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It had been almost a month.
One month since Dustin’s mom died, one month since he’d moved in with Steve.
After the earthquake, Steve’s parents had temporarily moved into their vacation condo in the Bahamas, so they had the place all to themselves.
Steve’s house was fucking huge. To navigate it was a nightmare, especially when it was the middle of the night and Dustin couldn’t sleep.
Some nights, he was okay. Others, he woke up sobbing. He’d sob until he couldn’t breathe, until he thought he was going to throw up.
This was one of those nights.
The nightmares, images of his dead mother, of Eddie–He couldn’t handle it, couldn’t handle knowing it was his fault.
You could’ve stopped it. If only you were more brave. If only you weren’t a fucking coward.
“Henderson?” Steve’s voice came from the doorway. He was rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one hand, fixing his disheveled hair with the other.
“I’m fine.” He sniffled. “Just a nightmare.” His voice broke on the last word, so that it turned into more of a whisper than anything else.
“Bullshit,” Steve muttered, taking a seat near the edge of Dustin’s bed. “Look at me,” he said gently. “You’re okay. You’re in Hawkins, in my parent’s house. And it wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
Dustin stilled. “How did you–”
“Hey, you’ve been waking up screaming every other night, so I’ve sort of started to catch on to what’s going on with you.” Steve’s gaze was probably the most serious he’d ever seen it. “It wasn’t your fault. I want you to say that. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’ Go on. Say it.”
“It was- wasn’t my fault.” Dustin’s breath hitched partway through the sentence.
“Hey, no more crying. You’ll get all wound up and you won’t be able to calm down.”
He managed to nod, repeating the phrase in his head like a mantra.
It wasn’t your fault it wasn’t your fault it wasn’t your faultitwasntyourfaultitw–
Dustin glanced at the clock. 3:39 AM.
“God, it’s so late–” tears started to form again “–and you have to work tomorrow, I’m so sorry, I–”
Steve waved his hand dismissively. “It’s okay, it’s fine, I still have time to catch some sleep. You should too, if you can.”
Then Steve did something he’d never done before.
He pulled Dustin into a hug.
“It’s all going to be okay, you hear me?”
Dustin nodded, and managed a small smile as Steve quietly shut the door behind him.
He lay back in bed and closed his eyes.
It wasn’t your fault.
~*~
Over time, they fall into a sort of rhythm.
Co-existing, sharing a space, it becomes like second nature. They figure out a schedule, they figure out where Dustin can go until Steve’s off work and can pick him up. (The Harrington’s is just too far to bike.)
Their friendship, their brotherly bond, it becomes stronger. They become more like actual brothers.
And, yeah, they still have their demons, but together, they thrive.
That is, until everything fell apart.
It was a normal day, mostly. Dustin had gone to school, slept through a few classes, asked way too many questions in Chemistry, and gone home with the Byers after school. (They’d moved back to Hawkins after it all. Joyce and Hopper couldn’t be separated, not even by a force of nature.)
Steve came at the half hour mark after five to pick Dustin up, said hi and thanked the Byers for having Dustin, and then they left.
“How was your day?” Steve asked as they got into the car. He always asked that, always made sure Dustin was doing okay.
“It was good; It was pizza day so lunch wasn’t entirely shitty, and in science I exploded something, and at the Byers, Will showed me his new painting, so overall I’d say it was a pretty good day.”
“You exploded something?” Steve’s eyebrows were raised. “You know, you’re quite possibly the dumbest smart person I know.”
“Well you’re the dumbest cool person I know.”
“I’m taking that as a compliment.”
“Only you would take that as a compliment when it’s obviously–” Dustin stopped short when Steve scrunched up his face in pain and slung his arm around his stomach. “Are you okay?” He asked quietly, voice hardly a whisper.
Steve’s wounds from the bats had taken a while to heal, and they’d even gotten infected once. That had been a terrible twenty-four hours for Steve and Dustin. He’d woken up to Steve puking up his guts with a fever of 101 and his wounds oozing all sorts of gross liquids. It was quite possibly the worst night of both of their lives.
Since then, Steve hadn’t had any more issues, and his wounds had mostly healed. At least, Dustin thought they had.
“I’m fine.” Steve glanced at Dustin. “There’s nothing to worry about, it’s just a stomach ache, not where the bats attacked me. Trust me, Robin’s already lost her shit over it and made me swear like ten times that it’s just a stomach ache.”
“Okay.” Dustin hesitated. “That reminds me, did you remember to get Friday the 13th?”
“Oh, shit,” Steve muttered in response. “Why do you want to watch that anyway?”
“It’s October, Steve. We have to watch every horror movie ever made before Halloween.” Dustin opened his mouth to continue making his point, but he noticed the hand Steve had cradling his stomach and regretted his words instantly. “Or you know what, we can just watch it later. We don’t have to go today.”
“No, we can go get your movie. We’re like five minutes away anyway, so…”
“Okay.”
“He’s full of shit,” Robin said to Dustin as they both watched Steve look through the movies for Friday the 13th.
The drive had, in fact, not been five minutes, it was more like twenty. And in those twenty minutes, Steve had gone pale and green.
“You know, earlier,” Robin began, “He genuinely almost threw up on a customer. Of course, he denied it after but I swear to God, he was standing there, helping a customer, and his whole face went green and I swear I thought he was going to reenact the Exorcist–”
Dustin realized that suddenly it was hard to breathe.
What if his wounds really were infected again? What if Steve died?
He couldn’t handle that, he couldn’t lose anyone else. Not Steve. Especially not Steve.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry I’m not trying to stress you out,” he heard Robin say faintly.
Hey,” she put a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll be okay, he just needs to actually admit he’s sick so we can help him.”
“Yeah, I know, I just… I was worried that his wounds…” Dustin trailed off.
“I really don’t think it’s that. He’s mostly healed by now, you know that. Plus those antibiotics the doctors gave him should prevent any more infections.”
“I know but–” He glanced over at Steve, who had gotten distracted by some other movie, and, lowering his voice, said, “What if it’s something from the Upside Down? Like those demobats infected him with something else or, I don’t know… Remember how El had that thing in her leg? What if it’s like that?”
“Yeah but the Mind Flayer was different than the demobats. The Mind Flayer could like, put things in people, remember? And the bats didn’t do that.”
“As far as we know the bats didn’t–”
The sound of Steve slamming down the movie case on the counter made Dustin jump. “We’ll take this and also this one.” He put another movie on top of Friday the 13th.
“Fast Times? Again?” Robin asked, rolling her eyes as she took the money Steve held out.
“You know I’m only renting it for our weekly movie night,” he replied with a teasing smile. “How’s Vickie, by the way?”
Robin shoved the movies into Steve’s hands. “It’s none of your business and you can leave now, dingus.”
Steve was laughing all the way out the door, apparently very amused with a joke that Dustin didn’t really get.
“Are Robin and Vickie friends now?” He asked as they got back in the car.
Steve’s expression clearly read, “Oh shit–”
“Uh…” He paused for a moment. “Something like that.”
By the time they got home, Steve seemed to have developed a fever. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes had glazed over in a dazed sort of way. Not to mention, he was shivering the entire drive.
On the way inside the house, Dustin asked about dinner and Steve went even paler.
“Not sure yet,” he replied, tossing the movies onto the table in the living room. “We have some microwaveable dinners, some frozen pizzas, and a whole bunch of canned shit. Sorry, I meant to go to the store today but it just slipped my mind.”
“It’s okay. I can go preheat the oven for the pizza.”
“Yeah, okay.” Steve let out a heavy breath and leaned against one of the sofa chairs, both arms hugging his stomach.
“Steve–”
“I’m fine,” Steve waved him off, straightening with difficulty.
Unconvinced but not wanting to argue, Dustin trudged to the kitchen.
A little while later, they shared a dinner of frozen pizza and new coke (Steve was a barbarian, apparently).
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Dustin asked after he’d demolished his second slice.
Steve shoved his plate away, hand over his stomach. “Nah, not really hungry. You can have it if you want.”
Dustin stared at it for a minute. He couldn’t really eat any more when he was suddenly so stressed out.
“So, um, I was planning to bike over to Mike’s for a campaign tonight, uh, but it’s raining, and I know you don’t like me biking places when it’s raining… So I know I’ve never driven your car without you in it before, but I was thinking maybe I could drive? But I don’t have to go,” Dustin added quickly. “We can always do the campaign another time.”
“Okay.”
Dustin blinked.
This was not his Steve.
His Steve would’ve offered to drive him and even offer to babysit if needed. He would not have sunk down in his chair with a wince and stare at nothing.
“I can take you,” Steve finally said after a few minutes.
Dustin sat up a little straighter. “Really?”
Steve got up from his chair, groaning. “Yeah, come on, let’s go, buddy.”
As they got in the car, Dustin couldn’t help but feel bad that he was making Steve drive somewhere when he was obviously sick.
At a red light, Steve leaned forward and set his head on the wheel with a groan.
“Are you okay?” Dustin asked tentatively.
“My stomach is killing me,” Steve admitted with an exhale.
“Maybe we should go back home–”
“No, no, no, I said I would drive you to the Wheelers, I’m not going to go back on my word.”
“But Steve–”
The light changed, and Steve managed to straighten.
They made it about half a mile down the road.
“Steve, you really don’t look so good, maybe you should pull over,” he whispered.
“Jesus, why can’t you just believe me when I say I’m fine?” Steve snapped.
Dustin recoiled, startled. “Okay, Steve. I’m sorry. I believe you.”
Steve exhaled. “No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped, it wasn’t cool.”
“It’s okay.”
Steve leaned forward and turned on the radio, but it was just static.
The rest of the car ride was silent.
~*~
Dustin woke to the sound of retching.
Immediately he was sure of two things. It was Steve, and something was wrong.
Untangling himself from his sheets, he slipped out of bed, feet hitting the cold wood floor.
He made his way down the hall to the bathroom, knocking lightly on the door.
“Steve? Are you alright in there?”
Another retch.
“I’m going to come in, okay?”
He pushed the door open to find Steve heaving over the toilet bowl, face pinched in pain. One arm was one the toilet seat holding himself up and the other was around his abdomen.
Steve coughed up a string of bile, wincing as he did so. “Guess I’m the one waking you up at three in the morning now,” he said with a laugh.
He was also shirtless for some reason, so Dustin could see the scars on his stomach. They were red and scabbed over, but definitely almost healed and definitely not infected.
Dustin stared, unsure what to do.
“Do you have a thermometer?” Dustin managed to ask.
“Yeah,” Steve gestured lazily to the cabinet over the sink.
Dustin grabbed it and stuck it in Steve’s mouth. When it beeped, it read 103.
“What is it?” Steve asked, eyes scrunched closed.
“Not good.” Dustin sighed. “Have you taken any medicine?”
“Yeah, about a half hour ago, but I just puked it up.”
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Dustin murmured. “Do you think you’re done puking yet?”
Steve groaned. “Probably not. And don’t mention ‘puke’ please.”
“Is there anything you can take to help calm your stomach?”
“You might have to look in the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom.”
“Okay.”
Thankfully, they did have the medicine. Unfortunately, Steve vomited it up ten minutes later.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Steve groaned. He propped himself up against the wall, clutching his stomach with his free hand.
“My stomach really fucking hurts,” he whispered.
Was Steve crying?
Dustin had never seen Steve cry before.
Steve hadn’t cried when Nancy Wheeler broke his heart. Steve hadn’t cried when Billy beat the shit out of him. He hadn’t cried when the Russians tortured him, or when the demobats ate pounds of his flesh. He hadn’t even cried when those vines almost killed him, or when he found out about Eddie.
Steve had always been the type of person to bounce back no matter the problem, so the fact that he was crying because his stomach hurt terrified Dustin to his very core.
“What do we do?”
Groaning, Steve started to move to get up.
“Steve, what are you doing?”
With a moan of utter misery, he stood. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to drive myself to the emergency room.”
“Steve, no–”
“I’ll be fine, just stay here and try to go back to sleep,” Steve said as he swayed dangerously.
“You can barely stand, let alone drive. I’ll drive you.”
“Henderson–”
“Steve, you’re not fighting me on this.”
Dustin helped him to the car. Steve plopped into the passenger’s seat with a moan.
Dustin got behind the wheel, trying to calm his nerves. “Okay, you’ve got this,” he whispered. “Brake, ignition, drive. Simple as pie.”
Steve laughed from where he sat in the passenger seat, head leaned against the glass while he hugged his stomach. “I’ve never heard someone refer to a situation like this as being ‘simple as pie.’”
“Not helping,” Dustin muttered, turning the car on.
It was half-past three and their world hung tranquilly somewhere in between normality and the Upside Down. It was just the two of them, caught somewhere in this in between, somewhere in the rolling fields and hills of America. For once, it felt suspiciously calm.
For once, it was quiet.
It turned out to be his appendix.
Dustin called Robin in the morning, and she came over in record time.
About two days after Steve’s emergency surgery, looped up on pain medicine and one appendix lighter, he was allowed to go home.
Robin and Dustin decided it was still important to have their once a week movie night, so they bought a bunch of junk from the store and set it all up.
Dustin fell asleep on the couch partway through the movie, and when he awoke later, Robin had gone home.
Steve was awake next to him, and slung an arm over his shoulders. “Thanks, buddy.”
“For what?” He murmured tiredly.
“Everything.”
Tears formed in Dustin’s eyes, because for once he’d done something right. For once he hadn’t messed something up. For once it wasn’t his fault.
“Love you, buddy,” Steve whispered, just quiet enough for Dustin to hear because it was for his ears only, not Vecna or the demons that lived in their heads.
“It’ll all be okay in the end, I promise.”
Dustin wasn’t sure if he agreed, but the lull of sleep blanketed his senses. It was just the two of them, caught somewhere in the In Between of apocalyptic America, and, for once, if only for a moment, Dustin believed him.
For once, it was quiet.
And yeah, they still have their demons. But together?
They thrived.