Chapter Text
He came to in a hospital bed, the room empty and sterile.
Wait. No. Fuck.
Not empty.
Because Steve is there, not a letter, and he's gripping at the railing attached to Billy's hospital bed. His knuckles have turned a ghostly white, but there’s only one hand on the railing.
His other is clenched in someone else's, and when Billy finally chances a glance upward, he sees it’s Eddie.
And Billy feels his heart drop to a hollow space in his chest, because God, he’s a fucking idiot.
In a moment of adrenaline-fueled terror, Eddie had kissed him. But Billy should’ve known he was a cheap rebound. Maybe he was trying to butter Billy up in case Steve didn’t make it, use him as some kind of grief-induced replacement. And God, how fucked up that was. Maybe he should tell Steve that Eddie is so awful that he’d be willing to do something like that. He’s feeling vindictive.
Hargrove always felt vindictive. Billy wonders if it’d just be easier to fall right back into him, like his former persona was just a second skin, and not a distant memory.
“Billy? Oh, thank fuck, Steve, he’s awake.” Eddie gestures for a doctor. “Hey, hey! He’s up.”
Billy only fights the urge to sneer because he’s surrounded by medical staff prissing and preening about him, mumbling about fractures. It’s the worst kind of deja vu.
When the staff leaves to grab whatever else, Billy lets the pleasantries fall.
“I'm surprised you care. Seems to me like you've found something more permanent." Billy lets his rage do the talking. "You only kiss me because we were about to die, Munson? Because you wanted the Billy Hargrove experience before you kicked the bucket?”
Surprisingly, it’s Steve who speaks next, coming to Eddie’s defense. “No, no — that’s not it at all, man, please—”
“Oh, fuck off." Billy bites. "I don’t want your shitty fucking excuses for Eddie, Steve. God, I knew I was nothing but a fucking toy for you, but Eddie—” Billy desperately tries to chase the feeling of Eddie away from his lips as he recalls it. “You fucking kissed me because…”
Billy almost wants to rock back and forth, to beg and plead for the two of them to love him back truly. But instead, he asks the nurses to get the pair out, insisting he wants to be alone.
So, they leave. Looking solemn, but Billy knows it's fake.
And that’s when Billy curls himself into a ball.
They fit him into a cast, and it’s three days into Billy's hospital stay before they finally let him see Max. Billy runs as fast as he can on crutches and hindered by a cast to see her. He ushers himself into the room, and—
Max is lying there, and he refuses to believe it’s her for a second.
Max was never still like this. Max’s fiery hair reflected her attitude, always bursting with vigor.
But here she was, confined by machines and casts.
Billy resists the urge to scream and disturb the peace. He doesn’t let anything show, doesn’t let the other kids see anything on his face.
“Billy?”
It’s Eleven.
And Billy crumbles in her arms, because no matter how much he hides it,
he's so fucking weak.
“I never got to—” He heaves. “She wanted to teach me how to skate. She wanted to show me all the movies we missed, everything we fucking missed because I treated her like she wasn’t there.” He can barely get the words out. “And now she really isn't. And I wasted all those little chances I had.”
Will and Mike are still, but he feels the gentle placement of a hand on his back. He wishes Max got that gentle touch, instead. She was the one who deserved it, and Billy was the one who deserved to be rotting in that hospital bed.
Billy never deserved to wake up.
“Hey, uh,” Lucas begins. His voice sounds wry from screaming. “Can you give me and Billy a sec?”
Mike relents with a solemn nod, and the other two follow out with him.
That leaves him and Lucas.
“She wished a lot of bad things upon you.” Lucas starts, looking at Max. Holding her hand.
“Fuck if I know,” Billy smiles, but it’s so hollow.
“But she never hated you.” He continues. “You should’ve seen how happy she was at the first hint you weren’t dead. She searched for hours.” Lucas giggles. “Dragged me right along with her, too. And when she saw you again, she… I’d never seen her that happy. I’ve never seen her happier than in those moments where you were with her.”
Billy doesn’t speak, because he’s afraid he’ll choke again.
“At least you know she has those happy memories,” He sees Lucas squeeze her hand, and it seems like he’s talking about himself and Billy. “Those happy memories to watch while she’s sleeping.”
Billy walks over to where Lucas is standing, and the teen swings an arm over his shoulder. He’s gotten so much taller.
He places his hand in between Lucas and Max's intertwined ones, and wraps his fingers around them both. He sucks in a breath.
“I hope she only has to see the happy ones.”
“Yeah,” Lucas says, squeezing again. “Me too.”
Billy is glad he doesn’t have to go through the rounds of physical therapy again, that his leg will heal on its own. He’s even so used to his crutches that they don’t even bother him anymore.
He volunteers, now. Eddie and Steve do, too, but he’s done his damndest to avoid them. He helps the search and rescue find everyone who went missing during the “earthquake”, and prays nobody loses anyone like he lost Max.
He and Lucas visit every day. Lucas has stopped throwing him so many distrustful looks, now, and they talk about everything they loved about Max, every experience they shared with her.
He decides to help Eleven fix up Hopper’s cabin, upon discovering he’d returned with Joyce. Billy finds it ironic, in a way: how they’d both survived, but one ended up all the way in Russia, and Billy stayed put inside of Hawkins.
Billy is resting outside, watching Jonathan and Nancy. He doesn’t have much he can help with, and regrets it. It’s Eleven who taps him on the shoulder, and he looks down at her. The two of them hadn’t talked much since they'd reunited, but it’s telling that he’s the closest to Eleven out of all the kids. She’d seen him, and that’s more than anything else.
“Hopper wants to talk to you.”
Billy nods and follows Eleven inside. He assumes the conversation will be about what happened at Starcourt, an attempt to explain.
“Hargrove. Been a damn while, hasn’t it?”
Billy nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it has. I can’t believe you…”
“Survived? Me neither, son. And, hey: feeling’s mutual.” He pats the spot next to him on the dirty floor. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
Billy hesitates to follow. He’s never been trusting of older males because of his father, but—
“Did’ya know Neil got sent to the station plenty of times? Loud noises over at your house, disrupting everything on a goddamn drunken tirade.” Hopper looks at Billy. “Goddamn nuisance, I tell ya’. Not sure why I never…”
Billy tries not to get defensive. “Not your fault, Chief. Nobody noticed. And it’s not like I was gonna say shit.” Billy laughs wryly.
“Why don’t you stay with us?”
Billy blinks, but Hopper doesn’t let him interrupt. “We have an extra space here, anyway. And the place has been so empty lately, we might need an extra person to make up for the loss. So, me and Joyce were thinkin’...”
“Hey,” Eleven reprimands. “I brought it up, as well.”
“Right.” Hopper laughs. “Point still stands. After we fix this place up, we were thinkin’ you could fill it out. Eleven and Will need a tough eye beside me.”
"I'm tough enough!" Joyce interrupts, carrying a box of tools down the hall. Hopper snorts again.
Billy stalls for a moment.
Robin and Vickie had been discussing moving in together, and Billy had already said he’d be glad to give up his spare room. And then, his only choice would be to go back to California. Back with…
Billy shakes.
“Yeah,” he nods. His smile is weak. “I think I’d like that.”
Billy thinks, if the word is ending, he’s glad it’s ending with him here.
He’d managed to make the spare room in the cabin look like home, and Joyce and Hopper had been nothing but accommodating. Will had made a ramp next to the stairs for his crutches, mentioning he’d picked up some construction knowledge from building Castle Byers. Eleven always came to check on him when she sensed he was thinking of Neil again.
But there was still something missing, and it came knocking on his doorstep one fateful summer day.
“What,” Billy says, dryly. “Do you want.”
“To talk,” Steve answers. “We’re not vampires. I’m not waiting for you to invite us in.”
Billy scowls, but steps aside. He limps over to his room, covered in his posters and photos that Jonathan had taken of him, Eleven, Will, Hopper, and Joyce. It feels like home, and though he wants to say that Steve and Eddie are contaminating it, he knows they’re just adding to the energy.
Eddie breaks the awkward silence first. “I would’ve kissed you again. Even if we weren’t doomed. But then you up and ran!”
“Not like it matters now.” Billy scowls, gesturing lazily to Steve from where he’s sprawled out on his bed. “You have Steve. No need to lower your standards again.”
“Yeah, but we want you, too!” Steve shouts, and Billy’s face contorts into surprise, because out of the three of them, he never expected Steve to take the initiative.
He chooses not to further it.
“Why?” He implores. “Just— why? You two have each other. Your perfect little fucking dynamic. And you wanna bring me into it?” He rocks a bit. “You want me to infect Harrington and Munson with Hargrove? It’s fucking self-sabotage, is what it is.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Hargrove—” Steve barks. “Have you ever considered you’ve worked hard enough to fucking deserve happiness? Considered that you deserve anything other than treating yourself like you should’ve died that day? Because fucking newsflash!” Steve shouts. “You didn’t!"
“God, pretty boy, you have no idea—”
Steve shuts him up with his lips. Yet Eddie keeps fucking talking.
“I don’t think you’re aware, Hargrove, so let me spell it out loud and clear for ya’,” Eddie collapses next to Billy on the bed— forgetting to mind his injuries and wincing— before grabbing his hip for good measure. “Harrington over here has loved ya’ since you fuckin’ overthrew him, because God knows he’s a masochist.” Steve pulls off Billy, making an indignant sound, but Eddie continues. “And I have loved you since you stood me up in that goddamn forest. Speaking off, I will be cashing in that favor.”
“You already have, damn it—” Billy implores.
“Anyway— if you don’t deserve this because of whatever fucking shit you’ve done.” Eddie huffs. “Then maybe you should atone for it by letting me and Harrington be a little selfish— and letting us take what we want.”
“Which is this, by the way.” Steve finishes. “Since you seem pretty keen on being a dense asshole.
“God,” Billy laughs, dragging his hands down his face. “You guys are such fuckin’ pricks.”
“That a yes, Hargrove?” Eddie purrs.
“According to you, Munson, I need to atone and don’t have a choice.” Billy groans.
“Halt it,” Eddie says. “I’m all about consent, baby. It’s a yes or no.”
And when Billy is confronted by Steve’s stupid fucking puppy dog eyes and Eddie’s tempting voice, well,
would you say no?
His answer comes out, and apparently, Steve and Eddie want to make up for lost time, because Eddie immediately pulls Billy’s head into his lap, and Steve curls up in his side. It’s then that Billy realizes his residual emptiness aside from Max is a lack of this. A lack of being one with Eddie and Steve, a lack of Eddie absentmindedly braiding Billy’s hair between his fingers, of Steve playing with his frayed Bon Jovi shirt.
“I’m getting you a new one of these,” Steve mutters.
“We can all match,” Eddie drawls. “I’ll get a Metallica shirt, and we’ll get Stevie his nice little Madonna—”
“I do not fucking listen to Madonna—”
“His nice little Madonna shirt.” Eddie finishes, and Steve pinches at his bicep. Eddie squeaks, but Billy stays quiet.
“Billy?” Steve tilts his head. “You alright there?”
“Yeah,” Billy mutters, staring at the Slippery When Wet poster nailed to his ceiling. “Just peachy, pretty boy.”
Billy thinks of how, eventually, he’ll be dragged back into Hell.
But now, he has company.
The door begins to swing shut, before it opens with a gust of air.
“Three inches.” Eleven reprimands, and Steve shoots her a dirty look. Billy just laughs.
And, yeah, Billy thinks.
Burning is a lot better when you have somebody else sharing the flames.