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Steve Harington didn't understand himself, he never had and he didn't think he ever would. He was different, very different, and he didn't know how to handle it.
From the first day he was alive, his mother called him an angel. As if she were apologizing for creating him, as if she were saying don't worry it will be better when you die. But she said it was because the first time he smiled, he had burnt the sun and melted it like wax into a halo above his head.
"My sweet little angel." She would whisper in his ears as he fell to sleep. But he grew up and realized that the name didn't belong to him. It belonged to preachers and the heavens above. It belonged to poets and visionaries. And it belonged to men, who would purr 'you're an angel,' as their hands reached deep inside of a girl, giggling next to them.
And Steve Harrington was far from an angel.
There is a kind of dirty that is unexplainable in physical terms, a kind that embodies itself in gut-wrenching shame and the feeling that all hope is lost. The first time Steve felt this dirty was when he was eleven years old and watching Superman with his best friend, Tommy. And Christopher Reeves came on the screen and with a startling realization; Steve knew that, despite him being the picture of masculinity, he wanted to kiss the superhero.
Since that day, he'd had an itch in the back of his mind that he could never claw away. And suddenly Tommy's freckles were the only thing he could think about and he didn't watch Springsteen videos for the music anymore and kissing Samuel Higgins in a dark alley behind the arcade when he was fifteen was the first time his heart had screamed for more.
He was seventeen now and years of parents who were only present on major holidays and endless nights spent in sleazy nightclubs or bent over the desk of a lonely neighborhood dad had taught him what it felt like to be a sinner.
But nothing could ever prepare him for the dirtiness he felt when he first saw Billy Hargrove. He sauntered into basketball practice and Steve felt like a bullet had flown through his head. Hargrove was a wet dream. He was a Greek God sculpted out of expensive marble with hair like silk and hands like iron. His eyes were blue, not ocean blue but they were bluer than the depths of purgatory and they were hell itself. And Steve knew that when he died, he would lay in the pools of those eyes for eternity. But Billy moved with the power of an ocean and his large muscles rippled and tensed with every step. He looked strong enough to cause an earthquake with a clap and to break Steve in half like a twig under a boot. His voice was golden syrup and his smile was sweet enough to rot God's teeth and a single look from him could send even the strongest to their knees.
So if Steve didn't already know that he was queer, he definitely did now.
But there was something else that lurked deep inside of him. Something worse.
Steve was dirty and he wanted to be clean. And there was nothing cleaner than pretty girls with their tiny waists and cotton stockings. Steve liked to watch them. He liked to watch girls like Nancy Wheeler and Carol Perkins. He liked to analyze the way that their eyes twinkled and their cheeks flushed pink, the way that their delicate fingers wrap round their hair when they get shy. He loved the way that lip gloss stuck to their mouths when they spoke. And he loved their skirts and how they wrapped round thighs and kept threatening to ride further up. Infatuated was an understatement.
The first time it happened, he was fifteen. He crept into his mother's bedroom, the obnoxious creek of the door making his heart boom in his chest. His legs wobbled as he sat in front of the mirror and stared at himself. His fingers were shaking so badly that the brush almost fell out of his hand when he dabbed rosy blush onto his cheeks. The lip gloss went on like butter and his mother's pink headband found a home on his head. He looked up and his breath hitched. 'Wow'
The warm light from the table lamp fell like sunbeams across his face and he was shining. The shimmer on his eyelids made the brown of his pupils run like melted chocolate on honey skin. He was a mix of baby pinks and gold and he had never looked so beautiful. And the mascara on his eyelashes turned them into fairy wings and he was flying so high that he couldn't see the ground. It was the first time he understood the name. Angel.
From that day on, it was like an addiction. A dirty secret. Whenever no eyes were on him, he slipped into femininity and he didn't quite understand it. He didn't want to be a girl but he loved the feeling of being pretty and fragile and like a doll. So, no he didn't understand it but he knew he had to keep doing it.
*
He walked into the Pink Flame, the club he'd been sneaking into since he was sixteen, and took his usual seat at the bar. Here, he was Angel. He was Angel to anyone that asked and he was slutty and mysterious and he wasn't himself at all. And that's how he liked it.
He looked stunning. His black slip dress hugged tight around his waist and left little to the imagination every time he sat down. His stockings made his legs look even longer and they never fell or faltered, as if they were made to sit on Steve's thighs. And his pearls choked him in just the way he wanted. Even his tired converse, which he wore because his mother's shoes were the only things that didn't fit him, looked perfect. He was a vision, a heavenly creature, and hell couldn't touch him when he looked like this.
The night moved quickly, a never-ending sea of tipsy smiles and half hearted compliments. Until someone sat next to him and offered him a drink. He turned to see who it was. An older gentleman, hair neatly slicked back and piercing grey eyes, he reminded Steve of his own father. Steve smiled coyly and shuffled closer. He was used to this by now, he knew exactly what to say and how to act. He could draw them in like moths to a flame.
However, ten minutes in Steve knew that this guy was gross. His breath stunk of sickening liquor and cheap cigarettes and his voice was brash and rude. His fat fingers roamed over Steve's body at a pace that was far too fast. Steve wanted to get away, he wanted to go dance and find someone he actually liked to look at. So he gave this guy a kiss, a polite goodbye peck on the lips, before slipping away to the bathroom.
Applying a fresh coat of gloss, Steve looked at himself and smiled. He was so beautiful. But within moments, the bathroom door swung open and he was slammed against one of the stall doors.
He had never sobered up so fast.
It was the guy from the bar, who seemed to be a giant in human form. He grabbed Steve's ass and thrust their hips together.
"Come on, sweet angel." He leered into Steve's ear and vomit started pooling hot and deep in the bottom of his stomach, "You can't leave me hanging like that."
He crushed Steve with a kiss and all he could taste was the foul punch of power and desperation. He tried to get away but this man was a rock, he was the statue of a man who had lost all control. Steve could feel painful hot tears spilling down his cheeks. And when the man started palming himself through his jeans, Steve's vision blurred and his ears popped to the point where the distant music on the dancefloor was now loud enough to deafen him and he couldn't hear the man on top of him.
But then a loud crack split through the silence and Steve could make out someone shouting. He willed his eyes to focus so he could see the stranger who had walked into the room, had walked onto the scene. Steve took his opportunity and ran, ran out of the club, ran down the street, ran anywhere but there.
He sat on a curb and sobbed, sobbed until he couldn't sob anymore. It took him a while to start breathing normally again but when he did, he leaned back and looked at the stars and thanked them for being there. Sometimes he thought that he belonged up there with them, that he was destined to be a burning mess of light. He knew he was destined to be the hope in a dark night's sky.
When his bones started being bones again, he stood up and walked towards home. Home sounded so good right now. But it frightened him to be alone out there. He had never had to walk back from the club before, someone had always taken him home or taken him to bed. And Hawkins was a scary place at night. Suddenly, he was too small and the sting of the cold on his bare arms was unbearable. His heart rang like an alarm in his head and he tried to remain stable. After all, there was nothing he could do but try and make it home.
He took the long way, he chose the roads that were always deserted at night except for kids on bikes and stray cats. If anyone saw him like this, he would be dead. That thought pulsated through his mind like a drill as he walked down the painfully long street. He tried to listen for anything that could keep him grounded in reality and he found comfort in the quiet whirring of bugs in the forest and the sound of his own breaths. He could almost hear the solid breeze around him and he could almost hear the televisions in the houses with their curtains closed and he could almost hear his mother's lullabies that she sang whilst he was curled up in his warm bed. And he sighed as he felt peaceful once again.
But peace was never a definitive thing. And it wasn't long before an eruption of low noise pounded against his eardrums. It was a car engine. He kept his eyes on the floor and prayed to anything that it would just drive by.
It didn't.
Steve's breath caught in his throat as he saw the car slow to a halt right next to him. His legs were swallowed by quicksand and he had never moved so slowly.
"Need a ride, doll?"
Steve's stomach dropped. He could recognize that voice anywhere, golden syrup. Billy Hargrove was looking right at him, staring at him, and Steve started to wonder what the newspapers would say when they found his queer body dead in a ditch wearing nothing but a black slip dress and some stockings. He wondered what his parents would think and if they would even pay for a funeral. He wondered if his mother would burn her entire wardrobe, tainted by the skin of her son.
A wave of pressure hit his mind and pounded relentlessly and he prayed that his head would just explode right then and there.
He tried to move, tried to get his legs to operate but they were frozen under the earth. Then he heard the car door open and Billy's footsteps drew closer. He refused to look. If he couldn't see it, it wasn't there.
"Are you alright, miss?"
Steve just squeezed his eyes tight and willed himself to wake from this nightmare.
But suddenly, Billy's body heat was in front of his and it was too late.
"Harrington?" Confusion hung thick in Hargrove's voice and Steve thought he was going to faint.
"What the fuck is this, Harrington?" Steve choked down a whimper at that and tried to prepare himself for what was to come. He wrapped his arms tight round his chest and tried to fly away. He thought of the boy in the neighboring town who was murdered and mutilated for being caught staring in the locker room. He wondered how Billy would kill him. Would he do it right now, in the middle of a residential street so his body could be fed to family pets or used as a scarecrow. Or would he tell everyone he knows to get down here and watch the show. He watched as the pretty little world that he had created over the years crumbled and burnt in front of him. And his body took control and all of a sudden he was throwing up all the bile and fear in his stomach.
"Christ, what the fuck dude?" Hargrove's voice was painful against his ear. Of course he would be sent to hell by God himself.
"Please don't hurt me." Steve's whimpered, apparently his heart didn't want to give up yet.
"It's fucking freezing, get in the car." Billy's big hands grabbed Steve and hoisted him up. He was limp and would go wherever he was led. The heat of the Camaro was overwhelming and he wanted to feel it forever. But as Billy started to drive off with Steve in the passenger seat, he wondered if he was going to take him to Hawkins High and hang him from a basketball net.
Steve's eyes adjusted to the roads and the streetlights as they raced past them and he gulped down the scent of Billy Hargrove's car.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Harrington, so you can quit shaking." Billy said, and Steve did. He did what he was told.
The rest of the journey was silent except from Steve trying to steady his broken breaths. Billy stopped outside of Steve's house and looked at the messy boy with pity.
"Are you going to tell anyone?" Steve whispered, scared that if he spoke too loudly he would wake up the entire world.
"No."
With that, Steve reached for the door but heard Billy locking it before he could get to the handle. He grimaced, the promise of his bed just out of reach.
"So what's the deal, Harrington?" Billy questioned. "You a tranny or something?"
The air in the car was thick and clammy. Steve felt like he was dreaming. He couldn't grasp anything that had happened to him that night. Billy and Steve had only ever spoke in basketball practice, and even that was just taunting nicknames and off-hand insults, and now he knew more about Steve than any other person on earth. And Steve didn't know how to play it, couldn't tell if Billy was humiliating him or being genuine. His head hurt from all the confusion and the invisible steam from the heater painted a picture of fear in the air.
"No." Was all that Steve could muster. He hadn't looked up from the floor the whole time but risked a glance at the boy sat next to him, who was staring right back at him. Billy's brow wasn't furrowed and there was no threat in his eyes. Something in Steve's heart warmed up a little as Billy looked at him.
"I don't understand."
"I'm a boy." Steve's hands were shaking and Billy eye's followed the anxious movement. "This is just the type of boy that I am."
Steve felt his voice break and tears threatening to spill again. He had never felt so dizzy.
"Stop." Steve jumped slightly as Billy's hand covered Steve's shaky one, holding it in place. "Just because I don't understand it, doesn't mean I'm gonna kill you Harrington."
He stared at Billy's hand on top of his and felt his heart ache. His fingers were covered in silver rings and his bones looked strong, like they were going to protect him.
"And it doesn't mean I don't think you look pretty."
Steve's stomach dropped. He looked up and met Billy's gaze. There was something different now, something that said I see you. He slouched a little in his seat and Steve's gaze fell to his golden chest that was peaking out of his barely buttoned shirt. He could see Billy's heart beating, could feel the heat that was coming from it. Steve wanted to lick it up. He wanted to absorb every inch of Billy's heart.
His own heart was beating fast now and he gulped, unsure of what to do next.
"Pretty boy," Billy breathed and his voice sounded distant, as if he were reaching for something that was universes away. He didn't look away from Billy's eyes, completely trapped by the blues like that like crystals next to the dark night. And he watched as Billy's hand came up to his face and stroked the flesh there, he knew it was coming but sparks still flew when skin touched skin. Steve was speechless, left completely thoughtless by the strong hand holding him. He felt as Billy's thumb rubbed underneath his eyes, where his mascara had run and stained.
"You're too beautiful to cry."
Steve could feel his entire person melt under those words and he cursed himself as a stray tear rolled down his cheek. He was burning from the inside out, overcome with too many different emotions. It hurt but it was the kind of hurt that he'd longed for his entire life.
He felt Billy move closer, impossibly closer. When Billy's nose touched his, he breathed slightly into the comfort. And it wasn't long before their lips connected. Steve swore he felt the heavens above collapse into the kiss with him. It was gentle at first, Billy licked into his mouth like he could do it forever. Their tongues fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Here, Steve could smell every bit of Billy and it made his head spin, he was warm cigarettes and cologne and it drove Steve wild. He placed his hand on Billy's chest, let the heat radiate through his veins. Billy took the movement as his cue to move down and suck on Steve's neck, his earlobe. Steve let out a tiny moan and leaned into the touch. And then Billy's hand moved to Steve's chest as if he were reaching to squeeze his tits. This was when Steve realized that Billy had probably never done this with another boy before. But it didn't matter, nothing mattered now.
Steve could feel himself getting hard and Billy probably realized it too because suddenly his hand was resting on Steve's stockings. He moved his hand painfully slowly up the long expanse of Steve's thigh but before he got too close, he sighed against Steve's neck and whispered,
"Is this okay?"
And Billy didn't have to ask, Billy never had to ask. Steve would let him do anything. But it still felt good. People always took from Steve, always grabbed what they wanted without a care in the world. Billy was different, though, Billy wanted Steve to be an equal part in all of this. He whispered something in agreement, something that said 'yes, I'm yours. But if his words weren't enough confirmation, his legs mindlessly parted for Billy; an open invitation.
"Good girl."
Steve could've come from the praise alone, driven crazy by the humiliation of being called a girl. The second Billy's huge hand grabbed his dick through his lace panties, he moaned obscenely and rutted into the touch. He stroked Steve through the lace and breathed into his ear,
"You're so desperate." And Steve moaned in response. He was whatever Billy wanted him to be.
Before Steve had chance to catch his breath, he was being manhandled into the back seat by Billy. And it was absurd, doing this in the cramped Camaro when Steve's house was right there. But this made it more exciting.
Billy unbuckled his belt and pulled his dick out, it was massive and Steve couldn't wait to get his lips around it.
"C'mere." He muttered as he dragged Steve over and pushed his head down. Steve liked how Billy wasn't a tease and started fucking his face almost instantly. He could feel tears spluttering out of his eyes and his choked gags were loud in his own ears, but this was how he liked it. And Billy's low groans just made him want more, more, more.
Billy stopped Steve for a second and pulled his dress off in one swift movement. He gazed at Steve's body and ran his hands all over,
"So fucking beautiful, Bambi."
If words could kill.
The Steve reached up to help Billy out of his own shirt, salivating at the sight in front of him. Billy picked Steve up a though he weighed nothing at all and brought him onto his lap. Steve's dick was still trapped in his panties but the friction felt incredible, he thoughtlessly grinded himself down on Billy's erection. His tongue found its way back into Billy's mouth and he had never been hungrier. It wasn't long before Billy's hand cupped his ass and slipped into his panties, a finger going in. The pressure felt amazing.
"Such a tight little pussy."
They sat like that for a while, making out whilst Steve rutted helplessly and Billy fingered him with one, two, three fingers.
Pushing Steve flat on his back and laying himself on top, Billy whispered,
"You ready for me, sweetheart?"
And Steve had never replied 'yes' so fast.
The pressure of Billy's huge dick inside of him made him go braindead for a second. It was the best thing he'd ever experienced. Billy set a brutal pace, he knew what he wanted, and Steve screamed with every thrust. He held Steve's legs over his shoulders and felt the nylon of his stockings as he fucked him. It was raw and animalistic and Steve loved every second of it.
His mind was exploding into euphoria and he couldn't think and so he started to moan out all the obscenities' that he says to his usual fucks.
But there was a part of him who was well aware that it was Billy Hargrove who was destroying him and not some single dad with commitment issues. So he managed to cut himself off before he embarrassed himself too much,
"Harder da-" His face flushed bright red and he hoped that Billy hadn't heard. But Billy's fast pace jolted a little. He grabbed Steve's neck, rubbing at the bruises he'd left, and he leaned down.
"Its okay. You can say it, baby. I know you want to."
Steve had never heard anything so dirty, he fisted his own dick, unable to control himself any more and moaned.
"Harder daddy."
Billy came with a bone-crushing thrust, filling Steve up to the brim, and making Steve come all over Billy's stomach.
They both collapsed and, as if by instinct, Billy's arms wrapped around Steve and held him. And Steve was sure that he was going to pass out in any moment. He had been left completely used and ruined by Billy, the world was blurry and his body felt like porcelain. And he wondered if Billy was just going to kick him to the curb, naked and tired, like all of the men before. But after a while, Billy pulled his jeans on, climbed out of the car, opened Steve's door and picked him up like a baby. Walking with Steve in his arms, he said,
"Let's get you to bed, princess."
And Steve hadn't stopped smiling since.