Chapter Text
Steve couldn't breathe.
His lungs were twisted into knots inside of his chest, strangling his heart as the skin on his shoulder rippled, indecisive of where it should go. It wanted to peel away, revealing the flesh and blood and bones underneath, wanted to regrow thicker, older, different.
But the connection was severed, and it couldn't, and as Steve fell to the floor on the grass, gasping for air his body tore itself apart, confused and angry and wanting to shift.
He didn't want to do it again.
He couldn't do it again
Not after…
Steve screamed as his shoulder snapped back into place, his shoulder, not Hopper's, not Nancy's, not Eight's. He fell to the ground, and curled into himself, trembling. He couldn't… it wasn't real. It wasn't.
It couldn't be.
He was Steve Harrington, 'The Foreign Freak'
Steve Harrington 'Weird but Okay'
Steve Harrington 'High School Heartthrob'
Steve Harrington 'Basketball Captain'
Steve 'The Hair' Harrington, King of Hawkins High
He wasn't… he wasn't a…
"Seven,"
The little boy looked up with wide eyes at his new papa. He was holding the man's hand as he was led into another room, one with a hard, metal bed and cuffs on each end.
"Lie down, please." And so he did, not flinching at the snap of the restraints, staring at the ceiling with a blank face. The doctors placed a metal, wiry cap on his head, and connected a few different tubes into his skin, hurrying around the room with different vials and papers, muttering to themselves. Seven stayed motionless, only moving to open his mouth when a doctor prompted him to. They pressed a large, rubber cup into his mouth, it barely fit, but he made it work.
Seven didn't know how long he waited until he felt papa’s hand on his head. "Bite down, alright?" Seven did as he was told, clamping down on the rubber as hard as he could, until his temple ached and his jaw creaked under the pressure.
He didn’t quite understand why until the burning hot fire shot through his body.
Steve pulled on his hair, tugging on the brown locks and reaffirming that they were, indeed, there. The ringing in his ears only grew louder as he squeezed his eyes shut.
It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real.
As soon as it started it stopped, and Seven felt the rush of relief his limbs still jerked and shook after the shock. Papa came back to his side, a frown tugging at his face. Seven felt the dread pool in his stomach before he saw papa motion to the doctors, knowing what it meant. It always meant the same thing, always meant ‘again.’
The burning returned and Seven bit back a scream.
If only back then he knew the word ‘stop.’
Steve tried to take a deep breath, tried to count to four and back, even releasing one of his hands from the death grip on his scalp so he could properly keep track. But his vision was smeared and blurry and it took him a moment to realise that it was because there were tears in his eyes. The sounds of the forest ebbed away until there was nothing, not even the tinnitus invading his ears. His hands went slack as a tingling numbness crept up his body. It was better than what was happening before, better than remembering things that weren’t true.
Now, his mind was set adrift, in a darkness, an abyss. He was alone, though for once he found that he didn’t mind that fact.
As he began to walk, he noticed the sound of water sloshing under his feet. It felt familiar, somehow, but he didn’t want to think about that, not now.
It was quite, no, that wasn’t the right word. Empty, though that didn’t really quite fit either. Seve– Steve was never very good at writing and all that flowery crap, but even he knew there wasn’t really a word that could even begin to describe this place. It was nothing, yet everything at the same time. He could distantly feel the nails digging into his scalp, the grass poking through his socked feet, the rough texture of tree bark against his back. And yet it was like that was all worlds away, like he was in another place entirely.
Despite there being books upon books of pages and paragraphs that could be written about how this place felt, how it didn’t feel, how strange yet natural it was at the same time, he could only come up with one word.
Escape.
Maybe he could get what he asked for every once and a while.
So the teen set his sights on walking far, far away. Thinking of nothing but the slosh of water as he moved and the barren, plentiful wasteland that was laid out before him. It quieted the anxious ramblings in his mind, the false memories that kept swallowing up his dreams, his identity.
Though no matter how hard he tried, a strange sense of dejà vu kept niggling at the back of mind. Why did it feel so familiar? The thin film of water beneath his feet, the cooling numbness that had grown on his body, the way that the outside faded farther into the backround, nothing but a whisp of what it once was. Though it didn’t scare him. In fact, it was the opposite. Like the warm embrace of an old friend, a familiar touch of a family long gone, a brother, a sister, a loved one. It felt like protection from the nightmares his mind was conjuring in his head until he couldn’t help but scream. But he was in the nothing, and all of it melted away into what he could only assume was relief.
It all escaped him, he wanted to escape him. Because it was a dream after all, and dreams were the ultimate escape, were they not? At least, when they weren't plagued by doctors and guards and clamps and needles and bloodsomuch blood –
He was about to banish those thoughts, to push them to the very, very back of his mind and lock them there where they would never, ever come back out, when he saw something in the void.
There was a girl.
He wasn’t alone.
Steve felt his heart pick up, but he forced himself to take a deep breath and remain calm. It was just a little girl! What the hell was so scary about that? Monsters, he could understand. Creepy old men who forced you to rip yourself apart over and over again he could get. But a small, skinny girl covered in dirt? She looked like he was about to fall over! She was falling over– wait, what?
The girl, who was a lot closer now despite neither of them moving, had crumpled to the ground, curling up and burying her head into her knees. She was shaking– how had he not noticed?– and he was sure she was holding back tears from the muffled sounds he heard.
For a moment, Steve just stood there. He wasn’t any good with kids, didn't really like them very much to begin with. Especially Nancy’s little brother, he was always being a little shit and tried to be as annoying ass as much as possible whenever he sensed that Steve was around. But a child in distress? The only time he ever comforted a child was when he was one himself, and the girl– he was sure her name had something to do with birds– had just thrown dirt in his face and ran away.
But this was different, this was a dream, wasn’t it? So why did he have to go and help some crying girl when he could just fuck off and conjure something else up in this strange moist place.
And he was going to do just that, was already walking away, when he heard a muffled, wet sob. It sounded so painfully familiar that it made him stop in his tracks. It sounded just like him, it sounded just like back then.
A cold feeling rose in his chest as he looked at the girl with short brown hair, wearing a muddy torn dress and a ruined blue coat. He watched her wipe the snot from her nose onto her sleeve, letting out a whimper as she dug her face further into her arms.
One moment Steve was standing, watching the girl weep, and the next he was kneeling by her side, hands hovering near her shoulders. Was it okay to just.. grab her? Steve always hated it when people did that to him, could never stop himself from flinching and jumping away, even with Tommy and Carol. He always laughed it off and said that they just spooked him, and when they went in to grab him again, he always had to grit his teeth and let it happen. He knew it wasn’t normal, that it was fucking creepy and weird and different . And one thing you learn quick in Hawkins is that no one likes different.
He also knew that this strange little kid most likely didn’t have the strange-ass issue with touching as he did. He didn’t see anyone else’s arms snapping in half every time they went in for a fucking handshake. But.. he did want to change, wanted to change for Nancy, so she could look him in the eyes (Preferably with her hands far away from him) and be happy that he was her boyfriend. That she didn’t cry because of him, get hurt because of him, be in danger because of him.
He wanted to change, and wasn’t this a good place to start?
“Hey, kid?” Steve tried to sound sincere, and not snarky or threatening, which was harder than he’d thought it’d be. But, A for effort, right? She didn’t look up from her knees, so he spoke to her again, and again. Just small phrases like ‘are you alright?’ and ‘are you lost?’ She didn’t respond to any of it, choosing instead to keep herself curled up like a pillbug and stubbornly ignore the rest of the world.
After what felt like an hour of no progress, (time didn’t really feel like a concept in this place, more like it was streatched out so much that it hardly mattered if it had been a second or a thousand years) Steve tentatively placed his hands on her shoulders, and immediately pulled away when he felt her flinch, and snapped her head to look at him. There were a few tense minutes of silence where neither said a word, and Steve decided to be the first to speak up. “Kid? Are you okay?”
She didn’t say anything, but she furrowed her brows and looked around, as though she hadn’t just heard him talk to her. “Don’t pretend I’m not here, I know you can see me. There isn’t anything else to look at anyways.”
But she didn’t respond, and Steve felt his frustration rise. Did she not want help? If so, couldn’t she just say so and not be a dick about it? But some small part of Steve knew that wasn’t the case, and for some reason, it gave him the urge to reach out to her again. Though he was reluctant, Steve did just that, a light pat on the shoulder. Immediately her eyes widened as her head snapped to where he made contact. She looked around again after a moment, eyes darting all over the place, like she was looking for something.
So, he placed his hand on her shoulder again, but this time he kept it there, not pulling away when he felt her flinch. This time he knew it was one for surprise and not pain, and when he looked into her eyes, nothing happened. Nothing, except for the girl’s face shifting from confusion to shock to something unreadable.
Slowly, she reached for the hand on her shoulder, and pulled it off, taking it into her own. He didn’t resist, didn’t even think to. For some reason, it felt different, familiar. She then grabbed the sleeve of his flannel shirt, and pulled it up, exposing his wrist. She flipped it over, revealing the numbers he refused to believe held any meaning.
He felt his heart stop when he saw the 011 on hers.
Steve stared at their wrists, their numbers, for what felt like millenia. It wasn’t– it couldn’t be– it was all in his head, it was all fake, it wasn’t real it wasn’t real it wasn’t–
Steve felt a hand cupping his cheek and looked the strange girl in the eyes. Eyes, that he realised, were much too old for her face. There were fresh tears budding in her them, but this time she smiled.
“Brother.”
Steve’s eyes snapped open as he woke up with a gasp.
He was still in the forest, though now there was snow drifting down, dusting the grass and himself in a thin sheet of white. Steve shivered as he sat up, and immediately flinched back, smacking his head into the tree he was resting on when he saw Hopper hovering over him. “Jesus– what the fuck?!” Steve immediately slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide as he looked at Hopper’s nose. “I–I didn’t.. I wasn’t– was not.. didn’t–”
“I know, kid.” The cop sat down in the grass across from him with a huff. “Just don’t say it again.”
The silence was tense as the two sat there, stewing in their own thoughts. Steve couldn’t help but pick at his left sleeve, which was still rolled up to the tips of his fingers. He stubbornly pushed aside the disappointment that sat heavy in his gut, and wiped at his nose, grimacing at the blood he found when he pulled away.
He was supposed to have left already, supposed to be back at his house, with Tommy and Carol and Nance and it would be like none of this bullshit ever happened. Like fucking aliens didn’t attack their town, like Barbara Hollands didn’t get mauled in his pool, like Steve had never been attacked by mad scientists in his own home.
It didn’t happen, none of it happened.
Hopper spoke up first. “Look, ki– Steve.” the man fumbled with his words, he looked pained, almost, as though the words hurt to say. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to– I just.. If you ever–” he huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I won’t grab you like that again, alright? And– and if you really can’t look me in the eyes, just let me know you’re listening another way. Just– let's go back inside, you’re gonna catch a cold if you’re out here any longer.” He was right, Steve knew. He could barely feel his hands, and the sun was slowly sinking behind the horizon.
He wanted to go home, wanted to see his friends, to apologise, to go back to school and make everything right. He knew he had to, knew that he couldn’t just hide, it wasn’t like he was that important, anyways. He was just some jock, not anyone the government would want to keep track of. He wanted to tell Hopper that he was going home, that he needed to go home, that it was stupid to just keep him there until, what? Hell froze over? But above all of that, all of the complaints and arguments and protests he had bottled up inside, was the pure, instinctive fear that kept it all lodged in his throat, unable to make a single sound.
They didn’t say another word as they walked back to the cabin together, in the snow.