Surrender // Steve Harrington x Reader

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

Nightfall coming is your only indication that you'd been staring numbly into space at the dining table for most of the day. Steve had gone to work with an easy grin after the prior evening though he kept asking if you were okay. You'd gone quiet during your time with him in the tub and he was a little concerned he'd done something to upset you.

He hadn't, of course. How could he? He was so unbelievably perfect that it cut deep into your very soul. 

Steve would be home soon. You hadn't heard Henry's voice again but you knew you hadn't imagined it. It was there. He was there; waiting for you to reply. The whole day had been a lot of staring into space, trying to think of what to do. You weren't any closer to an answer.

A frown creases the space between your brows as you look to your scarred wrist, where your assigned number once sat pricked into your flesh. Before he cleaved it off and sent you here with one task; a task you found yourself both unwilling and unable to complete.

"Henry." You reach out without thinking much about it. The sun was setting and Steve would be home any minute now. There was no escaping him, but perhaps you could placate him, work as double agent pretending to assist when you actually had no intention of doing so. An anxious breath trembles as it leaves you, eyes darting over the healed skin of your wrist as you focus on listening for him.

"There you are.." His voice comes after a long pause and it sends a shiver through your spine. How strange to go from loving a voice so dearly, so happy to have it in your mind and your life, to despising the very sound of it. "How I've missed you... Tell me. Have you been successful?"

Missed me? You ask yourself, brows furrowing closer together in your bewilderment but then... For him, nothing much has changed. You were still the same devotee who would do anything for him. He had no idea how much everything had changed for you. "Yes. Mostly."

"I don't like 'mostly'. You either were or you weren't." He chides and you fight the urge to talk back. For now, you would keep him sweet. Tell him what he wanted to hear and do your best to keep him at bay until you could figure out what to do. "I was." You tell him, offering no further explanation. You didn't have to see him to know where he'd be. His old house in the other place, pacing and grumbling and seething with that same rage he'd held since he was a boy.

"Good. Because it's time we move on to the next step." 

Slumping back in your seat, you taking a shallow and trembling breath. It was as you'd feared, of course; you'd had no doubts about that but to hear him say it was just as terrifying. 

Frustrated fingertips run over your features. Your eyes sting from where you'd been crying the moment Steve left you alone. You bury your face into your hands and rest your elbows on the table. "What is the next step?" You dread asking. The very notion of helping him sickened you but he had to believe you would help him. It was the only way you could see to take control of the situation, to find a way to escape him. For good this time.

"To bring Hell on Earth, as we always planned..." There was an echo of laughter and it briefly made you feel like you were in the room with him again, cowering in the corner like the dog he treated you as. Obedient and quiet, just as you were supposed to be. Not anymore. Not ever. "I have a plan. I need your help."

"How can I help you?"

"Find me the weak ones. The tortured souls I need." He says simply, as if it were the easiest thing to understand in the world. Perhaps if you were with him, still his little lapdog, thinking as you used to then things would be simpler. But that wasn't the case. Your hesitance has him elaborating and you can hear the frustration at having to do so in even his minds voice. "The damaged ones. Young and broken. I can take control and use them to break through, to get back to that world and bring the armies of this one with me."