"Who else knows?"

Hopper's voice, though sluggish and weighted with exhaustion, still carried with it a tone of seriousness that had Steve feeling prematurely guilty about the way the rest of the conversation was going to play out. He knew what Hopper was really asking; knew he wanted to hear confirmation that the kids weren't somehow involved in any of this, and even though they weren't, not yet, Steve still found himself turning his eyes away from Hopper's authoritative stare, focusing his attention instead on the spot on the table where he'd been picking at the veneer absentmindedly. And although he knew the question was primarily directed towards himself, he let Billy answer.

"No one," Billy said self-assuredly, a hint of surliness edging out with his tone as he exhaled a hot breath of smoke and leaned forward to stub his cigarette out in the ashtray centered between the three of them. He sat back in his seat with a grunt and a creaking of wood and promptly lit another.

Gathered in the Harringtons' dining room- (the room itself being, remarkably, an equal point of pride to both of his parents)- the three of them sat gathered around the antique wooden table that served as a centerpiece, perched around its aged surface in differing states of dishevelment. Their collective exhaustion was as palpable as the smoke trails that had been gathering and circling slowly above their heads for the past ten minutes, in which Billy had chain-smoked three cigarettes down to the filter before either Steve or Hopper had had the chance to finish their first.

Sitting across from him, Steve could feel Hopper's eyes, sunken and dark and weary, boring into him as he waited for his response to confirm what Billy had said.

"No one else knows," Steve affirmed after a moment's hesitation, in which he took a hard drag of his cigarette and exhaled with a long, drawn out sigh. He could feel the pressure of what he was going to say next catching in his throat before he cleared it and amended, "Well, not… not yet, anyway."

"Yet."

The repeated word dropped from Hopper's lips like a dead weight, falling upon the three of them like a bomb. It broke whatever uneasy peace they'd managed to find in those few minutes where they'd all just sat smoking in silence, each of them trying to recover from the ordeals they'd endured over the night before reconvening to tackle them again. In its place, a taut, malevolent tension began to take form, and in it Steve could feel the enmity brewing against him.

"Yet," Hopper repeated again, and this time there was anger in his voice. Steve winced reflexively, slowly turning his eyes up from where they'd been focused on the tabletop to meet his anger directly. "And what does 'yet' entail exactly, huh, kid?"

Steve opened his mouth to answer, but couldn't force the words he wanted to use to explain out. Under Hopper and Billy's stares, all the reasoning he'd had stored up for why he needed to at least tell Dustin what was going on left him. He could feel the trust his only two allies had in him turning into something dark and misconstrued as he sat there struggling to form a sentence, but was helpless to combat it.

"It's not what you think-" he started to say, but was interrupted when Billy interjected by slamming his fist down hard upon the table, rattling the ashtray in its place and silencing him instantly.

"Well what the fuck is it then, Harrington?" There was such strong mistrust in Billy's eyes when he spoke- mistrust and vehement anger, such that Steve could practically feel the foundations they'd laid in their almost-friendship crumbling apart. "Selling me out to this pig not enough for you? You trying to go national with this shit or something? What the fuck does 'not yet' mean?!"

"Hey! You need to calm down," Hopper snapped, directing his ire towards Billy, who'd begun to rise out of his seat with each word spoken in anger. "Sit down and give him a chance to explain, alright?"

But he didn't.

"Fuck that, and fuck you," Billy said roughly, leering across the table at both Hopper and Steve. His stomach let out a low growl that momentarily stalled him long enough for Steve to intervene before he could say anything more.

"What the fuck are you talking about, 'go national'? Do you even hear yourself, Hargrove?" Steve spat back, exasperated, tired, and unable to keep himself from matching Billy's aggression when it was being thrust at him. He narrowed his eyes and took another hard drag off his cigarette before continuing, saying, "Who the hell do you think would even believe me? You think I'm just going to stroll into the Hawkins Post and try to sell them a werewolf story? 'Oh uh, yeah, some douchebag I know turns into a big bad wolf during a full moon. You might wanna print that- warn the people! Billy Hargrove's a more literal monster than we thought!' I didn't even believe in any of this crap at first, who do you think I could I possibly sell that to?"

The words came spilling out of Steve's mouth before he could even think about what it was he was saying. He knew he'd fallen for another one of Billy's taunts but couldn't help himself; he refused to be painted as the villain in Billy's fabricated scenario when he hadn't even done anything yet, and certainly hadn't been planning anything near as diabolical as selling Billy out to the country as some kind of freak sideshow act. Steve matched Billy's glare evenly, half-aware of the way Hopper had groaned and run a hand down the length of his face. 'You've really done it now, kid,' his expression seemed to say.

Appearing taken aback, Billy seemed somewhat startled by the harsh words Steve had doled out to him. With a hand across his stomach, a small hint of vulnerability crossed over his features before he quickly reigned it back and pulled his lips back into a harsh snarl, his half-smoked cigarette dangling forgotten in the corner of his mouth to reveal at last what oral thing had been bothering him so much on the car ride over.

His teeth, Steve observed dumbly as he stared openly at the obstructions lining his mouth. Of course it was his teeth.

Thin, long, and all of them pointed, they looked more suited to what might be found in the muzzle of a large hound rather than in the mouth of a man. They were canine in nature, unnaturally fitted in his mouth where before his teeth had been straight and white and pristine, forming a smile so blindingly handsome it wasn't always easy to look away.

"You're right! You didn't believe in any of this at first, but all it took was a little bit of proof to convince you though, right, Harrington?" Billy cooed smoothly after a moment, an eager look flashing in his yellow-blue eyes at the prospect of their argument turning into a physical fight in Steve's parents' dining room. "How much proof do you think it'd take to convince one shitty reporter in this hick town, huh? A mouth full of weird teeth? A broken arm that heals itself in, what, the span of two days? I mean, isn't that what did it for you, Harrington? Witnessing this small little biological miracle of mine? Maybe that would do the trick. Could really blow the lid off of this one; might even be able to contribute something to your daddy's legacy besides being a little piece of shit."

"Enough!" Hopper's voice burst from his throat, booming loudly in the condensed space. The suddenness of his outburst was enough to draw both Steve and Billy's attention off of one another, though they were each reluctant to turn away. "You!" Hopper shouted, pointing one finger authoritatively at Steve, who sat and stared at him with a baffled look on his face, "Quit goading him on, goddammit. And you," he continued, turning his command to Billy, "sit down and shut the hell up! He might be mouthing off, but you need to show this kid some damn respect for taking responsibility last night. He could've died going after you, do you understand that? He could have died for you."

The weight of Hopper's words had the exact impact he wanted them to. Steve turned away in embarrassment as a funny look crossed over Billy's face. Confusion wormed its way through his anger, furrowing his brow and pulling his lips into a frown. It was a look Hopper had seen many times before when he'd been in the army, when soldiers who'd been at arms with one another were forced to let it go under the threat of punishment from their higher ups. It was a dark, begrudging sort of obedience fresh cadets endured when their commanding officers demanded they stand down when they weren't quite ready to. With his momentum shaken, Billy's look of anger slowly slipped into something a little more unreadable as he sank back down into his seat, muttering a quiet "Yes, sir" aloud as his stomach emitted another horrifically loud growl that everyone in the room ignored.

"Christ, I'm dealing with children here," Hopper mumbled, kneading his fingers against his temple. He took a moment to take a deep breath of collection and lit another cigarette, flicking his lighter fruitlessly a couple of times before a spark struck and he continued speaking.

"Nothing said here leaves this house," he said sternly, making sure to make and hold eye contact with each of them to stress the importance of his words. "This," he said, gesturing vaguely to Billy with his freshly lit cigarette, "doesn't go 'national'; it doesn't even go local, you got that? Whoever your 'not yet' applied to doesn't get to know, so you can put the idea that you're going to tell anyone else about any of this right out the window, understand?"

He looked sharply to Steve then, insisting in so many words that the children be left out of whatever they decided to do moving forward. Steve bit the inside of his cheek and looked away stubbornly, nodding once as he crossed his arms across his chest. He was aware of how he must've looked- like a spoiled, pouting child- but he couldn't help it. Of course he understood; it didn't take a genius to understand why this needed to be kept secret, but he still owed Dustin an explanation, and right now he figured he liked Dustin a hell of a lot more than he liked Hopper.

Hopper watched him with a scrutinizing eye, and, as though he could read Steve's thoughts, said, "Let me hear you say it."

"What?"

"Say you understand," Hopper said quietly, ignoring for a moment the fact that Billy was sharing the space with them. He enunciated each word with gentle forcefulness, not issuing him orders now so much as silently begging for compliance. "The three of us can handle it. We don't need for anyone else to get involved."

The air in the room felt very still in that moment. The cigarette smoke that had been pooling above them like a pale cloud continued its slow and stagnant swirl, apathetic to the nature of their conversation. Staring at him, Steve once again felt guilty. After everything that the chief had done for him, he still couldn't commit to the promise Hopper wanted him to make. He understood where his concerns were coming from, but Dustin was already involved, in a way. He sighed after a moment and nodded regardless.

"I understand," he said, knowing he would, eventually, have to ask forgiveness for his future misdeeds.

"Good."

Steve lit another cigarette and breathed it in deeply, hating how openly relieved Hopper sounded. He stole a glance towards where Billy was sitting with his own cigarette still hanging limply from his lips and felt that guilt compounded. He couldn't say for certain what Billy must have thought of him at that point, but there was no way he'd have been able to keep helping him on his own, because Hopper was right: he had almost died last night. But with the worst of it over (he hoped), they could focus less on that and put their heads together to figure out what to do going forward.

Or, they could have, if Hopper's hip radio hadn't begun to crackle in that exact instance, releasing a string of police-coded jargon through the speaker. They all collectively jumped a little at the startling noise as the dispatcher (Florence's voice, Steve recognized) requested Hopper's aid in assisting his deputies with something he couldn't decipher.

"Great," Hopper mumbled to himself, stubbing out the cigarette he'd hardly been able to enjoy. If possible, he looked even more tired than when he'd walked in. "Yeah, I copy," he said into the radio as he unlatched it from his belt. "I'll be there soon; give me a few minutes to wrap it up here and I'll meet them at the scene."

He clipped the small receiver back onto his belt before coming to a stand, groaning in a way that was similar to Steve's dad when he'd been sitting down for too long.

"You're leaving?" Steve asked as he watched Hopper collect his hat and place it haphazardly on his head.

"Duty calls," Hopper grunted noncommittally. He pulled on the coat he'd left on the back of his chair and zipped it up to the collar. "I had a few of my boys start investigating a lead for me. A small one, but if they're calling me out there, it means they've found something, and hopefully it'll help us settle all this a little more quickly."

"But we haven't made a plan for what to do the next time this happens," Steve said concernedly. He felt exhausted beyond his years, but none of their major issues had been solved or even discussed yet. "We haven't talked about what we're supposed to do at all."

"Next time?"

Steve turned from Hopper to Billy, who'd spoken softly and, despite having looked enraged only moments before, now appeared confused.

"Well, yeah," Steve said, flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette into the ashtray, "this is like, a monthly thing for you now, right? Kind of like a girl when she gets her-"

"Don't fucking say it," Billy growled. Steve shrugged, unbothered.

"...but only for a day instead of like, for a week," he finished, feeling a little bit of self-satisfaction at the way Billy cringed and groaned.

"God fucking dammit Harrington."

"You were the one who showed me the movie though," Steve said, shifting the subject easily to skirt around Billy's annoyance. Hopper lingered by the dining room's opening, hearing out the tail-end of Steve's concerns. "It didn't end for him after one month; he was like, doomed to keep turning every full moon forever or something, right? Isn't that how werewolves work, and doesn't that, y'know, kind of include you now?"

A dawning look of horror spread across Billy's pale face as he made the connection. He blinked once, let the long trail off ash fall off his cigarette onto the table, and looked away, dazed, as though the thought of having to relive last night's nightmare hadn't occurred to him before.

"What do you mean, next time?" Hopper asked, parroting Billy's earlier confusion. "You saying he's liable to... turn again?"

Steve nodded somberly. "We can't use Dustin's house again; he escaped way too easily, but I guess we have a month to prepare, so it's not critical right now or anything," he explained, to which Hopper acknowledged him with a low hum. "But we still definitely need a plan for next time."

"Leave it to me, kid; I might have something I can make work," Hopper muttered. His eyes were unfocused as he turned and began to leave, already mentally trying to work out the specifics of whatever it was he had in mind. "Remember," he called back once he'd reached the front door, his haggard voice echoing down the short hall, "nothing said here leaves this house."

He didn't wait for affirmation before departing. From the dining room they heard the soft click of the front door as it opened and shut, leaving Billy and Steve alone in the dining room. Turning in his seat to look out the front-facing windows, Steve watched Hopper get into his truck and start the engine, noting the way he let his head hang briefly for a moment before he perked up to back out of the driveway. And then he was gone.

A wave of exhaustion overcame as he sat there, eyeing the empty space where Hopper's truck had been. He was hungry, tired, and wanted nothing more than to just be able to sleep forever, but as long as he was needed, that wasn't likely to happen. His role as caretaker was ever-expanding, and now, it seemed to include Billy as well.

Hopper had managed to hold the peace between them (though barely) while he'd been there, and Steve couldn't presume to know how things were going to go now that it was just him and Billy again. As he turned back in his seat and finished off the rest of his cigarette, he realized that whatever aggression Billy had been harboring towards him was gone.

"Next time," Steve heard him mumble to himself. The dejected manner in which he spoke was so unlike himself that he was reminded of the way he'd been behaving the day before, as though he could no longer find his own self-worth. Billy took the cigarette that had been hanging off his lip and held it in his hand, staring at the dimly glowing cherry before looking up to catch Steve's eye to say, "I don't think I can go through that again."

He said it with such vulnerable honesty that Steve found he didn't know how to respond. His own self-worth took a hit as guilt and pity began to rise within him as he stared back at Billy, hating that he didn't know what to say. It felt wrong to try and supply him with empty assurances when he had heard firsthand and seen the aftermath of how painfully debilitating the transformation had been. There was nothing he could say that could possibly begin to alleviate the horror that came with knowing it was going to come and afflict him again and again, month after month, for the rest of his life.

What sort of consolation could he possibly offer him?

"C'mon," Steve eventually said, depositing the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray as he scooted his chair back to stand up. Billy watched him with an exhausted, yet vaguely sorrowful expression that Steve decidedly didn't like. "I'll show you the bathroom."

Well, at least he could offer him a shower.

Steve could hear the shower running by the time he came back up the hall with a fresh towel in hand, but Billy wasn't yet locked inside the bathroom. He was leaning up against the wall beside the bathroom door, arms folded across his chest and eyes closed, dozing off while he waited for the water to warm up. As Steve approached, he noticed that, while Billy had taken off the bloody ruination of his old shirt, he still had Mrs. Henderson's ugly bathrobe loosely tied around his waist.

Billy cocked one eye open when he heard him come close, and mutely traded the shirt for the towel when Steve offered it to him. Neither of them spoke as the exchange was made; a silence broken only by the sound of spraying water hitting the shower tile forming between them until Steve found it too unbearable to withstand.

"So," he started to say, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, "about before… I, uh, really shouldn't have, y'know, said what I did about you being a monster."

From his position against the wall, Billy frowned.

"I was just caught up in the moment," Steve continued apologetically. "And I know that doesn't like, excuse my actions or whatever, but it was still a shitty thing to say."

As he opened both of his eyes, Billy found that Steve was looking everywhere but directly at him, and in fact had taken to looking at his own reflection in a decorative vase while he'd been talking. It was awkward; he was starting to feel uncomfortable about the sincerity Steve was trying to convey.

"I don't give a shit, it's not like it bothered me," Billy lied, speaking tersely. His stomach growled, and he placed a hand over it idly. "Trust me, I've been called worse things than that."

Steve's shoulders slumped a bit as he worried the back of his hair into a knot. "Still," he said awkwardly, finally turning away from the dark reflection of the vase, now absentmindedly trying to pull his fingers free, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

Clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes towards the ceiling, Billy huffed out a deep sigh and said, "Look, Harrington, if you're willing to make me some pancakes and fry up some bologna we can call it even. Just, stop doing… whatever this is and let me shower."

Steve paused to think about it. "Sure, okay, I can do that. I think we've got some pancake mix somewhere."

With that awkward bit of conversation out of the way, Billy eased up off of the wall he was perched upon and slid into the bathroom before Steve could make any sort of addendum and closed the door. He listened to the sounds of Steve's retreating footsteps down the hall over the pouring water as he undid the tie around his hips and left the beanie on the sink counter, decidedly not looking in the mirror as he stepped into the strong, warm stream.

Billy stayed in the shower for a long, long time.

Steve hadn't really been expecting it to be a quick one, but still, as he stood over the stove making a tall stack of pancakes that would've been enough to satisfy the stomach of any starving man, he wondered just how long he needed. The water had to have been going cold by now.

The smell of the bologna frying in the pan had, at first, encouraged his appetite, but was now starting to turn his stomach. The smell of bologna alone had never been appealing to him, and to have to smell it as it cooked was nauseating. He cut off the stove, transferred the fried meat to a serving plate, and then sat at the kitchen table to wait.

He nibbled a little at a pancake, but couldn't stomach the smell of the bologna well enough to finish it off. He waited at the table patiently, like a mother might when she was waiting for her kids to come down and eat and strained his ears to listen for when the water shut off upstairs.

It didn't, though. He could hear it trickling down through the pipes in the walls, quietly draining away whatever it was Billy was trying to cleanse himself of.

Steve sighed miserably and folded his arms over the table, sliding the chair back far enough so he could rest his head over them like he used to in English. He closed his eyes ('Just resting my eyes', as his dad was prone to saying before he fell asleep on the couch), and soon found himself asleep.

In a dream, it was snowing and he was driving, speeding along a narrow, unfamiliar road.

'Faster', he was thinking to himself as he depressed the accelerator harder. 'I have to go faster.'

A deep, dark blackness enveloped him from all sides outside of the car. He couldn't see through it or if anything was in it, even though he knew, intrinsically, that he had his high beams on and should have at least been able to see where he was going. The road before him manifested as a slick black line, wavering in and out of focus between his rapidly swishing windshield wipers and the oncoming flurry.

He was in a hurry, though he didn't know why. Billy was fine. Sitting in the passenger seat beside him, he looked almost bored with Steve's pedestrian effort to save him.

"I'm doing my best," Steve said, unsure of why he was now crying. "I'm going as fast as I can- please, please just understand that."

"You haven't done enough," Billy responded in a voice that both was and wasn't his own. It hurt Steve's ears to listen to as he whimpered involuntarily. "I'm already lost."

Alarmed, Steve took his eyes off the road to look at Billy and found him looking back. His eyes were a dark, glowing red, and he sat with his hand perched on the door handle. In the window behind him, red eyes that mirrored his own were slowly emerging from the darkness, coming so close to the car that the glass was beginning to fog up from its panting breath. How it was able to keep pace with the car when Steve had the accelerator pressed against the floor was unknown and frightening to him.

"Don't," Steve begged as Billy's fingers curled around the handle, getting ready to pull it open like an emergency exit, "I can still help you."

"I've been lied to before," Billy said solemnly, his two-toned voice warbling as he pulled on the handle and opened the door to give himself over to the creature that was waiting hungrily by the window.

"The fuck is this?"

Steve opened his eyes abruptly and nearly fell out of his seat as he transitioned into a wakeful state. Startled, he sat up and rubbed at his eyes uncomprehendingly.

"They're just pancakes, Hargrove, don't be rude," he said sleepily without fully realizing what it was Billy was talking about. "Misshapen, maybe, but still just pancakes."

Freshly showered, Billy stood before him wearing the beanie taken from Dustin's house and some of Steve's own clothing. An old 'Hawkins High Phys. Ed.' shirt clung tightly to his torso, baring a little bit of midriff above the hem of some old sweats. In his hand he held Steve's two-way radio Dustin had gifted him to include him as part of their party, and through that radio he could hear Max's voice trying to make contact.

"Steve, come in, Steve! Are you there?"

"Why do you have a two-way radio to my little sister sitting by your bed?" Billy asked icily, unabashed anger seeping out of his very being.

"What the hell were you doing in my bedroom?" Steve countered, feeling his stomach drop when he came to understand the implications Billy was making. He stood up and made to swipe the radio from Billy's hand. "It's seriously not what you think."

"Remind me, where have I heard that one before?" Billy pulled the radio easily out of Steve's reach, glowering at him as they faced off. "This looks pretty fucking bad for you, Harrington; she's not even fifteen yet, you sick fuck."

"It's not just for your sister," Steve said heatedly, then, realizing how that sounded, amended by saying, "Look, I know you know I take care of her friends- this, it's just- it's just a radio to communicate with them, alright? They're weird nerds who don't like to use phones like normal people. It's not for anything as dirty as you're imagining, so would you quit looking for reasons to hate me when I haven't even done anything?"

Sighing, Steve ran a hand through his hair and reached out for the radio, silently asking for it to be handed over. Billy continued to hold it, staring at him with an indecipherable look on his face. They stood at odds with one another before Dustin's voice came through the radio speaker.

"Steve! It's Dustin, we have a situation- please advise. Come in, Steve! Over!"

Billy looked at the radio in his hand and then at Steve with a scowl. He looked bored as he finally relinquished it without further fuss, sitting down at the table opposite of Steve and pullingthe plates of food towards him. He gave him a mean look as he began sandwiching the fried slices of bologna between a couple pancakes before biting into them.

Relieved and annoyed, Steve turned away to speak into the radio. "I'm here, I'm here, sorry, what's up?"

"Oh my God, it's about time!" Dustin huffed. "You said you'd radio me later and you never did! Over."

"Some stuff came up," Steve mumbled, sitting down at the table and rubbing at his eyes. "What's wrong?"

"It's Will," Dustin explained. Steve frowned. "He says he saw something last night that might have to do with the Mind Flayer-"

"Whoa whoa whoa! Hold on a second," Steve interrupted quickly, casting a furtive glance towards Billy who was now watching him suspiciously. "I'm uh, I'm not alone over here."

There was silence on the radio after Steve let up on the talk button. Billy squinted at him and mouthed 'it's not what you think' sardonically at him. Steve sighed and shrugged; there wasn't an easy way to explain this.

"I swear Steve, if you've been ignoring us because you're with a GIRL-"

"No!" Steve exclaimed in frustration. Why did it seem like everyone was against him today? "I'm not- I'm not with a girl; haven't even been with a girl since-"

"Oh, Steve," Billy chirped in an ugly, high falsetto, speaking loudly enough for the radio to catch and relay his voice clearly. "Quit playing with that toy and come back to play with me."

Horrified at Billy's poor impression of a girl, Steve turned to face him with a look of shock.

"What the hell is your damage Hargrove? You know they probably heard that," he hissed as he let took his finger off the talk button. "Why do you constantly have to prove yourself as being the biggest thorn in my side? Can't you hop off my dick for five fucking minutes?"

Billy snickered and laughed, clearly satisfied with himself. He shot him a wink when Steve turned up his middle finger at him and bit down on another one of his weird bologna/pancake amalgamations.

"Was that Billy?"

Max's voice. Both Steve and Billy froze as she called them out, sharing a mutual look of horror at having been recognized.

"Steve? Why are you with Billy?"

"Uh." Wide-eyed, he looked to Billy for help in answering, but was met with nothing but a look of shock. They both floundered for a moment, during which Billy took the chance to shove more food in his mouth as though to say he was currently preoccupied and couldn't be assed to help explain. "It… wasn't?" Steve finally answered lamely.

A strong silence permeated over the radio before it crackled and relayed Max's voice as she said, "Steve, he's made fun of me plenty of times that I'd know his 'I'm a dumb girl' voice from anywhere."

Steve groaned and threw Billy a dirty look, to which he received a simple shrug in response. It wasn't supposed to have been a secret, exactly, but his children knew the history between them just as well as he did and he'd eventually have to explain to them just how they'd come to be together sooner or later. "Alright, yeah, I'm with your brother. He's at my place."

"Step-brother," Billy corrected gruffly, wiping away some crumbs from his mouth.

"Can he hear me right now?" Max asked.

"Uh," Steve said. "Yeah, he can hear you," he replied after Billy gave him the go-ahead.

"Don't come home."

At first, Steve thought she'd said it out of anger, or spite, or something. It was vague enough that it could have been construed that way (especially with how flatly she'd spoken), but the look on Billy's face made it clear that it was less a threat and more a warning, of sorts. He stopped chewing his food, eyebrows coming together as he frowned deeply. That vaguely sorrowful look that had crept up around his eyes from before surfaced in his features again as he stared ahead of himself.

"Message received?" Steve asked quietly, unsure of how to process his change in demeanor, to which Billy gave a brief, curt nod. He shoved the plates of food away and sat back with a forlorn expression on his face. "Message received," he repeated into the radio. "Could you uh, put Dustin back on? Who all's over there with you guys?"

There was a moment of silence in which Steve pictured the radio changing hands. While he waited for a response, he pulled the dish with the pancakes on it closer towards himself and made a second attempt at eating one.

"The whole party's here, Steve. We have a situation that requires your assistance, over."

"Yeah, I remember," he said through a mouthful of soft food. "Not to be like, dismissive about it, but is there any chance it can wait? I'm kind of… 'booked', for the rest of the day; we can have, like, a group meeting and discuss things in person tomorrow, if it's not urgent."

He was careful not to mention how he planned on sharing Billy's situation with them if they agreed, given how angry he'd been about the prospect earlier. It didn't look as though Billy was paying him much attention at that point, however, as he stood up somberly and walked out of the dining room without a word, no longer interested in eavesdropping on his conversation. Steve wanted to follow after him to make sure he didn't go anywhere he wasn't supposed to, but stayed still and finished off the pancake he'd been eating.

"He says it's not dire; just wanted us to be aware that something might be fucky. You wanna meet up with us tomorrow afternoon at Mike's house? Over."

"Sure, that's fine," Steve replied. He waited a moment to see if Billy was going to return, and when he was certain he wasn't going to, he dropped his voice to a whisper and said, "I need you to do me a small favour before then, Henderson."

"Oh my God, Steve, seriously? Another one? Over."

Ignoring the indignation with which Dustin spoke, Steve continued. "I need you to research werewolves for me, alright? Like, specifically if it can be cured. Can you do that for me?"

"Uh, I mean, sure? Why though? Does this have something to do with our campaign? Over." The fact that Dustin was so suspicious caused a little grin to spread out across Steve's face. In spite of everything, leave it to Dustin to find a way to route it all back to the game he'd gotten him involved with.

"I'll let you know tomorrow," Steve said, unable to keep a teasing lilt from affecting the tone of his words. "And uh, just so you know, I'll probably be bringing Max's brother along, so don't freak out if he shows up. Over and out, nerd."

"Oh, now you decide to start using-"

Steve switched the radio off abruptly before Dustin could finish his sentence and set it face down on the surface of the table. He sat still for a moment, feeling his earlier exhaustion swirling within him like a snowglobe before he stood up and wandered out into the living room. He found Billy lying splayed out on the couch, eyes closed and resting easily atop the cushions.

"Just make yourself at home, why don't you," Steve said dryly, to which Billy gave a noncommittal grunt. "Do you, uh, need a place to stay tonight?" he asked awkwardly when he understood that Billy wasn't going to move from his position.

Opening his eyes, Billy stared straight up at the ceiling with a stern look on his face.

"I can stay with Tommy H. if it's a problem," he said after a minute.

"I don't really care what you do," Steve replied, placing a hand on his hip. "But he'd ask questions, you know. You don't really… look like how you should." Billy heaved out a long and depressive sigh, shutting his eyes again. "It's fine, though- you can stay in the spare bedroom upstairs," Steve offered.

"Couch is fine," Billy mumbled.

"You'd be missing out, it's got a Queen-size mattress up there."

"Couch is fine," Billy repeated tiredly.

Steve shrugged. "Suit yourself, I guess." He studied Billy laid out flat across the couch and felt that familiar need to show him pity. He couldn't help but wonder what Max's warning applied to; wondered if Billy would tell him about it if he asked.

"You were right about what you said before." Billy's voice was soft with exhaustion, but even so, it managed to break into his thoughts. Steve gave him a look of incomprehension. "About my hair, you were right; it's coming back."

"Oh," Steve said, refraining from tapping into his inherent desire to chirp 'I told you so' back at him. "That's great, man. I knew it would."

"Still paler than the underside of a witch's tit though," Billy muttered, holding up a hand to examine his new complexion morosely.

And, yeah, he was right: even though it seemed his hair was going to be restored to its former glory (given enough time), it didn't look like the same could be said for his skin. He was still woefully pale, looking less like the golden god he'd been before and more like, as Billy had said, the pale underside of a witch's tit. Steve eyed him contemplatively, trying to come up with a solution that didn't involve him laying naked out in the snow to try and catch some sun.

"Do you remember Tammy Thomspon?" Steve asked eventually, to which Billy had to pause in order to connect the name with the person being referenced. Once he'd nodded, Steve continued. "She always had a tan year round; used to talk about how she'd go to like, tanning beds and stuff."

"I am not going to a tanning salon, if that's what you're suggesting here Harrington," Billy said decisively.

"No no! She used to do tanning beds, but then she kept talking about how they were unhealthy and caused skin cancer and blah blah blah. Before the semester ended though, she said she started using some new thing; she was telling me about it in History before the final," Steve elaborated, stepping further into the room to take a seat on the armrest of the couch. He snapped his fingers as he tried to remember what it was. "It was like, some spray on stuff? A spray-on tan, I think. You could try that? Wouldn't even have to go anywhere to get it done, I think it's sold retail."

Billy appeared lost in thought as he contemplated the option. He flexed his pale fingers and heaved another heavy sigh. "Anything would probably be better than this."

'You don't- I mean, it's not… you don't look that bad," Steve lied. Billy put his hand down and glared at him from the far end of the sofa. "Alright alright, so you look like the white end of a fingernail. We get some spray tan, rinse you in it, and presto, you're back to being average, dark and handsome. I mean, if Tammy Thompson can do it, it shouldn't be that hard, right?"

Billy snorted. "Handsome, huh? Probably not; she was as dumb as the rest of the cows here."

"She wasn't the brightest light in the shed," Steve agreed, feeling the slightest bit embarrassed at having called Billy handsome. "But, cool; glad we got something sorted out today.

"I'll be in my room if you need me for anything, and I know you already know where that is," he said as he came to a rise, casting a snide look at Billy before heading back towards the staircase.

Predictably, Billy clicked his tongue in annoyance. "You realize you only gave me a towel earlier, right? I wasn't about to put that thing on again. I wasn't snooping; just trying to find a fucking change of clothes when I heard Maxine yelling for you on your shitty bedside table radio," he said in that easy, drawling nature of his. "What was I supposed to think?"

"Why don't you try thinking a little less and just ask instead of jumping to conclusions?" Steve huffed. He hadn't wanted this to turn into another argument, but it seemed as though the conversation was quickly heading that way. "Look, I don't- I'm too tired to argue with you. I'm gonna catch a nap and then we can like… I don't know. Get some bottles of spray tan and hose you down in the backyard or something."

Billy grunted in affirmation, and Steve was content to leave it at that. He shot Billy one last look before he stepped out of the living room, and, leaving the food out on the table where he'd left it, went straight up to his room. Like the condition he'd left Dustin's cellar in, he'd clean up the dining room later.

As he entered his room, Steve was afraid, for a moment, that he'd find evidence of Billy having gone snooping through all of his belongings. It would've been just like him to try and find something else he could use to hold against him while Steve was unaware, but as he looked around the area carefully, it seemed as though his room appeared untouched. His closet was left open from where Billy had gone in to take the clothes he was currently wearing, but, true to his word, it didn't look like he'd rifled any deeper into it then he'd needed to.

Relieved, Steve stepped forward until he was toe-to-hem with his bed and let himself fall face forward directly onto the mattress, exhaling a deep sigh once he collided with it. He laid there unmoving, breathing in the hot, trapped air between his face and his comforter before he rolled over and laid himself out spread-eagle to look up at the ceiling.

"Why does this have to be so much harder than it is?" he groaned, cupping his hands together to cover his face. The familiar question he'd wrestled with of 'why me?' that he'd been struggling to answer since any of this started began cycling through his mind. Of course, now that he had time to rest, his brain wouldn't let him.

He just wanted to help, and already he'd almost lost the trust of the only two people he could rely on. Neither of them seemed to understand that it was too great a burden for one person to have to shoulder alone. It needed to be a team effort, but no one seemed willing to branch out and make it one. Once again, it was left to him to take the initiative.

"Why is it so hard for me to help anyone in this damn town?" he moaned.