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Billy stands in the bathroom on the upper floor of Steve’s house and stares at his reflection, at the sweaty curls framing his face.
To say that Billy has a complicated relationship with his hair would probably be the understatement of the century.
(His mum used to say that. Always slightly joking. ‘Oh, Billy, sunshine, I think that’s the understatement of the century!’ It always made him laugh.)
He has vague memories of sitting in his grandma’s lap, before she’d died, while she bounced his curls around with her wrinkly hands and said he was ‘such a cute little baby, like an angel, grandmama’s own little cherub’.
Those days, his mum used to cut his hair. Only trim it, always letting it stay long all over, long and curly and wet from the salty sea. Mama’s flower child, mama’s little flower child.
Flowers on his shirt, flowers on her dress, flowers in her hair.
But then mum left.
She left, and Billy was alone with his dad, and his dad didn’t like Billy’s hair, didn’t like how people sometimes thought he was a girl, didn’t like how women would stop and fawn over his curls, saying how adorable they were, how sweet he looked, how cute, how pretty.
The only reason his dad didn’t sit him down and shave his head was because he realised pretty quickly how good the long strands were for grabbing and dragging Billy around by.
Billy used the money he got for his birthday to get it cut. Short bangs, short on the sides, but long in the back, because Billy swore to himself to never keep his back to his dad, never to let him use his hair to manhandle him.
He grew up, and he grew angry, and he grew prettier, grew into his looks, and realised quickly that no one would be interested in him for his personality, so he might as well start nurturing the one asset he had, the one part of him people like, the only part that’s worth anything.
Because he craves that attention. He needs someone to look at him with something other than disappointment, needs the praise, craves that happy feeling that spread throughout his whole chest when his mum used to comb his wet hair in the tub, when grandmama played with his curls, when the women in the store or on the street stopped to call him adorable.
Billy wears jewellery, Billy takes meticulous care of his appearance, Billy works out to build muscle, Billy wears his shirts unbuttoned, showing select pieces of unblemished skin, Billy sprays every part of himself with cologne, Billy breaks down whenever his dad goes for the face.
(Billy walks around, silently screaming, look at me, look at me, look at me, please fucking look at me, and tell me I’m worth something.)
And they start doing it again. They start fawning over him again, but it only feels good for a while, the kisses and the touches and the fucking sex, it only feels good until they leave, leave him alone like everyone does, like grandma left, like mum left, leave him behind like he’s some fucking challenge they just completed, oh wow, look at me, I fucked the sexy teenager, he wanted me, he did, and he was so good at it, too!
It only feels good until he gets home, cold and shaky and itching, until he stands in the shower under the scalding spray long enough for his dad to bang on the door and tell him he’s wasting water. Then he steps out, and dries himself off, and does what he’s supposed to, but he doesn’t feel real, doesn’t feel like he’s all there in the head, not until he does something wrong (again, inevitably, again, always, again) and his dad slaps him around a little and forces Billy back into his body and he starts to wonder if maybe this is what his body is actually supposed to be used for. Maybe it’s all he deserves.
Then the cravings start back up again. Then someone will look at him with hunger in their gaze, and Billy will preen, Billy will posture, Billy will wait for them to come to him, to take him somewhere, to show they want him, to call him good, so good, oh my god, you’re so good at this, yes, yes, yes.
Billy stands in the bathroom on the upper floor of Steve’s house and stares at his reflection, at the sweaty curls framing his face.
Today was a good day. Today was supposed to be a good day.
He and Steve and Robin and Nancy and Jonathan had all spent the day at the annual autumn fair, playing carnival games and bobbing for apples. It had been great. It had been fun, more fun than Billy’s had in a while. And in the afternoon they’d gone off to Family Video and sat in the break room, having a Disney movie marathon with the door open so Steve and Robin could hear the bell jingle if any customers came in. They’d watched Pinocchio, and Alice in Wonderland, and Lady and the Tramp, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Robin Hood, and finally finished with The Great Mouse Detective.
He’d gone home with Steve, Robin having the closing shift, and they’d. Well.
They’d had sex. They were supposed to have sex.
Except Billy freaked out.
It’s still new, this thing between them, only a few months old and it’s only November, and they haven’t had sex a lot - at first because Billy was too weak to even try, then because there wasn’t a lot of opportunities.
They still don’t know what they like. They’re still trying to figure that out.
But Steve had-
Steve had-
Steve had grabbed Billy’s hair, had pulled, tugged, and Billy’s heart had skipped a beat in his chest and he’d frozen.
It’d taken Steve a minute to notice, notice how soft he’d gotten, how tense, and it was long enough that Billy had started to feel resigned, because fuck, fuck it, who cares, who cares, he can do it, he can lie here and take it and it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine-
But Steve had stopped moving. Steve had stopped moving, and Steve had looked down at him, and Steve had said, so gentle and so confused, “Billy?”
It’d been enough for the tears in Billy’s eyes to spill over, and Steve had let out a wounded little noise.
“What’s wrong? What… What do you want me to do?”
Billy had surprised himself when he’d actually answered. “Please don’t touch me.”
Steve had scrambled off him immediately, had pushed away, away from Billy, and Billy’s brain had shouted see, see, see!
As though he’d been burned, as though he couldn’t stand to touch Billy, as though there was something wrong with him.
(There is. There is, there is, there is.)
Billy had jumped off the bed, had felt Steve’s eyes on him as he searched through the clothes on the floor for his briefs. He’d pulled them on quickly, and run off to the bathroom down the hall.
He stares at himself in the mirror, and doesn’t recognise the person who looks back. He doesn’t think he’s recognised him for a long while. Years.
Billy’s body doesn’t belong to him. Not really.
It belongs to Neil, and it belongs to everyone he’s ever kissed, and it belongs to the Mind Flayer.
He’s known that for a while, he’s felt out of control his whole life, he doesn’t- He doesn’t- It’s not-
He’s got an electric razor in his hand before he knows it. It’s Steve’s, or Mr. Harrington’s old one, although Billy’s never met the man but still always thought he’d be the type of man to shave with a blade.
Classic. Classic, old-school, traditional, not trash. Someone with high expectations, someone who wants the best for Steve, someone who would never accept Billy in his son’s life, not even if Billy was a girl.
But Billy wants. Billy wants, and longs, and needs, and craves.
Billy wants Steve.
Because Steve isn’t like the others, isn’t like the girls and women and guys who’d seen the bruises on his body that he kept covered by clothes the first time they fucked and thought, nah, nah, I ain’t got time to deal with that shit, and hadn’t ever touched him again.
Steve’s seen the scars on Billy’s torso and hands, and Steve doesn’t care, Steve calls him brave, a hero, and strong, so, so strong, love, you’re so strong.
Steve noticed, Steve asked, Steve stopped.
Karen Wheeler was tired of the mediocrity of her life, the boredom, Karen Wheeler looked at Billy, saw the way he acts, the way he dresses, Karen Wheeler wanted something exciting, something rough.
Karen Wheeler yanked his hair as she rode him, Karen Wheeler climbed off the motel bed once she’d come, Karen Wheeler dressed herself while he stared up at the ceiling, Karen Wheeler looked herself over in the mirror and made sure she looked respectable, Karen Wheeler’s last words to him where a demand that he promise not to tell anyone because she had a family, she had a husband and kids and this was a one time thing, but she had fun, he was really good, he was, and she appreciates it, but that’s all this was, and can he wait a bit before he leaves so no one sees them together, and finally, thank you, Billy.
Then she left, and Billy stayed there for a while, but not because she’d asked him - although maybe a little bit because of that, too, because he still wanted to be good - but because he didn’t feel like moving, and then he left, and crashed his car, and got dragged down a staircase by a monster, and Billy realised what he’s always known, he’s not a real person, his body isn’t his, nothing is, nothing, not for a while, not since his mum combed his hair and let it grow long and wet with saltwater and didn’t let anyone use it to hurt him.
So he hid there. He found a memory, and he hid inside his head.
He plugs the razor in and turns it on, raising it towards his head.
He doesn’t want to associate Steve with hurt, he doesn’t want to be scared, he doesn’t want to panic, he doesn’t want to feel like he’s no one, not real, not his own person.
If there’s no hair on his head, then it can’t be used (grabbed, yanked, pulled, tugged, ripped, dragged away by) against him.
But he can’t do it.
He can’t bring himself to put it against the strands and shave off his curls.
His hand shakes and he’s using the other to hold himself up, holding on to the sink, gripping its edges tight.
He looks away from his hair and meets his own eyes in the mirror. He’s crying, big, fat, ugly tears rolling down his cheeks, and he hates it, he hates how easily he cries.
He’s cold, his skin clammy from dried sweat, and he can’t bring himself to shave his hair.
His body doesn’t belong to him.
He can’t even make his own hand move, his own arm, even though it’d save him, would protect him from ever having his hair touched again.
“Billy?” Steve’s voice comes from the other side of the closed bathroom door. “Billy, can I come in?”
“No,” Billy says, voice so tiny and so pitiful and so weak.
He doesn’t want to be seen like this. Not like this, not like this, not like this.
“Please?” Steve asks. He sounds desperate and worried and scared. “I can hear you’re crying. Please, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
He’s not. But he gives in.
The hand holding the razor falls, as though it can’t bear the weight of it, and lands in the sink, the razor still buzzing, still held loosely in his grasp, his skin so cold against the porcelain.
“Okay.”
He’s working up the strength to move away and unlock the door when Steve opens it, and Billy realises he didn’t lock it, that Steve could’ve come in any time he wished but he’d waited for Billy’s permission.
Steve’s still shirtless, but he’s pulled on pyjama pants now, too.
Billy feels naked, dressed in only his briefs, naked and put on display and cold.
“Hey…” Steve says, frowning and worried and stepping closer. He looks down at the buzzing razor in the sink, then back up at Billy, expression open.
Billy turns away from him. His shoulders shake. “I can’t shave my hair.”
“Okay,” Steve slowly says. “Do you want to?”
Billy looks up at his own reflection. He doesn’t know who he is.
He wants to be the boy his mum loved, the happy little kid on the beach, the one who didn’t feel an odd pain in his stomach whenever an older person called him pretty, cute, adorable, sweet, handsome, (hot, so fucking hot, oh my god, that’s right, that’s right, that’s it), beautiful, the one who sat on his grandmama’s lap while she bounced his curls around, her little cherub, her little angel.
He hasn’t been that boy for a long time.
But he wants. He wants so bad.
“No,” he sobs.
Steve comes up behind him, his hand briefly covering Billy’s as he turns the razor off before he reaches up to pull it out of the socket.
Steve’s taller than Billy, not by a lot, but enough that he can rest his chin on Billy’s shoulder. His chest is warm where it lightly touches Billy’s cold back.
“Then don’t,” he says, and kisses Billy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Billy’s shoulders slump and he cries harder. He brings his fist up to bite into it, to muffle the sound, but Steve catches it and wraps his hand over it.
They look at each other through the mirror.
Billy’s so ugly. The scars are so ugly. And he’s too weak to work out, and his skin is so pale now.
Steve kisses his shoulder again. “I love you. I love you so much. You’re so beautiful.”
Billy slumps against him. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.
Can’t you see, this is all I am, this is all I had?
Steve wraps his other hand around Billy’s stomach, his fingers splayed over the center scar of his chest. Another kiss. “What do you want to do?”
He keeps his lips by his shoulder, and Billy shivers as his breath makes his skin tingle.
Steve’s looks at him from below his lashes. Billy’s gaze moves from his brown eyes to Billy’s own blue, back and forth and back. “Can we sleep? Just sleep? Please?”
Steve nods. Another kiss. “Yeah. Yeah, love, come on.”
He shifts so he’s holding Billy’s hand with his other one, making it easier to walk as he leads him out of the bathroom and down the hall, back to his bedroom.
Steve’s aired it out, the air still cool and fresh. He’s changed the sheets. He’s piled the bed high with pillows and blankets and his duvet.
“What…?” Billy asks.
Steve smiles at him. “Thought we could cuddle.”
Steve’s the only person Billy’s ever slept with who’s wanted to cuddle afterwards. Every time.
He takes ahold of one corner of the duvet and lifts it, letting Billy climb in first. Billy lies down, on his side, facing the window. He’s about to take one of the pillows, wanting to hold on to something, when Steve lies down and covers them with the duvet and pulls the blankets up and presses his hairy chest to Billy’s back and his pyjama clad legs against Billy’s and wraps his arm around him and Billy holds it, pressing it against his chest.
He never wants to let him go.
He feels so safe. And warm. So safe, so safe, so safe. So warm.
He’s still crying. Not as violently, but he still is. He can’t seem to stop.
Steve kisses the mole on Billy’s shoulder. It’s his lip’s favourite target. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. What… What was it? So I don’t do it again?”
It’s easier to have the conversation like this, somehow. Billy feels safe, and warm, but he doesn’t have to see Steve, doesn’t have to see whatever expression is on his face.
“You grabbed my hair.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t… I thought maybe you’d like that.”
It’s not Steve’s fault. This thing is new, the sex is new, and Billy projects rough, rough, rough, and Steve still doesn’t know about Billy’s dad, all he knows is that he’s gone, left, couldn’t deal with Billy in the hospital. He knows nothing about Karen Wheeler, because Billy can’t bring himself to tell him, especially not now when he’s grown to be friendly with Nancy. And he knows nothing about the others, nothing about Billy’s mum, because Billy doesn’t have the words to say anything.
“It’s okay,” he whispers.
“No,” Steve says, almost equally as quiet. “No, no, it’s not. I don’t want to hurt you. I should’ve asked first. I’m gonna do that from now on. Promise.”
“You don’t have to.”
Steve kisses his mole again. “I’m gonna,” he promises.
“Okay.”
Safe. Safe, safe, safe.
“I didn’t- The first time, we didn’t really talk, we just… did it, so I don’t know. I don’t know what you like. Do you want it to be gentle? Like- Like, all of it? I didn’t want to treat you like you were fragile. You’re not made of porcelain.”
What am I made of?
Stitches and scars and flesh and blood and bone?
Some days Billy thinks he’s made of clay. Formable. Mouldable.
Some days he wishes he was water. Easy and free and able to slip away.
“I don’t know,” he replies. No one’s ever asked. He’s never thought about it. He’s given what he had and taken what he got. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Okay,” Steve says and kisses the mole. “I love you. I’m gonna be so gentle, I promise, and you tell me if you ever want to do something else. But…”
Here it comes. Here comes the rejection. Too good to be true. Billy doesn’t deserve these things. Doesn’t deserve the softness. He’s not made for softness.
“Do you… Do you never want me to touch your hair? Or can I stroke it?” He kisses him again, mumbling, “I love you. And I love your hair. I love your curls.”
Billy doesn’t deserve him.
“It’s okay. I just don’t like it when it’s grabbed. But you can stroke it if you want to.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm.”
Steve reaches up with his other hand, over their heads and resting it on one of the pillows there. He lowers his hand to Billy’s hair, massaging his scalp and stroking his hair.
And Billy falls apart.
He’s aware that the sound he makes is completely unhinged, but he doesn’t care, he can’t help it, it feels so nice. He turns around so he’s facing Steve, and pushes his head against Steve’s bare chest.
He’s crying again.
Steve sounds terrified. “Billy?”
“Don’t stop. Please, please don’t stop.”
“Okay. Okay, okay, hey.” He wraps his arms around him - both, Billy ends up resting his head on Steve’s arm - and brings one hand up to stroke Billy’s hair, and it’s gentle. It’s gentle and safe and soft and warm and it doesn’t hurt, it just feels good.
Billy nuzzles his nose against Steve’s chest, against the hair there.
Steve laughs. “That tickles.”
Billy presses closer. Kisses him. Wraps one of his own arms around him. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Steve holds him tighter. “I love you too.”