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Jonathan keeps the knob of the bathroom door turned as it closes to avoid the loud click, in an effort not to wake anyone who’s managed to fall asleep even after everything. Jonathan knows he couldn’t even if he tried—it’s fine, really, since he’s on caretaker duty anyway.
The light from the porch is dim where it filters in through the blinds, but Jonathan’s eyes have adjusted enough that he can make out the shapes around him. The full glass of water on the table next to the couch where Steve lays curled up on his side, his back to the rest of the room. The only sign he’s awake being his fidgeting hands, running over the texture of the blanket like it soothes him. Jonathan thinks it’s probably scratchy, but Steve didn’t complain when it was offered.
It was Joyce’s idea for him to stay, after all the chaos was over and she noticed him swaying in place every time his eyes slipped closed for more than a blink. A concussion, and a bad one, judging by the bruise under his eye and the way he flinches away from bright light, the dizziness when he closes his eyes. She forbade him from driving home, and when he revealed his parents wouldn’t be picking him up because they weren’t even in town—no one could’ve changed her mind then.
“How’re you feeling?” Jonathan keeps his voice soft, quiet as possible in case anything louder might make the ache worse.
Steve’s voice hovers around the same volume when he answers, “Like shit.”
He told Joyce he was fine earlier, but that was hours ago. Right when everything started to settle, but now there’s been time for the adrenaline to dissipate. He stopped lying about two check-ins ago.
“Still nauseous?” Jonathan asks, stepping closer and picking up the water from the table, guiding Steve to sit up with a gentle hand.
“Mm…no. Don’t think so. Just spinning, every time I close my eyes.”
Jonathan hums in acknowledgement and sits down at the end of the couch, carefully so he doesn’t jostle Steve too much. He hands him the water and when Steve’s face turns toward the dim light from the window, he gets a sense of how tired he must be. He looks about two seconds from passing out under normal circumstances. The glass gets placed back on the table with a dull thunk, only half full this time.
“Just glad it was me, and not…” Steve trails off but Jonathan knows what he means, he doesn’t need him to keep talking. “Should’ve seen Max, though. Little badass.”
“I’m sure she is,” Jonathan agrees, watching as Steve leans back against the couch, blanket half falling off of him but he still runs his fingers over the texture of it. He gets an idea, and he doubts concussions work the same as regular headaches, but there’s one thing that usually helps him—he’ll run his fingers through his own hair, play with it not unlike how he does when he’s upset. It calms him and soothes the ache, maybe it’ll help Steve.
“Hey, come here for a second?” Jonathan asks, patting his lap when Steve gives him a weird look as if to say I’m right here, dumbass. “Lay down, just—I wanna try something. See if it helps you feel better.”
“Okay.” Steve says it with a slight tint of uncertainty, but he (slowly) lowers himself back down into the position Jonathan found him in before, legs curled up and facing the back of the couch, this time with his head pillowed in Jonathan’s lap.
Jonathan waits until he seems comfortable, grips the edge of the blanket to adjust it over Steve’s shoulders before his fingers card through Steve’s hair, careful to avoid the spots that made him flinch earlier. He mostly sticks to the back of his head, and only gets a couple of winces in before he’s got a pretty solid idea of where to avoid.
Steve’s eyes close for longer intervals before they snap back open again, likely from the spinning he mentioned before. But some of the tension does seem to drain from his shoulders, and he settles his head against Jonathan’s thighs like he likes it, so Jonathan asks, “Better?”
“Not really,” Steve mumbles, “feels good, though, keep going.”
Jonathan does as he asked, and can’t help but wonder if Steve felt like this after their fight, all those months ago. Not that he thinks he’s that strong, but—he was so angry, then. He knows now that it was Steve lashing out, he didn’t mean the shit he said, but it still hit him right where it was intended to. Made him go too far. Thinking about Steve dealing with this all alone, no one around to make sure he’s okay…
Jonathan chews on his lower lip and looks down at Steve again, at stubborn, fluttering eyelids that refuse to stay open or closed. There’s blood smeared on his face where he kept flinching away from the damp cloth, the pain too much to let Joyce clean it. Jonathan wants to run his fingertips over the red of Steve’s cheek; he probably would if he knew it wouldn’t hurt him. He doesn’t want Steve to hurt because of him ever again.
While he’s looking, he can’t help but notice—past all the blood and the bruising, how soft Steve looks. Tension gone from his face, the knot between his eyebrows smoothed out and he doesn’t look stressed anymore, just tired. His lips shine in the dim light when he licks them and Jonathan needs to stop looking before it’s too late for him.
He tears his eyes away in the nick of time because dark, bleary eyes are looking back up at him. “Thank you,” Steve says, his voice barely even a mumble anymore. “Feels a little better.”
“‘Course,” Jonathan says back, letting the blunt edges of his nails drag gently against Steve’s scalp and watching how his eyelids slide closed. How his breathing evens out. “Try to sleep, okay?”
“Can’t,” Steve mutters, but his eyes stay closed this time and Jonathan knows it’s already too late. All Steve does is fall asleep and he’s hopeless, can almost pinpoint the moment Steve, unconscious as he is, tethers himself to Jonathan’s heart.
It’s not like his feelings for Steve appear out of nowhere—they’ve been there a while, prodding at the edge of his mind until he couldn’t ignore them anymore. But it was different before, distant. Now he knows who Steve is, and it’s only made it worse. Harder to rationalize the feelings away when Jonathan can actually see how good he is.
Jonathan doesn’t try to move Steve, or get any sleep for himself. Most likely, he still wouldn’t move even if Steve weren’t sporting one hell of a concussion, but for now that’s his excuse. Sleep being important for the healing process. Steve fades in and out of consciousness and Jonathan loses track of time, hums some of his favorite songs and curls strands of hair around his knuckles.
“Smiths?” Steve mumbles sometime after the moon disappeared past the trees Jonathan can see out the window. “Good song.”
“Mhm.”
Jonathan doesn’t sing the words, but he hears them in his head as he hums them—And you never knew how much I really liked you, ‘cause I never even told you. Oh, but I meant to, are you still there? He even thinks it’s kind of funny, in a miserable way, that that’s the song Steve woke up for.
Steve smiles too, for some reason, just a little tug at the corner of his lips that Jonathan wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t already looking. But it fades as Steve falls back under again.
Morning comes slowly, rustling sounds of people waking up around him all while Jonathan hasn’t slept a wink. Steve’s been asleep for a solid half an hour, or at the very least he hasn’t moved or said anything in that long. Jonathan rests his head against his hand, propped up against the arm of the couch, and he can practically feel the bags under his eyes.
It can’t have been more than a few hours, but the noise eventually wakes Steve and he rises, slowly, about to rub at his eyes before he drops his hands with a wince. He looks around like he’s determining where he is for a few seconds.
“Can take my room, if you want,” Jonathan says, fighting back a yawn. “Should rest some more.”
Steve does look tired but his eyes don’t have that same glassiness they had before, and Jonathan must look half as bad as he does because Steve gives him a look that suggests he’d be quirking an eyebrow at him if it weren’t so swollen.
“You should get some sleep, I’m…I can get myself home fine now, I think.”
“You think?” It’s Jonathan’s turn to shoot Steve a look. “You don’t want me to leave my mom to breakfast duty, I promise. Just go, it’s fine.”
“Not hungry, not my problem.” Steve shrugs, opening his mouth to speak more but hesitating a few seconds. “Could just share. Having you here with me…kinda helped. A lot, actually. And you should rest too. Just, yeah. We should both sleep.”
Jonathan knows he should argue, could come up with any number of reasons it’s a bad idea. His stupid mouth betrays him anyway, says, “Yeah, sure,” like it’s nothing. Like the idea of sharing a bed with Steve Harrington isn’t going to kill him on its own. The idea of Steve in his bed—it’s just not a mental image that makes any sense.
Steve has no problem making himself comfortable, though, even if his shoulder knocks against the doorframe on his way in. Settles in like he belongs there and scrunches one of Jonathan’s pillows in between his shoulder and the side of his head he didn’t get a plate smashed into. Jonathan’s stiff in comparison, laying on his back and staring straight up until Steve nudges one of his arms.
“You look like a corpse like that. Loosen up, man.” Steve smirks when Jonathan glances over at him, even if it doesn’t look quite like it does normally. “Not gonna bite you unless you ask nicely. Gotta say please and everything.”
Jonathan huffs, mostly out of disbelief, and turns over onto his stomach. There’s less distance between him and Steve once he moves, but he’s too stubborn to shift away again, and Steve doesn’t either. If anything, Jonathan feels like he moves a little closer, has to make a conscious effort not to jolt when he feels an arm drape over his back.
“This okay?” Steve asks, and Jonathan nods, face smushed into his pillow.
They’re kind of cuddling, he realizes, glad for his face being hidden because it makes him feel all warm when he thinks about it. He kind of wants to roll onto his side, just because he knows it would mean cuddling for real. Kind of can’t stop thinking about Steve’s chest against his back.
All goes quiet and Jonathan’s wide awake, wondering if Steve dozed off yet until he hears him speak up, his voice soft like it was on the couch. “Jonathan?”
Jonathan hums an acknowledgement once he turns his head, cheek pressed against his pillow to look at Steve. He’s got his lips pressed together like he’s thinking hard about something, eyes unfocused but looking at the sheets between them.
“I don’t want to…” Steve starts, trailing off and his fingers fidget against Jonathan’s shirt like he’ll find the words in between the threads. “…Wonder if you’re still there. You know?”
Steve meets Jonathan’s eyes finally, earnest where Jonathan’s are mostly just confused. Must be Steve’s concussion catching up to him, but it seems to be important to him, whatever he’s trying to say. Jonathan decides it’s best for everyone involved to entertain him.
“What do you mean?”
Steve’s brows furrow and the little line between them comes back. “The song from earlier,” he says, like that’s supposed to make it make more sense. “It’s—I feel—like that. Not the part about the house, but. The other part.”
Jonathan takes a few seconds to think, to try and figure out what Steve means. His own eyes narrow a little and the only conclusion he reaches is ridiculous, but he needs to ask, now.
“Steve. What does that mean?”
Steve groans softly and rubs his hand against the good side of his face. “Stupid, it’s—sorry, I was trying to—my head,” he says, gesturing vaguely. He’s smiling when his hand falls back against the mattress between them though, just a little curve to his lips that quickly gives way the furrow of his brows. “Just. I really like you, and I’m too scared to say it, except right now I’m, like—not thinking hard enough, I guess. I just need you to know, I think. I don’t wanna end up…wishing I told you and didn’t.”
Jonathan blinks as he takes in what Steve says, letting the smile he’s been fighting back come to the surface. “I think you have a concussion, and you’re not thinking clearly, but—I like you too.”
Steve’s grin is almost instant even if it’s a little crooked, his arm finding its way back over Jonathan’s lower back, thumb rubbing against his side. “You do?”
Carefully, Jonathan shifts a little closer to him, letting his own arm drape over Steve’s waist. “Yeah. Can you get some rest, now?”
“Maybe.” Steve’s voice is sleepy, though, more lag in the time it takes to blink his eyes closed and back open. “Only if you c’mere.”
Jonathan makes a show of rolling his eyes but he doesn’t mind, even if he doesn’t typically like sleeping on his side very much. He lets Steve pull him against his chest, similar to how he imagined it before, but it’s his face he gets to press into the fabric of the sweater Steve borrowed from him. It smells like Steve now, instead of like all the rest of Jonathan’s clothes, and he almost can’t believe that he gets to have this. Kind of worried Steve might backtrack once he’s feeling better, but there’s a thumb rubbing idly against his lower back and a content sigh against his hair and he thinks, maybe, it’s not too good to be true.