Sometimes keeping an eye on Billy comes with unfortunately side effects of being noticed. Noticed in ways that honestly, Tommy hadn’t been quite prepared for. Apparently his own distaste over how he looked in disguise compared to who he really wasn’t fully reflected in the tastes and opinions of the young women in Hawkins. Which hadn’t been a thing Tommy had been prepared for.
Kate was going to tease him about that mercilessly when he got home, he just knew it. Maybe he could leave that part out of the story when he got back. Honestly, he wished he could leave this part out of his life in the moment too. That would be nice.
The moment was coming in the form of him just trying to pick up a few things at Melvald’s even as Billy Hargrove and this one girl he often hung out with named Carol entered. Normally where the two of them were there was also Tommy Hagan, but he was almost conspicuous in his absence as Billy moved to check out a rack of magazines. Carol, meanwhile, split of from him and…
Was making a beeline for Tommy, who was just trying to pick up some damn essentials.
“Hey,” she said as she came up beside him. Slid up close like she had a right to be in his space.
“Hello,” he said, trying his best to sound disinterested as he picked out a package of bandages.
His nerves told him that something was happening that he would not be a fan of, so Tommy let his mind and body slip into a different sensation of time, a different way of interacting with it, and turned his gaze to look at her. And of course he caught her in mid-eyepan. Yeah. That was definitely one of Billy’s friends, one who was in a relationship, eyeing him like he was a piece of meat.
This was not what he was expecting on the night before Valentine’s Day. The girl had a boyfriend, that much he knew for sure given how often they spent their time at the diner making out. Worse than that, he didn’t know how to make it stop. That wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to achieve before.
He returned his attention to the area in front of him and let himself fall back into the regular flow of time. Box of bandages in hand he turned away from her. Hopefully he could just lose her attention just like that.
Of course she found him again by the bread. She didn’t even have anything in her hands from the medicine area, and that was particularly annoying to him. That turned this from a ‘maybe she’s trying to get your attention’ to as ‘she’s absolutely trying to get your attention’.
“Can I help you?” he asked with a sight.
She smiles at that, finally turning fully to face him.
“You work here too?”
No, he didn’t, and he would like to just get his sandwich fixings and settle in for a night of questioning why he didn’t ask his brother to at least drop him in the spring when it would be warm.
“Really no. But you were staring at me and figured you probably wanted something,” he noted. “Since you don’t seem to, I’ll just be-”
“I was just wondering if,” she started to say, and then there was Hargrove, suddenly standing beside her and holding out some canned soup.
“This was what you were after, right? For Tommy? Since your boyfriend is the sort to go and get himself sick before Valentine’s.”
The interruption was a save, not that Tommy knew exactly which of them Billy was setting out to save with the little action. Was it to keep Carol from fucking up her relationship? Was it to protect Hagan from Carol flirting with other dudes? Or was he really just trying to get the soup and get out of here? Probably the last one actually, that seemed bottled up Billy through and through.
Carol, for what it was worth, smiled at Billy and took the cans.
“Thanks. Knew it would help to have you here, Billy.”
“Yeah, whatever you say. Was there anything else you needed to get?”
Once more Carol’s eyes moved to Tommy, and he could see the way that Billy’s gaze followed, his eyes narrowed. Yeah. Protecting his friend’s territory indeed. Tommy offered back a brief shrug of just one of his shoulders, what he hoped would be taken as a universal sign of ‘man i don’t get women either’. Billy sighed and pushed the can right in Carol’s hands.
“Go pay. Can’t be here long. Have to pick up the shitbird soon.”
“You know, Billy, you could just-”
“Taking care of your sick boyfriend for Valentine’s Day,” Tommy cut in because he knew it was better not to touch Billy’s complicated relationship with his step-sister, “pretty kind of you. Really romantic. I’m sure he’s going to appreciate it.”
That earned a pleased look from Carol, like she really did appreciate being seen in a good light, even if all three of them were pretty sure she’d been after something else entirely.
“Yeah, and it would go better if you actually bought your shit and we got going,” Billy told her, and just like that Tommy was free of the two. Just a few little prods and Carol was happy to move away.
In a way it was nice, because he was free of Carol. Mostly Tommy just felt frustrated to have been so close to Billy and not have the guy know him. That always left a sour taste in his mouth. All their time together meant nothing to this Billy, and that hurt for him. There were nights that Tommy spent up, completely devoid of sleep because his bed felt cold and empty without Billy’s head pillowed on his chest, and Billy Hargrove didn’t miss him for even a second.
Didn’t even know his damn name.
“Sorry about her,” Billy said after a moment. “Her and the boyfriend are…”
“On the rocks,” Tommy supplied, because he could guess that. “Sorry to hear it. I’m sure the nursing will help.”
“Doubt it. She just found out his dad got him into a nice school out east and she’s going to Indy State. Long distance and all that.”
Ah. Yeah, he guessed he could see it. She was already looking ahead to a day where she wasn’t going to have Hagan around. Which was just silly. That was no reason to act like she had, like she was on the hunt.
“Plenty of people make it through worse separations than college. And if they can’t handle that distance, then maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”
Billy rolled his eyes, of course. This was a Billy before he thought to believe in love and romance and two people truly wanting to go out on the limb for each other. Could Tommy really blame him, after the life he had lived, for not believing in that potential?
“Yeah, whatever you say man.”
With that Billy turned and walked off.
Tommy had to wonder if he knew he was putting that extra swagger in his step for someone that really did appreciate it.
- - - - -
He shouldn’t be here.
That was something that Tommy had told himself about seven or eight times in the week leading up to the game. He had no connections to the high school and all that happened there. The people that did come to know Tommy Shepherd knew that he wasn’t from so much as the Midwest, so they would know there wasn’t a particular reason for him to be invested in Hawkins High School basketball.
There wasn’t a lot to argue for his presence beyond boredom. So he knew he should just stay home that night since he knew where Billy would be and figured that it would be safe at least until the game let out.
Instead Tommy threw on his coat and gloves, climbed into that horrible thing he claimed was a car, and took the drive over to the high school. And he hadn’t even been sitting for three minutes before he was regretting it, because of course Carol had appeared out of thin air to sit at his side. Which, well, made Tommy really uncomfortable. Especially since there were eyes on him from the crowds.
Needless to say, this was absolutely going to get back to Tommy Hagan. Which was going to be a whole other level of fucking his life up.
But Tommy was here for a reason, so he did his level best to ignore the girl at his side as he instead let his eyes cast about the gym. There amid the band was a vaguely familiar young woman who was probably Robin Buckley. Amid the cheerleaders a blond girl that he only sort of thought he had seen once back in Temba, maybe in passing. They weren’t really his focus of course. Instead his eyes were on the team.
If there was one part of the 80s that Tommy had come to appreciate, it was how ridiculously small the shorts for the basketball team happened to be. His mind alighted briefly on Steve, who seemed to be offering his team a bit of a pep talk that most of them seemed too zoned out to notice. Which was probably a mistake because this was the last game of the regular season if they didn’t win.
And, across from Steve…
There was something very wrong about sitting on a bleacher in a gym in small town in Indiana and trying not to eye the legs of the star player. Maybe if he was a girl he could get away with it. Hell, he probably would be able to get away with it as a girl. Here, though, Tommy knew he shouldn’t be watching Billy and remembering the feel of those legs wrapped around his.
“So you like basketball or something?” Carol asked from beside him and Tommy had to take a breath to keep from sassing her.
Team sports had never really been Tommy’s thing. Especially not high school level team sports. So no, it wasn’t exactly his thing. Which wasn’t going to fly if he was here just watching a high school team support.
“They’re about as good as anything else,” he said instead, giving a half-interested shrug. “But the way I see it, the team, the cheerleaders, even the coach, a lot of them are regulars. Only right to support them back for supporting me.”
“I see.”
Listen, it wasn’t like he could say ‘I’m here to root for my boyfriend in what might be the last game he’s going to get to play’. Couldn’t say ‘watching him so something he loves will mean that for a brief moment I’m getting to see him as I love him, alive and passionate’. And he sure as fuck couldn’t say ‘I need one night of Billy Hargrove in a tank top and stupidly short shorts so that I can keep the dream alive.’
“You here to root for your boyfriend? I think I see him there. Not in the warm up gear so he’s a starter, right? That’s pretty cool.”
Carol gave a shrug then made a show of turning her attention away. Then she made a pleased little noise like she’d found something exciting. Tommy had to fight to not laugh as she bounced to her feet, waved at some else further down the bleachers, and got up to go join them. He knew he wasn’t the most entertaining person as it was. Hell, he barely knew anything about basketball, beyond what Billy himself had told him.
Soon enough the seat beside him was taken up by a small group of rather noisy kids, middle schoolers probably, who were falling over themselves talking about Steve.
At least they seemed to be about as wise in the ways of basketball as Tommy did by the time the game started. One of them seemed to have enough of a concept that he was correcting the misstatements of those around him, and frankly Tommy found he was learning a bit just from listening to them. They were amusing, actually, and had that sort of energy that reminded him of his team back home, back when he’d first joined and most of them were still ultra nerds.
Mostly, though, Tommy’s attention was held by one part of the game and one part only.
Billy Hargrove dominated the court. While the kids beside him grumbled and complained about him Tommy watched the way he moved. Billy moved with speed and grace, danced around members of the other team while he kept the ball in his hand. Confidence and arrogance. Poetry in motion if Tommy only had the words to capture it with. His man was hungry for the win and Tommy found himself whooping with delight whenever Billy scored, and shouting in annoyance whenever he was fouled.
The kids really did start side eyeing him by the end, but what did Tommy care? The game was almost over, they were down by four, and in his heart, Tommy knew it was over. Maybe no one else could see it, but Tommy knew the signs of bubbling frustration and anger in Hargrove, especially when his temper was worked up by Harrington. Not that either of them were playing badly by Tommy’s estimation, it was just a long night, the other team was pretty well, and it was clear Steve and Billy were the anchors of the team. Anchors that hadn’t sat down longer than a time out or breaks between quarters (he was pretty sure they were called quarters).
Clearly they were tired, and that was affecting a lot of things, and the coach just wasn’t handling things the way he should have.
Maybe Billy had seen it too. Could see that this wasn’t going to end in a victory. That this was the end. Because he was getting a little sharper, a little angrier, a little more desperate.
That’s probably why the shot goes just a bit wide. It’s probably why everything started to fall apart at the end. It was probably why a lot of things that happened happened. In minutes the game just fell apart, and the Tigers were left with a loss. The locals filtered out slowly, clearly upset by the loss.
For a long moment Tommy lingered, his eyes following after Billy, watching as he moved for the locker room.
Wish I could take you home and cheer you up. Work all the frustration and tension from your muscles with the press of my hands, and tell you how beautiful you were. One day, Sunshine, I’ll tell you. Hopefully I won’t leave you waiting long.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
February, 1985
Date: 2023-09-21 05:19 am (UTC)Kate was going to tease him about that mercilessly when he got home, he just knew it. Maybe he could leave that part out of the story when he got back. Honestly, he wished he could leave this part out of his life in the moment too. That would be nice.
The moment was coming in the form of him just trying to pick up a few things at Melvald’s even as Billy Hargrove and this one girl he often hung out with named Carol entered. Normally where the two of them were there was also Tommy Hagan, but he was almost conspicuous in his absence as Billy moved to check out a rack of magazines. Carol, meanwhile, split of from him and…
Was making a beeline for Tommy, who was just trying to pick up some damn essentials.
“Hey,” she said as she came up beside him. Slid up close like she had a right to be in his space.
“Hello,” he said, trying his best to sound disinterested as he picked out a package of bandages.
His nerves told him that something was happening that he would not be a fan of, so Tommy let his mind and body slip into a different sensation of time, a different way of interacting with it, and turned his gaze to look at her. And of course he caught her in mid-eyepan. Yeah. That was definitely one of Billy’s friends, one who was in a relationship, eyeing him like he was a piece of meat.
This was not what he was expecting on the night before Valentine’s Day. The girl had a boyfriend, that much he knew for sure given how often they spent their time at the diner making out. Worse than that, he didn’t know how to make it stop. That wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to achieve before.
He returned his attention to the area in front of him and let himself fall back into the regular flow of time. Box of bandages in hand he turned away from her. Hopefully he could just lose her attention just like that.
Of course she found him again by the bread. She didn’t even have anything in her hands from the medicine area, and that was particularly annoying to him. That turned this from a ‘maybe she’s trying to get your attention’ to as ‘she’s absolutely trying to get your attention’.
“Can I help you?” he asked with a sight.
She smiles at that, finally turning fully to face him.
“You work here too?”
No, he didn’t, and he would like to just get his sandwich fixings and settle in for a night of questioning why he didn’t ask his brother to at least drop him in the spring when it would be warm.
“Really no. But you were staring at me and figured you probably wanted something,” he noted. “Since you don’t seem to, I’ll just be-”
“I was just wondering if,” she started to say, and then there was Hargrove, suddenly standing beside her and holding out some canned soup.
“This was what you were after, right? For Tommy? Since your boyfriend is the sort to go and get himself sick before Valentine’s.”
The interruption was a save, not that Tommy knew exactly which of them Billy was setting out to save with the little action. Was it to keep Carol from fucking up her relationship? Was it to protect Hagan from Carol flirting with other dudes? Or was he really just trying to get the soup and get out of here? Probably the last one actually, that seemed bottled up Billy through and through.
Carol, for what it was worth, smiled at Billy and took the cans.
“Thanks. Knew it would help to have you here, Billy.”
“Yeah, whatever you say. Was there anything else you needed to get?”
Once more Carol’s eyes moved to Tommy, and he could see the way that Billy’s gaze followed, his eyes narrowed. Yeah. Protecting his friend’s territory indeed. Tommy offered back a brief shrug of just one of his shoulders, what he hoped would be taken as a universal sign of ‘man i don’t get women either’. Billy sighed and pushed the can right in Carol’s hands.
“Go pay. Can’t be here long. Have to pick up the shitbird soon.”
“You know, Billy, you could just-”
“Taking care of your sick boyfriend for Valentine’s Day,” Tommy cut in because he knew it was better not to touch Billy’s complicated relationship with his step-sister, “pretty kind of you. Really romantic. I’m sure he’s going to appreciate it.”
That earned a pleased look from Carol, like she really did appreciate being seen in a good light, even if all three of them were pretty sure she’d been after something else entirely.
“Yeah, and it would go better if you actually bought your shit and we got going,” Billy told her, and just like that Tommy was free of the two. Just a few little prods and Carol was happy to move away.
In a way it was nice, because he was free of Carol. Mostly Tommy just felt frustrated to have been so close to Billy and not have the guy know him. That always left a sour taste in his mouth. All their time together meant nothing to this Billy, and that hurt for him. There were nights that Tommy spent up, completely devoid of sleep because his bed felt cold and empty without Billy’s head pillowed on his chest, and Billy Hargrove didn’t miss him for even a second.
Didn’t even know his damn name.
“Sorry about her,” Billy said after a moment. “Her and the boyfriend are…”
“On the rocks,” Tommy supplied, because he could guess that. “Sorry to hear it. I’m sure the nursing will help.”
“Doubt it. She just found out his dad got him into a nice school out east and she’s going to Indy State. Long distance and all that.”
Ah. Yeah, he guessed he could see it. She was already looking ahead to a day where she wasn’t going to have Hagan around. Which was just silly. That was no reason to act like she had, like she was on the hunt.
“Plenty of people make it through worse separations than college. And if they can’t handle that distance, then maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”
Billy rolled his eyes, of course. This was a Billy before he thought to believe in love and romance and two people truly wanting to go out on the limb for each other. Could Tommy really blame him, after the life he had lived, for not believing in that potential?
“Yeah, whatever you say man.”
With that Billy turned and walked off.
Tommy had to wonder if he knew he was putting that extra swagger in his step for someone that really did appreciate it.
He shouldn’t be here.
That was something that Tommy had told himself about seven or eight times in the week leading up to the game. He had no connections to the high school and all that happened there. The people that did come to know Tommy Shepherd knew that he wasn’t from so much as the Midwest, so they would know there wasn’t a particular reason for him to be invested in Hawkins High School basketball.
There wasn’t a lot to argue for his presence beyond boredom. So he knew he should just stay home that night since he knew where Billy would be and figured that it would be safe at least until the game let out.
Instead Tommy threw on his coat and gloves, climbed into that horrible thing he claimed was a car, and took the drive over to the high school. And he hadn’t even been sitting for three minutes before he was regretting it, because of course Carol had appeared out of thin air to sit at his side. Which, well, made Tommy really uncomfortable. Especially since there were eyes on him from the crowds.
Needless to say, this was absolutely going to get back to Tommy Hagan. Which was going to be a whole other level of fucking his life up.
But Tommy was here for a reason, so he did his level best to ignore the girl at his side as he instead let his eyes cast about the gym. There amid the band was a vaguely familiar young woman who was probably Robin Buckley. Amid the cheerleaders a blond girl that he only sort of thought he had seen once back in Temba, maybe in passing. They weren’t really his focus of course. Instead his eyes were on the team.
If there was one part of the 80s that Tommy had come to appreciate, it was how ridiculously small the shorts for the basketball team happened to be. His mind alighted briefly on Steve, who seemed to be offering his team a bit of a pep talk that most of them seemed too zoned out to notice. Which was probably a mistake because this was the last game of the regular season if they didn’t win.
And, across from Steve…
There was something very wrong about sitting on a bleacher in a gym in small town in Indiana and trying not to eye the legs of the star player. Maybe if he was a girl he could get away with it. Hell, he probably would be able to get away with it as a girl. Here, though, Tommy knew he shouldn’t be watching Billy and remembering the feel of those legs wrapped around his.
“So you like basketball or something?” Carol asked from beside him and Tommy had to take a breath to keep from sassing her.
Team sports had never really been Tommy’s thing. Especially not high school level team sports. So no, it wasn’t exactly his thing. Which wasn’t going to fly if he was here just watching a high school team support.
“They’re about as good as anything else,” he said instead, giving a half-interested shrug. “But the way I see it, the team, the cheerleaders, even the coach, a lot of them are regulars. Only right to support them back for supporting me.”
“I see.”
Listen, it wasn’t like he could say ‘I’m here to root for my boyfriend in what might be the last game he’s going to get to play’. Couldn’t say ‘watching him so something he loves will mean that for a brief moment I’m getting to see him as I love him, alive and passionate’. And he sure as fuck couldn’t say ‘I need one night of Billy Hargrove in a tank top and stupidly short shorts so that I can keep the dream alive.’
“You here to root for your boyfriend? I think I see him there. Not in the warm up gear so he’s a starter, right? That’s pretty cool.”
Carol gave a shrug then made a show of turning her attention away. Then she made a pleased little noise like she’d found something exciting. Tommy had to fight to not laugh as she bounced to her feet, waved at some else further down the bleachers, and got up to go join them. He knew he wasn’t the most entertaining person as it was. Hell, he barely knew anything about basketball, beyond what Billy himself had told him.
Soon enough the seat beside him was taken up by a small group of rather noisy kids, middle schoolers probably, who were falling over themselves talking about Steve.
At least they seemed to be about as wise in the ways of basketball as Tommy did by the time the game started. One of them seemed to have enough of a concept that he was correcting the misstatements of those around him, and frankly Tommy found he was learning a bit just from listening to them. They were amusing, actually, and had that sort of energy that reminded him of his team back home, back when he’d first joined and most of them were still ultra nerds.
Mostly, though, Tommy’s attention was held by one part of the game and one part only.
Billy Hargrove dominated the court. While the kids beside him grumbled and complained about him Tommy watched the way he moved. Billy moved with speed and grace, danced around members of the other team while he kept the ball in his hand. Confidence and arrogance. Poetry in motion if Tommy only had the words to capture it with. His man was hungry for the win and Tommy found himself whooping with delight whenever Billy scored, and shouting in annoyance whenever he was fouled.
The kids really did start side eyeing him by the end, but what did Tommy care? The game was almost over, they were down by four, and in his heart, Tommy knew it was over. Maybe no one else could see it, but Tommy knew the signs of bubbling frustration and anger in Hargrove, especially when his temper was worked up by Harrington. Not that either of them were playing badly by Tommy’s estimation, it was just a long night, the other team was pretty well, and it was clear Steve and Billy were the anchors of the team. Anchors that hadn’t sat down longer than a time out or breaks between quarters (he was pretty sure they were called quarters).
Clearly they were tired, and that was affecting a lot of things, and the coach just wasn’t handling things the way he should have.
Maybe Billy had seen it too. Could see that this wasn’t going to end in a victory. That this was the end. Because he was getting a little sharper, a little angrier, a little more desperate.
That’s probably why the shot goes just a bit wide. It’s probably why everything started to fall apart at the end. It was probably why a lot of things that happened happened. In minutes the game just fell apart, and the Tigers were left with a loss. The locals filtered out slowly, clearly upset by the loss.
For a long moment Tommy lingered, his eyes following after Billy, watching as he moved for the locker room.
Wish I could take you home and cheer you up. Work all the frustration and tension from your muscles with the press of my hands, and tell you how beautiful you were. One day, Sunshine, I’ll tell you. Hopefully I won’t leave you waiting long.