay away after that happens.”
Billy doesn’t hold back with Steve on his shitty home life anymore. Not after they established a tentative friendship that had Billy opening up to the other boy, starting on a day when Steve asked a question about a bruise and Billy happened to be fed up with keeping secrets.
It’s a friendship that might not be so tentative, at least not Billy’s mind, because the first thing he thought when his dad slammed the front door was I’ll go to Steve’s.
“What the hell?” Steve questions incredulously. “He had to know there was a snowstorm coming. And he thought it was okay for you to have to fend for yourself in this shitty weather.”
Billy shrugs.
“God, good thing I was around,” Steve mutters. “You would’ve been out of luck if I wasn’t home.”
And there it is. Sometimes people say things that hit Billy in the gut with a feeling which makes him think he shouldn’t depend on anyone for anything. A feeling that he’s a burden. That no one truly wants him. And it makes him want to lash out. He does sometimes, though he’s trying to be better. He can’t help himself. Whether he's misconstruing someone else's words or not. The words are bubbling up and —
“Forget it," Billy growls, pushing up from the chair. "I’ll just go home.”
Some of the blankets fall to the floor. Steve hops up to meet him at eye-level, holding his hands out to stop him.
“You can’t go back out there, Billy. There’s like,” Steve cranes his neck up to look out the kitchen window. “Two feet of snow on the ground.”
“I think you’re exaggerating,” Billy huffs, but he refuses to turn around to confirm if what Steve is saying is true or not.
“Well okay, maybe not two feet,” Steve admits, eyeing the window a second time. “But you’re definitely not walking anywhere and I’m definitely not driving the Beemer in this storm. So you’ll just have to stay here for the night.”
“Fine, whatever.” Billy deflates almost immediately — he doesn’t have the energy to argue. He sits down again, burrows back into the blankets still wrapped around him so that Steve can’t see his face.
“And Billy. Look,” Steve stops, as if unsure of what to say next. Like he maybe knows Billy in a way that no one else does, knows that he made some kind of misstep earlier.
“I’m not annoyed or anything that you came here, okay? I’m glad you did actually.”
Bringing his head back up, Billy sees Steve looking at him with those earnest eyes of his. It makes Billy’s heart swoop because he knows the other boy means what he’s saying. That it’s okay that he’s there.
“Otherwise Hopper probably would’ve found you frozen to death on the side of some road tomorrow morning,” Steve continues.
Imagining his frozen, grimacing face greeting the chief on his morning patrol, Billy can’t help but chuckle.
“Oh yeah, reaaaaaal funny,” Steve deadpans. But then he smiles, his eyes crinkling, and Billy can’t help but smile back. He feels warm inside and out, under Steve’s gaze. Billy always does.
And without thinking, Billy surges up, with a different intent this time.
He presses his lips to Steve’s and it’s all he’s wanted to do since he first laid eyes on him in the hallways of Hawkins High. Billy would by lying if he told himself that he hadn’t thought of kissing Steve a thousand times over.
Steve’s lips are soft and it feels so nice to finally get to kiss him but then Billy realizes what he’s doing and he moves away with a sharp jerk.
“Fuck,” he hisses out. His eyes are on Steve who’s staring back at him with an unreadable expression. Billy doesn’t know how to take it back. He just ruined everything .
He wants to cry. Or break something. But Steve might break him first, because his hands are coming at him and Billy’s thinking this is it, he’s going to punch me.
“Steve, fuck. I’m —” Billy tries but stops when Steve grabs at him, and pulls him in. Kisses him. Billy melts into it, throws the rest of the blankets off so he can wrap himself up in Steve.
When they break apart, Steve’s expression isn’t hard to read this time. Steve’s smiling at him, his eyes sweeping over Billy who’s standing there in nothing but his briefs.
“Must be feeling pretty heated by now,” Steve teases, his mouth quirking to a playful grin.
Billy picks up a blanket from the floor and chucks it at Steve.
“Hey,” Steve cries, struggling for a moment before he’s able to wrap the blanket around himself like a cloak. Billy steps up to him. Kisses him again and again. He doesn’t mind heating up some more.