Archive of Our Own ^beta

The pool closes a week earlier than usual, after all the mess with Heather going missing and Billy being sick for like, a month. They’d been understaffed but also no one was going to the pool. No one was going anywhere after all the terrifying stuff in the papers and on the news. Dozens of people going missing, the mall burning down?

The pool just fucking closed. 

And when Billy gets back home, finally strong enough to walk around and do things for himself again, he winds up being bored. 

At least the pool was something to keep him occupied during the day. Something to get him out of the house and away from the walls that seemed to close in on him every minute he was inside. Like seconds on a clock, time at home felt like a countdown. 

Now, Neil doesn’t really bother him anymore. Something about Joyce Byers calling Billy a hero has turned the tide for his dad, given him a temporary reprieve from the general bullshit of Neil’s attitude. 

As long as he watches Max during the day, anyway. 

It’s more like she watches him, nowadays, and everyone knows it. He has his moments of weakness, moments of anxiety so terrible he can barely breathe if not for someone holding his hand and telling him it will all be okay. 

He’s broken. But Max is putting him back together. Slowly, with as much sarcasm as she can muster. 

And there’s El too. Most days. She comes to the house and hangs out with Max but really, she’s always watching Billy. They don’t talk much because what is there to say? She said thank you a while back, when he’d first opened his eyes in the hospital with some doctor leaning over him, telling him he was lucky. 

She’d taken his hand that night, cried a little, and said thank you. 

But she doesn’t say much to him now. Maybe hi or bye Billy but that’s about it. He just sits on the couch like a ghost, smoking or maybe doing a few bicep curls when his arms feel up to it. But his chest is the issue. His abdomen fails him more than his body ever did in the past, his ticker going apeshit if he so much as jogs down the street. 

Recovery, they say. 

Horse shit is what it is. 

But the girls keep him entertained, give him someone to bark at when the music gets too loud or the giggling too wild. They let him grumble and growl because they know him, and it’s what he needs sometimes. 

Just like he still sometimes needs a cigarette. 

He’s not supposed to smoke, the doctors basically forbid it. Doesn’t matter, he still smokes. 

Sometimes, it’s all that keeps him from shaking apart. 

El finds him, on one such occasion, smoking as he limps his way back to the couch from the kitchen. They’re out of beer and he’s surly about it, tempted to call the Family Video and bribe Harrington with a blowjob if he brings him a 12-pack. 

Not like it’d be the first time he’d had to make that particular booty call. Like, hello do you have Back to the Future in stock yet and also, come over later I want to suck your dick.

That’s one of the bonuses of Neil being off his case, he supposes. He can order ass to go. 

“Billy.” El says his name with a softness that makes his chest tighten. Seven feet. “Can I ask you something?” 

Usually he’d snark, say something like “I don’t know can you?” But this is El and he can still hear the fragile discomfort with language that plagues her. Just a little. Enough to make him wonder how long it was before someone taught her.

So he says, “Yeah.” 

“What does ‘good screaming’ mean?” She asks, a genuine furrow in her brow. And, for a second, he doesn’t understand. Good screaming?

Then he hears Maxine choke on something in the next room, sputtering loudly until she appears in the doorway to the living room. 

Red as a fucking firetruck. 

“Jesus, El, don’t ask him.” She hisses at her friend. And when Billy finally catches up, Max is pulling El away in a rush, whispering under her breath. 

“Hey!” He calls after them, but El is the only one that stays put. She holds her ground against Max’s pulls and blinks back at him, waiting for instruction. 

Billy wishes El was his sister sometimes. Like, a lot of times. 

Max is too much like him. 

“Maxine.” He says, with a tone that says, we’re not done. And she sighs. Finally faces him. “What have you been telling her?” 

“Nothing.”

“Cosmo.” El says, lifting an eyebrow. Like she knows it’s a clue that Max wouldn’t want her to say. But once she says it, the room explodes.

Max groans and Billy yells. Full volume.

“COSMO?!” 

“Yes, Billy, okay?!” Max yells right back, releasing El to step into his space. Despite his injury and weakness, Max has never made him feel pitied. And he appreciates it, even when she’s snarling in his face. “We’re women now. We need to know things.” 

“Know things.” He says low, gravely. “You think you need to know things.”

“Yes.” El says confidently, drawing both siblings away from each other to stare at her. Innocent, but firm, she nods. “Friends don’t lie.” 

Billy wishes, for a moment, the mind flayer had killed him. 

“But this isn’t a conversation for friends, El.” He remembers how his dad had told him about sex -- his version anyway. Neil had summed it up to don’t get any girls pregnant. 

He never said anything about how boys made him feel. 

Billy suddenly wishes Harrington were there, because stupidly enough, Steve always knows what to say. Even if he says it badly, his point is always good. Solid. 

Right now, Billy just wants to send El home and go through Max’s room and find her hidden Cosmo magazines. 

But he isn’t Neil. He isn’t. 

“Why not?” El finally asks and Max lifts her chin in triumph. Billy wipes a palm over his face, sighs hard. 

“Because your parents should--” 

Then his gut goes cold when he remembers. Remembers Hopper’s funeral and Max’s story about El’s mother. He remembers that she’s staying with Joyce Byers and sleeping on a pull-out sofa bed. He remembers and his words die on his lips. 

So he just, sighs again. 

“It’s a hard thing to understand.” Billy settles on instead. Max arches a brow at him and El frowns but he waves his arms, searching for something better. “You know, adult.” 

“We are adults.” Max says. And he can’t help but laugh. Laugh and then promptly sit down on the couch because the force of the noise from his chest makes it spark with pain. He rubs his sternum and the girls shift closer. Concerned, maybe. But still holding their ground.

So he flops his hand on the couch. 

“Good screaming isn’t actually screaming.” He says, carefully keeping his gaze on the coffee table so he doesn’t give away how awkward he feels. “A word for it is moaning. Like, a happy sound someone makes when they feel good.” 

“During sex.” Max caps on the end.

And El’s eyes go as wide as dinner plates. Meanwhile, Billy wants to crawl under the couch and never come out. 

“Jesus, Max.” He hisses. But the damage is done. He can see the way El is doing the math in her head because someone must have explained sex to her. So. 

Thank christ that’s not on the agenda.

“But sex is for married people.” She says. And Billy really really wants to be dead. 

Then the doorbell rings and he wonders if maybe he’s been dead the whole time -- because Steve showing up right then is definitely some version of hell.

“IT’S OPEN.” Max yells before Billy can silence her and then his living room is full of people because of course Steve didn’t come alone. He brought one of the few people in Hawkins Billy can stand. 

“Uh, hey.” Robin says awkwardly when the pair stroll in, getting a look at the expressions on their faces. Or, rather, the colors on their faces. “What’s going on?”

“Billy is explaining to El why he has sex before he’s married.” Max says, like a traitor. But, really, the point of the statement lands just where she wants -- because Steve dumps half his slushee down his shirt. 

“HOLY SHIT” He shrieks while Robin covers her mouth to contain giggles and Billy gives up. Plays dead on the couch with a pillow over his face. 

“Robin, please.” He groans from under the thing and she coughs. Clearing her throat, probably, before she says come on girls and feet are moving over the hardwood. Moving away thank god. 

“Fucking hell that’s cold.” Steve hisses and Billy finally dares to look. 

His pretty boy is mopping the mess up with a tissue, which only pills up and leaves white fuzz on his shirt. The guy is an idiot but Billy can only smile at him. 

His idiot. 

“Subtle, Harrington.” He grunts. And Steve shoots him a sarcastic smile. 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know I was walking into an ambush.” 

"Yeah neither did I.” Billy groans. “Goddamn it, Max told El about good screaming.” 

As Steve turns scarlet, Billy teases his tongue between his teeth. 

“Must have overheard you some night. You’re not exactly quiet.”

“Okay, I cannot be held accountable for my whatever when you’re being....you.” Steve counters, badly, and plops down on the couch. He holds out his cherry slushee and Billy takes it, enjoys a few sips. “Jesus, since when do they know about stuff like that?” 

“Max said they’re not kids anymore.” He says with a mouthful of sugary ice. “That they’re adults.” 

“Like fuck they are.” 

“That’s what I’m sayin.” Billy mutters. 

"So...you told them about sex?" 

"Hell no." Billy shakes his head, sends the slushee back to Steve with a hard shove. "God, what do you think I am, an idiot? Max is the genius who brought up sex. Then El said it was only for married people." 

Steve laughs, once. Something close to embarrassed but then he's smiling down at his slushee, stirring it with the straw. Billy watches him, wonders what he's thinking when the guy finally looks up and shrugs. 

"I mean, don't all parents say that?" 

"Sure, but you waltzed in when El was putting together that I'm not married." 

"And Max has heard us having sex?" Steve finally arrives at the station with a horrified expression. "She knows doesn't she?"

Billy groans, lets his head fall back against the sofa. 

"Yeah, Harrington. I think she knows."

"Oh god."