This Is The Most Terrifying Thing Billy’s Ever Done.

This is the most terrifying thing Billy’s ever done.

Forget staring up at a wave twice your height, forget staring down demodogs with nothing but a crowbar in his hands. Forget his dad staring him down across the dinner table.

Billy turns the Camaro’s engine off and stares up at Steve’s house, every window in the house lit. Steve left the porch lights on for him. When he knocks, Steve’s voice calls out,

“It’s open!”

Billy follows the smell of food to the kitchen, where Steve is standing bare chested in front of the stove, wearing only basketball shorts and stirring something in a pan. Usually, Billy’s skin feels like there’s a colony of ants crawling under it, making him jittery and anxious and angry, but the sight of the expanse of Steve’s back, with his wide, relaxed shoulders and his creamy skin and his moles, it settles something deep inside Billy. It makes his anthill calm.

“Hey,” Billy settles against Steve’s back, feeling the warmth of his skin on his chest through his open shirt. His hair is damp and he smells like shampoo, fresh from the shower. Billy knows Steve likes to shower as soon as he gets home from the Mall, or else the smell of ice cream lingers in his nose. He slides his lips over Steve’s shoulder until he reaches his neck, where he kisses him, slow and wet, until Steve leans back against him with a groan.

“You’re distracting me,” Steve whines, and turns his head to kiss him back any way. “I’m gonna burn the sauce.”

Billy groans when their tongues meet, shifts them so he can lean Steve against the counter without risk of getting burned.

“You’re distracting me, princess,” Billy says against Steve’s cheek. “Come home to find you half naked making me dinner like that…” It slips out, just like that. Come home. Like the Harrington’s big house belongs to just them, to Billy and Steve and this thing between them that’s been growing for months.

Billy remembers what he needs to do tonight, what he needs to say to Steve, and it sits like a stone in his stomach.

“I’m making us dinner, shithead. And it’s gonna burn if you don’t let me go,” Steve’s arms tighten around Billy’s waist, fingers digging into his skin under his shirt.

Billy can only hold him back, stroke his thumb over Steve’s cheek. Kiss him again.

He lets Steve go with a slap to the ass that has him sputtering and laughing as he turns back to the stove. Billy grabs two beers from the fridge and cracks them open, setting one next to Steve.

Steve leans in to kiss him thank you. He’s too sweet.

The sauce turns out alright, and they eat their pasta by the pool outside, trading stories about their days at work. Steve likes hearing about the little kids Billy teaches at the pool, because he’s a sap, and Billy cracks up whenever Steve tells him about the way Robin’s always on his ass.

When Steve comes back with more beers for them, Billy can’t put it off anymore. He has to get it over with, even it feels like he’s stabbing himself in the chest.

“I gotta talk to you about something,” Billy says as Steve sits down facing him.

Steve’s face is open, trusting. “Yeah?”

“I, uh… I’m leaving Hawkins, at the end of the summer. I’m going back to California.”

Billy looks Steve in the eye as he says it. He’s no coward. So he watches Steve’s eyes dim and his lips go slack, curling around the soft “oh” that comes out of his mouth, dipping at the end in disappointment.

“I thought…” Steve starts, and Billy can’t let him finish, can’t let him say whatever it is he was about to. If Steve gets worked up this might turn into a fight.

“I can’t stay,” He forces out. Looks down at the beer can he hasn’t taken a sip of yet. “Not with- I can’t stay.”

“Billy-”

“But I thought maybe,” Billy stops, licks his lips. Takes a breath. This is scarier than the demodogs, the thought that Steve might say no, “I thought, maybe, you could come with me.”

His heart is pounding in his chest and the anthill has woken up, making Billy feel like he’s gotta get up and run to the Camaro and speed out of here, but he bugs his fingers into his knees and stares blankly ahead.

“You mean it?” There’s an edge to Steve’s voice that Billy hasn’t heard before. “You’re not saying that cause you think I’m gonna say no?”

Billy rears back, tries to make sense of what Steve just said and comes up empty.

“What the fuck, Steve,” He snaps. “Of course not.”

Whatever Steve hears in his voice seems to settle him, because his shoulders relax and he grins that big, goofy smile of his.

“Okay,” He laughs, giddy. “Okay, yeah.”

It takes Billy a second to get it, then he can only laugh with Steve.

“Yeah?”

Steve nods, and barely sets his beer aside before pouncing on Billy, laying him back on the patio floor and laying all his weight on Billy just to lay a searing kiss on his lips. The heat of Steve’s mouth is familiar and comforting, and Billy lets himself sink into the kiss like he’s done a hundred times before, lets it melt his spine and warm his chest like it always does. Let it call him home.

“I love you,” Steve says against his mouth, and Billy closes his eyes tight, nudges his nose against Steve’s.

“Love you,” Billy’s voice is barely a murmur, but Steve hears it anyway.

Billy’s heart is pounding for a different reason, now. There was no need to be scared at all. Nothing else feels scary, or like he can’t get through it, when Steve’s there. So they’re getting through this summer, together. And when it ends, they’re leaving Hawkins in the rearview mirror, together.