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withoneheadlight · 1 year

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(you gotta have) faith

At first, Steve thinks it’s just one of those weird things that happen sometimes.

Brain cacophonies, Carol calls them (“And it’s always my mom and always that tone she uses. Her ‘That-cleavage-is-too-low-Caroline―tone. It’s just. It’s c.r.e.e.p.y”), that thing of suddenly thinking somebody’s calling your name except, when you turn around, you realize it was all in your own head.

It happens to Steve with that commanding voice his father uses to hiss out his name (‘Tomorrow at five. Don’t be late, Ssssteven’ and ‘It’s time you stop behaving like a kid, Ssssteven’ and ‘I said no, Ssssteven. And this is my last word on it’). It makes him jump out of sleep at night, that voice. Swears he can hear it calling sometimes while he’s taking a shower, so he can’t but step out of the cozy warmth and slip on his way to the door to check. So fuck if Carol ain’t right. Goddam creepy. Even creepier when is his late English teacher’s, Mr. Fleishman, and that nasal, high-pitched tone with which he used to blow Steve’s ears up and out of his cloud of self-absorption and that now still haunts him sometimes, like some phantasmagoric retaliation for all those times it was Steve who made his ears blow up trying to convince him into turning his C’s into D’s to, ironically, avoid his father’s hissing.

(Steve’s pretty much run out of luck when it comes to‘Otherworldly things that come back to haunt you’. Wouldn't be that much of a surprise having to add Mr. Fleishman to his inexorably growing list)

But.

It’s neither his father's nor Mr. Fleishman's. Nor is it calling him from the messy insides of his own head.

No-no.

The voice Steve hears. The voice yelling his name. The voice singing from the other side of the façade. Hoarse and grave and a little shaken, almost trailing out of key. The voice that makes Steve get up and go looking for it. That voice sounds, unequivocally, like,

“But what th―?”

“―If I could touch yourrrr―ohhhhhHARRINGTON!”

Billy’s.

Right under his parent’s window. Zig-Zig-Zagging with his feet. Side-to-siding his hips. Indexes drumming along the rhythm of what should probably look like some kind of dance but— doesn’t. Billy’s voice and Billy’s wholeness. Optimistically defying the mid-December frost clouding his breath when he bursts into laughter.

“Holymotherofgod. You’re deaf as a post, Stevie!” he cackles, looking all like he just walked out of one of those ’pieces of clothing you should & shouldn’t wear to avoid stalagmiting in Indiana’ Cosmo top-five’s: ripped-off jeans. Leather jacket. No gloves. No hat. No sense of survival.

He―spins around. Smooth. Smooth. Till. He dead-stops. Stumbles.

Squeals.

“Dwoh-oh-oh!”

Five + one: no sense of self-consciousness.

It’s― Problematically endearing.

“Yeah. No. You can stop yelling. I can perfectly hear―”

“ArE-yOU-SUre-GranPA?”

Billy smiles a curved-all-the-way-up, clownish smile. Lips freezing-red. Eyes bright. Smug. So self-satisfied. Looks stupidly triumphant as the question hits the slatted wall and bounces back, the last vowel rumbling all along the avenue on its way into the dark.

“―you” Steve purses his lips. Rolls his eyes “That's why you came all the way here? To call me deaf on New Year's Eve?”

Billy's expression changes. It’s sudden. Finger-snap quick. Looks at him with that face he always makes (mouth downturned, brows frowning) when he thinks Steve’s just said something stupid. He’s got a bottle of something pink and wobbly and expensive-looking in his left hand and he’s pretty much drunk, if Steve's instincts aren’t failing.

"No" Shakes his head. Takes a swig "Well. Not only"

“Then?”

It's almost imperceptible, but he kind of― shrinks into the visibly scarce protection of his leather jacket, as if trying to retain what little warmth he’s managed to gather, keep it from running away with the cold outside.

Eyes fixed on Steve when he deadpans,

“Went to the party. Didn’t find you in there”

This time, his voice doesn't rumble anywhere. Loses strength instead. Plummets. It’s the opposite kind of power, the one that now carries. Heavy with that something Billy never says, but kind of― implies, sometimes. Sharpens the ends of the words with the unexpectedness of it. And Steve has never been stabbed but he's heard it goes like this: you don't feel anything and then, suddenly, the red is staining.

You don't feel anything and then, violently, in between the gaps of the words, Billy Hargrove has hidden an ‘And I missed you’.

And Steve. He’s more clever than people give him credit for. Definitely more clever than hoping for this being something’s not. But sometimes, Billy goes straight for the heart, and catches him with nothing at hand to stop the bleeding.

Steve can’t tell him Be careful with how you hurt,so he says instead,

“You know me, William” Cool. Unaffected. Not a glimpse of what’s happening inside because Billy’s eyes are on him, searching, observant as they always are. The blue of the sky in-between the storm that’s passed, the storm that’s about to burst. Hungry for detail. And Steve shivers. Because it’s too cold to be only in his pajamas. Because some lies gotta be told to keep something worth keeping “Now and then, it’s good to leave y’all wanting”

Billy scoffs, biting at the inside of his cheeks, lowering his head as he shakes it, damp curls swaying faintly. Draws a curved, trembling line with the tip of his boot along the puddle of water he’s standing into.

“Guess you got it all tried and trued, King Steve. Don’t cha?”

The orangey light of the street lamps whirlpools and glints at the pass of his feet and, for a long moment, he seems captured on the depths of the reflection, captured in the depths of his own head, perhaps, capturing another tiny part of Steve’s heart in the process.

“Anyway” he says, cranking his head back up, shaking his already half-emptied bottle “I’ve got booze so. Are you coming down or what?”

Steve rolls his eyes. The fabric at the elbows of his thin shirt feels damp and cold from the remaining raindrops on the windowshill, and he slides his numbing hands into the opposite sleeve in seek of some warmness.

“In this freezing-ass cold? No shit, man”

Billy’s shoulder quirks up in whaterverness, tongue bulging under his upper lip as he rubs that sharper canine he’s goton the left side.

“Alright―” Takes a long swing. Throat working as the alcohol bubbles up on the inside “―’s up to you”

“But you can come in and―” Steve starts very reasonably saying but Billy,

“WEEEELL―ahguess itwouldBEnice! If-ah-could―”

“Reaaaally?”

Billy winks at him.

“―touch your booOOdy. I know notevery―booody ‘sgot a boody like youAaaaand maY-BE!”

“Billy. It’snot even like that!”

“Ooooh” he rolls his eyes “Then why don’tcha come down here and show me how it goes, Mozart”

“Mo―” Steve takes a deep, deep breath “’Cause you’re outside in the cold. At night. In winter”

Billy holds the bottle in front of his mouth. Uses it as microphone.

“BUT I’VE BROUGHT LIQUID HEAT, DARLING!!” shouts. Spins again. Stumbles again “Uhhhhh-haha” Zig-zags “Tcha-tcha-tcha-tchatcha!” Makes his curls bounce all over as he shakes his head and movesmovesmoves. Wiggles. Slides. Jumps. Makes water spatter. It’s. A sight. Not exactly bad. Not exactly as horribly ridiculous as it should be. Just―a sight.

Pretty much amazing.

“Good God, Hargrove. This is” Steve clears his throat, not really wanting to break the spell but “This. I think this is the first time I’ve seen you dancing”

Because, for all Billy Hargrove never, ever stops moving, he’s a quiet drunk. Calculated movements. Calculated pose. Calculated words. You can still see energy buzzing inside of him like in a plasma ball but, contradictorily, he’s at his best to keep it on a string, hold it back tight.

“Uh-uh-Uh- uhhuhuhuH. I’m gooood!”

Steve’s gotta snort. It’s completely unvoluntary “Yeah. Sure you are, Aster”

And Steve tries and tries and tries to retain his smile but. It’s inevitable. It kind of blooms out of his face. Big and infatuated and You’re gonna be the end of me and sometimes I don’t even careand, the moment he catches sight of it, Billy’s own lights up like in a solar fire. Exultant and happy and―

And. The kind of smile that says,

I’ve got ya.

And Steve knows he shouldn’t feed the predators but. Sometimes (“Oh―but I neeeed some time OFF from that emOtiooon”) they have the most beautiful smile you’ve ever seen and no matter how risky it is, you (“Time to-pick-my-heart upoff the flo-Oor!”). Just can’t hold yourself back.

Because Steve, you see, he‘s got another growing list, still left to decide if it’s more or less supernatural because, the things in there? They too haunt him.

It’s called: ‘things about William fucking Hargrove you shouldn’t find breathtaking but. Do’

“Ok. How drunk are you? And how the hell did you get here?”

Billy does that thing of rising up your arms as in a ‘Who knows?’ kind of gesture, then lets them fall loudly at his sides.

He’s panting. Cheeks flushed pink. Curls damp and frizzy.

And Steve is so, so screwed.

“Oh, I came waaAlking, Stevie. How fucking eh-else?” singsongs “Or ―doyousee-―A.car.here pretty bo-oy? Hu!”

“That’s the thing I like about you, Hargrove” Steve just, gives up. Cackles “You can always make it worst”

“The only thing?” Bright eyes and soft-spoken words and So much worst Steve thinks as Billy points at the empty space in front of him “C’mon. Come here with me”

And Steve. Might. Could. Wants to. It’s the end of the year, after all.

So he sighs. Deep and loud and dramatic.

“Aaaalright. Give me a fuckin’ sec”

He trotters to his room. Puts his new, fluffy robe on. His woolen hat. Takes his scarf in a last minute thought as heading to the door and,

Stops.

There’s a reason, why he didn’t go to the party. A reason that sings out key. Drinks too much at social meetings. Tends to get handsy and affectionate. Dangerous. And last time, Steve made a promise to himself. No more Billy Hargrove and parties. No more pretty boy whispered like a secret in his ear. No more ‘I knew we would be so good together. You and me’. No more ‘I love you, man. Did I ever tell you that? That I love you?’.

No more getting the words, but not the meaning.

But― Billy’s calling him again, loud and insistent, in that way he has Steve doen’t really find unnerving. And it’s the end of the year, after all. All weaknesses be forgiven.

And they’re not a party. Not really.

(Except Billy kind of brought it to his door.

Kind of.

And I missed you)

He shakes his head. Stops fucking thinking and just― rushes down the stairs. Two steps at a time. And the cold, when he opens the door, knocks all the air out of his body.

That, and the way Billy’s looking at him.

“God, Stevie. You always make yourself look so pretty just for me. Now def you look like a Grandpa”

But Billy’s eyes wander all over him, tip to toe and Steve would think he actually looks good if he didn’t know better.

“Don’t be an asshole. It’s a gift. And I’m warm. Unlike some” he glares. And “Here. Lean in”

He holds the scarf in front of him. Waits for Billy to call him a Grandma too.

He doesn’t.

“Thanks,” he says. Eyes searching. Voice soft. As if it’s Steve who tripped him off to the ground, this once. Except it knocks Steve off his feet, too. Billy going soft like this, making it feel like he tamed all his wildness, just for him. Lowering his head so that Steve can put the scarf on his neck, wrap it all around it.

“Don’t thank me” he wears his grin like a shiny armor, but the attacks are breaking in “Now you look like a grandpa, too”

It only takes a smile like the one Billy gives him for Steve to surrender his whole kingdom to him.

“Ok so. Tell me” clears his throat, too many things crammed in there that could get out if he doesn't “What kind of catastrophe made you. Walk. All the way here”

“I do walk to places, Harrington. Way more than you’re implying”

“Nono. Not until tonight. I’m sure this is your first long-distance”

“That you have witnessed” Billy retorts, but he huffs a soft laugh and Steve knows he’s got him, too.

“Does what I don’t witness even exist?” Steve drawls, fake-frowning.

“Here. Asshole” Billy shoves the bottle right into his chest. Only lets it go when Steve’s fingers close around it. Says “C’mon. Chug it!” gesturing upupup with the palm of his hand. Watches him intently. Waits until Steve has taken a swig to say,

To fire, point-blank at him.

“I didn’t want you to be alone on New Year’s Eve”

Catching Steve unharmed, and vulnerable.

So he. Clears his throat. Once. Twice. Hums.

“Is. Uhm. Is this―” He needs to Stop looking at him, Steven, just stop looking at him. Glances down at the pink, delicate, at least thirty-bucks bottle “Where did you get this?”

It’s. Stupid. How unaffected his voice comes out.

“Stole it” Billy says , makes it sound like ‘what else?’

“From―?“

“Caleb’s. Mom? Dad? Dunno. Was in some fancy cabinet. It reminded me of you.”

Steve chokes out a half-broken breath, half laughter “And how’s that?”

Billy quirks his mouth to the side. Takes a step forward. Close. “Well, you know. A pretty drink for a pretty boy” Closer.

And he looks so― soft like this. So stupidly soft. Red nose. Red cheeks. Steve’s scarf wrapped around his neck. Looks even closer than he already is. Reachable. Possible. The most dangerous that he’s ever been. And Steve’s gotta be careful, even in this night, even with all weaknesses forgiven.

(Precisely, because of that)

“Oh. You think I’m” He checks the label “As pretty as ‘craft cherry gin’ so. You stole it”

Billy reaches for the bottle. A movement that lasts for eons. Fingers closing around Steve’s. Feels like one of those times. Those No more-times. Steve’s nose buried on the crook of Billy’s neck. Nuzzling at his jaw. Not cherry but the acid tang of keg beer. Billy’s words turning his chest into a bottled-up tempest. “C’mon, pretty boy. Let’s get out of here. You’re the only thing in this party I give a shit about, anyway”. His voice lowering to a hush, charged with some kind of emotion Steve can´t quite identify, leg perched over Steve’s leg, arm curled tight around his shoulders, both tangled into the drunken mess of the other on somebody’s couch, at somebody’s party.

Truth is. Steve’s not really sure all weakness can be forgiven.

“It’s not only that”

“Oh, there’s more?” Steve snorts, he’s good at this, got years of practice.

“I―” Billy looks straight into his eyes. Hesitates but, doesn’t stop, never, ever really stops “Needed it. The liquid courage”

Steve sucks in as much air as his lungs can take.

It feels like nothing.

“What for?”

And he knows he’s being stupid. He knows but, Billy runs him over anyway, fingers closing tighter, those thunderstorm blue eyes he’s got all Steve can see and, in the darkness of the night, it feels like it ain’t left any other color.

“Ana Porolowski . She asked me to be her midnight kiss and―”

It― Pierces. Cuts. And Steve. He promised. Promised to himself. No more. No more. No more―

Wanting. Longing. Watching Billy sneak upstairs with some girl Steve once upon a time thought he was in love with, back when he still didn’t really know how love feels like.

It hurts. The fucker.

“And?” he gasps, his heart like a fist inside his chest because he’s never getting Billy Hargrove. No matter what it looks like, feels like. No matter how tight his grip is. How charged with meaning are his blue eyes.

No other point of balance left. No other color.

“And then Faith began to play”

Steve sighs. Inhales.

“And it reminded you of me?”

No other feeling except the bleeding, coming out from in between the gaps of the words that will never mean what Steve wants them to.

“It did”

And he’s gotta close his eyes to stop the dreaming.

“So you had to walk almost four miles to come and sing it to me?” He’s been doing this for so long. He’s so good at it. He’s weary. “Must be even more baked than you look, Hargrove”

He blinks his eyes back open as Billy lets go of his hand. Steps back. Swallows.

“I had. I’m not. I thought I had lost it but. I still got it”

And he’s always so nervous, so nervous. Energy bursting out of him. But he stands quietnow.

So quiet.

Which is stupid because,

Billy Hargrove is the unsteady ground beneath his feet. He’s all the times Steve has wanted to close his eyes and just say ‘fuck it’. All the times he's had to open them and remind himself what he stands to lose.

And he so, so tired,

“What?”

Of not being able to stop himself from―

“Faith”

It sounds soft. There’s no way for it not to. Faith. It’s a landmine of a word. The most treacherous kind. The one that always sounds like fingers threading the surface of deceitfully calm waters.

Steve knows a lot about soft-sounding, heart-pulverizing words. They spin around his mind at night, keeping alive feelings that shouldn’t. But Billy’s looking at him and it seems important, so Steve smiles a small smile and puts his stupid hope aside, saying,

“Thought you always carried it with you” pressing his fingers over that spot where he knows it is, has seen it a million times, has wondered a million more.

Has never asked.

“No” Billy reaches out, wraps his hand around Steve’s wrist. Fingertips fitting into the hollows between his bones “Not that kind of faith”

And there’s something. Something. In the way Billy’s gaze is holding onto his under the liquid, golden halo of the streetlamps. The way Billy is― waiting on him. Like he needs Steve to ask, first. Like he needs Steve to want to know what comes after. As if what he’s holding in unsaid between them requires of way more than whatever cherry-flavored liquid courage he can swallow.

And Steve is far from feeling corageous tonight. It took all the strenght he had to not go to that party but, it’s been too late for too long, now, for not giving everything he’s got to Billy Hargrove.

“Billy―” he starts, and it’s barely a step, what takes Billy to get them flushed together, what makes that, surrounded by the clear dampness of the night, the only thing he can feel is that devastation that is Billy Hargrove “Then what, Billy?”

And there's this thing, about Billy most people overlook. He's always hiding in plain sight, covered in tiny mirrors. They reflect and deflect but, they can't truly hide what's underneath, once you know him. And in this mirror maze he is, Steve can’t always find the way out but, sometimes he thinks Billy might help him, if he just reaches out his hand for him.

Maybe there's some faith in that too. And maybe Steve’s right because,

“In believing that, if I was in the right place, at the right time, maybe I’d get the midnight kiss I actually wanted” Billy says, soft and slow and careful, and it feels like he’s―

Taking Steve’s reaching hand. Walking him to the center of the maze. Looking at him with those blue eyes that make disappear any other color and― shattering all his mirrors.

For him.

And Steve doesn’t know what to do. Doesn't know what to think. Doesn’t know what to say. He’s been trying so hard to not want this. To not hope for this. But then Billy’s breath shakes out of him in the middle of the cold, like glass dissolving into the clearest of sands and,

“Fuck!” Billy’s eyes cut apart. He shakes his head “This was the shittiest idea ‘am so sorry I―” He starts to move away and―

“No. No. No” Steve grabs the back of his arm. Holds him in place. And he doesn't know what to do and doesn't know what to think but, he manages at least to capture some breath inside his lungs to gasp “How long till midnight?”

And Billy goes still.

“Ahm” He clears his throat. Checks his clock. And it must hurt, how hard Steve’s fingers are digging on his skin, but he can’t let go “Four-uh. Four minutes”

“Alright,” Steve nods. Feels the cold on his lips as he presses his tongue between them, the distant remnants of cherry gin “Alright”

He’s careful. The most careful he thinks he’s ever been, whith anyone else, with himself, as he wraps his arm around Billy’s waist, guides Billy’s over his shoulders. But it feels like it’s all in vain, because Billy lets out a nervous, trembling laugh, a ‘Fuck, Harrington’ and Steve’s whole body’s shaking and is definetly not for the cold, because there’s no cold, not in this tentative space where their bodies are touching.

“Keep on singing?” He asks. And there are too many things already, hunting Steve in this little town, but in this moment, right here, what he feels for Billy Hargrove is the most terrifying.

“Ok” Billy nods, fast “Ok”

And then they move. Then they dance.

Shaken breaths. Unsteady footsteps. Billy starts to sing. Softly. Slowly. Turns the song into a ballad "Oh, baby, I reconsider my foolish notion” Lulls them as they swing around on the wet asphalt. And Steve leans into the quietness of his voice, into the unreal drift of what is happening, “Well, I need someone to hold me but I'll wait for somethin' more ‘cos I’ve gotta have―”

“It’s a weird song to―, you know” Steve cuts him off “Sing to somebody you want to―”

“Kiss?”

His heart skips a beat, so hard and so sudden that the next feels loud. A full-body rattle.

“Yeah”

"That's. Only because the song is not about you. Well. Not all” Billy breathes out “It's― about me. And you. You’re the something more." and time, it must be playing on them some kind of trick. Because it's impossible that’s not midnight yet. Impossible that Steve’s lips feel like this, like it’s gonna take whole years and not seconds, “You're. You’re the chorus, Steve” like a whole lifetime is gonna pass before he gets to kiss Billy Hargrove.

“You realize that― doesn’t make much sense. Right?” he stutters, and Billy stifles a laugh into the crock of his neck, his breath hot and bristling.

“Makes more than it seems like”

And then, time catches up in the beepbeepbeep of Billy’s watch. The first seconds of midnight. And they’re wrapped into each other, not dancing anymore. The silence of the night loud around them, listening closely to their ragged breaths.

And Steve thinks that maybe Billy needs it to, to reach out and for Steve to―

He buries his face in Billy’s neck and inhales deep, the scent of flowery detergent from his own scarf, the warmth contained under his curls and Billy, Billy, Billy,

"Come on, Hargrove” he whispers, voice thin and unsteady “you've walked almost four miles, haven’t you?"

And then Billy pulls away just a little, just enough to― bring his fingers to Steve's lips, map their shape with his fingertips, as if he's a little scared too, now the illusion of him is scattered on the ground in a million broken pieces and,

They say it hurts, afterwards. But it doesn't. Billy's lips touch his and it must be a clean wound, the kiss piercing its way straight to his heart and then healing inside of it. Billy drags his lips over his, licks his mouth open, reshapes a space for himself inside of Steve, and Steve kisses and kisses and kisses him back, falls into him, lets Billy lead him wherever he wants because Billy’s arms curl around his neck and, again, they’re dancing.

“So—was it this?” he asks when they break apart, his breath a mess, Billy’s lips red and tender and warm as they brush his “The midnight kiss you wanted?”

Billy huffs a short, light laugh, as he hadn't just mortally wounded him, saved him with a kiss right afterwards. Pulls him in by the collar of his robe. Laughs a little higher. Gets them both smiling into each other’s mouth.

“Yeah, pretty boy. It was”

“Well. I’ve got more, loverboy, if you wanna stay” he says, breathless, his heart restless. Comes out as honest and raw as he feels, the words hiding nothing. The please stay left unsaid loud and clear between them “Wouldn't want you to have to walk all the way back. I know how much you hate it”

“Ok, I loathe it. You happy now?” Billy chuckles.

“I am” he breathes out a smile, and Billy kisses him brief and sweet and exhilarating “And I’m glad. That you did it”

Billy nods, their breaths mingling in the cold as they sway, quietly, lightly, as they just hold on into the other and dance. Right here in the middle of Steve’s puddled driveway. In the first few minutes of the new year. And Steve can feel it, hope, rebranching itself out of his chest and faith, in that from now on, he’s gonna get to give Billy all those midnight kisses he really wanted.

“Billy—” he bumps the tip of Billy’s nose with his, catches with his thumb the smile that’s growing towards the side of his mouth, thinks And more. So many more kisses "Just so you know. Me too"

“Uh?”

And they’re too close, he thinks, too amazingly, extraordinarily, spectacularly close, to left anything unsaid so, he says it,

“I missed you”

(happy 2022, fandom. I 💗 you)

#time has come to reblog this xD #happy new year's eve-eve everyone #i miss you all with all my heart #but it's been a hard end of the year #hopefully next will be better💖💖🤞🤞

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