Here’s your crack fic for the day ~
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Steve buys a cow. He supposes the correct terminology is “rescuing” because he has no intentions to slaughter it.
He names the cow Billy.
The horns have been “debudded,” which is like destroying a hair follicle so the hair stops growing. Maybe it’s the lack of horns that makes this cow head-butt everything, including Steve.
The cattle vendor at the fair certainly looked dubious when Steve made it clear he had the money to pay for him. Steve knew what he looked like - the last farmer in the Harrington clan had to be three generations back, at least.
“That bull’s a headstrong one. If you’re not used to lively horses or cattle, he ain’t the one for you.”
Nothing was for Steve, apparently. Not steady relationships, or a steady job, or steady mental health since Starcourt became a skeleton standing over rubble. Steve had bad decisions and the consequences sweating out of his pores; all he knew was that a blond and caramel cow with soft curly fur avoided everyone touching him until Steve held out the back of his hand. Horses wanted to smell a person before they were touched, why not cows?
Billy licked his hand and the rest was history.
Or at least, the rest was the Harrington’s summer cabin several miles outside Hawkins. The house was not technically a cabin, but a bonafide house. It looked like it belonged in the mountains with its many windows, thick beams, and flowery window boxes. The property around it was substantial, and he needed to get one of the fields ready with a quickness.
Hiring a team to install fencing around one of the meadows was easy. Getting a pre-built carport hauled out to the property was not, but it was the best he could do until a proper barn was ready. The carport looked like a barn-style covering to a bridge and acted as the entrance to the field as well as a safe spot at night or inclement weather.
The damn cow came with a learning curve, that’s for sure. And a hefty care bill which actually succeeded in bringing Steve’s parents home to see what the hell was going on with their son’s bank account. To say they were confused would be a severe understatement.
But the Harringtons were the type of wealthy people to enjoy equestrian pursuits, so Steve’s mother was not entirely put off by the prospect of keeping a large animal on the property. She called a vet to come out and do a full checkup of the creature, and Steve watched in annoyed wonder as Billy let his mother totally ruffle the curls and ears on his giant head.
“Playing favorites, I see,” he scoffed.
His mother smirked at him. “I think he knows he’s safe.”
Steve could only take her word for it, because Billy still head-butted him all the time. As soon as the screen went over Billy’s face to protect his eyes from flies, the cow followed Steve around the property, knocking his face against Steve’s backside while he tried to weed-wack the walking trails between the fields and the house.
“Could you not?”
Billy only snorted and shook his head, making his ears flop.
Steve’s father couldn’t help but marvel, “He doesn’t even need to be tethered. That cow follows you around like you polish the sun.”
Steve tried his best to do that, he really did. He got a cylindrical “cow brush” installed in the field. Billy rubbed against it like a massive cat. He cleaned Billy’s hooves every day that he was at the cabin, which became more and more often. When the barn was finally built, he made sure Billy always had a bucket of fruit and veggies to greet him after a long day in the pasture. The damn thing loved alfalfa hay, and it made Billy smell nice after rolling around in it.
The only thing that got Billy’s energy out was a giant bouncy ball. Steve introduced it by chucking the thing over the fence. He’d never seen Billy have a fun fit, but that was the day he learned that cows are just terrifyingly large dogs.
Thing is, one Billy Hargrove has to come out of the hospital some point or another. And while he’s being discharged, he gets to overhear a bizarre conversation between his sister and Henderson.
“He’s installing the salt lick this weekend. Cows love it, apparently.”
Dustin sighed, “I don’t see why he hasn’t invited us to his new place. I miss him.”
“Probably because the cow’s a rescue, and you’d scream loud enough to set it off,” Max teased.
Billy waited for Dustin to go to the bathroom before he ventured, “It almost sounds like you’re talking about a real cow and not a girlfriend.”
Max still doesn’t like the way he talks about women, but now she tells him so. The summer of ‘85 has changed a lot of things. Max sticks to Billy like glue and tells him like it is. Steve owns a cow, apparently, and barely visits Hawkins anymore.
Billy goes with Max when they finally get the invite to the “cabin.”
“This is not a cabin,” Billy remarks as he pulls up to the nice house in the repaired Camaro. The road there and the driveway to the house are as far as the car is allowed, otherwise his sports vehicle is super unequipped for this place. The house is nicer than the one back in Hawkins, but Billy feels as unequipped in his atrophied body as his car.
Thankfully, after an exhaustively awkward handshake with Steve, the latter sets them up in the house for the weekend. The fridge is stocked and there’s another in the garage. There’s a goddamn laundry room upstairs for guests and before long, Billy finds himself risking exhaustion by walking along the unfamiliar, grassy trails -
A bike bell alerts him to someone coming down the trail. Steve.
Billy doesn’t wait for some clumsy hello. “You need a motorbike for this place.”
Steve laughs as he slows down and dismounts to walk beside him. The damn bike has a luggage carrier on the back with a green cube of hay stuffed with flowers like a pin cushion. “Is that for your cow I’ve heard so much about?”
Steve glanced back at it and confirmed, “Yeah. Cows love enrichment, or whatever, so I try to give him stuff. He rolls around in alfalfa, but the roses and herbs might be a nice change. Getting the honeysuckle and blackberries off the house was a nightmare. Those bushes have thorns. Big ones.”
Billy laughed softly. “I thought honeysuckle was poisonous?”
“Not the flowers. But cows have, like, four stomachs anyway.”
“What? No, they don’t.”
“Yeah, dude! They eat anything off the ground without even looking. It’s insane.”
Billy discovered that laughter came easily with Steve. And when they finally got to the carport, he watched the cow meet Steve and head-butt the block of treats out of his hands.
“Wait, wait! God, this is why we have to tie things up with twine.”
The cow won and shook the cube out of its binding. Steve snatched the twine anyway and untied the knot to wrap around the spool standing on a pegboard in the carport. Billy’s feet shuffled over the hay in the miniature barn while he relented, “He’s pretty. Still smells like shit, but...I haven’t seen a curly-haired cow before. What’s his name?”
He turned his head just in time to see Steve’s snap up and his jaw to go slack. “Uh.”
Billy snarked, “What, did you name it after your favorite porn star and your mom doesn’t know or something?”
Steve coughed and swallowed painfully. “Nope.”
Billy frowned at him. “Why are you being weird about this? It’s a name.”
“Yeah, but,” Steve began before his shoulders wilted into a slouch. He sighed, “His name’s Billy.”
Billy Hargrove has to take a long moment to process that. Then he dared, “I would ask if it’s because he’s blond, but there are plenty of those to take name inspo from.”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck, where the hair had recently been cut since he was tired of his longer hair holding sweat on his nape. “I found him after...everything happened...and he reminded me of you. That’s all.”
“That’s all,” Billy repeated flatly.
Steve shrugged and came to lean against the other side of the carport opening, mirroring him. “Yeah. Dark blond. Curly. Gets in my way and head-butts me around. Never lets me get the ball to play a proper game with him.”
Billy glanced at said ball in the grass with a soft smirk on his face. “I didn’t realize you thought of me enough to name something after me.”
Steve shyly held his gaze until Billy finished, “Even if it is a cow.”
And so what if Billy rides on the back of his bike to the house.
Or if he stays longer than a weekend because he likes the physical therapy of walking through the groves of trees and fields without an audience around him.
Or that he sleeps better with Steve’s homemade veggie pasta in his belly than he has in years.
Or that they kiss with lightning bugs around them after Billy admits that the lush greenery of late spring/early summer is kinda nice. Kissing is their business, no one else’s.
But with an extra pair of hands, Steve’s mother indulges and gets another pasture set up for a new rescue. Steve and Billy watch as a new barn gets built with waterlines and a saddle room. The truck drives up with the silver steel carrier hitched to it, and the boys watch a russet horse step out. Her fur is a beautiful clay red in the sunlight -
As she bites her handler.
Steve and Billy immediately looked at one another and said in unison, “Max.”
