Chapter Text
Monday, November 5th, 1984
Steve
Steve wakes up with the worst headache of his life. For a few minutes, it’s the only thing he can think about. He doesn’t know where he is or what day it is, all he knows is that his head hurts and any change to his current state, whether that’s moving or opening his eyes or recalling the events of last night, is probably going to make it worse. So he lies there, his ears ringing, and hopes to fall back asleep.
No such luck.
Images flash behind his eyes, keeping him from drifting off. Billy’s face hovering above him. His bloody nose and wild hair. Max behind the wheel. The tunnels. The dogs. Dustin. Eleven. Slicked back hair and black eyeliner. Goggles and bandanas. Bloody noses. Teeth. So many teeth. Nails. His trusty bat. The junkyard. Barrels and scrap metal. Buckets of beef. Yellow dishwashing gloves. Fists. Over and over again. His mouth tastes like old blood and Billy’s cologne.
With a groan, Steve forces his eyes open. The influx of light sends a railroad spike of pain through his head. Wasn’t there a guy who survived an actual railroad spike to the head? He remembers learning about him in middle school. Dustin probably knows his name and his entire biography, but all Steve can remember is the image of the skull with the spike driven through it. He wonders if that guy felt this much pain. Maybe it was more, but Steve can’t imagine anything more than this.
He needs water and Tylenol. The decision comes easily, but the execution is a whole other story. Currently, Steve lies flat on his back looking at a plain white ceiling above him. There are no lights on in the room, but enough sun streams through the window for him to see. Slowly, he turns his head toward the light and sees familiar plaid curtains. He’s home, then. Steve doesn’t remember how he got here. They went back to the Byers house after the tunnels, he’s pretty sure. He wouldn’t have let Max drive again, so it must’ve been him. Then he probably drove himself home.
Okay, water and Tylenol will be downstairs in the kitchen. Steve just needs to get there. He rolls all the way to the right, throws his feet on the floor, and gets his hands under his shoulders to push himself to standing. As soon as he’s upright, a wave of dizziness crashes into him. Jesus Christ, he hasn’t been this dizzy since Coach Roy made them do that crazy tumble turn exercise. Ten strokes down the pool, flip, nine strokes the other way, flip again, eight strokes, flip, all the way down to one, with no breaths allowed on the last three. Steve drops to his knees and rests his forearms on the bed. He goes to drop his head against his arms but pulls back when the contact makes the bruises throb. He waits there, counting his breaths, until the feeling recedes.
Slowly, he eases himself to his feet, keeping his hands on the bed to catch himself if he falls. Once he’s relatively confident he’s not going to pass out, he goes downstairs. The ringing in his ears has faded and the house is eerily quiet. His parents are on a business trip until next weekend, he remembers. At least he won’t have to explain the state of his face to them. Although considering how he feels, there’s no way he’ll look back to normal before they return. They were livid after what happened with Jonathan Byers last year, a repeat offense is going to get him in even more trouble. Steve shelves that problem for later in favor of hunting down the Tylenol.
He gets a glass of water first and takes a few sips. The cold water stings where it hits a split in his lip, but it does ease the dryness in his throat. They didn’t have much time for water breaks yesterday, and the particles in those tunnels probably didn’t do him any favors either.
Steve finds the bottle in the cabinet and shakes three pills into his hand. Usually, he only takes two, but given the severity of this headache he thinks a mega dose is warranted. With that taken care of, his next order of business should probably be to clean himself up. He’s still in yesterday’s clothes, and the fabric is caked with blood and dirt. Steve trudges back upstairs, keeping a tight grip on the handrail, and brings a change of clothes into the bathroom. Once there, he’s forced to confront the damage Billy did to his face.
There’s hardly any skin left that hasn’t turned some shade of purple or red. Crusty dried blood coats his nostrils and upper lip. More patches of it cling to his right temple and the left side of his jaw. A bright yellow bandaid is still stuck to his forehead. Steve peels it off with a hiss as the movement disturbs the cut beneath it. The darkest of the bruising blooms across his cheekbones. He remembers Billy’s fists slamming into each of them. Nothing shifts when he pokes around, so at least it’s probably not broken.
Steve wets a washcloth and scrubs away the blood, pausing whenever his eyes fill with tears from the pain. Once it’s gone, he looks approximately twenty percent better and feels twenty percent worse. He starts the shower running and gently peels off his shirt. Billy directed most of his blows at Steve’s face, but there’s a fist-sized bruise on his stomach. Maybe there’s a hit he doesn’t remember.
As he reaches for his ankle to remove his socks, he realizes something feels off. Did he remember to run the water for a shower? Steve looks up and sees that he did. He reaches out to find it’s almost warm enough. Hurriedly, he finishes stripping down and steps inside. Still, something doesn’t seem right. He spends the whole shower trying to figure out what it is, but can’t put his finger on it.
As he’s pulling on the fresh set of clothes, it finally hits him. Yesterday was Sunday. Which means he’s supposed to be at school right now. Steve hasn’t looked at a clock since he woke up, but it’s definitely well past his usual wake-up time on a school day. He has swim practice at six o’clock in the morning. But there’s no way he could go to school even if he remembered. Not with this headache and his face looking like it does. He wonders if Billy’s in school today. Steve got a few good licks in before Billy turned the tables, he probably has a bruise or two of his own. Maybe he’s bragging to everybody who will listen how he pummeled ‘King Steve.’
The Tylenol has barely taken the edge off, but at least it’s enough to keep him away from the brink of puking every time he turns his head. Steve takes his soiled clothes all the way downstairs to the basement laundry room and throws them straight in the wash. He dumps in double the detergent he usually uses and starts the load. It probably won’t be enough to get the bloodstains out of his shirt, but it’s worth a try. At least his jeans will probably survive. He loves that pair.
Back upstairs, Steve knows what he needs to do next. He’s called himself out sick probably a dozen times since he started high school. Some of those were even legitimate illnesses. His impression of his father is so believable, nobody has ever questioned it. Steve picks up the phone and dials the number for the attendance office. It doesn’t ring.
Steve stares at the phone, flummoxed, and hangs up. Maybe the crazy stuff at the lab last night fried the phone lines. Just in case it was a fluke, he tries again. Still nothing. With a shrug, Steve hangs up again and goes to check if the TV is also busted. It takes him ten minutes just to find the stupid remote. When he finally flips the TV on, the picture works just fine, but the sound doesn’t. He toggles the mute button, but that doesn’t fix anything. Maybe the volume’s just set really low. He turns it up, but that doesn’t help either. Steve changes the channel, wondering if that one is just having technical difficulties or something.
Only once he flips through half a dozen silent channels do the pieces fit together. He realizes what was weird about the shower: there was no sound of running water. The house isn’t just quiet because his parents are gone. The phone lines aren’t busted, and neither is the TV. Steve claps his hands together to test this theory. No sound. He brings a hand right next to his ear and snaps his fingers. Still nothing. Same with the other ear.
He can’t even hear his own voice as he says, “Oh shit.”