✓ | 3. soldier, soldier, spy [STEVE HARRINGTON]

fourteen.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS STEVE HARRINGTON

[ PLURIBUS UNUM ]

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It was a rookie mistake to let Thomas see the cabin, and he knew it wouldn't have been a mistake they made if the adults had been around, because they would have remembered what had happened last year. Would have remembered what they had to do to Will. But it wasn't like he meant to do it, and in years to come he would feel endless guilt and grief for the pain he had caused.

But when he woke up, he was in Hopper's cabin, on Eleven's bed, and that's when things started to go very wrong, very quickly.

While Eleven moved into her bedroom to use the TV to try to find the Flayed, he showered and dressed, thinking of Steve and last night's revelation through all of it. Where was there to go from here? I mean, he'd never liked girls. Aside from Nancy, he didn't even know any girls his own age -- so he'd always assumed if he met a nice one, he'd automatically like her.

There was also the general dislike of his own body, and other bodies. There was something about nakedness that scared him. It was scientific, scarred by needles... Naked bodies belonged in the doctors office, on metal tables, beneath lights and microscopes. And, if he was being crude, whenever Steve mentioned, always with a laugh, 'jerking off', the thought of it made his skin crawl.

So it wasn't just naked girls that made him uncomfortable, but it was naked every-bodies. In the shower, he considered it with Steve, considered doing what he'd learned his sexual health lessons -- and, still, he was repulsed. That realisation hurt him, as if he'd offended himself. Then he realised he was being analytical, like a medical student, and not like a person, and that hurt even more.

So, he wasn't normal. He didn't like girls -- that was one thing. He didn't like sex, or he supposed the idea of it, and nor did he like the other supposedly pleasant things other people apparently liked -- that was another. Nakedness made him shudder and think of his past -- and that was problem that sat like the cherry on top of the entire shit-pie.

[note from the author, hi. for clarity, i'd just like to say that thomas isn't ready for labels and i wanted to stress that i'm not trying to label him as anything in my writing. he's gay, he's asexual, he's whatever you see in him or relate to. for me, and for thomas, he just knows he likes steve, and no one else, but he's very confused about his feelings]

"Hey! Thirteen, you good?" Nancy's voice shouted, wrapping at the door with her knuckles between sentences.

He hadn't realised how deep in his thoughts he had been, nor how long he'd been stood under the hot water in contemplative silence. Swallowing, he turned off the water and called out, "Yeah, I'll be out in a second."