(pt1 here)
billy grew up afraid of finding his soulmate.
when he was eight his father caught him trying to wash nail polish off with soap and a hand towel.
heād heard girls at school saying it was what you did when your soulmate was a boy. you were supposed to paint yourself up all pretty and find the person who matched. and it was easy enough to sneak into the vanity and steal a bottle of his motherās nail polish. but once the paint dried he realized it would be impossible to hide from his father, and he panicked.
his mother showed him the bottle of nail polish remover after neil left. dabbed some on a cotton ball to rub at the thick layer of paint. she was silent, kneeling on the floor in front of him cradling his sprained wrist while he sat on the edge of the tub and cried.
they both had questions, but neither of them got answers.
it took billy months to work up the courage to try again.
he wasnāt sure why he was bothering, at first. he knew he couldnāt look for his soulmate the traditional way. and he was constantly terrified that his father would find the supplies heād started hoarding. it seemed like more risk than reward, and yet. he couldnāt stop himself.
every time he was allowed to wander off in a store alone heād slip something into his pocket. a tube of lip gloss. a compact full of shiny powders. he wasnāt even sure what some of it was, he just liked the colours. liked the pictures they hung alongside the displays. he wanted to look like that. beautiful.
and in his heart of hearts, he wanted the boy who was out there waiting for him to know he existed. whether theyād be able to find each other or not.
heās more careful with this than he was with the nail polish. his father works saturday nights, and his mother always visits their neighbour while heās at work. despite having the house to himself he locks his bedroom door.
the first thing he tries is the watermelon lip gloss. itās sticky, and the wand doesnāt fit in his hand comfortably, but once heās smeared it on he feels...good. he likes the way it catches the light. likes the way it smells. he looks at himself in the mirror and likes seeing something different.
the high doesnāt last long, it inevitably gives way to paranoia, anxiety that has him glancing at the locked door every thirty seconds, heart pounding, wondering if just maybe his father will get home from work early, and he jumps at every sound, hearing boots thudding on the porch and car doors slamming and anything that could be neil coming through the door.
cleaning himself up is hard. panic makes his hands shake, his eyes well up. he drops everything on the floor when he tries to tuck the bag away. and he has to spend twenty minutes with his back to his bedroom door getting his breathing under control when heās finished.
but he does it again the following saturday. and the one after that.
for five months he does this. locks himself away with his stolen treasures and lets himself live a little. it gets easier as time goes on. and his mind wanders sometimes. to a future where he gets to share this with someone. the boy out there whoās supposed to love him one day.
itās a small bubble of a dream. one he doesnāt spend too much time dwelling on. not when thereās neilās voice in his head, telling him that no one could love a fucking freak, ācause fags donāt get real soulmates anyways.
he wants and he wishes, but the more he thinks about it the more he doubts. heās never gotten a mark from his soulmate, and even if he did some day, what if his fatherās right, and his āsoulmateā doesnāt want him or makes him miserable or...worse.
so he does his makeup for himself.
until, like all good things in his life, his father ruins it.
he never found out what set neil off initially, something going wrong at work maybe, or the martial strife of the week getting to him. whatever it was that started it, neil eventually decided billy should bear the brunt of the fallout.
so he went through his things. said billyād been acting cagey lately, and he was going to find out why.
and then found the makeup bag stuffed into an old sweater in his closet.
it was ugly. the things neil said that day would play on repeat in billyās head for years afterwards. the scars his belt left on billyās back were nothing in comparison.
the next saturday came and went. billy spent the evening curled up under a blanket not bothering to wipe away the tears dripping down his face.
by morning heās resolved to forget the whole thing. to put it behind him. because it was stupid, and risky and childish and maybe his father was right. heās almost convinced himself. and then he notices ink on his arm, as he reaches up to rub his eyes. messy scrawl, i bet you looked pretty crookedly written up his forearm.
he didnāt think he was able to cry any more, but he manages it.
for the first time his soulmate isnāt just a concept, or a what-if, heās...a person. heās a real person out there somewhere. someone who doesnāt even know billy and still wanted to reach out, to offer comfort. itās more than heās gotten from anyone else. even his mother. who he knows loves him, and she does her best to protect him, but when she found out about his makeup stash she just looked sad, and sheās said nothing to him about it.
but his soulmateā¦
can never, ever meet neil.
the thought hits him right in the chest.
whoever he is, he cares, heās good. and neil breaks good things.
billy falls asleep that night tracing the empty space where his soulmateās message used to be, wrapped up in worries and dreams, and terrified for someone heās never met.
the doodles that come and go over the years are terrifying and exhilarating and billy manages to hide every single one from his father. they only ever show up during the day, and they donāt linger. something billy is both grateful for and resentful of.
sometimes heāll watch other boysā hands in class. check them for drawings. he thinks heās being careful, but a girl in his chem class, becca, catches him. she says itās only because she knew what to look for. they share a cigarette under the bleachers and she tells him about a girl who likes green eyeshadow and writes homework reminders on her wrists using stars instead of bullet points.
it takes billy six months and a couple shots of tequila to tell her about watermelon lip gloss and bet youāre pretty and they both cry when he starts to wonder if his soulmate will be disappointed that he isnāt a girl.
on a rainy april afternoon she asks him to go to a gay bar with her. he tells his father heās going on a date. she tells herās that she had to reschedule a tutoring session and itāll run pretty late.
they wait til itās dark and get ready in a dingy gas station bathroom. when sheās smearing on her eyeliner she catches sight of his face in the cloudy mirror. he wasnāt going to ask her for anything. he wouldnāt have brought it up. the twinge in his heart and a hollow feeling of longing arenāt anything new, he can deal.
he feels and empty kind of rage every time old, well-meaning relatives give max girly lip gloss kits and eyeshadow pallets and shit normal preteen girls who care about finding their soulmates actually appreciate. she always rolls her eyes and throws them away. susan will fish them out of the trash sometimes, and leave them under the bathroom sink, like if max just sees them there sheāll suddenly give a shit and start using them. like them being there does anything but taunt billy with what he canāt have.
neil watches him like a fucking hawk every time that shit comes into the house. and max doesnāt fucking care. doesnāt notice.
but becca offers.
and.
heās not about to say no.
he shouldāve said no.
it feels good at first, like it used to, it feels like freedom and he likes what he sees when he looks in the mirror, and he kisses a boy for the first time and it isnāt fireworks but itās something, and he thinks maybe itās going to be a good night, but thenā¦
neil is waiting on the curb outside beccaās house. they were heading there first, because her parents wouldnāt notice, she said it would be fine, she has makeup remover he can use, he can clean up and head home and everything was supposed to be okay, except. it wasnāt.
itās the last time he sees becca. neil tells her parents what was actually going on, and she isnāt allowed to visit him in the hospital.
and then six months of rehab, one rushed wedding and a big ugly sold sign later, neil carts them off to hawkins, indi-fucking-ana. as a āfamily.ā
billy was certain this town would be nothing but a prison. itād be somewhere heād never find a place to be himself, neil would make sure of that. there wasnāt a single thing to like about this place and its bullshit small town sensibilities. for all the open space it might as well have been stone walls and steel bars.
except.
except...here was a boy with soft eyes and nimble fingers, who gets a little wrinkle between his brows when he concentrates, and is always moving, fidgeting, fiddling with zippers and touching his elbows and looking at him makes billy itch. to touch, to soothe, to take, andā¦
things get complicated when aimless blue waves scrawl up billyās arm. when steve follows him out into the parking lot. calls him pretty to his face. and suddenly billyās eight years old and realizing this shit is real. terrified of what that could mean. spinning fragile dreams like spiderās silk, hard to shake but easy to destroy.
even entertaining the idea of putting on makeup while heās still in hawkins is stupid and dangerous, but goddamn if he hasnāt risked more for less.
heās sure heāll regret it. like heās regretted every other desperate bid for freedom. but when faced with steve harringtonās smile, he canāt find it in himself to say no.
(edit: pt3 here)
