#besties Chrissy and Billy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hargrove-mayfields · 2 years

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Since you like hollogrove how bout a fic with autistic heather and golden retriever boyfriend billy?

warnings for: background discussions of emotional and physical child abuse, ableism, and misogyny.

Her mother says he’s trouble, that Billy Hargrove just isn’t the type a sweet little girl like Heather Holloway should be going after, but for starters, she isn’t a little girl anymore, and another thing, Billy is probably nicer than she’d ever been. They’d be surprised if they knew who she really was.

Her mother just doesn’t approve of Billy, because of course she wouldn’t. She prefers to set her daughter up on dates with men she hand picked for her, her excuse being that she didn’t trust the world, that too many scary things happen in the news to let her princess date on her own. That’s just the thing all the mothers like her say to control their daughters. She just wants Heather to marry a rich man twice her age, someone who could take the burden that was a disabled daughter with a bad attitude and whip her into shape.

But Heather never wanted that, she wanted someone who actually cared, not a man to take control of her life and to sign over her rights to just to fill the role of being a housewife, which had never been of any interest to her, and that is where Billy had come into the picture.

They met at a basketball game. Heather was a cheerleader because her best friend Chrissy was, and he was the school's new point guard, which is such a cliché, but was kind of perfect for a girl like Heather. Every other part of her life was already so meticulously planned, so why not this too?

At first glance, she wasn’t all that impressed by this Billy Hargrove character. She noticed the way all the other cheerleaders would swoon and cheer that much louder for their dreamy number six, but she couldn’t be bothered with all that. She did cheer because she learned to like it and because it was the only sport the school would let her do, swimming and volleyball and tennis, the sports she was actually interested in all apparently ‘too competitive’ for her.

Not that she’d ever really spared Billy more than a passing look anyways, mostly because she was too determined not to be another one of those trust fund daddy’s girls chasing after some no good punker with a too sweet smile just to disappoint her parents and break her own heart. Though it was kind of inevitable that with the crossover of their interests, and their place among the highest rungs of the social ladder at Hawkins High, their paths were bound to meet at some point.

At half time at double championship games, Heather was technically supposed to go with the rest of the girls up to the student section but, and she still could never be sure if this was to hide the fact that they have an autistic cheerleader on the squad or to actually be considerate of her sensitivity to loud noises that made going up in the stands next to impossible, but she got the special ‘privilege’ of going to work in the concession stand in the lobby where her mother worked instead.

It's still not the greatest, her, her mother, and at least four other volunteers all crammed into that tiny stand with people on all sides of it shouting out orders, but because she had headphones that matched her uniform they agreed to let her wear them in the stand, so the noise wasn’t too bad. Besides, that was never really the worst part for Heather anyways.

The part she really didn’t like was having to serve all the creepy dads and pimple faced freshman boys who’d been watching her cheer with a little too much focus on her high kick. She sometimes had regulars who would come to the stand just to see her and she had to serve them all with a tight saccharine smile, and that was supposed to be something she enjoyed. And they have the nerve to wonder why she’s such a bitch to them.

But it’s wasn’t something she could even pretend to be okay with, for obvious reasons that was the very last thing she wanted, so just like every other night, she ended up tapping her mother on the shoulder and walking out through the back doors of the school, sulking on a plastic crate behind the building and worrying the stiff fabric of her green and white skirt between her fingertips until they were raw while her mother continued selling overpriced candy bars, glittery t-shirts, and promises of a chance with her beautiful teenage socialite.

All of it was too much, in the grand arch of her life and in the now. Something about tonight just doesn’t feel nice, and this is the closest she’d felt in a while to a meltdown.

Her head was fuzzy and blurry already, on the brink of losing control, and so she sat down without processing what was around her. Just looking up at the blinking street light and taking a few deep breaths in.

That turned out to be a mistake. The wind caught a cloud of cigarette smoke, the strong smell blowing right back in her face and taking all those overwhelming emotions she’d had, shoving them right over the edge. That was her limit.

As it turned out, like the real smart ass he is, number six apparently would use his ten minutes off the court to ruin his lung capacity. Did Heather mention she never thought this Billy kid was the brightest?

But she will give him credit, because he at least caught it when she started to cry.

“Woah, Holloway. What’s bothering you?”

She remembers looking up at him and just crumbling. She hadn’t known Billy yet and she sure as sin didn’t like him, but when she had sobbed in place of her words, her hands curled up into two tight fists that hurt her knuckles and made her palms bleed, his reaction was just enough to persuade her to trust him.

The cigarette was the first thing to go, kicked to the side and crushed to pavement with his boot. The bad boy demeanor was next.

Billy sits on the sidewalk in front of Heather like they’ve known each other forever, a comforting presence. Slowly, carefully, he takes her balled up fists into his hands to hold them still, interrupting a rhythmic attack on her own body she barely even noticed. At first, it feels constraining, but she relaxes into the harmless touch and allows herself to calm slightly.

Billy is so soft when he speaks to her, like they’re so familiar already, and maybe they are since he’s seen her like this. Though he might not realize this emotional overcharge for what it is. A symptom. A flaw.

“Don't cry. You know how hard it is to act tough around a pretty girl bawling her eyes out?”

Heather can’t respond. She’s hearing what he’s saying but it’s not registering fully. To establish communication, she looks at him, making strong eye contact, and tries not to think about the mascara probably smeared all over her face.

Billy seems to get it. He holds the steady connection, the first to be unintimidated by it. Heather thought that would be the part where he cracked and couldn’t deal with her, but it’s she who sobs a little harder as that shock only adds to the flurry of big feelings.

He reacts immediately to the crying, more pressing than before, obviously worried for her, “Hey, hey. You gotta cheer up there, Heather. You know, before you get back out there.”

And then a slow smile spreads across his worry-taught features. Heather doesn’t get it until Billy says, “Cheer up? Get it? And you’re a cheerleader..”

Heather hiccups through her tears, there are words in her head she wants to say but nothing comes out. She’s at the will of her emotions right now, and she has to ride it out. Deep down, Billy is helping though.

He must see that too, because he keeps talking.

“Aw, come on. No laugh?” He prompts, but she still does nothing. She can’t, and he must be okay with that, because he doesn’t stop trying to get her to laugh, “No, I get it. That was a pretty shitty joke. I can do better, wait.”

Billy sits back and thinks for a moment, calming blue eyes lighting up with something akin to excitement when he gets an idea. That’s the most comforting thing to Heather, to think someone could be so invested in making her feel better, when nobody else has ever gotten to know her like this.

“Here goes; I can tell you’re pretty upset. You’re acting kinda jumpy… ‘Cause cheerleaders do tricks.” Billy tries, and Heather finally smiles for real.

At first she doesn’t even feel it in her own expression, her face a little numb from trying so hard. The pull of her lips is weak and it wobbles a little, but she does smile, flattered and happy and a little bit crushing, just for Billy, and she gets to watch the way he smiles back, brighter than the streetlight above them.

“Oh- Oh! I got a smile! Smiles are good.”

Quieter, like he hadn’t quite meant for her to hear this part, Billy says, “Especially yours.”

Heather could float, blushing like the rest of the girls on the squad when they’d first seen Billy, finally waking up to his charm when it’s only for her. Until she’s weighed down again by reality.

Janet could tell something was wrong when Heather wasn’t back by her side at five ‘til, as they agreed, or as she imposed on her daughter. She comes storming outside to berate her for being a ditz and forgetting again, only to see her daughter in the demonic clutches of that good for nothing Hargrove boy.

Or, better phrased, Billy being the only half decent person in Heather's life.

If there was an award for the most dramatic pearl clutching…

Janet’s scream echoed off of the brick foundation of the school louder than the metal door had slammed open, “Heather Ernestine! Get away from that boy!”

She didn’t have to though, because Janet got between them, tearing their hands apart and scratching them both with sharp nails in the process.

Heather doesn’t remember what happened next. Just that there was arguing she couldn’t block out with her hands over her ears, two voices she assumes in memory were her mother and Billy going back and forth. That made everything so much worse and Heather couldn’t breathe anymore from how hard she was crying, her meltdown started all over again.

Billy would tell her much later on that he would’ve stayed and fought for her if it hadn’t been making her so upset. He thought she didn’t like him, that bitchy mask coming back to bite her in a moment of comfort. But really, her heart softened the moment he tried to comfort her, rather than caring about his reputation. He wasn't like she was supposed to be.

Heather hadn’t even finished the game. She’s at some point taken out to the car and locked in to keep rocking and pulling her hair and doing anything she can to express all the terrible feelings instilled in her tonight while Janet tries to save face for her daughter's absence inside. Heather learns the next time she’s allowed to cheer that the excuse Janet came up with was a lie about a wardrobe malfunction that makes her sound unbelievably shallow.

It’s once they get home that all hell breaks loose though. Heather gets an hour long lecture about boys “like that” and ruining her innocence and what not. After her meltdown turned panic attack back at the school, she can barely listen to it, and she doesn’t care to either. She’s heard this all before. Her parents are taking turns berating her and she’s so emotionally spent she can’t even react.

Be a good girl, Heather. Follow all the rules, Heather. Listen to your mother, Heather.

And normally, she does follow all of her parents' rules to a T. No boys in her room ever, and her door left open at all times, just in case. Even her uniform skirts go below her knees and the neckline of her blouses above her collar bones. She has a curfew of 9:30 that she meets every night unless there’s a game, and she never, ever does anything unladylike, the definition of which is subject to her parents interpretation, and theirs only.

That’s how it has to be, when she can’t move out on her own until she turns eighteen at least, mostly because she can’t get a job while Mr. Tom “respect your place in society” Holloway still has authority over her.

But that night, Billy gave her a taste of what it was like to have someone care about you in that way. Chrissy is her best friend, but she doesn’t know how to help. She’s the friend to go to for a girls night or for hugs, not to deal with the ugly side of her disability. Billy is so different to his core in the way he treats her, she can’t help but shift from having a soft spot just for him, to being madly in love with the thought of him over the next week.

Like, burying her blushing face in her pillows and kicking her feet when she thinks about him in love.

She never expected for that to be a mutual feeling, as a matter of fact, she thought Billy would actually think he was too good for her, to be held back by a strange bitch of a girlfriend. The fluttery feelings in her chest that have her humming Dion and the Belmonts don’t go away just because she’s scared of acting on them.

Or talking to Billy at all.

Or even looking at him after he saw her in her most vulnerable state, so unlike the haughty aggression she carries herself with usually.

It’s not even the meltdown that has her feeling so self conscious. Those are unavoidable, he was bound to see that eventually. It’s her mother. That night is still blocked out in her mind but she knows Janet pushed the limits. Pushed too far and could’ve hurt Billy with the same vile words she spews at Heather. For some reason, that’s the worst thing she can imagine. The worst thing for her chances with the hottest boy she didn’t even think she liked a week ago at least.

It takes her another week and a remark from Chrissy to catch on to the fact that she’s got it wrong.

Chrissy had come up beside her at school and gently touched her arm, nodding over her shoulder at the gruff blond behind them, “He’s looking at you again, Het. Billy Hargrove doesn’t just look at anyone like that.”

Heather only rolls her eyes. Chrissy is a sweetheart, but she’s clueless about men. Chrissy’s boyfriend isn’t exactly the most charming, or the kindest, or anything other than obsessed with himself. She prefers to get advice on self-expression from her.

But Chrissy is adamant, whispering and looking more strongly back at Billy, very obviously talking about him at this point, “I’m serious! Look at him, he’s staring. Like a lost puppy.”

Heather closes her locker, giving Chrissy a sharp look that says no, absolutely not.

Chrissy’s undeterred.

“Go talk to him, Hetty!” She gives her a little shove forward as motivation, nothing Heather couldn’t have resisted if she wanted to. But she doesn’t. She wants to feel the same way with Billy that she had before things got awkward. Maybe this once, she will take her best friend's advice, and slowly, but confidently as she can manage, cross to the other side of the hall where Billy, now flushed that he’d been caught looking.

She’s lucky she did too, because once she walked over, he never left her side. All he needed was Heather to take the lead and show him it was okay. A smile was all she needed to do just that, the both of them remembering that night and the way Billy tried so hard to make her happy.

And Billy, now that he can, he’ll do anything to make her happy.

Kisses all over her face, borrowed sweatshirts, late night phone calls where she’s free to laugh and him into the line because nobody’s awake to hear them.

He braids her hair before she has to go home so it curls overnight and he paints her nails soft pink and he does everything she could do herself, but he does it for her to make her feel like a princess. When they get to be together anyways.

That’s what she likes most, is just being with him. She doesn’t need him scurrying around her trying to impress her, though it makes her blush and smile. She just likes having him there. A warm presence to ground her and keep her calm.

She’s been doing better since she started dating Billy, having fewer and fewer meltdowns every day, because she has an outlet now. A shoulder to scream into and a firm hand on her back to remind her that she’s okay.

A few months into dating Billy, she’s sure he’d have left by now, but he doesn’t. With every smile he gets out of her, he falls more in love.

If there’s one thing he is, its not what they say about him. It’s strong, it’s tender, it’s consistent.

The sad part is though, he’s like that because he’s just as stuck in life as she is.

Unlike Heather though, Billy has a slight chance to work to make things better. His father is controlling in the opposite way, expecting him to support himself and be responsible for everything just because he’s legally an adult now.

He finally got picked up for a summer job at the community pool. Just the sort of immodest cesspool of peasants Heather would never be allowed near if her parents knew, not without a seamless excuse and a turtleneck sweater anyhow.

But they make it work, somehow. Mostly in that Heather, for all her rule-following, goody two shoes life, has gotten very good at lying to her parents. It used to be little white lies, about her homework not being done before bed or about stealing a snack after she was told she couldn’t have dinner as a punishment for a meltdown.

Now it’s telling them she’s going over to Chrissy’s while she was on the opposite side of town, sneaking down to the pool to see Billy.

Heather doesn’t even own a swimsuit that isn’t a few sizes too small, and she certainly doesn’t have any money to pay the admission to the pool every single time, at least not without getting caught by the ones handing out that allowance, but she tries her damndest whenever she can break away to spend time with him, since Billy's house isn’t really an option either.

They need somewhere to go, and she’s not going to complain about getting to watch Billy up on his lifeguard tower, acting all cool and mean just for him to switch into boyfriend mode the second he notices her.

Every day she comes, she waves at him from the other side of the fence, and he’s already halfway down from the chair to greet her back. Sun warmed and strong arms will wrap around her, just for her, in front of everybody.

He likes to show her off, to all the people who don’t like it when he’s happy if it isn’t with them. Heather gets a little shy then, when he’s cupping her cheeks and kissing her face over and over, but she knows why he does it.

Being with her is the first thing Billy’s ever gotten to choose, and it’s the same for her. Like they were meant to be happy together.

On the off day though, Heather will make her way down to the pool, and Billy will look at her like he doesn’t see her. Like all that enthusiasm that charmed her into genuinely trusting him and his promises was just suddenly gone.

It took Heather a few times to realize that wasn’t anything personal, that she wasn’t about to get dumped as soon as she got past the turnstiles into the pool again. Instead, she expected something usually worse. That there would be a bruise under those sunglasses or a brace under the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirt.

Neil Hargrove had been on his best behavior the one and only time they met, and that still included insulting her character in more ways than one. She knew what was hurting Billy, if not just from the way he’d cower from his fathers voice if it were raised at him, but for the same reason bare his teeth if it were directed at Heather.

She didn’t like that, knowing that because of his own father, Billy was trained to value her more than himself, but she supposes, even if not through physical violence, she was the same way. Her parents and her society taught her to serve the man she loved.

That’s why they don’t mind that she doesn’t talk; a quiet woman is a subservient woman, and a subservient woman makes a damn good wife. Even for broken boys who don’t want that either.

At first he denies her help when he’s like this, either out of rejection of this mold she’s been forced into, or because he doesn’t want to admit he needs help, she isn’t sure. But what Heather does know is that she’s resilient, or else they wouldn’t even be together, and she cares about Billy more than anything.

He might be the one that’s head over heels, but she's his cheerleader. She wants to support him back.

So on those bad days, she likes to show him his affections mirrored back at him. Uncaring about who’s looking, because she’s dealt with being stared at her whole life, she climbs up in the too big chair next to him and squeezes in the tiny space, halfway in his lap and pressed into his side.

It always works to bring a smile to his face, as he drapes an arm across her shoulders to accommodate for the tight space and give them a little more room, “What are you doin’, Hetty?”

Heather kisses his freckled nose as a response, and he nuzzles her back. They’re that kind of couple now.

They’re also getting reckless. They do this more often than they should. Someone could tell Tom and shit would hit the fan. And the papers. Then Neil would know Billy was still dating the girl that “ain’t hooked up right.” Everything would could crashing down.

At there’s barely anyone here today. Mid June has brought miserable weather, and thanks to the overcast that perfectly reflects how Billy is feeling, they don’t have to worry about much. There’s other guards on duty to deal with the few unenergetic kids lazing in the pool.

So Heather kisses Billy. Returning all of the love he gives her on the regular, her turn to cheer him up. He cups her face and lets her lead the kiss, and then another, and then another, until he’s wearing most of her chapstick.

Billy sighs, once they break apart for good, halfway between dreamy and frustrated. This was one of the really bad days. Heather holds him tighter and listens to what he needs to say, hearing his words echo in his chest because of how close she is.

Billy’s voice is always low and even, sometimes Heather finds herself humming in the same pitch when he talks. They’re part of each other now. And good thing, because, something that’s been building up for a while, Billy finally proposes, “Been thinking lots about what we were saying before. ‘Bout running away. Getting married. Sounds pretty damn tempting right about now.”

Heather has never actually spoken out loud to Billy. They just don’t communicate like that. She’s non-verbal whenever it’s safe, and with him she’s always safe. He understands all of her mannerisms and her way of doing things, and if he doesn’t, he’s so in love with her he’ll try to.

But this moment, Billy’s told her about it since day one, that he wants to start a better life somewhere else, where they can be together away from judgemental mothers and abusive parents. Another classic teenage fantasy for the star crossed high school lovers.

But by no means are they the product of the molds they were put into. It took each other for that to be true, but this is another barrier they’re going to break. This isn’t another hopeless dream to end in heartbreak. It can’t be.

Heather needs him to know with one hundred percent certainty how much she wants that too, “I’m ready.”

Billy looks right into her eyes, the way she prefers to communicate, when her words won’t come. He looks surprised now that they did, but those wide are wrinkled with how wide and bright he smiles, “Are you sure? ‘Cause that’s all I need to hear.”

Heather only nods, and that’s all it takes.

Her mother said he was nothing but trouble, but Heather looks at him now, the promises he’s given her and the love, the life he showed her and the one he’s going to give them both, and she knows they were wrong about him. For now, Billy holds her a little tighter and surprises her with more smiley kisses, until they can get their things together and leave it all behind. That’s the only proof she needs.

#hollogrove #heather holloway #billy hargrove #billy x heather #featuring #chrissy & heather #as besties #ej writer #story by ej!#my writing #thank you much anon for the request!#this accidentally turned into a think piece that took me a year or more to write #i feel so bad #i hope this is what you wanted #nonverbal Heather is my fav hc (def not get projecting or anything)#this is like annoyingly cheesy but that’s the way these two would be and you can’t fight me on that

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