Fallout || Stranger Things [2]

sixteen || pillows and punches

The padded but well lived-in cell nestled below the bitter surface of Kamchatka held its common silence, only Tatum's concentrated breathing pattering within its walls.

     A steady trickle of blood dripped down her nose, an open tissue laid out in her lap as she sat on the freezing floor, back pressed firmly to the metal bed frame. She couldn't muster up enough energy to speak into the Void, but she had enough to check in on familiar faces.

     "Easy! Don't scratch the walls. I don't want to lose the deposit on this place."

     "I got it!" Steve called, barely making it through the doorway of their IU apartment with a box so large only his hair could be seen jutting out from the top.

     Billy shook his head, laughing gently as Steve bumped into the corner of the once unoccupied bedroom door. Hauling several bags on his arms from the department store, he kicked the apartment door shut behind him.

     "Did you get the pillows from the car?" Steve asked as he struggled to drop the box on top of the bed only bearing a sleeping bag. "I slept like shit last night."

     "I got them," Billy assured, setting the parade of home-good bags on the island counter. "Hey, when's your first class after we get back from break?"

     Steve ran a hand through his hair as he resurfaced from his bedroom, leaning against the frame. "Uh, a ten a.m. on Monday. I knew if I signed up for anything earlier I'd never make it."

     Billy nodded approvingly. "Fair enough." He gestured a thumb over his shoulder. "Want me to show you main campus? It's a bitch trying to find buildings the first day if you don't know where they are."

     Steve hesitated, mildly unnerved from the causality of it all when Billy had been the one to beat him senseless a year before. "I think I might start getting my room set up. Campus tour after we hit the caf for dinner?"

     "Sure," he agreed, leaning a hip on the counter. "Everything okay?"

     "Yeah, yeah of course," Steve quickly replied, nodding before slipping away into his bedroom. Although he had every intention of unpacking the suitcases and duffles strewn about the bare-bone room, he found himself turning on the radio sat atop his dresser. He sat on the edge of the waxy college mattress, focused on the radio as his elbow rest on his thighs. "Come on, Tate," he whispered.

     "I'm still-"

     Tatum jumped as her cell door swung open, slamming into the concrete wall. She raised a tissue to her nose on instinct, opening her eyes to the harsh light bleeding in from the corridor. "I was busy," she grumbled in Russian, blotting the crimson from her face.

     A figure not bearing the somewhat calming features of Eitan stepped through the cell door, lips pursed tight. "You're busy when we tell you you're busy." A cruel finger jabbed behind him. "You're busy."

    "Maybe if I had a watch," she said on her slow, aching rise from the floor, "I could keep track of time."

    "Yeah, right." The guard only laughed, deep and cruel. "Move it, princess."

     Tatum's eyes rolled as she stretched, the Russian cold soaked deep into her bones. "Don't call me princess," she retorted, snagging a piece of paper from the solid metal desk in her room and slapping it into the guard's hand. "Get that to Zharkov."

     "Get to your session," the guard griped as she pushed past his burly frame.

     Free to walk the halls only to her sessions, Tate had no option but to treat her "privilege" as falsely as it was given to her to keep herself sane. She waved to the passing guards, ignoring that the response was only ever annoyed glances. Despite her somewhat better living conditions to the other captives of the Soviets, she hadn't been given more than over-washed scrubs and sad slippers to protect her feet from freezing to the ground.