Little Steve Harrington is so lonely he tries summoning a demon with a ritual advertised on TV--but luckily, it doesn't work, and a buff, non-human nanny hired by his mom shows up minutes later. Years later, they're best friends, and Steve still doesn't know the truth. For @magniloquent-raven!
When his dad finally locked him out of the office, Steve spent the morning sitting in the hallway playing with his Legos. When his stomach growled, he knocked quietly, and his dad’s voice on the phone continued, so he went in the kitchen to forage. He found Cheez-its, and olives, and a tightly wrapped triangle of gooey cheese that tasted good in the middle, but had gross, chalky skin, so he licked the middle out and stuffed the rest down the side of the garbage.
He walked back into the front room and flipped the TV on, just to make some noise. “In the future,” came the syrupy voice of the man on the screen, “—we’ll have robots to be our helper-friends!” He chuckled to himself, leaning back in his leather chair, and folding his arms on his huge wooden desk. “But that doesn’t work for us now, I hear you say.”
The camera zoomed out, and he waved to a woman with curly hair and long fangs, sitting on the edge of his desk. She was wearing way less clothes than the man was, and Steve frowned, wondering whether she was cold. “Our summoning spells are assembled by real lawyers, and airtight!” the man said, and the woman nodded, smiling, and holding up a picture with a lot of numbers and lines. Steve squinted at it guiltily—he’d seen the man’s ads before, and he mostly remembered the picture, probably.
The helper-friend lady looked nice, he thought.
“Too good to be true? We even include offerings! Bat eyes, tears of the innocent—” he said, smiling and holding up jars, as ‘ethically sourced from internment facilities’ scrolled across the screen.
Steve frowned around, and then grabbed his LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, the most complex set he owned.
“Honey,” the man told the woman on screen, and she opened a can of soda, and poured it over her own head, still smiling. “Perfectly compliant,” he said. “And just wait, there’s more! Any purchase comes with a matching, complimentary summoning sigil for a protective home guardian! Just drip a drop of fluid—” he winked at the camera, and it showed something red splashing across the page, as his voice suddenly screamed “Augh-no! Don’t—”
Steve had already grabbed the remote and hit the fifteen-second replay, and began drawing out the picture. He hit it again and again, coloring in different colors, and wishing people in commercials didn’t always yell. He drew the circle carefully with a piece of thread from the long fringe on a throw-blanket he wasn’t allowed to mess up, then folded it carefully again, grimacing. He colored in the crosses with a different color so it looked nicer, and drew the little castle wall-looking-bit. He added a horse.
When it came time to drip fluid on it, he clicked the TV off, and got a juice box from the fridge, figuring apple juice was way less gross than blood, and it wouldn’t ruin his picture.
Steve stared at the picture, holding the juice box, and thinking. He imagined not eating alone. He imagined the nice lady smiling at his Legos—maybe she’d like the castle set, he thought, like in her picture. He’d just summon her for a little, he thought—just a few minutes, enough to make them both a PB&J.
His stomach growled—again—and he frowned at his dad’s office door, sighed, plonked the Camaro in the middle of the picture, and squeezed the juice box to spray over it all.
Nothing happened. Steve stared at the picture for a long moment, his eyes welling up with tears, and then kicked the couch. It felt like his foot broke from the impact, and he spun around in a circle, muttering a lot of words he wasn’t allowed to say in the house. He hopped into the kitchen, sniffling, and got out the peanut butter, jam, and a spoon—but instead of getting the bread, he sat on the floor in front of the sink.
He felt a sinking sensation of guilt as he stuck the spoon right into first the jam, and then the peanut butter, sticking the whole spoonful straight in his mouth and licking it off. Once he’d licked the spoon, he stuck it back in the jar, his heart pounding. The peanut butter was crunchy and salty, and the strawberry jam was stickily sweet. He wondered whether his mom would check the bread and know, and cried harder as he chewed, hugging his knees.
The floor in the front room creaked, and he startled so hard the spoon jabbed hard between his upper molars. He scrambled to his feet, fumbling the lids back on the jam and the peanut butter and shoving them under the sink, his heart thudding in his chest, but nobody came in.
The couch squeaked softly, and Steve edged to the doorway, the big spoon hanging forgotten from his mouth, to see a tall man with horns and no clothes at all lying across the couch, right up against the forbidden throw blanket. He raised his eyebrows—they had shiny jewelry in them—and breathed out smoke, indoors, as he looked up at Steve.
He then yelped and scrambled to fall with a thud over the back of the couch. “The fff—what are you doing here, kid,” came his voice, from behind the couch. “Where the—where on earth are your parents?!”
“Unhm,” said Steve, who hadn’t ever seen a man wear so much jewelry before, and wondered how much it hurt to have jewelry in your dick. He took the spoon out of his mouth. “Uh. Dad—dad is—in there,” he pointed vaguely toward his dad’s office, his eyes still fixed on the horns sticking up past the back of the couch. “Do...do you want me to...get him?”
The naked man popped up behind the couch again, looking kind of mad, and Steve stepped further back, watching the golden chains and jewels glint in the light from the window. “...you look very pretty,” Steve said politely, and the man groaned, grabbing the blanket as he stood, and wrapping it around his waist like a towel.
“Why the—why are you here,” he hissed, and Steve swallowed.
“I’ll go in my room,” he tried to say, but it came out kind of a weird whisper, and he realized he was starting to cry again, so he turned away, and the man scrambled from behind the couch.
“Wait! Kid,” he said, and Steve stopped to see him step and spin kind of gracefully around the glass coffee table without catching the blanket on it. All his nails were pointed, and painted black. “I’m sorry—” he cut off, staring down at Steve’s picture, and the LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.
“...what’s this,” he asked, like maybe he was mad again, and Steve wondered, suddenly, whether his mom had forgotten to lock the door, and the man was a naked burglar, looking for clothes to steal.
“I wanted to meet the TV lady,” Steve admitted, trying to take it, but the man snatched it up. “Um, are you—are you a burglar?”
“Am I—” the man glared at him—his eyes looked like fire, weirdly, the blue fire on the stove—but he didn’t look mad at Steve, yet, so Steve just bit his lips together. “...you drew this?” the horny man asked, more quietly, and Steve nodded. “Why?” he asked, and Steve knew he was in trouble—even if the man wasn’t supposed to be there, grownups always told each other when Steve did something dumb, like steal the TV man’s picture, which was the point Steve realized he was a stealer, a thief, like on TV. America’s Most Wanted, he thought, his heart pounding.
“Why draw this?” the man asked softly, crouching down, and Steve sniffled again, wiping his eyes.
“He said a friend would come,” he admitted, wondering whether kids had their own jail, or whether he’d be in the one with all the guys from movies, who chased teenagers with chainsaws and knives.
“You wanted a friend?” the man asked, but even softer, and Steve nodded, clenching his fingers in the sides of his pants.
“I didn’t mean to steal it,” he whispered. “I won’t do it again.”
“...okay,” the man said. “Don’t—don’t cry, it’s okay, are—are you okay?” he held his hands up like he was gonna touch Steve’s shoulders, then crossed his arms, frowning.
“I’m okay,” Steve nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “...are, um,” he asked, cautiously, “—are you supposed to be...in here?”
“Uhhh,” said the man. “Definitely not naked, right?” he laughed, kinda nervously, Steve thought, and he snapped his fingers. The throw blanket turned into shiny fringed pants.
“Ohhh,” Steve whispered, impressed. “How’d you do that?”
“Oh,” the man said, grimacing. “Um, let’s talk about you summoning demons, okay?”
“...okay,” Steve nodded, sighing, but then a thought occurred to him. “Uh, do you want a PB&J?”
As they ate, the man spread Steve’s picture on the table, with the LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.
“So this is a circle to summon the demon Belial,” he said, low but kind of intense, like Steve was in trouble, but mostly he looked sort of worried.
Steve swallowed his bite of sandwich. “...it’s not exactly the same,” he pointed out, a little sulkily. “I added a horse.”
“...so you did,” said the man, turning it to look. “...look, summoning demons is very dangerous—”
“My dad says there aren’t bad demon summoners,” Steve told him. “He says there are bad plumbers, and bad strippers, but if you’re talking to somebody, and they summoned a demon, they must be good at it, because you’re talking to them, and—and he was on TV—”
“Strippers,” said the man weakly, and Steve realized he was being rude to his guest.
“I’m Steve,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“...Bel,” said the man, then, hurriedly, “Bill?”
“My mom likes Billy Idol. And Billy Joel,” Steve suggested, and the man nodded.
“That’s a normal name that I definitely have,” he nodded, grimacing, “—Billy, I’m Billy.”
Steve considered this.
“Are you listening, though? About demon-summoning? Even a lot of adults have a hard time with it—” Billy started again, holding Steve’s LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 to his chest like it was a present for him.
“The guy on TV said it was for a helper friend,” Steve told him, feeling a little guilty, but really not too much, since it hadn’t even worked.
“Steve,” Billy said, pressing his hands together over his mouth. The chain hooking his earring to the ring in his lip swayed and made a bell sound, and Steve stared at it, then remembered to nod. “Okay,” Billy said. “Could you promise me you won’t try to summon any more demons?”
“My dad says—” Steve started, again, but he cut off guiltily as Billy slumped back in his chair, groaning.
“Look,” Billy tried again, rubbing his face. “Summoning demons isn’t like inviting somebody over, okay? They have to come. Now imagine if someone called you up to—” he frowned down at himself, biting his lips with pointed teeth, and cleared his throat. “Uh,” he said, swallowing, and snapped his fingers with both hands—and all the jewelry vanished. Even his cool horns were gone, Steve realized, and he had clothes on, a little tiny black shirt that showed his belly button, and shiny plastic-y silver pants.
It was disappointing, but Steve looked into Billy’s flameless eyes and blunt-toothed smile and politely said “...you still look nice...I guess.” Billy snorted a laugh. “...I’ve never seen pants like that,” Steve offered, and Billy frowned down.
“What’s wrong with them?” he asked, then shook his head. “No, wait. Okay. What if you don’t want to go somewhere—”
“People make me go places all the time,” Steve said darkly, remembering the week before, when his mom had drug him in for a haircut that made him look like G.I. Joe. He rubbed his still-fuzzy head, glowering.
“Uh,” Billy said, trying not to smile, but spinning the tires on the LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, and Steve was a little proud that he liked it so much. “Okay, a stranger. What if a stranger makes you go somewhere you don’t want to go?”
“That’s kidnapping,” Steve said, breathlessly, his eyes huge, and Billy pointed the LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 at him.
“Yes. When you summon a demon, you’re kidnapping them, okay? And they can’t leave unless you let them go.”
“But the man on the TV said—” Steve whispered, then stopped, remembering how he’d made the almost-naked woman pour soda on her own head. Steve covered his mouth, suddenly realizing she might not have wanted to be almost-naked, maybe the man had taken her clothes off, like Steve with a doll. “Oh no,” he whispered. “I’m so glad it didn’t work!”
“Ah, yeeeah,” Billy said, grimacing.
“Um,” said Steve, reaching a hand over to retrieve his prize LEGO kit, and Billy snatched it back. Steve narrowed his eyes. “You were looking for my parents, but my dad didn’t say you were coming over, are you my mom’s friend?”
Billy winced, grimacing. “Where is she?”
“She’s at work,” Steve told him. “Daycare is too expensive, so over the summer I have to be good.”
“Wait, are there any grownups here?!” Billy asked, looking horrified, and Steve nodded, pointing down the hall again.
“My dad. He locks the door.”
“...What if you drown in the bathtub, or try to eat your own fingers, or something,” Billy breathed, and Steve glared at him.
“I’m not little,” he hissed, sliding forward in his chair a little, so his toes reached the floor. “I’m not a baby.”
“You don’t need a friend, you need a nanny,” said the recently smoking, horned, pierced and tattooed man before him. “And that’s, uh, that’s why your mom sent me.”
“...did she really send you?” Steve asked, narrowing his eyes, and Billy crossed his arms on the table, hugging Steve’s LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 against his chest.
“Yeah. Yeah, she did,” he said defiantly, and Steve relaxed a little, because Billy sounded like a teenager, just a bigger kid, really. “She said to put less peanut butter and jelly in your sandwiches,” he pointed to Steve’s overflowing PB&J-bread-burrito, looking smug, “—and just make another sandwich.”
Steve gasped, staring at him, and feeling absolutely betrayed. “You tricked me! Why’d you let me make it!”
“It’s okay, I won’t tell,” Billy said, and Steve’s heart was won.
Billy won it further when he scooted his plate aside to admire the LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, and Steve drug him back to his room to show him the kits he had. “Come on,” he said, excited and rude, and Billy slowed way down, grimacing, and flickering back to his pretty bejeweled self, with horns.
“How about you ask if I wanna do things,” he said stiffly, slowing almost to a stop, and smoking more around the eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” Steve nodded. “Sorry. Can I show you my room?”
“Or maybe, ‘Hey, Billy, want to see my room,’” Billy suggested, taking a deep breath.
“Okay,” Steve nodded. “Want to see my room?”
“Sure,” Billy nodded, relaxing like it was some big relief.
It occurred to Steve maybe it was. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I’ll be polite, I won’t get you fired.”
“Um, yeah,” Billy laughed, shaking his head. “Maybe don’t, uh, order me around.”
“Yeah,” Steve nodded, thinking hard about it, so he’d remember. “I won’t say ‘Billy, pick me upOOF—” he wheezed, as Billy yanked him into the air with one arm around his waist. “Sorry,” Steve wheezed, his feet kicking. “I-I’ll say Billy would you, sorry—”
“Shit! Damn it, I mean, uh, sorry,” Billy said, grimacing, and sat Steve back on his feet, straightening his clothes.
“I’ll remember,” Steve told him, wide-eyed, and then, because Billy looked guilty, “It’s okay.”
He tried hard to remember, and he usually did, because Billy got all tense and weird if Steve forgot, like he was trying to move underwater, and Steve had to yell “If you want! If you want!” as Billy grimly bit into the crunchy, burned eggs Steve had made.
“That was disgusting,” Billy told him, that time, and Steve couldn’t stop laughing, waving his hands.
“Okay, okay, can I—can I just tell you you can ignore me? I won’t tell, you can just—just do things if you want to—”
“...you sure about that?” Billy asked, snorting softly, like Steve might be kidding, and Steve nodded frantically.
“Yeah! Yes! Don’t, um, don’t eat any more eggshells, I’m sorry!”
“...okay,” Billy said, smiling down at him. “When am I not supposed to listen?”
“Uh,” said Steve, blinking at him. “I mean. You should—you should always listen—”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Billy said, rolling his eyes.
“No, you should!” Steve told him, grabbing Billy’s hand and tugging it. “What if something’s gonna hit you in the head? You should listen,” he nodded, thinking about it. “But once you listen, you should decide what you want to do.”
“What if I wanted to...eat you?” Billy asked him, reaching down to tickle Steve’s stomach, and Steve yelped, giggling.
“You won’t eat me,” Steve told him, leaning into Billy, to give him a hug. “You’re nice.”
Billy sighed, and hugged him back, tightly.
Billy was better at some things than other people, like clothes, Steve thought, because Billy was always pointing people’s outfits out, and explaining how they weren’t as good at picking them. He wasn’t as good at other things, though. Steve sat down one night to heated-up pasta sauce over Cheerios, and he didn’t want to say anything, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t right. Billy gave Steve’s mom a glass of water that was completely frozen because she said she wanted it iced, and when Steve’s dad told Billy to make burgers, Billy didn’t buy buns, or tomatoes, or anything, and he threw the meat in the pan until it caught fire.
Steve was pretty sure none of it was a joke, because Billy frowned between the glass and Steve’s mom, and grimaced over the burgers after Steve’s dad stomped away, and Steve caught him whispering into the phone to the neighbor, hiding half in the fridge like nobody was gonna notice it was open.
“Billy,” he whispered, and Billy jumped, as Steve crouched down next to him. The breeze from the inside of the fridge was nice, but it hardened all Steve’s suspicions, because no grown-up had ever left the fridge open, he was pretty sure.
“Yeah,” Billy muttered back, guiltily.
“...how old’re you,” Steve asked, and Billy flinched.
“Older than you,” he shot back, and that Steve was willing to give him, because Billy wasn’t human, and some things lived different amounts of time, like trees.
“Are you a kid too?” Steve asked, and Billy glared at him.
“No,” he said defiantly, and Steve nodded slowly, raising his eyebrows, until Billy groaned, deflating, sitting against the edge of the fridge and letting his legs sprawl out across the floor. “Look, I’m trying—”
“I won’t tell,” Steve said, reaching out and squeezing Billy’s hand. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“...teenager...maybe,” Billy admitted, grimacing.
“Okay,” Steve said, nodding. “Billy,” he said, trying to sound like a parent, or a teacher, and Billy’s shoulders hunched. “You need to tell me you need help,” Steve said, putting his hands on his hips. “I can help with things like human food.”
“You are human food,” Billy said, fondly, yanking Steve into a hug.
Most of the people that did magic like Billy ate kids occasionally, Steve found out, as he was reading his Dictionary of the Magic Realms that night under the covers, by flashlight. Maybe they were mean kids, Steve thought, or maybe Billy was just way nicer. “Are you a fairy?” he asked the next morning, and Billy laughed.
“Depends on what you mean,” he said, grinning over. “Is that slang for—”
“Can you fly,” Steve interrupted, because that seemed the most important, and Billy cocked his head.
“...actually, I probably could,” he said, considering. “Not like you mean, though. I don’t have secret butterfly wings, or anything.”
“Oh,” Steve said, because he'd been privately imagining Billy as they’d first met, with the jewelry and the horns and wings, and it seemed to fit.
“...do you want me to have wings?” Billy asked, sitting aside the dish he was drying, and bending down sideways to try and meet Steve’s eyes. “I can change form—”
“No!” Steve told him, waving his hands. “No, I know you like looking like...that.”
“...that,” Billy said, raising his eyebrows as he looked down at himself. “You saying I need to do better?”
“You’re just—normal,” Steve said quickly. “Instead of pretty.”
“Instead of,” Billy growled.
“I mean,” Steve yelped, waving his hands. “Pretty with all the jewelry! And the horns.”
“I was gonna say,” Billy said, reddening. “If you’re saying I’m not pretty—”
“Of course you’re pretty,” Steve said, rolling his eyes and sighing, but grinning, too. He patted Billy’s shoulder.
“Well,” Billy said, clearing his throat, and turning back to the dishes. “All right, then.”
A few days later, Billy was moving the kettle off the flame for hot chocolate, and a big gout of steam belched up over his arm, which shimmered into all over scales. Steve yelped and grabbed him, yanking him over to the sink, and ran water over it, all the while panicking.
“Billy, are you a mermaid?!” he asked, spraying Billy’s arm, and trying not to cry. “Are you a mermaid, are you okay, are hot things bad for mermaids—”
“I’m okay,” Billy told him, turning off the water, and hugging him close. “I’m not a mermaid, Stevie, I’m not hurt.”
“O-okay,” Steve gasped, grabbing Billy’s arm to run his fingers over it. “You—you’re okay,” he whispered, leaning into Billy’s hugs. “...are you a...lizard? Or a snake?”
“Nope, not exactly,” Billy said, snorting a laugh, and Steve groaned.
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Part 1: Little Steve Harrington is so lonely he tries summoning a demon with a ritual advertised on TV--but luckily, it doesn't work, and a buff, non-human nanny hired by his mom shows up minutes later. Years later, they're best friends, and Steve still doesn't know the truth. For @magniloquent-raven!
The other thing that Billy did that no other grown-ups Steve knew had ever done was have sex in bathrooms. He wasn’t sure for a while—because Billy always made sure Steve was fine, settled with his pancakes at IHOP, or in the play area at Fred Meyer—but Billy would leave for about twenty minutes, and come back sweaty and grinning, and kind of tired.
Steve snuck after him, once, and saw someone holding Billy’s wrists against the wall of the bathroom and kissing him, sliding his hand down to unbutton Billy’s jeans and pull his penis out, and Steve had stared through his fingers just long enough to see Billy grinning into the kisses, and shifting his hips.
Steve’d run back to his pancakes, his heart pounding.
He realized, thinking about it as he drew designs in the syrup with his fork, that Billy was that thing he’d heard yelled when somebody kissed boys—a slut—and he wondered whether it mattered. Billy did everything he was supposed to do, and he was nice, and stuck around with Steve in the shoe section while Steve tried on every single pair, and then when Steve didn’t want any of them, Billy took him to three more stores.
It couldn’t be a bad thing, Steve thought, biting his lips, not if Billy was one.
When the guy who’d been kissing Billy walked out—he had gray speckled feathered wings, so Steve was pretty sure it was him, even from the back—Steve ducked his head down over his pancakes. By the time Billy wandered back, still grinning, to slump in the booth, Steve’s jaw had firmed. Billy had looked happy, and he was okay, Steve was pretty sure. Probably. Even if it was the kind of thing that made parents yell like they did when they were scared.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his cheeks reddening again, keeping his eyes on his eggs. Billy sat up and faced him, flattening his hands on the table.
“What,” he asked, levelly.
“Are you okay,” Steve mumbled stubbornly, hunching his shoulders. “Y-you looked—okay. H-happy.”
“...you followed me,” Billy whispered, his fingers clenching into fists. “Shit. Uh, darn. ...it.”
“I won’t tell,” Steve said, shrugging awkwardly, and wishing he hadn’t been worried enough to see where Billy was going, because now he was more worried. “If—if you’re okay.”
“...I’m fine,” Billy said, which was what he’d said when Steve’s dad had threatened to fire him, and Steve wasn’t sure he believed it.
He forced himself to look up at Billy, surveying his just-washed face, and how pale he’d gotten since Steve opened his dumb mouth. “I’m not mad,” he said, which was weird to say to a grownup, but Billy looked like he might want to know.
“Just disappointed?” Billy asked, laughing, and grimacing.
“No,” Steve said quickly. “I-I’m not.” He’d been thinking about Tommy’s elder sister, and how she’d gotten in big trouble when their parents found condoms in her room—and how he and Tommy had hidden at the top of the stairs, listening to Tommy’s parents yell. “Um are you u-using condoms,” he asked as fast as he could, and Billy choked on the water he was sipping, coughing and thumping himself in the chest.
“Kid,” he spluttered, and Steve made a face at him.
“Are you?” he hissed. “You have to be safe. I love you.”
Billy stared at him for a long second, until Steve started feeling embarrassed, even though it was just what he said every night, as Billy put him to bed. “...love you too, brat,” he finally muttered back, leaning his face in his arms on the table with a deep sigh. “I’m...fine.”
“I don’t believe you,” Steve said, his cheeks heating further, because he’d found Billy that very morning trying to fill a sandwich with chunky soup. “We should—we should talk to—to my mom, or a teacher. So—so you can be safe—”
“Oh my god,” Billy mumbled, folding his arms over his head. His ears were very red. “I can’t catch anything from a human, okay, I’m not gonna get syphilis.”
Steve had no idea what that was, but it didn’t make him any less worried. He took a bite of egg as the server came over and asked how his breakfast was, and he nodded to her, smiling, even though he was so worried the egg tasted like nothing. “Wh-what about saying no,” he whispered to Billy, as soon as she was gone. “You, um, you can say no to—to uh, things, right?”
“I can and I do, kiddo,” Billy laughed, sliding his hand over to link their pinkies, his face still hidden in his other arm. “I’m okay, Stevie, I swear. You made sure I could say no, remember?”
“You’re still bad at it,” Steve said, because usually Billy scooped him up and put him in the bath, or in bed, even if Steve was laughing and yelling ‘Nope! No! You jerk, I’m still eating!’, but sometimes Steve would forget, and tell Billy to do something, and Billy would take a deep breath and hold very still until Steve remembered.
“Sure, with you,” Billy said, raising his head enough to grin lazily at Steve, and Steve couldn’t help smiling back.
“We should talk to—to somebody,” he said, stubbornly. “A—a real grownup.”
“I’m real,” Billy huffed.
“Somebody older,” Steve hissed, and Billy made a face.
“I’m older than your dad,” he muttered, crossing his arms.
“But you—you’re not human,” Steve reminded him. “You—you’re like a teenager. You said.”
“Nooo, come on, kiddo, lemme alone,” Billy groaned. “I’m old enough.”
Steve narrowed his eyes and grabbed Billy’s phone, and typed s-a-f-e into the search bar, and then braced himself, and tapped s-e-x. He hunched his shoulders, his face burning, and hit search. He found a lot of...things, and squeaked in a kind of dying way through his hand.
Billy snatched the phone back, looked at it, and said “Oh my god. Stevie. Stop. I will research it myself, and I—I will be careful. Okay?”
Steve buried his hot face in his hands, nodding, and trying to suppress horrified giggles. He kinda wanted to turtle into his jacket, or crawl away under the tables, but he just pulled his knees up on the seat, and tried not to whine like a tea kettle.
Billy grimaced, scrolling through his phone, and Steve realized—while his ears probably smoked with the imagery he’d seen about things in butts—that Billy’s shoulders were up, and he had his arms crossed in front of himself too.
“Sorry,” Steve wheezed, through his fingers. “Y-you aren’t—you aren’t gross! Sorry! I just—I just love you and—I have to keep you safe—”
“I have to keep you safe,” Billy told him, grinning, and shaking his head. “I’m more grown up than you, fetus.” His cheeks were pink, and Steve scowled at him, then kicked at his knees under the table.
“You’re bad at some things!” he hissed, as Billy yelped, swinging his legs away. “I have to help, I have to help you—”
Billy shushed him, laughing, and then opened his mouth, and closed it, as Steve sipped at his hot chocolate. Billy waved at it, and suddenly it was hot again like it had just come from the kitchen, and had rainbow sprinkles, and Steve sighed, wanting to—hug him, or something, and feeling the same annoying worry he always felt when he wasn’t doing enough. He knew Billy’d stay, he told himself, as long as he could.
As long as Steve could keep him wanting to.
“Finish your pancakes,” Billy told him, grinning. “Gonna take you to the park.”
Steve liked the park okay, mostly because it was where they went when somebody was happy with him, but it was also worrying, because it was where they went when his parents wanted him to shut up and go play. He was pretty sure this time was both, but when they got out to the parking lot, Billy grabbed him and spun him around so his legs swung around in the air, and hugged him the whole way to the car, and when they got there, he didn’t send Steve off to play while Billy talked on his phone, so it was Good Park Reasons.
“You’re not...mad,” Steve asked, cautiously, and Billy laughed, squeezing him tighter.
“Nah,” he said. “You?”
“Naaaah,” Steve giggled back, drawing out the syllable.
There was a pattern to Billy being a slut, Steve noticed, because if it was Billy, it couldn’t be a bad word. They’d be out, and somebody would see Billy, or Billy’d see them, and Steve would see them staring at each other. “I’m going to go listen to storytime,” he’d announce, or “Look, there’s a play area here, I’m gonna go ride the bouncy horse.”
“Me too,” Billy said once, cheerfully, grinning at him, and Steve shook his head.
“They don’t allow grownups on the bouncy horse,” he said slowly, wishing he didn’t have to tell Billy sad things when he was grinning, but Billy just laughed, hugged Steve’s head—messing up his hair—and walked off.
When Steve had to start first grade, he clung to Billy the night before, and Billy carried him around for two hours, making him giggle as they made popcorn and watched cartoons on Netflix, and then pulled a big wrapped present out of nowhere. It was a new LEGO set, one Steve had never even heard of, a dragon that could transform into a pirate ship.
“Is it that weird?” Billy asked, grimacing at it, while Steve stared, and Steve threw his arms around Billy’s neck, shaking his head.
“I don’t want to go to school. I want to stay home with you,” Steve said into Billy’s shoulder, and sighed.
“Maybe I should put it away, then,” Billy said, raising his eyebrows. “I was saving it for when you had to go back to school, but if you don’t want it—”
“I want it!” Steve yelped, scrambling back out of Billy’s lap to huddle around it. “I want it, I want it!”
“Okay,” Billy told him, ruffling his hair. “We probably won’t finish it tonight, but once you make a ton of friends, I’ll need something super cool to get you to hang out with me, right?”
“No,” Steve told him, laughing. “You’re my best friend.”
Billy laughed, but he didn’t look convinced, so when he got the fruit snacks out after dinner, Steve gave him all the blue ones—they tasted best—and the trucks, which were biggest.
“Ah,” said Billy, biting his lips together. “They’re very...warm,” because they’d gotten a little sticky as Steve waited for him to finish the dishes, but he crouched and pulled Steve into a tight hug.
Steve fell asleep curled up against Billy’s shoulder, and woke up in his bed, with his mom shaking him awake.
“I told Billy we don’t need him during the school year,” she said, frowning at her phone. “During the day, anyway. He’ll still come by and feed you, and put you to bed.”
She wandered off, and Steve wondered, clutching his blankets, whether anyone would make him breakfast. He climbed out of his bed feeling kind of...bad, like he’d had a nightmare, and might cry. He sniffled, and rubbed his face, and stayed in his pajamas until after breakfast, trying not to think about his usual mornings, with Billy pretending he was an out-of-control backhoe and scooping him out of bed, or Billy humming at the stove as he made Steve eggs and toast.
Steve’s eyes leaked a little, and he stomped to the bathroom and blew his nose, feeling like a big baby for missing Billy so much. He got himself cereal, and remembered shopping for it—Billy’d slowly taken over all the things Steve’s mom and dad used to do, like buying him new school clothes, and taking him to the doctor—and Billy had let him pick out things his mom never would have, weird fruits they didn’t know how to eat, and once, because Steve had liked it, a set of footie pajamas with rainbows and unicorns that was definitely for girls.
He’d warned Steve, once they were back in the car, that sometimes people were mean to boys who wore unicorns, and Steve had held up his middle fingers, the way he was allowed to do when their downstairs neighbor called Billy mean names.
“You tell ‘em, tiger,” Billy had said, laughing.
The day school started, Steve hugged himself in the soft unicorn pajamas, and pulled the hood over his head. He tried to stop crying so he could go finish breakfast, but he kept thinking of awful things, like what if Billy didn’t come on weekends anymore, and it was just Steve all alone in the house, and what if nobody bought food at all, and what if Billy was taking care of some new kid he liked better. His mom found him bawling on the toilet, and groaned.
“You have to go to school even if you cry,” she said flatly, and Steve nodded, sniffling.
“C-can I call Billy,” he whispered, his voice sounding kind of funny, like he was sick.
She rolled her eyes, sighing, but handed him her phone, and he fiddled with it until she yanked it back, clicked around, and handed it back, ringing.
“Yes ma’am?” came Billy’s voice, and Steve stood up.
“BILLY!” he yelled, and Billy laughed.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, “—did you need something? You know I’ll see you after school, right?”
“I miss you,” Steve told him, with another sniffle, and Billy started making all these shushing, calming noises, like the time Steve had fallen down the outside stairs of the apartment building, and Billy’d been more freaked out than Steve was.
Steve giggled, wetly. “Um,” he asked, clearing his throat, “—are—are you with a...different kid?”
“No!” Billy laughed. “No way, short stuff, I’m just at the laundromat, okay?”
“If you get a different kid,” Steve said, stubbornly, around the hard lump in his throat, “—they have to let you say no. They have to tell you you can say no, you have to—”
“I’m okay, Stevie,” Billy said, sounding a little teary himself. “I’m gonna see you today, and we’re both okay, okay? We’re gonna both be fine. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I wouldn’t be there this morning, I didn’t know either, okay?”
“...okay,” Steve mumbled, glaring up at his mom, who was inspecting the edges of her false nails.
“I’ll talk to you later, all right, my man?” Billy asked, and Steve nodded, swallowing.
“Later,” he managed.
“So dramatic,” his mom said, grabbing her phone back, and hanging up.
Steve waited for the school bus with four older kids who kept screaming and pretending to shove each other into traffic. He rubbed his nails up and down his backpack straps, making a wsht wsht wsht noise, and worried about Billy. It was hot already in the sun, and he squinted watching for the bus.
The teachers met them by the bus, and they did a roll call, different loud voices yelling out their names. Right after Steve’s name was called was Billy Hargrove, by the same teacher, and that was Billy’s name, his whole name that Steve’s parents used. Steve spun, huge-eyed, to see a kid run up, his age, but definitely Billy, and Steve threw both arms around him, trying not to cry.
“Is this okay?” Billy asked, stiff and nervous, and Steve squeezed him tighter, feeling how small he was, Steve’s size or even littler, but still with his pretty hair, and his earring.
“You two are friends, huh? That’s nice,” the teacher told them, smiling, and Steve nodded at her.
“He’s my Billy,” he said, unable to stop smiling, or let go of Billy. Billy looked kind of startled, and proud of himself, the way he did when he cooked something right the first time, or found the boy’s shoe section.
“Are you gonna come all the time?!” Steve whispered, and Billy shrugged, raising his eyebrows.
“Maaaaybe,” he whispered back, but he was smiling as huge and goofily as Steve, and Steve missed paying attention to half the first day of class, he was so excited. Once he got Billy alone, at recess, around the side of the gym, he hugged him again, and Billy laughed.
“Are you a genie,” Steve asked, half serious, and Billy stilled again.
“...what d’you mean,” he asked, cautiously, and Steve laughed.
“You keep giving me wishes,” he said. “You gave me a best friend. And I’m not lonesome at school. And the LEGO dragon,” he told Billy, holding both his hands. “That’s three wishes.”
Billy was watching him uncertainly, and Steve was happy, not mad, so he leaned in and kissed the end of Billy’s nose. Billy squirmed away, laughing.
“That’s not all, though,” Steve told him, grabbing his hands again. “You got me Honey Nut Cheerios yesterday. I know we were out of them, Billy. You got my mom the job she wanted...I think,” he said, because he’d had suspicions, but Billy grimaced guiltily, and then he was sure.
“I got a best friend out of it too,” he muttered, glaring at Steve. Steve grinned at him, and Billy sighed. “Don’t worry, you’re not gonna run out of wishes, I’m not the guy from Aladdin.”
“You’re a genie?” Steve whispered, bouncing a little on his toes, and leaning in too close, probably, his weight squishing Billy’s shoulder blades against the cement wall of the gym, but then he remembered that Billy was bad at saying no. He stepped back. “Um, do you—do you need help?”
“I’m okay,” Billy said, laughing again. As a kid, his cheeks were kind of pink and round, and Steve clenched his fists so he wouldn’t get grabby.
“Could—could people make you do things?” Steve asked, biting his lip.
“You could,” Billy said, smiling, and turning even pinker. “But you don’t.”
“I won’t,” Steve nodded. “Is there—is there something people could—could someone steal you,” he asked, his voice cracking as the horrible thought occurred to him, and Billy shook his head, laughing.
“It’s not exactly like that, there’s no lamp, or anything,” he said, glancing at Steve, and then frowning at the ground. “I-I’m not exactly a genie. I’m—I’m just yours, as long as you want me.”
“Oh,” Steve said, in a small voice, wondering how he’d gotten so lucky, and also feeling like this was an even bigger responsibility than a puppy. “Um.”
“Or you can send me away,” Billy said, smiling, a little. “If you get bored.”
“I wouldn’t ever,” Steve said, pulling him into a hug again, and sighing into his smaller, softer shoulder. “Um, unless—unless you want me to.”
Billy shook his head, hugging Steve back.
He knew even less about first grade than Steve did, which was kind of weird, but fun, because Steve got to show him how to sharpen pencils, and clean the whiteboard, and Billy listened to books like he had no idea what was gonna happen, even books Steve had heard over and over before.
“Your new friend’s kinda dumb,” Tommy Hagen said, glaring at Billy, and Steve scowled.
“He’s smart! And he’s pretty, and he’s nice,” Steve hissed, and stomped away, and Tommy knocked into him every chance he got after that, spilling Steve’s paint and his glitter and his cheerios, but the teacher was a fairy, and she waved everything tidy, hovering about three inches off the floor in annoyance.
“Read me the next one,” Billy whispered, when Steve went to find out what he was doing by the bookshelf.
“...you can read, though,” Steve said, and Billy nodded, sitting next to him, and leaning his head on Steve’s shoulder.
“I was up early,” he mumbled, and Steve put an arm around him, and read him the story.
He turned back into himself—the Billy Steve was used to—after school, and Steve watched him, fascinated.
“What do you really look like?” he asked, and Billy shot him a frown, clenching his hands around the steering wheel.
“Uh, what does that...mean,” he asked, and Steve watched him, wondering if Billy’s shoulders hunched up when he was nervous because that’s what humans did, and Billy was copying, or whether that was what genies did, too.
“I just wondered,” Steve said, shrugging, and he looked away, trying to look uninterested. “You don’t have to tell me. Uh, recess is uh, fun, huh? Um, I like the tire swing. We should, uh, we should...make a snack. At home. Later.”
Billy laughed. “You’re such a good kid,” he said, grinning over, and Steve’s whole face reddened.
He nearly swallowed his tongue. “I—I’m normal,” he said, and Billy reached over and ruffled his hair.
“I dunno, kiddo, you seem pretty great to me.” Steve groaned, hiding his bewildered grin in his arms, and Billy was quiet for a long second, before saying “...it’s not like here, where I’m from. I can’t...be like I am there.”
“Oh,” said Steve, nodding a lot, because he had no idea what that meant.
“This is how I look here,” Billy said, smiling over. “There’s no big secret.”
“Ohhhh,” Steve said, nodding again, kind of disappointed, but considering the genie from Aladdin—the only genie he knew of. “It’s probably easier, having feet,” he offered, and Billy snickered.
“Yeah, yeah, it is.”
The real thing Steve wanted to ask seemed kind of...big, bigger than whether Billy was secretly blue. “Um,” he said, frowning down at his hands.
“...what’s up, bud?” Billy asked, raising his eyebrows, and Steve made a face.
“Uh, where did you...go? When my mom said you had to leave. Do you…”
“I told you, I took everything to the laundromat,” Billy said quickly, and Steve shook his head.
“No, I mean...where do you...live,” he whispered. “I thought...I thought you lived at my house. You never left before.”
“I’m okay, I’m fine,” Billy said quickly, and Steve bit his lips together, kind of hating his mom. “I just, y’know. I don’t sleep, exactly, I found a cafe—”
“That won’t work,” Steve said, feeling the weight of Billy being his, and setting his jaw. “I’ll...I’ll tell her I need you to make breakfast. I’ll make a big mess of the kitchen—”
“Don’t worry about me, kiddo,” Billy said, laughing. “It’s not like she made me go home.”
“It’d be nice if you did have a lamp,” Steve sighed. “With little stuff in it, you know, like Polly Pocket. You could go in there when you wanted to.” Billy started laughing, cackling so hard he pulled over and folded his arms on the steering wheel, and when he looked over, finally, Steve stuck his tongue out. “It’s not that funny,” he huffed.
Billy beamed at him, and ruffled his hair again, roughly, like he was trying to mess Steve’s hair up, and wiped his eyes. “You know what I can do,” he said, softly, leaning close, and Steve leaned towards him. The vinyl of his seat creaked.
“Why are we whispering?” he asked.
“I can change size,” Billy told him, grinning. “You want to build me somewhere to live, Stevie? With your LEGOs?”
“Ohhhh,” Steve gasped, staring at him. “Let’s go home right now,” he whispered back. “Do—do you want a castle? Or a—a death star,” he whispered through his fingers, his voice squeaking. “A ship?!”
“We can look at all the options,” Billy said seriously, and Steve stomped his feet on the floor of the car like drum beats, he was so excited.
He had homework when they got home, writing about his summer, and he groaned.
“You can do that while I fix dinner,” Billy said, like it didn’t even matter that Billy could be the right size to open the doors in Steve’s LEGO haunted mansion. It was hard to focus on his math worksheet for that and a lot of other reasons, like Steve got addition, it made sense, he didn’t need to think to remember what 2+3 was, and also Billy was cooking, and that was hard to ignore.
He was making mashed potatoes, and Steve was girding himself to eat them, watching Billy frown around the kitchen and then shove the potatoes in the blender, click it to make it go, and listen to it struggle. Billy turned it off again and glanced worriedly back at Steve, who pretended to be working very hard on his worksheet.
The fridge door opened, and Steve tried to watch surreptitiously—and sure enough, Billy had figured out that the blender needed liquid, and he was pouring Steve’s dad’s kombucha-cola into the blender with the potatoes.
Steve tried not to grimace, but then Billy sniffed it, made a face, and pushed two pickles into the mess, and he couldn’t help asking “Um, what do you eat?”
“What,” Billy hissed, turning to hide the blender from Steve with his body. “I eat—food. You’ve seen me!”
“You, uh, I think maybe you didn’t used to,” said Steve, watching the greyish-greenish color the mashed potatoes were turning with fascination. “So, um…”
“I’m not hurting anybody,” Billy said, hunching his shoulders like Steve might think maybe he did, and Steve scoffed, turning to a worksheet page on using ‘a’ or ‘an’ in sentences, which was even worse.
“I know you aren’t,” he told Billy, rolling his eyes, and Billy laughed, relaxing a little. “What d’you eat, though?”
“...I don’t…” Billy trailed off, grimacing. “I don’t eat like you do.”
“Oh,” Steve nodded, watching his face hopefully, and then frowning at the worksheet. “Are you like a tree?”
“...sort...of,” Billy muttered, rubbing his face, and Steve realized Billy was turning red. “When I...make people...happy, it’s like...sun. For a...tree. In a...way.”
“You make me happy all the time,” Steve told him, and Billy made a face, turning redder, and Steve let himself look away from the worksheet, trying to remember whether ‘y’ was a vowel. He watched the wet, brownish-greeny-grey potatoes whirling soupily around in the blender. “I mean, except for sometimes when you won’t look up recipes online.”
“They’re impossible to fuck up,” Billy moaned, grabbing his phone, and frantically typing. “I can’t mess up mashed potatoes, Billy, nobody can mess up mashed potatoes—”
“Whoever said that didn’t know you’re not human,” Steve told him, “—because that’s, uh.”
Billy switched the blender off, sighing heavily as he stared at the slow bubbles rising through the muck. “...cereal?” he offered, defeatedly.
“Cereal is good,” Steve said, guessing that ‘an’ was correct and writing it in, and Billy groaned.
“How about I have Mr. Johnstone remember you when he’s taking his cookies out of the oven, and bring you some?” Billy asked, and Steve brightened.
“How come you can’t make me want to do my homework,” he huffed, and Billy paused, frowning over at him.
“Is that what you...want?” he asked.
“....no,” Steve said, because Billy’s eyes were smoking, a little, for the first time in months, and also it did sound kind of weird. “...have you...ever?”
“Ever what,” Billy said, staring at him, and starting to pour Steve’s milk on the counter, instead of into a bowl.
“Billy! Bowl!” Steve yelped, pointing, and Billy grabbed a bowl, fumbled it, and then dropped it, so it smashed all over the kitchen floor.
“Fuck,” he hissed, waving his hand, and the glass pieces all flew up to be a bowl again. Billy leaned back against the counter, his shoulders slumped, rubbing his face.
“...wow,” Steve whispered, because Billy rarely did anything obvious, it was always ‘Oh, no, Steve, you didn’t leave your new baseball cap at the zoo, I have it right here,’ or ‘Of course your dad will come out for dinner with you, kiddo,’ and then the wi-fi failed, and he did. “I just mean, um.”
“What,” Billy sighed.
“When I had the flu, did, uh, did you...make me sleep?” Steve asked, because he’d wondered about that one, waking up to his parent’s panicked faces in the hospital. “Until I felt better?”
“You told me to,” Billy said, watching his face. “You said.”
“...only if I asked,” Steve said, nodding slowly, and Billy nodded a couple times, faster.
“Only if you tell me to,” Billy nodded. “Mr. Johnstone always means to bring you cookies anyway, I’m just reminding him, is all—”
“How come you don’t use it to do the laundry, and...things,” Steve asked, since Billy was answering, and Billy laughed.
“I could,” he said, shrugging. “You need to know how to do it too, though, right? This way, we can do it together.”
“...did my mom…” Steve began, remembering the long-ago commercial, and making a face as he imagined Billy ordered to pour something over his own head. “...does my mom...have your...lamp? Is that...is that why you have to listen to me?” Billy opened his mouth, frowning, and Steve shook his head. “I-I know you said it’s not a lamp, but—”
“...I don’t have to do what your mom says,” Billy told him, cocking his head.
“...just me?” Steve asked, and Billy leaned back against the cupboards, crossing his arms.
“...yeeeah,” he said, warily, and Steve breathed a sigh of relief, nodding, and kicking his feet under his chair as he thought.
“Do…” he began, and trailed off, and Billy came over and sat down at the table, raising his eyebrows.
“Spit it out, kiddo.”
“...my magical people encyclopedia,” Steve started, then paused, trying to figure out how to continue. “...it, uh, it says to...it says not to..ask for things.”
“What did you want to ask for, Stevie?” Billy asked, with a long, contented sigh, folding his arms behind his head as he leaned back in his chair. He sat his feet on the chair next to Steve, grinning.
“No, no, I don’t—I don’t...want anything,” Steve said, and Billy sat his boots on the ground again.
“What’s wrong, buddy,” he asked, sitting up to reach across, and squeeze Steve’s hands. Billy’s hands were twice as big as Steve’s, and Steve always felt safe, when Billy held him, but he shut his eyes. “It—it says if you ask for things, there’s always a...price. It says—not money, but—it—it can go wrong, I might—forget someone, or they might...forget me, uh,” Steve paused, swallowing, as Billy’s hands on his went still. “Somebody wished for their dead son back, and he came back but he wasn’t alive, or...or she wished for treasure, but then she got arrested for stealing it…”
Billy smiled, a little, but not like anything was funny. “...oh,” he said, finally.
“It—the book said not to just...wish for things, if you didn’t know how you were...paying,” Steve mumbled.
“I’m not a monkey’s paw,” Billy growled, “—or a like, a fae lord, I’m not tricking you out of things you want, I’m not going to steal your memories, or your name, or anything—”
“Tommy doesn’t wanna be my friend anymore,” Steve said, his voice wobbling a little, because he hadn’t had a lot of people who really liked him, until Billy.
“Tommy’s a little shithead,” Billy muttered, but Steve talked over him.
“...if I have to...pay something to be friends with you,” Steve said, thinking about how his parents barely knew he was there, and whether they ever had, or whether he only remembered them that way, “—is—is that—”
“Shit, no,” Billy breathed, shoving away from the table and stomping over to lean against the sink again. “I didn’t—fuck, there’s nothing I can say, is there, I could have done anything, you can’t believe me—”
Steve blinked wide eyes at the words Billy was using, glancing up the hallway in case his mom or dad came around the corner. “Ssssh,” he whispered. “Sshh, I believe you! Don’t say the f-word, you’ll get in trouble!”
“Who cares, right,” Billy hissed. “I can just make them forget it, right?!” He looked really upset, Steve registered, kind of relieved, even though he’d known Billy was his friend, really. Billy looked like he might cry, and Steve got up from the table, and went over to hug him around the waist.
Even if Billy had taken his friendship with Tommy in trade for wishes, or something worse, Steve thought, it’d probably be worth it. “...I didn’t mean…” he sighed. “I know you wouldn’t...on purpose.”
“What’s that mean, on purpose,” Billy asked, disentangling himself from Steve’s hug, but just to pick him up. Steve hugged him again, around the neck, and messed Billy’s hair up the way Billy always did Steve’s. Billy laughed softly.
“...you’d make sure I wanted to pay for the wish. You wouldn’t do anything that made me sad on purpose,” Steve said, sighing. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“...sad, no,” Billy told him, squeezing him harder. “Mad, maybe. You aren’t paying for wishes, kiddo. If you want Honey Grahams because I’m a shitty cook and I ruined lunch, I’m not going to steal your memories.”
“You wouldn’t take away somebody liking me,” Steve whispered, and Billy rocked him a little, sighing.
“Nope.”
“Mom and Dad never liked me, it wasn’t you,” Steve mumbled, and Billy froze. “You didn’t take that.”
“Oh, jesus, kidlet,” he said softly. “Of course they...do,” he said unconvincingly.
“They don’t,” Steve sighed. “But you do.”
“Yeah,” Billy told him, swaying Steve a little, and rubbing his back. “You’re my favorite.”
“Favorite what?” Steve asked, giggling, and Billy hrrrm’d.
“Favorite everything,” he whispered, lifting Steve way high up so he could put his hands on the ceiling, and swinging him around while Steve laughed.
Little Steve Harrington is so lonely he tries summoning a demon with a ritual advertised on TV–but luckily, it doesn’t work, and a buff, non-human nanny hired by his mom shows up minutes later. Years later, they’re best friends, and Steve still doesn’t know the truth. For @magniloquent-raven!
“Y’know, I did take payment,” Billy said, as he snapped and Steve’s cereal was just marshmallows, and Steve shook his head. Billy snapped again, and there was some cereal in there again. “You were trying to give that Camaro set away to some demon, and when I showed up, I took it.”
Steve paused, frowning at his bowl, because he liked the LEGO 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.
“Unless you want it back,” Billy said, cocking his head to catch Steve’s eye, and Steve shook his head hard.
“No, no, I don’t,” he said quickly. “D’you...really really like LEGOs?”
“Uhhh,” Billy made a face. “I like making things with you, because you really like ‘em. But it’s not about what I want, it’s something important to you. And that set was your favorite, right?”
“...it was new,” Steve mumbled, kicking his feet. “But it’s not…”
“Not what?” Billy asked, cautiously, and Steve bit his lips together, wondering what to say.
“D’you want all my LEGOs,” he finally asked. “Y-you can have all of them. D’you—”
“Hey, hey, kiddo,” Billy laughed, as Steve swallowed hard. “Hey, it’s okay, my man, what’s wrong?”
“It’s not enough,” Steve said, squeezing his spoon so hard it dug into his hand, and blinking hard to clear his eyes.
“...brat,” Billy said, fondly. “All I’ve done is make you cereal a couple times. You’ve still got some credit, really.”
“You’re my best friend,” Steve squeaked out, not crying, but kinda sounding like it anyway. He tried not to sniffle. “Y-you’re my best friend, you—you’re worth more than LEGOs.”
“Shit, c’mere, kidlet,” Billy said, coming around to hug him. “Nothing here to cry about, you little weirdo, what—”
“Are you on sale,” Steve demanded, pulling Billy closer. “How come you’re cheap—”
“Oh my god,” Billy snickered, because he wasn’t taking anything seriously.
“Is this like the Woohoo! stickered meat at Safeway,” Steve asked, shaking him. “Are—are you old?! Billy are you gonna die—”
“No!” Billy cackled. “No, no, I’m—I’m fine—”
“Are you gonna get slimy like the old mushrooms we bought?!” Steve whined, crying for real, and Billy started laughing too hard to talk. “You’re not even listening,” Steve mumbled as Billy squeezed him tightly, stroking his hair.
“Lucifer falling,” Billy mumbled, kissing Steve’s head. “I’m okay, alright? I’m—I’m not past my expiration date.”
“When is it,” Steve asked anxiously, and Billy started snickering again, wiping his eyes.
“It’s not for a few thousand years,” Billy promised, and Steve mouthed it, wide-eyed.
“...oh,” said Steve, trying to figure out the math on the huge number. Even his dad, he was pretty sure, wasn’t more than a hundred. “...how old is my dad?” he asked, thinking, and Billy frowned thoughtfully.
“Younger than me,” he said, with certainty. “Maybe just a few hundred years old?”
“Oh,” Steve said, doubtfully, and then he squinted over at the card on the fridge. It said ‘Over the Hill: Congrats on the big 4-0!’ and Steve frowned at it. “...his birthday card says he was forty,” he said, and Billy stilled.
“...forty what?” he asked.
“...yeeeears?” Steve guessed, less certain in the face of Billy’s disbelief. “I...I think when my mom’s grandma died, she was seventy-eight. Years,” he added, for Billy. It had seemed like an impossibly large number at the time.
“...years,” Billy breathed, wide-eyed. “Not—not centuries, just years.” His grip tightened on Steve, and he finally looked upset. “You—you’re going to die in years.”
“...unless I get sick,” Steve told him honestly, and then wished he hadn’t, because Billy made a choking noise in his throat, and hugged him tighter. “Um, it’s—it’s a lot of years,” he muttered, into Billy’s shoulder, and Billy shook his head, sniffling.
“No, it’s not,” he breathed. “Fuck. Shit. I—damn it, kid.”
“It’s okay,” Steve told him, grimacing, and patting Billy’s shoulder. “Don’t cry. You—you can, um, you can get a...dog. You can play with my LEGOs.”
“That’s the most depressing picture, damn,” Billy muttered, wiping his eyes. “You sure you don’t want immortality instead of marshmallows, kiddo?”
“I-immune?” Steve muttered, frowning, and Billy messed up his hair. Steve yelled and batted at him, giggling.
“You wanna live forever with me, short stuff?” Billy asked, ducking away from Steve swinging a rolled-up magazine at him in revenge. Steve paused mid-swing, frowning suspiciously at him, and Billy laughed. “You wanna just be a kid and play with LEGOs forever?”
“...I wanna grow up,” Steve said, with certainty, after some thought. “And play with LEGOs.”
“...yeah, I figured,” Billy said, smiling a little.
“I want a credit card,” Steve told him, and Billy snorted a laugh. “...what happens to you when I die? Do you get to go home?” Steve asked, and Billy made a face. “...where is home?” Steve asked, more cautiously.
“Nowhere I wanna go,” Billy told him, messing his hair up again.
He looked kind of lonely all afternoon, Steve thought. There wasn’t much Steve could do about death, really, so finally he just hit Billy with a water balloon.
They took a long time to decide on a house for Billy. Finally Steve took all his kits out, and stared at them, while Billy fidgeted next to him on the bed.
“What if we put them all together,” Steve whispered, feeling like it was something forbidden. “I put them all together by myself already. We—we could make you a—a castle with a space shuttle on top, and a Millenium Falcon, and—and dungeons.”
“Those might come in handy,” Billy said, nodding, and Steve giggled. “I need a garage for my Camaro, too.”
“It’s a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28,” Steve told him, feeling like Nancy when she corrected people about dinosaur feathers.
Billy shrank down to the size of his hand and helped, running around the table and kicking through piles of loose LEGO to find pieces, and they added some things to support the weight of stuff hanging off the sides. Steve had been grinning so hard his cheeks were sore, his feet numb from sitting on them all evening, when his mom poked her head in, and Billy leapt through a LEGO window to hide.
“...what a mess,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s gonna take you hours to sort these back into bags.”
“I’m making a tower,” Steve told her, since that was mostly what it looked like. “I’ll put all the extra parts away, though.”
“Eugh,” she said, and shut the door without remembering to say goodnight.
“How’d they get you as a kid?” Billy asked, from inside the haunted mansion, and Steve sighed.
“Probably I was on sale,” he muttered. “Dad will buy anything if there’s a coupon for it,” and Billy started laughing so hard he had to grab the fancy goblet stuck to the table, for support. Steve grinned, watching him standing next to the dangling skeleton. “You wanna try the elevator?” he asked. “It actually moves.”
“It actually falls, more like,” Billy said, making a face. His voice was kind of reedy. “No way.”
“...can you get...hurt, this size?” Steve asked, suddenly horrified, and Billy shrugged, leaning out to look at the elevator.
“My bones are tiny,” he said. “I could stay sturdy, but I’d weigh a lot, y’know, I’d probably break your LEGO set.”
“Oh,” Steve said softly, jerking his hands back from the set. “Do—do you need help getting down?”
“I’m fine, probably,” Billy said, and then promptly fell out as he tried to edge around the table, and Steve yelped and caught him in both hands. He weighed almost nothing, like a bird.
“Be careful,” Steve hissed at him.
“I can heal myself, probably,” Billy panted, wide-eyed, and Steve found another drawback of minifigure-sized Billy, when he tried to hug him, and had to just gingerly brush his cheek against Billy’s whole body.
“It doesn’t matter if you heal,” Steve hissed. “It still would hurt, right?!”
“...yeah, but if I fix it, I’m okay again,” Billy said, laughing, and Steve lifted him up so Billy was only a couple inches from his nose, and Steve could see his expression. Billy grabbed his thumb.
“...if I fall down the stairs and break my arms and my legs and my head open,” Steve said, remembering Billy’s panicked yell when Steve had slipped on the cement stairs outside, in the rain, and clonked his head on the rod-iron railing, “—is it fine if you fix it?”
“Holy crap, kid, don’t even say that,” Billy breathed.
“So it’s not okay if you fall down the LEGO stairs either,” Steve hissed, and Billy blinked at him, then laughed a little, and Steve could swear his face went a little red.
“I’m not human, short stuff. It’s different.”
“It’s not,” Steve said stubbornly. Billy waved to the Death Star, and Steve held his hand next to one of the conference room chairs, then grimaced. “Don’t fall again,” he told his tiny best friend. “I’m gonna put railings in,” he decided, rooting through the pile of discarded LEGO. “You can’t just fix yourself—”
“I do,” Billy said, laughing, and Steve stopped.
“...Billy,” he said softly, “—when?”
“...just...sometimes,” Billy said, climbing up on the table and kicking the Darth Vader minifigure in the head so it flew and knocked into the Palpatine minifig, which distracted Steve for a second, because it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.
He covered his eyes. “Billy.”
Billy groaned. “You know. Like the time I didn’t know not to put cold glass under the hot water, and it blew up in my hand. Or that time in the parking lot when you didn’t look, and that car almost crushed you against the cement divider, and I pushed you out of the way.”
Steve remembered that one—he’d been kinda mad about it, because Billy’d shoved him to the ground, and he’d skinned his knees—but he remembered he hadn’t said so, because Billy was pale and shaken, and made Steve promise about 900 things about car safety. “...you...fixed...the car hit you?!” he breathed, his hands twitching as he longed to hug Billy, but couldn’t grab him when he was so small. “You—the—”
“I fixed it,” Billy waved his hands, laughing. “It wasn’t expensive—”
“You—could you have—moved yourself, or stopped the car,” Steve whispered, sitting on his hands.
“I might have had to alter the driver’s memories if I teleported, though, and moving the car is expensive, too, how many LEGO sets you wanna burn through to keep me, Stevie—”
“...Billy,” Steve said blankly. His eyes stung.
“Don’t wanna wear out my welcome,” Billy said, laughing.
“These are all yours now,” Steve said, waving at the stacked sets, ceiling-high. “The-they’re all. Yours. If—if you need more we can—we can do. Something. Don’t get hurt. Even if you can fix it.”
“...you don’t need to give me all that,” Billy said, frowning down.
“I love LEGO but you’re more important,” Steve told him, gritting his teeth, because Billy should have known that, and if he didn’t, maybe Steve had screwed something up. “You’re super important, Billy.”
“...okay,” Billy said, sounding confused.
“Save the—the magic for nobody getting hurt,” Steve told him, crossing his arms. “Obviously. What—what are you doing, anyway, are you stupid?! Don’t get hurt, Billy. That’s an order.”
“Oooo, an order, big man,” Billy said, laughing.
“An order, and you have to listen to this one,” Steve growled.
“You told me I can decide what to do after I listen,” Billy said, because he was a dick, and Steve told him so.
“You’re being an asshole,” he whispered, so his parents didn’t hear.
“I’ll try not to get hurt,” Billy told him, tossing Palpatine out on the rug, “—but no promises. Keep that guy out there, he reminds me of my dad.”
“He can go in the dungeon,” Steve suggested. “You promise? You’ll try.”
“Yeah, yeah. Put Darth Vader down there too, he sucks.” They put Doc Ock and Harley Quinn in there too, and Jafar, a clown Billy thought looked suspicious, and a lady in a horned helmet Steve was pretty sure wasn’t on the side of the heroes.
“No innocent until proven guilty here, I guess,” Billy said, sitting on the edge of the pirate ship on the mansion’s roof, and kicking his legs. “Maybe she was born a minotaur, you ever think of that?”
Steve giggled, and put the horned lady out with the topiaries. “We can see how she behaves,” he said. “But she’s not the minotaur—”
“Put Dumbledore in the dungeon too,” Billy pointed a flag he’d wrested off the pirate ship. “He is not responsible about the safety of his school.”
“And this mafia guy,” Steve said, and Billy gasped.
“Profiling! You just assume he’s mafia?!”
“He has a gun and a chainsaw,” Steve snickered harder, but sat him up in the conference room.
“Elsa should go in the dungeon too, from Frozen,” Billy said thoughtfully, and Steve fell over laughing, because Billy had yelled for an hour after that movie. “She froze a whole damn country,” Billy pointed out. “Sure, she warmed it up eventually, but how many people froze in the meantime?!”
“Let it go,” Steve gasped, wiping his eyes.
“What about the dead babies, Stevie? Should I let them go?” Billy asked, his hands on his hips. He looked hilarious with one foot on the LEGO rigging of the pirate ship, flag in hand. “You got any blue frozen children we can put with her?”
“Oh my god,” Steve cackled, rolling onto his back. His stomach hurt.
As the school year went on, Steve made more friends. Billy looked kind of lost the first time Steve got invited away for a slumber party, but Steve couldn’t help thinking about how magical beings required a price, and wondering when he wouldn’t be able to afford Billy being his friend anymore.
He’d gotten more esoteric in his reading, since Billy wouldn’t answer certain questions, and he’d found Grateful Dead stories at the library, all about travelers finding a corpse and burying it, only to be helped by its spirit for years, like Cinderella and her dead mom giving her dresses. In his reading, those sounded the most like Billy, since he wasn’t exactly a genie. Steve racked his brain trying to remember a bird he might have buried, or roadkill he’d pushed out of the road, but Billy didn’t like talking about who he’d been before Steve, so he was reluctant to ask.
The thought that Billy might be dead, might just...run out one day and vanish, used up when he’d repaid his debt to Steve, was so lonely Steve clung to him for nearly a week, sitting in his lap as they watched TV at night, and not paying enough attention to anything Billy said. He was so bad at acting normal about it that Billy tried to take him to the doctor, and Steve had to get ahold of himself, and start planning for when Billy was gone.
He started by making friends. He complimented Barb on her tidy desk when they did coloring, and Tommy on his new boots, and Nancy on her treasure hunt clues at recess. He passed his fruit snacks around, and pretty soon other kids shared too.
Billy got quieter. After a few days, Steve drug him around the side of the gym again and hugged him, squeezing him as tight as he could, until he hugged back so hard his fingers dug in against Steve’s shoulder blades.
“I’m not bored of you,” Steve told him, sliding his fingers into Billy’s hair, and brushing his thumb over Billy’s earring. “You’re my favorite too.”
Billy sighed into his shoulder, burying his face in Steve’s neck, and Steve held onto him. “...you ever want me to leave, tell me, and I’ll go,” Billy said softly, and Steve shook his head frantically, hugging him tighter, clumsily, so Billy’s shirt hitched up under his arm, and Billy’s skull thudded against Steve’s jaw.
“I don’t want you to leave ever,” Steve whispered, so fervently his voice shook, and Billy sighed, relaxing in his arms. “...how...how long can you stay,” he whispered, sniffling back tears, and Billy twitched.
“What d’you—I can stay, Stevie,” he said softly, but Steve shook his head, pulling his hand back to wipe his eyes.
“Genies run out,” he hissed, crying harder. “Ghosts fade. What are you, Billy, how can—how can I—”
“Oh, shit,” Billy muttered, grabbing his face, and Steve laughed, sniffling. “No, no, I’m—I’m not leaving, I swear.”
“I-if I don’t ask for things?” Steve offered, and Billy bit his lips.
“You can ask for things,” he muttered. “I—I’ll just tell you how much it would be. You can give me more LEGOs.”
“Okay,” Steve told him, used to the weight in his stomach that was worry about Billy. He squeezed tighter.
That night, he couldn’t sleep, and Billy finally called over from his matchbox bed in the space shuttle. “You okay, kid?”
Steve stared at the ceiling, blinking back tears, and trying not to sniffle.
“...are you dead?” he asked, finally, in a scratchy voice that hurt his throat. “Billy?”
Billy ran down like six staircases through the sets to stand on Steve’s bedside table, and Steve put his arm out for Billy to scoot down. “What,” he said, climbing up to stand on Steve’s chest, and Steve tried not to move too much as he pushed his pillow more under his head, so Billy wouldn’t fall.
“Are you dead,” he asked. “Is—is that why you can...do things? And—and why you’re so old?”
“No, I’m not dead, what the—heck, kid,” Billy sighed, sitting cross legged on Steve’s chest like a little Disney fairy. He was cute, and Steve sighed, trying not to smile when Billy looked upset.
“...you’re not a fairy or a genie, exactly,” Steve said, wiping his nose. A tear slid down around his cheek, and dripped warm onto his neck. “Cinderella’s dead mom granted wishes.”
“...I thought that was a fairy,” Billy said, frowning distractedly, and Steve shook his head.
“I read a book in the library that said she was actually a nice ghost. Disney changed it.”
“Huh,” Billy said, raising his eyebrows, then shook his head. “Anyway, no, I’m not dead.”
“Good,” Steve said, swallowing hard, and Billy got up, nervously, and walked up to pat uncertainly at Steve’s chin. “I love it when you forget you can change size,” Steve giggled wetly. “Turn kid-sized.”
Billy did, his weight squishing Steve’s chest until he scrambled off, but Steve grabbed him, and hugged him close.
When his dad finally locked him out of the office, Steve spent the morning sitting in the hallway playing with his Legos. When his stomach growled, he knocked quietly, and his dad’s voice on the phone continued, so he went in the kitchen to forage. He found Cheez-its, and olives, and a tightly wrapped triangle of gooey cheese that tasted good in in the middle, but had gross, chalky skin, so he licked the middle out and stuffed the rest down the side of the garbage.
He walked back into the front room and flipped the TV on, just to make some noise. “In the future,” came the syrupy voice of the man on the screen, “—we’ll have robots to be our helper-friends!” He chuckled to himself, stroking his tie, leaning back in his leather chair, and folding his arms on his huge wooden desk. “But that doesn’t work for us now, I hear you say.”
The camera zoomed out, and he waved to a woman with curly hair and long fangs, sitting on the edge of his desk. She was wearing way less clothes than the man was, and Steve frowned, wondering whether she was cold. “Our summoning spells are assembled by real lawyers, and airtight!” the man said, and the woman nodded, smiling, and holding up a picture with a lot of numbers and lines. Steve squinted at it guiltily—he’d seen the man’s ads before, and he mostly remembered the picture, probably.
The helper-friend lady looked nice, he thought.
“Too good to be true? We even include offerings! Bat eyes, tears of the innocent—” he said, smiling and holding up jars, as ‘ethically sourced from internment facilities’ scrolled across the screen.
Steve frowned around, and then grabbed his Lego 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, the most complex set he owned.
“Honey,” the man told the woman onscreen, and she opened a can of soda, and poured it over her own head, still smiling. “Perfectly compliant,” he said. “And just wait, there’s more! Any purchase comes with a matching, complimentary summoning sigil for a protective home guardian! Just drip a drop of fluid—” he winked at the camera, and it showed something red splashing across the page, as his voice suddenly screamed “Augh-no! Don’t—”
Steve had already grabbed the remote and hit the fifteen-second replay, and began drawing out the picture. He hit it again and again, coloring in different colors, and wishing people in commercials didn’t always yell. He drew the circle carefully with a piece of thread from the long fringe on a throw-blanket he wasn’t allowed to mess up, then folded it carefully again, grimacing. He colored in the crosses with a different color so it looked nicer, and drew the little castle wall-looking-bit. He added a horse.
When it came time to drip fluid on it, he clicked the TV off, and got a juice box from the fridge, figuring apple juice was way less gross than blood, and it wouldn’t ruin his picture.
Steve stared at the picture, holding the juice box, and thinking. He imagined not eating alone. He imagined the nice lady smiling at his Legos—maybe she’d like the castle, he thought, like the picture. He’d just summon her for a little, he thought—just a few minutes, enough to make them both a PB&J.
His stomach growled—again—and he frowned at his dad’s office door, sighed, plonked the Camaro in the middle of the picture, and squeezed the juice box to spray over it all.
