ao3
“I’m sorry about the Beamer,” Dustin says.
He doesn’t know why he blurts it out, just like that.
He’s so tired he can barely turn his head to look at Steve, who’s lying on the air mattress his mom dug out again, wedged right next to Dustin’s bed.
Steve looks wide awake, wired. Fingers drumming against his chest. He frowns slightly, like he’s processing Dustin’s words, and then exhales. A soft, Huh.
“I actually, uh, forgot about it,” he says. Laughs quietly. “I guess it’s kinda…” He blows out air from his cheeks and gestures vaguely. Dustin doesn’t point out that his hand is shaking. “Like, flying through time or something, right?” He smiles. “Like the DeLorean.”
“I’m still sorry,” Dustin says because right now it’s all he knows how to say; because he doesn’t know how to cover it all; of the familiar thunk of the car door slamming shut; of his muddy footprints ingrained in the front; of relaxing into his seat, hearing Steve sing along to the radio under his breath, thinking I’m safe here, I’m safe here, I’m safe—
“Stop apologising, bud,” Steve says, almost offhand, almost normal, but there’s a waver right at the end, and…
“I just—” Dustin tries, but it’s all he gets out before Steve moves abruptly to sit on his bed, looks down at him so seriously.
“Dustin, it’s a car,” he says firmly. A sudden shadow, just for a moment; something haunted in his eyes.
Dustin’s throat still hurts from screaming. The sting of the skin underneath his fingernails, from clinging onto the metal of the radio tower; an ache in his knee from when he wobbled on the ladder. Steve screaming his name as he fell in the Abyss and thinking, briefly, That’s the last thing I’ll ever hear.
“I can replace—” Steve’s voice breaks. “It’s just a car.”
And he’s pulling Dustin into the tightest hug. He’s shaking; they both are.
“We’re okay,” Dustin says.
Steve echoes it, high-pitched, vulnerable. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay.”
Dustin does the only thing he can. He holds on.
