Archive of Our Own

Jonathan spends more time than he’d like these days watching Steve Harrington.

It’s not his fault–the guy’s always around, driving the kids around or supervising pool parties and sleepovers. Sometimes, Jonathan will come to pick up Nancy for a date, and he’ll already be there to watch Holly–and Mike, by extension, though Mike refuses to admit that Steve’s his babysitter.

“It won’t kill you to talk to him, Jon,” Nancy isn’t quite laughing at him, but Jonathan thinks she wants to.

“Don’t you remember what he said to me?” He asks, as if she doesn’t. They both know that Steve apologized–more than once–and he’s saved their lives, the kids’ lives, since then. He’s one of them, whether Jonathan likes it or not.

“Your mom wouldn’t let him around Will if she thought he meant it.” Jonathan hadn’t told her about the fight, but word gets around a small town fast, and she’d found out on her own.

She’d been on Steve’s side about the pictures Jonathan had taken, and the broken camera. Just not the language he’d used.

That stung a little, but Jonathan’s gotten over it. He wouldn’t like it if someone took pictures through his bedroom window, either.

“I know.”

Mom won’t tell him what was said, but after Hargrove rocked Steve’s shit and he still kept the kids from getting themselves killed in the tunnels, she and Hopper sat him down and all but interrogated him. Only after that was he allowed to do more than pick up and drop Will off very occasionally.

Whatever it was, it worked on his mom. It worked on Hopper.

“Have you noticed how he turns to one side when someone’s speaking to him?” Jonathan asks, “Like he’s trying to hear better?”

“I don’t think I have,” Nancy thinks about it for a second, “But I guess it makes sense. I mean, he had a concussion after your fight, and after Hargrove, too. I know he’s had at least one before that from sports.”

“It makes sense that your ex-boyfriend turned kid siblings’ babysitter is losing his hearing?”

“It’s not the craziest thing we’ve dealt with, Jonathan.”

He can’t look at her while he’s driving, but Jonathan can picture the look on her face without seeing it anyway.

“I know, but it’s…”

It’s Steve Harrington. Untouchable until Hargrove came along–untouchable until Jonathan punched him in the face and he split with his rich friends over Nancy.

Jonathan didn’t think he’d ever have to spend this much time thinking about him, honestly.

“You know, he could stand to have more friends.”

“He’s got plenty, I’m sure.” Even the basketball team wouldn’t be so callous as to drop him just because he’s not allowed to play, right?

“Jon, he can’t play basketball anymore.” Nancy says, gently–because why would Jonathan know that? He’s not paying that much attention to Steve, surely.

He is, and he hates it.

Because he knows why, and he thinks Nancy knows too. 

“He can still swim, though,” Jonathan has to photograph those competitions sometimes. Particularly when Steve–the youngest swim team captain Hawkins High School has ever had, who has set several school records–is in an event.

“Yeah, but his swimming doesn’t get the same attention as his basketball did. From colleges, at least.”

How does Nancy know that?

“I do talk to him when he’s at my house, you know,” Nancy says, “It’s not as if I no longer care for him.”

“I know that,” He says, a bit petulantly.

“Jonathan, you don’t have to be jealous.”

“I’m not, I just–I don’t know how to do that. How to talk to him, after everything.”

“Let him try and talk to you, then,” She suggests.

“What will he have to say to me?”

“He tells me about the kids a lot.”

“You live with one of them.”

“Doesn’t stop him.”

Jonathan’s been watching Steve Harrington these days, so when he drops Will off later that week, he walks out to Steve’s car to say hi.

Steve flinches away when he taps against the window to get his attention.

“You know you can come inside, you don’t always have to take off right away.” Mom would want him to offer, if she weren’t at work.

“Hey, Jonathan,” He’s got sunglasses on.

Jonathan glances up at the cloudy sky–he hasn’t been paying attention to the weather today, so it might have been sunny earlier.

He doesn’t think that’s the case.

“Come inside, Steve.”

“I’ve got to get home–”

“To who?”

“No one, man, you know that. But I’ve got to clean and all that.”

“For who?”

“Myself, I guess.”

“I don’t think I’ve met a teenage boy who likes cleaning, including myself.”

“Got me there.”

“You got a headache or something?”

Steve wears sunglasses at school all the time now–he did it before, but not nearly as often. Not before Hargrove gave him that concussion.

“Yeah.”

Steve’s got his head turned to the left again.

“We’ve got pain meds inside,” Jonathan doesn’t trust that Steve won’t leave if he walks away now.

“I’m okay.”

Jonathan opens the car door; it’s laughably easy to reach over Steve and unbuckle his seatbelt and remove the keys from the ignition.

“You’re coming inside.”

Steve lists a little once he’s on his feet, so Jonathan keeps close as they head into the house. 

“Steve, are you staying for dinner?” Will’s already got his art supplies out on the table.

“He might be,” Jonathan answers for him, not bothering with straightening their shoes at the door.

“I don’t need–” Steve starts, but Jonathan’s already guiding him to his room.

He forgoes turning the light on to draw the curtains shut.

“Think you can take the sunglasses off now?” 

“Yeah,” Steve does, though he doesn’t set them down.

“My sweatpants should fit you, I don’t think you want to lay down in jeans.”

“Jonathan–” Steve’s eyes are a little unfocused, he’s tilting his head down now instead of to one side. 

“It’s worse than a headache, isn’t it?”

No one just wears sunglasses inside all the time for no reason.

“Do you really want to know?” Steve mutters, but he’s still not steady on his feet.

“Does Nancy know?”

“No more than she’s figured out on her own. She’s smart like that.”

Jonathan lays out some of his clothes. “Think you can get changed by yourself?”

Steve thinks about it–actually thinks about it, which is answer enough–before he says, “No. I’ll fall over and brain myself again.”

“Can’t have that,” Jonathan says, lightly, though it doesn’t have the effect he wants it to. Steve’s uncoordinated enough that Jonathan’s doing most of the work, though he hadn’t expected much else.

“Can you see anything right now?” He asks.

“Some. There’s like, colorful bubbles over everything.”

What the fuck does that mean?

Jonathan, tactfully, does not ask that question out loud. “Okay. Lay down, then. Think you can sleep at all?”

“If you stop talking, maybe,” Steve gripes, but in the tone he uses to tell the kids off when he’s not being serious about it.

Jonathan… should probably think about how many things he knows about Steve Harrington at some point. Why does he know that tone?

Why was it important enough to remember?

“I’ll get you a wet cloth for your eyes,” He whispers. It doesn’t take long, but by the time he comes back, Steve seems to be asleep.

“Thanks, Jon,” Steve says, so soft that if he weren’t leaning right over his face to put the cloth on it, Jonathan wouldn’t have heard.

“Yeah.”

He could probably go out to the living room. Ask Will about his day. Make dinner or do his homework.

He should do any of those things.

He doesn’t.

Jonathan stays where he is, sitting on the edge of his bed, watching Steve Harrington sleep.

And thinking about all the things he knows about Steve. All the things he shouldn’t know.

Maybe he should call Nancy.

Jonathan doesn’t stop noticing things about Steve Harrington after that day.

Nancy doesn’t stop calling him out on it.

“Jonathan,” she says, one afternoon when they’re hiding from the kids in his room, “If you want to kiss Steve, you can just tell me that.”

“I don’t, he’s sick right now.” Jonathan says, automatically, then flushes.

He shouldn’t know that. Steve’s been in classes, acting the same as usual.

Nancy laughs at him.

“So if he wasn’t sick, you’d want to kiss him?”

“I guess.”

She’s been easing him into it for a while, he knows. Trying to get him to admit it on his own before outright asking.

“What makes you think he’s sick?”

“The kids are willingly quiet around him, which usually means he’s got a headache and doesn’t last for too long. But it’s been all week. And he’s always a little too warm when I stand close to him.”

“Do you, like, have a notebook for all of this?”

“No, that’s more your style.” Nancy turns bright red, so he continues. “Wait, do you actually have one?”

“You know I keep a diary!” She protests.

“No, you have a symptoms list, dedicated to Steve.”

“Well, I can’t dedicate it to you when you’re not sick.”

Jonathan laughs. “Do you have other lists dedicated to me, then?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.” She crosses her arms.

“Okay, okay.”

“He should be at home today. Since he doesn’t have practice anymore. We could sneak out your window and go visit him.”

“We could also go out the front door and go visit him.”

“That’s not as fun. And if we do that, the kids will want to come along.”

“I should at least tell Mom.”

“Call her when we get to Steve’s.”

“And if she or the kids come looking for us before then? She’ll hunt us down.”

“Then you go out and tell her, quietly, and then we’ll sneak out your window.”

Jonathan rolls his eyes, kissing her before agreeing. The kids don’t pay him any mind when he passes them, and he keeps his voice as low as he can when he tells Mom where they’re going.

She just smiles at him, looking amused. “You know, teenagers don’t usually sneak their girlfriends out their windows in the middle of the day.”

“That’s not–Mom!”

“Go have fun. It’s good for you to have other friends.”

“Okay, Mom. I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

“That’s alright. Call if you’re spending the night.”

Jonathan doesn’t think they’re going to need to spend the night–by now, Steve is probably feeling better, right?

Steve slams his head against the wall when the doorbell rings.

The thud isn’t enough to cancel out the sharp echo that’s rattling his already exhausted brain.

There’s bile at the back of his throat, and while he manages to swallow it down, he can’t get himself up off the–blankets on the floor? His bed?

He’s not even sure where he is. He doesn’t dare open his eyes or move to try and figure it out.

He might not even be in his room.

There are footsteps on the stairs, voices saying words he can’t make out–when did the ringing stop?

Steve tries to cover his eyes with his arm when light turns his closed eyelids red instead of black, but he doesn’t get that far. It’s stuck on something? In something? He doesn’t know.

Maybe he didn’t even move it at all.

That wouldn’t be surprising, right now. Moving seems like a bad idea. He should stay here forever and never move again.

“–Steve? –off the floor, come–” 

Oh. He’s moving now. He just decided not to move, though. Why is he moving?

His head hurts more when he tries to lift to figure out what’s going on. The moving unsettles his stomach and he should tell whoever is moving him–

His head hits something hard, and Steve tries to stay awake. He does, but he can’t open his eyes to help with that.

In the darkness of sleep, he’s not even aware of the horrible moving that his body is doing.

There’s something heavy on his face–it might just be his eyelids, though. Steve has no idea how he can sleep so much and still be exhausted when he wakes.

“Don’t try and sit up, Steve.”

Why is Nancy here? Did he miss something?

She says something else, but he doesn’t hear it. He tries to open his eyes, but everything is still dark.

“Do you want the washcloth changed?” Steve doesn’t know why she’s asking that. He doesn’t have a washcloth?

“It’s warm anyway.” He can see Nancy’s face again–the washcloth had been on his eyes. That’s why he couldn’t see.

He wants it back as soon as it’s gone–his lamp on the dimmest setting and the curtains are drawn, but it’s still too bright.

He has to close his eyes again. He wants to ask Nancy why she’s here, when she got here, but his tongue isn’t working and he thinks the sound of his own voice would make him throw up anyway.

The heaviness over his eyes is back, but it’s cold this time.

“Jonathan,” Nancy sounds far away, “I don’t think he even recognizes me.”

“Well, we did find him half-dead on his bathroom floor.”

“Jon.”

Steve tries to move–why do they both sound upset? It’s just one of his migraines, he’ll be okay tomorrow.

“Steve, no,” One of them puts a hand on his chest, “We should probably take him somewhere.”

“He’ll hate that.”

They’re not talking any louder than they were before, but their voices echo through his skull now, changing in pitch with every repeat.

Steve still can’t say anything, can’t tell them that they need to stop.

He tries to grab the hand on his chest to–he’s not sure what.

But he doesn’t have enough control of his body to do that. He’s not sure he has hands anymore.

Or arms. Or anything.

Maybe he’s just become a brain in a glass jar, a collection of sensations that have nowhere else to go and that’s why he feels like this.

Something moves him, and he stops thinking for a while.

The world isn’t so gentle the next time he wakes. There’s yelling somewhere–his parents weren’t supposed to be home for weeks–and the hall light is on beyond his open door.

Steve doesn’t think he can stand; this is why he usually rode these out on the bathroom floor. Easier to clean.

There’s a warm spot next to him that he can’t figure out; it’s bigger than any of his pillows and they wouldn’t be that warm, anyway.

Steve doesn’t need to see to know where his door is. He eases his way off of his bed, eyes and mouth tightly closed. Making it to the bathroom might be a little more difficult, but he’s sure he can figure it out. He’s done it before.

Crawling isn’t the fastest way to do this, but standing would be worse–he’s tried that a few times, and it’s never gone well.

He bumps into the edge of his door, and he has to pause in the hallway when the light blinds him through his eyelids.

The noise downstairs has stopped, at least. He doesn’t have to try and figure out what that’s about anymore.

He finds the transition between carpet and tile with his hands first. It’s hard not to let his body collapse onto the cold tile, but he manages–he doesn’t want to deal with the mess when he throws up.

“What are you–” His mom hardly ever comes to check on him anymore, he must be making a lot of noise.

He can’t help it, and he can’t explain–she’ll just be more upset if he does–he can’t throw up everywhere and expect her to be happy about it.

“How did he even get himself over here?” There’s another voice; his dad wouldn’t bother coming upstairs for this. Who does his mom have over that would?

Is Mom having affairs now, too? Dad will be pissed about that. Not that he has a leg to stand on, but still.

Steve needs to stop thinking. It hurts.

Once he reaches the toilet, there’s not much room for thinking, anyway.

Jonathan’s not sure how it got this bad with none of them noticing. The kids, sure–they pick up on the bigger things, but he and Nancy, between them, should have realized that something was off sooner.

“Do you think he heard the yelling?”

Hagan and Perkins had come by, apparently to do a welfare check. Jonathan didn’t know they still cared. Steve hasn’t mentioned them, and he doesn’t hang out with them at school anymore.

“He absolutely did,” Nancy says, “That might be what got him out of bed in the first place.”

Steve’s shaking trying to hold himself up over the toilet, so Jonathan sits down behind him and helps hold him up.

“Probably.” They leave the bathroom lights off–Steve hasn’t been reacting well to any lights–and keep their voices down.

“Nance, his nose is bleeding,” Jonathan realizes after a minute, when Steve’s not busy puking his guts up.

He doesn’t know how Steve is still throwing up; it doesn’t seem like it should be possible. They haven’t even gotten him to drink any water.

“Could he have hit it on something getting over here?”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t look broken or anything.” Jonathan tilts Steve’s head back a little, covering his eyes so the light from the hall won’t set him off again. Nancy wipes at Steve’s nose, frowning when the blood doesn’t stop.

“Keep him tilted forward, Jon, the blood might as well go in the toilet.”

Nancy shuts the door most of the way as Jonathan shifts Steve again.

“Think it’s safe to get him back in bed?” Jonathan asks, after a long few minutes. Steve’s face needs to be wiped clean, but he doesn’t seem to be actively bleeding anymore.

“Maybe.”

“No,” Steve says and his voice is so wrecked that Jonathan doesn’t recognize it. “Stay here. No messes. No thinking.”

“We’re here to do the thinking right now, Steve,” Nancy says, quickly, but Jonathan doesn’t think it makes a difference.

Jonathan doesn’t catch what he mutters next, but it’s probably not an agreement.

They wait until Steve passes out to move him. He wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight, but whatever’s going on won’t be helped by him flailing around and knocking his skull into the toilet or something.

They get another cloth for his eyes and settle in to wait for him to wake back up.

“I didn’t know his migraines got this bad,” Nancy says, running her fingers through Steve’s hair. Maybe Jonathan should feel some sort of way about that, but he doesn’t. It’s hard to, when he kind of wants to do the same thing.

“Me neither.”

They both doze off while they wait for Steve to wake up. Jonathan wonders a few times if they should call his mom or Hopper–this probably isn’t directly Upside Down related, but it’s not not Upside Down related. And he knows Mom would have some good advice for them, anyway.

He doesn’t get the chance to do more than think about it, though, because he’s not calling from Steve’s room when he’s like this and he doesn’t want to go downstairs, either.

Steve doesn’t manage to sit up on his own, but he doesn’t look so out of it when he opens his eyes.

“Nancy? Jonathan?”

“Yeah, we’re here,” Nancy whispers.

“Why’d you move me back to bed?”

“Sleeping on the bathroom floor isn’t good for you.” Jonathan says.

“But what if I got sick again?”

“Then we’d clean it up.”

Steve seems utterly confused by that line of reasoning, so Jonathan lets it drop. He’s talking and seems to know what he’s saying and who he’s talking to.

Instead, he holds up a glass of water–Steve’s hands are shaky, so he doesn’t let him hold it alone when he drinks.

“Why are you here?” Steve asks, once he’s finished the glass. He’s still trembling. “I didn’t call you, did I?”

“No, you didn’t,” Nancy says, glancing at Jonathan as if to let him know that he gets to decide how much they tell Steve.

Not that there’s a lot to tell. Just Jonathan’s habit of… Steve-watching, apparently.

“I noticed a few things,” he admits, “And we thought we’d come check on you. Neither of us thought it was this bad, though.”

“It’s been worse before,” Steve says, flinching back from the sound of his own voice, “I don’t think I can…”

“You should go back to sleep, anyway.” Nancy fusses with one of the blankets–she hates not having something to do.

And right now, there’s nothing they can do. They don’t know what meds Steve takes for this, if anything at all, or if there’s a point where they should be calling for an ambulance.

“Probably. You don’t have to stay.”

“It’s either we stay here, or we bring you to one of our houses.” Nancy says.

“I don’t need–”

“You can’t stand on your own, Steve.”

“I can, it just takes a minute. And a lot of focus. Which I don’t have right now.”

Jonathan lets them bicker about that for a few minutes while he goes to refill Steve’s water in the bathroom.

He manages to catch himself–and the glass–before hitting the floor when he trips on the rug; it’s all bunched up from Steve laying on it for who knows how long.

Steve was with the kids yesterday, and at school for at least part of the day today–so hopefully he wasn’t on his own for too long.

Jonathan straightens out the rug; hopefully he put it back in the right place. He doesn’t think Steve will care either way, but it’s the principle of the matter. If he’s going to try and help clean up at someone else’s place, he should make sure things are where they belong–otherwise he’s just making more work for them later on.

Mom was particular about that one. He decided a long time ago he wasn’t going to ask about those stories.

Nancy’s looking a little smug when he walks back in, and Jonathan kind of wants to kiss her over it.

Steve covers his ears when the door squeaks behind Jonathan.

“Are there any pain meds that will help?” Nancy asks, as softly as she can.

“We can try, but sometimes they don’t work,” Steve says, “Can I just go back to sleep after the water?”

“Yeah. Do you usually sleep these off?”

“When I’m not throwing up. Sometimes it hurts so much I can’t even fall asleep at all. It’s past that, now.”

Jonathan can tell that Nancy wants to ask more questions, probably like “How long has this been going on?” and “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”, but they’ll have to wait until Steve can sit up for more than three minutes.

Once Steve is solidly asleep, he and Nancy slip out of the room.

“I think we should call someone,” Nancy says, staring at Steve’s bedroom door, “Like, your mom.”

“She’s got all the kids.”

“My mom went to visit my aunt.”

“Dustin’s mom? She probably likes Steve.” Jonathan doesn’t think there is another adult to call for Steve.

“I’m surprised you didn’t say Hopper.”

“He’s working. He can’t just drop everything to come over here, and I don’t know that he would, anyway.”

Jonathan sees more of Hopper now than he used to, since he and Mom are pretending that they don’t know that they’re dancing around each other, but he doesn’t know how well Hopper knows Steve.

He might think that Steve just got drunk and this is an awful hangover. He’s busted Steve for parties before, right?

“I think we’re it,” Jonathan says, after a long few minutes, “Us and those assholes.”

“At least they tried to check on him?” Nancy says, but her heart’s not in it.

“Let’s go downstairs so we don’t wake him up.” She leads the way, more confident than Jonathan in the dark hallway.

She finds a scrap piece of paper and a pencil immediately, and Jonathan laughs to himself.

He lets her write her thoughts out, exploring Steve’s fridge and pantry for easy-to-eat foods.

It’s mostly empty–Jonathan really wants to call his mom now.

The kids are old enough to be left alone for a while. They’ve handled worse before.

Jonathan hates thinking that.

“If we call my mom, the kids will find out, and they’ll want to come.” He cuts Nancy off accidentally.

“I was saying that we should probably sleep in shifts, Jon.”

“Sorry, Nance. There’s no food here and I was thinking about calling Mom again.”

“I can tell.”

“If we sleep in shifts, we can get help if Steve gets worse again.” Jonathan prompts her to continue, and actually listens this time.

“Exactly. But we should make a list of people to call.”

“9-1-1, maybe?”

“Well, yeah, but only if it’s really bad.”

“The Sinclairs,” Jonathan says, remembering the last time he saw them with Steve and Lucas. “They like Steve.”

“What?”

“Well, I mean, he protected the kids from Hargrove, and he was really going after Lucas.”

“Right. So we should call them because Steve has a migraine?”

“I’m saying they’ll come over if he needs help.”

“Okay. I’ll put them down.”

Jonathan can’t say it’s his favorite plan–it involves too much waiting for that. He glances at the kitchen again. The cupboards didn’t have any medicine, which means the ones Steve was talking about have to be somewhere else.

There’s got to be something, somewhere, that he can use to help get rid of Steve’s pain. Having to wait and watch… he gets enough of that with Will. With his mom, before Lonnie took off for good.

“I’m going to go sit with Steve. You could take any of the bedrooms, I think, or the couch down here.”

“Why am I sleeping first?”

“Because it’s my plan.” Nancy says. She’s right.

“I don’t think I can sleep yet.” It’s dark outside, he can see that much, but he’s not sure what time it is.

“You’re gonna need it.”

“So will you.”

She just glares at him for that.

“I’ll try, okay? Might poke around a little and see if I can find the meds Steve mentioned.”

“Anything to stay busy, huh?” Nancy smiles and kisses him. “I’ll come get you if anything happens. But I don’t think it will.”

“Okay.”

He watches her walk upstairs, then goes to check the downstairs bathroom cabinet from top to bottom.

Steve’s not so much awake as he is… aware. There’s things touching him, that’s true. Possibly even people. 

No voices, though, and he’s not sure if he likes that or not.

There were voices earlier, from far away, but they were familiar.

His parents?

No.

Nancy and Jonathan, he remembers now. They were here.

He’s back in his bed. His head still aches, but his eyes aren’t throbbing anymore. He’s not going to be sick.

He doesn’t think he got to his meds in time, so he doesn’t know why it passed so quickly.

He gives himself a few minutes before he tries opening his eyes. Sometimes he thinks the worst of it has passed, only to move and find himself collapsed onto the floor.

Once, he hit his head hard enough to bleed. It had been all tacky and gross when he woke up.

Steve’s still not sure how long he was laying there for before he woke up.

He looks around the room slowly, avoiding the side with the window for as long as possible.

There’s a glass of water on the nightstand–he wouldn’t have put it there. Between the auras and the double (or triple) vision, he’s more likely to knock it off and get shards of glass in his feet when he tries to get out of bed.

He also wouldn’t have been in bed in the first place, though. He already knows that Nancy and Jonathan were here. One of them must have left it for him.

Since that side of the room doesn’t set anything off, Steve lets himself look toward the window.

Nothing happens.

The floor looks weird, though. It’s not its usual color–maybe there is something wrong with his eyes, still. It looked fine on the other side of his bed, but that could be because it’s darker.

Since looking at the window didn’t set anything off, he lets himself lean over the bed to poke at the floor–and jams his fingers into something soft.

“Nance, stop poking him.” 

Jonathan? Why is he still here? Sleeping on… blankets? Pillows? A spare mattress? Steve can’t see enough to tell.

“I’m not poking you.” Nancy hisses back, sounding cross.

Why are they here? They came to check on him, which is nice, but they didn’t have to stay.

“Why are you sleeping on my floor?” Steve says. Or at least, that’s what he tries to say. 

It comes out as “Leeping floor?”

It seems to get the point across fairly well, though.

“Steve?” Jonathan sits up, and Steve realizes that he was poking dangerously close to something he’s not supposed to be thinking about.

“Hi?”

After his last attempt at a sentence, he doesn’t trust his voice to try for another one.

Jonathan pulls himself up to sit on Steve’s bed, instead of the floor, and just squints at Steve through the faint light for a minute.

“How are you feeling this time?”

“I’ve woken up before?”

“A couple times. Nancy and I got some crackers and your meds into you the second to last time, but you weren’t awake for very long.”

“That explains why I can think again, then.”

“Steve,” Jonathan sounds a little shaky, and he can’t figure out why. “You’re really feeling better?”

Did he say something he wasn’t supposed to? Or do something? Why would Nancy and Jonatha stay with him all night?

“You didn’t have to stay once you’d checked on me,” Steve says, “Thanks, though.”

“Of course, we weren’t going to leave.”

“But you didn’t have to stay the night.”

“We wanted to. In case something else happened. What if you fell down the stairs? Or hit your head in the bathroom?”

“I could fall down the stairs on a normal day.” He has, but Jonathan doesn’t need to know that. He just catches himself on normal days. “And I have hit my head before, but I just woke up a little later and had some blood to clean up, that’s all.”

Okay. So he’s not entirely in the clear yet, because he didn’t mean to say that.

Nancy joins them on Steve’s bed.

He misses her, but he can’t say that out loud. He misses Jonathan, too, sometimes, which doesn’t make sense because he doesn’t know Jonathan the same way he knows Nancy. And he sees them both all the time.

“Are we all sleeping up here now?” She asks.

“You can.” Steve says.

He needs to knock himself out before he says more stupid things.

“Okay. It’s late. Jon, we can ask him questions in the morning.” Nancy’s nice enough not to use the word interrogate, but Steve gets the feeling that it’s going to feel more like that than a friendly chat anyway.

“What?”

“Go back to sleep, Steve, you still look exhausted.” Nancy doesn’t give him a choice, pushing him down with a hand on his chest.

He is exhausted, but he wants to figure out what’s going on here more than he wants to go back to sleep.

But Jonathan and Nancy are warm on either side of him, and the pain has died down enough that falling asleep will probably be easy, for once.

So he tries not to think about how right it feels when his breathing syncs up with theirs as they all settle in for the next few hours.

He fails.

Nancy’s not sure what to expect when she wakes up before either of the boys the next morning.

She doesn’t like not knowing what to expect; she likes things neat and organized and sorted into little boxes.

Of course, that’s not nearly as easy for her to do anymore, with the Upside Down, but she tries to keep things organized when she can.

Even in sleep, Steve looks better than he did yesterday; something about how his mouth is shaped and the creases in his forehead. Jonathan is drooling on his shoulder, and Nancy wishes she had his camera to take a picture.

She thinks they’re through the worst of it, but she doesn’t know what Streve normally deals with when he has these migraines.

She doesn’t like not knowing that, either. Their break-up wasn’t exactly mutual, but Steve’s not the type of guy to beg a girl to stay when she clearly doesn’t want to. But they’ve stayed friends; she sees Steve all the time because the kids can’t seem to get enough of him now.

But he didn’t tell her about this. Or Jonathan, apparently, though she doesn’t think Jonathan actually talks to him much.

He just stares and pretends he’s not staring when she catches him, noticing all of the things she misses when she’s trying to figure out one specific thing instead.

When they put their heads together, they can find almost whatever answer they’re looking for.

Especially when it comes to Steve, lately.

Nancy untangles herself from the boys; Steve’s alarm says it’s half past seven, which is a little early for her on the weekend.

If Steve had food, and if she could cook, she would make them all breakfast, but he doesn’t and she can’t.

Jonathan won’t mind if she takes his car, especially since they don’t actually know when Steve ate last.

She writes a note on some spare paper quickly, leaving it next to Steve’s water. Benny’s diner (it’s not called Benny’s anymore, but no one in Hawkins is going to use the new name) should be open, and they’ll let her get something to go.

They probably won’t be busy; she might even get back before either Steve or Jonathan wakes up.

Impulsively, she stops by Melvald’s to get a couple of things for later–she’s pretty sure Steve will try and usher them out as soon as possible, not that she’s going to let him–because she wants to have lunch and dinner today, too, not just breakfast.

Once she gets back to Steve’s, she puts the groceries away before she takes their breakfast upstairs.

“Hey,” Jonathan says, softly. Steve’s migrated so his head is in Jonathan’s lap, and she doesn’t think that Jon realizes he’s playing with Steve’s hair.

It’s cute. She wants to take another picture, but she still doesn’t have Jonathan’s camera.

“Hi. How long have you been up?”

“Maybe ten minutes. I moved so I could get at your note to read it and Steve ended up like this.”

“It means he likes you,” Nancy teases, “Like one of those cats that only sit on one person’s lap.”

“He’s not a cat, Nance, he’s a teenager.”

“And now he’s your friend.”

Well, that’s a stretch. And she knows all too well how much Jonathan would like to be something other than friends with Steve.

“He’s your friend.”

“He can have more than one friend. I got some other stuff, too, for lunch.” Nancy can’t really set the food down on the bed. Steve’s legs are spread out too much for that.

“That’s good. Maybe we should put that in the fridge until he wakes up.”

“You can’t tell me that you aren’t hungry.” Nancy says. 

“I didn’t say that.”

“If he didn’t wake up when moving, he probably won’t wake up now.”

“You better be right about that.” Jonathan grumbles, but he takes his food anyway, shielding Steve’s head so he doesn’t get crumbs on his face.

It takes longer than Nancy would like for Steve to wake up–she kind of wants him to shake him awake the way Holly does to her when she has a question.

But Holly’s barely learned better yet, and Nancy definitely has. And Jonathan won’t let her, anyway.

She doesn’t even know if he realizes how protective he’s being of Steve’s sleep right now. 

“How long do you think these normally last? A couple of days?”

“That’s a long time.”

“He’s been missing more school lately.”

For all that he claims to dislike most of his classes, Steve doesn’t skip them without a reason–it’s something she’d noticed when they were dating. He’d joke about hiding out in the bathroom, and maybe sometimes he does.

But it’s probably not to make out with anyone. Especially not these days.

“You’re still here?” Steve bumps into Jonathan’s hand when he tries to sit up, and then doesn’t try again.

“We’re not leaving.” Nancy says. She still has a lot of questions, but she can’t ask them until she’s sure he’s not going to get sick again.

“Did you get food?”

“Nancy went to Benny’s,” Jonathan explains, offering Steve a slice of ham from his plate.

“No, thanks, though. Meat’s probably not a good idea right now.”

“Here’s yours, Steve. No meat, I promise.” She’d gotten him plain pancakes, toast, and a hashbrown. That’s what her mom always wants when she’s hungover, and Steve’s definitely not that, but it’s easy to keep down.

“Thanks, Nance.” He does have to sit up then, and Nancy gets a better look at his face. “Am I drooling or something?”

“You’re fine, Steve,” Jonathan says.

“You know, you don’t have to stay.”

“You’ve said. We’re staying.”

“Do you think it’s going to get bad again today?” Nancy asks–it’s an important thing to know, so she’ll let herself have one question.

“I’m eating fine, so maybe not. It’s hard to say right now.”

“Nance.” Jonathan tugs her over to him and kisses the top of her head.

“I know, I know. I just wanted to ask that one.”

Jonathan starts cleaning up when he’s finished eating, leaving Nancy with a still-quiet Steve.

He’s never been as loud or talkative as other people she knows, but he’s usually not this quiet, either.

“How long, Steve?”

“A while. Got worse after Hargrove. I handle them fine on my own.”

“I don’t think laying on the bathroom floor for days counts as handling them.”

“And I do.”

“Steve.” Nancy has to get up and pace his room. Steve’s not stupid–he plays dumb a lot, and he can’t keep up with conversations sometimes–

“What about your hearing?”

“What about it?”

“Jonathan’s noticed a few things.”

“I didn’t think he was watching me that closely.”

“We both do.”

“What for? It’s not like you need to.”

“You didn’t need to watch me, either. Or hang out by my locker.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to.”

Nancy lets him think about that for a few minutes, watching as he realizes what she means.

She doesn’t expect him to tilt his head down and avoid her eyes.

“Nance, come on. Don’t say that. Not right now. Don’t be mean to the guy with a migraine.”

“You should ask Jonathan about some of the things he’s noticed lately. They might surprise you.”

“Later. When I’m not… like this.”

It’s the best she’s going to get for now, so Nancy lets him off the hook.

For now.

Steve does his best not to look at Nancy or Jonathan until he can get them to leave. He’s fine, really–he doesn’t want to think about anything else Jonathan might have noticed, what he’s already told Nancy.

His hearing, for one. The kids haven’t even caught onto that yet; he really thought Max might have by now.

But she’s got enough to deal with, with Hargrove as her step-brother. 

He thinks it’s going to work. They’ll see that he’s (mostly) okay after breakfast. He survived the night, no choking on his own vomit or falling down the stairs because he couldn’t see through the pain in his head, and they don’t need to stay through the rest of the comedown. Through the lingering spots in his eyes and the random sinus pressure that makes him feel like his head’s going to explode.

But they just don’t leave.

No matter what he does, or says, one of them is in the same room as him at all times.

Steve doesn’t know what to do about it.

They must call home at some point, but Steve doesn’t see or hear it. The kids don’t call or knock on his door once. Hadn’t they all been at the Byers’ last night? Jonathan must have warned them then.

“What did you tell the kids?” He asks, hours into whatever… this thing that Jonathan and Nancy are doing is.

“That you were in so much pain you couldn’t stand, and more noise and people would make it worse. El gets bad headaches sometimes, especially when she uses her powers. They understood it.” Jonathan shrugs, like it’s that easy. Like anything is that easy. Steve’s done way more than sit with the kids when he feels like this. 

“Of course, they did. They’re smart kids. But they could have come over. It’s not like we’re doing anything. We don’t even have the TV on.”

“Steve, you can barely handle two lamps being on right now. The kids would make it worse,” Nancy says.

“You don’t have to stay the night again,” Steve’s grasping at straws, he can already tell. They’re not going to agree to leave him alone, and he doesn’t know how to get them to give up.

It’s not worth it, all this time with him. There’s always something. His knee playing up–it was wrenched out of socket in a baseball game as a kid and now he feels like an old man complaining about his joints every time it rains–or his head, or the wrist he broke when he slammed into the wall too hard at a swim meet.

He won his heat, though, even if he’d nearly drowned because he was gasping from the pain seconds later.

“We’re staying the night.”

“What about your parents?”

“My mom’s not home, my dad doesn’t care.” Nancy says.

“My mom probably would come over if she didn’t have work.” Jonathan moves a little closer, like he’s worried or something.

Why would he be worried about Steve? 

It’s not like they talk. None of them are really friends, and it’s not like Steve doesn’t understand why. They don’t spend entire days at each others’ houses.

Maybe in the past, with Tommy and Carol, something like this might have happened.

“Wait, were you yelling at Tommy and Carol yesterday?”

Steve hasn’t talked to them in months.

“Yeah. They decided they were suddenly the best people to take care of you.” Nancy’s brow draws together the way it does when she’s angry, and Steve has to look away before he can think too hard about how it’s kind of cute when it’s on his behalf. 

Her boyfriend is literally sitting with them. He can’t be thinking about her like that.

Now, or ever again.

“It’s not like they’ve ever seen me like this. Hungover, sure, but I’ve never had hangovers as bad as this.”

“I’d hope not.” Jonathan says, dryly, and Steve hates that he finds it a little funny. His head still hurts too much to be laughing.

“What do you want to ask, Nance?” He figures he might as well get it over with–maybe he can convince them to leave after she gets her answers.

He has no such luck. All of his answers–no, no one else knows, yes he normally does this on his own, several times since Hargrove hit him with a fucking plate, his hearing sucks and no, he hasn’t seen anyone about it–only spawn more questions from her and Jonathan.

He’s not sure why they care so much, but he knows better than to say that part out loud.

“The kids should be somewhere else tonight,” Jonathan says, “Mom won’t care if you come home with me.”

“I’ll be fine here. The worst of it is done with.”

“But what if it comes back? You said it does, sometimes.”

“I don’t need to be watched.” He’s been handling things fine on his own.

“What if you have a seizure? Or choke on your own vomit?” Nancy asks.

“She’s done some research.” Jonathan explains, like Steve hadn’t figured that out already.

“When? How? You didn’t know about any of this.”

“We knew you weren’t acting right.”

“That’s not a lot to go off of.”

“And that head injuries are bad.”

Well, yeah. Everyone knows that. The kids know that. He’s just waiting for them to catch up and realize what it means for him, even if he’s also dreading that day.

He already can’t get rid of them. It’s going to be worse when they start worrying about him constantly.

“You didn’t have to go and research about them, though.”

“You know how she is,” Jonathan says, nudging Steve.

Steve stares at his legs.

“I’m not getting out of this, am I?”

“No. Nancy and I can go call my mom, if you want to pack.”

Steve should put his foot down, but he doesn’t want to argue. He knows Nancy well enough to know that she won’t leave this alone until she gets her way, and from today he knows that Jonathan will back her up.

His head doesn’t hurt the same way it did yesterday–they’ve kept the lights and the sound too low for that–but an argument might change that.

And that, more than anything, would prove them right.

So Steve packs an overnight bag and pretends to fall asleep leaning against the car window.

Jonathan should start keeping a notebook like Nancy does. A list of all the things he’s noticed–though he thinks that Nancy’s got some of them written down already.

Nancy glances at him from the passenger seat, but she doesn’t take his hand like she normally would. 

“How long can you stay?” He whispers–she’s been away one night already, and even Ted Wheeler should notice that.

Or maybe he hasn’t, somehow.

“Overnight, I think. I can call home and check.”

“What will the neighbors think, Miss Wheeler?”

“It’s not the 50s, Jonathan.”

“That means we’d be going to school with my mom.”

“Do you think you’d be friends with your mom in high school?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

“I don’t know if I would. But my parents don’t talk about high school much.”

“Mom doesn’t either.”

He parks the car–Steve’s out too quickly for him to have really been asleep, but it’s not like Jonathan hadn’t already suspected that.

“How many kids do you think are still in there?” Nancy asks, a little sharp.

“He’ll tell them to shut up before anyone else, Nance.”

“Doesn’t mean they’ll listen. Or lower their volume.”

“Should we tell the kids about all of this?”

“Steve doesn’t want them to know.”

“Steve didn’t want us to know. The kids see him more than we do.”

“Let’s start with my mom.” Jonathan says.

Steve makes that easy, at least–by the time he and Nancy get inside, he’s sitting with Mom at the kitchen table, face hidden in his arms.

“Moved too fast, I think,” Mom glances over at them, “Will went to yours, Nancy, so we have the house to ourselves.”

“I’ll put your bag in my room.” Jonathan lets himself put a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

It’s strange, the way Steve’s shoulder fits into his palm. He’s used to patting Mom and Will and sometimes Nancy on the shoulders–it shouldn’t be any different with Steve.

Jonathan picks up Steve’s bag and drops his hand from his shoulder.

He’ll be used to it by the end of the weekend. Probably.

Jonathan adds a lot to his mental notes about Steve over that weekend–and throughout the next week. Things Steve doesn’t want to tell them, or maybe doesn’t realize are happening in the first place.

He stops wincing at lights by Sunday evening, but he can’t go without his sunglasses in the school hallways for very long. 

He doesn’t flinch when the kids yell and scream practically right in his ear, but if the TV is just a little too loud, he’ll leave the room entirely.

Nancy has her notebook, too–one with pages for everyone in their group. Mike has the most, and then Jonathan and Will. Steve is getting close, though.

“It feels kind of like a project.” Nancy mutters when Steve takes his tray back to the counter after lunch.

“At least he’s sitting with us now.”

They’re so focused on figuring out a pattern of behavior, a pattern of things that lead to migraines like the one Steve had over the weekend, that neither of them pick up on the newer signs.

Not at first, anyway. Not early enough to do anything.

It’s a nice enough day that Lucas and Max have convinced the rest of the kids to forgo the arcade in favor of the faded basketball court, and Steve is, of course, equal parts their coach and referee in the little game they have going.

If Lucas were a little younger, or if Max weren’t around, Jonathan’s pretty sure he’d be half a step behind Steve at all times.

Jonathan and Nancy don’t get into the game–Jonathan takes a few pictures here and there, when one of the kids (usually Lucas) makes a trick shot. When Steve decides to ‘show them how it’s done’ and nails it on the first try.

Nancy is trying to get ahead in their book for English, but she’s turned four pages the entire time they’ve been here.

“Having fun watching?” He asks, a little more snarkily than he intended to.

He’s watching too, and they both know it.

Somehow, Steve hasn’t figured it out yet.

“I’m reading, Jonathan, leave me alone,” She kicks his leg lightly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.”

“You’re the one who’s been taking pictures of him all morning.”

“The kids are in there, too.”

“Oh, sure, but he’s the focal point.”

“Not my fault he’s good at basketball.”

In that one, maybe two minute exchange, they miss the most important part of the morning.

“Jonathan! Nancy!” The kids are all screaming, different pitches and timing–they’ve been good about their volume this morning, too.

Nancy tucks her bookmark into place while Jonathan hurries to get his camera put away. It’s only when he’s following after her that he realizes it’s sticking out parallel to the pages, not neatly aligned with the spine the way she usually places it.

That’s when he lets himself look, for the first time since the screaming started.

“He just, like, fell over! We didn’t even do anything!” Dustin is saying, but Jonathan can barely make out the words.

“All of you, back off! Stop screaming. One of you tell us exactly what happened. Will, Mike, go to the nearest house and see if you can use their phone.”

“We don’t know what happened!” Lucas protests.

“He was coming to sit with you for a while because his head hurt,” Max says, “But then he just… fell over. I thought he was joking at first.”

“Steve wouldn’t joke like that,” Dustin snaps, “He wouldn’t!”

“Do you think we need an ambulance?” Jonathan ignores the kids once Max is done explaining.

“His pulse is okay, I think. Steady. Not too fast or too slow. I don’t know what it could be.”

“He’s been fine this week.” At least from what Jonathan has noticed. It’s not like Steve is going to tell them every time he has a headache.

“Is Steve sick?”

“Is Steve going to die?”

“Why isn’t he waking up?”

Of course, saying that aloud just creates their very own Greek chorus.

“Steve’s not going to die,” Nancy tells the kids firmly. “How about you give Steve some breathing room and go sit by our stuff?”

“Okay.”

None of them look like they want to go, and Jonathan counts himself lucky that Hopper’s been insistent on El staying in the cabin–he doesn’t want to think about how this would have turned out if she were here.

Sure, it’s possible she could have stopped Steve from going down–shit, did he hit his head again?–but she also might try and help him up, or keeping the other kids back, and that wouldn’t go over well.

“I didn’t see what happened. Is his head bleeding?” Jonathan cups Steve’s head in his hands, feeling very carefully for any bumps or bleeding. “No, it’s not.”

“Okay. Do you think Will and Mike will call an ambulance, or–”

“They might just call Dustin’s mom, if she’s home.”

When Jonathan glances over, Lucas and Max are the only ones standing in the shade with their things, so that’s probably what Dustin is up to.

“‘Hen’d you get o’er here?” Steve blinks up at him–his pupils aren’t quite right, but they’re not different sizes. That’s a concussion thing, right?

Jonathan should probably know more about concussions by now.

“You collapsed, so we came over to see why.” Nancy tells him.

“Hmm.”

Steve’s eyes close again, and they can’t get him to wake back up.

Later, Jonathan will realize that he doesn’t remember the rest of the day very well. At some point, Mom and Hopper show up–the one ambulance in Hawkins is tied up somewhere else, and Steve’s not bleeding out, so he’s not the priority. 

“Nancy and I will take the kids home; my car isn’t big enough to hold all of them,” Mom says.

“We want to go with Steve!”

“The doctors won’t let you see him,” Hopper shuts down those protests easily, “Jonathan, you’re coming with me. Someone is going to have to hold him steady in the backseat.”

The drive to the hospital is a blur–Steve doesn’t wake up, even when Hopper can’t avoid the potholes, and Jonathan keeps his fingers on Steve’s pulse the whole time.

Once Jonathan has tried his best to explain what happened to one of the nurses, Steve is taken back to a room. Hopper’s filling out Steve’s paperwork–Jonathan doesn’t ask how he knows any of it, or why they’re letting him.

“He probably just overheated or something,” Hopper mutters, but Jonathan doesn’t think he believes it.

“He seemed really confused. And he had a bad migraine last weekend. I think he gets them more often than he lets on.”

“Keeping an eye on your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, huh?”

“It’s not like that,” Jonathan protests, “He helped look for Will and Barb, and he’s around with the kids all the time. I see him a lot.”

This is not the place to get into the particulars of the situation, and he’s not sure he wants to tell Hopper that he and Nancy are having a silent debate on who’s going to break and kiss Steve first.

“Call your mom or Nancy, see if everyone’s home. Maybe have one of them pick you up.”

“But they haven’t even told us anything yet!”

“And they probably won’t for a while.”

Jonathan doesn’t want to leave before he hears something, so he stares at the wall instead. Hopper doesn’t make him get up, just finishes the paperwork and hands it in at the desk.

Jonathan loses track of time, staring at the wall like if he just thinks hard enough, he’ll be able to see through it and to Steve’s room.

Then Hopper’s shaking him.

“He’s awake. Want to go see him before I take you home?”

“I don’t want to leave– Wait, I can see him?”

“Yeah, for a few minutes.”

“What happened?”

“They want to talk to Steve a little more, run a few tests, before they say anything.” There’s something Hopper’s not telling him; it’s been long enough to run at least some tests and ask Steve what happened.

“What did they write in his chart?”

“Just that he has a history of head injuries and migraines. Nothing special.”

“Hi, Jon,” Steve’s speaking clearly now, even if he still seems a little dazed.

“Hi, Steve.”

“I think maybe I shouldn’t have played basketball today.”

“Probably not.”

“I haven’t felt bad all week, though.”

“That’s good.” What Jonathan and Nancy have noticed says otherwise, but he’s not going to argue with Steve over that now.

“It’s weird. Usually there’s at least one or two days. I didn’t even feel bad today. Not really.”

“Steve, we’ve got to take you back to run a few more tests.” A nurse interrupts from the door. Jonathan wishes he could tell her to go away. “Your visitors can come back tomorrow, during visiting hours.”

“He’s under eighteen, so I’ll be coming back for the night.” Hopper tells her, gruffly. “Let’s get you home, Jonathan.”

Jonathan is, unfortunately, too old to be throwing a fit because he can’t see his friend for more than a few minutes.

But he still wants to.

Hopper drops him off and pulls away quickly–doesn’t even come inside to give his mom an update.

As soon as Jonathan’s done talking to her, he calls Nancy.

It’s times like these when he wishes he could have a phone in his room, just so he wouldn’t be aware of Will and Mom pretending not to listen in.

“Did we do something?” Will asks, quietly, once Jonathan hangs up the phone.

“No, Will, it wasn’t anything you guys did. They’re gonna figure it out, okay?”

But when he and Nancy take the kids to see Steve the next afternoon, they’re not allowed in.

“He seized in the middle of the night,” Hopper tells them, out of the kids’ earshot, “They think it’s related to his previous head injuries.”

No shit, Jonathan wants to yell. Of course it’s related to his other head injuries.

“He’ll be okay, right?”

“They’re working on that. They don’t think it’s epilepsy, since he’s only had the one, but there’s some new seizure medication they can try if it is.”

Nancy and Jonathan aren’t allowed to see him, either, even if they go individually.

“Would you two mind getting his work for the next couple of days? I’ll have to call the school tomorrow.”

“We will,” Nancy says, and Jonathan can tell she’s already making a list of Steve’s teachers in her head. “You’ll tell him we came by, right?”

“Yeah. He’s sleeping right now, but when he wakes up.”

Neither of them ask why Steve’s parents won’t be calling the school, or why they’re not showing up. Jonathan doesn’t think he’s seen them at any of Steve’s games or swim meets–though he doesn’t take as many pictures there as he does at basketball. He doesn’t even know what their cars look like, and he goes by Steve’s to pick up Will often enough now that if they were there, he would see them.

Hopper must have called Mom, because she already knows everything–and more, Jonathan suspects, but she won’t tell him anything–by the time Jonathan gets home again. The kids, thankfully, know better than to yell about not being able to see Steve while they’re in the hospital, but that didn’t stop them in the car.

Nancy and Jonathan don’t take the kids when they drop by after school on Monday or Tuesday–but it doesn’t matter, because they’re only allowed ten minutes to see Steve.

Despite Steve’s so-called ‘fall from grace’, the hallways are still filled with too-loud whispers when he stops by his locker on Wednesday morning. Nancy and Jonathan are hovering, though Steve knows that Hopper only gave them a bare bones explanation of what happened.

Truth be told, he’s not sure what happened either. Sure, he’d had a few mild headaches over the week, but that’s not abnormal for him. He was breathing fine when they were playing, none of the kids had hit him in the head with the ball or knocked him over, he’d just… gone down.

And then he’d had a surprise seizure, and they didn’t know what to make of that, either.

“Thanks,” He tells Nancy when she hands him a folder of his missed work, “I’ll get right on this.”

She rolls her eyes. “Jonathan and I will get your afternoon work today. And we’ll come over after school to do homework together.”

“How did you know I’m only staying half the day?” Steve hadn’t, not until this morning. Hopper’s rules. Morning classes today, afternoon classes tomorrow, and then he’s allowed a full day on Friday.

“I overheard my mom talking to Hopper,” Jonathan admits.

“So they’re in cahoots against me, got it.”

“Steve, you were in the hospital for three days,” Nancy says.

“Well, it’s not like they could figure out why. I’m fine–I’m not going to collapse on you again.”

They’re watching some video on the rolling TV in his English class when he realizes he’s not sitting up anymore. 

He’s not even in a chair.

Someone moves his body, turning him, and he must be on the floor.

“Harrington,” Right, they have a sub today, “This is not the time for jokes.”

Steve doesn’t answer. He can’t. He doesn’t know how to make his mouth work anymore.

“I don’t think he’s joking, sir.” That voice is–Tommy? Tommy doesn’t do shit like this for him anymore. Not since their fight.

“He was in the hospital until yesterday,” Steve doesn’t recognize that voice.

“Someone get Wheeler and Byers, they know more about what’s going on.” Tommy again.

Steve loses track of the voices after that. It kind of feels like Saturday–he heard all the kids screaming, and then Nancy and Jonathan, but they weren’t screaming, and he’s not sure what happened.

He doesn’t like the ambulance–the sirens stay off, but the paramedics are loud and someone’s radio is going off and there’s something beeping.

Steve is unconscious when they reach the hospital.

“What’s the deal with Steve?” Perkins corners Nancy before lunch. “Tommy said he like, passed out or something during class.”

“What?” Nancy asks, catching Jonathan’s eye as he walks in. His face looks drawn even from here.

“He passed out in class.”

“I heard that part, but he was–” He was supposed to be better. The hospital was supposed to help him.

When she thinks it plainly like that, it seems so childish. Of course, they didn’t fix Steve. They didn’t even tell him why he collapsed.

“You don’t know. I thought he told you and Byers everything now,” Perkins sneers.

“It’s not like they know, either.” Nancy spits, before she realizes what she’s done.

“You mean the hospital didn’t figure anything out?”

“No. They didn’t,” Nancy doesn’t know what tests they ran, or if they can run more, but apparently it wasn’t good enough to find anything.

“They better find out this time.”

Perkins slips off then, just as Jonathan reaches them; he’s holding one of Steve’s notebooks.

“Did you hear about–”

“She just told me.”

“Hagan sent someone to get one of us when it happened, and I was closer. The sub thought he was playing a prank, I guess.”

“Collasping on the floor in the middle of class is a pretty lame prank,” Nancy says. 

“I’m letting Hopper tell the kids.”

“I don’t think he’ll have to. Everyone will have heard about it by the end of the day.”

She can hear Hargrove, somewhere in the cafeteria, talking about it already. He’ll mention it to Max, just to be cruel about it.

Ms. Byers is waiting outside for them when they get out of school. She’s never here at this time of day–Jonathan can drive himself and Will now, and she’s usually working.

“Hi, Nancy, Jonathan. Hopper stopped by Melveld’s to pick up some snacks for the road. It’s a good thing we’re a small town, or he wouldn’t be able to take this many days off.”

“They took Steve out of town, didn’t they?” There’s no other reason for Hopper to be leaving town–she’s only here to tell them so they don’t go trying to visit Steve today. Or tomorrow.

They probably won’t see him until Saturday, unless he comes back sooner.

“Yeah, to Saint Mary’s, a couple of hours away. Hawkins General doesn’t have the equipment for some of the tests they want to run.”

“The kids are going to riot,” Jonathan says, “What else did Hopper say?”

“Well, he didn’t seize again, just collapsed, so that’s a good sign so far. I don’t know much else. You two can head home–I’ll talk to the kids and drive them home.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Jonathan kisses her cheek.

“Hopper’s going to call with any updates, if there are any. He’s trying to get in touch with Steve’s parents, but I don’t think he’s going to reach them.”

Nancy doesn’t go home–she and Jonathan stick with their original plan of stopping by Steve’s. She snagged the spare key when they checked on him the other weekend, so getting in is easy.

They don’t say much as they pick out some sweats and t-shirts from Steve’s dresser, or while they drive back to the Byers’. Will’s not as nosy as Holly is, and he’s not likely to tell anyone something he shouldn’t on a whim.

Ms. Byers’ car isn’t outside when they pull up, but she and Jonathan sit in the car for a while anyway.

“How long can you stay?”

“Until after dinner, probably. Especially if your mom talks to my mom.”

“We’re not the kids, our moms don’t need to plan our hangout time.”

“I mean about Steve, Jonathan.” Nancy says, too sharply.

She’s tired of not knowing what’s going on. There’s no way she’ll be able to research anything with the information they have, and all of the library’s medical texts are at least five years out of date.

She can’t shoot whatever is wrong with Steve’s brain–she never wants to see a demo-anything again, if she can help it, but at least she can do something about them.

“How mad would your mom be if we skipped school tomorrow?”

“Jonathan, we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t even know if we’d be allowed to see him, and Hopper will send us straight home.”

“I know. But it would be better than sitting here and not knowing anything.”

“We just have to wait.”

The rest of the week is going to be miserable.

Between collecting Steve’s schoolwork–and politely not answering the teachers’ questions about what happened to Steve, because they still don’t know–and dodging Perkins and Hagan, Jonathan and Nancy barely have time to think about making the drive out to Saint Mary’s. 

His mom must have shut down any ideas the kids had about visiting handily on Wednesday, or else they’d have that to deal with, too.

“Hopper’s bringing him home tomorrow. We’re not telling the kids until the day after.” Mom tells him, quietly, after a long phone call that he didn’t even try not to listen to.

“What else did he say?”

“No more seizures, but they haven’t figured out why he collapsed again.”

“What if it happens again?”

“As long as he doesn’t hit his head or seize, they don’t want him going back in.”

Jonathan wants to ask why they sent him to Saint Mary’s if they weren’t going to find anything, but he knows it doesn’t work that way.

“Hopper’s planning on bringing him to his house–I know you and Nancy packed him a bag, but you should probably return it.”

“Who’s staying with him if he’s going there? Won’t Hopper have to work?”

Mom just looks at him for a minute.

“Really? You think we should stay with him?”

“You and Nancy are his friends, honey, and you’ve both been sixty seconds away from driving to Saint Mary’s all week. You can give him his schoolwork, hang out, whatever it is you kids these days do when there aren’t adults around.”

“We–Mom!”

Okay, well, Jonathan smokes sometimes, like once every few months, and he’s had a few beers before.

But she doesn’t need to know that. If she does, he’d like her to keep pretending she doesn’t.

“You’re all good kids, Jonathan, and you’ve had to handle more than a lot of adults. If you need help, you’ll call.”

“Yeah. I’m going to talk to Nancy now.”

It’s the only thing he can say that will let him escape this.

Steve doesn’t bother pretending to read through the exit packet they gave him–Hopper’s been given the same rundown, if verbally, and he’s too tired to process this many words at once.

How can he have been sleeping for most of the day and still feel so tired?

“I’ll come in and get you settled,” Hopper is saying, but Steve isn’t paying much attention, “But Nancy and Jonathan will be with you the whole weekend. The kids don’t know you’re back yet, and we’re going to keep it that way until at least tomorrow afternoon.”

Steve nods.

“Do you think falling down the stairs again will fix whatever’s going on?”

“When did you fall down the stairs.”

Steve thinks that was supposed to be a question, but it doesn’t sound like one.

“As a baby. Hit my head and everything.”

“No, Steve, do not try concussive force to fix the issues caused by previous concussive force.”

“Well, no one else had any ideas, so.”

“I know, kid.”

Hopper leaves him alone after that.

Steve can’t do anything he likes anymore–even swimming is off the table now, because they don’t know what’s going on and he would drown if this happened in the water–so he’s going to have to find new things.

He doesn’t want to find new things. He’s spent years getting good at his current things, and now he doesn’t even have that.

Maybe Nancy and Jonathan will have some ideas.

Hopper doesn’t help him out of the car, because he knows that Steve doesn’t want that, but he does slap the hood of Steve’s car as they walk up the driveway.

“I know. No driving.”

No driving.

That might be the worst part.

Steve’s no stranger to going on long runs to clear his head, but drives are something else. Especially if he can pick up a stray Mayfield or Henderson or Sinclair along the way.

Driving’s off the table, too, until they can confirm that he won’t collapse behind the steering wheel.

Maybe they should just pull his brain out through his nose–he thinks he learned about that in history class once–and study it that way. Figure out what’s wrong directly from the source, and then fix it.

Nancy and Jonathan let him mope by himself for a few hours, but then they–climb into bed with him?

“No being sad alone,” Nancy tells him. She’s got his packet with her. She’s probably already read it four times, taking notes on the most important parts.

Her concentrated face is always cute.

“That sounds like a Holly saying.”

“It is. And I think she’s right.”

“Steve,” Jonathan turns Steve’s head with a soft touch, “We read over the packet, and talked to Hopper.”

“So you’re here to keep me out of trouble?”

“Did you read the packet?”

“No. Too many words when I’m like this.”

“One of their suggestions is stress.” Nancy says, thumbing the pages like she’s going to read it again.

“I wasn’t stressed on Saturday, I was having fun. And I was fine at school until I wasn’t.”

“I don’t think it’s stress either,” Jonathan tells him.

“Good. At least one person agrees with me. What else do they say?”

“You’ve had a lot of head injuries.” Nancy does flip the pages this time, until she gets to a circled number–she must have done it, because it wasn’t like that before. “I didn’t even know about half of these.”

“They were before we were dating.” He plays off his wince as a shrug, probably unconvincingly.

That made it sound like they’re still dating.

“Steve, one more hard hit to the head will probably kill you. Or put you in a coma.”

“It’s not like I plan on getting hit on the head.”

He doesn’t plan on fading out, either, but it happens anyway–at some point, he knows they move him, and he can hear them talking the whole time. No one yells, or says he’s faking, and it’s better than the other times. He comes around on his own, maybe an hour or two later, or maybe two days later. His sense of time is very loose, right now.

“I don’t think it counts,” Steve bites into his plain toast–the only thing he can stomach right now–and watches Nancy and Jonathan as they decide whether or not to yell at him for that.

“It does count,” Nancy says.

“I was already lying down in bed, I just fell asleep in very odd stages.” He laughs, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Neither of them laugh with him. Jonathan takes his hand, and it’s so unexpected that Steve stops.

“I think we should tell you some of the things we’ve noticed, Steve.”

We’ve?

“Okay?”

Once he finishes his toast, Nancy takes his other hand.

“Jonathan keeps telling me things about you, because he’s observant, and I keep tabs on everyone in a little notebook, so we started comparing notes.”

If it were anyone else, Steve wouldn’t let them sit here and hold his hands as they tag-team explaining his migraine symptoms and bad days to him.

But because it’s Nancy, who he’s never quite gotten over, and Jonathan, who’s actually a pretty good friend, now that they’re closer, he lets them.

There’s a lot of things that he hadn’t caught onto.

They move back to his bedroom, eventually, just to curl up under the covers and talk some more. Having Jonathan spoon him isn’t nearly as weird as he thought it might feel–but if it were Tommy, he’d probably hate it.

By the time Joyce and the kids come around on Sunday afternoon, Nancy and Jonathan have bullied him into making a firm plan for migraine days with them.

By the end of the week, they’ve witnessed one more collapse and formed a plan for those, too.

By the end of the month, Steve has stopped staring whenever they hold his hands–which is good, because they do it as often as possible.

He keeps his sunglasses on and his head down at school, sticks to quieter areas and lets Nancy and Jonathan find him there, day after day.

The collapses don’t stop, really, but they come more predictably once they know what they’re looking for. Nancy makes a graph correlating his migraine days to when he’s collapsed. Jonathan points out that the collapses always happen within five to seven days after the end of a migraine, but that it’s only five when Steve doesn’t take it as easy as he should afterward.

Eventually, Steve will outright tell them when he has a migraine, instead of Jonathan and Nancy needing to piece it together on their own.

They never stop watching Steve. Most days, it just means that he catches them, because he’s watching Nancy and Jonathan right back.