Hawkins Wolves
I have this gif/post saved and here we go:
Fraternity Twin Harringtons
(cue Billy sweating in the background)
Bryan and Steve Harrington.
Bryan is older, has the grades (A and B averages, still great), and the name from their dad’s Scottish heritage side.
Steve is the younger twin, more athletically endeavored, and named from god only knows. He used to lie and say it was from their mom’s Greek side, just so people would stop talking about his nose. Bryan loves it and totally went with it, because hello? They have the same nose. And the same eyes and brow bones. Bryan has the narrower, V-shaped jawline while Steve’s is more square. The same hair, even if Bryan keeps his nape short and Steve’s not afraid of a mullet.
Frankly, they’re damn near identical when standing next to each other. They’re not joined at the hip, though, and are very much known as brothers instead of twins.
So Billy meets Bryan first.
Bryan is kind of an anomaly. He’s popular, and for good reasons (smart, and jaw-dropping attractive), but he tags around with Jonathan Byers. During a smoke break, Billy follows them down to a creek bed running around the school. He finds them on some boulders: Bryan is modeling up high, and Jonathan is squinting through his camera talking about lighting and, “There’s a spider web there. Watch your foot.”
Long story short: Billy likes Bryan. He doesn’t act on it, per say, but he does become a part of this portfolio pair - Jonathan practicing shutter speeds, etc., and Bryan building up a modeling portfolio.
It’s fun. It’s something to do. Billy particularly enjoys the action shots they get around the fields of Hawkins. Who knew modeling actually took work?
Then a dark red BMW parks on the side of the road behind Billy and Jonathan’s cars. The latter turns around, concerned by the sound, but Bryan reassures, “It’s my brother.”
Billy’s first thought is: Thighs.
His second is: Shoulders.
He can see immediately that the two are related but the brother is more filled out, athletically, and - “How old is he?” Billy can’t help but ask.
“About three minutes younger than me,” Bryan smiled.
The guy trots down the slope into the field to speak for himself. “Bry, if you skip breakfast again, you’re gonna be modeling for a Halloween store.”
“Not all of us have two-a-days, Vivi. I don’t need a truckload of calories.”
Vivi?
He waves a tin foil parcel in the air. Billy wondered if it’d be worth commenting on it being almost 5pm (”Golden hour!” Jonathan called it.), but he stayed quiet. “Do you know how hard it is to keep hash browns crispy? Eat your friggin’ burrito.”
“Yeah. Like you didn’t make that fresh because you ate mine during English.”
He catches the breakfast burrito when it’s thrown at him, though, and Billy is left with him while Jonathan switches cameras and film. He held his hand out and introduced himself, “Steve.”
“Ah,” Billy exhaled understanding and shook. “Billy. I’ve heard your name around.”
“My brother’s obsessed with me. It’s a twin thing.”
Said twin flipped him off in between massive bites to his burrito.
Billy corrected, “No, something about a keg record. That I beat last weekend.”
Steve took that with grace as he nodded. “Did you puke?”
Billy frowned. “No. It wouldn’t be a beaten record, then. Come to think of it, why didn’t I see you at the party?”
Bryan intercepted, “Too busy moping. He’s fresh off a break up.”
Jonathan coughed and looked like he was trying to climb into his camera bag. Billy peered between the three of them, unable to read exactly what was happening.
Steve flicked the end of his nose and leaned into a walk. Billy took that to mean he wanted a conversation alone. He didn’t expect the topic.
As they strolled by an acre of unclipped wheat, Steve hovered his hand over the fronds and said, “I’ll only say this once because I’m not his mother, but I did lose the race out of the womb. If you take advantage of my brother, I’ll put your dick in the trophy case at school next to my State trophy.”
Billy couldn’t decide which to address first: how this small-town, high school priss figured Billy out, or that he actually thought himself capable of intimidating him. Steve wore a goddamn polo underneath a sweater, for Christ sake.
Billy went with, “That’s going to make it easy for investigators to connect some dots.”
“You get my point - ”
“Yeah, I get your dull point, pretty boy. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m stuck in this shit town and it’s nice to have something to occupy myself.”
Steve stopped walking and blinked at him. “Are you modeling?”
Billy smirked. “Why? Like what you see?”
Steve’s lips pressed together a little, those large irises wandering his face before he admitted, “Nice eyes.”
And that was that.
He just left Billy in the field and strolled back to his car.
It was up to Billy to discover that Steve wasn’t the air-headed, athlete brother. Out of the two of them, Steve was the bad boy. The baby of the family with polos and clean Nikes and spare cans of mousse and hairspray for himself and his twin under the passenger seat of his car. Father-dearest’s old BMW.
And a bat with nails in his trunk.
He still couldn’t compare with the queers in mosh pits of California, but Billy discovered he kissed a whole lot better than them anyway. He cliff-dove in the frigid quarry because that’s how the swim team selects its captain. And if Billy joined him just to see those nips puckered to cut ice, only to get shoved into the water too, who is he to complain?
Steve Harrington made him pop a boner in late November waters and then took him home for a blow job in a hot shower and homemade pot pie.
Yeah, Bryan was a looker, and Steve sometimes degraded himself as second rate, but they both showed up at the Hargrove house one night. Billy hadn’t known Steve knew his stepsister, but Max let both of them through her window, and they might’ve saved Billy’s life.
Billy would never call either of the twins bad boys out loud. But as Steve drove them - Billy, Max, Bryan, even Susan - back to the house in Loch Nora, Billy thought their faces in the dim street lighting looked like wolves. Pointed, soft, and ready.
Wolves were considered bad all the time.
Bad. Beautiful. Hunters. Thieves.
Billy earned worried and confused glances around the car when he laughed. He sat up to lean into Steve’s space and purr, “Steal me away any time, baby,” and kissed a bloody print on his jaw.
“Huh?” Steve blurted.
“He has a concussion,” Bryan declared.