Surrender // Steve Harrington x Reader

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐄𝐍

The rest of the day was spent much the same way. You'd thanked Steve for his help in smoothing out your hair, accepting the hair tie he gave you before you slick your hair back away from your face into a ponytail. 

Then you'd retaken your spot on the floor in front of the couch, Steve getting back up onto it and stretching out across so his feet hung off the end. 

He wanted to ask you more, to know everything there was to know about you. You were fascinating to him despite the fact you seemed to want to be anywhere but here with him. Though, in the same breath, he couldn't help but wander what had made you stay if that were the case.

He watched you now as you lay in front of him on the floor, lids closed as your breathing goes shallow. You'd fallen asleep, overcome by the exhausting events of the last few days and the loss of blood from your wound. 

Steve peels the blanket free from the back of the couch and drapes it over you, though it only wakes you in the process and you bolt upright, eyes wide as they search for the danger that wasn't even there. "Oh-- Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you." He tells you, clearing his throat.

You frown at him, though it relaxes after a moment, your tired brain settling into the moment as you remember where you are. When you look down at yourself, a deep brown blanket drapes lazily around your form, your fingertips plucking at it.

"Did you put this on me?"

He looks like he might say no from the venom in the look you give him. The reason for it you weren't sure, but you think it stemmed from how he treated you like you might break any second. You could snap your fingers and he'd be dead. Nod your head and tear him apart. Where did he get off treating you like fragile glass? 

"Yeah I uhh.. Wanted you to be comfortable, I guess."

It was like a slap to the face, his transparent kindness all the time. "I can get one myself if I think I need one." You remind him in a clipped tone, your exhaustion making your vocal filter fail. You were cranky. You couldn't help it. 

"Right. Of course." He slumps in his seat, trying to train his focus back onto the screen though you could see his lid twitching with the urge to see if you were still glaring at him. 

You let the blanket fall to your feet as you rise from the floor, leaving the room without another word spoken. You think you can hear a small huff as you do so, but pin it as the T.V. which droned loudly on, vibrating through the floorboards even after you're back upstairs.

The feeling of being exposed while in the large living room downstairs had only gotten worse after that and you had simply craved the confines of the room you'd been given. It wasn't comfortable to you, wasn't home, but it was the best you had. 

It had barely been a day and yet your mind was swimming, head aching from all the new information it had to retain.

You hadn't realised exactly how helpless you were in this world, how minuscule your knowledge of the real world was. It was embarrassing. You felt hopeless and having to be taught it all made you feel like a little kid again. 

Frustrated, you close the door to the bedroom and pad across the room to the window, resting your hands on the windowsill as you look outside.

The sun was beginning to hang low on the horizon now, but made the sky alight with stunning shades of orange, purple and pink. It settles the heavy beats of your heart, eyes raking over the view outside. 

In comparison the other world, it was so incredibly beautiful that it broke your heart. Years of life stripped away from you, decades of captive nothingness when you could have had all of this.