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Steve’s head is aching. It’s been aching since they punched the Beamer through the gate and crashed it into the freaky flesh wall outside the church. It’s a slow pulsing behind his left eye, the one he thought might pop out of his skull after his encounter with the Russians at Starcourt. The base of his neck hurts too, probably whiplash from the crash, and his whole body is tense from the stress of just being in the Upside Down. Not that he’s going to bring any of that up. They’re in a layer of Hell itself. He’s not going to bitch about his head hurting.
He hates this place; he hates the Upside Down and the lab and this weird playroom they’re in, full of toys and games like they weren’t torturing children in this building for years. He’s heard the stories of what happened to El here.
So he’s unsettled and uncomfortable and so terribly on edge that it’s honestly not a surprise to him when he finally snaps at Dustin.
“Nancy is a friend,” Steve bites back when Dustin pushes the topic. “She’s a friend, okay? You remember what that’s like? Having friends?”
“Yeah, I do. I remember what it was like to have a good friend, a real friend who actually believed in me, and who was actually kind to me,” Dustin responds, his voice dripping with venom.
“Aha! Aha!” Steve wags a finger in Dustin’s direction. He’s only been pushing this topic for months trying to find a way to break through. Just his luck it doesn’t happen until they’re stuck in the hell-dimension under Hawkins, with the littlest Wheeler and a dozen other children missing and in danger, instead of at any other time.
“What? What?”
“There we go. What this has all been about, really, is Eddie. All your bullshit, pushing everyone away, it’s because no one could ever be as perfect as he was.”
“He wasn’t perfect, but at least he knew that, unlike you. He was never fake. He didn’t care what other people thought about him. He was just himself. And you know what? He was the smartest, kindest person I’ve ever met. And he would’ve solved this in 30 seconds flat.”
Steve wants to scream. Really? Dustin’s measuring how smart Steve is off a children’s toy he was only half paying attention to? He’s calling Eddie Munson the smartest, kindest person he ever knew? What about Erica and Lucas? What about Will? Steve’d rank at least half the little shits over Eddie on a smartness and kindness scale! He hates what happened to Eddie, but Christ, the grief is clouding Dustin’s memory. “If I’m such a goddamn idiot, how come I’m the one still standing here?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“That night, I told you not to be heroes. I told both of you. What did Eddie do? He charged into a swarm of killer bats.”
“To save my life.”
“He saved no one.”
“He saved everyone!”
“You can keep telling yourself that. But deep down, the reason you’re so goddamn pissed is because you know the truth. Eddie wanted to play hero, and he made a dumb call, and he got himself killed!” Steve shouts, and he regrets it almost immediately.
Not because he thinks it’s untrue. He’s right. Eddie’s call was a bad call. It was poorly thought out, it was impulsive, it was rash. He’s upset about it because Eddie’s death could have been avoided, and he and Dustin both know that. They could have brought him home. Dustin could have been happy, could have had his friend here, Steve wouldn’t have had to sit by, desperately trying to help a boy who was refusing to see all the hands extended out to help him as he drowned in his own grief.
Steve doesn’t regret saying that because he thinks he’s wrong. He does, perhaps, regret his particular wording. It likely could have been said more tactfully. He certainly regrets it for the way it twists Dustin’s expression from irritation and hurt to rage and despair, for the way it closes him off and hardens the line of his frown, already so severe from the split lip and bruising that mars his face right now. Steve’s almost gearing up to apologize, just to wipe that look off Dustin’s face when something strikes him in the forehead.
Between one blink and the next, Dustin has hurled the Rubik’s Cube at him, nailing him just above the eye he could already feel throbbing in his skull in time with his heart. Steve’s so taken aback that he finds himself entirely unprepared for Dustin’s next move, which is to hurl himself at Steve, flying at him with angry fists, striking wherever he can catch him.
Steve shouts in surprise, “What the hell, man? What are you doing, man? Stop it. Hey! Stop! Stop it, man! Henderson! Hey! Jesus! You’re gonna hurt yourself, man!” and tries to contain the fury that’s overtaken Dustin. He tries to dodge blows, to get his arms around Dustin to keep him from swinging more, to get back out of range so Dustin can’t reach him, but Dustin’s furious, and Steve’s at the distinct disadvantage of being entirely unwilling to cause even a little bit of harm to Dustin in his attempts to stop him.
So when Dustin charges at him, rushing him backwards into the wall, Steve can’t do much but brace and hope for the best.
He’s unlucky enough that the wall behind them isn’t so much a wall as it is a massive mirror, and Steve feels his head crack into the glass before their combined weight shatters it, and they go crashing through the hole it leaves when it breaks. Steve’s head connects with the floor next, as if colliding with the mirror wasn’t bad enough for his already raging headache. It disorients him enough that he finally gets over his mental block and makes a move to defend himself, shoving Dustin away hard enough to put some distance between them. That’s a positive, he supposes.
His head is pounding now, enough that it’s making his vision swim and his ears ring and he keeps blinking but can’t really understand why he’s doing that. It feels like his eyes are fuzzy, and as his vision swims and shakes, the edges of his field of view begin to shrink, going fuzzy like he’s in a dream he can’t quite figure out. He can’t tell what’s happening. Eddie’s right across from him, curly hair spilling out from under a baseball cap, and that’s odd, because Steve didn’t think that would really be Eddie’s style. He doesn’t remember Eddie ever wearing a ball cap. He also doesn’t remember how they got here, or where here is, or why it’s so dark, and he knows they’re supposed to be doing something but his head hurts and his vision is swimming and he’s so dizzy and he can’t remember how they got here or where here is or why it’s so dark and he knows they’re supposed to–
“Eddie, wha–”
He doesn’t get to finish his question. A little bit because halfway through saying the name, Steve forgets why he’s saying it, and what he was going to ask and who Eddie even is. Mostly he doesn’t get to finish his question because the moment the name leaves his mouth, his head snaps to the side as pain explodes across his face from a fist connecting with it. He doesn’t have nearly enough coordination at the moment to get his arms working in time to catch him as he drops sideways. His head connects with the concrete again and everything goes dark.
~*~
Dustin’s not really thinking straight when he wheels around and decks Steve in the face. He’d been about to let it go, to stop the fight there, because this is not really his thing, he’s not a fighter, not like this, this isn’t really him. But then Steve opens his big mouth and says Eddie’s name, and Dustin’s back in it again. He’s furiously angry and upset and the ache in his chest that’s in the shape of the hole Eddie left in his life is still so raw and ragged, even all these months later.
He’s just so angry, and Steve doesn’t get it, no one gets it. Everyone’s just trying to move on like Eddie never even existed, like he was never there, like he didn’t die for them.
Dustin’s not trying to hurt Steve, but someone else has to understand how he feels. Someone else has to hurt as badly as he hurts. He doesn’t know how else to get his point across. But he’s not trying to hurt Steve. Besides, there’s no way he can punch hard enough to actually do anything to him. He’s not Billy, or the Russians or even Jonathan. He’s not going to do any real damage. He just doesn’t know what else to do to get this feeling out of him, and Steve just said Eddie’s name and Dustin swung.
For a moment, Dustin feels victorious. Finally he’s gotten someone to hurt like he’s hurting. Finally someone else understands how he feels, finally he’s gotten a little bit of that bitter rage out of his chest. Finally it’s out there in the world instead of just eating him alive.
Finally.
He shoves himself up off the floor, trying to sit up and get his feet under him, one arm up, half expecting Steve to swing back, but Steve hasn’t moved to retaliate.
Steve hasn’t moved at all.
It hasn’t been that long, not even thirty seconds, but Steve isn’t moving, and that can’t be right. Dustin certainly didn’t hit him hard enough to knock him out, and it’s not like he beat the shit out of him like has happened in any of the other fights Steve has gotten into over the years.
Steve still isn’t moving. His eyes are open, but they’re not looking at anything and he hasn’t moved from where he sprawled back on the floor after Dustin hit him. He hadn’t swung that hard. He hadn’t. He couldn’t have. That’s not what happened.
“Steve?” Dustin says, scooting closer to him on the ground.
Steve jerks to look at him, but only his eyes really move, like he’s responding to sound, not responding to his name, and then his eyes roll right back into his head, and Steve starts seizing.
Dustin shouts, a formless, desperate cry that he’s grateful no one else is here to witness.
A half second later though, he’s wishing for anything but being alone, because Steve’s having a seizure and it’s gotta be his fault, cause he hit Steve and it happened right after he did and what the fuck else could that be?
He grasps desperately for any knowledge he has that might be helpful. They must have learned something during health class or science class, biology maybe. Dustin learned about this somewhere.
Not class, no. He’d read about it. He taught himself this after Will started having episodes and he’d gotten worried about what that could do to him. He knows this, he knows it, he knows it, he knows what to do, he has to.
Wallet in the mouth and- no, that’s a myth. That’s wrong. Nothing in the mouth and something under the head. Right! That’s right. He rips off his jacket, nearly losing his shit when he gets his arm stuck in one of the sleeves, balling it up and shoving it under Steve’s head. He’s already on his side, that’s good, that’s what he’s supposed to be doing. What else, what else, what else…
Nancy and Jonathan! They might know! They can help, where’s the walkie?
Dustin dives through the door back out into the bigger room, looking around desperately for the walkie Steve had had with him.
His heart crashes into his stomach when he finally finds it, and notices the antenna is snapped clean in two. What the fuck is he going to do? He doesn’t know what to do! How is he going to get Steve out of here? He knows how to take care of him now, sort of, but after it’s over? He doesn’t have the faintest fucking clue. Seizure first aid usually ends with “call 9-1-1”, and that’s not a fucking option in the Upside Down.
Dustin is not crying. He isn’t.
He grabs the broken antenna and the walkie and scrambles for the tape he keeps in his pack and tries to patch the pieces back together and hopes beyond all hope that they’ll be able to get his signal.
“Nancy! Jonathan! Come in! Do you read me! It’s Steve, please, I need help, please, do you read me, over!” he begs into the receiver.
He’s not crying.
“Nancy! Jon! Do you read me! Over!”
Static.
Dustin is not crying. He’s not crying.
“Do you copy? Over!”
More static.
Dustin screams, gripping the walkie like his life depends on it, and going back to Steve’s side.
He’s not crying.
It’s been almost three minutes. Steve’s not seizing so badly anymore, but Dustin can see his fingers twitching, can see blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, can see his eyes, glazed over and barely seeing, darting around like crazy.
Dustin doesn’t know what to do.
It’s happening again.
He can’t do this again.
“Nancy, Jonathan, do you copy, over!” he shouts, desperately, one more time. He doesn’t care how pathetic he sounds. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s scared. His heart feels like it’s in a pit in his stomach, like he’s going to throw it up the next time he exhales.
Static.
Dustin’s going to puke.
Steve looks like he’s foaming at the mouth, saliva and blood making him an unpleasant sight.
Static.
More static.
“Dustin?” Nancy’s voice crackles through the white noise.
Finally.
Dustin could cry from relief.
“Nancy! Downstairs! Get here now! It’s Steve! Over!”
“Dus… the roof… found th…”
“Fuck the shield generator! Get down here now!” He snaps. He won’t lose someone else. He can’t. He can’t lose Steve.
“Be…soon. J… Hang on! Ov…”
Dustin sobs. That’s probably the best he’s going to get. He hopes to god that that was Nancy saying she’d be here soon. Nancy can always figure something out. She can help.
He climbs over Steve and tucks into the corner, pulling Steve’s head into his lap.
He’s not crying. His face is just wet. He’s not crying.
~*~
Nancy’s not sure what she was expecting from Dustin’s crackling, staticky, panicked radio calls for help. She’s got her gun up, leading around corners with the barrel, expecting demos in every room and hallway they step into.
There’s nothing.
As she curls around a final corner into a sprawling playroom painted unsettlingly cheerily, she lowers her gun. It’s quiet in the room, save for the crackle of a damaged radio, and a soft little sniffling sound from somewhere she can’t see. She waves Jonathan forward, watching the vines for signs of movement, and then freezing when the first sign of life they get is a violent retching sound from a little room they can see through an ajar door and a shattered two way mirror.
“Dustin? Steve?” she calls out quietly.
The next retching sound is accompanied by a soft little sob.
“Nance? Nancy? In here, please, please, I need… It’s Steve,” Dustin says, and Nancy can’t see him, and the tremor in his voice hits her like a speeding bus. She’s struck by the reminder of just exactly how young Dustin is. How young all of the children are, to have experienced the horrors that they have. It nearly makes her sick, but she’s well practiced in pushing down nausea by now.
She grabs Jonathan’s wrist to pull him over with her, stopping dead in her tracks when they finally step over the threshold and find Dustin, tucked into the corner, sitting on the floor, with Steve— Steve’s body— cradled in his lap, eyes wide and unseeing, fixed on the ceiling.
Nancy gags. For a moment she can’t move. This is Eddie all over again. This is exactly how they’d found Dustin, teary eyed, hands covered in blood, holding Eddie’s body, eighteen months ago. It had been horrible to see, the sheer grief that had wracked Dustin’s frame, folding him in two like a child could protect a corpse from a worse fate than death in a hell dimension. It had been horrible, and she regretted the loss, but Nancy hadn’t mourned Eddie Munson. She barely knew him. She had mourned him as much as one could grieve for a new friend, mourned the loss of someone barely older than her who shouldn’t have had to die. But it hadn’t hit her exceptionally hard.
But she looks at Dustin now, looks at him folded protectively over Steve’s body in exactly the same way he had Eddie’s, looks at him shaking and turning to her and Jonathan for answers, and Nancy’s knees give out.
“No,” she whispers, her hand flying up to cover her mouth, the stock of her gun clattering against the floor as her limbs begin to refuse to cooperate.
There aren’t even any demos in the room. Dustin’s unharmed. The only blood in the whole room is a faint trace on Steve’s face, bloody saliva at the edges of his mouth and down his chin, and a small cut across one cheekbone. What happened?
“Help,” Dustin says, pleads, begs, and Nancy can’t move. She can’t. Her parents are fighting for their lives, her sister is gone, the world might be ending, she can’t have just lost Steve too.
Jonathan rushes past her. She doesn’t understand, what does he think he can do? Steve’s dead, Jonathan can’t fix that, but he drops to his knees next to Dustin anyway, speaking in a low voice that Nancy can only barely make out, like he’s talking to a frightened animal, trying to keep it from biting him.
“Come on, Dustin, get him on his side,” Jonathan says, and Nancy can’t see what he’s doing, can’t make out whatever soft reassurance he gives, but the next moment, Steve’s on the ground between Jonathan and Dustin, settled carefully on his side, feet shuffling awkwardly, uncoordinated.
He’s moving.
Oh god, thank fuck, he’s not dead. He’s not dead!
“What happened?” she snaps, finally shaking herself out of her shock.
“I think—“ Dustin sniffles, which sounds horrible through his certainly broken nose. “I think he had a seizure. It’s my fault. It’s my fault, I hit him and then he just— it’s my fault.”
“No, no, these things can happen for no reason sometimes. Dustin, hey, it’s not—“ Jonathan doesn’t get to finish his reassurances because Steve’s uncoordinated shuffling has turned into uncoordinated flailing, and one of his arms is swinging in Jonathan’s direction repeatedly. It doesn’t do much, certainly not causing any harm, but it makes Jonathan pause, and grab Steve’s wrist gently to guide his hand back down to his side and roll him off his back.
It’s a good thing he does, too, because the next moment Steve’s retching violently, a sound so awful it makes Nancy shudder, and losing his lunch all over the floor.
Jonathan grimaces, but he doesn’t shy away, just pushing Steve’s hair back out of his face and speaking in a soft tone she can quite make out, but that she does recognize.
That’s the tone Jonathan takes with Will, when he’s struggling. It’s strange to hear it directed at Steve. It seems to calm him though, his movements becoming less agitated and erratic, and his eyes actually focusing on Jonathan, the wild fear in them settling into softer confusion.
“Steve, hey man, hey, you’re okay. You’re okay. It’s Jonathan. Remember me? Nance is right over there. Dustin’s got you. You’re okay.” He keeps his tone so low and gentle, so brotherly and kind, Nancy can’t help but let out a soft sob.
She drags herself over to sit next to them, too much in Jonathan’s space, boxing Dustin into the corner. Her hands tremble as she lifts one to card her fingers through Steve’s hair, sweaty, sticky and gross as it is.
She doesn’t love him like he’d once loved her. But she does love him. Even just friends as they are, he’s one of the most important people in her life. The moment of thinking he’d been dead had felt like her heart was being ripped out of her chest. She still feels unsettled, unstable, watching him come back to himself now, his eyes glassy and unfocused as they sit on Jonathan, breaths coming in short, sharp pants. His mouth is working like he’s trying to form words, but the only sounds he can make are confused grunts as he tries to come back to them.
“It’s okay, Steve,” she says, though it comes out as more of a whimper. She can’t bring herself to care. She keeps carding her fingers through his hair, carefully combing it out of his face. His eyes slip over to her, still a little unfocused. “We’re going to get you out of here. We’ll find Hopper and El, and we’re going to get you out of here.”
Steve’s bloodied lips split into something that could almost be called a smile, uncoordinated, like his muscles aren’t in his control yet. His hand finds Jonathan’s wrist, where Jonathan is poised to keep him from flailing in his confusion, and he squeezes, though his grip looks weak. His other hand fists as tightly as he can manage in Dustin’s shirt.
“‘Kay,” Steve says.
It’s nothing, barely a syllable, but they all breathe a collective sigh of relief as he says anything for the first time.
They still have to find Hopper and El. Steve’s car is stuck in the flesh wall, and they can’t get it out. Holly is still missing. They are still stuck in the Upside Down.
But Steve’s still with them. They can figure the rest out.