Surrender : Book Two // Steve Harrington X Reader

𝐓𝐄𝐍

The cloying air was stifling as you navigate your way towards the lab. A renewed sense of self had overcome you as your aching feet trudge through the grime and soot that seemed to encase this land, choking it in its decay and death.

Like the whole forsaken world only existed to die. There was a beautiful poetry in that somewhere, if you looked deeply enough, which you hadn't the energy to endure at this time.

Guilt was a hot poker driven into your chest, flaring out in a heat that seemed to suffocate you more than the air here did. It was a crooked hand wrenching emotion from the wilting organ in your chest.

Steve was beside you, a grim expression on his face as if he knew what was to come.

Truth was, neither of you did.

There was not an ounce of either of you that had any way to decipher the events to come. The events that could be either beautiful or catastrophic.

"Steve... When we get there..." You begin, sucking in a breath to settle the rampant thrum beneath your ribs. "I need you to stay behind me, okay? Let me deal with Henry. He's... He's too strong for you."

You don't have to look at him to sense the frown that mars his sculpted, handsome features. His jaw was sporting the shadow of facial hair, a smattering of brown thickness that had started to sprout with the passing of time. His eyes, once bright and jovial, were dull and sunken with a saddening mixture of concern and sorrow. Like the bitterness in his heart at the muttered name had spurred up a deep-seated rage.

The muscle in his jaw jumps and you immediately brace for the fight he was going to put up.

"You're out of your goddamn mind if you think you're going up against him alone." He grits, glaring at the road ahead, which was actually a thicket of woodland coated in blackness.

You sigh, heavy and broken. Just like your heart. "Steve .."

The very beginnings of your protests were cut off by the stark realisation that Steve was no longer beside you. Paused in step, he was fixing you with a hard stare before you'd even fully spun to face him. "All due respect, baby... Shut your mouth. I'm not hearing it. We are in this together. We agreed on that already, yes?"

"But--."

"Yes?" He reiterates, an impatient brow cocked. This wasn't a side of him you ever really saw. Steve was kind and sweet, the gentleness with which he handled you a large part of how he was able to capture your love in the first place. That's not to say he was particularly cold to you right now, but it wasn't gone unnoticed that the tenor of his voice was deeper and more stern than you'd anticipated. He was serious and demanded you took him as such without having to say it.

Reluctantly, you nod. Just once, just barely, but he sees it.

It relaxes the tension in both his shoulders and the air between you, if only just a fraction. When he walks again, he takes your hand in his this time, a comforting anchor among the tempest attempting to drown you both.

There was an anxious silence that followed after that, though it wasn't aimed at each other, but rather what was to come. The unknown.

"Are you there? Can you hear me?" The voice flitters into your mind and at first you have the urge to flinch, expecting Henry but getting a far more feminine voice instead.

You let Steve's hand guide you as you respond to Eleven, your shoulders easing at the familiar sound of her voice. "I'm here. Are you okay?" You say to her, focus trained on the ground though you weren't really seeing anything, too enraptured in the silent conversation.