Billy comes back different. Heâs so obviously and profoundly different when he first comes back that it almost eclipses the real ways, the deep, aching, chasmic ways. His hair is short and shaggy and so, so curly and Steve had never thought that that was real, Billyâs curls. Never gave much thought to anything about Billy being real. Heâs skinny, now, skinny and soft and white in a way Steveâs never seen, gold all leached out so the blue veins in his wrists and the pink scars on his arms stand vivid, unreal, vibrant. Thereâs no grin. Steve thinks about Billyâs face before, thinks about his white teeth red with blood, thinks about the lazy way he bared them. Like he was untouchable. Like he knew something the world didnât, a secret. Even when Billy was furious he was grinning, electric, a little wild and so compelling Steve ended up caught in his orbit before heâd even noticed the tug of his gravity.
Billy smiles, sometimes, now. Rarely, and never loudly, and Steve keeps each one he catches close to his chest.
Steve didnât live with Billy in the before, but he doesnât imagine that he was the type to knock gently on a bedroom door and wait for permission before turning the knob. For instance. Imagines Billy was the type to knock twice, loud and careless, before barging in at two am without waiting for a response. If he bothered to knock at all.
âSorry,â Billy says first, even as the door is still creaking open, âI, uh.â
Billy didnât apologize, before. Didnât duck his head when he asked for things.
âWhat is it?â Steve asks, tries to say it soft and easy like a breath. Billy spooks easy sometimes. Seems like it might be a night where the glue keeping the cracked pieces together is particularly fragile.
Billy stands in his doorway and wraps his arms tighter around himself and takes a shuddering breath that Steve can hear from his bed and doesnât answer. Steve pushes himself up, scoots himself over, and turns down the corner of his comforter.
Itâs been months, now, and Steveâs still not sure how deep the trenches go, what all there is to find in the unexplored places where no light reaches and the pressure is enough to crush bone. The Billy that knocks on his door sometimes at night isnât the same Billy that kicked the shit out of him at Jonathan Byersâ house. Everything is different.
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