Send help, I’m thinking of ghost!Steve where 1985 Billy buys a gold ring labeled “1920s wedding band” from a pawn shop and absolutely loses his shit at the guy who randomly shows up in his house looking just as terrified and confused.
Fast forward to them really getting along. Steve’s ghoulish hair has so much natural volume that it suits modern fashions better than the slicked back and weighted down retro/antique ones. He keeps track of Billy’s stuff and helps him find his car keys, lost spoons, etc. He knows Steve is haunting the ring, so he’s able to take Steve everywhere with him, and the guy really likes going for rides in the Camaro, going on hikes, and hell, even the grocery store is fun for him.
Some people give Billy strange looks for talking and laughing at nothing. Some people can see Steve, like the waitress who smiles at him at the diner and always asks if he’s sure he doesn’t want to order anything, but they don’t know.
As with most ghosts who are strong enough to haunt and be full apparitions, Steve is strong, and has turbulent emotions. Billy hasn’t figured out quite what triggers him to vanish, break glass, to blow out one of Billy’s speakers in his room and his car, but it’s getting worse. He wakes up one night to a sound like the roof’s coming off, but nothing’s changed and Steve doesn’t answer him when he calls out.
Ring left at home, Billy revisits the pawn shop and the dealer immediately japes, “Now, don’t you come back in here with that ring. I’ve been trying to sell it for decades. You got a fair price.”
Billy doesn’t even hesitate. “Tell me about Steve Harrington.”
The guy’s face goes pale and behind him, through the beaded curtain separating the break room from the rest of the shop, emerges his wife or mother, or Billy didn’t know who she was. But she looked ancient -
“How’s my son doing?”
Billy’s brows flew up. “Steve’s your son? You sold your son’s ring?”
She spoke in that slow way elderly people did; like their bodies officially couldn’t keep up with the speed of their brains. “He needs to move on. You’re attractive and capable looking. It’s been four months. Things can’t be that bad if it’s taken you this long to show back up here.”
“Listen, I’m not a paranormal savant or whatever, but I’m pretty sure Steve’s unique.”
“Of course he’s unique. I’m one hundred and three years old. Poor boy was cursed with unique right from the start.”
Billy didn’t like this discussion at all. “Listen, I’m not judging your son, but what about me screams queer, to you?”
"Darling, nobody with that hair isn’t a little bit queer, and you didn’t have the gift yet to see Steve strolling around in here the moment you walked in.”
That brought Billy up short. “What? I can see him fine. What do you mean I didn’t see him in here?”
“I’ve been doing this a long time, taking care of my baby in a ring. He shows up when he’s restless, or when someone special walks in here. He isn’t always aware of it, himself, but he followed you to the guitars and turned on the juke box for you. Remember that?”
Unfortunately, Billy did. Even right now, the shop was unique in that it didn’t play music, but on the day Billy walked in, jazz had randomly started playing as he argued with himself about an old Gibson guitar. He’d bought the ring instead.
His mother continued, “What, is he ironing your jeans wrong or something?”
“No. He’s breaking things. A lot of things.”
This time, the pawn shop cashier heaved a gruff sound. “He always does that ‘round this time. It’s the first year I didn’t have to pack up our fragile inventory.”
“Why?” Billy pressed.
“Late summer isn’t a good time for him,” his mother confirmed.
Well that sucked, because summer was Billy’s favorite season, and he said as much. “What, because everyone’s outside and not spending time with a dead guy?”
“No, because he was murdered in July by his wife.”
*sigh* here’s part 2 of this ghost!Steve drabble haha
Maybe one day I’ll write it as a proper fic.
• • • • • • •
It was the clothes that made Billy’s stomach turn, what made him rush into the house’s bathroom and eject his breakfast.
Mrs. Harrington kept all of her son’s clothes. Billy supposed this would be an obsessive red flag if she weren’t able to talk to her son everyday for the last sixty years.
Despite her slowed speech and gait, her weathered, elegant hands cracked open a ginger ale for him. “Just be glad you missed the trial and error period. Trying to figure out what his soul had attached to was like waiting out another war.”
Billy leaned against the doorjamb as he sipped the cold soda. “How’d you do it?”
“Well he didn’t haunt his widow, thank god—”
“Where is she?” Billy asked before he could help it.
“Magnolia Cemetery. Good riddance to the bitch.”
His eyes widened. Mrs. Harrington was a classy lady despite owning a pawnshop, but with a son and husband long since passed, and one of them lingering around, Billy supposed she had the right to say whatever she wanted. “How’s she go?”
“Pleaded some mental disorder in court and spent her time in a hospital instead of prison. Then she married some sorry fool and got pregnant. I admit, she looked normal from that point on, and everyone thought the hospital did wonders. But I had my baby to tell me his side of things.”
Billy followed her back into the guestroom. “Steve hasn’t mentioned her.”
“No, he wouldn’t. I raised a sweet boy who turned into a gullible man. Which I consider a victory with a husband who had post trauma dripping out of his ears.”
“World War…one?” Billy recollected. This was all too bizarre for someone who skipped town on his eighteenth birthday to escape a father with Vietnam War bullshit.
“That’s right. My Johnny was a good man but he held expectations over Steve’s head. So Steve married too young and to the wrong person. I’m sure he loved her, but it was in the way young love is. Help me put these away.”
Merciless, he complained inwardly, but reached for white shirt and blazer-type jacket still bearing the brown bloodstains in which Steve had died. Then he paused. “Steve doesn’t wear these.”
“Pardon?”
Billy could see his ghoulish roommate easily in his mind’s eye. The white t-shirt that stuck up beneath the dark sweater, making Steve look as young as he’d been while alive. “Steve died in these, but the—however you want to say it—the clothes he wears now aren’t these.”
“Well, no. He loathed that suit. He could never get his hair to comb flat, and the new age denim was the only thing he didn’t tear right through. Back then, our circle of people thought he dressed below us. Really, he just wore what he liked and what served him. It’s what his soul imprinted on.”
Billy raised a brow at her lighting a pipe near the open window. He often smoked cigarettes, so he had no place to judge. She’d made it this long with her own methods.
“I suppose I have to ask…how’d it happen?”
“Bullet in the head,” she answered bluntly. “Steve and her side man got into a fight for the whole town to see. Then he went over that night to apologize, but she was there, cleaning up the wrong man. Steve claims something else was going on, but his memory is faulty. Ghosts aren’t good at remembering their last seconds alive, but it sounds like a typical cheating scandal.”
Billy frowned. “You…don’t buy it?”
She puffed away at the pipe. In the back of Billy’s mind, a tickle of mirth moved at the notion of having a smoking buddy.
“I was like you. Didn’t have much room in my thoughts for anything supernatural. Then my son was taken and returned. But I wasn’t the one who saw him first. My mother did. We didn’t have it in us to tell her, so she didn’t go to the funeral. Nanny, none the wiser. Then I came back, wearing my terrible black dress and ripping some black netting off my face—to see him sitting on the piano bench, making her almost go cardiac with laughter. Steve was always close to his Nanny.”
She sighed fragrant smoke and finished, “That old woman had the ring. That’s what took so long. She had to die before I pieced it together.”
“What did your husband think of all of it?”
For a moment, Billy thought she hadn’t heard him. Then, “Johnny couldn’t see him. He could hear the piano and the guitar going. He could argue with his son beyond the grave, making books fly off shelves and furniture tip over, but he couldn’t see him.”
Billy made a pfft sound with his mouth, returning to the task of setting Steve’s clothes in protective bags and boxes. “I guess he and I have the dad thing in common.”
“I reckon there’s more than that,” she said, almost to herself. “But that’s for you the two of you to figure out. Anyways, once the door’s open, you can’t stop the wind from moving how it likes. Once I saw Steve, I saw a whole lot else.”
Billy took the ginger ale can off the bedside dresser and sipped. “Do you think his wife was possessed by something?”
She turned away from the window and moved at her pace to exit the room. “I think the Wheeler clan has never held a drop of dementia in its blood except for that woman on that night.”
Billy let the soda in his mouth slip right back into the can. His stomach plummeted right down to his feet, unable to hold any more. “Wheeler? Like…Nancy Wheeler?”
“One and the same,” Mrs. Harrington confirmed, biting on her pipe stem to reach for a box labeled Photographs. “You just wait, darlin’. The family resemblance is uncanny.”
Yeah. Billy didn’t need a photo to know that. Because now Steve’s frequent requests to drive by the newsstand made sense. Billy thought Steve’s eyes got wet looking at the progress of editorial printing and photography. Or the seeing the little dates in the corners of newspapers just go on and on without him.
It never occurred to Billy that Steve wanted to see her.
Skinny Nancy Wheeler with pretty eyes, Billy had to admit, and a bit of an overeager, bossy quality that Billy didn’t fully understand yet. She was nice enough. Quick to retort, and argued with her equally lanky brother with no regard for audience around them. It reminded Billy of his own stepsister—
He took the frame without thinking about it. Nancy had short hair, where her relative had long, but…Abigail Thornton-Harrington was a shock to behold.
“The Wheeler men have all been dunces until lately,” Mrs. Harrington rattled off as mercilessly as ever, never giving Billy a chance to process or recover. “Whatever god exists, did me a favor by not letting Abigail Wheeler stick around this town after passing.”
As sick as Billy felt, for…more reasons than he was able to contemplate right now…he frowned. Why does Steve like visiting the spinning image of his murderer?
Billy doesn’t ask when he gets home. He showers the soft, old woman smell off himself, dumps his clothes in the laundry, and with the towel still around his hips, he calls out, “Steve?”
The answer he gets is the lamp beside the bed turning on. Beneath the cone of light, is a glass cup with a branch of wild roses more so hanging out of the cup than in the water. Billy’s neighbor landscaped with roses. Steve’s haunt circumference isn’t large, but it doesn’t obey property boundaries.
“Can I see you?”
The house stood quietly around him. The neighborhood may be old, but Billy lucked out in renting some of the houses that were rebuilt throughout the block. Foundational issues, age, and such. Now, though, he sighed. Did he have to wait for July to pass before he could see Steve again?
Billy didn’t like it, but he wanted to try something.
As evening fell over Hawkins, he put the ring on his finger and went to the newsstand. Surprisingly, Nancy wasn’t there. She was the type to be in early and clock out only when the doors were being locked for the night. Billy felt both annoyed and pleased. He actually liked Nancy—until recently, and he didn’t want to think too heavily on that—but this other guy was fine, he supposed. “Hey, Jonathan.”
The young man perked up from distractedly watching a younger kid sitting on the long booth along the wall. “Hi, Billy. Can I get you something?”
Billy pretended to care about the magazines his fingers flipped through but glanced at the booth. “Who’s that?”
“My brother, Will. My mom’s on her way to get him.”
Said brother perked up. “Hey! Are you the music guy?”
Billy had to crack a smile. He was the only one in this town with a shred of taste. Or so he thought. “Yeah, probably.”
Jonathan smiled and apologized, “Will likes music. And video games and stuff.”
“A mixed bag keeps boredom away,” Billy disregarded, but now he didn’t really have any reason for being here—
“My mom really liked your recommendation for Louis Armstrong. She’s always trying to make me dance with her, but that ‘la vie en rose’ song was really easy for me.”
Billy’s conversational smile faded as one second Will spoke to no one, and then the next, Steve sat next to him with his arm stretched over the back of the booth. In a room with ghoulish fluorescent lighting, Steve looked damn near human. Alive.
“Armstrong’s great. His slower stuff is famous now for some reason, but his faster stuff is incredible. Don’t get me started on Ella Fitzgerald. Most beautiful voice you’ll ever hear. They jammed a lot together. It’s all old stuff for you, but it’s timeless, you know? And—um—never mind, you might be too young to know how hot Josephine Baker was.”
“I’m thirteen,” Will scoffed benevolently. “Who’s that?”
“Will?” Jonathan said. Billy’s heart kicked up to his throat as he asked, “Who are you talking to?”
Billy clenched his fist, pad of his thumb pressing down on the gold band on his finger while he announced to no one, “I’ll be heading out. Thanks, Jonathan.”
“Uh, you’re welcome,” he said, perplexedly looking at the magazines, of which Billy hadn’t bought any.
“Steve,” he growled as soon as his door slammed in the car.
“What?” he finally got as his engine roared out of the lot and down Main Street.
“What do you mean, ‘what?’ You can’t just talk to kids!”
“Of course I can,” Steve refuted in the passenger seat. He leaned his arm on the door to hold his head up, as if arguing took too much energy. “Will and Joyce come into the shop all the time. I don’t judge them for it.”
“I’m not talking about money problems! I’m talking about this white bread town knocking on my queer fucking door because the kids are talking to air!”
Steve’s head rotated to look at him, and Billy realized, they’d never talked about this. They’d never talked about Billy having men over because once Billy knew Steve was around all the time, he stopped dating. Stopped hooking up. Stopped…being interested in anyone else.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Steve finally said.
“It does if you’re a bigot,” Billy deflated somewhat, focusing on the road. “They’ll grab their heirloom pitchforks and come after me. Hell raiser faggot. Corrupting the kids with my…ghosts and shit.”
For a beat of time, only the sound of the Camaro on nocturnal streets moved between them. And then Steve laughed. Laughed genuinely and mockingly, but not at Billy. “They should take that up with the occult shop on Maple Marsh Lane. Even in my lifetime, we had a rumor of some guy dying there before it was a shop. No one’s ever bothered that shopkeeper. Plenty of people gossip about the pawnshop ghost. And everyone’s a hypocrite because no one wants to admit that they can’t control their kids getting drunk or high in East Village. Queer part of town. That hasn’t changed.”
That was…a lot. Just like the rest of the day, Billy had a lot to process. Namely, how the hell Steve knew where the queer side of town was.
This is the last part that I’ll post on tumblr. Read pt. 4 & follow on ao3 ~
• • • • • • •
Billy learned early on that Steve was a little shit.
When Billy first brought home the ring, Steve didn’t appear immediately. Maybe like a plant in a new pot, it took him a while to settle. In the meantime, Billy—blissfully ignorant—continued unpacking his things and shopping for furniture in his spare time. He only moved to this town because of how affordable the new houses were, and the work was good.
But even white bread came with fruit jam now and then.
Hookups were surprisingly easy to come by, and he figured he wouldn’t buy the silly wicker couch, but he could screw the mouth off the salesperson.
He took the risk in inviting him to his empty house, and before the guy could make casual conversation about sofas and kitchen tables, Billy put his mouth to work. And then he made the salesman too incoherent to say much else than his name and weak-willed commands. Billy rumpled his sheets and filled his house with the slaps of their hips and wanton moans stifled by pillows.
Billy liked pillows. Those, he had in abundance, but when he woke up to an empty bed, he immediately sat up with the conviction to wash the foreign cologne out of all the bedclothes—
His gaze alighted onto the glass of water standing on the stack of boxes beside his bed. He took it and slaked his parched throat, knowing he’d never see the sales guy again but he could still appreciate the nice gesture.
In about two weeks, he had a pair of proper side tables with little drawers, a kitchen table, and a ludicrously expensive antique couch. Old ass furniture shouldn’t be that expensive, but the original second hand—more like twelfth hand—owned IKEA couch just kept losing hardware and leaning under his weight. He finally got the shit scared out of him one time too many and put a book under the precarious leg.
The book went missing. Billy blames the second hookup, because the guy commented, “That’s an interesting use for a Bible.”
Yeah, well, he could take his religious ass and his book out of here. The fuck was only so-so anyway.
And fine, the antique couch was beautiful. Art nouveau woodwork and green upholstery. Billy didn’t often gravitate toward green, but amongst all the other colors in his place, the couch was a nice, comfy accent piece.
The third hookup actually had the bravery to talk to Billy in public afterward. He supposed an easy conversation was hardly suspect, but Billy knew the guy might be a bit too casual when he said, “Hey, sorry for scaring your room mate. I didn’t want to turn any lights on and disturb you, but I might’ve taken a few years off his life by scaring him in the dark.”
Billy just smiled a little crookedly and let the conversation spin its way out. Being that casual with your flings was dangerous, let alone forgetting who you slept with and when. But Billy wasn’t going to shame the man for his liaisons. It was a wonder he got Billy’s name right the first time.
Billy didn’t realize how active Steve was in his house until he finally saw him. Then a whole lot made sense.
The first time was in the early morning, too dark to tolerate a light other than his morning cigarette. The spring mornings were cold. Billy liked smoking when it was cold. He usually took a break in the summer because it was just too damn hot for smoke in the lungs, but—
“Thanks.”
Billy blinked a few times, and then peeked around like his neighbors might be awake and watching him stare along his front porch like he lost something. Then he looked at the cigarette between his fingers. Had he…dropped it? Or…set it down?
Either way, it was already burning short, so he took a long draught and dropped it under his slipper—
Something like a cicada bounced off his back when he turned into the house, jarring him awake to whirl around and stare at the man right on his porch stairs. Billy really needed to get better sleep because how the hell did he get that close?
“Throw your stubs away.”
“Get your own house,” Billy threw back, and instantly recoiled on himself. It sounded childish in his own ears, and apparently in the guy’s as well, because he wagged his head back and forth, mimicry under his voice as he strolled down the drive toward the road.
Billy took the damn stub to the trash bin in the kitchen, and then peered outside, trying to see which direction the man went, but he was already gone.
Until he wasn’t.
Until Billy began seeing him in more of those hours spent between sleeping and waking, where insomnia demons frolic and fever dreams sing.
Billy rolled over in bed, realizing with some sort of odd mixture of terror and…comfort…that someone stood hunched beside him, as if he were fishing for something in the bedside drawer.
“…keys…in the couch, you lizard. Don’t lose ‘em.”
Billy heard himself mumble, “Thanks.”
Then in the morning he practically spat out his coffee. “Lizard?”
And his heart almost stopped when he got a reply. “Lounge lizard. It means you’re attractive. Or derogatorily, like, a useless ladies’ man.”
The man was like a sunspot on his corneas. Billy blinks and he faded…blink…fade…
Until he didn’t fade anymore.
Those dark tresses bobbed over a young, sculpted face as he shook his head. “You lose shit all the time. It’s kind of impressive. You doll yourself up that much but lose basic stuff. Phooey.”
“Who the hell are you?”
The guy lazily swung his head around to see the front door, but frowned and looked at Billy. Dark eyes blew wide. To Billy shock and perplexity, a wistful grin began to bloom on his face before it tilted right into anger. “Where the hell are we? Why do you have my ring?”
“What do you mean your fucking ring? This is my house!”
“Are we still in Hawkins?”
“Don’t ask me that like I’ve taken you hostage!”
The guy began to…wiggle and bounce, and after a few long seconds, Billy realized he was panicking. He pulled at his hair even though it floated back into place and he kept touching his face as if he might lose his nose or something.
“This is bad. This is bad! This is crazy! Did it burn down? Did you steal it? Did I forget? How did I get here?”
It took Billy a while to calm this nutcase down. The only thing keeping him from calling the cops is because, as a general rule, he didn’t want any policeman being too familiar with him. Despite the odd speeding ticket or two. Nine. He wasn’t counting.
When the guy finally went quiet and stared imploring into Billy’s eyes, his lips wobbled and he pointed at Billy’s hand. “That’s mine. Fits you, though.”
Billy learned that his name is Steve. Steve Harrington.
Steve had a…hard time admitting that he was dead. Billy figured out that he knew, but it seemed to be some kind of ghost rule that he couldn’t outright say it.
He also learned that Steve talked. A lot. Once Billy finally heard him, he learned that Steve was really used to keeping himself company. Billy listened to whole conversations with himself and initially found it frightening and a bit pathetic. Then just…sad. Admittedly, it didn’t take Billy long to fold and start interjecting himself into Steve’s monologues.
Thing is, Steve is nice to talk to. As jarring as it always is to suddenly have him in the car, in the same room, or to see him wandering around Billy’s job, Steve wasn’t, like, evil in any way. He was just dead. And bored. And lonely.
The whole situation shouldn’t have been as relatable as it is. Billy only bought the ring because he was bored in the way shopping could alleviate. What he really wanted was that old Gibson in the pawnshop, but it cost more than his damn couch. So he settled on the ring. Billy usually wore silver—more affordable and made the yellow in his hair pop—but there was something elegant and chic about just a thin line of sparkle to his otherwise strong, male fingers.
Billy often did his best to stick to how he looked; how straight society wanted him to look. But left to his own devices in the safety of his own house, and other parts of him emerged. All of his color choices. The feminine, art nouveau couch. An extra piercing in his ear to add a stud next to his dangly piece—
“You’re beautiful, doll.”
Billy’s heart kicked up the way it always did when he realized—remembered—that Steve was right there. Always right there. This time, standing behind him and watching him clean the new piercing with the held of the bathroom mirror. “Don’t call me that.”
“What? Beautiful or doll? I can say what I want.”
Because you’re dead, Billy filled in, but not aloud. He considered returning the ring, or just leaving it behind whenever he went out, but…it really could’ve been worse. Steve could fuck up his work, make noise to ruin his sleep, or possess him or something.
Which was a way around thinking about how much he liked Steve. He liked that Steve kept track of his things. He liked that Steve existed. Billy had grown up with so much scrutiny and forced company, that living on his own was both liberating and isolating. Steve was a perfect combination of both. He left Billy alone and kept him company; the Camaro became their ‘place.’
Steve grinned like a loon with the way Billy drove. That surprised him. A dead guy who said shit like doll, and lounge lizard, ought to be scared of a new age car and the way Billy used it. Then again, the things that scared Steve weren’t injury. Based on his initial reaction to finally being able to ask how Billy got the ring, Billy would guess that Steve was terrified of being lost. Of being alone. Of forgetting.
Again…too relatable. Billy felt for him and, all right, for a ghost he had no right being as attractive as he was. It gave Billy the stupid crush tingles in his belly to watch Steve try and style his hair beside him in the mirror’s reflection. Steve looked remarkably alive unless he was—Billy had no better word for it than tired—or distracted. He had his little giveaways:
The way his hair floated back into place.
The way he’d lounge on the spine of the sofa with no regards to gravity.
When he reached right through Billy’s dash and dislodged the dust bunny in his air conditioning vent.
How he could interact with animals. A bird once got stuck in the house while Billy was moving a stupid antique chaise lounge into the living room because Steve loved it and it went with the couch. Instead of helping him move the damn thing, Steve got the bird to land calmly on the couch. Billy released it outside.
Cats showed up. And food bowls too, which made Billy sneak the dishes back to the neighbors’ backyards. “I’ll get some damn food. Stop stealing shit.”
The cats hung around but they didn’t really care to interact with Steve. That was the dogs. Dogs loved Steve. Billy successfully returned two to their owners before he considered just getting a dog to tide Steve over.
But then Steve stopped stealing and started breaking things.
Then Billy went to the pawnshop and met his mother.
Billy went to her house where Steve grew up and touched his clothes. Touched his bloodstains. Saw and held the photographs from Steve’s life. The person in the pictures seemed more of a ghost than the man living in his house.
Steve. His Steve. His roommate and friend. And…something else. Just as Steve couldn’t blatantly admit that he was dead, Billy couldn’t say it out loud why he pushed the ring around his finger with the pad of his thumb. Made the metal warm. Took to polishing it like something precious, more than gold.
So when Billy began investigating, he should have known better.
Better than to leave the ring at home too often after he’d given Steve—given himself—the comfort of always having it on him.
Because Steve snuck the ring into his clothes so he could go with him. Billy didn’t like that. It broke a trust he didn’t realize he’d planted and sprouted.
Thing is, for all of Billy’s queer comforts and queer tilting of his heart in Steve’s direction, it wasn’t homosexuality that killed him.
It was car. And his rage.
T-boned during a drive after arguing with Steve. For all of his petty and livid arguments with Steve, fixing the Camaro would cost more than any damn furniture. Repairing his own body, which he clutched as he got out of his car. Broken rib, he thought even as he yelled.
He knew instantly that the other man was drunk. Figures, and he was ready to fight. Billy was used to fighting. Had fought his way out of a house that desired to extinguish him. Fought his way through straight bars and silenced dangerous hookups. Fought his way across the country when the money was good and staying was dangerous.
He wasn’t ready for this fight.
Billy lost. Like the man was possessed, his drunken furry moved faster than Billy telegraphed, or maybe Californians just all fought the same and this was different. Some backwoods Indiana fire that Billy hadn’t been prepared for.
And even as he lay bleeding on the ground, he couldn’t fight a gun.
He…heard the shot. He saw the arm raised toward him, but Billy didn’t catch the bullet.
Steve did.
Like a dream, Billy knew Steve stood over him. He knew Steve scared the guy into a howling panic, sent him sprinting down the old, dark road, revolver skidding on the asphalt.
Billy knew the sound in his throat and lungs wasn’t right. He knew, as Steve crouched over him, that his ghost’s eyes were wet even if tears couldn’t fall. A terrible, wet sound seemed loud in the quiet night as Billy tried to speak. “Uck…St—”
Steve shook his head vehemently. Hands cradled Billy’s face. Thumbs wiped at the blood slipping past his lips. He sobbed, “Shhh. Sh. Billy…Billy…”
Dying. I’m dying, he knew. How else could he feel Steve? How else could Steve be warm and the night be cold?
Steve kept shaking his head. “Stay. Stay, sweetheart. You gotta stay. Billy, please—”
Trying, he wanted to say, but he didn’t know what he meant. Or rather…he didn’t know why he…didn’t mind. Staying for Steve. Staying on the wrong side of death.
Steve shook his head, squeezing Billy’s skull and kissing his lips. Kissing his blood and Billy’s skin. Slippery and plush on Billy’s mouth, making his eyelashes heavy. He wanted to feel the softness of that hair, the silken tickle on his face. Maybe wanting it made it real. If he wanted hard enough, he could feel the soft scratch of Steve’s sweater, touch him back. Squeeze him. Hold him—
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
His healing body needed a lot of sleep, which allowed Steve to have his time resting too. Neither of them really understood what that meant, but so long as Billy could touch the ghost in his house, both of them smiled like giddy kids.
Since Steve was so unused to being touched—after sixty years of being dead—Billy successfully snuck up on him. This resulted in all the bulbs in the house exploding and the water running hot for the next five minutes. Billy laughed while holding his chest, trying and failing to quell the pain as he said through his mirth, “S-Sorry. I’m sorry, bab-y—”
“You’re not sorry!” Steve bristled. The cast iron skillet hanging on the wall rattled ominously.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Billy had a week before Murray Bauman knocked on his door.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve. I haven’t even run out of my prescription meds yet.”
He leaned against his doorjamb, arms crossed while he listened to Steve trying to crack eggs in the kitchen. Some days his ‘poltergeisting’ didn’t come as easily, as he put it. He was one for three, but at least he made his mess in the sink.
Meanwhile, Murray opened his arms by his sides and let them fall back down. “I’ll bring ibuprofen as a bargaining chip next time. I just want to talk.”
“Bring me a new carton of eggs and maybe I won’t shut the door in your face.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Two weeks.
It took Steve two weeks to recuperate.
Billy couldn’t say that he got used to Steve being gone; he just had lapses of distraction—and Billy Hargrove was simultaneously a master and disaster when it came to distractions. He hadn’t needed to occupy himself in months. He was out of practice. Every time he tried to smoke, he made it through half a cigarette before he could feel the memories of Steve worrying about him. The way he begged and pleaded for Billy to stay inside his body long enough for it to heal—
So smoking was a bust.
Television and music could only go so far before his brain vibrated inside his skull. The silence after such noise was actually pleasant until night fell. Then the dark was too dark and the streetlights were too bright and Billy found himself pacing his home because he didn’t want to lie in that dreadful half-conscious place.
He got quite good at using an espresso press. Along with the ensuing beverages made with all of his trial attempts. Scalding milk was a different creature that involved staying close to the stove with a book in hand and a thermometer in the pot—
