we can all agree that steve’s a pure blood. there ain’t one ounce of muggle blood in his line. he is, however, the first hufflepuff in years. his mother and father were both slytherins, his grandmother a griffyndor, and his grandfather a ravenclaw. according to his father hufflepuffs are rather useless. so imagine his father’s fucking disappointment when steve comes home with hufflepuff colors on.
billy’s mom was a witch, and one of the best in her class before she died. his father, however, is a muggle and fully planned on hiding billy’s magical side from him. he would have succeeded, too, if he hadn’t been at work when the owl arrived. if billy hadn’t hid the letter and started saving up the money he made mowing neighborhood lawns and cleaning pools. see, billy’s mom raised him on stories of magic and make believe whenever his dad wasn’t around. and billy. well, he never forgot those stories.
he reads about the history of hogwarts on the train ride there and decides, very strongly, that he’d be the perfect gryffindor and, of course, the sorting hat agrees.
he watches some boy with too much hair get sorted into hufflepuff and doesn’t blame the kid for looking totally dejected. hufflepuff seems kind of boring to billy, too.
he meets that boy for the first time on the quidditch field. his name is steve and he’s a new recruit keeper for the hufflepuff team. billy’s one of gryffindor’s new beaters and he grins real wide when he meets them and says, “we’re going to win. just so you know.” and billy’s totally aware that their teams are supposed to be cordial or whatever but that’s not how billy plays muggle sports, and the only thing different with quidditch is that he can fly, so. he’s not there to be friendly, he’s there to win. except. they don’t win, hufflepuff does. and they win because harrington is fucking quick. like god damn lightning. it’s impressive. and aggravating. he doesn’t miss the smug look harrington throws him at the end of the match, either.
+ turns out the competitive spirit born between them that day doesn’t die. not for one god damn second. they only get worse as the years pass. they compete in class, on the field. any-fucking-where they can manage. and by year six they’re both the captains of their respective teams and slytherin is no longer gryffindor’s rival. hufflepuff is.
++ that rivalry comes to a head when the tri-wizard tournament comes around the corner. each school gets one competitor. it’s the ultimate challenge before the actual challenge. billy puts his name in. steve puts his name in. billy’s name pops back out in a plum of fire and smoke and gryffindor cheers like they’ve won the house cup. across the room, the hufflepuffs look dejected, but harrington looks worse. billy just smirks and tosses him a wink.
+++ billy’s surprised when steve walks into his tent right before the first challenge. it’s dangerous– all the challenges are– but billy feels too much adrenaline to really be worried about it. he won’t be scared until he’s on death’s doorstep, that’s just the kind of guy he is. but harrington? christ, harrington looks like he hasn’t slept a wink. he steps up, right into billy’s space, and billy stiffens like he expects the brunette to punch him. instead he says, “you know someone died the last time the tournament was held” and billy’s face scrunches up before he goes, “yeah, ‘cause voldemort killed him–” and when harrington doesn’t respond he goes to add “–but he’s dead so it’s fine.” except he doesn’t get the words out, because suddenly harrington’s lips are on his, desperate and a little forceful, and billy’s kissing back before he even really comprehends the situation.
he barely has time to enjoy it before harrington’s pulling back and the horn is sounding, signaling the start of the first challenge. he looks real serious when he goes, “just don’t fucking die, hargrove” before he’s out of the tent, leaving billy to reel over what just happened alone.
++++ billy wins the tournament. every house cheers. he accepts the cup with a wide, dazzling grin, and shining eyes. eyes that search for harrington in the crowd and don’t leave him for one fucking second once they find him.
+++++ “figures you had to make the first move like that. you’re so competitive–” billy muses a few hours later. he’s laid out on the ground in the middle of the quidditch field with harrington’s warm body beside him and a half-drunk, pilfered ale between them. harrington laughs, loud and warm and goes, “i’m competitive? you fucking–” but this time it’s billy’s turn to shut him up.
SUPER OLD PROMPT FOR @ihni, my love. Here’s some angst to soothe your soul.
—————
It had been almost two months since he stumbled into bed with The King. It was no strings attached— really. Billy had applauded himself for just how little effect those big brown eyes had had on him over the past weeks.
He wasn’t invested in Steve Harrington at all beyond the absolute toe-curling pleasure he was able to provide. Honestly, he was expecting to be able to make fun of the guy for not living up to his rep as the best lay in school, but he hadn’t been prepared for just how right the rumors were. It was worth sneaking out for, even when Neil was home, a better drug than the adrenaline of a good fight, even. And if he had happened to start staying after those orgasms to chat and smoke a joint every once in a while, he could say that it was because Neil was out of town more.
He had more time to take his Pretty Boy apart, make him cry with the pleasure, teach him how to finger a man just right. And then make sure he got at least a little sleep, calm the inevitable panic when he woke.
The arrangement was no strings attached. He had no feelings for Steve Harrington.
They were coming down from another high that Billy could only think to call luxurious. The afterglow of that release radiated through him, a sound pulled out of him like a purr. Steve chuckled, still squeezing his hips rhythmically for a moment before the touch turned into stroking across his tanned skin.
Everything was warm and slow, juxtaposed against the patter of freezing rain against the dark windows.
It felt right when he let Steve pull him into position against his chest. Billy tangled their legs together without thinking and listened to the other boy’s heartbeat slow down in his chest.
He wanted a cigarette after a while, but not as badly as he wanted to stay right where he was. Steve was running his fingers gently over the skin of his back and Billy was nearly dozing off on his chest when Steve broke the quiet. His words were as soft as his fingertips, but it didn’t make it less chilling when his touch hovered over that one particular spot.
“How did you get these scars?”
All the softness of the moment, the warmth in his veins, leeched out of him instantaneously. The fear from the memories of those few remaining marks sent rage bubbling up his throat.
“What?”
Oblivious as ever, Steve rubbed over the spot across his shoulder blades again, feeling the faint lines of healed skin there like he had any right to touch them.
“You’ve got scars right here— when I saw them in basketball, I thought that they were a trick of the light, they were so faint, but now I can feel them…”
Why did he have to ruin a perfectly good fucking thing? What gave King Steve, with his huge house and his charmed fucking life, the right to ask Billy about his past? Especially when this was the same asshole who woke up in tears, screaming his head off from nightmares he never explained. Steve wasn’t sharing, why should Billy?
Billy was up and sitting at the edge of the bed in one jerk of motion. He wasn’t going to turn around and punch Harrington— he wouldn’t do that again, but it was his first thought. It had been for so long.
Instead, he squeezed the edge of the mattress like he could rip the sheets apart. He took a deep breath, let it out slow, and his fingers twitched for a smoke.
“None of your business, Harrington.”
“Hey, hey— you don’t have to say, I didn’t mean to—“ he tried to backtrack, but the damage was done.
“No, Harrington.” He made his voice as cold and quiet as he could, hoping it would scare Steve like it scared Max. It didn’t work anymore, though, and Billy flinched away when there was a hand brushing those damn marks again. He stood, whirling around to glare down at those big brown eyes. His heart clenched and he hated himself for letting this get this far. “Fuck you—“
This wasn’t no strings attached. He’d let himself get tangled in a web of Steve Harrington’s strings, tying his heart into this casual hookup. A thrill lanced through his veins, and he hated it.
“I just wanted to—“
“Wanted to what, Harrington? Save me? Have some stupid fucking heart to heart and sweep me off my feet?” He let the rage burn in his words, each like their own punch.
Steve’s Pretty face was set in a frown, his eyes lighting up like he had something to say back, but Billy didn’t give him the chance.
“You think I’m crazy?” He asked, remembering the sound of his mother saying those words. She’d thrown the bottle at the wall, she hadn’t seen that Billy was there. Neil did, though, and he’d ground his son into the glass shards, holding him down while his mother screamed.
He could still hear her screaming in his head when the anger got too much, like a whistling teapot under pressure.
In a flurry, he tore around the stupidly preppy bedroom, pulling on his jeans and a shirt. His jacket on. Goddamn, he needed a smoke.
“King Steve and your fucking ivory tower life— you want everyone to think you’re okay, as if you don’t have issues, too. Screaming and panicking, keeping that fucking bat under your bed!? I’m not the crazy one here, amigo.”
He didn’t even really know what he was saying anymore. He was overflowing, drowning Steve Harrington in bullshit jabs to hide the pain. He knew he was doing it, and he wished he could stop. He was ruining it, ruining the only good thing to happen to him since coming to Nowhere, Indiana.
“I’m sorry— hey, are you listening? I’m sorry, just—“ Steve stumbled around the words, getting up with his hands in the air like Billy was some kind of animal.
The brunette didn’t look like he could think of any other words to say at all. His eyes were wide and sparkling with confusion and anger, his jaw was slack with shock. His lips were still raw and red where Billy had been nipping at them not an hour earlier.
“You want me to spill my guts to you, Pretty Boy? Make this mean something? Well, let me make this crystal fucking clear: you are nothing but a quick fuck.” He enunciated every syllable like Steve was an idiot, shoving past him on his way out the door and down the stairs.
He could hear Harrington behind him, but he didn’t look back. He probably couldn’t bear it, if he was honest with himself. He couldn’t see the pain those eyes, not without the guilt crushing him like a bug. Like a glass bottle burying its shards in a kid’s back.
It needed to end anyway, didn’t it? He was attached, he was actually attached to Steve Harrington. And that couldn’t happen, not for Billy.
He sucked an inhale of smoke into his lungs and relished the burn of his throat in the cold, wet night. He walked back to his car and sat in the drivers seat, soaked to the bone. It wasn’t till he got there that he let the tears roll down his cheeks.
Steve isn’t really sure what he’s supposed to do with Billy’s hot mouth gasping against his teeth, or Billy’s hands pressed under his shirt, but he came to this football game to watch Tommy give himself a concussion while Carol threw popcorn at freshmen and now he’s on the grass under the bleachers while people stomp and shout above him, loose skittles and dirt raining down as Billy presses him in to the earth.
It rained today so Steve’s back is soaked, or maybe it’s sweat, he thinks some of it might be sweat when he tugs at the wet curls sticking to Billy’s neck. He wonders if Carol is looking for them. Billy had waved towards the parking lot and said he wanted Steve to come for a smoke, and honestly, at the time, Steve was thinking he could go for a smoke, but that’s not what this is, and when Billy tugged on Steve’s arm when they ducked around the field and threw Steve on the grass Billy already smelled like cheap menthols and Fireball.
The spice in Billy’s mouth is the Fireball, but so is the sourness, mixed with the popcorn he had stolen from Carol. Steve kisses back because he’s not sure what else he should be doing, stuck on his back, legs hugging Billy’s sides like this is fine and negotiated when it isn’t.
Steve had said, “What the fuck?” And Billy had shrugged, like that explained enough. It didn’t. None of this is enough.
“Jesus, Hargrove,” Steve whines, craning his head back as far as he can so Billy can mouth at his neck. “Can I help you or something?”
“Yeah, take off your pants.”
Steve shoves his shoulder. “That’s not what I mean.”
Billy just laughs, damp breath coating Steve’s neck and lingering in his ear. “Then what do you mean, sweetheart?”
“This? The grass? Fucking- any of it? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Billy slowly leans forward until he can look Steve in the face, his muscles practically creaking as he rolls his shoulders and his hips. He cups Steve’s jaw with one hand a little too hard and smiles like cinnamon and sharp whiskey as he says, “I found your sweater in my car and thought you might let me?”
Which is fucking stupid, Steve knows, feels it in his bones as he raises his eyebrows and says, “You know that means fuck all, right?”
Billy’s never been a summer child, although his blonde curls and golden skin make people assume the sun is in his bones, that he wears the dry heat of a desert summer around his shoulders like a cloak. People ask him if he misses the warmth of California like California was always warm, like they didn’t get weather in his nowhere town an hour from LA where the beaches were a dream and he preferred the rain. Like summer wasn’t the low hum of bugs and frying concrete, electric sleep in the early afternoon.
A summer in Hawkins is wet and damp, muggy where it sticks under his arms and between his thighs. Billy is not a summer child. He sits lies on a beach towel at the community pool and counts the ways his skin will burn and peel, wonders if he’ll melt first, feels miserable with his hair sticking to the back of his neck with sweat.
“Stop being such a fucking downer,” Steve says, flopping on to the towel next to Billy and slapping a jumbo freezee against his chest.
Billy hisses and grabs it up, teeth bared as Steve laughs. Steve is all teeth and sunglasses in his pastel swim trunks, skin tanned from playing basketball in the sun, tips of his hair turning gold.
Steve says, “We’re at a pool. It’s fucking beautiful out. Stop being a bitch,” and takes a bite of his freeze, squinting towards the sun as his lips stain blue. “I don’t even know why I invite you.”
“My charms?” Billy offers, cherry juice on his tongue. He wants Steve’s summer, the freckles forming on the tip of Steve’s nose, the way Steve watches evening fireflies like they’re explaining the cosmos. On back porches in thick humidity, Steve sits lazy and quiet, at peace, maybe in love.
Starvinbohemian 