#hwb2026

“Probably,” Billy says shortly, carting his load back to the kitchen. They’re not closed yet but they’re winding down for the night. The only person left in here is Alexei, nursing a mug of herbal tea over his textbooks. 

“Wonder why he’s come back?” Heather muses, taking over Billy’s job of wiping down tables. 

“Who’s back?” Robin asks, popping her head around from the kitchen. Heather just grins. 

“Your favorite person,” she sings, gesturing to the rapidly disappearing figure of Steve Harrington. “The myth, the legend, the hair.” Robin makes a face but strains over the counter to see him anyway. 

“Maybe it’s one of those Scrooge things,” she says, giving up and walking around to stand by her girlfriend. “He’ll be cranky and miserly to kids in the street, before ghosts appear to him in the night, while his bony knees shake under his nightgown…”

“I bet Billy would like to see that,” Heather says slyly, just loudly enough for even Alexei, with his dubious English, to look up. 

“I hate you,” Billy says, without ire. For starters, he saw Steve in the showers during gym and he definitely doesn’t have bony knees. 

What he did have was enough to fuel every single one of Billy’s teenage desires for years. 

“Yeah, so he’s handsome and rich, but maybe he’s also a dick,” Robin says, hopefully. She spreads her hands across the space, as if to make a point by the sage green walls, the mismatched chairs, the fake stained glass partitions. “Look at what we have, huh? Our own business…”

“That will take us forever to pay off,” Heather says brutally, wiping her hands on her apron. They rent the space for cheap, and some of their equipment is getting old, hand me downs from Benny. By rights, three kids that come from nothing shouldn’t have even gotten this far but they had help. Heather had an aunt who liked her enough to leave her an inheritance, and Robin and Billy have been working and putting money away since they were old enough to. Combine that with Benny lending them a hand, and Hopper, and Joyce, and cranky old Murray…they’d all helped in some way, by investing, if they could, or finding cheap furniture or calling in favors…

It’s enough, because Billy finally feels like he belongs somewhere. This cosy little space, that they cleaned furiously and painted up, strung up with fairy-lights and photo-frames, made to feel like someone’s front room. Then there’s the apartment upstairs that they share, Heather and Robin in one room and Billy in the other. Sometimes it’s rough, living and working together, especially when two of you make up a couple. But it works more often than it doesn’t 

“I was going to say ‘and we have each other’ but clearly this is not a festive mood,” Robin snarks, stomping back to the kitchen. Heather just shakes her head. 

“I think the holidays are getting to her,” she confides quietly to Billy, as though she doesn’t wait for the one Christmas card her mother still sends her. They’d never admit it but all three of them fiercely cherish this little family that they’d made because the ones that gave birth to them don’t seem to give a fuck. 

“Doesn’t it to us all,” Billy murmurs. He hasn’t heard from his dad in years, not since the divorce when Neil had hightailed it back…somewhere. Billy had been old enough to refuse, having finally - if reluctantly - put down roots in Hawkins. Susan and Max also stayed, moving out of the place on Old Cherry to the trailer park. They’re doing okay though. Max works when she’s not at school, even picking up a few hours here at the cafe when they can afford it. Billy stops by to see them pretty often because at the end of the day, after Robin and Heather, they’re kind of the only family he has. 

Robin’s folks seem…fine. They’re not out waving pride flags or anything but they’ve invited Heather and Billy to Thanksgiving a couple of times. Robin always looks faintly pained by her mother’s comments but, unlike Neil, they don’t seem to come from a place of malice. Which, out of the three of them, means that Robin wins ‘least suckiest parents.’

Billy continues to clean up, even pouring Alexei another cup of coffee. He’s in no rush to kick the guy out. After all, Alexei comes in here a lot and, unlike certain customers, never makes a nuisance of himself. 

The bell jingles just as Billy’s moving chairs back in and his heart sinks. They hadn’t flipped the sign yet but who wants coffee at ten to six five days before Christmas? 

“We’re nearly closed,” he says shortly, and tries to remember that his lack of festive spirit isn’t anyone else’s problem. “We can get you something to go but…” His words are cut off, effectively drying up in his throat as he turns and meets Steve Harrington’s deep brown eyes. 

“That’s okay,” Steve says easily, looking around the cafe curiously. Billy’s heart - that had skipped a beat, and then jittered into a frenzied beat - slowly grows cold as he sees the cafe through Steve’s eyes. Full of hand-me-downs, shabby around the edges, only just held together by enough quaint charm that they can get away with it. “I just wanted to see…Tammy said you guys had opened up a cafe.”

Tammy Thompson, who works at the jewelers down the road, and has the dubious honor of being Robin’s first love. Sadly, she’d only had eyes for Steve, something that clearly hasn’t changed. 

“Yeah,” Billy says, aware that the chattering in the kitchen has stopped. “Nearly a year now.”

“Good business?” Steve asks, and Billy can hardly take the soft tone, as though Steve genuinely wants to know. 

“Yeah,” Billy says again, wondering where the fuck his words have gone. “It was slow to start…but Robin makes all of our cakes, and Heather did a stint in a proper coffee shop, so she knows all the tricks and I…” His words trail off, unsure why Steve is looking at him like that. Maybe he’s babbling. 

“And you?” Steve prods, as though he’s not wearing a coat that costs more than Billy makes in a month, two months, as though Steve hasn’t grown from being a young doe-eyed sort of attractive into a heartthrob that would make women swoon, as though he actually cares what Billy does in his day to day. 

It hurts, because there’s no way that he does. 

“I worked at Benny’s a lot during high school,” Billy says, regretting it the moment the words come out. Yeah, he’d spent a lot of time in school alone, because he’d needed to work, because having friends was a risk and most of the time he’d smelt like the diner anyway, full of grease and fat and sweat. But he hadn’t cared because Benny had looked after him like no one else ever had. “So I do most of the cooking.”

“Cool,” Steve says, sweeping slightly damp hair away from his face. It’s still trying to blizzard outside, the white flakes getting thicker and faster with every minute. “Will you be open tomorrow? I should stop in for breakfast.”

“We’re open until Christmas Eve,” Billy says, because as much as it sucks, they stand to rake in a lot of cash from the last minute shopping crowd. They did really well during the summer, but then it had settled down as the winter had started to draw in and they need that buffer to last them until spring. They’re only closed for three days, opening up again on the twenty-eighth. It’s not much but they’re a new business and there’s only three of them. Aside from Max, or Jane, who come in for a few hours when needed, they can’t afford to hire anyone else yet. 

“Great,” Steve says, meeting Billy’s eyes with a warm smile. It’s the exact same smile from high school, something that starts out slow and lazy, and then spreads across Steve’s face until it’s as blinding as staring into the sun. “I’ll have to stop by.”

“Isn’t it your morning off tomorrow?”

“No,” Billy says through gritted teeth, without turning around. Robin and Heather have finally slunk out of the kitchen, just to watch Billy’s humiliation. You’d think they’d have something better to do, but apparently when you’re a happy lesbian couple, a popular pastime is torturing your single friends. 

They got lucky. They fell in love senior year and never had to struggle through Hawkins’ limited gay scene. 

“I thought it was,” Heather adds, folding her arms across her chest. Robin rests her head against Heather’s shoulder, her cheek against baby-blue cotton. “Hi, Steve.”

“Hi, Heather,” Steve says, nodding towards her and Robin. “And…Robin? Hey.” 

Robin looks vaguely startled that Steve even remembers her name. But Steve had never been one of those guys, even though he’d been the undisputed king. And he could have so easily been a dick, but he never was. 

More’s the pity to Billy’s poor, fragile heart. 

“I’m sure it’s Heather’s?” Billy retorts, wondering if the lure of an unexpected morning off will get her to shut up. He’d forgotten that tomorrow was his glorious free morning of the week, where he doesn’t have to get up at six for opening, and can lie in listening to the sounds of chatter and the coffee maker below him. “I’m definitely working tomorrow morning.”

Heather gives him a slow, sly smile, and he realises that this was probably her plan all along. 

“You’re right,” she says, with a shrug. “My mistake. Hey, you should make Steve your eggs benedict. You’ll love it, Steve. People swear up and down they want to marry Billy after they’ve had the eggs benedict.”

“Is that so?” Steve says, looking delighted. He appears to have missed Heather’s pointed tone. “That sounds great.”

“But I still have to work,” Robin protests weakly as Heather slinks back to the kitchen. It’s now past six, time they should be locking up the doors and turning off the lights. With a jolt, Billy remembers that Alexei is still here, watching the proceedings with bright, interested eyes. 

“Shit,” Steve says, pulling up his sleeve to check his watch. “You guys probably need to close. I just…wanted to say hi. I came back to see my parents for the holidays.”

“You’re staying here for Christmas?” Billy asks, unable to stop himself. But the hesitation on Steve’s face crushes whatever small hope he’d had pretty quickly. 

“No, I was just here for a few days,” Steve says, shrugging sheepishly. “Thought I’d stop by, exchange presents with the folks before I need to get back…back home.”

“I see,” Billy says stiffly. God, he’s an idiot. The snow, the appearance of his old crush on his doorstep, smiling at him and saying how much he was looking forward to breakfast. Jesus, this isn’t some stupid Hallmark film. Steve clearly has a partner at home, in New York, in Chicago, in LA, wherever he lives now with a fancy, modern apartment, where the plumbing always works and the neighbors don’t fuck and fight with equal fervour.  

Shit, is it too late to take back his morning off? 

“But I’ll definitely come by tomorrow,” Steve says, shifting his weight back and forth. “I’d like to see you guys when it’s open. Didn’t this used to be…”

“The old pawn shop, yeah,” Billy says. The large windows, the huge open space at the front had been ideal for a cafe. Sorting out the back to make a decent kitchen to work out of had been harder, and where most of their money had gone. But because of the state of it, rent had been dirt cheap, and it seemed worth it to scrub down black floors for three days straight. Hadn’t always at the time, particularly when Robin had found the dead mice in the office, but they’d never have afforded it otherwise. “Closed down a few years ago and sat empty. All of the other units in the street were too expensive…anyway, it worked out well for us.”

“Tomorrow you’re going to have to tell me how you three went into business together,” Steve says with a small, soft smile. And Billy knows at that moment that he’s going to drag himself out of bed before it’s even light, if there’s even a glimmer of a chance of seeing that smile again. 

“Sure,” Billy says, aware of Robin behind him, helping Alexei pack up his textbooks. “Over breakfast.”

His heartbeat doesn’t slow down even as the door swings closed behind Steve once more, and Billy hides behind the bookcase to watch his progress across the street back to his car. 

“He’s not wearing the right shoes,” Heather grumbles, joining Billy at the window. She’s not alone, however, Robin and Alexei right behind her. “Fuck’s sake, he grew up here, he should know better.”

“Maybe he wasn’t expecting it to snow?” Robin suggests, as Steve climbs into the driver’s seat. Heather snorts. 

“It’s Hawkins,” she says bluntly. “Of course it’s going to snow. Besides, it wouldn’t be Billy’s perfect little rom-com without a white Christmas, would it?”

“I fucking hate you,” Billy snaps, much to the surprise of Alexei. “No, not…go home, Alexei.”

The door jingles once more and Heather deftly does up the bolts. She still looks unrepentant, not even the least bit guilty. “I wanted to see how far you’d take it. God, you’re gone on the guy still, aren’t you?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Billy says, wanting nothing more than to climb into bed with a pot noodle and watch shitty TV. It’s so fucking pointless than he has to keep stomping down on any flicker of hope that dares flare into life. Steve’s so far beyond his level, it’s not even funny. All Billy’s ever known is scraping by, counting every penny, working his ass off for the life he has now. All Steve’s even known is everything on a golden platter, where life is warm and fun and easy. “Besides, he's straight. You do remember him screwing every available girl in high school, right?”

“We were there, we remember,” Robin says wryly, dropping down the blinds. 

“And he’s not sticking around anyway,” Billy says, because by the time Christmas rolls around, Steve Harrington will leave this backwater town in his dust. 

“Maybe the Christmas spirit will move him into staying a little bit longer?” Heather suggests, wiggling her eyebrows. “I wasn’t kidding before. Feed the man and he might be tempted into sticking around.”

Those aren’t words Billy’s used to. People don’t just stick around. 

“Shit like that doesn’t happen in real life,” Billy says wearily, starting to pull up the chairs onto the tables. “He’s not about to change his plans.”

“Why not?” Heather asks and for a second he forgot that this is the shit she was raised on. While Billy watched action films to impress his dad and Robin watched artsy French films, Heather grew up on a diet of romance and glitter, the fairy tale ending where everyone hooks up by prom and people kiss in the snow in front of Christmas trees. “Tis the season. You never know what might happen.”

No, this is not some cheesy rom-com. 

Steve blinked several times in a row, just in case he was hallucinating, and adjusted his grip on the box he himself was carrying. Beside him, his mother was wearing her biggest and most gracious smile as she approached a big woman who was coming up to meet them. Steve tuned his mother’s voice out as she started her usual spiel about the holidays and the spirit of generosity. This was the fourth soup kitchen and/or food bank he accompanied his mother to today, on his her insistence. Apparently the company made a point of donating food to the people in need in the week before Christmas, and Steve’s mother insisted on them being the one to deliver it. She said it was the least they could do, as people who had the means to help people who were worse off. Personally, Steve noted that ‘they’ in this case didn’t seem to include his father, and he also suspected that the only reason they were even here was because it looked good on paper in the end-of-the-year report that the company sent out to the shareholders. This theory was supported by the photographer who had followed them to the first two places, where Steve had had to pose stiffly for pictures with his mother and whoever was in charge in front of a table laden with canned food.

Personally, Steve suspected that a check would do these people a lot better than canned ravioli, but it wasn’t worth the hassle of bringing it up with his mother, not when she was dead-set on upholding the tradition. But the whole thing was ridiculous. Steve felt stupid coming here dressed in a smart pea coat, which covered a grey suit and crisp, white shirt, like he was on his way to a board meeting or something. Especially when most of the other people here were dressed in ordinary, sensible clothes.

Case in point; Billy Hargrove (because it actually was Billy Hargrove, holy shit). He was wearing jeans – not as tight as the ones he used to wear in school – and a grey, warm-looking Henley with a little hole at the top of one sleeve. His hair was longer now, and pulled back in a messy ponytail in the back of his neck. He also had a pair of fingerless gloves on, which just … did not make sense, in Steve’s head. Even in the middle of Hawkins winter, he had never seen Hargrove with gloves on. He’d just always been wearing the bare minimum of layers, showing off as much skin as possible. Steve would know, because he had been very aware of Hargrove’s bare skin, back in high school.

Too busy staring into his box of canned food and willing his blush away, Steve didn’t realize that the object of his thoughts were coming closer until someone cleared their throat close to him. When he looked up, startled, he was met with Hargrove right there, looking straight at him with eyes somehow bluer than Steve remembered.

“Harrington,” he said, voice low and husky. “What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” And Steve had to tamper down on a hysterical laugh, because it was such a Hargrove line.

He looked good. Which was about the only thing that was the same as in those fantasies Steve had had about this moment. In his mind, he’d run into Hargrove at the absolute perfect moment – Steve would be successful and powerful and effortlessly good-looking, and his hair would swoop to the side just so, and Hargrove would be reluctantly impressed and not be able to hide it, and he would not sneer at him at all – would, in fact, apologize for being a dick back in school. And Steve would be magnanimous and accept Hargrove’s apology and then offer to buy him a drink, and maybe they’d end up in bed together in Steve’s no doubt lavish hotel room, and Steve would show him in detail just how much better he was than Hargrove – in bed, for sure, but also in general.

Okay, so Steve usually thought about these scenarios when he was getting off. Which made this particular situation even more awkward.

Sure, Steve was now in a position where he could flaunt his success and wealth in Hargrove’s face, but instead of making him feel good, it made him feel embarrassed. Ashamed. Because they were in a soup kitchen, for fuck’s sake. And here he was, in his fancy clothes, standing next to his mother in her fashionable power suit with her pearl earrings and matching necklace, with a box of canned food that cost less than the cab fare they took to get here. They were just here for show, and everyone in here knew it.

“Uh,” he said. Swallowed, tried again. “It’s a … it’s a Christmas thing for the … for the company I work at.”

He kept his voice low so his mother wouldn’t hear and come and correct him. He didn’t want to have to clarify that the company he worked for was actually his parents’ company.

“Oh. Right.” Hargrove glanced to the side, where Steve’s mother was still talking at the other woman, who at this point looked more fed up than impressed. He turned back to Steve and motioned to the box he was holding. “Well, in that case, let me take this off your hands.”

“Of course,” Steve said and relinquished the box. Their fingers brushed against each other as Hargrove took it from him, and a jolt went up his arm from the point of contact. Hargrove turned and walked over to one of the tables that wasn’t full of stuff and Steve, not knowing what to do but also unable to keep his distance, found himself following.

Hargrove didn’t look at him, instead he opened up the box and only lifted an eyebrow before starting to unpack the contents. Somehow, that single eyebrow felt judgmental, and Steve felt the need to speak up.

“I know it’s not much.”

“No, no,” Hargrove said a little distractively. “It’s … good. It’ll help.” It sounded less like it was the truth and more like he was trying to reassure Steve, which made Steve feel both worse and slightly insulted. His face must have given something away, because Hargrove took a deep breath and then turned towards Steve, facing him head on. “It’ll help,” he repeated and gestured to the cans he was sorting through. “This? It’s enough to be divided up and given to maybe two or three different families. It’ll help them through the holidays.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but closed his mouth with a snap and went back to the sorting.

“What?” Steve said, because it was obvious that Hargrove had been about to say something else, and from what Steve knew about him, he’d never been one to mince words.

“Nothing.”

“No, what.”

Shrugging as if going ‘fuck it’, Hargrove took a deep breath like a sigh and gestured at the cans. “How much did you pay for these?”

“Um,” Steve stammered, not prepared for the question. “I don’t know exactly, I don’t –“

“Let’s just say that if you’d given us a check of the same amount you used to pay for these, we could have been able to get food for fifteen families instead of three.”

Steve could feel color rise in his cheeks. “What, really?”

“Yeah. Janice over there –“ Hargrove pointed to the lady who was being talked at by Steve’s mother, who now looked like she wanted to strangle either herself or the current company, “– has a huge network of stores and warehouses all over the city. One dollar in cash for us can buy ten dollars worth of food for families in need, at least.” When Steve opened his mouth to say something – what, he didn’t know – Hargrove just spoke over him. “I’m not saying donated food doesn’t help. It does. But money helps more.” He sighed, and seemed to deflate a bit. “But showing up with boxes looks better in the papers, I guess.” He let out a little huff of a laugh. “At least your boss there didn’t show up with the press in tow. You know, some people actually do that.”

Steve swallowed at that and kind of wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole, immensely grateful that his mother’s photographer had already left. In a desperate bid to change the subject, he jumped on the first question that popped up in his mind.

“So how … how did you end up involved in all of this?”

Hargrove gave him a look as if he was considering whether to answer or not, and then busied himself with unpacking the rest of the box. Assuming that he wouldn’t get an answer, Steve was just preparing to excuse himself when Hargrove spoke up, in a low voice, “I’ve been on the other end of things, before. I’ve been trying to pay it forward since then.” When he saw he had Steve’s full attention, he smiled a little wryly and continued without prompting. “I don’t know if you remember, but I left right after graduation. Couldn’t go all the way back to California, for obvious reasons –“ Whatever the reasons were, they weren’t obvious to Steve, but he kept his mouth shut, “– but I made it here, to Chicago. I didn’t have a lot, that first year. It was … rough. I actually saw the inside of several shelters, and the first Christmas was …” He trailed off, then took a breath and tried for a smile. “If it hadn’t been for people like Janice …” Here, he looked over to the woman with obvious fondness, “I don’t think I would have been here today.”

Turning to face Steve yet again, he shrugged drew one shoulder up in something like a shrug. “Probably not what you expected to hear.” No kidding. “But, yeah. They helped me when things were rough, so I’m trying to help them back, when I can. Give something back, you know?”

Steve moved his head like a bobblehead, a little helplessly, because he didn’t really know – and the implications of what Hargrove had just revealed were whirling around in his mind. Maybe Hargrove noticed that he was uncomfortable, and maybe he didn’t – either way, he plastered on a polite smile and said, “How about you, Harrington? What have you been up to since graduation?”

If this had been one of Steve’s fantasies, this is where he would have listed off his accomplishments – his corner office, his high salary and good benefit package, the fancy apartment in the good part of town he’d gotten a year or so ago. Right now, though, Steve would rather shoot himself in the foot than mention any of that out loud. He already felt like the lowest of the low, and he knew that mentioning any of those things wouldn’t impress Hargrove in the least. So instead, he just wet his lips and murmured, “You know … working, mostly.” When Hargrove raised his eyebrows in question, he clarified, “Office job,” and hoped that there would be no further questions.

“Right. Nice.”

“Yeah, it’s … it’s okay.”

“And she, she’s your …?” Hargrove asked and nodded discreetly towards where Steve’s mother was finally shaking Janice’s hand in what looked like a goodbye.

“Uh,” Steve said. “That’s the owner’s wife. She does this every year. I … volunteered to help, this time.” Technically, not a lie.

An awkward silence followed, but only for a second. Then Hargrove’s face split in a smile. “Well look at us! Who would have thought, right? Both of us volunteering for the holidays.” He said it as if they had something in common, but it wasn’t the same, not the same at all, and Steve could feel the weight of it pressing down on him – but at that exact moment, his mother called his name.

“I better …” Steve said, trailing off and pointing over his shoulder.

“Yeah. It was … good seeing you, Harrington.”

“Right. Um. Same! I’ll …” He didn’t finish that sentence, because what would he have said? See you around? They probably didn’t hang out in the same circles. So instead he just nodded and turned around, walking up to his mother who was busy putting on her gloves.

The gloves that Steve bought her for Christmas last year. He remembered that they’d been expensive. Now he stared at them and thought that they could probably have kept fifty families fed for the holidays.

When she reached out to take his arm, he discreetly shrugged her off. Glancing up to see that no one was close enough to hear them, he said, “Uh, mom? I thought I’d stick around here, actually, if it’s alright with you.”

Predictably, she looked like he’d just told her he wanted to foster orphan penguins or something. “Here? Why?”

He didn’t know. Didn’t know what he was doing or if it was a good idea, but it felt right. “I ran into an old mate from school. Wanted to … catch up.” The small lie was easier than getting into the complicated mess of emotions that running into Hargrove had caused. So instead of giving her an opportunity to ask more questions, he tried to sound casual when he asked, “Can you manage the last place on your own?”

“Oh, of course, honey,” his mother said. “I can have the driver help me with the box if it’s too heavy. How about you, how are you getting home?” Without waiting for an answer, she dug into her handbag for her purse. “Here, have some money for the cab.”

Steve swallowed a surge of irritation. He was a grown man with a good job and an income of his own, he could afford to pay for his own damn cab. But it wasn’t worth getting into it with his mom, so he just gave a tight smile and said, “Thanks. I’ll … call you tomorrow?”

She reached out and patted him on the cheek – “Do that, darling. Call if you need anything before then” – and then turned and walked out, alone. Steve took a deep breath and glanced over at Hargrove’s table, where the guy was quickly looking down as if he’d been caught watching them. If he’d seen her pat Steve on the cheek, or give him money like he was a child …

The woman – Janice – was talking to some of the other volunteers at the table next to him, so Steve swallowed hard and walked up to her.

“Hi, excuse me?” She looked up with a very unamused look in her eyes, as if getting ready for round two of Chatty Rich People, and he licked his lips nervously. “I … Hi, I … Um, here.” He handed over the money that his mother had given him for the taxi. As usual, it was way more than a cab fare, as if his mother had no sense of what things cost. “I told my … I mean, Hargrove over there said that money is better than canned food, so … “ The woman’s eyes softened a bit as she accepted the bills, and Steve took a deep breath and added, “Also, um, I was wondering if I could maybe … help?”

“You want to help? Here?” The way she said it made it clear to Steve that his mom had probably introduced him as her son to this woman, and Steve winced.

Hoping that she wouldn’t mention it, he nodded. “Yeah, I. I’d like to help, if you think I can.”

She looked at him as if she was trying to suss out if he had ulterior motives, but it didn’t take love for her to nod. “Sure, yeah, we can always use an extra pair of hands. Do you have any previous experience with these things?”

“I … no.”

“That’s fine. Billy will show you the ropes. Billy!”

And that’s how Steve ended up next to Hargrove yet again, with the man explaining in a few short sentences what they were doing and ending it with, “I mean, we unpack, sort, and divide it up. It’s not exactly rocket science.”

The comment was obviously made to dispel Steve’s discomfort, and Steve appreciated it, smiling in thanks. Hargrove cleared his throat and flicked his eyes to the side for a second. “You should … Um. You can hang your jacket on those chairs over there. Wouldn’t want to get it dirty. Sometimes the cans leak.”

Steve went over to the chairs in the corner and removed his coat, folding it over the back of one of the chairs, and then removed his suit jacket as well. When he was down to his shirt, he returned to Hargrove’s side while unbuttoning the cuffs and rolling his sleeves halfway up his forearms.

“Getting ready to get down and dirty I see,” Hargrove quipped, and Steve almost choked on his own tongue because that was a line he’d heard Hargrove say in his fantasies a hundred times – albeit in some very different scenarios.

They worked alongside each other for a while, mostly in silence. Steve couldn’t help surreptitiously glancing up now and then to take a good look at Hargrove. There was something different about him, that didn’t have anything to do with his hair or the way he was dressed, even though those things by themselves also made a big difference. Steve couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, though.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

Whoops. Apparently his glances hadn’t been as stealthy as he’d thought they were, but at least Hargrove didn’t seem to be annoyed for real, if the way he smirked was any indication

“Sorry, I –“ Impulsively, Steve decided to go for the truth. “You’re just … not what I had expected.”

Hargrove gave him a sideways look. “What did you expect?”

For a second, all of Steve’s little fantasies flashed before his eyes – but there was no way in hell he would be acknowledging them, thank you very much, so instead he opted for a less damning truth. “Something … I don’t know. Louder?”

That had Hargrove burst out laughing, which was so unexpected that it took Steve a second react to it and smile, too.

“Louder?”

“Yeah, I mean. You were always so loud, back in school.”

“I was not.”

“Okay maybe not but …” He thought of how to put it. “Larger, then. You always seemed to take up so much space. You walked into a room, and had everyone’s attention. So yeah, loud, just not maybe with your voice? But your car, the way you dressed … everything else was …” He winced, because he wasn’t making sense – and was probably offending Hargrove as he went, too. “Loud,” he finished lamely.

Hargrove hummed. “I guess you have a point. I wasn’t very … I wasn’t in a good place, back then. But people change. Things change.” A pause, then, “Hopefully for the better.”

A quick smile shot his way, and suddenly Steve realized what was different. Hargrove lacked that tension that he’d always been wrapped up in back in school. This version of him seemed softer – and sure, some of that was probably the way his clothes no longer looked two sizes too small, but he also wasn’t wound as tightly anymore. Didn’t look like the tiniest thing would tip him over the edge.

It was a look that suited him.

“Yeah,” Steve said. He wanted to say that it was obvious that Hargrove had changed for the better, but he also didn’t want to overstep. They hadn’t exactly been close back in school, and they were far from knowing each other now. But the urge was there. Instead, he opted for a more generic answer. “One can only hope.”

“For what?”

Taken by surprise, Steve floundered. “Better … times?” That sounded stupid, and for some reason Steve really wanted to say the right thing. Just once. “And to be a better person today than one was yesterday, I guess.”

Hargrove looked at him like he was trying to pin him down, and had his eyes always been this blue?

“I mean,” Hargrove said, “Hoping only takes you so far, though. When it comes to growth, I’ve found that actions speak louder than words.”

It probably wasn’t meant as a dig at Steve, but he ducked his head anyway. “Yeah,” he said and cleared his throat. Dug into the contents of another box. Thought about his mother’s view on charity and how it must differ from these people’s view on charity, and how unlikely it was that Billy Hargrove, of all people, volunteered in a food bank in the week before Christmas – and then he thought what it said about Steve, who still saw it as an unlikely thing.

Then Hargrove surprised him again by saying, “Look at you, for example.”

Steve’s head shot up. “Me?”

“Yeah. I mean, I bet that when you woke up this morning, you didn’t think that you’d end your day here, helping out, did you?”

Definitely not. “No.”

Hargrove gestured with one hand at Steve. “Yet here you are.”

“I … guess.”

Hargrove’s smile widened into a mischievous grin. “Leaving Mama Harrington to do her own deliveries, in favor for spending an evening in my charming company.”

Steve groaned, loudly, and had to resist an urge to just bury his head in the box in front of like an ostrich. “You knew?” he asked, face reddening.

The laugh coming from Hargrove was loud and hearty. Despite his embarrassment, Steve found a part of himself wanting to hear it again. “You look like her. Plus, your parents were there at graduation. I remember her from there.”

Of course. God, Steve was so stupid.

He’d always been drawn to the good in people – as if hoping that whatever was there would be enough to draw out the same in him. He’d felt it with Nancy, and she had helped him leave the fakeness of the high school hierarchy behind. He’d felt it with the Party, who had taught him about friendship and loyalty, despite the years between them. He’d felt it with Robin, who had taught him that being different wasn’t necessarily a bad thing and that having one person knowing you, the real you, was worth more than twenty followers and yes-sayers.

And he felt it now, with Hargrove. Who was here, voluntarily helping, without a photographer to make sure he got credit for it. Who didn’t care that Steve saw him in worn clothes and un-styled hair. Who turned out to be a better man than Steve had thought – which made Steve yearn. To be more like him or get to know him better, he didn’t know. Perhaps both.

“You must think I’m such a … poser.” He didn’t dare look up as he said it.

It was perhaps only a couple of seconds until Billy spoke, but it felt longer. “I don’t think that. That would be kinda hypocritical of me.” He bit his lip and then said, simply, “And besides. You could be doing anything else right now. But here you are. And I think that’s … good of you.”

“It’s not much, though,” Steve said, biting his teeth together. “Not enough.”

Hargrove bumped his shoulder into Steve’s, like they were friends. “Janice says that no one can do everything. But everyone can do something. And something is always better than nothing.”

Could it really be that easy? Steve glanced up at him, and found Billy looking back at him, something soft in his eyes. For a second, none of them so much as breathed. When the moment passed, Billy tilted his head to the side a bit and said, “And, I mean. If you really feel like you wanna do more, then there’s the soup kitchen on Wednesdays and Fridays.”

And Steve did want that. Wanted to do more, be more. But only if –

“Will you be there? To show me the ropes, I mean.”

“I’m usually there from five pm, yeah.”