Idk if anyone will see this but I thought I'd let people following me know that I'm probably going to stop using this blog, at least for the time being. It was always meant to be a place to post my writing but it became way too much pressure, I always felt like I wasn't being creative enough and I became too anxious about the amount of people who were reading/ what the responses were. I was obsessed with keeping track and comparing myself with others and it made my already fragile mental health deteriorate and my self esteem plummet .
It's been an honour billy gang, hopefully one day I'll feel better about everything and come back to writing Harringrove but for now I just need to focus on getting better and spending time away from social media š«”
Steve went to sleep that night and opened his eyes in the ruins of Starcourt Mall.
He could tell he was dreaming. The mall looked wrong, too clean and sterile. Too empty. And anyway, Steve hadn't ever gone back after that night.
He looked around, eyes helplessly drawn to the spot where- oh.
Billy was there, kneeling right in the spot where he'd made his final stand against the mind flayer. He looked so alive, whole and healthy and larger than life.
Steve disrupted some rubble as he started to move towards Billy. The crunch of it echoed loudly around the empty foyer. Billy whipped around, eyes landing on Steve and looking all of a sudden like a suffocating man just given his first breath of fresh air
Steve could relate.
Billy rose from his knees, took a few tentative steps before he was all out sprinting towards Steve, crashing into him with enough force to nearly bowl him over. They clung to each other to stop from falling.
"Am I dreaming?" Billy whispered, like he was trying not to shatter the moment
"I think so. I'm dreaming, too."
"You died, Stevie. Baby, you were so brave and I couldn't save you." The words confused Steve, obviously that hadn't happened.
"You died, Billy. I had to watch you die, there was nothing we could do."
They began to compare stories. To Steve, Billy was the one possessed, who was killed on the Fourth of July. For Billy, that had been Steve.
Billy's eyes were glistening with unshed tears as they talked. His hand never once loosened its tight grip on Steve's.
Steve felt more awake in this dream than he ever did, these days. He hadn't known just how grounding Billy's touch had been. Now he realised that he'd been floating, untethered without it.
"I miss you so much, Billy."
"I miss you too, Stevie. Hurts real bad without you."
"What's even happening right now?"
"I dunno. I just don't want it to stop."
Steve had never really known or cared how the upside down worked. He just knew it had taken Billy from him. Maybe this was its way of giving him back. A mismatched Billy and Steve brought together. It wasn't the same, but it was something.
Waking up was the hardest thing he'd ever done. He made Billy promise to be there when Steve went to sleep again. He was desperate, fighting the pull of day until billy agreed.
"Promise, baby. I'm gonna be here waiting for you."
He went through the next day stuck in a haze. He barely paid attention to anything that happened, couldn't remember anything he'd done. He could only focus on the mounting anticipation warring with the looming dread inside him.
He was so afraid that none of it was real, just his lonely, pathetic brain making it all up to feel better about things.
He stole a Valium from him mom's medicine cabinet that night. He wasn't proud, but he knew he was too worked up to get to sleep on his own. He closed his eyes, waiting an eternity before he could feel himself slipping.
He wasn't at the mall this time. There was sunshine in his face, salt in the air and sand beneath his bare feet.
He suddenly remembered the last conversation they'd had before that night. He could hear the way Billy murmured in his ear that someday he would take Steve to California.
Their thing had always been a shared cigarette. The first was after that night, Steve's face more bruise than not. Billy on the porch with a stolen beer and a smoke dangling from slack lips, Steve stealing it for a long drag before stuffing it back in Billy's mouth.
They didn't get along any better after that moment of peace than before, but when Steve was too tired to fight, he'd pluck the smoke from between Billy's fingers, and a truce would form for as long as there was a lit cigarette between them.
They cope with things differently, after the gate closes, cloaking world-weary shoulders in ways no one saw coming.Ā
And the others, they couldāve guessed what would happen to Billy.Ā
That he would shrink when the shadow cast itself out, skin sucked dry like astronaut food left to rot when the shuttle went up in smoke. Melancholy, spackled and drying over his bones to take up less of the atmosphere.Ā
It wasnāt much of a surprise. Theyād always thought, that. Maybe Mad Dog Hargrove wasnāt all he inflated himself to be. Maybe heād catch on something, one day. Pop. Deflate.Ā
And he does.
Billy was supposed to die. They were banking on it, but he didnāt. By the time he could breathe on his own, Neil had sold his stuff from bins marked $5.00 under the cooling September sun, so.Ā
Billy pulls through and he hides himself inside the zip up hoodie Steve Harrington drops at the hospital. Steve knits the sweater Billy calls home, and loses his mind as payment.
Comes up from his third concussion in three years swinging, asking about California.Ā
California, come home.Ā
They spend three months in physical therapy together, and things change again. Steve props himself up with his battered spine and falls in love with who Billy is now that his walls have been torn down.
He cries all the time. Hurts.
Aches, deep in the enter of himself to see Mad Dog Hargrove trapped in a muzzle. Helpless.
Steve makes a decision to be tough enough for the both of them.
Steve gains a shadow. A hand that snakes, tugging on his jacket at midnight parties, fingers knotting with Steveās own to pull him out of the living room. Away from the fights he never wins.
They make an odd pair. Billy, quiet and sullen, blue eyes tear swamped and muddy. Steve, snapping and snarling at anyone who gets too close. Who stares too long.
Theyāve switched places. Parent trapped their trauma into something that fits together like pieces of a puzzle.
"Steve was well aware that he was prone to spiralling when left alone with his thoughts for too long, and all he could think about right now was Billy, and specifically what would happen when Steve saw him again"
The way Billy antis go on about him never breaking the cycle of abuse as if that's a moral failure on his part and not the failure of every single adult around him really shows what they think of abuse victims.
woke up this morning to a comment on a fic saying they hoped I didnāt mind them commenting on such an old fic, and the fic isnāt even a year old, so Iām going to reiterate: I canāt speak for every single fanfic writer in the world, but I donāt know a single one myself who wouldnāt be thrilled to get comments on years-old fanfic! there is no deadline! it honestly made my day
u may have killed my favorite character but u will never kill my spirit. or my love for them. or my ability to talk about them for an irritatingly long amount of time
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