If I Stare Too Long

Chapter 5: And He's Strange (Sure Is Strange)

The second time Billy spots Steve Harrington rolling into the trailer park, it is with a car full of children.

The last time Billy had seen him was only a few nights previous– Steve Harrington far too sober in the face of everyone else's shitfaced slurring as he'd poured Robin and then Billy and then Eddie into his car with dawn right around the corner. Billy blurrily remembers him talking with Nancy just outside, leaning against the open driver-side door, voice hushed as he assured her that he'd stopped drinking hours and hours ago–

And then Eddie had been hollering in the back seat, trying to climb over to hit the horn, begging Steve into the car before Nancy Wheeler could take up any more of his time–

And then Billy was singing– belting along with Eddie and with Steve's radio as Steve drove them slow and carefully down winding roads– street lights blurring and blending in with all those stars–

And then he was waking up face first in his own bed, the memory of Steve fucking Harrington tucking him in clinging to him like so much smoke.

So when Billy spots him, not three days later, pulling up in front of Munson's trailer again with a gaggle of teenagers already pouring out of the back before he can even come to a full and complete stop, Billy's already not sure what to do with himself. Not only because any-kid-but-Max kind of makes him want to eat his own jeans, but also because Steve Harrington climbs out of his shiny car and waves at Billy.

He turns his radio down, though. And settles into more of a sprawl in his lawn chair, telling himself that it's not posturing and knowing full well that it's a lie. A bad one, at that.

"Is the taxi service picking up or dropping off?" Billy asks.

Steve huffs out a laugh as he shuts his door behind him. "Dropping off, but only momentarily."

The curly-haired kid is already rapping both hands on the Munson trailer door. He thinks Eddie was probably asleep because he hears a familiar crash and clatter that's usually accompanied by an alarm when the Wheeler kid joins the other one at the door to start hollering his name.

Sinclair is there too– but he pivots and nods stiffly at Billy as he jogs by and toward the trailer behind him. It's not the first time he's come by for Max, and outside of some awkward conversation about basketball, the kid still doesn't quite know how to behave around him– never quite sure if Billy's gonna get in his face about his little sister all over again. Billy isn't much better.

He thinks Sinclair is more afraid of Max herself, though. He'd think it was funny, watching him fall all over himself each time Max smiled at him if he didn't do the exact same shit with Steve Harrington.

Hovering by the car, a bean pole of a kid lingers by the trunk, glancing between all of them like he's not sure where to fit himself. And at his side is a girl Billy hasn't seen since he was still laying in a hospital bed, curls pixie-short and smile timidly when she gives a little wave.

Billy can't help but wave back, just a little raise of his hand. Nothing too friendly, but it still gets her smile to widen into something bright.

El, Max calls her. The kid who saved the fucking world.

The one who spent enough time in Billy's head that he can't help but feel a little fond—or something close to it, anyway. Like a defense mechanism. Or maybe she's almost like those memories she spent so much time traipsing around in. Nostalgic.

The kid next to her looks at Billy for a ghost of a moment, and then quickly looks away to where his friends are trying to knock down Eddie's door.

It's only another fraction of a second before Eddie is bursting out the door, hanging from the jamb as he stumbles to a halt when he catches sight of the boys waiting for him. He barely looks awake, his dark hair everywhere, but he sniffs and squints at them and then smiles.