4. hounds of love [STEVE HARRINGTON]

five.

CHAPTER FIVE:
LITMUS TEST

[ THE MONSTER AND THE SUPERHERO ]

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The night was plagued of dreams of the lab. They had been infrequent since he'd moved away from Hawkins, but being back in the thick of it (the town itself, and the supernatural clusterfuck) sent them spiralling up, out of his subconscious, and into terrifying lucid dreams.

Clammy and restless, Thomas tossed and turned beside Steve, beads of sweat like pearls on his forehead. Inside his head was a locked box, inside which he either stood, or lay — he didn't know. There was no way upwards, there was only the darkness and the feel of four walls around him. His hot breath filled the air around him, forced out his lungs in short bursts. He hammered around him with frantic hands, battering up and around on all three sides, feeling only hard wood beneath that had no give at all.

It didn't take long, seconds at the most, for him to start shouting. "Hello! Hello!"

He hammered harder on the panel of wood in front of him; he had the feeling that he was lying down from how gravity pulled at his back, and sensed that above him was the lid. He didn't know how he knew it was a lid, specifically, but he knew.

"Hello! Hey! I'm in here! Hello? Hello, is anyone there? Hello!"

With a hard crunch of wood grating against wood, the panel above him shifted, and bright white light flooded in as the lid was opened. It swung up like a door, and then a pair of hands was on him, pulling him up.

And then he was standing, and he was being pulled by a blonde male orderly who's hands were curled into his t-shirt — no, they had bunched around his hospital gown, and he was being almost lifted off his feet as the man yanked him from his cell and into the sterile corridor beyond.

"You know you can't make noise like that, Thirteen," the man said. His voice was smooth, and soft, and the white light behind his head made his face hard to see. An angel.

"I'm sorry," Thirteen said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and suddenly he was awake, and he was Thomas again, and he was panting out, "I'm sorry," over and over again.

Steve was awake already, sunlight creeping through the curtains. He was stood above Thomas with both hands on him to shake him awake, freshly showered, hair still wet and dripping slightly onto Thomas, and wrapped in a towel around his waist.

"Hey, Hey, you're fine, it's okay," he hushed. "Just a nightmare."

Thomas scrambled upright. He knew that the shock of standing up and the cold air beyond the comfort of the duvet would wake him up from the fog of sleep. Panting, he managed to get ahold of himself, running two shaky hands through his messy hair.