Archive of Our Own ^beta

Steve went home after everything and slept for two days straight. His head was muddled to the point that the drive home was probably dangerous, but there weren’t any cops on the road to care. They were all still swarmed around the remains of Starcourt or stationed at the Fourth of July festival.

He’d been awake for two days before everything. From the moment they’d locked up Scoops Ahoy and dropped down in the elevator, he’d barely had anything to eat or drink. Technically, he had gotten about twenty minutes of sleep after those Russian guards nearly bashed his face in, but he wasn’t counting that.

His house was dark, quiet, and uninviting against the stark blackness of the night. Checking his watch told him it was about 4 in the morning. Still, what was he supposed to do? So he steeled himself and went inside.

In a fog, he made himself a ham and cheese sandwich, supplemented it with an entire bag of carrots, and washed all that down with a glass of water that, upon reflection, he might’ve drunk out of a large pitcher.

Then he dragged himself upstairs, washed off his face, which was surprisingly numb at that point, reapplied some bandaids and maybe even remembered to smear on some Neosporin. He reflected that his own skin felt oddly hot considering he was freezing underneath the flimsy work uniform he hadn’t bothered to take off.

He stripped off the grimy, disgusting clothes he was wearing, planning on burning them the next morning, hopped into the shower for the briefest, most excruciating rinse of his life, and then with his last dregs of energy, dragged on whatever looked clean on his floor.

Then he ended up in his hallway staring in at his bedroom.

For some reason the idea of sleeping in his own room felt unbearably stifling. As he stood in the doorway taking in the ugly plaid wallpaper his mom had picked out and the neatly made bed that looked not dissimilar to an uncomfortable hotel bed… well, it seemed like hell to lock himself up in there when he was so vulnerably alone in the house. Plus, just looking at the dark walls of his bedroom reminded him a little too much of the room he was stuck in for hours before the interrogation.

He ended up dragging a blanket off the bed and trudging downstairs before collapsing on the couch and becoming dead to the world for 18 straight hours.

When he woke up, there was a dull ache in his chest that he figured he should probably address. But sitting up gave him the headrush of a century. He could already tell he was going to be dealing with an absolute killer of a headache. Hopefully whatever the Russians had pumped him and Robin with wasn’t poisonous, because there was no way he had the energy to drag himself to the hospital in this condition.

Shit.

Robin.

He’d waited with her until her parents had come to pick her up. They seemed nice- sort of eccentric and hippy, which explained why her name was Robin- but they didn’t know about anything that had happened the past couple of days. Guilt shot through him at the thought of her riding out the aftermath totally by herself. At least his first time, he’d sort of had Nancy and Jonathan, and then last year he’d had Dustin. But she barely knew anyone else in the group.

He shoved the mound of blankets he’d grabbed in his fervor off and exposed himself to the cold air.

A quick glance through the ugly grandfather his parents kept in the corner told him it was almost midnight.

Definitely too late to call the Buckley’s. Not that he knew their number to do so. Why hadn’t he thought to get her number? Or at least her address? His parents kept a phone book tucked deep into a closet somewhere, but it was rarely used. All of the important contacts were listed in a little contact book by the phone. Besides, they weren’t home often enough to need to call many people.

Surely if she needed anything urgently, she’d be able to dig up his phone number and call him. His parents knew everyone in Hawkins, it wouldn’t be hard to find. Unless she was sick (sick?) too, in which case, maybe she was in bed right now, alone and miserable, unable to sleep because a giant monster made of human flesh had crushed the shopping mall.

Steve groaned.

Even if he wanted to help, he couldn’t until he took care of the mess his body was at the moment. That required immediate attention. He steeled himself to stand up. Easy task, except he decided to pull off the bandaid quickly, apparently because he didn’t learn anything from sitting up earlier, and his vision whited out. He tipped forward and just barely managed to catch himself on the coffee table before rolling awkwardly onto the floor, his wrist taking the brunt of his weight.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

He lifted himself up just enough to pull his wrist out before dropping his head back to the carpet with a defeated sigh.

He squeezed his eyes shut and wished for a long moment that he could magically erase all of his injuries.

When he opened them, the darkness outside had given way to soft, midmorning rays, and someone was knocking on his door. A pierce of alarm shot through him.

Had he really fallen asleep on the floor? He shot upright, with significantly less headrush, thankfully, and peered blearily at the door. Through it he could just make out the silhouette of someone with a baseball cap. If he had to guess, probably Dustin.

He dropped his head back down with a groan and then got to work pulling himself fully upright. Through a concerted effort, he managed to get to a sitting position on the couch. Right back to square one.

All of his limbs seemed to have stiffened to steel poles, which could be blamed entirely on his less than choice sleeping positions the past couple of days.

A moment later his suspicions about who was knocking were confirmed.

“Steve! Steve! Are you in there? If you’re dead, I’m gonna kill you!”

Always nice to know someone cared. Steve stood up. After making sure he wasn’t about to brain himself on the coffee table, he made his way to the front entrance and pulled open the door.

Dustin paused mid knock and made a grossed out-concerned face.

“Dude. You look like shit.”

Steve just grunted and opened the door wider to let Dustin in.

Dustin dropped his bike haphazardly on the front step, tossed his helmet towards it, and pushed his way past Steve without so much as a good morning. Were all middle schoolers this inconsiderate? Had he been this inconsiderate? He watched Dustin make a beeline straight for the kitchen, pausing only to kick off his shoes next to Steve's in the middle of the foyer. Actually, he’d probably been worse.

He made a move to pinch the bridge of his nose, for some reason Dustin tended to bring on headaches with his mere presence, then remembered the pulverized state his face was in and thought better of it. In his hurry to crash, he’d barely taken the proper time to take stock of his injuries. He reached his hand tentatively up to his eye and prodded it gently. His whole face exploded with pain that radiated out down his back.

“Ah- shit.”

Dustin poked his head out of the kitchen. Around a mouthful of poptart, he said: “You’re letting bugs in.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and closed the door. He loved Dustin, really, and he was glad to see he was alright after everything that had happened the past couple of days. But right now, all he wanted to do was scoop his own ribs out and rinse them off of the bruising. Maybe if he was boring enough, he could convince Dustin that he was fine and that he could go home.

He was pretty sure that this was Dustin’s roundabout way of making sure he was okay. Whether it was at the forefront of his mind or not, he’d done the same thing last year. Bursting into his house and dragging him out of bed to make breakfast. Steve had been a lot more caught off guard last year. But now, he’d dedicated enough pantry space to Dustin over the past couple of months to anticipate his arrival.

Steve made his way stiffly into the kitchen to see Dustin kneeling on his counters digging through his mug cabinet. He frowned.

“Uh… dude. C’mon, shoes on the counters? You know my mom’ll kill me if she sees damage.”

Dustin didn’t even bother to turn around this time.

“Did you get rid of my Star Wars mug? I brought that from home! I’ve told you a million times, it’s a limited edition that my mom got for me for Christmas.”

Steve rolled his eyes

“I know, I know. Cool your jets, man. It’s still dirty. I used it while you were gone at camp.”

Dustin poked his head out from behind the cabinet door with a look that could only be described as utter betrayal. Poptart still in hand.

“You used it, are you kidding me? What if you’d dropped it? What if the paint had gotten scuffed? What if-”

“Dustin, geez, calm down, I’ll wash it, okay?”

There was a moment where it seemed like Dustin was about to argue further, Steve even braced himself for it, but then he relented and hopped off the counter. Leaned against it in a display of forced casualness. They both avoided the elephant in the room, namely, the past couple of days. Dustin would talk about it later, but now, as Steve moved to the dishwasher to grab the mug and rinse it clean, he began to give Steve a narrative of his time away at science camp. Camp Know-nothing or something or other.

Steve let the conversation fade a bit into the background. He chipped in during all the right places with a question or snarky remark to keep the story moving, but he begrudgingly admitted to himself that it was sort of nice not to be alone.

The stiffness in his joints was working itself away as he moved around the kitchen and went through the motions of making peppermint tea and toast. He knew hot tea was a weird choice for the middle of summer. Another elephant in the room, since Dustin only requested tea after having a nightmare while staying the night. Apparently his mom used to make it for him when he was little and sick. Steve didn’t really like the taste but it smelled nice.

Eventually, once the tea and toast was ready, they made their way into the living room. The conversation hit a brief snag there when Dustin saw the pile of blankets lying on the ground where Steve had left them. He made an awkward sounding joke about whether Steve was starting a collection, which Steve rolled his eyes at and threw a piece of toast at him for.

It was nice. Nice to have a normalish day before he had to return to the world he lived in where monsters were real and he’d been kidnapped by Russians and several people he cared about had almost died. One where he’d need to talk about those things soon, but right now he could argue with Dustin and trust that everyone really was okay.

They turned on Star Wars at some point.

Dustin had forced him to watch the whole trilogy at least three times, so it was a safe option for Steve to doze lightly through.

He was jostled awake by the feeling of someone cramming in next to him on the couch. Tilting his head just slightly gave him a clear image of the top of Dustin’s head. There was a warm pressure against his side where Dustin sat.

For some reason the feeling sent a lightning strike of emotion through his chest. Probably an indication of how beyond out of whack his body was, because he could probably count on one hand the amount of times he’d cried in the past three years, but it still struck something in him.

This was new. This new trust they had with each other. New since Starcourt even. It reminded him that Dustin, for all his bluster, had been dealing with this since he was- what, eleven or so? And even now, he was barely a teenager. Steve couldn’t even imagine dealing with this at his age, he barely handled it now.

Sometimes his chest grew tight when he thought about what things could’ve been like if none of this ever happened. It made him sort of angry, and then at once scared, because none of them would know each other if it hadn’t, and maybe he and Nancy would still be stuck in a loveless relationship until they hated each other, and he wouldn’t know Dustin, or any of the other kids, and maybe Tommy and Carol would still be his best friends until they all burnt out or died young.

Not that dying young wasn’t still on the table.

But there was a selfish part of him that was at once glad for the wakeup and resentful that it couldn't've come in any other form.

The movie played at a low volume in front of them, and Steve, despite the raincloud hovering over his thoughts, had still managed to almost return to dozing when Dustin spoke.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Hmm.”

“The Byers’ are having people over tonight. Sort of a going away party, but just with us. The Party, and everyone else. You should come.”

Steve lifted his head and looked down at Dustin.

“Mmm?”

“Robin can come too… if she wants?”

Dustin gave him a significant look, which Steve rolled his eyes at. Obviously all thoughts of dating Robin had flown since their moment in the bathroom, but Dustin probably assumed they’d confessed their undying love for each other in there or something. Well, half true. But they definitely weren’t getting together. Still, it would be nice to see people, and maybe even give Robin some people to lean on.

“When?”

“I don’t know, five maybe? I need a ride too, so…”

Steve sighed. Of course.

“I’ll see if Robin wants to come.”

“Excellent!”

Dustin gave him an innocent smile and settled back into the cushions to watch the movie.

The hours passed quickly after that. Steve fell asleep a couple more times, and Dustin mercifully let him conk out while movies played, and then even when the credits on the last one had rolled, and Dustin was searching the Harrington’s closets for their phonebook.

Steve’s ribs were still killing him, his eye still felt like it was going to pop out of his skull, but it had been a while since he’d had a headache and he’d forgotten to stock up on painkillers so there was no choice but to ride it out until tonight. Maybe he could steal some advil or something from the Byers. In the meantime though he felt sapped of energy and lethargic. Even smaller movements hurt.

They called Robin. More like Steve called Robin, and Dustin leaned over his shoulder and pretended like he wasn’t listening in to a conversation happening three inches from his ear.

Robin sounded okay. Luckily, it seemed like she’d managed to escape with nothing worse than a couple bruises and a bit of a hangoveresque feeling. But her parents were still half mad at her and half worried about the fact that she went missing for a day, so it didn’t seem likely that she was going to make it. Still, Steve gave her the Byers’ address and she promised she’d try.

Dustin had given him this stupid little look after he’d hung up the phone. Grinning and waggling his eyebrows. Steve rolled his eyes and abandoned him to go get changed.

Then, it was 4:30 and he and Dustin were piling into his car and driving over to the Byers’ house. It was sort of weird returning there. He’d only ever had reason to go when the world was ending. Jonathan had invited him over a few reasons after the first time, but then after last year Steve guessed it must’ve felt a lot more hollow to pretend like friendship was on the table. Especially when he risked running into his ex-girlfriend who’d never loved him if he went over at the wrong time. Steve wasn’t bitter towards Jonathan. But, at the same time, he wasn’t jumping at the opportunity to hang out with him either.

By the amount of cars in the driveway they were obviously the last ones there. Dustin, impatient as ever, threw himself out of the car before Steve had even stopped moving. He dashed up the steps to knock on the Byers’ front door while Steve parked and turned the car off.

Steve gave himself the briefest moment to rest in the silent car. He leaned his head against the steering wheel. Only for a few seconds though, because then Mrs. Byers’ was opening the door and shooing Dustin in, with an expectant look out to his car.

He sighed and relinquished the peace of the car.

Luckily, delirious Steve had remembered to wash his hair during his four am freak out shower, so he didn’t look like he’d stumbled off the set of a horror movie anymore. Now he looked mostly like he’d just gotten into a fight with a professional boxer.

Mrs. Byers smiled as he walked up. He smiled back politely.

“Hi! Welcome in, the kids are all in the back. I managed to dig up our old sprinkler,” she shrugged, “thought it could be fun for the younger ones.”

He nodded and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“Cool.”

He noticed as he walked through the house that it looked significantly better than years prior. Being so divorced from everything else that’d happened meant that the Scoops Troop wasn’t even aware of Billy and the giant monster until the final act, so anything would’ve been possible. It was nice that their house hadn’t been destroyed again though.

Mrs. Byers was nice. She deserved an off year.

Steve paused with his hand on the back door as he remembered what he was planning on asking for.

“Hey, Mrs. Byers-”

“Oh, call me Joyce.”

“Uh, Joyce. Okay. Do you have any painkillers?” He gestured up to the state his face was in and tried to convey pain with a grimace.

Joyce winced in sympathy and nodded.

“Sure do. Mind if I get them out to you in a minute? I have to make sure the cookies don’t burn.”

Steve nodded.

“Yeah, cool. No problem.”

Joyce smiled.

“Awesome. Go on and pop out, Jonathan’s manning the hose.”

Steve smiled back and pushed back out into the waning summer warmth. Sure enough, Jonathan was standing in the middle of the yard spraying anyone who got within five feet of him. Nancy was standing in the corner with a mostly dry sundress and a bemused expression. The rest of the kids were all soaked. He would’ve guessed that Mike or Max would try to be too cool for this kind of thing, but it seemed like they were getting around it by absolutely decimating each other with water balloons. Lucas kept throwing himself in front of Max with cries of “my lady!”, directed at Max, and “you wicked sorcerer!” directed at Mike. Steve guessed it was mostly just an excuse to get splashed.

He stood on the back step for a moment, feeling unsure of where to go. Dustin had jumped into the fray immediately and picked up the sprinkler to use as a sort of force field against anyone who tried to get near him. The only people his age were of course Jonathan- currently engaged in a match with Will to claim ownership over the hose, drenching both of them- and Nancy. Who, once again, was Steve’s ex-girlfriend.

He glanced her way.

She smiled. He smiled back. She walked over to him and called out a friendly greeting. He responded in kind. It was a weird little song and dance.

“Hey,” she smiled.

“Hey,” he returned.

“How’s your eye?”

He blinked

“Oh, this? Yeah, forgot I had it, really. Don’t even notice it most of the time.”

She pressed her lips together and squinted, but she was still smiling.

“Don’t worry. It’s not that noticeable. It sort of blends in with…” she waved a hand over the general area of his whole face. He laughed.

“Okay, yeah, great. Thanks, that’s awesome to know.”

“Hey!”

They both turned their heads in unison to see that somehow, in the midst of the water war, Mike had managed to get ahold of Dustin’s sprinkler. He was looking at Nancy with an evil sort of grin. Her expression darkened.

“Micheal Wheeler, if you even think about it-”

He laughed. It sounded straight up evil. Maybe demonic even- if anyone were likely to get possessed without anyone noticing, it would be Mike. Then, without any warning, turned the sprinkler on them.

Nancy sprang back and ducked inside the kitchen.

“Mike!”

Steve, unfortunately, wasn’t so quick. He got the full blast of water and was soaked.

“Oh- shit!”

His hair was wet and dripping into his eyes. He shook it out of his face, but it didn’t fix the fact that his upper half was pretty saturated. Mike shot him a grin and full body cackled- little shit.

Without thinking about the fact that his ribs were bruised and sore, or the possibility that there might be some visible injury to them, he reached up to pull his shirt off with one stiff motion so he could go annihilate Mike. It was soaked anyway. He could at least let it dry.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he figured that they probably already knew about the bruising, like with Jonathan’s back, since they’d all been checked out by paramedics. Never mind that he’d been one of the last to go.

It clung to his skin, wet enough that he just tossed it down onto the back step of the porch. He’d just leaned down to pull of his sneakers when he noticed that it seemed quieter.

The chaos stalled in a moment. Things didn’t exactly fall silent, but Jonathan, Will, and Dustin had been looking over when he pulled his shirt off, and each wore an expression with some variety of shock. It made Steve pause.

Jonathan blinked at him, hose lying forgotten in the grass.

“Uh, you okay man? What happened?”

Steve frowned.

“What do you mean what happened?”

“I just…” Jonathan’s eyes flicked up past Steve at the sound of the backdoor creaking open. “Mom.”

Steve turned to see Mrs. Byers in the doorway with a glass of water and a bottle of something. Probably the painkillers she’d promised. She gave him a matching look of concern and confusion, although she was quicker to conceal it.

He started to feel hot and embarrassed with the reaction he was getting. It hadn’t been meant to slow anything down, let alone draw everyone’s eyes onto him to stare at his bare chest. He leaned down to grab his soaking wet shirt off the back steps, although it was really just an excuse to look down and away from everyone’s gazes.

Mrs. Byers put out a hand as if to tap him on the shoulder and then drew it back like she was worried about hurting him.

“Steve, honey, you can borrow one of Jonathan’s shirts.”

He nodded sort of numbly and stepped without protest back into the kitchen. Leaving behind the now ruined moment. The moment that he’d ruined somehow.

Nancy, probably to avoid further splashing, was cutting up lettuce in the corner of the kitchen. She looked over when they walked in and raised her eyebrows in concern.

“Steve?”

He felt himself get even hotter and glanced back to Mrs. Byers. Mrs. Byers only smiled pleasantly.

“Thanks for giving a hand, Nancy, but I’ve got it! You should go enjoy yourself! If you need to borrow some dry clothes, you’re more than welcome to.”

It was a polite dismissal, but Steve in his fog of embarrassment recognized it as a dismissal all the same. Mrs. Byers shut the door after her and pulled out a chair for Steve. Then she retreated back into the bedroom area of the house without a word.

Steve sat. Finally took a look down at himself.

Even from upside down, he could tell it looked bad. Whatever healing his body had done in the past day or two since Starcourt, it only made it look ten times worse. There was a collection of odd shaped, mottled bruises covering his chest, clustered around his abdomen. The skin was broken in a couple places. The rest of the skin was yellow, purple, and black and it looked honestly like he’d gone a couple rounds with a bear. Probably the most discernable shaped bruise was one that clearly outlined the shape of a boot, right over his stomach.

He traced it absently with a finger.

Mrs. Byers walked back in just then. She dumped a few things on the kitchen table: a shirt, a washcloth, a first aid kit, and the bottle of painkillers from before.

“I’m pretty sure you and Jonathan are a similar size, but you let me know if it doesn’t fit and I can go dig up something else, okay sweetheart?”

He nodded. There was a little bit of a haze that was cutting down on his embarrassment. Like a part of his mind was retreating back and taking in less of the past couple of minutes.

“Thanks.”

She grabbed the first aid kit and then paused halfway through opening it.

“Do you mind if I make sure your ribs aren’t broken? I know I’m not your own mother, but I was halfway to a nursing degree when Jonathan came along. I promise I know how to be careful. I just want to make sure nothing’s seriously wrong, because if it is I’d want to take you to a hospital.”

Steve blinked at her.

“Uh, the paramedics checked me out after Starcourt.” Sort of. They’d clearly been preoccupied with everything going on. Namely, the piles of concrete and the mound of melted human flesh in the middle of the mall.

She frowned.

“They did? They checked your ribs?”

He shrugged and looked down.

“They were busy. They checked my eye.”

She pursed her lips.

“Steve, I’ll trust you if you say you’re okay. I know I’m just your friend’s mom. If you want though, I’ll go quick. It’s just a precaution."

Steve considered. On the one hand, any unnecessary attention sounded like torture right now. On the other, he didn’t want to die from internal bleeding because he was too stubborn to let someone else make sure.

He was also aware of the weirdly vulnerable position he was in right now. Shirtless in the Byers’ kitchen and pretty injured. If he let her make sure, quickly, that he wasn’t about to die, he could take back some control of the situation and head back out to truthfully assure everyone that there was nothing wrong.

That would be better than anything else. Although, ideally, everyone could forget that this whole incident ever happened. There were people not ten feet away who’d been through astronomically worse things than him.

“Sure.”

She smiled and opened the rest of the first aid kit to pull out a roll of bandages. Then pulled a chair closer and sat down in front of him.

“Okay. I’m not going to give you painkillers yet just because I don’t want to dull the pain. I know, I know, that sucks, but this’ll only take a few minutes. I’m just going to feel along each rib to make sure that it isn’t broken, and then wrap it up to help the swelling go down.” She waved the little roll of bandages with a reassuring smile.

He nodded.

She got to work.

The first rib was painful, but more than that, the whole experience was sort of awkward, having your ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend’s mom touch your bare chest while the kids you babysit were outside. But as time went on the feeling lessened. He realized it really did just feel like a doctor or his aunt or someone was checking him out.

He found very quickly that he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He tapped on the table, ran a hand through his hair, and then finally settled for resting them in his lap at an awkward angle.

It only did take a couple minutes though. Before too long, Joyce was leaning back with a satisfied look and reaching for the bandages.

“Looks like they’re only bruised, which is great. No hospital needed. I’ll just wrap them, and you should be good to go.” she grabbed the bandages, “let me know if this hurts, but it is supposed to be tight, okay?”

He nodded.

She quickly wrapped the bandages around his ribs until they were covered. He had to admit, it did feel better. Less like they were going to fall out through his skin if he moved the wrong way. Then, she handed him a couple of painkillers, a glass of water, and the shirt, and sat back with a warm, though concerned, smile.

“I really hate that you kids get involved with this stuff. I mean, it’s our job to make sure you stay out of trouble.” she rose with a slight chuckle, “although if you’re anything like my boys, that won’t stop you.”

Steve found he didn’t really have anything to say to that. He washed the painkillers down to avoid having to respond.

The shirt fit well. A little tight, but it was clean, and smelled like laundry detergent.

“Ah,” Steve looked up at Joyce to see her looking out the window. She smiled and gave him a significant look, “looks like you have some well wishers.”

Through the window, Steve could see a few people on the back step. Not looking in, but it looked like arguing with each other.

He sighed and turned away. He knew, logically, that there wasn’t anything to be embarrassed by, but it still made him feel weird. They just didn’t talk about stuff like this. Maybe a little, in the aftermath, to compare notes. But for the most part, no one asked and no one volunteered because no one wanted to talk about anything.

The door creaked open and the sound of voices got briefly louder until it closed again and someone entered the kitchen.

“Dustin wanted me to, uh, check if you were dying?” Jonathan. “I figured you might not want them all in here, though.”

Steve nodded.

“All the attention’s making me feel pretty special.” He responded dryly.

“I think they just want to make sure you’re okay.” Jonathan came around into Steve’s field of vision and sat down tentatively in the chair across from him. “Are you? Okay?”

Steve nodded again.

“You should see the other guy.”

Jonathan’s lips quirked up into a half smile. Maybe remembering the fight they’d had two years ago. One where Jonathan had definitively beat his ass. It wasn’t a mocking smile, more like the kind you share when you have an inside joke.

“Yeah?”

“I took out a Russian guard.”

Jonathan laughed, surprised.

“Really? You’ve, uh, you’ve leveled up, I guess. Maybe I should stay on your good side.”

Steve finally cracked a small smile. It was clear that Jonathan was trying to distract him from their onlookers outside the window, but it was sort of nice to feel that effort.

“Probably should’ve tied him up or something, because he ratted us out pretty much right away.”

“Well obviously you didn’t go down without a fight.” Steve felt his smile drop in an instant and watched Jonathan’s do the same. “Right?”

“Yeah. Not exactly a fair fight.” Jonathan frowned. Steve could practically hear the wheels spinning in his head. For all that he’d tried to convince himself of the opposite, he really was more similar to Nancy than he might admit. There was a reason they were together. They both looked at the world in patterns.

“Shit, man, did they…?” The question was left open ended. “Like, take you guys prisoner? Try to get information out of you?”

There was an implication there. Steve could hear the word left unsaid. Torture. The word had been rattling around inside his head ever since he woke up in the basement. Was that really what it was? Sure, they roughed him up a little bit, almost pulled out his fingernails, threatened them at gunpoint, but word torture was usually reserved for Bond movies where the hero experienced real danger.

But still. They had been in real danger.

He felt the color leave his face a little at the memory of being tied up and thrown into that empty room with no idea of where Robin was or whether she was okay. The sensations were still fresh in his mind. The feeling of fear growing ever stronger as he awaited blow after blow inside the cell. The look of unflinching cruelty on the guard’s face as he towered over Steve. The fuzzy panic of waking up and realizing he’d had no way to defend himself. He could’ve been killed in his sleep and had no idea it was ever coming. They all flashed through his mind in an instant when the question was asked.

He opened his mouth to respond, but instead felt a sudden surge of nausea crawl up his throat. He stumbled upright and pushed past Joyce, who he’d forgotten was still in the room, and retched full body into the trash can by the sink.

There were voices behind him as he emptied out bile on top of coffee grounds and lettuce butts. Worried ones, but too quiet for him to tell what they were saying. Eventually he felt a hand on his back. The sensation caught him off guard enough that he couldn’t disguise the subtle flinch away from the touch.

“Hey, Steve?” the voice in his ear was soft, “when’s the last time you ate something?” He opened his mouth to respond but only gagged again into the trash can. “Okay, okay.” The hand on his back returned and made small circles.

It felt like an eternity before the retching stopped enough for him to gain control back over his body. He slid bonelessly down onto the kitchen floor. Too tired to care about how embarrassing this whole situation was. Someone placed a glass of water on the floor next to him. It tasted amazing on his raw throat.

Finally, he trusted himself to speak.

“Sandwich.” He croaked.

“Hmm?”

“A sandwich. I had one when I got home.”

“Is that it?”

He nodded, staring at the worn kitchen tiles.

“I wasn’t hungry. Threw up whatever they gave us, and felt nauseous for hours.”

“What they gave you-?” Someone cursed. “Steve, did the Russians drug you?”

He nodded again miserably.

“Probably just LSD though.”

Someone cursed again.

“Jonathan, will you help me?”

There was a shuffling sound and then he felt himself being lifted to his feet. His head was clearing now, but there was still a layer of exhaustion draped over him that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Once he was on his feet though he felt steady enough to pull his arms away and stand on his own.

Joyce and Jonathan were standing in front of him. Joyce looked concerned, while Jonathan looked sort of sick himself.

“Can you tell if the drugs are out of your system?”

Steve shrugged.

“I think so. It was just supposed to get us to talk.”

“Did they…” Joyce paused, looking a little sick now herself, “Is there anything else that they did to you guys that I should know about? Are you in any immediate danger?” Steve rubbed the fingernail that they’d almost pulled out, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t what she was getting at. He wasn’t actually sure exactly what she was getting at.

“I… I told them Dustin’s full name. But the guys following us- El took care of them. They’re dead.” He rubbed the spot on his neck where they’d injected the truth serum. Joyce seemed to notice and took a tentative step closer.

“Can I…?”

He dropped his hand and shrugged a shoulder. She stepped up next to him and leaned in to look at the mark.

“Well, it doesn’t look infected, so we can hope they used a clean needle.”

Shit. Steve hadn’t even thought of that. Hopefully that was true. It would be pretty lame to go out on an infected needle.

“Oh. Good.”

“Alright. Okay.” Joyce backed up. “Why don’t you go lie down in my room-”

Steve shook his head emphatically.

“I don’t need-”

“Steve,” Jonathan cut in, “You can drive home later. I’ll drive Dustin and the others home, but…”

“It’s probably this or the hospital.” Joyce finished. “I’m not sure if I’m being irresponsible by not taking you anyways-”

“No hospitals.” Steve asserted.

“So then lie down it is.” Joyce said.

He didn’t want to stay. Didn’t want to be vulnerable like he’d been down there in the tunnels. But between trying to drive home without killing himself, or returning to the party like nothing had happened, which wasn’t an option at this point, what choice did he have? He relented.

“I- Okay.”

Joyce nodded.

“Okay. Uh, Jonathan?”

“Follow me.” Jonathan gave him a reassuring smile and tilted his head towards the hallway.

Steve followed.

By the time he got into the room, he didn’t care anymore about the fact that he was wearing jeans, only cared enough to kick off his shoes and clamber on top of the comforter before passing out once more.

It sort of felt like being sick. Like when you’re staying with a relative and start feeling full body chills, so there’s no pressure to pretend anymore like you’re interested in sitting at the adult’s table and listen to their dry conversations. No obligation to put on a face and crash when you got home because it was socially permissible to act weird when you’re sick. This was a special case.

He’d already slept so much the past couple of days that, despite the bone deep tiredness, he had trouble actually staying asleep.

Once again it felt like the twilight realm of fever dream. At one point, he was pretty sure one or two of the kids came into the room, and even sat on the bed, but their quiet voices only lingered a few minutes before they were ushered out and the door was closed again.

He was sure of the fact that Dustin came and sat on the edge of the bed for a couple minutes because he remembered waking up and muttering out a few responses to his questions before falling back asleep.

When he woke up for real, the clock on the wall read 4:21. A quick glance out the window confirmed that it was the dead middle of the night.

He sat up and tried to take stock of himself.

There were a few blankets draped over him.

His ribs felt significantly better than before. The ache that had persisted over the past couple days felt a little less pervasive and a bit more productive. Like when he rolled his shoulders out after a bad night of sleep and the soreness helped ease the pain.

He could tell he wasn’t going to get back to sleep, but he felt weird just hanging around the Byers’ house until they woke up only to say goodbye, so he decided to write a note and just drive home. He could deliver cookies or something another day to thank them for letting him spend the night. No need to overstay his welcome.

The lights were off in the rest of the house. Fortunately, he had a little bit of experience navigating the house in the dark.

There was already some paper and colored pencils scattered across the kitchen table. He scrawled out a quick note: Thanks for letting me sleep here. Sorry I stole your bed, Joyce. Headed home, I’m okay. I’ll return the shirt in a few days.

There. That would suffice. There was more he could say, of course, thanking them for not making a big deal about his freakout, for making sure he was okay, for letting him spend the night, for giving him privacy, but all that was a bit too vulnerable for him right then. It covered the basics at least.

He grabbed his keys and headed out the front door.

He’d just stepped off the front step when he heard the door creak open behind him. Will was standing on the porch with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He looked sleep mussed and bleary, but seemed alert enough when he spoke.

“You’re leaving?”

Steve nodded.

“Tell your mom I said thanks for letting me stay. I just…” he ran a hand through his hair. “I should get home. My parents are coming back any day now.”

A bold face lie, but it sounded better than: I don’t want to be around people right now, it’s not personal.

Will blinked at him.

“Okay. Come back soon? I think Jonathan, well… he needs more friends his age. Besides Nancy, I mean.”

Steve let out a surprised bark of laughter at Will’s bluntness.

“Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll need to return this shirt, at the least.”

Will nodded again.

There was a brief silence where it seemed like the conversation was over, and Steve turned back to his car, but then Will spoke again.

“You should call Dustin. He was really worried. We all were, but,” Will shrugged, “him especially. He talks about you a lot.”

Steve wondered briefly how much either of them would remember of this conversation in the morning.

“Sure, kid. I’ll call him.”

Will nodded for a final time, apparently finally satisfied, and walked quietly back into the house.

Steve stood for a moment and considered the strange interaction. Then, ready to head back home, turned at last to his car. His ribs still ached, his eye was still almost sealed shut with the bruising and his depth perception was shot, but his chest felt just the slightest bit lighter.

Maybe they didn’t always talk about what happened after things like Starcourt. But, they didn’t always need to. What they’d been through, it tied them together. That meant something, surely.

For the moment, at the very least, it meant something under the dim streetlights as he drove back to his house.