Chapter Text
It all started at a ‘rager’ in the woods—just another party thrown on a Thursday in a town too small to say no.
Steve had tried, his protests increasing exponentially when he saw which part of the forest he was expected to drink stolen cases of gas station beer in. A layer of road dust from the dirt path leading up the backway in had settled over the sign’s metallic sheen, but Steve didn’t need to make out all the letters to know they spelled out “Hawkins Power and Light” beneath the grime.
Steve’s blood grew cold, his extremities instantly numbing at the sight of the logo peeking through. The lab had been shut down—allegedly, and as far as they knew he was just another dumb teenage kid—allegedly. But Steve was smart enough to know that none of them should be loitering around the perimeters of hell after dark voluntarily altering their states with cheap booze.
Steve knew they all needed to get out now, because he might have hunted monsters before, sure, but not when he was this unprepared.
So he ran.
The lighting in the woods wasn’t ideal. The canopy of trees blocked out what was already a new moon night, leaving nothing but a dark shadow of a path.
He was somewhere along the dirt road, feeling for his car in the dark, when the numbness in his arms began to tingle, spreading outwards from his chest. And just like that, Steve suddenly knew he was going to die—he was sure of it. He was dying, his body helpfully informed him, right now. A slow creeping blurring of his vision began to take hold, something static and white. He couldn’t breathe, and the tightness in his chest pitched him forward, keeling him over onto his knees in the dirt while he choked on the air.
The ground under his knees was cold and wet, and then suddenly someone’s hands were on him, warm and firm against his shoulder blade and neck. A stripe of burgundy fabric flashed into his peripheral vision, the scent of the air taking on undercurrents of smoke and leather.
Billy Hargrove’s voice was in his ear. Steve could identify the low gravel sound of it, even though he was speaking in a tone Steve had never heard from Billy before, something soothing and soft.
“Hey, Harrington, you’re having a panic attack, OK? You’re OK.”
Steve nodded, the spinal column in his neck rolling against Billy’s steady palm. Steve knew he was having a panic attack; it wasn’t his first. That still didn’t mean he wasn’t dying though. He must tell Billy that because Billy was still talking, still there.
“You’re not dying, Harrington," Billy's voice tells him, the timbre calmer than Steve has ever heard Billy's voice be. Almost imploring. "That’s panic attack 101. It just feels like you are. Just breathe for me, OK?”
Steve had no idea why Billy was even there, being nice, while talking and touching him through a panic attack outside the mouth of hell like some kind of fallen death-angel. But in some odd way it seemed fitting, like Steve had seen Billy three months ago in a parking lot in September and had just known that his would be the last face Steve would see before he died one day.
It’s the last thing he remembers before the world goes dark.
*******
The next morning, Steve woke up sore. Not the lingering aching remnants of dehydration and a hangover sore, but like the entirety of his body had been thrown into highway traffic.
His chest throbbed. Some sharp pain had rooted itself in his right knee and all the bones down the entire left side of his body felt unhinged and loose.
He groaned into the pain—and froze. The sound was oddly foreign, lower than he was used to with a heavier feeling of vibration in his throat.
Once his eyes snapped open, the cold confusing terror only increased.
He was in a room, but it wasn’t his.
Steve struggled to see through the dim shadows of the space, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. The sight that began to take form before him provided way more questions than answers.
The room was odd, over-used and yet too empty. If he hadn’t been so unnerved to be in it, he might have felt a little sorry for the room itself. There was just something off about it—the room lived in, but with an impersonal transient feel—the whole interior too worn and temporary to feel like a home, but too clean to be any sort of suburban drug den.
The main (and only) piece of “furniture” that Steve could make out in the dark was the mattress he was on. The makeshift bed, void of a frame or even a box spring, was low to the ground. At some point, the mattress had been pressed up at a vague angle into the corner, like the person who usually slept in it had wanted to maximize the amount of solid walls that could possibly touch it—an odd detail Steve only noticed at all because he had done the same thing with his own bed. But that was only after years of sleeping open and in the center of his room followed by learning that the world contained monsters, and that thought did not make him feel any more comfortable about being wherever he was now.
Steve shifted to push himself up from the bed and another jolt of pain pinged through him. He was sort of afraid to look down, to see what the fuck had happened to his torso last night. But he’d learned the hard way recently that not looking won’t make it not true, so he does.
When he finally worked up the courage to look down, his heart stopped. Or rather, whosever heart it was stops, because this was not his body.
Steve blinked rapidly down at his—the—body as he tried not to panic, studying the hard thick lines of muscle woven over the rib cage and the way they culminated into a low V as they sharply tapered at the top of the pelvis and disappeared beneath the sheet. Even at the foreign angle, Steve could recognize the familiar shape of the chest. He’d stolen enough glances at it over the last few months to know Billy Hargrove’s body when he saw it. Billy Hargrove’s body—he was in Billy Hargrove’s body.
The rising tingling feeling of panic was creeping back in again. But there were too many other emotions present, predominantly the shock and the still pulsing currents of pain, which kept the spark of a true attack from catching fire. The pain was considerable, almost intolerable by Steve’s standards. What in the world had happened to Billy’s body anyway? Steve knew Billy was enough of a hot-headed asshole to get into fights, but seriously, how bad does a fight need to get before you can just call it?
Steve tried to focus on the more important point at the moment though—the how, what, where, whatthefuck of it side of things, searching his mind for memories of the previous night. All the snippets he could recall were hazy, fragmented, like the evening was all just an old movie he’d seen once. But he could recall showing up at the party in the woods, a few dozens of the senior class gathered around a fire.
Billy had been there; he was sure of that. Steve had seen Billy behind the firepit the moment Steve had entered the clearing, standing casual across the flames and refracting the light off all the pieces of his metal and the pupils of his eyes. He’d looked free and wild, throwing back beer by a fire in the forest, his Adam’s apple moving and swallowing behind the collar of his leather jacket. Steve had taken one look at the wicked, untouchable possibilities of Billy’s violent beauty and had fled straight back into the trees—right into the outer ridges of The Lab. And then…nothing. He had no idea how he had gotten here after, not only in someone else’s skin, but at all.
The idea was a terrifying one—that he had lost time, lost his own body, and that The Lab probably had something, if not everything, to do with it. And yet, the notion that this was Lab-related was also in some small part comforting. If this was the Lab’s doing, then there might be a way to fix it. Steve had faced, maybe not stranger things than this, but he’d faced strange enough shit to have hope that this was fixable. He just needed to "be" Billy Hargrove until he could get to school and find him, hopefully in Steve’s body. And how weird was it that somehow Billy inhabiting his body was suddenly the ‘best’ case scenario? But still, that was the only plan Steve seemed to have right now, so he’ll do it. He’d be Billy Hargrove. How hard could that be?
Resolved, Steve fought through the bitter sharp ache of his bones to pull himself out of the bed. By the time he had managed to stand up, he was panting from the effort, but the shock had settled in just enough to dull some of the pain. A cool chill sat heavy in the air, which should have made Steve feel colder than he did. Billy’s body apparently ran hot, possibly even more so when covered in injuries as it worked overtime to heal.
Steve mapped his hands over Billy’s torso. His skin was tender over the hard plates of muscle, swollen from the bruising in a way that made it softer to touch.
Despite the insane severity of the situation, Steve couldn’t help but feel a twinge of a different sort of ache at the firm lines beneath his fingers, the kind that transcended mere physiology of the body and had apparently traveled along with Steve as an unshakable part of his consciousness. His own mind had traced over the lingering phantom lines of Billy’s frame so often by this point that finally touching them felt more familiar than foreign.
The temptation was there—the urge to travel his hands lower to the places he had only ever flickered over for a quick beat in the showers, or those few times that Billy’s hands had slipped when swapping the towel around his waist for the ever-too-tight denim of his jeans. To finally get a firm, cupped palm around the bare lush curve of his ass.
It didn't really seem the time to go groping Billy's body, circumstances being what they were at all, but he couldn’t help looking at the very least. And yeah, Steve confirmed with a low groan ripped straight from somewhere deep in Billy’s chest, Billy was fucking perfect everywhere. Steve wondered idly if Billy ever got hard looking at himself; it honestly wouldn’t surprise him.
It also probably shouldn’t surprise him that Billy apparently might sleep naked, but it does. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know that about Billy either. He already begrudgingly thought about the guy at night enough as it was.
The room was still rather dark, but Steve managed to stumble forward enough to find a light switch and a small analogue clock that read 6:10, which Steve deduced meant AM judging by the slow filtering of light coming up from the horizon.
The switch on the wall triggered an old lamp that had been set on the floor by the bed. The lamp was about as high up from the ground as the mattress, which was to say, not much. Its small circled ratio of light filled the room with an odd casting of dull light and shadows that made the bruising mottled all over Billy’s body turn almost black, like his skin was slowly being consumed by the upside-down.
Steve scanned the room again quickly. Even with the low light, the room looked almost empty. Only a small collection of open boxes along with a duffel bag lined the wall opposite the bed, all aligned in a neatly ordered row. Steve hobbled over to shuffle through them. He cataloged the contents as he went, fascinated by the notion that he was touching Billy’s things.
The fascination grew when the contents proved to be both entirely expected, and yet surprisingly unexpected, both on account of how utterly mundane everything was.
The first of the boxes contained a mix of records and tapes; the second a selection of linens (an extra set of sheets and two folded towels) placed carefully on top of a cache of water, first aid supplies, and some sort of protein bars; the third box revealed an assortment of hair and body products in an array of gels and sprays; and the duffel was packed with what appeared to be clean and folded clothes.
The contents were common enough for a teenage boy—at least for one who frequently pumped iron, blasted metal, and got into fights—but the presentation—that all the possessions were still tucked away tightly into carefully divided boxes—just…wasn’t.
Steve looked around the rest of the room. There was nothing in the closet and no other furniture in sight apart from the bed and a mirror that appeared fixed to the back of the door like it might have come with the house. It was as if Billy had just moved to Hawkins yesterday rather than months ago. Considering his stuff (which seemed to contain absolutely nothing that could actually be labeled personal) apparently fit into only three boxes, and would take all of fifteen minutes tops to unpack, that was actually an impressive amount of laziness or apathy, Steve wasn’t sure which. But he did manage to dig through and find a pair of old sweatpants and a soft t-shirt, so he threw them on to go investigate the house.
The house outside Billy’s bedroom door was much more homey, or at least unpacked, although the décor style seemed cheap and pieced together by a crochet-happy hand that reminded him a bit of Mrs. Henderson.
Sounds of breakfast filtered into the hall from the kitchen, a clinking of utensils and the smell of coffee, the latter of which Steve needed desperately. Seeing as this was Billy’s house and he was apparently Billy, Steve figured it would be weirder if he didn’t put in an appearance in the kitchen, so he followed the sounds into the room.
Max was already at the table, eating cereal in a pair of He-Man pajamas across from a compact military-looking man Steve assumed must be Billy’s father. Steve knew Billy was kind of a dick most of the time, but figured he surely couldn’t be all the time, so as Steve shuffled in to mainline for the coffee, he mumbled out the best greeting he could muster pre-caffeinated: “Morning, Max. Morning, Dad.”
The room seemed to immediately still, Max’s spoon clanking against the ceramic of the bowl in front of her. Steve turned to them, confused. “What?”
Max eyed him warily, which was actually an impressive feat considering she kept her mouth hung open in a surprised ‘O’. Steve had just enough time to think Billy must really be a dick if simply saying ‘good morning’ shocked his family, before the man at the table cut into the silence in a strangely cold tone. “Billy, let’s talk outside for a moment.”
Steve turned away from Max to look at the man, thoroughly confused as to why they couldn’t just talk in the kitchen where they both already were.
The man sat watching him with eyes as cold and calm as his voice, waiting for something. Steve returned the gaze, looking directly back into his eyes to try and read them, trying to figure out once again what the fuck was happening and failing. “Umm, Ok. Yeah, sure.”
He had no idea what “outside” actually meant, so he waited for the man to stiffly rise and lead the way. Steve followed him into the adjoining living room.
Steve still failed to see how the living room was anymore “outside” than the kitchen, but whatever. He could play along. Steve glanced around the room, noting how the carpet was old but well-vacuumed, the walls yellowed with smoke but void of dust. A family portrait hung above the TV next to a wooden cross, both of which looked cheaply produced, but similarly well-cared for. Steve had a hard time imagining Billy ever posing for a family photo, which was probably the reason why he wasn’t in it.
He turned back to the man in the room. Everything, from his hair cut to the style of his shirt was exactly the same as it was in the photo. A man of consistency. Nothing about Steve’s father had ever been consistent. Billy’s father, however, seemed to be a man of routine and patterns. The man hadn’t said anything else yet, so he was obviously expecting Billy to say something first.
Steve still had no idea what the guy wanted to talk about, so he decided to play it safe and keep all the avenues open: “So, what’s up, dad?”
The question had barely made it out of Steve’s mouth before he found himself suddenly shoved hard into the wall behind him. The shock of the movement short-circuited his brain for a moment as he struggled to figure out what had happened. Steve slowly registered the unexpected presence of the other man on top of him. Like Billy, Billy’s father had plenty of power and muscle concealed beneath his clothes. Steve could feel them taught against his, well, Billy’s, body.
The position was one of pure dominance on the precipice of overt aggression. It was one that Steve knew well, ironically thanks to Billy, who had had him pinned similarly before. The tone of this was different, however. Steve didn’t get that same rush of desire he did whenever Billy did it, on the court or in the lockers; Billy’s warm breath panting against his pulse as he warned him to plant his feet, Steve always chickening out on the urge to push back just as hard against Billy’s wicked, panting mouth with his tongue.
No, whatever this was was too menacing and casual for it to be sexual. Which, considering Steve was inside the man’s son’s body, was probably for the best.
Billy and his father might share a similar coiled promise of power along with the same hue of color in their eyes, but that was where the resemblance between them drew a hard, conclusive line. Despite whatever façade of malice Billy liked to build up like steel walls around himself, Steve had never once actually felt threatened or endangered around him. Even the one outlier of a fight, when Billy had come at him in a frenzy of flying fists, it hadn’t felt any more cruel and calculated than that time with Johnathan, just something that had built up too long and snapped—a byproduct of high octane emotions and entropy.
But Billy’s father, Steve decided, was terrifying up close in a way that was nothing like his son. The man’s eyes looked down at him, a glinting brand of steel, yet hollow and calm, while the thick muscle of his forearm crushed into Steve’s throat, cutting off the air. Steve tried to gasp in what oxygen he could around it, but his torso was burning.
“What’s up?” Billy’s father repeated in an incredulous and mocking tone.
Steve had no idea what the guy wanted from him. And as potentially irrational as it was, Steve felt a quick wave of anger at Billy surge through him for doing whatever shit he had obviously done—for pissing his father off and leaving Steve to deal with it.
To be fair, Billy likely hadn’t known Steve would be the one to take the fallout. But still, Billy had obviously done something recently that had to have been pretty serious to make his father this angry. Considering the wild legends about the shit Billy got up to around the town, Steve couldn’t even begin to guess at what that was—probably whatever reckless stunt or psychotic fight he’d gotten into that had shredded up his body. Steve didn’t know what that was though, which meant he also didn’t have a response for the guy. And yet, he wasn’t sure if that even mattered at this point, since he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to answer anyway.
Billy’s father spoke low, not quiet, but hard, slow, and deliberate. “Did our talk not get through to you last night? Are you that stupid? That useless?”
Steve flinched back from the sheer force of the man’s tone. The words stung a little bit even though they weren’t even about *him*. The hit that came next stung more though, a sharp quick cut that landed on the slant of his jaw in a half-way combo between a punch and a slap. The follow-up to the ribs was just plain unnecessary, inflaming the already present pain throbbing through his torso to a new height.
Steve grit his teeth against it as the confusion that had been swirling around inside him turned to an indignant anger. Steve was about this close to laying the man out. All his monster hunting skills acquired over the last year tingled in his veins enticing him to just rip the threat apart. But he’d been Billy for all of thirty minutes. And Steve might not know much about the intrinsic code of body-swapping, but he was pretty sure that getting the body you were inhabiting arrested for homicide wasn’t cool. So he did the only thing he could think of, passively forcing past the choke hold to apologize. “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry…” Billy’s father repeated again, trailing off like he was waiting for something as he grabbed hold of Billy’s face, digging his fingers deeper into the new bruise forming along the jawline.
Steve scanned the guy’s face and then the room, looking around frantically for some sort of clue. Instead his eyes found Max, who had crept out of the kitchen on the way back to her room. Max met his eyes, and, peering over at him from behind Neil’s shoulder, mouthed, “Sir,” looking at Steve like he—Billy—had lost his god damn mind.
Steve takes it. “Sir!” he emphasized quickly. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
The pressure on his jaw yielded slightly. Steve got the uncomfortable sensation that this, whatever it was, wasn’t really over. But it seemed to be at least winding down temporarily when Billy’s father says, “Take Max to school,” like that was some sort of order and then walked back into the kitchen.
Holy Shit. Steve stumbled his way back to Billy’s room, relying a bit on the wall to get him there. He was still in need of caffeine, only riding through on pure, bewildered adrenaline.
He grabbed blindly at a pair of jeans in Billy’s duffel, coming up with a worn and ripped material that Steve recognized as his second favorite pair that Billy owned and put them on. He didn’t have the time or the interest at the moment to deal with Billy’s hair, so after finding a tie in the box of toiletries, he pulled it back into a sloppy bun that should be fine. It made Billy look that much better anyway to put the strong cut of his jaw on display. Steve didn’t know what to do about the rapidly rising swell of his lip from the sucker punch though. But he’d seen Billy come to school with bruises enough times that one more shouldn’t be all that suspicious.
And that’s when it hits him. He’d seen Billy come to school with bruises—all the time. He had always just figured they had come from guys his own age. Hell, he had been one of those guys back in October, even if Billy had won the fight. But the undercurrent of old violence that still lingered in the house coiled ill in his stomach.
He wasn’t so sure now.
He wasn’t so sure about a lot of things anymore. The poorly fortified bed in an impersonal room, the still-packed boxes, and the clean military fold of his clothes—none of it exactly screamed “Billy,” who was a constant excess of personality and chaos. Steve looked hard into the mirror at the familiar lines of Billy’s face—marred by the faded and fresh injuries of skin, and a weary exhaustion set deep around his eyes that Steve could only now see when up this close—and felt suddenly sick.
He didn’t know Billy Hargrove at all.