Chapter Text
FRACTURE
By second period everyone knew about Billy Hargrove’s hands.
Well, almost everyone. That particular memo seemed to have bypassed Steve somehow who had to hear about it from Carol in third.
“You didn’t hear about his hands?” Carol sat, twisted in her seat, eyes wide and unblinking as she snapped her gum. Steve watched her blow a rather substantially sized bubble from the masticated wad of it with a vague grotesque fascination.
“No, I didn’t hear about his hands. Why would I of?” Steve asked, but he honestly wasn’t all that surprised that the school was talking about Hargrove—again. He was a rather frequent foundation of the school rumor mill, his name uttered so often around the halls that Steve could never seem to escape it.
“His hands are like really messed up!” The cotton candy color of her gum shines with spit. Steve doesn’t know why he can’t look away from it as she blows another bubble, the thin rubber stretching in a way that reminds him of viscera. The bubble swells and Steve thinks of flowers, the kind with teeth and guts wrapped around the tongue until the bubble swells and pops.
“Ok.”
This, apparently, was not a satisfactory answer. Carol huffs at him as her tone picks up its emphasizing urgency. “No like really bad. Jessica Cardiff heard he got jumped by like a whole biker gang outside that bar on Rictor. And Ashley Nye told me that Whitney Thompson told her it was because one of the rider’s girls was like blowing him in the bathroom and the guy found out about it.”
Steve didn’t even try to hold back the eye roll on that one, because, sure, that sounded plausible.
“Steve,” Carol cut in, voice going shrill, “They broke every one of his fingers!”
Girls seemed to like to do that—emphasize with urgency when there wasn’t ever an actual emergency.
“Ok.”
Steve’s lack of urgency apparently only increases the heat of Carol’s.
“He can’t even pick up a pencil!” She tries again, like there’s something about this situation Steve just isn’t getting and it’s her new personal responsibility to make sure he does, even if it causes her great personal duress to do so. “The office had to get someone in every class to like take notes for him!”
Steve shrugged, it’s not like Hargrove usually took notes in class anyway. The mention of the pencil did remind him to search for his own though, which he does, rummaging around in the bottom of his backpack to try and find a pen or something before the class starts.
“How can you not care?” Carol sounds really distressed now. It would be funny, if Carol didn’t usually get worked up by enough things as to make it kind of passé at this point. And if the subject in question wasn’t Billy fucking Hargrove.
“Easy.” Steve finally finds a pen at the bottom of his bag, the white BIC plastic a little mangled from where he must have chewed on it. Carol looks shocked by that admission, wounded. But Steve really can’t care. Not about Billy Hargrove or his hands, or what he could or couldn’t do with them. Steve had been hit with those hands two months ago, repeatedly, for no goddamn reason by the gilded golden psycho, so no, Steve didn’t care. Not about Billy or his body, fit and slick and as hard as it was. Nor about how all those muscles had felt on top of him. And he really didn’t care about how it felt to have Hargrove’s legs split and pressed over his. How hard he’d been—how hard they both had been, when Billy’s fists hit his skin.
Steve refuses to talk about Billy Hargrove any more than he has to. The off-white of the pen looks too much like a cigarette. He should really start smoking again. Carol’s still looking at him like his disinterest in her gossip has gravely wounded her, but once again, Steve doesn’t care.
“Yeah, I heard ya. Billy Hargrove. Hands. You got another pen?”
**
Steve didn’t care about Billy or his hands. Or at least he hadn’t, until Billy had come limping in to 6th period history with both arms hanging heavy at his sides, the right hand boarded and stabilized like he had indeed somehow broken every one of his fingers, while bandages and plaster wrapped from knuckle to elbow up his left. Steve cared a little bit then, because it was pretty satisfying to see Billy brought down from reigning heavy weight champion to just another weak body that couldn’t throw a punch to save his life. Not in his current condition with his arms as bent and broken as they were.
So yeah, Steve cared. Not in the way Billy’s fan club cares at lunch, where cheerleaders and burnouts alike took to flocking around him to serve as his oh so willing substitute fingers. It was all an utterly sickening display and Steve scoffed as he watched Cheryl Burke stir Billy’s drink up for him with the straw before holding the plastic up to his stupid Cupid bow lips for him to sip, while Meredith Banks unwrapped his sandwich.
Something curled in Steve’s stomach as he watched those lips suck the liquid up through the straw: how Billy’s Adam’s apple quivered and rolled as he swallowed.
Steve watched as Billy seemed to sense him from across the lot. Billy turned in his seat, his eyes catching Steve’s through an open gap in Billy’s “sea of bitches” or whatever. Billy held Steve’s gaze a beat too long and then with a flick of his tongue he winked. Annoyance short-circuited in Steve’s chest; it made him feel hot. The late afternoon sun hanging low over the trees still felt too warm for the hour. Steve chalked it up to his seething rage at the psychotic asshole rather than how the smooth tan expanse of his skin shone in the light. It turned Billy’s hair gold, made it look loopy and soft. Steve scowled and Billy laughed at something one of the girls must have said, canine incisors glinting as much as his skin: sharp, dangerous, beautiful.
So yeah, fuck Billy Hargrove. And his broken hands.
**
Steve has no idea how Billy was getting to and from school. Probably some rotation of his endless posse of hair twirling hand maidens. Steve didn’t care; it was just an idle curiosity.
Somehow or another though, Billy did make it to school. Every god damn day. As the week dragged on, Billy looked perfectly content to let his fan base do everything for him.
Until he didn’t.
The shift happened gradually over a three-day period. Little shifts and twitches in Billy’s movements, surreptitious adjustments that no one else seemed to notice except Steve.
It was in English, 7th period on day four that it finally clicked, as Billy came shuffling in, his usual swagger diminished to what Steve could only describe as a subtle standing crawl, his body ever so slightly hunched in on itself, a tight tension at his temples.
Steve braced himself for Billy’s usual bullshit. The way Billy couldn’t ever seem to pass by Steve’s seat without touching him: flicking Steve’s sunglasses off his desk or ruffling up his hair.
But Billy didn’t even look at him, which was somehow more insulting, more infuriating, than all the other times earlier that week that Billy had gotten creative without the use of his arms. Usually by using the jut of his hip to body check Steve’s shoulder, or kicking at the leg of Steve’s desk with his boot, instead, as if Billy sauntered into class all week late on purpose just so he could pass by Steve once Steve was already seated down the aisle.
Billy brushes past him and Steve waited for the hit—the contact. But nothing. Billy just headed straight for the back of the room to his usual seat, one row over and one behind Steve’s. Steve watched Billy shift in the chair, adjusting himself against the hard plastic. Listened to the soft sounds of denim ruffling and scrapping over the seat as Billy continued to shift his hips throughout the start of the lecture. Like he couldn’t get comfortable sitting down.
Billy had sat crunched forward in his chair a little too long, torso curled forward, elbow pressed to his thigh, or his groin really, like he was trying to calm and keep his dick from rising in his jeans and OH.
And that’s when it finally fully registered for Steve that Billy couldn’t use his hands, for anything. If Billy couldn’t even hold a pencil, it was unlikely that he could hold his dick, let alone wrap his fist around it and pull enough to stroke one out.
Steve did the calculations in his head, factoring in the days since Billy had allegedly gotten injured over the weekend before school: five days. Billy likely hadn’t touched himself in five days. And by the looks of things, nobody else had either, despite the flock of girls hanging off his every need. Which, considering he had a flock of women catering to his every need seemed odd. But still, the evidence was all there: the tight hunch of his shoulders, the hitch of his breath, the flush of his cheeks and the subconscious micro-movements of his hips searching out stimulation from his desk. It all checked out in a sudden wash of clarity: Billy Hargrove hadn’t come in five days.
The sound that came out of Steve at that realization—something between a snort of glee and a heated groan—was weird enough that Abigail Woodward turned around from the seat in front of him to shoot him a cautious, questioning look. Steve offered her a wry half-smile in return, covering it up with a follow up cough. All it took was a smile, a quick half slit of his face to get her questioning expression to melt into something friendly, overly so, her eyelashes fluttering as she blushed, and yeah, Steve still had it. Billy wasn’t the only one who could snap his fingers and get laid in Hawkins, which once again posed the question as to why Billy wasn’t.
He could feel Billy’s eyes shift to him too, and something overcame Steve then: some petty impulse from deep inside him that wanted to push at Billy, rub in his predicament a little bit. So Steve sat back, casual and easy in his seat to spread out his legs, parting his thighs in a lazy sprawl. Just to show Billy that not everyone had his problem. That Steve, for example, could still touch whatever he wanted. That he wasn’t hard up and aching for it in fucking English class while Mrs. Minckon droned on about the overlapping symbolism in Catcher in the Rye with the Lord of the Flies like the desperate asshole Hargrove was.
Steve paid attention only to Billy for the rest of the class, thinking about how uncomfortable he obviously was, how hard he must be in his jeans. Clocking the tight set of his jaw where Billy was grinding his teeth and how there was the slightest sheen of sweat around his temples even though it was December and cold enough in the room. How the deep tan of his skin had started to flush.
Steve watched Billy sweat until the anger inside him turned mean, prickling under Steve’s own skin until it too felt itchy and hot. There’s another feeling there too, coiling in his gut. Steve’s not sure what the feeling is exactly, but it feels like thirst. He downs an entire water bottle in the hall on the way to 8th, so that must be it.
**
That feeling doesn’t quite go away, no matter how much Steve drinks. The tease of it tickles his stomach, pricks at his throat. Hargrove’s presence just makes it worse, because Billy makes everything worse. But Steve’s still always thirsty, eyes scanning the room for something cool and wet to get in his mouth, which is the only reason Steve notices Billy loitering in the locker room, Steve’s eyes locking on to the slightly hunched form of him, turned away from the door and hovering in the corner.
Billy shouldn’t even be here. The disuse of his hands had banned him from practice, but Billy’s still there anyway, suited up in the sweatpants he had already been wearing throughout the day—like he has been all week. Likely because the worn grey cotton were the only pants he owns that he can pull off and on by himself through a delicate pinch of his forefinger and thumb.
Steve’s seen Billy in sweats enough during practice that the sight hasn’t been all that odd. Sure, the tight denim of Billy’s jeans show off his ass—according to Carol— but the looser pull of the sweats have their own secrets to reveal. Like how without the aid of the thicker, tighter material of his jeans, Billy’s cock has a little more room to wander—and it’s all a bit too much freedom as it turns out, because without the restriction to contain it, Billy’s dick is visibly hard and tenting against the cotton. And Steve’s smile suddenly spreads over just how uncomfortable Billy must be, judging by how uncomfortable he looks now, body angled toward the wall like that will sufficiently shield or hide him—and how he’s so wrapped up in reining himself in that he hasn’t even noticed Steve come in to raid his own locker for his backup bottle of water.
Steve has the advantage of surprise and he takes it.
“That looks like it hurts.”
There’s something delightful about the way Billy jolts upright, shoulder clacking into the metal of his open locker door. Billy rounds on him with a hiss, his opposing hand twitching a bit like it instinctively wants to make a fist as a default response to everything. Which tracks.
Billy’s scowl spreads as he sees him, his body somehow both relaxing yet drawing up tighter. “Fuck, Harrington. Warn a guy. And of course it hurts, asshole, it’s broken.”
Billy jabs his chin toward his arm in emphasis, but Steve hadn’t been talking about his hands.
Neither the startle of Steve’s sudden presence, nor the harsh jostle of his shoulder when Billy had turned, had deterred Billy’s little problem further south in the slightest. Steve surveys the other boy slowly, lets his eyes drag down Billy’s torso to rest pointedly at his hips, gaze fixed on the length of the strained muscle between them. Maybe not so little then.
Steve’s eyebrow twitches, hitches up. “I was actually talking about that.”
Billy opens his mouth, but no words come out. Maybe he’s shocked that Steve would have the balls to address his erection directly—the audacity to point it out. Billy clearly didn’t know Steve as well as the asshole always seemed to think he did.
Steve’s never seen Billy waiver though. So he takes the moment to enjoy it, to press in a little harder just to see how he cracks. “You a little hard up there, Hargrove?”
“Fuck you, Harrington.” Billy bristles, fingers still twitching for that fight. But the sluggish strain of his attempt at a fist is futile and they both know it.
It’s all just too good and Steve scoffs a bit at the way the broad expanse of Billy’s chest puffs out like that in itself could be a weapon. Steve just sees it as a spot to land, a wide-open space that was no longer fortified. It’s a pretty weak show of bravado, not Billy’s best work, and Steve can’t help but step in closer to prove that to him. In any given social situation there is always a line where polite personal space ends. Steve can sense the rim where Billy’s invisible walls reside, knows where his own lines begin and Billy Hargrove’s ends; Steve gets up right to the edge of that line and then presses past it.
Steve keeps his eyes fixed to Billy’s face, clocking the continued insistent flex of the guy’s mangled fingers before Billy winces from the effort and stills, body going taught and aggressive.
“What are you going to do, hit me?” Steve taunts, a bit childish, sure, but still cruel—satisfying. Especially with the way Billy flinches, just before his eyes flash, chest expanding another inch in that way of his that’s all show. At least when he’s like this, utterly impotent in all ways but one. “Yeah,” Steve grins, a little manic, but it’s warranted, “I didn’t think so. Looks like someone finally put a muzzle on you.”
Steve knew he was pushing it. Billy’s hands wouldn’t stay out of commission forever. But Steve has never been great about thinking about his future and it felt too good in the moment to flip the aggression between them. To let Billy feel what it was like for once to be the one forced to lay still and take it.
Billy, curiously, had indeed gone still and remained that way, breath held in his chest like he was waiting to see what Steve will do. Steve wasn’t even sure of that himself; he hadn’t exactly planned this little rendezvous or the impromptu taunt. He had just seen the smug garish bastard that was Billy Hargrove wounded and wanting and Steve had been simply overcome with the urge to take the asshole down a peg—or something.
Steve has no idea what he’s doing. Just that he’s angry and still so thirsty. So much so that his blood feels hot. And maybe that wasn’t Billy’s fault exactly, seeing as how Billy, for once, had simply been curled into a corner of the room. But whatever was boiling below Steve’s skin flared up at the sight of Billy regardless, fueled further by the phantom memory of those broken knuckles of his colliding against the swollen bends of his flesh. The smell of his sweat.
Eventually, Billy must need to breathe. Steve feels his air kickstart more than he hears it, coming in warm waves that smell like smoke. From up this close, Billy’s whole body feels warm, the heat radiating off him so at odds with the cool echoing space of the room. Billy’s a hot-blooded kind of guy, so Steve isn’t particularly surprised by the heat of him. But taking in another person’s temperature through the sheer proximity to their skin was an intimacy Steve had not prepared himself for. Not with Billy fucking Hargrove.
Billy breathes but he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t tell Steve to move or to stop. And that’s just interesting in and of itself. Because Billy might have temporarily lost the ability to push Steve back with his fists, but that had never stopped Billy from working his mouth.
“Cat got your tongue, Hargrove?”
The moment he says it, Steve can tell that the expression isn’t quite right. Billy Hargrove’s an animal, certainly, but he’s definitely not a cat person. Hell, neither is Steve. If anything, Billy has always reminded Steve a bit of a dog, some kind of mixed-breed mutt that liked to bask in the sun whenever he wasn’t running feral. Something with a lazy, welcoming smile that all the girls on the street cooed over and wanted to pet, not knowing how dangerous he could be once unleashed. Steve knew. He knew exactly what Billy could do when his instinct to bite turned rabid.
What Steve didn’t know was whatever this Billy was. The one that could heel. It was just too strange to see Billy being still; it made Steve angry—angrier than he already was.
Steve shifts, just to get his body closer into Billy’s personal space. To really push at his boundaries in the way that Billy always did to him on the court. Steve goes for the throat, so hyper-focused on wrapping his fingers around the thick of Billy’s neck that he forgets to pay attention to anything else. Steve just wants to get Billy up against the wall. To see if Billy needs the balance of his arms in order to still plant his feet. The need to see Billy put in Steve’s place, powerless to stop the collision of skin, overwhelms him. So much so that it comes as an accident, an afterthought, when Steve’s thigh brushes against the jut of Billy’s dick—just a quick burst of friction, but it’s enough that Billy reacts, his hips jerking forward automatically in a full-body spasm to chase the touch.
Steve stills, vision flickering from red to white to parched as he watches Billy strain for contact, takes in the frustration and need there that looks almost like pain on Billy’s face. Steve doesn’t even think before he opens his mouth. Says, “Jesus, Hargrove. You really are desperate for it, aren’t you?”
Billy groans at that. It’s a low sound, one that reverberates in his chest. Steve can tell from the way that Billy turns ruddy beneath his tan that he hadn’t meant to make it, which really just makes the fact that he had even better.
“Fuck,” Steve breathes, kind of fascinated by the unexpected turn—that Billy wasn’t trying to fight him. That Billy’s hips still pulsed against the air, his cock heavy, and—judging from the darker drips starting to spot the fabric—leaking.
“Holy shit, you really are desperate for it.”
Steve’s pretty sure Billy low-key hates him about as much as Steve hates Billy right back. He’d have to right? Why else would they circle around each other as much as they do? Always seeking out that hard clash of contact on the court or in the hall. The idea that Billy must be so hard up for it then that he’d lower himself to rubbing off on a guy that he despises tugs at Steve’s anger, tinting it in a way that feels a bit like glee.
That glee drives him, pushes Steve higher into something manic. It makes the fingers wrapped around Billy’s throat twitch. Makes Steve’s lips slack into a sneer. It makes Steve want to utterly destroy its source.
“Fuck, Hargrove. You really need it that badly? So bad that you’d try to rub off against me like some fucking filthy animal?”
Billy answers with a snarl—a growl, really, which only fuels Steve’s point. A renewed manic prick of spite jolts though him, laced with something else, something sweeter. Steve would be lying if he said he didn’t want to see it happen. To see if Billy really would do it. If Billy would debase himself in front of Steve all because he needs to come that badly. And yeah, Billy now hasn’t come in six days; it has to be agony. Of course Steve would find it satisfying to see the guy in that kind of pain. To poke and dig into the wound. Anybody would.
There are only a few inches left between them as it is. It takes nothing for Steve to shift his body enough to slot a leg in between Billy’s, Steve’s palms coming up to brace against the row of lockers on either side of Billy’s broad frame to support the forward tilt of Steve’s weight as he leans in closer.
“Tell me to stop,” Steve offers. It’s a challenge. One that Billy refuses to accept.
Steve can feel the way Billy’s hips shift as Billy adjusts, seeking out Steve’s offered thigh with a fervent press and hitch of breath. Just like Steve can feel the way Billy cants his pelvis up as it meets Steve’s leg, Billy unable to stop himself from chasing the grind of it against the top of his quad. Billy’s eyes flash at him, all anger and heat, as he snarls out a “Fuck you,” that trips into a groan.
‘Fuck you’ isn’t exactly ‘fuck off’ and Steve hums. “Interesting.”
“I just need…,” Billy starts, voice tight with grit, but still like he’s about to try to explain—rationalize—when there’s absolutely nothing rational about what’s happening. No excuse.
“I don’t care what you need,” Steve interrupts, because he doesn’t. Then again, that isn’t strictly true. Steve’s grown rather curious over this turn of events. And the curiosity only increases when Billy’s eyes flutter at Steve’s words, cock jumping in his sweats like either that, or maybe something in Steve’s cold, infuriated tone, was exactly what Billy needed after all.
It figures that Billy would get off to cruelty. Only Steve had always assumed that Billy would have gotten off on being cruel. Not whatever the fuck this was, with Billy hobbled at the wrists, arms limp but body tight and seeking whatever Steve will deign to give him. Not that Steve had ever thought about it.
Steve might not know what was happening exactly, but he knows that whatever it is isn’t a fight. Not the kind they’ve had before. They were crossing new lines, only the boundaries were blurred with the places they’d been before. The heat and aggression of it felt the same: Billy’s body pressed hard into his and moving, pumping—writhing. And sure, Billy was hard, but it’s not like Steve hasn’t felt Billy hard before. The feel of his dick, heavy and firm, was recognizable enough to be familiar from all the times Billy has pressed up against him in practice to steal the ball, or when Steve presses back so that Billy doesn’t get the block. And Steve’s been hard around Billy before, his cock filling out in the shower after the adrenaline of a game and the flare up of anger at watching Billy push his way into everyone’s spray. The smug tilt of his head and the stupid curves of his mouth. The annoyance over how Billy couldn’t even use his fucking towel, choosing instead to just shake off like a dog.
And yeah, just thinking about it again now makes Steve angry, makes his own dick swell further, fattening against his thigh until the denim pulls. Billy can’t seem to look away from the sight of it, which whatever, Steve knows he’s hung and that people like to look.
“You like what you see?” Steve meant it as a jeer, the way he and Tommy used to say it to guys on the opposing teams in shared locker rooms or the ones that looked too long at their girls. The words are supposed to make Billy mad, shame him for looking too long. Only Billy doesn’t get mad, he nods, eyes glassy as he licks at his bottom lip, tries to shift his torso to the right to rub his own cock off in closer proximity to Steve’s.
The sheen of his eyes isn’t something that Steve’s ever seen on Billy before, or anyone, really. Somehow sharp but glazed, fogged over and wild. It’s a stupid look on him. Too beautiful for a guy so mean. His curls still look like gold, even in the dank-lit tint of the overhead fluorescents and Steve feels angry at that too. So he does the only thing he can to quell it by getting the hand that isn’t compressing around the tendons of Billy’s neck to reach into the curl of his hair and pull. Billy’s hair is thicker than it looks, gnarled from a week of being improperly brushed, and Steve gets right into the knots of it, knuckles grazing the roots at the nape of his skull and yanks.
The dull clank as the back of Billy’s head hits the lockers echoes across the floor tiles, chased by Billy’s sharper exhale. The new angle pulls at Billy’s spine until it arches, hips pressed forward more firmly into Steve’s and Billy whimpers and grinds, works the thin-cotton cover of his cock against the scrape of Steve’s jeans in fervent twerks and it makes Steve’s blood seethe. Billy’s too pliant like this, eyes fluttering and rolling back into his skull as he whines high in his chest, chasing something too close to pleasure.
Steve feels hot all over, his skin itching, unable to contain him. Billy is stupidly beautiful. His whole body hard and reckless pinned under Steve’s in a way that Steve takes in like a punch to the gut. Steve can’t even imagine just how hard up Billy must be to surrender this quickly. To push all status and shame aside in a heartbeat just for an ounce of stimulation. It’s almost too good to watch Billy struggle with it. How the tight pull of his spine and the dead weight of his arms leave him wriggling in Steve’s hold, uncaring about anything other than trying to grind in closer to find more friction.
With another frantic twist, Billy manages to somehow curve his thighs closer, both of his split legs cradling around Steve’s single one before they grip like Billy’s trying to ride him and Steve’s pulse spikes, makes Steve want to push and bite. So he does.
Steve’s whole body curdles and sparks with an acidic kind of chemistry and he opens his mouth without a second thought, tongue twisting the drying spit between his lips into vitriol. “Jesus, Hargrove, you’re such a fucking animal. You know, my aunt used to have a dog like you. Real ugly beast of a thing. Completely out of control. She had to keep it on one of those leashes in the yard, tied to a zip line between two trees. It would bark and posture all day long. It was a real horny fucker too. She never got it fixed, and it just had these large heavy balls, always ready to go. And anyone who’d get near it it’d just jump on and start rubbing you know? And we’d know as kids not to go near it because it’d just hump right against your leg. Not a shred of shame or dignity in sight because it was just some fucking horny animal that would rutt against anything at all. Right there in broad daylight. Just like you’re doing right now.”
The words taste hot, acidic, and Steve presses in closer. Wants Billy to feel the breath of them.
“Is that how it is, Billy boy? You just some fucking mutt? All untrained and desperate to rub off on something like a beast?”
“Fuck you,” Billy spits out at him, because that’s apparently all Billy can say, his vocabulary reduced to two repeated words on a loop. And yet, Billy still doesn’t slow his hips. If anything the grinding motion increases, speeding up in subtle increments the longer Steve speaks until he really is almost indistinguishable from an animal. The jerking motion of his hips frantic and fast and hard.
And yeah, Billy is enjoying this. He shouldn’t be, but he is. His face flushed, hairline damp, and the growing spread of wet slick shame across the cotton of his sweats. Steve takes in the stubble on Billy’s chin, how the shade of it grows darker around the sharp cut of his jawline. The shade of it shifts as Billy swallows. The muscle of the movement kicks beneath Steve’s fingers and Steve flexes his hand tighter to stop it, curling his palm into the dip of his throat. Blood pumps steady and quick from a vein caught beneath his wrist. Steve doesn’t know if it’s his pulse or Billy’s, but the heartrate is soaring.
Billy’s breath is as sharp as his jaw. It comes in compact hitching waves, all trying to crest past the pressure of Steve’s grip as Steve begins to squeeze, cutting off the supply of it to his lungs just enough to make Billy’s mouth flop open with heady little sounds. The heat of Steve’s ire only increasing with the indignation that Billy likes it.
“Fuck me, huh?” Steve can’t remember the last time his own throat felt so hot. The words coming up raw. “Is *that* how it is then? You think about fucking me, Billy? While your dick’s hanging all heavy in your sweats? Look at you. You can’t even touch yourself. Bet it’s aching, huh? Bet it hurts. Is fucking me what you think about when trying to find relief? You into that Hargrove? What is it you want? My mouth? My ass? Or is it you that wants to get fucked? To bend forward for me and just take it while I breed you like some bitch.”
Billy makes a louder wounded sound that gets tangled in Steve’s grip and Steve lets up on Billy’s airway just to let it out. And because something deep inside of Steve knows it’s true, Steve gets his face right up into the side of Billy’s and asks, “Is that what you’re thinking about right now?”
“Harrington...” Billy growls, the wide set of his shoulders going taught and aggressive like he’s gearing for a fight he can’t possibly win with such broken wings. It’s an unmissable warning though, as empty as the threat is right now, but it’s also not a ‘No.’ Steve can still feel the heady hard length of Billy’s cock pressed and rubbing at a frenetic pace against his thigh. Just as clearly as Steve can see the flash of anger in his eyes, coupled with the slight blue glint of humiliation in the blown wide pupils.
It’s a good look on him. One Steve could get more than used to. Addicted to even: to the desperation there that grips this wild boy pinned beneath him until he’s conditionally tamed.
He doubts Billy could ever be fully domesticated. But like this it seems like he could still be reined in, leashed with the right kind of motivation. And the thought of Billy collared and in Steve’s lead twists through his mind to settle in his gut, a hot fuel that sends Steve’s own hips snapping back to meet Billy’s rapid thrusts.
Steve’s fingers tug at Billy’s throat, forming a new kind of chokehold that allows Steve to stroke mockingly at Billy’s neck with his thumb. “I can see putting a leash on you, reining you in. What do you say, Hargrove? You want to be my guard dog? Stay right by my side, only bite down on what I tell you to? The feel of the pull of the rope on your neck, choking you up if you try to get away? I bet I can teach you all sorts of things: sit, stay, rollover, beg, present. Look at how desperate you are for it. You could be such a good dog for me if we trained you right.”
Billy’s cock kicks beneath his pants. Steve can feel the jolt of it, Billy’s body gone so taught he’s begun to shiver. Steve watches him shake. Thinks six days and knows he has him. That whatever this is, Billy will never be able to take it back. That Billy can try whatever bravado or denial he wants, but it won’t stick. Billy’s break to his hands had led the way in to some twisted gateway of a break in his walls and Steve had seen them. Was seeing them now. Would see them all again anytime Billy tried to posture and bite.
And that just fueled Steve further, gave his own teeth an opening to slice. “Yeah, you know you’re desperate for it. But see, you’re just too much of an animal. I’d never fuck you unchained. I’m smarter than that.” Steve keeps the hand fisted in Billy’s hair right where it is, but releases his neck to trace a line with his fingers to Billy’s limp wrists, rapping his knuckles against the plaster on the left. “This is a start, but we’d really need to get a muzzle on you, cage up your face. Bet that’d be a good look on you. Take away those fists and that mouth of yours and you don’t have much left.”
“Fuck You,” Billy grits out, again, eyes dilated, his pupils blown wide, but alert. And then, “I can still bite.”
“Yeah?” Steve asks. “Prove it.”
When Billy shifts to surge forward, Steve expects to feel the harsh cut of teeth sinking somewhere into his skin. Steve had assumed the bright piercing sting of it would hit somewhere around his shoulder or the tendons on his neck. It’s what Steve would have done himself, if their positions had been reversed.
But Billy isn’t Steve, so the sudden clack of Billy’s teeth as they collide into his comes as a surprise. Because Billy Hargrove is kissing him, as much as something so aggressive can still count as a kiss. Billy’s lips are plush and soft, turning the edges of Billy’s mouth on his into something familiar, like the kisses Steve knows. Only Billy doesn’t lead with his lips but his teeth, sinking them hard into the swell of Steve’s bottom lip, gnawing into the root until a starburst gush of copper lets Steve know that when Billy pulls away there will be blood.
For a moment Steve doesn’t know whether to be angry or impressed. He figures Billy must be the former—that the bite has to be Billy’s small show of defiance, a vengeful act of pushing back. Figures Billy’s just sunk his teeth in deep to the root of Steve’s jaw to be mean. Only that theory is shot to hell the moment the metallic tang hits the surface of his lips, passing the flavor from Steve’s lips to Billy’s tongue, and Billy moans.
Billy moans like he likes it, like he wants it. Like he’s thirsty for it, so parched that Billy would keep drinking Steve down until he drowned.
It’s a sound that Steve has never heard Billy make before. It’s a sound that Steve has never thought Billy could make. Like the Billy in his mind is only capable of giving and taking aggression without rhyme or reason or pleasure. Only that last part can’t be true. Because if Steve really thinks about it, really thinks about all the reasons or motivations a guy like Billy might embrace when doing something, pleasure seems like it would be pretty high on the list. When it comes right down to it, Billy seems exactly like the kind of guy driven by his baser instincts: the kind of guy to push and fight and take whatever it is he wants.
Billy’s teeth let up a fraction, just so Billy can chase the slits he’s made in Steve’s skin with twisted little licks of his tongue, an urgent kind of whine trickling out of where Billy’s obviously trying to muffle the sound of it in his mouth, and Steve has to really wonder for the first time if what Billy actually wants is him—this—whatever this is.
That thought makes Steve dizzy, pushes him forward on instinct to lock his lips onto Billy’s mouth, sucking the taste of himself back from Billy’s tongue until Billy’s moans grow stronger. Billy surges forward, seeks Steve out with his chest, arms straining against their immobility with another deep, distressing whine until Billy’s sharp whimpers turn into a scream that slides into the back of Steve’s throat as Billy comes, shivering and shaking and buckling between Steve’s body and the wall.
It’s the feeling he’s been looking for. Steve hadn’t known before, but he does now. That the electric shock that churns and swirls in his core has only ever wanted to know the feel of Billy’s body surrender.
That feeling is everything—Billy cresting and breaking before he tips, body slumping forward towards Steve’s chest for Steve to catch. Billy comes like it’s the only thing worth living for and Steve chases him right through it, his own orgasm ripped from him by the chapped feel of Billy’s lips; the pin of Billy’s relieved body sagging into his.
It’s the aftermath of a storm, or should be, and yet Steve is pretty sure that they’ve only reached the center. That they have arrived together in the calm, quiet place temporarily sheltered from the most tempestuous climates. It’s a good center. One Steve doesn’t want to break. And for whatever reason, Billy doesn’t move to either. Just stays curled forward, forehead pressed against Steve’s neck. Oddly but finally docile with the tension seeped out of him. And as the electric collision settles in Steve’s veins, flushing out the virulent heat of annoyance and anger with a dull thrum of something that feels dangerously like affection, Steve has to wonder if he might just want this too.
**
They draw the moment out together after for a heartbeat, frozen and unmovable. The sounds all too often overlooked as silence stretch between them the longer time drags on. Steve can hear them all. Billy’s breathing still comes in rapid spurts, chest heaving around the dead weight of his arms. The echo of the locker room sounds louder, magnifying the drip of a faucet and the rustle of cloth as Steve shifts his leg, pressing and rubbing and holding it a beat longer between the spread of Billy’s thighs before pulling back, just enough to get a good look at him, starting with the open tilt of his hips. Steve’s fingers automatically flicker to Billy’s hipbones, palms digging in to stabilize Billy against the row of lockers. Steve doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know why he hadn’t just pulled back and let Billy fall.
“How much longer do you have before your hands heal?” Steve asks finally. “You know, before you can use them.”
Billy looks up at Steve, pupils still blown, but his eyes assertive, flashing between guarded and feral as he assesses whatever expression Steve has on his face. And Steve gets it: that even after you feed a stray it can still bite. That one orgasm wasn’t going to turn Billy Hargrove from wild to instantly domesticated.
The insides of Billy’s throat sound raw and sore when he replies, “Six weeks.” It comes out like a challenge.
And yeah, Steve had broken his wrist once. He knew that even though the cast wouldn’t come off for another several weeks more, Billy would be able to get himself off just fine by the tail end of three. Billy knew it too.
Billy meets Steve’s gaze, chewing on his tongue. A rising challenge: a new open field of tension. Steve’s lips twitch into a smile. The spread of his mouth feels wicked, but it isn’t mean, which is surprising, even to himself. But Steve finds he doesn’t feel angry anymore. His skin still burns hot, but it’s with a different kind of heat. Or maybe the heat had always been the same, burning him up at temperatures too high to distinguish the difference.
Billy’s softening dick lay tacky in his pants against his thigh and Steve offers him a final condescending pet with his palm. The wet spread on the cotton feels warm and rough in his hand, the stain growing darker, seeping through the fabric. Steve didn’t know how Billy was supposed to get home like that. How he’d clean himself up to hide the damage. Carefully, Steve would imagine. Slowly. With such an inconvenient reminder sticking to the thick of his thighs, Steve is all Billy will be able to think about because of it: Steve is sure about that. And something about that decides it. The idea that Billy might think about Steve as much as Steve thinks about him: constantly—obsessively.
Despite the humid heat of the room, Billy shivers as Steve presses up into him again, chest to chest. Steve gets his lips right up under the curve of Billy’s ear, scenting the slope of his neck on a dark inhale.
Billy’s answering groan slides over Steve’s skin, but Billy still doesn’t reach out to touch him. Because Billy can’t; he can’t even touch himself. Billy won’t be able to touch himself properly for weeks, forced to rely on the helping hands of another for relief.
The heat of that licks at Steve’s throat; he feels thirsty again. He thinks about drinking Billy in. Thinks about Billy drinking him, those plush lips put to work and swallowing, like the girls who were drunk enough at parties sometimes do. Something about the way Billy’s lashes flutter around his glare as he tries to meet Steve’s gaze tells Steve Billy might just do it. That without his hands, if Steve pushes Billy to his knees on the grout of the tiles, Billy would need to brace himself against something to keep his face from planting against the floor.
That tongue of Billy’s is back between his teeth, snaking over his bottom lip, and Steve watches, repeats, “Six weeks.”
It’s still a challenge. Billy nods, a challenge accepted. Steve nods too, a challenge affirmed. And Steve mimics Billy’s swipe of wet muscle against the swell of his own mouth. It feels raw from Billy’s bite, from the way the guy could suck.
Steve gets himself pressed up as tight to Billy as his body will go, feels Billy brace, flex, and then give beneath him—a ghost of a reminder of Billy in surrender, one that Steve knows is going to haunt him until he can feel it again. Fuel a new kind of fire that will burn and itch below his skin like addiction. Six weeks. Steve gets his nose up into the nape of Billy’s neck. Nuzzling to speak his language—filthy and canine—before he pitches his voice low, makes it a threat, or maybe it’s a promise: “See you tomorrow, Hargrove.”
Billy makes another one of those sounds, something that sounds deeper in his gut, a transformation of thirst into hunger. Steve wants to see the ruin of him, the mess, but he deliberately doesn’t look back at Billy as he leaves. Just heads straight for the door as Billy slides down the wall with another hungry sound and Steve smiles.
At some point the game had shifted, a new kind of fight. Steve didn’t even fully know what this new game was: didn’t know the parameters of it or the rules. But still, it felt like a win.