better by myself - steve harrington AU

chapter 9 - bandaids & bandages

My concept of time was skewed, and I had no idea if it had been a few minutes or closer to an hour when someone reopened the door of the bus. I tried to protest, internally terrified, but I had no energy to do so. "Can you walk?" Steve asked, and I just looked up at him helplessly. I probably could've, but it felt impossible. He picked me up to carry me, and I tried to focus on his face to take my mind off of the situation. "You'll be fine." He muttered hastily, as if he was trying to convince himself rather than me.

It wasn't long before Steve gently placed me in the passenger's seat of his car, and I couldn't even find myself wondering how we had gotten there so fast because now I was stuck looking at the blood again. "I'm ruining your car." I coaxed, my throat felt dry and scratchy, and I surprised myself when actual sound came out of my mouth

Steve chuckled nervously. "You're worried about my car?" I couldn't understand what was so funny about that.

I thought I had asked what happened, but since no one answered I concluded that I hadn't said it out loud. The car ride was tense, and it took me a while to realise that the kids were sitting in the backseat. It granted me a relieved feeling, but almost instantaneously a guilty feeling that I had forgotten them. There was a lot of talking going on that I couldn't focus on. In my head I felt like I was dying, but then again, I thought, I would probably feel a lot worse if I was.

As we pulled up to the Byers' residence, I noticed how dark the sky had become. The sun had set now, and it didn't feel like today was the same day as when me and Steve had walked down the train tracks. I had calmed down a bit then, and I was starting to feel unfrozen. That unfortunately meant that I could also start to feel the thumping pain that was radiating from my arm. It was constant, and I tried to hold it as still as possible as to ease it.

Since I could walk on my own now, Steve only led me up to the door by holding his arm around my waist. We were met by Nancy and Jonathan when we entered the house.

"Thank god you're here, we have to go." Nancy exclaimed as she saw Steve. When her eyes shifted to me however, her tone got increasingly more worried. "What happened to you?"

"I-" I began, but realised I couldn't cohesively explain what had happened to me, I barely knew myself. Steve could see that I was struggling so he filled in. "She was attacked. We all would've died if the monsters didn't suddenly run off."

"Yeah, they came here." Jonathan said. I looked around and noticed that Mike was here as well, but he was the only other one. Since it didn't look like a bloodbath had taken place in the house, I assumed, hoped, that everyone else was fine.

"Eleven is going to fix this, but right now we need to go and see Will." Nancy said, urgently pushing past us. Every single word seemed to confuse me, I felt so out of the loop. From behind me I could hear doors slamming and a car starting, and Nancy shouting to stay here until they got back.

"Is she alright? I think there's some bandages and stuff in the bathroom." Mike offered as he walked up to us. 

"Yeah, I'll take care of it." Steve said, starting to walk with me in the direction of the bathroom. "You guys just stay here, ok?" I could hear the kids immediately start to talk about everything that happened. They sounded excited, like they were describing a cool action scene from a movie, sound effects and all, but I couldn't help but feel sad that they had to go through all of this.

Steve sat me down on top of the toilet seat and began raiding the bathroom for anything useful. When he was done, he sat down on the floor in front of me and removed Dustin's jacket from my arm. I couldn't decide if the cut looked better or worse than I'd thought. Overall, it just looked awful.

"Do you know what you're doing?" I managed to say as I watched him dab the cut with a wet towel.

"I've been in many fights." He said as he concentrated on the wound. "Had to clean a lot of cuts."

"Oh yeah," I mumbled, "King Steve."

He cracked an awkward smile. "Man, King Steve was a douchebag. He deserved to get beat up."

I let out a breathy laugh. My arm looked a lot better now, there was pretty much no blood still seeping out, and the only traces left of it were on my jeans and Dustin's jacket. "This is gonna sting a little." He warned as he doused a cotton pad with some rubbing alcohol. I closed my eyes as to brace myself and let out a little hiss as the pad touched my arm. It wasn't unbearable, but it was uncomfortable and I was relieved when it was over. 

When I opened my eyes, Steve was looking at me sympathetically and I gave him a reassuring smile. "We came up with a plan to help El." Mike suddenly barged in.

"No." Steve said simply.

"But-"

"No, okay? It's too dangerous to go out there again. We're staying here." Steve said, and I found myself thinking that I had some competition for being the best babysitter in Hawkings. Mike huffed and walked away again, clearly irritated.

"What's the deal with children thinking they can save the world?" He turned his attention back to me, and he started to wrap my arm with a bandage. 

"You think you can save the world." I answered candidly.

"Yeah, well, I'm not a child." 

"And you've got your bat." I added, pandering to his ego.

"Exactly." He said as he placed a bandaid on the end of the bandage to hold it together.

"Thank you. I'm sorry." I said, offering him a smile.

He looked at me and made grimace like it was completely out of place for me to say that. "There's no need to thank me. And definitely no need to apologise." 

"It's my fault this happened, I'm sorry." I said, looking down at my hands. I was scratching at my right hand out of anxiety, I did it occasionally when I needed to get my mind off of things. Steve placed his hand on top of mine to stop me, which forced me to meet his eyes.

"It's really not your fault, and you don't need to apologise." He reiterated slowly. I found myself desperately searching his eyes for any sign of doubt, but they were gleaming with reassurance.

"I, uh- thought you and Nancy were still seeing each other." I changed the subject. I'd remembered how cold they seemed to one another earlier.

He let out a puff of air and looked down at the ground briefly before he looked back up at me. "She broke up with me." He forced a tight-lipped smile.

"Oh." I said, not particularly invested in continuing the conversation. 

He shifted a little closer to me, his hand was still resting atop of mine and his eyes studied my face like he didn't know what else to look at.

Without thinking, I leaned over and closed the gap between us, landing a short kiss on his lips. When I pulled away, he looked shocked and I realised the awkward situation.

"I'm sorry." I said quickly, as I got up and out of the room before he had a chance to respond.