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Steve was falling, so far, such a long way down that Dustin lost sight of him. He needed to get to him, he needed to get down there—and then suddenly he was, right there next to him, on the ground. But Steve’s body was broken, mangled, twisted in ways people weren’t meant to be able to twist in. He was crumpled on top of himself, not lying on his back or his stomach but more like lying in a heap. Dustin fell upon him, sobbing, trying to move him into a comfortable position, but every place he touched, each limb he tried to bend back into place, only broke more, and deep down Dustin knew that it didn’t matter anyway. Steve was beyond saving.
Dustin’s startled awake by a noise, which, upon waking, he immediately recognizes as his own screaming. There are tears pouring down his face, and his chest is heaving, but he barely registers those things because Steve.
Dustin scrambles out of bed, nearly tripping and falling in his haste, still tangled in bedsheets. He stumbles across his room, out the door, and pushes open the door to the room right across the hall from his.
He fumbles in the dark until he bumps up against the edge of Steve’s bed, and then he collapses into it, falling down heavily and reaching blindly for Steve. And he finds him right there, right where he’s supposed to be. He pushes his hand under the covers at Steve’s neck and reaches down until his palm is pressed to Steve’s heart and he can feel it beating away steadily, not racing and not stopping but sleep-steady, and Dustin breathes a sigh of relief. He pulls the covers back further and slips in under them. They’re warm from Steve’s body heat, and Dustin bundles himself up in them, comforted. He curls into Steve’s chest, putting an arm around him and a hand in his hair, and pets it softly while he listens to Steve breathe. Eventually, sleep finds him, but this time, the nightmares don’t.
~~~
“Henderson?”
“Mmhf?”
“You’re in my bed.”
“Mmh.”
“Everything okay?”
“‘Til you woke me up,” Dustin mumbles into Steve’s chest, voice still thick with sleep.
“Huh?”
Dustin pulls back slightly and smacks his lips. “Everything was okay until you woke me up,” he repeats emphatically.
“Oh.” Dustin can hear the confusion in Steve’s voice, but he ignores it, opting instead to flop back down and nestle back into Steve. “Okay.”
Dustin feels Steve adjusting, lying back down, his muscles untensing. Steve’s arm wraps around him, hand resting on his head, holding it against his chest the way Dustin likes best. Steve exhales into his hair and follows it up with a gentle kiss there.
“Hmm,” Dustin says, a distinctly content sound. He listens as Steve breathes in and out, in and out, in time with the rise and fall of his chest. Dustin drifts back off to sleep.