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Steve found Billy, of all the places, at the library.
One rainy day in late September, after picking Dustin up from school, Steve pulled into the Hawkins Public Library parking lot, borrowing his mom’s car for the time being.
“I think you’d be a rogue, you’re very sneaky, but I’ll show you all the characters and you can choose. I’m just saying, as your very best friend and future Dungeon Master, you’d make an excellent rogue.”
“I haven’t actually agreed to play with you. You know that, right?”
“It’s so fun I promise,” Dustin was saying from the passenger seat. “We need more people since Will and El moved, and Mike’s been too pissy to play, so it’s just me and Lucas and Max, but Max kind of keeps making fun of it so it’s more just me and Lucas which is the saddest party ever since I’m the D.M. And now Erica and her friends think they’re too cool to play with us, can you believe that - hey, Steve?”
Steve had put the car into park, in a spot facing the wide windows on the front side of the library, and stared out the windshield. The car idled, wipers squeaking as they swiped away the rain, the radio humming softly. Dustin fell silent, following Steve’s gaze.
Through the rain-lashed library windows, the pair of them spotted a slightly familiar figure, sitting alone at a large table, paging through a thick book. He looked thin in an overly large black hoodie, a rain jacket pulled tight around his body on top of that. His hair had been cropped short, like a man returned from active duty, and only grew an inch since his sudden, silent, spectral return in mid-August. His blond hair just barely brushed his ears, messy curls ghosting his forehead, and he looked uncomfortably exposed without his long mane of hair.
If anyone should want to hide behind a curtain of hair, Steve thought, it was Billy Hargrove, and it seemed sad to him that Billy nervously tugged at the short tresses that only tickled his now pale neck.
“Hmmmm,” Dustin leaned forward to squint at Billy, knocking Steve’s elbow. “Sorry - huh, I didn’t know he read books.”
It was supposed to be a joke, he could tell from the tone, but Steve glanced at Dustin and the corners of Dustin’s mouth turned down in a tiny little frown, not a trace of mirth on his face.
“Max said he doesn’t talk anymore,” Dustin continued, a hush falling over his voice, though it was just the two of them and Annie Lennox, who crooned gently through the speakers.
“I bet,” Steve was whispering too. “Can’t imagine what it’s like.”
“Dying? Or being possessed? Will would know.” Dustin swallowed, looking away, and Steve patted his shoulder.
“Hey, c’mon. Let’s go get those books. We don’t wanna keep your mom waiting.”
Dustin rubbed his eyes and snorted. “It’s only Hamburger Helper, she’ll be fine.”
He pulled up the hood of his raincoat, however, and hopped out of the car. Steve followed suit, turning off the engine and dashing after Dustin through the front doors of the library.
Their sneakers squeaked on the tiled floor, and an older woman seated at one of the tables in the front, reading a newspaper and far away from Billy, gave them a disapproving look.
“I’ll just be a second,” Dustin said in an undertone to Steve, and he squeaked past the front desk, grinning wide at the librarian who watched him warily, and disappeared into the towering shelves of books.
Steve stood awkwardly, dripping onto the floor. He felt a pair of eyes on him and turned. The older woman had gone back behind her newspaper - engrossed in the story that made the front page: Starcourt: Will They Rebuild?
Steve looked away, feeling nauseous, and met the eyes that had been staring at him, blue, tinged with gray from the storm outside.
Billy quickly glanced down at his book, pale cheeks tinged with pink. He looked as though he wanted to hide behind something. He pulled his hood over his short hair, which cast a shadow over his face, and propped the book up to shield himself further, pale fingers gripping the jacket so tight it crinkled.
Steve peered back in between the shelves, no Dustin in sight, just a handful of patrons; an elderly couple, a mother with two young children, and two middle school girls giggling at the Harlequin romance section.
He turned back to Billy, and met his eyes again, briefly, and then Billy ducked away, hidden behind his book.
Dune , Steve read curiously. It looked like something Dustin would read.
After a second’s hesitation, he tread carefully across the tiled floor, leaving rain soaked footprints in his wake.
He stopped in front of Billy’s table. Billy pretended not to see him, but judging by the way his shoulders had hunched, his knuckles turning white, he could sense Steve hovering over him.
Steve cleared his throat. “Um, hey.”
Billy lowered the book slightly, so Steve could see his eyes now, and the tip of his nose. He blinked and gave Steve a tiny nod.
“What’re you reading?”
Billy looked down at the book slowly, tapped his forefinger against the cover.
“Hmmmm,” Steve regarded the cover. It looked sandy. “Is it good?”
Billy shrugged. His lips moved, a tiny murmur that Steve didn’t catch.
“Sorry?” Steve leaned forward, resting a hand on the table. “What did you say?”
“I said,” Billy said hoarsely, and his voice sounded raw, terribly unused as if he’d been sick for months, “Read it yourself.”
Billy met his eyes again, cheeks still pink, but a line creased between his brows, perhaps in anger or annoyance.
“Ah.” Steve straightened. “Sorry.”
He waited for a moment. For some odd reason, he wanted Billy to shake off his apology, invite him to sit, tell him about the story he was reading, or ask Steve how his summer had been.
“Steve!” Dustin called from the front desk. The librarian winced, and Dustin waved Steve over excitedly, flapping his arms like a giant, eager seagull, a book in each hand.
“See you around,” Steve said, but Billy was hiding behind his book again, and showed no sign of hearing him.
That night, over dinner with Dustin and Mrs. Henderson, Steve half listened as the Hendersons talked, argued fondly, their new cat jumping up onto the table and stealing Dustin’s dinner roll when no one paid attention. He couldn’t get Billy’s voice out of his head, so gritty and bruised, crackling like dead leaves underfoot.
Steve returned to the library the next day after work at the video store. He hadn’t meant to, not consciously. He’d been driving, after dropping Robin off at her house, with every intention of returning home, and he’d thought of Billy, hiding like a snail in its shell after getting an eyeball poked a curious little child. Steve always had trouble focusing, but lately it had gotten worse, without the helpful structure of high school and with the additional anxiety after the summer, and sometimes he wound up in a place without having any real sense of the path he’d taken to get there.
He sat in front of the library, blinking in confusion. Today was sunny, warmer, and several patrons filed in and out of the library, laden with books.
A handful of people sat at the tables. There was a group of high schoolers, throwing wads of paper at each other under the disgruntled eye of a librarian. A dad and his kid, reading picture books. A group of middle aged women, chatting happily. And, Steve spotted him and his stomach twisted strangely, as if he ate something that his digestive system wasn’t used to, Billy, who sat alone in a corner, removed from everyone else by several tables, reading his book, nearly halfway done with it.
Steve turned off the car and climbed out, shutting the door behind him. He was supposed to be home, helping his mom cook dinner and pretending to fill out late application forms for colleges to appease his dad. But he entered the library instead, walking straight through the front doors and heading to the corner table where Billy sat.
Despite the sunshine, he wore the same black hoodie, with a pair of dark sunglasses folded on the table in front of him. He didn’t see Steve coming this time, and when Steve stopped at his table and said, “Hi!”, Billy flinched, face looking pained, as if he’d touched a hot pan with his bare skin.
“Sorry,” Steve said quickly, dropping his voice an octave.
Billy frowned and looked back at his book. His eyes, like the weather, were bright and blue today, though they didn’t match the scowl that crossed his face at Steve’s interruption.
“Can I join you?”
Billy shrugged, eyes moving across the page.
Steve pulled a chair out across from Billy and sat, placing his elbows on the table and drumming his fingers against the wood.
He waited for Billy to say something, but Steve had never been very patient and was known for having a terribly short attention span.
“How’s the book?” he asked, clearing his throat.
Billy’s eyes narrowed, frown deepening in the crease between his brow, but he said nothing.
Steve glanced out the window. The afternoon sun shone brightly, so bright he had to squint, and a young sugar maple tree just outside the glass was turning yellow, the leaves cheery and still clinging happily to their last days of life.
“It’s nice outside,” Steve remarked. Billy looked up, not at Steve, but his sharp gaze honing in on Steve’s fingers, tapping against the table. Steve stilled, lying his hand flat against the table. He started bouncing his leg up and down.
Billy returned to his book.
Steve watched him for a moment, before piping up, “Have you been out yet today? It’s so warm.”
Billy grimaced and set his book down, carefully marking the page with a scrap of paper he pulled from his pocket.
“What,” he began slowly, and there, that voice again that Steve kept hearing, raw and scratchy, so full of emotion yet emotionless at the same time, “do you want, Harrington?”
Harrington . No one called him Harrington, not anymore, and it warmed a cold spot deep within him he hadn’t realized was there.
“I don’t know.” Steve bit his lip. A part of him felt sorry for Billy; for the wide berth the library patrons gave him; for the identical scars at his temple, thin white circles, surgical cuts, perhaps; for the way he kept tugging the collar of his sweatshirt up to hide more scars Steve couldn’t see; for the way he jumped at every unanticipated sound; for the lack of a blue Camaro in the the parking lot; and for the dried mud on his worn boots that told Steve he walked everywhere now.
He shrugged, feeling his face heat up a smidge, and settled on his own truth. “I guess I don’t have anyone to hang out with.”
And it was true; Robin was busy with her family, Dustin was calling Suzy from the monstrous radio on the hill.
Billy blinked at him, and for a moment Steve swore those blue eyes filled with tears. But then Billy looked out the window, swallowing thickly, and when he turned back Steve figured he must have imagined it.
Billy reopened his book, slipping the makeshift bookmark carefully into the pocket of his hoodie, and settled back in to read again, this time, however, his shoulders relaxing just the tiniest bit.
Steve kept returning to the library, almost always finding Billy there, breezing through books with ease, faster than his hair could grow.
Steve did nearly all of the talking, and Billy looked more annoyed at his presence than anything, but as the days passed he started to respond more, and every now and then he gave Steve an uncertain and lopsided smile.
The leaves changed, slowly losing their color and dropping steadily to the dry and dying grass, and Steve listened as Billy’s voice gained a bit of life back to it, the more use it got by spending time with Steve.
Eventually, he let Steve give him rides home, always having Steve pull to the side of the road, walking up the driveway alone, shoulder re-hunching after losing their tension in Steve’s presence.
They spent October in the library; Billy trying to read as Steve talked, or playing cards when Billy felt up to it; or in Steve’s borrowed car, listening to music, Steve driving long distances while Billy laid back on the headrest, closing his eyes and looking the most peaceful Steve had seen him since he returned; or at the video store, Billy sitting behind the checkout in silence, watching Steve and Robin goof off and sometimes smiling at the two of them when he thought Steve wasn’t looking; or occasionally at the local diner on a Friday night, Billy nodding along as Steve talked, sometimes offering a word or two, smiling crookedly when Steve stole a French fry to get his attention.
On Halloween, Steve dragged Billy to Robin’s house, where Steve and Robin had nothing better to do than watch scary movies with Robin’s dad and toss candy to the kids who wandered down the street.
It was getting late, and they all sat on the Buckley’s front porch, passing a bottle of red wine back and forth that Steve had stolen from his mom’s stash. Robin’s dad fell asleep halfway through Halloween , and they abandoned him there in favor of fresh air outside, the sweet wine, and bowl of fun-sized candy bars.
Steve sat between them, feeling pleasantly warm from the wine, stretching his legs out and leaning back on his elbows. The light from the television flashed through the window behind them, and Steve glanced at Billy as one side of his face lit up from the screen. He sat, limbs unwinded like Steve’s, the wine easing the tension in his spine, his expression soft as he listened to Robin guess the costumes of the last round of kids coming down the street in the distance. His eyes looked even bluer in the blue light from the television in the family room.
Steve felt something warm blossom inside of him, pooling in his stomach and spreading, tingling, to the tips of his fingers, the soles of his shoes. He was reminded suddenly of a trip he took to Maine as a child, with his Aunt and older cousin, Marie, and the feeling of the sun kissing his skin. He felt hot, sitting on the porch beside Billy, sweaty in his collared shirt and sweater, like that day at the ocean.
He fell in love with the sea on the beach in Maine, so fast as one does when so young.
Billy’s eyes were so deep, he thought, like the tide pools Marie took him to on the rocky shore in the morning, hunting for crabs and starfish and, Steve’s favorite, tiny little sea snails Marie called “periwinkles”.
He lost track of Robin’s words beside him, taking a deep swig from the wine bottle and passing it to Billy, who reached for it, cold fingertips brushing Steve’s knuckles as he wrapped his fingers around the neck of the bottle. Billy met Steve’s eyes, for the briefest moment, and he looked away quickly, tugging the bottle from Steve’s grasp. A blush, from the wine, Steve thought, bloomed across his cheeks, down his neck, and touching the tips of white, spidery scars, which, Billy had forgotten to pull his collar up to his chin, Steve could finally see.
He looked away and tried to ignore the lump rising in his throat.
In Maine, Marie said they had to put everything back in the tide pools, right back home where they found it. But Steve had fallen so fast for the ocean, and he couldn’t bear to leave without taking a piece home.
The day before their return to Indiana, Steve snuck a snail into a jar, and scrambled up the rocks, up a long grassy hill to their tiny sea cottage.
“Look, Auntie!” he cried, bursting through the screen door, and brandished the bell jar, splashing with warming seawater, a tiny terrified snail suctioned to the glass.
“Oh, honey,” she said softly, seated in a rocking chair, looking up from a Virginia Woolf novel. “You can’t keep a piece of the sea with you.”
Robin shifted beside him, the porch steps creaking. She opened a Kit-Kat bar with her teeth, splitting it and handing Steve half.
“How many Marty McFly’s are there?” she snorted, nodding at the group of preteens in costume, giggling and pushing each other as they walked down the street.
“Two in one group!” she continued. “And who’s that - ”
Steve, mouthful of chocolate, froze. Two Marty McFly’s, a Michael Meyers, and a standard vampire were walking down the street, laughing amongst each other. The fifth group member, a snot-faced young boy, leading them passed the Buckley house, wore a white tank top, red lifeguard shorts, a curly blond wig, and had painted his face sickly green, black smudges on his eyes and red sores smeared cruelly on top of his skin, to look like a zombie.
“Those fuckers ,” Robin spat, jumping to her feet.
Steve, who sat bolt upright, tugged her back before she could dart towards them, which the anger in her eyes told him she was about to do.
“ Robin ,” he hissed.
She met his wide eyes, fire burning behind hers, and then looked down at Billy, who had pulled his knees into his chest, curling up like a snail in a shell, and was staring at the tips of his worn boots, blinking back tears.
Robin sat back down, huffing, “I hate children.”
She put an arm around Steve’s shoulders, her hand reaching Billy’s shoulder and squeezing him tight.
One night, after Billy showed up at the video store twenty minutes before closing, leaning against the counter as Steve cleaned up, trailing behind him and looking anxious, they drove to Steve’s house for the first time.
The air held a sharp chill, the grass frosted over, the temperature dropping steadily by the hour that night in late November.
Billy followed Steve inside, glancing around the house with wide eyes.
Steve was nervous, and he blurted, as they climbed the stairs, Billy at his heels, “It’s a lot, I’m sorry.”
They entered Steve’s room, and Steve sat on his bed, heart fluttering in his chest. Billy looked around curiously, a tiny smile gracing his face at the stuffed dinosaur - Fluffasaurus Rex, who’d been his secret friend since he had to get a tooth pulled when he was four years old - which Steve certainly would’ve hidden, had he planned ahead.
“Cute,” Billy murmured.
Steve grimaced. “Don’t laugh at me.”
Billy chuckled, rough, an unused sound. He crossed the room carefully and sat down beside Steve, nervously wringing his hands in his lap.
Steve’s stomach was doing funny flips, butterflies beating giddily around his insides. Billy scooted a tiny bit closer, a blush akin to the one on Halloween creeping over his skin.
Their knees touched now, and after a beat Steve held his breath and rested a hand on top of Billy’s thigh, just above his knee, smoothing his thumb over Billy’s jeans.
Billy was close, so close Steve could smell his soap, faintly flowery, the ghost of cigarette a sinking into his sweatshirt. Steve leaned forward, still holding that breath, pressing his fingertips into the denim, and Billy met him in the middle.
Billy’s lower lip trembled where it brushed Steve’s, and Steve lifted his other hand to cup the back of Billy’s neck, sliding his fingers through his short curls, letting the breath out slowly through his nose.
Billy leaned closer, suddenly kissing him hungrily, gripping Steve’s shirt so tightly, as if he were afraid Steve would disappear.
And then, as quickly as he had pressed close, he jerked away, as if he’d been burned.
He lifted a hand, shaking, to touch his lips.
Steve swallowed, and bit his lip anxiously.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “I - that, was too fast, I’m sorry.”
“I’m scared,” Billy admitted, pulling his knees to his chest, his feet flat against Steve’s bedspread. He balled his hands into fists.
Steve couldn’t say for certain what Billy was afraid of. Maybe of the monsters, real and imaginary. Maybe Billy was afraid of himself, of things he done, of things he thought he could still do. Maybe he was afraid of Steve, too, and that, at least, Steve could help.
Steve used to be afraid of everything, after Barb died in his backyard, after Nancy left and he was utterly alone. He used to be terrified of his pool. He’d sit on the edge with his heart hammering, take a deep breath and throw himself in, because half of him felt he deserved it. He used to sink down, slowly letting all his air escape between his lips, forcing himself to open his eyes against his better judgement as if to say, see? You’re the only one here. And he did that, everyday, getting better and better at holding his breath, until he stopped being afraid of drowning, until he stopped being afraid of the water, of what lay under the surface, for he could feel the solid bottom of the pool beneath him.
Billy refused to meet Steve’s eye; he glared at Steve’s door, blinking rapidly as his eyes filled with tears.
Steve thought of those tide pools.
In Maine those many years ago his Aunt said he had to bring the periwinkle snail back to the water, and he sat in the grass sadly that afternoon, holding the bell jar up the the setting sun, watching the snail clutch the edge of the grass, longing for home. Gray and angry clouds scattered the sky that evening, and he returned to the sea to find it roiling, the tide rushing to the shore like a monster crashing through a skylight.
Beside Billy now, who trembled, rocking back and forth like a rowboat, Steve thought of the waves that crashed violently against the jagged rocks, the cold and slick stone beneath his soaked sneakers. His cousin, calling him back, panic in her voice as the sun set and the ocean roared raw and powerful, rushing to the rough and rocky shore. But Steve kept going; he had a periwinkle in a jar and he could see its family, sticking stubbornly to the stone sides of the pockets of freezing Atlantic sea water.
“Me too,” Steve murmured. And it would be easy to give up, to turn back and keep the piece of the sea to himself and let it die, starving and alone, in his lap on the long drive home in the back of his Aunt’s station wagon. But when you loved something, as young Steve so loved the sea, you sometimes had to let it go, sometimes you had to forget about your own selfish wishes and do what you knew was right.
He’d almost drowned that day, kneeling over an ice cold tide pool as the rain lashed his skin and the waves crashed against the rocks just a few feet beneath him. He unscrewed the lid of the bell jar and gently reached inside, grasping the periwinkle by its shell and prying it free from the glass with a pop . He placed it in the pool and scrambled back over the rocks to Marie, screaming his name. He slipped and skinned his knees, and the jar shattered against the slippery stones, and when he climbed up the muddy hill his cousin scooped him up and ran to the cottage, scolding him, her voice raw from shouting.
But he’d been ok.
“It’ll be ok,” Steve promised, pressing stubbornly to Billy’s side, Billy who kept slipping out of his grasp, crashing suddenly into him and receding just as fast as the fickle sea he seemed to be.
Their arms against each other, Steve hoped he could lend a bit of warmth. He knew he couldn’t keep Billy like this, couldn’t keep him any way, but perhaps Billy would let Steve stand on his shore, or else paddle out to meet him and weather the inevitable storm at his side.
Here , he thought, and gently laid a hand over Billy’s clenched fist, prying his fingers apart and folding their hands together, I won’t let you drown.
“I’ll be whatever you need me to be. If that’s just your friend,” Steve swallowed painfully, but squeezed Billy’s hand gently. “That’s ok. Whatever you need.”
Billy let out a shuddering breath, and despite pushing Steve away he leaned desperately into him, pressing his face into Steve’s shoulder, warm tears dampening the cotton.
The next day, he found Billy, of all the places, in the library. Through the window, which was frosted over at the edges, through the bare branches of the young sugar maple, he spotted Billy, alone at the table. He had a book in front of him, but it lay unopened, his hands resting over the cover, wringing anxiously together.
He looked up expectantly when Steve climbed out of the car. He raised a hand, smiling crookedly, and Steve’s heart thudded funnily.
He pushed through the front doors and weaved through the tables until he reached Billy, who had already pulled out a chair for him.
Steve sat and Billy swallowed, looking away nervously.
His book was small this time, and Steve couldn’t read the whole title with Billy’s hands clasped on top of it, but he could see the cover was again sandy and it was something about a lighthouse.
“You found me,” Billy said, a little raspy.
Steve smiled. “You’re predictable.”
Billy licked his lips. “I guess so.”
He stared down at his hands, not brave enough to meet Steve’s eyes, but brave enough to speak, even though his words stumbled slightly.
“I, um,” he began, clearing his throat and trying again. “I’m not good . I’m not good at all of this, at, I don’t know, being friends, at talking, and, and feeling things, and just, well, being a good person. But I want - I want so many things, from you, I’m just really bad at this, I don’t, fuck, I don’t even remember how to do this. But I do want what I think - ” he paused, his ocean blue eyes shiny with fresh tears, and he rubbed at them angrily with the heels of his hands “ - what I hope you want - ”
Steve leaned forward, gently taking Billy’s wrists and prying his hands away so he could see, there, that beautiful face, those periwinkle blue eyes, that surprised crooked smile that broke Billy’s worried expression when Steve pulled Billy’s trembling hand across the table and pressed a kiss to his skin.
“I do,” he said, letting Billy’s hand drop, but Billy, to Steve’s delight, knitted their fingers together. “I do want this, so much. I want to take you on a date, and kiss you some more, and well, everything. But I meant what I said. Whatever you need, I don’t mind if it takes some time.”
He was, after all, very good at holding his breath.