Archive of Our Own ^beta

October in Hawkins is known for its chill, the way it bites at exposed skin, leaks into the marrow of poorly-wrapped bones. Steve’s breath hangs in a haze before him, illuminated by the moonlight. His fingers are numb, nails dirty, joints stiff from the cold. He feels sick, stone settling heavy in the pit of his stomach, stares at the remains of his completed ritual.

The old, abandoned cemetery just off the railroad tracks seemed like the perfect place to have some privacy, to be alone. He couldn’t risk someone stumbling by, interrupting what he’s started, what he now has to finish.

But maybe this is a gag, right? Maybe it won’t work, just some old nonsense he found in the forgotten archives of the local library. Honestly, it was a shit idea, but Steve is so tired of the nightmares going on in this town, so tired of chasing after a gaggle of teenagers trying to save the world. He’s tired of waking up and seeing a flower-gaping maw in every shadow, of smelling ash on every wayward breeze.

And well, that musty tome hiding in the dark corner of Hawkins Library promised a solution, and the terms weren’t that dire, so.

Here he is, hanging out by himself in a creepy graveyard the night before Halloween, waiting on — something.

But it’s been 17 minutes since he finished the ritual and nothing has happened; he’s still alone. The only noise comes from his sneakers crunching against dead-brown pine needles and fallen leaves as he digs his heels into the ground, hands clenching in his jacket pockets as he tries to regain blood flow. His lower lip throbs sorely from aggressive, absent-minded chewing. Every nerve in his body feels strung out. The cemetery continues to sprawl before him, full of bones, empty of life.

He’s about to begin the trek back to his car, call this solo adventure an epic waste of time, when he sees a low-yellow glow in his periphery. Hears the subtle clink of a lighter; the acrid smell of cigarette smoke comes inching over shortly after.

Steve’s heart makes a beeline for his throat. “Hello?” His voice cracks as he calls out, legs unsteady as a foal’s when he heads toward the fading-red glare of a burning cigarette.

No one answers him, but he can see the faint outline of a person, the flash of white teeth. Nudging closer reveals other details; a partially unbuttoned shirt, jean jacket, blonde curls. They lean against a gothic sarcophagus; a crumbling stone gargoyle stands watch, peeks over the stranger’s shoulder.

“What are you doing out here?” Steve asks, slow. The chill in the air has grown stronger, temperature dropping.

Those pearly teeth glisten in the shadows, cat-that-got-the-canary. “Well,” the stranger says, voice rich and rough and low, the sound soothing over Steve’s itchy, skittish skin. “Aren’t you a pretty one?”

As though that was an acceptable response under any set of circumstances, never mind the one in which they found themselves – alone in a long-forgotten cemetery.

“I asked you a question,” Steve utters with a confidence he doesn’t feel. Experiences a stab of regret for not bringing his bat down from the car. He hadn’t considered encountering an audience other than the one he sought. Wasn’t sure he really expected to get even that.

“You called,” he says, touching the tip of his tongue to too-white teeth, “I came.”

When Steve begins to cast an uncertain look over his shoulder at the offering he’d prepared, the stranger laughs, and he swears he feels it like a caress despite the distance between them. He takes a moment to consider the unlikelihood that that fucking book worked at all, and to steel his resolution.

“Been a long time since that particular technique’s been used,” he comments, only when Steve grants him his full attention again. He pushes off the stone monument and meanders closer. It’s only when the stranger has taken several strides that Steve realizes with a sudden chill that his footfalls are silent.

“Where’d you find it?”

“The-” Steve starts, stops. Swallows, then tries again, “The library.”

“The library,” he repeats, and somehow sounds even more pleased than before, “That’s new. Sure appreciate the effort you went to,” he nods towards Steve’s offering, “But next time all you gotta do is ask.”

“For what?” Steve asks, tongue thick and dumb in his mouth.

The stranger’s smile broadens.

“You tell me.”

A beat of silence, and then two. Steve is suddenly aware of his heartbeat, and the rustling of leaves beyond his line of sight in the dim moonlight. The silence out here is loud, the isolation oppressive, and Steve has to remind himself what he came out here to do.

Plus, he considers while giving the smiling, smoking figure a onceover, he isn’t alone anymore.

“How does this— I mean, how do I know—” Steve stumbles, unsure of how to ask for what he needs before he can even ask. “I’m way out of my depth here,” he adds like that wasn’t entirely apparent, and feels stupid when that registers, “Obviously, uh. What I mean is. How do I know you’re…”

“The morningstar?” he asks, arching a shapely brow at Steve, “Mara? Iblis? Hades?”

Steve goes stock still and watches him inhale deeply on his cigarette. Watches him exhale after tipping his chin back, watches the way his eyes – shockingly blue, Steve can tell, even in the dark – lift to watch the smoke be carried off by the chilly breeze.

Watches as his eyes shine when they catch the moonlight. Realizes, with dread knotting low in his belly, that human eyes don’t glow that way.

“Guess you gotta take it on faith.” he eventually says, smirking. “You got a name, pretty boy?”

“Steve,” he answers, though he’s not sure he even needs to; he has a feeling his name is already known.

As though reading his mind, the stranger rumbles another laugh.

“Steve,” he replies, enunciating slow, looking as though he was savoring the feel and taste of his name as one would a vintage wine. “Well, Steve. You can call me Billy.”

“I don’t—” Steve licks at dry lips, veins feeling fit to burst. “I don’t care. Can we just get this over with?”

The stranger —Billy— doesn’t even look offended, just grins at Steve, wicked. “Whatever you want, sweetheart. Just tell me what you need. I am here to serve.”

All Steve has to do is say the words, but his teeth seem sealed shut, tongue gluey, stuck to the roof of his mouth. His fingers twitch nervously in his pockets, eyes never leaving Billy. Finally, after an eternity of forcing his mouth to open, of relearning how to speak, Steve says, “The things that go on in this town, man. You wouldn’t believe it.” Steve shakes his head, breathes deep and steady. “There’s a world here, an alternate dimension or some shit, I don’t know, but my friends aren’t safe. I need it gone or just, like, taken care of? Or a way to take care of it, but if you can help me? I’d give you anything.”

“Anything?” Billy echoes, sly. He's wormed his way into Steve's personal space now. The burning snub of Billy's cigarette is flicked away, an afterthought. Greedy, the darkness swallows it whole, nothing left. “Do you know what kind of power that gives me?”

Those words send goosebumps bubbling over Steve's skin. “It's—" He worries the inside of his cheek, looks to where the cigarette disappeared in the shadows. That blood-soaked cherry should still be visible, right? Glowing bright. But it's gone, blinked out of existence. Steve looks to Billy. “It's just an expression. The book said—"

“The book said, ‘a soulful exchange by which the dealer deems fit’,” Billy finishes, eyeing Steve’s pulse, thrumming unsteadily beneath the soft flesh of Steve’s throat. “So, what would you give me, precious?” Billy asks, quiet. “What would you give to keep your friends safe?”

Stillness haunts the cemetery, everything seems to wait on Steve’s response. Even the moon appears to have grown wider, curious, casting Billy in an unearthly light. Steve wants to believe that this is just a bad dream turned worse, but Billy’s leaning closer; Steve can feel every exhale, warm and gentle against his skin. “My soul,” he finally answers.

Billy snorts, rolls his eyes, steps back. “I’m disappointed, Steve. I expected something more.”

Steve frowns. “What, is my soul not good enough for you?”

That slick tongue slides out between plump-shiny lips, slithers like a worm in wet dirt. “Your soul is perfect. Fresh and full and genuine,” Billy says, the words dripping ominously in the night air. “But your soul isn’t what I want.”

Steve feels like they’re talking in circles, irritation blooming in the clench of his fists still hiding in his jacket pockets. “You asked what I was willing to give and I gave you an answer.”

A patient, indulgent smile spreads easy and eerie over Billy’s face. “It was the wrong answer.”

“This is ridiculous!” Steve grits. “Just tell me what you want me to say!”

Billy sighs, bored. “That's not how this works, Stevie.” He moves impossibly closer to Steve, uncomfortable, runs the tip of a finger down the smooth line of Steve's jaw. It burns, scorching hot. “I came all this way, and you don't even know what you're willing to trade? Throw around the word ‘anything’ only to offer something as mundane as your soul—”

Steve jerks away, lips curling in distaste. “Look, man—"

“Give me an answer; I don't care for people who waste my time.” Billy's voice is crisp, suddenly colder than the icy chill of the air surrounding them.

“What do you want from me?” Steve snaps, backed into a corner. “You want me to bend over for you? Let you fuck me?” Frustration and desperation mix together, leads Steve to blurt out the suggestion. It was meant as a joke, but—

A pause hangs like a noose around Steve’s neck before a threatening smile pulls taut at Billy’s mouth, teeth dangling over-sharp, nightmarish.  

“You asking or telling me your terms?” Billy returns in a low rumble, eyes never straying from Steve’s. “If you’re telling… I’d take that deal.”

When he doesn’t immediately receive a reply, Billy drops his chin to exhale a laugh that Steve feels along the delicate flesh of his neck more than hears. His flesh prickles with something as pressing as fear itself.

“And if you’re asking, pretty boy, all you gotta do is say ‘please.’”

Steve can feel Billy nearing his neck, not quite touching, as though he was waiting for something, for some sort of sign. It isn’t until Steve hears his own throat click on a swallow that he realizes he’s waiting, too.

“If I agree,” Steve starts, pausing when Billy raises his gaze with an expression that he could only describe as hungry. Distantly, he knows this is the moment to walk away, end this entire ordeal before it’s too late.

“Your loved ones will be safe,” he answers, tone beckoning like he could sense Steve’s sudden doubt, “You’ll be strong.” Billy says, and it sounds like a promise.

“If I agree?” Steve asks. Stalling. Heart a rapid tattoo beneath too-tight skin.

A finger traces down his throat as though to soothe the thrum of blood beneath. Seconds later, Billy steps back and Steve sways towards him. Billy’s right hand extends, and as it does, a long cut materializes in the center of his palm. Steve jolts when a thick, black substance begins to ooze forth from the wound.

“If you agree,” Billy confirms, and that smile reappears.

Victorious, Steve thinks bitterly, even while he tentatively extends his own hand.

Their palms touch, unbroken skin to blackened-blood, and when nothing immediately happens, he’s relieved. Wasn’t sure what to expect, but isn’t sure what comes next.

Until it comes.

Their hands now clasped, Steve feels a sharp stab in the center of his palm. He gasps, sharp and surprised, then emits a low cry when the pain spreads, lengthens over the expanse. He holds firm, can’t do anything until Billy lets go, and the moment he does, Steve staggers back to put distance between them.

He sees a wound that mirrors Billy’s but for red, red blood that flows free.

Bewildered, Steve lifts his gaze to Billy’s, eyebrows raised, lips parted in shock and pain both.

“You said I’d be safe,” he whispers, throat tight with resentment and foreboding.

“I said you’d be strong,” Billy corrects, closing the distance Steve attempts to maintain one step at a time.

Steve’s calves hit something cold and solid. He glances over his shoulder to see that he’s been backed up against a headstone, and the thought of standing above someone’s grave, someone long-forgotten and rendered nameless by weathered stone, sends panic racing down his spine.

Panic that doubles when he rights himself to find Billy in his face once more. His mouth slants over Steve’s, and despite the resultant noise of protest that could have been a moan, he is helpless to it. When Billy licks into his mouth, a quick tease, Steve expects the acidic burn of sulphur, the thick-heavy weight of ash, of fire and brimstone. Instead, Steve swears he tastes the bite of pomegranates mingled with sweet-apple. When he’s given a moment’s reprieve to swallow, rich honey soothes through over-ripe fruit, warm and inviting.

Steve grips the denim of Billy’s jacket, torn between shoving him away and yanking him closer. He ends up trying to do both, but Billy doesn’t allow himself to be moved but for closeness. Steve bites down on Billy’s bottom lip, and the sound he’s gifted in return spreads warmth throughout his body that overpowers the cold.

“What’d you do to me,” Steve gasps into Billy’s mouth between ravenous kisses, and when fingers grasp his hair to tip his head back, he goes easy, drifting in a feedloop of dizzying sensation. The flat of Billy’s tongue drags up the pillar of Steve’s throat, pulling a soundless keen from him in reply. “S’hot,” he adds, attempting but failing to keep his eyes on Billy.

“Shh,” Billy soothes, sucking and biting hard enough to bruise on his way up to Steve’s mouth. His thumb draws over Steve’s lower lip, stretches it to expose pink gums. “Look at how pretty you are.”

Steve manages to slip from Billy’s hold. Head fuzzy, his hand comes up to tug at Billy’s wrist, squeezing tight to ground himself. “Drugged,” he mumbles. “You drugged me.”

Billy looks into Steve’s wide-hazy brown eyes, murmurs, “It’s the blood, sweet thing. Can’t help it.”

Using his grip on Billy’s wrist as leverage, Steve yanks Billy to him. “Didn’t need it,” he slurs against Billy’s cheek. “Afraid I’d run away?” His hand drifts between them, plants firmly on Billy’s chest, shoves him back. Takes a moment to look Billy over, assessing his predatory smile, the pronounced lines of his torso, then down to the thick bulge of his dick in fitted jeans. The pleasant heat doesn’t abate, only screams to have Billy’s touch again. Steve’s fingertips remain splayed over Billy’s sternum, held at arm’s length. “I shook your hand; we have a deal.”

They stagnate. Breathing unsteady, Steve watches Billy’s tongue wag, slow and deliberate. He knocks Steve’s hand away. “You’re right; we do have a deal.” His head tilts toward the gravestone behind Steve. “Bend over.”

Steve's gaze strays to the bloodied handprint encircling the skin of Billy's forearm, the red prints dotting Billy's bare chest beneath a half-open shirt. “This is so fucked,” Steve asserts, even as his hand hovers uncertainly over the fly of his jeans.

“Are you scared?” Billy jeers, sweet-mean. “Don't worry, baby. I’ll be gentle.”

Steve stumbles back, ass hitting the crest of the headstone. His palm throbs, stings fierce, wonders if Billy feels that same pain. “I’m not a virgin. Just fuck me; get it over with.”

“No.”

Confusion knits between Steve's brows. “No?”

Billy invades Steve's space, forces himself between Steve's thighs. “You're gonna let me fuck you.” He grabs at Steve's chin, smears his own inky mess across the lower portion of Steve's face. “I'll do that how I want.” Leaning in close, his words are soft over Steve's mouth, and Steve parts his lips, almost involuntary, to breathe Billy in, lung deep. “And you'll just take it, won't you?”

“Fuck you,” Steve spits, but it misses that venom, lacks intensity. He sounds needy and knows it. Everything just feels like more, feels like too much.

Burning like a brand, Billy cups the back of Steve's neck, hauls him forward only to turn Steve around, shove him until his elbows grate against the top of the headstone. Lungs pump as Steve bites back a complaint; Billy popping the button of Steve's jeans. It's unreal when a hand slides beneath the elastic of his briefs, nails scraping roughly through the coarse trail of hair leading down Steve's belly.

“Bet you beg like a bitch.” Billy’s tongue plays wetly over the apple of Steve's cheek, slicks back to gloss grossly at his temple. “Moan like a slut.”

“Man—" Steve huffs, irritated, even as his head lolls to the side, open invitation. “Do you ever shut up?” A small wince as Billy pulls down Steve's pants like they offend him, doesn't give him time to adjust to the stinging autumn air before he tugs down his underwear too. They catch mid-thigh, trap Steve's legs uselessly, ass fuller than the moon hanging in the night sky.

“Don't think you want me to,” Billy says, smug as he loosely grips Steve’s dick, smiles unkindly into Steve's hairline when his hips give an short kick. Billy’s hand slides down, hovers too close to Steve’s puckered rim.

A grunt, Steve tries to jerk away. “You can’t—” Words tangle in his throat, barely able to force them out. “You can’t do that dry.”

“Hush,” Billy tells him, pulls back, uses one hand to spread Steve, expose him. Steve feels something drip, heat splattering over his clenched hole. Looks back expecting to see that Billy has spit on him, nasty and fucking crude, only to find Billy’s injured hand curled in a fist, dark-oily blood dribbling down weakly, disappearing in the crack of his ass.

It’s unsanitary, Steve knows that. Disgust vaguely simmers somewhere in his consciousness; he wants to yell at Billy, but when he opens his mouth all that slips out is a quiet gasp. He feels feverish, boiling.

“Fucked up,” Steve mutters to himself, shifting, vulnerable under Billy’s touch. He swallows thick when fingertips spread wet over untouched skin, impulsively moving from the foreign sensation he’d been taught to fear despite the unrelenting want in his veins.

Steve jerks periodically, thigh muscles tensing whenever instinct urges him to run. A louder, baser urge beckons him to stay, to be prayed to at this inverse of an altar with Billy – far from penitent – going to his knees behind him.

“You chose this,” Billy helpfully reminds him, licking up the roundest curve of one of Steve’s cheeks just to hear the resultant gasp, to watch him at war with himself over this taboo pleasure. “Beginning to think you lied to me. ‘Not a virgin,’ you said, but look how you fight what you asked for.”

Billy strokes his thumb along overheated skin, his mouth trailing kisses that set Steve’s skin ablaze, make him leak from how he craves touch. Billy’s touch.

“I’m not a virgin,” Steve protests, and it’s weak to his own ears. Licking his own kiss-bruised mouth, he adds, “This doesn’t count.”

Sex is meant to mean something. This is a means to an end.

A fingertip presses barely inside, the way made smooth by Billy’s offering, and despite his body’s immediate motion to bear down and expel the intrusion, Steve makes a sound that Billy echoes. His hips shift with aborted movements to both press against and pull away from the intrusive digit.  

“Then why so tense?”

Billy sneaks his seeping hand around to grip Steve’s cock, dragging his fist upwards at a pace slow and firm enough to pull forth a full-bodied shiver and a curse from somewhere low in his belly. Steve then leans all his weight onto his elbows atop the gravestone, stepping apart to spread his thighs wider, and in doing so, grants Billy full reign.

“There,” Billy coos, “Just like that.”

In reward, Billy drags his palm over the sensitive crown, smearing the oil-like substance over and into the tip’s slit. The spreading heat makes his cock kick against Billy’s palm, and on the downstroke, Steve grinds back to take it the way Billy predicted he would.

One finger becomes two, and rather than fight it, Steve welcomes it. Loses himself to the slide of Billy’s fingers stroking him from the inside, and to the slick substance that seems to strangely increase the longer he’s fingered. Steve can feel it trickling down his skin to coat his balls, and the resultant tingle makes his head fill with fog.

True to his word, Billy is gentle. Almost maddeningly so. He rubs his cock with measured strokes, his grip tight enough to provide friction but not enough to feel it the way Steve typically touches himself. Inside, Billy presses his fingers deep, spreading them apart periodically. To his surprise, the sensation of being stretched in order to accommodate something thicker and longer than fingers is good. The thought alone of Billy taking him, claiming him makes him pliant.

His head hangs heavy while he floats in his dreamlike haze, unaccustomed to this languid, slow-burning but searing pleasure. His mind a mess of contradictions; he wants to come, but he never wants this to stop. Fears Billy but craves him. Hopes, for a dizzying moment, that they could be suspended in the moment indefinitely while they feast on one another, sustained by and living for this.

“We could,” Billy comments.

Steve is certain he didn’t speak. Opens his mouth to say as much, but when Billy crooks and presses his fingertips just so, Steve goes loose with a sharp cry. Pants harshly, afterward, mind racing without coherency as he recovers from a stab of bliss unlike anything he’d felt before.

“What,” he exhales, a quiet whine following when Billy takes his hand from his throbbing, bobbing cock, “Was that—”

He withdraws his fingers, laughing when Steve’s muscles tighten in vain. The emptiness makes him ache, hips rocking uselessly to seek some sort of relief, some sensation after being given it in spades. At the sight of Steve’s shameless display, Billy moans, mouthing over the mound of Steve’s ass to suck and press wet, filthy kisses there.

“Didn’t take you long to stop fighting me,” Billy teases, running wet fingertips lightly over Steve’s hole to watch it flutter, to hear Steve’s breath catch. Laughs, mean and sultry, when it does. “Knew you’d give in sooner than later.” He palms Steve’s cheeks gently, stroking for just a moment before he uses his thumbs to spread him wide and spit.

Steve gasps at the splatter, burning with disgust and fascination both, and though he tries to jerk away, Billy tightens his grip and hauls him back against his face. Horrified, Steve reaches back frantically, blindly trying to pull him away by his hair, but the moment fingers touch soft curls, Billy licks up the length of his crack, and Steve’s breath is punched from his lungs. He grips tight, but doesn’t pull, unable to decide if he likes that until Billy does it again.

His chest drops to the granite stone, and he moans, long and low. Billy flicks his tongue at the end of each stroke, teasing Steve’s wet hole with the promise of being filled. He doesn’t have to wait long. Billy presses inside with teasing movements that make Steve rock back for more.

“Fuck, fuck,” Steve whines, holding a handful of Billy’s hair despite being robbed of the will to fight, “That’s—”

Sick. Wrong.

“Whole body is begging for it,” Billy praises, pauses to lave his hole with the flat of his tongue just to watch him shake. “Makes me want to see how much you can take.”

Desperation leads Steve to twist his fingers, hold Billy tight against him, wants to feel that fullness again. He’s trembling, hanging on the knife-edge of orgasm. “Then do it,” Steve goads, chest heaving, scraping coarsely against the headstone. “All talk.” A slow-leak hiss escapes him as Billy sinks his teeth into the meaty swell of flesh where Steve’s thigh meets his ass. “You’re all talk, but you’re the one on your knees.” Another bite, breaks the skin. Steve’s eyes water.

“Careful.” Billy’s voice is a heady rasp, warning. Steve’s spine tingles painful-sweet at the sound. Blunt nails carve crescents into Steve’s hips, rake across the hard ridge of pelvic bone to bring blood peeping to the surface. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

Steve digs his knuckles into Billy’s scalp, wrenches at blonde curls by the roots. There’s a whine, pitched low and broken; he can feel Billy smile, tongue skirting around his rim.

“You humans are all the same,” Billy says, heavy and full of promise, like he’s teaching Steve a lesson. “You give them a taste of something sweet, something good, and they get greedy.” A sudden stretch plies at Steve’s entrance; Billy’s thumb dipping in and pulling down. Sweat stains the hair at Steve’s temples, long lashes clumping with welled-up tears. “They grow gluttonous.”

Suddenly, Billy’s tongue plunges forward, slipping in easy with his thumb holding Steve open.

That’s all it takes, has Steve’s shaky knees collapsing, jaw gaping wide as he groans, loud and unrepentant. Unholy in the way his come unevenly paints the faded, illegible name on the headstone he’s curled over, mixes with the black-slick of Billy’s blood covering his dick. He feels Billy moan with him, the vibration sending another weak spurt of jizz drooling down his shaft.

As Billy stands, he gathers the gross mixture in his hand, bends over Steve, pins him down. He smears their joined mess over Steve’s loosened hole, licks at Steve’s pulse as he pushes it in with the tip of two fingers. The vulgar noise it makes causes Steve to flush in humiliation, but he doesn’t try to move away, just lets it happen, lets Billy spoil him; he feels like a rotten apple, mealy and filled with maggots.

Maybe Steve should feel worse about that, but the revulsion is being shoved to the side, left on the backburner to be overshadowed by the hefty float of post-orgasm.

“Look at you,” Billy mouths at Steve’s throat, fingers moving deeper, squelching loud in the quiet stillness of the cemetery. Fiendish, his smile splits wide when Steve’s head dangles helplessly, daisy on a broken stem. “Am I all talk now?” he asks, pleased and gloating, while watching Steve’s labored breathing.

“Get your fingers outta me,” Steve mumbles in reply, tries to push himself upright but failing. “Can’t come again.” His arms are uncooperative, and Billy’s touch seems to become more insistent, probing farther, spreading wider. “This is fucked up,” he repeats for the millionth time that night. “It’s sick. I can’t—” His voice breaks when Billy’s fingers curl, perfect, sends him keening, teeth clenched.

“Did you think that this would be it?” Another graze has Steve shuddering, overwhelmed. “Did you think it would be that easy?”

“‘S too much.” And it is; the oversensitivity is nudging close to painful, pleasure broiling in a way that’s almost transient, hesitant. “It hurts.”

But Billy doesn’t relent, keeps a steady, unhurried pace. “If it hurts,” Billy says, voice honied, reminds Steve of how Billy tastes, saliva pooling beneath his tongue, “then why are you grinding back like you’re hungry for it?”

Steve didn’t even realize, didn’t notice that his hips were seeking out that friction, that his cock is already half hard again, ruddy beneath the tacky residue of Billy’s blood and Steve’s release.

“You want more, baby? Just ask.” The tip of Billy’s tongue traces the shell of Steve’s ear, teeth tugging on the lobe, ungentle. “Lemme hear you say it. Know that you can. That you will.”

“‘Beg like a bitch,’” Steve mimics, warped and wobbly, even as his dick jolts at Billy’s unyielding ministrations. “Go fuck yourself.”

It happens quick; Steve’s hauled upright, rough hand on his throat, closing tight, nails digging in. “I’ve been so generous,” Billy murmurs, cruel, fingers still buried within Steve, “and you’ve been nothing but ungrateful.”

His body’s reaction is to struggle against the hold, but when Steve’s fingers come up to pull at the grip, he only clutches helplessly at Billy’s hand, like he wants him to squeeze harder. The dark dots blooming in his vision, the lightheadedness, is more pleasant than Steve could imagine. He doesn’t stand a chance.

Steve seizes, muscles taut and lungs burning, as he comes for a second time, blistering heat singeing along frazzled nerves. He’s melting; a candle with an unchecked flame. Losing original form but taking new shape under Billy’s touch.

The first breath he’s gifted feels like resurrection.

He gasps down air to fill his lungs, oxygen-rich blood flowing free once more, and Steve closes eyes that had been rendered blind by pleasure. He drifts momentarily in the empty static of his mind, body tipping back into something – someone – solid. His head settles against a shoulder, then lolls to the side until his face is pressed against the cool flesh of Billy’s neck.

Billy strokes his throat, and Steve thinks it’s almost nice before he becomes aware of fingers still inside him. He shifts, boneless, uttering a weak noise of protest that Billy responds to by burying his fingers deep. Steve cries out, brow pinched and body taut while his dick pulses. He crashes from his high as fast as it had hit.

“How ‘bout that,” Billy says against Steve’s temple, gripping Steve by the throat again – not to squeeze, but to hold him in place, “Didn’t even have to try that time.” He licks his lips, tasting Steve’s sweat in the process, “Knew you could handle it, can handle more, can’t you, pretty boy?”

“Can’t,” Steve pants, forcing himself to find his legs so that he can try to move away. Finds himself riding Billy’s fingers instead, lifting and dropping his hips to feel fingertips stroking that spot, providing just enough stimulation to keep him seeking it again despite knowing, knowing his body has nothing more to give. “Billy, God—”

Steve’s shoved forward and spun around before he can even register that Billy’s moved. Left empty, muscles working around nothing, Steve stares at Billy, who’s now in his face with bared teeth.

“Which is it?” Billy fists his jacket, tugging until the buttons unsnap. He shoves the garment over his shoulders and down his arms, making quick work of ridding Steve of his shirt, too. “Only one is here tonight,” he hisses, surging forward to kiss him with bruising intensity.

It’s brief, but dizzying, and Steve finds something like power in the way Billy’s become unhinged.

“Jealous?” Steve slurs against Billy’s soft mouth, breathing in his breath. He licks inside to run his tongue along the hard edges of his teeth, hands dragging down to catch and undo Billy’s shirt buttons. “‘For I the Lord your God am a jealous God,’” Steve quotes, low, pouring the words into Billy’s mouth like an offering. “No one’s taking your name in vain.”

“A member of His flock gone astray,” Billy observes, expression smoothing out into something like amusement.

Like awe.

“Is this how you worship?” he asks, grabbing Steve by his hips to hoist him up onto the headstone. Billy flicks his hand as though swatting aside an annoying pest, and Steve is left naked. Touch feather-light, Billy traces his fingers up the length of Steve’s bare legs, stepping between his knees to slot himself against his hips like he belongs there. “Parting your legs for me instead of praying—”

“You are jealous,” Steve confirms, smiling cruel even as he works to divest Billy of his denim jacket, then his thin cotton shirt, “You two aren’t so different after all.”

Billy levels him with a look that should frighten him. Acknowledges, absently, that he should fear the being before him. Ought to dread the sight of irritation in too-blue eyes, shake at the displeased turn of his reddened mouth.

“Finish it, then,” Steve says, voice soft but firm.

Under the stars and moon, he sits bare, shadowed by sleeping trees and their gnarled, claw-like branches. He feels as wicked as Billy himself, unwholesome and primal, so unlike the nervous, reluctant boy that had been coaxed over the headstone at the beginning of their encounter. It’s admirable, the change he recognizes in himself, but that thought is quickly cinched away at the realization that the devil’s seduction has unintentionally worked both ways.

Billy leans in close, breath cool against hot skin. Their mouths brush, gasoline on wildfire, and Steve arches for more contact, more of Billy, but he moves to mouth at his ear and Steve forgets what he wanted in the first place. He sighs, fog stuttering forth from parted lips, as a wicked tongue laps once at his lobe.

“‘Thy will be done.’”

Steve shudders at the implication, but Billy doesn’t give him time to react before he’s on him. Their mouths collide, giving and taking with little regard for finesse. It’s beastial, inhuman — when Steve grows dizzy, thinks he ought to pull back for breath, his lungs fill.

Steve arches up into the the space where their hips shift and rut, dusky pink flesh on stiff denim. His hands grasp and grab, pulling to haul Billy closer, wanting to feel skin on his. Tugs Billy’s jeans until they unbutton, slides his hand against skin and through coarse hair to wrap his fingers around the base of hot, hard flesh. His resultant groan sends heat rushing down Steve’s spine, makes him ravenous.

“Billy,” Steve pants into Billy’s mouth, feverish, “Billy.”

Billy fucks into the tight tunnel of Steve’s fist once, suddenly overcome, before he’s seemingly able to think straight. Forces himself to stop, though he reaches into his jeans to tighten Steve’s grip around his cock.

“Close, but not quite,” he leers, sucking on Steve’s bottom lip. “You know what I want to hear.” Steve uses his other hand to unzip his jeans, and Billy’s grin turns toothy. “I think you want to say it, sweetheart. I’m patient; I can wait.”

Steve parts his thighs, arching to offer Billy what they’d agreed upon. Gasps at the way he slides his dick through the mess between his cheeks. It’s slick, obscene, and his breath comes harder for it. He stares at Billy, unwilling to yield, and thrills at how Billy watches him right back.

Proud.

The crown of Billy’s cock catches his rim, and Steve gasps aloud, muscles spasming at the unexpected sensation. The second time, Steve whines, reedy, clutching Billy’s forearms for grounding, for balance when he leans back to offer more. An offering Billy is glad to take, hands cupping his thighs tight.

“I want it,” he admits in a harsh breath, gaze dropping from Billy’s eyes to watch his abdominal muscles flex and release. Glances up again to see that Billy, too, has lowered his gaze to watch where he drags against Steve. His head falls back on a moan, lightheaded. “Fuck, I can’t take this.”

“You already are. We made a deal, baby.” Billy removes one hand to support the back of Steve’s neck, hips never stopping their lazy drive. “Pleasure can hurt worse than pain, but you can end all that if you just say—”

“Please,” Steve begs in the sweetest surrender. The word has scarcely left his lips by the time Billy presses in, steady and strong, the stretch burning but blissful. Steve can hardly breathe for the pressure inside him, and he is conscious of nothing but the weight inside him and the way he can’t stop his muscles from spasming, nerves strung out and firing white-hot pleasure through his body. “Oh,” Steve whispers, and it sounds as though he’s found something sacred.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Billy hums, teeth raking across the smooth, exposed skin of Steve’s shoulder. His tongue snakes out, licks sloppily over the marks he leaves. Steve’s pelvis lurches upward at the contact, jaw hanging wide. The action forces Billy to sink all the way inside him, down to the root, nothing left to give. A predatory grin leaches over Billy’s face as Steve attempts to grind down further, take more. “So deep, sweetheart,” he croons, demeaning, into the flesh of Steve’s throat. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got; you’ve swallowed me whole.”

Steve’s gone pliant, chest caught in a perpetual hitching wave. At the first true thrust of Billy’s hips, he can feel the dirty mix of his own come and Billy’s blood seep out from his spread rim. It only adds to the sopping glide of Billy’s cock as he pulls out, pushes back in. Steve’s hands clutch tighter on Billy’s forearms, seeking anchor, trying to find safe harbor as he’s tossed into churning seas.

But Billy is relentless. The hand on Steve’s nape twines into his hair, yanks his head back, angle acute and unnatural. His eyes roam over Steve, his bobbing throat and peachy-flushed skin, presses his wet lips to Steve’s ear, thrusts lazy and deliberately slow, unfulfilling. “Clench, baby,” Billy snarls. “Can’t have you goin’ all loose on me. Tighten up.” He gives Steve’s hair a sharp twist, watches those brown eyes water for the second time that night, smiles when Steve complies, gasping. “Good boy,” he coos, words accented by the movement of his hips. “It’s only fair, yeah? You got yours, now I get mine.”

Steve can’t come again; he’s fucked out, shouldn’t be able to. But he feels that insidiously familiar burn quake low in his gut, jars the base of his spine. Billy must know, toys with him just because he can, just to watch him squirm. It makes Steve furious, but even vulnerable, Steve can be vicious.

“You want yours, huh?” Steve grits, clasping at the hand entangled in his hair, carving his nails into Billy’s knuckles, clawing until he feels the hot-wet swell of blood oozing beneath his fingertips. “Think you already got it. Think you like taking nice things and ruining them.” The chord strikes, resonates. Billy's careless rhythm falters; he jack-knifes into Steve, growling. “Look at what you’ve done to me,” Steve crows, thready and callous, voice pitched at a low tremble. He ruts, filthy, against Billy’s fucking, leans forward to wipe his tongue along Billy’s perfect jawline. “So finish the mess you’ve made.”

The hold on Steve becomes bruising, can feel the vessels burst under the pressure. They’ll be a pretty shade of violent purple come morning, an ephemeral souvenir. Billy’s pace is desperate now, shallowing out. He grabs at Steve’s thigh, hoists it high against his ribs. “You think I'm ruining you? You're right. You'll never have this again.” A rough, punctuated thrust. “Every time you fuck, you'll think of me.”

“Arrogant,” Steve whimpers. “You're so fucking arrogant.” Reaches between them, presses the heel of his palm against his belly, swears the added pressure just makes everything better. Deeper, thicker, fuller. Steve’s near drowning, weighed down by Billy’s riptide.

“Those sweet girls of yours, they make you come like me?” Billy bites at Steve’s panting mouth, sucks the lower lip between scraping teeth. “So close, aren’t you, angel? So close.”

“And what about you, baby?” Steve sneers, provocative, even as his hips try to splay wider, wants to feel Billy in his goddamn throat. “You close? Am I gonna make you come?”

The palm on his abdomen, now crusty with dried blood, is jerked away by Billy's own sliced hand. He clasps them together, squeezes until Steve's cut splits anew, keeps squeezing until their shared blood sluices down their forearms, pools in a gorey puddle where they're joined, the shaft of Steve’s cock freshly stained with oily-rust. It’s hedonistic, obscene.

Steve tries to yank his arm back from the pain, hisses with bared teeth, but Billy doesn’t slow, just laughs. He feels that potent flutter of warmth lace through him again, rush to his head, throb persistently in the base of his spine. “I can’t,” he murmurs, pathetic. It’s too much at once. He’s going to burst from his skin, rupture at the seams.

Billy tuts, click of his tongue. “Where’s that fire now, huh?” He’s smug, he’s so smug, knows what he’s done. Steve can’t stand it, hates giving Billy what he wants, knows, inevitably, that he’s going to do just that. “Lemme feel it,” Billy coaxes, nothing but honey. “C’mon, it’ll hurt. It’ll hurt so good. Just one more time, sweet thing. Just for me.”

The hand twined with Billy’s clenches tight, tugs Billy closer, muscles bunching. “Make me,” Steve dares, all piss and vinegar, smiles roughly even as he shakes, braces for retaliation.

The angle shift is sudden and precise as Billy lunges forward. He drops Steve’s hand, curls his dirty fingers around Steve’s throat. “Like I said, sugar,” Billy purrs, vicious, as he grinds up, up, up. “All you had to do was ask.” Steve’s voice breaks with a choked, helpless cry as Billy slides against that perfect spot inside him, unforgiving.

It feels like going supernova, like collapsing into a blackhole; Steve has an entire galaxy swirling inside him, millions of stars twisting apart to engulf every nerve beneath his skin. His cock spills weakly between them, mixing milky-white with shallow-black, coats their stomachs in shades of grey, speckled with dying-red. It’s painful, the best thing he’s ever felt. Billy is shushing him, even as he continues to rip Steve open, even as Steve’s voice is stripped hoarse.

His praise for Steve is thick and gritty, would make Steve blush if most of his blood wasn’t still sluggishly occupied below the belt. He’s panting into Steve’s slack mouth as he fucks him. “So tight. Did you hear yourself? The noises you made?” And then, it’s almost like Steve can, audio distorted, bouncing quiet in the jellied mush between his ears, the sound of himself coming, replayed just for him. It’s not quite wailing, what he hears inside his own head, but he moans, long and breathy. He moans, and he moans, and he moans, like a slut.

“You’re still quivering around me, sweetheart,” Billy notices, voice pitched at a rumble, stilting as the rhythm of his hips becomes harsher, uneven. “Like you can’t stop coming.” Billy reaches between them, thumbs the soft head of Steve’s wilting dick. Oversensitive, Steve jerks at the contact, huff of protest hanging on his lips but failing to fall. He shakes, instead. He shakes and he breathes against Billy’s cheek.

“Gonna come,” Billy groans, hands grasping at Steve’s bruised hips, fingers pulling apart the meat of his ass, like he intends to gain more depth, to find some part of Steve that he hasn’t touched yet. Goosebumps erupt in a fresh prickle over Steve’s bare skin, nothing to do with the cold. Billy grunts, animalistic, buries himself to the root.

The first pulse is hot, makes Steve buck forward, body begging for more. He’s out of his mind, thinks he could stay like this, just let Billy fill him. “Don’t pull out,” Steve slurs, dizzy and hungry. “Just gimme it.”

“Fuck.” Billy sounds unhinged, like Steve’s loosened all his screws, whittled him down to nothing. Another spurt; Steve writhes. “Gonna leave you leaking.” His cock kicks inside Steve, spilling the rest as he offers a sloppy kiss, rude in the way it smears spit over Steve’s chin.

Dimly, Steve feels two fingers skirt where he’s still stretched around Billy, tries to move away from them, scared Billy will try to ply him open further. The after-orgasm haziness is fading quickly, even as his eyelids are struggling at half-mast. “Don’t—”

“Shh,” Billy hushes, edges his touch around the swollen rim, soft and searching.

Several minutes pass as they stay like that: Billy curled possessively around Steve as Steve slumps against him, exhausted. He’s wrung-out, wrinkled and twisted; every part of his body feels too heavy, made of stone. The chill of autumn begins to sink back into Steve’s bones, cemetery feeling more unwelcome now than when he first arrived. His forehead rocks against Billy’s shoulder. “Get your dick outta me,” Steve finally says, lazy, shivering as the cold picks at his exposed flesh like a carrion crow feasting on a corpse.

Billy seems unbothered by the command, takes his time. “You don’t want to cuddle?” he asks, caustic sarcasm drenching the words. “You were just begging me to fill you up.” He slowly pulls out, grins when Steve gives a quiet gasp at the sensation.

“Shit,” Steve hisses, tries to resist the urge to thrust back, take Billy in again. When the crown of Billy’s dick pulls free of Steve’s hole, those two fingers slide down, press in to the first knuckle to keep Billy’s come safely inside. “What’s the matter?” Steve taunts, tone sour. “Thought you wanted it to leak outta me.”

“Not yet,” Billy replies. “So clench, precious. Wouldn’t wanna waste all our hard work.”

Steve shoves him back, sneer curling in the corner of his mouth, looks down to frown at the dried mess splattered over his stomach. “Gross.”

Billy allows himself to be moved by Steve, steps back to assess how utterly wrecked Steve looks in the pale moonlight. “You begged for that and then asked for more.” There’s a faint clink of a lighter; Billy’s cigarette glows bright in the darkness. “I only gave you what you wanted.”

Blushing, Steve tries to act nonchalant, fails. “Like you said, it was just your blood. I couldn’t help it.” It’s a blatant lie, bold and untrue. They used each other. They made a deal. The transaction is over; Steve upheld his end of the bargain, so why does he feel so unfulfilled?

“Where are my clothes?”

The fresh scent of smoke comes leaching over in a fog as Billy gives a dismissive wave, eyes never leaving the scene before him. Steve’s clothes are restored to his body, but they’re undone, left exactly how they were when Billy stole them away. Steve leans down to grip the waist of his jeans where they’re tangled mid-thigh. “You’re an asshole,” he mutters when he notices Billy’s shirt and jacket are perfectly in place.

He digs around in his pants pocket, finds the half-used tissue he’d left there from earlier that day, reaches back to clean himself—

And Billy is gripping his wrist, bones smushing together beneath the hold. “Leave it,” he says, cigarette dangling between his lips.

“I’ll ruin my jeans; I didn’t think you were serious—”

“Leave it,” Billy repeats. “Want it to soak through, drip down your thighs as you stumble up the stairs of your picture-perfect home, stain your expensive bedsheets as you try to fall asleep, to convince yourself this was just a bad dream.” He leans in, nearly burns Steve’s jaw with the red-orange cherry. “So, fuckin’ leave it.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” Steve spits, but he yanks up his briefs, pulls his jeans into place and buttons them. “I already did what was promised.”

But Billy smiles, looks more like a monster than any flower-crowned creature lined with too many teeth. “Don’t you know who I am? You do as I say, and you get what you want.”

“That’s not fair—”

Billy plucks the cigarette from his mouth, leans forward to press his lips against Steve’s, tongue worming inside, invasive. In a futile effort, Steve tries to pull away, angry and betrayed, but Billy holds him close, hand fisted in his wrinkled shirt. There’s no taste of smoke, just honied fruit, sweet enough to make his mouth water, to want more, even though he shouldn’t.

“Poor baby,” Billy whispers, nips too hard at Steve’s swollen lips. “Didn’t anyone tell you never to make a deal with the Devil?”

The careless, condescending way Billy disregards him is insulting, but Billy has him trapped in a snare; Steve needs this — affair — to work out in his favor. Dustin nearly got mauled to death last time, and Steve couldn’t sleep for literal weeks afterward, so this needs to pan out, but—

Steve’s not just going to let Billy treat him like another self-indulgent human making a bad decision.

His hand aches appropriately now, itches like an unchecked rash, and Steve shouldn’t slap Billy, isn’t going to, but he’s reaching out, body fueled by his wayward thoughts. Unable to stop himself, Steve wipes his slit palm over Billy’s mouth, rubs the half-coagulated blood into the flesh like he wants to permanently stain the skin. Forget me not.

Billy smacks his hand away, looks undeniably furious as his tongue flits out, rolls over the smear Steve’s left behind. “You don’t get to leave marks on me, you understand?” But Steve’s eyes see the scratches in Billy’s knuckles where Steve’s nails made him bleed, the cut through Billy’s palm that he made just for Steve.

“Looks like I already have,” Steve asserts, fists both hands in the lapels of Billy’s jean jacket. “I’ll do what you want, sure; I don’t really have a choice, but just because you fucked me doesn’t mean I’m easy.” He tugs on the jacket again, for good measure, appraises it for show. “Gimme this.”

“Who do you think you are?” Billy asks, anger failing to cover mild amusement.

“Please?”

It works like magic, Billy shrugs out of the jacket, shoves it into Steve’s chest. “You want something to remember me by, pretty boy?” he sneers, like he didn’t just give Steve exactly what he asked for.

“Yeah.” Steve smiles, charming and almost slimy. “A trophy.”

Billy looks thrilled, positively delighted, like Steve has tickled him. “The deal is satisfactory,” he says, voice suddenly unnatural, tone ethereal, carries and echoes at the same time. Steve hisses with a sharp inhale, looks at his palm as it sutures itself together, pink-puckered and ugly.

When he looks up, his vision swims, murky. He thinks he sees horns, the whip-like motion of a tail, leathered wings, but his eyelids are too heavy, weighed down like lead. The cemetery tilts, unstable, beneath his feet.

His knees buckle, and Steve passes out before he hits the ground.

 Months pass; each time the Upside Down leaks into their world, the creatures seem weaker, stunted and deformed. Sealing the rift becomes easier with every breach; everyone stays safe. Steve kills more demodogs than he has refrigerators for.

Eventually, the attacks stop altogether. The crops grow back, healthy and full, the tunnels fill in, seemingly overnight. Hawkins National Laboratory burns down mysteriously; the land it stood upon deemed unfit for construction after the incident.

Hawkins returns to the regular, sleepy Midwestern town it once was, but Steve’s hand never fully heals. Sure, it scabs over, scars, but sometimes he swears he feels blood oozing from the old wound.

And the jacket, well—

Steve wears it too often; it smells like woodsy musk and autumn air, crisp and cold. Smells like fallen needles, dried leaves. He’s washed it countless times, saturated it in laundry detergent, just to test it, to see how long that scent will linger.

It hasn’t washed out, smells as strongly as it did when Steve awoke the morning after, jacket stretched out beside him on the bed, bloodied palm open on his pillow, jeans ruined from the mess Billy left inside him.

Contrary to the jacket, Steve still hasn’t washed those jeans, leaves them in a dirty pile shoved at the back of his closet.

The one-year anniversary finds Steve waiting to pick up The Party after one of his community college lectures; he’s supposed to take them back to his place, watch them make costumes and argue whether Godzilla is really King of the Monsters.

He usually waits for a half-hour out in the school parking lot, does his class readings to pass the time. He’s just started the section about the Ottoman Empire when the hairs at the nape of his neck bristle, can feel eyes on him.

Marking his place in the textbook, he looks out the passenger window, sees a car that he knows doesn’t belong to anyone in this town, sticks out like a neon sign. It’s a beacon, calls him over like a siren.

The book is shoved off his lap and he’s out of his car and across the asphalt, too quick for his brain to caution him against his curiosity. It’s a Camaro, bluest of blue, window rolled down to expose a hanging arm, cigarette dangling from deft fingertips.

Steve thinks his eyes might be deceiving him as he nears the driver’s side, because there’s Billy, filling out a thin white t-shirt, aviator sunglasses dipping down the slope of his nose. His head barely tilts in Steve’s direction, lips curling up, dangerous. Steve’s palm burns like it’s split fresh, rubs his thumb over the scar, absent-minded.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” It’s only when Steve’s flush with the car door that he notices Billy’s not alone. There’s a girl with wild red hair, around the age of the kids, grinning at him like a menace. Steve points into the cab. “And who the fuck is she?” 

Gaze raking over Steve, Billy brings the cigarette to his lips. “Nice jacket.”

Steve glances down, forgot that he was wearing his trophy, tries not to acknowledge the heat crawling up his neck to color his cheeks. “Who’s this random girl, Billy?” 

“Ignore her; she’s a fucking pest,” Billy answers, disinterested. His eyes flicker from Steve to a gaggle of noise behind him. “Aw, they’re so cute.”

“Hey, Steve!” Dustin calls from across the lot. “Can we get milkshakes?”

Mike rolls his eyes, complains loudly, “You’re the only one who wants a milkshake, idiot.”

“Sure, pal!” Steve responds, hoping they don’t come to see who he’s talking to. “I’ll be over in just a minute!”

When he turns back to look inside the car, the girl is leaning forward, perched on the edge of her seat, enraptured by the teenage morons. “Who are your friends?” she asks without looking away from them.

Billy shoves her back with a scowl. “We’re not fucking here for you.”

“Billy,” Steve says. “Why are you here?”

His smile is slow and self-assured, tosses the filter to the pavement. “Want to make sure you were happy with my end of our deal.”

“You showed up for —what— a customer satisfaction survey?” Steve thinks about the graveyard, about the headstone they defiled, about the jacket he never seems to leave home without, those ruined jeans in his closet. “Yes,” Steve replies, sarcastic. “I’m happy.”

“If you made a deal with him,” the girl pipes up, “then why isn’t he dead?”

“What?”

Billy looks thoroughly annoyed now, but doesn’t address her. “You’re special, Stevie. Thought I’d drop by—” his eyes slide down, licks at his lips. “Offer you something you might be interested in.”

“Will I die?” Steve asks, freaked out by what the she-demon said.

Billy smirks, devilish. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”