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hargrove-mayfields · 1 year

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It’s fibromyalgia awareness day! 🦋

Fibromyalgia is a disability characterized by lifelong, unexplained body pain and numbness, memory problems, attitude changes, depression and anxiety, stomach issues, migraines, and sensory sensitivity.

Here’s a fic about Billy Hargrove (and Steve Harrington) having that disability!

content warnings for: discussion of child abuse and abandonment, ableism and ableist slurs, vomiting, detailed and stressful descriptions of chronic pain, illness, self-deprecation, and suicidal ideation.

~~~~~

Something is off with Billy.

Atop the lifeguard tower, wearing a long sleeved sweatshirt, sunglasses, and a hat. From the outside, it looks like he’s hiding from something. Trying to blend in.

Max had accused him of as much this morning. Pointed her finger right at him and started snapping her teeth about pretending everything was normal. The kid was almost in tears while she confronted him about telling the truth. But Billy had no idea what she was talking about.

His back fucking hurts and he wanted to wear a comfortable shirt, so fucking what? He doesn’t have to justify that to her.

Now he can feel all her creepy stalker friends staring at the back of his head at work. Even sees the glint of the magnifying something or another they’re using to watch him.

He can’t give a shit about whatever those tiny assholes have gotten in their heads about him. They’re probably doing a round of their stupid role play game shit again.

Whatever. Because sitting in this hard ass chair isn’t helping his pain any. The sun is fucking hot, but he’s got chills from how bad his body hurts, a deep ache all over in all of his limbs. The migraine certainly doesn’t help, but even his glasses and his hat aren’t enough to block out the harsh light.

The summer isn’t easy on his body. Neither is winter, or any other time. He never gets a break. But the heat is especially bad on his body, and specifically, the pain in his legs and shoulders. He’s got the body and immune system of a guy in his 60s instead of one who just turned eighteen a few months ago.

Some lifelong nerve disorder he’s had since he was a kid and would spend hours curled up in momma's arms screaming for relief. Good luck with that kid. He lost the only person that ever tried to help; he should’ve been grateful he used to even be able to ask for it.

Now, the best he gets is an apathetic glance. He buys drugs off of some sketchy kid in a creeper van to manage it himself. The doctors and Neil cut him off of his prescriptions a long time ago, accusing him of just trying to get free drugs. Even still Max gives him shit for taking random pills, and he knows she’s right, but he’s just trying to comfort himself when the going gets rough.

He’ll live. Get over it, kid. Man up.

Right now he can barely breathe.

Someone could be drowning three feet in front of him and he wouldn’t even notice. All because Heather had some emergency and needed to take off and leave Hawkins for a few weeks, and he had been the one stupid enough to volunteer to pick up all her shifts until she gets back in late July.

If he lasts that long.

Right now his stomach is twisting from how bad it all hurts. It’s indescribable. If he had to try, he’d say it’s like threading fishing wire through his muscles and tying his whole body in knots, tearing through tissue in the process. Like hammering nails into his joints to keep the mangled mess all together.

He's going to be sick.

It’s not time yet but he blows the whistle anyways, because he needs a fucking breather. There’s no one else on duty with him because today is slow after yesterday's rain. Who’s gonna know?

Those scurrying little shit head stalkers will probably notice. Still not his damn problem.

Billy manages somehow to drag himself to the back room to collapse onto a bench. He tries to tell himself he won’t cry, but it’s far too late for that. This is the worst he can ever remember it being on its own. At least since the beating he took right before the move. That was probably the actual hardest time of his life.

Doesn’t change a damn thing about how bad he feels now though. As he’s just laying there, pathetically wasting his shift away, there’s a painful feeling traveling up his spine and into his ribs, stealing his breath away. He feels so damn worthless. Nobody would probably even notice if he died right now. Suffocated from the inside by his own body.

But that’s not the way this works. The pain cracks open suddenly at the highest point of his spine like a fault line, leaving behind a deep set, intense flash of pain in his back and his ribs.

That’s his last straw. His lowest point. He drags himself off of the bench and literally crawls to the showers. Hot water might help, he needs it to, because this is unbearable.

The shame of pulling himself on his hands and knees across the pool’s filthy floors is almost too much. He wants to scream for help. But nobody’s going to come for him.

Nobody will find Billy collapsed in the shower stall, wheezing like he ran a marathon just from the extraordinary effort it took him to crawl ten feet. It feels like he’s dying. The ground is cold but he’s hot, his skin flushed and sticky with sweat. If he had the energy, he’d take off his shirt, but he’s stuck. Arms tucked underneath of him, one cheek pressing into the floor and just staring at the wall because it hurts too bad to even hold his head up. He’s stuck.

It feels like some other thing is piloting his body. Right now, the pain is. It took the reins and told him to sit. Like a damn dog, trained by his own weakness. A shock collar tightened around his neck from the day he was left alone with this hurt, choking and gagging him.

It feels like he’s already dead.

An hour or so passes. He can tell because he hears a distant blow of a whistle. They probably assumed he ditched work and stuck a manager onto guard duty. He’ll get pointed for this. He could lose his job just because he’s lying miserable in a pool of his own sweat and tears and vomit. Just because he can’t take a little pain.

Try as he might, nobody ever believes him that it’s not just a little. More like a full body sensation of being torn apart from the inside. Is this what a heart attack feels like? Jesus, maybe he is dying.

That thought sends a rush of adrenaline through him. It would anybody, no matter how many times he might have prayed for exactly that to happen when he was lying in bed just the same way as he is here on the cold, wet floor.

Billy forces himself to sit up. His arms wobble like they’re too weak to hold up his weight, but he pushes up until his back is propped against the wall, and he’s not really holding himself up at all. His head fell back and knocked against the wall too, pretty hard.

The pain shoots through his neck, precise lines of fire burning in his veins, from the back of his skull down into the base of his neck. His fingers go numb. He leans over and tries to throw up again. There’s nothing left in his body. He’s dehydrated. Starved. Sick of this.

He’s still going to ride the adrenaline shot for what it’s worth. It’s the only chance he has of not spending the night on the ground in this locker room. God he wishes he had somebody to help him.

It’s past the point of denying it; Billy needs help. If only he’d realized that before right this moment.

The next step is standing. There’s not enough power in his entire body to get his knees to straighten. He’ll have to pull himself up to at least a kneeling position.

His eyes are still blurry from hitting his head though. Protected by a shower curtain in the already dimly lit locker room, there’s barely enough lighting for him to see anything at all in this tiny stall. So he’ll reach blindly for the shower seat and try to pull himself back up.

Billy grabs the spicket instead. All he feels is metal and he assumes that’s good enough. He barely knows where he is right now.

Besides, whatever it is will act as a base to help him slide his back up the wall. His legs wobble all the way up and his knees stay bent, but slowly, slowly, he’s getting himself to his feet.

And then the spicket twists. Billy loses his grip and slips back down to the ground, harder and faster this time, and hits his elbow. There’s no suppressing the shout of pain that bubbles up from his throat when there’s what feels like electricity charging through every nerve in his arm from the one contact point. He had hit his left hip off the floor too, and his leg on that side went completely dead.

When he’d twisted that handle, it turned the water on too. Freezing cold. Hitting his body like shards of glass against his already aching and sore.. everything. Even with the weak water pressure, every drop feels like an electric shock, pressing down and down until he feels like he can’t even move from how deeply the pain goes.

Billy’s sure he’s actually going to die this time. It’s time to swallow his pride.

He calls for help, “Hey! Need a hand back here!”

Nothing. Just the sound of water rushing, soaking him and making him freeze. This isn’t going to end well.

Straining his voice to be heard, so weakened by his condition as to still sound meek even at his loudest, he tries again, “Adam! Come on, I know you’re working today!”

Billy doesn’t know how long he’s spent on the ground now. Hours could have passed. The goddamned pool might have closed and he could be all alone here. He grows desperate, “Somebody, please!”

Something snaps in the primal part of Billy’s mind. He physically can’t sit up. Can’t turn the water off. Can’t survive on his own.

He needs…

“Momma! Momma come back!”

Nothing

After some time the curtain opens, but Billy is barely conscious anymore. He doesn’t look up or move or anything. Just sees a shadowy pair of shoes in front of his face. There are tears on his face already. Anguish. Pain. Disappointment in himself.

Let it be the goddamned figure of Satan, as long as this suffering might end, and for the moment, it does. Everything, the stall, the figure, the whole world turns black as he loses consciousness.

———

Suddenly blinding white light hits Billy’s eyes when he opens them again. He’s in some room with a window, and the curtains aren’t closed. That’s how he knows it isn’t home, his own bedroom window long ago sealed over with a thick blanket for keeping the light out when he’s having a migraine.

The wall paper in this place is almost as headache inducing as the entire fucking sunshine positioning itself right in his face after god knows how long he was unconscious. Blue and red plaid that is as dizzying as it is tacky.

Nothing else in the room identifies who it belongs to, the only hint of personality being a sticker covered cane in the far corner.

Did he get fucking kidnapped by an old person? Maybe, but what kind of an old person uses Garfield puffy stickers on their mobility aids?

That question is answered when, after some trudging through the fog in his brain for any hint of who’s house he could be in, Steve Harrington opens the door to the room he’s in.

Like it’s totally casual to just bring somebody home from their work, no matter how fucked up they were, Steve just walks in and talks to him like it’s nothing, “Hey. I heard you up. You doing good in here?”

Billy stares in disbelief for a moment, squinting against the overbearing sunlight to see Steve, the action making his skepticism doubly apparent, to make up for the work his tired and crackly voice isn’t doing, “So you’re the one. Mother fucking knight in shining armor..”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I went to give Dustin a ride and he told me there was something off with you. I went to check and found you on the ground.” Steve explains it all, pacing around slowly. At least he shuts the curtains on the way before sitting on the other side of the bed Billy’s laying in. A fucking queen size, since he’s some rich messiah apparently. “Matter of fact, you still look pretty rough..”

Billy doesn’t like feeling his sympathy, something like humiliation burning in his face, second to the pain, “Just get back to your bullshit little family, Harrington.”

Steve protests the idea, arguing automatically, “It’s not complete without you.”

A beat passes. For a moment, Billy doesn’t know what to say. He knows what Steve means, because he’s Max’s brother and whatnot, but that sentence has him feeling some kind of sentimental.

His instinct is to become defensive, so he tries it, since every other aspect of this situation is completely out of his comfort zone, “Well, get used to it. Probably won’t be around much longer.”

He’s referring to the fact that he feels like death constantly, a looming feeling of failure in his body. Any moment he could lose his battle against this invisible thing he doesn’t understand.

Poor Steve doesn’t get it. “Oh. Are you moving away already?”

How optimistic, to think only a month of work after graduation would be enough for Billy to make it on his own. He’d think it was because Steve was sheltered, if he didn’t know the guy was working his ass off at the ice cream parlor almost every day of the week.

It almost makes him feel guilty, that he can’t be as hopeful as Steve is, “I’m giving up.”

“Billy..” The concern is so raw in Steve’s voice, it breaks something inside of Billy. His intense resilience could carry him through when he was by himself, but he isn’t this time. He wants to be, so he tells him that, “No. I said, go away, Steve..”

It’s at that moment that he breaks down crying. Not even lying on the hard cement floor at the pool did he feel this pathetic and broken. Painful sobs in his throat and his chest ripple through him in larger waves of stinging jabs. Like the very act of crying is a punishment.

“Billy. Hey. I’m not going anywhere.” Steve soothes, moving closer but keeping his hands off of Billy. Afraid to touch what is broken, Billy deduces. Though Steve at least seems genuinely interested and not just being creepily invasive, since he gently requests, “Tell me what’s up..”

In frustration, Billy exclaims simply, “It hurts!”

“What hurts? Do you need a doctor?” Steve looks him over now quickly, frantically, like a worried parent. That just makes Billy’s feelings hurt worse.

The question also makes him irrationally nervous, spiraling once he realizes that a trip to the doctors would mean Neil would find out this happened. That meant more pain, and right now, Billy can’t handle that. He rushes to insist, “No! They won’t do anything..”

Steve looks so sympathetic, asking all the right questions to make Billy feel heard, “How long’s it been hurting?”

“My whole fucking life. If you can even call it a life. It’s not worth living.” Billy sobs apathetically, earning a sad, slightly panicked even, look from Steve.

His caring nature prompts him to plead, “Don’t say that.”

Billy is so unused to having anybody that cares, he feels like he has to defend his self-deprecating remarks, “But I feel dead. I can’t sleep, but I can’t stay awake. I can’t keep down what I eat, and half the time it makes me fucking sick. I just hurt all over, and it makes it worse when-“

He stops himself abruptly. Harrington is sweet and all for doing this, but Billy barely knows him. Not as much as he wants to. There are some secrets that don’t just get blabbed to close strangers. Even ones he has a crush on.

Steve isn’t content with that, never is without the full picture. Or maybe Billy doesn’t mind sharing as much as he pretends to. Maybe it’s nice to feel listened to for the first time in forever.

“When what, Billy?”

“When my dad hits me.”

Short and to the point. Having a fucked up body means it’s agony going through what he knows no kid should have to. He’s never told anybody that before, especially not so bluntly.

Once or twice Billy has tried to imply he needed a hand back when he still believed other humans had the capacity to give a shit. Steve Harrington and his kind and wise brown eyes is the first goddamn sign he’s had since then that there’s a chance someone might still care.

So when Steve tries to apologize, saying, “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have-“ Billy is quick to interrupt.

He tries to sound more gentle than his previous, snappier responses had come out, “It’s fine.”

Stubborn apathy crashes into the force of determined empathy. A battle Billy doesn’t mind losing.

Not when Steve so passionately argues, “No it’s not! You need help, you can’t do this all on your own!”

And finally, going against what last bit of his aching soul wants him to believe in, Billy lets him in.

Instead of arguing, or asking in bad faith, he genuinely wants to know, “How do you know what this is like?”

“Have you ever heard of fibromyalgia?” Steve prompts, his eyes lighting up as bright as the morning sun when he recognizes that Billy isn’t pushing him away anymore, but inviting him in on his own terms.

It doesn’t help that he literally hasn’t heard of that though, shrugging to show his ignorance. The action of raising his shoulders up hurts though, and it dies out halfway, along with a pained grunt. To make sure Steve got his message, Billy answers verbally instead, since his skeleton is fighting so hard against his broody body-language thing, “Fuck no.”

“I could tell you about it, but just by hearing what you went through, I think I know what you’re going through. I got diagnosed just a few years ago.” Steve explains carefully, watching Billy like he’s about to say the wrong thing at any second.

Billy just stays quiet while he processes everything Steve is saying, but he realizes what exactly Steve was worried about saying once he continues, “Yeah, sometimes I have flare-ups and I can be right where you are. But, you know, I don’t have anyone at home actively trying to make it worse.”

That’s hard to hear. He’s right, and Billy doesn’t want him to be. Without the energy to get mad or lash out about it, Billy asks more questions.

“Flare-ups of what?”

“Fibromyalgia. Like I said. It’s a pain disorder. Makes you feel gross and sleepy and in pain all the time.” Steve puts it into words exactly like Billy has tried to for years, only they know the context between one another.

The sleepless nights writhing in agony, the loss of self, the torture from the inside out, it all goes without saying between the two of them. In Steve’s presence, Billy has a place where he’s understood instead of examined under microscopes and treated like a monster.

This drab bedroom suddenly feels like the only place he wants to be, saying with an almost awe-stricken quality to his voice, “So you really do get it, huh.”

“Mhm. Except I have it easier. I’ve got a Jewish Ima who loves me and lets me take breaks when I’m hurting instead of.. well.. the stuff your dad does.” So Steve isn’t letting that go.

Shockingly to even himself, Billy isn’t all that mad about it. Telling someone his deepest, darkest secret and having them actually listen, for the sake of helping rather than keeping dirt on him, that’s something Billy has never had before.

Now he just wants to know, “How do you fix it?”

Steve breaks the news softly, but in a huge way, “You don’t, B. It’s a disability.”

“I’m not-“ Billy tries to argue with that right away, associating that word with all the horrible things his dad had called him over the years. Fuck up. Cripple. Waste of space.

Something compels him about Steve’s brutally honest interruption of an explanation though, “I didn’t think I was disabled either until I slipped on my ass down the stairs and couldn’t walk for a month, long after the bruises, because I was in so much pain. That’s not normal for just any abled nineteen year old, and neither is what you went through last night.”

Even still, Billy’s impulse to argue is triggered, “So I just have to accept that I’m fucked up for life. But I don’t understand what I fucking did wrong?”

Steve doesn’t even hesitate for a moment before he’s assuring him, “Nothing. You didn’t do anything. It’s just a part of who you are.”

A failure. A fuck-up. All those rotten things come back in his head again, and Billy worries, for a moment, that Steve is turning on him. Mocking him.

“Yeah, damaged goods?” Billy scoffs, bitter and hurt, emotionally instead of physically for once.

Steve proves him wrong, for the thousandth time, and heals his heart just a little bit more, “Would you say that about me?”

“The opposite really.”

“But what does that mean?”

Well, Billy meant it in two ways. For one thing, Steve isn’t like him. Steve is kind, and loved, and all around doing better in life than him, relationships wise and career wise. It doesn’t feel right to compare all of his wrongs to all of Steve’s rights.

Though, because of how vulnerable he’s been already, it’s easier for Billy to say, “It means everything about you is fucking perfect. You got a good mom, a huge mansion, and probably the best fucking doctors out there.. Sure, maybe I gotta accept that I’m busted, but why can’t I be busted like you?”

“Why do you want to be?” Steve sounds like a therapist, and a damn good one too. He stays all soft and sweet and god it makes Billy frustrated.

He bursts out, talking with his hands without realizing that he’s been distracted long enough to recover enough energy to do so, “Because it’s easier for you!”

The final nail in the coffin. There’s nothing left Billy can say to pretend this isn’t what it is.

He’s jealous of Steve, he idolizes him, fucking loves everything about the guy. No matter what he argues he can’t hide how stupidly fond of the other boy he is, and has been. Even if the thoughts aren’t the sweetest, he’s got Steve on his mind, all the time and especially now that he’s being interrogated in his bed.

Crucify him, but Billy fucking Hargrove has a crush on Steve fucking Harrington’s

Steve isn’t afraid of that for even a second. “So let me help you, B. I don’t want to compete. I want to take care of you.”

While Steve isn’t afraid, Billy is. He’s terrified. Nobody has ever treated him like Steve, and his heart is getting too attached.

Hoping to get an answer that will either make the heart break easier or avoid it entirely, Billy asks him, “You’re not sweet-talking me, are you?”

Steve shakes his head patiently, “Nope, but I don’t know how to prove it to you. Can you tell me what you want me to say?”

“Fuckin’- Maybe.. some tips?” Billy tries. This isn’t natural or easy for him, asking for help. It took him this goddamn long to even accept that Steve was genuine, despite waking up in his bed more than an hour ago now. His trust has been established, but now he’s unsure what to do with it. So he keeps asking the questions nobody else has ever been able to answer for him, half to test Steve, and half just because he truly trusts Steve to answer, “How do I make it hurt less?”

“Self care. But-“ Steve starts, about to hand Billy the hard truth.

To avoid blaming Steve for it, Billy just decides to admit that reality out loud, “I know, I know. Going back home where my dad beats me doesn’t count as self-care. I know.”

Thankfully Steve moves on to giving more advice that doesn’t involve the tragic circumstances of Billy’s life, “Heating pads help.”

It sounds nice, but Billy has to admit, “I don’t have a-“

“I do.” Steve interrupts before Billy can finish, with all the eagerness and expectation of a new puppy waiting for a treat.

It’s charming and sweet, how much Steve wants to take care of him. Billy doesn’t want to outright accept or deny anything yet, the decision feeling too large when his head is still hurting and his thoughts are all jumbley and messy.

He’ll settle for giving Steve a fond smile, to make his words match the positive feelings in his heart, “You really want me to accept your help, don't you?”

“Uh, fucking yes.” Steve laughs, like it’s really nothing stressful for him. Like he’s happy that Billy might stay.

It’s not as easy for Billy to get to that stage of comfort, so he wonders, “And if I do say yes?”

“I’ll drive you home today to help Max pack you a bag, and you’ll move in with me. Hopper will deal with your dad while my Ima and I help you manage your pain and get you a new doctor. And make you good food.”

That sounds like a fucking dream. The fact that Steve came up with it so quickly somehow even dreamier, “You’ve thought about that before, haven’t you?”

“I like you a lot, Billy.” Steve confesses.

It’s almost too good to be true. As a matter of fact..

“In what way?” Billy asks skeptically, after everything, the fight, the showing his true colors, he can’t believe that Steve would have those kinds of feelings for him.

But, for the thousandth time, Steve proves Billy’s unintentionally cynical assumptions wrong, when he details, “In the way that I like you. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like, butterflies in my chest and I can’t stop thinking about you, and when I see you hurting I just want to hold you and make it all better.”

Billy can tell he’s blushing and his eyes are wide, “Really?”

Steve sounds breathless, like he can’t believe he just confessed all of that. Still, he doesn’t deny it, though he clearly begins to worry how Billy feels, “Yeah. I’m sorry if that’s-“

“You’re the first.” Billy says abruptly, before Steve can take back his love. Though the sudden declaration seems to confuse Steve, according to the furrow of his brow, so Billy explains his thought process, “You’re the first person to care about me like that.. But you deserve better than a broken-“

“Hush. You’re not broken. You need a little TLC is all.” Steve says it all so confidently, and since he’s been right about everything else, Billy finally feels ready to believe him.

He just has one more question, “And you’re seriously saying you’re gonna be the one who does it?”

“Yes! Please, Billy. Let me.” Steve begs for the right to love Billy. And that, that dedication and longing- that convinces Billy.

The time for words is past, instead letting their body language do the talking. At first, Steve is just holding Billy’s hand, but Billy gets closer and closer, until they’re arms are pressed right against one another.

Billy is pretty sure he across Steve first, connecting his lips with his, kissing him softly, but with all the passion he’d saved up for the months he’d loved Steve in secret.

Yesterday is still affecting Billy, stealing his breath away and making it so he needs a break. He taps Steve’s cheek and they part, but only enough to get their bearings back. Steve patiently waits until Billy is ready again, smiling as Billy leans in and they kiss once more.

It’s nothing too intense. After all the emotions of today, they aren’t ready for that. Right now is for gentle affection, and love, and all the tender moments that Billy’s suffering had robbed them of.

Steve adds at some point, after they’ve been cozying up for a while, “By the way, the kids are going to apologize to you.”

“Nah, they didn’t do anything wrong.” Billy shrugs, not really bothered by their stalking, even if it was a little weird.

Steve makes a guilty face and Billy can tell he doesn’t have the full story before Steve even explains it, “They almost did. Their solution before they called me was going to be to put you in the sauna. Burn the sick out.”

Oh. Now he’s a little more than fucking bothered. Those little assholes are gonna get somebody killed someday.

“Holy shit, never my fucking mind. I expect a damn cake and a handwritten, formal apology.”

“Right?” Steve rolls his eyes at the thought of them, and Billy does too. Already on the same page, Steve thinking exactly what Billy is, he says it, punctuated by a kiss on the cheek, “Later, you’ll have it. Right now you need some sleep more than any of that.”

“I’m not gonna say no, but…” Billy shuffled into a comfortable lying position, and pats the pillow next to his head, wiggling around to make room for Steve to lay by his side, “Care to join me?”

Steve laughs, a bright bubbly sound, and copies him by laying down and getting comfortable, “For sleep, yes. I need a goddamn nap.”

Billy ends that morning with an arm around his middle, a puff of hair in his face, and a full feeling in his heart. Billy is finally safe. Finally at ease. He mumbles, barely awake as that comfortable feeling sets it, “Thanks, Stevie. Love you.”

“Don’t worry about it. And I love you too.” Is Steve’s easy response, without needing to prepare it or anything.

Everything is just fine with Billy.

#harringrove #billy hargrove #billy x steve #disabled billy hargrove #disabled steve harrington #my writing #ej writer #tw abuse #tw ableism #tw suicidal ideation #i have fibro and like. as poignant and heartbreaking as so many comparisons to being flayed are #the one I resonate most with is chronic illness #so this fic is basically what would happen if billy wasn’t actually flayed he just seemed like it #and also if Steve wasn’t trapped underground and could have helped billy #because they’re romantic soulmates and you can’t tell me otherwise #/lh

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