Chapter Text
Sometimes Steve Harrington dreams of long, endless hallways.
When he is younger, it is always the soft gray carpets of his house. Stretched out into an eternal agglomeration of white doors and barren walls. He wanders aimlessly, looking for something unidentifiable. The emptiness of it all shivering like ice down his spine as he tries door after door, always waking a second before he reaches for the right handle.
Tonight he walks the now familiar halls of Hawkins General Hospital in an endless loop. He searches through the well-worn paths of the third floor, passing through empty intersections and shuffling past identical doors. There is a silence now that he’s never associated with his time here, a yawning kind of quiet that leaves him feeling unsettled. He walks by the reception desk, empty, and turns his head down the hall to Max’s room.
Surely, he thinks, Max is who he’s looking for.
He approaches slowly, measuring his socked footsteps on the freezing tile. His shoulders are quivering with apprehension, and there is anxiety working its way under his skin to flutter in his rib cage. His hands feel slippery with sweat when he grabs the doorknob in his fist and gives it a turn.
He wakes like that; cold and clammy.
Sitting up abruptly in his soft sheets and coughing wetly into the night air. He is in his house. Lying on his bed in his room on the second floor. The quiet persists.
He waits there for a long while. Ignores the shivering sweat left from his dream and pulls the covers up to his chin. He takes his time calming his breaths. Counting to ten and back as he tries to pretend that the chill he feels is coming from his empty house. That it’s nestled in something outside of his own skin.
It’s only when the sun starts to peek its way through the half-drawn blinds of his windows that he gets up. He wanders through his morning routine with all the detached focus he can manage. Stumbling to his closet to change and across the hall to the bathroom. His thoughts swirl together like cold molasses. Thick and slow in his head. His limbs feel heavy as he finds his way downstairs to make breakfast, but Steve’s not worried.
It’s always like this, after the Upside Down.
He checks his sticky note board over syrup-drowned pancakes. Carefully catalogs the multicolored reminders he’s got pinned under each day. The little tabs make him think of Robin, and he can’t help but grin as he shoves down another mouthful. Something about the way she’d been so endearingly nervous when she’d given it to him for his birthday. All gangly limbs and still too-deep bags under her eyes from all the nights she spent at his house not sleeping.
“It's to help you remember important things.” She’d said, looking surreptitiously for his reaction. He’d just beamed at her, eyes wet, and put the scheduling board up on his kitchen counter. She’d nodded once, and they’d moved on. No big deal. Like she didn’t care if he used it or not. Like he hadn’t cried to her about how shitty he felt when he forgot appointments or plans with the kids just a week ago, tangled up together on the couch while some French film played on the TV. Like it wasn’t the nicest thing anyone had really ever done for him.
Like he mattered.
The only people more excited about the gift than Steve were the kids. Who all became overenthusiastic participants immediately. Clambering wildly over each other to get their sticky notes on prime board space. Steve doesn’t totally understand their system, but they gamble the top spots now, over card games and bets and traded favors. It’s a fierce competition, to get rides and movie nights with Steve. A schedule everyone is careful to follow religiously. Robin has taken to using it as a much more effective currency than money, or even blackmail, since she’s the only other person allowed to move the sticky notes around after they’ve been placed on the board.
It makes something undeniably warm curl in Steve’s chest to look at it.
He swears by it now. Checking and rechecking the notes on the given day to make sure he doesn’t miss anything important. He makes out Dustin’s messy scrawl, and Will’s tiny little letters from where they stare at him up from the little post-it papers.
He doesn’t think about how he can’t see Max’s notes on the board anymore, cramped and always shoved halfway underneath all the others. The way they had tapered off for months before spring break. Disappearing in the scramble of all the kids starting high school. He doesn’t think about how, even if she were awake, if she were with them, she still wouldn’t be able to write anything with the heavy casts that creep up her arms and over her fingers.
Today’s schedule is a familiar echo to the rest of the board; colorful and chaotic. Two overlapping notes have Dustin and Lucas requesting rides to the hospital in the afternoon. Erica’s bright purple addition loudly tells him to ‘REMEMBER TO EAT, YOU ASSHOLE’ and he smiles in spite of himself, shaking his head fondly.
God help him, he loves these fucking kids.
He feels his smile dim a little as he catches sight of the bottom note. Hidden back and tucked in between Dustin and Erica’s like it wants to be forgotten. He pulls the tabs back to get a look and feels his frown pull more firmly at the corners of his mouth.
HOPPER Robin’s spidery handwriting says.
Right.
He forgot.
He sighs and puts the board away. Cleans the table off and takes his time with the dishes, washing and drying meticulously.
He lets his mind wander as he feels the warm water run over his hands, slow and steady. There aren’t many dishes, but his fingers are pruned by the time he’s done. Blinking the morning sunlight out of his eyes and glancing at the clock.
10:07. Time to go.
He heads with slow steps to the entryway, knowing he can’t hold off any longer and mentally preparing himself against whatever is coming. As much as he doesn’t want to go see Hop at the station today, the mental image of Hopper banging down his door is not improbable. Even if it’s unwelcome. It’s made up and held together by a creeping kind of anxiety and the highly unpleasant memories of him invading this very hallway.
Loud party, bodies dancing and talking and puking into flower vases, and Hop. Face scowling and arms folded. The perfect picture of parental disappointment.
Steve is careful as he slips on his jacket and shoes with practiced precision, always mindful of his still healing bat bites. He does his daily breathing exercises in front of the hallway mirror while he fixes his hair, and doesn’t think about the twinges in his sides with every movement or exhale.
In for six, hold for seven, out for eight.
The tightness in his chest stretches with each breath in. A constant reminder of his recent discharge from the hospital. He keeps breathing on his way to the car, flexing and unflexing his fingers where they grip the leather steering wheel, the tips of them numb even in the warm weather.
The lethargy of it follows him like a shadow as he backs out of his driveway. It creeps past Main Street and down through all the detours he has to take to avoid the earthquake damage. The glowing red rifts may be closed for now, but the echo of that night is not so easily erased. Steve can feel the unevenness of it as he steers the Beemer gently through a left turn. He’s been driving over all of those cracks lately when he runs errands. Pulling over the bumps and bruises of them with something like dread eating up his insides.
It feels worse today, with the looming threat of Hop’s disapproval presenting itself in the distance. He rolls to a stop at a red light. Breathes carefully in, squeezes his eyes shut. Gives himself this moment.
If he’d only been faster. Or- or better, maybe. None of this would have happened. Driving around town is like seeing the evidence of his failure painted into the very ground itself. Present and damning. He’s sure that’s what Hop wants to talk about too. What happened. What went wrong. It’s why he’s been putting off this conversation for weeks.
Because the thing really, the point, is that Steve was- he was the adult over spring break. The one running the show. He’s the one all of this shit falls on, now that it’s all gone wrong. Dustin’s broken ankle, Eddie’s endless lines of stitches, Max’s fucking coma. That’s on Steve. And if he’s sure of one thing, it’s that Hop won’t be happy with the way he handled this.
He thinks that maybe if it were anyone else he could weather the disappointment. The shame of it. He's had quite enough practice being a complete screw-up and 19 years of experience in taking a lecture. He knows how to accept defeat. Except that it's Hop, and something about it feels different. Different than his Dad's caustic disappointment or his Mom's watery blue eyes.
It's Hopper, who was dead and gone but now magically isn't. Who's always been a bit of a blunt instrument. Too tired and too snappish and too knowing. The man who put up with all of Steve's stupid high school parties, and kept him company on the nights when he went too far and got dragged down to the station.
Hop, who looked at Steve for the first time in the winter of 83, all banged up and nose broken, like he finally did something good. And then kept looking every year after until he was gone.
And now he's back. And Steve is, Steve is-
Sitting in the cold stiff chair. Arms folded and scowl firmly in place. The May sunshine is cascading nicely in little lines through the blinds, but on days like today, the air still has a frigid kind of nip to it that tastes like winter at the edges. Steve wishes emphatically that he’d thought to grab his jacket from the passenger seat before he’d answered this summons, but knows there’s nothing for it now except to cross his arms more fully and pretend he can’t feel the goosebumps breaking out across his skin.
Hopper sits behind his desk, his own arms folded in a mirror of Steve’s. His heavy eyebrows are scrunched up in that way they always are when he is about to lose his patience, and his eyes are dark and angry.
“What the hell do you mean, you didn’t try?”
“Uh, exactly what I said, Hopper.” Steve replies snippily, resisting the urge to lift his chin defiantly. He is all tight shoulders and pinched brows. Angry and defiant. His emotions are fraying at the edges, and he can feel the heat of humiliation on his cheeks. Embarrassed at himself for thinking no one would find out, and embarrassed to be dragged to Hop's stupid office for a useless conversation that neither of them are going to enjoy.
“I only sent one application in.”
“What the hell Harrington. Why?”
Steve shrugs with a casualness he doesn’t feel. “Didn’t really seem to matter that much. Besides, s’not like I would have gotten accepted anywhere, just needed something to show my Dad.”
“Bullshit. I know for a fact there were recruiters at all of your games this season. Basketball and baseball. You could get a scholarship to any school within two hundred miles of here. So don’t try to tell me you wouldn’t have made it in. We both know that’s a load of shit.” Hopper leans forward in his chair, bores his stupid eyes into Steve’s
“So I’ll ask again. Why the fuck did you not even try?"
Steve huffs, feeling every inch the errant teenager he is. Leans back in his chair and thinks about whether he’s going to get out of this conversation with anything less than the truth. The odds are looking slim.
“I’m not going to just leave, Hop. I have things to take care of here. I’m not- I can’t leave."
Hopper nods his head like Steve’s said something more than he has. Settles in a little deeper in his own seat and drums his fingers lightly on the desk. Steve doesn’t like the look in his eye. Settled and knowing.
“El says you’re the one that’s been dropping the boys off at the Cabin on weekends. That true?”
Steve shrugs, pretends he and Hopper don’t both know where this is going.
“Could be. You know how information gets around with those little dickheads. Never know what to believe.”
Hopper raises an eyebrow, reluctantly amused. “So you aren’t the one who taught her how to make that new pasta sauce last week? I could have sworn it was you that put all those dirty dishes in my sink.”
Steve just shakes his head, guilty as charged. Red currents of embarrassed heat stain his cheeks.
“I don’t see what this has to do with anything,” he hisses out, caught, because actually he does.
Hop snorts, drawing weary hands over his face.
“God save me from stubborn-ass teenagers.” He says into his fingers. He gets up from his chair, walks around his desk, and leans back on it to stand in front of Steve.
“I’m not stupid, Harrington. You’re staying for them, right? To keep an eye out? Don’t think I don’t know that they’ve got you hauling them all over town every other weekend.”
He sighs again, bone weary.
“I get it, you know. I do. But Steve, you’ve gotta ask yourself where this leads. You can’t stay here forever trying to protect them.”
Steve’s answer is immediate, quiet. It slips out before he can really think about it. Before he can judge the weight of the words on his tongue.
“And if I don’t, then who will?”
“I will. Joyce will.”
Steve shakes his head.
“C'mon, Harrington,” Hopper says softly, gentle and quiet. Cajoling. “You can’t put your whole life on hold. Bad things happened, kid, sure they did. That’s the way the world works. But if you spend every moment of your life waiting for the next blow, you’re gonna wake up one day and realize you never got around to actually living."
“I don’t want that for you. You’re a good kid. Despite all of it. You deserve to get the chance to see what else you could be.”
He puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder, gives it a squeeze of finality.
“So take the summer. Stick around a little longer. But I’m gonna haul your ass in here this August, and you’re going to tell me where you’re going next. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Geeze, Hop,” Steve says, blinking back tears and smiling with all his teeth, trying to pretend like his chest isn’t caving in. “Nance and Jon get the third degree too?”
“Nah,” says Hopper, “They didn’t need it. Neither of them are spending all their spare change taking the kids to the arcade every weekend. Seems like they got their eyes on their own futures instead of everybody else’s.”
Steve leaves the station with a feeling in his chest that tastes like hope. Holds it close inside during those first few months of summer. Keeps it safe and secure in guarded hands and only lets it go as he sits in the mall parking lot under a shock blanket, waiting and waiting for Hop to come back out. Until he sees the look on Joyce Byers' face and knows he’ll be waiting forever.
He feels the lack of it for a long time. Feels how the emptiness of it festers in his chest until the U-Haul is packed, and the Byers are gone, and Steve drops Dustin off for his first day of high school and knows, deep in his bones. That he can’t leave yet. That maybe he never will.
He doesn’t go to the station.
When he blinks at a red light, it's to the intersection three streets past the turn. The Beemer pauses at the line that leads right to Dustin's small corner of town, drowned out in Hawkins' charming middle-class suburbs. He starts into a more full awareness and for a teetering moment considers flipping a U and hauling back for his scheduled conversation. But then his chest is tight and his hands are still cold where they grip at the steering wheel. It feels a little like all the bravado has been sucked out by the past few weeks, draining out of his body to water the cracks in the earth.
Steve only feels a little bit of shame for putting it off. Just tucks the panic further into the corners of his ribcage with the same intensity he hits the gas. Taking a deep breath as he pulls the car forward, away from the station and all the phantom conversations he'll someday have the courage to have.
He'll go. He will. Just not today.
His bad mood stubbornly persists as he pulls into the Henderson’s driveway on his way to the hospital, but he can’t stop the fond curl of his lips as Dustin and Lucas make their way into the car. Squabbling like toddlers for the front passenger seat and letting out noises of matching outrage when Erica sidesteps their wrestling to slip into it herself.
“Sup nerd. You're early.”
“Not a nerd.” Steve retorts as Dustin and Lucas slam their way into the back seats sullenly and get buckled in. He ignores Erica’s hard stare as he slowly reverses back out to the street.
“Do you know how much shit you say about sports stats on a regular basis?”
“Dude, that’s basketball!" Steve says heatedly, like they haven’t had this argument a million times before. “That’s like, the least nerdy thing ever.”
“Maybe.” Erica concedes lightly, her eyes glinting dangerously. “But knowing off the top of your head that the Yankees won the World Series in 1962, and talking about that shit enough that I know it too, is pretty nerdy. That’s just a fact.”
Steve doesn’t have a response, so he just rolls his eyes and ignores the embarrassed blush creeping over the back of his ears as all three of them giggle like the children they are. He tells himself firmly that he loves the fact that she’s finally back to being snarky. It doesn’t fully combat how much of a pain in his ass she is.
He’d been worried about her when he was in the hospital. Worried about her the way he worried about all of them. About the way she had seemed so distant and careful. The way her eyes had been filled with anger when he tried to make her talk. He’d maybe pushed a little too hard then; she must not have been ready. But he thinks that maybe whatever issue had been weighing so heavily on her shoulders has resolved itself a little, if she can tease him so easily now.
The car ride to Hawkins General is filled with the echoes of familiar bickering, loud and unrepentant. It only slips into quiet solemnity when they finally pull into the lot of the hospital. Making their way silently through the doors and to the elevator. No matter how many times they come, it feels heavier here. More real in a way that cracks behind Steve's ribcage. But then Dustin puts his hand on Lucas' shoulder, and Steve thinks fondly that they're beyond needing words to understand each other anyway, and the weight lifts.
The blond receptionist at the front desk barely glances up from her paperwork before waving them in. Just tilts her head and rolls her eyes when she sees who's come through the door. She doesn't even ask them what room they're looking for; they’ve all been in so often in the past few weeks. Steve gives her a smile anyway, to soften the blow of the inevitable future disturbances the kids are bound to cause, and drops them all off at Eddie’s room. Making his way down the hall to keep Max company until Lucas gets his fill of the chaos Erica and Eddie are brewing and slips away.
The hospital is the quietest he’s seen it in the last few months. More like he remembers it being before the earthquakes. The overflow has finally calmed enough that there are empty rooms and nurses standing at their stations with nothing to do. Most of the work has been shifted to relief for those who lost their homes or jobs. Filling in the gaps with the community efforts they have pooling in the high school parking lot. The hospital itself just has the worst cases now. Eddie, Max, and the few other people unfortunate enough to get caught in the middle of the devastation of spring break.
It’s nice to navigate the halls with purpose instead of panic. The nurses wave in familiarity as he passes, not even sparing him a second glance for how many times he’s been down this hallway in the last few weeks. The contrast is impossible to miss. The light coming through the windows, the sedate pace. It’s all so different from the night Steve rode up by the ambulance, his heart in his throat. How cold Max’s pale hand was as she was wheeled away down the hall. The way he’d shivered in the waiting room for hours, desperately listening for any word from her or Eddie.
He gives a reflexive kind of wince at the Deja Vu feeling that sweeps his frame as he walks towards Max’s room. For a moment, when he blinks, he’s back in his dream, and the hallway is dark and empty.
The nurses are gone and the cold sweeps in under his jacket.
There is a whispering voice.
Max calls his name.
He shakes his head and the scene snaps back. Bustling nurses filter abruptly into his vision and the sounds of the hospital fall eagerly into his waiting ears.
Damn, he needs to get more sleep.
Much like her, Max’s room is an explosion of color.
Flowers litter every desk and some of the edges of the floor. There are band flags and movie posters and terrible drawings taped to every available surface, building like ill-fitting puzzle pieces jammed together on the wall. It’s a mindless chaos that still carries a sense of purpose. It’s very Max.
The colors fade the closer he gets to her bedside. Posters and flowers eaten up with IV wires and nurse tables for treatment. Max’s pale skin seems to glow under the fluorescent lights, blue and almost translucent. It highlights the cut of her cheekbones and the permanent bruising that’s taken residence around her eyes. Steve sucks a deep breath as he steadies himself in the chair by her bed. Blinking against the steady drip of the IV that doesn’t ever get easier.
He takes her cold hand. Presses gentle fingers reverently to her pulse point.
“Hey Madmax. Been a while.”
It hasn’t. Steve has been to the hospital almost every day since he was discharged. He was sitting here two days ago, telling her anecdotes from his good days at Family Video. Laughing about Mrs Dundy yelling at him for improperly arranging the candy and then tripping on her way out the door.
It feels like a long time though. Like every day since the earthquake has been a decade. So he says it every time he comes. Just to keep the experience authentic.
Today he gives her another update on everything that’s been happening while she’s been asleep. Her mom’s most recent job at the diner on Main. The weather starting to get sticky warm again. Claudia Henderson’s new brownie recipe she made Steve try out over the weekend. He tells her all the things he would talk about when they used to get lunch, just the two of them. Grabbing burgers and milkshakes and then camping out on a disgusting park picnic table or the hood of the Beemer to talk shit about their friends and neighbors.
Looking back, he can’t remember the last time they did it.
Eventually he runs out of current updates to give her and moves on to recounting one of his endless anecdotes about Dustin. The kind that used to make her giggle helplessly over lunch, her face tinged red with embarrassment at the force of her laughter.
“And then,” He says, grinning fondly at the memory, “the little idiot turns back to me and says, covered in mud, ‘Show some humility, Steven.’ Like I’m not standing waist-deep in a fucking pond, trying to catch frogs for his stupid school project the day before the fair. Can you believe that?”
He shakes his head in exasperation, reaching out to adjust her blanket a little higher on her shoulders. He hears a cough from the doorway as he pulls his hands away and turns to see Lucas there, leaning up against the frame and watching them with a smile.
He gives a little wave before coming over to slump into the chair across the bed. Sighing as he reaches out to settle his fingertips against the ends of the cast on Max’s arm in a gentle approximation of holding hands. His shoulders are tense, but his eyes soften as he looks at her. Sticking his other elbow on the bed so he can lean closer. It’s all unbearably adorable, but Steve knows they would both rather die than be called anything remotely related to that, so he doesn’t say anything. Just watches with a smile.
“How’re the heathens doing?” He asks Lucas, turning away a little to give them some semblance of privacy.
“They’re being absolute idiots,” Lucas says fondly, rolling his eyes. “I think the nurse is going to have a coronary any moment.”
“Jesus. That bad?”
“Always. Anything new here?”
Steve shakes his head, shifting in his chair and putting his hands on his knees. “All holding steady, Sinclair. I can- I’ll give you two some time alone.”
Lucas hums appreciatively, moving one of his hands to delicately tuck a strand of Max’s red hair behind her ear. There’s something brittle about his movements. Careful and sad. Bitterness twists just a little at the edges of his downturned mouth, but it smoothes itself out as he looks up at Steve.
"You know she's going to be fine, right?" Steve says softly, unable to help himself. "We'll get this figured out."
I- I hope so." Lucas replies. A little hitch to his breath. "I really hope so."
"She's too strong to go out like this. Me and you both know it. Whatever's going on, she's kicking Vecna's ass."
“Thanks, Steve.” He says with a little laugh. He shakes his head to dislodge the gloom before giving Steve a considering glance. “Just a heads up though, they are definitely planning something in there.”
“See, this? This is why you're my favorite Sinclair.”
Lucas’ eye roll is disturbingly reminiscent of Mike Wheeler, and Steve has to choke back the laugh building in his throat as Lucas replies.
“Liar. We both know Dustin is your actual favorite.”
Steve loses the battle, sputtering out an incredulous laugh as he stands, still not used to Lucas’ blunt form of honesty even after two years with the kid. He gives him a wave goodbye as he makes his way back down the hall to Eddie’s room, looking back to see Lucas silently scoot his chair closer to Max's bedside.
The hallway is just as calm as it was half an hour ago, almost devoid of nurses and commotion. Steve can hear the energetic voices of his friends all the way from the end of the hallway. He can’t help but shake his head as he approaches, completely unnoticed by the rambunctious idiots inside.
“All I’m saying, is that there aren’t a lot of options, and we both know he can. So, really, it’s a no-brainer.”
Dustin’s voice is high and condescending, that tone he only gets when he’s totally convinced he’s right. Eddie’s voice answers the challenge, throwing back his own annoyed voice in that way Steve has become immeasurably familiar with this last month.
“And all I’m saying, is that you don't invite yourself into someone's house. That's like, basic fucking decency Henderson.”
Steve can hear Dustin roll his eyes.
“But he’s not just someone! He’s Steve! You basically already lived together for like, a month in this very room! The collected data of observation supports the idea that you get along well, and that he won’t care! So stop being a coward and ask him.”
He gets to their room as Dustin is finishing his little tirade. Too entertained and curious to bother letting them know he’s arrived.
He stifles a laugh as he sees the emphatic hand gestures Dustin is making to a very aggrieved-looking Eddie, smiling even wider as Erica makes eye contact with him from her seat by the door. She stays silent about his arrival with the kind of grin that usually makes Steve acutely aware he’s being made fun of when it’s aimed in his direction. He gives her his best conspiratorial wink and pulls his attention back to Eddie and Dustin as they continue their discussion.
“The fuck am I s’posed to say, Henderson? Oh yeah, ‘Hi Steve! My government funds all went into buying another trailer, but my insides got fucking eaten, and Wayne's still stuck at the plant most of the time, so I need a place to crash for a few weeks while he gets everything ready.’”
“Yes! Exactly that. Say exactly that.”
“Jesus, that’s humiliating.”
“It has to be done,” Dustin says solemnly. “For the greater good.”
“Greater good my ass,” Eddie replies heatedly. “You just don’t want me crashing on your couch.”
“...I never said that.”
“Yes, you did. You literally said that like, five minutes ago.”
“Okay, but it was one time.” Jesus, this kid. “Let it go. Steve’s house is bigger anyway, and he actually has a guest room for you to sleep in! So it's a win-win, win-win.”
“You added too many wins,” Eddie says flatly. “Having to ask him for that takes away every single win.”
“Or, morons,” Erica interrupts with glee, “You could just see what he has to say right now. He’s standing right behind you.”
Two heads whip around to look ashamedly at Steve, faces getting redder by the second as he stares them down from the door, hip cocked and arms folded. He tries to hold in his laughter, but he guesses it's a losing battle if Eddie's embarrassment and Erica’s smug expression are anything to go by.
“In my defense,” he says, putting his hands up in mocking surrender, “You guys are super loud.”
“Goddamnit,” Dustin says, much more tiredly than anyone his age ever should. “This is totally a repeat of Robin and the Russian code. That's so embarrassing.”
“Well maybe next time you’ll remember to close the door before you have a conversation that you don't want people to overhear.” Steve replies blandly. “What’s that thing you always say? Over and over and over again? Something about how you never make the same mistake twice?”
“I don’t! This was an outlier!”
“Sure,” Steve says diplomatically. “Tell you what. You get me a Three Musketeers bar from the vending machine on the first floor, and I won’t tattle to Robin.”
“Deal.” Dustin says, jumping up from his chair and scrambling out the door. Erica watches him go before turning to Steve with a feral grin.
“I’m totally telling Robin.”
Steve sighs as he hands her a dollar and waves her on towards the door.
“Yeah yeah, you're hilarious. Go get something to eat. I don’t want your Mom to think I don’t feed you.”
She doesn’t even look back as she grabs the dollar. Just snatches the money and sprints out to the hallway without bothering to say so much as a ‘thank you’. Steve rolls his eyes as he watches her go, not even trying to suppress his fond grin.
“Awe,” says Eddie, in a sugar-sweet tone, his eyes alight with mischief. “You’re just so good with them, Harrington. Going for babysitter of the year?”
Steve feels himself blush, looking out the window as he formulates a response sarcastic enough to not give away how much of a sap he’s actually become.
“Already got it.” He says with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “I’m moving on to the big leagues now.”
“The big leagues?”
“Oh yeah,” he says, shit-eating grin twitching at the edges of his lips. “Just you watch, any day now I’m finally going to take my rightful place and usurp Mr. Wheeler as Mike's dad.”
Eddie, who Steve knows has been extensively and semi-unwillingly briefed by Dustin on the uncountable shortcomings of Ted Wheeler, cackles in surprised delight at the rejoinder. Steve can’t help but let his grin split his face at the sound. The way it fills the air and brings something warm to the sterile hospital room. Though that honestly might just be Eddie.
Because, really, that’s the thing. There's always been something warm about Eddie Munson.
It’s almost a palpable feeling. A light and comfort that radiates from him in waves. Steve has seen it continually, even before spring break. It’s half-remembered tabletop speeches in the cafeteria and harmless pranks on the drama club. Big hair and bigger personality in a war against conformity. Steve’s peripheral view of Eddie Munson has always been one of admiration. Tinged with bitterness and shame in high school, but blossomed into something softer as the years have unfolded.
It’s there now when Eddie interacts with the kids, all big hand gestures and sparking brown eyes. It’s present with Robin and Nancy, woven into the laugh he startles so easily out of Will and Mike.
It was there on Max’s porch, all those months ago. All practiced nonchalance and held in questions and silent care.
It’s here now. In the quiet hospital room, just the two of them laughing about nothing.
Eventually Steve feels his attention move back to the conversation he’s just overheard, his curiosity getting the better of him. He takes a careful seat next to Eddie’s bed. Mindful not to disrupt the wires hanging around the frame or accidentally bump anything with his still-healing sides.
“So, what was all that about then?”
“Nothing,” Eddie says guiltily, going a little red. He’s clearly embarrassed, pulling his hair in front of his face like it will hide the flush creeping down his neck and up over his ears. Steve thinks it’s a little strange to see him be anything but confident.
“Dude,” he says pleadingly, “don’t do this to me. I field so many conversations with the kids already. If they’re plotting something, you’ve gotta read me in.”
“It’s stupid.” Says Eddie quietly, still avoiding Steve’s gaze to glare at where the IV is tapping into his arm. He sighs.
“I’m getting discharged on Wednesday. Which is great! Except that I'll still need some help, and Wayne is back to working full time. He isn’t even gonna be able to get the trailer set up and everything sorted until a few weeks after I come home. It’s- The Byers’ offered to let me crash, but they have their hands full moving back, and Dustin said I should just ask you for a place since you live closer to everything anyway. Which is probably rude, but you know how he gets.”
“It’s his fucking tone, man, I’m telling you.” Steve says gravely, shaking his head with it. “I’ve told him a million times to find some humility, but he just keeps getting worse.”
He pauses then, taking a moment to turn what Eddie’s just said over in his mind. To consider the implications. He skirts his thoughts through any possible roadblock he might need to address before he can agree.
The first problem he can think of is actually the least pressing. The Harringtons haven’t been in town for ages. Flitting between an endless line of various vacations and work trips, Steve hasn’t seen a glimpse of them for months. He can guess with a staggering confidence that with all the disaster around town, he won’t see them for at least a few more. So it’s a non-issue.
The next roadblock, whether he’d be able to properly take care of Eddie when he has his own health problems, is a little more pressing. The road to healing, like most good things, has been long and slow. There are days when Steve wakes up, numb and exhausted, and lies in bed for hours rather than make himself move his battered body an inch. The upside down is a stain, pervasive and corrosive. It marks all of them in one way or another, slowing them down and manifesting in any number of long-lasting microaggressions. With the pain and apathy constantly pulling his focus, Steve isn’t sure it’s wise to accept another responsibility on his plate.
And yet, He really wants to.
He’s finally doing good enough to lift things heavier than five pounds and making his slow but steady way back to a more normal schedule. The breathing exercises have done wonders for his lungs. He’s healing. Why not have the company of quite literally the only person who knows exactly what he’s feeling?
Just like that, his resolve crumbles. All he can think of are reasons why this is potentially the best idea Dustin has ever had. The kids come around to his house in some capacity almost every day anyway, and with Steve already looking forward to his break from family video so that the city can work on repairing the damage done by the “earthquake”, he’s already going to have a lot more lonely afternoons.
At most, it will keep his house from feeling too damn quiet, and if nothing else, save him from having to cart the brats all over town in their desperate scramble to see Eddie.
Besides, Eddie has proven to be a pretty good roommate to have, and this way Steve can still keep an eye on his recovery as closely as his stupidly anxious brain wants. He feels anticipation start to swell as he thinks it over. It’s pretty much a no-brainer.
“You can stay at mine.” He says decisively, waving a hand. “Mi casa es su casa and all that.”
“Are you sure?” Eddie’s shoulders are a rigid line. His hands are clenched tightly in his lap. It's not too much? He asks with his wide searching eyes. Do you mean it?
“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t,” Steve says easily. He keeps his posture wide and face open as he adds, “I said I wanted to stick around, right Munson? This is me sticking around.”
Eddie’s answering smile is soft, hidden behind his hand as he looks up through his lashes. If Steve wasn’t already sure of his decision a moment ago, he certainly would be now.
“Damn Harrington,” Eddie says jokingly, relaxing into loose shoulders and sparkling eyes. “Taking me home already? You haven’t even asked me out yet.”
Steve laughs at the teasing, fingers inexplicably itching to reach out and tug on one of the curls hanging around Eddie’s shoulders. He rubs the back of his neck instead, meeting the joking with sincerity.
“You n’ Wayne are both one of us now, man. We’ll take care of you.”
Eddie’s smile is like the sun. All bright and warm. It curls up over his cheek, dimples and squinty eyes. Steve feels himself returning it without conscious thought.
“See! Told you he’d say yes.”
Eddie’s heart monitor gives a futile beep while Steve jumps about five feet in the air. Dustin grins from the doorway, unrepentant, Erica peeking in behind him with a matching smile.
“Jesus Henderson,” says Eddie, hand to his chest. “You fucking scared me.”
“Language.” Says Steve, unthinking, and watches in horror as three sets of heads slowly turn around to look at him in glee.
“Language.” Repeats Erica disdainfully with a wrinkled nose. “I’m not five, Steven; grow up.”
“Language.” Eddie echoes her, cackling from his reclined position on the bed. “You’re such a mom.”
Steve feels his face go red and can’t help but wonder if embarrassment can fully account for the heat gathering under his skin.
They stay like that, all bickering and alive, through the late afternoon and into evening. Only leaving when Eddie’s no-nonsense nurse threatens to whack them with the tray she brings Eddie’s food in on, and physically ushers them out the door. Eddie laughs, bright and loud, as Dustin swears up a storm and Lucas slips in to get a quick goodbye hug. Erica simply rolls her eyes and pretends not to smile all the way down the hallway and to the parking lot. Finally letting loose a smug grin as she uses the boys' chatter to successfully maneuver her way into the shotgun seat again. The outrage is immediate and overwhelming.
God, he thinks fondly as Erica shoves Dustin's hat down over his eyes, these fucking kids.
It’s only after he’s dropped them all off at their respective houses, only as he steps out of the last rays of warm evening light and into the lengthening shadow of his parents' house, that the sunshine of the afternoon starts to crumble. Flaking off like frost on his skin.
It’s been a good day, he thinks. Despite still not being used to the new normal, regardless of his strange dream and tired eyes, and the way apathy has been nipping stubbornly at his heels since the moment he woke up. It’s been good. His afternoon in the hospital lights a warm fire in his chest. A fire that ignites when he thinks about Eddie’s request to come stay with him.
A good day.
He tries his best to hold on to those flaking pieces of warmth as he gets ready for bed, his mind swirling in a chaotic jumble. His looming conversation with Hopper, the hundred things he’ll need to do if Eddie is really going to come and stay. Bedroom arrangements, supplies, moving enough stuff over so that he doesn’t feel like he’s in a total stranger's house while he recovers. Especially considering Steve knows his house doesn’t have the most homely feel to it on the best of days.
Lights off, lock doors, bat against the wall.
If he’s being completely honest with himself, the whole thing makes him a little bit nervous. Not because he doesn't want Eddie or the kids around, but because something about them all here, in this house (in this space that he sometimes shares with his parents, and mostly shares with himself) feels a little like inviting something very delicate and precious to rot in the cold and frost.
Brush teeth, drink water, wash face.
And still, he knows he will let them in the end. That he couldn’t ever deny any of them anything they really want. He may be the babysitter, but he needs them all. That is a truth he’s known since the beginning. Fundamental and in his bones. They are there, all of them. Tucked behind his eyes and underneath his ribcage. Sometimes, when it’s quiet and dark and Steve is alone, he thinks they are the only thing that’s still holding his frayed soul together at the seams.
Walkie under pillow. Pajamas. Bed.
He knows he’ll be awake again long before the first rays of morning peak through his window, clammy and cold in the crisp spring air. He knows the pattern well enough to walk the traced-out paths of it in his dreams.
Nightmares. Gasping breaths. Sweaty palms. Rinse and repeat.
But it’s fine. He’s fine. Steve breathes, in through his nose, out through his mouth, and tells himself as he lies in his warm bed that it doesn’t feel a little bit like his plaid walls are swallowing him whole.