There is a crossroad just outside Hawkins, where corn grows so high it's hidden from anybody's view.
Blood runs down Billy's temple and his head pounds like Neil didn't stop hitting him. Neil who found his Mandate magazine and went fucking crazy.
Billy can't go back. Billy can't go back or he's going to get fucking killed. By his own father. He had never seen Neil so angry - and Neil has always been angry, but not like that.
He has thought about it for a while. It's just some make belief, some hocus pocus, but Billy needs a miracle. He doesn't wear shoes and pebbles tear his holey socks apart. He just grabbed the box and ran.
It's eerily silent. Almost midnight - he thinks. He doesn't have a watch. He digs through the ground with his bare hands. He buries the blue box he stole from Max in the hole. It's a jewelry box she never uses. He has gotten a bit of dirt from the local graveyard, a cat bone from a school's exhibit and an ugly photo from his last school in California where he had to smile while his back was still aching.
A fat drop of crimson blood drips on his fake smile. He wipes his forehead, before he can remember that his hands are dirty.
He stands up. Nothing happens.
It's a cold night. His breath forms little clouds, floating into the night. The moon is gone, waiting to get reborn. An endless circle of birth and death.
"What a surprise." Steve Harrington stands behind him. Same as usual, wearing a pastel blue and pink polo shirt and his ever perfect hair fluffy and only slicked back a little.
"Billy Hargrove needing help?" he scoffs - and it's almost as if they were on the court and not on a crossroad, about to make a deal. "Wanting to gift me his soul?"
There's a red shine in his eyes, but more in the way that it seems like a reflection.
"You're a... demon?" Billy asks. Maybe that's some stupid prank. Maybe that's an explanation why Harrington is so unearthly pretty. "And you're going to High School?"
And sucking at it, is something he doesn't add, but he knows how many classes Harrington is failing. Tommy won't shut up about it. He would have rather expected Hagan to be a fucking demon and not Harrington who now gives him a goofy grin.
"Oh, well..." Harrington says. "Let's say I made a deal a few years ago and then I unfortunately died early."
There's a headline Neil had read out loud to them before they moved here. About a girl, Barb Holland, being thought dead for three weeks - and then rising from the dead, ringing at her parent's door like she just went out to buy some milk.
"God has blessed this place," Neil had said. Apparently Hawkins is about as cursed as Billy feared it is.
"Enough about me." Harrington tilts his head. "What do you want?"
To live, to be free pops into Billy's mind, bright and colorful like a rainbow.
Billy thought about it a lot. First he thought he wanted his dad dead. So that he can never touch him again, so that he doesn't have to be afraid anymore. But if Neil dies, he doesn't have a father or a mother.
The thought is a dark shadow, making him sick.
"I want him to stop hurting me," he says instead. It won't heal the scars, it won't unbreak his bones, it won't make it forgotten, but maybe more bearable. It's what he wanted when he was five, when he turned ten, what he wants to today and what he always wished for whenever saw other people blowing out the candles on their birthday cakes.
Harrington's eyes flicker to Billy's bloody mullet and his dirty socks.
"You need to tell me his name," he says, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "I'm just a demon, not a mindreader."
"My dad," Billy grits out. "Neil.. Hargrove."
There is pity crossing Harrington's face, something he has always been afraid of, but it's gone within seconds, maybe only been a shadow and gets replaced with a red glow, irises more crimson than hazel now.
"Let's seal the deal." Harrington smiles, teeth shining white. "You know how we do it, right? Your soul for me doing you a favor."
Billy heard the stories. Billy didn't expect to become a part of them. Billy doesn't think he has a soul and if he does, it can hardly be worth anything.
Harrington smells like expensive aftershave and smoke.
Billy presses a kiss on Harrington's soft lips. It's a rush, a relief. He feels something shift, something clicking into space.
Harrington laughs into the kiss. "The deal is already done, Hargrove."
Which means Billy's soul is Harrington's now and Neil won't ever hurt him again. The blood on his temple dries. The cut on his scalp stopped throbbing, there's only a faint sting reminding Billy of its existence. He feels like he just jumped into the ocean on a hot summer's day.
He licks across Harrington's mouth, hungry for more.
"Greed and lust are sins, Billy." It almost sounds like a compliment.
Billy's throat turns dry and he wants to pull away, humiliation burning away the cool calm that has begun to spread inside his chest.
It's just a deal - and that's closed now.
Harrington tugs on his bottom lip, sharp pain joining the sweet sensation.
"If you ever feel like sinning, come and find me," Harrington purrs -
and then he's gone. Billy stands on the road, lips tingling, still smelling Harrington's aftershave on him.
He walks home. It's one of these nights when spring is about to fade, summer's heat lurking around the corner. Still cold, but not that he's shivering.
Cherry Lane is deserted, a few lights flickering when Billy comes home. The door is open. He doesn't hear Neil shouting at the TV.
He washes the blood off his face and goes to bed. He wonders if he can dream without a soul. He wonders if it's working. His lips burn and he still feels Harrington's mouth on his.
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