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billysdanglyearring · 1 year

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'William Orchard Hopper"

Pairing: Harringrove.

Tw: child abuse, mentions of infidelity.

This started out as a headcanon of Jim being Billy biological dad and quickly spiraled into this??? Sorry. <3

Not many people know that Jim Hopper spent a considerable amount of time in California in his twenties.

Jim and Billy's mom, Bria Hargrove met and had an affair that led to Billy being born.

Neil knows Billy isn't his son, and becomes abusive towards Bria and Billy until she can no longer take it.

When Billy is ten, she leaves and hides a note in Billy's room for him to find.

The note tells him that Neil isn't his real father, it tells him his real father lives in Indiana. Hawkins, specifically but that he had once lived in California. She tells him that the man is named Jim Hopper. She doesn't give him any other details. Not that it truly matters, Neil is whose on his birth certificate. Neil is who is raising Billy into the man he's destined to be.

Confused, Billy tucks the note away. He can almost forget about it, but the knowledge that Neil isn't his dad stays with him. Even when Neil married Susan, and he gained a step-sister in her daughter, Max.

It doesn't become a problem for Billy until Neil announces that their new, fragile thing of a family is moving to Hawkins, Indiana.

He doesn't know if Neil knows he'll be dropping them in the town of the very man his mother cheated on him with.

A week after the move, Billy makes the mistake of getting high after Neil's latest lesson in Respect and Responsibility that ended with Billy nursing bruised ribs and what's definitely a mild concussion.

The mistake isn't smoking weed, per say. No, Billy's mistake was forgetting just how loose lipped he gets when high. Because, now he's shown Max the letter his mom left all those years ago, he tells her that Neil isn't his biological father.

Max doesn't say anything, she just stands up and hugs her step-brother.

The blond tenses briefly, before he's sinking into the hug; his own arms winding around her small frame.

She's gotten taller, so with Billy sitting, his head is pressed into her stomach.

She doesn't comment on the warmth of his tears, she just hugs him tighter.

What does someone say to their step-brother who's father beats him on a regular basis? What do you say when that same boy knows the man who lords his parental status over him, isn't actually his dad?

Max decides you say nothing. Billy doesn't seem put off by the lack of response.

It isn't until after Halloween, after Max has plunged a syringe into Billy's neck to sedate him when a panic attack had led to a violent fit, that they're both forced to confront the very thing Billy has tried so hard to forget.

It wasn't the first time Billy lashed out like this, but it was one of the worst times. Her new friends had gotten permission from Neil and her mother to come over, but something set Billy off when she introduced him to Jane.

To his credit, Billy had fled the house when he noticed his breathing picking up. It hadn't helped much, because Max followed behind him, leading her friends to do the same.

When Jane met his gaze, her eyes were soft but unreadable, like she knew she held the last name of the man his mother confessed was actually his father.

It could've been a coincidence, but his mom had also told him the mystery man was training to become a police officer.

That was too many coincidences, if you asked Billy.

He doesn't remember much after that, not that ever does.

He knows her friends had been afraid, but for some weird fucking reason they tried to comfort him.

The curly-haired one even called Steve Harrington, declaring that the elder was good in situations like this.

Billy seriously doubted that, but he'd never pass up a chance to see Steve. Their relationship was still new. New as in they'd only been official for the past week.

Once Steve had arrived, the kids all seemed to lose interest in everything, and retreated into the living room to play video games. Max took some convincing, but eventually, they were able to pry her away from the place she'd refused to leave at Billy's side.

The couple quickly toed off to Billy's room, and Steve wasted no time in pulling Billy into his arms.

Billy felt bone-tired, the sedative given to him never knocks him out, it mostly tires him out. Makes the world fuzzy, and like it's covered in a foggy film.

But, this felt different. This felt like a tiredness that wouldn't be quelled by resting for the remainder of the day.

The younger boy hadn't told Steve about Jim, so when he asked what triggered this episode, Billy quickly spilled. He spoke until his throat felt raw, and his hands were shaking.

He spoke until the room felt as if all the air was quickly evaporating.

Steve waited until Billy's word vomit came to an end, before gently responding, "It's okay, B. If Hop is your dad, he's a good man. A little grumpy, but he's not like…" he trails off, but Billy can fill in the blanks just fine.

"H-how am I even supposed to broach this subject with him, Steve? What if...what if he doesn't want me just like her, and I'm stuck with Neil until I'm 18, or dead?"

The brunet quickly reaches out to cup Billy's cheek, his thumb grazing the smooth skin. "That won't happen. Even if it did, you've got me. You're never gonna be stuck with him forever so long as I'm alive and breathing, baby."

There's more the boy wants to say, but he just feels so tired. The sounds of the kids all yelling in the other room serve as nothing more than background noise.

It's about an hour later, and Billy's only been fighting his sleep because Steve is showing him various tiktoks and clips of random gamers he enjoys.

Soon though, he's starting to doze on Steve's shoulder, when there's a knock at his door, then a head of brown curls are peaking into his room.

Jane.

His breath hitches, but Steve's hand finds his back and begins to soothingly rub his stress away.

Metaphorically, of course. Because in reality, Billy is still freaking out.

"Jim is here to pick me up, but he wanted to meet you."

This causes him to bristle, "Me? Why?"

Jane merely shrugs, before turning away.

Billy has an inkling she does know, but he swallows it down and climbs off his bed to make the short trek to the living room.

When he lays eyes on Hopper, the man is dressed in his uniform, a small grimace on his lips as he observes the sparsely decorated room.

His eyes eventually land on Billy and he offers something that could be considered a smile.

"So you're the owner of that Camaro out front, or is that your dad's?"

Billy wants to laugh out loud at the question, but instead he shakes his head. "No, sir. She's all mine, fixed her from the ground up myself."

It was true, Billy spent months fixing her up, she'd been all but totaled when he found her body at the junkyard in California.

He immediately fell in love with the car, despite the appearance and the rest was history.

The chief let out a long whistle, along with an approving nod.

"Damn kid. You lookin' for work? I know the mechanic in town could use someone like you on weekends."

Billy only nods, unsure of what to say.

"Yeah, yeah that'd be great, actually! Thanks."

Jim nods, his eyes never leaving their place of observing the blond.

"I'll set it up, just come by my office on Monday and we'll work out all the kinks."

Soon after, Jim leaves with Jane, who promises Max that they'll hang out soon.

Much to Billy's chargin, Steve leaves with the rest of the kids, sans Max, around forty-five minutes later.

Neil and Susan return after Billy has finished cleaning up the dishes from his and Max's dinner.

His dad seems pissed by something, something Billy can't figure out.

Not that it matters. All that matters is that his bad mood means a repeat of last night.

As it plays out, Billy doesn't have to wait until Monday, because the man in question all but busts the Hargrove's front door down, catching Neil in the act of wailing on the defenseless blond.

There's a whirlwind of activity that ends with his father in cuffs, and Hopper escorting Billy to the hospital with Max glued to his side while Susan tails the Chief's car.

On the drive there, Billy doesn't expect the chief to blurt out, "Jane heard what you told Steve." Billy wants to play dumb, he wants to pretend he has no clue what Hopper is referring to; but instead he just shrugs and glances back at Max, the red-head at least looks apologetic.

"Does she always ear hustle that hard?" The large man huffs out a laugh, "you have no clue kid," he pauses, chewing at his lip before he carefully continues, "I knew the last name was familiar, just chalked up to a coincidence. But your ma...you look just like her…"

"Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"I didn't want to assume, I was gonna do some digging. You know? I didn't know Bria was pregnant when we broke things off. All she said was Neil was getting suspicious. She didn't tell me, if she had…" he trails off, pulling up to the entrance of the hospital.

"I'm gonna make this right, Billy. I promise."

Billy wants to scoff, but one glance at Max's hopeful face in the mirror has Billy nodding instead.

"Yeah, okay." His words are soft, lacking any bite.

It turns out that the police chief busting down your front door to find your "father" beating you bloody, is more than enough evidence to send said man to prison.

It also turns out that one nicely worded threat is enough to have Neil Hargrove give up parental rights that never rightly belonged to him.

A DNA test for confirmation later Billy was getting a new birth certificate in the mail with the name William Orchard Hopper.

Below it read Bria Hargrove and James Hopper.

Billy was in the middle of decorating his new room in Hopper's place when Max barged in, Steve trailing behind her with a sweet grin on his lips.

"Billy, can you take me and Jane to the arcade?" Jane, who Billy hadn't noticed initially just smiled up at him.

The boy shook his head, turning to Steve, "aren't these your charges? Why am I the chaperone?"

Max rolls his eyes, "you're our brother, so you have to! You love us!"

Jane quickly nods her head, a sparkle in her eyes, "Yeah! You love us."

Steve hums his agreement, which has Billy shaking his head again, "okay, whatever shitbirds. Let me change, at least."

They seem to accept that, and slip out the room, leaving Billy and Steve alone.

The latter smiles at him, before crossing the room to plant a light kiss to his lips.

"Alright, now hurry up, Blondie! We can't let the boys get too cocky, Jonathan dropped them off already and I just know Dustin is trying to beat Max's highscores already. They're gonna fight all day."

Once Billy is dressed, he drags Steve out his bedroom, only to run into Hopper. Literally.

Billy's head bounces against his chest and everything.

The man just grunts and steadies the smaller boy, his lips parting to speak before Billy is wrapping his arms around his midsection, "see you for dinner, Pops!" before he's grabbing Steve's hand and ushering Max and Jane out the door.

Jim doesn't miss the smile that graces his son's lips before he calls out, "be safe!"

He can almost see the way Jane and Billy roll their eyes before responding without missing a beat,

"Us? Always!" Jim doesn't mention the time he had to put out a small fire from when Billy tried to teach Jane tricks with his zippo.

Yeah, always my ass, he thinks.

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billysdanglyearring · 1 year

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This user has already been dragged to hell for the fatphobic and racist tags on this post, but I do want to address these tags for a minute:

Viewing a teenage abuse survivor as a piece of shit who sucks ass absolutely cannot go hand in hand with helping them survive.

It's something I had to learn, because I have certainly run into my fair share of teenagers who have said and done hurtful things to me. However, I am an adult and I have power. The way I think about the teenagers I work with can have a positive or a negative effect on their lives - especially their ability to access resources that could improve their lives.

I have had to make a conscious effort to put aside my personal feelings whenever I've been called a slur or threatened or attacked because I am also the person who could connect them with a counselor or social worker or CPS, and too often these teenagers in particular get cast aside and suffer extreme amounts of abuse and neglect because people like you view them as a POS.

And I have to iterate that the teenagers I have worked with have said and done much worse than Billy. I had a student who murdered someone. I had a student who stabbed someone. I still hope that the both of them can recover and make amends. Just last week, my coworker was cursed out and called a f****t over and over in response to them telling a student they need to be in class if they want to graduate. It's that simple. It makes me furious to hear those things, and they're personally triggering to me to hear that kind of violence since I too come from an abusive home... but this is what happens when young people are immersed in violence, because no! Being 19 doesn't magically make you capable of understanding every right and wrong. Not when your brain has been wired by trauma. CLEARLY age didn't stop OP from posting what they posted. Why expect moral enlightenment from a young person actively surviving abuse?

There are many teenagers who get assaulted or killed every year and headlines will read that they were "no choir boy" or something of the sort. This is an intentional effort to minimize the systematic and institutional harm that was done to them and it disproportionately impacts teenagers who aren't white or straight or cisgender or Christian or able bodied or conventionally thin or neurotypical and so on and so forth. You CANNOT claim that these ideas (Billy is a POS & Billy deserves help) go hand in hand, especially when you fucking draw Eddie and Max flipping off his grave. You CANNOT maintain this attitude in all seriousness if you think that people like Billy deserve help because you are making a mockery of what he went through.

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billysdanglyearring · 1 year

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It’s just a green Hawkins Tigers sweatshirt, kind of old, color already faded after too many washes, lumpy on the armpits from being used too many times.

Billy makes it look brand new.

Even sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed, eyes fixed on the window, with the line of his spine hunched with the weight of what he ran from, of why he came to Steve tonight, he looks beautiful. His hair is damp from the shower, curling around his ears and his neck, and his bare toes are digging into the carpet. In the soft light of Steve’s bedroom, in Steve’s old sweatshirt, Billy looks almost delicate.

Steve loves him so much, he doesn’t know what to do with himself sometimes.

“Hey,” Steve says, from the bedroom door, and Billy turn to him. He doubts the thoughts Billy was lost in were good, so he doesn’t mind breaking him out of them. “Found you some cigarettes, if you want them.”

Billy arrived at Steve’s in workout clothes, just a tank top and shorts, shivering with dried sweat and with a bloody lip. It looked like he didn’t have time to grab anything but his keys.

Billy lights a cigarette as soon as Steve hands the pack over. It’s cute how he goes straight to the window and opens it, blowing the smoke out into the night air, like Steve minds. His hands are shaking a little, still, and he’s jiggling his foot where one leg is crossed over the other, leaning against the wall.

“You don’t have to do that,” Steve says, like he does every time. He sits on the bed where Billy was. “It’s fine.”

Billy’s eyes flick to Steve, from where he was staring out the window again. His face is set in a deep frown, with that awful crease between his eyebrows that means his head went somewhere shitty. He takes a deep drag from the cigarette, but his hand misses his mouth once before he gets it right. Billy doesn’t say anything, but he pushes away from the wall and starts to pace.

“Are you hungry?” Steve asks, and starts bouncing his own knee. He tries to think of what food he has in the fridge. “I can make you a grilled cheese. Or I have leftover pasta, if you want.”

“No,” Billy says quietly, even if his expression would demand him to shout. Smoke comes out of his mouth, of his nostrils, and Steve pictures it coming out of his ears, almost, like a pissed off cartoon character. Except he knows when Billy looks his angriest it’s because he’s the most sad. “No, I had dinner.”

Steve watches him pace. Thinks of what else he can offer, how else he can fix it even knowing he can’t actually fix it. He wants to hug Billy, to hold him, but being still isn’t what Billy needs right now.

He’s pacing the room like a caged animal, going from the dresser to the nightstand and pulling on the cigarette. For once, the wallpaper in Steve’s room seems fitting.

“Steve?” A crackle comes from the nightstand, and both of their heads snap toward it. “Steve, come in. It’s Max. Over.”

Both Steve and Billy lunge to grab the walkie, and Steve only takes it because he was closest. Billy hovers by his side, staring at the walkie anxiously.

“This is Steve. Max, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Is Billy with you?” The walkie crackles again, and Billy’s face goes slack, eyes closed. Relieved.

“Yeah, he’s right here. He’s alright,” Steve says, and Billy huffs, like they’re being dumb for worrying about him.

Billy grabs the walkie from Steve’s hand, “Max, you okay?”

Steve thinks any other thirteen year old would be annoyed to be asked that twice, but Max just says,

“Yeah, I’m in my room. I told them I was going to sleep,” They both go silent for a while, then Max says, “Are you really okay?”

Billy shoots a glance at Steve, moves only to tangle their fingers together briefly.

“I’m good, shitbird. I’m gonna spend the night at Steve’s,” Billy says. “Same as usual for school tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Max says, and she sounds calmer, but still subdued. “I’ll grab your bag and stuff.”

Billy lets out a long sigh, shoulders slumped, and presses the walkie hard on his forehead for a second.

“Thanks, Max. Night.”

“Bye, Billy.”

The walkie clatters on the desk, and Billy puts out the cigarette bud on the ashtray Steve got for him ages ago. Where he was almost vibrating before, now Billy is too still, almost dragged down, like he ran out of gas and rolled to a stop on the side of the road. Steve hates to see him like this. Billy should always be full of energy, full of life.

Steve approaches slowly, makes sure his steps make sound, and lays a hand on Billy’s back. He leans back into it right away, so Steve plasters himself against Billy, runs his hands down his arms, lets his hair tickle Billy’s ear.

“What do you need?” Steve says, laying a kiss on Billy’s shoulder. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know,” Billy says, almost a groan. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, hiding his face. “Can we just-”

He cuts himself off, like he doesn’t know what he means. Steve thinks he does, though, Steve knows Billy, has seen him rage and cry and laugh a hundred different ways since November. Has been by his side for a good portion of it.

So he takes Billy’s hand and leads him to the bed, gets in after him and pulls the covers over them both. Billy rolls into Steve immediately, tucks his face into Steve’s neck and breathes in, and Steve runs his fingers over Billy’s scalp to help him relax. To make him sigh.

“You look great in that sweatshirt,” Steve says, out of nowhere, out of a desire to make this moment theirs and talk about stupid stuff. “I like seeing you in my clothes.”

Billy’s breath hitches, and his fingers squeeze Steve’s waist, but he doesn’t say anything. Steve runs his fingers down Billy’s spine, shifts his head to lay a kiss on Billy’s hair, on his temple.

“I mean, you look good in anything,” Steve says, voice so quiet it’s almost a murmur. “But when I came in and I saw you… You’re so beautiful, Billy.”

“You trying to get in my pants, Harrington?” Billy’s voice comes from Steve’s neck, muffled. He doesn’t move.

“I’m serious,” Steve laughs, “Do you even know what a catch you are?”

“Of course I am,” Billy mumbles. “Sex on wheels.”

That’s not what Steve meant. He runs a hand down Billy’s arms until their hands meet, laces their fingers together. His lips kiss from Billy’s temple to his brow, and he speaks against his forehead:

“I meant more like how great you are,” Steve says. When Billy huffs, he continues, “You’re so, so smart.”

“Shut up,” Billy says.

“And you’re a smartass but you’re actually hilarious about it. You make me laugh so much,” Steve kisses the bridge of Billy’s nose, his eyelids, his cheekbone. “You’re honest. You’re dependable. When you want something, you give your whole self to it.”

Steve can hear Billy’s breath shake, and his eyes are closed. He rubs their noses together, says against his mouth, “I really feel like I can trust you, Billy.”

“Steve,” Billy breathes, and when he opens his eyes they’re wet, spilling over the bridge of his nose and onto his temple.

“And you’re good,” Steve says, “You’re a good person.”

Billy squeezes his eyes shut, and presses his forehead to Steve’s, breathing against him, fingers tangled together close to their chests.

“Smelled like you,” Billy says, “the sweatshirt.”

Oh.

Warmth spills in Steve’s chest like a fountain, like smoke from Billy’s lips, filling it with happiness until there’s no room for his lungs to expand. He rubs his nose along Billy’s cheek, presses a path of kisses until he finds the center of his lips. Kisses him gently, unhurried.

“I love you,” Steve says. “You know that. Right?”

“Yeah, pretty boy. I know,” Billy says, and his smile is small but it’s blinding. “Love you too.”

every time anti bullshit shows up on my dash, I write Steve loving on Billy | II

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