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“Here, okay, drink this, Harrington.” A cold can of something is shoved into his hand, Eddie’s hand moving so frantically that he almost drops it into Steve’s lap before Steve can get his fingers around it. With his own trembling hands, Steve pops the top open and takes a sip. It barely gets past his lips before he turns his head and sprays it out onto Robin next to him, who shrieks and jumps away.
Nancy takes the can from his hand and squints at the label. “Beer, Eddie, seriously?”
“I don’t have anything else! Unless you want to give him expired milk. Do you want to do that, Nancy? Let’s just kill him even quicker, shall we?”
“He’s not dying, Eddie,” Dustin says exasperatedly from wherever the hell he is in the trailer, at the same time Nancy says, “Go get him water.”
Eddie huffs in that anxiety-riddled way of his as he takes the can of beer back to the kitchen with him in search of a glass of water. From where he’s sitting against the wall, Steve watches him go. The bitter taste of beer stains the inside of his mouth unpleasantly, but he’s been drinking since he was thirteen, so it’s a tolerable taste. Familiar. It also helps remind him that they’re here, back in the real world, away from the hell of the Upside Down. He doubts they have beer in the Upside Down.
Robin sits back down, wiping the little drops of Steve spit off of her face. She groans. “Great. Now I’m gonna get demobat rabies too.”
“He doesn’t have rabies,” Nancy says in the same tone as Dustin just a second ago. Her footsteps are the only audible thing in the trailer home as she paces back and forth, eyebrows furrowed like they always are when she’s trying to form a plan. “He’s not dying and he doesn’t have rabies, okay, it’s just… an infection of some kind.”
Eddie returns, placing a glass of water into Steve’s hand. “Okay, well, do you know that for sure? Because if Harrington’s got mad cow disease or some shit, he’s infecting my entire fucking living room with it. No offence, Steve.”
“I really don’t think that should be your biggest priority right now,” Max says.
“Maybe you should be more worried about being wanted for murder,” Erica pipes up very helpfully from where she’s made herself comfortable on Eddie’s couch. She’s snacking on a packet of gummies she found somewhere.
“Erica!”
The little girl rolls her eyes at her brother and tosses a purple gummy in her mouth. “Just the facts.”
A cool hand reaches beneath Steve’s bangs to lay across his forehead. His whole body feels kind of hot, so he can’t really tell if he has a temperature. The fact that Robin’s hand is bordering on icy probably means he does, though.
Robin confirms it. “I’m pretty sure fever is a symptom of rabies.”
“Oh, for christ’s sake,” Nancy holds her head in her hands.
“Sorry,” Robin says softly, but she sounds like she’s mostly saying it to Steve. She pulls her hand away and suddenly there’s a wet rag that seems to have come out of nowhere on the back of his neck. It rubs against the red marks that the demobat’s tail left when it was choking him out.
“Ow.”
“Sorry,” she says again, wincing, and places the rag more gently.
“So what’s the genius plan, guys?” Eddie crosses his arms.
It’s only a matter of time before Dustin’s mom and Lucas’ and Nancy’s parents realize they biked to Eddie’s house to try to find their friend, and the police won’t be far behind. They don’t have a car. There aren’t enough bikes for everyone. Going back into the Upside Down is not an option, obviously, and they’re endangering themselves every second they stay in Eddie’s living room. Steve and Eddie managed to crudely duct tape a bed sheet over the gate in the ceiling, but it’s a thin sheet.
They could escape on foot, but no one’s very keen on running through the woods at night with at least three gates open in Hawkins and Vecna lurking just out of sight. They’ve all seen some scary, traumatizing shit. They’ve all got regrets. Any one of them could be next.
On top of all that, a lot of their potential options were taken away when, right after placing the last piece of tape on the ceiling, Steve’s face had turned white and he’d passed out, eyes fluttering as he slowly sank towards the floor. The bat bites were red around the outside, sticky with blood and bat saliva. Hot to the touch. Infected.
Steve’s not a doctor but the fact that they got infected so quickly… is probably kind of worrying.
So now, dangerous as it is to be so close to a gate, they’re kind of stuck at Eddie’s. It’s a bad situation, which is why Nancy is making a plan, and the kids are doing their own planning, and Eddie is panicking and Robin is tending to Steve, who is trying not to think about how much his sides hurt. Everyone doing their part.
“Yeah, what is the plan?” Robin asks when no one offers anything.
Max takes her headphones off and sits down on the floor. “We can’t stay here all night. The police are looking for all of us now. And they’re really looking for you, Eddie.”
“The whole town is,” Dustin adds. Steve feels a little bad for the way everyone stares at him, because the kid really thinks he’s being helpful. “They held a press conference about it and Jason gave a speech, so now everyone in Hawkins is probably searching for you.”
No one says anything because it’s the truth, technically, but Eddie goes green. He looks as bad as Steve feels.
“Oh, perfect! The entire goddamn town is hunting for me.”
“Let’s calm down,” Nancy says. “We have to prioritize what to do first. Steve, could you run if you needed to?”
She’s giving him an apologetic look even as she asks it. “Yeah, of course,” Steve says because that’s the only right answer.
“Bullshit. Dude, you should’ve seen your face when you passed out.” Lucas makes a face, mimicking what Steve had looked like, apparently. Steve flips him off from the floor, but his arm feels like lead to lift, so it’s not every effective.
“He looks like shit, Nancy. He barely made it all the way here.” There’s still a manic kind of look on Eddie’s face, but he’s calmer than a minute ago. “He’s not gonna be able to run.”
Steve, personally, is getting very tired of everybody talking over him like he’s not in the room. He pushes himself to his feet, ignoring Robin’s hands, which are waving around his body like they don’t know where to go or what to do. His throat kind of burns as he speaks. “Okay, yeah, these bites really fucking hurt, but if our only option is to run I can do it. I was a Varsity athlete, okay?
Someone groans, presumably at the mention of his athletics but he’s not sure who it is. Someone’s always got some shit to say about his athletic career. He’s proud of his athletic abilities, thanks. They’ve gotten him through at least ten life-or-death situations so far.
“Alright, listen.” Erica crumples up her gummy wrapper and throws it on the floor, much to Eddie’s dismay. “The police’s main concern right now is trying to find Eddie because they think he’s a serial killer, right? And now they have to worry about the entire town interfering in the investigation because they’re all trying to play hero instead of just minding their business.”
In typical sibling fashion, Lucas side-eyes his sister and says, “So?”
“So, dumbass, a bunch of kids who probably don’t even have anything to do with Eddie or the murders aren’t very high on their list of priorities right now. The only people looking for us are gonna be those three stupid cops and our parents. And I’ve met your guys’ parents; they’re not as smart as you think they are.”
Dustin looks like he wants to object, but then pauses for a moment and shrugs.
“Let’s just stay here for a little bit until this idiot can stand up and then we’ll run. Sound good?”
Erica doesn’t really leave room for disagreement when she talks. And it’s a relatively solid plan, Steve thinks. Of course, his brain was cut off from oxygen a couple hours ago and he’s probably slightly delirious from fever, so he can’t really trust his own judgment.
“Fine,” Nancy agrees. Reluctantly, if Steve knows her at all. “We’ll stay here until Steve’s fever goes down or his infection… gets better, or something. And then we’ll make for his house. He’s got a car and it’s big and quiet and we can come up with a better plan.”
“Uh, don’t I get a say in this? It’s my house.”
The response to this is several eyes on him and many exasperated expressions. Dustin is looking at him like, dude, shut up.
“Okay, yeah, fine, we’ll go to my house. Jeez.”
He slides back down the wall. His head spins on the way down and his vision blurs even as he settles back down on the floor. Damp jeans. Filthy vest. Matted, bloody hair and sticky, bloody abdomen. Steve feels disgusting, like he hasn’t showered in several weeks even though he was freshly showered this morning. His skin has to be, like, flaking right now.
The group disperses now that they have (somewhat of) a plan. The kids huddle together on the couch while Nancy heads towards the kitchen and Eddie disappears into his bedroom. Steve and Robin are left on the floor together, breathing in sync.
The wet rag is helpful for the heat his skin is radiating but not doing much for all the dirt and demobat guts on his face, so Steve hoists himself back up after a few minutes.
“Uh, Steve? Wait, hold on, do you really think you should—” Robin tugs on his arm.
“I gotta shower, Rob. Like, now. I think the demobat blood is gonna give me acne or a skin disease or some shit.”
His best friend raises her eyebrow but there’s a small grin on her face when she asks, “You’re really worried about your face right now?”
“Uh, yeah. It’s my second biggest money-maker.”
“Sure. What’s your first, then?”
“My hair. Obviously.”
They pass Nancy on the way to the bathroom, Robin hovering behind Steve in case he keels over suddenly or something. Nancy stares at them both with her big concerned doe eyes, holding a mug of coffee. One of Eddie’s uncle’s many mugs. “What are you guys—?”
“Just showering, Nance.”
She scrunches her nose. “Oh, um… together?”
“No!” Robin yells. There’s a sigh of relief from Lucas and a noise of disbelief from Dustin. “No, definitely not. I’m just making sure he doesn’t die on the way there. Or pass out in the shower and hit his head and get, like, his fourteenth concussion and break his femur. Because, you know, with Steve’s luck he’d break a bone and we’d have to carry him out of here. And he’d probably also bleed out while he’s shampooing his hair or something.”
“Okay,” Nancy says, not really sure yet how to handle Robin’s nervous rambling. She gives them a little smile, though, and leaves them to it.
The bathroom is small and kind of dirty and very messy. Products are everywhere on the counter, next to toothpaste stains, next to half-eaten bags of chips. The shower itself is essentially a phone booth. Bottles of 5 in 1 sit on the little shelf hanging next to the shower head.
“Uh, this is where you leave, Rob.” Steve shoos her away.
“Can you get your clothes off, though? Are you still dizzy?”
“No. Leave. I’m serious, I’ll drop my pants right here, right now.”
“Okay, fine! I’m leaving.” She shuts the door. And then opens it again. “Don’t die.” She shuts it once more and her footsteps fade.
It hurts like a motherfucker trying to peel the vest off. He totally forgot about the scrapes on his back from being dragged, but he definitely remembers them as he awkwardly shuffles the garment off. His pants are a little easier, though the makeshift bandage does stick to the top of his jeans as he pulls and makes Steve’s vision white out at one point. The water is freezing at first, shocking Steve out of his fever haze. It warms up slowly and he suds himself up as quickly as he can. Soap inevitably gets into his wounds. When it does he bites his lip so hard that it splits and blood runs down his chin, but what’s one more cut? His whole stomach feels like a throbbing, gaping, demobat bite when he’s finished, but he feels clean, at least.
He gets out of the shower and sits on the bath mat, towel wrapped low around his waist. His energy levels are at rock bottom. Water drips off his hair and runs down his back and is probably soaking Eddie’s floor, but the guy can deal.
So here lies the issue. He din’t think about redressing the wound. He was a lifeguard for three years, a few summers ago. (he’s glad he quit before Billy started working at the pool, jesus christ.) Anyway, he knows basic first aid. Like, keeping drowning victims alive until the ambulance comes and bandaging stray cuts and stuff. But this is so far beyond his knowledge it’s insane.
He pokes at the deepest wound, the one on his left side. The surrounding skin is so red it’s basically purple. The skin is torn, shredded, rinsed fresh of demobat guts but still gnarled and ugly. The first tentative touch makes lightning bolts explode outward from the hole in his stomach. He can’t really stop himself from making a pathetic whimpering sound that grates his throat.
Frantic footsteps approach the door. “Steve? Are you okay?” Nancy sounds like she’s biting her nails, which she used to do a lot when they studied for a hard test together. Well, when she studied and Steve helped her with flash cards until he managed to convinced her making out was much more fun.
He can’t answer her. He’s too busy trying not to choke on his own breaths.
“Steve? Steve, we’re coming in.” And the door opens and Nancy is there with Robin and Dustin.
“Oh my god,” Dustin says.
“Don’t—” Getting his breath back, Steve covers the wounds with his hands the best he can. “Jesus, don’t let him see.”
“Steve, that’s so bad. So bad. Oh my god—”
Holding back another whimper, Steve snaps, “Get Henderson out of here. I mean it!” Raising his voice is painful but worth it as Dustin’s eyes widen and he disappears.
And then it’s just the teenagers. Eddie appears out of nowhere, takes a quick look at Steve, sitting on the bath mat in a loose towel, gripping his side like his insides might fall out, and turns white as a sheet. “Oh, fuck, dude. I, uh, give me a minute, let me find some first aid shit.”
Nancy drops to her knees and reaches out towards his stomach and normally he’d let her poke and prod all she wants but right now he’s too warm and too tense and he squirms away from her. She gives him a hurt look.
Someone crashes into the door and of course it’s Eddie. He drops an armful of supplies onto the bathroom floor; bandages, half-empty prescription bottles of pills, a heating pad for some godforsaken reason. Lots of other miscellaneous shit. “This is all I’ve got, lover boy. Is this enough to keep him alive?” Eddie directs the last part at Nancy, who purses her lips and sorts through the pile.
“Um. Yes. It should be. I think.”
“Show’s over, guys,” Steve groans. He pulls himself up a little and leans his head back against the shower door. “I got it. Thanks.”
Disinfecting the wounds should be first, he’s pretty sure. Then putting something on them to protect from further infection and to promote healing or whatever. And then wrapping them. See? He remembers first aid training.
His hands are a little unstable with the fever but he manages to dry his stomach with the towel around him and shuffle towards the pile of stuff Eddie found. There’s a pair of tweezers and Steve thinks, oh fuck, what if there’s a little bat tooth in there or something, so he grabs it and looks down and holds the bite open with one hand while he goes in with the other. It’s hard to see, though, so he bends over a little to get a better view and his stomach rips in half.
The wave of pain comes over him, hard and fast, worse than before, and this time he didn’t even touch anything. When the roaring fades he realizes he’s making a keening noise. There’s another sound in the room, too. He peels his eyes open and Robin is there, unwrapping a package of gauze pads. The trembling of her fingers betrays the (soft of. well. not really) calm expression on her face.
“Rob?” It’s embarrassing how his voice cracks. Like he’s going through puberty again.
“Stay awake, asshole. I’m gonna re-bandage you.”
He’s not going anywhere, clearly, so he stays slumped and watches her grab a bottle of something and pour it on the gauze over the sink. She soaks the pad with the clear liquid, fumbles with the lid, and then squats beside him. “Okay. Right.” Blue eyes meet brown. “Maybe you should look away.”
He doesn’t, of course. Mostly because she told him to and Steve is stubborn and likes doing the opposite of what she says. He watches her press the gauze to the bite on his right side, cleaning it, and black dots fade in and out of his vision. Soon his entire bottom lip is gonna be shredded, he thinks.
A folded hand towel presses against his mouth. He opens up and bites down.
“So you don’t bite your lip off,” Robin explains. Steve nods and prepares for the other side.
His back isn’t as awful, but it still isn’t nice.
When she’s done he feels a little floaty. He still hurts but it’s a distant kind of pain, like his brain has detached itself from his body, and he’s not really upset about it. Blinking slowly, he rolls his head so he’s facing Robin.
“Rob.”
“Hm.”
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to find the right bandage.” Her voice wavers.
“I don’t care what you use. Anything’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. You need… you need the…”
Something soft is wrapped around his stomach. It squeezes his wounds and he hisses, and then it squeezes again and a third time as Robin wraps the bandage around him over and over again. She tapes the end of it so it stays and other than a little stiffness, it actually feels… okay. His bites aren’t burning anymore. It sure looks a hell of a lot cleaner than the last bandage job.
“Jesus. Okay. Thanks, Robin—” Steve looks up and sees his best friend curl into herself, palms to her face, and start to shake. “Oh shit, wait—”
“Jesus fucking christ, Steve. Oh my god. Oh my god.”
“What happened, what— are you okay? Rob, what is it?”
She cries into her hands for a few seconds and he sits there confused like an idiot. “Rob…”
“Why do you always fucking do this?”
The past couple of minutes have been the most he’s ever heard Robin say fuck in one sitting. She likes ass and bitcha lot better, because they apparently have more diverse uses. Steve thinks fuck has plenty of diverse uses.
He just stares at her in alarm. He has no clue what’s going on. “Do what?”
“This,” she sobs. “Throw yourself at the monsters and get hurt and bleed all over the place while the rest of us just sit and do nothing, like seriously nothing, and it’s not like we’re useless, we can help, you don’t have to do everything by yourself all the time like with the lake somebody could’ve gone down with you and maybe now you wouldn’t have infected demobat bites and Upside-Down rabies—”
Steve puts a hand on her arm and she pulls her hands from her face and drags herself closer, so she’s soaking his bare shoulder with her tears. Her whole body shakes as she cries and his whole body shakes with adrenaline and pain and it’s very dramatic. He feels sucked dry; mentally, emotionally, especially physically. He also feels guilty as hell.
“Hey, don’t cry. Robin, don’t— listen, I’m sorry, okay, please stop crying?”
She sobs harder.
It’s not the first time Steve’s seen Robin cry. One night, a couple weeks after Starcourt, he drove to her house and they sat on her bed and she cried remembering how scared she’d been in that room, tied to a chair. Facing down the Mind Flayer.
He doesn’t think he’d cried that night. He’s not really a crier. In eighth grade he cried over a breakup and his dad had scoffed and lectured him about how you should’ve broken up with her first, now you have to deal with the consequences, don’t cry about it when it was your own damn fault.
The lights flicker. It’s a normal running out of juice flicker, but Steve is eerily reminded of the Christmas lights in the Byers’ home and the chandelier in the Creel house. He stares up at the weak lightbulbs above the sink and breathes slow.
Eventually, Robin’s crying quiets, slows, until she’s only hiccuping. “Ugh.” She sits up and wipes her eyes. Tears end up just being smeared around her face, which is so red her freckles are barely visible. “That’s so disgusting.”
“Yeah, a little bit.” He grins at her disgruntled expression.
She sniffles. She sits with her knees up, elbows against her thighs, shoulder to shoulder with Steve. It’s like the bathroom in the mall all over again.
“Sorry I cried all over you.”
“All over my naked, wet chest?”
Robin huffs a laugh. “I guess a lot of girls would die to be me right now, huh?”
“Definitely.” Steve glances over at her. “They love the chest hair.”
Distant footsteps echo outside the bathroom door; Eddie and Nancy and the kids pacing, waiting for their next move. They’re right on the other side of the door but they seem so far away.
“I’m being serious, though,” she says softly.
He sighs. “Listen, it’s not like— I’m not trying to get beaten up every time we fight the monsters, it just happens. I don’t have, like, a death wish.”
“What do you think is gonna happen?” Red, swollen eyes stare at him as Robin moves to sit in front of him. The intensity of her stare makes Steve squirm. “If you always jump ahead of everybody and do things by yourself, what do you think is gonna happen, Steve? Obviously you’re gonna get punched or bitten or have a plate smashed over your head.”
“You weren’t even there that year!”
“We went to the same high school, Steve, obviously I knew what happened.”
“Okay, fine,” he says, “what am I supposed to do, then? Let Dustin go first? Let Max go first? Let, fucking, you go first when this is only your second time fighting monsters and you still have graduation to look forward to?”
Robin lets out an exasperated groan. “No, that’s not what I mean! You know that’s not what I mean. Just let us go with you. Like in the Upside-Down when we all biked together and went into the house together. Not like when you hesitated, like, two seconds before jumping into the lake and not like when you decided you had to be the last person to climb out of the Upside-Down when you’re the one that had all the bites.”
“I was the only one who could hold my breath that long, though. And I was—”
“Co-captain of the swim team, we know.” Sighing, Robin meets his eyes. She looks about as emotionally drained as he feels physically drained. “Do you know how it felt, waiting for you to resurface?”
“No,” he says truthfully.
“It was— god, Steve, it was horrible. It was the worst. I’ve never seen you swim, I don’t know how long you can stay underwater for, so we were sitting in that little boat in the dark waiting for you to find the gate and wondering every second if you’d been grabbed by Vecna or some other creepy-ass monster.”
He hadn’t been thinking about that. How they felt waiting for him to come back to them. He’d been too focused on finding the gate and confirming Dustin’s theory and maybe proving himself capable, a little bit, to the group. Steve’s not intelligent or incredibly brave but he is athletic and strong and confident.
“And then you did come up, and I was so relieved I almost cried. And then you got sucked right back under by the Upside-Down and I could barely breathe I was so scared. The whole time I was thinking what if we never saw you again? What if Vecna had you? What if we got there but we’re too late and you’re already dead or locked away somewhere we can never find you, and obviously we did find you, but what if we hadn’t, Steve?”
“Fuck, Robin, I— I’m sorry you had to— I’m sorry you had to come down and rescue me. I wish I’d never gone down there to begin with, maybe then we wouldn’t have had to go through all that shit in the Upside-Down and you’d be—”
She laughs, short and loud. It’s a hysterical kind of laugh, disbelieving, not a happy Robin laugh like when they gossip in the back room about weirdos that come into the video store. “You’re so dumb, Steve, oh my god. I don’t care that we had to save you! I would’ve done it a million times over, I would’ve walked through literal hell to rescue you! I care that you threw yourself down there without even thinking twice about it!”
“I thought about—”
“No you didn’t, and that’s the problem, okay? That’s the problem. I don’t have an issue jumping into freezing water or going through a hole into another dimension to help you. I just…” Tears have started trailing down Robin’s face again, but slowly and softly, not like her crying jag before. Her voice gets softer, too. “I wish you understood how much we love you, I guess. That we want to protect you as much as you want to protect us.”
It’s silent outside the bathroom now. Steve hopes that just means everyone has stopped moving and not that they’re crowded around, listening in.
“You’re my best friend, Steve. No, you’re my…” She pauses, and Steve knows exactly what she means. There’s no word for what they are. Platonic soulmates is maybe the thing that comes the closest. “And I don’t want to lose you.”
It hurts to do it, but he reaches forward and pulls her towards him. Her breath is warm against his neck, arms warm against his waist, as she hugs him back.
“I’m sorry, Rob. I’m so sorry. That was… that was shitty of me. To jump in like that.”
“Yeah.”
“I think, uh. I think I jump into stuff because I can’t really contribute otherwise? Like, I’m not smart like the kids. I don’t know half the shit everyone’s talking about most of the time.”
Abruptly, she pulls back and stares at him. “And what about me? You think I contribute anything?”
“Well, yeah, of course, you’re good with languages and you’re brave and stuff. You went with Nancy to the mental institution and got all that important information.”
Robin laughs and it’s a genuine laugh this time. “I’m not that good at languages, Steve. I’m scared of literally everything. And I was a mess at that institution, I mean seriously you should ask Nancy, I was a wreck. I freaked out and yelled at the guy in charge and I think he only let us talk to Victor because he was scared I’d become his next patient if he didn’t.”
“Okay, but—”
“No buts. You’re brave, too. No—” She cuts him off as he opens his mouth. “—shut up. You are. You charge at the bad guys and monsters to protect everyone else. That’s brave. You’re resilient. Everybody is stressed all the time and worried about stupid little details but you always have a clear head. You focus on the important shit. And you care so much, Steve, about everyone. And even if you weren’t all those things, you’re still our friend. You don’t have to prove yourself to us, or anybody else, ever.”
If he really thinks about it (and therefore he tries not to), Steve doesn’t know what he’s doing if he’s not proving himself. Being player of the game, every game, no matter what sport it was growing up to impress his dad. Kissing the prettiest girl. Drinking the hardest liquor. Throwing the biggest party. Killing the biggest monster, escaping the biggest disasters, punching the biggest bully. When he was King Steve he didn’t have to prove himself as much, because he finally had the title and he was comfortably at the top. But then high school ended and his throne didn’t really matter anymore and now he has to fight his way up again, even though he’s not quite sure what or who he’s fighting this time.
It’s not an ego thing. It’s probably years of not feeling like he was good enough, years of people only wanting to be his friend for the status or the money or the looks. Years of watching his parents drive away. Years of realizing he’s not important enough in the group and he could be doing so much more for everybody.
“Stop trying to prove yourself to us,” Robin repeats, and Steve pulls her close again so she won’t see the tears run down his cheeks.
Fuck, it’s been a long twenty-four hours.
If Robin feels him shaking she doesn’t comment on it, and he figures he’ll be done his little breakdown after a couple of minutes. Five minutes later, he’s still crying. The tears are hot on his already hot cheeks. His throat is on fire.
Robin pats his back awkwardly. “Hey, are you okay? Now you’re making me nervous, just, uh, it’s— it’s okay to cry, okay? You’re okay, you’re good. Steve?”
“I’m fine,” he says. He leans back and wipes at his cheeks but new tears keep replacing the old ones as soon as he gets rid of them. It’s like his body is getting back at him for all the years he almost cried but didn’t. Now he’s crying every tear he’s had stored up inside him since he was thirteen. “I think it’s the fever. It’s making me emotional.”
He hears shuffling and crinkling and the rattle of pills in a bottle. “Right. I’m sure that’s what it is, you big baby.”
A rough, calloused hand is shoved in front of him. Robin always had slightly rough hands because of band, but right now they’re a little dirty, stained from the Upside-Down, and she has blisters between her fingers from the bike handles and the flashlight and climbing up (down?) the rope back to the real world. But they’re still gentle and loving. Steve grabs the pills from her palm.
“It’s painkillers. And Tylenol. Tylenol’s a fever reducer, right? I don’t know, but I guess anything is better than nothing.”
Steve doesn’t know anything about pills so he just takes what he’s been handed.
Turns out crying takes a lot of energy, so he drifts a little after the medication takes effect and soon someone is poking his shoulder. “Time to get dressed. I know we’re best friends and we just cried on each other’s shoulders and everything, but I don’t really wanna be here when you put underwear on.” Robin hands him a pile of clothes. “They’re Eddie’s. I’ll just be outside, okay?”
He dresses in the clothes. Striped pyjama pants and a Metallica shirt. Also a sweater, significantly cleaner than the vest he was given in the Upside-Down. Now that the meds are working, hauling himself up using the counter isn’t as painful or difficult as he imagined. Steve opens the door and steps out.
“Look who’s still alive!” Eddie gives him a small grin. He’s sitting on the armrest of the couch. “Nice outfit.”
“What were you guys doing, swimming? You were in there for, like, half an hour.” Dustin raises his eyebrows from his seat on the floor. Max shrugs when Steve looks over at her.
“We figured you guys were making out.”
“I didn’t think that!” Lucas protests.
“I did,” Erica says, another package of gummies in her hand.
“Guys, enough.” Nancy smiles. It’s a worried smile and an anxious smile, a smile in the face of approaching catastrophe, but she just sets a hand on Steve’s forearm softly. “Do you feel better now?”
He pauses. “Yeah,” he replies, and it’s true this time, not just a lie to keep morale up or whatever.
“Good. You look better.”
Everyone is standing around now, and they all look exhausted. Erica yawns (what’s her bedtime?) as Eddie rubs the tiredness out his eyes. Steve moves to take a step towards a window to try to see how dark it is outside. He feels much better physically – which admittedly isn’t a very high bar – but blood loss and hunger and dehydration are still bitches, so he wobbles on his feet as he straightens up. Nobody reaches for him but Dustin looks like he’d like to.
“So when are we moving out?” Steve asks. “I can be ready in, like, five minutes, probably.”
They all exchange looks. It makes Steve feel they’ve been talking about him and therefore he’s out of the loop, which he hates. But before he can ask them what’s up, Eddie stretches his arms dramatically and makes a sound of incredulity. “Okay, well, I’m not ready. What about me, guys? What about my needs—”
“What are you talking—”
“I need a power nap, Sinclair. And some food. I’ve been eating cheap cereal for the past few days. A guy really can’t survive on that, you know?”
“You asked for that stuff, Eddie.”
“Yeah, I did, Henderson. And now I’m asking for a nap and a granola bar.”
There’s various sighs from around the room but everyone gives in strangely easily. “Fine, we’ll leave in thirty minutes. Sound good?” Nancy asks, and everybody nods. Maybe it’s the fever or blood loss or whatever else messing with his imagination but Steve could swear he sees relief on her face as she turns. Nobody seems very upset about this delay, actually.
A hand tugs on his (well, eddie’s) sweater. “Eddie said you can use his room if you want.”
Dustin’s pulling him, so it’s not like Steve really has a choice but to follow. Eddie’s room isn’t exactly what he imagined. The heavy metal posters on the wall make sense, and the clothes strewn all over the floor, but the guitar is a little unexpected. But then Steve remembers Eddie had a band in middle school, and they’d play at school talent shows and sometimes at parties.
“Corroded Coffin,” he mutters. Slurs. He’s more tired than he realized.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Right.” Someone put Eddie’s mattress back in his room during the time Steve and Robin were in the bathroom, so Dustin pushes him onto the bed. The sheets smell like cigarettes and body spray, but not the gross body spray that smells like pure chemicals, like Steve used to wear. Like all his stupid friends did in high school. It smells smoky and rich. “Are you okay? Do you want anything? Hey, don’t pick at the bandage, you’ll bleed all over Eddie’s bed.”
“I won’t.” He doesn’t really say it, more exhales the words as his breathing deepens. What are they even talking about?
“Jesus, you’re already asleep, aren’t you. Hold on.” Dustin leaves the room quietly, but not before he can pat his leg and whisper, “Have a good nap, Steve.”
A few seconds later Robin enters and shoves his shoulder. “Move over, dingus.”
He scoots over and she lays down beside him. Her feet kick lightly at his shins, because he’s taller than her and she can’t reach all the way to the wall like he can. She breathes right into his ear but he doesn’t have enough energy to be grossed out.
They’ve only had a few sleepovers, always at Steve’s because her parents would freak if they knew their daughter was having a boy over. They know she’s a lesbian, or at least sort of know, but the way Robin talks about the situation implies that they still have hope that one day she’ll emerge from her room with a boy and say, “Sike!”
At Steve’s the bed is big enough that they can each have their own little space. Eddie’s bed is a single. Steve’s right side is pressed against the wall and Robin’s left side is barely hanging on the edge.
“Your stupid swimming shoulders. I’m gonna fall off,” she complains.
“Mhm.” Steve replies.
She laughs softly. “Go to sleep, Steve.”
He blinks himself awake, tries to keep his eyes open. “What about—”
“Go to sleep. The Upside-Down will still be there when you wake up. You can kick Vecna’s ass for us later.”
So he does sleep. Finally.
He wakes up with his best friend’s arms around him, protecting him.