The final prompt from @harringroveholidayexchange. Thank you so much for these prompts! I had an absolute blast writing them. I hope everyone enjoyed reading them. Hoping this one goes out with a bang.
God, it was so fucking cold. Billy's bones ached, like the frost had set into them, cold and creeping. His breath ran trails up to the stars and he wondered if Harrington was still awake. What was it, 3 in the morning?
Billy tugged on his gloves as he trudged through the snow. He hadn't needed these in California. Didn't even own a pair. But God, it was so cold, and he wasn't sure he was prepared to lose fingers over this shit.
He considered turning back. His Camaro was only a few minutes away, tucked away on the side of the road, out of sight. It was probably still warm. But no, he had to do this. He wanted to do this.
The house was dark when it finally lazed into view. He wondered for a moment if anyone was even home, until the soft thudding of music drifted to him across the frigid air. It was almost lost beneath the crunching of snow beneath Billy's boots. As he rounded the side of the house, he saw light spilling across the snow from one of the upper story windows. The music was louder here, too.
The snow in the back yard was pristine, a glistening blanket stretching back into the woods. A shadow crossed the span of light in front of him and he looked up. Harrington stood with his back pressed against the window, his hands running restlessly through his hair. His shoulders drooped, like the silence and darkness outside of his room were trying to drag him down.
Billy grabbed a handful of snow and packed it into a neat little ball. Light glittered off it as it sailed from his hand and up toward the window. Harrington nearly toppled over in surprise when the snowball hit with a loud thud. He looked out across the dark yard, confusion crumpling his soft features. When his eyes finally landed on the blonde below his window, he stilled. Billy could almost see the rhythm of his heartbeat fluttering in his neck.
Harrington was bundled up and in the backyard within minutes. "The Hell are you doing here?" he asked.
"I needed a partner," Billy said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Harrington's eyes, glowing in the light still pouring from his bedroom window, widened in expectation. He sighed. "Fine. For what?"
Billy squatted down and began scooping snow together. "For building a snowman." When Harrington didn't reply, Billy looked up. He was greeted with a flat stare, the boy either bored or disbelieving. "Aren't you going to help?" Billy asked.
Harrington laughed and put his hands on his hips. "You came out here at God knows what hour, throwing snowballs at my bedroom window, so I would help you build a snowman? Seriously?"
Billy shrugged. "Have something more important to do?"
He didn't. Of course he didn't. It was Christmas and his parents weren't even home. He was the only spark in the dark void of the Harrington household and if he didn't find something that could catch fire, that would be it. Snuffed out like his parents, left to drift endlessly in nothingness.
Billy had never known that dark chill. He'd only ever known fire, biting and licking at him. He was so afraid he would ignite, could feel the burn beneath his skin. He was gasoline. Turpentine. Kerosene. One small spark and he would be engulfed in the insatiable blaze.
Harrington cocked his head, brown eyes scanning Billy's ocean ones, as if he could see images burned into the inside of Billy's skull, as if he wanted to do something about it.
"Help me or go back inside to your shitty music," Billy grumbled.
They worked in silence, piling snow together until they could roll it. Their shoulders bumped together as they rolled the ball across the yard. Neither of them said anything about it, but neither did anything to avoid it. Their knees knocked together as they knelt in the snow. Their hands brushed each other as they chipped away at the lumps and smoothed the spheres.
Harrington found broken branches to use as arms. Billy pulled an old sheer scarf from his pocket and draped it around the snowman's neck. It had belonged to his mother.
"I think we have carrots in the house," Harrington offered. "You know, for the nose."
"I don't even know where we would keep that."
Billy laughed. "You telling me a little shit like you didn't get coal from Santa?"
Harrington shot him an unimpressed look. "Ha. Ha. Now come on, let's finish his stupid face."
The carrots in the fridge had long since met their expiration date, and neither of them could find coal anywhere. Instead, they found waffle cones and Oreos and peppermint candies.
"This is gonna be the dumbest looking snowman," Billy said.
"Well I'm sorry I wasn't prepared for building a snowman in the middle of the night with Billy fucking Hargrove. My bad. I'll do better next time." But there was a slight blush to Harrington's cheeks, accompanied by a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"God, it reminds me of you," Billy said, putting the last candy on the snowman and completing its mouth.
Harrington looked at him, brows furrowed. "The fuck's that supposed to mean?"
Billy shrugged and lit a smoke. "I don't know... It's surprisingly cute."
They stood quietly, passing Billy's cigarette between them, staring at the snowman they had spent all morning making. The cold had seeped into their very beings, to the point they were almost numb. Smoke curled from their mouths, drifting endlessly upward and disappearing into the stars. Billy watched Harrington's mouth. Watched the way his cigarette hung from it. The way the boy's lips curled as he exhaled.
Without a word, they trudged inside, stamping out the cigarette on the way. The darkness swallowed them up, their cold hands rushing to meet each other, lips crashing, skin burning.
Harrington had expected to spend Christmas alone again, in a big house filled with the kind of cold that didn't come from winter. Billy had expected to spend Christmas avoiding the searing wildfire that was his father, waiting to finally burst into the same flame he'd spent his life running from. Neither of them had expected Harrington's little spark to catch fire, to bloom into the inferno that was Billy Hargrove, to blossom into a new kind of flame. Neither of them expected Billy's blaze to chase away the crippling chill of the void that was Harrington's fate.
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