✓ | 2. young blood [STEVE HARRINGTON]

six.

CHAPTER SIX:
BROTHERS

[ WILL THE WISE ]

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          "Okay, okay, okay," Steve Harrington whispered beneath his breath, sitting back as he drew the paper away from the screen and cast the purple crayon, robbed from Will's desk in his bedroom, to the side. He peered down at the paper in his hands, at the shape he had shaded in, the spider-like legs and looming body. "I got it — you can see it now, look — we can show Joyce — everyone else."

He was clearly reassuring solely himself, because it seemed he hadn't yet fully noticed the almost hyperventilating boy hunched on his knees beside him, and he didn't go on to notice him for another good few seconds before he finally dragged his eyes across to him. He had been letting out the words, "You alright? How you doing?" but stopped upon seeing Thomas Mirkwood's ragged breathing and wide eyes as he clutched at his pants so hard his scarred knuckles were white, as if it was his only tether to reality.

"Wh — why do you look like you can't breathe?" Steve stuttered out.

          "Maybe — maybe because," Thomas struggled to force out, his hands releasing the denim of his jeans to make wild gestures in front of him — a nervous habit — his voice shakier and smaller and more panicked than either of them had ever heard it, "maybe because I can't. P-panic at-at — "

         "Attack? Panic attack?" Steve filled in. His eyes were wide and terrified; seeing the emotion on someone as steel strong and leather tough as Thomas made his stomach turn.

And it was stupid really — really it was! — because it was all those months ago, almost a year, and it was all finally over and had been for an eternity and he was fine now because he'd kind of come to terms with it and it was a gift — it was a freaking gift, yes, of course it was! — but now everything was coming back, everything was beginning to happen again , like some kind of devil had returned to Hawkins, and now somebody was trying to finish the circuit between himself and The Dark Place — dear God, don't think about the dark place! — and, in all honesty, he didn't really know if he was having a panic attack because he'd never had one of those before but he just really couldn't breathe and he also couldn't stop the rustle of static from ringing in his ears and dear God, if this was what a panic attack felt like, panic attacks were awful and —

           Thomas, using the TV to drag himself upward, found his way onto his feet and, without thinking much at all and somehow managing to dismiss himself but not really realising his was doing it, he staggered for the door and broke out into the warm, sunny afternoon air.

         Fresh air. Freedom. Not trapped. No cell. No cell. No cage.

          He tripped down the porch steps, feet dragging and stumbling a few feet across the leave-littered ground until he toppled forward and caught himself on the hood of Steve's BMW. His shoulders jolted, lungs robbed of breath.