Work Text:
There’s a monster in the woods.
Steve Harrington is sure of it.
In a time before he wouldn’t have taken another thought if he glanced at the woods. They were just trees where birds sing their songs in the morning and where deer prance around. Nothing special. Nothing too dangerous.
That’s what Steve thought until he went to the Byers house to apologize to Jonathon; back when he was living in blissful ignorance of the horrors around town. There he found monsters— like the ones in the stories where they would drag you away and eat you up if you were bad— were real.
After that night Steve had trouble sleeping in his house where he was supposed to feel safe. He was scared that a monster would drag him away and eat him as they did to Barb.
Barb Holland. Steve hates to think about her. But not for the reason that she was trying to convince Nancy away from him. No, he hates to think that she died in his pool. He hates to think that he could have done something but didn’t. He hates to think that it’s his fault. But the truth of the matter, Steve thinks, is that it is his fault.
When Steve finally starts to settle down from the fear of the shadows in his room. When he made an easy peace with Nancy and Jonathon, they assured him that there were no more monsters. When he felt like everything was safe for once it seemed like the world gave him the bird and threw all its horrors at him.
Somehow, all in one week, he became single, a babysitter, and a monster hunter. As amazing as that sounds it still didn’t stop Steve from seeing the horrors of flower heads with teeth lunging at him. It didn’t stop the nightmares of monstrous dogs running at him to tear his throat out.
All at once, the shadows started to make him uneasy, a dark spot in his pool he never cleans anymore started to rot into his vision, and every movement in the woods made him cower.
Steve stands at the glass sliding door that leads to his backyard, looking at the woods shrouded in the shadow of the night.
Steve stands there knowing the truth:
There’s a monster in the woods.