Work Text:
He hates how he looks. He never really had a problem with his appearance growing up. He wasn’t the most handsome guy of the bunch, but he was a hard worker, salt of the earth, a cop’s cop and so on. Hawkins had turned into a hellscape however and I’m time, so had he, the years he spent being imprisoned leaving their toll and their marks.
He’s not able to sleep again, which is typical when you’ve been though what he had. PTSD and almost death don’t exactly leave you feeling great after all. He doesn’t know exactly how Joyce is able to stay rolled on her side as he sits on the edge of the bed, staring with dark eyes at a man he barely recognises.
Lines paint his skin like tentacles, mottled patches from frostbite working in the Russian snow standing out here and there, pink and irritating to not only his sense of touch, but his psyche as well.
Sometimes he can still smell blood, if he gets lost in the past. Feels the cold digging into his muscles, the ooze of warmth flowing out of him and sticking to the floor. It assaults him weekly, perhaps daily. It’s not hourly anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s no less terrible.
Sinking his face into his hands, he rubs away the little amount of sand in his eyes and is about to stand in order to either go to the bathroom or sneak past the kids’ rooms sit on the recliner looking out at the rising dawn for the rest of the night, when gentle hands snake around his chest, overlapping with the raised red lines.
Sighing, but letting a tired half-smile creep up slowly onto his face, he pushes his body back gently despite the resistance and flight reflex attempting to launch him into the darkness, letting himself be pulled in close as calloused fingers trace patterns that calm the murky waters of his mind, his eyes meeting hers and thankfully, seeing the total understanding she gives off to literally everything shining brightly within them.
God, she’s literally his light in the darkness. After El of course. If he’s honest, she has been for quite some time now. How long he couldn’t really say, but he’s grateful.
So goddamn grateful.