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Billy wonders what his life would’ve been like had he stayed in California, if he never knew Hawkins was a small place in Indiana constantly shadowed by the dense foliage of trees, lacking sunlight and warmth, but home to the most stubborn and brightest Omega he has ever had the pleasure of meeting. He wonders what his life would’ve been like if he hadn’t pulled his head out of his ass, had kept that burning anger that fueled the most part of his youth and kept him blindsided. He was dragged to that small town with an invisible chain, hated every little part of Hawkins from the way people stuck their nose in everyone’s business, to the way that it seemed like there wasn’t enough space to breathe despite the expansive open land between it and the nearest neighboring town.
But then there was Max. He thinks that’s when his anger started to dim. Billy had never had a baby sister, and at the time he wouldn’t have considered her his sister at all. That didn’t mean he didn’t worry about how the stress of moving was affecting Susan who was so close to her due date. Not that his old man seemed to be all too concerned about it; he couldn’t have waited until after the arrival of the sniveling shit to drag them across the country, insisting that Susan would be fine and ignoring precautions. But they had made it safe and sound, and a few weeks later, right after they had just gotten the nursery done, Maxine was born loud and screaming, red faced and with a seemingly permanent irritated look, filling the house with wailing louder than the volume he liked to keep his music at.
And that was saying a lot.
Susan had to go back to work soon, they couldn’t afford to live on one income when his dad preferred to invest at the bar instead of his savings, and with that, they searched for a babysitter. Billy was the one that took care of Max while Susan was out seemingly interviewing for every possible job in town. It rubbed Neil off the wrong way, It’s not an Alpha’s job to take care of the pups, he said to Susan one night when Billy had overheard on his way to the bathroom, find an Omega to do it, you’re not gonna make a nanny out of my son. Because as much as Niel liked to instill a sense of ‘responsibility’ and ‘respect’ in his son, he considered himself a man’s man, a sticker for the traditional gender roles.
It’s not that Billy liked looking over Max, she was gross and almost always immediately started crying whenever she was handed off to him, but there was sympathy there when Susan tried to juggle feeding time and a phone call for a potential job offer. It reminded him a bit of his mom, the memories that seem so vague and blurry with age, but he remembers the way she always seemed tired, doing the housework and working minimum wage jobs and finding time to drop at school with a packed lunch and then again to pick him... All the while Neil sat on his spot on the couch, ever nursing a bottle of beer in hand wondering out loud why his mother couldn’t control her temperamental kid and why dinner wasn’t ready at the table.
It’s how he found himself looking for a babysitter for Max. They rarely shared words with one another, but from the handful of conversations they do have, Billy had told her not to worry about finding a babysitter, he’d take charge of that, if only to save her from adding yet another thing to plate. It was harder than he expected. There were a few older women in town, Omegas and Beta women that babysat on the weekends to bring in extra money, but they had their own jobs and it meant they weren’t flexible with time. And the available ones were asking for much money than they could afford to spend. Billy found himself complaining about it at school, when one of his team mates, Tommy, had turned to him and suggested he talk to Steve.
He has swim practice today, you can catch him after that. He’s trying to make some extra cash, so I’m sure he’ll help out. He’s the only Omega on the team, you can’t miss him.
Billy had waited outside in the hall until the team stumbled out chattering away. He was one of the last to leave, talking to a bottle blonde Beta, arms animated as he talked, expressive. The scent of cinnamon was thick in his nose, warm. That must be Steve, meticulously styled hair dark, deep brown eyes large and striking against his pale skin, and a face-splitting cheerful grin lighting up his whole face.
“Are you Steve?” He managed to choke out before they left, passing right by him. Steve looked over his shoulder, wisps of hair flicked across his forehead with the movement. Those eyes trailed down the length of his body and back up to meet his own, he’s never felt so off-balanced before in his life.
“Who wants to know?” He waved the girl off with a quick I’ll catch you outside, Robin, give me a minute, and made his way to Billy, adjusting a sports duffle over his shoulder. He was an inch taller than Billy and he liked the way they could meet eye to eye. So easy to get lost in them. “Well?”
“Babysitting,” Billy felt as eloquent as ever, “I need…”
He had a cute laugh, something between a giggle and chuckle.
“I’m assuming not for yourself, yeah?”
That seemed to shake Billy out of his daze. “Fuck off, it’s for my baby sister. Need a sitter on the weekends and Wednesdays after school since I have basketball practice those days.”
“How old is she?”
“She’s like, tiny. Three months, about...” Steve’s face just melted and Billy couldn’t really see how someone could find a baby to be so cute when their faces were still all warped and they did nothing but cry, feed, and sleep. “I know it’s a lot of days, but I’ll be there to help on the weekends.”
“It’s fine, I managed to piss off my dad and he cut my allowance again.” He tilted his head and smiled soft but confident, “This way I’ll be able to save up faster, for dates and stuff.”
“Planning on going on a date soon?”
“Depends. Walk me to my car and you can give me an address?”
“Sure thing, pretty boy.”
——
Babysitting probably wasn’t the best the time to get to know someone, especially not the best time for a date when his little sister wailed bloody murder ever couple of hours, but they made it work. Steve had held Max the first time on Saturday, and the little bugger had to go and embarrass him right away. Max’s face had scrunched up in the now familiar way that made his eardrums prepare themselves for an onslaught. Her tiny red peach fuzz brows dipped and furrowed, blue eyes gone glassy until the faucet broke, squirming in the Omega’s grasp, letting her displeasure be known like the little devil she is. Her mittened fists shook with the force of her cries.
Steve had winced, but he was all too filled up with amusement if the smile he sent Billy was anything to go by. He had beamed at him and securely held Max to his chest, declared: “Congrats Hargrove, she has a healthy set of lungs,” before beginning to rock her in his arms. Billy stared incredulously, and slightly betrayed, when the tiny spicy nugget settled her cries and opted instead to look up at Steve with curious sleepy blues. It’s the fastest she’s ever been settled, and Billy thought the Omega was a walking miracle.
So no, maybe it wasn’t the best time for a date, but Billy had cooked while Steve fed Max, who seemed to be an endless pit, even Steve stared horrified as she chugged at her bottle, whispering with amazement, “Where does to all go?” He didn’t know where all this could lead, but he’d take what he could get. All the stolen moments watching a movie while Max napped, bonding by fretting over his baby sister as they panicked at what she was possibly be crying about when they’ve all but ran through the mental checklist of baby needs.
“She’s the angriest baby I’ve met.” Steve had told him, with the patience of a saint, dodging when Max threw the bottle yet again.
“Runs in the family, I guess.”
Steve had looked up at him like he was trying to read between the lines, but he shook his head and deadpanned, “Yeah, you’re both brats.”
When Susan came home around 5 like clock work, they’d be relieved of their babysitting duties and snuck off for quieter dates. Kissing Steve was like drinking from a cup of hot cocoa, filing him pleasant warmth and a calm he hadn’t felt in years. It was supposed to be a high school romance, something to mourn and long for when he planned his trip back home, but life has a way of diverging from the blueprint.
——
The truth is, as much as Billy hated Hawkins, the tiny town gave him two of the best things in his life. It gave him Max, snot filled as she is, he’d do anything to protect her. But it also gave him Steve, his beacone of happiness during the toughest years of his life, and Billy was unapologetically selfish when he stole him away from the town, swept him up to California because he couldn’t bear to leave him behind. As Billy was a junior while Steve was a senior, Steve managed to get through a good chunk of his general ed classes before Billy graduated. He was able to transfer colleges so they could go to college together, and during their final year of college, Steve gave him the most precious thing he could ever ask for. They were in their last semester when they got their little unplanned surprise. It came with a period of morning sickness and Steve’s changing scent to something sweeter and different under all that cinnamon. And when they went to the doctors they got their confirmation, a small thing the size of sweet pea.
He thinks their little sweet pea was the reason Susan finally left his dad, and he couldn’t be happier. It meant seeing Max more often than just the holidays, fearing they’d grow apart. It seemed every time he saw her, she’d grow so much, almost unrecognizable since his last. She grows like a bean stock, or a weed, and he wonders if all kids grow up as fast.
——
Max wrinkled her nose, freckles all scrunched up in the way that had earned her the name "little bunny" from her mom. A generous nickname for the hell demon. She was on her tippy toes, worn light up sneakers flashing as she wiggled around trying to get a better view inside the crib, at the tiny bundle of hospital issued pink baby blanket. Billy tugged a red braid, one that was slowly unraveling from the rubber band, wisps escaping and static around her head, "Okay gremlin, stop breathing on her with your peanut butter breath."
She hissed at him, looked up with all her mighty 3’4” height, eyes full of 5 year old scrutiny as she declared, with all too much confidence and finality, "She’s ugly."
Billy choked on his spit.
From the corner of the room, in a white rocking chair plush with blankets and pillows, Steve chuckled quietly, brown eyes light and sparkling at Max’s mirth. There was a bone deep exhaustion in him, one that made him curl into his side on that chair, sinking, and one that made his voice hushed as if it was a struggle to speak. "She does look a little weird, huh? Like a little alien." Max nodded violently and looked back at the sleeping baby in the crib and then up at Billy once more, eyes squinting and assessing.
"She’s all mushed," she diagnosed, "it’s because she’s Billy’s." With all too much pity in her eyes, she mournfully turned to Steve once more, "couldn’t you have had a baby with someone prettier."
Steve’s arm curled around his stomach, trying to hold in as much of his laugh as possible lest he wake the baby with his antics. There was weary put upon sigh and Billy hauled Max over his shoulder as easily as a sack of potatoes, scolding her for hitting his back with rage-full freckled fists and indignant yelling, "Jesus, short stop. You’re gonna wake her."
He deposited her in front of a fidgeting Susan who was waiting by the door, fingers tinkering with a buckle on her purse strap. "We’re sorry for ambushing you like this; I know you both just got back from the hospital, but Max was insistent that she’d visit." He and Susan never met eye to eye, an awkwardness always settled around them, Susan’s nervous eyes always glued to the floor. But he thought that maybe it was Neil’s suffocating presence, one that made it feel wrong to talk to each other aside from polite pleasantries. Billy thought he owed it to Max to try, at least. And he had been.
"Do... you want to see her, Susan?"
Susan held tiny Jane in her arms, she’d almost forgotten the feeling and barely there weight of a baby. It was enough to glaze over her blue eyes, shiny and packed to the brim with tears at a nostalgia of a smaller Max, curled in her arm. Whereas Max had had wispy red peach fuzz for hair, Jane had nearly a full head of soft curls. It made her chuckle, jostling the poor thing in her arms. She was so clearly going to grow up to be the spitting image of Steve, unmanageable thick hair and fair skinned with rosy cheeks. And when she opened sleepy eyes up at Susan, frowning and curling her fists with too much expression than should be possible for a newborn, she thought she had Steve’s eyes, too. Soulfully large and earthen deep. Kind.
Little Jane glared up at her, at this strange woman who looked and sounded nothing like her parents. Susan shook her head at that face, she may have gotten Steve’s looks, but she was sure she’d have that headstrong attitude of Billy’s.
When she started fussing, rosebud lips hungrily nipping at her chubby hand, she handed her over to Steve, who let the baby suckle on a finger, and she thanked him for letting her hold Jane. He had dark shadows under his puffy red eyes. Labor does that to someone, she remembers. Fills you with the feeling as if you could sleep for a day straight, only the insistent need to care for the newborn, make sure they’re alright, keeps you on your feet.
She couldn’t imagine having Max as young as Steve and it filled her with worry, but when she turned, Billy stood in the doorway with the most vulnerable expression he’s ever let himself have, gazing at Steve’s in the rocking chair hair nursing their baby girl.
They’ll be alright, she thought. Steve wouldn’t be raising her on her own, he’d have all the help in the world.
Yes, they’ll be just fine.
——
By whatever miracle, little Jane is nothing like a tiny Max was. To begin with Jane is tiny. She could probably fit in his hand when she was a newborn. Max, he remembers, was a little butterball. All chubby rolls and an insatiable hunger. Jane also spends most of her time sleeping, doesn’t seem to have the need to fight the world every waking moment, but she’s oddly intense for a baby. She has the habit of just staring with her tiny furrowed face, and if she’s in a bad mood, not even tickles will get her smile.
“She gets it from you—” came Steve’s voice by the bathroom doorway. He looked soft as ever in warm socked feet and an oversized black shirt, “—the stubbornness...” Steve hated the way his chest had filled out, although as little and unnoticeable as Billy assured him. He hated the way his shirts would be ruined when he leaked milk, or the irritable feeling of his skin against an unflavored fabric. Billy thought he looked as beautiful as ever, no amount of change to his body could ever affect the way he looked at him, stretch marks and all. Billy just wished Steve felt that way about himself too. “She’s brooding.”
“I don’t brood.” Billy did not whine about it either.
“You do. You clam up and sit there all angry and silently pissed at the world like an angry clam and just, refuse to talk about what’s got you so angry.” Jane grabbed the rubber duck with her chubby clenched up fist and threw it as hard as she could at the water surface, glaring harder when the water dared to splash back. “She wants her bubbles.”
“How could you possibly know?” Jane blinked up at him, stone faced, lighting up when Billy reached for the bubble solution bottle she'd come to identify.
“I’ve spent almost six years with you, you know. At some point I’ve decoded every little mood of yours. It helps that she’s your little carbon copy too.”
“My carbon copy? Baby, look at her,” Jane blinked soulful eyes at Billy when he moved his hands through the water to encourage the bubbles, her cherub cheek smile an exact copy of Steve’s, “Baby, you’re a human printer.”
“Whatever, I’ve seen you both brood at vegetables the same way, but what do I know?”
“I don’t brood.”
“Of course, Bill.” It seemed more like he was placating him and Billy just stuck out his tongue, Jane trying to copy him and only succeeding in dribbling drool with a gurgle.
——
“Hi, Billy! How are you?”Steve came up behind him while he was on the phone, hooking his chin over his shoulder to listen in their conversation. He was a warm presence at his back, smelling like vanilla and lavender from his bath.
“Susan, hey… I haven’t heard from Max in a while, how has she been?” In reality it has only been two days, but with Susan living so close, it wasn’t unheard of for Max to come pester him every so often, even if only through the phone.
“She’s been in a real mood, you know how she can get with the baby.” Billy let out a put upon sigh and felt Steve place a light kiss to his jaw, nudging his nose against his neck in an attempt to comfort. Max hasn’t been liking all the attention little Jane gets. She’s too young to really understand how demanding babies can be. Jane was already a year old, hitting that stage where she’s learning to walk and form words. It also means having extra care and attention that she doesn’t hurt herself while off adventuring and celebrating every new word she learns to say.
“Can I talk with her?”
“Of course! Give me one second,” there was shuffling and muttering and what sounded distinctly like Max’s huffy whining, “She says she can talk to you right now. She’s on strike again.” Billy rolled his eyes and leaned back against Steve when he felt a huff of a laugh ghost his neck. Steve yelped as he accidentally stepped on his toes.
Max had watched a documentary on TV about the industrial revolution, she has weird interests for a six year old, but she’s also at the age where she’s a walking sponge. She learned about the word ‘strike’ and has applied that technique with all her childish stubbornness when she doesn’t get her way.
“That’s unfortunate,” Billy yelled into the phone hoping that Max would overhear, “and here I thought she could help me build a chocolate fudge Oreo cake.” There was more shuffling and Susan scolding her manners when Max’s voice came through the line.
“You can’t do that you buttface! That’s child labor and it’s illegal. I can report you for expedition ,” she said matter-of-factly
“Exploitation.”
“Yeah, that!” Billy elbowed Steve in the ribs when the man couldn’t muffle his laughter fast enough.
“Well Steve, I guess we’ll have to make the cake all by ourselves.”
“I’m sure Jane could eat Max’s portion. We’ll have to make do,” Steve lamented.
That got them a shriek from the other end of the line and Susan sighed into the phone, “We’ll be there in ten.”
——
It wasn’t until Susan had to go visit her sister, leaving Max with Steve and Billy, that Max truly started to bond with little Jane.
It was the middle of flu season, and despite their attempts to keep the kids healthy, the bug still snuck into their home like unwanted gum on the sole of their shoe. One day Max came home from school with a light headache and by the end of the day, she was sniffling away, cranky under her many many blankets. Billy wasn’t too worried, but Steve was fretting up and down the house, making an ungodly amount of chicken soup and stock piling children’s nyquil. By the end of the week, Billy was picking up dirty tissue papers from the floor every minute, there always seemed to be a trail behind wherever Max walked, like a trail of breadcrumbs. And then Jane too had begun sneezing.
It was how they all found themselves in the living room, mattresses hauled out from the bedrooms and spread across the floor, blankets and pillows scattered every which way. Steve wanted to keep an eye out on the girls and they both had been in and out of rooms all night, so Billy suggested camping out in the living room. Jane was cuddled up to Billy tugging on a strand of his blond hair that had unraveled from his messy bun, babbling away miserably as she wiped the pesky snot with her sweater sleeve. At his side, Max was resting her head on his shoulder, looking just as miserable, tugging on Jane’s fuzzy sock, finding amusement when Jane tried to bat her away with her foot.
“I guess she’s not that ugly.” Max blew her nose into a tissue and tossed it across the room.
“Not that ugly? What, don’t think she looks like an alien anymore?” She shook her head.
“Not really.” Jane started to fuss, looking like she was a hair away from crying again, the poor thing didn’t know how to deal with being sick except cry. “She’s still really annoying, though.” Max tickled her foot in an attempt to gather in a playful mood instead, Jane just burrowed her head in Billy's chest and batted her foot at her again.
“Yeah, well you were a little hell demon as a baby.”
“Mom said I was her little angel,” Max argued and stuck her tongue out at him.
“Nope, the only way to get you to stop crying was having Steve hold you because you hated everyone else.”
“That’s because Steve’s not a buttface.”
When Steve finally got out of the shower, it was to find all three of them fast asleep. Jane on his chest, drooling over his shirt and Max lying on Billy’s stomach while Billy himself was spread out like a starfish, only one arm curled around both Jane to keep her from sliding off. Steve huffed, shaking his head and lifting Jane to place her in her crib. He found a spot for himself on the other side of Max, tugging at a blanket and getting comfortable, purring in that soothing Omegan way to keep them from waking up. In his sleep Billy responded with a pleasant rumble of his own.