Warning: This was originally written in Brazilian Portuguese and edited using Google Translate; please excuse any grammatical errors.
His arms were tired, aching from the continuous movements, one side at a time plunging into the cold, salty water, pushing him farther and farther into the black ocean surrounding him.
Everything was dark. The sky was lit only by the full moon and the tiny pinpricks of stars millions of miles away. It wasn’t the first time he had come here, challenging his own body on the old surfboard he’d had since childhood. But every time he returned, he went farther out. This time, he could no longer see the shoreline. His only company was the black water around him and the small waves that formed with each stroke. It was familiar, but it had been a long time since he had reached this place in his own mind, calm and peaceful. It was a strange feeling.
The portal had closed.
The creature was gone.
Fireworks were still exploding somewhere outside, distant and bright against the night sky, but inside the Starcourt Mall there was only the crackle of dying flames, the steady drip of water from broken pipes, and Max’s ragged breathing.
The ocean wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the small oasis his troubled mind had created for him to retreat to when real life became hell. The ocean was his own blood. It wasn’t the cold that once contrasted with California’s heat, it was warm, and it was pouring from his chest and mouth.
Pain was everywhere and nowhere at once. Air fought its way through his nostrils, each breath like trying to inhale fire. But it was too late. He was naked beneath the cold moonlight streaming through the shattered skylights, vulnerable under the glow. He blinked up at the ruined ceiling. Red and blue bursts from the fireworks outside flickered through the holes in the roof. For a second it looked like the sky itself was burning, being eaten away. He remembered thinking, only hours earlier, that the world was ending. Maybe it was.
Max was there.
She had crawled to him the moment the monster let him go. Her hands were on his face, his chest, his shoulders, frantic, shaking, trying to hold him together even as the thick, bright red blood slipped between her thin, pale fingers. He could hear her voice, small and broken, repeating his name like a prayer she already knew would not be answered.
It was funny, in a way. Billy had never been a religious boy, not even when his mother’s cord burned against his neck and reminded him of all the times she had made him kneel beside her, hands clasped together in his little bedroom at the back of the house. They had prayed together, begged God to protect them from Neil’s rage and heavy hand.
For years he had wondered if God had only answered his mother’s prayer the day she left him behind.
But now, lying on the blood-stained floor, he thought maybe God had simply led him here. To this moment. To a chance at redemption. To being useful to the girl who was clutching his hand and looking at him with so much pain.
“Billy… Billy, please… get up. Billy, please…”
He wanted to tell her it was okay. That he didn’t feel the pain anymore. That the thing that had been wearing his skin like a suit was finally gone. But his throat was full of blood and every breath felt like it was being dragged through wet cloth. All he managed was a weak, wet sound.
Her face came into focus above him. Tears had cut clean tracks through the dirt and soot on her cheeks. She looked so small. So scared. He hated that he was the reason for it.
“Sorry,” he whispered. Max leaned closer, her forehead almost touching his.
“Billy…” Her voice cracked. “Billy, just… just stay with me, okay? Please. You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna...”
He shook his head, barely. There was no “okay” left for him. He could feel his body growing heavier, colder, like he was sinking to the bottom of the ocean, the same way he used to when he tried to escape everything. But he had always swum back to the surface before. Not this time.
The fireworks kept exploding in the distance. Every blast vibrated through the floor and into his bones. The world was still celebrating while he died. Maybe that was how it was supposed to be all along.
He could still taste the memory Eleven had forced into him, the sunlight on the water, his mother’s laughter. It was fading now, too. He wanted to hold onto it a little longer. He wanted to tell Max that he remembered what it felt like to be a human before he became a monster. But there was no time.
His hand twitched. Max grabbed it at once, squeezing hard. Her fingers were warm. His were already going cold.
For a moment, something else cut through the fog closing in on his vision. Up on one of the upper levels of the ruined mall, he felt, or thought he felt, a gaze.
Harrington.
He was standing among the shadows and debris, watching from above. His silhouette was outlined by the flickering lights of the fireworks coming through the broken windows. There was no shout. No movement to come down. Just the silent presence of someone who had fought him so many times and was now watching the end without the power, or the will, to do anything about it.
For a second, Billy thought it was ironic. After everything, Steve Harrington was one of the last people to see him alive. And he didn’t come down. He didn’t scream Billy’s name. He just watched. A single tear rolled down his left cheek. His face always so goddamn pretty, showed signs that he had been hurt.
The pain in Billy’s chest flared hotter, like his own body was laughing at him. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the silhouette upstairs was gone from his sight. Maybe it had never been there at all. Maybe it was just another thing his mind was inventing while it shut down. He wished he could have held Steve, too. With something like tenderness. But he never had. And now he never would. This constant desire would die with him.
“Sorry,” he whispered again, turning his eyes back to Max. It was all he had left to give. Sorry for who he had been. Sorry that the only good thing he had ever done for her was die.
Max was crying openly now, shoulders shaking, forehead pressed to his.
“It’s okay,” she sobbed, even though they both knew it wasn’t. “It’s okay, Billy. I’m here. I’m right here.”
The fireworks lit up the mall again, bright white this time, like a flashbulb going off inside his skull. For one second everything was too clear. Then it darkened. The colors behind his eyes were bleeding into gray.
All that was left was the weight of Max’s hand in his and the distant, festive thunder outside that refused to acknowledge that something had ended.
His last coherent thought wasn’t about the monster. It wasn’t about Steve Harrington watching from above. It wasn’t even about the blood. It was quieter than that.
It really felt like the end.
Max’s voice was the last thing he heard. His name, repeated over and over, growing softer and more distant while the fireworks kept bursting somewhere above them both.
Then even the sound disappeared.
He could feel himself letting go. No more fighting. His body was sinking into the waters of his memory, into the sea he had always loved. Reality didn’t matter anymore. Inside, he was where he had always wanted to return. Home.
The pain was far away now.
And then he was gone.
"Pale in the flare light, the scared light cracks and disappears
And leads the scorched ones here
And everywhere no one cares, the fire is spreading
I feel like Steve is the type of person to be really smart and just not show it. Like, I don't know why, maybe because he doesn't think its cool or something, but he just never says anything about it. And no one knows until Robin comes along.
Like, they're just talking and Robin says something, and it isn't right, and Steve just, corrects it without a second thought. And when she asks him how he knows, hes just like, "I thought it was common knowledge", and she just stares at him like, wtf. But she moves past it, and eventually they have intellectual conversations or some shit, and she is the only one who knows.
Until Eddie Munson. I can just imagine that one day, he walks into family video, and catches Steve and Robin debating about something smart like, psychology or some shit (I think Steve would be really good at psychology), and he just kinda stands there like, what?
And that happens a few times, until he starts joining in as well. And then the UD happens, Eddie lives (somehow), and then Steddie happens (somehow).
And after that, it becomes a habit that Staurday nights are 'Smart Talk' nights with Robin and Steddie, where they talk abt smart stuff.
But one day, the kids accidently walk in on it, and hear Steve being smart and are like, holy shit hes smart.
Steve has a habit of dropping his voice low when talking to Jonathan. It annoys Jonathan severely.
He knows Steve only does it with him, too. He has witnessed him talking with Robin (his voice is high-pitched, brighter and either animated or exhasperated depending on the topic), has overheard him talking to Nancy (not that high-pitched with her, and softer), and has heard him talk to Dustin (a little more authoritative in tone, but not nearly as low-pitched). But when talking to Jonathan, he keeps dropping to this low, gravely tone of voice, that sometimes sounds like a mockery, sometimes sounds like a challenge.
Jonathan is incredibly bothered by it every time it happens. And once he noticed it once, he couldn't stop noticing it—it happens every time Steve talks to him, it's like it's an unconscious reflex at this point. Jonathan can't fucking stop thinking about it. What the fuck does Steve want, doing that? What, is he trying to prove that he even sounds more masculine than Jonathan? Is it not enough to have a better build, better face, better hair, better clothes? To have money, popularity, both parents, a house with a pool? He's even taller than Jonathan by a few inches—why does he need to make his voice lower, as well?
Jonathan didn't even know he was insecure about sounding masculine. He never thought about it before. But it has to be it, right? It has to be an insecurity. Otherwise why would he be thinking about the sound of Steve's voice all the time? Why would he be paying that much attention to every aspect of how Steve sounds like, and mentally cataloging it like it's his job? Why would he be so annoyed with it?
And then something changed. One day, they were working at the radio station as usual, and Steve used that damn voice again to talk to Jonathan.
Except it was directly in Jonathan's ear.
It was casual, too, they were just passing each other and Steve stopped Jonathan by putting a hand on his shoulder, saying something like "let me know if those boxes are too heavy for you." It was the usual, mocking and challenging tone of voice. But he had leaned his head towards Jonathan's, and the sound of Steve's low-pitched, almost gravely voice was so much closer than he was used to.
It sent a shiver down his spine. A very distinctly not fear-related shiver.
Jonathan glared at Steve's way-too-close face for a moment too long, jaw tight, before shaking off the hand on his shoulder. "I got it," he said as he walked off, not looking back. Looking back would only give Steve the satisfaction of knowing he rattled Jonathan; that's never going to happen.
But as soon as the boxes were out of his hands, Jonathan grabbed his ear and started forcefully rubbing his fingers over it, like he could dust off the effect of Steve's voice. Goddamn Steve and his annoying goddamn voice.
