Work Text:
Billy comes home more irritated than not.
It’s been a while since he’s come home, exhausted each evening, but remembering to slip an arm around Steve’s waist, dip his head into Steve’s hair and kiss his temple with a tiny "I’m home". It used to be a routine, every weekday Steve would come home earlier than Billy, to a quiet and empty house and prepare dinner, and Billy would arrive by the time it was done. He’d fill the house with him and chase away the quiet and the empty and pay his thanks with a kiss that Steve would wear like a tiny token of affection, wear it for the rest of the night until the sun came up.
But now Billy comes home more irritated than not. He slumps at the dinner table with his head in his hands and doesn’t look at Steve until there’s a plate in front of him, eats only half of what’s given to him like the fork of too heavy to lift into his mouth. He has this stare, now, that’s a million miles away, where his eyes are glued to the table, unfocused. Steve wants to wave his hands in front of his eyes, wants something more than the occasional hum that Billy makes to show he’s listening to him, listening to Steve — or maybe not listening at all.
Billy comes home and the quiet and empty stays.
—-
Steve remembers when they moved into their apartment straight out of college with their starter jobs and youth.
He remembers when Billy first cut his hair.
Steve sat on the closed lid of the toilet while Billy stood in front of the mirror, picking at strands of dirty blond curls, rubbing them through fingers and bringing a pair scissors to them half careless with anger. Steve leaned on the counter with his sweet words and pretended not to notice the wet in Billy’s eyes at the growing pile of blonde on floor, only getting up to help him shave the back of his head short, to even out the length of his hair until it was something acceptable, a respectable length for a strict work setting.
Every hair cut after that got easier. It got easier until Steve didn’t need to be in the same room, until he didn’t need to remind Billy that it looks good, if only different, not a bad different, he promises. Until Billy’s eyes didn’t glaze over with a shine of tears.
Steve flips through a magazine, reading the words on the page only visible by the light that spills from the bathroom. The door is open and Steve takes a moment to stare at Billy with the buzzing of the electric razor echoing in the background. His curls are tighter now that it is shorter and weighs less than it did in college. Sometimes, he likes to play with it at night, pull at strands that are left a bit longer at the top of Billy’s head and watches them bounce back into loose rings. He does it until Billy bats his hand away or snaps at him to go to sleep. He does it until the curls disappear in the morning under a layer of gel, slicked back with a comb.
Billy’s suit hangs by the door ready for the morning, ready for work, under a transparent layer of plastic from the dry cleaners. They must be heavy — the suits, Steve thinks, if they manage to make Billy’s shoulders sag over the years, dip with the weight of the fabric, as if it were made of lead.
—-
Billy’s eyes wander off so much as of late, Steve’s afraid they’ve wandered too far to find their way back to him, too lost among a sea of people with perfect glowing skin and perfect smiles whispered at Billy for attention. His eyes follow the lines of some other man’s legs, trail down the spines of strangers, tiny secret glances caught and returned.
It used to be that Steve could just squeeze Billy’s hand in his, I’m here, you don’t need them, he’d remind him as he’d rub his thumb over his knuckles and Billy would pull his gaze back to him. But lately it’s getting harder to reel him back in.
Can he feel Steve’s hand anymore, now that Steve is ghosting away?
—-
He doesn’t look at him the way he used to.
For years, all Steve’s ever known was the weight of that stare and those eyes on him that Steve doesn’t know what to do with himself now that he doesn’t have them. He worries. He worries so much. He worries each time Billy’s baby blues ghost right over him, through him, even when there’s no one else in the room. Their tiny shared home with its tiny rooms and once cozy layout is big now, overly spacious the way Billy and him manage to stay on two separate sides of the world.
He gets loud.
He knows he’s being obnoxious, but he can’t help it. Steve babbles on over the radio and over the repetitive, fake laugh track of the TV, afraid that if he doesn’t make noise, Billy will forget he’s even there.
Sometimes, though, it feels like Billy can’t hear him at all. It feels like, like he’s far off somewhere that Steve isn’t and Steve’s been left behind waiting for him to come back, hoping that he’ll come back. He looks at Billy’s side profile, really look at him, — the slant of his nose and freckles on his cheeks, the way his hair is growing longer again and starting to touch his ears — and memorizes every detail, notes the differences, the wrinkles around his eyes and smiles lines that curve around his lips, looks at what used to be his.
He doesn’t feel like his anymore.
A character on tv says something and Steve’s laughs loud along with the audience, where are you Billy, and Billy doesn’t look at him when Steve rests his hand on his thigh.
Is it warm where you are?
Are you being loved by someone else?
---
Remember when you used to think I was pretty,
Steve traces the muscles on Billy’s back when he sleeps, rests his palms across them and just feels him breathe next to him. Billy snuffles in his sleep, always has and always will, he shifts and Steve’s feels those muscle taunt and pull under his touch. He misses the way they moved when they kiss, when Billy curled over him and Steve raked his nails down his back. He misses when they couldn’t get enough of one another, unable to be pulled apart and latching their mouths on the others skin trying to eat the other whole.
Remember when you thought I was pretty, used to say I was the prettiest thing in Hawkins,
It’s too dark to see, but Steve knows there are sunspots on Billy’s back from how much time he spends out in the water, out in the sun, collecting heat and leftover evening rays. Steve skims his lips over them, where he knows they are — on his shoulders and down his spine — skims his lips over the remembrance that summer leaves on Billy for him to take into the winter. Steve can’t help the way he cries at the warmth.
All the girls in school and you thought I was it, worked so hard to get my attention, and when you had it, you reminded every day how happy I made you. And I reminded you of how happy you made me,
It’s okay if Steve let’s himself have this closeness, even if it’s solely at night and it’s only Steve that touches his love on tanned skin, when it’s dark and Steve can pretend that Billy’s eyes still light up the way they used to after all these years. He curls himself around him and presses his face against his back, a faint smile of amusement crossing his face when he hears the restless gurgling of Billy’s stomach along with the thumping of his heart, almost enough to make him forget why he’s crying.
He chokes down a sob and he shakes against Billy and he clenches his teeth like that will stop the way he trembles, tightens his arms around his narrow hips and lets his eyes empty themselves on Billy’s back, wishes they’d leave their own sunspots where they fall so Steve knows for certain that Billy’s still his.
Thought you’d never leave me. Promised you wouldn’t. So followed you. I followed you right out of Hawkins, I love you so much,
But Steve knows that they don’t, knows they just slide right off his skin and Steve wants Billy to wake up, he’s desperate for him to wake up. Wants to see Billy hurt knowing the way that he’s hurting Steve, hurting them. Wants to scream and yell and tell him these tears are for him, that the way his lungs beg for air is because of him.
That Steve waits a little longer to go to sleep just so he can press himself against him and hold him without feeling the way that Billy doesn’t love him anymore. Just so he can pretend that Billy still does.
Maybe you did think I was the prettiest thing in Hawkins. Maybe you just needed to remember there’s a bigger world outside of Hawkins, even when it feels like Hawkins is all there is.
That there’s better, that you could do so much better… Have you found better?
He doesn’t blame him if Billy doesn’t love him, but Steve is selfish. He wants more time to continue knowing him, even after all the years they’ve spent knowing each other and the way the other laughs. Steve doesn’t want someone knowing Billy the same way he does, doesn’t want Billy knowing someone else.
Steve clings harder to him as he lets himself fall asleep and Billy doesn’t wake up.
Do you still love me?
—-
He feels paranoid digging his nose into Billy’s work clothes, almost daring the fabric to emit a different scent that’s not Billy, something other than the cologne he’s used for years. It’s a relief each time he pulls aways and doesn’t smell someone new on his clothes, someone else that has been sharing Billy’s space, his heat. He fears that one day, he’ll bury his nose into his button-up, into his tie, before sending it off to the dry cleaner’s and find its scent forgien.
Steve doesn’t think Billy is cheating on him — really, he doesn’t. He knows the patterns of a cheater, had to listen to the excuses pour out of his dad’s mouth when he came home late again, smelling of someone else's perfume other than his mother’s. He had to listen to them argue while he pretended not to hear, pretended to sleep, while his mother pretended to believe him and his dad pretended to still love her.
It was always that he’ll be home late again, finishing a project at work. That the blonde strands of hair that sticks to his jacket and car belong to just some work colleague of his, someone he goes to lunch with. That he missed his flight, sorry, honey. The next available flight is in two days, I’ll see then. Love you.
Billy doesn’t fit the pattern. He comes home every night and doesn’t let the bed go cold. His white blouses are never smudged with lipstick around the collar, his clothes never carry off colored strands of hair. The scent on his clothes never changes. Yet, Steve worries, he’s always worrying, what Billy is getting up to during his break hours, who he’s spending his lunch with. It’s like he’s waiting, waiting for the day to finally come, to be cooking dinner and get the call, to hear Billy on the end tell him I’ll be staying late at the office to finish work, don’t wait up for me. Love you.
To hear the line go dead with a click before he has the chance to say it back.
---
It’s the weekend and they’ve ordered pizza.
Billy orders pepperoni with half olives and it’s such a silly little thing to be worked up about, but Steve asks why he got olives and Billy says he thought it was Steve’s favorite and Steve — Steve hasn’t ordered olives on his pizza in months, years, maybe. And it’s such a silly little thing to be worked up about. So he smiles tight, thanks him like his voice doesn’t sound choked, like he isn’t about to cry, and pretends that it’s still his favorite.
The box is left empty on the coffee table, the lid is open with spots of grease and cheese on the inside, only half eaten crusts lay scattered. Steve sits and leans against the arm of the couch and Billy sits at the other end and he’s fine now, everything is fine. It doesn’t matter if Steve’s pizza order has changed and Billy hasn’t noticed, it doesn’t matter if Steve doesn’t know Billy’s favorite color anymore. It used to be blue, is it still blue?
Does he still take his coffee with cream, no sugar?
It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t.
He closes his eyes and fiddles with his wedding band, spinning it on his finger and breathes. The inside must be polished and worn from the habit; Steve’s eyes are closed tight as he tries to feel the engraving on the inside, imagines that he still can. He pretends that he can still feel the indents of looped cursive rub against his skin, the one’s he memorized and says over and over to himself just to get the chance to hear them again.
Love you, always.
Steve doesn’t see the way Billy’s eyes track the movement of his fingers. Doesn’t see the way Billy rubs at his own gold band and the way his adam’s apple bobs when he swallows hard.
---
Steve comes home and doesn’t notice that there is an extra pair of shoes that lay by the door when no one should be home yet.
He sighs and hangs his bag on the hook of their tiny hallway and stretches his arms skyward until he hears a satisfying pop and his back loosens, the aftermath of spending hours crouched eye-level with kids that barely come up to his knee. There are marker streaks all over his hands and cheeks, his face occasionally lights up, reflecting light where stubborn flecks of glitter stick to his skin. He kicks off his shoes and is pulling his sweater off when he walks into the kitchen, stops in his tracks at the figure that sits at the dining table.
No one should be home, but Billy is slumped in the chair, his hair has fallen out of place where the gel couldn’t hold against the hands that must have ran through it. Steve flicks the light switch until he can properly see Billy, his loosen tie and tense shoulders, and he looks up from where his head is hung into his hands, looks at him with blue eyes rimmed with red, swollen. Steve’s heart plummets all at once, sinks like bolder down to his stomach, can’t wretch any words out past his throat, they just anchor himself in his airway and burn. He thinks the worst, doesn’t know what to think exactly, but he hasn’t seen Billy cry in years, and he sees the guilt on his face and — Steve thinks the worst.
He doesn’t feel his own legs move until he’s standing over Billy, looking down at him and gathering his face in cupped hands shaking with the force in which Steve holds everything in. It looks like Billy is a puppet the way his shoulders slump completely, he hangs his head and it’s like all his strings have been cut and the only thing holding him up anymore is Steve’s hands. Billy leans into his touch, closes his eyes but tears still leak between the lashes, caught by Steve’s thumbs that rub against his cheek so soft, hiccups when he tries to swallow air.
“Billy,” Steve is crying too, he realizes when he sees the drops land on Billy’s forehead from where they’ve slid down his nose. He doesn’t want to ask, doesn’t want to know, but still he feels whatever hurt that has Billy weeping in their kitchen and he has to ask: “What’s wrong, baby? Why are you crying?”
Billy wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him closer, his palms are warm and grip tight where they grip at his back. He buries his face into Steve’s stomach, his nose poking into the soft flesh through his shirt. Steve has a barrage of thoughts that dancing in his mind, each one taunting at Steve’s insecurities and biting away at his heart, wanting to leave his chest hollow.
I’ve been seeing someone else.
I can’t do this anymore.
I don’t love you anymore.
I’m leaving.
I’m sorry.
He strokes at Billy’s hair, the gel sticks to his fingers, and it’s forgiving — the way he scratches at his scalp and trails his fingers down his neck. He thought he was ready for when Billy finally decided to tell him… he thought he’d be able to take it in stride, say I know and let them both move on. But at this moment, he knows he’d never be able to steel himself enough. His lungs swell in his chest and he loves him so much, so so much. It kills him to see Billy so unhappy and vacant, kills him to see Billy become a shell of what he used to be in their time together. He loves him enough to know that whatever comes out of Billy’s mouth, he’ll forgive him. He’ll hurt, he’ll try to be angry, but he’ll forgive him, already has, even if it means Billy is leaving him.
Billy pulls away and swipes at his nose with his unbuttoned sleeve, there is damp spot where he was pressed. There are thumbs rubbing light circles on Steve’s back that only stop when they slide to his hips and lay there. Blue eyes stay on the white tiled floor, peering at Steve’s socked feet, until they drift up with a deep inhale and look at Steve’s own red rimmed eyes. There is shame in those deep blues.
“Baby,” his hands flex on his hip, “Baby, I lost my job.”
Steve’s mind goes silent and the following sob is interwoven with a laugh that isn’t meant to be cruel or mocking, he’s just — relieved.
“Billy…” he presses his thumb to those lips and grips at Billy’s arm with the other, desperate, as he breaks down in his hands. He sees Billy’s eyes widen a bit bewildered, confused, and it makes Steve laugh louder until he collapses into Billy, the chair creaks with his added weight. “I thought — I thought —” He can’t even say it, just rubs his nose along Billy’s jaw with a wobbling-lipped smile, steadies his hands on his neck and shoulders.
“I thought you were leaving me.”
Billy’s hand is rough when it grips at the base of Steve’s head and pulls him in until he’s tucked safely into the crook of neck. It harsh, the fingers that dig into his neck and clench at his hair, but it’s safe and keeping Steve right there, where he’s meant to be. It’s a bit funny, Steve thinks, that Billy was the one that was feeling hopeless moments ago and somehow he’s the one that ended up a mess in the kitchen.
It’s ages until his body stops jerking with the force of his sobs and the tears start to dry on his cheeks, ages until Billy’s hand softens and forces him to look at him, cradling his head close and feeling his breath fan across his face.
“I haven’t been good to you, have I,” it’s whispered and nasally from his stuffy nose and Steve wants to hide again, but Billy keeps his head in his hand and Steve has to look at the forlorn expression in his eyes, “...if you think that I could ever leave you.”
“I haven’t been good to you either…”
It’s stupid, sounds a bit insane, when Steve admits, “My favorite pizza is pep, extra cheese, and, and I don’t know your favorite color anymore.” But it’s an attempt of holding back the inevitable conversation that will follow, maybe tonight, maybe in the morning, but right now they both need time to piece each other back together. Billy seems to understand, rests his lips against Steve’s so he can feel when Billy mutters I’m sorry.
“I don’t care about your job, Billy, we have savings and, God, you’re so smart anyone will hire you in a dime, and... We’ll get through this.” There is relief in Billy too, now.
“I’m kinda happy that I lost my job,” Billy confesses. “I... There were days when I was driving to work and I would hear the same songs play on the radio every morning and I just, sometimes I just, I wanted something to happen on my way there. I wanted, I wanted to skid on a patch of ice or wrap myself around a tree just so wouldn’t have to sit in the office and fill out the same paperwork everyday.”
Billy laughs even though there is no humor in it, but it’s incredible how little they know about each other anymore, how little they know about what’s going on in this life they share. They’ve been traveled so far from one another, somewhere along the way there was a fork in the road and they each took a different path, it’s a miracle that they are colliding now, finally.
Billy is smiling, Steve feels it against his lips.
“I’ve missed you”, he says and Steve’s missed him too.
“We have enough in the bank, you don’t have to look for a job right now. We, I, can take some time off and we can…” get to know each other, again, We can fix this, fix us.
Billy hums his agreement and it’s so good to taste him again, really taste him. He latches onto those lips and holds onto those shoulders so Steve’s nails bite into his skin and the colorful marker stains on his fingers rub off into Billy’s button-up in splotches of blue and yellow. His hand is dragged up by a light hold around his wrist, brought up to Billy’s lips for him to kiss at the band on his finger. He gazes at him with this light that Steve almost forgot what it looked like.
“I’d like that, pretty boy.”
Steve kisses between his brow, feels young again at those words, like they’re in college with all their brash and confident youth diving headfirst into one another, falling in love. They’re meeting each other all over again; they’ll learn each other's favorite color and the others body, find what’s changed and what stayed the same after all these years. Kiss the old memories anew on their skin and deepen those words engraved on their wedding bands.
Love you, always
It’ll take time to mend the wound, but they have the needle and thread to stitch it close.
Steve finds that Billy still likes his coffee just the same.
Cream, no sugar.