#this fic is named after kind of a throwaway line in rocky horror but thats my favorite movie and i thought it fits :)

[yikesharringrove]

Agitation (or disturbance of the mind)

Here is my piece for the Harringrove Big Bang!! I’m so so proud of how this piece turned out and I’m so excited to share it! @harringrovebigbang

Read on Ao3 (highly recommended. It’s over 16k).

Special thanks to my beta readers @thinger-strang @crispysteve without whom this story would’ve been scrapped in many fits of emotions.

Art for this story to be linked soon by @thedogsled

Check out this amazing moodboard by @memes-saved-me !!

Enjoy!

-

Steve Harrington is a liar. 

He always has been. 

Nearly everything about him is a perfectly crafted facade. 

From the story of his family’s move to Hawkins when he was eight, to the smile that slides easily onto his face when he tells Robin I’m fine. 

Steve is a liar. 

But it's all out of necessity. All for the greater of some good he isn’t all that clear on anymore. 

It was always about protection. 

Protecting his friends and everyone in Hawkins from the truth about Hawkins National Laboratory. 

Then it was about protecting himself from his powers. 

From the way his words had a knack of worming their way into someone’s brain. Of setting up shop inside and clanging around until they could do nothing but bow to his suggestion. 

Just because he could get his way with the right inflection and the telltale shiver down his spine, didn’t mean that that was okay. 

It was drilled into him the first night he arrived in Hawkins. 

After his file was stamped with a large red mark that read defective, he was given to one of the scientists and her husband. 

The Harringtons. 

A normal new family from Eastern Oklahoma. 

That’s what they told everyone. 

That’s what they made sure Steve parroted to everyone in his brand new school. 

His new father took a cigar to the tattoo on his wrist, welting the flesh with an ugly burn. He ignored Steve’s screams and tears. 

You have to fit in here, Steven, he had said, the cigar smoldering between his fingers, Steve clutching his wrist, eyes shining with tears. You have to fit in and be normal. 

So Steve lied. 

He smiled and told everyone he came from a normal family from normal Oklahoma. He said that he lived in a normal house, and read normal books, and played normal sports. 

And he tried, and failed, to convince himself the lab was a dream.

-

“We should do something after this.”

Steve was careful to keep his voice casual. He didn’t want to let Robin in on how much he was dreading returning to his empty house tonight. 

Robin didn’t acknowledge him. She was sorting the returned movies, placing them in piles of genre so they could easily be returned to their proper section. 

Steve quietly lifted his leg, and lightly kicked her hip. 

She glared at him. 

“Quit ignorin’ me. Just say yes, or no.” It’s not like if she said no it would crush him or anything. No. It’s fine. 

“I just have a bunch of homework that’s all, like, due tomorrow,” she said it slowly, as though telling him a beloved relative had died. 

Was it that obvious how lonely he is?

“Don’t worry about it, Buck.” Robin took school real serious. She had perfect grades every year and had already applied to sixteen colleges and universities, including four Ivy League options. 

So Steve didn’t blame her for not skulking around with him. 

With college-less, nowhere bound Steve. 

“I’m really sorry,” she began, getting that sad look in her eye like that night in the mall bathroom when Steve spilled his drugged-out guts. Literally, and metaphorically. 

“Nah, I was just lookin’ for something to do. It’s okay, Robin. Really.”

And it was. 

Almost. 

It’s just that, Steve’s not got a lot going for him right now. 

He’s got a big empty house, and a brain that likes to give him excessive nightmares, and one age-appropriate friend in the whole place. 

But he doesn’t wanna talk about all that shit. 

And Robin looked like there was something on the tip of her tongue. Something her teeth were barely holding back. 

So Steve just scooped up the stack of neatly ordered Action films, and made his way over to the far shelf, taking himself out of the situation before it would get to a place that would only make him lie more and more. 

Robin means well. He knows she does. 

It just feels like a lot of her well-meaning chats end up with Steve lying through his fucking teeth and Robin nearly in tears of frustration at his lack of openness with her. 

She feels like being tortured and drugged together gives them a close kind of kinship very few share. 

Steve feels like he’s got just too much fucked-up baggage to dump on her. 

Not when they’re trying to put the Upside Down behind them. 

Not that Steve could ever put it behind him. 

He felt something build in his gut. Something hot and heavy. Something that always meant his powers were scraping at the walls of the neat little cave he had shut them in. Something that meant his skin would burn until he unleashed some of his pent-up energy. 

He took a deep breath, blowing out the air slowly through his nose. 

He had rules to his power. Rules he had given himself, mostly. Things he’d never use his powers for. 

He tried to avoid his powers at all costs, but he had seen what could happen if he tried to tamp them down. It was less dangerous to open the lid of the box just a tiny bit. 

Especially if he did it right. 

He made his way back over to Robin, finding that spot in his brain that made a shudder zip down his spine. The spot that was made of cold and electric heat. 

It was always too simple when he let the power take over. 

Locate her feeling. Let him consume him. 

And then just, twist it as much as he wants. 

“Robin,” he spoke slowly, honing his suggestion. “You don’t have to feel bad about not spending time with me tonight.”

He felt her sadness and guilt about the evening recede about as fast as the tide. 

She really shouldn’t feel bad about ditching him, especially not when her education is the main priority. 

He matched her lazy grin, wiping his nose discreetly, only a small drop of blood smeared against his hand. 

The rest of the shift passed without incident, and the roaring feeling in Steve’s gut had been sated enough for the time being. 

So he pushed it back out of his mind, and returned to his empty house. 

He was saving up to get his own place. He really was. But it was easier this way. He didn’t pay any bills, had lots of space to himself, and a pool in the backyard (that he never used). 

And it’s hard for him to explain, but there’s something tugging him back into this house all the time. 

He doesn’t know if it’s because it’s the only home he ever knew after the pain and fear that was his childhood in the lab, or if it’s something else that makes him feel tethered to the too-big house. 

Sometimes he thought there was a sense of safety in the old place. 

With parents that spent excessive amounts of time doing research for things he didn’t understand but was sure were important, it was largely an emotion-free place. 

Which was good for Steve. 

High emotion situations made his power boil up and spill over the edge like a pot of water on the stove. 

A place like his empty house, he could keep everything in check. Not get his feelings tangled with those around him. Not catch thoughts that were just beginning to be molded into something brand new. 

He clambered into bed, punching his pillows around in a way that was decidedly not petulant. 

There was a steady silence in the old house. A silence that was as depressing as it was easy on his brain. 

And there wasn’t silence. 

Creaks. 

Creaks issuing from downstairs. From the floorboards in the hallway. 

Footsteps. 

Steve was out of bed in a second, bat held aloft in as close to ready position as he could maintain while bolting down the stairs in his socks and faded green gym shorts. 

He knew how to navigate the house without a sound. Practice of tip-toeing around a volatile not-father kinda ended up giving him something useful. 

The creaks were still progressing, moving up the hallway from the back of the house, where his parents’ empty bedroom sat still. 

The person was getting closer, lumbering slowly as if they were trying to be quiet themselves. 

Steve adjusted his grip on the bat, taking proper batting stance, ready for the intruder to round the corner into his section of the hall. 

First sign of a person, and Steve would swing. 

No questions asked. 

The floorboard before the bend in the hall gave a loud sound, and he could’ve sworn he heard someone curse under their breath. 

He closed his eyes, and swung. 

His bat sailed through the air, and connected with, not an intruder. 

And then he was filled with an overwhelming sense of fear. A completely feral state of fight or flight made him nearly bare his teeth in an animalistic growl. He felt fear, and dread, and pure stubborn, stupid resolve. 

It nearly blinded him, the emotions were so thick and clear. 

And then there whooshed out of him, as though being sucked up by a feelings vacuum, leaving him empty and confused. 

His top lip was covered in blood. 

He had a lot of fucking questions as he stared at the bat, hanging by it’s long nails in the hallway wall, the ominous creaking moving past him towards the stairs. 

The footsteps that were caused by no one. 

It’s official. 

Steve’s lost it. 

He’s fucking crazy. 

He’s hearing footsteps and voices swearing quietly, and he’s going mad and completely batshit and should be tucked away in a padded room for the rest of his life. 

He didn’t even bother to wrench the bat out of the wall as he stumbled after the imagined footsteps. 

He clearly needed to get a good night’s sleep, and to forget that anything happened at all tonight. 

-

Billy hates Harrington’s house. 

He doesn’t, really. It’s given him excellent shelter while he pulled himself together, and it’s out of town enough to serve as a good base for the little gang of Lost Boys he had accumulated. 

It’s just that, the old house likes to make a lot of noise. 

It keeps him on edge. 

Every squealing door hinge, and every creaky floorboard sets his teeth on edge and makes him whip around in a frenzy, expecting to see a demogorgon snarling at him from the sitting room. 

He nearly had a heart attack when he heard the thuds coming from upstairs. 

He generally liked to avoid the top floor of the house. 

Harrington’s bedroom was up there, and it wigged him out something fierce. He’d only been in the dilapidated version of it one time, his first night in the house he had claimed for safety. 

He didn’t intend to stay the night in there, he had just stumbled upon it, and curled up in the bed. 

He remembers not sleeping the entire night. He was so scared after coming to in the library, something slimy and disgusting slipping its way out of his throat. 

The whole place had been screaming, as though the Upside Down itself was alive. Alive and being horrifically murdered. 

He didn’t know what it was called then, all he knew was that Harrington’s house was the first one he came across, and that Harrington’s room was depressingly empty and impersonal. 

But, there was a thudding coming from that general area, and if some kinda shitty creature was making its way into the house, he needed to hedge it off before it did any damage. 

He took hold of his ax, never far from his side these days, and slipped out of his cot. 

The floorboards in the hallway were creaky, and he tried to walk slowly, muffling his footsteps as much as he could in his heavy boots, not wanting to warn the monster he was coming for it. 

He cataloged the crew in his head: Hopper had his troop of three in the basement where they were resting up for the supply run tomorrow. Timothy was on nightwatch with his team of five. Billy was in a pack with four others; Heather Holloway, her mother, Janet, and the two boys they found skulking around the library the same night everyone seemed to wake up. One of the boys was called Andrew. The other hadn’t spoken a single word the entire time they’d been trapped. 

Billy liked to call him by different names each time he referred to the kid. Trying to get him to laugh. He couldn’t’ve been more than seven years old, and he was trapped in this fucking hellscape with the rest of them. 

Andrew was thirteen. Billy didn’t like to look at him much. Andrew reminded him of Max. Which made Billy feel empty and achy in a way he didn’t think was very productive for survival.

But Andrew took a shine to Janet Holloway. Probably missing his mother and needing more comfort than his thirteen-year-old self was willing to admit.

The Holloway women were a hell of a lot feistier than Bill originally gave them credit for, saving his ass in a scrap just as often as he had been there for theirs. Heather and Janet were equal parts caring and soft, with the right amounts of clever and bossy to take point on their team. 

Billy let himself be the muscle. 

He let himself be the watchdog and attack dog. He took nightwatches and never let his weapons out of his grasp.

Everyone had a role. 

And that was perfectly okay.

They had to keep together in this world. They wouldn’t survive it otherwise. 

They’d all lost enough people to understand that. 

One of the boards gave a hefty creak under his left foot, and he breathed a quiet fuck through his bandana, listening for more of the thudding. 

It had stopped about forty seconds before, Billy had counted, and he couldn’t hear any other sounds of something forcing its way inside. Plus, the nightwatch hadn’t sounded any alarms. 

He took another step, ax held ready and aloft in case he came face to ugly face with one of the horrible creatures that prowled the night. 

He rounded the corner, and there was a loud bang on the wall next to his head. 

He jumped as paint chipped off the wall and flew all over him. 

He was hit with a feeling of intense fear, and adrenaline rush that caused all the blood in his ears to rush. He looked wildly around, seeing, nothing. 

Billy bared his teeth, ready to go down fucking swinging. 

As long as he took the fucker down with him, that’s all that matters. 

Save the rest. 

And he stood, ready to fight, ready to die. 

And there was nothing.

Nothing in the hallway. He was all alone. 

None of this shit made any sense. He hadn’t dreamed the wall cracked beside his head, and looking back, there were holes in the wall, and a big dent that had splinted the white paint and drywall beneath it. 

There was some fucked up shit going on, and Billy didn’t like it one bit. 

He continued down the hall, creeping to the stairs to check the original source of the noises that had woken him up. 

Harrington’s room was pretty much just as he remembered it from that first night in the house. 

It was sparse and sad-looking. The covers on the bed were all jostled and thrown around, the horrible spindle-like vines covering nearly every surface in the room. 

They had cleared the tendrils in other rooms, cutting them and burning them back, ensuring the vines didn’t start creeping over them when they weren’t looking. 

Billy didn’t fancy being covered and tethered by the slimy black vines. He was pretty much over all this Upside Down shit. 

He took a cursory look around Harrington’s room, not noticing any signs of forced entry from a creature, really nothing was out of place. 

The meager school trophies on the bookshelf next to the closet looked rotted and tarnished, just like everything else in this absolute hell called a parallel universe. There were few pictures in this room, much like the whole house. It had taken Billy a long time to notice the lack of inhabitancy the house had. The way it seemed to feel so cold and empty, it would be that way in the real world too. 

His eyes swept over the dilapidated dresser, cataloging the room quickly for anything that should worry him. 

Billy deemed the whole scene safe, and made sure to close the door tightly as he retreated back downstairs. 

-

Steve’s going fucking crazy. 

He was still in bed, his alarm clock ringing angrily at him as it had for the past six minutes. 

He hadn’t slept at all last night. 

Something just felt. Off. 

The feelings in his chest were scrambled, and they felt foreign to him. Like he had taken in somebody else’s emotions. 

But proximity was the key to his power, and he was alone. Alone alone. 

Like, the closest person was Mrs. Gardfeld in the next house, all the way across their combined, much too big, yards. 

It felt like. It felt like someone was in the house with him. Someone was in the house with him, and they were scared, and stubborn, and tired, and a flurry of things that made Steve feel ill. 

And he couldn’t push them out. 

He couldn’t find the chasm between this slew of someone else’s shit, and his own messy cocktail of feelings. 

The other feelings were like those awful vines in the tunnel. Snaking around under his feet, wiggling up his ankles and keeping him stuck in the mud. Wrapping around his own emotions and squeezing until they just merged into one. 

He’s lost the metaphor. 

Doesn’t matter. 

His feelings are fucked and his brain is fucked and his day is fucked. 

And he has to work a double at Family Fuckin’ Video. 

He found his way out of bed. Not going very far, just standing next to his warm nest of blankets, debating getting back in and hiding for the rest of his life. 

He was going to be late for work. 

He didn’t really give a fuck. 

Keith would be all smug and probably make some remarks about Steve not even being worth the less-than-minimum wage he was making. 

He took a shower, not so much cleaning himself as letting the lukewarm water cascade down on him and hope it got rid of the stench of sweat and anxiety and bad sleep that was clinging angrily to his skin. 

His brain was empty. 

Empty save for the pounding otherness that were these horrible fucking feelings. 

Robin didn’t even have the heart to call him out for being nearly half an hour late.

“You look like shit.”

No, she just called him out for looking like shit. 

“Y’know, it’s really wonderful to have such a caring and thoughtful friend in these trying times.”

She rolled her eyes. He always told her one day she was gonna get stuck like that. With her eyes permanently fixed towards the ceiling in exasperation. 

“Drop the attitude, Steve Harrington. Just because you didn’t sleep doesn’t mean I have to suffer.” 

Sometimes it was hard to tell if she was joking. Steve just clenched his jaw and stared at her blankly. Either she would get mad at him, or sigh and roll her eyes. 

She sighed and rolled her eyes. 

Bingo. 

She wasn’t actually mad at him. 

“You okay?”

“Jus’, some weirdness. Bad vibes.”

He couldn’t give her more than that. Couldn’t say I can feel someone else in my house and I don’t know if someone is hiding in my house or if I’m going crazy, oh and by the way, I was one of those freaky lab kids and I can manipulate and feel people’s thoughts and emotions, by the way.

That’s too much for a slow shift on a Saturday morning. 

That’s too much for really any time of any day.

No, Steve fully plans to take all that shit to the grave. Like a real man, his dad would say. 

“Well, if you could take your bad vibes back to rewind duty, that would leave all the good vibes up here to me.” She shooed him off with her hand, landing a quick slap square on his left asscheck when he groaned and dragged his feet dramatically on his way to the back room. 

Not that Steve would ever actually complain about rewind duty. Steve preferred doing it to anything else in the place. Especially re-shelving. That was just asking for someone to come ask him for a movie recommendation. Steve only watched the same five campy old westerns and when he recommends any of those, people seem to wanna get out of his face right quick. 

No, rewinding was dull and monotonous and solitary, all the shit that Steve really needed on a day like today. 

There was a strict routine and he didn’t have to think or do anything. 

Just sit. New tape. Rewind. Put in case. Put in re-shelve bucket. New tape. Rewind. Put in case. And again and again and again until all the tapes were ready to go. 

Hawkins tended to take out a lot of movies on the weekend. Not much else to do when you aren’t sixteen and ready to hit up any party you could possibly weasel your way into. 

So, Steve had about fifty some odd tapes to rewind from the past few days and he was feeling benignly excited about sitting in the small room for most of his shift. 

It was easy to pass the shift like that. 

Sitting with the quiet whirring of the tapes being tracked back to the beginning. Not having to deal with anyone’s thoughts except his own tedious ones about when he should take his lunch break and reminding himself to check the TV Guide for anything good tonight. 

It was an odd emptiness that took hold of him throughout the day. And he almost felt, well. 

Lonely. 

He almost felt lonely. 

Which is fucking bonkers because that horrible feeling of someone else had well and truly fucked him over last night, and well into this morning, but he kind. Missed. The other presence. 

He’s officially crazy. 

Someone find this boy a padded fucking cell because Steve Harrington has officially gone all kinds of batshit bananas wacky. 

He’s feeling lonely because the horrible not his feelings of fear and anger and betrayal and desperation aren’t clogging up his little brain sink. Even when they were, the brain sink was threatening to burst and leak all over his brain kitchen. 

Or something to that effect. 

He let his eyes unfocus, watching Jaws at double speed and backward for the fourth time that day. 

There was something about the foreign feelings he just couldn’t quite wrap his head around. 

Something twinging in the back of his brain, screaming at him to open his eyes and pay attention. 

But that’s never been Steve’s strong suit. 

-

“Stupid. Fucking. Vines .”

Hopper muttered to himself a lot. 

It was usually too muffled underneath his own bandana face covering and the hefty beard he had been sporting to discern whatever he was thinking, but it’s not like hating the awful black tendrils of gross plant/monster/everything-that-made-up-the-Upside-Down hybrid of vine-ish tentacles was something that just Hopper experienced. 

It was a sentiment they all shared as they hacked away at the new growth in the dilapidated Bradley’s Big Buys. 

They had already ransacked the general store five times over, and took as much as they could salvage from the wreckage of the other-dimensional mall. 

Supplies were needed, and they had to be smart about it. 

Things had been quiet lately. 

Not many beasties out and about since the night they all seemed to come to. 

Hopper had said something about the gate closing and the brain being cut off from the body. 

Billy hadn’t listened. 

He’d been scared off his ass and all that had really registered was clear for now. 

So, they made supply runs. And poked around town for any survivors left to take back to Basecamp Harrington. Only Billy called it that. 

They had the runs down to a system. 

Pry away any vines they could, burning them back as they went, making enough room to slip into the bargain store, gather as much canned food and grimy medical supplies as they could manage, and book it back to the relative safety of the big house on the edge of the forest. 

Nobody talked about what they’d do when they ran out of supplies. When they’d exhausted their resources and were stuck with nothing but the vines on the ground and the spores in the air. 

Billy got it. 

It’s not like he wants to hear he’ll probably die of starvation and/or a gangrenous infection before he’s eighteen. 

They just. Make do. 

Ration food and keep each other safe. 

Always thinking about the minute they’re in and the minute coming up. Not looking too far forward. 

There’s nothing to see too far in the future. 

Billy crashed the blunt end of his ax through the sliding door at the front of the store, clearing away as much as he could. 

Janet and Andrew would slip inside first go, taking as much as they could carry with them. Next round, Heather would take the little one and gather anything left. 

Billy would keep watch. 

He always kept watch. 

Things had been too good for too long. 

After the first wave of those who didn’t make it, the whole broken side of the Earth was too kind to them. Not sending horrible fleshy monsters to nearly suck out their very souls. 

Billy didn’t think this could last for much longer. 

Heather took the little one by the hand, rushing past her mother and Andrew as they returned with their supplies. Billy did a quick scan of them, noting no new injuries. Nothing out of the norm. 

Supply runs were choreographed down to the minute. 

Should the group not return in forty-five minutes, a search team was sent out. 

The small group trudged back to the Harrington safehouse, keeping in the shadows, not a single one of them daring to speak. Billy walked slightly behind the others, never letting himself relax for a single second. 

Things were too quiet.

-

The feeling hit Steve over the head like a sack of bricks being whacked against his skull. 

Walking into his home was like walking into a stinking den of fear and anxiety. The air was clogged with so many emotions Steve felt like he was choking on them, slowly being crushed under their weight. 

Whoever was emitting all these, Steve felt sorry for them. He can’t imagine living with this much bad energy taking up space in someone’s brain. He could barely cope with his own terrible bullshit. He doesn’t know how someone could cope with this. 

He tried to move through his evening to the best of his ability. 

He nearly set the house on fire when he left the tin foil covering on his frozen meal, causing the microwave to spark angrily at him, the potatoes underneath the corner of foil that had nearly caught fire to smolder and blacken. 

Even in the shower, the water as hot and steamy as he could stand, he felt that prickle he couldn’t get rid of. 

Like if he could just close his eyes and reach out far enough, his fingers would brush someone else. Someone nearby. 

He’s felt it before. That there was a person just out of reach. A person he could feel clear as a bell, but couldn’t alter. Couldn’t manipulate. Just had to experience everything that was going on inside and try to hold on for the ride. 

He wore headphones to bed, blasting a mixtape Robin had made for him last month. Something with a lot of heavy guitars and girls wailing about society. 

He doesn’t think it was all that good, but it helped. Helped him feel like maybe the person wasn’t seeping into his own soul. 

And the whining synth of Patti Smith finally let him get some goddamn sleep. 

  “Hello?”

It was his house. 

But it wasn’t his house. 

It was a blank void. It was nothing. It was nowhere. 

But for some reason, his brain kept telling him it was his house. 

“Harrington?”

It was Billy. Hargrove. 

But it wasn’t Billy. 

He was dirty, covered in soot and horrible black sludge that made Steve’s stomach churn. 

“Why are you in my house?”

Billy looked around the blank void all around them. Water sloshed on the floor, lapping at Billy’s black boots. Steve observed his own toes. 

He was barefoot, but he couldn’t feel the water. 

“This is your house?”

Steve didn’t want to explain. 

“You’re dead.”

“Could be soon.”

Nothing Billy said made any sense. But then, Billy never made much sense when he was alive, either. 

He was an enigma to Steve. A big question mark all wrapped up with a gorgeous face and perfect body.

“Where is this to you?”

Why was Steve’s brain so adamant on declaring this place his house?

“Somewhere safe.”

-

So. 

That’s something. 

Dreaming about Harrington. 

Not necessarily something that Billy wanted to have happen to him while he was experiencing the worst possible time in his life. 

Or maybe he did. 

He’d said it in the dream. 

Somewhere safe. 

It’s what he felt in that blackness. 

Safety. Warmth. Hope. 

All the shit he hasn’t felt since he opened his eyes in the rank-ass library. 

That darkness was like a harness, keeping him grounded to something real. Tucking him in gently at night and kissing him on the head. 

It made waking up that much shittier. 

Knowing he’d be on nightwatch with Heather and Janet tonight, he used resting up as an excuse to lay on his cot, hardly moving in the clouded air. 

He needed to process. 

There was something so fucking weird about that dream. 

It felt real in the moment, and he didn’t question anything that had happened. 

Why there was water on the ground at his feet? Why Harrington was there wearing pajamas Billy could only describe as skanky? All of this made perfect fucking sense to dream Billy. 

Awake Billy, had some fuckin’ questions. 

Mostly, those previously listed. As well as: what the fuck?

He blames seeing Steve specifically on being in his house. That makes sense. You tend to think about a guy quite a lot when you’re living in the broken shell of his family home. He blames seeing Steve in those itsy-bitsy shorts and a homemade cropped t-shirt on the well repressed sexual interest he refused to admit he felt towards the guy. 

All that made sense. 

But everything else. 

Steve said he was dead. 

Was he dead?

Was this Hell?

Purgatory?

He’s read The Divine Comedy, and this doesn’t quite match up with any of the shit Dante waxed on about. 

And dream Billy didn’t think that was a weird thing to say to someone. To accuse them of being dead. He just said could be soon and then acted like that was a normal fucking response. 

His head was spinning out of control. 

The only thing that made sense was when Billy said they were somewhere safe. 

Because, they were. 

Even in the void place, he knew they were safe. 

There was a small tapping sound on the wall next to the open door frame. 

The door had long since rotted right through. 

“Miss Janet sent me to see if you’re alright.”

Andrew was always calling Janet Holloway Miss Janet. 

It makes Billy wonder if manners like that were beaten into him by a father like Neil. 

He hopes not. 

He likes Andrew too much for that. 

Andrew hovered around while Billy swung himself out of his cot. 

He changed out the bandana over his mouth and nose. 

Most of them slept fully dressed, even with their shoes and socks still firmly on their feet. 

You had to be ready to go at the slightest sound of Bad in this place. 

Plus, everything was so goddamn dirty, what’s a little mud in the sheets in the grand scheme of things? And the rancid rotting smell of the Upside Down did wonders to cover the smell of body odor.

Billy followed Andrew down the L-shaped hallway, to the sitting room where he found Janet and Heather huddled together on one couch, the little one between them. 

“Apparently something happened on the run last night.” 

Billy’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t make out Janet’s expression under her face covering. The little one got up from his spot on the couch, standing in Billy’s shadow. He liked to do that. Billy figured he felt safe behind someone so much bigger and stronger than him. Someone with a big fuckin’ weapon that was never too far away. 

“Who’d we lose?”

“No one. Everyone’s okay. Hopper just called all of us for a discussion, then went to the basement.”

The basement was Hopper’s domain with his little chunk of the crew. 

He had found some busted up H.A.M. radio from somewhere he refused to explain, and spent all the time he wasn’t watching over his shoulder for threats or gathering supplies from smashed grocery stores, trying to fix it up, tuning it to different crackling stations, and yelling into it. 

El. El, I need you to copy if you can hear me. El!

-

The pillow was a mess of blood the next morning. 

It was congealed and cracked and tacky against his face and made the pillowcase stick to his cheek and his bloody upper lip in a way that kinda made Steve wanna puke a little bit. 

His nose had bled in the night. 

He never got nosebleeds. 

Unless he used his power. 

And that dream. 

That blank void space and that mucky scraggly Billy lookin’ like the hunky star of some apocalypse movie.

Wait.

Blood forgotten, smeared on his face and neck, Steve tossed himself towards the phone on his nightstand, smacking his shoulder against the wooden corner and tumbling to the floor, his legs still tangled in his sheets on the bed. 

He couldn’t deal with anything, snatching the phone up and punching in the only number that was grinding through his head. 

“ Pick up pick up pick up pick up pick up, ” he muttered into the receiver. 

His upper body was still flopped over to the plush carpet, legs twitching and shaking on the bed with his anxiety. 

He’s had some massive fucking realizations and he needs backup. 

“This is the Byers.”

“Put El on the phone.”

-

“Oh. Steve’s covered in blood again. The Upside Down must really be back,” Dustin said in complete monotone as Steve opened the door. 

Steve couldn’t give less of a fuck right now. 

He felt like he was on the verge of a major breakthrough, all coming in the neat package of a major breakdown. 

He felt manic and shaky and so what if he forgot he was covered in the aftermath of a superpower-nosebleed-explosion?

“Shut up. Just get in.”

El had rallied the old troops from St. Paul, calling everyone at the ass-crack o’fuck in the morning and saying something about catching some weird Hawkins vibes all the way from Minnesota. 

It was a fucking weak excuse, but explaining the whole Steve situation was just not really in the cards today. 

He’s got an agenda and they need to stick to it. 

Robin said she’d gather Max on the way to Steve’s place, and Nancy was probably hauling Mike and Lucas over faster than a speeding gun or whatever that expression is, so all Steve had to do was get his story straight. 

“And maybe you should think about putting on a clean shirt? At the very least. I’d say, maybe just start over. Take a shower. Powerwash your face, even.”

“When the fuck did you become sarcastic ?”

“Right after you became friends with the coolest chick on the planet and then decided you’re too good for her.”

“ Chick. Don’t call Robin a chick. And I’ve told you, we’re just friends. I’m not too good for her.”

Really, Steve thought she was too good for him. 

Well, that, and there’s the whole part where she’s super totally not into guys at all. 

“So, what’s this all about, anyway? Mike said on the phone that El called him and left a really cryptic message.”

“Look. She called me to explain and ask if everyone could meet here,” Steve lied. “I’ll give you guys a recap once the rest of the gang shows.”

“But she thinks there’s something going on with the Upside Down? Again ?”

“I think she knows there’s something going on with the Upside Down.”

The more Steve sat with the memory of how Billy looked in that dream, the more he was certain of where he was. 

Billy had been ratty. His normally perfect hair was long and limp, greasy on top and matted around his face. He was sporting a patchy beard, nothing like the fuckin’ pornstache the guy had been rocking all last summer. 

And he was filthy. Covered in grime and dirt, and Steve’s sure if he’d looked harder, he would’ve seen traces of that viscous black goo that only meant bad news. 

There was a squeal of tires, an alarm signaling the arrival of Nancy in her mother’s station wagon, toting her brother and Lucas. 

“I’m in this now, Lucas Sinclair!” came Erica’s voice from the entryway. 

Steve was tapping his foot impatiently.

“Erica, you accidentally found out about all this!”

“So did you!”

The Sinclair siblings’ bickering was only cut by the sound of the Wheeler siblings snapping at one another in turn.

“Am I the only one that thinks it doesn’t make sense to meet up this early? El and Will are like, seven hours away!”

“Mike! It doesn’t matter. We all have to talk and figure out what’s going on.”

The sounds of arguments all quieted abruptly as the four people rounded the corner and caught sight of Steve.

“Oh, Jesus. Who kicked your ass this time?” Mike snipped at Steve. 

Oh, yeah. He keeps forgetting he’s covered in his own nose blood. 

“What? It’s nothing. I kicked my own ass. Just take a seat.”

“I told you to-”

Steve didn’t wanna hear it. 

He loves all these people, but his head kinda felt like it was full of mushy jelly and runny pudding and all the loud talking wasn’t doing much to help. 

He stepped out onto the porch, snagging the pack of cigarettes he kept stowed in the flower box next to the door. 

It took two to finally tame his nerves any. 

Sitting there with all the people in his house waiting for an explanation, he kinda felt like his haphazard plan was shit and going to fall through immediately. 

Just tell them El called. Tell them she saw Billy in the nowhere place and she thinks he’s alive. Easy as pie. 

The tell-tale sound of a skateboard making its way closer and closer announced Max before he saw her. 

Robin was pedaling next to her, helmet lopsided on her head and not buckled underneath her chin. 

They were talking animatedly to one another, their laughter dying as soon as they saw Steve waiting for them.

“Fuck. So this is real.”

“Why does everyone think I got the shit beat outta me?”

“Your ass gets creamed every time some spooky shit goes down in this place, Harrington,” Max informed him. 

She was a little Billy replica, all the way down to the way the corner of her mouth twitched up when she said his name. 

It would’ve been sad. The way she tried to become her brother after losing him so violently last summer. 

But something like relief settled into his bones, strong and real and wait ‘til I tell her Billy’s not dead and he was laughing. Curling in on himself cackling so hard his stomach had already begun to get sore

“Fuck. He’s lost it,” Robin sighed, ditching her bike next to Dustin’s and heaving Steve up, both hands underneath his armpits.

-

Nobody dared speak. 

“And you’re sure? You’re positive you heard one of those things?”

Janet had her arms twisted over her chest, her jaw tight as she watched Hopper’s every move. 

“It’s not really a sound you forget.”

Billy’s hand was shaking, he was gripping the ax so hard. 

“So, we’re fucked,” Angela said harshly. Her cold voice sent ice down Billy’s spine. “If those things are back, we don’t stand a fucking chance.”

Hopper scrubbed his hand over his brow, sighing through the cloth over his mouth and nose.

“It just means I have to try harder. I can get to El, I know I can.”

Hopper said that a lot. But he never explained what getting to El meant. 

Heather had explained she met El once, but she said it was weird and she only saw her like some kind of shadow, a figment in this dark empty place. Somewhere as cold and broken as the Upside Down felt. 

The little one was leaned up against Billy, his left hand balled in the edge of Billy’s leather jacket. He stood like that a lot. It was grounding for Billy. Kinda like holding Max’s hand when she was young and still thought he was the coolest person she’d ever met. 

“But, you only heard something, right? So it very well could be nothing.” Timothy was good at keeping mediator. He always kept a level head and talked slowly and calmly. They needed someone like him in this nightmare.

“They make this noise. This kind of wet chirping. Like this gurgle that just sounds like they’re watching you, ready to pounce out at any time, shrieking and attacking. It’s not a sound you forget.” Hopper had this horrible haunted look on his face, and Billy fucking believed him. 

“Then we up nightwatch. Stick together,” Billy offered. He never usually piped up with strategy, but that’s the best he’s got, and frankly, he thinks it’s the only way they’d all be able to make it through. 

“Exactly. We move in a pack now. Keep track of everyone together, and stay aware of what’s around us. I think we should do a major run and then lock up for a few days to see what goes down.” 

Hopper leaned back in the ratty armchair he was taking up, looking around to see if anyone challenged his ideas. 

Billy had given up his alpha male attitude the second Hopper yanked his upper arm and nearly screamed at him, asking Billy if he was ‘one of the flayed’ all while aggressively checking him over for injuries. 

First time any of Neil’s lessons actually sunk in. 

Respect and responsibility. 

If that fucker could see Billy now, doing nothing but respecting authority and taking responsibility for all these peoples’ lives. 

“We should rest up. Take a run tonight. Get a lay of the land,” Timothy said with an air of finality. Nobody argued. 

Hopper nodded. 

Everyone broke out from the Harringtons’ living room, milling around to get prepared for tonight’s run. Taking stock of what they needed to keep going for the next few days. 

Billy was itching to slide back into his cot and try to seek out that space if he can. The empty space where Harrington and that warm feeling of safe existed. 

The little one stayed clinging to his jacket, and Billy took a loose hold of his wrist, trying to provide some kind of basic comfort to the tiny kid. 

“You wanna go raid the cabinet?” The kid stared up at Billy with big eyes. Billy could never tell what color they were in the gloom. He thinks maybe green. 

The cabinet was a large door, built into the wall of the sitting room, and clearly where the Harringtons kept their games. 

They had these excruciating couple thousand-piece puzzles, the pictures peeling and faded on the pieces. They had Trivial Pursuit and backgammon, and all kindsa shit. 

The little one went and pulled out the checkers board. That was the only game Billy knew how to play anyhow. 

He and Max used to sit for hours, playing with this dinosaur-themed checker game Max’s dad got for her one birthday. 

It helped, playing a game. Helped pass the time. Help bait the anxiety. 

Helped them all feel a little bit closer to human.

-

“I don’t. Get it.”

Apparently, Nancy was not the only one, if the blank stares Steve was receiving from around his living room were anything to go by. 

“Yeah, why did she call you ?” Mike’s snitty tone was really grating on Steve’s fragile nerves.

“She said, she called to make sure everyone could come over here before she told you all to just show up this early on a Sunday morning and then she kinda explained what happened.”

Max was white as a sheet, tracking Steve like he was playing a horrible joke on her. 

“And she saw Billy. Billy Hargrove .” 

Steve nodded at Dustin. 

“Why does she think he’s in the Upside Down?” Robin asked, perched on the coffee table, sitting closest to where he was standing nervously. 

“She just knows .”

It was frustrating, trying to impart the seriousness of the situation without just spilling his guts. 

He rubbed absentmindedly at the cigar burn on his wrist. 

“I just don’t believe this. I talked to her three days ago, and she’s still having trouble with her powers. She can barely move a book, and hasn’t been able to get to the void since July, and you’re saying she accidentally saw Billy Hargrove, who we all saw murder a bunch of people and then get killed -”

“Shut up! He wasn’t himself!” Max shrieked out over Mike, the only time she’d even opened her mouth since Steve had mentioned her stepbrother’s name.

“Even if he is alive, El couldn’t have seen him! It doesn’t make sense!” Mike’s voice rose over Max’s, and Steve has a fucking headache and he’s over it.

“It was me! I had a dream. I went to the void. I saw Billy in the Upside Down. I called El to say she saw him.” 

Everyone went dead silent, staring at him.

“Steve,” Robin began, searching his face.

It was like all the wind that had been filling up his sails, powering his energy ship, had suddenly quit blowing. 

Steve was tired. 

He sank to the floor, crossing his legs where he sat.

“I need you all to shut the fuck up for a moment and let me explain, because I only wanna say all this shit once.” He covered his bloody face with his hands. “I’m like El.”

That statement hung in the air for a moment. 

And then there was a roar of noise.

“How could you keep this a secret?” Dustin shouted.

“Not in a million years !” Lucas decided. Erica yelled something back at him, vaguely defending Steve, which was nice.

“You mean you came from the lab?” Mike had a look on his face like he’d swallowed a particularly bitter lemon. 

“Everybody, shut the fuck up!” Max roared, glowering at each person until they were silent again. 

In all this Robin hadn’t said a word. She was pale, staring at Steve.

“Look, I don’t wanna go into it because it fucking sucks to think about,” Steve still hadn’t uncovered his face. “But yeah. I was in the lab. I got out because they decided I was a failed experiment. My mom worked at the lab and she took me and we pretended like the three of us moved here from Oklahoma and my dad told me never to tell anyone. And I haven’t. Didn’t even tell El. She recognized me from then. Don’t even know how, I left when she was like, three. Doesn’t matter. I’m a freaky lab kid and last night I fell asleep and saw Billy in that-what’d you call it? The void? Yeah, I saw him, and he’s covered in dirt and gross black Upside Down shit, and he’s fucking stuck there, and now we’re here.”

There was another silence. 

Steve didn’t dare to look at any of them.

He didn’t want them to laugh in his face. Tell him he was making all this shit up and leave him alone to deal with Billy trapped somewhere else. 

He wanted them to take his word for it. To quietly believe this crazy fucking shit of a story because the scared other feeling was back and clawing at his spine and making him want to burrow into the ground and find somewhere safe and secure and-

“Okay.”

Of course it was Robin. 

It was always Robin. 

Steve let himself look at her. 

She was pale, but she was smiling at him. 

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Steve nodded once.

“Okay. Uh, great.”

“Wait, if you’re defective, no offense, then how did you see Billy?” 

Steve stared at Max weighing his answer carefully. 

“Because, well, the defective thing, that was all, I didn’t mean to, that was before I really understood what I could do. Don’t get me wrong, it really worked out, but it was an accident.”

“Spit it out, Sailor Man.”

“ Erica .”

Erica just rolled her eyes at Lucas. 

“Okay. Uh, before I explain, just, just keep in mind that I have rules, and I don’t use my powers if I can avoid them, and I’d never use them to be a creep, but-”

“Steve!”

“Fine!” The words were right there, ready to tumble out of his mouth and ruin his life forever. 

There was no going back after this. 

The second they knew, everything would be different.

“I can feel other peoples’ emotions and, like, change them.”

Another silence.

“I don’t understand.”

Nancy was the last person he’d ever want to have this conversation with. 

He knows what she’s thinking. He knows that the great anger brewing inside her is because she assumes he made her like him. Made her attracted to him. 

Made her want him. 

“I don’t use it like that. I would never, put something there that shouldn’t be there. It’s just, When someone feels something near me, I can tap into it. Let it become my own feelings. And then I just, change it. Just a little.” He cast around for a harmless example because so far, everyone was staring at him like a goddamn creep. “Robin!”

She startled slightly when he yelled at her.

“Okay, so Robin. I’d never, ever make you feel something not true to you. Like, I’d never make it so you were into me when you’re totally not, right?” He cast a glance at Nancy. “But, like, the other day, when you felt really shitty when I invited you over and you were studying, I just, I made it so you wouldn’t feel bad. I felt all this guilt you had for leaving me alone when you thought I was having a shitty day, and I made it so you didn’t feel guilty because you shouldn’t. That’s the kinda level I allow myself to work on.”

The look Robin was giving him was breaking his fucking heart. 

Worse still, was the feeling of betrayal that began eating away at her. 

“So, right now. You can tell what we’re all feeling?” Even Lucas, ever the level-headed one, couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I don’t want to. I don’t try to, but I can’t really avoid it. I just try to ignore it. But sometimes, sometimes if I bottle it all up for a while, it comes crashing out of me, and that’s when bad shit happens. If I don’t use it occasionally, it only wakes things worse, and I-”

“I can’t hear this.”

Robin’s anger crashed through Steve like a wave, nearly knocking him over. She stood, towering over him. 

“When we were in that bathroom, all drugged out of our minds. I-” she sniffed, rage tears pooling in her eyes. Steve likes her eyes. So crystal blue. “Are we even really friends?”

Her last question was nothing more than a whisper. 

And it made Steve wish he was never born.

He gaped at her like a dead fish.

“Rob, of course we are! I would never-”

“Because I hated you. And then one summer. Two whole months where we’re close enough that you can get all up in my brain, and suddenly I’m telling you shit I’ve never told anyone before.”

“It wasn’t, Robin I swear, that whole time, I never once used-”

She held up her hand, cutting him off. 

A sob caught in his throat as she turned on her heel. 

She slammed the door closed behind her. 

Another fucking silence. 

Steve couldn’t look anyone in the eye.

Their feelings were enough for him now, betrayal and anger and disappointment rushing into his lungs, drowning him. Choking him. 

“You’ve used them on all of us.”

It wasn’t a question. 

It was just a statement. The coldest he’s ever heard Dustin sound. 

“I just want everyone to be happy.”

“Jesus, Steve. You realize that’s actually totally fucked up, right? You can’t just make us feel whatever you want,” Dustin bellowed at him, standing up like Robin had done, looking down at Steve where he sat pathetically on the floor. 

And, when it’s put like that. 

Sure. 

It’s kinda fucked up. 

But he’s only ever meddled in a way that’s good. He only ever tries to make his friends feel the positives. Hell, on the night of that stupid Snow Ball, he’d given Dustin enough self-confidence to make Madonna seem insecure. 

All he does is try to help. 

“All I do is try to help.”

More fucking silence. 

Steve was so goddamn sick of silence. All he had was silence. He had the nothing, empty quiet. And he didn’t want it from the people who were supposed to make his life loud. 

“El won’t be here until later tonight. I think we should just meet up then.”

Steve buried his head in his hands, biting back sobs as the small group filtered out of his house. 

This is why he had wanted to take this secret with him to death. 

He told everyone who he really is, and now they all hate him, and he’s completely alone, and wherever Billy is he’s fucking scared and-

“Steve?”

Max’s voice was small, mirroring the way she was curled in on herself in the plush armchair near the wall. 

“Do you really think Billy’s alive?”

Steve nodded at her, desperately begging her to stay. To help him. 

“I know he is.”

“I have an idea.”

-

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. 

Doesn’t remember much of anything in this place. 

He studied the water lapping at his muddy boots, dragging his toes through it to make the water wave and ripple. 

It didn’t make a sound. 

“I want to help.”

Billy knew Steve was there even before he spoke. 

Something about the warmth he brought to the void place. 

The safety. 

“Don’t know if you can.”

Steve’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smile at that. His face was covered in blood, dried and flaking away from his skin, painted all the way down his face and neck, some staining the collar of his shirt.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“That happens when the only interactions you have with a guy are to beat his ass.”

Steve cracked a real smile at that. Something big and bright that made Billy’s gut twist in a way he didn’t quite like. 

“You’re forgetting all those other times we spent together. You’re not very subtle, you know.”

Yeah, Billy knows. 

Mostly because he wasn’t trying to be subtle. 

He had talked to Steve about his bitchy ex while they both had their dicks out in the shower. He was trying to be very much un-subtle. 

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

“I know.”

Oh. 

Steve knows. 

And all he had done was stare blankly at Billy. 

Nice. 

“I need to know where you are.”

“Why?” 

“Because I can help.”

Billy just blinked at Steve. 

“Do you know El?”

Something funny happened to Steve’s face. He kind of gave a little smile that flickered into a frown and landed on something a little pinched and awkward. 

“Yeah. How do you know her?”

“Hopper keeps saying he needs to get to her. None of us know what he’s talking about.”

And with that, Steve’s eyes went huge, and his jaw dropped. The water at Billy’s ankles sloshed quietly. 

“Hopper’s there? Chief Hopper? Jim Hopper is there?”

“Jesus, yeah. Been here since we all woke up.”

Steve acted like Billy had told him that Farrah Fawcett herself was on her way to shave his head. 

Meaning, he looked struck fucking dumb. 

“I’m gonna need you to explain.”

“I don’t know. Don’t remember much. Crashed my car on one of your shitty backwoods roads, and then everything is just, kinda, gone. I woke up in this shithole version of the library and Hopper found me here and we’ve kinda set up camp.”

Billy shrugged lamely. Something was dripping, he could hear the sound of it far behind him.

“There’s more of you? How many?”

“Not as many as there should be.”

Steve’s mouth pinched, and his big droopy eyes went all sweet and sad. 

“Where are you? Where’s the camp?”

Billy was suddenly embarrassed. There was a sound like a stream flowing over rocks.

What’s he supposed to say? The hellscape skeleton of your house oh and by the way all your stuff is here and I slept in your bed once because I was scared and sad.

“Someone’s house. Don’t know whose.”

Steve huffed some air out of his nostrils, his mouth pinching again. 

Billy hadn’t realized someone could make so many different expressions just by pursing their lips in different ways. 

“Find out. We’re coming to get you.”

A crash of a wave, and Billy was back in hell. 

-

Steve sucked in lungfuls of air, tossing the towel that had been covering his eyes to the ground. 

“You saw him.” 

Max was sitting in front of him, the t.v. playing static behind her. 

“Yeah. He’s okay. I mean, he’s really gross. Like, he’s-sorry. He’s okay.”

Max was still staring at him like she didn’t quite know how to proceed. 

“But he’s in the Upside Down?”

“Yeah. And there’s others. He said Hopper’s there, that he’s been trying to contact El.”

“Wait, Hopper? He’s alive?”

“Billy said all of the flayed woke up after the Fourth of July in the Upside Down. He doesn’t know anything that happened in this world, and Hopper was there and they’ve set up, like, some kind of camp, or whatever. He said they’re in someone’s house. He doesn’t know who.”

“ Fuck .”

Yeah, Steve agrees with that sentiment. 

This whole thing was like, kind of a lot. 

And deep inside him, those other feelings had yet to leave him alone all day. 

There was some kind of disappointment knocking about in his brain. 

He knows it’s Billy. 

All of those other feelings, it’s whatever Billy is feeling right that minute wherever he is. 

And it only happens when Steve is-

“Max, he’s here.”

She whipped around behind her, staring at the front door like Billy could waltz through it at any moment. 

“No, no not here, here .” She clearly didn’t understand. He used the towel to wipe the fresh blood from his upper lip, still having yet to clean himself up any. “The camp, the safeplace, it’s here. They’ve set up in my house!”

It felt like a revelation on par with the greatest inventions. Steve felt like the scientist that landed the man on the moon or the very first person to melt cheese onto fries. 

A genius. 

“So, he’s, I mean, he could be, just, here .” She looked over the room wistfully, and Steve knew how she felt. Like she wanted to pierce her hands into thin air, tearing a hole in between the two worlds and ripping Billy straight outta hell. 

(Really, she just filled him with a wave of fierce determination, but Steve likes to take poetic license on other people’s feelings sometimes.)

“And you can feel him.”

“Yeah.”

“Is he, okay?”

And he knows this question. 

Not the okay he assured her of when he first saw Billy. Soothing that he wasn’t missing any internal organs or possessed by any monsters. 

She wants to know if he’s held it together. 

“He’s scared. He’s always scared. But he’s really fucking stubborn, and he- I don’t know why he feels these things, but sometimes he gets kinda sad. Almost like he’s lost something, and sometimes, it feels like he’s caught fire, and his insides are just going up in flame and he gets overwhelmed by them. And sometimes he feels-” He hadn’t meant to continue.

“Tell me.”

He’s pretty sure Max knew what he was going to say next. 

She just wanted it confirmed. 

“Hopeless. Sometimes he feels hopeless.”

She sniffed, her eyes shining as she looked anywhere that wasn’t Steve. 

“But, we know now. He doesn’t have to be hopeless anymore. We’ll find a way in, and we’ll get him out.”

He didn’t want to manipulate her. 

He didn’t want to cross the boundaries everyone clearly thought he already had. 

But he was positive he would find a way to Billy. He was positive he would get him out and get him home. 

He sent a wave of that determination and hope and conviction to her. 

“Yeah. We’ll get him.”

-

“Hopper, man, some funky shit is going down.”

Hopper whirled around quickly, halfway to his feet and asking who's been hurt before Billy raised both hands, acting like he was calming an anxious horse.

“Nah, sorry, shoulda worded that better. I just mean, something’s happened to me. With me, maybe. I don’t know. Just hear me out. This shit’s gonna sound, insane.”

Hopper didn’t say anything as Billy explained, beginning with that night when the wall shattered next to his head, and ending with his most recent trip to the void place. 

Billy shrugged lamely when he finished explaining. 

“So, Harrington, huh? Never woulda guessed he was like her. You sure you didn’t see a little girl anywhere in the blank place?”

“No. It was just us. Both times.”

Hopper leaned back in his chair, scratching a hand through his thick beard. 

“The first time one of the demogorgons showed up on our side was behind Steve’s house. Took Will Byers from his shed. They live some few miles away. Second time was in Harrington’s backyard. Took Barbara Holland.” Hopper sighed, looking in the direction of the busted radio. Billy could more or less see the cogs turning in his head. “If you see him again, tell him where we are. Tell him I think the walls are thinnest here. That maybe he and El could tear through. Better yet, tell him to find me if he can.”

He clapped Billy on the shoulder, looking right at him in that way he did sometimes. It always made Billy feel like a little kid. 

“Thank you, kid. You might’ve just saved us.”

Billy felt awkward and didn’t really know what to do with his face. Thankfully, Hopper turned away from him, cutting the moment short and moving back to fiddling with the old radio. 

Billy ducked his way up and back to the furthest bedroom on the ground floor, taking a seat on his low cot and digging his palms into his eyes. 

He didn’t know how the void happened. If he could only get there in his sleep, or if it was Steve’s doing somehow. 

“C’mon, Steve. Where are you? Come find me, Pretty Boy. We gotta talk.”

When he moved his hands away, he was in that blank place. 

Billy was taken aback a bit, thinking somehow he had created the place around him. 

Until he saw Steve, standing nervously and staring at Billy. 

“I felt you. What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, you felt me? What in the fuck’s that supposed to mean.”

“Don’t worry about it. What happened? Are you guys okay?”

Steve wasn’t covered in blood anymore. 

In fact, he looked freshly showered, his hair slightly damp and soft-looking without product. 

It’s how he always looked right after having a post-practice shower. Clean and warm. Soft and inviting. 

“I talked to Hopper. He told me to give you a message.”

Steve’s eyes lit up, and he took a step towards Billy, the water rippling where his foot disturbed the surface. 

“He said, well. He told me where we are. Apparently, we’re at your place.” Billy tried to smirk a little, act like this was brand new information to him.

“Yeah. I gathered.”

“He thinks the walls are thinnest at your place. Said that maybe you and El could tear through easily. That mean anything to you?”

Steve nodded so hard his bangs flopped right into his eyes. 

He pushed his hair out of his face, tucking some behind his ear. Billy tracked the movement. 

“We’re going to try tonight. Maybe around six. Can you guys be ready by then?”

“We don’t have any way to track time around here. Don’t even know if it’s day or night, really.”

Steve bit his soft bottom lip, looking at Billy like he wanted to cry for him. 

“Then I’ll come and get you before. Warn you when we’re about to start. Make sure everyone stays close. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep it sustained, and we want to get everyone out if we can.”

“Steve, man, what in the fuck is going on? I’ve been shut up in this place for, for I don’t even know how long, and all of a sudden, you just start showing up in my head and telling me that you’re gonna take point on this big fuckin’ rescue mission.”

Billy doesn’t want to admit it to anyone, least of all Steve Harrington, but he’s scared, and confused, and he genuinely wishes that he had died in that library instead of waking up. 

“I’ll explain it when you get back.” 

And Steve smiled at him and the corners of his eyes crinkled and Billy didn’t quite feel like he wanted to die anymore. 

-

“Where are they?”

El didn’t even say hello when she pushed Steve’s front door open, just made straight for Max and Steve in the sitting room.

“They’re all being dicks,” was Max’s answer. “Steve told us about how you two know each other, and everyone kinda freaked.”

“I mean, it’s pretty freaky.”

“Yeah, sure, but they didn’t need to be such shitbirds about it.”

Somewhere between feeling harshly angry at Steve and his powers and hearing her brother’s voice crackle through the television speaker, Max had pretty much ensconced Steve as her sidekick. 

Which he didn’t mind in the least. 

It was kinda odd seeing the Byers in his house. 

Jonathan looked. Exactly the same. 

Like literally. His hair had grown out since his mother had taken a pair of scissors and a bowl to it last summer, and he looked just like the Hawkins Jonathan Steve was used to. 

It was kinda nice. 

At least one thing hasn’t changed. 

Especially because Will is pretty much unrecognizable. 

He had shot up, growing until he could nearly look Steve in the eye. And thank God, he must've followed Jonathan’s footsteps and stopped letting Joyce cut his hair. 

It was longer, adn shaggier, but it made him look so grown up. 

Nearly as grownup as El, her hair nearly down to her shoulder blades, the top of her head coming up on Steve’s chin, showing off the signs of her own growth spurt. 

Even Joyce was sporting a new look. Longer hair with bangs that were swept off her face.

She gave Steve a comforting hug, and those were just the same. 

Unease filled the room. 

Nobody knew what they were walking into. El had to have given them the basics, and Steve figures she explained some on the long drive back to town, but there had been even more developments since the last they had spoken this morning. 

Steve sifted through the borderline panic of Max and the Byers, clinging onto the fierce calm that El was radiating. Probably for his benefit more than her own actual experience. 

“I know where Billy is. We talked. I have an idea.” He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the feelings. “Hopper’s alive.”

It took a second. 

El’s carefully maintained calm wavered for a moment. 

And then it crashed down. 

Disbelief, relief, denial, anger, hope, joy. 

Everything a person could possibly feel at once poured out of El and Joyce both, nearly knocking Steve off his feet with the sheer velocity of the emotions. 

“Saw him?”

“No. But Billy mentioned him. He said he’s been trying to get to you.”

El’s eyes filled with tears, and Steve could feel the satisfaction, the pride, welling up in her that Hopper was still thinking of her. That he was trying to reach out. 

“My powers,” she trailed off.

“Yeah. I know. But, he said, well, he told Billy to tell me, he thinks the walls are thinnest here. Maybe in the woods outback. He thinks we can do it.”

Sorry,” Joyce interrupted. She had gathered herself somewhat, but her feelings were still shaky. 

She always felt like she was trembling emotionally. Joyce felt everything nearly as viscerally as Billy did. 

“I think we’re not on the same page. Steve, you spoke to Billy? El said she sensed him.”

“Steve is like me. From Papa.”

“You mean, from the lab?” Jonathan clarified. 

Everyone was staring at Steve again and he felt like burrowing a hole right through the floor and hiding underground forever. 

“Yeah, I got out when I was a kid. My parents were pretty hell-bent on hiding it from everyone. But. You know. Cat’s outta the bag now. But yes, it was me who saw Billy. He’s in the Upside Down. A bunch of people are. Including Hopper. It sounds like they were all taken and the flayed people out here were like, fake. Like evil twin versions.”

Sure, it’s a shitty explanation.

It’s the best he can do, okay? Leave him alone. 

“So, what’s his plan, then?”

That’s the good thing about the Byers, though. They get the whole, priority thing. Now’s not the time to focus on shit like Steve’s fake life. Not when the Upside Down is concerned. 

“Billy didn’t say much. Just that he thinks maybe El and I could like, band together to open it. I don’t really know how, I mean, I haven’t thought about it much, I just spoke to him, but that's the idea. I told him I would meet him in the void or whatever before we go so he can gather everyone and get ready.”

“So, is it just us?” Will asked quietly, biting the inside of his cheek. He was disappointed. His friends not being where they were needed. Not being there to see him for the first time since his family moved away months ago. 

Steve shrugged.

He was battling his own disappointment and hurt at everyone ditching him. 

“No. Let’s start calling. We need to stick together for this one. Billy hasn’t said anything about how bad the Upside Down has been, and we need to be ready to fight off anything that tries to get through.”

“Max is right. They should be here.” Will was already making his way to the phone placed on the side table. “They need to be here.” 

Jonathan caught Steve’s eye, jerking his head slightly to the hallway. 

Steve followed him, already knowing the line of questioning that was about to hit him. 

“I knew you called El. I picked up this morning. Now the story makes a lot more sense, I guess.”

“Yeah. I’ve been getting this weird feeling for a couple months, but I finally put it all together. Probably would’ve happened faster it is was El.”

“I don’t know. She’s been struggling a lot. She practices every day, but,” he sighed” I don’t know if she’s strong enough to make this work.”

He’s worried, adn scared, and has that exact same tremble-feeling that his mother does. 

“I know. I just don’t think we can leave them any longer. Billy said they’ve already lost people. I don’t know what it’s been like for them, but they’ve been stuck for fucking months, and-”

This time, it hit him so hard he really did blackout. 

His vision clouded around him, and his whole body burned with the raging fear inside of him. 

He could hear something, could hear someone screaming, adn something, something that sounded horrible, and so very very like a-

-

“Demogorgon!”

It’s like it had come out of nowhere. 

This towering figure, long and thin in all the wrong fucking ways.

And the sound. Billy realized what Hopper meant about how it’s not something you forget. 

They were in some form of a ready position. 

Billy among the front of the group, holding his ax he had never let go of in the first place. 

His heart was pounding. 

We’ll be out soon. We’ll be out soon. 

He didn’t believe it. 

How could he?

How the fuck is Steve Harrington going to get them out of the worst place ever? No offense to him or anything, but the guy could barely make a goddamn milkshake without spilling something on the sticky tile floor of Scoops Ahoy! and now, Billy’s life is in this guy’s hands while he stares into the jaws of a monster that looks like it stepped right out of H.P. Lovecraft’s wettest dreams.

It’s not like this is the first time he’s had this realization, but he is in way over his fucking head. 

“Steve,” Billy grumbled to himself through gritted teeth. “If you can hear me, get us the fuck outta here.”

The thing ahead of them wasn’t moving. It stood in the line of the trees behind Steve’s house. 

It was staring down the clump of people on the other side of the backyard. 

The air was still. 

Billy’s ears were ringing. 

He stared the thing down. 

Its long fingers twitched. 

Someone screamed. 

And the thing charged. 

It roared like nothing Billy had ever heard before. A shriek that seemed to vibrate Billy’s bones and tremble the earth underneath his feet. 

It charged. 

Sprinting forward on long thin legs, it loped with a grace that turned Billy’s stomach and made his knees wobble and threaten to give out. 

Plant your feet. 

It rang through his head, Steve’s voice from, some time Billy couldn’t remember. Or maybe Steve was just the little voice that commanded his bravery now. 

Either way, he dug the balls of his feet into the cracked ground, and waited. 

Don’t stop fighting.

He swung. 

The ax clocked right into the side of the thing, barely cutting into its thick leathery skin, but it slowed it down. 

Well, actually. 

It made it change course from attacking the group as a whole, to honing in on Billy. 

Which was less than awesome. 

Billy wrenched the ax out of its tough body, thick, sticky black goo connecting the ax with its entry point as he drew it away. 

He swung again, nearly hitting the same place. 

The thing cried out, roaring over the sound of screaming and gunshots. 

Hopper had his rifle trained on the flowered head of the one Billy was furiously chopping into like a tree. 

There were two more, two he hadn’t noticed in his preoccupation with the one in front of him. 

He didn’t know who was who. Which gunshot belonged to which gun, which shriek belonged to which animal. 

He didn’t know if the cries of pain were from the awful beasts or the people in his camp. He was hoping the former. 

He swung again. There was a sickening sound of the metal blade connecting with something solid. Something like bone. 

Hopper shot it, once, twice in the head. 

It was whining, making a high-pitched noise as it staggered about. 

One last blow to the side of the thing, and it was finished. 

The monster flopped onto the ground, dark liquid oozing out of it, its body nearly split in half where Billy had hammered it with his ax. A great gaping wound that showed sticky dark entrails. 

Billy turned. 

His brain was working in slow motion as he charged into the battle still raging. 

He didn’t know how many of the things had arrived. 

All he knew was taking them out.

His arms were sore from the force he was putting into each blow with his ax. His muscles threatened to give out at any moment.

Drive them back. We’re coming. 

The thought was shoved into his head. He didn’t know where it came from but he believed it. 

“Help is on the way!” He shouted to no one and everyone. 

He had taken down two more demogorgons with the help of the others. One was missing its body, a petal head lolling on the ground, getting trampled on in the fight. 

-

Steve had felt the demogorgon before Billy saw it. 

It was an odd feeling, almost like it was a black hole sucking up everything he thought and felt before he could cling onto it. 

It made him feel cold, and empty, and just like the Upside Down felt. 

“We don’t have time!”

El was insisting on contacting the others. She was livid with them for abandoning Steve, but things were taking a turn for the small group trapped in that hellscape. 

“Steve’s right. If there’s a demogorgon there, that means the Mind Flayer has gotten some strength back, wherever he is.”

Steve nodded at Will gratefully.

“But, what’s the idea? You two open the gate. Then what? We wait for those things to come through to our side?” Jonathan asked, kinda harshly, if you ask Steve.

Steve rubbed his eyes, his fists pressing against them so hard he was seeing odd shapes. 

“No. I go through. I get them. I bring them back.” His head was a fucking mess. Billy was all over the place. Fear, desperation, and a horrible calm that only came when things looked like the end. Plant your feet, he thought, trying to get his feelings to Billy through the thin dimensional wall. Don’t stop fighting. “For the past few days, all I’ve been able to feel is somebody else’s fucking fear and this stupid stupid stubbornness and I know it’s Billy, and I know he’s in trouble. Like right now. The demogorgons are coming for them, and he’s so scared. He’s so fucking scared and he thinks he’s gonna die, and he’s trapped .”

He looked at each person individually, glaring at them all in the eye. 

“We don’t have time.”

So it was decided. 

He brought El outside, and stared into the shimmering water of the pool. 

The pool where a demon came out and dragged Barbara to her death. 

It gave him the fucking creeps. Well, it more gave him the severe anxiety, but there was something about it that made it seem like it was the best place to try and rip the fold between himself and Billy. 

Drive them back. We’re coming. 

He wanted Billy to have some hope. Something like a lifeline that would keep him fighting the monsters. 

He had wrenched his nail bat out of the wall it was still planted in from a few nights ago, and stood next to El, ready to try. 

“To be honest, I don’t know how to help you.” It was the only thing that scared him about this plan. “I don’t have the same powers as you. The telekin-the moving stuff around. I don’t know how to open this.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. 

“In Chicago. Kali. When I’m angry my powers are better,” she took his hand. “Make me angry.”

Steve closed his eyes. 

He tried to push Billy to the side, clinging onto the first bit of El he could sense. 

Her anger was like a melted core running through her. Driving her in a lot of ways. 

He grabbed onto it. 

Papa. Everything he did to your mama. Being locked in isolation. Fights with Hopper. Being trapped in the cabin. Feeling alone and not knowing how to fix it. New kids at school being mean. Techs in the lab that treated us like rats. The smell of skin burning. Parents that called you a freak. 

He didn’t know when he had stopped using El’s ready-made rage, and began siphoning his own straight into the beating heart of her fury. 

His gut began to feel white-hot, and he could feel the blood dripping down his lip. 

Lying to everyone. Being abandoned for the truth. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

Steve was livid. 

He’s never felt an emotion consume him like this. Felt one feeling take over so completely it’s like there was nothing else in the world. 

He opened his eyes. 

There was blood flowing steadily from El’s nose, and he knew his was doing the same. 

He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, his body going into overdrive to divert all of his energy to his powers. 

The rift glowed red through the clear pool water, splitting open like a seam on a well-worn shirt. 

The burn on his arm ached, and he pushed into it. 

He remembered being held down on his father’s desk. Remembers the cigar being forced against his skin, bubbling up and disfiguring the tattoo beyond recognition. 

He remembers his father, this is for your own good, Steven. You’ll tell everyone you had an accident. People won’t question a burn like they will a tattoo. 

Like no one would take one look at the quarter-sized mark and know what would make it. 

He remembers getting the tattoo. 

It was nearly the same process. 

He was strapped down in a chair, his screams going ignored as the needle drove into his skin over and over, leaving a neat black number behind. 

001

Number One. 

The first in a series of children bred for something more, and beaten into acceptance. 

His head felt like it could explode. He didn’t know what was going on around him, was barely aware of El’s sweaty hand in his, and the bright red light coming from the cracked bottom of the pool. 

It was open. 

Number One took a deep breath, and dived into the pool. 

-

It was the little one that noticed it. 

Billy had been trying to yell at him to get back inside, to keep himself out of harm’s way. 

They had killed six demogorgons, and more were certainly coming. 

The trees in the forest were rustling in a way they never did on their own. 

The little one was pointing frantically, his eyes wide and scared. 

Billy turned, and his blood ran cold. 

Something was moving in the pool. 

It was making the thick non-water slosh around dangerously, the dark liquid lapping over the sides and staining the concrete. 

There were vines crisscrossing over the surface of the liquid, and Billy approached it carefully, hoping whatever was coming out would be trapped underneath them. 

“This is the last fucking thing we need,” Hopper gritted out, cocking his rifle and aiming at the sludge. 

And then Billy’s head felt like it had been cracked open. 

He was blinded with pain and rage and 

Help me, Hargrove!

He started swinging his ax wildly at the vines. Trying to break them apart enough for a body to fit through. 

His heart thundered in his chest, and he dropped to his knees, ripping at the slimy black tendrils. 

He shoved his left arm in.

It was like dousing his arm in ice. Like the liquid was made from the purest essence of cold. 

He searched frantically with his hand, finding something solid and yanking with all his strength. 

He had to put both arms in, grabbing hold of whatever he could, using his body weight as leverage to extract Steve from the cold. 

He was limp when Billy finally got him out, but breathing heavily. 

He opened his eyes, wiping his face free of the goop and blood covering him, and grinned at Billy. 

“Told’ya we would get you out.”

They shepherd him inside, most of the gang speechless and struck dumb from the events of the past while. 

Steve was given a change of almost clean clothes, and allowed to use some of their bottled water ration to clean the freezing black fluid from himself. 

He wasted little time, and was down in the Upside Down version of his living room with everyone else. 

“We can’t be long. El had to use a lot of strength to open it, but she’ll need her strength to close it, too.” 

Nobody knew what in the fuck Steve was going on about. 

Nobody but Hopper, that is. 

He still had disgusting pool sludge all over his front from when he pulled Steve into a tight hug when he had gotten his bearings back from his journey through the rift. 

“We can’t send people through that shit. It took all of Billy’s muscle to get you outta there.”

“So we drain it,” Steve insisted. “My parents drain it sometimes, I know how to do it.”

“I’ll keep watch. Make sure nothing tries to make itself known.”

Billy had barely wiped himself off. 

He didn’t care anymore about how freezing that shit was, he just wanted to surge forward, and get back the fuck home.

Hopper studied them both.

“Bring weapons. Yell if you need help.”

Billy nodded once, and turned on his heel, following Steve out the back door. 

Steve led him to a wooden shed on the side of the house. Billy had to clear the vines away from it before Steve could pry open the doors. 

It was full of pool equipment, and it didn’t take long for Steve to locate a large grubby pump. He knocked it against the wall of the shed until the filter attachment clattered off, leaving bigger openings for the sludge to, hopefully, run through. 

“Shit. This thing is electric. You got electricity?” 

It was the first time Steve had really gotten a good look at Steve since being in the Upside Down. 

He looked exactly as he had in the void place. His hair had a lot more disgusting black fluid in it, and he overall looked kinda shitty with the flecks of grime and blood on his face, but he looked bright. Alive. Strong. 

“How did you do it? Take me to that place. Figure out we were here.” 

Steve flushed. Billy had become overly aware that his face was completely covered under his bandana. Steve should cover his face. 

He drew another one of his back pocket, and, he didn’t know why, but he tied it around Steve’s face. 

Seriously, he could’ve just handed it to the guy and called it good there. But no. He had to set his ax on the ground, propped against his leg, wrap his arms around Steve’s shoulders, and tie the bandana like this was some intricate ritual. 

All while Steve just stared at him with those fuckin’ eyes of his. 

“It’s a long story.” Billy could barely hear Steve speak through the dirty cloth now covering his mouth and nose. “I’ll tell you when we’re back. When we’re safe.”

“I’m holding you to that, Harrington. Can’t have a guy poking around my dreams and shouting in my head without knowing his intentions.”

It was as close to flirting as Billy dared right now. 

Right before they tried to journey between worlds. 

“Good to know you heard me. I was trying to give you something of a pep talk.”

“Well, it worked. I would’ve just put my arms out and let those things rip me to shreds if I hadn’t have known.”

Billy didn’t know what Steve’s face was doing behind the cloth, but his eyes dropped, and Billy imagined that little cinch of his mouth that he had noticed Steve doing so much in that void place.

-

Billy meant it as a joke. 

He really did. 

And the Billy that was torn to bits in the mall wasn’t this Billy. Wasn’t the real Billy that was made out of real Billy materials and real Billy personality. 

But it still made Steve feel queasy, thinking about his arms spread wide, black goop pouring out of his mouth and nose as the Mind Flayer decimated him. 

“We’ve got a lot to talk about, Billy. Just, not now.” 

And Steve turned off, hauling the pump back to the pool and taking calming breaths. 

The pump sank without much effort, like there was some kind of gravitational pull at the bottom of the pool. 

Steve had connected the thickest hose he could find, adn sent Billy off with the extension cord to find an outlet that didn’t spark and threaten fire. 

Before no time, the pump was humming, and pushing black slime through the hose and onto the dead grass. 

They didn’t need to get it all out, just as much as they could shove everyone through. 

Steve closed his eyes, trying to reach El like he had Billy. 

We had a hold up. Shouldn’t be long. 

He could feel her on the other side. 

She promised she would stay close enough to the rift that Steve could get in touch with her. 

He could feel something slither down his spine, a wordless confirmation from her. 

The liquid in the pool was slowly edging down, leaving a stain on the once-white walls of the pool. 

“Gather everyone up. Tell ‘em to meet out here. Tell ‘em to leave it all behind.”

Billy was still staring at the edge of the forest when he commanded Steve. 

It was odd, being in his house that’s not his house. 

Everything was so. Wrong. 

From the way the house seemed to be crumbling down, reduced to its studs in some areas, to the way it was still clearly his house. Paintings his father had bought. Elegant furniture his mother selected. 

It was all there. Just under a thick layer of dirt and nightmares. 

He thought idly about his bedroom, wondering if it would look like it did on his end. A little messy, the sheets typically rumpled and unmade. 

He resisted the urge to wander upstairs, reminding himself he was on a mission. 

“It’s time. Don’t bring anything. It’ll probably be ruined along the way.”

Everyone looked grave. Steve tried to smile at them, tried to push through some calmness to them all. He had forgotten Billy’s bandana was tied around his face. He sent one last wave of quiet confidence around the room, and led the group through the kitchen. 

They had barely rounded the corner of the kitchen island when they heard a strangled yell from outside. 

Steve put his head down, and sprinted through the shattered glass doors, skidding to a halt in the threshold. 

Billy was staggering backward, his ax forgotten on the ground and his left hand was clinging wildly to his right shoulder. 

His jacket was in tatters, thick blood dripping bright crimson down his arm, standing out like neon against the dark, dirty ground. 

Steve didn’t feel himself moving forward. He didn’t feel his hands raising in front of him. 

He just felt anger. The same anger from before that had ripped through him like a raging forest fire and straight into El. 

The thing shrieked. 

It backed away from Billy, twisting and writhing as its horrible screams filled the air, making the hair on the back of Steve’s neck stand on end. 

Fierce fury was exploding out of him, and he grit his teeth against the pounding in his head. 

“You don’t get to hurt him,” Steve barely barked out. 

All went still, and the demogorgon snapped into pieces. 

Steve felt like he could pass out where he stood. 

He had never felt so wrung dry. 

His vision was waning at the edges, and he felt an arm around his waist, coaxing him toward the red light now barely shining through a thin layer of slime in the pool. 

“Hold your breath, Pretty Boy.”

-

Steve was limp against him, and Billy was doing his best to ignore the searing pain in his right shoulder as he held Steve close to his side. He had fumbled off both of their face coverings, moving clumsily through the pain of his injury. 

He took one last breath, and jumped into the rip between worlds. 

He plunged into the water, the crystal blue of a chlorinated pool. 

It was the best feeling in the world. 

Being covered and surrounded by clean. The heated water doing more to soothe Billy’s frayed nerves than anything in his life. 

He kicked hard, swimming one-armed to the surface, Harrington a dead weight in his injured arm. 

His head broke the water, and he took in deep lungfuls of clean, crisp air. 

Someone was tugging at Steve, and Billy, for the first time in his fucking life, was glad to see those kids Max was constantly hanging around. 

A woman Billy didn’t know was fawning over Steve, feeling for a pulse, and looking relieved when she felt his hot breath against her palm. 

“There’s more coming,” Billy coughed. 

He barely managed to get the words out, dripping muck and grime on the cement by the pool, when it felt as though he was hit from the side by a speeding train. 

He buried his nose in bright orange hair, hugging Max back as tightly as he could manage. 

He was exhausted, and feeling her there, alive and okay, was all that was keeping him standing. 

“I thought, I mean, we all thought you were dead. We saw it. That thing killed you .” Billy realized, with a whole lotta horror, that she was crying. Sobbing outright into his dirty chest. 

“Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” How could they have seen when that monster just came at him? 

“Oh, you’re bleeding.”

And if she only just realized he was hurt?

Max frog-marched Billy inside, to a very pale-looking Nancy Wheeler, sitting ready with a first aid kit. 

Billy had to peel his clothes off his body, the fabric stuck to him like a second skin. 

Nobody was speaking, and more of the people locked in the other place came traipsing into the room, fluffy towels wrapped around their shoulders. 

Hopper was the last to come in, holding the woman tight to his side underneath the striped pool towel. 

“Steve and El are closing it back up.”

There was a quiet murmur around the room.

Nancy patched up Billy’s shoulder, Max still stuck to his side like glue, the little boy from camp pasted to his other side. 

He had no idea how much time had past when Steve finally came traipsing into the room with Max’s little friend, both of them sporting matching bloody noses. 

Steve looked like shit. 

His face was covered in blood, old and new, and he still had some of the gross not-liquid in his hair from the Upside Down. 

But Billy doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see someone in his life. 

“I’m sure everyone has questions,” said the woman tucked against Hop’s side. El, Billy assumes, had taken her place on Hop’s other side, wrapping the towel around her shoulders as well. 

The woman launched into a story that made Billy feel like his brain was oozing out of his ears. 

A monster. One they had all met before. Playing body snatcher in their sleepy little town. 

Apparently, one had been wearing a Billy meat-suit and wreaking havoc around town, which made Billy wanna throw up until he died. 

Which, not-Billy, had died. Fuckin’ brutally. And in front of everyone. Which sure as shit explained why Max wouldn’t let go of his sweaty hand. 

The story made Billy queasy, and he took to studying everyone in the room instead. 

All the kids were there, even the one that had been following Steve around like a little shadow, but they were all glaring in the very much opposite direction of Steve. 

Steve himself was pressed almost against the wall, looking like he’d collapse if the wall weren’t supporting him. 

“What’s up with the cold shoulder?” Billy muttered to Max.

“They’re mad at Steve right now. He’s been lying to us all.”

It was all he got out of her before everyone started moving around. 

The woman, Joyce Byers, he’s learned, had finished her story, and the group from the Upside Down had begun clamoring for rides home, or maybe something to eat. 

Billy just saw Steve manage to slip away before he followed him. 

It took some doing, shaking off the little one, who still wasn’t speaking, and looked ready to burst into tears when Billy told him to stay behind in the living room. 

But Janet Holloway took the kid’s other hand and gently led him back into the living room. 

Billy nodded at her, and sped up the stairs. 

It was weird, being in Harrington’s actual room. 

It was messy, and looked like Steve spent most of his time here tossing clothes on the ground or twisting up in his bed covers like a tornado. 

But it was oddly comforting. 

Being in Steve’s real room, and not some perverse dirty copy. 

Steve was standing, facing the bed, peeling his borrowed jacket from his shoulders and leaving it there on the floor.

“I never said thank you.”

Steve startled at Billy’s voice.

“Yeah. No problem.” Steve’s tone was light and airy, but Billy heard him sniff.

“Max said the little shitbirds are mad at you. Something about you lying.” 

Steve turned around, giving Bily a watery smile.

“It’s a long story.”

“I got time.”

So Steve told him. 

About the lab. 

About the experiments. 

About the torture. 

He explained that he had rules. Never making anyone feel something they already didn’t. Never altering someone’s opinion of, or feelings towards him. 

Billy grit his teeth as he imagined Wheeler giving Steve a hard time about that.

Steve was silent for a moment, not looking at Billy.

“It’s okay if you hate me. I mean, everyone does now.”

“You'd be able to feel if I hated you. You and those powers of yours just saved my life, Pretty Boy. I’m pretty sure I’m feeling the farthest thing from hatred just about now.”

It was as close to a confession as Billy would let himself get. 

But if Steve knows what he’s feeling at any given moment, then that means that he knows, and he didn’t-

“Quit it. Insecurity isn’t a good look on you.”

Steve sounded tired, and he flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling with his arms out. 

At first, it didn’t sit quite right with Billy. 

He had barely even begun to identify what he was feeling when Steve swooped in and just point blank told him what the emotion was. 

Billy spent nearly all of his time being a big fuckin’ facade. 

He tried his very best to hide any emotional tell from anyone around him. 

He prided himself on being a chameleon. That nobody would ever truly know how he felt in any given situation. 

And here’s pretty boy Steve Harrington. Who is feeling just as, if not more, strongly as Billy is. 

But, it takes out all the parts of emotions that Billy hates dealing with. 

Showing them. Talking about them. 

He’d never once had to grapple with the words to explain how he feels to Steve. 

Steve would just. 

He’d know. 

And god, that’s kind of a nice idea. 

Billy sat down gently on the bed. 

“Alright.”

Steve’s head popped up to stare incredulously at Billy. 

Billy just grinned at him. 

#this fic is named after kind of a throwaway line in rocky horror but thats my favorite movie and i thought it fits :) #i worked so hard on this and i'm really proud pls like it i'm begging #yikes writes #yikes gets pathetic in the notes #harringrove #harringrove big bang #harringrove big bang 2021 #harringrovebigbang2021 #harringrovebigbang #also look at me writing something in-universe for fucking once #steve harrington #billy hargrove #powers!steve #experiment!steve #i hate using the ! like that but whatever