#gets better

It wasn’t hard to pick a victim—Billy’s dad may have been completely reasonable in hating his faggot son, but he was shitty to Max too, and Susan, and Billy’s mom—and there weren’t a lot of people he figured would listen to Billy Hargrove.

Problem was, Billy’s dad didn’t want to be lured out. Billy stared at the phone in the phone booth, thinking, and then tried saying he was injured at the abandoned drive-in theater on the edge of town—his car had broken down—and his dad just suggested he learn to not drink and drive.

As Billy tried to think of something more convincing to say, the Mindflayer grabbed the phone, and said “This is Steve Harrington, sir. We could really use your help. Bring the sheriff.”

There was a pause, and Billy knew his dad was repeating the name Harrington, like he always did talking about the richest family in town, the ones with the life he wanted, the people he wanted his family to match up to.

“See you soon,” said the Mindflayer, but it was frowning with Steve Harrington’s face, and Billy wondered whether Steve was the one who’d grabbed the phone.

 Billy’s dad didn’t take long, pulling up to the phone booth in the parking lot of the abandoned drive-through theater, and slamming the door of his car. He hadn’t brought the sheriff. Harrington grabbed his arm as he reached for Billy—and Billy didn’t have to watch, now, what the Mindflayer did with its victims.

He sat gripping one of the dilapidated benches, curled over to puke at the sounds, until he heard shoes scuff towards him again, and looked up to see a smile on Steve Harrington’s face. The Mindflayer knew which muscles to contract for a smile, Billy reflected distantly, but it didn’t look quite like a person, more like a doll, a ventriloquist’s dummy’s wide-stretched grin.

“Get up,” the thing said, and Billy staggered to his feet as his father—not his father, anymore, he reminded himself, another thing—drove away. The Mindflayer yanked him up when he didn’t move fast enough, nearly yanking his arm out of its socket as it slammed him against the bottom edge of the old projection screen. “Time for your reward. Take what you want,” it said. “Do you want to put things in his holes?”

“No!” Billy wheezed, wincing as it clenched Steve’s hand on his shoulder to hold him in place. He screamed as his collarbone broke under the force of its grip. It fixed Harrington’s mouth over his, hot and clumsy, and Billy tried to just let it happen, his brain a jumble of pain, lust, and terror as Harrington’s grip closed around his neck, and teeth clonked into his—until Harrington’s voice sounded different, suddenly, low and urgent.

“Let me,” he said. “Let me, let me, you’re killing him—you can’t—if you kill him, he can’t help you—”

“Harrington,” Billy gasped, choking for air, and then Harrington was really kissing him, one hand steadying Billy’s jaw, the other against Billy’s side, holding him steady as he staggered.

It was so good, Billy thought, his stomach twisting with revulsion, the pain of his broken collarbone making him pant as his eyes filled with tears.

“You taste like puke,” Harrington said, making a face, but he leaned in again, his brown eyes open as his lips met Billy’s and opened against them.

Billy moaned, a little—he couldn’t help it, not with Steve Harrington’s actual hands on him, and Steve’s tongue against his. Even possessed by a monster, Harrington looked kinda smug, and Billy hated him still, a little, for barely knowing Billy existed, and all the things Billy’d done by himself to survive, because he didn’t have anyone he could call.

Harrington had friends, Billy reminded himself. Billy didn’t need to think too hard about kissing Harrington, because Harrington’s friends would come, and they’d stop the Mindflayer, and help him, and Harrington wouldn’t come to himself a bloody mess at the mall, barely able to keep from murdering a child.

Somebody’d probably put a bullet in Billy’s brain, he thought, hissing in pain as Harrington shifted closer, and the broken edges of Billy’s collarbone scraped together. His brain filled with the white noise of pain, and he shuddered as he felt the new scraping agony of his collarbone, and the old, dull ache of his wound at the mall.

Harrington’s hands were careful, tipping Billy’s head to kiss him deeper.

His friends would kill the Mindflayer for good, Billy thought, humming a little hysterically against Harrington’s lips. They’d make sure Billy’s body didn’t get used again, either to transport a monster, or as leverage. All Billy had to do was keep the Mindflayer distracted, until then. Until they saved Harrington, and put Billy down.

“Enough,” came the still, calm voice from Harrington’s mouth, and the smile, as he stepped back.

“Who else do you want me to lure out here,” Billy asked, his hands flat against the wall of screen behind him to keep himself upright. The Mindflayer’s face twitched, and Billy wondered, his whole left shoulder and side pounding with pain, whether Harrington wished Billy’d let him die.

 The Mindflayer suggested Steve’s girlfriend, Wheeler. “We need him to stop fighting,” it said, smiling as it staggered and nearly fell. Billy walked away, breathing through the pain as he tried to get far enough away to call without the Mindflayer hearing.

He stepped into the phone booth and ruffled through the pages until he found Henderson—the kid he’d seen Steve with, the one whose name he was fairly sure of, because he hung around Max. “The Mindflayer has Harrington,” he said, flatly. “You gotta...trap him, or something. Better than you did me.”

“What in the hell,” the kid started, and Billy sighed.

“We’re at the drive-through theater,” he said. “He’s gonna be suspicious if I try to lure him anywhere.”

“Max has been looking for you,” Henderson said, and Billy bet she had.

“Hurry up and do something,” he said, watching the Mindflayer, in Steve Harrington’s body. It waved. “It’s gonna kill me,” he said, feeling a weird calm distance at the words, “—and I’m pretty sure he’s not gonna stop it, this time.”

“Shit,” Henderson said.  "We'll need some time to get ready."

“Oh, also,” Billy said, nearly high with pain, adrenaline, despair, and the taste of Harrington’s kisses. “I gave it my dad. That’s important, right?” he asked. “You probably need to know that too.”

“Holy shit, you fed it a person?! Your dad?!” Henderson yelled, and Billy nodded, running his tongue over his teeth as he sighed.

“Yeah, I’m a monster.” He snorted a laugh and hung up, wandered out to sit on the bench next to the Mindflayer, and watch the sunset. After a couple of hours of staring at the sky, he reached over and squeezed the Mindflayer’s wrist.

“You’ll let him go if I do everything you want?” he asked, and the Mindflayer smiled again.

Billy’d thought he’d be reassuring Harrington by asking—even if he didn’t believe for a second that the Mindflayer would just politely leave—but then he remembered that Harrington could probably tell the same thing, and that he, Billy, was a moron.

 When the sirens started, Billy winced. “I called the sheriff,” he said. “Told him I wanted to turn myself in. Told him I...took you.”

“The sheriff,” repeated the Mindflayer, focusing its unblinking stare down the road.

When the sheriff arrived, it wasn’t in his usual vehicle—it was a huge old Jeep, and he scrambled down with a groan, stretching until his back popped, and wiping sweat from his face. “Get in, boys,” he said, sighing, and jerking his thumb at the Jeep. When Billy was slow getting up—any motion of his arms flexed his collarbone, and his legs felt shaky on their own—the sheriff grabbed him by the shoulder.

Billy swallowed back a high noise in the back of his throat, realizing wildly that there was no reason to believe the Mindflayer had Harrington, no reason to believe him, only a waste of space they’d all seen possessed before, now making threatening phone calls. He closed his eyes, grimacing, and waited for the gasoline to soak him, or the muzzle of the gun to be pressed to his head, but the sheriff just watched Harrington walk towards the Jeep.

Harrington—the Mindflayer, Billy reminded himself—yelled, and he opened his eyes to see him lying on the ground, while the deputies, Hopper, and some other people held him down with their feet. Billy stared, watching the thing try and pretend they were wrong, laughing and pointing at Billy. They were wrapping his whole body in what looked like duct tape, wrapping his arms to his body and his legs together as he thrashed and swore.

It was probably assuming it would kill them while they drove, he realized, and opened his mouth, but they just tossed it into the Jeep and closed the doors, just watching it, like the Jeep was gonna take the Mindflayer back to the future, or start driving itself, or something.

Harrington started screaming. His feet banged against the inside of the tailgate, and the sheriff wandered back over to Billy.

“They trained us in those Jeeps for the National Guard, and for ‘Nam,” he said, with satisfaction. “The heaters can melt the snow two meters around, in January.”

“What,” Billy asked, completely lost. The sheriff put his hands on his belt, and Billy held his arms out, wrists together, expecting the cuffs, this time, but the man just shook his head, his lips thin.

“Go siddown, kid,” he said. “We’ll get you back to the hospital.”

 Billy awoke again to the beeping of hospital machines. His arm was in a sling, and he remembered his broken collarbone, wresting his eyes open on the ceiling, and a dark shape. He flinched, hissing with pain, and Harrington’s voice came again.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I just—I feel like—”

“Fuck,” Billy breathed, shutting his eyes again.

“It seems wrong to thank you for...that,” Harrington muttered. “But you—your dad—you’re why I’m alive, so. Uh. Thanks.”

“Whatever,” Billy sighed, wondering if he sold everything—his car, his records—if he could afford a plane flight back to California, and out of this conversation where the straight boy he’d masturbated over—who’d gotten possessed, who Billy’d groped and kissed while he was possessed—thanked Billy for helping him murder Billy’s dad.

“...so. Yeah,” Harrington said awkwardly, and Billy snorted a laugh.

“Fuck off, Harrington,” he whispered, his throat raw.

“You did all that to save me,” Harrington said, blankly. “All it had to do was take me, and you helped.”

“I got a history with that thing,” Billy reminded him, rolling his eyes.

“You’re a really horny bastard,” Steve said, still vaguely, like he was figuring it out, and Billy started laughing so hard he hurt. “Y’know who else pulls pigtails,” Harrington said, darkly. “Kids, that’s who. Children. Fucking...kindergartners.”

It wasn’t even that funny, but knowing Harrington knew, and wasn’t pissed off, was such a relief Billy couldn’t stop giggling. His eyes blurred with tears.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Harrington said, belatedly, and Billy breathed out a sigh he didn’t even know he’d been holding.

“...d’you know what they’re gonna do with me?” he asked, hoarsely.

“What?” Harrington asked.

“I wasn’t possessed,” Billy whispered, laughing, a sharp painful bark. “Why am I—am I going to jail, or—?”

“No,” Steve said, blinking at him. “No, you saved me. We’ll figure it out.”

“Can’t believe you wanna be in the same room as me,” Billy laughed again, shutting his eyes and cringing through the pain.

“...oh,” Harrington said, and Billy winced. “I don’t...I don’t mind if you’re in love with me,” he said, and in the cold blue light from the hallway, Billy could see a smirk on Harrington’s stupid face. “I know you’d do anything for me now, right,” he said, grinning.

I don’t love you, I just wanna fuck you, Billy thought of saying, or I’m a fucking faggot, I’d do anyone, or I thought I was gonna die anyway, moron, something to shock Harrington out of looking illogically happy to find out Billy was willing to commit murder if Steve Harrington was a hostage. “...fuck,” Billy whispered.

“Oh! I know...your um, your...dad,” Harrington said incomprehensibly, grimacing. “But uh, Max and Susan are okay,” he said, squeezing Billy’s hand, like that was a thing now, and Billy stared at him, remembering squeezing Harrington’s wrist, when he thought they’d both die. “Thanks for saving me, Hargrove,” he said again, his hand tight over Billy’s, and Billy swallowed, watching his face. “Now go the fuck to sleep.”