There is a rumor of a fox hanging around Hawkins, a beautiful pale fox that could be worth millions of dollars in the market, so several hunters are always watching the forest looking for it to steal its fur.
Billy isn't interested in catching a silly animal, however, his father drove him late at night to catch the damn fox. He separated from his father and the other hunters for a moment to go pee when he heard a growl and squeaks, as he got closer to the sound he saw the Fox with one of its paws caught in a bear trap. He approached the animal who, upon hearing it, hedgehog growling at him and showing him his teeth, worrying, Billy felt sorry for the animal, but his eyes caught his attention, becoming familiar to him and then releasing his paw, leaving him free.
The next day Steve appeared with crutches and a bandaged leg saying he had fallen from the stairs of his house, but his heart skipped a beat when Steve smiled softly at him as if thanking him. What the hell?!?!
I can't help but feel that Billy would never insult Steve when dating. Like he would know that Steve already feels insecure and inadequate in every area in his life which is why he would never call him stupid, dumb, idiot, clueless. He knows Steve is smart in his own way and adroes him the way he is. He has no desire to hurt Steve, even for the sake of a Joke.
Part One/Two/Three/Four/Five Read them as I post here, or all at once in Ao3 under peterqpan
As everyone stared at the trays and trays of popcorn balls, then down at their caramelly fingers, Joyce drew Hopper away.
Billy watched her wave her hands around as she talked to him in a low voice, and he frowned at Steve, then, for some reason, at Billy. Billy set his jaw, glaring back, and Hopper laughed, shaking his head. Steve stared Billy in the eye and slid one of his caramel fingers in his mouth, and Billy swiveled away to wash his hands as Hopper braced his feet to yell.
“Who wants to make Christmas cookies,” he called out. “El!”
“Me!” she shouted back, from the front room, and then there came a rapid thumping as she ran back to the kitchen.
“What’s happening,” Steve whispered again, as Dustin grabbed their popcorn balls, and trotted into the front room.
Billy thought of a few responses, like everybody’s trying to decorate your damn tree, and you bought so many groceries Mrs. Henderson screamed into her hands, and bit his lips together. “They’re having a good time,” he said finally. “Max put on the Jackson 5, Will’s making snowflakes.”
Steve watched his face uncertainly, and Billy sighed, elbowing him.
“They don’t have to be here.”
“Yeah,” Steve nodded, laughing unsteadily.
“They want to be here,” Billy stressed, and Steve nodded, biting back a smile.
“You two delinquents helping us make cookies?” Joyce said, stepping between their chairs. She hugged both their heads to her stomach, while Steve stared into Billy’s eyes like he was having a heart attack. “Say cheese,” she said, and Billy felt himself flush at the idea of a photo of he and Steve with Joyce Byers’ arms around their heads. Jonathan took a few, and Joyce let go and yanked them up by the shoulders to mix, and measure, and get two separate mixing bowls of cookies going, while Hopper and Mrs. Henderson made frosting.
“I haven’t got any cutting-out thingies,” Steve confessed suddenly, and Hopper snorted.
“That’s what knives are for,” said Mrs. Henderson, her cheer making the line even creepier, and Billy rolled his eyes, and started cutting out fold-and-cut paper doll chains to use as stencils.
“Oh, leave those two together,” said Joyce, leaning over Billy’s shoulder, as he started to cut two gingerbread men apart. “They’re friends. We’ll put them up as pairs. Let them hold hands. You boys can each decorate your own set.”
Billy froze, his cheeks flushing, and Steve dropped the bowl he was mixing, so it clattered against the counter. “O-okay,” Billy whispered, under his breath, and she patted his shoulder, shouting for the kids to all come and cut out cookies.
The kitchen turned into a stampede, so Billy tugged Steve out, pulling him into the front room where the TV was playing static in front of a stack of Christmas videotapes, and the enormous tree was actually looking good, decked out with yards of paper chain in alternating red and white, gleaming popcorn balls bigger than Billy’s fists, and Will’s intricate snowflakes.
“Holy shit,” Steve mumbled, staring up at it, and sliding his fingers between Billy’s to give them a squeeze. “It...it looks so good.” He looked a little...adrift, Billy thought, and he glanced back towards the kitchen to make sure they had no witnesses before pulling Steve and his sweater closer, and giving him a tight hug and soft kiss under the Christmas tree.
He was squishier than usual, in the sweater, and Billy squeezed harder, until Steve huffed a laugh, humming tunelessly against Billy’s lips. “Love you so much,” Steve whispered, still sounding a little bewildered, and Billy gave him one last squeeze before tugging his hand away, and clearing his throat. It felt raw.
“You—you wanna put on one of your Christmas movies,” Billy asked, and Steve grimaced down at the pile.
“Uh,” he said, and Billy bent to pick up Silent Night, Bloody Night, The Little Drummer Boy, and Black Christmas, subtitled If This Picture Doesn’t Make Your Skin Crawl...It’s On Too Tight. “Honestly the scariest one there is Little Drummer Boy,” Steve said, sliding an arm around Billy’s waist. “He hates all humans and wants them to die.”
“Is it because they keep making him play that damn song?” Billy asked, eyeing it, and Steve pressed a warm kiss to his cheek. Billy heard a click, and spun them in their socks on the hardwood floor to look at the door to the kitchen.
Jonathan was standing there. He opened his mouth just as Dustin walked in, humming, and Jonathan swallowed, and grabbed the light-up snowman off the floor. “Thought I’d...put this by the door,” he mumbled, and Billy narrowed his eyes.
“Did he take a picture?” Billy asked under his breath.
Steve bit his lips, clenching his hands on Billy’s arms. “...even if he doesn’t tell anyone, he’ll probably leave it around the photo lab for anyone to see, just like he fucking did with Nancy.”
“I can only carry so many popcorn balls,” Dustin yelled into the kitchen, from around the other side of the tree, and more feet followed.
“I can go feed him his camera,” Billy offered in a whisper. “Shove it down his—”
“No, no,” Steve groaned. “He’s dating Nancy, I can’t—and he’s here for Christmas, we can’t kill him.”
“You always act like I murder six guys before breakfast,” Billy muttered, and Steve snorted a laugh.
“That’s on the sixth day of Christmas,” he whispered back, and Billy covered a snigger, trying to lean and see into the kitchen.
“On the first day of murder, my true love gave to me/a dead camera creep shoved into my tree. On the second day of murder—”
“See if you can get him alone,” Billy said under his breath, just as Will popped up next to him, and Steve backed away.
“I’m sleeping under the tree,” Will breathed, dwarfed by the massive pillar of lights and ornaments.
“Me too,” El announced, and Hopper frowned.
“Oh, are you, now?” he asked her, and she nodded firmly, eyes wide and pleading.
“I wanna stay too,” Dustin said, throwing an arm around Will. He then stuck his tongue out at Lucas. “You gotta get home, I bet?”
“Shut up,” said Lucas, folding his arms and setting his jaw.
“I’m...staying too,” said Max, and Billy turned to see her glaring at the tree, her fists clenched at her sides.
“Good thing there’re enough sleeping bags,” Steve said, squeezing Billy’s shoulder, and Billy wondered what face he’d made, at the news his step-sister wanted to spend Christmas at Steve Harrington’s, without Lucas.
“Are there?” Dustin’s mom asked. “Maybe we should go home, honey, I didn’t bring all the—”
“I’ll sleep naked!” Dustin declared, and everyone yelled “ew”, and “gross”, and “dude!”
“...let’s get our pajamas,” his mom told him, and he blinked at her, then beamed.
“Pajama party!” yelled El, high-fiving Will, and Billy glanced at Steve to see him nearly hovering off the floor with excitement.
“There’s hot chocolate,” Billy’s dingus boyfriend shouted over the noise. “We can stay up and tell stories!”
“Bring more sleeping bags,” Billy whispered to Dustin, who grinned up at him—and then Billy saw Max creeping off to the phone, and dialling, turning her body away and plugging her ear to listen to the receiver.
“Man,” Lucas sighed, folding his arms behind his head. “I wanna stay, too.”
“You should,” Steve told him, and Billy rolled his eyes.
“Okay!” said Joyce, “Um, Hopper, and Steve, and Billy, and uh, Jonathan, um—”
Mrs. Henderson laughed, following Joyce and all the non-children into the garage.
“Everyone’s very excited,” Joyce said, grimacing at Steve, “—but are there enough places to sleep?”
“You and Mrs. Henderson could sleep in my parent’s room,” Steve told her, squeezing Billy’s wrist with both hands. “And there’s a guest room, and my room. We can use sleeping bags—”
“The kids can zip them together,” suggested Hopper. “Sardine a few of ‘em in there.”
“I brought the Santa presents for Will,” Joyce whispered, as Billy closed the door after the crowd of grown-ups. “I’ll set those up tonight, if—if they ever go to sleep—”
“I brought El’s,” Hopper nodded, and Mrs. Henderson shrugged.
“I’ll pick Dustin’s up.”
“Max?” Steve asked, looking at Billy, and he shrugged.
“No clue, she said she was staying with Lucas.”
“We can’t ask Lucas,” Steve hissed, like Santa secrecy was an issue of national defense, and Billy held his breath for a second, afraid of what he might say, he so desperately wanted to kiss Steve Harrington’s stupid face.
“Max, uh, she called somebody,” Billy told them. “She’s probably...figuring it out.”
“Where are your presents,” Steve asked, suddenly, and Billy snorted, grinning at him.
“The fuck are yours, genius?”
They both realized at the same time they were surrounded by parents, and looked back at the wide-eyed, frowning faces of Hopper, Mrs. Henderson, and Joyce Byers, who all looked tongue-tied, and Jonathan Byers, who looked like he was feeling awkward as hell.
“Look,” Steve said to them, “—you cooked my food and decorated my tree—”
“You brought Christmas to this lonely house,” Billy intoned, pressing his hands together in prayer, his eyes raised to the roof of the garage, and Steve elbowed him hard in the side as Jonathan covered a laugh. “Blessings on you, every one,” Billy wheezed, clutching his side, and Steve smacked his head, laughing.
“Shut up! I’m serious—”
“You could let him dress up as Santa,” Billy threw out the suggestion, eyeing his boyfriend dryly. “I bet he’d cry from happiness.”
“I would not,” Steve hissed. “They’d recognize me. And that hat would cover my best feature.”
“Thank you for having us,” said Joyce, grabbing Steve’s hands.
“Uh, no problem!” he laughed a little too jovially, his eyes wide and startled. “Uh, ho ho ho!”
“Oh my god,” Billy sighed. “Idiot.”
“If we’re upstairs, we might need them to put the Santa presents out,” Hopper said, and Steve brightened.
“We could do that.”
“El’s old for it,” Hopper grimaced, clearing his throat, “—but I was thinking of the whole thing, the—leave the note for Santa, and the...you know, the cookie crumbs.” He looked kind of...depressed about it, but he smiled back at the garage door and El.
Steve made a noise like an over-full teakettle, spewing steam, and Billy smacked his back, hard. “No, no no, she’s not,” Steve coughed, glaring at Billy, and steepled his hands, eyes narrowed. “She’s not too old, she’s never had Christmas, right? I knew somebody that rang bells outside. For Santa. Those kids were convinced—”
“Oh my god,” Billy groaned into his hands, feeling his tired smile muscles protest again. Dingus, he thought, helplessly. He reached out, then pulled his arm back, remembering that in front of everyone wasn’t the time to yank Steve into a kiss.
He left the rest of them whispering about presents, and wandered back into the kitchen, face-first into a wall of cookie smells, to find the whole scout troop eating peanut butter with spoons, staring into the oven.
“F’mell fo good,” El whispered, and Dustin, Lucas, and Will started telling her about their Christmases.
Max was leaning well back, in the doorway to the front room, and she shot a glance at Billy, then glanced at them, raising her eyebrows.
Billy snorted, sidling up so she was just out of arm’s reach. She relaxed when he stopped, and he folded his arms, turning to lean against the wall. “...you know if these idiots believe in Santa Claus?” he asked, under his breath.
She turned her head to stare witheringly. “They’re not babies,” she hissed back.
“Yeah,” Billy nodded. “...the sheriff wants to do a little-kid Santa thing for El. Y’know, cookie crumbs.”
Max squinted at him, wrinkling her nose for emphasis. “...the fuck do you care,” she asked in a low voice, and Billy licked his teeth, slowly, thinking. “...Steve’s into it,” Max guessed, and he felt his cheeks heat, and wanted to tell her to shut the hell up, but he took a deep breath.
“You gonna help, or what,” he asked, keeping his eyes on Lucas, who was talking about his then-toddler sister telling a white girl that she was just sugar and flour, instead of being brown and spicy like gingerbread, and Will was laughing, while El looked a little confused.
“You wanna trick El into believing in Santa,” Max said, raising her eyebrows at Billy. “You want her to get beat up in school?”
“No,” Billy winced. “No, no, just…”
“Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll tell the guys. We can be Santa...agnostic. Make it good, though, I’m not looking like a moron over some half-eaten carrots.”
“Right,” Billy nodded, turned away—he could feel Max’s stare between his shoulder blades, and felt his shoulders hunching—and he slipped back into the garage. “Max will help,” he said, and everybody frowned at him. He felt his cheeks heating, and desperately wanted to turn back around and leave, or maybe get in his car, and drive to California. “...help you to...convince El there’s a...Santa,” he forced out, and Steve lit up as Hopper blinked and smirked, and Joyce and Claudia Henderson grinned.
“Wait, what,” said Jonathan.
“She says to make it good, she’s not gonna look dumb over half-eaten carrots,” Billy repeated dutifully, and Joyce covered what looked like a snicker.
Fuck you, he thought, but Steve was already turning to Hopper with a serious expression. “What about the woodstove? How’s Santa gonna get down the—”
“Knew a guy once,” Hopper said, crossing his arms with a frown, “—he took his biggest boots, stuck ‘em in the ashes, and made some prints in front of the stove.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Steve breathed. “We gotta get that thing lit.”
Billy stared over, listening with disbelief to his boyfriend trying to figure out how Santa managed stovepipes. He was beginning to wonder if Steve Harrington believed in Santa.
“I can tell Will,” said Jonathan, shooting a suspicious glance at Billy, who shrugged, stepping away from the door to let him get by.
“There are jingly bells in one of the boxes,” Steve announced. “Shake them outside—”
“Y’know, if you tossed those car chains on the roof,” Billy said, “—let ‘em slide down, it’d sound like a sleigh, maybe. Get it down with a ladder later. They’d never know in the dark.”
Joyce looked a little bewildered, but Hopper’s eyes widened, and he clapped a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Keep talking,” he said intently. Billy wanted to flinch away, and knew he was supposed to stay still, so he kept his knees locked, swallowing. His ears rang a little.
“The—the chains,” he repeated numbly. “Sir,” and Hopper lifted his hand away, then patted Billy's arm, frowning. Steve came up and threw an arm around him, and Billy tried not lean into him too obviously.
"...actually, I got something else you could help me with, kiddo," Hopper said, and Billy nodded automatically. Joyce reached out and squeezed his arm, and he wondered how obvious he was, him sweating like a pussy in the cold air of the garage. "The kids are gonna know all our handwriting. I need a Santa note for El."
"Yeah," Billy nodded, trying to focus on Hopper's words, and not the garage, where the crowbar was so close to Hopper's hand.
"I want Santa to apologize for not finding her at the labs," said Hopper, his jaw working, and Steve's hand on Billy's arm jerked as Claudia and Joyce winced. "Tell her he tried."
"Oh shit, yeah," Billy snorted. "Where the hell has he been, if he's not a shithead." Steve squeezed him, smirking, and Billy took a deep breath. "Just tell me what you want me to write."
"Atta kid," said Hopper, and Billy shoved down the stupidest part of him, the part that wanted to write Hopper thirty notes in a row, and hear 'Atta kid' every time.
"Sure," Billy said, thickly.
“I think we can make it pretty, uh, pretty believable,” Steve said, his eyes sparkling in a way Billy resented. Not for the first time, he wished he could kiss him when he looked like that, no matter who was watching. “Billy and me can put the stockings up, and the presents out, and then make some noise.”
“We should encourage a snowball fight,” said Mrs. Henderson craftily. “Get them all tuckered out.”
“Ohhhh,” said Joyce and Hopper, nodding, and Steve beamed at Billy.
He nodded back, feeling a temptation to salute, but instead he just smiled back, trying not to look too tense next to the Sheriff. Steve came over and threw an arm around him again, squeezing him around the shoulders, and Billy looked away from his mouth before he did anything catastrophic.
“Are—” he cleared his throat, and Steve smirked. “Are the pellets in here? For the stove?”
“Oh," said Jonathan. “On it.”
Just then, the door to the garage opened, and Dustin stuck his head in. “The cookies are done! The hell are you all doing, anyway?!”
“Figuring out where you all sleep!” Billy yelled back, and Dustin snorted, raising his eyebrows. “Come on, Steve,” Dustin called. “We got frosting and everything.”
Steve hauled Billy along into the kitchen, and Joyce presented them with two baked cookies from Billy’s unfolding paper doll pattern—two boys each, linked like they were holding hands. “I want friend cookies!” El said, staring at them, and started helping Hopper roll out another batch of dough, her jaw set with concentration.
Mrs. Henderson packed some white frosting into a sandwich baggie and cut off the corner, tapping Steve on the arm and showing him how to squeeze it through in a line.
“Whoa,” he whispered.
“I need blue for jeans,” Billy said, feeling his cheeks heat, and his heart pounding, wondering if they could honest-to-god get away with decorating boyfriend cookies in the kitchen with everyone they knew.
“On it,” said Steve, as Dustin—apparently a Christmas cookie pro—showed Will how to do Joyce’s plaid flannel shirt.
Billy watched Max stare at he and Steve, and then their cookies, and then look at Lucas, and roll up her sleeves, when something soft landed in his hand. He looked down at a bag of pale blue frosting, and up to see Steve studying Billy’s mostly-unbuttoned blue button-down with a smile. “Just a little darker,” he decided, as Billy shook his head, and began outlining the pants on his boyfriend cookie.
Claudia and Joyce were laughing at Joyce trying to do plaid on a plain round one, and making a mess, and Steve leaned in next to Billy and started his own cookie, his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration.
It made his lips glisten, and Billy tore his eyes away, clearing his throat, to finish filling in his jean lines, drawing frosting over Steve’s naked cookie thigh, as Steve started brown curls on one of the cookie heads.
“...gonna have to eat ‘em carefully so the hands don’t break apart,” said Mrs. Henderson, between their heads, and they both jumped half out of their skins, but she grinned, a hand on each of their outside shoulders. “I did wait until you lifted your frosting bags,” she pointed out, and Billy nodded, wondering whether his mom’s family was prone to heart failure, because he was pretty sure he’d almost died, thinking about slipping his boyfriend slowly into his mouth as he filled blue frosting in the fly of Steve’s cookie jeans.
“Y-yeah,” Billy mumbled, and she put her hands on their heads, ruffling their hair before going to help Will do his mom’s face.
“Put me in a yellow sweater,” Steve whispered. “I’m hot as hell in yellow.”
“Do it yourself,” Billy muttered, squeezing green food coloring from an old, easter-themed box they’d found next to the pipe over the stove vent. “You’re wearing green, I’m piping it green.” He filled it in slowly down Steve’s cookie stomach, covering where Steve shivered when Billy slid his hands up his boyfriend’s clothes. Next to him, the sweater on the actual Steve Harrington still smelled like the Christmas tree lot, and like he’d been kissing Billy in the garage against a car.
Joyce wandered up next to him, leaning in, and Billy stopped, waiting for her assessment. “Very nice,” she said, smiling, and Billy registered Hopper watching them, frowning down at the cookies, and narrowing his eyes. He stared back, feeling his heart start pounding again, but Hopper gave his head a quick jerky shake and turned back to El. Billy leaned against the counter, trembling, and Joyce put an arm around him.
“What’s wrong, kiddo?” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder, and Billy shook his head, stepping a little further from where Steve’s jeans pressed against his side.
Billy shook his head again, wishing he wasn’t such a pussy, jumping at every noise. He started filling in Steve’s sweatered cookie arms. He wanted to drag Steve back in the garage and feel them again, squeezing him until he felt...better, but there were a million people in the house that could burst in on them, and find out, so he worked on his cookie, and remembered to breathe.
He slowed down as he filled in Steve’s cookie sneakers. He’d never thought much about Steve’s shoes before, but he imagined touching them too, maybe dragging Steve around the house, and laughing at his yells. Dragging him under the Christmas tree, and peeling him out of the jeans, and the sweater, and feeling his skin as he breathed.
Billy tried to turn his body so nobody’d see how hard he was in his jeans, frosting cookies. He grabbed the brown Steve had used—there was plenty—and tried to do the swoopy thing Steve’s hair did, as Steve carefully drew the crooked line down Billy’s cookie-chest that his shirt made, open nearly to his bellybutton. He glanced up with a smirk that said he knew exactly what Billy was thinking, and ran the frosting up Billy’s cookie sides, smiling, as Billy wondered what was wrong with you if you jizzed in your pants making cookies.
Lucas and Max were cutting out hand-holding cookies of each other too, and Billy set his jaw, but Max threw an arm around El, and said “Let’s do friend cookies, like them,” and El nodded. Max didn’t look over, but Billy took a slow relieved breath.
Billy’s cookie-self on his own cookie was naked, and if they’d been alone, he’d have frosted on hair and a big cock, but he sighed, and put on pants and a shirt. His frosting hair made him look like a poodle, but he shrugged at the final result, risking a glance at Steve’s.
Steve glanced up, smiling, and drew a heart in his yellow frosting sweater, then filled in around and inside it to blend it in. Billy bit back a smile, shaking his head, and watched him—his frown of concentration, the smear of green on his cheek, even though he hadn’t even used the green, and his forearms bared by his rolled-up sleeves, his hands gentle on the frosting bag. It was squishing out the back of the bag over his thumb, and Billy reached over and wiped it away before it landed and messed up Steve’s cookie, sticking it in his mouth without thinking. He swished the buttery sweetness around in his mouth, and thought about what it would taste like to kiss.
Will’s Joyce cookie had a cute face, so Billy leaned back to hiss at Claudia Henderson, and she did the faces for him too. Cookie-Billy was looking at Steve, and Billy glanced at her face, but she just hummed along with John Denver and the Muppets and drew Steve’s face in, smiling back at Billy.
“...thanks,” Billy told her, and she smiled and patted his hand, wandering over to help Max with an overabundance of cookie candy canes.
“They’re cute,” Steve whispered, at their two sets of boyfriends. He’d done his own faces, and Billy had a goofy little frown on his face that cookie-Steve was smiling at, but then Billy felt Steve’s fingers locking with his between their thighs and the cupboard, and he took a shaky breath, squeezing back.
“Next year we’ll do a lil’ heart between them,” Steve said under his breath, and Billy laughed, a little too loud and uneven.
“Kid,” said Hopper, dropping a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Smoke break.”
Hopper led the way out of the kitchen, noisily grabbing his coat and yanking his boots on in the hall, and Billy thought for a moment he might piss himself right there in the kitchen, unable to walk or breathe.
“I’ll help Steve put ribbons on them to hang,” Joyce said cheerily, and Steve frowned from her to Billy, biting his lip, as Billy stood, staring at his cookie, his gorge rising.
Hopper leaned back in the kitchen. “Come on, son,” he said, and Billy kept his knees locked, and then forced himself a step around, and another towards the door.
“...best spot is right there by the windows,” said Steve, pointing, and leaning to lock eyes with Billy. “You can see the tree! Where I can see you.”
Billy nodded, a little of the weight he felt lessening at the thought of Steve watching him from the window. Somebody shoved him forward, and he staggered out to the entryway, and pulled on his shoes. He ducked around Hopper and jogged outside, blowing on his fingers and staying at least ten feet ahead as he trotted around to where Steve had pointed, and Steve knocked on the window, waving. The chill air felt even colder against the sweat suddenly sheening his whole body, and he clenched his moist hands, shivering.
“Talked to your dad a few times when you folks moved to town,” said Hopper, and Billy made a weird noise in his throat, and shut his mouth. Hopper pulled a cigarette out and lit up, but he didn’t come any closer, and Billy realized he hadn’t remembered his smokes.
“Shit,” he muttered, patting his back pocket, then rubbing his arms. “Sir. Yeah?”
“He said you were a troublemaker,” said Hopper, and Billy wondered what to do, if Hopper warned him off Steve. He was thinking so hard about where to hide his car, he missed some of what Hopper was saying. “...started fights, drove drunk.”
“Yes sir,” Billy whispered, automatically, and Hopper took a long drag off his cigarette.
“That’s not the kid I’m seeing,” he said, and Billy swallowed, shifting his feet. Both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ sounded like he was arguing, somehow, and while he tried to figure out what he was supposed to say, Hopper went on. “Helping Steve put up his tree. Heard you rescued Joyce Byers.”
“I just found her,” Billy said, the possible things Hopper might do whirling a little less in front of his mind’s eye the longer they stood. His brain couldn’t help spiralling a little at the idea of Hopper grabbing him by the shirt, and shoving him just a few feet away into the deep end of the empty pool. It has a shallow end, he told himself. I could get out. The snow crunched under his feet, and he glanced back at the house to see Steve watching, and in the front room, Will and Lucas hanging cookies on the tree. “She, uh, Mrs. Byers. She said she didn’t have power.”
“You’re helping with El,” Hopper said, and Billy waited, raising his eyebrows. “...I think you’re an alright kid,” Hopper went on, and Billy nearly burst out laughing in disbelief, when Hopper said “—you and Steve,” with weird emphasis, and Billy froze again, his eyes stinging from more than the cold wind. “I think you and Steve are okay,” he said again, stressing it, as the light from the house illuminated his intent face. “I don’t think anybody should be giving you a hard time.”
“What,” Billy croaked, stumbling back a step, only able to parse that Hopper knew, he’d seen, and Hopper sighed, and blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Take a breath,” Hopper told him, and Billy did, shakily. “I don’t care what your dad or anybody else says,” he said, and Billy nodded, swallowing hard. “You’re an alright kid, in my book. You and Steve.”
“Okay,” Billy said, a weird creak, because his voice wasn’t working.
“Atta kid,” said Hopper, holding his hand out, and Billy slowly stepped towards him, feeling stupid, like a curious cat. Hopper squeezed his arm when he got close enough, patting his back. “Let’s get inside. Let your friend Steve give you the damn heart cookie he cut out.”
“He made me a damn heart cookie,” Billy repeated, numbly, and Hopper patted his shoulder again, pushing him towards the house.
“Yep. Get inside, sport.”
“Jesus,” Billy whispered under his breath, and Hopper’s big hand tapped his back again as they walked through the door, and squeezed his shoulder, but it was gentle. Careful, Billy thought, glancing back to see Hopper’s tired frown.
“You need anything, you let me know,” he said, and Billy nodded like a marionette, his head bobbing on its own.
Steve grabbed his hand before he even got his shoes all the way off, and drug him over to hang their big, fragile, hand-holding cookies on the tree, and Billy hung his way up, out of the reach of the kids. “You okay?” Steve whispered, and Billy nodded, wiping his eyes.
“He said, uh,” he cleared his throat again. “It’s fine. He knows. It’s fine. Jesus.” Steve blinked, and put at arm around him, leaning their heads together.
The room was warm, with the pellet stove finally kicking in, and Steve’s sweatered arm around his shoulders. Steve bumped their shoulders together, smiling up at the tree, and Billy reached over and wiped the frosting off his boyfriend’s chin with his thumb. He stuck it in his mouth, and Steve watched, biting his lips together.
Somebody knocked, and Billy pulled away to get the front door, reminding himself not to lean in, and let Steve Harrington kiss him until no taste of frosting remained. He cleared his throat, opening the door on a tiny person in a pink coat and braids sticking out everywhere. “Where’s Lucas,” she asked bluntly, glaring up at him, and Billy felt his lips thin.
“Lucas!” he yelled. “There’s an elf here for you!”
“What?!” Lucas yelled back, leaning his head around the corner with the stove, and the little girl sighed, putting her hands on her hips.
“Mom wants you back home, unless you got a good bribe.”
“...I got cookies,” he said, brightening, and her eyes narrowed.
“Buy you maybe an hour,” she said, arms crossed in the open doorway, and Billy covered a laugh.
“Get out of the door,” he told her, and she sighed melodramatically, stomping out of the doorway to pull her boots off.
“Better be good cookies!” she hollered, fingers cupped around her mouth.
“There are a bunch that broke,” Max said, popping an arm in her mouth. Dustin and Will were decorating the body parts and hanging them on the tree, but every so often Max slid a hand down and grabbed one. She grabbed a “bloodied” frosted torso as Billy walked in, and stuck it in Lucas’ mouth, and he grinned around it as she hugged him from behind.
I don't know about you guys but I headcannon Billy as a virgin gay! He has never touched another boy in that way, he has always felt that if he did Neil would know and beat him to death so he never tried it. But when he sees Steve, he just decides fuck it he's it if I am going to get beat I want to at least be fucked by that guy first!
Also it is normal to not have your sexuality figured out in your high school days. I am in college and still figuring it out and someone as repressed as Billy probably wouldn't have it figured out while he is young either.
I feel like Billy is one of those people who laughs so hard they snort. He would then get embarrassed by said snort but would continue laughing. Also because he dates Steve, it happens every day.
Billy is 100% the type of freak that would steal Steve's dirty boxers from the locker room and then later have them on his face while jack off and smelling them.
