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Steve has a necklace that doesn’t belong to him.
It was passed off by fingers that shook so bad they couldn’t keep a grip on it. The garish lights of emergency vehicles flashing, reflected the blood and black goo dripping down the gold piece, making the necklace too slippery in the smaller hand that tried so desperately to hold onto it.
He was too exhausted to understand the importance. Steve took the necklace as she sobbed and screamed helplessly. He looked between her and it, staring through the one bleary eye that wasn’t swollen shut, pocketing the gold, and somehow forgetting.
The one who gave it to him must have forgotten about it too, or maybe they couldn’t reconcile with the truth. That the owner of the necklace was never coming back to claim it.
~§~
What people might not know, is that Steve has been responsible for washing his own clothes since he was twelve. Being the semi-irresponsible almost adult he is, meant his Scoops uniform was passed over for his everyday clothes since he wasn’t working there anymore. The material ended up at the bottom of his laundry basket. The blood and vomit eventually drying and becoming stench-less after enough time had passed.
And time did pass. July of 1985 is a memory he forces himself to forget, save for his nightmares. Then spring break of 1986 happens, and he’s sorting through every item of clothing he owns, to donate after the “earthquake”.
His hands shake as he unearths his old uniform. The blood is hardly noticeable through the dark blue of the material, but it’s there, smeared and turned brown, staining the uniform. It’s a trigger. The memories of an underground bunker, the phantom pains of heavy fists, the hiss of foreign accents and a language he couldn’t understand, and then the remembered grogginess of a drug syringed into his neck, turns his legs to jello, and he has to sit on the floor of his bedroom, clutching the material tightly in two white-knuckled fists, trying to breathe through a panic attack. None of it accounts for his current sore and battered body, still wrapped in bandages under his everyday clothes.
The memory of the necklace comes like a flash, and he’s scrambling through the shorts for the gold.
His hand fingers at the metal until he has it in his grip. It’s dried together in a clump, stuck to the material, hardly recognizable. He has to peel it off of the uniform. He gets to his feet and staggers to the bathroom. Steve runs it under warm water, washing it with soap. The dirty color bleeds away with the sudsy water until the shine comes through, and the necklace unravels like it’s brand new. Real gold. Steve thumbs over the pendant with a scrunched brow.
A Saint.
He may have been raised Presbyterian, but he knows that it’s a Saint because he can recognize the imagery from a time when he was a kid. It urges him to make a call to a familiar number he hadn’t bothered with in a long time, hoping the one person might be around for the last few days of spring break.
~§~
Steve was twelve when Tommy had asked if he wanted to go with him to visit Tommy’s real mom. He pretended like he had no idea what Tommy was talking about. But everyone he knew, knew that Tommy’s “mother” couldn’t actually have children, and his father decided to have an affair with the help. One day, Mr. Hagan ended up with the son he had longed for, the actual mother ended up with more than enough money to return to her home, and the rest was left unspoken by the Hagans’ and their circle of friends. But it was always whispered about behind their back. Steve used to hear his own mother and father talk about it in the privacy of their home, and it was always with a tone of haughty superiority, like they were any better for having Steve naturally.
Tommy’s parents brought him up as a Jones-Hagan, when it should’ve been Hagan-Hernandez. His dad, despite his mother’s furor, would pay to let Tommy disappear during the summer for a month, and Steve never knew where his best friend went, until the day Tommy finally invited him to tag along.
It was around the time Steve’s parents started disappearing for longer periods, and he spent so much time alone. It didn’t take much convincing to let Steve go with Tommy when his parents didn’t care to follow up with exactly where he was going.
That’s how Steve ended up in Yuriria Guanajuato, Mexico, running over ancient cobbled stone until the sun would disappear, eating foods that he’d never heard of before that were rich with so much flavor, dancing unrhythmically to the music playing in the streets, buying handmade trinkets that would eventually get lost, going to Catholic mass nearly every morning with Tommy’s mama and abuelita, fishing in long skinny boats with Tommy’s tios and abuelo in the laguna, and getting sunburnt until the red of Steve’s skin turned golden brown, getting used to the uninhibited Mexican sun.
~§~
Tommy thumbs at the necklace, much like Steve did. His face scrunched in concentration and looking at it with heavy eyes of wistfulness.
“Where’d you get this, Stevie?”
“Max gave it to me,” Steve swallows, “that night…of the fire.” He clears his throat, “she was shaking, couldn’t keep a grip on it. I was standing around, and she passed it to me. I forgot about it until I was washing some old clothes to donate—”
“Shit, this town fucking sucks, doesn’t it?” Tommy shakes his head. “It’s like everyone just keeps fucking dying. And it’s over weird shit too. I heard that kid isn’t doing too well after the earthquake…”
Steve shudders, “yeah, she…Max died…but they brought her back…”
“I bet their parents wish they’d have stayed in California. They moved to this town and ended up with two dead kids.”
“Billy’s dad is gone. He bailed. It’s just Max’s mom, and she’s not doing well at all.”
“His dad was an asshole.” Tommy sighs heavily.
“We both know what that feels like, don’t we?”
Tommy looks at Steve seriously, “no, we don’t. Billy never said anything, but I know his dad wasn’t like our dads, Stevie. He was…much worse. It’s not like people really talk about that shit out loud, do they? But eventually, the bruises become less of a coincidence when you see them enough times in the exact same spots.” Steve feels his eyes widen in horror at the realization. Tommy looks back down at the necklace in his hand. “Saint Jude, patron saint of lost causes. It really fucking makes sense, don’t you think?”
“That’s who the necklace is?”
“Yeah. My abuelita, she used to say a prayer in Spanish. It’s too long for me to repeat, and my Spanish is shit anyway.” He laughs to himself, and Steve finds himself grinning at his old friend. “But it’s meant to call out to Jude for help in difficult times or in impossible situations.”
“Think it works?”
Tommy shrugs, “didn’t work much for Billy, did it?”
Steve sighs. “What should I do with it, Tommy?”
“His sister gave it to you. Wear it, I guess.”
“It doesn’t mean it belongs to me. I wouldn’t know why I’d wear it.”
“Billy was a closed book, but I tried, you know? He was different those last couple of months. He had plans to leave and go back home. He was, happier. Hopeful. Maybe think of that when you wear it. Let it bring you comfort.”
Steve has known since that summer in Mexico that Tommy was a secretly devout Catholic. Despite being raised by his parents, his Mexican mother’s family has been his biggest influence. Tommy says a silent prayer and makes the sign of the cross over his face and chest, with the necklace, kissing the pendant reverently before handing it back. Steve takes it wordlessly. There’s a guilt weighing on his chest, and he can’t seem to breathe easy. He doesn’t look at Tommy as he holds Billy’s necklace in his hand. He stares straight ahead, to the street in front of him, as they sit on the hood of his car. The street is cracked wide open. The rock peeled apart and exposing the earth below. His neighbors are finding it to be the worst inconvenience for their usually unblemished neighborhood, and they have been complaining about it, loudly, uncaring of the lives that have been lost because of it.
“You don’t want it? He was your friend.” Steve finally looks back at Tommy.
Tommy might actually be seeing right through Steve. “I think you need it, Stevie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You plan on sticking around Hawkins? You gonna work at the video store for the rest of your life?”
“I’m not you, Tommy. I never really made plans past high school. Some days I don’t even know who the fuck I am.”
“So it’s a lost cause then?”
“God, you’re still an asshole.”
Tommy laughs, pulling Steve under his arm like he used to when they were growing up. Steve grins, wrapping an arm around Tommy’s waist. He feels that festering wound, from the loss of his old best friend, start to heal over like it wasn’t even there to begin with.
He knows he has Billy and his necklace to thank for that.
~§~
Steve wears a necklace that doesn’t belong to him.
It flashes between his open-collared polos, or it dangles when he’s bent at the waist to pick up boxes of VHS tapes to replace and shelve. He often finds himself mouthing around the pendant, tasting the metallic flavor and his cologne, as he rolls it behind his teeth when he’s nervous or preoccupied with his thoughts. It’s become a part of him, and like Tommy knew it would, it brings Steve comfort.
But sometimes it makes Steve feel guilty, like he’s stolen that part of Billy’s identity for himself. He thinks about Billy, over and over again. About the importance of the necklace, and what Billy would think of it being worn around Steve’s neck. And a new feeling twists in his gut, making him long for something he can’t exactly put into words. A connection has been forged in Steve’s head, his heart, between him and the dead boy that the necklace actually belongs to.
No one knows about the origins of the necklace. No one except Tommy, who lives in Chicago and is always a phone call away. And maybe Max, who’s so much closer, but still so far, asleep to the world in a coma and settled in Hawkins’ only nursing home.
More time has passed, and Steve has found himself settled too; into a monotony only Hawkins can provide. Granted, he has his own apartment, but he still drives his Beamer that’s slowly dying on him, and he’s still chronically single. The closest person in his life is still Robin, but even she lives eighty miles away, in Indianapolis with Vickie. Dustin is still around, but he’s got a life in high school with the other boys in the party, and he’s still carrying that brotherly torch for a dead, Eddie Munson.
Trauma has shaped all of their lives into something that ties them all together forever, no matter the distance, but it still doesn’t account for Steve’s perpetual loneliness. He works, eats, shits, sleeps, and repeats.
And the necklace and thoughts of Billy are the only things that bring him comfort.
Eventually, much like his lot in life, the monotony is disrupted with more woes of the interdimensional kind. Two years. It took two years. It’s been the longest stretch between incidences, so much that almost everyone had moved on, stupidly thinking it was over.
El comes to him.
Steve has to say that he’s surprised to be the first in the know.
“Give me the necklace.”
He actually clutches it and takes a step back.
“What’re you talking about?”
“I saw it in my mind. You have it. I need the necklace, Steve.”
“Why?”
“I have to find him.”
Steve’s eyes widen, “wha—”
“He’s alive, and I have to find him. He’s the answer. I find him. I find Max. I bring them back. I bring them home. I kill Henry.” El has that stubborn look on her face. “Give. Me. The. Necklace.”
“Yeah, alright.”
Steve feels exposed and bereft without it. He rubs at that spot on his chest where the pendant would lay. He aches for it in a way that makes him feel vulnerable, and the thought of Billy coming back to claim it…his gut twists for the same reason he still can’t put into words.
It could be seconds—minutes—hours, but El eventually gives it back. Steve snatches it greedily. He doesn’t even care about the dot of blood smeared over the pendant as El swipes at the trickle under her nose.
“I know where they are.”
A rescue mission.
This time, the party actively chooses to open a portal to the upside down. Like always, Steve puts himself in the forefront because the guilt of surviving and anyone else dying makes him feel weird.
Steve knows it’s because all these people have someone in their lives who would miss them if they disappeared. He knows Robin would miss him, and Dustin too. The rest of the party, maybe. But they all have each other in the end. And they all have others who don’t know about the upside down too. Maybe Tommy would miss him, but his old friend would move on, like he did with Billy’s death. That’s what Steve clings to; the fact that he and Billy are similar in this, and that there’s not really anyone else to miss him after death, so his loss isn’t as consequential.
~§~
Billy glows in the darkness of the upside down. Steve feels himself mouthing around the pendant to keep from speaking up, saying something he has yet to put into words. He keeps blinking, to make sure Billy isn’t just a figment of his imagination…
But no. Billy is standing there.
Ethereal. Magical. Other worldly. And yet, a shell of his former self.
His skin stretches tautly over his bones, from a lack of sustenance, but his muscles are lean and wiry in a way that lets them all know that he’s still strong enough. Steve spots borrowed clothes that hardly hide the scars that look like they’ve tried to kill him from infection a time or two. His hair is long and bedraggled, as much as the beard he’s sporting.
And yet he still glows.
El says it’s Max’s soul. It’s been keeping Billy company this entire time. Steve doesn’t disagree, but he also think it’s partly just Billy. He’s always shined too brightly; the guy can’t help it.
They all fight to the end. The end meaning they win and Henry/Vecna/One, he loses. The mind flayer army tries to put up a fight, but they’re all prepared. Steve and Billy fight back to back. The two of them wordlessly moving in sync, fighting off the monsters that have kept Steve company in his nightmares, and Billy company in the reality of the upside down, until all that’s left standing, is the party.
That world is finally sealed shut for good, and the monotony of Hawkins awaits all of them once more.
~§~
They’re in Steve’s bathroom. Billy needed somewhere to go, and Steve was the first to offer the spare bedroom in his apartment. How it ended up with Steve kneeling on the tiled floor, next to Billy while he sat, naked, in a steaming bath, gets a little lost in translation for Steve.
But he’s there, helping Billy wash off the dirt and grime that’s built up over years without properly filtered water. His hands work silently, sudsing up Billy’s ratty hair until it rinses clean, running a soapy rag down his back, across his chest, under his pits—leaning over and stretching, this way and that. Clearing out the dark water and filling up the tub a second and third time. Steve notices how Billy’s eyes never stray far from the necklace as it dangles and gleams from around Steve’s neck. He rinses Billy off a final time, and leans back on his haunches as Billy gets up and wraps a towel around his waist.
Indifference is a lot harder to feel, like he might’ve done in the showers at Hawkins high school. Steve blushes at the glimpse of Billy’s bare body, before half of it is hidden away behind the towel. Billy lops off his beard but keeps a groomed fuzz that only makes him look rugged, and Steve feel a little warm under the collar. He scrubs his teeth and tongue a few times, and Steve leans against the door, watching. Once Billy’s satisfied, he turns to look at Steve questioningly.
It’s now or never, really…
“This belongs to you.” Steve whispers softly.
Billy looks at him through tired eyes as Steve carefully takes off the necklace. He clutches it tightly in his fist, hesitant to give it back, but knowing that it should go back to the person it belongs to.
“You’ve been wearing it?” Billy’s voice is deep and gravelly, and it makes Steve shudder. “This whole time?”
“Max gave it to me…after. I forgot about it for a little while, but when I remembered—”
“You can keep it.” Billy closes his fist over Steve’s.
“I’m not actually Catholic.” Steve tries to joke, although his heart is racing. Billy doesn’t laugh, but he smirks. Steve whispers, “but, it has brought me comfort, ever since I started wearing it.”
“It’s one of the only things I had left of my mother, but uh—I’m kinda over that, you know?” Steve shakes his head because he doesn’t know. Billy sighs. “Holding onto it, onto her, it brought me comfort too. But being without it this whole time, it made me realize that I don’t need her. That I don’t need it.” He gestures to the necklace in their closed fists. “Seeing my mom again is the lost cause, being without the necklace makes me free.” Steve nods wordlessly. “Why do you wear it? I mean, why does it bring you comfort?”
Steve realizes that the feelings he couldn’t put into words are finally conceptualizing in his mind, and he speaks breathlessly. “I’ve felt alone for a long time. Wearing the necklace, it made you seem, less dead. I always wondered what you’d do or say, seeing me wear it. I guess that was my own lost cause—longing for the moment you would see it on me.”
Billy steps into his space, and Steve’s breath hitches. He raises up their fists, uncurling his and tugging on Steve’s fingers until they unfurl; the pendant shines against the pale flesh of his palm. Billy reaches for it, draping it around Steve’s neck, and clasping it shut at his nape. Steve watches him do it through hooded eyes. He shivers at the feel of Billy ghosting his fingers over Steve’s neck, tracing the gold, down to the pendant sitting against Steve’s chest.
“I see you now, and it looks good on you.”
He tugs gently on the pendant, bringing Steve closer until their lips meet in a passionate kiss. Something falls into place as they pull each other in closer. An impossible situation seems to have resolved itself, and the two of them found each other again, under different circumstances.
Now, Steve owns a necklace that used to belong to the person that’s always beside him.