Steve's lower back is positively throbbing.

He welcomes the Advil that Jonathan brings - despite his rolling stomach - while Nancy fluffs the pillows beneath his head.

Steve recognizes that this is weird.

It's weird for an ex-girlfriend and her current boyfriend to be playing nursemaid to the ex-boyfriend. He knows it is.

But here they are.

"Is that better, Steve?" Nancy asks. "Now that you're lying down?"

Only a million times better. "Yeah, thanks."

Jonathan sinks into the bed next to him while Nancy sits down delicately on the edge. She reaches for his hand, squeezes it gently. "How are you doing with all of this, Steve?"

Steve raises his free hand up to his face and presses down on his eyelids. "I don't know how to answer that," he says.

"Bad question," she admits.

"No, it's not that," Steve assures her and drops his hand. "It's just… I'm feeling so much all at once that I haven't really been able to make sense out of it."

"Do you want to try to talk about it?" Nancy ventures. "Maybe putting it into words will help."

Steve swallows, not sure if he has it in him. "I don't know…"

"I think you should try, Steve," Jonathan encourages, resting a hand on Steve's knee. "If it gets to be too much, you can stop."

"Yeah," Nancy agrees. "We're just… here to listen, okay?"

Steve closes his eyes. Decides to let himself be vulnerable, because if not with them, who? He doesn't have anyone else.

Not really.

He lets out a deep breath and reopens his eyes. "Okay," he whispers, and gives Nancy a watery half-smile. "I'm… um… I'm really sad. And I… I don't know. I feel like I don't deserve to be."

"Steve, c'mon," Jonathan says. "What do you mean?"

"We weren't even close. Everything I did was wrong and he let me know it, you know? So I gave up. He was impossible. I just stopped caring about making him proud. I stopped caring about him altogether." Shit. His face is leaking again. He sits up a little and wipes his eyes on his sleeve. "But I should've cared. I didn't know that he would… I should have realized something was wrong. I shouldn't have left."

"He was hurting you, Steve," Nancy whispers, and there are tears dripping down her face, too.

"That's how I should have known." Steve tries to make her understand. "He had n-never laid a hand on me before."

"Steve, think about what you're saying. You didn't know he was going to take his life." Jonathan tries to reason with him. He sits up too, to look Steve directly in the eyes. "You needed to get somewhere safe. I'm not going to let you blame yourself for this, you hear me?"

Steve hears Jonathan - he does - but there's still a part of him that believes if he had stayed, managed to deescalate the situation somehow, his dad would still be alive. "I hear you," Steve whispers. He dips his head. "God. I hated him so much. But I never… I never wanted him to die."

"We know, Steve," Nancy says and reaches for him. "Come here."

And Steve allows himself to be maneuvered back into her arms, lets himself fall into her embrace, sore lower back be damned.

He's shaking again. And crying hard. And Nancy kisses his temple and holds him together and Steve feels sick from it all because Jonathan is right there and her hair smells good and he wants to kiss her back.

She is safe and warm and familiar and he doesn't want to let go.

She runs her hands through his hair, shushes him, and rocks him back and forth like it is the most natural thing in the world to do.

Then it goes sideways.

He realizes what they're doing. And as much as Steve doesn't want to, he pulls away. The revelation hits him like a ton of bricks: he can't let himself get close to her like this. Touching. It feels too good and hurts too much all at the same time. "Nancy, I can't," he says, panicked.

His chest aches, because the last thing he wants to do is hurt her, and that's what he's doing. He can see it on her face.

"I'm sorry," he says, but even as he says it, he scoots away, further distancing himself from her. "I just need…" He can't explain it. "Can you just…?" he glances at the door.

He needs to settle down and he doesn't think that's going to happen with Nancy in the room.

"You w-want me to leave?" she stutters out, a wounded look on her face. There are still tears on her cheeks.

Steve looks away. "I just need a minute," he breathes, bringing his hands to his head and squeezing his eyes closed. "Please. I need a minute."

He's too hot and he feels so sick and he just needs a fucking minute.

And thank God for Jonathan Byers because he intervenes. "It's okay, Nance. Just step out for a bit. Maybe go get Steve some more water?"

Steve can't bring himself to open his eyes, but feels Nancy get up from the bed, hears the bedroom door open and close. Hears her squeak, "I'm sorry."

"Steve, you okay?" Jonathan asks, and he's crouching in front of him now. Not touching, but Steve feels his presence in front of him.

"I-It's too much," Steve gasps as his breaths shudder harshly in his chest. There's acid in his throat. "I feel really sick, Byers."

"I know," Jonathan says.

"That was r-really bad. With Nancy. That was bad."

"It's okay." Jonathan is so fucking calm. "Steve, can you open your eyes?"

"N-No," Steve grits out, because the nausea is overwhelming now. He's boiling. He stifles back a gag. "I think I'm g-going to…"

"I know. I have the bin here in front of you, man. I'm going to help you lean over it, okay?"

"Okay," Steve manages. He feels the bed dip as Jonathan sits beside him, feels the bin placed in his lap. Jonathan holds him at the elbow and tugs him forward and Steve is pretty sure it's the only amount of touching he can handle right now.

How is Byers so damn perceptive? he wonders as grips the rim of the bin with his free hand and tries to swallow against nausea rising up his throat.

He chokes instead, causing him to cough harshly as he throws up a slurry of stomach contents in an unrelenting bout of heaves.

Jonathan doesn't flinch. Doesn't leave his side.

"Get it all up," he encourages gently. "You'll feel better after you do."

By the time Steve is empty, his ears are ringing. He stays hovering over the bin while he spits the remaining strings of bile into the bottom.

"That's it. You're okay."

Steve is drained. Mentally and physically. But he does feel a fraction better, now that the nausea has subsided considerably. "Blood?" he whispers, because he still can't muster up the strength to open his eyes and see for himself.

"No blood," Jonathan reports and takes the bin away. He returns with a box of tissues and wipes Steve's tears and snot from his face.

Steve is humiliated - he must look like a total train wreck - but can feel Jonathan's worry coming off him in waves. He tries to lighten the mood. "Hey Byers, scale one to ten… how sexy am I right now?"

Jonathan lets out a startled laugh. "Off the charts, man. Do you want to change your shirt?"

Steve squints his eyes open. "Yeah, but I can do it. You should go check on Nancy."

"You must be out of your mind if you think I'd leave you alone right now," Jonathan tells him bluntly, tossing a fresh T-shirt in his lap. "And Nancy'll be fine. I'm sorry I brought her here, man. I didn't know…"

I didn't know you'd be such a mess that you couldn't handle it.

"And we shouldn't have pushed you to talk," Jonathan adds. "I'm sorry."

Steve shakes his head, starts to tell him don't be, when there's a knock on the door and Chief Hopper nudges the door open slightly. "Everything okay in here?" He's holding a glass of water in his hand.

"Getting there," Jonathan answers for Steve. "He was sick again."

"Doing better now," Steve insists, feeling his face flush red. "Hi, Chief. What're you doing here?"

Jim clears his throat. "Just checking in and…" he sticks his head out the door into the hallway. "Give us just a second, Jerry, okay?" He then steps into the room all the way and closes the door behind him. "You alright, kid?"

Steve frowns, ignoring the question. He's more focused on Jerry in the hallway. There isn't anybody he can think of off the top of his head with the name Jerry. "Who're you talking to? Who's here?"

"Don't worry about that for a minute," Hopper says, stern and concerned. "Are. You. Okay?"

Steve has learned quickly that Jim is stubborn and won't cave until Steve gives him a fair assessment of his current state of being. He swallows and tries to get a grip. "Been better. Been worse. That water for me?"

There's a stale aftertaste of bile on his breath and it's making him feel sick all over again.

"Courtesy of Nancy," Jim confirms as he hands it over, looking at Steve critically. "You don't need another trip to the hospital, do you?" he asks, and palms a big, calloused hand against Steve's forehead.

"No, I don't think so," Steve tells him honestly. He thinks he's just sad. And scared. He takes a careful sip of the water to rid his mouth of the awful taste, then sets it on the nightstand.

Jim hums as he draws his hand away. "Any blood?" He repeats the same question Steve had asked earlier.

Jonathan shakes his head. "I think he just needs some rest." He pats Steve knee. "You still need to change your shirt, man."

Steve blinks. "Oh. Yeah."

He's not sure he has the strength.

"Let me help," Hopper says, reading his mind. "I need to check you over anyway."

xxx

"So who's in the hallway?" Steve asks, after Hopper has helped him into a new shirt, kicked Jonathan out of his own bedroom to go check on Nancy, and made absolutely and totally sure that Steve didn't need to go back to the hospital.

Jim is sitting on the edge of the bed next to Steve, gliding the rim of his sheriff's hat between his fingers. He lets out a deep breath. "His name is Jerry Thompson. He works at your dad's firm. Said he's met you a couple of times at dinner parties and banquets."

"Oh," Steve says vaguely, not able to picture him. "Why's he here?"

"He came down to the station today. He's been trying to get ahold of you, but didn't know where you were staying. He has news about your mom, kid."

Steve's stomach - what's left of it - drops into his toes.

"What?" he croaks. "What is it?"

Hopper licks his lips. "She's okay. Relatively speaking. But I should let Jerry tell you the rest. He came all this way. Let me go get him."

xxx

It's obviously not good news, which is what Steve was expecting.

That's all he'd been getting lately, so why should it stop now?

So when Jerry (and yeah, Steve is pretty sure he's never met the guy) tells him that his mother is in a hospital in France, suffering from severe knife wounds and fractured ribs, it doesn't faze him.

Not really. Not in the way it should.

"She was attacked," this stranger Jerry tells him. "Coming out of a restaurant."

"She was with someone," Jim adds. "A man. He took the brunt of it. Fought the guy off."

Steve swallows. "Who was he?"

Jerry frowns. "Someone she met at the hotel, I think. From what I understand, they had been spending quite a deal of time together since your parents arrived in Paris—"

"I'm not talking about my mom's latest fling," Steve interrupts impatiently, because that's the same, tired story. "Why the hell was she attacked? Who attacked her?"

"He got away," Jerry tells him. "But the authorities are pretty sure it was an attempted mugging turned bloody. You know, tourists are always targeted over there."

He says it with a scoff, like he believes Steve's mother brought this upon herself.

Jim, sitting beside him, has a grounding hand at the base of Steve's neck like he thinks Steve might come apart at the seams any moment now. "Steve, the important thing is that she's going to be okay," he says. "She's stable."

Steve nods slowly, his mind on one thing only. "Does she… Does she know about m-my dad?"

"She does," Jim says. "Someone from your dad's firm who also made the trip out there is staying with her. He informed her."

"You know Neil Harding, don't you, Steve?" Jerry asks.

Steve does. Neil Harding is one of his dad's earliest associates. Probably the closet thing his father had to an actual "friend." He nods. "I should go out there," Steve realizes. "To Paris. I should be with her."

But Jim thinks otherwise. "Steve, kiddo, I think it's best you stay in Hawkins. They'll put your mom on a flight back to the States once she's fit enough to fly."

Steve's chest hurts. "I need to call her then. Can I call her?"

"It's almost midnight out there," Jerry tells him. "But I'll leave you the number."

"Yeah, why don't you do that, Jerry," Hopper agrees. "And thanks for coming out and getting the news to Steve, here."

"Yeah, thank you," Steve echoes quietly. He wants Jerry gone. He wants to scream. He wants to die.

Jerry recognizes that he's being dismissed and stands from Jonathan's desk chair. He nods once. "It was the least I could do," he says.

Jim gives Steve's neck a final, gentle squeeze. "I'll walk you out," he tells Jerry. "You'll be okay for a minute?" he asks Steve.

Who the hell knows? Steve wants to say, but nods instead. "You'll tell the others?" he asks hopefully.

"I will. Lean back. Get some rest."

xxx

Dustin enters the room without knocking, not even twenty seconds later.

Steve had just managed to lean back into the pillows. He hadn't known Dustin was coming and feels himself relax at just the sight of him. "Hey, man," he greets softly.

"Hey," Dustin replies, but he's not wearing the toothy grin he usually does. He thumbs over his shoulder. "Who was that guy?"

"Hopper was going to fill you all in," Steve answers. "You're probably missing it now."

"Oh," Dustin says and shrugs. He takes a step closer. "I'd rather hear it from you anyway. How are you doing?"

"I'm fucking exhausted," Steve croaks.

Brutally honest.

He doesn't mean it as a dismissal, but that's how Dustin takes it.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No," Steve says, with an edge of panic in his voice that surprises him. "I'll be exhausted whether you're here or not, shithead. I want you here." He pats the spot on the bed next to him to prove it.

That gets him the beginnings of a smile as Dustin settles onto the bed beside him. "Good, because I wasn't gonna leave."

Steve rubs his eyes and gives Dustin a soft smile. "Is that right?"

"Yup," Dustin says proudly. And then, still curious about the mystery man: "So…?"

Steve drops his hands. "So… they found my mom…" he starts, and proceeds to elaborate in the simplest terms because he doesn't have the energy or the emotional capacity left to delve into it entirely.

Dustin picks up on it and doesn't press for more. Just asks softly, "Are you okay?"

"No."

"What can I do?"

Steve lets out a shuddering breath. "Can you just… tell me about your day? I mean it, man. Like… from start to finish. Nothing left out. I really just… I need something else to focus on, and I… I want to hear about your day."

Dustin nods because he understands. Of course he understands.

"Let's see… where to begin?" He rubs his hands together, pondering. "Well, I was awakened this morning by Tews jumping on my face…"

He launches into a detailed soliloquy; commentary only.

Steve lets Dustin's words - and memories of simpler times - lull him to sleep.