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Everything was getting blurry. The people in front of Steve were getting harder to make out and the different conversations around him were all blending into each other, and that along with the buzzing in his ears was making it almost impossible to make out what was being said and by whom.
The Byers’ house was filled to the brim with people, the whole of the party and the older teens and Joyce and Hopper all squished together around the too small table for Sunday dinner. Steve knew that this wasn’t unusual for the group, these dinners, but it was the first time since they started inviting him that he had actually made himself go. Dustin had nagged him about it every week until he finally caved and said yes, but they were barely half way through dinner and Steve was already regretting it.
Part of why he hadn’t come until now was that he didn’t really feel welcome in this tight knitted, trauma bonded group of outcasts, although he was clearly wrong with how the invitations kept coming every week and how happy they all were to see him when he finally showed up. Even Jonathan seemed okay with him being there, and Steve thought that that must mean something. The other reason he hadn’t come was because he simply couldn’t make himself leave the house to go sit in a crowded room filled with loud, rowdy kids.
When Billy hit him in the head with a plate that night a couple of weeks ago, he must’ve knocked something loose, because Steve had had the worst types of headaches ever since. He had been so out of it that he barely noticed the commotion when the Byers and the Chief and the girl with superpowers, El the kids had called her, came back from saving the world. Everything was spinning and his ears wouldn’t stop ringing and every time one of the kids said something extra loud he had to force himself not to throw up all over Ms Byers living room. Everyone had been so caught up with the whole reunion that no one noticed when Steve slowly made his way out to the porch. His car was still parked by the train tracks, but even if it was here he wouldn’t dare himself to drive home in his precious beemer. Not with the way his vision doubled and the pain in the back of his head made it hard to concentrate and how he just barely made it home from the tunnels a few hours earlier. So he just sat there, eyes clenched together and head resting against his chest, until he heard the door open behind him and he felt someone roughly grab his shoulder.
“Harrington? What the fuck happened, I asked you to keep the kids safe, not take them on a fucking suicide mission,” Chief Hopper was mad. Steve could basically hear the steam coming from his ears, and even though it hurt too much to open his eyes he could picture the scowl on the man's face. He would be mad at himself too.
“‘m sorry,” he used all energy that was left to lift his head and squint in the direction of the chief. It was hard to make out exactly where he stood with how his vision doubled once again. “Billy, I- I tried to, to pr’tect them,” He knew that he was whining, but he couldn't muster up enough energy to care..
“Billy came here? Is that why that punk is passed out in the kitchen?”
“Yes s’r,” Steve wasn’t scared of Hopper, but he really didn’t want to be on his bad side.
“Is that why your face looks like you got jumped?” He sounded suspicious, and Steve couldn’t blame him. He wouldn’t trust some guy with his face beaten to a pulp. How was he supposed to protect the kids if he couldn't even protect himself? He should’ve been able to help more with Billy, he nearly got to Lucas, and if Max hadn’t drugged him he would've gotten to Lucas and Max and-
“Steve, wha-” Hopper looked at him, but Steve couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence. His ears started ringing again, louder than before, and the energy he had mustered to keep his head up was suddenly gone. It lolled down to meet his chest once again, but the sudden shift caused nausea to roll over him like a wave. He barely had time to mumble a warning to Hopper before he threw up all over the Byers’ front porch.
He doesn’t remember much from there on. At some point Hopper decided to drive him to the hospital, and he thinks he threw up some more on the way there, in retrospect he really hopes that he didn’t puke all over Hopper’s truck. He can’t really recall what happened at the hospital or for how long he was there, but when he came to again it was to the bright lights of the hospital and a snoring Hopper next to him. His head was still pounding, but more subtly now. Probably due to the meds he was hooked up to. Hopper woke up and Steve managed to convince him to let him go home. His parents hadn’t answered when the hospital called to have him signed out, but being with the chief of the police has its perks after all. Hopper had signed him out, gotten him his meds for the headaches and driven him home, carefully avoiding all the potholes like he didn’t want to disturb Steve's hurting head even more. On the way he explained that Steve had a concussion, a pretty bad one, and that he would most likely have pretty intense headaches for the following couple of weeks. Dizziness, confusion and nausea was normal, but if it started getting worse, or he had seizures or threw up a lot he should go to the hospital, he wasn’t in the clear from permanent brain damage just yet. Steve didn’t really register what was being said, but Hopper promised to call him everyday to make sure he wasn’t getting worse and then he dropped him off and drove home to that weird girl with the superpowers that saved the world. Steve still couldn’t really grasp that.
It hadn’t really gotten better at first, he was so tired and the headaches didn’t ever disappear, even with the meds the doctor prescribed him. He hadn’t gone to school the first week after getting out of the hospital, and when he finally did it was with sunglasses glued to his face and hourly breaks to the bathrooms to hide from all the noise and action, and occasionally to throw up. Hopper had stayed true to his word and called every day, making sure he wasn’t getting worse and that he was resting and eating and everything he silently wished his own parents were home to ask him.
Being alone in his big, empty house had its perks. He could sleep as long as he wanted, could eat what and when he wanted (which wasn’t very often, since the nausea stubbornly refused to leave), and no one was home to pester him about opening the blinds or turning the lights on. He knew his mother would insist on having the blinds up and having family dinner together if she was home. His father would insist he eat all the food on his plate that his mother so generously cooked for him, even though he was almost an adult and shouldn’t need his mother to cook for him every night. He would wake him up early to go to school so his already bad grades didn’t drop any lower, and he would frown and scold him every time Steve fell asleep on the couch.
But, oh, how he craved for someone to take care of him. He longed for his mother’s slender hands combing through his hair and for her to make him soup when he couldn’t keep anything else down. He longed for his father’s firm but gentle clap on the shoulder that he would give him when he was younger and needed comfort. He selfishly wished to be a kid again, before his parents started travelling all the time. Before they left him to fetch for himself. Before they stopped caring about him.
Despite what he wanted, he knew his parents wouldn’t come back just because he asked them to. They hadn’t answered the phone when the hospital called, and when he in his post-concussion daze had called them after the chief had dropped him off, they barely reacted to his slurred words.
“Make sure your grades aren’t affected because of this,” his father said coldly, distantly.
“Oh, Steven, we really wish we could come home but you know how important the client is to your father,” his mother whispered. Steve wished he was that important.
Apparently someone had thought that he was worth a thought, because chief Hopper hadn’t missed a day of calling to see how he was doing, and the kids hadn’t stopped bothering about coming over for sunday dinner or driving them to the arcade or hosting DnD nights (although he was yet to cave for those last two, he wasn’t even supposed to be driving yet).
And now he was squeezed between Dustin and Nancy and he felt seen, important. The conversations around him were chaotic and the food was clumsily passed around, but every once in a while a question was thrown at him and he was reminded that these people actually cared about him. They wanted him here.
But the chaos wasn’t just good, it was also loud and messy and hard to follow when you’re still healing from a plate crashing down on your head. Steve couldn’t really keep up with the conversations around him anymore, the words floating around him but never actually registering in his beat up brain. It was overwhelming, the voices were too loud and the lights too bright and the nausea that had been better in the last few days was suddenly back again. He tried to push through, he didn’t want to seem rude to Ms Byers who he knew had spent most of the day cooking. He liked it, he really did, but he didn’t know how to explain how every bite felt like sand in his mouth. The nausea grew in his stomach, and he realized that if he didn’t want to throw up all over the table he would have to stop making himself eat. He put his fork down, careful as though not to make any noise, to not make anyone notice him.
He glanced around the table, eyes struggling to focus on the people chattering around him, until they fell on the chief, sat right in front of him. His eyes met Steve’s, brows furrowed, with that little wrinkle in between them that some people got when they were worried about something. What did Chief Hopper have to be worried about? He said something, Steve could see his lips moving, but the ringing in his ears made it impossible for Steve to make out what he was saying. He could only assume he was talking to him, because when he looked around them no one else seemed to notice that Hopper was speaking.
“What?” he mumbled, and tried vainly to understand what Hopper was saying. He furrowed his brows in concentration, but the noise in his ears made the words impossible to make out, and his lip reading-skills were non-existent on a normal day, when it didn’t feel like his head was going to implode.
Instead of repeating himself again, when Steve still couldn’t make out what the man in front of him was trying to say, Hopper just stood up. The movement was careful, he slowly put his cutlery down on his plate, wiped his mouth with his napkin, slowly slid the chair away from the table, but not once did his eyes leave Steve. They traveled over his face, from his tightly knit eyebrows, to his tightly shut jaw, his squinted eyes and then to his slightly hunched shoulders. It looked like he was searching for something, but the pain currently traveling from behind his eyes to the back of his neck made it hard for Steve to understand what.
Without having realised it, Hopper had rounded the table to stand right behind him.
“Walk with me,” it wasn’t a question, but not quite a demand either. There was room for Steve to shake his head, to mumble ‘I’m fine’ and sink further down his seat. But Steve's body reacted before his brain could catch up. He stood up on shaky legs, having to pause for a moment as spots danced before his eyes. Hopper stayed close, never touching, but close enough to steady him if he were to collapse. Which, Steve would be honest, didn’t seem impossible.
They walked out to the front porch, and Hopper gently guided Steve to sit down on the steps. The same steps he had found him on just a few weeks earlier. Where he threw up and almost passed out right in front of the chief of police. Hopper was so careful with Steve, so tender that Steve couldn’t stop the tear rolling down his cheek. He clumsily wiped at it, praying that Hopper hadn’t seen it. If he had, he didn’t say anything about it. It was better out here, the noise and lights and chaos from inside not bothering him anymore, but he could still feel the migraine creep up on him. He could pinpoint it in the pressure behind his eyes and the pain radiating from his neck and over his skull and the way he had a hard time following the conversations inside, and how he still found it hard to register Hopper speaking to him.
“-teve? Can you hear me?” Hopper’s voice was low, the murmur making it harder to make out the words, but the lower volume being so much better on his head. He preferred this. Well, realistically he preferred to not have a migraine or have a concussion or fighting Billy at all, but right here, right now, this was better. Realising Hopper was still waiting for an answer, he made a low humming in the back of his throat. He pulled up his legs and burrowed his head in his lap, pressing his eyes to his knees in a fruitless attempt to release him from the throbbing pain.
“Does your head hurt?” he didn’t want to answer, Hopper already seemed to know the answer, probably knew it before Steve himself even registered it. When Hopper didn’t say anything more, waited for Steve to answer, he shrugged. Hopper still didn’t say anything, but he did put a firm hand on his back. It was comforting, Steve leaned into it without even realising. And then he just sat there, without saying a word but still so incredibly present. This was everything he could wish for, Steve realised. He didn’t make him talk about it, didn’t make him explain anything or move or do anything Steve didn’t want to.
Once again Steve compared him to his own father, the cold, emotionless man that never even wanted anything to do with his son. He wouldn’t have reacted like this, he wouldn’t have been so gentle, so caring, and the thought made his eyes burn for an entirely different reason than the migraine currently assaulting him. He pressed his face further into his knees, drew a shake breath, and the steady hand never once left his back, wouldn’t leave until Steve sat up again and told him he wanted to go home.
Hopper would nod, not ask any questions as he drove him home in his truck. He would follow him into his house, would put all the blinds down and grab him a glass of water and put it down next to his medicine for Steve to take when he woke up. He wouldn’t leave until Steve had fallen asleep and then he would call the next day, not asking any questions, just making sure he was alright, and Steve would feel his eyes start to burn again.
But right now they just sat there, side by side in the dark, listening to the noise from inside slipping through the slips around the door. Just breathing.