As far as Steve could tell, most people were now milling around gossiping rather than having the heavy conversations. After the ice cream break, the kids had been noticeably more relaxed, which seemed to have helped the adults do the same. Owens was having his ear bent off by Ted Wheeler, but looked like he was handling it better than Ted deserved.

Steve had checked in with his mom and dad with a few looks across the room, but he didn't want to interrupt them unless they needed him to. Robin was chatting to Nancy and Jonathan and she'd given him a quick shake of the head when he had almost gone over, so he was keeping his distance. Nancy hadn't quite been herself since the whole shooting incident. She was doing her best, but it had clearly shaken her, and he didn't want to make that worse. If there was anything he needed to know, Robin would fill him in later.

Hence, he found himself in a group with Eddie and his bandmates. The conversation seemed to have progressed to something about comparing the actual Upside Down creatures with their DnD namesakes. He was following about half of it because he had no idea about stats or anything like that and his knowledge of DnD was limited. Eddie kept bringing him in to the conversation for his first-hand experience with the real monsters, but that was about it.

It didn't help that he was continually being distracted by Gareth waving his hands around while talking and reminding him of the injury to the younger guy's hand. Then there was Jeff, perched on the arm of one of the couches because his foot was giving him trouble.

It was driving him crazy. The stress of the last few days had made him hyperaware. Gareth, Jeff and Frank were firmly in the ours camp now, even if Steve didn't know them well personally. The way Eddie interacted with his friends made him feel warm inside and it brought the three boys under Steve's umbrella of 'must protect'.

"Stevie, are you okay?"

The words parsed in his head mostly because Eddie also placed a hand on his arm.

"What, yeah, sorry," he said, shaking his head to clear it.

"We boring you, Harrington?" Gareth asked, although there was no malice behind the words.

"Well I have no idea what you guys are talking about half the time, but no," he replied with a grin. "You're distracting me."

"Me? Why am I distracting?" Gareth asked.

Steve just waved in the general direction of the younger boy's hand.

"It's those non-existent Italian ancestors of yours," Frank said with a laugh, "and the bandage just makes it worse."

"I told you, I can't help it if my favourite babysitter during my formative years was Italian and I picked up her tendency to talk with her hands when I am passionate about something," Gareth protested.

"More like passionate about her," Jeff teased.

"I was at a very impressionable age," Gareth said, "and it's not like I can do anything about the splint. I'm not allowed to take it off for another week. Can't risk these talented hands."

Taking a deep breath, Steve knew this was probably his only opening.

"What if you could?" he asked.

The others all looked at him.

"Stevie, are you offering what I think you're offering?" Eddie asked, leaning in so no one around them would be able to hear.

He nodded.

"It's driving me crazy, okay," he confessed.

Eddie's eyes quickly danced around the room.

"How about we head outside so we can talk in private?" Eddie suggested.

Steve was not about to argue with that and the other guys, although clearly surprised didn't object either. His mom raised her eyes in a clear question as he met her gaze across the room when they started for the pool room and he pointedly looked at Gareth's hand and hoped she got the message. For a second she frowned, but he gave her a small smile and she returned an understanding nod. His mom knew him well.

They made it outside without anyone else trying to stop them and Steve led everyone over to the pool loungers. Far enough away from the house so no one would overhear, but obvious enough if anyone was looking for them.

"You want to fix my hand?" Gareth asked because no one could claim the Corroded Coffin boys did not catch on fast.

Steve nodded.

"And Jeff's foot," he admitted.

"But you barely know us. Doesn't that hurt you?" Gareth said. "What do you mean it's driving you crazy?"

"Hate to be the one to break it to you, Boys," Eddie said, stepping in to lighten the mood, "but you got adopted. There's no getting away now, you're trauma bonded to the Party and it's a done deal."

"What Eddie means is you're all one of us now," Steve decided to explain in plainer language. "My instincts don't like seeing anyone of the party hurt."

"But no one knows about you," Jeff pointed out. "I could swing it with my mom and dad by putting on a bit of a limp for a couple of days and making out it got better, but Gar's parents are here and will notice if he suddenly stops wearing the bandage."

"Tell them El did it," Steve replied. "It's how we sold healing Max before Owens found out."

Gareth still looked unsure. This was still all so new to them, Steve could understand why he was hesitant.

"Well, I'm in," Jeff said, sitting back and lifting his leg onto one of the loungers. "My foot is killing me from all this standing around."

Steve sat down opposite him, back to the house so no one inside would be able to see what he was doing. Eddie sat down next to him to make sure.

"It won't take long, and it won't hurt," Steve told Jeff. "Just relax."

"Promise?" Jeff asked with a small grin.

"Cross my heart," Steve replied in kind, making the cross on his chest.

Reaching out, he took Jeff's hand with his right and placed his left lightly on Jeff's leg. With one last glance at Eddie, he closed his eyes and slipped into the half state that allowed his abilities to be at their most powerful. Jeff resolved in his awareness, a warm presence like slipping into a warm bath. Steve let his instinct guide him as he gently urged Jeff's own healing into overdrive. There was nothing twisted here, nothing healing wrong, just trauma that was healing slowly on its own that needed a little help.

It really didn't feel like it took any effort as Steve coaxed natural healing into full force and fast speed. He was blinking open his eyes before he knew it and the world resolved in time for him to see Jeff also open his eyes and stifle a yawn.

"I feel like I just had the most amazing nap," Jeff said, clearly a little dazed.

"How's the foot?" Frank asked.

From the look on his face, it hadn't even occurred to Jeff to check yet.

"Oh my god, I can wiggle my toes without shooting pains going up my leg," Jeff said, smile growing by the second. "Harrington, I owe you big time."

"Call me Steve and we'll call it even," he replied with an answering smile.

He was more than a little pleased his nose didn't feel remotely stuffy either. He was definitely getting better at this.

"Thank you, Steve," Jeff replied.

Gareth was still looking unsure.

"I promise I don't bite," Steve said.

"Yeah, that's me," Eddie put in with a winning grin.

Steve rolled his eyes, but it did get Gareth moving. The younger boy sat down on Steve's other side.

"You're sure?" Gareth asked.

"Very," Steve promised.

"Okay," Gareth said and held out his hand.

"Thank you," Steve replied, closing his eyes before Gareth had a chance to respond to that.

As soon as he sank into his healing awareness, Steve knew it was not going to be as simple as with Jeff. There was something wrong with the way Gareth's fingers were healing. Simply encouraging them to continue would not be enough. Without hesitation he smashed through the barrier with his own energy, feeling Gareth's spikey presence clearly. He was like a thorn bush in Steve's mind, prickly, but protective and some of his thorns were twisted and hurting.

Steve let his instincts free, but there was resistance. He had no idea what it was, but he pushed it aside with a thought, and got on with what he needed to do. It was much harder than with Jeff, but so much easier than anything he had done two days ago that he barely had to think about it.

When he came back to himself this time, however, Eddie was holding a tissue under his nose.

"Thanks," he said as he centred himself back in reality and took over from Eddie.

That was when he looked down and saw the little bits of bandage lying on the concrete between the loungers. Gareth's hand was now bare.

"Um," he said, because he had no explanation for that.

"How are you feeling?" Eddie asked. "Any loop the looping?"

"No," he replied, still staring at the shredded bandage. "Did I do that?"

"Well El and Will are inside, so I'm guessing yes," Eddie replied. "One minute everything was quiet, then you frowned and poof, exploding splint."

"Wow," Gareth said, flexing his hand. "That's amazing."

"It was healing wrong," Steve tried to explain, partially to himself as well as the others, "there was resistance to healing it right."

"Oh," Gareth said.

"What did you do, Gare?" Frank asked.

"The dressing came loose with everything going on the other day," Gareth confessed. "I didn't want to bother anyone, so I rewrapped it myself."

Frank cuffed him upside the head.

"Idiot," was Frank's unequivocal conclusion.

"There's a first aid kit in the downstairs bathroom," Steve decided quickly, "we can rewrap it so no one else catches on. Then you can break it to your parents once you get home."

He stood up, and promptly sat back down again.

"Okay, maybe I should stay still for a while," he admitted.

"I'll get what we need and three candy bars too," Eddie decided. "No one is fainting on my watch. You two, stay put too."

No one disobeyed Eddie when he used that tone of voice.

~*~

El was more than happy to take credit for Steve's healing efforts once he had a chance to talk to her. She seemed to think it was perfectly logical for Steve to have done what he had done, which made him feel a lot better. She'd even dragged Gareth off for a few minutes and made sure his parents saw.

It wasn't much longer before people began to make noises about leaving. The last thing Owen did was give everyone a copy of the press release that would be going out the next day along with a press conference Hopper was going to lead. All the members of the party also had packets of information for their parts in the cover story with 'destroy after reading' on every page inside. It seemed they all had homework.

Steve sat down on one of the couches with his packet once everyone was gone. He was missing Robin already, but she had needed to go home with her parents after landing so much on them in one day. Eddie folded into the seat next to him, but it wasn't quite the same since he couldn't pull Eddie to him without raising questions.

"This is like a campaign," Eddie said, looking through his papers. "Wow, Owens wasn't kidding about making us heroes."

"Really?" Steve asked, pulling everything out of his own packet.

He flipped through a couple of pages and was honestly stunned. There was a lot of information he was going to need to digest at a later date, but he got the gist. When this got out, Hawkins was going to known for a hell of a lot more than the earth opening and swallowing most of the main street.