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4/8/2022 • Indianapolis • Phi Kappa Alpha House
Steve would like to say he didn’t know how it started. But that’s a lie. A big lie. A huge, bold-faced lie.
In fact, he remembers the conversation that spurred the thought that started it.
Heather was high as giraffe balls, leaned into his arm, wearing these tight pants and just— going on about them. How they were tight, but comfortable. Flexed all her assets; made her waist and hips and ass look fan-tastic, Stevie, you see this ass? You know what you don’t see? Lines. Seamless. That’s what does it for ya. Not a line in sight, but they’re there. And soft as satin too because guess what? They are.
And it kinda just— snowballed. From there. You know. How obsessions do.
Because he was; the moment he got the guts to order some of his own— because he was gonna order them. No way was he gonna walk into a chick-trunk and buy panties for himself because someone would obviously be able to see it on his face or read his fucking mind, obviously, and then what would he do when the whole canpus knew Steve Harrington was hot for rockin’ women’s intimates and he hadn’t even worn any yet??
So, yeah. He ordered them. And the moment he did, it was full-send. Capital-O Obsessed. Off the charts, is what it is; and it’s hard to want to stop. Being this comfortable. Feeling this hot. Keeping this secret, that no one knows about even though it’s four feet from his best friends, they just can’t see it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s like the dirtiest fuckin’ super power, getting off on that. Wondering what Heather would think if he actually spoke up about the pros and cons of cotton vs polyester, the proper times for boyshorts or bikinis or g-strings. What Robin would say if he said his boudoir was probably more ‘delicate’ than hers. What Billy would do if he somehow caught a peek.
That last one is a source of constant anxiety and unfortunately-timed boners. His mind has to stop wandering, but he can’t help it. Can’t help but wonder if he would laugh his ass off and call him the queerest fairy around— get off on rubbing on silk between library shelves like some pansy perv do ya? Or, much more detrimental to the integrity of his flimsy garments, would he grab him with those garage-hardened hands, calluses catching on soft material and all too hungry to touch, to feel, to take him apart, call him pretty boy and mean it in a way he hasn’t before and be delicate with the material even as he rips him apart with his mouth or his fingers or his cock because he can’t bear to take them off of him even when—
Yeah.
Detrimental to the integrity. To his integrity.
So, really, he can only blame himself when he buys the tri-pack of lacy bralette sets. Because he’s got a problem, and he’s tried it all— has it all, in fact, in that secret compartment in his dresser from home that he brought with him when they moved for college. Bursting at the seams, it is. But— but. That middle piece in the picture. He really hoped they weren’t duping him. That the color was accurate. Because it was that exact blue. The blue-lagoon-at-crystal-tide color he can’t help but fantasize about. Y’know, ‘cause he has a problem. And it’s his favorite.
So of course he was lazing about his room in it, comfortable as hell, when he got the ‘Phi Kappa Alpha‘s having a party’ and ‘we’re outside so haul ass’ texts from Robin. Of course he blew it off as another weird Reel she’d texted to him rather than sending it through Insta like a normal person, choosing instead to keep his focus trained fiercely on The Bear because it moves fast. And suddenly there was the sound of footsteps coming straight for him and no knock because they have boundary issues and Steve had a full three seconds to panic.
He’d pulled on his vintage flashy windbreaker, wild block colors making him stand out like a neon sign. He loves this thing; snagged it at a Goodwill by the grace of god and four dollars. He didn’t know they were going somewhere. That it would be more than a quick trip. That it, in fact, ‘may have the potential to be one of the biggest most memorable parties they’ve ever been to’ and Robin was documenting it all with her own iconic vintage obsession: her Sun600.
She definitely overreacted. Chances are, they just didn’t want to put the effort into finding ‘Cult Classic’ costumes for the competing Phi Thri party caddy-corner from the Kappas. Two Phi frats on one campus and they hate each others’ fuckin’ guts. Bound to happen, if you ask Steve, what with the Kappas being almost exclusively roided-out baseball players and the Thri’s being pot-pill-K lunatics that like pissing straight-edges off.
It just feels like any other frat party to Steve. Same amount of imbibing and no new activities. Which is fine; ‘most memorable party’ has equal potential in and of itself to not be a great thing.
Billy snagged the Polaroid halfway through the night after Heather and Robin had moo-ed each other into their third Truly’s. Everyone gets a ‘moo’ when they go out partying, means the person they moo at has to down their drink as fast as possible. Billy used his on Steve after he said he didn’t like the taste of the feral fizz just to piss him off and make him drink not only all of it, but as fast as possible. Dick.
He’d made it a personal mission to take up Robin’s camera whenever she started taking pictures of the ceiling, and therefore it was no surprise when he took a shot of Steve and Robin absolutely wrecking two randos at beerpong. He’d sneered at it, as he had at most of the pictures he’d taken with Steve in them.
When Robin demanded they take a snapshot (for posterity’s sake) in front of a diapered senior taped up to a wall, that’s when things began to go downhill.
Steve was still staring at the guy who was absolutely plastered, covered navel-to-neck with duct tape save for his forearms and hands. He was clad in only a makeshift sheet-diaper, legs dangling a foot off the floor. There was a solo cup of pushpins stapled to the wall and fat sharpie across his chest that read ‘POP THE BALLOON — WIN A PRIZE!’
Steve was pretty up there himself, but he wasn’t sure how fucked he’d have to be to agree to do some crazy 70’s-hazing-style type shit like this. Especially as a senior.
The guy was smiling wide at him the whole time he stared, then gave him lazy finger-guns and an awful attempt at a wink. “Losta bet,” he nods, like it’s a pick-up line.
“Is there actually a balloon in there?” he asks, seeing no bulge anywhere in the tape that would indicate a hidden balloon.
The guy glances down his own chest, brows high and lips tilting back far. “Think so.” His high brow lowers and tightens suddenly and he looks at Steve, confused. “‘M I wearin’ a diaper?”
“Kinda,” Steve shrugs. It’s not technically a diaper. Just looks like one. “What’s the prize?”
“A sur-prize!” he almost screams, and Steve flinches back at the sheer volume of it as he raises his finger guns again, pulling his thumbs in over and over like he’s shooting ‘em. They definitely told him to tell that to anyone who asked.
“Hey,” he hears, urgent and annoyed, from behind him. “Are you even listening?”
“No—“
“Take off the jacket.”
Not a chance in hell.
Steve stutters for a moment. “The fuck, why?”
“It’s fuckin’ up all our pictures. Your 80’s-retro is jacking up the camera lens and freaking the flash, dipass. Take it off.”
Steve blinks at him. No wonder he keeps sneering at and throwing away Polaroids, getting more and more disgruntled every time he has to leave a photo on the trashed frat floor. That film isn’t cheap, and they all pitched in to get a good stock and Steve’s accidentally wasted about $30-worth probably.
“No,” he says flatly, eventually.
Billy looks like he knew Steve would be difficult, like Steve is always difficult and this is no surprise. He does not look like he has any idea what Steve is wearing underneath, and there’s no way that’s happening here. Wasted. In a frat house. In front of a guy in a diaper taped to a wall. “Why the fuck not, princess? Require a more royal robe in exchange?”
Steve blinks, not hearing the prod over his own searching for an excuse. Let’s change the subject! “I was gonna poke ‘im to win the surprise prize,” he grins, because that seems like enough. And it’s funny.
Billy stares at him, as if he’s stupid. “You go around pokin’ boys a lot?”
Steve laughs, loud. Billy’s teases make him blush on an average day; he’s really good at setting himself up for the blonde’s taunts. Something about a broken filter, Robin says. But with about four beers and three shots and a cup of feral fizz actively infusing itself into his blood, it’s not an average day. And Billy’s not wrong that he’d want to, but he’s so off-base that it happens ‘a lot’. The fact that it might be a joke is lost on him, due to the fact that the reality is much more hilariously depressing. And that his distraction is working. And then he remembers a better distraction.
“You know what?” Steve points, and Billy almost says ‘what?’, Steve can see it in his mouth, but instead Steve says loudly, “Moo, bitch!”
Billy swears and almost hits his teeth on his new, still ice-cold beer can. Steve watches him down it and laughs, holding his hand up to Diaper Guy. He slaps Steve’s hand hard. “Chuggit dowwwn!” the guy hollers, pumping his arms much as he can in the air as if he’s at a metal concert. “Thirstyyyy,” he mumbles to himself, the excitement seeming to have deflated him substantially. Someone covered in bright paint rushes up laughing his ass off, shoving at his friend— looks kinda like two of Eddie’s bandmates (Gareth, maybe? And… Josh? No. Jeff!)— to poke a hole in the tape by his rib. “OW, fucking pussy-fuck punk-faced asshole, FUCK you!” he yells with sudden renewed vigor. Gareth runs off cackling, shoving his sloshing beer against Jeff.
Billy crushes the now empty can into the wall beside the tape, throwing it at Diaper Guy’s head. He wheels on Steve in irritation, chin still wet with beer and froth. “Fuck you, for that. The line to the cooler was longer than your mom’s pubes.”
Steve practically recoils. “Gross, dude.” He smirks a bit hazily and snorts. “That’s way longer than the line of people that haven’t sucked your mom’s tits—“
“BURN!” Diaper Guy yells.
Billy shoves his chest, and he slams into the diaper. Hard.
The guy groans stiltedly in pain and then louder, as it settles into his booze-infused body.
Steve jerks away from the feeling of being non-consensually shoved against another guy’s crotch, and Billy’s suddenly snorting and laughing meanly into his fist. “Dude, did you piss yourself?”
Sure enough. There’s an expanding wet spot on the front of the sheet. Steve has very little time to laugh about it, instead freaking out over whether or not he’s gotten piss on the only barrier between Billy and the whole Phi Kappa Alpha frat seeing his lacy blue bralette.
Diaper Guy is frowning down at himself. “Don’ think so,” he mutters, then sort of winks at the ceiling, one eye squeezed shut, concentrating real hard. “No. Don’ think so. Why, ‘m I wet? Feels wet.”
Billy looks at him incredulously. Steve probably looks the same. He looks at Billy, whose eyes are bouncing between his dirtied diaper and confused face. “Uh, yeah, dude,” he deadpans.
“Is it on me?” Steve rushes once the silence is broken, turning his back to Billy as he tries to reach around and feel for a wet spot.
Billy looks back to him, then seems to remember. “Doesn’t fucking matter, you’re taking it off anyway.”
He is so not.
Steve rolls his eyes dramatically and turns to the wall. “You, Diaper Guy, did it get on me?”
“Diaper Guy,” he repeats airily. “Sick. Like’a super’ero.” Steve’s shoulders sink in his vexation.
“That is a superhero, bud. His name’s Captain Underpants,” Billy informs unhelpfully.
“Sweet! Ill b’like, his sidekick. Hey, this’s really uncomfortable. ‘M all wet.”
“Yeah, we know; is it on me?” Steve tries again with insistence. At least he actually seems to pay attention this time, leaning his neck away from the wall as far as the tape will allow and squinting a bit. He opens his mouth to say something, but is immediately cut off.
“OH SHIT!”
Someone’s yelling from across the room. Steve groans in frustration.
“YOU DID IT! Did you poke his dick? Why’d you poke his dick? Did it hurt?”
A short, wide-shouldered and muscular man is suddenly running up to them, red-faced from liquor and contrasting sharply with his close-cropped, bright blonde hair. He deals each question to each of them quickly, starting with Billy and ending with Diaper Guy.
“We didn’t poke his dick,” Billy scoffs the same time Diaper Guy says “It hurt a lot.”
He looks between the two for a split second, then settles on Billy. “You win!”
Billy’s blank-faced. Very unimpressed. “Thanks.”
“What?” Steve says, grabbing the blonde’s attention. “Won? What’dya mean?”
“The balloon! You popped it!” he says excitedly, and like it was painstakingly obvious as he ends his statement with a bump to Billy’s shoulder. Billy sneers at him like he’s about to sanitize himself. He doesn’t do touching.
Steve’s eyes widen. It wasn’t piss. Thank god. “We popped the balloon,” he repeats, relieved. “What was in it, like, beer or some shit?”
The guys snorts and slaps a hand down on Billy’s shoulder. Billy stares at it from the moment it lands. “Think one of the basemen pissed in it,” he laughs.
Great.
Great.
Suddenly, Steve’s shoved backward. He hardly has the wherewithal to turn his body so as not to land back into the piss-stained sheet-diaper. But his shoulder catches most of his weight against the wall and tape isn’t a great buffer. He grunts at the force and turns as far away from the tape-suspended guy as possible, just in time to see Billy twisting buff frat boy’s body by his hand, turned sharply at an odd angle behind his back.
“What the fuck, bro?!” the guys stuttering in his surprise.
“Stop touching me. That? That’s grotesque, you fuckin’ third grader. Get ‘im down. This frat’s like the fun-dome of fundamental idiocracy,” he hisses, shoving the man into Diaper Guy’s wet sheet and shoving his pocket knife into his twisted hand. “This prize better be good or I’m taping you up there next. And you don’t wanna know what I’m leaving you in.”
Steve steps away from the wall when the man is shoved not a foot away from his space, cringing away from the wet spot pressed to his chest.
“Bro I’m— I dunno, okay, I’ll get him down— Nick has the prize, just go ask Nick—“
“Oh, yeah, that helps. I’ll go find Nick. Sure.” He pushes the guy out of his hands and gestures for Steve to follow him with a sharp nod of his head. “I’m coming back for my knife and if you don’t have it or he’s still up there, I will kick your dick up into you so hard it’ll knock your teeth out the wrong way. You got that?”
He nods, eyes wide.
“I said you got that?”
“I got that,” he says quickly, nodding even faster.
Billy leaves him as fast as you can possibly leave disappointment behind. Steve trails after him, subtly still trying to feel for a wet spot on his spine. “I think you scared him,” he mumbles.
“Good,” he almost growls, and Steve’s not sure he’s seen Billy prowl around like this since high school. Like he’s set on edge just looking for a fight to provoke him. Just looking for enough; it wouldn’t take much.
Steve follows him to the kitchen, to the beer pong table, where a bunch of guys are shouting in polos or no shirt at all. No in-between. “Nick,” he yells. All heads turn. Two say “Yeah?”
“You got my prize. I popped your buddy’s diaper balloon, you fuckin’ weirdo.”
Nick #1 looks incredibly confused. Nick #2, shirtless and wet with some sort of liquid that smells so highly potent it could roar a fire, scoffs loudly and laughs like it’s hilarious. “I’m the weirdo? You’re the one puttin’ pins in people’s dicks!”
A chorus of amused ‘ooooo’s. Their leader is winning whatever this battle of wits is.
Billy is not amused. “Listen bitchbag—“ Oh no, is all Steve can think as the blonde takes a couple deadly steps toward the table separating them, “—I’m not the one taping people to walls and putting piss-balloons in self-made bedsheet diapers for fun. I’m not the one rubbing up on every guy around with my nipples out doused in Everclear like a self-made body-shot. Gimme my prize and take your loss like a man.”
Nick’s amusement immediately fizzles into hardly contained aggression. “There is no prize, shitfuck. Why don’t you go fuck your boyfriend and cry about it?”
Oh no. It’s just on repeat in Steve’s head.
“What is he wearing?” one of the other ball-bros says with an amused chuckle, even though he seems to take a step away from his ringleader’s glistening nipples.
Billy’s self-restraint is out to toke. It’s like Steve can visibly see him let go of his control, reverting easily into that high-school-specified rage-space. His steps are heavy as he closes the space to he table, and then it’s gone. Flipped onto its shorter side and slamming into the wall, cups falling, flying, spilling, the far end slamming into one guy’s nose and pinning another to the side wall. For all his posturing, Nick flattens to the surface behind him when a clenched-jaw Hargrove crowds his space. “He’s wearing whatever the fuck he wants,” he says through his teeth. “I suggest you find a prize. Something I’ll really like. Or I’m throwing my Zippo at you.”
The other boys seem to wonder if they should crowd him back, defend their brother, but he gives no indication. And the thing is, Steve knows that look. Knows what Nick is thinking, because he’s thought it. Nick may look to the average no-homo-bro like he’s not trying to have a fight shut down his rager, maybe a little afraid of the possibility of getting his ass handed to him on a dirty frat floor, but Steve can see it in his eyes. Slightly covered from too many drinks, his body lax from being given proximity, from that proximity being Billy. Tanned and freshly cut, intimidating and wide-shouldered, demanding something from him he wants to give.
Steve feels a flare of jealousy.
It’s stupid, the possessiveness he feels. That he wants to rip Billy away from him and leave him thinking about what he could’ve had even though he never ever could have in the first place.
Because Steve hasn’t had him either. Can’t. Won’t. That’s just… it’s stupid. That feeling. He lets it simmer in him as Billy draws back and Nick blinks, looking wary. “You have five minutes,” Billy finishes, still threatening. Either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Steve hopes he doesn’t notice. Gives him hope that maybe Steve’s better at hiding his own incapability of keeping his head at Billy’s proximity.
No one moves as Billy steps away from the space the table used to take up, music still blaring in from the main room and the party still raging outside these walls. Billy turns back to the guys, who seem just as confused at the lack of direction. “Well?” he says pointedly to Nick. “Go.”
And Nick practically jolts, slapping his brothers’ chests and shoving their shoulders like they’re stupid, knocking them into action. As if any of them have any idea what they’re looking for.
Billy leans against the counter and waits. Steve watches them all scramble to leave, feeling like he should be doing something with his hands.
Once they’ve poured out, Billy sighs. “What a fucking dipshit. C’mon.”
Steve just decided to put his hands in his pockets. “What about the prize?”
Billy makes a weird face. “There’s no prize. I don’t want a fake fear-fuck prize, I want my knife back. Let’s go,” he explains to Steve as if he’s far surpassed a simpleton. And Steve frowns. He knew Nick wanted to fuck him? Does he think Nick might be the type to be presumptuous enough to say some shit like ’it’s me, I’m the prize, take me’? And he doesn’t want that?
Jealousy aside, that absolute douchebag was pretty hot. Sans shirt, skin shining, all taut and toned? Tall and sharp-faced with bright green eyes and that fuckboy haircut no one likes but everyone loves? Literally the definition of tall, dark, and handsome? It’s a bit of a hope-hinderer. Feels a bit crushing. Because if Billy wouldn’t jump at the chance of that, how could he possibly want Steve? Lithe and toned in a nice but way less impressive way? Boring brown eyes and too-fluffy hair he can never get to calm down? Oh, yeah, and obsessed with women’s underwear?
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
Steve follows again. Always following Billy. Not sure what he’d do otherwise. Feels distinctly pathetic about it. Can’t even bask in the unnecessary but warranted fear radiating off of buff-blonde-boy as he presents his knife back to Billy like it’s Excalibur and gestures to a now floor-sitting diaper guy like he’s a work of art. He follows Billy back through the main room, baseball players setting up their infamous ‘body-jell’ shots a buck a pop; down the back hall, briefly catching sight of Heather puffing on the smoke sofa in the corner, Robin on the floor between her knees as her hair is deftly braided between Heather’s weed-numbed fingers; and through the back door all the way outside.
Billy sighs heavily, annoyed and attempting to unleash it all to the stars, glowing under the motion sensor porch lamp mounted to the wall. The garage is open, no one is out back. The garage has a keg and black lights and girls from the sister sorority marking people up liberally with glow paint. Steve wonders why Billy didn’t head that way, if he was so eager to unload.
He hardly lights his cigarette before he’s turning on Steve.
“This was a shitshow. Way to kill my buzz.”
Affronted.
What the hell?
“Me? What’d I do? You just fear-bonered half the population of this frat—“
“If you hadn’t gotten all defensive none of this would’ve happened,” he says pointedly, palms splaying out before shoving his fingertips harshly into Steve’s shoulder. “You and that fucking jacket— it’s not like it’s your whole personality or something. If you’d just taken it off, no balloon, no not-prize, no losing the girls to the Sesh Sisters—“
“I like this jacket. Why the fuck’d you defend it if you’re so pressed?”
“I can say shit, they can’t,” he says adamantly. And Steve, he’s— he doesn’t— what does that mean? That makes no sense.
“I’d like it if no one said shit about it—“
“Just take it off, Harrington. We’re definitely not taking a picture with a piss stain and you’re not walking around wearing one—“
“Is there a piss stain? No one ever told me—“
“If I said yes will you take it the fuck off?”
“No,” Steve says emphatically.
Billy looks so angry it’s as if the jacket murdered his entire family. He takes a step closer. Steve is under the light. It flicks back on at the movement, but he has no way to back up. “Just take it off, Harrington.”
Steve crosses his arms and acts like this is boring. It is. It’s boring. It’s not like Billy’s the fashion police. No big deal. “No.”
He taps the ash off his cigarette, stalking closer. Steve feels like Nick. His jaw is tight, says through his teeth, “Take it off.”
“Hot, Hargrove,” he says boredly. His heart is racing. He’s out of distractions. No more moo to save his sorry ass.
“What are you, hiding a bomb in there or something?” he growls, fisting the front suddenly. “Take it off.”
“Get off me,” he shoves, but it doesn’t do much. “What is this, roid-rage? You miss a bump and I’m collateral?” He’s just— He’s looking for a reason. Panic is setting in. Billy’s only gotten bigger since high school, and Steve can be strong but he can’t be stronger than an angry Billy. He can feel the strength of his arms in his hands through his breaker, through his chest. His heart’s in his throat. He has to find something that’ll get him to back off.
“Your safety-blanket jacket is seriously concerning,” he replies as if informing him of the weather. “It’s April, Steve.” Great, now he’s informing him of the weather.
“You’ve been looking for a fight all night and you definitely won’t find one in me. Or are you looking to relive the glory days? Wanna knock me around again? Get me all black and blue?”
He’s reaching. He knows their past is uneasy territory with Billy; he was really betting on that horse to get him out of this. But something flashes over his face, close as it is, and Steve hardly has time to comprehend it. His fist pushes into Steve’s chest instead of releasing. “Take. It. Off.”
Steve leans in, bares his own teeth. “No.”
The light flicks off from lack of enough movement to keep it on. In the low glow of the stars and distant street lights, Steve can see the frustration and determination crackling in his wild blue irises.
He pulls at the jacket.
Steve jerks it back. Bright blue-, purple-, and pink-printed fabric rustles loudly at the disturbance.
It’s too tight in Billy’s gripping fist and he keeps jerking at him, and Steve is wary about the thing’s integrity. It’s vintage. He doesn’t want it to rip, because then everything is fucked no matter what and his jacket is ruined. And Billy huffs like he’s at his wits end, like Steve’s a child throwing a tantrum.
He tucks his cigarette between his lip to use his other hand and Steve grabs at his wrists to shove him off, to keep the thing from tearing right at the seam, but not fighting the space Billy was able to grasp leaves a direct line to the zip and Steve’s not strong enough to keep him from jerking it down in one fluid motion.
The sound of it tears into the quiet outside, tears into it not unlike the sound of Steve’s heart falling straight through his shoes.
He pulls it back up as if it were an ingrained reflex, quick and almost just the second after it opened, the sound of it closing just as loud.
And Steve has hope. Thinks maybe he was fast enough. Maybe the material foiled enough to cover anything.
He should have known in the vast, empty silence that feels even heavier than the quiet before. He should have known in the way Billy’s hands no longer fight his, just lay in tight fists firm against his chest.
But Steve had hope.
The defining blow comes in the way Steve watches as Billy’s cigarette falls from his lips, hitting the deck with a spark and bouncing, and that’s how he realizes he’s still looking down. Looking at the battle plane of his own attire, focused on keeping it concealed and failed. He stares at the smoldering cherry, abandoned on the floor.
Don’t look up.
His hand is still around Billy’s wrist, the other lingering at the rounded head of the zip.
The quiet is deafening.
Steve looks up.
Billy’s eyes are a bit wide. Trained on Steve’s chest. Where his fists still rest. His lips are parted like he wanted to say something, and instead all thoughts were trucked from his brain.
This is it.
Jesus Christ, this is what he gets. All that flaunting without repercussion, hiding and enjoying the secrecy of it. He should have known his worst nightmare would come to fruition. That it would be Billy that found him out. That he would have to watch as Billy found him out, as he realized just how weird and fucked he was. As he calls him all the crazy crass shit Billy effortlessly comes up with on the fly and then either edge him out or cut him off altogether. He knew it, and he kept doing it anyway. He deserves this.
Just— maybe, after everything, after all they’ve grown through, maybe Billy will be kind enough to berate him in private. Maybe, if he can get the balls to ask.
He takes a big breath. It feels like his chest isn’t capable of expanding enough— especially with the weight of Billy’s strong hands pushing into him— and it ends up feeling like pins and needles in his lungs anyway. Whatever. Be a man, Steve. As much of one as you can pretend to be, after this.
“Please,” he says, and it comes out a bit rough and definitely anxiety-filled. So he tries again, firmer. “Please don’t tell anyone.” Not firm enough. But whatever.
It seems to take a couple seconds to register, and all Billy does is lean back into himself. Relax, a bit, as strange as that is. Steve wonders what it’ll feel like to be called faggy before his favorite bralette is ripped right off his chest to be carted into a frat party and mounted on a catch-case or some shit. Look what Harrington’s into! Someone check for matching thong and garters! We’ve got the grand poobah of closet femboys in our midst!
Billy’s eyes are still trained to his chest, his lips slowly closing as he leans back at the neck just a bit more. “What,” he says suddenly, voice rougher than before. “What was that?”
Maybe he didn’t see it. Didn’t see enough. Or maybe he just needs to know for sure before he punches Steve in the face or something.
But his eyes are a bit heavier, almost attempting to bore his sight straight through the fabric if he tries hard enough. Steve’s pushing himself into the wall like maybe it’ll swallow him whole, and Billy’s gaze flicks over his whole abdomen before one of his hands swishes as it drags down the fabric of the jacket to grab at his hip. “Steve,” he says; it’s urgent, stepping a little closer. “What was that?”
And really, his grip alone has Steve swimming. He’s glad he was already shoving himself into the wall, because he needs something to slump against at the feeling. Nothing could have prepared him for that airy, borderline pleading tone , let alone the look in his eyes when he finally looks back at Steve.
“It’s nothing,” he answers finally, a bit breathless. “Please, Billy, don’t tell anyone—“
“Like I would—“ he starts, then seems to find it doesn’t matter, stepping even closer. “Lemme see.”
Steve stiffens, and Billy’s fingers dig into his hip, sort of push him harder into the wall. If don’t run and please could be conveyed through five fingers, it’s this. A threat and a prayer.
“Billy,” it’s almost pathetic, the sound of his voice. This can’t be real. He has to be jerking him around. Just cut to the blow and be done with this torture. “You know what it is, just—“
“You want me to beg? I’ll beg. I have to see. Please, let me see.”
The more he talks, the harder it is for Steve to separate it from the the reality he knows it is and the reality he wants it to be. Especially when Billy closes the rest of the small space and puts his other hand on his other hip.
It’s up to Steve. If he says no, Billy will listen. But it’s difficult, because his hands are on him, hot and hard and heavy. His cologne is clogging Steve’s airway like an intoxicating hallucinogen. His eyes are solid and definite, the clear pools deepened to the pits of the ocean and they’re looking at Steve. They’re begging to look at Steve, in the pale blue bralette he’d bought because (and is his favorite because) it matches those eyes.
“You think I’ll run and tell anyone ‘bout this?” he asks heavily, and it’s hot on Steve’s ear and he sags further into the wall. “I don’t go around baby, you know me.” His breath settles over Steve’s collar bone and his eyes slide shut. It can’t be real. There’s no way. “I’ll keep that all to myself.”
Steve huffs a sharp breath. It falls out of him. Because it doesn’t sound like ‘I’ll keep this to myself’. It sounds like ‘I’ll keep you all to myself’.
It sounds like a beg, a swear, a promise. It sounds like baby, ringing in his ears and making him capable of taking the leap for a chance.
The zip that was previously digging its imprint into his fingertips is now fiddled with lightly, just begging to be pulled. Billy licks across his lip, Steve can hear it. “Show me, sweetheart.”
The sound of his voice alone is enough to rock him to the core. He wonders what it’d be like, to give in. To not have that secret anymore. That superpower of being the only one that knows. That, if this is real— whatever this is— that being the only one that knows what he’s sporting under his shorts won’t just get him hot. It’ll get Billy hot, too. The potential is overwhelming. He’s almost willing to dive into it. But it’s fucking hard. It’s scary. It’s his.
“I-I don’t—“ he starts, and is immediately cut off when Billy presses himself in, the hard line of the excessive knife in his pocket digging into Steve’s thigh, his firm abdomen shoving the little air right out of Steve’s body. He tries to get it back, gasps at the contact, at Billy’s hands on his waist. Because Billy doesn’t do touching.
“Not don’t,” he corrects, the gravel in his voice shooting straight to Steve’s stirring dick and that can just be— no good. Jesus . “Yes. Say yes. Show me, Stevie. I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to, please.”
And that seems like the boldest promise of all time. Billy Hargrove not saying anything? Just, like, in general? Steve might just try it to see if he’ll keep his word. Keep it for Steve. If he’s serious.
He tugs the zip just an inch, and Billy’s chin jolts down at the sound. A dog at a whistle, the motion’s so quick. “Nothing?” Steve confirms, but his own voice is still so low. So soft. “You won’t say anything?”
“Cross my heart, princess,” he confirms, visibly only half listening with his eyes trained on Steve’s fingers.
So he pulls a little more. Achingly slow. His heart beats in his ears and he watches Billy watch him, the most focused he’s ever seen. You couldn’t tear his gaze away if you tried; force and funds are futile here. He can see the moment the zip reveals the apex and lace band at the center of his chest, actually watches his pupils dilate as he takes it in. The limited light fights to glow the fabric, bright and illicit. Forbidden. Wrong. Sub rosa.
He’d felt so hot, so sexy and sly looking at himself in his garments. His glorified lingerie. But Billy, looking at him now, the way he is— he feels dirty. Vulgar. Alluring. Powerful.
He relaxes fully against the wall, the cool night air feeling like heaven over his too-long warmed skin, and waits. Waits for Billy to break. To say something. Anything. Because the way he stares, unabashed and hungry, it’s crazy that Steve ever thought this would be a set-up. He feels like he has Billy by the reigns; tied tight to a leash. It’s phenomenal, this turning-table feeling.
He lets his lips part, his eyes hood, and shifts only slightly so a side slips open a bit more. The blue lace is so fine it’s practically mesh. Just a decoration. The breeze wafts right through the triangles of material to soothe his heated chest, nipples hardening slightly at the sudden change in temperature. And Billy makes this sound, aborted and captive deep in his throat, fists clenching into Steve’s sides. Steve isn’t sure if his gasp is in response to the reaction or the flare of heat tingling over his skin from the feeling of his peaked nipples rubbing against the lace, and he pushes his chest up a bit to chase the tease before he can think twice.
Billy’s hot breath falls out of him, dancing over his collar bones and the bare valley between the fabric. Steve would bet a hefty sum Billy’s also shocked he’s decided to go hairless again. He hasn’t been since high school— not until this new development in his wardrobe. It was a no-brainer. The feeling of the material against his skin, unimpeded, is magic. He’s feeling it right now. Billy’s watching him feel it.
And Billy’s hands slide over the jacket material, the swishing sound loud in the thick quiet, and then his hands are burning open-palmed into Steve’s sides like hot brands, pushing his jacket open for the whole night sky to see, for his eyes to drink in fully like he’s an oasis and Billy had been dying of thirst.
The lace is thicker at the edges of the triangles, the inside of the borders thin, crude windows of tulle. A thick band of that same tulle stretches around his ribs, scalloped at the bottom to match the straps that curve delicately over his shoulders. If Billy were to see the back, he’d find a fine criss-cross of six flimsy, intersecting lace cords that mold to his skin like melting butter, meeting at the top of the tulle band.
His eyes are restless and heavy. His body is still pressed firm to Steve’s and when he tilts his chin up a bit to try and catch Billy’s attention from his chest, it has no effect. So he presses his shoulders to the wall, the material flexing with his body, and he feels what he thought was Billy’s knife twitch hard against him.
No, not a knife at all. He was just that hard at the mere thought of Steve wearing something. He wonders if this is better than anything Billy imagined. His reaction is better than anything Steve ever imagined.
He opens his mouth, and Steve thinks almost. He snaps it shut, put upon; the world of silence is heavy on his shoulders. And now, with full confidence that he’s not going to be made fun of, berated, or shamed, full confidence that he wants to hear what Billy has to say— is a bit desperate for it, even— he has mercy.
Steve lifts his hands, puts his wrists lightly over Billy’s shoulders. His eyes blaze when they snap back to Steve’s, jaw cut tight and teeth probably grinding to keep it all in. Steve tilts his chin back, the slippery material of his jacket sliding off one shoulder, and he says softly, “Go on. Say it. Tell me what you think.”
His jaw unhinges so quickly it’s like his whole body deflates.
He presses in closer, hands sliding up his sides toward the fabric of the bralette. “Fuck, baby,” he groans. Like it hurts. “Look at you, you awful fucking angel. Sometimes it’s like you’re actively trying to kill me you goddamn sadist—“
His thumbs trace beneath the scalloping, delicate and taunting over the hot skin at the top of his stomach, easing himself in. Steve shivers at the light graze.
“You think this is funny? This fun for you? I feel fucking broken— can’t stop thinking about this, ‘bout anything I can put you in, ‘bout what you’ve been wearing and I had no idea. You get off on that? Sitting right by me wearing a thong and an underwire and I’ve’n’t got a goddamn clue? God, I could fucking knock your lights out for keeping this from me if I didn’t wanna fuck you fast on this wall right now and watch your tits bounce on it, baby—“
And Steve tries to muffle his moan, high and broken. There’s something wrong with him— how can he possibly run his mouth so fast, make Steve feel so much power over him and yet like he’s just a goddamn toy for him to play with? It’s jarring, and it’s getting his blood to a boiling point. All that hasn’t run south and abandoned his head entirely, that is.
Billy leans in to latch his mouth onto Steve’s neck, hot and open, fingers hooking into the side of the tulle cup with a teasing drag on his skin. “Tell me about yesterday, sweetheart,” he mumbles into his collar bone, other hand a firm threat, voice matching the feel. “What’d you wear? What’d you think about? Tell me it was me.”
Steve whines. All the touch is so much and not near enough. His skins on fire everywhere Billy traces, handling him like art and talking to him like a fucking slut. “You, yeah— front-hook, white, satin. Matching seamless hipsters. Always you—“
He grinds into him, hard and slow and dirty— fucking ruts into him. Steve groans, head falling back against the wall with a loud thump, gives Billy more space for his lips to map out. “Christ,” Billy grunts, feral, “and all this time, I just been thinkin’ about getting my hands on you, fuckin’ you with all I got— hands and tongue and teeth and cock ‘til you’re cryin’ and so sweet for me. But baby you already are, and you’re curve-ballin’ it, all dressed to the nines and sweetheart I can’t tear you apart like that— but fuck I wanna ruin you— makes no sense, you’ve fuckin’ broken me, babydoll— you feel that?”
Steve isn’t sure if he means can Steve feel how broken he is. Can barely follow along with what he’s saying. Because what he does feel is Billy. Hard and pressing into him, grinding into him, and it’s all he can feel.
“Thought about this,” Steve breathes, fingers tightening into the black of his sleeveless shirt, self-torn down to his ribs. His own eyes linger on the thick of Billy’s chest, the faded print of Billy Joel’s Glass Houses album keeping him from basking in the muscles he knows Billy’s been working hard to bulk up. He wants to touch him. Grab him. Bite him. He wantswantswants. “You, finding me out. Telling me to strip. Just for you. Fucking me where you find me— on the couch, counter, bed, keeping the set on. Because you can’t help it, can’t wait. Because you like it.”
“God, can’t wait, baby,” he mumbles, a personal prayer, before his brow tightens just a notch. “‘Course I fuckin’ like it, you thought I wouldn’t like it?” Steve slides his fingers beneath his crewneck, nails scratching lightly, lets his eyes be hazy and doesn’t look up. “Baby, you thought I’d…?”
“Always a possibility,” he shrugs, decorating patterns down his shoulder blades.
“‘A possibility’,” he repeats, grumbles and kind of scoffs. “Thought I’d point and laugh and walk away?”
“Maybe gimme shit, y’know; talk a bit. You’re real good at talking,” Steve snarks, referencing all he’s talked about thus far, trying not to stray too far from the point which is this. Now. Stop talking about Steve’s anxieties and fucking get in him or something—
“I am,” he agrees, a great fuckin’ point. “I’m even better at not walking away,” he says, husky and like a promise and yeah, that’s the point right there— “especially from you.”
That cuts a bit deep.
A bit striking.
Steve knows they had their thing in high school. Knows a lot more about the why of it now— from both his and Billy’s points of view. But the thing that got Steve going in the first place was the after of it. That they became begrudging friends, because their friends were friends. That, soon enough, it was evident that they had each others’ backs. That they are friends. Sometimes great friends. Friends that crash in each others’ apartments— in each others’ beds— and it isn’t weird. Friends that discuss and share and fight good-naturedly, joke and talk and fight bad-naturedly and come back with a pre-roll and an apology from whoever drew first blood. And the fact that the first blood is now metaphorical shows its own progress.
Steve was just afraid. He didn’t really have secrets from his friends, aside from the obvious, but this was just his. There’s no Big Deal of it. The Big Deal of this is really that they’ve both been flirting at each others’ edges like lovesick puppies or fucksick bozos when they could’ve been doing this the whole time.
Because he’s right. The maybe was always enough to keep coming back. And even if the maybe never happened, it was worth it not to risk it. They’re both bad at walking away. And it feels like a promise. Cross my heart.
Steve grazes his fingers over the shorter, freshly buzzed strands of his hair, curling at the nape. Billy’s eyes flutter, flicking quickly over his chest again. Can’t get enough. “Thought about what it would be like. If you liked it. If you wanted to…” A shaky breath falls past his lips when Billy’s fingers find the thin strands at his back, under his jacket, tracing beside them. He grabs at the long, curled locks atop his head. Feels them between his fingers. “You want to?”
“Of course I want to,” he hums, something assuring and dirty. “I fuckin’ told you. Keepin’ it all to myself, baby.”
Steve swallows down the heat in his throat. Swallows down any other sounds. He’s hot all over, couldn’t pull his spine from the wall if he tried— not that Billy seems keen to allow him any space— because it’s happening. Oh god.
Steve almost gasps, almost makes some kind of pathetic sound, when his hands come back to grip at his ribs with full force. Instead, he makes some kind of mixture of both. “You’re hard,” Billy says softly into his ear, nose tracing his jaw.
Steve’s fingers tighten in his hair, in his shirt. He bites into his lip and Billy’s eyes flick to the movement. “So are you,” he whispers, in for a penny, and pushes his hips up into Billy’s.
He groans at the press, rocking solid against the brunette, fingertips pressing harder for a moment and Steve lets out a breathy moan. Billy’s sharp canine sinks into his own lip and the sound, eyes burning trails over his body. “Who else got to see you like this?” he asks, a husky low thing like he’s desperate for an answer he doesn’t want to hear. “Tell me. Who got to see you be so sweet and pretty in your pretty lace? Get you wetting your panties all hot and hard for it? Tell me. Tell me it’s just me.”
“Just you—“
“If you’re fuckin’ lying, baby, I swear to Christ—“
“Not lying, no one—“ Steve gasps, nails clawing into his shoulder as he tries to keep focus over the rush of heat driving straight through him from the base of his spine to his chest. “Just— you’re— only one, I w-wanted to see.”
“Good,” Billy practically growls, his shoulders bowing around Steve when he sinks in closer, jealousy visibly releasing its tension from him. “Good— god, feels like murder thinking about you sittin’ on any other lap and takin’ it to the hilt with your tits wrapped like a fuckin’ present.” And that’s a lot, but what’s even more is his lips fall wet and sharp right to the sensitive peak of his nipple, through the lace, and he licks. He sucks. Steve shudders, crying out toward the motion light before he can think about literally anything at all. Can’t think of anything but the instant roils of pleasure from being teased by subtle, grazing friction, just to be completely enveloped by the burning heat of Billy’s tongue.
Billy’s hand closes around his mouth, cutting the sound effectively, solid and big over his lips and Steve moans into it like a goddamn whore.
It does very little to deter Billy. In fact, it might as well have egged him on, the way he puts his goddamn hand to the plow. Steve can feel the heat from his face crushed up against his chest through the material like Steve’s delicious or some shit, but he can’t really focus on it past the complete abuse from his tongue. Scalding and wet, swiping around him through the fabric and tying his nerves into pretty little bows and threatening to pull them loose.
Steve whines into his palm when his other hand slides around to thumb the sensitive, abused bud. His long fingers fit solidly against his ribs, his wicked tongue following the V of blue lace, dipping teasingly into the valley between the fabric and his chest. His mouth moves over his skin to toy with his other nipple that’s remained untouched ‘til now, and when his lips close over the tulle, Steve can’t help how he bucks into Billy, trying to feel him through his jeans— longing for it, really. If he had three wishes right now he’d wish Billy stripped and tell the genie to fuck off.
With his mouth busy, the silence around them is only filled with Steve’s breathing— pathetic and whimpering as it is beneath Billy’s palm. And his tongue. And fingers. And hips. It’s all too much, all of the contact he’d dreamt of and never realistically considered a possibility. He’s on fire, wound tight, and all the pretty, fiery strings Billy’s lacing through his body just snap when he sinks his teeth in and pinches his fingers to match. The bows of nerves untie so swiftly his legs shake, shocks from deep down shooting up his abdomen as he helplessly feels his orgasm ripped through his body straight out his chest.
His spine arches off the wall, face meeting sky as he jolts, a ragged sound punched out of him hard that would have been much louder if it weren’t for Billy’s fingers tightening on his jaw.
Billy holds him through it, laves his abused buds until he’s whimpering and curving his spine back into the wall to shy away from his thorough mouth. When he pulls his hand away, Steve tries to catch his breath. The sheer force of coming untouched from only nipple stimulation has him feeling like he’s made of jelly and yet still desperate to be touched.
Billy’s lips are trailing up to his neck, a wet path chilled by the night breeze and soothing his overheated and bruised skin. “Oh, pretty baby, you’ve got me straight fucked six ways to Sunday,” Billy groans against his neck, rocking against Steve, still thick as a brick and Steve feels high.
“You should fuck me six ways to Sunday,” he mumbles breathlessly and Billy’s hands flex into his skin.
“You better be careful with asks like that,” he warns, body taut, caging him in.
Steve wraps his hand into the waist of his jeans, tugging their hips together harder. “‘Kay, I’ll be careful,” he breathes, sliding his palm down to wrap around Billy, hard and hot in his palm. He grunts as his forehead drops to Steve’s shoulder. “You wanna take me home? See the rest of my set?”
Billy’s hands tighten around his waist, as if he could feel it through the material. “Dunno if I’ll ever let you wear anything ever again.”
“Yeah? You want everyone else to see?”
“Fuck no,” he snaps. “You’re all mine, baby. Lemme take you home.”
Fuckin’ grade-A idea. Almost like it was his in the first place.