Archive of Our Own

Steve Harrington returns to Hawkins for the first time in five years one dreary October afternoon.

After the whole demon and monster business some ten years earlier, he had stayed for a while. Long enough to see the kids - as he still considers them - start to grow up, and he’d still visited as they decided to either continue their studies or start working, and for some important occasion or another.

But he hasn’t been in Hawkins since he was twenty-three. Work had kept him away. Work, and the desire to never set foot in that cursed town again. And he’d planned to stick to that.

Except that Dustin, whom Steve loves like a brother, has kept nagging him to come visit. His latest ploy was to announce that he had built a gigantic moving ‘headless’ automaton man with a real pumpkin as his head, and Steve simply had to come see it, he had to, and no, Dustin couldn’t bring it with him on his next visit, because it’s too big, Steven, and besides, the pumpkin is real, it can’t be moved around too much.

So Steve had relented.

And maybe part of the reason was that Steve’s felt a little guilty for having stopped visiting. Because Dustin and Suzie visit him several times a year, sometimes several times a month, and hell, Dustin had even gotten married in Chicago instead of Hawkins because he wanted Steve as his best man. Steve hadn’t asked him to do that, but, well. By that point it wasn’t really needed.

Anyway. Whatever the deeper reasons, Steve now finds himself standing in the drawing room of Dustin’s house. It’s the same house he’d lived in with his mother - who also still lives in the house, although now so does Suzie - and it’s a cheery mustard coloured two story.

It’s the Henderson’s Annual Haunted Halloween House, and the house is packed with guests. Half of Hawkins, probably. They all like to come here, see what new forms of animated decorations Dustin has come up with - the headless pumpkin man had been very impressive, Steve must say, but then again, he always says that when Dustin shows him one of his creations. He’s an engineer, so there is a lot of that.

Steve stops by a bowl of homemade pumpkin shaped candy and pops one in his mouth. He makes a face at the strange taste and has to force himself to swallow it. He’d thought the candy had been made by Dustin’s mother, but it seems like Suzie must’ve tried her hand at it this year. Suzie Henderson is an amazing doctor, but she is far from a good cook.

“Uncle Steve!” a child’s voice calls, effectively bringing Steve out of his mourning for better candy. He turns, recognising Flora’s voice, and just in time to see her come barrelling towards him. She wraps her arms around his legs, and he laughs, crouching down to give her a better hug.

When he stands back up, both Nancy and Jonathan have walked up to them, Nancy holding a sleeping David in her arms. Davy’s three and Flora five. Steve’s both of their godfather. They come to visit Steve in the city every now and again.

Nancy and Jonathan’s wedding had been one of those occasions that Steve had come back to Hawkins for. They run The Hawkins Post together.

Nancy smiles and shakes her head. “I could hardly believe Dustin when he told us he’d managed to convince you to come.”

Steve chuckles. “Had to see it yourself, had you?”

She nods, still smiling.

“What did Dustin bribe you with?” Jonathan asks.

“Oh, nothing,” Steve replies. “I had to see the pumpkin man.”

“Ah,” Jonathan laughs. “It’s impressive. I took some photos. Nancy’s going to write about it. Yes, sweetie?”

That last bit is directed at Flora, who’s been pulling his sleeve.

“Dada, I’m hungry,” she says.

“Okay. Let’s see if we can find you something to eat.”

Steve gestures to the bowl with pumpkin candy. “Keep away from these.”

“Suzie’s?” Nancy asks.

Steve nods. “Yeah.”

Flora’s already managed to drag Jonathan a few feet away, but he turns and calls over his shoulder, “How long you staying?”

“Not sure yet. A couple days, maybe the whole week. I brought my things with me so I should be able to work from here for a bit. Dustin’s probably going to want to show me everything that’s changed since last time.”

“Alright! Make sure you- Yes, Flora, I’m coming.”

Nancy watches them with a smile before turning to Steve. “Make sure you take the time to come see us, too, is what he’s trying to say.”

“I will,” Steve promises, and with that she leaves, hurrying after the other two.

Steve’s not left alone for long.

Before he knows it, there’s another voice, one he hasn’t heard in at least five years, calling his name.

“Steven Harrington!” Thomas Hagan calls, Steve’s childhood friend that he drifted away from during his late teenage years.

Right around the time of the demons, actually.

As always, Carol hangs off his arm. They’re married now, Steve knows. Tommy took over his dad’s business a few years ago, and Carol’s a somewhat big time fashion designer. It’d surprised him to hear they still lived in Hawkins when Nancy told him.

Had surprised him even more when he overheard some of the women at work talking about the Hagan fashion designs.

“Tommy,” Steve says in greeting, giving him a small smile. He still likes them, he thinks, they just haven’t talked in a long while.

Part of that is Steve’s fault, he knows. Maybe most of it.

Tommy reaches out and pulls him into a quick hug, which, yeah. Definitely Steve’s fault. “We haven’t seen you in years! What are you doing here?”

“Dustin convinced me,” Steve says as way of explanation.

Carol nods. She’s got a jade cigarette holder in hand that matches her emerald dress. She takes a drag of her cigarette before speaking. “The pumpkin man?”

Steve nods. “The pumpkin man,” he agrees.

“We heard you left for Chicago to become an architect. How’s that going?” Tommy asks, smiling that wide smile of his, the one that both feels earnest and like he’s trying to get something specific out of you but you can’t quite figure out what.

“It’s going… well.” It is. Steve’s got a nice apartment of moderate size in a nice part of the city, and he likes his job. “Yeah. Really well.”

“That’s great,” Carol says. “Happy for you, darling.”

“Hey, listen,” Tommy says. “Do you have somewhere to stay?”

Steve does, technically. He’s got his family’s house, the one he grew up in.

“You’d be more than welcome at our place,” Tommy continues. “Come on! We could catch up, and you could tell us more about Chicago.”

But Steve also really isn’t looking forward to staying there, in that quiet, old and empty house.

“Alright,” he says, just as he sees Carol throw Tommy a heated look. One that, at hearing Steve’s agreement, she immediately schools and turns into a smile.

She smiles the same way Tommy does. Except hers is more cunning.

That look is really Steve’s first sign that there is something odd going on.

There are more signs, he soon finds, as he comes to stay with them.

From the first moment he enters their house, there’s a strange feeling in his chest, but it’s one he chalks up to nerves at the whole situation.

The guest rooms are all on the third floor, Carol informs him, so that is where he is taken. The corridor up there is in a sort of L-shape, with the stairs by the long line and Steve’s room in the hallway of the short one.

That first night Steve wakes up needing to use the bathroom, which is on the second floor, and as he rounds the corner towards the stairs he manages to catch a quick glance of Tommy disappearing into a room further down, locking the door behind him.

That in itself seems odd, but who is Steve to say what Tommy can or can’t do at night in his own house.

It’s by dinner the next day that he realises what else has stood out to him, even though he’s spent most of the day outside.

The house is big enough, and Tommy and Carol are well off enough, for servants, but there are none. No maid, or butler, not even a cook. He might’ve asked, probably would have if they were still as close as when they were younger, but it seems impolite. Steve’s mother, or more precisely his nanny, raised him better than that.

That evening, as he goes up to bring one of his sketches down to show Tommy, he sees Carol slip into the same room as Tommy did the night before. She locks the door. And it continues like that.

Every day, Steve eats breakfast with Tommy and Carol. Then they leave for work, and Steve does some of his own, sitting in Tommy’s office which he’d so graciously let him loan, until the afternoon when he goes out with some of his Hawkins friends. He’ll eat dinner with Tommy and Carol, and they might do something together in town, as well, or they’ll just stay in.

But more and more, Steve finds himself outside the locked door - for it is locked. He’d tried it that second day after Tommy and Carol left - sometimes for hours, during which he’ll sit outside on the floor of the hallway with his work sheets in his lap.

He’d draw it up to simple curiosity, because he’s always been curious but probably grew both more curious and cautious after the events ten years prior, but it’s more than that. He feels pulled towards it, towards the contents of the room, towards whatever it is that Tommy and Carol are hiding.

His chest aches with it.

On the fifth day, a Thursday, he wakes early, and as he leaves his room he overhears a hushed conversation between Tommy and Carol. They’re heading down the stairs, and while he’s missed most of the conversation he somehow knows, with a certainty he can’t explain, that they just came from the locked room, and that whatever they are talking about involves its contents.

“Still no real change?”

“I don’t know… seemed more agitated than usual.”

“It’s been like that before, though, it might not mean anything.”

“But not like this. Not this much. I think maybe…”

Steve doesn’t catch the rest, and what he hears he can’t make sense of. He stares after them, and then back to the locked room.

He’s about to try the handle, for what feels like the hundredth time, but steps on a creaky floorboard beneath the carpet. The low murmur of Tommy’s and Carol’s voices stops, and there’s silence for a moment.

“Steve?” Carol calls from downstairs.

Steve sighs, works his jaw, hoping he’ll sound normal. “Yeah?” He thinks he does, so he starts to jog down the stairs. “Sorry, woke up early. Thought I might go for a walk.”

They seem to buy it, and Steve spends most of his walk pondering the pieces of the conversation he’d overheard.

Carol comes home a little earlier that afternoon. Steve had greeted her when she came home, but had then gone up to his room, where he’s stayed for a while.

He’s just rounded the corner, headed toward the stairs, when he sees a red haired boy in ill-fitted pants hoovering close to the locked door, his back to Steve.

Steve reaches for the cabinet against the wall, grabbing the closest object he can think to use as a weapon, raising it in warning, because he does not recognise this person and so assumes it must be a robbery. He runs closer and shouts, “Hey!”

The boy jumps, turns, and faces Steve. And Steve realises that it is in fact a girl.

Or a young woman, more like.

At his shout, Carol comes running up the stairs. “Steve! Why are you trying to assault my employee with… my curling iron?”

Steve looks at the metal object with its dark wood handles and slowly lowers it down to his side.

“I though… I thought she was trying to rob you. I though she was a he .”

The woman - Carol’s employee, apparently - scoffs. “Carol wanted me to drop of some fabric.”

“Oh. And… Do you always wear pants?”

“Only when I can’t be bothered putting on a dress. I’ve got my own, but these are my husbands. Lucas Sinclair.”

“Oh,” Steve breathes. “You’re Maxine?”

“Max,” Carol corrects. “She prefers Max.”

“That’s right,” Steve says. “I’m sorry.”

He’d been invited to the wedding, but he hadn’t been able to come, as he was on a business trip in a different state. He’d secretly been a little relived. He’s not as close to Lucas as he is to Dustin, and Lucas’ wedding had been in Hawkins.

“I sent you a card,” he remembers. They got married last year, in the spring.

Max scoffs, but when Steve looks to her she’s smiling. “Yeah, you did.”

Steve’s never met her. Her family only moved to Hawkins right around the time Steve left.

“I’m sorry,” Steve repeats. “For the… for the curling iron.”

Max shakes her head, looking a little amused. “That’s alright. Lucas’ told me about you. I’m not surprised.”

“What’s that supposed to-?”

“Anyway,” Max says as she turns to Carol. “I should be heading home.”

Carol nods, and both of them turn and walk down the stairs, leaving Steve alone. He looks to the locked door.

It would be easy to believe that Max was there to drop of fabric, that the room acts as some kind of storage space for Carol, but Steve doesn’t believe that. It doesn’t fit the conversation he’d overheard.

As he gets ready for bed that night, he comes up with a plan.

He wakes early the next morning, but on purpose this time, and presses an ear against his door, listening as someone comes up the stairs followed by the low clicks of the locked door opening and closing.

He gets dressed, and walks out, stopping just before the bend in the corridor. He stays there, waiting, for nearly twenty minutes, before he hears the door open again.

And before the person exiting has the time to lock it, Steve steps around the corner.

“Tommy!” he greets. Tommy looks up at him, wide eyed. The door’s still half open. He nudges it closed with his knee. “Good morning!”

“Morning, Steve.”

“I was actually about to go look for you. I thought I’d go for a walk before breakfast again, come on, join me?”

Tommy nods, and steps away from the door.

He doesn’t lock it.

Steve has to bite his cheek to keep from cheering.

All morning he itches to go back, but he can’t, not until they’ve left. He eats breakfast with them and barely manages to quell the excitement, barely manages to keep from speeding it up so they can go ahead and leave him.

Until finally, two hours later, they’re both out the door and Steve’s running up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and hoping, praying, that Tommy didn’t remember he hadn’t locked the door when he went up to his office for his briefcase.

With bated breath Steve stops outside the room. His heart’s pounding and his hand’s trembling as he reaches out and tries the door handle.

And the door opens.

At first, there doesn’t seem to be anything strange with the room. Steve’s eyes fall on a wardrobe and fireplace, just like in his own guest room, a door that must lead to a bathroom, a pair of windows, and then they land on the bed.

He jumps back with a shriek of horror.

There’s a young man on the bed, lying with the covers pulled up to his chest and his arms resting atop them, the way comatose patients in hospital wards are placed.

But the man’s eyes are open.

“Oh my god!” Steve exclaims and runs up to him. Did Tommy and Carol kidnap this person?

His eyes don’t follow Steve’s moment. At first he thinks that means the man must be blind, but he hadn’t showed any reaction to hearing Steve, either.

Cautiously he reaches out to nudge his arm. There’s no reaction.

So not both blind and deaf, then.

The most logical conclusion would be that the man is dead, but Steve can see his chest rising and falling.

In shock, and confusion, he sinks down into the armchair pulled up next to the bed.

The man is beautiful.

Long and curly blonde hair, spilled across the pillow like a halo, or one of those painted angels in churches. His eyes are a bright blue, he’s got a pencil moustache, and there’s a light splattering of freckles below his eyes. 

Steve sits there and watches him. For hours. He only leaves to eat lunch, a sandwich he makes himself and eats quickly standing in the kitchen, before he hurries back up.

Something changes around one in the afternoon, when the man lets out a low whine from behind lips pressed tightly shut.

It startles Steve, makes him sit up straighter. He’s sure the man is about to ‘wake’, but he doesn’t. His eyes stay fixed on the ceiling, and his mouth remains closed, but now he’s started letting out tiny distressed noises, short whimpers that cut straight to Steve’s heart.

Steve has heard stories about the men who came home after the War, who would flinch at the 4th of July fireworks and who sometimes had dreams like waking nightmares during which they couldn’t move.

It seems to him that is what’s happening here, that this young man seems to be stuck in a permanent state of dreaming even while looking to be awake.

Steve reaches out, smoothing the man’s hair back, hoping that it will soothe him a little. And it seems to be working. The man lets out a soft sound, between a sigh and a moan. Steve takes his hand, and he calms, sinking back into peaceful slumber with his eyes remaining open.

He stays there, holding his hand, until he hears the front door open hours later. Only then does he stand up and slip out of the room, soundlessly closing the door. The man had whimpered when Steve had let go of his hand, and now, outside in the hallway and walking down the stairs, the ache in Steve’s chest returns, stronger than before.

He does his best to act normal for the first half of that evening’s dinner. He’s almost finished his food when he decides to pose his question.

“Could you two explain to me,” he starts, “why there is a young man locked in one of your guest rooms?”

Tommy chokes on a potato.

Carol’s eyes go wide, and instead of answering Steve she turns to Tommy and swats at his arm. “You forgot to lock the door this morning, didn’t you? Tommy, how could you?!”

Tommy shakes his head. “I didn’t-“ He turns to Steve. “Oh. You tricked me.”

“I knew you were hiding something. I had to find out what.”

Carol shakes her head. “No, you bloody well didn’t! I should- We should throw you out, we should never let you come back here-“

“You were the ones who invited me to stay here,” Steve protests.

“No. I didn’t. Tommy did, because Tommy saw our old friend who’s been ignoring us for close to ten years and Tommy got so desperate to hang out with him again that he completely forgot about Billy!”

Steve’s heart does a little jump at that. Guilty, because Carol is right, and he did ignore them, and he was never able to explain way. But also… some other feeling he can’t identify, at hearing the young man’s name.

“Who is? Billy, who is he? What is he doing here?”

Carol stands up from the table, putting her hands down on it. The silverware trembles and clinks from the force of it. “That is none of your business , Steven.”

Tommy reaches up and puts a calming hand on her arm. “Carol-“

She shrugs it off, turning her glare to him instead of Steve. “No. We promised- We promised Billy we would help him get away. And then we promised Max no one would find out.”

“Max?” Steve asks, curious to find out how she’s involved.

“His sister,” Tommy says.

“Tommy!” Carol shouts.

“It’s okay, Carol, he already knows. Besides, it’s Steve. I mean, he stopped hanging out with us because he thought we were being too mean. I don’t think he’d go running around telling the whole town we’re harbouring a Cursed man declared missing four years ago.”

“‘Cursed’?” Steve repeats, feeling a chill go down his spine.

Monsters and Creatures are part of the world they live in, but a very small part, and not one most people are comfortable with. It’s why they’d decided to keep the whole demonic dimension business quiet, part of why he’d stopped hanging around Tommy and Carol, afraid to drag them into it should the monsters return. They hadn’t, and Steve had left.

Except. Excerpt something must’ve happened while he was gone, something not even his friends now about.

He wonders if Lucas does, or if Max has kept it quiet from him, too.

“Wait,” Steve says. “Four years? He’s been like that for four years?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Come on.” He stands up, and heads into the kitchen, Steve and Carol following. He grabs a tray, spoon, and a bowl, and fills the bowl with soup from a pot on the stove. “Carol makes him soup every day. I don’t think he actually needs it, but-“

“Of course he does,” Carol interjects. “ Everyone needs to eat.”

“- she insists.” He finishes filling the tray and together the three of them climb the stairs.

Carol still looks mad, the whole time, up until they step into Billy’s room, when her face takes on an expression of melancholic cheerfulness. She smooths her dress down before she takes the tray from Tommy.

Steve leans against one of the bedposts, watching Tommy sit down on the bed and move the pillows around, stacking them up against the headboard. He climbs further up, until he’s leaning half against them, and takes ahold of Billy, pulling him up to sitting, being careful of his neck as his head lolls. His eyes stay open, staring ahead at nothing.

Tommy catches Steve looking. He smiles. “Creepy, huh?”

Steve feels himself blush, diverting his gaze to the bedspread.

“It’s okay,” Tommy says. “I thought so too at first. But you get used to it. His eyes close during the night. I like to think he’s resting easier then.” 

Steve swallows. He feels guilty, almost dirty, suddenly. Like Carol’s right, and he has no right to see this, to be here.

But at the same time he needs to know. “What happened?”

Carol sighs, seeming to have resigned herself to Steve’s presence. She puts the tray in Billy’s lap. Steve looks up as she starts to speak, sees Tommy start to feed Billy spoonfuls of the soap. Carol’s sunk into the armchair Steve spent most of his day in.

“Billy and his family- That is, his stepsister, stepmother, and arsehole of a father. They moved here about five years ago. Billy became our friend. And we-“ Carol cuts herself off to clear her throat, because her voice had started to tremble. In all the years Steve’s known her, he’s never heard her voice tremble. “Eventually, we learned that Billy’s father hurt him. Hit him, whipped him with his belt, even at twenty-two years old, and the only reason Billy had stayed for as long as he had was to make sure Max didn’t get the same treatment if he left.” She sighs, deeply, and Steve feels ill.

“It’s okay,” Tommy says. “You’re doing well, darling.”

Carol turns her gaze down to her lap. Steve sees her fingering at the wedding band on her ring finger. “Max turned nineteen, and she was going to move away for her studies, and Billy was going to leave. His father had been taking most of what Billy earned working, but Billy was, is , smart. He wanted to study, too, and we were going to loan him the money, because we knew he’d pay it back, we knew he would. He keeps his promises. But his father found out, somehow, we still…”

“We still don’t know how,” Tommy finishes. He’s still feeding Billy the soup, slow and methodical, making sure nothing spills.

“No,” Carol agrees. “But Susan, his stepmother, she told Max his father had him cursed, and Max, she… She found him looking like this, dead to the world, and she knew we were going to help him leave, so she went to us while Neil was at work, and we grabbed him the same day she left for the city.” She looks to Steve then, her eyes daring him to go against her. “No one knows. And it’s going to stay that way. Neil still lives here, he would- He would make a case that it wasn’t him who did it, and Susan is so afraid of him that she’d agree, and he’d take him back to their house and leave him there to rot .”

“We’ve been taking care of him,” Tommy adds, like he’s caught on to some of Carol’s fear and is trying to convince Steve not to have Billy taken from them. “We stay with him when he has nightmares. Carol washes his hair, and she’s let it grow, he always kept it on the longer side, anyway. I…” He pauses, smiles softly. “I shave his moustache, the same way he used to. Sometimes we read to him. I don’t know if he can hear us, but he always did love books.” He laughs. “More than me, anyway.”

Steve’s left speechless. He doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t know what he can say.

He lands on the only thing left to ask. “Do you know what Curse it was?“ Curses can be broken, you just need to know how.

Carol shakes her head. “Curses aren’t exactly well taught in school.” She’s turned to look at Billy now, back to smiling that sad smile that tries to look happy, as though hoping Billy will see it and take strength from it.

Steve doesn’t know what he’d do if this happened to one of his friends. He thinks about Dustin, Nancy and Jonathan and their children, Will, and Lucas, and Mike and Jane-

Jane.

She and Mike don’t live in Hawkins, they moved almost seven years ago, to New York, and travelling around the country, helping people. But they always come back for Dustin’s Annual Henderson Haunted Halloween House, and Steve saw them there, talked to them for a while. They’re told him they’re staying with Nancy and Jonathan.

“I know someone. A woman, well versed in things like this. She could- I think she could help.”

Both of them look up at him, barely concealed hope in their eyes.

“She won’t go telling the whole town about it?” Carol asks, wariness clear in her tone.

Steve shakes his head. “She wouldn’t.”

“You’re sure?” Tommy asks.

“I promise.”

—

Steve leaves for the Byers straight after breakfast the next morning, while Carol calls Max.

Nancy opens the door, looking as put together as usual. Steve can hear Flora and David creating a ruckus deeper in the house. “Steve! What are you doing here… so early…?”

“Is Jane here?”

Nancy nods. “She is… Why? What’s going on?”

“I… can’t tell you, but I really need to speak to Jane.”

“Okay. I’ll go get her. Come in while you wait.”

He steps in, waiting just inside the front door. Nancy isn’t gone for long, and she doesn’t follow Jane when she comes back with her, but nods at Steve in the doorway and leaves.

Jane’s dressed in a light blue day dress, her bobbed hair curly and messier than Nancy’s. “Steve,” she says, and smiles that kind smile of hers.

“Someone… Someone I know needs your help. That kind of help.”

“Oh,” Jane says. “Alright. I’ll go let them know I’ve gone out.”

She’s gone for about a minute longer than Nancy was - Steve knows. He’s staring at the clock ticking away against the wall. She grabs her purse and coat puts it on along with her hat.

And then they’re off.

When they get back to the Hagan house, Max is already there. She looks surprised to see Jane.

“Max,” Jane says. “Hi.”

Steve looks between them. By the time Max moved to Hawkins Jane had already left. “You two know each other?”

“Not really,” Jane says.

“Our husbands are friends, Steve,” Max says. “We’ve met. Haven’t really talked but, you know.”

“We’ve seen each other,” Jane says. “Who needs my help?”

“My brother,” Max says. “He- I didn’t know you could help him. Lucas doesn’t know, and I was afraid to ask.”

“That’s alright,” Jane says. “I know I seem strange. But I can help. What’s wrong with him?”

Max tells her the same story Steve was told last night. He looks to Carol and Tommy, standing by the staircase, Tommy with his arm around Carol’s waist and both looking nervous.

Once Max is done, they all head up and crowd into Billy’s room.

“Oh,” Jane sighs when she sees him.

She goes up and sits on the edge of his bed, leaning down to look into his face, obscuring Steve’s sight of him. She touches something before pulling the covers down and unbuttoning his shirt.

She looks to Steve over her shoulder. “Steve? I saw there was a radio on the desk. Can you turn it on?”

Steve nods, going over to do just that. He sees Carol frown, but she doesn’t ask, not even when Steve turns it to static instead of any program.

“Thank you,” Jane says. She reaches into her purse, taking out a black piece of cloth that she ties around her head, covering her eyes. She rests her hand on Billy’s bare chest.

A minute, maybe two, passes.

Jane removes the cloth, putting it back in her purse and exchanging it for a handkerchief. Steve sees the blood trailing form her nostril as she turns to face them while wiping it away. “I know which Curse it is.”

Steve knew she would, but he’s still filled with an immense feeling of relief.

“You do?” Max says, at the same time as Carol says, “Oh, thank god,” and Tommy lets out something between a sob and a laugh.

They’d been keeping their distance before to give her room to work, but now they all crowd around the bed.

“First,” Jane says. “Did you know Billy has Creature blood in him? Siren, to be specific?”

They all stare at her in shocked silence.

Creatures have only now, during the last decade or so, started becoming more accepted in polite society.

Jane once told him, when he’d asked about them, about the different characteristics and how to figure out who’s what, that it was impolite and in poor taste, but more than that it was in poor judgment. A vampire is a vampire is a vampire, but you can’t put them, or fairies or trolls or hobgoblins into neat little boxes, because at the end of the day they’re still people, people who choose to do or not do things.

It’s stayed with him. Made him not so quick to judge.

Their eyes turn to Max, because realistically she’s the only one to know.

But she shakes her head. “No… But he- We’re from California. Neil used to tell everyone that Billy’s mother was dead, to make himself out as a widower when he met my mum, but Billy, he told me she just… left him. She used to take him to the ocean every day.”

Jane nods.

“But how could you… How could you know?”

“I saw it,” Jane says, pointing to her temple with one finger. “But I suspected. His eyes.”

They lean closer as Jane explains, trying to see what she had.

“You can’t see it unless you’re concentrating, but his irises are shifting. Swimming. Changing like waves. And there’s a bit of gold, a thin circle around the pupil.”

Steve’s too far away to see it, but he trusts Jane to be telling the truth.

She lifts up a long necklace that’s around Billy’s neck, but it had been hidden underneath his shirt so Steve hadn’t seen it earlier. She holds up the pendant, a red stone set in gold. “There’s this, too, of course. It’s coral.”

“His mother gave it to him,” Max says. “He never takes it off.”

Jane nods. She knew that already.

“Then, if you look at his teeth,” She reaches out and gently pulls his upper lip away from the lower, just enough to exposes one of his canines. It looks a little sharper than a normal humans. She lets go, turning directly to Billy. “Sorry, Billy, I know that must’ve felt a little odd.”

“He can hear us?” Carol asks, sounding breathless.

Jane nods. “Mm. See us, too. It’s a horrible state to be in, really.” She looks up at them, eyes sad. “Four years, you said?”

Max looks like she’s about to cry. “What kind of Curse is it?”

“It’s called the Sleeping Beauty Curse, like the fairytale. It mainly affects Sirens, or half Sirens, because they’re one of the few Creatures that have soulmates. The victim is placed into a state of constant dreaming, or half-dreaming, staying alive but appearing dead in almost all aspects, until, well. Until their soulmate finds them and kisses them.”

Max looks down. Steve sees a couple tears start to trail down her cheeks. “Neil would. He would. He’d know what Billy’s mum was, what Billy is, and he’d use it against him. Torture him like that, because he doesn’t believe that anyone could ever love him, and he’d never let them close enough to see, to find out.“

“So there’s nothing we can do?” Carol asks. “Absolutely nothing, other than wait for some soulmate to hopefully stumble into our house?”

“I’m sorry,” Jane says. “I told you it was horrible.”

“But we can keep him comfortable,” Tommy tries to reassure them. “As comfortable as possible.”

Steve nods. “Yeah. Like, like, hold his hand when he has nightmares, and soothe him, talk to him and stuff.”

“Except he doesn’t react when we touch him,” Carol says. “He’s sleeping, for real, during the nightmares, so even if Jane here is right and I don’t doubt that she is, that means that he still can’t hear us when they start to plague him. We’ve tried, Steve. Nothing helps. We just have to wait it out.”

“But he calmed down yesterday when I held his hand,” Steve protests.

“He- I- What? ” Carol turns to stare at him.

The rest of them follow suit.

“Steve,” Tommy slowly asks. “Why did you want to find out what was in this room?”

“I was curious. I could see you were acting odd.”

Tommy shakes his head. “No.”

“I… I needed to. I needed to know, to find out, to- to see him.”

Max shakes her head. She starts to laugh, and it sounds slightly hysterical. “Oh my god. Lucas was right. You are an idiot.”

“Hey-!”

“Steve,” Jane says. “Come here.”

He rounds the bed and sits down beside her.

“Take his hand,” she instructs.

Steve does, and Billy lets out a little hum of content.

“Oh my god,” Carol breathes.

“What?” Steve looks at them on the other side of the bed. “He did that yesterday, too. You mean that’s never happened with you guys?”

The three of them shake their heads.

“Never,” Max says. She shakes her head in wonder, more tears spilling over her cheeks.

Is this the first time in four years that she’s heard her brother let out a sound that isn’t distressed?

With his other hand, Steve starts stroking Billy’s hair.

He sighs, and starts, well, purring almost.

Max lets out a little sob.

“You’re his soulmate, Steve,” Tommy says.

“He’s always had a thing for oblivious brunettes,” Max says.

“Oh,” Steve says. That feels… strange. But right, somehow. He thinks of the way his chest, no, his heart, started aching when he first stepped into the house, how dreams he’s felt to this room, to Billy, and how it stops hurting when he’s in his presence.

“What now?” Carol asks.

Steve turns to Jane. “Do I just kiss him now?”

Jane shakes her head, and Steve’s only a little surprised to realise he feels disappointed. “It needs to be at night, in the moonlight, and in water.”

“Oh,” Steve says.

“Tonight,” Jane says.

They decide to meet up back again at eight in the evening. Steve spends most of the day with Billy, telling him about himself, since all Billy will know is what he found out four years ago, and what he’s heard the last two days.

At ten past eight Carol fills the bathtub in Billy’s en-suite, while Tommy opens both the curtains and the window, letting the moonlight spill in over the tiled floor.

Steve lifts Billy off the bed and carries him in his arms, lowering him down into the water while still dressed. He kneels down beside the tub, letting Billy’s head rest against his arm.

Tommy, Carol, Max, and Jane stand against the wall, watching. Jane nods to him.

Steve leans forward.

“Billy,” he whispers, because it feels like he should try to make sure, however well he can. “Can I kiss you?”

Billy lets out a quite hum, and it sounds positive, so Steve takes it as a yes.

He presses his lips to Billy’s, very lightly because he doesn’t want to take advantage. He holds them there for a couple seconds. Long enough to feel Billy’s lips part against his.

Only then does Steve lean back. Billy’s eyes are closed - they hadn’t been when Steve kissed him - but they flutter open now.

“Hi,” Billy whispers, in a voice that’s cracked from disuse.

“Billy!” Max shouts, and falls down beside them. She reaches for him, and Steve sits back, letting the sibling wrap their arms around each other.

“Max,” he hears Billy whisper. “Max, Max, hi.”

Carol and Tommy join them in the hug, while Jane stays back with Steve. Max eventually turns from Billy to throw herself at Steve instead, mumbling, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” into his neck.

He catches Billy’s gaze over her shoulder, sees him look from Steve to Jane and back, mouthing his own, “Thank you.”

Billy, they soon discover, is weak, but not as weak as he should’ve been from lying in a bed for four years. Jane explains it as being part of the Curse, that it had sustained him while still stealing years from his life.

They spend the next few days sitting in the garden most of the day, even though it’s cold and rains every now and again, until Steve really needs to return to the city and his job.

Billy asks to come with.

Max had looked a little crestfallen at it, Carol and Tommy too, but they had understood. Billy was supposed to leave four years ago.

Billy’s father still lives in Hawkins, and Billy is terrified to run into him, but he can’t stand staying in the same room, the same house, he’d wasted away in for four years.

Steve agrees, and they leave that morning, in Steve’s automobile.

They may be soulmates, but they don’t actually know each other. They’ve tried to rectify that, talking for hours in Tommy and Carol’s garden, and Steve finds that he does, in fact, like Billy. Very much so. He thinks he could easily fall in love with him.

But they’re not there yet, so in the beginning, Steve gives Billy the guest room. But they soon realise that Billy can’t sleep alone, that it reminds him too much of when he was under the Curse, and he takes to sleeping in Steve’s bed, beside Steve. They don’t do anything sexual, not yet.

Most nights it takes hours for Billy to fall asleep, fear of never waking up keeping him awake. They start going to bed earlier, with Billy curling into Steve’s arms while Steve holds him, strokes his hair. It feels intimate, and sweet, and sad.

Steve goes to work during the days, while Billy, having recovered his strength, spends the days discovering the city. Steve’s relieved to find his chest doesn’t hurt when they’re separated anymore, is glad for it, because it didn’t seem fair to either one of them if it had stayed that way. Jane told him it hurt before because of the Curse, because Steve was there but hadn’t broken it, and that it probably will hurt again if Billy is ever hurt, and Billy will feel the same if Steve is.

He’s glad to hear that, too, to know they have a connection like that. Thinks it will be useful, especially if Billy’s father ever comes looking for his son.

Max visits every weekend, Tommy and Carol every other, for the first six months.

Billy isn’t sure if he should go to school, like he had planned, or if he should just try to find work. He picks up small, odd jobs around the city while he tries to figure it out.

Steve tells him he’s got all the time in ten world to decide. He’s only twenty-seven.

He’s twenty-eight, and Steve turns twenty-nine, and Steve realises he loves him.