the gospel of the fallen
steve harrington x reader | 6.8k | part 1 | slow burn
summary: While "King" Steve wanders the halls of Hawkins High with your broken bracelet in his pocket, you’re seeking an escape from your father’s violence, trading one hell for another by entering the Hawkins woods, the same place that took your mother and Will Byres went missing.
warnings: angst, mention of death, trauma, abuse, alcoholism, slut-shaming (towards reader), bullying, injuries, blood, hints of sexual abuse, parental death and domestic violence.
It started simple. A quick turn of his head as you passed him in the hallway. You were always focused on other things though, busy with your own life and problems. It was a bubble he’d never broken into before, you were untouchable, unbothered and disinterested by him, like he didn’t exist in your world.
He didn’t fault you for it, although Steve Harrington was too arrogant and cocky most of the time, he was self aware enough to know that sort of thing didn’t interest you in the slightest. The popularity, the way-too-loud parties his crowd of people went to. Acting like they were rebelling by doing everything every suburban teenager does.
Drinking, smoking, having sex, pretending to be interesting. It was exhausting to witness, let alone live it.
Steve knew that, knew the hangovers weren’t fun, that coughing in a room full of second hand smoke was bad for his health, that the shows of intimacy between two people that wouldn't otherwise pay attention to each other were meaningless, that laughing way too loud at jokes that weren’t funny killed the soul.
Steve Harrington knew. He knew it was bullshit and that popularity titles wouldn’t mean anything when the diplomas were handed out and everyone moved on from being stupid teenagers, into less stupid college students.
The future however, hadn't caught up to him yet. Steve 'The King’ Harrington, could remain sitting comfortably on his throne of self-importance and pretend that his ruling would last forever.
He knew it wouldn't, that time is a fleeting thing and the clock was ticking, deducting second after second of the remaining time he had to be known, noticed and cared for, even if only superficially.
You didn’t pretend to be above it all, being part of the social food chain was a given and you had always existed at the bottom of it. Not a freak by any means, you didn’t care for d&d, rebellion against authority or any other sort of corny movement amongst the students of Hawkins High.
You were at the very bottom. The Slut.
Used by everyone, loved by no one.
Perhaps care wasn’t the word you’d use to describe your feelings about the social perception people had of you. It was more like annoyance at the humiliation that was casted over you, at being known for something that wasn’t even true. Not entirely at least.
Not in the way they thought to be true.
You were well aware that the truth didn’t matter in the ecosystem of Hawkins High. It was all about appearances, to portrait yourself as something worth it of attention, the type of attention that saved you from being an outcast to the entire student population.
The truth was you had underestimated how much people cared about the skeletons others had hidden in their closet. You thought, — naively so — that they wouldn’t care about yours.
You had been invisible almost all throughout middle school. Always in your own little world because back then it didn’t really matter to be relevant, there were a lot of kids like you, who wouldn’t bother anyone and keep to themselves.
Being introverted and tired by the turmoil of a family life that nobody spoke to the other about, there wasn’t an understanding of how bad or good one had it. Well, until your mom died, then you understood everyone lived vastly different lives.
So it wasn’t a shock when eighth grade rolled around and everyone seemed to suddenly belong to something. Choosing a trait about themselves and running with it as their main personality, the thing everyone had to know them for.
Playing basketball, being rich, having straight A’s, being pretty, being dumb, being a freak, being a party animal — which was just being a glorified alcoholic — or seemingly the worst one could possibly be in the small, pretentious town of Hawkins, Indiana.
The Slut.
You woke up with a headache, eyebrows furrowed in discomfort the second you felt the sunlight peak through your window and shine brightly into your face. The taste of cheap vodka and orange juice still lingering in your mouth, completely nauseating.
Perhaps you shouldn’t have drank yourself to sleep, again. But the fight with your dad had been good enough reason to want to lose consciousness even if it came with the consequence of feeling like shit on a monday morning.
He was probably still asleep on the couch, you could hear the sound of the TV still on, being interrupted every few seconds by snores. He too, had decided that getting drunk was better than dealing with you.
That was his nightly routine after all, screaming at you because of whatever bullshit reason he could find, and if he didn’t find any, then…whatever happened next wouldn’t leave your mind for days.
You tried not to think about what would happen later tonight. Instead, you simply got up and got ready for school, because no matter how shitty Hawkins High was, it was still better than being trapped between the four walls you called home with your dad.
Getting ready was done in silence, or as silently as you could because the stupid floor of the trailer you lived in made an agonizing sound every time you stepped on it.
Taunting you.
After a routine of carefulness and fear of waking up your own appointed hell, you grabbed your backpack and car keys before slipping out through your window without making any noise. The action was so engraved in your bones that you could do it in your sleep.
The drive towards school was the first and only time of peace you would probably get for the rest of the day. Between the snarky remarks girls made about you in the hallways and the math test you had to take during 2nd period, you had already decided this would be a shitty day.
Steve Harrington on the other hand? He had decided today would be a great day the second his car rolled into the school’s parking lot and saw yours already parked in the space furthest away from the entrance.
Odd, he thought.
Although he had never bothered to check where you parked before. Maybe this was normal for you, seeking the extra exercise for whatever reason a girl like you might have to walk such a deceptively long distance.
He didn’t bother to think about it for more than a moment. Instead, he grabbed his backpack and jogged towards the entrance of the school, not before noticing a somewhat familiar — and now broken— bracelet laying on the floor next to the trash.
He picked it up and analyzed it for a few seconds. At first he thought it was from some kid who had gotten bullied and it fell to the floor but no, a few more seconds of staring at the piece of jewelry and he already knew who it belonged to by the infamous initials engraved in the back of the heart shaped charm.
Without giving it even a second thought, he shoved the bracelet into the left front pocket of his washed blue jeans. He would return it, obviously. He wasn’t that much of an asshole, he knew it probably meant a lot to you.
That’s why he planned on returning it when he had the chance to.
The walk from your car all the way to your locker was made in the same hurry you always moved with. Not late by any means, just trying to avoid the same assholes that always had some sort of comment to make about you.
Your routine didn’t help though, because they still found their way in front of your locker, leaning against it like they owned the place. Theirs to stand there and block you from taking out your History textbook.
Still, it didn’t really mean much other than a quick snarky comment and insults that had lost their edge the first week of Shophomore year. It had gotten old pretty quickly, now three months later it just felt stupid to stand there and listen to them spew the same nonsense.
“Wow, Skanks these days don’t even make an effort to look good” Carol Perkins said in that snarky way she spoke to everyone. Chewing gum in the obnoxious way she always did no matter what time of the day it was.
Disgusting.
Melissa Driscoll just laughed beside her. All of them did, because god forbid they have a genuine reaction of their own and not just copy each other.
“Don’t say that Carol, you look really good” You replied with a fake smile plastered on your lips pushing her to the side — with not even half of the strength you wished you had used — to gain access to your locker.
Luckily Tommy was nowhere to be seen, otherwise you weren’t sure what would’ve happened to you.
Carol scoffed as one of the girls beside her, Jessica Murwood pretended she was going to hit you but ultimately didn’t. She wasn’t going to risk detention for a petty fight she hadn’t even started.
So much for loyalty, you thought.
“Are we done here? because I have much better things to do than help your self-steem” You added with a venomous tone.
Taking out the History book you never even ended up using during class before shutting your locker with more force than needed, just for the pleasure of startling them.
“What the hell is your problem?” Melissa said with barely concealed anger in her tone, her eyebrows so furrowed it made her look much older. She would clearly need botox in 5 years if she didn’t want to look fifty while being twenty.
You didn’t bother to respond this time, instead you just turned around and started walking towards class just as the bell rang announcing the start of first period.
Great. You would be late for class thanks to Carol and her stupid friends who seemed occupied muttering insults about you between each other. Hopefully they choked in their venom, Hawkins High could do with a few less bitchy students.
Unbeknownst to you, Steve Harrington had witnessed the whole conversation, not intentionally of course. He wasn’t a stalker or anything like that, he was just passing by when he heard your voice and out of curiosity stood nearby to hear you.
He had your bracelet after all and that seemed like a good enough reason to hear what you were talking about. Because what if you thought Carol had stolen it when in reality he had it? He would have to speak up and give it to you.
Not because he cared about you, but Carol Perkins was the girlfriend of Tommy H. and he didn’t want his friend’s girlfriend to get detention over something so stupid. He owed loyalty to her, not you.
Or that’s what he told himself, that he wasn’t paying attention to you because he didn’t want to make your social reputation more miserable than it already was, although he wasn’t that terrible of a person to make that happen either way.
Clearly you could defend yourself though, so Steve felt no need to do anything other than laugh at the way Carol and the other girls didn’t respond with something quick enough to you that would hurt your feelings the same way you had hurt theirs.
It went miserably.
During first period Mr. Brown had made an example out of your tardiness by making you go get a tardy slip from the main office. Where the secretary looked at you with a face of disdain before taking her sweet time filling out the paper with your information.
Clearly she had a problem with you. Because when Heather Holloway walked in with that fake innocent look in her face and saying she needed a tardy slip filled out, the secretary looked at her with a motherly expression and responded in a much better tone.
Then you had a math test in second period. You had studied, spending all your free time doing the exercises the teacher said that she would put on the test. Clearly she had lied, because the second you sat down and saw the questions on the paper, you knew that you wouldn’t get a good grade in the slightest.
Now it’s lunch time and you have nothing to eat nor money to buy food, so sitting in hunger in the middle of the school field drawing on your notebook is all you can do to pass the time.
It isn’t that bad. I mean sure, your stomach kind of aches because of how empty it is and your wallet is basically begging you to go pick up an extra shift at Fair Mart so you can afford lunch next week, but other than the embarrassing reality you are living right now, everything is perfectly fine.
“hey” you hear a voice say, a pair of clearly worn in black boots coming into your view making you look up, immediately recognizing the person in front of you.
Jonathan Byers.
“I need your help with something” he says, his face holding a certain sort of worry that tells you something is terribly wrong, especially since he is asking you for help.
“hey…what do you need my help with?” you ask him, closing your notebook to hide what you were drawing moments ago.
“My brother Will, he’s missing in the woods” Jonathan starts, clearly uncomfortable “I need help with his poster so I can put it up…and with everything else” he takes a deep breath, the camera hanging from his neck following the movement from his chest.
“yeah…I can help you” You reply simply, tone softer than the one you first had answered him with.
You and Jonathan have always been kind of close since neither of you has had any friends since Freshman year, there’s this sort of alliance where you sometimes hang out to not be so lonely, or do group projects together in the classes you share.
Alright. Will is missing, that’s something really serious but you aren’t sure how right it is to get yourself involved, especially since the last time you even talked to the kid was more than a year ago.
You weren’t about to deny him any help though.
“Do you remember what he was wearing the last time you saw him?” you ask him, a strange feeling of doom traveling down your spine, goosebumps rising on the nape of your neck.
Strange.
If you were honest right now, you had to admit that you can’t fully understand why Jonathan is asking you for help. Sure, he is in need of support because having his little brother be lost in the woods is a terrifying concept but that still doesn’t cover it for you.
Not that you believe he has a secret agenda or anything, that would be a horrible assumption to make about someone who is nothing but kind to you. I mean, you even enjoy his company every time he graces you with it, which isn’t often at all.
This is different though, extremely so. Because seeking help from you, who has almost half the town against your very existence because of a reputation that stuck more than anything had ever stuck before, makes you very much useless in any sort of serious situation.
Perhaps he thinks you might understand, that with your mother having died in the very same woods under somewhat similar circumstances makes you somehow more understanding of his situation. That rings true.
You can put yourself into the worn in black boots of his situation and feel the fear travel all throughout your body like it did all those years ago, when you hoped your mother had gotten fed up with your father’s abuse and just ran away from home.
Jonathan’s voice snaps you out of your sudden trance “are you alright?” he asks you, his eyebrows furrowed once more at your sudden strange behaviour.
“You don’t have to help if you don’t want to” His tone betrays the neutrality he tries to portray through his facial expression, he sounds utterly broken at the conclusion that formed in his mind about you not wanting to help him.
“I do!” you exclaim to stop him from deciding he actually doesn’t need nor wants your help in this situation “I do want to help” you say with a calmer tone, shoving your notebook inside of your backpack before standing up.
“I’ll help you with the poster and putting it up around the city” You announce to him, offering to do more than you could probably afford to, already calculating how many shifts at your job you were renouncing to.
“Really?” Jonathan says, surprised about how much you were willing to do for him.
He doesn’t say it out loud, not that he has to for you to know what he’s thinking. But he wasn’t all that sure you would agree to even help with the poster. He is acutely aware of your reputation, of the things you’ve done and the things people claim you have done even if there’s no proof.
He’s also not immune to the popular opinions and rumours – no matter how much he claims to be above them – he’s heard about you. In fact, he has fallen in the trap of believing what was being said more than once.
Jonathan wants to believe this won't blow up in his face later on, that maybe this could be a shifting point in your social reputation, for the better obviously. Something he shouldn’t even be worried about right now because his brother is missing, but he is worried, always is.
Maybe it is the way you’re both stuck in the same situation. No friends, continuously antagonized by the population of Hawkins High and somehow being forced to feel bad about it. like the fault is yours and not theirs for being so judgemental about people just trying to survive and not sink even further into the poverty line that you´ve been tethering since childhood.
“Yeah, I also know the woods pretty well so I can help look” You offer even more, because the more you think about Will out there, probably scared out of his mind, freezing and hungry, the more you remember what your mom must’ve felt in her last moments.
You don’t want that destiny for Will Byres.
Jonathan lets out the breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding all this time, nodding at your words with a new but somewhat small sense of hope.
You want to feel some of the hope that begins to plague his eyes at the prospect of having higher chances of finding Will with your help but you had never worn naivety well, or at all if you were completely honest with yourself.
Instead you simply decide to indulge in the statistics of people found alive who have gone missing in the woods, which although is a small number, it still is bigger than cero and that is enough for you to decide that Will would become part of that statistic.
“yeah…that would be great” Jonathan finally relaxes.
His next thought is a cruel one, he’s very much ashamed of thinking it the second it formulates in his mind but – and yet again he feels terrible about it – it’s his true sentiment right now and he knows that if you could hear it, you would be okay with the cruelty of it.
You’d be okay with the cruelty that comes with the fact he feels a lot better having you go through this with him because you know how it feels, the emptiness in the new found silence that plagues the house when a person it’s missing from it.
The pain of having your heart tear ever so slightly with every second that passes without knowing if they are safe or not. The doubt of how not knowing how this situation will end, if with a sentimental reunion, or a casket you couldn’t afford without sacrificing your college savings.
Jonathan is glad that your heart breaks alongside his, because he isn’t sure if he could survive this if it was any other way.
Entering the building of Hawkins High never gets easier, it always feels like walking down towards hell’s gate and asking to be let in, like it’s a choice and not an obligation for you to enter this place.
If you had it your way you wouldn’t even graduate high school. You would be content with leaving right now, with only freshman year complete and three months of sophomore year to show for yourself, because there truly is no point in accomplishing anything in Hawkins.
“How many copies of the poster do you have?” You ask Jonathan as he begins to put up Will’s missing poster on the bulletin board, the contrast between the description of what Will was wearing the last time he was seen and the happy thanksgiving messages felt somewhat nauseating to look at.
“almost three hundred, why?” Jonathan responds without looking at you, his eyes darting across the board trying to find push pins that weren’t holding up anything to use them.
“Oh, it’s just that when I was looking for my mom-” you stopped talking for a second, the sentence leaving your mouth made you feel horrible in a way you hadn’t experienced in almost two years.
It was better not to think about it. “What I mean is that if you want Hawkins to be filled with posters you’ll need about six hundred copies” You rearrange the phrase so that mentioning your mom again is left out of the conversation.
“I’m talking every damn street having at least one poster in it” You pick up a push pin that wasn’t holding anything before handing it to Jonathan with a small smile.
“That would cost like 60 bucks and I don’t have that much money” Jonathan answers with a tone that snuffs out whatever attempt at lighting up the mood you had made with your last comment.
You think for a second, trying to come up with a solution to a problem that wasn’t solvable in the slightest in the short span of a few hours. Then an idea came to your mind.
“In my job at Fair Mart they pay me minimum wage, so three dollars and thirty-five cents an hour, 60 bucks divided by that is basically 18 hours of work which is the max amount of hours I can work during the week” You say rapidly, hands moving somewhat frantically as you try to make what you are about to offer something sane.
“I can ask my boss to pay me in advance for next week so we can pay for the copies and put them around town” The words leave your mouth and it’s like in that very moment every one in the hallways chooses to fall into a deafening silence.
Jonathan turns to face you with an expression that is unreadable but just as he is about to speak, his eyes look behind you, making you turn around to see what stopped him from what you would probably assume was going to be a speech about how he didn’t want to take your money.
“Hey…” Nancy mumbles awkwardly without even so much as looking at you “I wanted to say, you know, um…I’m sorry about everything” She looks behind her and you follow her gaze until it lands on the one group of people you hate the most.
Carol Perkins, Steve Harrington and Tommy H. The only half decent person being Barb who you hadn’t talked to since eighth grade, when she started crying when someone lied and told her your mom was found dead in the woods that were close to her home.
The look of clear amusement and mocking that Tommy’s eyes hold as he waves at you is something that should be enough to send him to jail for the rest of his life. But what’s worse than the clearly faux empathy he shows you is the way that Steve Harrington just decides to ignore the situation in its entirety and looks away.
You don’t bother to see what expression Carol or Barb are wearing. You didn’t care what they thought or felt about all of this or really anything at all.
“Everyone’s thinking about you” Nancy continuous speaking and you cannot help but scoff at her words, she’s clearly lying to save the face of her new friend because your reaction makes her eyes snap towards you for a second, like she can’t believe you’re indirectly calling out her bullshit before turning to look at Jonathan again.
“It sucks” she adds, her eyebrows rising ever so slightly.
“Yeah” Jonathan replies with a harsh tone. He doesn’t like the pity words, the way Nancy speaks like this is happening to a kid she has no relation to just because Steve Harrington and his horrible friends are standing a few feet away, using this conversation like a show made for their amusement.
She seems to pick up on it though, quickly adding onto her words with something of actual sustenance and not just vague bullshit “I’m sure he’s fine…he’s a smart kid” her tone begins to soften. Then the school bell starts ringing.
Nancy takes a few steps back mentioning a chemistry test, her gaze shifts between you and Jonathan “Good luck” she says, nodding at you with an expression you know is hiding a small simmering level of annoyance, walking towards Steve Harrington before they all walk down the hallway towards class.
Not until she is out of your eyesight do you turn towards Jonathan, frustration clear as day on both of your expressions “What was that?” you mutter with a raised eyebrow, crossing your arms over your chest.
He simply shrugs before turning towards the exit and walking out.
What. The. Fuck.
You don’t bother finding Jonathan after he suddenly left, he clearly didn’t want your company after the weird interaction you two had with Nancy Wheeler, who seemed very determined to preserve her good social image instead of actually caring about Will being missing and how that affects Jonathan.
You couldn’t really judge her for it though. If you had the social reputation she does, the money, the friends, the grades, the family. Just one tiny thing that she has, you would also do anything to keep it in your life, even if it meant acting like a douchebag sometimes.
Then again, you don’t have any of that so hating her feels reasonable.
You don’t hate her though, or it doesn’t feel like it at least. It’s just that comparing your life with hers makes it very clear to you that some people are born with everything to succeed in the world, while others have to fight for the scraps of goodness that people throw at them out of pity.
The difference is laughable, and God do people laugh about it whenever they can. Pointing out the torn up clothes you wear, the way your jeans are your mothers and the jacket that clearly isn’t your size is your father’s.
Because you have never owned anything, always borrowing, begging, groveling for scraps of warmth and love nobody wants to give you. Nancy Wheeler doesn’t struggle like you do, she doesn’t debate every month between keeping the heating on or having food in the fridge.
She has the privilege of a fridge full of food, a warm house, parents that care for her not out of obligation but because it’s a given. She is so surrounded by love and stability that it’s impossible to picture her living any other way.
She has everything a person like you could ever want and she doesn’t even know it.
You’re jealous of how her existence has value, how she is aware of it and doesn’t pretend otherwise. The confidence she has when she claims a space in conversations, the way she knows what to do and say every time.
She is the type of girl with a fate sealed in gold.
It’s infuriating how she owns everything she touches, how the money she has and the reputation she has make her something desirable.
The second you step through the door it becomes very evident the way this night will end.
Your dad is sitting on the couch with a bottle of whiskey empty and laying on the cushion beside him, the small living room is dirty, so disgustingly dirty. There’s plates of food on the coffee table that you were almost sure had been there for more than a week.
Cigarette butts are scattered all over the floor surrounding him, like the idea of getting up and looking for the ashtray that is in the kitchen counter never crossed his mind, which it probably was the truth, you didn’t want to think about it though.
He’s looking at you and you wish his stare was cold and detached as it usually is when he decides to deal with you. But your father is drunk, so very drunk and his eyes hold nothing but rage and depravation.
It transforms you into who you truly are at heart.
Behind the mask of maturity hides a terrified fourteen year old girl who has never been anything but prey to the people meant to care for her.
“You’re late” Your dad says, voice rough and low. His legs spreading apart, his right hand grabbing his chin while his elbow is pressed against the armrest, but what he’s holding in his other hands is what takes away your breath.
His leather belt, resting perfectly still on his lap, his fist holding the object in place like it will try and run away from him. You think that if the objects in the house came to life, they would indeed run away from him.
“I’m sorry, sir” A trained response falls from your lips, big doe eyes glassy and breath strained with a fear that you can never fully shake off.
He isn’t a forgiving man, you know it better than anyone else, even more than your mother who had only been able to escape this hell in a casket.
You wish you could trade places with her sometimes, she knew how to deal with him when he got like this, when the brutality of his punches turned into something deviant, unnatural, immoral, inhumane.
Pretty little bird trapped in a cage, wings clipped so you won’t be able to fly away.
“You don’t seem very sorry to me” He rasps out, sending the coffee table towards you and hitting your legs with one powerful kick.
The pain is there before you can register his action, it takes your breath away in one swift motion and forces a primitive reaction out of you, crouching as your body curls into itself to cover your vital organs from him.
The tears follow soon after, tiny broken little sobs falling from your lips as you keep your head down, so afraid of looking up at him because you know the moment you do everything will come crashing down on you.
“I want my mommy” You don’t recognize your voice as the words escape you. It sounds so… so small and innocent, like your four year old self had come out from the valleys of your mind to request the only thing that could cure you.
Save you.
But you cannot put out a fire with prayers to a dead God, begging for your mother won’t do any good and yet, you still beg.
Maybe because your life depends on it, because you don’t want to grow up into the shape your father tries to beat you into taking, or maybe the reason is nothing but the pure instinct of survival.
“What did you say?” Angry, he sounds so angry.
This time the pain steals your breath away, it’s sharp, sudden and excruciating in a way you had never experienced. Your ears ringing loudly as your head throbs in pain, the crown of your head feels extremely warm, the pain is born from there and it travels down your neck into your spine.
Only when your ears stop ringing and the house falls into an uncomfortable silence do you hear the sound of something dripping. It confuses you because you know the faucet is shut and the one in the bathroom doesn’t work.
Then you notice it, droplets of crimson red falling to the floor with a steady rhythm, broken glass and the missing empty whiskey bottle that sat next to your father a few seconds ago.
It takes a few more seconds of focusing and processing till you connect the dots before you’re lifting your hand and touching the crown of your head before moving your hand into your line of vision.
Blood.
“See what you made me do?” Your father speaks one more, his voice holds less anger but much more annoyance. He knows he took it too far this time, that this violence is dangerous not only for your health but also for his freedom.
He knows he can´t do much more tonight, not if he doesn’t want to leave marks that you can’t excuse with clumsiness and bad luck. Instead he gets up and moves towards you, steps heavy against the creaky floor that does nothing but cry beneath his weight.
He moves the coffee table to the side and crouches in front of you, from this close you can smell the alcohol and nicotine that sticks to him like tree sap to a child's hand, unforgiving, unmoving and so very overwhelming.
His hand grabs a hold of your chin and tills your head upwards, forcing eye contact even though you can’t see anything through the tears that fall from your eyes. Ever so slowly he wipes them away, so softly it almost makes everything that happened before feel like a hazy dream.
“Why do you make me do this to you?” He whispers, fingers digging softly into your face, holding you in place like you might attack him back if he doesn't remind you what he has done and will do to you if you try to fight him on this.
Somewhere between the dull ache of his nails digging into your cheek and the warmth of his hand against your skin, you find the love he feels for you. It is a small and ugly thing, full of teeth and resentment, it does nothing but scream into the abyss of the space between hate and comfort it hides in.
You could scream at him, escape this mess with a punch to his face and nothing but the clothes on your back to start a new life, and it feels like the correct choice to make every time you find yourself crouched and trying to protect the most fragile parts of your being.
But your father can be so sweet, so caring and loving despite his anger, his addictions, his depravation…that the thought of ever harming him back seems insane, like a betrayal of the biggest degree, because when he shows his love it makes everything he’s ever done wrong turn into ash and be blown away by a soft summer breeze.
How could you ever harm him?
“I’m sorry, dad.” You whisper quietly against his hands, eyes tightly closed to pretend this is nothing but love, instead of sinister manipulation and torture.
You are sorry about everything, and in between that ache of apologeticness that hides between your ribcage, you cannot help but feel the most sorry for yourself.
The awareness of deserving something even just slightly better than this is very much there, in the front of your mind every waking moment, but what can you do about it? There's nothing out there for you. At least in here, trapped between the four walls of a burning house, you can feel the heat against your skin and pretend it is the warmth of a loving home.
You don’t believe for a second that the apology is enough to appease him, but there’s nothing else you can mutter that will come even close to save you from the fate that awaits.
Your father takes a deep breath and his hand tightens his grip, it’s painful and dominating in a way that everything else in your mind leaves you, everything except fear.
“You never learn” He stars speaking, jaw clenched by the sheer amount of anger his body is made of “You never listen to the shit i tell you to do and then act like a fucking victim when i teach you a lesson” his nail dig dipper into your skin the marks already forming and already deciding they won’t fade until days later.
“This is your fault, everything that I’m about to do is your fault” With those final words he lets go of your face and stands up.
Then his hands latch onto your hair with a violent and forceful grip, it makes the wound on your head bleed once more, the pain so strong it feels like your wound has been set on fire. He doesn’t care about it, that much is obvious with the way his fingers tighten when you squirm.
But the panic starts to really set in when your father starts dragging you across the floor as he begins walking towards….
No. No, Anything but that.
Your hands move by instinct, grabbing at anything that is close to you, the coffee table, the wall, the carpet. Anything that will anchor you into place and stop him from trapping you in that room because there truly are fates worse than death and that is one of them.
You scream so hard that your throat hurts, the horror of knowing what would happen once your father got you into the room and closed the door making you try and crawl away, the adrenaline numbing the pain of his grip on your hair.
Then a thought comes into your mind, a horrible yet brilliant one.
The broken glass pieces laying on the floor getting your attention as you waste precious seconds measuring the consequences of your actions. There isn’t much time to think though, a rough tug to your hair as your father continues to force you down the hallways reminds you of it.
It makes you pick one of the largest pieces of glass you can reach in panic before stabbing it directly into your father’s leg with strength that is born from fear alone.
His rage is quickly snuffed out by the hot white pain that runs through his body, it forces him to let go of your hair and fall to the floor with a pained groan, his hands coming to clutch the wound to try and stop the bleeding.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry dad” You say repeatedly as you stand up with shaky legs, grabbing your backpack from its place by the front door and running out without thinking twice about your fathers screams.
The first that pops into your mind is to take your car and drive, leave this place forever and never look back at what you would be leaving behind.
The idea doesn’t last very long, no matter how tempting it is to simply escape.
You know that it would be easy for him to find you and that’s the only thing that you don’t want.
Your father, albeit alcoholic, violent and depraved towards you, knows that the life he forced upon you inside of the trailer isn't one he can talk about or make true outside of it.
That's why he has friends, why his cop friends in Indianapolis still mention his ex-girlfriend from high school and what she is up to, like your dad still has a claim on her.
Like if he says the word, they'll drag that poor woman to Hawkins and hand her to your father without a question.
You know the only real plan you can pull off is to walk into the woods, and get lost there for a few days.
Runaway teenage girls have never been a worry to the Hawkins police. Even more so, nobody that knows your name would want to help find you either.
That's why it doesn't scare you the moment your feet enter the woods.
The same woods where Will Byers went missing.
The place where all broken people go to die.
