#hey susan do you KNOW what quaratine means?

[geekynightowl1997]

Okay, I'm an introvert and I have had enough of extraverts being in doors.

Or maybe it's because I work retail and nobody is ACTUALLY quarantining.

#covid 19 #in 2020 #im an introvert and I've had enough of the extraverts being inside #actually they don't #i work retail and where is everybody at? #not at home #they outside #at grocery stores #for quaratine that they aren't in #and complaining about how their kids are home #look karen if you weren't prepared for YOUR kids to be home why did you have them #hey susan do you KNOW what quaratine means? #it means STAY IN YOUR HOUSE

[prettyboyporter]

More soft prompts. Billy has destroyed his favorite hoodie and refuses to replace it. It has holes, it has burn marks, it's been chewed by the neighbour's dog and the left sleeve is wrecked... it smells. So Steve has to enact a plan to get rid of it and get Billy a new one.

Hi gideon! I’m finally getting around to your prompt. I hope you’re doing well today

~*~

Max tried a million times to get Billy to wash or trash his hoodie. 

She tried sneaking it into the laundry basket, but Billy would pull it out.

She talked Susan into doing a clothing purge and weeded out old clothes in her drawers to fill a bag for goodwill and oops somehow that old, holey hoodie ended up in her pile. But when she walked back into her room -- it was missing from the donation bag. 

She tried talking gently to Billy -- asked him nicely, hey, I’m doing some laundry, and I noticed that hoodie’s kinda, like, nasty. Want me to throw it in with mine? But he only responded with no thanks. 

And honestly, Billy talked so little after coming home from the hospital that she took his two words and his small smile as a little victory. 

Billy wore it every day after his return with the hood up, hands jammed in the pouch at his waist. 

He needed to hide from the world, and Max understood that desire. He’d been through hell and back. But five months later the thing was just looking ragged.

Steve Harrington entered the equation about two months after Billy came home. He’d dropped off Max from Dustin’s after a gathering, and when he asked how Billy was doing, she said, come in. Say hello. I mean he’d probably like to see a friend. And Steve got this little smile and he looked up a Billy’s window for a second, fingers flexing on the steering wheel before he said, sure. yeah. okay. good.

And that was how Steve ended up over at Max’s house three, four, five days a week. Weeks and months ticked by, and then it was December and the snowy, icy Hawkins roads didn’t stop Steve from spending time with Billy nearly every day. 

Two weeks before Christmas, Max was ready to throw Billy’s stinking hoodie into the fireplace. She was trying to think about if she could spend some of her babysitting money on a new hoodie when Steve pushed through the front door -- Susan had banned Steve from knocking sometime back in October. 

“Hey,” Max said as Steve shrugged off his coat and kicked off his boots. “Got a question for you. You know, uh,” she turned and looked back toward Billy’s bedroom door -- closed. “You know Billy’s hoodie?” She whispered the last two words. 

Steve’s face immediately screwed up. “Yeah. Gross, right?” 

“Well I was thinking that maybe I might, I dunno, buy him a new one for Christmas?” 

Steve leaned down and said quietly, “Hold off on that, Max. I have an idea about the hoodie.” 

And with that, Billy popped out of his room and smiled at Steve, jammed his hands into the pouch, and blushed 18 shades of red. “Hey,” he mumbled. 

Steve straightened up and fixed some loose strands of hair, then awkwardly jammed his hand in his pocket. “Billy. Hey. How’s it goin.” 

Steve’s tone was so forced  and it reminded Max of how both Dustin and Lucas first sounded when they both tried talking to her when she first arrived in Hawkins and  -- oh.

Oh. 

She smiled and went back to her magazine, wondering what Steve might have up his sleeve with the hoodie and what was gonna happen between Billy and Steve with their feelings, or whatever was happening there. 

Steve came over for Christmas. Max knew that something was up with his family or else he wouldn’t be coming over to spend most of his free time with Billy, especially since he seemed intent on camping out at their house on Christmas day. 

Not that Max or Susan minded. It was fun to have another guy around, one who was nice and was polite to Susan and like an older brother to Max. Really, the best part was watching how Billy would react to Steve -- how he seemed more lively in general now that Steve had come into his life, but also how he just seemed to shine when Steve was around. 

Of course Steve was involved in their gift exchange. He gave Susan a Billy Joel cassette and scarf, gave Max a stack of comics and an X-Men shirt, and then Billy. Max waited as Billy opened Steve’s gift, tearing open the wrapping paper and holding up the item inside. 

It was Steve’s Michigan State University hoodie. 

It wasn’t new, but it seemed well-cared for. Max had seen Steve wear in several times in the spring and in the fall and had thought to herself a couple of times that green was a color that suited Steve. 

“I know you’re attached to your hoodie. And that maybe you really didn’t want a new one but, this one’s not new. It’s mine, so I thought maybe you might like something different.” Steve spoke softly, as if his gift might spook Billy back into his fresh-from-the-hospital shell. 

But then Billy smiled, tugged off his dirty hoodie, and pulled Steve’s on. He pulled the neck up to his nose and gave a little sniff. “Even smells like you.” 

“Yeah. I was wearing Polo the last time I wore it,” Steve said quietly -- seemed a little embarassed. “I mean I can wash it for you, if you if you want, I’ll just take it home and-”

“No!” Billy said, and it was the loudest she’d heard Billy say anything since before Starcourt. “I mean. No thank you. I love it just how it is.” 

Max watched the scene before her, enraptured, because it felt like that tension on the soaps, that moment when two characters stand before each other, leaning in like magnets before there’s an explosion of passion and-

There was a nudge at Max’s knee. “Hey,” Susan said quietly. “Wanna come help me with the dishes in the kitchen?” The look on her face meant that that wasn’t actually a question. 

Max rolled her eyes. “Fine.” 

She glanced over her shoulder once as they made their way into the next room, and Steve was just unwrapping Billy’s gift, which she already knew was a framed picture of them from before the accident playing basketball behind Steve’s house. Billy had had Max help him wrap it.

Max dried the dishes and then called the Sinclairs, where she was planning on going tomorrow to exchange gifts. She talked first to Erica, who was describing her new dual-cassette stereo, then to Lucas. 

When he was talking about his mom and dad, she stepped back once, twice, three times to the door to the living room. 

On the floor, next to the couch, Steve was kissing Billy, his hand on Billy’s cheek. Billy’s hand rested on Steve’s knee. They kissed slowly, tenderly. Like lovers, Max thought. Her throat tightened up a bit.

Max felt warmth flood through her, and she smiled. 

“Yeah. Can hardly wait to see you too,” she said to Lucas. 

When she hung up the phone, Susan gave her a little wink, and they shared Christmas cookies at the kitchen table. 

She gave Steve a hug that night as he left. “Merry Christmas Steve. And thank you. For everything.” 

He hugged her back and ran a hand down the back of her head. “Merry Christmas kiddo. See you tomorrow.” 

note: my asks are open for soft harringrove prompts for the duration of this quaratine. trying to find comforting ways to deal with a hard situation. my tag for this is soft fic for hard times.

#harringrove #max mayfield #susan hargrove #my fic #my writing #soft times at ridgemont high #soft fic for hard times #gideongrace