"What kept you?" Steve asked as Billy slid into the passenger seat, dressed in his own clothes now but looking unhappy still. There was an anxiety-based agitation in his voice that he could not restrain, and he didn't care if Billy picked up on it or not. He'd been made to wait, a target in the open, safe from the cold only as he sat struggling to contend with the building tension that grew with every twisted shadow he watched that bent and swayed with the wind.
Billy didn't answer as he shut the door behind him, unable to put into words how he'd needed some time to mentally recover from the shock of running into Neil like he had. The memories of the way he'd used to sneak back home after parties- careless and drunk and making too much noise- had rattled him too much as he relived the repercussions of his own ineptitude. Neil didn't often show much self-restraint on those nights, and Billy wasn't quick to forget it. The only reason he'd been spared tonight was because of Max.
Shaken as he was, he'd run into Steve as he'd been making his way back to him, car in motion and already driving towards his home. The twenty minute timer had barely expired when they'd met about halfway, the low-beams of the car's headlights cutting through the slight flurry of snow to find Billy walking down the length of the street, head kept low and hands tucked deep into the folds of his borrowed coat.
"I was held up," was all Billy managed to say, and when he spoke, Steve could hear an exhaustion in his voice that went beyond the physical.
Billy was tired, clearly, but not just from the walk. Something had happened, but he didn't want to talk about it. They sat still and silent for a moment as Steve decided on whether or not he wanted to press the issue. The idling hum of the motor and the soft sound of snowflakes landing on the windshield told him it was best not to, and so he sighed and directed his attention back to the road. Putting his car into gear, he began to drive, turning them around in the middle of the street to head off in the right direction.
He couldn't pretend that he wasn't hurt from Billy's silence. Foolishly, Steve had begun to think that they'd been making significant headway in being able to rely on one another in this matter, and Billy's sullen withdrawal stung. There was simply no way for him to know that Billy's father had marked him by name.
Neil had somehow become familiar with Steve, and that meant that for Billy to be caught associating with him now was a liability that would end in punishment- severe punishment- if he wasn't careful. Even though all Steve claimed he'd wanted to do was help, Neil had turned accepting that help into a serious risk that, at first, Billy hadn't thought he'd wanted to take. All those nights of being beaten for simply returning home late would be compounded into one terrible reckoning if he got caught, and the thought of that had been overwhelming.
It still was.
So much had unwittingly been placed on the line in the span of a single confrontation.
They made it to the Henderson household without further incident, though Steve still felt jumpy and Billy was still moody and withdrawn. Parking alongside the curb in front of the house, they got out and quietly ferried their supplies to the cellar and stood at the top of its ruined entrance. They stared down into the dark, bloodied stairwell, shoulder to shoulder, both of them too apprehensive to make the first move.
Billy was reluctant to return to the place of his savagery, and Steve was afraid of whatever unknown things may have been lurking in the dark. Not that he believed there was anything down there, just that there could be, and he wasn't willing to find out. Twenty minutes of sitting alone with his thoughts had made him overly wary of the possibility of hidden monsters waiting to ambush him.
It didn't matter that they were there for a reason; for once, they both seemed to see eye to eye on something, and that something had them both far too reluctant to go back down there.
"We should get started," Steve said, though he clearly was not making any effort to move.
"Sun won't be up for another few hours," Billy drawled, sounding almost lazy in an attempt to cover up any fear he may have been outwardly expressing. "It's not a race, Harrington; we have plenty of time."
Together they stared into the depths of the cellar, each of them too intimidated by what it may or may not have contained to want to return to it.
"This is stupid," Steve remarked, trying to lighten the situation with a laugh that sounded more like a hysterical sigh. "You know there's nothing down there."
Billy scoffed and maintained his façade of indifference. "Alright, if you're so sure, be my guest. Ladies first," he said coolly.
Steve side-eyed him with a frown, but Billy's eyes were locked on the narrowness of the cellar's throat. Neither of them moved.
Taking a deep breath, Steve muttered a quick "Fuck it" and led the way into the darkness. He heard Billy hesitantly begin to follow behind him after he'd made it about halfway down the flight of stairs, and the sound of his steps bolstered Steve's determination somewhat, but it did nothing to calm his squeamish nature: there were bits of Billy everywhere.
His stomach rolled unpleasantly as his eyes flicked around, trying not to linger on any one spot for too long. He did his best to avoid the more obvious bits of gore that decorated the staircase, but still managed to step on something soft and round that squished unpleasantly beneath his shoe, sending a shiver up his spine. Part of him wanted to look, just to know what it was, but he managed to restrain himself. The nature of un-seeing something was a talent he hadn't yet learned to master, and he was already close to gagging as it was. If it was affecting him this badly, he wondered how Billy must have been feeling at that moment.
Maneuvering around a pile of shredded clothing, Steve stepped into the cellar and reached out to grab for the hanging cord to turn the lightbulb. Billy lingered on the steps behind him, waiting for the light to come on.
It didn't take long to find, but the first time his fingers brushed against the dangling string Steve couldn't help but jerk back against the sensation. He cursed himself mentally before reaching back out to grasp it and pull, and finally there was light with which to see what remained.
Shed bits of skin and scores of dried, rust-brown blood were all over the floor and portions of the walls. Steve repressed his want to gag at the sight of it all, and was thankful that the cold had at least prevented the rot from progressing too far. Billy stood forlornly behind him, but with the light on he stepped into the room and knelt down to scoop up a clump of his hair. He stared down at the strands, sifting through them with his fingers. Wordlessly, Steve opened up one of the trash bags he'd brought along and held it out while Billy dropped the fine blonde hairs into it.
For some reason, Steve felt like apologizing, though he knew he had no reason to.
They split up and began to take action then, leaving the limp trash bag in the center of the room as they went about cleaning what they could by hand. Equipped with the only pair of gloves, it fell to Steve to pick up a majority of the gore while Billy milled around, trying to restore order to the mess he'd made out of the Henderson's stored possessions.
Progress was slowed only when Steve realized he wouldn't be able to get any water to properly try and mop up the stains. He'd gone back up the stairs, aware of Billy's eyes on his back (as though he were afraid Steve were going to leave him alone down there, or worse yet, lock him back in), with the bucket and tried to fill it from the outdoor faucet, but found it frozen when he tried the tap.
"Shit."
Sighing, he wondered what they could do to try and clean the blood now but couldn't think of anything they could do that would work effectively. "Shit," he hissed again as he was forced to give up.
He left the bucket at the top of the stairs before he made his way back down to rejoin Billy.
"So, turns out the spigot's frozen. Should've guessed that it would be; I don't know how we're going to clean the rest of this shit out now," he announced with a sigh.
Coming back into the dimly lit room, he found that Billy had halted in his efforts. He'd put many things back into place, but had stalled when it came to the shelf that had been used to block the entrance into the tunnel. He stood before the gaping hole utterly perplexed, his confusion palpable in the small, cold space. Steve felt his stomach drop; he'd neglected to think of how he was supposed to explain that away.
At the sound of Steve's voice, Billy turned around with eyes wide and asked, "Did I do that?"
There was almost a sense of childlike wonder in the tone of his voice, as though he both could not believe nor comprehend the depths of his own power when he was changed. His eyes- yellow-blue and beautiful- were widened in confusion as he looked to Steve for clarity.
"Uh."
Taken aback by the genuine mystification Billy met him with, Steve faltered. It would be easier to let him believe that it had been him, as neither one of them truly understood what monstrous things Billy was capable of when he was changed, but after days of trying to build up mutual confidence and trust between them, Steve knew he owed it to him to be more upfront than that.
It would mean indoctrinating him into the Upside Down; he only hoped that the government didn't have ears down there in the dark with them to pin another security breach on his loose mouth. He thought not, but at the same time was hesitant to risk it.
"No, you didn't," he said tentatively after a moment, noting the way Billy's brow furrowed, fearing he may have provoked his anger. He was so tired of dancing around it, but he'd found that being direct with Billy yielded better results. "It was already there before you got here."
"The hell does that mean?" Billy asked slowly, and Steve could see in his gold-flecked eyes how suspicious he was.
"It's how you got out."
He returned to Billy's side as he turned his attention into the black, dark depths of the tunnel. Memories of his folly from a few nights prior led him to wonder just how much of the story Billy was going to believe, if he were willing to listen at all. "I forgot it was here, honestly. My fault, I guess. Dustin and I had it hidden behind that shelf you knocked over and it just kind of derailed from there."
Billy was silent and speculative as he took in this new information, searching Steve's face for any falsity.
"You forgot about a giant fucking hole in the wall ?" he asked, sounding incredulous. He seemed more surprised now by that than the fact that it existed at all.
"Out of sight, out of mind, man," Steve replied with a shrug that was more of an awkward jerk of his shoulder. "It's not like this is my house. I know I shouldn't have, but with everything going on, I did. I'm sorry."
He could feel Billy's eyes boring into him, but didn't want to face him at that moment. Billy looked away with a scowl and continued to size up the giant breech in the wall. After a moment of quiet pondering, he stepped forward and walked into the hole. He placed a hand on the earthen wall for support as he cautiously began to venture inside. Steve stayed where he was, giving Billy the space to explore it on his own, but as Billy delved deeper and began to blend in with the darkness slowly surrounding him, he couldn't keep himself from getting nervous. He took a step forward hesitantly, unwilling to lose Billy to the darkness a second time.
"What the fuck is this?" Billy called out after a moment's heavy silence, sounding relatively close despite being totally consumed by shadow, his voice echoing slightly in the hollowed-out earth. "How far does the damn thing go ?"
"Far," Steve replied, minding the volume of his own voice so he didn't accidentally wake Dustin or his mother sleeping up above them. "It… goes all over town, I think? At least as far out to the farms, like where the parties were."
After a moment during which the only sounds that could be heard were of Billy's boots trudging through the loose ground, he came back out from the darkness and once again stared openly at Steve.
"There is seriously something wrong with this town, you know that?" Billy said with an annoyed click of his tongue. He glanced around the room before stepping back into the dim light. "Explain to me why the hell there are a bunch of secret tunnels spread all throughout this goddamn place. Better yet, tell me what the hell kind of shit could have even made something like this."
Steve wanted to, but didn't know how private their conversation really was. Memories of how he and Nancy had been compromised rose to the forefront of his mind, and besides that, they were working against the clock; they had to be out of there before Dustin or his mother woke.
"This is going to sound like more bullshit, but believe me when I say that it's not safe to talk about it here," he said, sounding defeated. He wished he had a beer or a cigarette in hand to steady his nerves; after all he'd been through recently, he felt he more than deserved one. "I need to show you something anyway, or you're not going to believe anything I have to say."
"I'm a literal monster, Harrington, in case you've forgotten; whatever you think I wouldn't believe-" Billy began to argue, but Steve promptly cut him off.
"Yeah, you are, but you're not the first one Hawkins has ever seen," he said as he began to gather up his supplies, rounding up the filled trash bags and tying them off to stave off some of the stink they emitted. His words seemed to have taken the wind out of Billy's sails as he stood there looking even more confused than before.
Steve glanced around the basement at all the blood still left on the floor and walls and knew they would just have to leave it be. Let Dustin's mother think what she would; at least they'd removed all the rest of Billy's residue.
"Did you get all the stuff you needed?" Steve asked as he began to head towards the stairs, gesturing with his head for Billy to follow. "Your keys and whatever?"
He spied a shovel propped up along the wall and grabbed it before leaving.
"Yeah," came Billy's quiet, ponderous reply.
On the way up, Steve paused on the step where he'd inadvertently stepped on something, flattening it against the cement. He couldn't stop himself from looking as he ascended, and realized sadly that what he'd crushed underfoot had been an eye.
The drive to the quarry was mostly silent. Whenever Billy tried to press him for more information, Steve quietly shut him down until he finally understood that he wasn't going to learn anything more until they reached their destination.
The weak snowfall that had persisted into the early morning finally began to relent as they drove. With the way his arm was stinging, he drove one-handed to keep it in a relaxed position. He thought about his impending medical visit, and wondered if this time they might give him something to manage the pain.
As they got closer to the quarry, Steve eventually turned off the main road onto an unused, slush-filled gravel-based tributary road that led them through the woods. They were both on high alert as they traveled, bouncing along in the car. Neither of them were willing to get jumped by the red-eyed beast as they passed through, though they needn't have worried; the drive was uneventful, and they rolled up to the forest's edge where the lip of the quarry inhibited its growth.
Billy looked around, and seemed unimpressed with what he saw.
"Glad we decided to go sight-seeing," he said, seething with sarcasm. "How utterly romantic of you."
"Shut up, man," Steve retorted tiredly. He cut the engine and stepped out to get the shovel he'd brought with them.
Billy had been to the quarry a few times before, but only from the main access point. This was a different, more rural side to it that, if not for the lack of a view, he found he actually rather liked for its privacy. If he didn't have such an innate fear of the woods now, he might have even let himself believe that Steve had just brought him out here to neck.
He got out of the car and stood by the door as he waited for Steve to find what it was he wanted to show him. As it was though, he just seemed lost.
Steve looked around the area that was both familiar and unfamiliar to him at once. He remembered coming out here to bury the demo-dog that Dustin had foolishly tried to hide in the Byers' fridge, but not the exact location. He shivered a little with the cold and glanced around for the landmark he was all but certain they'd made note of to mark the grave.
But what had it been? It'd been so long since they'd gotten rid of the corpse that, like the hole in the cellar wall, it had followed the rule of 'out of sight, out of mind' and he could no longer remember.
"Dammit," Steve muttered to himself as he walked around, all but certain that they had buried it closer to the quarry's edge than to the forest's.
He tried pushing the shovel tip into the ground every so often, wondering if he'd be able to find a soft spot hidden beneath the snow, but the earth was frozen hard and wouldn't relent. He was beginning to feel like this had all been a colossal waste of their time and energy when he saw it: the old tree stump that they'd used as a makeshift headstone, now half-buried in the snow.
"I found it!" he declared as he made his way over to the stump, taking care not to slip in the slurry. From behind, he heard Billy say, "Great. What is it, 'cause all I'm seeing is a bunch of snow and shit and mud."
"We buried it, I have to dig it up," Steve said, too excited at having actually found the grave to note the despondent tone in Billy's voice.
Gripping the shovel tightly, he cleared the snow away from where he planned to dig and then plunged the shovelhead directly into the dirt. He regretted this action immediately, as his arm lit up in agonizing pain. He let out a yelp and dropped the shovel to grip his injured bicep.
"Fuck," he moaned once the initial wave of pain receded. He was left with a hot throbbing sensation that he imagined he could feel pulsing through the layers of clothes he wore. "Holy shit, that hurt."
He was so focused on the abrupt pain in his arm that he didn't hear that Billy had left his perch by the car to join him by the stump. Wordlessly, he bent down to pick up the discarded shovel, though not before shrugging out of the borrowed jacket he'd been wearing to drape it over Steve's hunched over figure.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked as he felt the coat cover him.
"Digging for buried treasure, what else?" Billy replied snarkily. There was a look in his eye that was equal parts worry and concern, but his language did well to mask it. "Sit down and show me where the 'x' is before you lose your arm, Harrington."
Surprised, Steve could only point out the general area he thought the corpse might still be. "It'll be big, hard to miss," he clarified as he swept the snow off the tree stump and sat atop it, cradling his arm. Billy nodded in acknowledgement and eyeballed the area before picking out a spot to begin digging.
With Billy at the helm, the shovel bit into the earth with ease, carving out a chunk of dirt that he casually threw over his shoulder. The muscles in his arms barely flexed as he fell into a rhythm, and it looked as though it cost him no great effort at all to sling the dirt around. Steve watched him dig in silent admiration until Billy caught him looking.
"Better start talking while resting on your pretty ass," he said, pulling his lips up into a coy smile, obviously appreciating the way Steve was watching him so openly.
Clearing his throat and awkwardly turning away, Steve nodded and pretended he couldn't feel his face turning red. "Uh, right. Yeah. Just uh, keep an open mind about it; it's kind of a lot to take in."
"I'm a lot to take in, if you know what I mean," Billy said with a lecherous laugh.
"Humble," Steve said with a roll of his eyes, but even still he couldn't help but smile a little as Billy resumed digging. Instead of chastising him for being gross, he began to tell him about Hawkins' sordid history with monsters.
As he didn't know the truth of everything himself, he did his best at explaining what he knew, about how the government was somehow involved, and that they'd made contact with an alternate dimension but in doing so had opened a doorway they couldn't close. He explained how the creatures kept coming through that doorway, and how Hopper was involved and why he felt they could trust him. Billy paused in his shoveling on the odd occasion to ask for clarity involving certain points that Steve himself wasn't clear on, but he wasn't angry or dismissive about anything, only curious.
He talked about his first encounter with the Demogorgon, and how terrified he'd been standing up against that monster. The longer he talked, the better he felt. It had been hard keeping these things to himself, and even though he'd had support in Nancy and the kids and others, it felt good getting to talk with someone who had an outside perspective. Not that Billy added much to the conversation besides the occasional grunt as he threw another load of dirt over his shoulder, but still.
It was nice.
"It started with Will, somehow," he said as he began to explain just how the kids he was always hanging around were connected in all of this. No one had explained to him just how the kid had been the epicenter of it all, but he hadn't bothered to ask, either. Everyone initially involved with Will's disappearance were still a little touchy on the subject matter.
"The zombie kid?"
"Don't call him that, man. He gets all weird about it, and if the other little brats hear you say it then they'll start hassling you over it." He paused, remembering the incident in which they had all promptly reprimanded him on the one (and only) occurrence he'd slipped up and said the nickname. "Him and the others though, they're smart. Really smart; probably smarter than I am, honestly."
"'Probably'?" Billy chimed in, throwing him a grin that Steve met with a roll of his eyes.
"Shut up and keep digging, Hargrove."
With a light laugh, Billy complied and Steve continued talking.
He spoke on how even after the Demogorgon had been beaten and Will rescued from the alternate dimension, the problems hadn't ended. More strange things kept happening, centered around Will, and that's when the tunnels were created. He touched on Dustin and Nougat and on a man called Bob whom he'd never actually gotten to meet, but whom he had heard had been braver than most. He explained how Maxine had gotten involved and expected anger from Billy then, but wasn't met with anything other than silent contemplation.
Regardless of the surprising lack of biteback, there was still a noticeable drift in the tone of their conversation. Steve could feel it as plainly as he could feel the cold wind blowing: he had taken their conversation and driven it into precipitous territory, because the story was wrapping up, and they both knew what was coming next.
"The night you, uh, came to the Byers house… you never let me explain what was happening, or what we were doing. You'd already come in with your- your stupid, weird, pre-drawn conclusions."
Like you always do.
Steve turned his attention up from where he'd been watching the hole being dug to look up at Billy, trying to gauge how he was reacting to the topic. He knew to expect pushback for it, but anything else he had hoped to discern was blocked from view as Billy had turned his back to him. For some reason, the fact that Billy wouldn't face him bothered him.
Taking in a deep breath, Steve decided to continue and see how far he could push it before Billy's temper ignited. "It was just bad timing, man. That's all it ever is with me. At the Byers' that night, with the first one; hell, even with you- it's just bad timing."
He had to catch himself when he tasted the hint of venom creeping out in his voice. He hadn't wanted to start an argument, but the nature of the conversation brought out bitter feelings in him that he had yet to reconcile. He took a deep breath to re-ground himself before continuing, saying, "We were in the middle of something, trying to get Will back from the stupid thing possessing him, fighting off the dogs, and trying to figure out what the hell to do next when you just- showed up."
A particularly deep shunking sound ensued as the shovel bit into the earth again, and then, with an awkward lurch, Billy suddenly stopped shoveling.
Steve felt his chest tighten as he finally landed on the primary point he'd been dancing around. That night at the Byers… was he supposed to have forgiven Billy for what he'd done by now, or even just gotten over it on his own? Billy had never done anything by means of an apology, and yet…
And yet there they were, having spent the better part of the last few days sharing each other's company like old acquaintances. Sometimes they'd laugh, share a joke, and even tiptoe around the odd innuendo. But would they be that friendly with one another if they hadn't bonded over the shared trauma of the Yule parties? And if not, where would they be now except still latched at each other's throats? Nothing about this lined up right in Steve's mind, but it didn't feel as wrong as he wanted it to, either.
He opened his mouth to say more, to elaborate on his thoughts a little bit better, but was stopped by the quiet sound of Billy sniffling.
Steve bit back on his words, shocked at the thought of Billy crying. He gaped openly as Billy made that wretched sound again, unsure of how to react. This wasn't the reaction he'd wanted (though, if he were being honest, he wasn't sure what sort of reaction he was hoping for anyway), but a small part of him was touched that the events of that night weighed as heavily on Billy as it did on himself.
Regardless, he didn't know what to say. Steve sat frozen on his perch, eyes wide and eyebrows drawn up towards the sky. He watched, speechless, as Billy took one large, shuddery inhalation of breath, and Steve realized then that he wasn't crying; the sounds he'd mistaken for sniffling were actually of him sniffing.
Billy had latched onto a scent with his new, keener senses and was acting on them. Steve watched as his shoulders tensed briefly, hunching up tightly before he tossed the shovel aside and unexpectedly dropped to his knees, clearing more snow away from the area he'd been digging in with a frightening intensity. He grunted with the effort, dirtying his hands in the mud and the snow in a way that would most likely end with bloodied scrapes. In his reckless fervor, he was able to move more earth away with his bare hands than he could with the shovel.
"What is it, Hargrove?" Steve asked sharply as a spike of anxiety tore through him. Derailed from the determination he'd held onto in order to talk about their fight, he felt fear sidle in to take its place. "What is it? What's going on?"
When Billy didn't answer, he stood up and left the jacket he'd been holding in his seat to walk closer to the hole that he was digging. The urgency with which Billy was clawing at the ground was frightening; he was beginning to hurt himself, Steve had to get him to stop. He reached out and grabbed hold of his shoulder, trying to pull him away from the hole and whatever it was he was trying to unearth. He expected violent resistance, or to be thrown aside in a similar fashion to the night when he'd been tossed aside as though he were nothing, but to his amazement, Billy reacted to his touch and stopped.
Panting hard in a way that created great puffs of white air, Billy froze, staring down into the hole he'd created, his face blank and pale. His hands were raw and bloody, and Steve noted with some unease that his fingers were claw-tipped, but whether that had occurred before or after his sudden compulsion to dig was unknown to him. Swallowing hard, Steve stood hovering over Billy's shoulder to look down and see what it was that Billy had been desperate to reveal.
But the only thing to see was what he'd already known was buried there: the rotting carcass of the demo-dog laid curled up on its side, partially obscured by the dirt Billy had been hurriedly trying to remove. Seeing it eased some of his apprehension, but as he flicked his gaze from the body to Billy, he found that he was now staring up at him with some terrible knowledge hidden behind his eyes.
Again, unease coiled itself in the pit of his stomach as he was unable to discern what the blank expression on Billy's face meant.
"What is it?" he asked again, feeling his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth as he spoke, mouth suddenly gone dry. "What's wrong?"
Billy's eyes flicked away from Steve's face and down to his hand, where the bandages covering the hidden wound wrapped his hand like a glove, and the sour feeling in his stomach intensified.
"It's the same," Billy said somberly, turning away from his hand to look back down at the husk of the demo-dog. "The smell. The bite on your hand- it- they smell the same."
A feeling like he'd been suddenly doused in ice water washed over him. The sensation was numbing as he stumbled backwards, tripping over the stump as he fell away.
"Fuck," he whispered quietly, the word materializing in the air as a calm breath of cool condensation. "Of course it is. Of fucking course it is."
All the dread and apprehension that had been building up in him in those terse few seconds as he waited for the revelation had sapped him of all his energy. When the back of his legs came into contact with the stump, he slumped down and sat on it in disbelief. He felt cold all over; even the frigid morning air couldn't touch him the way Billy's words had.
"You got a cigarette, man?" Steve asked, his voice hoarse. He didn't want to think about what it meant that the bite and the dead demo-dog smelled the same. Not right now; not when he'd emotionally been on the cusp of something else and then been abruptly ripped back to his present problems.
Standing up from his kneeled position, Billy quietly reached into the front pocket of his shirt to pull out a dented pack of cigarettes. Wordlessly, he approached Steve, his footsteps crunching in the snow as he held one out to him before pulling one out for himself. He lit them both with the click of his flip-top lighter and then sat down on the opposite end of the stump, pressing his back gently against Steve's.
Steve stiffened at the contact, but eventually leaned back into him, and they sat balanced on the stump together, back to back.
Billy's warm weight was comforting as he began to calm down, taking long, ragged pulls from the cigarette. He stared out over the rim of the quarry, taking in their surroundings to note just how serene it was, despite the circumstances of them being there. The trees and rocks glistened with the fresh frost, and oh, how beautiful it would all be come sunrise when the light would make all those thousands of tiny facets shine.
Whatever the smell meant, what good did it do him to know? It was already there, a sickening part of himself that he'd tried to ignore every step of the way.
He could feel Billy move whenever the other boy shifted and breathed, taking his time in smoking his own cigarette down to the filter. Distantly, he could hear the sounds of a few early birds beginning to chitter in the woods close by. Such a strange time for peace, Steve thought.
"Harrington."
Billy's gruff voice caught him off-guard, but he was still too numb to properly react; otherwise, he may have jumped.
"Yeah?" he responded, and even he could hear how listless he had become.
There was a moment's hesitation before Billy spoke again. "About that night," he began to say, and that tightness that Steve had felt in his chest before began to resurface, squeezing him gently. "I didn't need an explanation. Nothing you said could have stopped me. You were right. I had conclusions. Notions. Whatever; it didn't matter. I was looking for a fight that night and I found it, but I didn't mean- what I did- I didn't mean for it to happen to you ."
Billy had begun to tense up he'd rambled on, each unsteady word he bit out constricting his muscles. Steve could feel it in his shoulders, in the way he kept fidgeting with the cigarette he held in his hands. Steve remained silent in the event that Billy wanted to continue talking, wondering what had made him want to touch back on the conversation they hadn't concluded.
"I mean- fuck, it's hard to talk about this shit. I'm not good at this. You said you and those little shit-stains had stuff going on behind the scenes, yeah? Well, I did too."
"This is the shittiest apology I've ever heard," Steve muttered. He would have laughed, if not for how hyper-aware he was of the strong feeling of gravity pressing down all around him. After what they'd just discovered, he wondered if he'd ever have the energy to laugh again. Not for the first time did he feel old beyond his years.
"Shut up," Billy hissed sharply, leaning away. As he moved, though, Steve moved with him and stretched back into the lean to maintain contact. Billy was warm and alive, and he needed that comfort. "It's just, I fucking-" he tried to say again, and growled when he couldn't finish his sentence. "It's just that I mistook you for someone else, alright? I didn't mean for it to be you," he said in one sharp breath that seemed to deflate him as it was spoken.
Steve frowned and turned his head to let his cheek rest against the span of Billy's back and tilted his face up towards his shoulder. "Mistook me- The fuck does that mean?" he asked morosely. Whatever Billy was trying to say wasn't making sense. "Who the hell did you mistake me for?"
Billy was silent for a long time. What remained of the cigarette that was perched between his fingers slowly burnt down into ash, and he let it drop into the snow. Steve felt his heart thudding in his chest and tried to ignore it, wondering if Billy was going to answer at all when-
"Just then, you looked a lot like my dad, is all," Billy said quietly, shifting uncomfortably in his seat with the admission. His voice, usually self-confident and full of a lazy sort of bravado, sounded almost timid, like he was afraid of being scolded. Steve recognized it as the soft sound of vulnerability.
The smoke from his cigarette drifted up and away from him, slow and indifferent to their plight. Steve heaved a heavy sigh and sat up, no longer pinning himself to Billy's back.
"I'm not going to say it's okay," Steve began to say, flicking his cigarette butt aside as he finished it, "because it's not- none of this shit is- but, for what it's worth, uh, thank you."
Billy shrugged, feigning indifference to the fact that he'd just handed Steve a piece of himself that'd he alone had been carrying the weight of for a long, long time. He sniffed awkwardly and rubbed at his face before standing up, mildly horrified at what he'd done.
"I gotta be home before morning," he said whilst clearing his throat. The situation had suddenly become awkward, and Billy was once again becoming avoidant with eye contact. "Was that-" he paused and gestured uselessly at the hole he'd dug- "all you wanted to show me?"
What if I said no, Steve thought to himself as he stared hard at the ground. What if I said there was more? What if I said I wanted to show you a piece of me, too? Would you run like you are now?
"Yeah," Steve said instead. "Yeah, that was all."
He watched as Billy took up the shovel and silently began to re-fill the hole, once again confining the demo-dog to its grave and burying their moment of shared intimacy with it. It was nice that they'd been able to talk more candidly with one another, but Steve knew they weren't likely to speak of it again. There were still things he wanted to say, but Billy had closed himself off before he could.
Out of sight, out of mind, Steve reflected sadly as he waited, but even still, he was glad that Billy had been able to open up to him at all. It was a step forward, and that thought at least warmed him enough to push some of the cool numbness out.