Chapter Text
Billy was on the porch. He seemed to be on the porch more often than not these days. Except lately Hopper had taken to sitting on the porch next to him, pressing the side of his leg into Billy’s, the warmth reaching Billy even through his jeans. Maybe it was because he felt bad, or because he was scared Billy would lose it again, but it didn’t really bother Billy either way. Hell, even he didn’t know if he was going to lose it again.
Things had been better. There was a dresser in his room, and school had started up, which meant he got to drive Max home every day. It was bizarre to think he was excited to see the little brat, but that was the way things had turned out. He ended up seeing her once or twice a week anyway, with him, Hopper, and El getting invited over to eat dinner with the Byer’s on a regular basis. Steve had somehow managed to end up a part of those too, and Billy often found himself sandwiched between Max and Steve, elbows crowding in on each other as they shoved folding chairs into the gaps between dining room chairs.
Out on the porch he was down to the last stub of his cigarette, dropping it before it reached his fingers. Hopper had joined him later in the evening, and the cigarette he was holding was only halfway gone, the cherry at the end glowing a bright red against the slowly darkening haze of dusk that was settling over the clearing.
Billy felt untethered. He supposed that was the best way of describing it. The past decade or so of his life had been like living on a tightrope. There wasn’t time to relax, because if you did you’d fall. Except now he was off the tightrope. And he could barely remember what solid ground felt like, to the point where he wasn’t sure how to stand on it.
“What are you up to tomorrow?” Hopper asked, his voice breaking through Billy’s thoughts.
Billy scratched the back of his head. “Pick-up game at Steve’s. I’ll probably be back by three.”
Hopper nodded, breathing out a cloud of smoke. “I have a question for you.”
Billy automatically tensed, his heart rate picking up as Hopper said those words. In his experience, questions usually meant bad shit was going to happen. And he was sick and tired of bad shit happening.
Hopper glanced over at him, and placed a hand on his knee. “Nothing bad, you’re not in trouble.”
“I know I’m not in fucking trouble,” Billy muttered, trying to shake the jitters from his voice. “I did the dishes like you asked me to. And I was home by curfew.”
Hopper moved his hand from Billy’s knee to the back of Billy’s neck, covering Billy’s hand that was anxiously pulling at his hair. “Breathe, kiddo. I can feel the tension in your shoulders.”
Billy let his hand fall out of Hopper’s grip, silently thankful when the man kept his hand firmly against the nape of Billy’s neck. He let out a shaky breath, trying to bleed the stiffness from his spine. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for,” Hopper said. “Alright now?”
Billy nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. You can ask your question or whatever.”
“What were your plans for after high school?”
And the tension was right back, crawling up Billy’s spine because he could never truly get rid of it. “I’m looking for a job,” Billy said, talking fast, trying to explain everything in a second. “I’ll start saving now, and I’ll have enough by graduation to rent a place. I can move all my stuff too, it’s only my clothes and shit, so it won’t even take long.”
“Billy, stop. That’s not what I meant. No way in hell am I letting you rent an apartment by yourself at 18. You’re staying here until you go to college or until you’re 21. Whichever comes first. I’m not kicking you out. I was asking about college. What were your thoughts on that.”
“Oh,” Billy said, furrowing his brows. “Like, if I can go? Because I’m broke as shit, Hop. I couldn’t afford it even if I got in.”
“Well how about we try looking for scholarships, alright? There are some good schools near Hawkins that you can apply to.”
“I think you’re severely overestimating my academic achievements,” Billy said. “Nobody would pay for my grades.”
“What about a sports scholarship? You can really work a ball, kid.”
Billy jerked his head to look at Hopper. “They have sports scholarships?”
“Yeah, they have all kinds of scholarships. You’ve never looked? At all?”
“No, I did,” Billy said, returning his gaze to the tree line. “Back in Cali. But it was a couple years ago, so I don’t really remember what I found.”
“Should have written those down,” Hopper said, giving Billy’s shoulder a small squeeze. “Would have saved us some time.”
Billy gave a bitter smile. “I did. And then Neil found it and introduced it to our shredder. He thought it was a waste of time.”
“Sorry, kiddo. That must have hurt.”
Billy shrugged. “I was stupid, left it out in the open. Ran my mouth a little too much. It was my fault for being such a little shit. I was old enough to know that if you poked the bear it backhanded you.”
“That’s so wrong on so many levels. But it was absolutely not your fault, got it? I’ll say it as many times as it will take, none of it is your fault. Especially not your dad.”
“Fuck off with your self-love bullshit,” Billy said, leaning a little into Hopper’s side. “You’re ruining the mood.”
“No, you ruined the mood when you pulled out the deprecating no college for me shit. I was just continuing the cycle.”
Billy laughed out loud, a deep, honest thing that came from his chest. “Alright, I’ll look for the damn scholarships. Are you happy?”
Hopper looked at him in a way that Neil never had. “Thrilled.”
“My tongue’s bleeding,” Steve said, swiping a finger across his tongue and grimacing when it came back red.
“The fuck?” Billy said, looking up from his beer. “How the hell did you do that?”
Steve held up the bag of sour candy. “I think they’re acidic, man.”
“No shit, they’re goddamn acidic,” Billy said, snatching the bag out of Steve’s hand. “How many of these did you have?”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t know, just subtract how many you had from what’s gone.”
“I had one,” Billy deadpanned, showing Steve the nearly empty inside. “You have no sense of self-control.
“Fuck you,” Steve said, letting his head fall back against the windshield of his car. “I’m going through a tough time right now.”
“No, you’re just an idiot who didn’t study for his math test.”
“I was under some goddamn extenuating circumstances.”
Billy raised an eyebrow. “I can’t believe you actually thought Mr. Hernan would fall for that. I wasn’t even being serious in the first place.”
“What can I say,” Steve said lazily, throwing an arm across his eyes. “I’m a loyal friend. You go down, I go down with you.”
“Yeah, cause using my piece-of-shit father as an excuse to get out of studying is really the epitome of friendship.”
“I’m emotionally supporting you, Billy. So shut the hell up.”
“Shove it up your fucking ass,” Billy said, a small smile twitching at the edge of his mouth. “You talk too much.”
There was a lull of silence, and Billy sat there breathing in the smell of the summer heat. It would rain later in the afternoon, he could see it in the clouds, but he was almost looking forward to it. Being shut in the house with Hopper and El was quite different from being stuck in the house with Neil.
Which, speaking of rain, meant he needed to head back home and mow the lawn before the downpour started. Hopper had given him a list of chores to pick from, and he had gone with mowing the lawn. It was a needed change from the endless indoor chores he had done throughout his life, and he found that the constant whirring of the motor helped his brain quiet down. At least for a little while.
“Hey, Billy?”
Billy glanced over at Steve, who was sitting upright and looking at Billy with an odd expression on his face. Billy sat up too, frowning at the odd change in tone. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for not noticing anything was up. Because there was a lot of really obvious shit that I didn’t see, and you wouldn’t have had to go through half the fucking mess you did if I was a little less oblivious.”
Billy blinked at him. “The fuck?”
Steve winced. “And I know that it probably means jack shit, and too little too late and all that, but I wanted you to know that I wish I had done something.”
Billy gave a breathy laugh, the situation feeling a little surreal. “What the hell were you supposed to do, Steve? Walk up to my dad and say ‘Hey man, I’d appreciate it if you stopped beating up your son on the weekends’?”
It was Steve’s turn to blink. “Yeah? Something like that?”
“Well that would have just made shit worse, so thank fuck you were oblivious. I don’t blame you for any of this, I have no idea where you got any of that bullshit from. Besides I literally smashed a plate across your head. It was a miracle you even talked to me in the first place.”
Steve opened his mouth to reply and Billy made sure to cut him off. “You were there, alright? And that’s all you needed to do. So shut up with the apology bit.”
Steve’s face relaxed into something a little softer, and he reached up to rake his hair away from his face. “I still feel like a real asshole though.”
Billy took another swig of his beer before passing it over to Steve. “Oh, don’t worry. You’re the biggest ass I know. It’s just not because of my dad.”
Steve took the bottle out of Billy’s hand and laughed. “Good to know.”
Billy was on the couch in the living room with Max curled up under his arm. Hopper was over at Joyce’s house, and El was over at Mike’s place. So for the next couple of hours it was just him, Max, and old reruns on the T.V. Hopper managed to orchestrate afternoons like these at least three or four times a month, giving space to the desperate frayed string that ran between Billy and Max.
It was an odd relationship. They had both spent the majority of their time together practicing disdain and anger, each of them using the other as a scapegoat for the sideshow that was the Mayfield-Hargrove residence. Max’s had been out of confusion and Billy’s was out of pain, but they still met in the middle and clashed like nothing else could.
Max’s revelation of the true situation had filed down some of the sharp edges, but there was still the lingering animosity. As much as Billy knew none of it was truly her fault, he couldn’t help but feel differently when the sting of leather was biting into his bare skin. Sometimes walking out of his room and seeing her, standing there with not a single goddamn mark because no one ever touched Max, was just too much. And when it exploded, who else was there to receive the brunt of it?
But that night, when Max had stormed out into the living room with a petrified fury, standing up to Neil with a ferocity that spoke of inexperience and innocence, Billy couldn’t find it in him to be mad at her. Sure, he was going to feel every one of her words on his skin later, but she was trying. God , was she trying. So he hadn’t felt bitter when Neil’s face went cold and the belt came out. Only a grim acceptance. Just because Neil was going to drag him down, didn’t mean he had to drag someone else down with him.
So now he did things like movie nights with her, where she leaned into his side and stole his popcorn. She’d ramble on about her day, telling him stories of what she and the nerd squad had gotten up to while she was out and about. And somehow that made him feel just a little less lost. A little less ungrounded.
Sometimes that panicked, ungrounded feeling would surge up and hit him full force in the chest, knocking the breath from his lungs. It didn’t discriminate against location or situation, striking just as hard in his room as it did shopping with Hopper or sitting on the couch with Max. Hopper would always guide him through it with his words, slow soft statements that would reach through the vice around Billy’s chest. Usually it was accompanied by a firm hand on his shoulder or the back of his neck, holding him steady while things went fuzzy. Max would just wrap her hand around his wrist and squeeze, tethering him to reality with her grip. He was too tired to be embarrassed about it.
“I can hear you thinking.”
Billy snapped back to reality and glanced down at Max. “Yeah, it’s something people do. Maybe you should try it sometime.”
She jabbed an elbow into his side. “Yeah but you get a weird look on your face when you’re worried about something. So tell me.”
“I’m not worried about anything, jeez. Stop trying to psychoanalyze me.”
“Just tell me.”
Billy gave a relenting shrug. “Just college stuff.”
“Oh. Well college is good.”
Billy flicked her in the side of the head. “No shit.”
The front door slammed open and El marched in, her hair pulled up into a messy bun that Billy already knew was Max’s influence.
“Holy crap, kiddo,” Billy said, turning around to look at her. “You couldn’t have done that a little softer? Where’s Hop?”
“Carrying groceries,” El announced, rounding the side of the couch and dropping next to Max. “We have no more eggs.”
“I thought he was going to drive you and Max back to Ms. Byers’ place?”
“Yeah, slight change of plans,” Hopper said, walking through the door before shutting it with the heel of his boot. “Joyce wants to bring us casserole.”
”Casserole?”
“Don’t even ask,” Hopper said, setting the bags he was carrying down on the counter. “Mind giving me a hand with these?”
“Yeah, sure,” Billy said, already half off the couch. The groceries were roughly divided into healthy and unhealthy, and Billy started working on the fruits and vegetables bag, stacking strawberries and green beans into the fridge drawers.
“It’s just us tonight,” Hopper said, accepting an empty plastic bag from Billy. “Got any ideas of what you want to do?”
Billy shrugged. “I’m not picky.”
“I didn’t ask if you were picky,” Hopper said, raising his eyebrows at Billy. “I asked if you had any ideas.”
Billy let out a huff of amusement, shooting a side glance at Hopper. “Yeah, and what if I wanted you to choose what we did?”
“Not on the menu today.”
Billy took a quick glance over his shoulder to ensure that El was engrossed in her conversation with Max before turning back to Hopper with a barely audible “Fuck your menu”.
“You’re toeing the line there,” Hopper said with mock seriousness. “I’m fining you a quarter for each one of your words she repeats.”
“Put it on my bill,” Billy announced with all the confidence of the men on the boardwalks he used to steal ID’s from back in California. Just the implication of money emanating from the photo was enough to get you through almost any door on the strip.
“You try that line when you’re a little older.”
“Buzzkill. Can we watch that Bogart movie you said was good?”
“The Caine Mutiny?”
“If that’s the one you said was good.”
“Trust me kid, it’s great.”
There was a flurry of knocks at the door and Hopper gave Billy’s shoulder a quick squeeze as he passed by to let in Ms. Byers. The knock was a distinct one, and it usually meant the arrival of food. So yeah, Billy fucking loved that knock.
“You made them cake!?” Max shouted from her vantage spot on the couch. “They get cake!?”
“How about we try that on a much quieter level,” Joyce said, giving Max an eyebrow raise and a small smile.
“Did you make two cakes?” Max asked, lowering her voice. “Please tell me you made two cakes.”
“I made two cakes,” Joyce said, handing off the casserole and cake to Hopper. “But two people are not getting any until they finish the dishes.”
Max scrunched her nose in irritation. “Will said he’d wash them after he did his homework. And I can’t dry until he starts that.”
“Well then why didn’t you wash them?” Joyce said, giving Billy a soft smile as she passed him by.
“I hate washing the dishes.”
“That’s because she’s never had to do chores in her entire life,” Billy said, leaning against the counter. “I don’t think she even knows where our cleaning supplies are.”
Max flushed. “Mom always did the chores anyway, so it wasn’t like I had a chance to find out.”
“Susan didn’t do shit,” Billy drawled out. “I don’t think she’s touched a broom since you guys moved in.”
Max started to furrow her brow in confusion before the realization took hold, the amusement dropping from her eyes like a stone.”Oh. I’m sorry Billy. I wasn’t thinking--I didn’t mean--.”
Billy shrugged. “I’m not upset. Just saying that washing dishes isn’t awful. If you throw on music it’s kinda fun.”
“Will has a couple records,” Max supplied, trying to make up for her earlier words. “I’ll do it when I get home, Ms. Byers. Promise.”
“I know,” Joyce, said with a small smile. “And I’m sure Will’s homework will be done by the time we get home, so you might even do it together. Are you and El ready to go?”
El’s head shot up from behind the couch with a wide and guilty expression. “Oops.”
Max glanced over at her and they met glances for a second before bursting into a round of giggles. El scampered off the couch with Max in tow, disappearing into her room to pack.
“Would you like to borrow some wine?” Hopper asked dryly. “I have a feeling you’ll be needing it.”
“Trust me,” She said, wrapping an arm around Hopper’s waist. “I have a collection bigger than yours.”
Billy turned against the counter, resting his back against the edge. “Do you want me to bring the girls’ stuff to your car?”
“Oh, no,” Joyce said, waving her hand. “They’re completely able to do it themselves.”
A loud thump emanated from El’s room and Hopper winced. “I hope that wasn’t the furniture.”
Joyce pulled a package of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket and placed it conspicuously on the counter. “I think you’ll need these.”
Billy stifled a laugh and pulled his pack out of his jeans. “Here you go,” he said, tossing it onto the table next to Joyce’s pack. “Just in case.”
“You’re both insufferable,” Hopper grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets as he walked out of the kitchen. “I’ll go make sure they haven’t broken anything.”
Joyce leaned back against the counter next to Billy and watched Hopper open the door. There was a shriek, and then El pushed past him with a suitcase in hand. Max was right behind, ducking under Hopper’s arm with a quick grin. Hopper glanced into the room and muttered something under his breath, stepping inside and disappearing from view.
“Five dollars it’s the dresser,” Joyce said, shooting Billy a side glance.
“Ten it’s the nightstand.”
Joyce stuck out her hand and they shook on it.
Max and El clambered down the porch stairs as Hopper came back out of the room with an amused look on his face.
“They knocked the damn nightstand over.”
“Damn it,” Joyce said, digging in her back pocket for a ten dollar bill. “You had the home field advantage.”
Billy grinned and tucked the bill into his pocket. “Gotta play the cards right.”
“Did you two bet on that?” Hopper asked. “Get out of my house, Joyce. And take the monsters with you. Billy and I are going to waste the whole afternoon. And we need silence to do that.”
“You two better keep this house intact,” Joyce scolded with a warm smile. “I need somewhere to send the girls when they’ve made me lose my mind.”
“Aye aye Captain,” Billy said, giving her a salute.
She lingered for a moment before shaking her head and heading out the door. Billy watched the doorway she had just went through, a little weight in his chest lifting. An arm settled around his shoulder, firm and grounding, but not in the harsh way Neil used his arms. This one was something to lean against.
“You alright, Billy?”
Billy shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. “Yeah, I’m alright.”