#ghost!billy

Steve knew it was a bad idea to play ‘ghost hunters’ with Dustin for the sake of his science project, some bullshit about proving ghosts are really energies moving through planes of existence or something like that. He didn’t really pay attention, just geared up and held the weird audio equipment and filmed as best he could.

What he didn’t mean to do was touch the tarnished necklace that was covered in cobwebs and dust — he’d tripped, of course, and his hand had landed on top of it.

Dustin had rolled his eyes and told him to be careful as Steve felt the cold rush of something along his body, this creeping sensation of being watched crawling up his spine that had him frozen in place for a moment or two. Or three.

A bone-chilling sensation, really, which had Dustin’s borrowed (and altered) AV equipment going off the charts for a moment before it went quiet.

Dustin had smacked the side of his little weird wave energy reader thing while Steve brushed his hand off onto his jacket, shivering and stepping closer to Dustin, suddenly very…anxious.

A familiar voice whispered an echoey, “Hey,” into his ear and Steve had jumped almost a foot into the air with a yelp.

“Jesus, Steve, relax,” Dustin had huffed, almost like a final warning, before going further into the abandoned house.

He had hoped that would be the end of it.

But, Steve was never so lucky.

He’s still not sure what it is, whether it’s possession or a curse or whatever, but he’s being haunted by Billy Hargrove.

And he knows it’s Billy because the next morning, when he wiped away the shower steam on his bathroom mirror, Billy had been peeking at him in his reflection from over his shoulder.

Steve had screamed so loudly that his mom had burst into the bathroom, a butter knife in her manicured hand that was used to unlock the door from the outside, her face worried and eyes wide.

When he looked in the mirror again, Billy was gone.

And he had remained gone up until he got to work at Family Video, where Steve had opened up the security camera footage and saw Billy in the corner of the store.

He’d shot himself back away from the counter, eyes wide in horror, while Robin gave him a weird look and asked if he was okay.

Well, she more so asked “are you high?” but, still. She was concerned.

And she was his best friend but this was kinda crazy, right? Like, crazier than the Upside Down. Monsters were real, but ghosts? Billy Hargrove?

He brushed it off and didn’t see Billy for the rest of his shift.

Not in the literal sense, anyway.

He was alone in the kitchen and felt a tap on his shoulder, which made him drop his knife that had a scoop of peanut butter on it, his eyes wide as he whipped around and saw no one.

The echoey whisper of, “Pretty boy,” against his ear made him slap his hand over it, his face twisting as he hissed, “Stop it!”

“Stop what, honey?” His mom asked as she came into the kitchen, shuffling through their mail.

Standing there with his hand over his ear, swearing he heard a low, mean chuckle behind him, Steve whipped back around to his PB&J and said, “This…peanut butter, it’s so…thick…”

“Oh,” she replied, “I’ll get something else next time, then.”

“Thanks,” he grimaced, picking up the knife he’d dropped and after a quick inspection, he smeared it over one of the pieces of bread—

And then a hand suddenly covered his own, so pale and cold, like it was coming out of the underside of his hand made Steve scream.

“Jesus, Steve!” His mom yelled, clearly startled and frustrated as she appeared at his side, “What?!”

He stared down at his hand in horror and whispered, “A spider. A big spider.”

“Ugh, you and your father, always scared of such silly things,” she huffed, giving him a pat on the back before walking out.

Fucking Christ.

It was like Billy took pleasure in freaking him the fuck out.

Which, based on how he’d treated Steve when he was alive, checks out.

YES HE WOULD AND HERE’S HOW IT GOES

because it’s been a couple weeks since the “incident” as you call it, when you swore you could hear a voice in the wind and feel the way your hair somehow brushed behind your ear.

and it’s been 3 or 4 nights now since billy has started to follow you home after dark. it started after you told him some creepy dudes had made passing comments at you as you walked home last week, and he decided that he needed to follow you. just in case. he knew he probably couldn’t protect you the way he wanted to, but it eased his anxiety to go with you.

but now here he was, sitting on the edge of your bed as you slept so peacefully. he glanced around your room, taking in all of your decorations and belongings, his chest feeling that familiar warm ache. you stirred slightly in your sleep, your brow furrowing for a moment.

billy watched silently, hoping you weren’t having a bad dream or anything. he’d hate to watch that happen, you deserved only the loveliest of dreams. but then the impossible happened.

your eyes fluttered open sleepily, and you looked right at him.

you, with your pretty eyes that have never once met his, now staring into his own. you didn’t scream, you didn’t flinch away or gasp.

you whispered his name. he stared at you, his own eyes wide as saucers, as you slowly sat up and rubbed your eyes. “billy?” you whispered again, voice laced with sleep. “s’at really…you?”

“y-you can see me?” he asked in return, voice just as quietly. his shock grew even more when you nodded. you could see him and hear him.

which was strange on your part as well, don’t get me wrong. you were still half asleep, unsure of what was going on. you didn’t know how you knew who this was, you just did. you wondered if you were dreaming, and you asked so out loud.

“no, sweetheart. you’re not dreaming,” he said softly, shaking his head. he wasn’t fully solid in front of you, though. he looked…off. there was a very faint, hazy glow about him, almost like he was being backlit by a soft light.

“how…?” you asked, mind still muddled from your slumber. billy shook his head again, unsure.

“i don’t really know…” he admitted.

and this wasn’t what you expected. not that he didn’t know how this happened, but the way he looked sitting there in your room. the longer you looked at him, the more you noticed.

his hat was perched on his head, one side crushed just a bit. he had adorned it with a couple of ribbons around the crown, one braided and one solid. his clothes seemed worn but not dirty or too damaged, just a dark blue button up shirt and black trousers. your eyes flickered down to his waist, where a belt filled with bullets was slung haphazardly around the narrowest part of him. at his right hip, a gun holster sat empty.

you reached out slowly, your movement unsure. your eyes flickered back up to his face to see if he was going to pull away from you, but he didn’t. he simply watched you, awestruck and curious.

you went to touch his soft looking leather suspender, but your hand passed right through him. it felt as though you’d put your hand inside of a freezer, the air cold and still.

billy was staring at you, unmoving. after a moment, he said gently, “are you scared?”

one corner of billy’s mouth turned up slowly as you shook your head and spoke again, just as softly as he had.

(they're all harringrove because that's what I'm into)

*disclaimer* I only included completed fics or one shots that were Harringrove and ended in a happy way.

If you follow the Ghost Billy Hargrove tag on Ao3 you'll find 17 fics (as of today).

Runaway AU | Billy & El

“Do you think they miss us?” She turned to the apparition, the tide rising to lap at her bare feet as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. The glow of his figure seemed to flicker with the sunlight gone, from transparent to a soft glow like moonlight.

“Us? No.” He chuckled, staring out at the ocean, at the dark hair that whipped in the evening winds. She frowned, pushing the locks behind each ear to squint at him.

“You?” He continued, squinting back at her. “Definitely.”

She broke into a soft smile, eyes crinkling and sea salt winds catching the edge of her dress, rippling softly like a flag.

“Definitely, kid.” He hummed, watching as she waded deeper into the ocean.

Max never sees ghost apparitions inside the house, it's always outside. As if Billy was just trying to go home but could not, like he wasn't aware that he was dead.

And Max having nightmares when she thinks she wakes up just to see a shadow in the corner of her door. Nothing happens but Max just feels shivers down her spin and she's cold until she hears :

" why did you left me here...? "

She starts to breathe faster and slowly the shadow comes to the moon light to reveal Billy's cadaver walking towards her and she screams but-

She wakes up.

The thing is he doesn't even realize he's a ghost at first. He wakes up with a loud groan and gets up trying to understand where he is. Only to saw his body still lying on the road. Looking very much dead. He screams and screams and screams until his voice was hoarse. And then cry and try to wake himself up, shaking his body violently. "Wake up! WAKE UP YOU DUMB FUCK WAKE UP! IM FUCKING 17 I CAN'T FUCKING DIE! WAKE UP! Just wake up. Please. I didn't even live my life. I didn't laugh, I didn't love anybody or loved. Please just wake up."

And finally accept he's dead. He knows he can't pass away because he has unfinished things. He saw that on the movies. How a ghost complete his life goal and walk to the white light. But what's his life purpose? What can he do to finally die in piece.

“It might be the last time. For a while.” Nancy says, biting her lip against a quiver, “I’m going to college next week and I might not…I don’t know when I’m coming back and I want to say goodbye. I don't want it to...to seem like we’ve forgotten her.”  Her voice shakes on that last sentence, so of course Steve agrees to come. He doesn’t ask why she was asking him, why he’s enough now, when he hadn’t been before. Why she didn’t want Jonathan there. He just nods and smiles and says, “Sure, Nance. Of course.” 

He’d stays with her. For the whole thing. He walks her to the grave and stands there too, waiting while Nancy lay down the flowers- all those tiny forget-me-nots and big yellow roses and pastel lilies and a host of others that Steve didn’t know the names of. And he’d keeps on waiting while she talks to Barb, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder while she apologises and cries and tells Barb that she’ll never forget her. 

And then they walk back. And that’s when Steve spots it. Billy’s grave. Bare and unadorned, nothing but a modest headstone with a simple inscription. 

William Hargrove. Beloved son and brother. A Hawkins’ Hero

Steve knows Max hates the last line. They way it ties Billy forever to the town he hated. Tried to make it sound like he belonged there. Belonged to them. And he knows that she doesn’t visit often, and he understands. But still, something about the sight of the grave, colourless and neglected and slightly overgrown, makes his stomach twist with guilt. 

Because Billy was a hero. And he deserves to be remembered. So Steve comes back later. Once he’s let Nancy cry on his shoulder and then taken her back to her house, he takes himself to the fancy, expensive florist and something instantly catches his eye.  Sunflowers Lots of them. Big and yellow and bright and the most fitting bouquet he can think of. Something to chase away the grey skies of Hawkins and give Billy a little bit of California brightness. 

He lays them down on the grave and then he rests a hand on the headstone, just looking at the flowers for a moment, at the vivid pop of colour standing out so brightly, almost arrogantly.  So much like Billy when he first arrived. And even though he feels a little weird and awkward, Steve starts to talk. He says that he’s sorry. That it wasn’t right. That Billy shouldn’t have had to die. That he shouldn’t be stuck in Hawkins. Steve takes a breath. And then he promises to look after Max. To keep her safe. And he apologises again. Tells Billy they should’ve done more. Should’ve helped him. Should’ve saved him. Should’ve found a way.  And then Steve pauses. Lets his voice drop to a whisper. And he tells Billy how Hawkins seems a little too quiet without him around. How Steve maybe kinda misses him. 

It's getting late when Steve walks away, but the churning, nauseating whirl of guilt is sated for the time being. Steve can go home and he can be normal and have dinner with his parents and snort out a few laughs at Moonlighting and he doesn't think about Billy Hargrove anymore.

He knows it’s not a good idea, it’s 3am and he knows he’s only tormenting himself, that it will only hurt. He also knows that this is all that remains of them. All that remains of a rescue mission, an attempt to save a drowning boy and give him something different.

Not that it matters now. Not that anything matters now.

He pulls the small box out from under the bed, carefully prises off the lid. Takes a deep breath and pull out the small pile of polaroid pictures hidden within. Greif crashes over him as he stares at the images. The tiny frozen moments in time. Bright smiles, gentle kisses, stolen moments, all that he had left.

There is one missing, one of them cuddled up in bed, Billy’s head resting on Steve’s chest, golden curls fanned out across his shoulder, blissfully asleep. Steve stared at his own face, gloating at him from inside the tiny frame. Small smile playing on his lips, eyes full of adoration, painfully unaware of the fate that would befall them. It’s not missing, so much as not here. Steve had tucked it, carefully, unseen into the coffin that now lays in the Hawkins’ cemetery. The bare minimum box which held the other half of Steve’s heart.

Steve carefully replaces the pictures, the box back under his bed to protect them from the cascade of tears. He spends so much of his life covering it, hiding who they were, what they had. Dustin was the only one Steve had dared to tell, dared to trust with their burning secret. He let out a shaky breath, pressed his face into the pillow that had stopped smelling like Billy weeks ago.

He pushes himself back up off the bed, pulls the comforter back into place, pushes the pillows back to where they belong.

Routine, regulation, reality.

Steve wanders listlessly into the kitchen, the sight that greets him causes the plate to slip through his hands, it crashes to the floor, shattered pieces skitter across the floor, coming to a halt around the figure in front of him.

It’s Billy. His Billy. His dead Billy.

Steve rubs his eyes, vaguely recalling the grief counsellors warning that he may feel as though he sees Billy, common in the aftermath of losing a loved one. Billy is still there when Steve finally opens his eyes again, except he’s not really, the light from the kitchen window seems to shine through him, his image blurring and faltering around the edges.

This is it thought Steve, I’ve finally lost it.

Billy steps forward, “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just..” his voice shakes, wobbles with fear. He frowns, hesitating at himself, “I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Steve drops his gaze immediately, can’t bring himself to look at the phantom in front of him. That’s all he is, that’s all Steve can let himself believe, just a phantom. A figment of a longing heart, a projection of his grieving mind. He focusses on the plate on the ground, that’s real. He knows that’s real. He drops to his knees and begins scrabbling at the pieces of shattered crockery, aware vaguely of the shape moving down towards him.

“You’re not real, I just want you to be, you’re not real, you’re gone, you’re gone.” Tears cloud his vision, pieces of plate slip from between his shaking fingers, unsteady gulping breaths, his ear filled with the pounding of his own heart. He dares to look up, Billy is crumpled on the floor in front of him, one of his hands was creeping forward, tentative, unsure, so un-like himself that Steve is closing his eyes again, scrunching them shut and trying to quell the nausea burning a hole in the pit of his stomach.

Billy’s hand hovers over Steve’s, he wanted to touch him, wanted so badly to feel the warmth of his body. To feel anything since he had faded back into existence, back into Steve’s pristine kitchen, back into a place which lingered between cold and nothingness. His hand drops a little more, edging closer, longing for some contact that didn’t involve possession, pain or fear. He chewed on his lower lip as he got, second by second, closer to the smooth, warm touch of Steve’s skin. His fingertips brush the back of Steve’s palm, there is no warmth, no comfort as Billy’s hand is sent catapulting backwards, forced away like repelling magnets.

Steve’s eyes snap up to his face, but Billy is already gone, pulling backwards along the tiles, Steve chases his retreating form across the floor. “Billy...” he reaches out, instinctually, only to stop short, chest clenching. “No..” he pulls his hand back, stands, shaking, “I can’t do this, you can’t be here, I already did this, I already said goodbye” and flees from the kitchen.

A few hours later, Steve gets ready for work in silence.

Billy always knew that he would be nothing without Steve. He always felt that he would fade without him. Billy had always suspected that when Steve left, all the warmth and comfort in Billy’s life would go with him.

He had been right.

He stands in the doorway and watches Steve pull, too fast, out of the driveway. Leaving him, walking away with the presence that had kept him anchored. The coldness intensifies, blooming through his body, the all too familiar feeling of icy tendrils creeping across his body. They begin to pull at his skin, pull him inwards, erase the mark he made, stood there on Steve’s porch. Pulling and pulling until all that could be seen was an empty doorway.

The days pass, Steve hides and Billy waits.

He watches Billy fade from existence every morning as he leaves, and blur back as he steps through the door. Feels his eyes burning into his back as he bolts to his room, locks the door, buries himself in a scentless bed. Steve hides, burning in the presence of the only person he’s ever loved. Burning in the knowledge that he’ll never be able to touch him. Lost in a grief he can’t escape from, can’t distract himself from, can’t even begin to work through. A grief that’s sitting in his living room.

The days pass, Steve hides and Billy waits.

Until he can’t wait anymore.

Steve is in his room, sat on the bed, trying to concentrate on the new Scoops’ health and safety document in front of him. It’s pointless, he can’t concentrate, the task becomes truly futile as Billy’s form filters into the corner of the room, behind him, a blot in his peripheral vision.

“Steve…?”

He freezes on the bed, tension drawing him in, don’t look, he’s not there, not really, he’s not real.

“I need you, just look at me, please, I’m real” his voice cracks, head drops, shoulders draw in, “I think I’m real…”

“You think?” He feels like laughing, at the absolute absurdity of the situation he has found himself in, the pain, insomnia, and grief mould together into something that feels all together like madness. Instead, he feels his chest begin to heave, breathing becoming increasingly uneven. “I can’t even touch you; you can’t be here, not really, you can’t even stay when I leave.”

Billy steps towards the bed, falls just short of Steve’s side, “you’re the only thing that’s strong enough to keep me here.”

Steve spins, pulling himself off the bed, hair whipping into his face, tears streaming, he feels exhausted, completely emotionally spent, he hits out at Billy’s waiting chest, his hand ricochets off, pushed away by an invisible force, “what’s the point?” he spits out, “why are you still here?”

The regret is immediate. He claps his hand over his mouth, doesn’t, can’t look up. He knows what he’ll see. He knows the pain he’s caused.

“I never got to tell you,

I love you, Steve.”

And then he is there, solid, real. Blue eyes burning unmistakeably. Steve immediately brings his hand up to Billy’s cheek, touches him, cradles his jaw in his hand, Billy’s hands rise up to cover Steve’s. They feel each other. All the comfort and warmth invested in their souls floods back.

Steve begins to crumble, held up only by the strong hands encasing his own. “Billy, ‘m sorry” he mumbles uselessly, how could he ever find the words to tell him how sorry he was?

Billy’s thumb begins to trace small circles into the back of Steve’s palm, a small reassurance. “It’s okay bambi, I think that’s why I was here.”

Steve’s head snapped up at that, “was?”

The tracing motion on his hand becomes lighter, beginning to fade.

“No, Billy please, I love you too, please just stay with me”

He’s still fading, Steve tries desperately hold on.

“Please don’t leave me”

A watery smile, the gentle trace of fingertips along his jaw.

“You know I can’t stay”