Chapter Text
The newspaper rustled as Daniel Harrington pushed it aside so his wife could put his plate in front of him. His voice was casual, like he was commenting on the weather. “Disgusting,” he muttered, flicking the newspaper open to an article about the AIDS crisis. “It’s enough to put me off my food.” The words landed like a brick between the silverware and the untouched green beans. He sneered and stabbed his fork into the steak like it had personally offended him. “These pansies brought it on themselves.”
Steve’s fork clattered against his plate. He hadn’t realized his grip had tightened until his knuckles went white. “Jesus, Dad. It's 1988, not the damn Dark Ages.” The words came out before he could stop them, sharp and brittle. His mother’s eyes darted between them, her fingers twisting the edge of her napkin into a tight spiral.
“What?” His father’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s unnatural. Always has been.” He took a bite, chewing it around his mouth, not caring about the noise. “You gonna tell me different?”
Stabbing at his own mashed potatoes, appetite gone, Steve exhaled through his nose. “Yeah, actually. There is nothing wrong with it.” His voice cracked, not from doubt but from anger, but he didn’t care.
“Like hell there isn't.” His father’s face darkened, the way it did right before a storm, like thunder rolling in behind his temples. “Don’t you start defending degenerates,” his father warned, tossing the paper aside. “That queer at your damn radio station’s been filling your head with sissy shit again. She should get fired, spreading filth to impressionable kids.”
“It’s not filth,” Steve shot back, pulse hammering in his throat. His fingers tightened around his glass of iced tea. Daniel's head snapped up, eyes sharp as broken glass. “It’s just people loving who they want, living their lives.”
His father’s laugh was a cold, dismissive thing. “Living their lives? More like ruining them.” The word degenerate hung in the air like his father's cigarette smoke. “Just when I thought you couldn't be anymore of a disappointment to our family. You always were a soft little wussy boy as a kid.”
“Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint you by not being a disappointment!” Steve spat, his voice raw. “I'd rather be gay than be like you.”
“Steven-” His mother said, somewhere between a warning and a plea, her eyes darting between them like a spectator at a tennis match.
Daniel's face darkened immediately and he stabbed a finger into the tablecloth, leaving a faint indentation in the linen. “Watch your damn mouth. This is my house. You don't like it, leave.”
Already halfway to the door when his mother called after him, Steve didn’t stop - he didn't wait to hear the rest. His father’s derisive laugh followed him out the door, along with more derogatory slurs that made him want to retaliate, but Steve slammed the screen door behind him, rattling the porch light.
As he stormed down the driveway, gravel crunching under his sneakers, the humid August night clung to his skin like a wet blanket. The scent of cut grass and gasoline filled the air in the kind of summer evening that should’ve been spent with a beer and bad TV. Instead, with hands that shook with rage, Steve fumbled for his keys for his Beamer and sat behind the wheel.
He didn't know where he was going, only that he couldn’t stay, not anymore.
The piercing sound of sirens echoed in Steve's ears as he drove away, their scarlet lights flashing as they drove past him on their way to an anonymous soul clinging to life by their fingernails.
Twenty three blocks away, the Snake Eyes bar was a dive, the kind of place where the neon sign buzzed like an angry insect and the stools had duct tape holding the vinyl together but the beer was cheap. Outside the night air was thick with the smell of gasoline and fried food from the diner down the street and inside the scent of stale beer soaked into the faded carpet with the AC hit him like a slap.
He hadn’t planned on stopping, but Steve's feet carried him inside anyway, then a familiar voice cut through the haze of smoke and chatter.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Billy drawled. His hair was longer than Steve remembered, curling at the ends where it brushed his collar. ”You look like shit.”
There, leaning against the jukebox with a half-empty beer, was Billy Hargrove, smirking like he’d been waiting for him in a ripped Def Leppard T-shirt.
Steve exhaled through his nose.
Of course of all people it had to be him.
He hadn’t seen Billy since graduation when he'd flipped Steve off, now here he was - same leather cuff on his wrist and same lazy confidence but older and sharper like life had sanded down his edges but left the bite intact.
Billy strutted towards him, with a cigarette hanging from that familiar smirk on the edge of arrogance and irresistibility.
“Shouldn't you be saving the world or something, Harrington?”
He was looking at Steve like he could see right through him. It should’ve pissed Steve off. Instead, it felt like the first real breath he’d taken all night.
“World didn’t want me, I guess,” Steve shrugged.
Snorting, Billy gestured for the barman to pour Steve a drink. “Join the club.”
As the jukebox switched tracks to some synth-pop shit which vibrated through the soles of his sneakers, Billy leaned in closer. They were close enough for Steve to catch the sharp bite of whiskey on Billy's breath, the musky warmth of his cologne underneath. “Bet I can guess what happened,” he murmured antagonisingly, his thumb dragging over the condensation on his glass. “Did the golden boy of Hawkins finally stand up to his daddy?”
Steve's jaw tightened. “‘Golden boy’,” he muttered bitterly under his breath, annoyed that Billy could see straight through him. Swallowing the contents of the glass in one mouthful, he met the other man’s gaze. “Fuck off.” But there was no heat in it, not when Billy's knee brushed against his under the sticky tabletop, lingering just a second too long.
Billy laughed, low and knowing, and flicked ash into the bar’s ashtray. “You always did look prettier when you were pissed off.” He took a drag and exhaled smoke through his nose like a dragon. “I can make you forget all about it.” His boot hooked around Steve's ankle, pulling him closer until their knees knocked together. “If you want.”
Laughing, Steve swallowed another measure of whiskey that had been poured in front of him.
“Do I look like I'm joking, Harrington?” he growled.
Intoxicated by the mixture of the whiskey and nicotine, Steve froze as Billy's thumb brushed his lower lip for a briefest second to wipe away a lingering drop of alcohol, but the contact burned like a brand.
Steve's pulse jumped. He should've shoved him away. Should've told him to fuck off properly this time. Instead, he caught Billy's wrist, fingers tightening around the leather cuff. “No you don't.” He could barely hear the music with the sound of blood rushing in his ear.
Billy's grin was all teeth as his gaze flickered imperceptibly to Steve's mouth. He easily twisted his wrist free slowly, letting his fingers drag across Steve's palm in a way that definitely wasn't accidental. “So,” he said, nodding toward the door. “You got somewhere to be tonight or you wanna get out of this shithole?”
He swallowed. He knew what Billy was asking. Knew exactly where this was headed. He could feel the weight of the offer, unspoken but clear as the ache in his knuckles from gripping the steering wheel too tight. The air between them crackled with something old and unresolved, thick enough to choke on. “Not unless you’re offering,” he said, voice lower than he meant it to be. “I can't go home.”
Without asking why, Billy simply crushed his cigarette under his boot and shrugged. “My place ain't much, but it's got a couch.” He paused, tongue swiping over his lower lip like he was considering his next words. “Unless you wanna share the bed.”
The dare in his voice was unmistakable. Steve's throat went dry. He thought of his father's sneer, the way the screen door had rattled behind him like punctuation. Thought of Billy's overly confident hands, and how they'd feel on his skin, how they'd look wrapped on him.
“Lead the way,” he said, and watched Billy's smirk sharpen, dark and pleased. He stood, tossing a bunch of crumpled dollars onto the bar.
Outside, the night air clung to them both, thick with exhaust and the distant wail of another police siren. Billy's beat-up Camaro with peeling paint idled at the curb like a promise. Steve exhaled sharply. The neon sign outside buzzed louder, casting Billy's face in flickering red and blue.
He didn't look back.