#Robin is mortified when she hears about this and makes it a point to prove how much she loves him every day
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Steve couldn’t understand why the Party wanted him around. He didn’t see why anyone would want to hang around some deadbeat that peaked in high school, he certainly wouldn’t. Case in point, all of his friends were going somewhere. Dustin was a genius, Robin was brilliant, and Eddie was going to be a world famous rockstar like Freddy Mercury was. Max was healing nicely and she would be something important, Lucas was great with people so he’d have a bright future, and Mike was… passionate. El and Will were fabulous so he was sure they would amount to everything.
Why would any of them drag themselves down with Steve? Robin could choose so many other soulmates better than Steve. He couldn’t relate to being a “band geek” in high school or working full time to save money for college, he couldn’t even get into college. In his mind, anyone could be a better friend to her than he could.
And why was Eddie dating him? Beautiful, smart, strategic, funny Eddie. He could have anyone he wanted and yet he settled for Steve. No matter how many times Eddie told him he loved him and couldn’t imagine life without him, Steve couldn’t wrap his head around it. What was so special about himself that all of these people stuck around?
Nothing had changed over the years, really. He was still the neglected boy sitting on the bleachers after baseball practice, waiting for his parents to come pick him up. Even back when he was little, his parents knew he was nothing special. They’d taken the first flight out of Hawkins and had hardly looked back since.
Hell, even Steve’s friends in high school figured it out. Tommy and Carol hadn’t said a word to encourage him to stay, they sent him away with silent glares and indifferent shrugs as if being a friend to Steve was more of an effort than it was worth.
And Nancy, his first heartbreak. She dropped him like everyone else always had. As soon as another boy showed her kindness and affection, she dropped Steve like a hot potato and broke his heart on the way out the door.
Steve knew it was only a matter of time before the Party grew tired of him. Every outing, Steve watched them like it would be the last time. Because just like everyone else, they would all leave and move onto better things. And Steve would be left broken with no one to pick up the pieces.
#Robin is mortified when she hears about this and makes it a point to prove how much she loves him every day#Steve will never not be her Dingus#Eddie too is horrified and starts showering Steve with affection#he’s never touch starved again after Eddie gets ahold of him#eventually Steve realizes that the Party will never leave him and they never do#stranger things#steddie#fanfic#steve harrington#eddie munson#introspection#robin buckley
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Show Pony
Chapter 6
Winds Change
Read on Ao3
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Five days.
They had five days left together.
Billy tried not to think about it, but it was kinda hard to ignore.
Stalls were already being taken down, fair games being packed up into large shipping trucks to take across the country.
One of Max’s beloved funnel cake stalls had already met the way of the shipping container. She was pissed.
And yet, Billy and Steve did their best to pretend like the rodeo wasn’t coming down around them.
A perfect symbolism for their fling, or whatever, crashing down everywhere they look.
Billy spent days in Steve’s sweaty little airstream, brushing his fingers over that muscular body, calling him a hick and a horse girl and every other fake insult he could think of.
And Steve spent all that time lacing his fingers with Billy’s, winking at him from his place on top of one of his three gorgeous mares as he did victory lap after victory lap, roping calves in under ten seconds, slamming Billy against the walls of the airstream, adrenaline from the stunt still pumping through him.
The field saw them exercising Steve’s horses, taking a ratty blanket out there in the middle of the night to watch the stars.
And it was stupid, Billy pretending that this was more than just. A convenience.
Steve was on his knees, and Billy threaded his hands into that thick hair, tugging it this way and that, the way he’s learned Steve likes after some weeks of mewling whines.
Billy was backed up against the gate of the makeshift paddock, shielded by the prying eyes of the other rodeo workers by the long-set sun and the sounds of the day’s crowds filtering out of the grounds.
Steve pushed down, taking Billy’s cock all the way in his throat, breathing heavily through his nose, the nose currently pressed flat against Billy’s pelvis.
Steve was a champion at a few things: calf roping, horse riding, and dick sucking.
He pulled off Billy’s dick with a slurp, rolling his tongue along the head, humming slightly as he did. His eyes were dark, staring up at Billy, something like a smirk sparking in them as Billy fell apart.
He took a breath, ready to move back in and finish Billy off when there were footsteps.
“Steve! I gotta check Loretta’s hock.”
They both froze, Steve’s eyes going wide with shock, his lips still stretched around the cock in his mouth.
Billy had yet to meet Jim Hopper, the horse specialist that watched out for Steve’s three mares.
He guesses he was about to meet the man right about now.
Steve yanked his face off Billy’s cock with an unmistakable slurping sound that made Billy’s face go bright fuckin’ red. Billy fumbled with the fly on his shorts, and Steve took charge, roughly pulling the button closed and the zip up. It was a miracle he didn’t catch any skin with the quick action.
Steve was on his feet as Jim rounded the edge of the fencing, eyeing the two of them standing far too close, Billy’s face red and full of guilt. Jim raised a hand, his eyes closing as he breathed heavily out his nose.
“I don’t wanna know. Just let me take a look at your girl.”
Steve shrugged, acting like this whole ordeal was just another day at the rodeo.
Maybe it is, Billy’s brain supplied.
They were so fucking. Obvious. Billy could just drop dead right there on the grass.
Jim was a big dude. Beefy and broad, his face was clearly weather-beaten. Well, what of his face wasn’t covered with a graying beard and mustache. His left cheek pudged out slightly with what Billy realized was chewing tobacco when he spit casually at his feet.
“This is Billy. I told you about him,” Steve said with a smirk.
And Billy just about had a heart attack when Steve made a big show of wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, smirkin’ like the devil.
“Yeah, kid, I’m just here for Letty.”
The horses had been allocated to the horsebox for the night, as it was much warmer in there for them. Not that it was cold in San Diego at night, but still. Steve worried. Billy thought it was cute.
Steve led Jim off towards the box, clapping him once on the shoulder as he passed, making Jim groan and spit a dollop of yellow-brown saliva after Steve.
Billy felt like he was about to turn into some thick hot liquid shame when Jim gave him a bit of a once-over, raising one thick eyebrow at him. Jim’s mustache twitched, and he spit to the side before turning on his heel, following Steve to the horses.
Billy has never been more mortified in his life.
Steve’s mentioned Jim a lot. He always calls him Hop. Said Steve himself gave him that nickname. Billy has kinda sussed out that Jim is something like a pseudo-dad to Steve. The one to teach him how to really care for the horses. The one to teach him to properly tie a calf.
All the shit that Steve was made of, Jim taught him.
Billy had put together that Jim’s daughter was the one Max was scampering about the grounds with. Steve said he had adopted Elle when she was about seven.
His face gave something away when he said that. Making a look that said there was a story there, but Billy didn’t wanna ask.
It’s not his story to know.
Billy followed after them, keeping a wide enough berth from the pair that it was weird. He knew it was weird. But it was either this type of weird, or the weird of inserting himself into their conversation when Jim obviously knew what they had been doing seconds before he found them. Steve was about as subtle as a gun with those grass stains on his knees, wiping at his face like he needed to prove a point.
Billy lingered outside the horsebox.
Loretta had been lagging lately, and she startled whenever Steve laid a hand on her left leg.
Steve had just about sobbed when he told Billy he thinks she’s hurt herself.
Billy wished he had a cigarette right about now.
“Yeah, I think the poor girl’s just havin’ some inflammation. Probably tweaked her leg just right on the arena dirt.”
“Is she gonna be okay? What does she need?” Steve sounded more serious than Billy’s ever heard him. There was a weight to his voice that only reared up when Steve mentioned his father, a slight quiver in his words that made his anxiety palpable.
“She’s a tough one, Letty. Let her rest for about two weeks, only mild walking, and some ice at the end of the day wouldn’t hurt, either. We’ll talk after that and see if she needs anything more.”
There was something of a pause in the horsebox, and Billy held his breath, ignoring the fact that he was clearly eavesdropping now.
“You being careful with that boy?”
“‘Course I am.”
“Because I meant what I said last time. I’m not posing as your dad to get you an appointment at the clinic again-”
“ Jesus, Hop. I thought we agreed never to talk about that again, huh? And besides, I’m grown. I can make appointments for my own STD tests now. Plus, it was all fine.”
Billy nearly choked.
It’s not that he’s never had a scare before, and he and Steve were safe, but still.
“Good to hear, then. But you being careful ?” There was another silence from the box. One of the horses whinnied.
When Jim continued, it was with a much softer voice than before.
“I ain’t never seen you so attached before.”
The horse whinnied again, and Billy pictured Steve wrapping his arms around June’s neck and hugging her close.
“He’s under my skin now.” A scuff that sounded like Steve’s boot brushing against the hay-covered floor of the box. “First time I wasn’t ready for a fling to be over.”
Those words crashed into Billy’s gut, knocking all the wind out of him.
He suffocated on them, drowned in Steve’s melancholy voice as he said them.
First time I wasn’t ready for a fling to be over.
It stung at the same time it made Billy’s heart soar.
It hurt and it healed and it made Billy wanna throw up and lock Steve in his basement so he could never leave him.
Or maybe something less totally wacked-out and creepy.
“You know I love you like my own, but you gotta manage yourself. I ain’t judgin’, I just don’t wanna see you all hurt again.”
“Jeez, that was some real sappy shit there.” The mood shifted with Steve’s deflection, and Billy could hear footsteps leaving the horsebox.
He scrambled over to Steve’s little airstream, pretending he hadn’t been listening and freaking out over what he was hearing.
There was just. There was a whole lot to take in there.
Jim said he didn’t want to see Steve all hurt again, but also said he’s never seen Steve so attached before.
When had he been all hurt before if this was, in Steve’s words, the first time he wasn’t ready for a fling to be over?
And Billy didn’t want to hurt Steve, but it kinda, in a real shitty way, made him feel a little bit better that he wasn’t the only one ignoring the oncoming end out of sadness and a need to prolong whatever they had left.
That, and the added little bonus that Jim had once pretended to be Steve’s father to get him an STD test from a clinic.
Billy feels like he’s been punched in the face over and over again by that short conversation he heard. And he would know. He’s been decked in the kisser too many times to think about.
He leaned against the cold metal wall of the airstream as Steve came into view, Jim heading in the opposite direction towards the fairgrounds and the rodeo being shut down for the night.
Steve smiled at Billy, this soft, calm little thing that made the warm summer air even sweeter in Billy’s lungs and the words keep ringing through his head.
First time I wasn’t ready for a fling to be over.
He could see something in Steve, now that he knew what to look for.
How carefree and easy he seemed anytime he was around Billy, but those devastating moments when he seemed to bite his tongue against saying something more meaningful, or shied away from a briefly intimate touch.
Billy could finally see his own anxiety in Steve at their dwindling time together, and it broke his fucking heart.
Robin had warned Billy not to get attached. She told him Steve slept around and played the field and left before anyone could get in too deep.
But he wonders if Robin had warned Steve against the same thing. If she had told him that Billy was going to fuck and run. That leaving someone behind can sometimes hurt just as much as being left behind.
He hopes that if she hasn’t, she’ll be there for Steve. That she’ll pick him up and won’t let him break his own precious heart anymore.
“So, how’s Loretta?”
“She’ll be okay. Poor lady just needs some rest and some ice, and she’ll be feeling her best in a few weeks.”
Steve matched Billy’s stance, leaning against the trailer and tilting his face to the starry sky.
It was quiet out in the sea of trailers. Now that the spectators had all gone home for the night, the cheering crowds and amplified commentators weren’t reverberating through the open grass.
Instead, they could hear the rodeo animals that had been put in their nighttime areas. The many whineys and brays from different horses spread through the place.
The rodeo seemed so fucking magic to Billy.
Something like Heaven.
“I’m going soon.”
Billy doesn’t know why Steve said it.
They both knew that fact.
He thought they were both aggressively ignoring that fact.
“Yeah. You are.”
Billy didn’t know what to do with his hands.
He really didn’t want to have this conversation. Ever.
Because talking about it makes it real.
And God fucking forbid Steve breaks it off now and not in the allotted five days they still have to laugh and fuck and be free .
He pulled out his slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes, lighting one deftly.
Steve didn’t smoke. Said his grandpa died really horribly of lung cancer.
Billy knew this was going to be a serious talk when Steve didn’t make one of his usual snide remarks about Billy smoking.
“I just wanted. To be sure,” Steve trailed off, still looking at the spangled night sky. “We need to be on the same page.”
That we’re probably, most definitely, in love with one another but too stupid and too poorly timed and too tragic to say anything about it.
“I think we are.”
“Okay. Okay. Good. Because, I mean, I really don’t want to hurt you, and, like, our arrangement’s been the same since the beginning.”
Arrangement.
That word.
Arrangement.
It was a fucking ugly word for whatever beautiful thing they had between them.
Arrangement.
It made Billy feel cheap, and used, and so fucking stupid.
And feeling like that only meant one thing for Billy.
He got fucking mad.
“So, that’s it then. You’re done with me. Onto the next poor sucker in the next shitty town that’ll fuck you through the mattress and hold your hand until you decide you’re sick of ‘em. Great. It was so nice being your fucking whore. Thanks for the. Opportunity.”
He wished he chewed tobacco like Jim. He would spit a glob at Steve’s foot. Probably make it land right on those stupid fucking red cowboy boots.
Steve finally looked at Billy, his face scrunched up and those beautiful eyes of his looking somewhere between lost and hurt and angry and confused.
“Billy, that’s not what I-”
“No. No, Harrington, I fucking get it. You go town to town, and feed these fuckers a sob story about how hard it is for you to connect with people, and that you’re lonely and your dad sucks, and all this other bullshit. When really, you’re just an insecure asshole with intimacy problems who’s too fucking stupid to get a fucking GED.”
Fuck.
The second the words were out of his mouth, Billy knew he had gone way too fucking far.
Steve’s eyes flashed, and his face seemed to morph right in front of Billy’s eyes. He was closing himself off right where they stood. Getting ready to chuck Billy away and never see him again.
And Billy fucking deserved it.
“You’re calling me an insecure asshole with intimacy problems? The only friends you’ve got are coworkers that only pity you because they can see how fucking pathetic you are. You beg for scraps like a fucking dog and the second things get tough you ignore it, or get angry at it, like a stupid goddamn child . You think you’re so tough. That you’re the only one with problems . You’ve got your head so far up your own ass that you don’t realize that shit sucks all over, and that everyone is just as miserable as you are, we’re just able to fucking make something out of ourselves instead of wallowing in self-pity.”
Steve’s little speech left Billy feeling dumbfounded.
He was seething with a rage he had never felt in his life before. Anger at himself, and anger at Steve for being so fucking right. For letting all of Billy’s flaws and insecurities tumble out of his mouth like they were nothing.
He took a long drag from his cigarette, leaning forward to put it out against the door of the airstream, leaving a tiny circular ash print on the painted cow. It looked like a bullet wound on the poor thing.
It’s how Billy felt.
“I hope your horse fucking dies.”
It was childish.
It was so dumb, and childish, and Billy really doesn’t hope any horse anywhere dies, especially Steve’s three wonderful mares, but he’s feeling something he thinks he could call jilted, and he’s hurt and upset and genuinely at a loss.
He didn’t let Steve get another word in. Just turned on his heel, and left the little cowboy behind.
#woop woop i like this chapter a lot please enjoy!#show pony#yikes writes#steve harrington#billy hargrove#harringrove
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