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The dust had settled on their fight with vecna, and not unlike with every time before, the group were gathered in the local hospital waiting for news about how Steve Harrington was doing. It was familiar thing for them to do, it always seemed like he was the one who got the most hurt, or the most visibly and physically hurt. Though in this case, it hadn’t seemed as bad as previous years, certainly not as bad as when he’d been tortured by Russians and then crashed a car but certainly not good.
Dustin Henderson was fidgeting lightly in the hard plastic seat and finally Steve and the doctor appeared, it really was a testament that this time hadn’t been too bad for Steve that he was being allowed to leave already. The injured teen was looking tired and the bruises around his neck looked vivid and sore under the neon lights of the waiting room, but he was awake, alert and seemed to be okay. Dustin was the first of the gang to be on his feet moving to greet the doctor. He gave Steve a little smile, which the older boy returned, though it was a tired smile.
“Mr Harrington is free to go, but he cannot be alone,” The doctor said tiredly, before heading away, clearly having more to do. Certainly he wasn’t going to ask any more questions or linger any more on what had happened to his patient.
Dustin immediately was dragging Steve away, ignoring the way he felt Steve very lightly tighten the grip he had on Dustin. It was easy to forget in the heat of the moment of ensuring Steve was okay, that since the Russians the older boy had become rather nervous and on edge while around hospitals and doctors. Dustin forced Steve into Jonathan Byer’s car and got Jonathan to drive them back to his own house, ignoring all of the others who had been volunteering to take Steve with them. Dustin needed Steve to come home with him and wouldn't have backed down on it. Steve was always looking after everyone else especially him and Dustin knew it was Steve's turn to be looked after and that he was the kid for that job.
“You could’ve just driven me home, the doctor was overreacting,” Steve spoke, seemingly very confused as to why he wasn’t being taken to his own home to heal alone.
“Let’s just get inside,” Dustin replied, rolling his eyes at Steve.
If he was being honest, Dustin was annoyed, he had heard the story of what had happened to the Watergate gang and then watched Steve break Nancy out of her trance and get her to safety while only getting himself back when things were settled. All in all proving what Dustin had noticed since he’d first started spending time with Steve. That Steve never put himself first.
Dustin knew this because he had watched him stand in the way of bullies, take a beating to protect others, fighting russian guards who were going for their guns, jumping in front of the dangerous otherworldly dogs from the upside down and now first to swim into a body of water on the off chance that there was a gate to that other world. Dustin had noticed that he was also the last to ever leave a dangerous situation, last to leave the tunnels, last to leave the elevator and last to climb up the rope.
For all his smarts Dustin couldn’t figure out why.
To begin with it had been cool, but the more he got to know Steve the less cool it became, because he was often left having to deal with the pieces of what happened. Having to try to put Steve back together and knew there had to be some lingering PTSD under the surface. No one got tortured by russians in a secret base under where you were doing a summer job and were fine. He knew Robin struggled with nightmares, and by her account of the night they’d barely done anything to her. So, he could only imagine how Steve suffered and seemed to do so in silence. So, Dustin couldn't understand why Steve kept putting people before himself.
There wasn’t a doubt in Dustin’s mind that Steve didn’t even question it before putting himself in harm's way for anyone he cared about and possibly for anyone in general. Afterall, when he’d fought the demo-dogs in the junkyard, he’d put himself between one of them and Max having literally just met her that day.
Dustin was just beginning to wish that Steve didn’t have such a massive heart or strict moral compass because of how deeply he worried for him every time he got hurt, which was all too often. Dustin was just beginning to think that Steve simply did not care about his own life, and Dustin could not understand why.
The young teen got Steve into his home and was fed by Dustin’s mother, who simply adored the older boy. She didn’t question them just appearing and looking as they did, had just given Steve a concerned look and forced him to sit down while she fussed over him and make some soup for them to eat. This wasn’t the first time she had fussed over him and Dustin knew his mother loved Steve, she doted on him, with all the warmth and kindness that she had.
Her mannerisms towards Steve were always met with politeness, Steve was always complimenting her, helping her out with the cooking and cleaning, being a gentleman as he put it. But Dustin had noticed that sometimes all of the kindness from his mother was something that made Steve nervous. Sometimes Dustin would watch his mother touch Steve’s shoulder, or put a gentle hand on his face, she would ask questions about how he was or how he was doing, how his parents were, about Robin, about what he and Dustin got up to, and Dustin would watch as Steve clammed up, froze under her touch, as he stuttered over an answer or just lied badly to her about how he was doing. Certainly Dustin had noticed despite how nervous it seemed to sometimes make him that his mother was far more physically affectionate with Steve than she was with any of his other friends.
On this occasion, with so much on his mind about Steve already, and with Steve having gone to the bathroom to wash up before bed, Dustin turned to his mother who looked at him with a warm smile, he decided to ask.
“Why are you like that with him?” Dustin asked, the cat purring at his feet slowly drying the newly cleaned plate his mother handed him.
“Like what Dusty?” his mother asked, confused, but not pausing in cleaning the dishes.
“I dunno, more affectionate or whatever,” Dustin answered with a shrug.
“I don’t know Dusty, he just seems lonely....or distant and they say when people are like that a little touch can ground them,” his mother said, still not pausing in the dishes.
Dustin didn’t entirely understand what she meant because he'd always thought Steve was surrounded with people, by him, and his party of friends who were equally Steve’s friends, with Robin. But the more he considered it as he dried another plate, the more he realised his mother was maybe right. When they’d first met, Dustin knew that Steve had just been dumped by Nancy, that he had just been de-throned and realised that he'd probably been quite lonely then. Beyond that given that he hung out with them a lot after everything that had happened and only recently had begun hanging out with Robin more since the Starcourt days, but in the moments apart from those, Dustin didn’t know what Steve did or who else he spent time with. He had never seen Steve’s parents, had never even heard him talk about them, all he knew was second hand information from Mike who’d heard from Nancy that Steve’s parents weren’t around a lot. So, perhaps he was far more lonely that Dustin realised.
When Steve emerged from the bathroom, Dustin left the dishes to his mother and pushed Steve to his room and on to the bed. Steve seemed very out of it, laying down and glancing towards Dustin. Dustin could only watch with a vague frown on his face seeing again the injuries and considering all he'd been thinking about all evening. Even in the sombre light of his bedroom Dustin couldn’t look away from the bruising at Steve’s neck. And when he did, all he looked to were the faint and still fading scars on Steve’s wrists from the Russians.
“Are you okay?” Dustin heard Steve ask quietly and Dustin frowned more deeply, finally meeting his gaze.
“Me?! You’re the one that got mauled and almost killed by gross upside down bat thingies,” Dustin replied, his voice squeaking lightly in exclamation.
“I’m fine though Dustin, nothing to worry about,” Steve replied softly, clearly just wanting to calm Dustin down but all it did was make him sad.
“Nothing to worry about?! Again, you got mauled by some bats from another dimension, and then despite the injuries made everyone leave the upside down before you,” Dustin replied and this time Steve frowned.
“Yeah, and?” Steve asked.
“Well, what about you? What about if after you made sure everyone had climbed back through, you, the dude who was injured and had lost a lot of blood couldn’t pull himself up and out,” Dustin replied.
“What about you?!” he repeated before Steve could speak.
“What about me?” Steve replied with a confused tone and look. He was clearly trying to just understand what Dustin meant and it only served to make Dustin feel more and more frustrated with his dumbass older friend.
“You could’ve died Steve!” Dustin replied, he began pacing about the small room.
“Like you could’ve been tortured to death at the hands of the Russians, or been stuck in the elevator to be killed by the Russians who found you after everyone else escaped, or died when you got between Billy and Lucas or been stuck in the tunnels,”
“But I didn’t, I’m still here,” Steve replied, trying his best to sit up properly and reach out to calm the younger boy.
“That’s not the point, Steve, you could’ve died,” Dustin replied.
“So what?” Steve replied sharply, immediately regretting the words.
“So what?!” And Dustin stilled as he spoke, glancing at Steve with an almost fear of what he might now say.
“Yeah, so what, better me than you or anyone else,” Steve replied, his tone was quieter.
Dustin watched the features on the elder teen’s face, and he realised in that moment, that Steve’s massive dumb heart didn’t include himself, he loved and would save everyone else but not himself. Dustin moved to stand in front of where Steve had sat up on the bed, willing the boy to just take back the words he had just said.
“It’s just.....you have your mom, Nancy and Mike have their family as well as having Jonathan and El respectively. El and Jonathan have Will, Joyce and now Hopper again and they deserve to get the chance to be a family. Lucas is gonna be a great basketball player one day soon, Max whose going to become such a fierce young woman is gonna achieve so much, Erica’s going to be president one day and Robin has her mom and is so smart, she's gonna do so many good things with her life,” Steve was rambling and the words just kept tumbling out
“You all have people who love you, goals, opportunities, and my parents…I don’t think they’d notice if I was gone....and I have no prospects…so…better I die than any of you. Better me than anyone else,” Steve finished and with such surety in his tone, as if there was nothing wrong with that statement. He didn’t see himself as important or worth saving, as if all the people he listed didn't love him deeply and wouldn’t be terribly broken by losing him.
Steve met Dustin's gaze, who was teary eyed, and whose hands were shaking. And he felt bad for saying all of it, but his brain had been too tired to filter, and it was clear it wasn't the first time he'd thought or reasoned it.
Dustin, however, couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. It was so plainly put, and Dustin had to wonder how long Steve had thought that, had believed that his life didn’t matter when compared with others. Had it been before all of the stuff with the upside down or just because of it? Steve had a stupid hero’s heart, and Dustin would make it his mission to change that just a little because he loved Steve and Steve needed to be more selfishe. It ached his heart to think that Steve didn't believe he mattered, it ached his heart to think about how long that thought had been lingering his best friend's brain.
“Steve….you....you matter…..your life matters,” Dustin’s voice shook lightly.
“You matter to me, to the party, to Robin, Joyce and El, Hopper, Nancy, Jonathan, to my mom,” Dustin continued, a stray tear rolled down his cheek which he quickly wiped away.
“You remember what I said, in the elevator last year, when you went to take Russian acid thing out of its box?”
“If you die, I die,” Steve quoted, his tone was quiet.
“You die, I die, and I meant it Steve. You’re my best friend…and if something happens to you, I don’t know what I’d do, I don’t even want to think of what my life would look like without you,” Dustin said, he didn’t take his eyes off Steve, there was a fierceness to the look that was one Steve was familiar with.
“Your life matters Steve, your life is worth protecting,” Dustin couldn’t help it, he wrapped his arms around Steve and pulled him into a tight hug, hanging on to him like it was a lifeline, needing to physically feel him. As soon as he did, he felt Steve wrap his arms around him and hugged him back just as tightly. Both unwilling for several minutes to let go.
When they did finally pull away, Dustin wiped at his eyes at the same time as Steve did.
“Just Steve please, next time maybe let someone else be last when leaving a dangerous situation…”
“Okay Dustin,”
“Promise me Steve,”
“I promise Dustin,”
Dustin wasn’t sure he believed it but there was sincerity to Steve’s tone, a look in his eye that perhaps a little of it had gotten through.
“I love you dumbass,”
“I love you too shithead,”
Dustin went to sleep that night on an inflatable mattress placed right next to his bed, with his heart feeling heavier than it had ever felt in his life. Knowing he would need to do more to convince Steve about how his life mattered and to make sure Steve kept the promise he had made.
But for now, Steve was safely asleep in his bed snoring softly, and Dustin felt grateful to hear those sounds that each time reminded him that Steve was still there. He let himself by lulled to sleep by the noises, sleeping soundly despite how difficult the last few days had been.
Next time something happened, Dustin silently promised to the sleeping Steve that he'd make sure Steve was the first out.