Flipped: A Steve Harrington Enemies to Lovers

Papa (Part 1)

TW: this chapter contains themes of a parent's death, abuse, neglect, and thoughts about suicide.

***

The back of your head smashes against wood when you land splat, flat on your back with a pained gasp.

You aren't even sure how long you'd been falling for.

Because you could've sworn you were about to crawl back out the Upside-Down.

You don't really remember.

With wide, stricken eyes, you comb over your surroundings to find the impossible. Pieces of wooden staircase float unnaturally in midair. Parts of a house, flooded in blood-red like the lightning of the Upside-Down, or the dark room of a photography studio. And a door with a stained-glass window, patterned with a rose; you recognise it to be the one belonging to the Creel House, from the papers.

Tentatively tiptoeing down the stairwell, with your heart so far up your throat you think you may choke on it, you study this nightmare like prey on high alert.

A clock chimes, causing you to start out your skin. But what sends your pulse racing impossibly faster, is that low, gravelly voice...

I see you have been looking for me...

You were so close...

So, very close...

Your friends visited Victor... I know because I was watching...

How is he? I've been meaning to check back in, but I've been so very busy...

In the corner of your eye, frozen in death, is the twisted remains of Chrissy Cunningham - a sight you'd hoped to never see again.

Panicked, you yelp and run, straight through the stained-glass door.

But the scene transforms, lightens, and calms. Through the door, a healthy Victor Creel ushers in his family, while you watch resignedly from the side. A little girl, clothed in blue check, prances up the stairs. A mother calls after her, chiding her not to run in the house. And last to enter, a tiny boy with neatly combed hair and a gaunt expression, sidles his way in.

I didn't fit in with other children, you hear Vecna explain and your breath hitches.

The little boy. What did the papers say his name was? Henry?

He stands with his shoulders drooped, his ghostly blue eyes turned down at his feet.

Vecna.

All the teachers and doctors said I was... broken...

My parents thought a fresh start in Hawkins would cure me. It was absurd...

The young Henry wanders through the Creel House, gazing in wonder at all the rooms. And sticking close behind, you follow, hot on his heels with your eyes riveted upon him at all times, too scared to even look away. Even when the scene shifts to him outside with a rabbit in his clutches, dead with snapped bones. Not once do you flinch away from what Vecna shows you.

With each life I took, I grew stronger, more powerful...

Unable to stand it, you finally blink, and open your eyes to see Henry's mother, misshapen and floating, with her eyes pulled down into her skull.

Then, his little sister meets the same fate, and you sicken and pale, turning to flee.

Dashing through a door, you stumble to the ground and give a retching sob, digging your nails into the floor - no longer mahogany wood. But white linoleum. Whipping your head up in confusion, you discover you're now somewhere wholly unfamiliar. White on white on white. The only colour that breaks through this clinical hellscape, is the stripe of a rainbow, and the splatter of blood.