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The Family Values Program

The first chapter of a dystopian au we've been writing together with @aggressiveviking is finally online!

Warnings: None. Tags: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - No Upside Down, Arranged Marriage, Developing Relationship, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Developing Friendships, Denial of Feelings, Internalized Homophobia, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Domestic Fluff, Forced Cohabitation, Mutual Pining Misunderstanding, Sexual Tension, Unrequited Crush, or so they both think, Closeted Gay Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington Has a Bisexual Awakening, Other tags to be added

Summary: When society started to decline, morals deteriorate and disease wiped almost one fourth of the population in the United States, The Family Values Program (TFV) was launched—the last beacon of hope for the betterment of the American people.

Steve had thought he wouldn't need to join TFV thanks to his dad's riches, whereas Billy had done all he could to ensure he would be one of the few accepted to it, for his father's sake—hoping desperately to turn twenty-five before being matched and thus age out of the program.

So, when they got the message from the Matchmaking Service of a successful match, neither of them knew what to expect—and how badly wrong it had gone.

To Steve, finding out that he was matched with a man by mistake was just one problem. The more pressing one was his upcoming twenty-fifth birthday a week from now, effectively aging him out of the program. If their match was revoked, Steve would be cast out of the TFV zone, with a promise from his father for no financial support. Steve couldn't let that happen.

Read in full on AO3 >> (snippet under the cut)

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Billy Hargrove had one simple goal in his life - to age out of the Matchmaking Service. He only had one more year to go before he could be officially free and there was nothing his father could do about it, not even blame him because it wouldn’t be Billy’s fault. It was just dumb luck.

Being part of the TFV program had been the singular goal and regret that his father held. The Family Value program - a government-enforced and regulated family life. A man and a woman. A family. Idyllic, the way they showed it in movies, the way it was supposed to be before society had started to crumble. At least that's how they said it was.

It happened more than 30 years ago - the decline of culture and the end of moral values. The concept of marriage had lost its meaning, and it led to broken families, broken people, and broken values. It had been the catalyst for more than just personal tragedies. Billy’s father had been a victim of it as Neil Hargrove wouldn’t forget to remind everyone. An upstanding man, who wanted nothing more than to lead a good upstanding life, and take care of his wife and kids. He had been betrayed by his wife, who broke their family like it meant nothing.

Billy knew it was a load of bullshit, the bruises on his ribs proved it even now. His father was far from the person he pretended to be, who he imagined himself to be. It was true that his mother was a bitch for leaving, but it wasn’t because she left Neil, it was because she left Billy with Neil. How hard would it have been to just take him with her when she packed her bags and ran out? How much more would it have cost her? Billy doubted that she had even thought about that - she had only thought about herself. Because that’s what people were conditioned to do in those times.

Crime rates had been steadily increasing, so much so that law enforcement couldn’t keep up. With the increase in crime, death followed shortly. Diseases became rampant, a modern plague had wiped nearly one-fourth of the population of the United States. It was said that it was a biological weapon, meant to be sold - a simple exchange of death for money - but it spread without control, without a way to stop it.

At the peak of the horrors and tragedies, The Family Value program was launched - the last beacon of hope for the betterment of the American people. All efforts and resources were poured into making that campaign a success. Whole cities and towns were confiscated, and all citizens evacuated elsewhere as the program was established, as the walls were built, as the TFV centers were built of solid concrete in the center of it all, to last for centuries ahead as the beacon of light to the people, as the first step to order and prosperity.

The Matchmaking Service was the tool, the weapon that the government built to fight against the decay of society. The concept of the program was simple - to preserve and nurture the value of a healthy family, and the Matchmaking Service was what made it possible. Every person was encouraged to sign into the program with the promise of a good easy life - a home provided by the government, steady jobs - but not many were able to pass the heavy vetting process. Only the people who could prove they held family values close to their heart were qualified to be accepted into the program - the people who had a passion for living a good, honest life, who stayed in school, followed the law, and most important of all, had never had a marriage that had been broken.

Neil Hargrove did not qualify. And neither did his new wife Susan Mayfield. She had a broken marriage of her own - a messy divorce. Their kids however still had a chance, and while Susan simply wished a better life for her daughter Max, Billy’s father had steadily developed an obsession fueled by anger and bitterness. He was simultaneously doing his best to push Billy into being the perfect candidate for the TFV program, while at the same time, he was furious that he never had been given that chance himself. He didn’t forget to remind Billy of it.

Billy wanted nothing more to be done with all of it. 25. That was the age of the cutoff from the program. All legal adults could apply for the Matchmaking Service as soon as they turned 18. Once they had been approved into the program they only needed to wait to be matched at random with the person of the opposite gender who was going to be their life partner. No backing out, no second attempts - it was very simple, fail to do so and you were out of the program, permanently. But while the process wasn’t that complicated, the random matching of people had one little flaw. Some people ended up aging out of the system before they were given a match.

Neil Hargrove had made Billy sign up as soon as he could with no regard for what Billy wanted to do with his life. Not that Billy ever shared that with his father. He also didn’t share the fact that he harbored no attraction to the opposite sex… Something that Billy had no way of exploring living under his father’s roof and which he would never get to explore if he got matched with a partner in TFV program.

At the very start, Billy had been living in dread, every day waiting for that horrible message that marked the culmination of his father’s efforts and the end of Billy’s freedom for good. But then… the years were passing by and no message came through. A calm washed over him as the time grew near. He had been in the system for almost 7 years and there had been no match. For the first time in his life, Billy dared to dream. Perhaps life wasn’t as unfair as he had thought it was. Perhaps he would finally be given the freedom he deserved after almost 25 years of hiding, of pain, of fear… Maybe things were going to work out—

And as if in a cruel twist of fate the message came right when he had stopped expecting it.

Billy’s stomach dropped as he read the words written bold and bright on the screen of his com device while his hand shook.

Congratulations, it’s a MATCH!

He felt like he was going to throw up, his heart sinking into his stomach. Billy had hoped never to see the official message from the Matchmaking Service… but here it was. Mocking him, like a bad punchline to a joke, like everything else in Billy’s life.

He tried to take a deep breath but he only managed to choke as he pressed the button to read the rest of the message. The content of it was like a prison sentence. Not only had he been matched, but he was being relocated — Billy had known that could happen but he had been sure it could never happen to him. The location marked on the top read a town named Hawkins… in fucking Hickville Indiana .

Billy wanted to cry.

“Sign up to the program, Steve, or live outside your very privileged comfort zone for a very painful ten years. I am tired of trying to help you.”

Yeah. Those were Steve's father's last words before he had given Steve his ultimatum: time until Steve's twenty-fifth birthday to find a place of his own to live in and his trust fund locked for an extra ten years, only to be released to Steve's control when he turned thirty-five. He'd be stuck with the low life of society for the next ten years, trying to get along on a minimum wage from some shitty job.

Unless he got with the piece-of-shit program his parents held in such high regard.

If he did as his father told him to and signed up for The Family Value program, allowing the Matchmaking Service to choose him a wife by his twenty-fifth birthday, the trust fund would be released in his control on his twenty-sixth birthday. Which would be more tolerable to live with, considering his spending habits. And okay, other habits too...

He didn't shy away from living a full bachelor's life. Women lining up in front of him, allowing him to pick the cherries from on top. Since he'd been trusting in having all the money he'd ever need at twenty-five, he hadn't really thought on commitment . He would've bought a nice condo somewhere, lived on his own fund, and then chosen a life partner at his own pace. As late as possible, preferably.

Steve was a few months shy of twenty-five, the cut-off age for the program. He was sure that given some more time, he wouldn't have had any issues finding a match for himself. He could've just picked the prettiest one in sight. But the only one he'd really liked had been Nancy. She would've been nice to have a family with. He'd actually considered having kids with her. They would've had a nice life... Yeah. Until she broke up with him and swore never to come back.

And in all honestly he really didn't want to go with some one-night stand.

So, he was bitter. “You need to grow up, Steve. I am doing this for your own good.” Yeah, blah blah, as if. It wasn't like the money in the fund was his dad's. It was all basically interest on interest on the 5000 dollars he'd invested in the fund when Steve was born. Steve could've paid that back to him on the first day he would've controlled the fund.

But now he really didn't have any choice. Maybe he could live with a woman who he didn't get along for one year. Hopefully. And at least he'd have some control over the location and the style of the house, amenities, and so on. He would go with the largest available, his father could pull some strings to ensure that. He wouldn't have to move out of his home town and he could stay close to all his already matched friends and so on. If he had to tolerate a stranger, he might as well do it in style. And he'd have someone to cook and keep the house clean for him and decent pay to get along for a year. Maybe they could agree with the missus that when he had the fund, they could live separate lives while still married and she'd be as free to do whatever she wanted and see whoever she wanted and he'd cover her expenses from the trust fund.

Steve shook his head as he lay down on his bed and stared at the popcorn ceiling of his room. “Fuck the values,” he grumbled to himself the same night he signed up and hoped that the service would work quickly.

And it did, just a few weeks before his birthday.

Congratulations, it’s a MATCH!

Steve let out a sigh as he read the full message on his com device. Yes, his dad had come through with his promise to help with the living arrangements. A house with three bedrooms, four baths, and a swimming pool. It was a tolerable price for one year of... something. Not utter misery, hopefully.

Steve moved his most important stuff to the house the following day. The rest could be hauled over later. Not that he really had that much though, just a wardrobe full of tailor-made suits and shirts for his new job, ironically, at the management of the Matchmaking Service, and some other things for daily life.

He strolled around the already decorated and furnished house, nodding agreeably at the chosen materials, plush couches, and the large dinner table with a glass chandelier above it. On the second floor, he inspected the room that had been transformed into his home office, the junior bedroom, and finally the master bedroom. He took in the view that spread under the hill the house was on from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Closer were other houses like his and further, a busy city center and the concrete fences that kept the area separated from the second-class society somewhere in the distance.

Yes, he could live with this.

On the second day, he had pretty much settled in and was all the more content with the surroundings. He'd spend his last free day before the start of his new job just taking it easy and getting to know his match. He'd been informed that she was on her way and would arrive right about… now.

He was having a late breakfast at the dinner table when he heard the front door opening. He got up, took the bunch of roses he'd bought just for this moment in his hand, and walked to the foyer.

And he stopped dead in his tracks, very much not happy and very, very confused.

Read on AO3 >>

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