Think I'm just squeaking it in for @harringrovewinterbingo, so I'll post as many of my multi-chapter fic as I have finished. (note to future self - do not decide to do this two weeks before deadline again) Chapter 1/6 Pairing: Steve Harrington/Billy Hargrove Rating: Explicit Tags: College AU, no upside-down AU, enemies to lovers, road trip, explicit sex, mentions of domestic abuse, mentions of child abuse, mentions of homophobia, modern au Summary: People shouldn't be allowed to volunteer you for favors. Especially not when it involves giving Billy Hargrove a lift back to Hawkins for the winter break. Sitting in a car with him for hours seems bad enough, and only gets worse when it begins to snow.
Free Square - home for the holidays
It was technically his mother’s fault.
“Is she serious?” Robin asks, lounging with her feet on Steve’s bed. He’s actually too incensed to scold her for once, throwing things he might need for the winter break into his bag. He’d meant to pack last night but he got invited to a party and woke up this morning in a frat house with a sock plastered to his forehead. “Is she insane?”
“She exists to torture me,” Steve mutters, because right now it feels like it. Parents shouldn’t be allowed to volunteer you for stuff without your consent. And his head is still thumping because it goes to show that you should never drink anything that Jason Carver gives you.
“Has she met Billy Hargrove?” Robin asks, dropping her head back against his pillow. Steve snorts and snatches his phone charger from the drawer.
“Probably not,” he says. “It wouldn’t matter if she had. You never saw Billy meeting Nancy’s mom. God, it was gross.”
Robin nods, tugging a Twizzler out of the packet. Against Steve’s better judgement, somehow she’s taken over one of his drawers with her stash. “He’s deceptively good at acting like a normal human being.”
“Besides, it was Billy’s mom who mentioned that Billy didn’t have a way to get back to Hawkins,” Steve says, digging in a drawer for his favorite hoodie. “His car’s in for repairs or something…so my mom offered my services.”
“Without asking,” Robin repeats dutifully, because this is all Steve has been able to say for several days.
“Without asking,” Steve agrees, because he’s been pissed with his mom for three whole days, from right about the time she called and said ‘hey, you don’t mind giving someone a lift home for the holidays, do you?’
And he hadn’t. Until she said she’d run into Billy’s mother at the supermarket and had told Abigail Hargrove that her son would only be too happy to do it. Especially as they lived in the same halls, on the same floor! As though this was some fortunate piece of fate designed by Steve himself rather than the bad luck of being assigned by the college.
“It just makes sense,” his mom had said crossly. “You don’t even have to go out of your way.”
It’s easy for her to say that. She doesn’t have to spend several hours trapped in a car with Billy Hargrove.
“He’s a tool,” Robin says, chewing on the end of her Twizzler. “He’s friends with Heather, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” Steve says shortly. He has ten minutes before he’s due to leave and the fact that Billy will arrive in the doorway of his room any minute now is putting him on edge. Billy might just live down the hall but it’s not like they interact. Not willingly anyway. Every time Steve goes to a party, he finds Billy’s bare chest in front of him, challenging him to beer pong or shots or dives into the pool. Billy was at the same high school, one year behind Steve, and he’d gotten in Steve’s face the moment he got to college back in the fall.
“They hang out,” Robin continues, with obvious disgust. “Billy’s been in my room.”
“How would you know?” Steve asks, a little bit thrown. “You’re never in your room.”
“I am sometimes in my room,” Robin protests, as though she doesn’t have a sleeping bag stashed in Steve’s cupboard. Thank God Steve has a single, or his roommate might have an issue with Robin appearing most nights to sleep on Steve’s floor.
Steve gets roommate issues. But Robin’s severe aversion to her room and Heather makes him think that something else is going on. He’s met Heather at parties and she’s pretty cool. Definitely nothing worth avoiding the hell out of the place you pay to sleep.
“And when I am there, Billy’s sometimes there,” Robin says sulkily, fingers deep in the Twizzlers packet again. She appears to be toying with them, never pulling one out and Steve wonders a little if she even gets why the strangely familiar motion she’s making with her fingers may hint at some sort of underlying reason.
“Doing what?” Steve asks curiously. He can’t quite imagine Billy doing anything other than being a dick in the most low cut shirt known to man. He sees him elsewhere sometimes - on the quad, at games, in the showers…but these are all places where Billy isn’t exactly at ease.
“Watching horror movies with Heather,” Robin says vaguely. “Eating doughnuts…not a lot.”
“Are they dating?” Steve asks curiously, because he can’t imagine Billy doing anything in a girl’s room that doesn’t require a sock on the door. And predictably, Robin reacts, scrunching up her face in disgust.
“Ew. God, I hope not,” she says vehemently and Steve turns so she can’t see his smirk.
“Heather must date,” he says casually. “She looks like the kind of girl who might have dated the pretty jock type in school. Wasn’t she a cheerleader?”
“She was,” Robin says, as Steve shoves socks into his duffel. He probably has socks at home but he’s never sure. He still half thinks that his mom took him going to college as an opportunity to clear out whatever she thought was too old, too tatty or too stained. Which is probably most of what he left behind when he packed up his car to come here.
“There you go then,” Steve says, shrugging. His duffel won’t do up so he presses the contents down as far as they will go and then yanks the zipper. “Cheerleaders date jocks. Trust me, I have experience with this.”
“So I heard,” Robin says and bites down with a little more aggression than perhaps a Twizzler requires.
“What are you doing anyway?” Steve asks, because Robin’s normally his passenger back to Hawkins for the holidays. “You know you can’t stay here for the holidays, right?”
“I don’t have to go home either,” Robin says pointedly. “One of the girls from my film club invited a bunch of us to her dad’s cabin for Christmas. It’s got to be better than my great-aunt making comments about those kinds of people over my mom’s cabbage.”
“Queer girls refuge,” Steve says and nods. He’s not thrilled about going home either, even less so without his partner in crime there. But he gets why it’s even worse for Robin. His family dinners are often stiff, counted down by how many times his dad checks his tablet, but at least no one makes pointed jabs about his life.
Not many anyway.
“Don’t think there’ll be much by way of a proper dinner,” Robin says, scrunching up her nose. Knowing what college kids' version of food is like, their dinner will be off-brand ramen and more Twizzlers, but it’s the price you pay for freedom. “But it’ll be fun. Vickie’s gonna drive a few of us later.”
“Have a good time,” Steve says, throwing a few final items into his bag and struggling to do up the zip. He’s not even sure why he’s trying - he’ll end up wearing either what his mom has conveniently slipped into his closet while he’s been gone, or the same pair of sweats all day when his parents are out of the house. “Send me updates.”
“You too,” Robin says, rolling over on his bed. “Let me know whether you survived Hargrove.” Steve snorts and finally gets the zip closed, chucking the bag and his hoodie on his desk chair.
“Debatable,” he says disdainfully. “I’ll text you.”
The sharp thump at the door is the only warning they get, before the door swings open. Billy hangs in the doorway, like a vampire waiting for an invitation. Steve feels vaguely violated just by the mere presence of Hargrove in his space.
“Harrington,” Billy says curtly and then catches sight of Robin scowling at him from the bed. “Buckley.”
“Hargrove,” Steve says in return, and looks around his room. If he hasn’t packed something, he can deal. It’s only two weeks. “Can you lock up?”
“Sure,” Robin says, because as expected, she has no intent of returning to her room. She’d packed late last night, while Heather was out, and won’t return until she’s sure her roommate has gone for the break.
Honestly. What some people will do to avoid facing their feelings.
“Got everything?” Steve asks and Billy jerks his head.
“Got enough,” he says, raising the battered duffel in his hand. “It’s fucking turkey and Hallmark movies with my mom, I don’t need much.”
Steve doesn’t comment on the Hallmark movies. It feels too much like a trap.
“Let’s get on the road then,” he says reluctantly. The sooner they leave, the sooner he can drop Hargrove at home and not see him again for two weeks.
Oh shit. Is he going to have to bring Billy back to school too? He never even thought to ask, and it feels like something his mom might conveniently bring up in the new year, right before he’s due to drive back.
“Home for the holidays,” Billy quips, with a toothy grin. “If shitty Hawkins counts.”
“You moved there,” Steve bites out. But Billy’s mouth just twists into an expression that he’s not used to seeing on Hargrove.
“I didn’t have much say in the matter,” Billy mutters in such a tone that Steve just drops it. Conversations with Billy feel all too often like a minefield, for reasons he doesn’t understand.
“Nice ride,” Billy says admiringly, when they reach Steve’s car. Steve pops the trunk and chucks his stuff in, gesturing for Billy to do the same.
“Seriously?” Steve asks, a little surprised. He’s seen Billy’s car and he’d be lying if he hadn’t fucking salivated over it. “I mean, I thought you wouldn’t be into something like this. I’ve seen your car.”
“I can appreciate modern cars too,” Billy says loftily and throws himself into the passenger seat. “Does this have heated seats?”
“Perhaps,” Steve says grudgingly and takes one last look up at the sky. It’s a heavy gray, and something about the color of it is making him uneasy. Snow hadn’t been a certain thing, but Steve’s lived through enough winters to recognise the signs.
“We’d better get moving,” he says shortly. “Maybe we can get ahead of the snow.”
Billy cranes his neck to look out the windscreen, as Steve climbs in. He’d planned to stop a few times, get snacks, take a piss, but he’s already thinking about how to reduce those stops just in case. The weather may clear, but he’s not going to take a risk if he doesn’t have to.
“The forecast didn’t say it was going to snow,” Billy says, looking doubtful and Steve remembers all too late that he’s originally from California. His mom only moved to Hawkins a few years ago, God knows why.
“The forecast is occasionally full of bullshit,” Steve says, programming his GPS and pressing various buttons. Billy’s old Camaro probably doesn’t have a dashboard that looks like a spaceship, but sometimes Steve’s pretty glad for modern technology. They need the quickest route, any way that’s going to bypass the holiday traffic.
“Is that safe?” Billy asks and if Steve didn’t know any better, he’d almost think that he looks worried.
“We should be fine,” Steve says firmly. “If there was going to be a blizzard, they would have seen that. But even so, I don’t really want to drive in snow.”
“Okay,” Billy says and sits back, even though he looks no more reassured. “You got music in here?”
Steve sighs and reluctantly hands over his phone. Perusing his Spotify keeps Billy quiet long enough for them to pull out of campus.
“You have some shit in here,” Billy mutters and then wriggles delightedly in his seat. “Fuck, you do have heated seats!”
“Yep,” Steve says. He figures this might be the best way to cope for the next few hours - pretending Billy is white noise. But Billy just chews his lip and then nods.
“Nice,” he says and goes back to Steve’s phone. He finally picks something to play, apparently having found a playlist of Steve’s that he doesn’t find too offensive. Then he stares out of the window at the passing scenery and Steve lets himself relax a little. Billy doesn’t seem too interested in small talk. Maybe they’ll make it through this trip with minimal trauma.
It’s quiet for approximately two minutes.
“Is my ass going to get hot?” Billy complains and rubs his butt across the leather seat. “Harrington! Seriously, is this shit going to melt my ass?”
