Surrender // Steve Harrington x Reader

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

"It's time," Henry's familiar voice flutters into the depths of your ears, the words themselves sending a shiver through your spine. There was only darkness but the smoke slowly begins to recoil, the Creel house in the other world slowly coming into view behind the clouds.

"Prove yourself to me..." He continues, and you could feel his heavy claws rest on your shoulder, nails digging ever so slightly into tender flesh. You look over at it, how it tears through the thin cotton of the filthy shirt you were wearing. 

Your body felt heavy with dirt and soot, and when you look down at yourself, you notice you looked just as you did when you first left this world. "End his life..." He leans into your ear to grumble out words that leave you incredulous. 

"Who?" Your weak voice comes out like a soft murmur, large eyes blinking up at your adoptive father. He was simply looking in front of you, a low hum rumbling his damaged throat as a gesture to follow his gaze, which you do.

In a chair before you sat Steve, coated in a thin sheen of perspiration and sticky mud, hair thick with sweat as it falls over his eyes, face bloodied from cuts that littered it. When his eyes meet yours, they were pleading and aching with a sadness that cut deep into your core. The betrayal and the hurt clear as day on his features, lips parted with words he couldn't find to express.

"Steve?"  You choke and Henry covers your view of him in a flash with his own body, fingers beneath your chin to make your gaze fall on him instead of Steve. 

"You're loyal to me. Aren't you?" He challenges and you nod almost instinctively, though it's weak as it presses against his hand. Of course you were loyal to him, you had always been loyal to him. "So prove it, and end his life. Just like I showed you."

He steps back to your side, crooked fingers coiling around your wrist to raise it and you don't fight it. Steve blinks at you, mumbling the word 'no' over and over, quiet pleading that flitters in one of your ears and out the other. 

"It's okay," You tell him, though your voice was void of any emotion, heart shutting off to encourage you to do as you were told, as you always had. "Close your eyes."

Naturally, he doesn't. He stares at you the entire time, an incredulous and devastated expression on his features as you open your hand and use your will to snap him, limb by limb, his howls of agony tearing straight into the organ in your chest.

But you don't stop, no. Henry had given you an order. You had to follow it. So you carry on, and break each of his bones, the loud snap each time they shatter echoing throughout the room, colliding with Steve's screams as they bounced off the wall.

A dark chuckle sounds beside you, rising into proud and amused laughter as Henry watches your gruesome scene unfold. "Good. Very good."

"Hey, come on, wake up." An echoed voice draws you from the nightmare, lids snapping open a moment later as your frantic breaths wrack your trembling form. Steve's hand was clutching yours still, gently shaking it to bring you back to consciousness. 

You swallow thick and look around the room, not yet registering the wetness of your cheeks as you come back to reality. The television screen was rolling static, a soft whirring sound from it filling the room. You were still on the couch beside Steve, who lets out a slow breath at your wakefulness. "You're okay. It was just a nightmare, it's okay." He reassures you, thumb tracing over your knuckles and the sensitivity of it makes you shudder, eyes blinking rapidly in attempt to settle your heightened emotions.

Your pull your hand from his, wiping the tears from your cheeks as you slow your breathing, mind racing as the images from the nightmare flash over your vision each time you look at Steve. "Sorry-"