Steve and Billy both coach a little league team down at the Roane County recreation center. Billy as community service for getting in a fight and Steve solely for the love of the game. They hated working together at first, but gradually developed an unspoken agreement - Steve coaches the field and Billy coaches the batters.
It works. Steve does most of the hands-on dirty work, while Billy gets to teach kids how to knock the hell out of the ball. (Billy also gets the private lessons - all parents want their kids to be the best hitter... not as much money in coaching third base.)
Steve's favorite player is a curly-haired menace named Dustin who is the catcher for the team. Dustin is a great catcher, but his hitting is abysmal. Dustin's dad steps in at one of the practices - almost coming to blows with Billy over his 'teaching methods.'
Steve steps in to deescalate the situation and ends up catching the dad's fist to his jaw. Billy sees red. Steve manages to drag him back to the dugout before he beats the dude's face in.
Billy tilts Steve's face towards him with one hand, lifting his chin. His blue eyes roaming over the quickly purpling bruise.
"He got ya good, pretty boy." He rasps.
"Was aiming for you, asshole." Steve replies.
Billy stares at him for another moment, glances around to make sure that they're hidden in the dugout, then leans forward and kisses the bruise.
"To make up for it." He says, immediately turning and leaving.
Steve feels the ghost of his lips on his jaw for the rest of the practice.
Title: Eternal Summer Square and prompt: C2 “Is your dream more important than me?” Rating: M WC: 570. Major tags: Harringrove, angst, non-explicit smut, Incubus!Billy, age gap, no upside down au, dark-ish ending which is also a happy ever after, slightly soft harringrove.
and @harringrovemicroficandart 4 prompts, fingers/slipping through my fingers by ABBA, mention of Jim Hopper. WC: 570.
Summary: Billy's nature enslaved him into killing pretty things. Then Steve happened.
...
“What are you thinking about?” asked Steve, rolling over on the pillows beside Billy.
Billy couldn’t look Steve in the eye. “Just some dream.”
“You look pretty pissed about it.”
Billy sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed. “It made me think. Listen, I’ve gotta—"
“Is your dream more important than me?” Steve’s voice cracked. “Last night you said… Look, if you were shitting me… C’mon, be honest!”
“Jesus, you’re needy! Yeah! I meant it. I love you.” Billy scrubbed his face wearily. “Got lost in dreams about you.”
“Oh. Why the sad-face… Crap!”
Billy jumped Steve, pinning him on his back, wrists secured either side of his head. Steve giggled, and Billy melted. God, Billy was two millennia old! The heat must’ve gone to his head to make him feel like a real dumb teen.
“What happened in that dream?”
I made you mine forever. “You accuse me of talking too much?”
Billy silenced Steve with a searing kiss, enjoying Steve’s struggles, as he moaned, desperate, into Billy’s throat. He knew it confused Steve—how Billy was always stronger. When Billy pinned him, he could never fight free.
The kiss grew rough, bruising. Billy sensed the delicious tingle of Steve’s lifeforce ebbing from him. Tears pressed in Billy’s eyes:
I figured you were a bully. I meant to fuck you all summer, then disappear, leaving Hopper scratching his head over a dead teen, like a hundred lawmen before. Then I watched you ditch your friends to look after a bunch of nerdy kids. You begged for love, and I got weak. Now I dream of keeping you always as you are right now—a freeze-frame saved from the crazy tricks of time.
“Fuck me,” gasped Steve, interlacing his fingers with Billy’s, clinging.
“Gotta go.” I stay, you’re gonna get sick and die, or else I’m gonna have to…
Steve pouted. Christ, he was such a kid! Billy unthreaded their fingers, letting Steve’s hand drop like a stone.
Later, Billy loaded up the Camaro. A BMW tore up and Steve jumped out: “You weren’t even gonna say goodbye?”
I should’ve hauled ass quicker.
“YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME!” Steve grabbed Billy’s collar, got right in his face.
Billy shoved him away: “Dumbest mistake I ever made.”
In a flash of golden light, Billy revealed his true demon form. Steve staggered back, covering his face then peeping between his fingers:
“Holy shit! Are you an angel?”
Billy reinstated his glamor, wondering what Steve had seen. Poor pretty fool must genuinely love him back. Only love played crazier tricks than time.
Laughing, Billy took his trembling prey in his arms: “I’m a demon, Steve. An Incubus. If I stay, I’ll slowly suck”—literally fuck —”your life from you.”
“Wha—” Steve took a beat, frowned: “Is that like a vampire? You could turn me too, right?”
“Doesn’t work quite like that. I could make you my thrall.”
“Wha… I don’t know what that is.”
That night, Billy spread Steve out on the bed beneath him. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” Steve’s voice was tight. “You’re gonna fuck me all night, and then… Jesus, will it hurt?”
“No.” Billy trailed his fingers down the curve Steve’s throat, over his quivering lifeblood. Then spiralling down his spine, lower, deeper, relishing Steve’s throaty growls, the little trembles beneath his skin.
No slipping from my grasp now.
For the first time ever, Billy was gonna actually make love.
Written for the @harringrovemicroficandart challenge for September. The prompt was: ☀️Summer & Jealous💚
ao3 | rating: T (just for language) | length: 1k
summary:
Billy takes another puff of his cigarette before blowing the smoke out the window in a pathetic attempt to delay the inevitable.
“I saw you with her.”
“With who?”
“Teal leotard! Fucking Jane Fonda, I don’t know!”
“Cindy? We were just talking.”
“She was touching you! And you weren’t—you didn’t stop her.”
“Baby…” Steve smiles. He fucking smiles! The no-good cheating bastard…
Or, Billy catches Steve cheating. Or does he?
Billy should’ve known when he had to park his Camaro at the ass end of the Starcourt parking lot that the place would be packed. The heatwave was driving everyone inside, and the mall had a pretty bitchin’ AC system. Billy didn’t mind the heat—in fact, he’d be out there right now, shirtless, soaking up some rays if he didn’t have to pick Steve up from his shift at Scoops.
The whole him and Steve thing was still sort of fresh. They’d been messing around for a while, but it was only in the last few weeks that they’d agreed to put a label on it.
Boyfriends.
Jesus Christ…
He knew moving to Indiana would change him, but he didn’t know to what degree. Not the queer part—Billy knew he didn’t like girls. The only thing that got his dick hard was another dick.
But the boyfriend part? The holding hands at the movies, the making out on the hood of his car, the pet names, the Valentine’s Day gifts… he was turning into a fucking sap.
It’s almost embarrassing how gone he is for Steve.
So when Billy catches sight of an exceptionally pretty girl through the glass store front of Scoops, clad in one of those leotards that look like they're painted on, and with her hand buried in Steve’s hair—he sees red.
Billy’s furious entrance through the glass doors was somewhat damped by the stupid little bell chiming above him.
The girl jumps, pulling her hand free from Steve’s—his boyfriend’s—hair.
“Oh, hey Billy.” Steve says, all smiles.
And as much as Billy wants to fucking explode, he keeps it bottled up. Knows he can’t lose it right now. Instead, he focuses on taking deep, even breaths.
Both the chick and Steve stare after him, waiting for Billy to make some kind of reply. When it’s clear that that isn’t gonna happen, she just turns back to Steve.
“Well, thanks for the tip, Steve. See you tomorrow.” She says.
“See ya.” Steve returns. The girl then gives Billy a wide berth as she walks out of the store.
“Ready to go?” Steve asks, like nothing was amiss.
Or maybe this is just Steve’s own way of keeping his cool. Maybe… he was waiting until he got Billy alone to explain. To call this whole thing off.
It was all sort of too good to be true anyway. Real pie in the sky shit. It was stupid. Billy was stupid.
So he just nods, not trusting his own mouth. Doesn’t know whether he’ll yell or cry.
It’s not until they’re walking across the parking lot that Steve nudges him with an elbow. “You okay? You’re kinda quiet.”
Billy’s fingers are suddenly itching for a cigarette, so instead of answering Steve, he fishes out a smoke and his lighter.
“Did something happen? Your dad? Did he–”
“It’s not my fucking dad.” Billy snaps.
“Then what is it?” Steve stops walking. He looks at Billy with his head tilted, eyes squinting against the sunlight.
Billy takes a drag of his cigarette and holds it in his lungs for as long as he can before he exhales through his nose. It barely touches his frayed nerves. “Don’t play dumb with me.”
The line between Steve’s brows deepens. “What?”
But Billy turns his back to Steve, taking long strides toward his car.
“Wait! You can’t just–”
“Do you really wanna do this here?” Billy turns, motioning with his cigarette to the handful of random shoppers just searching for their own vehicles.
“Do what?” Steve asks in a voice pitched higher than normal.
“I saw you!” Billy barks, probably too loudly. But in the moment he doesn’t fucking care.
“Saw me? Saw me do what?”
Billy just huffs and takes his last remaining steps until he reaches his vehicle. “Just get in the car. I’ll still drive you home.”
They get in, but when Billy puts the keys to the ignition, Steve swipes them from his hand and holds them out of reach.
“Harrington, I swear–”
“We’re not going anywhere until you explain to me why you’re practically foaming at the mouth.”
Billy takes another puff of his cigarette before blowing the smoke out the window in a pathetic attempt to delay the inevitable.
“I saw you with her.”
“With who?”
“Teal leotard! Fucking Jane Fonda, I don’t know!”
Steve pauses for a beat. “Cindy? We were just talking.”
“She was touching you! And you weren’t–-you didn’t stop her.”
“Baby…” Steve smiles. He fucking smiles!
“It’s not funny!” Now it’s Billy’s turn for his voice to go high.
“It’s not funny, you’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just–Cindy’s married.”
“So? Married people cheat.”
“So she was just asking me where I got my highlights done, because she wanted some. I told her my boyfriend put me onto Sun-In, and I was just explaining to her that it didn’t dry out my ends. I told her she could feel my hair to prove it. And, I don’t know, maybe that’s weird but I wasn’t really thinking about–”
Billy’s mind had gone blank after hearing— “You told her you have a boyfriend?”
Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, like he actually had been caught doing something wrong, Steve confesses, “well, her yoga instructor is definitely gay and she doesn’t seem to care, so I figure it wouldn’t be that big of a deal… Look, I know it’s stupid, and dangerous but… I like telling people.”
Steve’s excited to be dating him, Billy realizes, his chest suddenly feeling tight enough to burst. So excited that he wants to tell people.
“Oh.” Is all he can say.
Steve finally lets himself laugh. “I’m sorry! It’s just… You’re really cute when you’re jealous.”
“Shut up.” Billy says, but there’s no heat behind it. He leans over and presses his lips to Steve’s.
To his boyfriend’s lips.
Jesus Christ…
He’s so fucking gone. It should be embaressing, but Billy’s too fucking in love to care.
Did Tumblr eat my fic?
YES!
But I found an old version and try to fix it!
written for (@harringrovemicrofic
Rating: Teen and Up
Relationship: Steve /Billy
Prompt: Birthday
Word Count: 403
Happy Birthday.
The colorful banner lies on the ground, ripped apart.
Billy grabs a packet of Marlboro and goes sit on the porch. He looks for a lighter that's not there because Steve took it to light the candles on the fucking cake he baked for him: a monstrosity of sugary cream, all crocked, that now rests in the kitchen.
He was a dick, and the glare Max gave him was louder than a thousand words, but Steve put on his plastic smile and said that everything was fine. He took the cake back to the kitchen, thanked everyone for coming, and then closed himself in his room.
Not their room.
His.
And Billy can't blame him. He lashed out like a fury when Steve's only fault was trying to give him a surprise birthday party.
"He should have known I hate fucking surprises," Billy complains, nibbling at the cigarette's filter, but without a fucking lighter the cigarette's useless, so he gets back inside to light it on the stove.
He freezes when he sees Steve cleaning the mess he made in his rage.
The banner is all crumpled in a big black bag with some stupid party hats.
Steve is turned toward the wall so he can't see that Billy is right behind him, and in the monotonous brushing of the broom's bristle, Billy hears him sniffle. And he feels like shit.
He stares at his boyfriend in silence. He could blame his father for his explosive reactions, or the shitty day he had at work, but the truth is that it was all him.
If Billy was a different person, coming home to such a sweet display of love would have melted his heart. But Billy's heart is rotten and putrid and when he saw the banner, the hats, and the cake all he saw was the lack of his father's affection.
Even now his father dictates Billy's behavior.
Steve must hear him sigh because he turns abruptly, his eyes red and puffy.
"I'm sorry," Billy whispers, and those words taste like ashes.
"Don't be. It's your birthday, I should have asked..."
Billy was never good with words, so he steps closer and puts his lips on Steve's, silencing him.
"I'll do better next year," he promises on Steve's lips.
"We'll do better next year," Steve replies.
Maybe they will, maybe they won't. What matters is that they will try.
Wrote something short for @harringrovemicrofic 💜 March prompt: "Billy's birthday" (wordcount: 403)
Also on AO3 >>
Something was burning. Definitely. The realization tore Billy from his sleep and into the real world, fully alert. He jumped up from the bed just before a fire alarm started wailing somewhere.
He looked around the room but there was no smoke there nor coming in from the open door, so he ran to the staircase. Down there, thick and black smoke was wafting from the kitchen. Another alarm started screaming in the hall just as he ran down.
“Steve, where the fuck are you?” Billy shouted.
“Here,” came from somewhere among the smoke, followed by a long series of coughs.
Billy surged into the smoke, keeping his t-shirt over his mouth and nose and heading straight towards the patio doors.
“Don't open the doors!” Steve wheezed, then coughed again. “We need to get the fire under control first!”
“What's burning?”
“Your cake.”
“My cake? In the oven? Why didn't you take it out?”
“Because it's burning.”
Fuck this shit, Billy thought, walked out of the kitchen and to the phone in the hall, dialing 911. “That dumbass,” he said, just before the call connected.
When the fire brigade was on its way, Billy was allowed to leave the call to save his dumb boyfriend—because the idiot still hadn't come out. He was probably panicking, like he so often did nowadays when something unexpected happened, and still trying to pry the fucking burning oven door open. He ran into the kitchen, into even more smoke, grabbed a hold of Steve's arm and started pulling him after him.
“The cake is still burning!” Steve croaked and coughed, almost stumbling over his feet.
Billy kept pulling Steve further from the smoke and towards the front door. “Let the cake burn! I don't care if this whole fucking mansion burns down, not letting you burn with it.”
They got out of the front door, followed by the smoke. Billy sat them in the end of the driveway. Only then he realized that he, too, was coughing.
“I feel dizzy,” Steve croaked and leaned on Billy.
“Okay, c'mon, just stay with me, babe,” Billy said, curling his arm around Steve and hugging him sideways. “The fire brigade is coming.”
“I burned your cake,” Steve said miserably.
“It doesn't matter.”
“I wanted to make your 19th birthday memorable.”
Billy snorted. “Steve, babe—you sure as hell made this birthday memorable. I couldn't forget this even if I wanted to.”
Steve’s face has healed, mostly. Just as Billy’s own face has healed, mostly. He’s still ever the werewolf he felt like that night. The grotesque, ravenous teeth he bared still reflect back in the mirror. Under the tan, the blue eyes, the smile he’s practiced so well… waits the wolf Billy Hargrove is.
But Steve, his face has healed human. His hair is growing longer and his smile comes easier.
Around them the deep Indiana snow has melted out to a brilliant green spring. Steve seems to be thawing out with it. Billy cannot wait to see what gold summer is going to bring into Steve’s cream colored skin.
For Billy, he’s trying to bloom. He’s taking long drives down the backwoods winding roads, driving fast but not fast enough to miss the way wildflowers bloom right on top of last year's rot.
He wants more than anything to let go of his monster, of his rot, but it’s harder than it looks.
Anytime Billy makes an effort it feels unfamiliar to him in a way he can’t stand. In California he was effortlessly golden in summer. It’s just moving, dammit, it shouldn’t have changed him as much as it did!
But it did.
“Hey, Harrington.” He’ll force the words out anytime he passes Steve. He smiles with it, but he’s got a mouth full of fangs.
Steve smiles back at him, a line of sunlight between bare branches that’s magic enough to let the flowers grow.
Billy does the same to every kid who was in that house that night. All the kids he scared and hurt, all the kids who saw the yellow of his eyes. He nods at them in a way that he hopes makes them feel included, that his beast will protect them instead of harm them anymore. That he’s a dog with a collar, for fucks sake.
He doesn’t know if it’s working. His stepsister, Max, hasn’t treated him any differently. The kids… Steve… hasn’t treated him any differently.
It’s his birthday, and there’s flowers growing outside next to the chain link fence of the football field. Billy’s sitting inside listening to his teacher but watching the flowers. The leaves and stems seem so dark green here in the Midwest, Billy thinks the ones back home were lighter. Or maybe not.
The bell rings and he ditches lunch for a smoke break. Slinking under the bleachers to be alone.
“Hey, Hargrove.” The voice is melodic as it interrupts him. Perfect, and horrifying.
Steve stands there, holding out a half crumpled pack of cigarettes that’s colored gold. Billy’s hand shakes as he lifts it to accept one, grinning cruelty as he pulls two and places the second one behind his ear.
Steve clicks his tongue at him for doing it, but still lets him. “Sure, one for later.”
“It’s my birthday, after all,” the words pour out with the smoke after his first puff, he can’t stop them, “so thanks, pretty boy.”
“Fuck, really?” Steve asks. His voice pitching up in a cute way.
Billy pulls another drag, exhaling smoke from his nose as he only grunts in reply.
“Here, you should be the one to take this, then,” Steve’s hand slips the pack back into his pocket and fishes for something. “Since it’s your birthday.”
He holds out a skimpy looking white flower, with short and cute petals only a little roushed. It’s got dark green leaves on a dark brown stem only about as long as a palm. And Steve’s hand looks huge as he offers it to Billy.
“It’s called a salt and pepper, or a harbinger of spring. I’ve been told.” He laughs as he searches over the tiny thing. “El— oh, well, one of the kids gave it to me. But I think she’d be okay with you having it.”
Billy takes it slowly. Worse than how he took the smokes. Shaking and nervous, his fingers bump into Steve’s as he picks the flower. He pulls it close and it smells like rich-boy cologne, it smells like hair spray, it feels like heaven.
He blows more smoke out his nose.
“Do ya wanna skip the rest of the day with me?” He asks the flower. The harbinger of spring, Steve had called it. Billy’s got to remember how his mother pressed flowers so he can keep this for his whole life.
“Hell yes,” Steve answers. And Billy’s smile doesn’t feel forced.
