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Steve slept through the first sounds of shuffling and scraping from outside his bedroom window. In all fairness, he was buried under a mound of extra quilts to keep out the frigid February air, so he could hardly be blamed for sleeping through the creaking of the drainpipe and the occasional muttered curses that followed.
The familiar screech of the window, though, hit Steve’s brain like a Bat-Signal, and he was sitting up in bed by the time Billy clambered over the sill.
“Hey,” said Steve sleepily. Billy just grunted.
He’d been doing that more and more, lately. It used to be, when they’d first become friends and Billy started climbing through Steve’s bedroom window, that they’d spend hours whispering beneath the covers, passing comic books back and forth and fighting over who got the cherry Lifesavers from Steve’s secret stash. Back then, ten year-old Billy could barely reach Steve’s garage roof even while standing on the trash cans, and Steve used to have to tug him up the final few feet of drainpipe.
Even as they’d grown beyond little kid sleepovers and started sneaking out to parties, it was still normal for Billy to stay over at least a couple nights a week — both of them scrambling drunkenly up the drainpipe as dawn streaked across the sky, waking up hours later so Billy could make them his patented hangover cure of Tater Tots fried in bacon grease with hot sauce.
The bed sagged under Billy’s weight as he sat down to kick off his boots. Steve reached sleepily for the lamp on his nightstand, but a cold hand shot out to grasp his wrist.
Shit. Steve’s heart sank as he withdrew his arm. Billy only got weird about turning on the lights when it was a bad night.
But all he said was, “Ice?”
A pause, then — “S’fine.”
Steve knew what that meant, too. He relaxed minutely into the pillows before swinging his feet off the bed. If Billy had actually admitted he needed ice, Steve would already be trying to coax him into going to the hospital. Tonight can’t have been exactly good — bad enough to need Steve’s help, even though Billy was trying to pretend he didn’t — but Billy had made his way up the drainpipe, hadn’t he? It could’ve — and had — been much worse. The thought didn’t bring Steve any comfort.
By the time he crept back up the stairs, icepack in hand, the window was shut and there was a Billy-shaped lump underneath the quilts.
“Here.” Steve slipped into bed and tapped Billy’s shoulder lightly with the icepack, and the other boy took it wordlessly, flipping onto his back to press it against his ribs.
They lay there in silence, breathing side by side. Steve stared up at the ceiling, trying not to imagine the minutes (hours?) leading up to Billy’s arrival. The familiar, helpless rage welled up in Steve’s chest anyway, threatening to bowl him over.
His thoughts were interrupted by the cold brush of fingers against his own beneath the blankets. He grabbed Billy’s hand — too urgent, bordering on desperate — and wove their fingers tightly together. It was only here, in the dark, that Billy ever allowed himself to seek comfort. Steve brushed his thumb along the calluses on Billy’s knuckles, short, soothing strokes. He couldn’t change Billy’s circumstances, but he could do this. He could be Billy’s safe space, his comfort. His friend.
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
When Steve woke up, the bed was cold and empty beside him. He burrowed his face into the quilts, breathing in the faint musk of Billy’s cologne, the tang of boyish clean sweat, the lingering whiff of cigarettes. He could hear clattering and movement downstairs. Billy was making breakfast. Steve’s parents were gone — Chicago for the weekend, on some vague, business-y purpose they hadn’t bothered to explain and Steve hadn’t bothered to ask for — but Billy would’ve checked that already, creeping cautiously past their bedroom door, alert for any sounds of life downstairs.
Rolling over onto his side, Steve buried his nose deeper into the blankets, torn between his gradually growing hunger and the persistent bulge in his boxers. It was wrong, this recent… curiosity, Steve knew that, just like he knew it wasn’t nearly as recent as he’d like to pretend. He’d always known Billy was handsome — those ridiculous lashes, his dark gold curls, the jut of his jaw and plush curve of his lips. But it had just been a fact, as obvious as Steve having poofy hair or skin that burned too easily in the sun.
It had taken dating Nancy Wheeler, of all people, for Steve to truly notice. Steve liked girls well enough — they were pretty and soft, and he always felt satisfyingly proud when he was able to make them come — but none had captured his attention like her. She was beautiful, but that wasn’t all of it. She gave as good as she got, carrying herself with an innate confidence Steve could never quite manage — whipsmart, stubborn, and intense. Maybe that was why Billy hadn’t liked her, because they were too similar. They even kind of looked like each other, now that Steve thought about it; startlingly symmetrical features, riotous curls, piercing blue eyes that made Steve feel seen in a way that was uncomfortable but not entirely unpleasant.
Dating Nancy had been a revelation in more ways than one. He’d never wanted to spend so much time with a girl before, for one thing. It was nice in a way Steve had never expected, to go over to her house, have dinner with her parents, pick her up and drive her home from school. To buy her flowers and carry her books. He felt needed. Useful. Wanted.
Billy hadn’t reacted well. Over the years, Steve had watched him become more closed-off, had seen Billy’s anger burrowing bone-deep, growing hotter and hotter until it became a permanent heat simmering under his skin — sometimes just coals, other times a raging blaze, but never fully extinguished. But this was the first time it had ever been turned on Steve.
“Get your ass up, Harrington!”
Steve jolted a little, startled out of his thoughts by Billy’s muffled bellow. Reluctantly, he poked out one hand to scrounge around for the hoodie he’d chucked off the night before. The cocoon of warm blankets was almost too tempting to leave, but he knew that if he didn’t, Billy would just come upstairs and tip his mattress over with Steve still on it. A deeply unpleasant wake-up call, in Steve’S experience, but an effective one.
By the time he padded downstairs, in his thickest socks and with a quilt still wrapped around his shoulders, the air was filled with the delicious smell of frying fat. Billy, who always bragged about how he ran hot and didn’t feel the cold, was wearing two of Steve’s sweaters with both hoods tugged over his head, and the only pair of jeans he owned that didn’t have artfully ripped holes. Powerslave was blasting from the shitty boombox Steve’d moved into the kitchen after he got his Walkman, and Billy was drumming out the solo for The Duellists on the countertop with a spatula and a wooden spoon.
“You’re gonna chip the marble,” said Steve, just to be a dick. True to form, Billy whirled around, mouth already open to argue, but Steve’s amusement drained out of him so fast he had to lean against the doorframe for support. Billy looked… awful. One eyebrow was split, and there was a long, purpling bruise along the opposite cheekbone; not quite a black eye, but almost. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, with dark bags underneath.
“Jesus.” The word slipped out before Steve could reel it back in, and Billy’s face shuttered, lips pressing together, jaw clenched. Wordlessly, he turned his back on Steve, fiddling with something on the stovetop.
Steve stepped cautiously forward, eyes fixed on the tense set of Billy’s shoulders. Slowly, he pressed closer, until his chest was flush with Billy’s back, and he hooked his chin into the hollow of the other boy’s collarbone from behind.
“Sorry,” he murmured quietly. Billy didn’t answer, but he didn’t pull away, either. “What’re you making?”
“The fuck does it look like?” Billy grumbled, the words completely at odds with the way he leaned a little into Steve’s touch, letting him bear some of his weight.
Truth be told, Steve didn’t really know. A second frying pan off to the side held Billy’s usual Tater Tot greasefest, but the one in front of him had little dollops of batter. Pink batter.
“Pancakes?”
“Ding ding. Someone get King Steve a prize.”
“Asshole,” said Steve idly, reaching around Billy for a particularly tempting piece of bacon. Billy slapped his hand away with the spatula.
“Coffee. Go.”
With a beleaguered sigh, Steve shuffled over to the espresso machine. Billy loved Steve’s parents’ Futurema, but refused to actually use it himself. He got weird about things like that sometimes, as though Steve’s house was a museum, and he was worried about getting into trouble for touching the art.
Steve waited until he was armed with a steaming americano before trying again. “Here, dickhead.”
Billy reached for it, but Steve moved just out of reach. “Tell me what you’re making first.”
“You already cracked the code, Harrington. Fuckin’ pancakes.”
“Yeah, but not normal ones,” Steve insisted, twisting slightly to keep the mug away from Billy’s grasping hand. “Why are they pink?”
“Does it fuckin’ matter?” Quick as a snake, Billy dug his fingers into the sensitive spot above Steve’s kidney, and snatched the mug out of his hand as he doubled over.
“Fucking ow, Hargrove! Jesus Christ, I was just asking—”
“D’you want the food I made or not?”
“Obviously,” Steve muttered sulkily, still rubbing his side.
“Then siddown.”
Steve threw himself onto one of the barstools behind the kitchen island, taking his own coffee with him. He watched Billy flip the pancakes as he sipped. The sight was as familiar as his own reflection, filtered through layered memories of all the times he’d sat in this exact spot, watching Billy cook.
They used to fill huge mixing bowls with cereal and take them into the den to watch Saturday morning cartoons — still did, sometimes, if they were especially hungover, or just wanted to get baked and zone out — and Steve still remembered the amazement on Billy’s face when he’d first seen the Harringtons’ selection of cereals; Frosted Flakes and Apple Jacks and Cocoa Puffs. The good kinds, he’d said, and eight year-old Steve had been baffled, hadn’t known that cheaper knockoff versions even existed, let alone tasted them.
The tape deck popped open, and Billy flipped the cassette around to the B-side as he poured the batter one-handed. His easy familiarity with every part of the kitchen made Steve feel warm from the inside out. This was the first time in nearly six weeks Billy had slept over — not since New Year’s Eve— and Steve had missed him with an ache that bordered on unbearable.
It had been the worst night of Steve’s life. He’d shown up at Tina’s house with Nancy under his arm and a stupid pair of 1985 glasses he could barely see out of, already halfway to wasted from the shots he’d downed while Nancy did her makeup. His stomach had been in knots over the certainty of seeing Billy that night. He’d been able to avoid him for all of Christmas break, but instead of being relieved, Steve just felt like he was being slowly suffocated by his own loneliness and anger.
After Tina’s, it had taken almost the entire month of January to claw their way back to something resembling the ease and comfort Steve had never thought twice about until it’d been ripped away. Only the fear of ruining it again kept him from teetering over the cliff’s edge of his feelings for Billy — those new-but-not-new ones, the ones that made Steve want to brush that one wayward curl out of Billy’s eyes. That had him burying his face in his mug to hide his blush when Billy stretched, flashing a strip of chiseled stomach.
“Here, your majesty.” Billy slid a plate across the island. Like most things Billy did, the pancakes were annoyingly perfect, fluffy and thick, the rose-blush pink toasted golden. Steve slathered them enthusiastically with syrup, and moaned like a porn star as the first mouthful exploded over his taste buds.
“Holy shit, Bill, the fuck’s in these?”
Billy rolled his eyes, though Steve saw a smile threatening to break at the corner of his mouth. “You’re such a fucking drama queen, you know that?”
“Why haven’t you made these before?” Steve demanded, shovelling another heaping forkful into his mouth.
Billy shrugged, rounding the island with his own plate to sit beside him. “Never been at your place on the busiest day of Steve Harrington’s year, I guess.”
“What d’you mean?” Steve drizzled more syrup over his pancakes, already smiling a little in anticipation of the joke.
“Well, you’ve got a big day ahead of you. Need your fuel.” Billy waggled his eyebrows at him, and grabbed the syrup bottle from Steve’s hand.
“No fuckin’ clue what you’re talking about,” said Steve cheerfully. “Once again, the wit and wisdom of the great Billy Hargrove is way beyond my puny brain—”
“It’s Valentine’s Day, idiot.” Billy cut him off, looking at him strangely. “Don’t you have, like, a hundred fuckin’ dates to get to?”
Steve froze, fork halfway to his mouth, as his brain scrambled to re-boot. Valentine’s Day. It was fucking Valentine’s Day?
His eyes flicked over to the kitschy Norman Rockwell calendar pinned above the sink. Seeing the proof with his own eyes did nothing to help the strange feeling of unreality that had crept in.
Steve might be the first to admit he was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d had a lot of time to think, these last few weeks, and things that had baffled him — Billy’s instant dislike of Nancy, his and Billy’s explosive fight before Christmas, Steve’s own jealousy and anger whenever a girl seemed to hold Billy’s attention for too long — had slowly started to make sense. His feelings for Billy weren’t normal best-friend feelings, but after the initial shock of the realization, Steve had become surprisingly okay with it. But Billy…
Billy felt something. Steve knew Billy better than he knew himself, and he could feel the way his best friend’s eyes followed him sometimes. The way his touch lingered. How he did things for Steve that he’d rather die than do for anyone else, like talk him patiently through their calc homework, or wait for Steve with the door held open at school.
But it was exactly because Steve knew Billy so well that he was keeping all his new-but-not-newness to himself. Billy was the bravest person Steve had ever met, but if there was one thing that neatly intersected every single one of his insecurities, the possibility of them would be it.
He blinked dumbly back at Billy, who was still staring at him with raised eyebrows.
‘I, uh—” Steve cleared his throat awkwardly. “I forgot.”
There was a short, awkward pause. Then —
“Oh, right.” Billy nodded, as though something had just become clear. “I mean, makes sense, I guess. Thought you’d—” He broke off, looking uncomfortable.
“You thought I’d what?”
Billy shrugged again, a twitchy, almost irritated gesture. “Nothin’, man.”
“No, tell me,” Steve insisted, swivelling on his stool so that they sat face to face.
“Nothing, Harrington, Jesus—”
“God, would you drop the act for one fucking second?” Steve switched gears quickly, throwing himself into the one strategy that always got Billy talking — pissing him off. “Just say it, already—”
“Fuck off, I don’t have to do shit—”
“The hell’s the big deal? Spit it the fuck out so that we can—”
“I forgot about fucking Wheeler, okay?” Billy’s voice rang in the sudden stillness of the kitchen.
“Nancy?” Steve frowned. A muscle jumped in Billy’s jaw, but he didn’t elaborate. “What does Nancy have to do with today?”
“You tell me,” Billy snapped. His shoulders were bunched up around his ears, eyes fixed stubbornly on his empty plate.
“Uh… fuck-all? For me, at least. I’m sure she and Jonathan are probably doing something, but…”
“And you’re okay with that?” A flickering glance up at Steve, a flash of bright blue quickly hidden away once more.
“Sure. I mean, we’ve been over for awhile now, and we ended up in a pretty good place once we talked it out, after… you know.”
Again, the ghost of New Year’s Eve hovered between them. Memories of Billy that night flared brightly — the gleam of sweat on his exposed chest, the way his throat worked as he chugged a beer. How Billy’s big hands had crushed Nicole Anderson tightly to him at midnight, mouth devouring hers like he was trying to drown himself in the kiss. The hot, sickly jealousy churning in Steve’s stomach at the sight, mixing nastily with the tequila he’d grabbed out of Nancy’s hand.
“So what’s stopping you from the usual King Steve special today, then?” Billy’s voice was tight as he reached over, gathering up their plates with rough, too-forceful movements.
Steve watched him work. His thoughts were racing, now, as though his brain was trying to make up for its earlier failure to fucking compute.
His eyes caught on the short stack of leftover pancakes. Pink. There was something important about them, which sounded fucking stupid, even in Steve’s head, but he just knew it, somehow, knew this was some kind of message that Billy wanted him to hear, without having to say it to him out loud.
Wild confidence sparked to life in Steve’s chest, a sort of giddy recklessness rooted in a strange certainty he had no reason for.
“There’s someone else. That’s what’s stopping me.”
Billy froze. Steve watched his knuckles whiten as he curled his fingers tightly around the edge of the sink.
“I didn’t ask them out, or anything,” Steve continued, trying to sound casual. This was insane, an objectively fucking terrible idea, but he had careened off the cliff’s edge now and there was no going back. “I, um. I’m still working up the balls to, I guess. But I wouldn’t — I don’t — want to go out with anyone else, so… yeah, no King Steve special, or whatever.”
“Right,” said Billy hollowly. He still had his back to Steve.
Steve slid off the barstool, crossing the kitchen in slow, careful steps. “Billy.”
“Who’s the lucky lady?” Billy grabbed the skillet off the stove and dropped it into the sink with a metallic clatter.
“Billy, why did you make me pancakes?”
“Christ, not this again—”
“Do you know why Nancy and I broke up?”
Billy whirled around, and Steve took an involuntary step back at the look on his face. He had gone white underneath his faint dusting of freckles, bruise standing out starkly on his cheekbone.
“I don’t fucking care, Harrington—”
“Because she was sick of coming in second to you.” Steve cut across him loudly. “Because I was always ditching her for you, because even after you and I had that stupid fight before Christmas, I still talked about you all the fucking time, going over what went wrong, trying to figure out how to fix it—”
“Steve—”
“And then she tried to kiss me at midnight on New Years’ and we were both so fuckin’ drunk and miserable and in a fight anyway, but she saw me looking at you, you and Nicole Anderson—”
“Stop—”
“No!” Steve grabbed Billy’s arm as he made to shoulder past him. “Fucking listen to me!”
“Get your hands off me,” Billy snarled, but there was something like desperation in his eyes, and Steve moved closer, sliding his hands up to cling loosely to Billy’s ridiculously perfect biceps.
“So yeah, that’s why Nancy and I had the world’s most public fucking break-up, and why I had a goddamn meltdown in Tina’s kitchen, and why you had to carry my ass out of there and drive me home, and why you had to sleep over so that I didn’t fucking choke on my own puke. Because of you, Billy.”
Billy reared back as though Steve had struck him. “So, what, it was all my fault? Fuck you, Steve. I don’t give a flying fuck why you and Wheeler split, and I couldn’t give less of a shit who you want to date now—”
“Then why,” Steve raised his voice, resisting Billy’s attempt to push him aside. “Did you make me pink fucking pancakes?”
“What the fuck!” Billy roared. He raked his hands through his hair, rucking back the hood of Steve’s sweatshirt. “Why do you care? My dead fuckin’ mom used to make them, okay? Happy now? Jesus fuck!”
They stared at each other, both a little out of breath. Billy’s chest was heaving, his eyes wild, but he seemed to be deflating, somehow, shrinking into himself in a way Steve had only ever seen on the worst nights he came through the bedroom window.
“She used to make them on Valentine’s Day?” Steve asked quietly. His heart was pounding, aching painfully behind his ribs.
Billy jerked his head in a rough approximation of a nod. Steve felt tears welling up, stinging his eyes, and he blinked furiously to hold them back.
“God. Listen, Bill, I—”
Billy swayed toward him, then drew himself back, scrubbing a hand furiously across his face. “Don’t. I don’t need your fuckin’ pity—”
“Billy, it’s you.”
“—and it doesn’t have to be a–” Billy’s eyes snapped up to his, confusion warring with the anger and despair etched into the lines of his handsome face. Steve watched him steadily, willing him to see, to understand.
“You’re the only person I want to be with today. You’re the only person I want to be with every day. Always.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Confusion was being slowly replaced with fear, now, and Steve clenched his hands into fists, resisting the urge to reach out and pull Billy close.
“I’m in love with you,” said Steve instead, and he could tell Billy heard the certainty in his voice, the clarity of truth. “I’m stupidly, unbelievably in love with you, Billy, and I know that probably scares the shit out of you, but it’s how I feel, okay?”
“You don’t,” croaked Billy. The response seemed reflexive, an automatic dismissal. “You fucking don’t, Steve, there’s — you can’t.”
“Tough shit.” Steve shrugged, and felt the ghost of a smile flicker across his lips. “Believe me, I’m not too happy about it either. It’s embarrassing, to be in love with the worst jump shot on the fucking team.”
Billy just stared at him, open-mouthed. Sighing, Steve stepped a little closer, regaining the distance Billy had put between them.
“Look, you don’t need to say anything, okay? It doesn’t have to be a big deal. We can talk about it later. Or not. But you deserved to know, and it’s not like I can fuckin’ hide anything from you for long anyway, so I figured—”
The kiss was urgent, unerring pressure and spit-damp heat scorching Steve’s lips, burning the inside of his mouth, Billy licking the rest of his sentence off his tongue before it had a chance to escape. Steve felt his back slam against the fridge, heard the clatter of magnets falling to the tile, but it all felt dim and distant, unimportant, every sense filled with BillyBillyBilly — the feel of his strong hands pinning Steve’s hips in place, the jut and curve of his shoulders under Steve’s palms, the firm, commanding weight of his mouth, exploring, taking —
Abruptly, Billy wrenched himself away, gasping for breath as he pressed his forehead to Steve’s. He was trembling.
“You have to fucking mean it, Steve, this can’t just be — if you’re not — I can’t—”
“Of course I mean it,” Steve murmured, trailing gentle kisses along the line of Billy’s jaw. “I promise, Bill. I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t sure.”
Steve knew better than anyone how little certainty Billy had in his life. His days were built on shifting sands. Billy spent every waking moment picking his way blindly through the minefield that was Neil fucking Hargrove, and praying he wouldn’t get blown to pieces.
But Steve was certain. He’d never been more certain of anything.
“God,” Billy breathed. “Fuck, Steve. Holy goddamn shit.” His mouth found Steve’s again, coaxing it open more gently this time, a lazy exploration that sent fizzing bolts of heat through Steve’s body. They stayed there, kissing, until Steve’s lips felt numb and the chill from the fridge leached through the quilt still wrapped around his shoulders.
“Same, by the way,” said Billy. His curls were mussed up, lips kiss-swollen. He was so fucking beautiful that Steve’s breath caught in his throat. “About, um.”
He gestured vaguely between them, and Steve revelled at the flush that crept into his cheeks.
“About?” Steve shot him his most shit-eating grin, and as Billy rolled his eyes, Steve saw a kaleidoscope of every other time he’d witnessed that fond, familiar gesture.
When they were eight, and Steve had insisted on being Billy the Kid and not Butch Cassidy for Halloween, even though Billy was actually named Billy.
When they were eleven, and Steve made himself sick eating too many Pop Rocks at the Saturday matinée and puked behind The Hawk.
At fourteen, watching Steve hack up a lung after his first puff on a cigarette behind the school gym.
On New Years’ Day, when Steve had cracked open his crusty eyelids to the sight of Billy holding two extra-strength Advil and a glass of water under his nose.
“I fuckin’ love you, okay? Jesus Christ, you’re such a—”
But Steve decided he’d much rather kiss Billy again than figure out what, exactly, he allegedly was, and besides, he had a pretty good idea, anyway.
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
THE END