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Billy remembers the exact moment that he had wanted to rip a patch of skin, right at the base of his neck, off. It’s not that he doesn’t love Steve, he fell for him so completely and quickly after all. Instead, it is the fear and hatred that radiates off him that keeps him from letting himself love. Steve deserves a lot, and all of it is good. He deserves to be spoiled, and even if Billy wanted to (god, does he), he doesn’t have the ability to give and give and give. He doesn’t know what Steve has done to have deserved the curse that is Billy Hargrove as a soulmate, but nothing fits the punishment.
Before his mum had left she used to take him to the library. There, they would find any and all books on soulmarks and soulmates and love, and when his mark formed they would look for books on conifers and specifically sequoioideae. He still remembers the elation of finding what his soulmark meant. He loves what it means: longevity, safety, forever. What he loved most, though, is that it was meant just for him.
When his mum leaves, he holds it a little closer to his heart. He still dreams of forever afters, but he doesn’t tell anyone. It’s almost like a secret, between his mum and himself. When she doesn’t come back, he holds the books close under the covers late at night. He reads and reads and reads the same paragraphs over and over. And they feel comfortable, and safe, just like his soulmark should.
But then the pain comes.
It’s not uncommon for the soulmark pain to arrive for early bloomers. It can come in many different forms, but for Billy, it feels like someone has set his neck on fire. It hurts like nothing ever has, almost as if the redwood is being carved into his skin, maybe branded. It burns like that for days, and Billy thinks it’s a bad fever. He can’t get out of the bed because then comes the dizziness, and he throws up all day like from a bad migraine.
Nevertheless, the appeal of soulmarks does not disappear, more so it actually grows. But he’s afraid.
On a particularly bad day, when he can’t help but itch at his mark so hard it actually starts to bleed, he burns the books. He stands in the middle of his small backyard with Max watching from the porch and Susan calling the firefighters. He doesn’t even know why he does it, he had gone to renew the books from the library when he just couldn’t breathe anymore. So he takes his cigarette lighter and just lights a page on fire, one at a time. Eventually each ripped page lights up and licks the grass, dry from drought, until it’s engulfed and they almost lose the house.
Billy has no regrets, not when his dad hits him, not when his dad yells or throws things at him. He decides, then, that he will never meet his soulmate. He knows it’s going to kill him; it’s supposed to be one of the most painful deaths, after soulmate rejection, but he doesn’t give a fuck. He vows to himself that he will never fall in love.
He meets him in Hawkins, Indiana, of all places.
The fire is the talk of the town, and there are questions about the Hargrove household. Whispers and rumours start to spread, ones that Neil can’t afford, so they move to the small, backwards ass town. Billy can’t ignore the way his soulmark burns, like a tickle this time, so he buries his secret with booze and girls and fights. It’s not healthy, and Billy knows it. He doesn’t like the aftertaste of random girls and cheap beer on his lips, or the taste of blood in his mouth, but it’s easier than thinking about how he’s a worthless soulmate so he continues
Billy knows he won’t find his soulmate in the girls he gets wrapped around his finger. The world is cruel enough to matchmake him with a girl, but he knows, somehow, deep down, that it is a boy. He can tell in the way it coos under praise from male attention, but shrinks back like a shy puppy whenever a girl gives him a compliment. It’s almost torture to hold the girls close and swap spit with the way that the soulmark stabs into his skin. He does it anyway. Afterall, it’s what he deserves.
Meeting Steve is somehow the worst and best moment of his life. He antagonises him like the bastard he is, and Billy's soulmark screams the first time they meet and instead of professing his love or some shit, he offends and alienates. It hurts so much, with pine needles trying to break through his skin, but still he knows right away Steve is perfect. But in that perfection, what could he do to deserve Billy. The answer is simple: nothing. There's clearly been a mistake, Steve doesn't deserve to be stuck with Billy.
And then he sees her, Nancy. There's a girl on his arm and Steve looks happy and Billy understands now.
There's been a mistake. Billy isn't Steve's soulmate.
Billy has heard of one-sided soulmarks, and isn't it such a treat that all those tragic stories are true.
It makes sense, really, at least to Billy, that the world has forsaken him in this way. It's always been hard to believe that he's had a soulmate so why shouldn't it be one sided.
Nothing can erase the history of anger and self-loathing that comes from within Billy, not even a soulmate. He wants and he wants and he wants, but he’s heard enough from his dad that he can’t have. Hell, even his mother didn’t want him and she always used to say I love you I love you I love you.
So Billy knows, even though he’s been matched with his perfect soulmate, the world is too cruel to let it be mutual.
So he watches from afar and it’s not so bad. Some days all he just wants to do is mark that perfect skin with his teeth, but most days he holds it in. They fight, and Billy wants to inhale the smell of his soulmate. They fight, and Billy wants to touch him all over, softly like a caress. But he doesn’t, because he’s angry and Steve certainly deserves better. He lets himself tease Steve, at the least, because it’s a sort of torture to be so close but not holding one another. And if Billy can do anything, it’s torture himself.
He feels his soulmark sing when he's near Steve, and it's a beautiful melody. It still sings when they're afar, but it seems as if it's in mourning and the melancholy makes his mark itch. Sometimes it makes it bleed when they're apart for too long, and the blood sticks to his long hair.
But punishment is what he deserves.
Seeing Steve's soulmark for the first time almost takes his breath away. Billy chokes on the water spraying in his face and he has to fight kneeling over. Steve gives him a side eye but they aren't friendly so he just continues washing his hair. Tommy comes over, though, and slaps a hand on his wet back. Billy tries not to lurch forward, but his soulmark is singing so loud it's dizzying so he has to hold the shower stall. Tommy laughs at him, and Steve gives them a stink eye as he leaves them. He can feel the urge to grab a hold of Steve, and never let him leave like his mark demands.
He doesn't, of course. He lets his mark cry out and it's so sad he feels ill.
The school nurse sends him home early when he starts coughing up blood, but he refuses to go home. Instead, he sits in his car on the edge of town and cries because he saw it and he can't deny he wants it.
On Steve's back is a large redwood that spans entirely across. It's beautiful.
Somewhere between wanting it and hating himself he convinces himself not to have. After all, what can he offer Steve? What can Billy Hargrove contribute to Steve Harrington other than pain and misery?
He throws up again and there's specks of blood and pine needles.
Life goes on as it always seems to. Billy wanting, Billy's mark crying, and Steve looking gorgeous from afar.
That's not to say Billy doesn't tease him any longer. He's a weak man, as his dad says. He can't always resist the temptation to get into Steve's space and when he gets close during basketball, he could almost sing alongside his soul mark.
Then there's the pain. Billy used to think it hurt. Well, he knew it did, yet he never suspected it could get worse. But worse it does become.
Some days it's excruciating. Like something is burning his neck and the way he attacks it is as if he is trying to rip it away. As if he could peel off his own skin.
Some days he gets lost to coughing fits and is stuck cleaning up blood when all he wants to do is crawl into Steve’s arms.
Some days he can't wake up. Apparently he looks dead if Max isn't being too dramatic, but when he's too tired to react to her drawing on his face with permanent marker she almost looks worried.
That's the worst part, because the longer he sleeps the longer he goes without his soulmate and the longer he can't move. Those days are hard too because Neil always knows.
He spits up blood that he can't figure out if it's from Neil’s punches or from hacking up his lungs.
Some days, though they are the fewest, it's easy. That's what surprised him the most.
It never lasts.
When he catches Steve and those boys alone with Max, he sees red. It’s the one time he hates Steve, because what could they be doing with Max, alone, in the dead of night. Billy knows well enough the evil within mankind and he feels so disgusting and sick to his stomach thinking about it. So Billy puts all his feelings into his fists and he hurts Steve.
When he finally gets back home he throws up again and his soulmark is silent. From judgement or discomfort, he doesn’t know.
It doesn’t stay quiet for long, however, and it’s back to its singing the next time he sees Steve. He can see the bruises he put there and the reminder of the ones Neil’s left behind makes Billy cry again. He sits in the back of his Camaro in the middle of some no-name field and sobs.
It’s when Neil goes on about how Billy needs to actually contribute to the Hawkins Community, that Billy decides to get a job. Neil spends an hour yelling about how Billy is a bad son, how he never does anything but sleep, and so Billy lies that he got a job. This of course means he needs to back it up because Neil doesn’t trust Billy, and isn’t above calling around town trying to catch Billy in a lie.
In the end, he gets a job at the local pool. It’s not bad except that it’s around people and it’s loud. It’s in the sun, though, and if he closes his eyes it can almost be mistaken for California with the sounds of people splashing in water.
The thing is, he ends up hating it pretty quickly after the mums start to notice him. As much as he wants to crawl into a cave or his own skin, Billy has never tried to hide himself. So he winks at them as if he’s the predator. They eat it up while his soulmark judges him. (He never knew a soulmark could be sentient enough to be judgemental, but considering the feelings of it throbbing every time he licks his lips to make a woman blush, he knows its conclusion is that of disgust.) But Billy doesn’t hide away from their hungry stares, Billy just lets them look at him like a piece of meat.
It’s what he deserves.
Apparently, he's doomed to women falling over him all summer. It’s barely a few days in when he makes a deal with Mrs. Wheeler. It makes his skin crawl and he immediately regrets it. But he has an image. It's a bad reputation, but it's his. It's another form of punishment to not immediately call her back and say no, so he lets himself dread the meeting.
He almost doesn’t wake up before the meeting, and he doesn’t even remember falling asleep in the first place. He feels terrible, and his soulmark is whining continuously on the drive there. Doesn't help that he’s so groggy that he almost crashes his car at the first stop sign he comes across.
Turns out, Billy is destined to be in an accident today anyway.
He doesn’t know what he hit, but when he goes to check it out something grabs him, and it's not just the fear that makes his soulmark quiet.
In the end, it’s the first time Billy has ever felt peace since his mother left. The pain that usually makes him even hack up blood isn’t present in the slightest and that’s somehow scarier than he ever imagined. He feels like himself, but not, without the pain and so he just lies in the bottom of the warehouse just to take a moment to breathe.
When he finally gets up, he realizes it is not actually himself controlling his body. Because all he wanted to do was rot where he was lying, somehow so nauseous without the continuous pain that almost became his friend.
That's his second clue.
His third and fourth clue comes later, but we'll get to that.
As his body is off doing whatever the fuck it's doing, Billy thinks. He's done that a lot lately, but without control of his body there's not much else to do.
He thinks of Steve, of course. He wonders what he's doing until he remembers the feeling of his face beneath Billy's fists. That sobers him up enough to make him go back to watching whatever his body is doing.
It's not that he doesn't try to gain control of his body, but he's so tired that he's having trouble realizing it's not a dream. And he did try, more than once, and each time the excruciating pain came back. He doesn't know how he survives it now that he doesn't have the agony every moment as a reminder he's alive. The pain is unbearable now, though, so he takes deep breaths before releasing control to whatever monstrosity is in his head.
He's used to monsters in his head. Billy can't even say that he never contemplated killing Neil, but it's different when this monster wants to kill a helpless little girl and her friends. It makes him sick thinking he's capable of that.
While he's stuck in his own body with a silent soulmark, Billy can’t help but think about his mum too. It’s almost unconscious, but he remembers days at the beach and a billowing white dress. He’s so tired, and these dreams seem constant. But he knows what comes next on that day and so he fights even harder once more, but next thing he realises there’s some sort of monster coming out of the ground, holding on to someone who looks like Max’ best friend.
There’s so much pain that he stumbles upwards, but as he moves forward next thing he realizes there is a tentacle through his own stomach. There’s a scream so full of anguish, Billy’s soulmark, who comes back for one last moment, doesn’t know what it is. There’s someone crying, and then there’s nothing else.
As Billy lays on his back flat against the ground, staring at a sky that looks to be bleeding black blood, he thinks of what a joke it is. He takes a few moments to just lay there, panting and holding on to his chest while surrounded by slimy vines and ooze. So this is Hell is his first thought, and honestly it’s the only thing on his mind when he finally gets up and wanders around the landscape. The world may be creepy as fuck, but there also isn’t a lot where he is. So, he wanders and wonders.
He holds on to chest as if his guts will come spilling out if he lets go. It’s awkward, he looks like he’s walking with a limp the way he grips onto himself so tightly, but he’s scared to look. He doesn’t know if you die with all your scars, but apparently now he knows that he dies with the pain. And does his whole body hurt. It’s beyond uncomfortable, and his stomach is in such agony that the pain throbbing at the back of his neck feels like an itch in comparison. He can’t focus, so he doesn’t even question the trail of needles left behind him.
He doesn’t know how long he’s walking, and he guesses that it doesn’t matter. Eventually, he makes it into what appears to be a neighbourhood in Hawkins, and yup, Hawkins is definitely his Hell. Everything looks rotten and at first it’s hard to figure out where he is. But he keeps walking, and suddenly he’s in front of a big house that looks more like a mansion. He doesn’t know how his feet brought him here, and he doesn’t want to question it either. With a sigh, he goes in even if it feels like a violation. He looks through every room, that all seem to lack picture frames or anything that makes it feel homey, until he gets to the only room that appears lived in.
It smells like Steve, somehow.
It’s mixed in with the smell of decay, which still tickles Billy’s nose. But having something that smells familiar is comforting.
He’s never been in Steve’s house before, much less his room. He had heard there were several intense parties thrown here, but none after Billy arrived in Hawkins. So now, Billy is curious and wants to explore but he’s also beyond exhausted. He’s so tired and he still hurts, and so do his feet after walking for what feels like eternity, so he just lies down. He buries his nose into Steve’s pillow even though it feels like an intrusion. If it’s his Hell, he can do what little brings his comfort at the very least.
He falls asleep quickly, and it’s a soundless sleep, which is so rare.
He doesn’t notice it even when he wakes up, as he’s still groggy and everything is so dark. But eventually, he’s looking through Steve’s wardrobe for a shirt that isn’t stained with blood and ripped in the middle. It’s when he finds his favourite, the one that fits Steve so nice and snug and shows off his muscles and pecs, and that makes his brown eyes pop, that he notices. The shirt is supposed to be baby blue, he knows after staring at it while in gym class enough times, but instead it seems almost white. Or as white as this filtered world can allow.
This is his final clue that the world really is fucked up
Right. He’s not as stupid as people think he is, so he realises quickly after. He really is dead, which means the world will forever be black and white. Hell isn’t colourful anyway, Billy thinks, but it means Steve will also be left in a colourless world. A world in which he never knew his soulmate.
Billy has to sit on the edge of Steve’s bed, now, to really think about what he’s done. Steve, now without a soulmate. Steve, who probably doesn’t know what’s going on. Would he miss Billy? Would he regret their time apart?
He wants to think he’d be missed, but they’ve never had a good relationship.
Would he even realize that his soulmate was Billy? Or would he ignore the evidence.
Billy's all about self deprecation, but even he knows the whole male to male soulmark would be hard to accept for someone so completely straight like Steve. Billy signs, but doesn’t get up.
It’s only when he starts feeling hungry that he realises he fell asleep again. He knows his body is tired, but he still feels embarrassed and prepared for a fight. It would just be like Hell for his father to come back as a nightmare.
He lays there a little longer, breathing in the scent of his soulmate. It’s comforting, but also makes him sad. Billy finally gets up when the emotions get to be too much.
He has always been terrible at hiding from his emotions.
Billy knows he feels too much, it’s what made it difficult when his mum left. It’s what made his father beat down on him for being too feminine, not enough of a man because men, they don’t cry. And Billy, he cries. He doesn’t even look good, like the heroines in the movies. No, when he cries it’s a whole body sob as if nothing in the world will be right, ever.
And that could be true, Billy realizes as he leaves Steve’s apartment, because this is when he realizes that he can’t feel the silent judgement of his soulmark.
The realization washes over him quickly, like someone had dumped a bucket of iced water down his back. He stumbles, and then again until he can no longer right himself and he falls to the ground just outside the door.
This is when he notices the pine needles following after him. It’s sparse, which is almost the worst alternative, and there aren’t many. His soulmark, it’s small. It’s messy and crowded like someone was drunk while tattooing him, but somehow it still produces pine needles after an indeterminate amount of time in Hell.
It causes Billy to breathe harshly, like it’s stuck in his throat. He almost gags a few times at trying to hack up a breath and there he is, crying again.
You never know what you were missing, until it’s gone. Or some bullshit like that.
Billy would like to be collapsed for eternity, but hunger rouses him. He’s covered in snot, yet he wipes at it haphazardly to clear the tears too. He tries to convince himself the tattoo is nothing, that he’s fine without it. He also knows he’s a terrible liar.
Without any sense of direction, Billy starts to walk away from his soulmate’s replica home. It takes a lot of bravery, he thinks, until he realizes that the only reason he’s here is because he wasn’t brave enough to fight some monster in his head. He has never been brave; not to fight against Neil, not to tell Steve his feelings, and certainly not here in Hell.
He finds food, in the end, and gobbles it down quickly. He finds himself in the convenience store that’s run down on Earth but somehow only marginally worse in Hell. There seems to be a collection of items at the back of the freezer or under shelves, anything lost and forgotten. Probably like him.
Turns out that Billy isn’t so lost in Hell. He wanders, of course, but whenever he feels hungry or exhausted he returns home. The black goo and ooze doesn’t seem so bad in Steve’s house, so he makes it his base. As much as a base as he can get in an empty world.
Well, that’s not right. The world isn’t empty, Billy knows. There’s rotted souls trying to kill him, after all, because that must be what these huge bat-like creatures are. Rotted souls. Billy knows he’ll one day be one of these rotted souls, but maybe, just maybe, if he can keep Steve’s smell present he’ll be okay.
It’s harder than it looks, of course. Between fighting for his life every other day, to running low on food, Billy only leaves when necessary. There’s some books he can read, if they aren’t too delicate from decay, but he really wishes he could listen to music. Steve’s parents have some classics tucked away under a stereo. No matter where Billy looks, though, he can’t seem to find Steve’s music. So, he’s stuck listening to classical music. So be it. It is Hell, afterall.
Sometimes he grabs a snack and puts the stereo on so low he can barely hear it, and reads. He starts with some books he read for school that Steve seems to have stashed under his bed. It's almost more peaceful than Earth. There's the constant threat of some rotting soul coming in here, but there, there was always the threat of Neil too.
Other times, he just lays in Steve's bed. There's comfort in being alone here, no one to judge him for breathing in his pillow cases and nuzzling into the blankets. Sometimes he pretends that Steve is on the other side of the bed, watching him curl up, as if that would have ever happened.
What's interesting is that Steve's smell never leaves. Sometimes it is stronger than other times, so Billy grabs one of Steve's shirts and tucks it under his nose as he sleeps, but whenever he comes back after a rough day the smell of Steve is back.
It's something to look forward to after a day of looking for whatever he can find. It's on one of these particularly hard days, that Billy practically whines to himself about returning home so he can be comforted by Steve's smell. He's been scavenging all day, and so when he finally has his backpack full he starts to head home.
The irony of Steve's being Billy's home is not lost on him. He listens in English class. But it's on this trek home that he gets thrown into a practical murder of Rotting Souls. He’s so exhausted, mentally and physically that even though he has a crowbar ready to swing, one of the creatures sneaks on him from behind. It digs into his side with those razor claws and takes a deep bite.
It's not the first time he's been harassed by these creatures and it's certainly not going to be the last time it sucks up his blood as if a vampire.
The battle from there is brutal. Billy sees spots and can hardly keep his balance as his ripped skin flaps with every movement. He manages to get one down when another seems to pop up. They scratch at his denim jacket and there's blood soaking through his jeans from when another one scrambled too fast for him to avoid.
Billy almost gives up, but he thinks he's already dead so the only result of giving up gets him is being torn apart. Literally.
Besides, Billy may be a lot of things. Brash. A quitter. Cruel. But he doesn't go down without a fight.
He doesn't know how he makes it through, it passes by as a blur, but he does start limping away at some point. Away from some corpses that the other creatures are too focused on eating raw.
He’s so tired that when he does see his tombstone, he doesn’t react. There’s just a numbness. He doesn't even think before jumping into the ditch in front of the stone, and placing his back against the dirt like he’s a corpse.
There's only silence; well, other than his gasping breaths. But at least he's alone. It's not comfortable, resting here. The ground is covered in black rotting vines and decaying leaves, and if Billy actually thought about it he would notice that there's some rotting bouquets too. He doesn't even think about where it would have come from, because he just closes his eyes and breaths deeply.
Shit, he shouldn't have dropped his first aid supplies. He'll have to find more before going home, but the idea of moving is all too nauseating. Billy doesn't know how long he's lying in his own grave, god Hell is cruel, when he swears he'll just sleep a little.
As you and I know, Billy can actually die in the Upside Down and here, he is on the verge of it. He doesn't know this, but as he takes his final breath it really is supposed to be his end, with no one around mourning him, not even a tattoo he has never seen without a mirror.
Alas, Billy takes this last breath and there is no gasping for air, there is no crying nor even a tear. It's as if the world twists and turns and then…
There is complete silence in Hell. .
“I promise, Max.”
It’s barely audible, even with the utter quiet that is this dark and rotting Hell. It's like a wind is carrying it away with how it's barely a taste.
But suddenly the world is righting itself so quickly, like a pendulum that has never swung. It's a burst of colours as Billy gasps awake and for a moment his soulmark positively sings.
It's a chant calling after Steve and Billy grabs his chest as he tries to breath for the first time in who knows how long. The wound on his side still aches and now there's fresh blood dripping from where it had tried to clot. It must have ruptured further when he sat up so suddenly.
But that sound, it's certainly a voice his soulmark has adored since it engraved itself on Billy's skin without knowing the other end.
Steve.
Billy cries. He hears everything Steve says, and he comforts someone. Max? Why would she need comfort?
He feels guilt when he hears her cry. She doesn't sound good, but she's always been a fighter. She'll be alright.
Billy almost throws up when he thinks of Neil. If he touches a hair on Max’ head… Billy slumps down and feels weak because there is nothing he can do.
But then Billy hears her laugh at something Steve says, and remembers the promise. His conifer practically squeals, causing Billy to feel embarrassed. But he can't help but feel giddy too.
Certainly Steve is just trying to comfort a crying kid, but the soulmark only accepts hope. So for once in who knows how long, Billy laughs. He grabs a hold of his side, using the tombstone to help him get up, and even in the pain he can't help but smile.
He has hope.
Billy has run out of hope.
It has been a while since he first visited his grave, and even though his soulmark still sings at the sound of Steve's voice the hope is running thin. Even the tree on his neck has wilted, though at least it's still present, if barely. There's still the whisper of Steve talking to him at the tombstone but Billy knows Steve will never find a way into Hell. Billy hopes not anyway.
It is when Billy is stabbing a Rotting Soul more than necessary, causing its back ooze to splash into his face and drip into his beard, that he sees it.
There's something glowing in the distance.
Billy wipes his forehead with the back of his hand as he gets up from the corpse in front of him. He watches it for a moment until he decides to take a step toward it.
He fights with himself the whole time he walks towards it. But as he gets to a gauging gap in the ground, there's no one there.
There's plenty of dead Rotting Souls, though.
Billy doesn't know who did this, he's never seen another person here before. But he knows he wants to find them.
His soulmark is suspiciously eager when Billy pays enough attention to it. It takes him several moments to realize why.
The glowing was red.
The thought stops him in his tracks. He had run out of hope despite it taking him so long to realize that he can see colour.
Steve.
Billy doesn’t even try to look calm as he runs to his home, Steve’s home. There’s no luck there, so Billy tries everywhere he can think of. School, the Wheeler’s house, even Billy’s own home but why he would be there, Billy doesn’t know. He’s desperate though.
It’s probably hours later that Billy feels his chest heaving and he feels like screaming until he can’t breathe anymore. The feeling is overwhelming, but he can still see colour, even in this dim world. So he continues.
When the colour disappears once again, Billy falls to his knees.
He doesn’t know what happened, but he’s crying. Ugly sobs that are full of anguish and the sound is so horrendous that his soulmark doesn’t even make a sound. At least it’s still there, but the comfort does not even begin to scratch the surface of pure despair.
Somehow, Billy finds himself at his grave. Of course, there’s no one there and everything is dark. He closes his eyes and just sits and breathes in deeply.
He’s out of tears by the time he hears rustling. Billy stands up quickly, but does not turn around. Can’t give himself away. Can't show weakness, and certainly can’t show tears. His eyes are still closed and it’s only by instinct that he finds himself holding a knife to someone’s throat.
The only reason he doesn’t immediately slice at whatever he’s holding is because of the way his soulmark positively sings. Billy has never heard or felt anything like it before. It’s like all the pine needles grow back at once and the soulmark feels whole.
Billy loosens the knife when he takes a breath and smells Steve and notices the faint colours around him.
“Harrington, is that you?” Billy can’t help but croak and his soulmark screams duh in his mind.
“Yeah,” Billy gasps as he also recognizes the voice, “don’t cream your pants.”
Billy’s laugh is watering and he tries to hold it together, so thoroughly, but tears still leak through. Suddenly he ignores all the instincts that sound like Neil and he actually hugs his soulmate.
The girl he recognizes from the hallway at school says something about leaving and it halts Billy. He loosens his grip on Steve, though never letting go, and Billy asks what they’re talking about. The Upside Down?
Billy actually lets himself cry when he thinks of how he can leave. And not just leave, but with his soulmate who is touching him. Robin gives them some privacy and Steve embraces Billy again, but Billy doesn’t actually want to stay in Hell, or the Upside Down, any longer.
They make their way through the Munson trailer of all places when the world starts making sense. Well, as much as Dungeons and Dragons characters coming to life makes sense. It doesn’t matter though, because Steve hasn’t let go of his hand since.
It’s when Wheeler the elder comes to check on Steve’s wounds, causing Billy’s soulmark to bristle, that he sees Steve’s tattoo. It’s just as beautiful as Billy remembers and without realizing it he almost touches it.
“You can touch it, you know,” Steve says suddenly and the sound brings Billy reeling to reality. He pulls his hands away and starts worrying his chapped lip.
“So you figured it out, huh?” Billy asks without making eye contact. The whole trailer seems to go silent.
When Steve takes a step away from him, Billy almost grabs his hand. Steve looks so hurt when he realizes that Billy knows they are soulmates.
Billy says something about Steve deserving better, which doesn’t go well either.
“I deserve my soulmate!” Billy doesn’t even flinch at the yelling, but he does follow Steve when he drags him into the other room. Ah, privacy.
They sit on Eddie’s bed for a moment, until Steve sighs and promises a long talk after a shower.
The hot water is absolutely glorious, and he uses it as an excuse to stay hidden in the bathroom. Steve seems to know what is going on in his mind, though, so Steve opens the bathroom door and helps Billy shave. He only leaves him when it’s his own turn to shower, Steve blushing lightly.
While he waits, Billy looks through the music collection that looks well loved. He smirks when he notices some of his own favourites and he can’t help but feel dizzy with the potential.
When Steve comes up they both end up on the bed, holding on to each other. Billy can’t help but giggle like a teenager learning his crush is reciprocated, but he guesses that that is what this is. Billy also can’t help but curl into Steve’s embrace, not only celebrating contact with another person for the first time in eight months, but being with Steve himself. Steve asks again why Billy never told him about their matching marks and it makes Billy’s own soulmark weak.
“I didn’t think I deserved you.” It’s been a long day, Billy is exhausted, but he realizes he couldn’t lie even if he wanted to.
“I get to decide what I deserve,” he argues, “and I get to decide what I want. I spent the last eight months looking for you. I think I can decide if I’m happy with my soulmate. And I am, I’m so happy. I’m so happy you’re alive,” and then they’re both crying again. “Only if you’re happy too, though.”
Billy has been doing a lot by instinct today, so he follows through this time too. He surges up and kisses Steve.
He had initially thought it would just be a peck, an innocent kiss, but when Steve lets Billy’s tongue into his mouth, it’s anything but. His redwood is thriving under the attention, and so is Steve's once Billy is directed to place a hand against it. It seems to respond with fireworks and he can’t help but pull Steve forward until they’re stumbling into each other.
They’re both embarrassed when they hear Max come in. Nevertheless, they’re laughing and crying together in a group hug.
Billy asks her if she’s okay, if Neil ever touched her, and she is positively grinning at the attention of her big brother.
He knows they’ll be okay.
It’s the next day when they visit Billy's grave. There’s no ditch and instead of rotting leaves and vines there are lively bouquets of flowers. Billy’s soulmark likes the chrysanthemums, which Billy can’t help but agree with. He remembers the old books of plant meanings he had burned and sees the pink flower. Longevity and love.
His soulmark sings.