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It’s late by the time the Beemer’s headlights pull into the driveway of the Harrington house, which has been considered their base for the last three weeks, give or take. So late that most people are sleeping, save Nancy, of course. She and Jonathan are posted up in the living room–one keeping near constant vigil over the front door, shotgun in view on the entry table in case of an emergency, the other drifting in and out of consciousness.
Time has become a bit of a vortex since Hawkins split down the middle, but night and day are still easy enough to tell apart, even if the continued emergence of the Upside Down has started to blur those aspects of time as well. Most everyone else is piled up in the basement, a collection of pillows and blankets gathered from various rooms in the house and strewn out in a makeshift fort, or something like it. Nancy isn’t sure she’d categorize anything around her as normal , per se, especially not Jonathan. Especially not she-and-Jonathan. But compared to the past few months…yeah, things have found a steadier rhythm and at least the kids were laughing when they went to bed. It’s hard to ask for anything more when you’re not really promised much at all.
But when Steve re-enters the house from his and Hopper’s latest round of patrol, covered in blood, Nancy’s stomach drops, and her heart just about stops beating—understandably so—and she finds herself asking. Asking for more, asking for anything, anything , but what she’s afraid she sees.
Nancy is up off the couch and at his side faster than her feet can carry her.
“What the hell happened?”
The words come out thick and raspy; she might not have been asleep, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t tired .
“I’m okay,” he says. “Hop’s fine too—he’s cleaning the guns in the garage.”
She thinks she sees his eyes dart over toward Jonathan but pays it no mind. He hasn’t moved in the past two hours and doubts he’ll change that now. Doubts very much he’d do anything at all (of significance, at least) if a goddamn Demogorgan threw itself through the window and started tapdancing behind him. This, she’s come to realize, is Jonathan’s new normal, and the rhythm they’ve found is coexistence without argument. But it’s little more than that, and Nancy doesn’t have the energy to apply much more thought to the matter. She’s honestly not sure if they’re still dating, or taking a break, or if maybe they actually broke up when he opted not to visit her for spring break and they just haven’t talked about it yet. Ironically, every time they have more than five minutes alone, Jonathan seems to be stoned out of his mind. Funny coincidence.
The only reason Nancy cares at all is because it prolongs the inevitable and has left her in a place of perpetual limbo. She cares a little more when she and Steve are in a room together and she feels herself gravitate toward him like there’s some magnetic field of energy keeping her in his orbit. She has to work to keep her hands to herself; to stop the urge to seek him out in any and every way.
“You look like hell,” she whispers when she reaches Steve’s side.
Nancy’s nimble fingers find their way to his jaw first. She takes hold of his chin and angles his face to the left so she can get a better view of the cut along his forehead which is dripping a continuous stream of blood down over his temple, matting his hair. She presses her thumb to it gently and winces when Steve sucks in a sharp breath. “Sorry,” she adds with an apologetic look.
She applies a little pressure and tries not to think of the flip her stomach does as he winces again. It’s only a half second until his brow starts to relax and something akin to relief settles over his features.
“Feel a little better?” He nods and clears his throat, croaking out a hollow yeah , his lips turning up in a tight grin. “I saw some butterfly Band-Aids in your parent’s bathroom yesterday; we should clean the cut first though. What happened?”
“Oh, you know,” he says. “They’re getting smarter—the Demodogs. I’d say they have to be close to full-grown. Almost able to stand on two feet now. They’re like raptors; talk to each other. Two of them flanked us while we were refilling the gas tank. Probably would have gotten us too but Hop, he, uh—lit one of ‘em on fire.”
“Hive mind.”
They say it at the same time, and by the look they share, they both know that means they’re probably in for a trip the next time they come face-to-face with any of the creatures from the Upside Down.
Hurt one; hurt the pack. Their two opposing parties aren’t so different in that way, Nancy thinks as she slides her thumb down to the lowest half of the cut, right at Steve’s temple, and applies a little more pressure. She lets her whole hand cradle his head, happy she can at least offer him this much
“How’d you get this, then?”
Steve’s eyes soften and he gives her a look she can’t quite decipher.
“Not how you might think. Turned too fast when one of them snuck up on us and slipped on some gasoline, cracked my head on the open trunk.”
She grimaces and bites back a small smile. “Smooth, Harrington. I see you’ve managed to maintain every ounce of that classic charm in these end-days…”
When Nancy removes her hand, Steve tries to raise his own arm to apply the same pressure to the wound but is cut short when a burst of searing pain consumes him. It feels like a hot, jagged knife is being wedged into his bicep, and when he lowers his arm again, it’s like the knife is being twisted.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, self-deprecating. Nancy’s face contorts in anguish as she watches him swallow back the pain. “Pretty sure one clawed a softball-sized chunk out of my arm before I could process what was happening.”
Her hands immediately rove over Steve’s body, pushing open his jacket.
“You’re caked in blood.”
She looks up to meet his gaze and what she sees terrifies her. He’s looking at her so softly— too softly—that for a second she fears there are some other, deeper wounds he’s yet to disclose and he’s trying to warn her, trying to let her down easy… She briefly remembers something he’d said to her a few days back when he and Robin were headed for a food run. He’d pulled her in for a quick hug, nothing scandalous, nothing leading. You just looked a little touch-starved, he’d said honestly. I just keep thinking any one of these days could be the end.. . She’d known he wanted to say more. She’d wanted him to say more, had wanted to add something herself—admit that he was right. That she'd never been surrounded by more people and yet, somehow, had also never felt more alone.
“Steve,” she pleads now. “Where else are you hurting?”
“I don’t think all of it is mine,” he says through gritted teeth, gesturing to his front which is, admittedly, soaked.
Nancy hears a rustling from the living room and a few seconds later she can feel Jonathan’s burning gaze from the couch where he’s been half-asleep for the duration of their exchange, eyes red-rimmed and lids heavy. She can’t find it within herself to care what he thinks or how he interprets what’s going on—which is something she will process later when life and death are no longer playing tug-of-war over Steve Harrington.
“You were never supposed to get tied up in all of this,” she finds herself saying as she eyes him, starting from his ankles, which are thankfully still holding him up, then skirting over his legs—thighs—hips—she feels herself flush with a level of familiarity she’d like to spend more time on.
“Wasn’t ever gonna let you go at it alone,” he says.
They both know she wasn’t ever truly alone.
They also both know the only times she’s ever truly had backup are when he’s been at her side.
More thoughts for them to unpack in the future, the same ones they might not be given.
Her hands are on him again, moving him gently this way and that so she can try to make sense of what’s Steve and what’s other . She lifts the hem of his shirt without hesitation so she can set her eyes on the stitches she’s certain have reopened. Her lips purse in that focused way Steve’s become familiar with as she inspects his previous wounds with ardent care and checks for new additions. When Nancy finds what she’s looking for, a strangled half-groan, half-whimper leaves her throat. The shirt is tacky from both directions—he is bleeding, and the stitches will have to be redone, but she can also tell there’s something else mixed in.
“God,” she groans, voice breaking a bit as her hands come away red and sticky. “You idiot . I’m never letting you leave my sight again.”
There is zero animosity in her words and as a muffled groan sounds from the next room, Steve at least has the decency to flush.
He lowers his voice and catches her eye. Wouldn’t if I didn’t have to. It’s sickening how much goes unsaid between them.
Nancy steps back a foot or so and takes all of him in at length, which is when she sees what he means. It’s not all his; the blood. A vast majority of what covers him is thicker, inkier than anything human.
“Can you lift your arm at all?”
Steve tries, but it’s wasted. He takes in a sharp breath the second his elbow attempts to go higher than the waistline of his Levi’s and a garbled string of expletives leaves his lips.
“Shit,” he says once the pain dissipates enough for him to open his eyes.
She offers no justification or explanation as she slides her hands up around Steve’s collar and pulls the leather jacket from his back, hanging it on the nearby banister. She instructs Steve to turn, her hands never lifting from his skin as she maneuvers him so she can offer the same inspection to his back before settling in on what she knows needs tending-to. When he’s facing her again, their eyes meet. His cheeks look gaunt in a way she hasn’t seen before and she hopes it’s just his five-o-clock shadow playing tricks on her in the dark, haziness of the overhead flood lights and not an indication of how much blood he’s lost between the gas station and here.
His sweater has two gaping holes—teeth or claw marks, no doubt—and so, in a moment of haste, fueled by a resurgence of the fear she’d felt at the sight of him as he stumbled through the door and the more pressing, persistent reminder there was a chance he might not have come through at all, Nancy does something a little risky. She takes the hem of his tattered shirt in her hands, catches his gaze, then adjusts her hold on the fabric and pulls, letting it rip up to the collar.
A swatch of his chest is exposed, thick hair matted down with blood and sweat. She maintains eye contact as her fingers find the thick material of his collar and she pulls again, face scrunching up under the effort to rid him of the offending article until finally it snaps and his shirt is gaping wide, bearing his full front for her inspection.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Steve says. He gives her a pleading look that’s laced with sympathy. He doesn’t move after he says it, just looks at her, tired.
“Yes, it is. Come on,” she says, swallowing hard. “You need to sit down.”
She ushers him into the kitchen where she turns on the faucet and wets a washcloth then drags a chair over so he can sit beside the sink.
She tries first to stop the bleeding from the wound on his arm. Nancy stands at his side, holding the expanse of his bicep in both her small hands, a kitchen towel turning a deep shade of red as she applies all the pressure she can muster until finally Hopper makes his way in through the garage and finds them.
“Jesus,” he says, coming over to take Nancy’s place and squeezing. “Christ, kid. You told me they missed.”
Nancy whips around from where she’s standing at the sink, wetting a cloth. Her eyes widen involuntarily. “What the hell? You didn’t tell Hopper?”
“I’m fine, really—what’s one more scar? It’s not like they bit me. No chance of rabies—the bats were way worse.”
“You can still get rabies from a scratch, kid,” Hopper grits through his teeth. “Jesus Christ.”
“You could have bled out,” Nancy adds.
Steve doesn’t have the wherewithal to counter her. It’s true. He knew a good majority of the blood covering him had come from the handful of swings he’d taken at the Demodogs but he’d also felt the onset of pain in his arm, and abdomen, for that matter, when the adrenaline had started to wane on the ride home.
“Is anyone else awake?” Hopper asks. “We need to get this cleaned and stitched.”Hop leans around so he can peer down the back of the house where the living room is in full view. “Is that Byers?”
There’s hardly time to respond before another low growl rumbles up from Hopper’s chest and he swings his head back to face them.
“Never mind, not worth asking. Wheeler, I take it I don’t have to worry about you having a weak stomach?”
Steve rolls his head around to look at Hopper and it makes Nancy’s heart sink again to see the amount of effort it seems to take for him to do so.
“Fort Knox, this one,” he says. Hop gives him a grim-faced nod and tells Nancy to find a wooden spoon then they move Steve to lay out across the kitchen table.
They spend the next hour working over Steve’s wounds until all three of them are equally bloody, but in the end, he’s patched up and some color has begun to reenter his cheeks.
Hopper looks down at his hands and then up to Nancy. “You got him from here, Wheeler?”
She wets a washcloth at the sink then comes back to lean over Steve who is now seated atop the kitchen table, legs dangling over the side. She presses the cloth to his forehead and nods at Hopper.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” she says.
“I’m gonna go wash off and get some sleep then. You two should do the same.”
When they’re alone again, the house feels quieter than it has all night.
Nancy catches Steve’s eye. “Do you want me to help you up to your room?”
Steve looks down at his body, still caked in blood. “I know this sounds stupid, end of the world and all, but I’m not sure I want to lay in a bed covered in dirt and grime.”
She bites her lip. Steve doesn’t miss the slight glance she throws toward the living room either.
“Come on then,” she says a beat later, offering him her support. “Let’s get you cleaned up.’
She pulls his good arm over her shoulder and helps him up the stairs, then they head down the hall to his parent's room where there’s an ensuite. Nancy closes the door quietly, careful not to wake Robin and Joyce—possibly Hopper now, too—who are sleeping in the rooms just down the hall. The glow of the bathroom light is warmer, the pink tiles providing a level of comfort the cold kitchen tiles hadn’t.
Steve catches his reflection in the mirror and grimaces. Nancy knows immediately what he’s thinking
“It wouldn’t be the first time…” She trails off, less confident in the truth of her words once they hit the open air.
“I’m not asking you to do that,” Steve says, face fully flushed now. He hobbled over to a pink chiffon stool at his mother’s vanity and eases himself onto it. “Besides, as nice as a hot shower sounds—" He catches Nancy’s eye and the pause wasn’t intentional but it’s there and it’s thick, heavy, and palpable. He clears his throat, swallows, and then swallows again when he can still feel his heart beating in his throat. “Company or none,” he pushes on, “probably not a good call to get the bandages wet.”
“Well, I can still help you get most of the blood off.
Nancy runs a hot tub of water and helps Steve sit along the edge, slipping his feet into the pool. They don’t talk about the fact that he’s stripped down to his briefs, or the fact that Nancy slips her own skirt off so she can place her feet in the water beside his for better access. They should talk about all of it—probably shouldn’t be doing any of it at all—but they don’t.
She uses a washcloth to soak up water and slowly, carefully uses it to ease the grime from his sun-kissed skin until he’s warm and pliable beneath her touch. He’s right though, and his midsection proves challenging. Nancy has to lift his injured arm for him; she rests his palm on her shoulder ever so gently so she can clean his ribs. For the most part, Steve is exactly how she remembers him. Except for the chest hair. That’s new…and it builds a warm pool in the pit of her belly to think about the fact that it’s a visible, visceral indication of the fact that he’s not a boy anymore. And she…she’s not that same girl either.
Her heart beats a little faster when she realizes she’s close enough that she could kiss the place over his heart if she wanted; could feel his skin beneath her lips or learn firsthand what it feels like to press her chest against his
And she does, want to that is.
She keeps herself from leaning into the satisfaction of it, but it takes every single ounce of willpower she can muster and then some.
“I think that's it,” she says, voice a little shaky, as she wrings out the washcloth and pulls the plug on the tub, letting the murky water rush down the drain. “Like new.”
When she sits back up fully, she catches him staring at his reflection across the room. He rakes the hand attached to his good arm through his hair and it hits her. Of course, how could she not have thought…
“Here,” she says quietly. “Let me wash it for you.”
It’s a new kind of intimacy neither of them expected. Nancy drags the stool over from the vanity and places it next to the sink, then helps Steve ease himself down and back, a towel wedged between his neck and the counter.
Nancy runs the water until it’s warm then starts running her hands over his hair, pooling little handfuls of water and guiding them along his hairline. The warmth of the water combined with the gentle ministrations of her fingers over his temple sends cold chills over Steve’s body, but he’s still completely bare to her, save his briefs. There’s nothing to hide behind so he just lets it go—lets her see him for what he is. He’s got nothing to hide anyway. Not from Nancy.
When she leaves for a second, his heart gets lodged in his throat. She doesn’t say where she’s going or if she’ll be back, but then a few seconds later, Steve hears the subtle groan of the hinges as she opens and closes the bedroom door again. She walks back into view with two bottles.
“Wheat Germ Oil and Honey,” she says with a smile. She fills the palm of her hand and forms a lather before working it into his hair, then adds, “I’ve missed this smell.
It’s the closest they come to acknowledging anything going on between them but for the time being, it feels like enough.
Once every inch of him is clean, at least the parts Nancy could reach, Steve makes his way out to the bedroom to find clean clothes while Nancy takes a turn getting clean. The steady percussion of water against tile jumps around inside Steve to the point where he is absolutely certain it’s tattooed itself along the inside of his chest by the time the faucet is cut off. He’s sitting along the edge of his parent's bed in one of his dad’s old shirts and has a pile of clothes sitting beside him so Nancy can take her choice.
Steve might have been close to death tonight—might not have been, who really knows for sure. There was a lot of blood, but it wasn’t all his, and Nancy does a mean job of stitching him up, but she doesn’t have any formal training in the medical field. All that said, he knows he nearly dies when she comes out of the bathroom wrapped in a baby blue towel, hair wet and dripping over her shoulder.
“How are you feeling?”
He swallows hard and nods, passing his good hand over his hair which is starting to dry.
“Better thanks to you,” he says. He forces himself to focus on the window across the way, the moon on the other side, and he can’t help but think of the parallel between this moment and the first time they found themselves in this position. “Here,” he says, quickly offering the stack of clothes before averting his gaze again. “Dianne special,” he deadpans. “Just try not to think about the fact that they’re my mom’s. You can go down to my room—get anything you want. I’m just still a little lightheaded. Didn’t want to fall halfway down the hallway.”
“This is fine, Steve,” she says. “Thank you.”
She disappears for a moment and then comes back out in a long t-shirt and spandex shorts.
“Ugh, you look like my mom,” he deadpans. She laughs and lays down across the bed, angling her body so she’s laying on her side looking up at him.
“I always thought your mom was beautiful. Too good for your dad, no offense.”
“None taken.” Steve pulls himself up until he’s sitting against the headboard. “That’s probably the only two things you two had in common—beautiful and too good for the Harringtons.” He looks over at her wistfully then flashes an apologetic grin. “Sorry.”
“Don’t,” Nancy says. She fiddles with her nails before laying back to stare at the ceiling. “You scared me tonight.”
There’s a moment when Steve thinks she’ll go on, but it never quite rounds itself out. Eventually, Nancy turns to face him again and he has to decide if he wants to open that can of worms again or if this is the kind of thing you leave at good-enough.
“Nance, look…” He trails off, and chews the inside of his mouth as he tries to decide what comes next. In the end, he settles for putting the ball in her court. After all, she’s seen his entire deck—knows the cards he’s holding. “I’ll be fine up here; you can go back down to Jonathan. If you want.”
Nancy studies him for a moment then sits up and comes to join him against the headboard.
“Is that what you want? Would—would you like me to leave?”
He doesn’t know why he’s noticing it now, but they never bothered to turn on any of the lamps in the bedroom. The only light comes from the adjoining bathroom and the moon pouring in from the window across the room.
In truth, he does know why it catches his attention.
He can barely make out the freckles that cover her cheeks and finds himself wishing desperately he could reach out to touch them, push the wet hair out of her face and taste her again. All of her.
“I’ll never want that, Nance,” he says.
If they weren’t before, they are now; all his cards are on the table.
“Okay then,” she says. She settles down beside him and rests her head in his lap, trails her fingers over the bandage at his waist, and Steve…Steve lets himself bury his hand in her hair, lets himself run his fingers over her scalp until soft moans emit and eventually turn into gentle sounds of sleep.
It’s the best night of sleep either of them gets and when the sun rises the next morning, Nancy lets herself want for more. Finally lets herself think about tomorrow.