The Right Kind of Ritual
You can read it on AO3
Huge thanks to @deliriousdisillusion for beta-reading!
Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: M/M, Multi
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Relationship: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson
Characters: Billy Hargrove, Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington
Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Established Billy Hargrove/Eddie Munson, Ghost!Steve Harrington, Supernatural Hunters, Supernatural Hunter!Billy Hargrove, Supernatural Hunter!Eddie Munson, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Open Relationships, (they sleep with other people but only together), Bottom Billy Hargrove, Top Eddie Munson, kind of Dom!Steve Harrington, Incorporeal Steve Harrington, Masturbation, Getting Together, Rituals, First Meetings, Drinking, Smoking, Aged-Up Character(s), consensual voyeurism, Resurrection
Words: 10876
***
Billy's lighter clicked for a the hundredth fucking time, still refusing to actually light up. It had one fucking job. Eventually he grunted, shaking it, annoyed. The cigarette between his teeth was still not burning, which he was very much not satisfied with. He needed his nicotine.
"Jesus fucking Christ," a heavily ringed hand reached over and plucked the lighter right out of Billy's fingers. "Use the other one!" Eddie basically yelled at him for absolutely no reason.
Billy glared at him. It's not like he was the one who got them lost, Munson didn't get or act all annoyed now at Billy because he wanted a smoke and his fucking lighter refused to work.
"What fucking other one?" He said, at a totally reasonable level of loudness that this situation warranted.
"Any other one that fucking works! You clicked it like a million times, it's annoying as fuck!"
Billy was actually getting yelled at over literally nothing here, Jesus. They ran out of fuel for the lighters two states ago, there were no working lighters in this car. He flipped Eddie off, but his boyfriend didn't notice: he was too busy trying to figure out the map under the light of a single flashlight and a street lamp on the other end of the backseat. The flashlight was working solely on Eddie's stubbornness now, it looked like, considering the batteries were for all intents and purposes dead even before he fished it out of their glovebox, and the street lamp was very clearly thinking about starting to flicker.
Billy kicked him, not too hard, on the shin for ignoring him, and got out of the car, the loud bitching that followed him out adding at least something nice to the whole situation.
The situation being them getting stuck in the middle of pretty much nowhere for what was starting to look like a fun night in the dumb car (not really, Billy loved his car) because someone got them fucking lost . And that someone was not Billy , because he couldn't drive and look at the map at the same time.
"Where the hell are you even going?!" Eddie yelled out of the lowered car window.
"I'm walking to Cali to finally get some acceptable fucking coke," Billy yelled back, heading farther down the deserted rest stop toward the woods. There was just the one half-dead street lamp, so he decided it was dark enough and he didn't need to go too far. Also it wasn't like there was anyone but Eddie around for several miles, so it seemed, and there wasn't anything he hadn't seen already anyway.
"Write me a letter when you get there!" Eddie yelled back, like a true romantic.
Billy flipped him off again without stopping or turning around. He wasn't sure if it could be seen from the car in this darkness, but the gesture in itself brought enough satisfaction.
Finding an appropriate looking tree, Billy unzipped his jeans, having to almost roll them down. Jesus, he was getting too old for something this tight, and he wasn't even sure the way they hugged his ass was still worth it. For a moment, he let himself enjoy the quiet of the forest at night after being crammed in a tin can on wheels with the loudest person alive for several hours. Well, he had to be the loudest for Billy to hear him over their blaring music and, well, Billy himself.
The night was actually really nice: the forest full of its nighttime activity rustling somewhere in the deep, the air crisp, smelling of wet earth. With no people around, it felt almost peaceful.
Well. He thought there weren't any people around.
A guy was standing a little deeper in the forest staring at Billy with huge dark eyes.
That was exactly what Billy wanted tonight, of course. A random weird guy staring at him like an insane person in a creepy forest late at night while Billy had his dick out.
Fuck, he wished he had managed to light that damn cigarette.
The guy didn't say anything so Billy just stared back. He was too busy to start anything himself even if his heart rate was creeping up into we're about to blow up territory.
He finished his business, zipped his jeans back up, deliberately slow, all under the guy's gaze. He had never been shy about anything, and he saw no reason to start now. And he really didn't want to make any sudden movements. Who knew what the guy had in him.
They stood there for a moment longer, Billy steeling himself for a fight, doing what he could not to freak out completely.
"Do you… do you need a lighter?" the guy asked, finally, offering a lighter.
He sounded… distinctly normal. Like just some guy.
Sure, like this whole situation was normal. Like anything in this moment was normal .
Anyway. Billy fucking hunted werewolves and vampires and ghouls, he could take down a skinny guy. He had a knife in his pocket and a gun on his back, and he could fight like hell. He was going to be alright. He hoped.
Could he yell loud enough for Eddie to hear him all the way back in the car? With all the big guns?
"Sure," he answered.
The guy lit up one of those fancy lighters, good ones. Billy never could justify getting one of those. Probably had an actual monogram on it or some shit. He leaned in, putting the end of his cigarette to the little dancing flame, looking at the guy's hand for some reason. Something caught his attention, but he couldn't exactly put his finger on it.
There was something strange about it. Not the fact that it was the hand of a guy who appeared in the middle of nowhere late at night, because this was weird alright, but it was obvious; there was something else. His hand looked very pale. Like… translucent-pale.
Or not like . It was in fact slightly translucent. That's why the guy looked sort of grayish with the darkness as a backdrop behind him.
Billy straightened and took a drag of his cigarette, fucking finally.
The guy was a ghost. That made sense then. It was chill. Billy felt his shoulders relax. A ghost was something he could deal with.
"You alright? Need help?" Billy asked, letting smoke out through his nose, feeling his back relax even more in an instant.
God, he needed his nicotine.
A ghost was easy. He couldn't exactly harm Billy with his lighter. And he knew how to deal with a ghost perfectly well.
Sometimes ghosts were scared and lost, then they could get aggressive. This one didn't look like that. There was a possibility that he didn't know he was dead, though. It happened sometimes.
The guy shrugged but in a kind of uncertain way, not dismissive. He frowned, looking away, clearly anxious.
"Well I… I don't know. I'm – I… I don't – I can't…" he stumbled over his words. "I don't really know… why I'm here. I don't remember getting here," he rubbed the side of his neck, looking at some tree and half-smiling but not in a fun way. More as if he just didn't know what else to do.
Billy nodded slowly. This also happened with ghosts.
"Then you definitely need help."
He could try burning the guy's lighter, since it was definitely a real object, which meant that it was very likely the tether, but destroying tethers wasn't as effective as burning the body. Plus it's sort of hard to burn a piece of metal, so they needed the body. For that, they would need to get the guy to tell him something useful to find where he was buried (or thrown out, considering he did appear in the middle of a forest).
"I don't… I don't, like, know you, what if you're a serial killer or something?" The guy let out a small laugh, his voice trembling a little.
Billy nodded slowly. This was reasonable. He tried not to react to the irony. The guy was worried about getting murdered depite being already dead. Probably having been killed to begin with.
Billy shrugged instead.
"Your choice. Thanks," he gestured with his cigarette and turned around to walk back to the car.
He could get the lighter when the guy disappeared again, because that was what ghosts did. With no one to draw energy from, they could really stay on this side for long. And Eddie and Billy were probably going to stay here all night, they could wait. It would've been easier if the guy could tell them something, though. But it also didn't look like he could remember anything useful, so they had to do shit manually, it looked like. Could be their back burner project for now. They didn't have too much work at the moment anyway.
"Hey! Wait!"
Billy stopped for a moment, just smoking, waiting for the guy to catch up to him then continuing walking to the car.
When they got to it, in a sort of awkward silence – at least Billy guessed it was awkward – he threw away the cigarette butt and put an elbow on the roof of the car, bumping it two times heavily with the side of his fist.
"Get out!" he yelled.
The guy had to step to the side to let the door swing open (he didn't know it could go through him, after all), Eddie basically falling out of it backwards and having to crabwalk on the asphalt to get his legs out before he could stand up.
"I see you're socializing," he said, half sarcastic, dusting off his hands, his eyes finding Billy's and clearly asking what the fuck was happening.
Billy wasn't generally in the habit of collecting strays, although this was the kind of situation when that might be warranted.
"The guy's alone in the middle of fucking nowhere, figured we could give him a ride to town," Billy got another cigarette out of the crumpled pack in his pocket, gesturing for the guy and his lighter.
The guy scurried to help, in a sort of way that basically screamed nervousness . Well, he was stuck on a random rest stop at night with two strangers, one of whom could very clearly take him down. Eddie could, too, but most people wouldn't have guessed it.
"Oh, that's not creepy of us at all," Eddie said pointedly, faking cheerfulness, before snatching the cigarette out of Billy's mouth, "You can't smoke this much, dude," he put it into his own mouth.
Billy grunted, rolling his eyes, and got himself a new one, offering the pack to the guy.
There was no guarantee he could hold it, but this was the polite thing to do.
Now that he had something to do with his hands, the guy seemed a bit more at ease. Just a little, though.
"Why are you guys even here anyway? It's like the middle of the night."
Eddie shrugged, watching the guy closely in a way that wasn't too obvious but Billy could tell. He was doing the same.
"We got lost and were trying to figure out where to go before we ran out of gas. I'm Eddie, by the way, that's Billy," Eddie said.
The guy nodded.
"I'm Steve," he said.
Okay, that was good. It looked like he had no problem remembering that. Maybe he could tell them his full name at least, make the search, well, not easier, but possible , really.
They were quiet for another moment, just three guys smoking casually in the middle of the night on an empty rest stop.
"And how did you end up here?" Eddie asked Steve.
This was a logical question. There weren't even any other cars around, abandoned or otherwise. Although maybe if it was abandoned, it wouldn't be here. Local services should be doing something , like towing cars away.
And there definitely was nowhere to walk here from, unless one walked for a very long time.
"Well, I… I–I… um…" Steve frowned and scratched his eyebrow with the thumb of the hand he was holding his cigarette in, dangerously close to his hair. "I don't… I don't think I remember," he managed finally, his voice cracking and going so quiet, Billy almost missed it.
He caught Eddie's eyes for a second.
That was what he thought. The guy – Steve, they should probably still get his full name though – was going to be absolutely useless for their purposes.
Steve frowned even deeper, his head visibility sinking down, looking at the little shallow puddle next to his feet.
"How… why… why can't I remember?" He whispered, as if to himself. "I should be able to remember, why don't I?"
"Man, it's okay, maybe you hit your head or something, it's chill. We'll just get you to the hospital in the morning," Edde said, making a tiny step forward, raising his free hand a bit, wanting to placate the guy but not wanting to cross into his personal space.
Billy knew this gesture, although he hadn't had it used on himself in ages.
How exactly did Billy manage to get such a sweet gentleman as his boyfriend was a question he'd never have an answer to.
"No… I don't… I can't…" Steve was hyperventilating.
This was not good. This was bad. That was what they didn't need.
"Steve…" Billy started, not knowing what exactly he was planning to say.
Steve folded down with a sob suddenly, dropping into a crouch with his arms around his head, the cigarette even more dangerously close to his hair, and then, before either Billy or Eddie had a chance to say anything, he just disappeared. Like he was never there.
The lighter fell onto the asphalt with a clang, the cigarette sizzling out quietly in the puddle. Billy thought absentmindedly that it must have rained last night.
Eddie scrunched up his nose. Jesus, he was so cute.
"Well, that went smoothly," he picked up the lighter, starting to fidget with it immediately. "He must be a new one, huh? Maybe just appeared for the first time, considering he didn't question suddenly being in a forest, but broke down now trying to remember why he was here."
Billy took a drag of his cigarette. Eddie was probably right. Billy most likely had triggered something when he went to the forest, maybe accidentally stepped on the way Steve went before he died or something. And Steve hadn't looked too alive, really, now that Billy was thinking about it, when he had just stood there and stared at Billy. He had looked kind of frozen. Like a new ghost.
He threw his second cigarette butt of the night onto the ground and stepped on it.
"He's probably local, it shouldn't be too hard to find information on him."
At least now they actually had a working lighter.
***
In fact, it turned out to be hard. The next day they spent in the library in the next town over looking through local news over the last couple of years, but there was nothing, no missing people, no murdered men, no bodies found. Nothing. Like a perfect little town.
So they went back to the motel – two-bed room, although they might push them together; or maybe they wouldn't bother – in the evening, planning to catch up on the sleep they didn't get the previous day crammed in the fucking car the whole night. Okay, no, Billy loved his car, but honestly they were way too big and too old for stunts like this.
Now they were sprawled on one of the beds, Eddie like a normal person, and Billy basically on top of his legs, his head somewhere on Eddie's stomach. Munson ran a gentle hand through Billy's wet hair. It was so nice, Billy kind of considered falling asleep right there. He should learn how to purr, he thought sleepily.
"You're literally like a cat," Eddie muttered.
Billy scrunched up his face. Cats sucked.
"Cats suck," he said, "don't call me that."
Eddie chuckled, twirling one of Billy's curls on his finger.
"You are, though. You just ate, got cleaned up, and now are trying to fall asleep on me, making my life harder on purpose."
Billy hummed.
"I also took a shit," he added.
Cats did that, too.
He could feel Eddie laughing under him. It made him smile. This was so great. He felt so comfortable here, he might really fall asleep on Eddie solely to make his life harder on purpose.
"Jesus, talk dirty to me, you might just turn me on."
Billy threw his head up, jamming it into Eddie's belly, cracking one eye open, looking at Eddie upside down.
"Yeah? You don't think I'm hot now that you know I shit?" he arched his back up as best as he could, so Eddie could have a better look at his shirtless torso, balancing carefully with one foot on the floor so he wouldn't fall off the bed.
"Yeah, only because I'm that into shit talk," he was still smiling down at Billy, still twirling his curl, but there was this look in his eyes…
Billy suddenly didn't feel like falling asleep anymore.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He shifted around, straddling Eddie's hips in seconds, pushing him down into the mattress, kissing him hard, biting his lips.
Eddie's hands immediately found their way onto Billy's thighs, his ass, squeezing roughly, making Billy humm into his mouth.
He cupped Eddie's jaw, his other hand sliding down his chest over the t-shirt, stopping at a nipple, making Eddie arch up and gasp.
Billy smirked, kissing Eddie's chin, jaw, neck, getting lower.
A hand slid over Billy's thigh, tugging down his sweatpants and wrapping tightly around his dick immediately, since who the hell wore underwear at all, let alone to bed.
Billy had to bite down on Eddie's neck in order not to make a sound he wouldn't have been proud of, making Eddie make it in return. He rocked his hips up a bit, silently asking the hand on his dick to move, and it squeezed tighter, just like he loved it, and…
There was a sudden loud " OH " from somewhere next to them.
Billy snapped his head around so fast, he actually felt the muscles in the side of his neck getting pulled. He sat up, still straddling Eddie, who still had a hand around his dick. The hand slowly let go, and the only reason Billy didn't make a sound at the loss of contact was because he was staring at another fucking person in their room.
Steve was standing across the room from them, hands over his eyes.
Of course. The sun must've set by now, and it was always easier for ghosts to appear after dark.
Billy rolled his eyes. It's not even like Steve hadn't seen his dick. There also was nothing he actually could do if he had anything against two guys making out. Or whatever. This was not making out.
Still, it did rub Billy in a way he didn't want to look too closely at. He didn't know why those were his first thoughts. He knew actually, he just didn't want to acknowledge it.
But he also guessed that for a lot of queer people the first thing they thought about when being caught was whether or not this can lead to any harm to them or their partner.
Fuck, life was depressing.
"You got something to say?" he asked anyway.
Maybe his hands were balled up in Eddie's shirt. Maybe his shoulders tensed up.
Hell, Billy hadn't fought anyone human in so long. He had been doing so well.
He couldn't fight a ghost.
There was a pause.
Eddie tucked Billy's dick back into his sweats, and then moved as if to sit up or something, while Billy moved to get off of him, but ended up tumbling off the bed with a thud and a yelp.
"What the actual fuck?!"
Eddie started laughing like a fucking hyena. Billy took his words back, such a fucking gentleman his boyfriend was.
"Oh, are you okay?!" Steve yelled, moving so he could at least see Billy.
He was pretty sure if Steve wasn't aware that he probably couldn't touch him, he would've tried to. Or maybe he wasn't aware and just didn't want to touch Billy for one reason or another.
"Yes, I'm fucking fine, you assholes. Shut the fuck up," he pushed Eddie in the thigh, pulling himself up and onto the empty bed.
He was too old for this shit.
Steve started laughing as well, although he sounded kind of nervous again. Billy felt grumpy, rubbing his eyes with the balls of his hands. He was so fucking glad everyone was having so much fun while he was getting a freaking bruise on his ass. And his elbow actually.
"The beds are too fucking narrow," he grumbled, causing another burst of laughter.
"Yeah, of course, it's not that you can't walk a straight line without toppling over on a good day," Eddie wheezed.
Billy flipped him off. He could, actually. If he concentrated.
Eventually, they quieted down.
Steve was sitting in the only chair in the room across from the beds now. It looked extremely uncomfortable, and Billy almost felt sorry that he likely couldn't feel it too well.
"Can't you really?" Steve asked. "I mean, do you actually have such a shitty balance or something?" he added at their apparently blank looks.
"Yeah, never fucking could," he grumbled.
He was still annoyed. He didn't like to think about why he couldn't. It's not like he knew exactly, only had his suspicions.
They sat in silence for another moment.
"And I don't mind. I mean, I don't care about you two… I… I don't know… being together, I don't care about that. It's not like I've never… you know… It's just that I do mind seeing a stranger's dick, you know."
Billy chuckled at that against his will. He didn't want to stop being grumpy.
"We know each other. And you've already seen it."
Steve made a face.
"I… I can't actually say that I was that… conscious at the moment. Like I… can remember it, but I wasn't… wasn't processing anything until you asked me if I needed a ride or something. I… I don't know, it's weird."
He rubbed his eyebrow again.
So offering people help was his unconscious response? Huh.
Eddie sat up on his bed with his legs crossed like he was five.
"Yeah, we figured. It makes sense, it just means that you're a very new ghost, so it can be easier to find your body and let you move on."
Steve didn't really react to any of that, looking down and fidgeting with his lighter.
"But we'll need you to try to tell us everything you can," Billy added, falling down on his back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling.
Okay, apparently their work never stopped, even so they could fuck. He knew that, but it was sort of annoying. If they weren't fucking their job, of course. Which they weren't. At the moment.
Steve was pretty cute though…
Billy sat back up again, rubbing a hand over his face.
Ghost fucking was way too complicated and never worth it, so they better just try to help him move on before either of them got any ideas.
***
It went down fairly, well, actually, at least Billy thought so. Interview with the Ghost , as Steve called it, that was. Billy wondered if he had read the book and exactly how gay he found it. They still didn't get too much information, but at least Steve managed to stay corporeal – well, as much as he could at the moment: he was looking distinctly transparent by the end of it – for as long as Billy and Eddie could stay awake asking questions.
His name was Steven James Harrington and he was from Hawkins, Indiana. Which was funny, actually: it was the next town over from where Eddie grew up and Billy was moved to his junior year in his father's most insane controlling move; in fact, Billy and Steve probably had to play a basketball game against each other. Also, Billy's step-sister and step-mother moved there to be closer to Susan's sister after she had finally divorced Billy's dad. But it was after Billy had already fucked off away from them all anyway, so it didn't matter.
Anyway, Steve couldn't tell how he ended up in fucking Utah . His body had to be somewhere here, near his ghost, but maybe those memories were going to come back later. Other details were less useful.
They didn't exactly have the time (or the desire; if there was a state they were avoiding in their work, it was fucking Indiana, unless they went to visit Eddie's uncle in his trailer or his father who was in jail once again) to go over to Hawkins and look up the news there. So they were probably going to need to go through the fucking forest. It was their best bet. Maybe it was some kind of serial killer shit, a unique chance to end up in newspapers and get people wondering what two guys were doing in a forest alone in the first place.
They were kind of at a stalemate, really, because who the fuck wanted to search a forest.
Their actual current job, the one that would get them money, also required a ton of research, which Billy kind of hated. It was a shapeshifter nest, but they couldn't tell if they actually killed people, so they needed to check all the local murders and figure out what looked like a shaphifter one. There weren't literally any murders, which was kind of suspicious.
As a result of needing to research other shit, they had to actually put Steve's case on the back burner, the way Billy initially thought it was going to work out. He very clearly figured out how to draw energy from both Billy and Eddie when he appeared, so he was going to be stable for longer. He helped him research on the days he could turn pages and would just hang out with them when he couldn't, mercilessly teasing Billy about him constantly getting something into his mouth (Billy found the face Steve made when Billy joked back about other ways to deal with oral fixation positively delightful; he was pretty sure that was a blushing face without any blushing) and Eddie about not being able to sit straight for literally a second (the face Steve made at answering jokes about what else Eddie could sit on rather than a chair was even more delightful).
Really, the amount of sex jokes they made grew exponentially every day. Which was probably saying something.
Maybe that they were all something like 15 years old mentally.
It's not like they actually did this around people. At this point, ten years after Billy managed to get away from his father, he felt secure enough in his skin to be able to say that he was gay, but it's not like it was really safe. But Steve had said that " it's not like I've never …", and it somehow felt fine. Steve was… safe .
And Billy felt… comfortable. And it wasn't an usual feeling for him. He normally felt this way only when he was alone with one or two or the Munsons, really.
Eddie and he were laying in the bed (a single big one this time – it was the last room the motel they had to move to had so it wasn't weird), Eddie's arm thrown across Billy's naked chest, warm palm resting casually on one of Billy's pecs. Billy ran his hand along his arm, Eddie squeezing Billy's chest.
"If I got turned into a vampire," he said, soft, sounding thoughtful, "I would totally turn into a bat and just snuggle between your tits."
Billy raised a brow at the last word. It made him feel some kind of way. Weird, but definitely not in a bad way.
"Aww, you're such a romantic, babe" he laughed softly.
He could feel Eddie's smile pressed into his shoulder with a little kiss.
The room was stuffy, and kind of dark, rays of sunshine sneaking through mostly drawn dark curtains, and it felt kind of like their little world, their cocoon. Like nothing could get them here. Or whatever. Billy read too much shit with romance in it, Munson was a bad influence after all, making him all mushy. He kind of liked it despite being almost overwhelmed with warmth and softness all of a sudden.
He ran his hand back up Eddie's arm, then shifted around, turning so they were facing each other. Eddie's hand was immediately pushing his hair off his face, cupping his cheek. Billy ran his hand down his side.
"So," he started and paused; he felt like he could actually talk about what he needed to talk about: "Steve."
Eddie smirked, all soft and rumpled, fuzzy, but in the best way possible, just like Billy felt on the inside.
"Yeah. Steve."
Billy could feel the corners of his own lips tug up in a smile completely without his intent, simply responding to Eddie's.
He was pretty sure they understood each other just from this. Twelve years of knowing someone would do that, he guessed.
Also having already talked about other people – other men mostly, Billy wasn't enough into women for it to be happening often – like this would do that. Like in planning to ask them if they would like to fuck with both of them.
They had their arrangement. It wasn't that they were worried about either of them cheating. They just tried it and it felt wrong without Eddie there, and Eddie said the same, so they decided it was going to be both or neither.
That's how they rolled. They liked it, it had worked for them so far. They were going to change it when it stopped working. As simple as that. Billy liked that it was this simple now. To talk about things. To know there was going to be someone there for him. To trust this thought. To love and be loved back, not despite, not because, but just so.
Eddie made a face at him, but an adorable one.
"From the look of it, his dick should be very much to your liking."
Billy hid the laugh he couldn't hold back in a kiss to Eddie's palm. It did look like it. He wouldn't be caught dead admitting it, but he was kind of a size queen. Just a bit.
Plus Steve looked fine as hell with his big pretty hair, and Billy saw a little peek of his chest hair one time, and Billy so, so had a thing for brown puppy eyes… Ugh.
The only issue was that Steve was barely corporeal enough to turn pages in a book or hold a cigarette most of the time. Sometimes he could be more , but it was rare and impossible to predict.
So this was all in theory. Just a nice thing to imagine, really.
Wel… there were rituals… but they were never worth it and way too tricky. Plus very temporary and usually ended badly. For some reason, Billy really didn't want to even think about using them. Eddie didn't bring it up, either.
Billy sighed, closing his eyes, floating in the familiar smell and heat of his boyfriend, simply his closeness, scratchy bed sheets crumpled under them.
The thought that there was basically no way they could get Steve was somehow upsetting in a way that felt too weird for such a silly thing. Way too big. Like a sadness that wasn't supposed to be there. Like Billy was blowing everything out of proportion. They'd only known him for a couple of months by now. It was just a little crush. It shouldn't be like that.
"That's unfortunate," he mumbled, pressing his face into the rough palm still on his cheek.
Eddie hummed, seemingly distracted by tugging out one of Billy's curls and then letting spring back.
Billy suspected that maybe he wasn't the only one getting a bit confused here.
***
Something like another week or so had passed. Their file on the shapeshifter nest was getting big enough that they were pretty sure that they really didn't need to go in there trying to kill all of them without getting killed themselves. Which was a relief. It was a big nest, and they were still going to get paid for the research this time. And this was a rarity. The fact that there was literally no murders in town in the past several years was still weird, but probably wasn't their kind of weird.
But today, they weren't researching. Or working. They weren't doing much of anything but drinking, really.
Today was the day Billy's mom left home and never came back all those years ago.
Steve was watching Eddie and Billy get drunk.
Actually, not just watching. He managed to be corporeal enough to hold up a glass and even drink some whiskey with them. Billy wondered if there was going to be a wet spot when he disappeared again later.
"No, I don't think I could've taken the news that I'm dead as well as you did, man…" Eddie mused, leaning his back against the bed where he sat on the floor. Billy was mostly laying next to him on the dumb carpet, the wood of the bedframe smooth and cool against the back of his neck.
So was the neck of the bottle in his hand. It felt nice and comfortable on his flushed skin.
"Well, I guess I've been through enough to be chill with it," Steve answered, leaning his glass to the side gently, watching the liquid inside slosh up.
Billy frowned, scratching his cheek.
"What the fuck was your life then?"
Steve let out a laugh, but not a fun one.
"Yeah, it was kind of crazy I guess," he rubbed his eyebrow, looking at the whiskey almost forlorn, tilting the glass the other way.
Billy frowned even deeper. Judging by everything else he had said, it was a pretty nice kind of suburban rich life. At least it was supposed to be like that. You didn't have to tell Billy what kind of shit can go down behind closed doors. But just going oh well, I guess I'm dead now was kind of extreme.
He took a big swing out of the bottle he used instead of a glass. God, he fucking hated whiskey, how could it possibly taste so fucking flat. Like the essence of a wooden board, but burning.
"Still, I would've been so confused," said Eddie.
Steve hummed.
"Well, I was confused. I am. But I was way more confused when I was realizing I'm bi though, for example" he muttered, as if not really thinking about it, eyes looking far away.
"Oh, by the way," Eddie's head thunked against the bed, pretty eyes suddenly going from solemn to sparkling; he waved a hand at Steve. "Is your type the same all across the board, like, visually or something, or are they completely different depending on, like, gender? Because mine is kind of the same," Billy chuckled at this; the only girl Eddie had ever actually dated was Chrissy Cunningham back in high school, and Billy looked nothing like her, obviously, "but I've seen people whose are different, and I'm gathering data for science."
Steve looked at him with wide eyes, blinking, looking a bit more alive again.
"Uh… I'm… I'm not sure I have a type exactly? Even in like separately men or women… or anyone else I guess. Like, I'd totally do both of you, and you two are very different. Maybe people smarter than me, though," he scrunched up his face in the most adorable way and took a sip of his whiskey.
Billy stared at him. He was too drunk not to. Steve's pretty hair fell into his pretty eyes in this pretty way, and his pretty lashes…
Wait.
He slowly turned his gaze at Eddie, who was staring back at him while Steve was apparently contemplating his life looking in the middle distance again. Probably thinking about other people.
Eddie was so pretty, too. With his dark eyes, round and always glinting in this mischievous way, and his long, long curls Billy knew were soft and amazing to touch, and those lips…
Jesus, he loved him.
Wait, wait .
Billy was getting distracted again.
It's just there were two pretty guys in the room with him, and that was apparently two too many for his drunk brain. He took another swing, his fingers tracing the grooves on the carpet under him.
What was he thinking about again? Before how much he fucking loved brown eyes.
Ah, right.
Steve just said that he'd do both of them.
Which was amazing. Billy felt so excited, although it didn't give them anything. Steve was still a ghost. Billy's mood dropped, still looking at Eddie. He blinked.
Wait. Billy frowned, lolling his head to look at Steve.
"We aren't smarter than you."
Eddie laughed for some reason.
"We're not!" Billy insisted, shaking his head a bit for good measure.
It felt important.
"Well… You're so good at your research and stuff, I could never…"
"That's just experience, we've been doing this for ten years, we know how and where to dig. I was held back twice in school, Billy here didn't even get to start Calc. We all have our better sides and worse ones," Eddie shrugged again.
"Well, I… wait. If you… but Billy graduated a year earlier than you? Shouldn't it be two years then?"
"No, no, he's a year younger, and I got held back twice, so I had a chance to graduate with him, just didn't manage to."
"So…" Steve made some calculations in his head. "Are we the same age?" He asked Eddie.
Eddie rubbed his cheek.
"Yeah, I guess so. And Billy's here is a baby!" He reached over, ruffling Billy's hair.
Billy swatted at his hand, frowning.
He was no such thing.
"It's just a year, and we're almost thirty anyway, we're too old for this to matter."
"Never! You're always a baby," Eddie laughed again, making a squishing gesture somewhere in the general direction of Billy's face, apparently not willing to lean over and actually squish his face.
Billy must've grimaced in response, because Steve started laughing too. Billy stuck out his tongue at him, but he was pretty sure it didn't look mean, it just ended up in that dumb face he made sometimes that Eddie called hot for some reason.
The warmth Billy felt on the inside was almost too much, he was just barely holding all of it in and not bursting with it.
He took another swing.
***
Their next case found them by accident, and wasn't too complicated. Someone was digging up fresh graves and bringing back something between a zombie and a mummy, which was disgusting to both look at and kill. So they just got away from a necromanced zombiemummy, which wasn't that hard, but the adrenaline of the chase was still running high.
With the door shut firmly behind them, Billy pressed Eddie against it, kissing his mouth, his jaw, his neck, hands running under the shirt, tugging, pinching, making Eddie arch up and gasp, pushing back against him.
Billy hid a satisfied almost growl into the spot between Eddie's neck and shoulder, biting down, feeling hands on his own body, doing the same, making him shiver.
God, he had the hottest fucking boyfriend.
Well, not fucking right now , but…
Eddie pushed him back more firmly, turning them around and pressing Billy against the wall with a thud, rough, leaving him giggling, and breathless, and gasping, and hot . Jesus, Muson made him feel so hot .
Eddie managed to unbutton Billy's shirt somehow, kissing his nipple, teeth catching the little metal bar there and sending a jolt through his whole body, the sensation pooling low in Billy's belly. A hand successfully dealt with Billy's belt and got his cock out.
A small oh came from somewhere in the room. This was almost like a déjà-vu, although this time it sounded not exactly panic-y but somehow still off. Billy's eyes snapped open, startled, feeling Eddie's hands freeze on him.
Steve was standing in the room near the two beds. This time he was definitely not closing his eyes. He was pretty much staring, barely blinking. Billy could feel his eyes drag down his mouth, neck, his smooth chest, making him say a silent thank you to the past him who spent an hour shaving just yesterday; past the shiny metal in his nipples, down his belly; onto his dick and the hand on it, where the gaze stopped still. Billy pushed down the need to preen. He could see Steve was appreciating the view, which distracted him for a second because how Steve couldn't blush, but apparently very much could get a hard-on?
And that snapped him back. He suddenly wanted so badly to be on the other side of the room on his knees. It was almost all-encompassing. He could see him there, with his mouth open, Eddie's hand guiding him down Steve's shaft…
Eddie chuckled, dragging Billy back to what was actually happening, his hand flexing on Billy's dick, eliciting a hiss out of him.
"Now you see why he spends so much time in the bathroom?" He said, his wrist moving in a circular motion that was so not enough but also way too much with Steve standing right there .
Billy groaned and grabbed his shoulder to hold himself upright, or to hold Eddie back, or just to hold , he didn't know.
Everything suddenly felt way more intense somehow. Like there was an electric current running through him, though the room, between the three of them. Like a storm coming, ozone in the air, something crackling in the distance.
Steve sat down slowly on one of the beds, eyes never leaving Eddie's hand, watching its slow small movements like a hawk, so he ended up almost falling over. In the sexiest way possible, of course. He nodded slowly, finally blinking, like he was only now catching up with what was going on, his brain starting to process.
"Yeah," he said. "It's definitely worth it."
Billy let out a breathless laugh, throwing his head back, hitting the wall with a thud.
"You want a show, pretty boy?" he drawled, watching Steve, his hips twitching impatiently.
Steve nodded way faster this time.
"Yeah," he breathed out again.
That was the only signal Eddie needed, apparently.
He was on his knees in an instant, mouthing at Billy's balls, licking up his cock, sucking the head into his hot, hot, hot mouth.
Billy's hips bucked up, but Eddie smashed him back down against the wall, nails digging into the flesh, mean, stinging, making Billy choke on air just a bit.
He opened his eyes (when did he close them?), staring down at Eddie, who was looking up at him, clearly wanting to smirk but stopped by the cock in his mouth, eyes still sparkling with mirth. Jesus, Billy loved his eyes. Maybe even more than his straight up magical mouth. Well, maybe not very straight …
Billy got distracted by Munson's tongue around his head, making him moan, fingers tangling in soft brown strands, tugging just to tug, nail scraping like he knew would drive Eddie crazy.
Munson moaned around the head of his dick, which made Billy gasp, and moved, swallowing him, and Billy's head hit the wall again, and he thought he moaned, but he was way too distracted by a sharp inhale that wasn't him or Eddie.
Steve. It was Steve. He caught Billy's eyes, licked his lips (Billy wanted to do this as well, God) and then Billy saw him unbuckle his belt, and Jesus fucking Christ his mouth watered just looking at this dick. It definitely was absolutely, totally, fucking exactly to his liking.
"Pretty boy, what… ahh, fuck, Eddie … what do you need to be this big for?" He gasped, fingers digging deeper in Eddie's curls, not pushing Eddie, but steading himself.
Munson, the asshole, immediately turned to look, which was not Billy's plan, because his dick immediately got hit with cold air of the room, forcing him to suppress a whimper at sudden loss, even if he was still pressed against Eddie's cheek.
"Jesus fuck, big boy, he's right," Eddie drawled, while Billy definitely didn't whine a little from Eddie replacing his mouth with a hand, moving in a way he knew would drive Billy insane.
Steve let out a laugh, kind of breathless, more air than sound, his hand wrapping around himself where he was half-laying on the bed. Billy couldn't look away. He was big, and Billy couldn't stop himself from wondering what he would feel like inside, buried deep…
Eddie was suddenly taking all of him down his throat, and Billy thought he heard a belt jingle, and he could feel Steve's eyes on them, and he didn't know where to look , there was his gorgeous boyfriend with his face full of Billy's cock, and there was their beautiful maybe kind of not friend anymore with his huge fucking dick out, and this was not going to last long, not on Billy's end, at least.
He was too lost and overwhelmed in the best way possible to tell when Steve started to talk, but God , was the guy good .
Billy didn't know where all of that came from in this preppy little (well, this wasn't exactly true) body, but he could tell Eddie appreciated it as much as he did by the moan he could feel vibrate through him.
He must've made some kind of desperate sound, because Steve's eyes snapped to him.
"Are you close, Billy? Are you going to come? Are you going to give it to Eddie?"
Eddie moaned again, choking a bit, squeezing Billy in his throat, and that was it, Billy was losing it, crying out, everything was going white.
When he almost could breathe again, Eddie was resting his forehead against Billy's thigh. He looked fine, but Bill should probably say sorry still. If only he could breathe deep enough to talk.
Eddie turned his head to look at Steve, still leaning on Billy. Billy looked up, too. Steve was still watching them, looking spent and way more relaxed than he usually did. Which was probably good.
What wasn't good – for Billy, that was – was how edible he looked, because what he didn't need right now was his dick twitching again.
"Does ghost cum leave stains?" Eddie asked, sounding raspy.
His voice also didn't make Billy's life any better, even if it was the dorkiest question anyone could ask in this situation. Also, this was absolutely crucial knowledge.
Billy still laughed a bit. Steve smiled.
"Well, now you'll find out," he said.
"So, you dress all preppy as a cover-up, huh?" Billy asked.
Steve opened his mouth to answer, smiling a bit wider, but then he suddenly frowned, sitting up.
"Wait… I don't think… I can't…" he looked lost for a second and then just disappeared, like he was never there, leaving Billy and Eddie blinking, dumbfounded.
There was no stain.
Eddie chuckled.
"What a gentleman, leaving without even doing his pants up," he started to stand up slowly with a grunt. "I'm way too old for this shit."
Billy helped him up.
"I know, I feel like a horny fucking teenager, it's disgusting."
Eddie made a face and hummed in response.
"Steve's way too hot though."
He was.
***
Okay, maybe after that they got somehow even less productive in working on finding Steve's body to burn it.
Because, well, maybe they got a bit distracted and a bit too invested in keeping Steve around as long as they could. Literally for no reason really. Absolutely.
It's not like they were spending way too much time fucking to the point where Billy started to question if it was even normal.
Okay, no, he could admit it, at least to himself. They were like freaking teenagers, except they never got to be like that back when they actually had been teenagers. It was kind of insane. And hot. And intense. Billy has always thought that Eddie and he were having kind of a lot of sex, but now? Billy felt like everything he dreamed about (or didn't dare to dream about, more like) locked in his little bedroom listening to his father's footsteps was coming true. With all the hormones but without the repression or whatever word it was Eddie liked to use. And without seeing his father. And without the need to try to find a place and time to hook up. Minimizing interference with work, of course.
And Steve couldn't even touch them. Jesus, if only he was alive. If only Billy could do something with that dick of his.
Well, it wasn't just that, Billy had to admit.
Steve was funny. In a very dorky way, but Billy guessed it was… charming. It was such an annoying word that Billy had heard way too many times about himself, but Steve really was it. Charming . Billy bet grandmas loved him.
Steve was all these nice things, too, like kind, and generous, and while maybe not necessarily always nice, he was at least way nicer than either of Billy and Eddie. Which, admittedly, wasn't that hard, but still counted for something. He honestly cared about shit, deeply. He was also very sensible, which Eddie clearly appreciated, but Billy hated. Now he could not just argue Eddie into agreeing to some probably kind of suicidal shit (it couldn't eve be that bad, really, since neither of them had died yet, and they did something like that all the time). With Steve there, Eddie had another person on his side, Billy lost by default. And in situations when Eddie was on the fence about something, Steve could always convince him to take a safer approach. Billy wanted to make a face just thinking about it.
It's been a while now that they had Steve and his lighter with them, in short, and it was going amazing.
Maybe they were taking way too long to find the body. Any traces they could've found were long lost.
Their only option was going to be to destroy the lighter it looked like.
Which wasn't going to be easy. None of this was looking like it was going to be easy.
What also wasn't easy, was having a threesome when one of you wasn't usually corporeal enough to so much as touch you, let alone do anything else.
Steve traced a finger along Billy's jaw, almost touching, almost there, Billy could almost feel the cold breath of air, but it wasn't enough .
Billy moaned half form burning frustration, half form the burning of Eddie's dick buried deep inside him.
"You're doing so good, baby, taking Eddie so well. Are you going to moan for us? Are you going to scream? Just like that, good boy," Steve murmured just loud enough to be heard over all the noises in the room.
Over Billy, over Eddie, over their bodies.
Munson – what an asshole – laughed, his hand sliding up from gripping Billy's hips to touch his chest, the scar in the middle of it, his nipple, tweaking it, his hips never stopping their thrust.
When Steve moved closer to Eddie, Billy already couldn't concentrate enough to hear what he told him, but it must've been just as good, because Eddie let out a half-choked moan, his movements stuttering for a second.
"...look what a mess you made out of him…" he heard.
He reached out, grabbing Eddie's shoulders, probably scratching him a little, dragging him down. He kissed him, sloppy, chaotic, mostly just breathing the same air with way too much biting.
Steve was near him again, the soft chuckle feeling almost like a breeze on his skin.
"Are you going to come soon, Billy? Wait for Eddie, he's close, too, I can tell."
Billy turned his head, staring up at Steve, into his eyes, lighter than Eddie's, greener, so pretty.
He felt Eddie's teeth scraping his neck for a second, making him tilt his head up, baring his throat, not looking away from Steve, not being able to.
"Eddie, come on, he's waiting," Steve purred, so gentle.
Eddie whined, turning his head to look at Steve, too, his temple somewhere against Billy's clavicle, his hair sticking everywhere.
"Big boy…" he started but couldn't finish, moaning from Billy squeezing his dick inside himself.
He felt so good, but Billy couldn't concentrate on this, his mind caught up on one thing only.
He needed to kiss Steve. Not wanted, needed to do it. Like, desperately, right now, right this fucking second . To slide his tongue against Steve's, to bite his lip, so lean away, licking it gently, pressing a chaste little kiss on top of it, only to bite again a second later.
Billy needed to touch Steve , he needed to kiss him, to watch him wreck Eddie, to see them kiss, Billy needed …
He could hear Eddie's breath catch, and then he was coming, and Billy was coming, and he probably screamed a bit, arching up, his hands finding Eddie's arms in a gesture so familiar, it suddenly almost broke him in two how he could actually have Eddie, got to keep him while… while… something… Steve… he couldn't think.
By the time he could comprehend the reality a bit better, Steve had already disappeared. This always took too much energy out of him.
Billy felt like banging his head on a wall. He pressed a kiss to the top of Eddie's head, running a hand down his back.
Eddie rolled off of him a bit, stil half laying on him.
Billy chewed his lip, looking at the spot Steve had been mere moments ago, no more reachable than he was now.
Words were pressing against his throat, suffocating him.
They ripped their way out, eventually. Maybe they had been there for a while.
"Are we both fucked, or is it just me?" He said in the end, quiet and fast, before he could actually think about how he might be ruining their relationship right now.
If he did it fast, he couldn't feel afraid.
Eddie let out a laugh that was mostly a sigh and hummed.
"Yeah, no. It's both," Eddie patted him on the chest and pushed himself up. "And I need a shower."
Billy frowned at that, slapping his back.
"Hey! That's not fair!"
His lovely boyfriend untangled himself from him anyway, still laughing.
"Which one of us did all the work?"
"I offered to ride you!"
He followed Eddie to the bathroom anyway.
***
"What? Did something happen?" Steve asked next time he appeared, almost immediately, probably sensing the tension of the room.
He was probably more sensitive to it, him being a hardly more than a projection on thin air and all. Billy almost giggled but choked on it.
Steve fidgeted with his lighter, with his sleeve, with his watch in a span of literally five seconds. Jesus, he was just like Eddie.
Billy bit down on the end of the pencil he was using to make notes in his Little Notebook of Important Billy Thoughts (it said this on the first page in a kind of crooked cursive in Eddie's hand).
Eddie somehow almost fell over on his chair but managed to catch himself in time just barely.
"No, no, it's all okay. We just wanted to talk to you," he explained.
Billy moved his pencil to the other corner of his mouth.
Steve let out a clearly nervous laugh.
"Yeah, this… this didn't make me feel better, so…" he clicked his lighter open and then closed.
Eddie caught Billy's eyes, and Billy nodded at him.
He suddenly couldn't really talk for some reason.
Eddie nodded in response, turning a paperclip in his hands.
"We… we don't think we'll find your body," he started slowly, swallowing visibly.
Steve nodded, also slowly.
"So… like… you two think that… this… that this is the time you want to… it's time for me to… you want to try to destroy the lighter?" He held it up a bit toward them, kind of almost dropping it.
Eddie started shaking his head immediately.
"No, that's not it. We thought…" he cleared his throat, glancing at Billy again, who still couldn't fucking talk and could only chew on his dumb pencil like a true dumbass. "We found a… ritual, I guess, that might… it… well… it's supposed to be able to bring you back to life, technically, but it's kind of weird and we're not sure what part of it means, so we can only offer an interpretation , and…"
Steve was frowning and then interrupted him, not even thinking, it looked like.
"Can I see the description?"
Eddie dug out the needed papers, and Steve read through it, a little frown not leaving his brow the whole time.
Billy's throat constricted even more somehow. It was closing tighter and tighter the longer Steve was reading. He was going to get suffocated by his own cowardliness. He bit his pencil harder. It was kind of starting to splinter under his teeth.
The ritual was weird, truly, really weird, even by their measure. It was written off some old book (older than the one they copied it from, and who knew for how long this chain went on), so even if it had worked once, it didn't mean it still did with all the potential mistakes in rewriting, and it sounded very strange, not like any of the ghostfucking rituals they had seen before (which they hadn't mentioned to Steve; also, this ritual was still somehow simpler that some of those, and this was also super suspicious).
It said something about that if a person's body was not in this world (which Eddie and Billy interpreted as a some kind of derivation from being buried) but their ghost was in this world, then they can be resurrected, except that the body had to have been destroyed in the other world (so probably decayed, but they were actually desperate enough apparently to try it despite the fact that there was probably something left of Steve's body). They weren't sure about why this specific language was used, and they weren't sure about any of the steps, or how it could fuck them over...
Steve laughed kind of suddenly, rubbing his forehead, and it was actually a good kind of laugh.
"Yeah, this… this is going to work, if it's ever going to work, it's going to work on me. We should do it."
Eddie looked at Billy. Billy squinted at Steve.
"How are you so sure? And that means you want to be brought back, right?" well, now he could talk, apparently.
Right after making Eddie do all the work of explaining. He was such a great boyfriend, really, why did Munson even put up with him.
Steve scoffed.
"Of course I want to be brought back, being dead sucks. And I know it's going to work, just trust me on this one," he rubbed the back of his neck.
Billy squinted even more.
"So you do remember what had happened to you?"
Steve looked up at them from under his brow.
"Yeah… I… I remembered pretty much the second time I came to you," now both Billy and Eddie stared at him. "Sorry?" he offered, sheepish.
"Why didn't you fucking tell us? We've spent so much time running around!" It was somewhere between a normal voice and yelling for Eddie.
"Because I can't! Like, legally! And it's impossible to explain anyway."
"Legally? Legally? What the fuck, Harrington?" Billy actually yelled.
"I really can't tell you!"
Eddie rubbed his forehead.
"Jesus fuck, what did we get ourselves into… Also, I'm pretty sure any contracts expire when you die, so, you know, maybe you could…"
"How do you even get a contract that classifies your death? Are you FBI? Army? Russian spy?!" Billy yelled over him.
Steve was already shaking his head, starting to say something.
***
They did the ritual in the end. Steve didn't explain anything, not really. Billy and Eddie eventually accepted it. Had to. Steve was worth it. Plus, he said he wasn't planning to go back, exactly, so maybe it did matter. Past was in the past. Billy wanted to believe him. In him.
So did Eddie.
The real issue was, they weren't sure where Steve would appear after the ritual. Was it near where they found him, or near where they did the ritual, or just on Earth , or even this world ?
They agreed they were going to give it a week. Billy and Eddie were going to stay in the motel they were in for a week and wait. In case Steve appeared where they found him. In case he didn't want to come back to them, actually. In case they changed their minds. So they all could think.
After that, they were going to assume he either didn't want to come back or the ritual trapped him somewhere or banished him.
He didn't appear near them.
So now they were waiting.
Billy was ready to fling himself off a bridge just not to wait . It was impossible. He was actively going insane. There wasn't even anything to do in this town. He couldn't feel relaxed enough to fuck and he couldn't fuck to relax.
Eddie wasn't any better, really. They fought over fucking everything for the past week.
It was damn near excruciating .
Eddie was throwing a little rubber ball against the wall, pushing Billy even deeper into his apparent insanity. Billy was just chain-smoking in the corner of the room. It felt like they've been like that for a year now. They were like that just for several days.
It had been almost nine since the ritual, to be exact. Still nothing. Not even a call.
Maybe Steve forgot the number.
Neither of them said it. Neither of them brought up leaving.
Billy couldn't do it anymore.
"We gotta get moving. He's not coming," Billy wasn't sure which was worse, if he got trapped, got exorcised, or just ditched them.
Eddie made a complicated face. Billy wasn't anywhere near being able to decipher anything this complex at the moment. Not when all of his thoughts were bouncing around in his head like leaves under a leaf blower.
"Maybe a day more, for an even number…"
Billy stabbed his cigarette out on the little mountain of cigarette butts in the ashtray.
"Yeah, sure, and then it's an endless cycle. 'Eleven is a nice number, twelve is even, thirteen is the right thing, we need two weeks…' We need to head out."
They needed to work. They were running out of money.
"But Billy…"
"No, Eddie, fucking list…"
"I fucking won't!"
"Stop yelling at me!"
"You fucking stop!"
There was a knock on the door.
Eddie dashed to it before Billy could even react or comprehend the reality of it.
"You two know how fucking hard it is to get anywhere without any money or a car? It's…"
Eddie dragged Steve in by his shirt (the same cute yellow one his incorporeal form was wearing; this form appeared to be very much corporeal), slamming the door closed behind them, pressing Steve against it and kissing him . Jesus fuck, it was the hottest thing Billy had ever seen.
His head was kind of spinning. He stumbled upright, kicking the table in the process, making the ashtray mountain scatter all over the tabletop.
Steve and Eddie jumped at the sudden noise and their heads snapped to look at Billy.
Then, slowly, Eddie looked at Steve, hand still clutching the hem of his shirt. Billy briefly wondered how soft it was. This was some critical information.
Steve looked between the two of them.
"Come here ," he almost whined, reaching out for Billy.
Billy was there in a moment, kissing Steve, finally fucking kissing him, having Steve kiss him back .
His lips felt new, fascinating, exciting, finally, finally there, so soft, so gentle, making Billy's head spin.
He could feel Eddie's heartbeat under his hand where it was tangled in his shirt, while Eddie leaned in to kiss Steve's temple, warm hand running down Billy's back, reassuring, comforting, familiar, grounding .
Eddie's heart was beating as fast as Billy's. This was somehow unbelievably exciting. Steve's was, too, under Billy's other hand. His shirt was very soft.
Billy leaned back to breathe and watch Steve and Eddie kiss some more.
Maybe weird rituals were actually right. Maybe this one was truly worth it.
Billy kissed Steve's cheek, feeling two hands on his belly and his back.
He had never felt more in his place.
