“Is that what you want to hear?” Steve pushes.

Billy shrugs. He swipes back a lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. “Yeah, sure. I believe that before Steve Harrington: indie art scene groupie.”

Steve rolls his eyes at being called a groupie. It’s not the worst thing, by far. “Sort of unfair you asked me what I was doing here, when I should ask the same. I thought you were splitting town? Running away from your old man?”

Billy watches Steve, his eyes widening as their last conversation resurfaces. As it floats to the top of Steve’s crappy mixed drink as buoyant as an olive.

“Figured you’d be sunburnt in Santa Carla by now?” Steve asks.

He asks and really means it.

That daydream had helped him repair his broken heart, his bruised and bloody ego, his tail between his legs. He told himself it wasn’t really about him, it was Billy’s father who ran him out of town. It was Billy’s father who planted and watered all the anger. The fact Steve was a hybrid was just a convenient excuse. Low hanging fruit. Even if the words never left his mind.

Even if the words sat on the edge of his bed every night to remind him of his unwantedness.

Steve imagines it was worth it, in some way, to get Billy to a safer place. Yet, he’s turned up here. Only a day’s drive from Steve’s hometown. In a pretentious pop-up bar. Glowing, and radiant, and blushing.

Billy lifts one hand to scrub at his beard. He’s got an open beer bottle pinched between his fingers. Effortlessly calm and suave. He takes a long swig before answering.

“Funny thing about Santa Carla… it’s a long drive out there for nowhere to stay.”

Billy’s searching his face, his body, as if it holds the answers. His electric-blue eyes settled finally on his tail.

Steve’s got to turn and order another drink. His fur starts standing on end from all the wonderful attention, preening from it.

“So you gave up?” Steve asks, uncaring.

“Something like that. I got a job here, an apartment. It was temporary ‘till I got some money, but you know. I just. Never left.”

Billy swallows thickly next to him. Shuffling as he gets closer. His hand is right beside Steve’s own as it lays on the bar.

Billy’s got ink all up and down his arms, on his chest and neck. He’s even got pretty things on the back of his hand. A red rose with brilliant green leaves curling over the edges of his palm.

Steve’s own hand itches to touch. To feel the tattoo’s raised scars, and Billy’s hot pulse under them. He wants to trace each one as if he were playing with lines of sunlight across the carpet on a sunny afternoon.

Steve reaches for his new drink, instead. He shivers as he drinks it down.

“Chicago’s not like Hawkins, then, huh? Where you just had to get out, just had to run—or, what?” Steve can taste the hatred in his own words. Stuck in his throat like a hair ball.

He was simply ‘Harrington’ to him across the bar now, only that. Billy’s hands were red, alright, but it wasn’t from his fucking tattoo. It was from Steve’s heart still beating inside of them.

“Steve,” Billy insists, “you know why I had to—.”

“I know.” Steve’s voice shakes with a whimper. His tail finally stops and curls closer to his feet, hiding away.

Steve blinks his swelling eyes down to Billy’s neck. The ink there is pretty too. Under the collar of the soft band t-shirt Billy’s wearing, Steve can see the wings of a flying sparrow.

“It was nice to see you again, Billy.”

Steve stands from the bar, finishing his drink before dropping a bill in one swift move, expecting to run away. He’s expecting to leave, to try and forget. Again. Just like last time.

But he doesn’t expect the hand that reaches for his elbow.

He doesn’t mean to shake the hand and keep walking. He’s on autopilot, he thinks. Blackout.

Feeling injured and lonely, Steve’s ears flatten to the top of his head and his tail hides between his legs. It had started raining while he was in the bar. The sidewalks are darker now, louder, from the onslaught.

And that’s just fine. The raindrops are fat and slow and they remind him of himself. He gasps for breath in the rain, and gets a mouthful.

“Oh, great, I’m drunk.” He mutters to himself.

Steve closes his eyes though a wave of nausea, stumbling further into the night, and when he opens them it’s like opening them up to a dream.

Blond curls turning dark in the rain, flattening to lay around Billy’s face in a pretty frame. His skin, pink and flushed from the cold, illuminates the freckles on his face like stars in the sky.

“Trying to make us even?” Billy yells over the rainfall.

Steve eyes him wary at first, hesitant he’s real at all.

“Making us even would be me calling you a freak!” He hissed.

Billy’s face falls. “Suppose so,” he calls. “You have every right to.”

Then he opens his arms. Holding them out as if waiting for a hug. Or a bullet. His shirts totally lost in the rain, turning the well loved gray to a solid black color that clings to Billy’s every curve. His abdomen is very welcoming, cozy, Steve wishes it could be his to run into.

He wished he could be the bullet. That he could hit Billy’s chest right there. Right there. In the same place his wound still bleeds.

But Steve was drunk. And cold. And wet. And his tail and ears hung so very heavy on his body.

He stayed quiet, watching blissfully as Billy got wetter and wetter. Until he wasn’t angry anymore.

“I was so mad at you for so long.” Forcing the words one by one, Steve’s voice trembles.

He closes his eyes and lets his silly, love-sick heart surge up into his throat.

“After us, I’ve spent my whole life trying to find someone that fits just like you, but… you’re different, Billy. You made me feel safe. Content. Warm.”

Billy scoffs, his hands dropping to his sides with a wet slap. “Bullshit.”

“Is it?” Steve meows a laugh.

Billy’s face creases in disgust, in confusion. Water falls from his long lashes as he blinks them rapidly.

“Cool it, kitty. I’m not some damn PRINCE CHARMING! I break everything I touch!” He yells over the rain. Over the base of the music they could still hear from the bar. Billy’s louder than any of that.

“Then why don’t you try fixing me!” Steve yells back. He’s desperate and mostly drunk as he steps closer.

And suddenly, Steve notices how Billy still radiates heat. The years of time between them tick down to nothingness. Steve shakes his head, pointed ears flicking water, his eyes a mix of tears and rain, and Billy opens his mouth like he’s about to ruin it.

But then, Steve’s pawing at that strawberry blond beard growth that wasn’t there years ago. And he pulls Billy’s head down with a light gasp that gets captured by Steve’s eager lips.

It’s a sad excuse for a kiss, it’s messy and it tastes like chilled beer. But Billy’s lips are hot, familiar, it makes Steve let out a whimpering, shameful moan.

Steve’s hands grip Billy’s shirt. Now he’s the one holding on— now he’s the one chasing. His claws rip the fabric with the want he has for Billy to stay so terribly bad.

“I never meant to hurt you.” Billy admits in a whisper.

He reaches down to cradle Steve’s arms. Slowly lifting the claws from his chest. Steve would let him do whatever he pleased, he’s already a trained house cat for Billy.

Their fingers laced together, as if pieces slotting back into place. With their hands like this, it brings back happy memories. On Steve’s teenage bed, in the early hours of the mornings before the world around them woke up. When Steve’s tail would wrap euphorically around Billy’s legs. When his ears were flattened by the force of his happy purring.

Then, Billy’s moving. Pulling him through the rain until Billy leads them to, truly, a tiny and shitty apartment. The red brick building was painted but beginning to flake off. Billy held his hand as they took the steps, and into the hallway, before begrudgingly letting go to fish his keys.

He turns over his shoulder to watch Steve. Key in the door. Steve is shivering, hugging his skinny frame, his sopping sweater. He doesn’t know what Billy could be looking at, but he smiles.

Billy opens the door and leads Steve inside. They settle in their underpants with towels around their heads on the couch. Their shoes and outer-clothes drip drying by the radiator.

Steve feels so content and warm he doesn’t even realize he’s purring.

“Woah, I really, really missed that.” Billy drawls. His hand finally reaches Steve’s tail, gently petting the tussled fur as if he spent years longing for this exact moment.

Steve can’t help but to kiss him again.