Archive of Our Own ^beta

“What the shit, Steve!”

Dustin may have shot up an inch or four in the past few months, but his voice wasn’t beyond breaking. Especially when expressing his outrage. 

Steve just swiped the copies of First Blood, parts one and two, off the counter and dropped them in the restock bin. Dustin watched the tapes disappear with an indignant look. 

“Dude, you know I can’t rent you those,” Steve said, fighting back the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose like his mom did whenever his dad’s stories about the club or some business lunch were dragging on too long. 

“Sure you can. I got Nightmare on Elm Street from you last week.”

“Yeah, and Keith nearly fired me last week.”

Dustin, because, much as Steve loved the kid, he sometimes sucked, just laughed. “You let Keith almost fire you? Keith?”

His gaze slipped pointedly over Steve’s shoulder, and when he turned, Steve was treated to the sight of his technical boss cleaning out his ear canal with a pinky.

He turned back to Dustin and shrugged. “Yep.”

“Aw, Steve,” his young friend lamented, mournfully shaking his head. “You’re better than that.”

Steve sighed and shrugged again. 

That was the thing, wasn’t it? Steve wasn’t exactly sure that he was better than that. Just look at how many things in his life weren’t working out quite as he expected. 

For one, he really thought he’d be in college, Nancy's lackluster praise of his application essays aside. Or at least out of Hawkins by now. He figured he might make it as a walk-on for the basketball team, not at Indy, but maybe one of the regional campuses. He wouldn’t be paying rent to his parents, not that they were in town often enough to cash the checks. He didn’t think his closest friends would be a girl he didn’t notice through most of high school and a ninth-grader. He absolutely didn't think his heart would still skip a beat or three every time he saw Nancy Wheeler or that hearing her talk fondly about Jonathan Byers off in the city might do the same.

The most surprising thing, though, was that Steve didn’t really mind any of it.

(The whole alternate-dimension monsters and government conspiracy thing went without saying. Mostly because how the hell was he supposed to have seen that coming? Plus, given how many times it had gotten his brain rattled around in his skull and the town nearly destroyed, he absolutely minded it.) 

Here he was, nearly a year after graduating, sitting behind the desk at Family Video, looking out at a street and people he’d known his whole life. And it didn’t totally suck.

Well, it wasn’t the greatest, but it could be so, so much worse. 

Dustin’s hands clapping emphatically on the desk jerked Steve right out of his thoughts. 

“You know Will and El are coming back this week, right?”

Steve nodded dutifully; the news that the Byers family was coming back to Hawkins, even temporarily, had burned through the Party—which Steve and Robin seemed to have been folded into without their input—like wildfire. And not just the younger ones.

When Nancy'd come in last week to return a couple movies, she'd practically been thrumming with excitement at the prospect of Jonathan coming back. It was just her elation that had rubbed off on him, making Steve grab her up in a hug and dance her around the store as she laughed breathlessly in his ear, not any thrill of his own over the whole situation. Well, maybe he was just happy he'd get to see his friend—however unlikely, he and Nancy and even Jonathan were friends; breaking up during a serious monster outbreak kind of had that effect on a guy—again. 

"You'll have to come hang out with us," she'd said, breathless and flushed and far too tempting for a girl who'd dumped him (if his own goddamn heart would just get the memo), when Steve finally set her back on her feet again. 

He'd rolled his eyes rather than jump on the offer as he wanted. Not only because maybe seeing Jonathan and Nancy together, disgustingly happy with one another, might finally make the lesson he'd first gotten at that Halloween party stick. "A front row seat to your reunion with Byers, Nance? Yeah, I think I'll pass."

She'd rolled her eyes right back, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. Which really didn't help matters. "C'mon. Jonathan said he misses you."

"Right." He'd laughed skeptically, but Nancy just stared with those dark, knowing eyes until he'd finally had to give in and agree.

“—and I promised to get the movies.”

“Well," Steve drawled, like he'd been paying attention to Dustin's longwinded rant and not dissecting his ex's invitation to spend time with her and her boyfriend, "not these movies, kid.”

“Goddamn it, Steve! Help a man out, here!”

“Dude, just get Nancy to come pick them up,” he said, not because he wanted her to have another reason to come around again. “Or do something more interesting with your friends than sit around watching movies you’ve all seen before.”

Dustin recoiled. “I’m not gonna send your ex-girlfriend," he said, like it was some kind of unthinkable betrayal, "in here to taunt you. Even if you won’t rent me my goddamn movies—”

Reaching across the counter, Steve swatted at the bill of Dustin’s hat, the Camp Know Where one he’d hardly taken off all year, and nearly sent it flying. Over Dustin’s indignant squawk, Steve just laughed. 

“Get out of here. Go call Suzie.”

Dustin tried to fight off a smile, but it was a losing battle. “Fine,” he agreed, backing towards the door, “but you better throw in some Junior Mints and Milk Duds for the trouble.”

He bumped into some poor woman and her daughter on the way out, so Steve couldn’t laugh, but he absolutely wanted to. 

Yeah, things might not be going exactly how he’d pictured, but really, they weren’t so bad. No, not bad at all. 

Pain. Oh, god. Everything hurt. 

And yet, Steve couldn’t stop laughing. 

“This isn’t funny,” Nancy hissed, panic edging under that too-cool exterior. Her slim shoulder was still digging into his rib, and that didn't exactly help on the whole feeling like he'd gone ten rounds with Sugar Ray thing, but Steve wasn't about to push her, or Jonathan on his other side, away. Not least because he was pretty sure he'd hit the ground in no time flat without their support. Even with it, he almost had as they'd dragged him up a short flight of steps and managed to maneuver him through a door and inside somewhere safe. 

Well, as safe as anywhere in Hawkins was.

“It is,” he wheezed, letting himself collapse against the wall and relieving his friends of their burden. Neither moved, and he just laughed harder. His shoulders shook, and every gasping laugh made him want to fall over, but he couldn't stop.

The dark humor had overtaken him in the backseat of his car, where he’d suddenly come to. Well, first, there had been panic. (And the pain, of course.) His last memory was a shadowy tentacle tossing him into the side of the Hawkins Public Library, and the ones before were a mixed jumble he couldn't quite string together: a tangled heap of abandoned bikes as ninth-graders scrambled into his backseat, Nancy and Jonathan coming in to pick up the videos for their siblings and being far too likable as Steve tripped over his tongue around them, the strange electrical storm that took out most of the town's power, a garbled message over the Supercom Dustin had proudly presented on Steve's birthday. 

Only when he'd managed to get an answer about Robin and Dustin and the rest—nearly clawing his way into the front seat (to what? take control of the steering wheel?) when Jonathan tried to get him to lie back down first—and been assured that they were all fine, if temporarily separated, did he re-collapse in the backseat. And start laughing.

He’d been too distracted by his truly awful sense of timing—was it really only yesterday he'd been getting so sappy about life in Hawkins? Yeah, it really wasn't so bad as long as there wasn't yet another monster rampaging through town or some new, shadowy conspiracy to dismantle—to even wonder where they'd gone or who’d fished the keys out of his pocket. Not exactly how he'd imagined either of them getting their hands in his pants. He laughed even harder, a groan finally edging out any amusement in the sound.

“Steve!”

Nancy's fingers dug into a newly-forming bruise, and he coughed, which certainly didn't improve the whole full-body pain thing, but it did cut off his hysterical laughter. She recoiled, looking up at him, worry and apology in her big, dark eyes. The beam of her flashlight illuminating a bare circle on the ugly shag carpet of whatever house they'd broken into quivered. 

Familiar tenderness welled up in Steve's throat. If he had his hands free, he'd reach out and cup her cheek. "S'okay, Nance," he slurred instead.

“Okay,” Jonathan broke in, making Steve jolt guiltily. But his voice was soft and his hands gentle as he got his shoulder situated more firmly under Steve’s outstretched arm, no sign that he was mad or even annoyed by Steve's mooning. Which was why it was impossible to hate the guy and even harder not to like him. More than he probably should. “Let’s get you somewhere you can rest.”

Nancy extricated herself from beneath Steve’s arm and stepped into the room, her footsteps muffled on the thick carpet. Her head swiveled, taking in their surroundings. Blearily, more aware of Jonathan's side pressed to his, Steve tried to do the same. He wasn’t seeing double—not anymore, at least—but it was hard getting his eyes to focus in the dimness, just a bit of moonlight filtering in through dusty windows.

What he did know was that of what he could make out, a narrow room empty of almost all its furniture, he didn’t recognize any of it. 

“Where’re we?” he asked, the words indistinct even in his ears. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Nancy replied as Jonathan said, “Hopper’s trailer,” their voices tangling together in a way that had Steve’s eyes sliding shut. Just to try and make out what they were saying, not because it sounded nice all twined together and ringing in his ears like that...

Steve just nodded, too familiar with the way his thoughts tended to wander when he’d just gotten the shit beat out of him. 

And he’d really gotten it tonight, courtesy of some more absolute bullshit involving Russians and/or the U.S. government. And possibly aliens. Or were they just run-of-the-mill monsters?

Steve didn't think he could exactly be blamed for not keeping up. 

Jonathan cleared his throat. "There should, uh, still be a bed in the back room."

The beam of Nancy’s flashlight led the way down the narrow hallway to the end of the trailer. It was mostly Jonathan’s surprisingly strong arm around his back and the worried frowns Nancy kept throwing over her shoulder that got Steve’s feet moving. Honestly, it was a miracle that he’d made it out of the car and up the steps to the front door. He would’ve been fine collapsing on the couch out front—as long as that cloth-covered lump was a couch. Again, it wasn’t like his senses were firing on all cylinders.

Soon enough, though, they’d stepped into a bedroom. Well, he assumed it was a bedroom. There was no mistaking the big, rectangular ghost as anything but a bedstead and mattress. Quickly, Nancy stripped it, the only remaining piece of furniture, of its dropcloth. A cloud of dust flew into the air, each mote dancing in the path of the flashlight she had balanced on the windowsill and prompting a fit of coughs from everyone. 

Jonathan, still propping Steve up, turned his face right into Steve’s shoulder as he let out a dry huff. “Sorry,” he muttered, but his grip on Steve’s ribs didn’t let up. 

“S’all right,” Steve choked back, suddenly and irrevocably aware of the warm handprint on his side. Not to mention all the heat Jonathan was putting out on his other side. 

When Nancy came back, the dropcloth crumpled on the ground in the corner, she took Steve’s hand and led him to the bed. 

If she weren’t looking at him with such worry, and if Jonathan weren’t right there—though some half-remembered dreams begged to differ—this could have been any other night from when he and Nancy had actually been together. 

The thought didn’t hurt. Or if it did, it barely registered against every other ache currently settling into his bones. 

Well, if he had to look on the bright side of getting the shit kicked out of him, not registering the hollow swoop of his stomach every time the what-ifs of him and Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers would have to be it. 

Staggering out of Jonathan’s grasp, Steve made it to the edge of the bed before collapsing face-first onto the mattress. 

He immediately regretted it.  

“Oh, god, why did I do that?” Steve groaned, straight into the slightly dusty pillow and no doubt unintelligible. The bruises blooming all over his body came to shrieking life; apparently, Hopper believed in a firm, lumpy mattress. 

“Are you okay?” came Jonathan’s voice.

He groaned again in response.

Nancy’s familiar hands on his arm tugged, gentle enough not to make him wince again but firm enough to get him rolled onto his side. He let momentum take him further, flopping ungracefully onto his back. His tender ribs landed right on the bony jutting of Nancy’s knees where she’d knelt on the bed to leverage him off his face. 

He didn’t shift away. 

Squinting, he peered up into Nancy and Jonathan’s concerned faces. They were almost as familiar as his own, and generally inspired much sweeter feelings. Which was totally normal when looking at his friends.  If it had to come down to it, he guessed he’d rather take the heat than either of them.

“Oh, just—” he managed, trying and failing for nonchalance. He slumped back against the pillow. “Why ‘m I always getting my face bashed in?” 

Jonathan huffed out a quiet laugh, and even Nancy’s mouth tugged up in a reluctant grin. She lifted a hand to his jaw, her cool fingertips a blessing against the fiery pain. That weird shadow monster had certainly gotten plenty of hits in. Well, better him than anyone else. He didn’t let himself lean into her touch, no matter how much he really, really wanted to. 

On his other side, the mattress dipped as Jonathan stopped hovering and sat down. 

“It’s a very nice face,” he said dryly. 

Steve’s lungs seized, and he was mostly sure it wasn’t the dust or internal bleeding. He closed his eyes, missing the look Nancy shot Jonathan and his responding smile. He did hear Nancy clear her throat and feel the absence of her warmth as she scooted away and climbed off the bed. 

“I’m gonna go see what supplies are still stockpiled. See if we can get that nice face of yours cleaned up.”

Steve swallowed and nodded, eyes still shut. 

He jolted, though, when something soft and warm dabbed at his temple. 

"Sorry," Jonathan apologized for the God-knew-which time; when he'd nearly run straight into Steve's trusty nail bat back in the town square, when he'd been wrestling Steve back into his makeshift gurney in the backseat, when he'd had to drag him out of the car. Most of them blurred together. Except this one, hushed and intimate in the dark. Only the faint sounds of Nancy rustling through cupboards and closets told them they weren't alone. "You've got some dirt."

Steve cracked open an eye. "Look who's talking." It was hard to tell with just the moonlight filtering in, Nancy must've taken the light with her, but Jonathan had his fair share of dirt and probably blood streaked across the planes of his face.

Absently, Jonathan rubbed at his cheek, only succeeding in smearing the grime even more. 

"There. You got it."

The laugh Steve earned didn't do much to lessen any of his aches, but it did help them fade into the background. It didn't help him keep his mouth shut, though.

"I heard you missed me."

Before he could will himself to sink straight into the mattress and disappear—it was hard not to hear the desperation in his words—Jonathan replied, "'Course I did. You and Nancy. The milkshakes at Fontaine's. Taking pictures out around the farms. Even Mr. Lerner."

Steve's eyes shut as he chuckled. It strained his sides, but the thought of missing crotchety, old Lerner and his demented crusade against the squirrels in his bird feeders was too much to hold it back. The fact that Jonathan was laughing too, their amusement curling together through the shadows, didn't have anything to do with it. Even as they edged into quiet, their breaths came in, easy, comfortable sync.

For a moment, Steve drifted with hazy, optimistic thoughts that maybe didn't belong to a day where a monster ripped a hole through the very fabric of reality.

“Hey,” Jonathan said, gently nudging him out of his daydreams. His fingers remained heavy and warm on Steve's forearm. “No falling asleep until we know you don’t have a concussion.”

“Probably do,” he replied, repressing the urge to curl up around something warm and let the heat ease into his body. The fact that the nearest warm thing to curl around was Jonathan Byers certainly didn’t make the thought any more enticing, especially not when he was dating Steve’s ex-girlfriend. 

“You sound remarkably okay with that.”

“Hazard of the job.”

“Video store clerk?”

“Unofficial babysitter of our siblings and their friends,” came Nancy’s voice. Steve could just see the half-grin that always accompanied that rueful tone. When he opened his eyes, there it was, surprisingly clear. She dumped her armful of supplies at the foot of the bed, some of them bouncing heavily and knocking into Steve's ankles.

As she rounded the bed to pick up the abandoned flashlight, he replied, “I prefer mentor and guide. Explains why I never get paid.”

Jonathan twisted to survey her haul, and that was probably for the best.

"What'd you find? First aid kit?" he asked hopefully.

She gave a quick shake of her head, but before either of them could ask what she did bring back, Nancy flashed the light in Steve's eyes without any warning, tutting when he flinched back. 

“What the hell, Nance?”

“We have to make sure your pupils are dilating. Keep your eyes open,” she responded, without much sympathy. 

Steve followed directions, grateful when the bright beam cut away and he could see again. The bright spots and sparks dancing around Jonathan and Nancy gave them a dreamy kind of quality, and it was hard not to fall into equally dreamy thoughts about Nancy tenderly touching his face again and Jonathan rejoining them back on the bed.

The worried wrinkle in her forehead didn't really sell the fantasy, though. 

And that was probably a good thing. 

She put the flashlight back down on the bed and turned to the pile of supplies she'd carted in. Steve considered levering himself up on his elbows so he could see too, but even the thought of the effort exhausted him. Instead, he listened to Nancy's explanation. 

"Hopper didn't— Well, there wasn't a first aid kit left that I could find. Plenty of water jugs and a few towels, though. Anyway, I had to raid the emergency crate—"

"Emergency crate?" Steve demanded.

"I stashed a couple around town after last summer. There's one in your garage, didn't you ever notice?" She shook her head. "Never mind. It was just in case we ever—" The way her lips drew together in distress as she looked over him made Steve want to reach out for her. It was Jonathan, though, who grabbed her hand, giving her a comforting squeeze. Considering his other hand was still on Steve's arm, bridging them, it was almost as good. "Needed them," she finished on a sigh. 

That sounded just like Nancy. "Cool. So, what d'you have for me?"

She rummaged through the heap as she rattled off, "Antiseptic, bandages, sewing kit—"

"You are not stitching me up, Wheeler."

Jonathan grinned while Nancy huffed, but she didn't argue. "—aspirin, instant ice packs."

On cue, there was a quiet pop and blissful cold spread across his jaw. Automatically, Steve reached up to hold it in place. He nearly groaned in relief, and actually did when another ice pack landed against his ribs. It felt so good, it took him a minute to realize Nancy had shoved his shirt up to bare his bruised skin to the air. Everything was quiet for a moment as she and Jonathan surveyed the damage. Steve wasn't sure whether he should fidget or bask under the scrutiny, which probably meant he needed to examine his priorities in the very near future, but even he knew this wasn't the time. 

"C'mon, Nancy," Jonathan said, carefully breaking the hush that had fallen. "Let's get him cleaned up."

He stood so Nancy could take his place perching by Steve's side, and she nodded jerkily, sinking to the mattress to get to work.

She took the damp towels Jonathan prepared and, ever so gently, probed at his split lip. Steve held still in spite of the sting, utterly aware of exactly how close Nancy's long, slim fingers were to his mouth and tongue, how easy it would be to kiss them. Which wasn't something you did to your friends. Even friends who were tenderly washing blood and dirt from your face.

Once she moved on to his cheek and temple, it was easier to focus. Steve only winced a few times as she cleaned off the goose egg he was sure was forming above his temple, and she murmured soft, distracted apologies for each one. Over her shoulder, Jonathan alternated between observing the proceedings and checking out the window to make sure the monster, or a fleet of tanks and the Red Army considering the town's luck, wasn't making its way straight for them.

He also got the bottle of aspirin open and dropped a few pills into Steve's free hand. He swallowed them down, hoping they and the ice would dull his aches. Now that he'd been lying down for a while, not jolted around in the backseat of a car, or dragged into an abandoned trailer, he was feeling okay. Not like he wanted to get up and go for a run (or get up at all), but he'd be able to do it if the monster made another appearance. It would suck, beyond belief, but he'd do it. 

Nancy dropped her soiled towel on the ground, and Jonathan handed her another. It was probably a good thing the flashlight didn't illuminate the floor; Steve didn't really want to know how many of the stains were dirt compared to blood. She moved on to wiping away the grime from his arms and hands, and soon he felt, if not clean, at least far closer to it. 

"Thanks," he murmured. 

Nancy's smile wasn't quite real, not like the ones she'd given him when they were dating and he did something to delight her, but it was enough.

When she was satisfied that Steve was as patched up as she could manage, she sat back. Immediately, Jonathan was there, giving her something to lean against, his hand cupping her shoulder. His thumb rubbed circles into the base of her neck, and Steve couldn't take his eyes off it. 

He was happy for them, he was. He just missed being that close to someone. 

His sense of timing, as always, was impeccable. 

"We should get some rest while we can," Nancy announced into the quiet room, tipping her head back to look up at her boyfriend. 

Jonathan just nodded. "You see if there were any blankets left anywhere?"

"In the hall closet," she replied.

With a nod, Jonathan stepped away. Nancy toed off her tennis shoes and even pulled Steve's off rather than make him struggle to sit up and handle it himself. The flashlight clicked off, leaving the room wreathed in darkness and a hint of moonlight. After only a moment, Jonathan reappeared with a slightly moth-eaten wool blanket, just big enough to spread across the bed. 

Steve hadn't said anything to this point because what was there to say? But when Nancy swept the rest of her makeshift nursing supplies to the ground and shifted to stretch out beside him and Jonathan seemed prepared to do the same on his other side, he couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Uh, what is happening?"

Because he really couldn't believe that his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend were about to get into bed with him.

He'd long gotten over the fact that he'd really like it to happen. He just didn't believe that it actually was.

Jonathan froze, halfway to horizontal, but Nancy just waved him on. Gingerly, he inched down, his weight comforting and warm against Steve. Again, he felt the urge to curl into the nearest source of heat; if he fell asleep, there was no way he'd resist. And while Steve really wouldn't mind getting as close as he could to Jonathan and Nancy, he was pretty sure they might have a different opinion on the matter. 

"Sleeping while we can," she said, turning on her side to better fit around Steve. "We don't know what's going to happen next, but it'll be better if we're not exhausted for whatever's coming."

"Okay..."

"Maybe one of us should keep watch," Jonathan offered, clearly ready to get up.

"No!" Steve exclaimed, sharp enough that he winced. "I mean, no, it's fine. Wouldn't want you ending up as monster bait."

Jonathan snorted, rolling his eyes. Still, it took him a moment, like he wasn't sure if he should take Steve's words seriously, to ease back down. Once he was stretched out once more, Steve allowed himself to relax. Or get as close to relaxed as he could wedged in bed between the two people he wanted the most and while he could do the least about it. Not just because he wasn't sure he was physically capable of acting on any of the idle thoughts he'd been entertaining for far too long.

But as Nancy curled into his side and slipped her arm over Steve's stomach, carefully avoiding any new bruises, to draw Jonathan even nearer, he was pretty sure he'd be up for trying. The hand Jonathan settled on Steve's chest, palm to palm with Nancy's, made him sure. 

"Uh, guys," he said, mouth dry, and not just from the way he had two of his favorite people tucked against his sides. If this didn't go the way he wanted, the way he feared it would, at least it probably wouldn't hurt any more than he already was. "I don't want to make this weird, but—"

"Then don't," Nancy murmured, her knees knocking into his. The scent of her shampoo, familiar and just now making Steve realize how much he'd missed it, wafted into his nostrils, accompanied by the subtler smell of the Byers' laundry detergent.

"It's not weird," came Jonathan's reassurance. His mouth moved against Steve's shoulder, hot enough that he could feel it through the fabric of his shirt. 

Steve blinked up at the ceiling. There were plenty of things about today that were weird, to put it lightly, but maybe they were right. Maybe this, what he felt for both of them, wasn't weird at all. 

Or, at least, no weirder than anything else that happened here in Hawkins.

"Oh." The quiet syllable filled the room for a breathless moment. "Okay. Good."

Contentment washed through Steve. In spite of the bruises he'd wear for the next few weeks, and the ones that he was sure would join them within the next few hours, to say nothing of the utter commie/monster bullshit that would be responsible, he tried to think of any place he'd rather be. He came up empty.

Tucked into bed with Jonathan and Nancy and knowing they'd face whatever came at them together, maybe in more ways than one, it was impossible to want to be anywhere else.