Chapter Text
As soon as Steve steps out of the car door, his knees buckle.
Quite honestly, it's a miracle that he'd been able to get the kids home at all. His vision doubles and blurs around the edges, and he thinks that one more well-placed punch to the stomach would send him heaving in the bushes. His stomach churns. Scratch that; he doesn't need that punch after all.
He can't make it to the bushes, so he settles for heaving onto the Byers' gravel driveway. It's not as comfortable as the grass would've been, but whatever.
"Steve!"
His head pounds. He blinks and Dustin is standing over him, pulling him to his feet. Someone else is on his other side. Lucas, he thinks, but Steve can't turn his head enough to see. God, his face hurts.
"Are you okay?" Dustin asks him, mercifully quieter this time.
"Of course he's not okay," Max answers for him as she trails behind. "My asshole stepbrother gave him a concussion."
The ground sways beneath his feet as they walk. It feels like he's on a rocking boat. The thought makes him laugh a little, but his ribs ache with the effort, so he quiets. Dustin tightens his hold on Steve's arm. "Shit. Does he need a hospital?"
"No," he grunts out, and the kids turn to look at him. Good. They're finally listening.
"You've almost passed out, like, three times," Lucas points out. "If you would just let us—"
Steve shakes his head, or tries to. He's not sure if it works. "No. No more. We're gonna sit in here and wait until the adults come back. I promised Nance—"
His breath hitches and his head spikes with pain. His foot catches on one of the steps leading up to the porch, but the kids secure his shoulders before he can go face-planting into the ground.
Before he knows what's happening, he's resting on the couch inside, peeling his heavy eyelids open to see Joyce Byers looking back at him. "Sorry," he murmurs, trying to push his body off the couch, but his limbs feel like they're made of lead.
Joyce's gentle hand on his chest sends him leaning back into the cushions anyway. "No, stay where you are. You're concussed, Steve."
"Yeah," he replies, because he could've told her that.
Joyce wipes at his face with a cool cloth, and Steve tries to ignore how much it stings. A small hiss escapes his lips and Joyce winces in sympathy, but she doesn't stop. "You know, the kids told me what you did. That was very brave."
He doesn't feel very brave. In fact, Steve feels like he's ready to dissolve into tears, but he doesn't. "Was nothing," he mumbles, and Joyce huffs a little, like she doesn't believe him.
"I asked Hopper to check you out earlier," she continues. Steve frowns; he doesn't remember any interaction with Hopper. "You don't need a hospital, but we'll need to wake you up every few hours to ask you some questions to—"
"Make sure I don't have brain damage?"
Joyce smiles softly. "Yeah. You're a pro at this, huh?"
Steve would've laughed if he could, but his chest burns with the effort of simply breathing, so he doesn't. "Yeah," he says instead, and leaves it at that.
"Well, you're good for now," Joyce says, standing up from her position where she'd been kneeling beside the couch. "I'll let you get some rest and we'll talk in the morning."
Steve's not sure what's wrong, but he's got the gnawing feeling that something is. "Wait," he says to Joyce, who pauses in the doorway. "Is everyone okay?"
Her eyes pool with tears, and for a moment, Steve feels his heart drop. Shit. "The kids are all safe," she begins, her voice more shaky than before. "Bob was the only one we lost."
Steve has a vague memory of the man Joyce had been with, but nothing concrete. He remembers the kids talking about it earlier, but his memories are all a little blurry at the moment. Despite this, the loss obviously means something to her, so he apologizes anyway. Joyce only gives him a terse nod and tight smile before retreating into the hallway bedrooms, where he's certain the kids are having some weird, monster-induced joint sleepover.
His fingers curl around his nail bat that rests by the couch. Dustin must've gotten it out of the car for him. Closing his eyes to hopefully alleviate some of his headache, Steve tumbles into a fitful sleep.
By the time he returns to school on Wednesday, everyone has heard about how Billy Hargrove bashed his face in.
Steve skipped Tuesday, and he's starting to wish he'd skipped Wednesday, too. The only reason he came to school at all was because he couldn't stand another day in his empty house, jumping at shadows. He thought school would at least be better than that.
He's wrong.
Still, it isn't totally a lost cause. At least he could tell everyone what happened. I got beat up by a psycho looking for his sister is embarrassing, for sure, but not classified government information. He's luckier than Mike Wheeler, who has to explain his sprained ankle from the tunnels as the result of an unfortunate biking accident.
First period hasn't even started yet, and people are already whispering behind his back. With his messed up face and Billy's bruised knuckles, the evidence is impossible to deny.
He's King Steve no longer.
Steve endures his morning classes, but only barely. He feels nausea climb up his throat every time he looks at the bright lights for too long. The only positive is that Billy is avoiding him now, besides all the rumor spreading. No more shoves into lockers or taunts in the hallway. It's not much, but it's one less thing to worry about.
The cafeteria is a swarm of people and noises and colors, and Steve almost vomits when he walks in. He fights the strong urge to turn back through the doors and hide out in the bathroom or something. Yeah, maybe that would be better.
"Hey." Nancy is at his side in an instant. Steve startles a little, but relaxes when he sees her familiar expression. "Come sit with us."
He wonders if Nancy has forgotten they've broken up. But it's not like he has anywhere else to sit, so he follows her to a table where Jonathan is waiting. He doesn't even want to think about what this must look like to the rest of the student body. Steve Harrington, hanging around with his ex and her new boyfriend like a parasite because he has nobody else who will tolerate him.
"How are you?" Nancy asks as she picks at her lunch.
It takes Steve a moment to realize she's talking to him. "Fine."
"Steve—"
"I'm fine, Nance."
She and Jonathan exchange a look that he can't decipher, but he doesn't care to. He pushes around the school meatloaf on his plate, but it looks more unappealing every time he glances at it. The now familiar feeling of nausea churns in his stomach and he pushes his plate away.
"I never got to thank you," Nancy says abruptly. "For protecting the kids that night. They said you were a hero. Mike can't stop talking about it."
Steve huffs a disbelieving laugh. "He's never liked me. I highly doubt he's entering his hero worship phase now."
She shrugs. "Alright, so it's a bit of an exaggeration," she concedes. "But my point still stands. Thank you."
And what is he supposed to say to that? It's no problem? Because he's got a concussion and a face full of bruises to suggest otherwise. But Nancy is still looking at him expectantly, so he just smiles wryly and says, "Like I said. Damn good babysitter."
She laughs and the knot in his chest loosens. They make small talk for the rest of the period, but it's stilted and awkward. He's almost relieved when the bell rings and he can go back to class and pretend like his life isn't what it is.
Nancy catches him on his way out of the cafeteria. "Hey," she says gently as they walk together. Steve stops at his locker and Nancy stops with him. This must be important if she's willing to risk being late. "I'm sorry if that was awkward. I didn't mean—"
"Nancy," he says, before he can talk himself out of it. His locker is still hanging open, ignored. "Whatever you're doing, inviting me to eat lunch with you, stop. Just stop, okay? I just need some space."
He shuts his locker door a little too loudly, a stack of books in his arms.
A flicker of hurt crosses her features, but it's gone as soon as it comes. Nancy nods. "Okay. I'm sorry." He's about to walk away when she speaks up again. "But you're not alone, Steve. Please try to find someone to talk to, even if it's not me, okay?"
He's tired. He's tired and his head hurts and all he wants is to burrow under his covers and take a nice, week long nap. Or maybe that's called a coma. So he just looks back at her and says, "Sure, Nance," and continues his walk to class.
Steve's house is predictably empty when he returns home.
The air is stale and slightly cold and if he closes his eyes, he can pretend he's back in those tunnels. He blinks and his house is enshrouded in squelching vines. Particles that look like dust float through the air, and the scent is pure poison, clogging his airways—
The image is gone. His house is fine. He's fine.
His reliable nail bat is still propped against the couch where he left it last night. Steve's been sleeping on the couch these days, but it's just because it's easier than climbing the stairs. Not because he wants to have a clearer view of the front door in case something enters his house. Not because he wants to be closer to the phone in case it rings. Not because his bed still reminds him of Nancy.
He sets his bag down and it hits the ground with a thump. The couch is plush when he sinks into it, and he has the urge to let sleep consume him here and now. He doesn't, though. Something else catches his eye.
A pile of blank college application forms is scattered across his coffee table.
"Shit," Steve says aloud, thrown off by the mere sight. He must've been working on them before everything went down last weekend. It can't have been more than a few days ago, but it feels like an eternity now. Like he's a whole different person.
He's not a different person, though. He's not any more equipped to write those essays than he was five days ago. He's still not getting into college.
Hell, he'd be lucky to even get a position working for his dad after graduation. What has he done with his life, really? Besides scoring mediocre grades and being dumped by Nancy, his list of accomplishments is nonexistent.
(Fighting interdimensional monsters doesn't sound very believable on college application essays. But even if it did, he's signed enough NDAs that mentioning it would land him in jail before he ever got to college.)
So he collects the pile of painfully blank papers and shoves them into one of the drawers of the coffee table. He'll look at them later. Instead, he wanders around his house, legs moving of their own accord. He doesn't register where he's going until he's in the kitchen, standing in front of his father's enticingly full liquor cabinet.
Steve's father has a wide variety of alcohol that he likes to serve to guests, and occasionally indulge in, but he's never been much for drinking regularly. His father believes that drinking impairs judgment and that anyone who overindulges in the vice must not care about their physical or intellectual well-being.
To have intellectual well-being, one must have intellect, so Steve's fine there. But he does have a concussion, which means he shouldn't drink. He can, but he shouldn't.
So he walks away. Collapses onto the couch again. Tries to feel better about himself because he didn't open his dad's liquor and get drunk at the first sign of inconvenience.
It doesn't really work. He knows the only thing stopping him from downing his dad's expensive bottle of whiskey is the current state of his head, not any willpower or strength on his part.
(Still. He likes to think Nancy would've been proud.)
All of this thinking has made him tired. His head spikes with pain again so he swallows a couple of painkillers (which he has no qualms about, unlike the liquor) and settles onto the couch for a nap. It's early, but not too early to fall asleep. The sun is already sinking low into the horizon, painting the sky with an inky darkness.
The throbbing in his head quieting into a gentle ache, and his fingers just inches away from his bat, Steve rests.