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Thanksgiving at the Hargrove-Mayfield house has always been a quiet affair, and it is no different this year. They watch the parade, Susan spends most of the day cooking, they pray, eat, Neil punches Billy and pushes him into the wall, and when Max asks why he’s limping he tells her he fell, his body still unused to moving around as much as he’s done that day. Max frowns a little, but seems to buy it.
Especially when Billy tells her to take his crutch with her while Billy says goodbye to Neil and Susan, before following after her to Steve, waiting for them in his car, the day after Thanksgiving.
Joyce is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for the entire party, having asked them to bring whatever leftovers from their ‘real’ Thanksgiving dinners with their families.
Stepping out of the Beemer with Max and Steve, a bag with the casserole Susan made him bring in one hand, and his crutch in the other, he thinks that this feels more like what a family dinner should feel like. There’s lights glowing in every window, and as soon as Steve opens the door he’s hit with the sound of laughter and music.
“Max, Billy!”
Is all the warning Billy gets before he’s being pulled into a hug by Joyce, her head coming up to his shoulders, more or less. He’s never thought about how tiny Joyce is, before.
He stiffens up a little at first, but then Joyce is gone and moving on to give Max a hug. For a second, Billy wishes she’d come back.
Joyce grabs holds of Steve and drags him with her into the kitchen.
Max immediately goes running up to her friends, and Billy leaves his crutch leaning against the wall by the door before following after Steve and Joyce. He puts the casserole down on the kitchen table, among the mess of dishes, and regards the scene in front of him with a smile.
Steve and Joyce are huddled together by the counter, looking down at what Billy guesses is a cookbook. Steve’s in the middle of explaining something, when Hopper walks into the room. Joyce turns around with a smile, grabs a spoon and dips it into some kind of sauce, holding the spoon up towards Hopper’s mouth. He leans down and takes it into his mouth, closing his eyes and nodding. Steve looks like he’s about to start laughing.
“It’s Steve’s recipe,” Joyce says with a smile, and Hopper looks over to give Steve a thumbs up. At that, Steve does break out into a grin, although it’s more proud than amused.
Billy walks up to him, and glances down at the cookbook. It’s actually a pretty thick notebook, it turns out. A handwritten cookbook. The pages filled with Steve’s neat longhand.
“You made these up yourself?”
Steve looks at him and nods. “Yeah. The pages with the stickers are the ones that actually turned out to be a success. The rest are just failed experiments.”
Billy thinks about how he spent several days this past spring in Steve’s kitchen, cooking with him when he wanted to escape Neil’s wrath or if Neil’s punishment of choice was to lock Billy out.
“Damn.”
Steve laughs. “You impressed?”
“Yeah. Very.”
Steve gives him a little peck against his lips. Billy can feel him smiling.
Then Steve’s being pulled away from him, and Billy sees Joyce dragging him towards the oven. “I need you to check the turkey,” she says. “Jim, help me clean this up, would you?”
Hopper’s looking at her with this incredibly endearing look, as though she’s the one who hung the stars, as he gets to work clearing the kitchen table. Billy wonders if that’s the way he looks when he’s staring at Steve. He finds he doesn’t mind it, not like he would’ve only a year ago. He thinks back to what Murray told him in the hospital, back in August. ‘He’s turned me into a lovesick fool as well.’
“Hey, Ms. Byers, can I help?”
Joyce turns to look at him with one of those warms smiles she seems to direct at everyone in this house. “‘Joyce’, Billy,” she says, her voice like that of a schoolteacher. “And thank you, but I think we’re alright here-“
“I’m not,” Robin says from behind him, and grabs Billy’s arm. “You can help me and Nancy. We’re setting the table, and she’s torturing me.”
And so, somehow, Billy ends up on the couch with Robin, Nancy teaching them how to fold napkins into something vaguely representing a turkey.
“No, no- You have to fold the corner first- Billy!”
Billy lets go of the napkin so it falls down onto the plate in his lap. A poor, miserable little turkey. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
Nancy sighs, and closes her eyes. Billy imagines her counting to ten in her head, trying not to scream at them. Once she opens her eyes again, a rough ten seconds later, she turns to briefly glance over at Robin, but her gaze stops there and her eyes go wide.
“Robin. What the hell are you doing?”
Robin looks up at them, her eyes wide and innocent. Billy leans forward to try to catch a glimpse of her napkin. “I’m folding a napkin,” she says, like it’s obvious. Like she doesn’t realise why Nancy’s about to direct her ire at her.
“I can see that. But what the fuck are you folding it into?”
“Turkey,” Robin says, and holds up a weird rounded off rectangle.
“It most certainly isn’t a turkey.”
“No,” Robin agrees. She’s starting to smirk. “Not a turkey. But Turkey! As in, the country?”
Billy can’t help it.
He bursts out laughing. He laughs so hard he has to bend over, and feels his chest starting to ache, but it’s a good ache. Robin joins in, and Billy can tell Nancy’s trying to fight the smile pulling on her lips. But then she snatches Robin’s napkin out of her hand and gives in, and soon all three of them are sprawled out on the couch and floor, the living room filled with the sound of their laughter.
They’ve just settled down when Murray comes in with a tray with four mugs on it. He hands them each one and takes the last for himself, putting the tray under one arm.
It’s hot cocoa, Billy sees once he’s holding his own mug. All three of them drink at the same time, and Billy hears Nancy sputter. He swallows the burn, well practiced from all the parties he’s been to, although he wasn’t expecting it now.
“Is there vodka in this?” Nancy asks.
“No,” Murray says with a grin, at the same time that Robin says: “I love you.” It only makes Murray grin wider.
“You’re all legal, anyway, right?”
“We’re seventeen,” Nancy says, incredulous.
“All of you?”
The three of them nod in unison.
Murray shrugs. “Well, you’ve experienced enough to deserve some spiked cocoa. And don’t lie to me, you’re high schoolers, I know you’ve been drinking before. Besides, the vikings used to give their children a glass during din-“
“You’re not getting my brother drunk!” Nancy shouts, and Murray holds his hands up in surrender.
Robin leans over towards Billy. “I just imagined Dustin drunk,” she whispers, and it’s enough for Billy to break out into another fit of giggles.
“Who broke Billy?” Jonathan says, coming into the room and staring at them with raised eyebrows. It only makes Billy laugh harder. Jonathan’s eyebrows disappear behind his hair, and he turns to Murray.
“Hey, I think you need to go check on your man. He’s in some weird staring contest with El, and I think the kids are trying to talk him into using fire.”
Billy doesn’t see Murray’s expression before he turns to go the direction Jonathan came from, but it must have been quite something, because Jonathan turns to shout after him: “To clarify, you’re supposed to tell them ’no’! Okay?”
Murray waves his hand at him, and then he disappears around the corner.
Jonathan sits down on the floor beside Nancy and puts an arm around her. At their questioning looks, he smiles. “Alexei’s teaching them some sciencey shit, I don’t know.” He looks out over the mess of napkins on the coffee table. “What’s going on here, then?”
Robin leans forward and takes her discarded Turkey napkin. “We’re folding turkeys,” she says, with a grin that could match Murray’s.
Nancy lets out the deepest sigh Billy’s ever heard, but she’s smiling while she does it. Billy has to bite his lip to keep from laughing again.
Hopper comes in, looking amused at the picture they make, before dragging Jonathan up with him to help set up the two extra tables he’d brought, and carry chairs in. Billy goes back to trying to fold napkins with Robin and Nancy.
He gets the hang of it, eventually, and they clean the coffee table and go out to set a napkin-turkey on each plate spread out in the living room. Once everything’s finished, Hopper tells them to go get themselves a plate of food while he gets Murray and Alexei, and the kids.
Upon entering the kitchen, Billy sees that Steve and Joyce cleaned it all up and have set up food along the kitchen table and countertops. There’s the usual Thanksgiving food, a turkey in the centre, but there’s also some dishes Billy’s never seem before. Steve tells him Alexei brought it, that it’s his mum’s recipe, so Billy takes some of it as well.
He ends up on the couch, between Steve and Robin, and Joyce doesn’t tell them to say Grace before eating. Instead she smiles, and asks them to all go around and say what they’re thankful for from the past year.
It’s not a tradition they usually do, at his place. The one time they’d done it, Neil had hit him for saying he was thankful for anything other than Neil existing, Neil putting food in the fridge, Neil putting a roof over his head, Neil giving him money for clothing, Neil not having left ‘like that bitch of a mother of yours!’.
“I’ll start,” Joyce says. She looks almost giddy. “I’m grateful we all survived this year. I’m grateful for all of you. And for Murray, for making Hop and me get our heads on track.”
Hopper laughs at that, and Murray lifts his glass in a mock salute.
Hopper’s next, and Billy sees him take a drink before he answers. “I’m thankful for Joyce, for having me and El move in here, and for loving me and letting me love her. For being the best mother and woman I’ve ever met, and for helping me be better. And I’m thankful for Billy. For standing up to the Mindflayer, knowing he might’ve sacrificed himself for my daughter. It was very brave.” He clears his throat once he’s finished.
Billy’s staring. He never thought... well, he didn’t think anyone would bring that up. Steve squeezes his hand.
Then there’s Jonathan, and Nancy, who look at each other with heart eyes and say they’re thankful for one another.
Mike sighs before opening his mouth. “I’m thankful for the Party, and Billy, as much as it pains me to say. For not letting It kill El.”
El smiles at them all. Her hair is starting to reach past her shoulders. “I’m thankful for Mike, and Max, and Jim and Joyce for being my parents, and Billy for letting me in so we could save each other.” It echoes what she’d told him in the hospital. Billy’s afraid he might start crying.
Max meets his eyes before she speaks. “The Party, and Lucas, and Tatiana for saving my stupid brother.”
Billy chuckles quietly, and Max grins back at him.
“Max,” Lucas says, simply.
“Everyone here,” Will says. “My family.”
Dustin leans forward. “Susie,” he says and lets out some weird noise, like a mix between a gurgle and a purr. Steve’s hand shoots out to cover his mouth, trying in vain to silence him. Dustin leans away and does it again, and Steve puts his face in his hands.
“Please stop,” he groans.
“What’s wrong?” Alexei asks, furrowing his brows. “Mating calls can be very effective.”
Billy chokes on a barely contained laugh.
Murray turns to Alexei with a wicked grin and says something in Russian. Billy doesn’t need to understand the language to know it’s something incredibly filthy. Alexei blushes up to his ears, and Robin laughs. Billy spares a second to wonder what exactly Alexei and Murray are teaching her.
“Alright, my turn,” Steve says. “I’m thankful for Tatiana for saving Billy, and for Billy for surviving.”
Then it’s Billy’s turn, and he doesn’t know where to look so he looks down at the plate in his lap. “I’m thankful for all of you, and for Tatiana. For being there, and for not giving up on me. It... It means a lot.”
Robin must sense he’s uncomfortable, because she leans over him and ruffles Steve’s hair. “And I’m thankful for Steve, for being my best friend and not murdering me when I do this. And for all of you, for being a safe place for me to come out to and be myself in.”
“Hear, hear!” Murray says. “Well, I’m thankful for Jim and Joyce for bringing Alexei to me.”
“And I am thankful for them for kidnapping me,” Alexei says, with a smile that really shouldn’t fit that sentence.
After that, they begin eating, and Billy’s finished about half when Murray asks about the Camaro.
“I’m sorry, guys,” Steve says. “Billy tried driving again but... it didn’t go well.”
“Is it that car?” Alexei asks. “Or... any car that is difficult?”
“It’s the Camaro, specifically,” Billy says, but for some reason he has to force the words out. His chest is getting tight.
“Ah. It’s alright. I don’t like these... what do you call them... fairs! Since I got shot.”
Billy squeezes his eyes shut. He thinks about Hopper telling him he was brave for standing up to the Mindflayer, and for how he didn’t feel brave in that moment. He felt scared shitless. And then he thinks about the Camaro, and how he felt like he was about to drive straight back to Brimborn as soon as he stepped foot on the gas pedal.
It’s getting hard to breathe.
“Billy?” He hears Steve’s voice, but it’s from far away, and he flinches when he feels hands touch his shoulder, lets out a little gasp. Opens his eyes. Conversation seems to have stopped all around him, and he can feel everyone staring.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes. “I-“ He pauses, swallows. Someone’s moved his plate from his lap. “I need a little air.”
He stands up too quickly, is about to fall but catches himself on Steve’s shoulder. Steve moves his hand so it rests on top of Billy’s, and looks up at him with a question in his eyes. Billy shakes his head.
He needs to go out, and he needs to be alone. He just wants to breathe. But suddenly the way to the front door seems impossibly long.
Then Max is there, holding his crutch out to him, and Billy smiles gratefully at her. He takes it, and Steve and Dustin move their legs out of the way so he can go past them. He avoids looking at anyone on the way outside.
Once there’s a closed door between him and everyone else, he slowly lowers himself down to sit on the porch steps. He fishes two pills out of his jean pocket, and swallows them dry. The one thing worse than him freaking out would be if he ended up in such debilitating pain he wouldn’t be able to move.
It’s cold outside, and Billy knows he’s going to regret it later, but for now the air is fresh and and the evening is dark and his tears are warm as he lets them escape down his cheeks.
He’s not sobbing, he’s not having a full on breakdown, he’s just... letting it out. He’d felt overwhelmed inside, hearing everyone... caring about him.
The tears have dried by the time he hears the front door opening. He doesn’t turn around to see who it is.
A blanket comes to rest across his shoulders, and Billy’s expecting Steve, or Max, or perhaps Robin. Possibly even Joyce.
What he isn’t expecting is Jonathan.
Jonathan, who sits down beside him and hands him a mug of cocoa. “It’s not spiked,” he adds with a small smile. “I used to come out here, when I wanted to escape mum and Lonnie fighting.”
“Lonnie?” He pulls the blanket tighter around himself.
“My dad.”
“Mm,” Billy hums.
“Mum made sure the first time he hit me was also the last time. She threw his shit into a suitcase that same day and threw it out with him.”
“It’s usually more complicated than that. CPS and custody battles and shit.”
Part of Billy wants to sneer, wants to shout and rage and demand to know what Max told them. The other part realises that since Jonathan, and Joyce, and Will too, probably, have already lived through it, then perhaps they didn’t need Max to tell them anything. Perhaps they already knew.
And Billy’s exhausted. He’s so tired of being angry.
“Max told us you fell?” Jonathan’s looking at him like he’s searching for something. Billy looks away.
“Yeah. I get all... wobbly, sometimes. Didn’t have anything to lean on. So I fell.”
“Okay,” Jonathan says softly. He takes in a deep breath. “Hopper’s selling the cabin. I’m certain you already figured it out, but he and El moved in here. The house didn’t have enough bedrooms, so we’ve had people over building for weeks. All the bedrooms are down this long corridor, so it made sense to extend it and add two more rooms. El’s got one of them, and Hop moved in with my mum, so the other one‘s just standing empty.”
Billy hears what goes unsaid. ‘You do have something to lean on now.’
“You want to go back in?” Jonathan asks, and Billy nods. His knees still feel a little weak under him, but Jonathan sees him falter, and holds his arm to steady him. He hands him his crutch, and holds the door open, as the warmth from inside welcomes them back.
Billy finds Joyce alone in the kitchen. She’s standing on her tiptoes, trying to reach into a cabinet for some plates. Billy goes up to her and grabs them for her. She smiles when she takes them from him.
“Thank you, sweetie.”
“I’m sorry I left so abruptly, Ms- Joyce. I just- I couldn’t-“
“It’s fine, Billy. I understand. Don’t worry. You and Jonathan had a good talk?”
Billy wonders what happened once he left to go sit outside. “Yeah. Yeah, we did.”
Joyce smiles at him again. “I’m glad. You want to get me the pie from the oven?”
Billy smiles back. He doesn’t think he’d be able to speak if he so tried. There’s a pressure behind his eyes that he tries to blink away, and a knot in his throat.
As they prepare the, frankly enormous, pumpkin pie to carry it out to the living room, Joyce chats away about what it’s been like with people there building every day, how happy she is that Hopper and El have moved in, that Dustin’s mum made the pie, that she really likes Robin, and she never expects Billy to answer. But she knows he’s listening.
Alexei comes over, and helps them carry everything out. There’s more hot cocoa, and Billy pretends he doesn’t see anything when Murray brings out a little flask and pours a few drops in his and Alexei’s. He’s surrounded by people he knows, who all share a similar sort of trauma, and the companionship that can only come from something like that, and it’s the happiest Billy can remember being in a long while.
Having finished his pie, and cocoa, he leans back and rests his head against Steve’s shoulder. The voices around him lull him into a doze, and eventually he falls asleep then and there. He usually doesn’t let himself relax enough to fall asleep anywhere other than a bed, so this is saying him a lot.
He wakes up just as Steve’s lowering him into the passenger seat of the Beemer. Billy can hear Max’ voice saying goodbye to everyone else by the porch. Steve carried him out, he realises, and wonders if he’s really lost that much of his weight or if Steve’s just been going weightlifting when he’s not working and can’t see Billy. It’s a nice stress relief, he knows.
“Hey, there’s my Sleeping Beauty,” Steve says softly as he looks down and sees Billy blinking up at him tiredly.
“You called me that when the Mindflayer died. And then later, in the hospital,” Billy whispers.
“I didn’t know of you remembered that,” Steve says. “I called you Rapunzel, as well.” He reaches you and pets Billy’s hair.
Billy thinks he’s pouting. “It’s not that long.”
Steve laughs quietly. “No, it isn’t. Come here, Sleeping Beauty.” He moves his hand to the back of Billy’s neck, and moves his own head down to kiss him. Billy closes his eyes and relishes in the feeling of happiness it brings him.