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Sometimes, Billy felt as if he really had died.
Like he’d lost something irretrievable, some part of himself he hadn’t even known he’d had, when he bled out on the floor of Starcourt mall and even after he’d come to, months later, strapped down to a hospital bed, he didn’t think there was any way to get it back.
Everyone in Hawkins thought he’d died. That had been explained-along with everything else-by doctors and staff at the maximum security facility where he’d been held during his recovery.
They were scared of him. At least, at first. Scared that some traces of it remained inside of him. Scared and maybe a little bit excited too. This is what they lived for after all, studying the unthinkable.
But Billy, ever the disappointment, had nothing to offer them. The monster was gone, had been torn out of him and drained away on the shiny, linoleum floors of a shopping mall in middle America.
So when he found himself, able to walk and talk again after months of rehab, with nothing to offer the scientists and doctors that frequented his room, they all knew it was time for him to leave.
He couldn’t go back to Hawkins, they told him, apologies in their eyes. He’d laughed in their faces. He never wanted to set foot in that town again and would've died for real before he went back.
California, he told them, he wanted to go home.
And so he’d gone. Not home home, that was impossible. The Billy Hargrove his old friends knew had moved to Indiana with his family and died there in a tragic accident. That, as far as anyone was concerned, was a fact. One that could not be changed.
But they’d sent him as close as they could, set him up in an apartment, a one bedroom with more space than he had belongings to fill. He had a bank account in his first name and his mother’s maiden name with enough money in it to buy new clothes and food for a few weeks while he settled.
He found work soon enough. He fixed cars during the week and bar tended on the weekends. It was menial work, small scale and unimportant, but working with his hands and making minimal conversation with strangers turned out to be all he needed. He could even throw in a couple winks and flirt just enough to get better tips.
Sometimes, he even felt like his old self. The person he’d been back when the biggest, scariest thing in his life was his father. Violent and dangerous to be sure, but understandable.
Human.
But that wasn’t who he was anymore. And when the memories-the knowledge of what existed out there-became too much, he forced himself to forget. He drank along with his customers, smiling like he was in on their celebrations before going home to continue on his own, drinking until all thought disappeared and he woke up the next morning on his living room floor, shaking and sick, but at least not thinking of death and monsters made of smoke and stolen flesh.
That was how he functioned. Just enough to keep himself going. Making nice with coworkers and customers, but with no one he could consider a friend. Working enough to get by, but with no passion, no drive to do anything else. Enduring his own existence with nothing to show for it.
Despite how the doctors had patted themselves on the back for doing the impossible, bringing him back from the brink of death, he sometimes felt like he’d died anyway because going on as he was, it hardly felt like living.
He was a shadow of his former self who’d already been a shadow of a real person and most days it was a struggle to even get out of bed. He went to work and went home. He had no hobbies or hangouts and left by himself as he was, he had no reason or motivation to change.
On paper, it was a terrible idea. If he’d really stopped to think about it, he probably would have talked himself out of it. He should have talked himself out of it.
But she just looked so sad.
He’d been walking back from work when he saw the adoption event happening near the park. The local shelter had set up a table on the corner with volunteers showing off all the animals that still needed homes.
Really, as soon as he’d seen it, he should have crossed the street and kept heading home. He could barely keep himself alive, so getting a pet was probably the worst idea he could have, especially a large dog that needed time and effort and attention. But no one had ever accused Billy Hargrove of making good decisions.
Her big, blocky head was held low to the ground when he first saw her. The shelter volunteer holding her leash was trying to tell passersby about how sweet she was, but it was all in vain as everyone was far more interested in the retriever held by her colleague or the crate of kittens under the table. .
But Billy, who’d spent his entire life making sure his reputation was more than enough to make sure everyone left him alone, who had inspired fear with his very appearance, who now wore scars down his chest and on his hands that made him that much more intimidating-even when he didn’t mean to be-took one look at the sad rottweiler sitting on the sidewalk and new that she was the dog for him.
When he approached the volunteer holding her leash, the girl seemed more surprised than anything else, but she quickly told him everything about the dog at their feet that he’d need to know, while the dog in question nudged her black and brown nose at his feet.
She snuffled sweetly at his offered hand and eagerly let him scritch behind her ears.
Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help but let a small smile twist at his lips.
If the decision hadn’t already been made, that would have solidified it.
All in all, it was little work to adopt her.
He paid the adoption fee with his government hush money and bought a collar, a leash, chew toys, food, and everything else he’d need before leaving with her at his side.
He named her Nikki and when he took her leash and walked her home, he could have sworn she was smiling.
With Nikki at his side, Billy’s life started to change. Instead of just going back and forth between home and work, he was forced to get out to take her on walks, meandering with no destination and exploring parts of his neighborhood he’d never seen before, despite having lived there for almost a year since leaving the hospital.
Before Nikki, he’d been lazy about keeping his apartment clean, often leaving dirty clothes on the floor and not taking the trash out until flies started gathering. But he quickly learned that she would try to eat anything he left out on the floor and that she was big enough to dig into the garbage when he let it overflow.
He came home from work once to find his kitchen garbage pail on its side, the contents spread across the floor, Nikki in the middle of it all, chewing on a cardboard container from the takeout he’d thrown away days before.
He’d flown into a panic, terrified that she’d get sick from eating garbage, that his neglect could lead to her getting hurt. He’d collected all the garbage and taken it to the bins outside, then came back in and cleaned the rest of his apartment for good measure.
After that, whenever the garbage started to fill, and his depressed mind told him to just leave it, he was viscerally reminded of the panic he’d felt that day, and he forced himself to take it outside.
And on his days off, when previously he would have spent the day rotting in bed, he was now forced to get up to feed her and take her for walks. And with the hardest part-just getting out of bed-already done, it made other things, like feeding himself or getting in the shower, that much easier.
Having Nikki didn't solve everything, of course not, but she made his life better. Having her at home gave him something to look forward to everyday after work. She forced him out of bed, even on his worse days; forced him to keep his home clean and organized and to leave his apartment for something other than work. Though, sometimes those walks reminded him just why he’d spent so much time inside.
It wasn’t uncommon for people to avoid the two of them; people with smaller dogs or children often going out of their way to give the two of them a wide berth. Part of Billy enjoyed the reaction; it was the facade he’d hidden behind his whole life, after all. If they feared him, they weren’t going to mess with him. But that facade, that armor he’d worn for so long, didn’t quite fit any more.
Another part of him desperately wished for someone to understand that he was more than the scars and the leather jacket, that Nikki was more than her big teeth and imposing muscles.
Every time Nikki turned her nose toward a passerby, looking for attention or pets, only to have that person pick up their pace, mistaking her interest for aggression, Billy would stop, stoop down to her side and rub around her ears, assuring her that she was the sweetest dog in the world. That she was more than what people saw on the outside. That anyone too blinded by fear and stupidity to actually get to know her, wasn’t worth her time anyway.
He would reassure her and she would look at him with her big, sweet eyes and he would try not to think about a high schooler, full of fear and sadness, but hiding behind anger, lashing out at the world, but still wishing, desperately, from somewhere deep inside that anyone would just notice.
As the tourist season tapered off, his shifts at the bar were cut and the extra hours on the weekend left him aimless. He tried at first to spend his time at home, but Nikki wasn’t having it. She quickly learned that all it took was a few nudges at his prone body on the couch before he got fed up and took her outside. And as summer slipped into autumn and the ache in his scars faded along with the summer thunderstorms, he took her on longer and longer walks.
It was late September when he took her to the beach. It hadn’t been a great day for him, but he’d made it out of the house and he hadn’t had a drink in a whole week, so he figured they could do something special.
It was late into the evening, right on the cusp of turning into night. The sky and the ocean were both stained pink at the horizon. The water was too cold for swimming and there were few people on the beach.
Billy settled himself in the sand and unclipped Nikki’s leash. There was no one close to them and he felt bad denying her the freedom. She spent enough time cooped up in his small apartment and he felt he owed her for all the days he took her just to curb and back, unable to bear being outside any longer than absolutely necessary.
Waves crashed against the shore and he followed their hypnotic rhythm, Nikki’s panting and the soft sound of sand shifting beneath her paws fading to the background.
He almost lost himself in the background noise, completely absent until he heard another human voice.
“Ow,” Said the voice, “careful, I don’t think your dad will like that.”
Billy turned towards the noise.
While he’d been spaced out, a man had approached, footprints leading back towards the boardwalk. He was just a few feet away, sneakers in one hand, jeans rolled up over his ankles. His back was towards Billy. Nikki was poised a few feet away from him, the stub that remained of her tail twitching and ready to play.
Billy watched as the man turned, looking away from Nikki to Billy himself, pushing his hair, not as long as it once was, off his forehead as their eyes met.
“Billy?” Steve Harrington asked, somehow both far removed from the boy Billy had last seen, but still undeniably the same.
Billy jerked to his feet, prepared to run or fight, but doing neither, just feeling as if he should have his feet under him for whatever was to come.
Nikki bounced back towards him at his movement, licking and nudging at his hand, trying to elicit some show of affection, but Billy was in no position to acknowledge her as she moved between the two of them.
“Billy?” Steve said again, taking a half step closer, reaching out before stopping, his hand half extended between the two of them.
“My friends call me Will, nowadays,” Billy said, as if that was what was important. It was mostly true. His coworkers at the shop, his regulars at the bar, and the cashier at the corner store near his apartment, had all defaulted to Will and he’d never corrected them. He also never considered any of them friends, but that was beside the point.
“You died,” Steve said, then winced.
Billy couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Of being told he was dead, of remembering he almost had died, of the reality that it had been over a year since he’d awoken and yet he had almost nothing to show for it.
“Sorry,” he laughed, “it didn’t take as well as you’d hoped.”
“How are you here? I mean-what happened? I saw you, we all saw you die.”
Billy shrugged, trying desperately to keep up his act of nonchalance, “Should’ve looked closer,” he said.
Should’ve noticed something was wrong, should’ve tried to help, shouldn’t have let them shoot at him, shouldn’t have hit him with his car, he didn’t say. He held himself perfectly still, didn’t let anything show on his face or in his posture, but inside his head was swimming.
For months, since they’d moved him out to California and he’d been on his own, he’d felt numb. But now, standing on the beach, looking at Steve Harrington of all people, all the fear, the sadness, the rage, came rushing back.
They’d all known, the doctors had told him. It wasn’t the first time the monster had shown itself in Hawkins. He’d begged them for help and they’d all known it wasn’t him doing the killings, had known that he was being controlled and that he needed help and they had still tried to stop him instead of save him.
Steve was still staring at him, mouth open like he was trying to say something else, but he couldn’t quite get it out. Billy decided that whatever it was, he didn’t want to hear it.
“Nikki,” he said sharply and she snapped back to attention, “let’s go.” He turned his back on Steve, heading down the beach, Nikki following loyally at his side.
He got a few steps away before a hand was grabbing him by the bicep and forcing him to stop.
“Billy, wait!”
“What?” He snarled, whirling to face Steve. “What else could you possibly want? I already died for you, wasn’t that enough?”
Steve, to his credit, did not flinch in the face of Billy’s aggression. He froze for a second, mouth still hanging open stupidly, before he finally gathered himself enough to speak.
“Does Max know you’re alive?”
Of everything Billy was expecting him to say, that wasn’t on the list. Maybe it should’ve been, but he was still taken aback for a moment.
“No,” he said, “no one knows. And I plan to keep it that way.”
At that, Steve’s face twisted into anger, “What the hell, Billy? You just disappeared? Do you know how hard it’s been for her? For-for everyone?”
“For her?” Billy asked in disbelief, even more hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat. “She hated me, Harrington. The way I see it, I gave her exactly what she wanted.” He took a step back, shaking Steve’s hand of his arm, “And forgive me, if I don’t care about how hard it was for everyone else when I was the one who fucking died. None of you gave a shit what happened to me back then, so I sure as hell don’t give a fuck about any of you.”
He took another step back, feeling shaky. His heart was pounding in his chest, adrenaline pumping. A few years ago, he would have punched Steve in the face for grabbing him, now he just wanted to run.
He flinched when he felt something cold brush against his hand. He looked down and saw Nikki, still at his side, wet nose pressing into his skin. Without thinking, he brought his hand to scratch behind her ears, just how she liked, before looking back at Steve.
Steve too had looked down at her, his expression changing before his eyes moved back to Billy.
“Her-her name is Nikki, you said, right?”
Billy stared at him for a second before nodding.
“She’s cute,” Steve said, smiling softly, “it’s funny, though, you never really seemed like a dog person to me.”
Billy huffed, “Well, it’s not like you ever knew me that well.”
“Yeah,” Steve looked away, “I guess I didn’t.”
They fell silent, the pause stretching uncomfortably between them. Billy shifted in the sand, wanting to leave, but also, for some reason, afraid to.
“Can you,” Steve broke the silence, “could you at least tell me what happened? I-we saw them put you in a body bag.” His voice caught on the last word and Billy looked away again.
“I don’t really remember most of it,” Billy answered. He didn’t really know why. He didn’t have to explain himself to Steve Harrington. But maybe, a part of him wanted to talk about it with someone. Anyone. “I remember coming back to myself. Standing up to it,” he shuddered at the memory. He’d never been so terrified in his life, so sure he was going to die. “I remember,” he swallowed, “I remember pain. And then, nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It was like falling asleep and not having any dreams. One second I was in the mall, the next, I was waking up in a hospital bed. I stayed there for a while and they explained everything to me. Explained that this wasn’t the first time.”
Steve nodded, as if it all made sense, looking at Billy to continue.
“I healed, slowly. And they told me everyone thought I’d died. I could start over. So, I left.”
“Just like that?” Steve asked.
“It wasn’t like I had anything to stay for.”
For a second, it looked like Steve wanted to argue, but he stopped himself, then sighed. “No,” he said, “I guess you didn’t.”
“And what about you?” Billy asked. “I never thought you’d leave Hawkins.”
Steve huffed a laugh, “I guess you didn’t know me that well, either. I-” he was cut off at the sound of a shriek in the distance, both of them flinching and turning towards the sound. A group of friends, a ways down the beach, were pushing each other into the cold water. Nothing dangerous. Nothing to worry about.
But the noise seemed to shock Steve out of their little bubble. He looked around at their surroundings. The sky had darkened significantly in just the few minutes they’d been talking and the air had a chill to it.
“I should head back to my hotel,” Steve said, “but you can walk with me? If you want.”
Billy, still somewhat in shock at his own reactions, nodded, falling into step beside Steve, clipping Nikki’s leash back to her collar as headed towards the boardwalk.
“So, what made you leave?” Billy asked, surprised to find that he was genuinely curious for the answer.
Steve shrugged, “Because I could, I guess. I always dreamed about taking a big road trip out to the coast, though I’d always imagined I’d have a family to go with,” he laughed humorlessly, “but that didn’t exactly work out. And after,” he cleared his throat, “everything, I wasn’t doing anything important in Hawkins and the kids were all doing okay.
“I just needed to do something different, I guess. So I packed up my car-”
“And left,” Billy finished.
“And left,” Steve agreed.
“Are you gonna go back?”
“Probably,” Steve said, “though, I guess I can’t right away.”
“Why not?” Billy asked.
Steve looked sheepish, “I guess I didn’t always take the best care of my car in highschool and then driving across the country put a lot of strain on it. My engine started making some weird noises near the Nevada border. I’ll need to get it checked out before I can go anywhere.”
They’d reached the edge of the boardwalk, near the parking lot and they both slowed as it came time to part ways.
“Well, I guess this is it,” Steve said at the time Billy said,
“You could bring it to my shop.”
“What?” Steve said.
“What?” Billy said back.
“I should bring what where?” Steve asked.
Billy looked away, twisting the leash in his hand. “Your car. I, uh, work at a mechanic shop. You should bring it in and I’ll take a look at it.”
“Oh. That’d be great actually.”
“Cool,” Billy said, feeling anything but. He rattled off the address, “I usually get in around 8 in the morning, so you can bring it in anytime after that.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Billy nodded and then turned to leave, tugging gently on Nikki’s leash. He’d only made it a few steps when Steve called out his name again.
“What is it, Harrington?” He asked, turning back to see that Steve still hadn’t moved.
“It’s just, it’s good to see you.”
“It’s-it’s good to see you too,” Billy said, surprised to find that he might have actually meant it.
When Billy arrived at work the next morning, the night before seemed like nothing more than a strange dream brought on by memories and boredom and a little bit of loneliness. Because, really? Running into Steve Harrington-of all people-on the beach? What were the odds? And seeing anyone from Hawins again, should have felt bigger, more important. Disruptive.
But it hadn’t been. He’d gone home, had dinner, and gone to bed as he did any other night. And the next morning, he woke up and made breakfast for himself and Nikki before taking her out for a short walk.
He arrived at work around 8, just like he had five days a week for months now. He went through all the same motions that he had hundreds of times before.
His day had started off so normal, that when Steve’s maroon BMW rolled into the parking lot a little after 9, he was actually surprised, despite having told Steve to come just 12 hours before.
Steve parked in front of the garage and Billy walked out to meet him.
“Well, here she is,” Steve said, putting a hand down on the hood.
Billy nodded, “If you want, you can give me the number for the hotel where you’re staying at and I can call you when it’s finished.”
“Oh, yeah. I can do that. I figured I’d just come back tonight.”
“No promises it’ll be ready by then,” Billy warned, “depends on what you did to her.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
Billy led the two of them into the small front office, giving Steve a piece of paper to write down the information for him.
“Thanks again for doing this,” Steve said as they walked back out.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Billy said, “I haven’t told you how much this is gonna cost.”
Steve laughed, “I’m not too worried about it. But I guess I’ll let you get to work. See you later,” he said, almost like a question as he handed over the keys.
“See you later,” Billy said, taking them, their fingers just brushing.
Steve nodded one last time before walking off.
Billy pulled the car into the garage and popped the hood to get started.
“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk at once,” one of the other mechanics laughed, “he a friend of yours, Will?”
“We went to high school together,” Billy replied, which wasn’t really an answer, but he didn’t think the other guys would care, “I’m just helping him out.”
True to his promise, Billy started working on the car, but quickly realized that he would need a replacement part that they didn’t have in stock before it could be finished.
He called the number Steve had given him and left a message with the receptionist, saying it would be another few days before the car was ready, but he never got a call back.
As he was preparing to leave for the day, Steve wandered back into the lot, waving awkwardly as their eyes met.
“I tried to call you,” Billy said, “I needed to order a replacement part, your car’s not done yet. Won’t be for another few days.”
“Oh,” Steve said, looking past Billy towards the car where it still sat in the garage, “that’s okay, I guess. It’s not like I’m in a rush.”
“Yeah, I figured. Still, I wanted to save you the trip over here.”
“It’s fine,” Steve said, “really. But I’m here and you’re about done, so I was wondering, if you wanted to hang out?”
“Hang out?” Billy asked.
“Yeah, like, catch up. Or maybe start over. Like you said, we never really knew each other, but we both wound up here, which is a pretty crazy coincidence, so maybe we could get to know each other now?”
Billy blinked at him, “Oh. Well, I need to head home. Feed and walk Nikki.”
“Oh, right. Of course,” Steve said, looking down at his feet.
“You could come with me,” Billy said, before he could talk himself out of it, “Nikki seemed to like you, last night.”
Steve looked back up at him, “Really?”
“Yeah,” Billy said, already walking past him, “c’mon.”
The two of them fell into step together, staying mostly silent on the short walk to Billy’s apartment.
As he let the two of them in, he fought the urge to be self conscious. His place was small and sparsely decorated. It was neater now than it had been a few months ago, but it still felt strange. He realized, as he held the door open to let Steve inside, that that was the first time another person had come inside.
Nikki was excited to see the both of them, bouncing around his feet as Billy pulled his shoes off.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, “I know you’re impatient.” He went straight to the kitchen, picking her bowl up from the floor on the way there. He dropped her food in the bowl and put it back on the floor for her to eat. When he looked up, he saw Steve watching him with a strange expression.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Steve said, “it’s just, I don’t know, nice to see you like this.”
“It is?” Billy asked. He wasn’t sure what was so nice about living alone in a small apartment, with only a dog-as great as she was-for company.
“Yeah, man. I thought you died. I really don’t think you understand how crazy it is for me to see you here, living your life, after all the time we spent mourning you.”
“You mourned me?” Billy asked, genuinely surprised. He couldn’t picture it, Steve sad over his death.
“Yeah, I did,” Steve sighed, “I know we weren’t friends back then,” Billy snorted, “but you still died to save us. Or at least, I thought you did. And even before all that, man, you were always so angry. I figured you had to have something going on that made you that fucked up.”
“Gee, thanks, Harrington.”
“I’m just saying, I wasn’t always the nicest guy in the world, but I got a chance to do better. And I didn’t realize until after you died, but you probably deserved that chance too. And the fact that you never got it,” he took a deep breath, “it was hard to make peace with. So yeah, seeing you here, like, doing well, it’s nice to see.”
Billy didn’t know how to respond to that. He honestly hadn’t thought much about how the people he’d left behind in Hawkins might have felt about his death. He certainly never imagined that any of them would mourn him. Especially not Steve, who he’d barely spoken to after they’d fought that strange night in November.
He was saved from having to respond by Nikki who, while he and Steve had been talking, had finished eating and was now waiting by the door barking to get his attention.
“I should, uh, take her out,” Billy said, quickly escaping the conversation to go put her leash on. It wasn’t much of an escape though, as Steve trailed after him and followed them back out the front door.
He let Nikki take the lead, pulling him down the block, letting her stop and sniff whatever she wanted, only tugging her away from bits of garbage on the sidewalk.
He could feel Steve’s eyes on him, but he remained blessedly silent, letting Billy calm down with the familiar, soothing routine of their nightly walk.
He gently steered Nikki towards the beach, not going down to the sand, but leading the 3 of them down the boardwalk, which was mostly empty, this late in the evening at the very tail end of the summer.
“I wasn’t doing well, for a while,” he said, suddenly. He’d been mulling Steve’s words from the apartment over in his head as they walked. They’d come as a shock, both that Steve was happy to see him doing well and that he actually was doing well.
“Hm?” Steve asked.
“When I first moved out here. I was a bit of a mess, to be honest. I wasn’t doing much of anything. It was hard, y’know, to adjust.” Steve nodded along, as if he understood. And who knew, maybe after everything, maybe he did.
“She helped,” he jerked his chin towards Nikki, who was paying the two of them no mind, her full attention on the handful of seagulls poking around in the sand. “There was a while there where I didn’t really care what happened to me, but I cared about her. And maybe it was irresponsible, getting a pet when I was like that, but,” he thought about what she’d looked like when he first saw her, sad and dejected, passed over by everyone looking for the easier options.
“I think you’re good for each other,” Steve said, finishing the thought for him.
“Yeah,” Billy agreed, “I think so.”
The three of them slowed to a stop, Steve and Billy leaning on the railing, overlooking the beach, Nikki sitting down at their feet. They were quiet for a beat before Billy spoke again, apropos of nothing.
“We should get that part for your car the day after tomorrow. After that, it’ll be an easy fix. Couple of hours tops, depending on how busy the shop is.”
Steve nodded, “Thanks again, for fixing it.”
“It’s my job. Besides, can’t have you getting stuck out here.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Steve said, turning back to look at the beach and out over the water, “it’s not so bad here. I think I’ll stick around for a little while, after my car is fixed. Like I said, I don’t have any real reason to rush back to Hawkins.”
“Do you have a reason to stay here?” Billy asked.
“I think,” Steve replied, his eyes glancing over at Billy before moving back to the rhythmic crashing of the waves, “I think I could find one.”