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theladycarpathia · 1 year

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Everything was different this year.

“Let’s go, Harrington,” Billy crows, slinging an arm around Steve’s shoulders. Ahead of them the house is lit up with strings of lights and gaudy cackling Halloween decorations. Steve eyes a skeleton dressed in a top hat and wonders if he’s made the right decision. Robin and Vickie are watching A Nightmare on Elm Street in Vickie’s basement and he’s starting to think that maybe they had the right idea.

“I’m not carrying you home if you get drunk,” Steve promises, and Billy gives him a flash of teeth. It’s surprisingly fitting - with the shaggy headdress, wolf ears and tight jeans, Billy’s an odd sort of werewolf but it works. His eyes are just the right shade of bright blue, the lean, tanned stomach that is only just made decent by the denim, the glittering pendant hanging against his bare chest. It’s designed to draw attention.

“Sick from doing that last year?” he asks, and Steve bristles. But before he can point out that he didn’t carry Nancy home, Billy has dragged him through the front door, and is relieving a vacant looking basketball player of a few beers out of a cooler.

“Have a drink and lighten up,” Billy says, pressing a cold bottle into Steve’s hand. Condensation drips against Steve’s fingers, wet and sharp.

“No kegs this year?” Steve asks pointedly. Billy is already unscrewing the cap and tipping the bottle back, the long lines of his throat rippling as he swallows.

“Not yet,” Billy says, licking foam off his lips. He always gets oddly manic on nights like this, like he has something to prove. Steve hates it. Hates this. “But the night is young.”

A few cheerleaders wander by, teetering along in their high heels. They haven’t put much effort into their costumes, all three clad in identical crisp white dresses, little nurses’ caps pinned into their hair. Billy grins at them as they wander by, relishing in how their eyes drift to his bare chest.

“Tramp,” Steve mutters around his beer. He mostly means Billy, who never seems to mind being objectified.

“Try and have some fun, Stevie,” Billy says, his arm like a weight around Steve’s neck. The fake wolf fur is tickling Steve’s nose, smelling faintly of must and wet dog. He should probably be glad that Billy’s not wearing a tail. “You used to love this shit.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t anymore,” Steve mutters. Billy purses his lips.

“Right, well you loved this shit with Wheeler,” he says pointedly, Nancy’s name falling off his tongue like a curse. Steve winces. He hadn’t meant it to sound like that. But of course, Billy would think that Nancy was special, that she’d been able to have more influence over Steve than he has.

“I was different when I was dating Nancy,” he tries to explain, but Billy has already slipped away, beer bottle held aloft. Steve watches him go, wondering when watching movies at home became more fun than dancing in a room with dozens of other heaving, sweating bodies, people that he barely likes.

No, actually, he knows when. But Billy still loves this, still thrives on arriving late to a party like the King of Hawkins High. It’s a rush that Steve’s forgotten all about.

Sighing, Steve dumps his bottle onto the nearest counter and makes for the punch. Time to pull a Nancy.

The punch is overly sweet and smells of strawberries but has a kick that burns the whole way down Steve’s throat. Steve drinks until the unease in his belly has settled and the party has settled into a more palatable haze.

He wants to go home. He doesn’t belong here anymore. But this is Billy’s last Halloween party of high school and he knows what it’ll look like if he vanishes now. There’s no way Billy won’t take it as a snub.

Billy would almost certainly take it as a rejection.

“Steve!” The girl who appears at his elbow has had far too much alcohol for her tiny frame. It takes a minute for Steve to recognise her under the frothing white dress and the voluminous curls.

“Hey, Amy,” he says fondly, slinging an arm around her bare shoulders, grateful to see a friendly face. She’s an adorable, totally wasted Madonna, little white gloves and all. The remains of the wine bottle slosh as she flings an arm around his waist, settling easily around his hips. Steve eyes the bottle warily, wondering if Tina’s parents are going to miss that.

“Having fun?” Amy chirrups, seeming to not notice or mind that she’s basically using him to hold herself upright. Steve knocks back the last of his punch and grimaces.

“No,” he says, crumpling up the cup and dropping it onto the counter. “Got any of that wine left?” She passes him the bottle and he tries to ignore the smear of lipstick at the rim.

“But it’s a party?” she says, with a careful blink of her dark, slightly smudged eyes. “You used to like parties.”

Yeah, he had. He’d be enjoying this one if he could be with Billy. But he’s vanished into the heaving crowds, without a single look back. Steve gets that it’s only out of hurt and jealousy that Billy’s ditched him but still. It doesn’t make it any better.

“Not enjoying this one,” Steve says miserably. He’s deeply fond of Amy - a cute little cheerleader he made out with once, before he started dating Nancy - but he’s not about to spill his guts. He’s not that stupid. Billy still has months left before he’s free of Neil.

“Wanna make out?” Amy asks, all too easily, and it’s a good offer. An offer Steve would have taken. Should take, because clearly he’s not gonna kiss anyone else this evening. Some horrible bitter part of him considers it, tilting Amy’s chin up and kissing her until everyone notices. He wants to be noticed.

But then the poison drains away, and he gently pats Amy’s cheek.

“Thanks,” he says, because that’s not the warm body he wants. “But not tonight.”

All too soon, the bottle is gone and they stumble outside, Amy tipping her head back to inhale the sharp night air. The party has spilled out here too - more lights wound between the trees, skeletons hanging from the gazebo, a few messily carved Jack-O-Lanterns glowing from the patio. Some of Amy’s fellow cheerleaders wave to her from the deck chairs but she stays where she is, clearly clinging to Steve’s warmth. There’s loud cheers and shouting from a group crowded around something - someone - and Steve cranes his head to see what’s going on.

It’s Billy, tipped over head first into Tina’s hot tub and Steve would panic if he hadn’t spotted the bobbing little red jewels gleaming on the water. Someone has tipped apples into the still water of the tub, and typically Billy is here, making a show of it as he tries to bite down on an apple.

There’s a spray of water as he emerges from the tub, water dripping obscenely down his chest, soaking the fur of his costume and his prize clenched between his teeth. There’s howls of delight, Tommy and a few others slapping Billy on the back, king once more. Billy reaches up for the apple and bites down on it, gleefully ripping into the tender red skin.

Halloween is a time for putting on masks and acting the part and no one does it better than William Hargrove.

Steve knew this going in. He’s always known, and he can’t deny he didn’t. The terminator costume, the keg, the attitude. Billy came in last year, meaning to make an impression. Put Billy on a stage and does he perform.

But the problem with that? Steve doesn’t like that Billy. That’s not the Billy he wants. He wants the Billy who paints his nails with polish pilfered from Mrs Harrington’s dresser. The Billy who traces words in the bare flesh of Steve’s leg late at night. The Billy who knows the names of stars and bakes sugar cookies and shares lazy, heated breaths with Steve.

He doesn’t know this Billy.

Which is why his stomach curdles when Billy swaggers over, dripping wet, apple clutched in his fist like a trophy. His eyes turn cold when he spots Steve, his arm still slung around Amy.

“Harrington,” he says cooly, eyes flicking disdainfully to Amy’s fishnets, the smeared lipstick on her mouth.

“Hey,” Steve says, because this is his fucking boyfriend and he’s not playing this game. He had that with Nancy, bullshit and bullshit, and he won’t be sucked into that again. “You remember Amy?” Billy nods and Amy is too drunk to notice much of a snub. Instead, she pecks Steve gracefully on the cheek.

“Thanks for keeping me company,” she says, releasing her grip on him and immediately wobbling. Steve rushes to hold out a hand to steady her.

They watch her stumble off to join the other cheerleaders, a drunken, perfumed collection of Madonna’s, bunnies and corpse brides.

“Cute date,” Billy jabs, fingers twitching in the way that they do when he wants a smoke. Steve rolls his eyes.

“We’re friends,” he retorts. “And she’s so pissed she can barely stand up.”

“I noticed,” Billy says, a touch too jovially. There’s a glitter in his eyes, something visible in the flickering candlelight. Steve feels a jolt of satisfaction. Billy’s jealous after all.

“I’m having fun,” he says, wishing dearly that he had another drink. He can’t take the burning in Billy’s eyes. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yeah,” Billy says, lobbing the half eaten apple into the trees. Behind them, someone else has taken up the game, and the cheering makes for an odd backdrop for their fight. “Bullshit, Harrington.”

A knife would have been easier than that word.

“Fuck off,” Steve says in a low voice. This one hurts just as badly and he wonders if he’s not meant to last a Halloween party as a boyfriend. So much for things being different.

Maybe the problem is Steve.

“I won’t,” Billy says and he crowds into Steve’s space, so close that Steve can smell the apple and beer on his breath. “And you are. You’re not fucking having fun, Steve. Not unless drinking bad punch and hanging off some girl you almost definitely ate out counts as fun.” Steve takes a deep breath and tries to remember that this isn’t Billy. Just the monster that lives in his skin.

“I never had sex with Amy,” he says, in the most even tone he can manage because all he wants right now is to shove Billy’s head underwater until he drowns on old water and apple pips. “She’s a friend. Don’t be an asshole.”

Billy purses his lips, something bitter and rueful. For a minute there’s the flash of the real Billy, before it’s wiped clean.

“Thought you knew that about me, Harrington?” he says, in a voice that Steve just doesn’t quite believe.

“Yeah,” Steve says, jamming his hands into his pockets. Back in the house there’s a crash as someone drops a bottle and Steve feels like he can relate to being shattered. “I do. Just never thought you’d be like that with me.”

“Bet you thought that about Wheeler too, huh?” Billy says quietly, and Steve’s not quite sure what game he’s playing here. All he knows is that he’s tired of whatever Billy is trying to prove.

“Are you trying to prove you are like Nancy?” he says, pointedly. Because as much as Billy hates it, there’s similarities there, always has been. “Because well done. You’re dumping me at a Halloween party. Feels pretty fucking similar to me.” Billy’s eyes widen.

“I’m not…” he starts, before remembering where they are. There’s a beat in the pulse at his neck, the same spot that Steve’s kissed so many times.

“Well, it feels like you are,” Steve mutters darkly. He turns his head away “I get that you don't like Nancy. You really don’t like that I was in love with her. Just stop…fucking acting like her.”

Dylan from the basketball team stumbles over, and clearly misses the razor thin tension, because he slings an arm around Billy’s neck. Judging by the water dripping down his neck, he’s also been bobbing for apples. While Billy looks good with the damp softening his curls and pooling in the curve of his collarbone, Dylan just looks like a drowned rat.

“Hey, Harrington,” he slurs, rubbing at his damp mouth with an equally damp hand. His demon horns are lopsided on his head, the cheap plastic of a last minute store bought outfit. “You gonna play?”

Steve looks at Billy but can’t see anything past the mask that has slid back into place. It’s not something he understands and maybe it’s from having Neil as a dad. Maybe if you have to wear a mask all the time to hide every real, true part of you, then it becomes second nature to wear that mask. Maybe Steve’s been shitting himself to think that he was special. Like Billy Hargrove was going to love him.

“No,” Steve says briefly. He wonders if there’s something in that punch that rots the insides of every person he’s ever loved. He shifts his feet and turns away, pretending that he doesn’t see the flicker of guilt in Billy’s eyes. “I’m leaving.”

“Leaving?” Dylan asks, sounding confused. Billy’s face is hollow like he was expecting this. Like this is what he was always expecting to happen. “Mate, you can’t go. It’s fucking Halloween.”

“Yeah, well, not having fun,” Steve says, still waiting. But if he’s hoping for Billy to say anything, then he has better chances of Amy being able to do algebra in her current state. Billy will choke on his words, regardless of whether they’re poison or not. “Going home.”

Dylan flicks his eyes over Billy and then to Steve. He almost suspects something has happened but he’s too drunk to really put the pieces together.

“Alright,” he says slowly. “See you around.” Steve nods and turns, but stops just before he walks away, out of Tina’s house and down the street to his empty home, where he can examine the torn pieces of his heart.

“No one’s home,” he adds, unable to close that door entirely. It’s pathetic and he hates it. It’s the cloying smell of roses rotting in his backseat all over again. “Just gonna…watch films.”

Dylan’s face says that he clearly didn’t ask but Billy finally looks up to meet Steve’s gaze head on for the first time since he called bullshit. Steve holds it for a moment, wondering if when this night is over, if Billy will stumble up the pathway and through his patio doors. If he’ll climb into Steve’s bed, with cold skin that smells of apples, and murmur apologies into Steve’s mouth.

He hopes so, and he tries to fool himself that he’ll be fine if Billy doesn’t. But it’s for the best. He’s tired of begging people to love him. It didn’t work with Nancy, and it won’t work here.

He slips back through Tina’s house, ducking past the merry revelers, the James Deans, the Bowies, the Cindy Laupers. He supposes that this time at least he doesn’t have to worry about Billy going home with another guy. He’s also been wrong before.

The house is still when Steve lets himself in through the backdoor, his parents not due home until sometime in November. Steve wearily flings his jacket down, and turns the oven on, rummaging in the freezer for a pizza. He doesn’t have the energy for anything else and when the cheese is bubbling away, he steals one of his dad’s beers and drops onto the couch.

It’s fine. It’s fine, it’s all fine.

He eats his pizza on autopilot, licking grease stains from his fingers. He half absorbs some shitty horror film, and he pretends that he doesn’t jump at every little sound outside, hoping that it’s Billy.

He can’t fix Billy anymore than Billy can fix him. So when the early hours of the morning creep in, Steve clears away his plate and empty cans and climbs the stairs to his room, prepared to spend the night alone.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when he flicks on the light and finds a werewolf on the bed.

“What the fuck, Billy?” Steve hisses, holding onto the doorframe. But then he takes in Billy’s red eyes and the gooseflesh on his bare skin. “How long have you been here?”

“A while,” Billy says quietly. His wolf ears and headdress lie abandoned on a nearby chair, Billy’s costume stripped down bare. Steve closes the door behind him, feeling adrift.

“Why didn’t you come downstairs?” Steve asks, his eyes flicking to the window. It has a dodgy latch and it’s not too hard to climb over from the roof below. But Billy knew that the backdoor would be open, that the spare key lies under his mom’s stupid garden gnome. Billy once slipped out of the sliding patio doors while Steve’s parents were still sleeping.

“Thought you wouldn’t want to see me,” Billy says, jaw tense, and Steve recognises the self-deprecation in his tone.

“That depends on whether you’re an ex-boyfriend or not,” Steve says curtly, because he’s really fucking tired and heart-sore and he loves this badly broken boy curled up on his bed in jeans and a stolen sweatshirt.

Billy immediately looks stricken.

“I don’t want…” Billy says, and then stops suddenly, mouth twisting in pain. It’s barely an admission but it’s closer than Steve’s ever gotten before. So he sits down on the bed next to Billy, reaching over to wind his fingers around Billy’s. His heart starts again at that simple touch and Steve was so numb that he hadn’t even realized that it had stopped.

“I need you to stop pushing me away,” Steve says bluntly, because someone has to say it. “It’s not fair.” Billy licks his lips and nods. His fingers are warm in Steve’s and it makes him wonder how little time passed between Steve leaving Tina’s and Billy following. Little Red being followed through the woods by the big bad wolf.

“I don’t know how to do anything else,” Billy confesses, his eyes fixed very firmly on the delicate link of their fingers. Steve aches.

“It’s bullshit,” he says and Billy looks up. He looks his age for once, dirty blonde hair clinging to his cheeks, red rimmed and bloodshot eyes, his mouth soft and pink.

“I know,” Billy says softly and when he leans in to kiss Steve, it feels like a fresh start.

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mycptsdstory · 2 years

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Toxic Red Flags you do, to yourself. Aka; Self Destructive Behaviours

(FYI, I've done some of these myself. Again, I'm not perfect)

Pushing people away

Pushing your friends away

Pushing your own family away

Thinking you DON'T deserve love

Thinking you are a burden to everyone

Controlling other people; what they wear, how they talk, what friends they can have and even what relationships they have

Extremely independent; refusing help (even tho, you really need it), thinking you can do everything on your own

Keep making the same mistakes BUT NEVER learning from them

Blaming your behaviour onto someone else

Blaming your condition on your actions

Lying to therapists

Lying to your friends

Lying to your family

Having double standards

Ignoring your basic needs (i.e, brushing teeth, eating good, not taking a shower/bath once a week, brushing your hair etc)

Being a people pleaser, so you avoid conflict

You expect everyone to respect your boundaries, BUT you NEVER respect someone else's boundaries (same as, double standards)

Talking about your mental health is okay BUT it's bad when someone else is talking about theirs (same as, double standards)

Trauma dumping

Everything is a trauma, including an embarrassing story that you could laugh at years down the line (example; a haircut YOU wanted, ISN'T a trauma story).

NOT accepting consent

Blocking people with no warning (same as pushing people away)

Ignoring everyone around you

Making everyone happy BUT NEVER making yourself happy

Causing arguments

Fighting and having outbursts (this can hurt people. Emotionally and physically)

Thinking you deserve less than

Self medicated (i.e; alcohol use, taking too much medicine than what your doctor prescribed, taking drugs. Weed and CBD DOESN'T count)

Attacking the ones that you love (since you CAN'T express how you feel)

Causing drama in your friendship group

Causing drama in your family

Everything has to be evolved around you

You CAN'T say "no" (same as being a people pleaser and avoiding conflict)

Being childish and and acting in a child like manner

Keeping secrets, so you're worried of back lash

Self harm

Eating too much

Eating too little

Comfort eating

Restricting your diet

Thinking you DON'T deserve food

Thinking you DON'T deserve warmth

Thinking you DON'T deserve comfort

Locking yourself away from everyone around you

Keep putting yourself into dangerous situations

Gossiping about your friends BUT the minute your friend gossips about you, you're annoyed (same as double standards)

Giving advice BUT the minute someone gives you advise, you're annoyed (same as double standards)

Having a secret life that no one knows about

Keep dating abusive people and wondering where are going wrong

Having a rude tone to people BUT when someone is being rude to you, you're annoyed (same as double standards)

Falling out with everyone

Having that mentality where you think you are always the victim and you NEVER did anything wrong

Thinking you are perfect in everyway (NO ONE is perfect)

Thinking you CAN'T make mistakes

Telling someone's secrets to people BUT the minute when someone tells your secret, you're annoyed (same as double standards)

Putting blame on abuse survivors, thinking it's their fault.

When you judge someone's interests or hobbies it's okay BUT when someone judges your interests and hobbies, you get annoyed (same as, double standards)

When you vent to someone that's okay BUT when someone vents to you, you get annoyed or get 'triggered' (same as double standards)

It's okay for you to be annoyed at them BUT when someone is annoyed at you it's 'triggering you' (same as double standards)

It's okay when you make jokes at other people BUT when someone does it to you, you get 'triggered' (same as double standards. Example; Will Smith's wife, she's fine joking about her bald head but when someone does it back, oh no you can't do that. Again, it's that double standard)

Kink shaming

Thinking you are smarter than they are

Ignoring a situation and thinking it will all go away

Ghosting someone

NOT acknowledging that you're NOT doing okay and pretending to be okay

Hiding your true feelings

Being a door mat for everyone

NEVER voicing voicing your opinions (same as, being a people pleaser and avoiding conflict)

You force yourself to stay quiet in different situations (same as avoiding conflict. Example; someone is being rude to you and you stay quiet and just nod)

Putting someone down because they don't have the same qualifications as you

Gaslighting someone and putting them down (that's straight up bullying)

You preach about your religion BUT when someone has a different religion to you and they preach that to you... You get annoyed (same as, double standards)

#cptsdhealing #living with cptsd #cptsd problems #cptsd thoughts #actually cptsd #just cptsd things #cptsd tag #tw cptsd #actually ptsd #cptsd vent #self Destructive Behaviours #pushing people away #red flags #toxic behavior #a list that even i do #dont at me when im trying to learn myself

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