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Steve had spent countless nights staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom. As a kid, waiting for his parents to go to bed before sneaking down the stairs for a late night snack. The nights leading up to starting high school, nervous about how much harsher it always looked than middle school. Last year, watching and waiting, terrified that a monster would climb through it, just like at Jonathan's house.
This year, missing Nancy so much he ached with it. Thinking about what might have happened if those demodogs hadn't been distracted at the last second, leaving him and Dustin alone. Trying not to think about how scared he'd been with Hargrove—
The pills were supposed to help with that. They did help with that. If he'd known...if he'd ever thought...
It looked different, somehow, now. As light slowly filtered into his room through the curtains, his eyes ached. He must have blinked at some point; there was that tell-tale sticky wet feeling of tears against his temples. Or maybe those were left over from—
His chest warmed. Or not his chest, no. The thread that had helplessly snapped into place, the thing connecting him to—Steve ignored it. Ignored the insistent urge to follow where it led. Forced his heavy, sore muscles tight to keep himself in place. He thought, when he allowed himself to think, about running away. Everything hurt, a soul-deep kind of hurt that he'd never experienced before, but he could push through it. He'd gone into those tunnels when he was seeing double, hadn't he?
Only, there was nowhere he could possibly go that would make the feeling in his chest go away.
A sound came from downstairs, deliberately loud enough for him to hear. He'd been doing that since he left the room; a reminder that Steve wasn't alone. As though the constant, persistent thrum of their connection wasn't enough of a reminder. His vision blurring again, though he'd thought he had no tears left, Steve curled his hands into fists.
Hargrove was waiting him out. The longer Steve didn't move, the stronger that pressure to follow him became. This was why his mother followed his father for every business trip, he was sure now. Eventually, the urge must become impossible to ignore and Steve was just about at his limit. Hargrove had to know it; his father always seemed to be able to tell. Their connection had always seemed unbalanced and now—now Steve finally understood why. Hargrove probably didn't feel it the same way. Even if he did, it wouldn't matter. Not when he'd already won, like he always did. Always would.
The pain that had dulled in Steve's effort to remain still flooded back in full force when he pushed himself up. There were clothes, neatly folded and waiting, at the corner of his bed. He vaguely remembered the sound of his drawers being opened and closed; the shock of—and the fog leftover from the sleeping pills hadn't cleared away yet.
Clenching his jaw, Steve stood on unsteady legs. He meant to find something, anything else to wear than what Hargrove had left for him, but found nothing but empty drawers when he tried. His stomach sank, but between no clothes and the ones Hargrove picked out, there wasn't much choice at all.
Hadn't been since he woke up to—
Being covered up felt better, even if there was still that ever-present tug, urging him out of the room. With nothing else to distract him, he followed it. Hated how much easier it became to breathe the further into the house he got.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Hargrove was across the room and Steve gripped the rail so tight his hand ached.
"Good morning, soulmate."