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“... you selfish, chauvinistic meathead!” Jonathan bursts out, eyes flaring with a look Steve is familiar enough with to label as rage.
Steve recoils, mouth agape, blinking for a few seconds as Jonathan slumps in his seat, looking like the fight has gone out of him. Tired and worn down by life, as he had looked for as long as Steve had cared to look at him.
And Steve gets it. Really, he does. Contrary to popular belief, Steve isn’t entirely stupid. He gets that Jonathan is pissed. They all are.
But that’s just it, though. They all are. Jonathan, and Dustin, and Nance, and the entire fucking world— they’re all pissed at Steve. Sometimes, he feels like the brunt of a cosmic joke. Like someone has put into everyone’s heads that everything is Steve’s fault, like yelling at him is going to solve things.
Like picking on him is going to bring Eddie back.
Like ignoring him is going to erase how he feels about Nancy.
Like arguing with him is going to fix Jonathan’s relationship.
A prolonged honk echoes through the chilly night air, and Steve looks up with a start, met with yet another hateful glare.
He really can’t do this anymore.
“You know what, Byers?” he finally says; can’t help himself anymore. Jonathan sinks further into his seat, looking away from Steve with a long-suffering sigh. The small sound grates at Steve.
He turns the key in the ignition with more force than required, as though it will help calm the restlessness in his fingers. The restlessness that calls for his fingers to curl up into a fist and crack against a jaw. Preferably Jonathan's.
“You’re totally right,” he continues, making an effort to keep his voice steady. “Me worrying about my good friend— my friend— yeah, that makes me the selfish one here.” The word friend doesn’t sit right on his tongue, not when it comes to Nance. But it’s not important.
He can leave it there, right? He can defend himself and end this godforsaken conversation— if that’s even what you can call it. But it tugs at him, suddenly. The reminder that Nance is all alone at the hospital. And he knows. He knows. It’s not his place to, but he knows. That she’s beating herself up, and she’s blaming herself, and she needs someone there.
Jonathan is supposed to know that, isn’t he?
“Or maybe— just maybe—” Steve snaps, “You’re the problem, dude.” He sees Jonathan’s eyes narrow in his periphery.
“’Cause ever since you’ve come back from California, you’ve been acting like a total paranoid, pothead weirdo,” and oh, God, Steve feels like a petty child, but he’s too deep into the trenches to stop now, “And maybe if you stopped focusing on me, and you started focusing on her, maybe then the two of you could finally be happy.”
(It makes him kind of glad that the two of them are not in fact happy, but Jonathan doesn’t need to know that.)
“Because right now, the only one who’s more miserable in that relationship than you is Nance.”
He turns the key in the ignition one last fruitless time, and the engine sputters uselessly. Barely suppressing a groan, Steve falls back against his seat, running a hand through his hair— force of habit.
It shouldn’t matter to him; Nancy. He knows that. For the longest time, he tried to convince himself it didn’t. He ripped his heart out of his chest and gave it in her hand, and she blinked at it before throwing it to the ground and running away from it. Running back to Jonathan.
Steve can’t help but hate the man sitting next to him. For years, it had been because Nancy had chosen him. Steve hadn’t needed any more reason than that to hate him. But now, the silence between them turns into a multitude of reasons, adding to his mental list of Why I Hate Jonathan Byers.
The silence stretches into an ugly ball of waiting. Waiting for Jonathan to give in, mutter that they maybe should go visit Nancy. This stupid van showed no signs of moving any time soon, and the girl in the car had long since lost her patience. They weren’t getting anywhere any time soon.
But Jonathan is quiet. He always is, isn’t he?
Steve chews on his lip for a few seconds, contemplating his next words. “Okay, look. I don't really care what you think of me anymore, Byers. You’ve made it pretty clear that you hate me, and to be honest, I’m fine with that.”
Steve’s gaze snaps to Jonathan, who looks pointedly away from him. Steve rolls his eyes. “But the thing is— this damn van is fried, we can’t get a hold of Hopper, and I don’t have a clue where that little shit Henderson is. What I do know is that Nance needs someone with her at the hospital to- to tell her this isn’t her fault. Because she’s gonna-”
He sighs. “Call me a meathead, call me an asshole, call me… whatever the hell you like. But I’m going, Byers. You can come,” Steve pulls at the handbrake, throwing open the car door and jumping out.
His shoes crunch against the loose gravel as he turns to glance at Jonathan, one hand tight around the door. “Or you can tell yourself we’re gonna find Hopper sitting here all night in this piece of junk. Because newsflash, Byers—” Steve braces his forearm against the doorframe, “We aren’t.”
Slamming the door shut, Steve ignores the way Jonathan winces and glares after him as he strides away, waving off the girl— damn it, he already forgot her name— as she calls out indignantly to him.
It’s the middle of the night, and there’s monsters— and even worse, the military— on the loose, and the hospital is at least a 10-minute walk from here, and he’s alone and he’s cold, but none of that matters.
Steve walks to the hospital.
___
He had waited, truly, for Jonathan to spring out of the van and follow him, his steps slurred the way they’d been since he’d come back from California. He’d walked especially slow, for the first few minutes. To give Jonathan the chance to run after him, a bite in his words as he accused Steve of trying to show off again, of being chauvinistic or whatever the hell he thought Steve was trying to be.
But he hadn’t come out.
He’d sat in the car, moping like he always was these days, and let Steve go to the hospital alone— go to Nancy alone.
Steve is surprised, and he is surprised that he is surprised. But he is also relieved. And he is not surprised that he is relieved. With a disbelieving huff, he picks up pace, and clenches his hands into fists inside his pockets to keep them warm.
He would’ve been okay with Jonathan accompanying him. He knows it would be a bigger comfort to Nancy than him, given that she had been avoiding him like the plague the past year. Her boyfriend being there would be miles better than her clingy ex.
But sometimes you have to adjust to the circumstances. Steve is great at adjusting to the circumstances.
A 10-minute stroll with Jonathan Byers? Totally. He could do that. For Nancy’s sake. In fact, if Jonathan wanted, Steve would have stayed behind. For Nancy’s sake. But as it turned out, Steve would be taking the damned stroll alone.
His feet hit the ground with increasing urgency once he is sure Jonathan won’t be joining him. With a little chatter of his teeth, Steve lets out a shuddering breath and scrounges in his jacket pocket for his second-last Bopper. He pulls a face. It’d been months since he’d had Boppers, and now he’s blown through them in a day.
He bites into it anyway, willing it to give him warmth.
___
Less than 15 minutes later, Steve is wiping his feet off on the large mat outside the hospital, his teeth clattering. His neck jerks as a particularly aggressive shiver wracks his body, and he swears under his breath. Hawkins’ winters had always been terrible, but ever since hell’s asscrack had opened up, a chill no one knew what to make of always hung in the air.
They knew, of course; their merry band of misfits.
Steve pushes the door open and groans in relief as a wave of heat hits him. Rubbing his palms along his upper arms, he takes small steps towards the elevator. The bespectacled receptionist doesn’t even look up. People in this town had stopped caring a long time ago.
Not Steve, though. No matter what he did, he never could seem to stop caring.
His foot taps anxiously against the elevator floor, and his eyes flit between the display and the door. As the doors part with a ding, Steve registers– with a sudden urge to slap himself rising up– that he hadn’t yet thought what he would say to Nance.
Hey, Nance! He pictures. How’s it going? Heard your parents almost died. Yeesh.
He scoffs, the floor squeaking against his feet as he drags them towards the desk. Some help he was gonna be. And– damn it, he’d forgotten to buy flowers too.
With a long exhale, Steve looks up at the ceiling and squeezes his eyes shut. Too late to back out now. His chest puffs with determination as he strides ahead, eyes narrowing on a lithe figure, clad in pink, fluttering agitatedly around the lady at the desk.
He can see, even from a distance, the way the figure’s hands are flying around, desperation and impatience colouring her every move. Despite his nerves, Steve smiles. He can’t help himself.
His throat dries up, her name trying to claw its way out as he stops a few feet away from her. He watches Nancy let out a long breath and cross her arms, turned towards the door. Her foot taps incessantly on the ground, and Steve lets loose a fond exhale.
“Nance?” he calls out softly, voice cracking. He clears his throat. “Nance?”
Nancy’s foot halts as she looks up from the ground and turns slowly in her place. Steve’s eyes meet hers, and he realises distantly, that the front of her clothes is more red than pink– drenched in blood– that there are tear tracks drying on her splotchy face, that her limbs are stiff with worry.
It doesn’t matter. None of it does. Because the very next second, Nancy whispers, “Steve?”
He smiles softly.
___
A shuddering breath pours out of Nancy, yet she remains glued in place. She forces herself to blink, to react, to do anything but stare at Steve like an idiot. To say she hadn’t been expecting to see him here was an understatement. But she should’ve known, shouldn’t she? Steve was here. He always was.
It’s okay. I’m right here.
She finally blinks, and shakes her head to drag herself out of her reverie. Small uncertain steps guide her towards Steve, and her eyes catch on the way his arm lifts in the air, reaching in her direction before it falls back to his side. His chest falls with a little exhale as she comes to stand in front of him.
Too close, a voice whispers.
Not close enough.
“Wh-What are you doing here?” Is she the one asking this question? She better not be. Nancy Wheeler knew better than to waste her time seeking answers she already had.
Steve tilts his head, that small, familiar smile still tugging at his lips.
“I- I, uh-” he looks away, hand rising bashfully to the back of his head. “I thought you could use some company.”
She nods, or at least she thinks she does. All she can focus on is the way the tip of Steve’s nose is red. She used to make fun of it, when they were still together. The way he lit up like a reindeer when it got a little too cold for liking.
She’d kiss his nose. A soft brush of her lips against the tip of it, and she would relish the way his breath hitched before he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, throwing out a cheesy line about how she could help him warm up, and she would playfully roll her eyes before letting him kiss her senseless.
She clears her throat. “Yeah, I, uh- Thanks.”
“Of course.” His eyes remain fixed to hers, and she tries her best to look away. She does. But she can tell he is trying his best not to let his gaze stray to the patches of red on her clothes, and she wants to help him as much as she can.
Maybe if he doesn’t look at them, she can pretend they don’t exist.
It had been months since they’d been alone together. She’d orchestrated the whole thing, of course, not knowing what she would end up saying if she was alone with him. (She hated not knowing.) But it is only now that it strikes her; the way Steve’s very presence tends to calm her heart. He’s barely said a thing, but she doesn’t need him to.
She takes a step closer– unconsciously, she swears– and her head tilts up to look at him better. Steve’s mouth falls open before he shakes his head and takes a step back.
“Yeah, I mean-” he coughs, “Yeah. Of course. I’m here for you, Nance.”
Silence brushes between them for a few seconds before Steve squeezes his eyes shut. “Also, I just- I’m sorry.”
Nancy bobs her head disbelievingly. “Sorry? What for?”
She thinks back to another time when he’d apologised out of nowhere. Another time when she hadn’t for the life of her been able to think why he would ever apologise to her. How he could even find it in himself to.
“Yeah, I- I know we need to find Hopper, and we need to stick to the plan, but the van isn’t working and I really don’t know why, or how to fix it, and I figured I might as well swing by and check up on you, and I-”
She bites back a laugh, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “Steve!”
“Steve,” she says again, emphatically, and her palm almost goes up to rest against his cheek. She clenches it into a fist.
He stutters to a halt.
She smiles softly. “It’s okay. I really- I’m glad you’re here.”
Steve nods imperceptibly, and a small puff of breath escapes him. He braces his palms against his hips and rests his weight on his right leg, surveying Nancy quietly as she blinks away from him, focusing her gaze on the harsh ceiling lights.
She looks back at him after a few seconds, eyebrows drawn tightly together in concern. The red is already fading from his face, she notes distantly.
“How’re they doing?” Steve inquires, his voice ever-soft. Ever-comforting, and he could’ve been asking about her dinner preferences with the way his voice was so casual. He was asking about her parents, though.
Her parents, who were fighting for breath mere feet away.
She sobers up. Crosses her arms as she looks towards the door pensively. “As well as they can be, I guess? I don’t know. This-” her glare shifts to the lady sitting behind the desk, who pretends not to cower. “This woman won’t let us in. Not until they’re out of surgery.”
Steve nods in understanding.
“But they’ll be okay, I think?” Nancy continues, voice suddenly unsure as she looks back at Steve. “Right? They’ll- They’ll be okay.” She doesn’t know if it is a question or a statement, if she is answering Steve or reassuring herself.
Steve nods again, more aggressively, and this time, his hands really do come up to hold her arms. Gently. He was always so gentle.
“Yeah, Nance,” he says, and his voice is so steady. Like there is no room for doubt. She nearly believes him. “They’ll be okay. I know they will.”
She nods, tries to seek comfort in his warm smile, but tears are building up behind her eyes. She squeezes her eyes shut against them, and nods with Steve as he whispers, “Yeah?”
She echoes him softly, determinedly. “Yeah.”
“And…” he says after a silence she feels has stretched into a century, “You? What about you?”
She forces her eyes open, her eyebrows creasing as she looks at Steve again. He is biting the inside of his lip. She drags her gaze back to his eyes.
“What about me?”
“How are you doing, Nance?” His words cut through her like a knife sliding through butter. He sees right through her; always has, and she remembers again why she’d kept herself away from Steve for so long.
Her chest trembles as she thinks. How is she? She is crumpling. She is disintegrating. She is folding into a ball of shock and rage and pain and hate and so much guilt.
My parents almost died, something in her screams, Holly is missing. How am I? How am I?
“I don’t-” she shrugs, smiling forcefully even as a tear drips from her eyes. “I-” her hands fly up, no explanation in sight. She looks away from Steve– or at least she tries. Her eyes snap right back to his, and she seeks an answer to his question in the brown abyss of them.
It is a trick of the light, perhaps, but his eyes are shining too.
“I’m fine, Steve. I’m fine. The demogorgon was already gone when El and I got there-” she settles on what is fact. Fact is all she knows anymore. “It didn’t get us. It didn’t-” she shudders. His hands are around her arms again, running up and down as he pulls her closer. She lets him.
“It didn’t get me, Steve,” she whispers, eyes shut. Her mother flashes across her eyelids– her unmoving figure, writhing in a pool of her own blood, scars littering her fragile body. Her mother was strong. She was so strong. She was the strongest person Nancy knew.
But at that moment, she was just another person Nancy couldn’t protect.
“It got them,” Nancy says finally, her eyes falling open to Steve’s searching ones. And she can’t take it. She can’t take him being here, giving her support and a shoulder to cry on and himself. She doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve him. She doesn’t deserve love. She doesn’t-
“It got them,” she breathes, and it is like the little air left inside of her has escaped. She doesn’t realise when the heels of her palms flatten against her eyes. She doesn’t realise when Steve pulls her into himself with a soft, aching, “Nance.”
His arms come around her back, tight and unrelenting, and she lets herself crumble into sobs. She still fits so perfectly in his embrace. It has been so long since she has felt Steve’s touch. Months, years, lifetimes. But how can it be that it is still so familiar? So comforting? So much like home?
She breathes in his scent– cold and cologne and Boppers and oh, God– him. Her whole body trembles as she forces her chest to move, nose smushed against the coarse fabric of Steve’s jacket. There is virtually no air between them. No space.
There is too much space between them.
She wants him to gather her into his arms and hold her so close that she can’t tell where he begins and she ends. But she makes do with this, for now, her hands still a barrier between her face and him. It’s probably for the best. She can barely control herself around him on the best of days.
She doesn’t know how long she shakes in his arms, how long his palms press into her, his arms warm and steady around her. She never wants to pull away.
But then he whispers, lips pressed to the top of her head, “It’s not your fault, Nance.”
Nancy stills.
“It’s not your fault,” he says again, hand running comfortingly down her back.
As though sensing the shift in her, Steve loosens his grip, taking a tiny step back. Nancy misses his warmth immediately, but even his persisting hold on her upper arms cannot stop her from rubbing her eyes with her palms and pinning him with a glare.
His grip is still so soft. Her eyes narrow anyway. “Not my fault?” The undercurrent of anger in her voice scares even her, but Steve simply sighs.
His grip tightens. “Yeah, Nance. This wasn’t your fault.”
She scoffs bitterly. Disbelievingly. Crosses her arms again, and looks away from Steve. “That’s a nice thought. Isn’t true though.”
“Nance.” Steve’s tone is strict, like he doesn’t wish to brook any room for argument.
“Steve,” Nancy makes herself look back at him, and she is suddenly shivering. His hands are braced on his hips again, and even the heated hallway can’t stop the shudder that runs through her at the loss of his touch. She wraps her hands around her upper arms.
“Nancy, you know full well there isn’t anything else you could’ve done.”
She scoffs again. She’d just had this conversation with Mike. He hadn’t done a very good job of convincing her either. It was her fault. Of course it was. She was supposed to protect her family.
And she failed.
“Listen, Nance.” And oh— Steve’s voice is angry. She isn’t used to hearing him angry. It feels unnatural. She looks up at him, and her eyes are wide and shining again.
“I’m not gonna stand here and let you blame yourself. Not-” Not again, he leaves unsaid.
“You’re not letting me do anything, Steve. This is my fault. You can’t-” she chokes, “You can’t change that.”
“Really?” And suddenly his voice is bitter too. She squeezes her eyes shut. “What exactly could you have done, Nance? Hmm?”
She huffs. “Steve-”
“No, no. Tell me,” he cuts her off, "Could you have warned them an interdimensional monster was coming for them? Or wait- could you have stopped the demogorgon from tearing a hole in the wall? No, but you could’ve-”
“Steve.” She shakes her head; she knows what he is trying to do. Facts. And logic. He is using them against her. It’s impressive, but it’s also so, so annoying.
“No, wait, Nance- I’m not done yet. You could totally have fought off an entire demogorgon by yourself if you’d been there-”
“Steve,” she nearly yells, “Stop it. You don’t have to-”
“Yes, I do, Nance,” he says, and his voice is soft again. Her eyes catch on his, and she can’t help but draw her eyebrows together. “Don’t do this to yourself,” his words reach out like a gentle caress. She leans into them— holds them like a crutch, and blinks forcefully as another tear tracks down her cheek.
“It’s not gonna change anything. You got there as fast as you could. And now El’s searching for Holly, and Karen and Ted are getting fixed up.”
Her lip wobbles, and she looks back at Steve. His hand seems to stretch out— reach towards her cheek, but he seems to think better of it and lets it fall to his side.
A pang of disappointment strikes through Nancy’s chest.
“You saved them, you hear me?” he whispers. “You saved them.”
There isn’t enough air in her lungs. She wants to believe him; she wants so desperately to believe him. But it isn’t that easy. It never has been with her.
“I could’ve- I could’ve told them to get out of the house,” she mumbles brokenly. Even as she looks down, she sees Steve raise his eyebrows. “I could’ve told them to move out of Hawkins. Then none of this would’ve happened.”
“Nance, come on,” Steve groans.
She shrugs, still looking at the ground. She doesn’t realise when Steve’s fingers brush against her chin, when they tilt it up to force her eyes to meet his– not until a tingle runs through her and reaches the very tips of her fingers and toes.
She suppresses a shiver of an entirely different kind.
Steve blinks at her, eyes wide all of a sudden.
“Yeah?” she whispers.
“I-”
Oh, this is wrong.
It’s supposed to be wrong.
“Yeah, no, uh-” Steve clears his throat, and his hand flashes back to his side. His feet do not move. “They, um- They wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”
Nancy furrows her eyebrows. “Who?”
“Your parents,” Steve replies easily, like he hadn’t thought of it much. Like he hadn’t needed to. “It wouldn’t matter what you said to them. They wouldn’t have left you and Mike here.”
A slow grin spreads across his face. “And there’s no way you or that little shit were gonna leave before we’d put Vecna in the ground.”
And then she can’t help herself; she smiles back. It is a startling thing– bright and wide and cracking the planes of her dry lips, but she lets it push back the shadows on her face. It is the first time she has smiled in… months. Years, maybe.
She still knows it’s wrong, by the way. She knows that smiling is the last thing she ought to be doing, and there is Holly to worry about, and doctors to pester, and Mike’s whereabouts on which to ponder, and–
But Steve’s eyes shine at her. With relief and tiredness and that familiar wonder he always looked at her with, the one she could never quite give a name to but put a blush on her face nonetheless, the one that made her feel stripped down to just herself: Nancy. Nance, really.
Her shoulders feel considerably lighter as she takes a deep breath and carelessly wipes her tears off. The ceiling does not shine quite as brightly anymore. Her eyes fall to the bench, where she had been hyperventilating less than an hour ago.
Looking back at Steve, her mouth has only just fallen open to say something (what?), when a voice yells from across the hallway, “Nancy!”
Her eyes widen, and she cranes her neck over Steve’s shoulder to look at the intrusion. She is too surprised to hide her annoyance. Steve crosses his arms and follows her gaze confusedly, narrowed eyes landing on–
“Mike?” Nancy exclaims.
“Yeah- hey-” her brother pants, somehow managing to keel over while balancing two cups of steaming hot coffee. “I just- you’ll- the book- Mr. Whatsit-”
Nancy’s eyes widen in alarm. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Mike. Mike. Calm down. What are you-”
“It’s the same book, Nancy!” he whisper-shouts urgently, as though his words hold some great meaning. Nancy bobs her head in confusion.
Steve lets out a sound of exasperation and holds out a hand, gesturing for Mike to hand the coffee over to him. Mike’s eyes snap from the hand to Steve’s face, blinking dumbly before his eyebrows crease. “Steve?”
Steve grimaces. “Yeah. Hey, kid. Uh- how are ya’?”
“I’m… fine.” Mike narrows his eyes. Nancy can tell Mike is still in shock. Maybe he likes it that way. Maybe… maybe she understands exactly where he is coming from.
Steve rolls his eyes and takes both cups from Mike’s hands, who looks offendedly back at him. Steve bobs his head towards Nancy. Continue.
In the matter of a few seconds, Nancy sees Mike’s brain jump from annoyance to defiance to acceptance to indifference to the realisation that he has more important things to do than wonder why Nancy’s ex is at the hospital with her.
She cannot say she is not grateful.
“Whatever,” he mutters. “I was trying to say that I just saw the same book Holly was-”
“Nancy!”
Nancy squeezes her eyes shut. Another voice across the hallway. When will she get to finish a conversation?
Her eyes flutter open, and then her heart falls still. Because skidding to a halt at the corner is… Jonathan. Her boyfriend. Oh God. Inexplicably, her eyes snap to Steve, who is suddenly looking anywhere but her.
Literally. He is looking at a vase.
She blinks and turns back to Jonathan, trying to twist her face into a passable imitation of a smile. She settles on a grimace.
“Hey,” she says unenthusiastically as Jonathan stalks up to her. He, in turn, looks anywhere but at Steve. Nancy pushes down the urge to roll her eyes.
“Hey,” he whispers back, “I’m sorry I didn’t come here in time. Ran into a little-” he turns back, shifting to stare at the hallway, “-interference.”
Nancy raises her eyebrows. Senses Steve mirror the gesture from beside her.
The hallway is empty.
“Um, Jonathan-” she begins.
“Shit, where did he go- Hey, Dustin?” Jonathan yells.
Steve stills beside her.
Then limps in yet another figure. Yet another disturbance. Inarguably more welcome than the last. (Whoa, where did that come from?)
Dustin Henderson, hair overgrown and clothes torn, walks slowly across the hallway and towards them, and she is not sure whether it is her heart or her lungs that fall still at the sight of him: bruised and bloody and so, so, wild. Like he is not sure where he is or if he is even where he is supposed to be.
Nancy’s limbs loosen, her mouth falling open. As soon as her eyes are done scanning the injuries covering his face, they snap to Steve. Suddenly, her heart is clawing its way up her throat.
Steve looks frozen. Like the only thing holding him up is muscle memory. His chest falls infinitesimally, but Nancy notices. Of course she does. It is all she can do not to wrap her fingers around his bicep to give him support.
Jonathan, she reminds herself.
She takes the coffees from Steve anyway (long since cold), and he lets her. His hands clench into fists, and he finally shuts his open mouth. His jaw stiffens as he takes stock of Dustin.
In that moment, Nancy sees as much of herself in Steve as she ever has. Worried and desperate, and alone but somehow lonely, and angry, because God, how do you even solve a problem you can’t understand, and resigned, and determined, and-
She wants to give him a hug.
Someone should give him a hug.
“What the actual hell, Henderson?” Steve says, voice low with an undercurrent of danger Nancy has never quite succeeded at associating with him.
Dustin grins, and it looks like it hurts his split lip. “Hey, guys. Miss me?”
Nancy winces.
___
Later, when Steve has finally managed to call himself down into some semblance of his self, when Dustin has overcome his affinity for insulting Steve at the earliest convenience, when Dustin has fumbled over an explanation, when Jonathan has let his eyes flit between her and nothingness after a few empty words of apology and comfort, Nancy finds her gaze drawn back to Steve.
He stands a little ways away from Dustin, sniffling in thought, head bent and arms crossed. He seems so much smaller now, suddenly. Nothing like the man who had held her in her arms a while ago and let her break into pieces, rocked her through her reverent self-loathing and guilt.
He has seen the worst of her, she thinks; after Barb, after Max, after Holly and her parents. And he has never run. But now, seeing him subdued and distraught– she doesn’t know if she has the strength to look at him this way.
She blinks. She is Nancy Wheeler, damn it.
She takes a deep breath, shuts her eyes, and then squares her shoulder before striding towards him. She ignores Jonathan’s questioning gaze following her.
Steve stares unblinkingly at the ground, like his eyes refuse to stray anywhere even close to Dustin. Nancy’s heart aches as she comes to a halt by his side.
“Hey,” she whispers. Steve hums in distracted acknowledgement.
“Steve,” she says, voice stronger. He finally looks up at her, eyes blown wide. Red. Her heart aches again.
“Dustin, uh…” she looks at the boy, standing in a corner exchanging whispers with Mike. Steve sniffles again, and looks in the opposite direction. “He ran into a pretty nasty pole, huh?”
She tries smiling at Steve, tries breaking the tension. She’s not very good at it though. Never has been.
Steve scoffs anyway, something that is not quite a grimace but not quite a smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, he-” Steve scratches at his forehead with his finger, “Must’ve picked a fight with the goddamn pole too. That little shit’s gotten too good at picking fights recently.”
He doesn’t look at her, granted, but she hears it in his tone; the attempt to sound angry. The desire to be furious and yell at Dustin and demand an explanation that wasn’t “My cycle ran into a pole.” (Unless the pole was a fist. Or multiple.)
But the only thing she hears in Steve’s tone is weariness. It doesn’t suit him.
“Could be the pole’s fault too, you know,” Nancy says a while later. Steve doesn’t look back at her yet. “Maybe Dustin was just minding his own business and… the pole h- ran into him.”
Steve looks at her then, eyebrows drawn together. Incredulous but not quite. The lines on his face gentler. “Yeah. Guess so.”
Nancy purses her lips. “Poles are known to be really aggressive. It’s a whole thing, actually-”
Laughter lifts the corners of Steve’s lip, finally. Nancy’s heart skips a beat. Damn it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve laughs. “Maybe Henderson pissed the pole off one too many times.”
“Yeah! Yeah- Exactly.” And suddenly, Nancy’s grinning too. Big and wide. “Maybe the pole just wanted to fight someone,” she adds enthusiastically, like they aren’t both going crazy with fear and worry all day everyday. Maybe the crazy helps.
“And he just happened to be there, yeah,” Steve finishes, and his gaze finally shifts to Dustin, and suddenly his tone is not angry, or weary, but fond. It’s a much better look for him.
“Yeah,” he says again, softly. Nancy tilts her head as she looks at him, relief slithering its way into her breathing when she sees the way his face has relaxed. “That’s probably it. Henderson has always had terrible timing. It’s b-”
“Bullshit?” Nancy says, and she feels breathless, suddenly. Winded, like she has flown into the past after jumping off a trampoline, as Steve looks at her all raw and vulnerable and surprised and quiet.
“Yeah,” he whispers, “It’s bullshit.”
They look into each other’s eyes for what feels like seconds and hours, not blinking, not moving, not breathing. Someone claps, and Nancy jumps. Steve blinks and draws back, looking around for the source of the noise.
Nancy frowns as her eyes land on Mike, who suddenly launches into an explanation of what he had presumably just been discussing with Dustin.
She half-listens, half-thinks about smacking Mike upside the head. It’s a nice thought.
Minutes later, a plan has been made. It’s what they all know best. Nancy believes she should probably be grateful. She doesn’t know how long she would’ve been able to sit around doing nothing, waiting.
She and Mike are to sneak into her mother’s room. Dustin and Steve will go resume looking for Hopper in the now fixed van. Jonathan… well, she supposes Jonathan can go wherever he likes.
She is not sure she wants him here. She can’t say that. She can’t even think that, technically, but it’s too late now, so she just lets this new guilt hit her and then bounce off the memory of Steve’s words.
It’s not your fault, Nance.
What will be her fault, though, is focusing on her heart’s conflict when there’s so much to do. She makes it sit quietly in the back. Stuffs a gag in the mouth screaming, Jonathan is glaring at you. Steve is- Steve is… leaving?
Steve’s back faces her as he walks off, exchanging what looks suspiciously like insults with Dustin.
“Nancy,” a voice calls roughly. She snaps her neck in its direction. Jonathan. Right.
“Yeah?”
“I’m- I think I should go with them,” he says. “They might bite each other’s heads off without supervision.” And he says it in a way that’s supposed to be funny, in a way that makes her think he wants her to laugh.
She doesn’t. She can’t. Because all she can think of is the Steve from a few minutes ago, red-eyed and drowning in himself– in worry for the boy they both care for so very much.
“Yeah, I-” Nancy says slowly, “I guess you should.”
She holds back a wince. Because as much as she doesn’t want Jonathan and Dustin both on Steve’s case, she can’t have Jonathan around herself either. She does not have it in her to argue. To explain the functionality of the half-baked plan in her head.
She’ll be fine with Mike.
Jonathan recoils, just a bit. Looks like a wounded deer the way he has been looking for so many months now. Nancy sighs and turns back to Steve, biting her lip.
A few seconds of contemplation later, she rushes in his direction, half-walking, half-jogging.
“Hey, Steve?” she calls out, and maybe her voice is louder than it needs to be, but who cares?
Steve spins around, shock painted across his face. “Nance? What happened?”
Dustin looks between them and Nancy can hear his exasperated sounds loud and clear, thank you very much.
“I just-” Why is her heart going so fast? “I just wanted to say… thank you,” she whispers. Oh, God, she feels shy, Why does she feel shy? Why does she want Dustin to not be in earshot?
Steve’s eyebrows shoot up.
“For coming here,” she continues, “For giving me company. For… for being here.”
Her voice goes up at the end like it’s a question.
I’m right here.
Steve’s face softens. “It’s no big deal, Nance. I’m always here for you.”
Nancy nods. “Me too. I mean- I’m always here. For you. I’m always here for you.”
A small smile breaks across Steve’s face.
Dustin groans emphatically, and Nancy looks at him with wide eyes and a blush she cannot quite explain.
“Are you two done yet?” he complains, “Or do you need to flirt some more? Do you want me to give you some spa- Ow!”
Steve smacks Dustin on the back of his head, and Nancy nearly winces when she thinks of his injuries. But then he rolls his eyes and Nancy feels lighter. She grins at Steve, and he smiles readily back.
It doesn’t feel awkward. Not the way it should.
“Bye, Nance,” he says softly and turns away.
“See you on the other side,” she whispers.
She keeps looking at his retreating back until the elevator closes.
When she turns back, Jonathan isn’t in the hallway either. Mike is, though.
He looks at her with raised eyebrows.
She rolls her eyes. “Shut up.”