Then one day he drives into the school parking lot early, because Max had a project with her friends that she had to finish before school and Neil is home for the day and in a bad mood, so Billy felt it was safer to just be elsewhere. It's more than an hour until the school day starts, but still he finds Steve's car parked in its usual spot. Curious, he follows the footsteps in the newly fallen snow to the back entrance to the gym – which is open – and enters.

He finds Steve on the court; pale, tense and with bags under his eyes. He is half-heartedly dribbling a ball, but is wearing his normal clothes, with his jacket discarded on the benches. He looks a little ridiculous dribbling a ball wearing a striped sweater but he also looks half dead on his feet so Billy doesn't comment.

"Hey", Billy says, a little cautiously, and approaches. "What are you doing here so early?"

Steve shrugs.

"I could use the practice, I guess."

Billy can think of about fourteen different things he could say to that, without even trying, but they're all barbs or insults, so even though he's itching to open his mouth – because Steve served that one up to him on a silver platter – he doesn't. Because he's had enough sleepless nights that he knows how you look and feel after one, and he recognizes that maybe Steve isn't really up for it at the moment. He is also familiar with the feeling of having to do something; the restlessness and the need to move.

Or maybe he's just projecting?

Whatever. It's not like they're friends, it's not like he can just ask.

So he does what he can; shrugs out of his jacket and snags the ball from Steve's hands. At Steve's weak protest, he backs up a couple of steps and throws a shit-eating grin his way.

"Well, you're not gonna improve unless you're playing against someone better, Harrington."

Steve raises his eyebrows in disbelief and straightens up a little.

"I don't see anyone who fits that description around here, Hargrove."

Billy snorts, oddly delighted at the snarky reply, and throws the ball at Steve's chest. Steve catches it, and the game is on.

Fifty minutes later, they're both sweating and panting and sitting down on a bench, but Steve smiles and looks less tense, and Billy feels pleased and warm on the inside, because he did that.

He finds himself smiling too, and cover it up with a groan:

"Great, I didn't bring a change of clothes. Now I'll have to go through the rest of the day reeking."

Steve grins at him and quips:

"What else is new?"

"Fuck you", he says but it's without heat and Steve doesn't even look up (and it suddenly hits him how far they've come from flinching, and it's a good feeling).

"Whatever. No one forced you to play."

He scoffs, playfully.

"Have you ever known me for backing down, Harrington?"

He regrets his words instantly, because they sound like a challenge and they make him think of when he bashed Steve's face in, and if it makes him think about it, then Steve will probably also be reminded of it. But while the smile on Steve's face turns into something smaller and more contemplative, it's still a smile, and he gives a little nod and says:

"No. I guess not."

It felt good, to start the day with a game against Steve – even though he did have to go through the rest of the day with sweaty clothes. He felt more at ease that day than he had for a long time. Perhaps the memory of it is why he goes back there one evening a couple of days later.

Neil had been on him the moment he got home that day, for something or other, and it wouldn't have been more than a stern talking to if Billy hadn't snapped and talked back. He got a slap to the face for that and was shoved to the floor – hit the corner of the dresser on the way down – but instead of just lying there and taking whatever punishment Neil felt like dishing out, he'd gotten to his feet, pushed past Neil, grabbed his jacket as an after-thought and gotten out of the house, ignoring his dad's voice behind him.

He knew that he couldn't go home already, if he wanted to avoid a beating, but he didn't really have anywhere else to go. Had it been the weekend, he'd have found a party to go to, and maybe hooked up with someone or picked a fight to get the restlessness out of his body. But it's the middle of the week, so he finds himself back in the school parking lot at ten o'clock in the evening. The school is closed and locked up this late at night, of course – no janitor to open it in the morning, like a couple of days ago. But a back door to a school gym doesn't have the best lock – because honestly, who would even think of breaking into the gym? – and Billy can be creative if he wants something. And what he doesn't want is to sit in his fucking car all night, because it gets too cold when the engine's not running.

He's angry, and he's hurting, and he's currently taking it out on a basketball. Falling over the dresser hurt like a bitch, so he's having some trouble standing up straight, but he's nothing if not stubborn, and if he winces every time he jumps or raises his arm, there's no one there to see it.

Until suddenly, there is.

Billy spots movement in the corner of his eye and whirls around (ow), and there is Steve, standing by the door, watching him. It's too dark for Billy to see the look on his face, but Steve's voice sounds deceptively neutral when he says:

"Hey. What are you doing here?"

I could ask you the same thing, Billy wants to say, but doesn't, because that reminds him of the night in the Byers' house again, and he'd rather not think about that night for the rest of his life. So instead, he uses Steve's words from a few days ago against him:

"I could use the practice."

He smiles then, shark-like, because it's such a bullshit answer, and they both know it. Steve inclines his head as if to say fair, and takes a couple of steps closer. And there are a thousand things he could be saying right now, and Billy braces himself for the questions to come, but when Steve speaks it is the last thing Billy expected to hear:

"Wanna play?" he asks.

Billy exhales and feels some of the agitation leave him because yes, he wants to play, that's exactly what he wants to do. He nods, and Steve takes off his jacket.

They play until they're exhausted, and if Steve isn't playing as hard as usual to accommodate Billy's pace, Billy doesn't call him out on it – is a little grateful for it, in fact.

When Steve starts hinting that it's getting late and he should get going, Billy just shrugs and says:

"I think I'll stay a little longer."

And although Steve looks like he wants to comment, he doesn't. He leaves, and Billy stays; if he goes home he'll either have to face his dad or a locked door, and he'd rather postpone the former until the next day when Neil has had time to cool down.

He spends the night in the locker room, and it's not the worst night he's had.

His – friendship? or whatever it is he has with Steve – changes again, after that. Billy returns to basketball practice, and silences everyone who protests about it with a glare (except the coach. He actually apologizes to the coach in private before class). Him and Steve greet each other in the hallways, they talk as usual when they meet, and sometimes they even actively seek out each other's company. They do not, however, talk about how Steve sometimes starts at loud noises – he never flinches at anything Billy does nowadays, though, for which Billy is grateful – and they don't talk about the few times in the shower when Billy has a new bruise, or the times when he comes to school moving a little stiffly. But there's this air of knowing between them – like they both know that something is off – and they don't know exactly what it is and they never mention it, but still do whatever they can to distract each other from it. And that is enough.

Billy drags Steve away from his gaggle of kids a couple of times, and even once from the Wheeler girl and her creepy boyfriend, because he notices Steve clenching his jaw and nervously moving his feet and how does Steve's friends not notice? So he rudely cuts into the conversation, ignores the glares the others send his way, and is either obnoxious (or frightening) enough that everyone but Steve decides to leave, or simply tells Steve to follow and walks off. (He figures that if Steve doesn't want to go, he won't, and if he wants Billy gone, he'll say so.)

But Steve follows, every time. When they get out of sight they have a smoke, or play ball, or just sit on the hood of Steve's car and don't talk a lot for a while, if it's not too cold out. Steve always look grateful and like he can breathe easier when Billy has dragged him off, so Billy keeps doing it. It almost gives Billy the same kind of relief to watch Steve visibly relax in his company; to know that that reaction? He did that.

Steve, in turn, drags Billy away from a couple of fights during the following weeks. Billy is still angry; still frustrated – he just doesn't take it out on Max anymore … or on Steve, for that matter. But all that energy that's buzzing under his skin needs an outlet, so he's picking fights and he has never before backed down when someone else – with the noticeable exception of Neil – wants to go a round. But when Steve drags him off he follows because … he doesn't really understand why. The fight always leaves him when he is alone with Steve, because he remembers Steve's face under his fists, and that makes him think of all the times it's been his own face under a pair of fists and how that made him feel, so he swallows down on his anger because Steve doesn't deserve to have to deal with it. Again.