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imagineaworldlike · 6 years ago

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Safe With Me

As promised, chapter 5! This one is a tad bit longer than my other chapters, sorry. Chapter 4 was just posted a little bit ago, so be sure to read that first! :) enjoy!

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word count: 2493

5: Moving On

I leaned forward and put out my cigarette. They were all so tuned in to my story, barely even looking away from me. Part of me felt relieved, it was almost like therapy to finally speak about what I had gone through. But it was also terrible. I had pushed the memories so far down that bringing them back up was almost like reliving them all over again. After a brief moment I began again.

“At first I learned to enjoy it, what they had me do. ‘Cut this man’s arm, break his foot, bust her lip, now fix it’; part of me thought it was fun. I have always been intrigued by the human body, which makes sense considering what I can do to it. I was fascinated by how I could rip flesh apart and put it back together again without even touching it. The tasks got harder though, hurting was no problem, that I can do without barely thinking about it. But healing is much harder, that takes more of my energy and concentration. Like last night with Alexei, that was the first time in a decade I healed to that scale and I thought I was going to pass out.”

I looked over to Alexei who was still watching me intently. I was relieved to find that he didn’t look at me with disgust or fear like I had expected. Rather, he almost looked empathetic, like he wanted to take away all my pain and problems. I looked back down at my nails to find one now bleeding, and I quickly looked back up to the others while I silently healed the wound.

“Then one day they brought in a man, he looked terrified and I remember thinking that he didn’t belong there. And he spoke a different language, I now know that it was Russian. These bastards captured a Soviet, I don’t know if he was a spy or what, but they put him in a room with me, alone.” I leaned forward and grabbed another cigarette, lighting it and handing the pack to Alexei who looked like he could use another as well.

“Dr. Brenner told me to cut his throat open, but that I wasn’t to heal him afterwards. I was afraid seeing how scared the man was, but I knew what happened when I refused an order, so I did it. He died three feet in front of me. I will never forget the look on his face as he died while his blood crept towards my feet on the floor. It was then that I decided I would never do it again. No matter what they did to me, I couldn’t hurt an innocent person again.” I paused and took a deep breath, closing my eyes. I had blocked out that memory for so long; seeing that man’s face again in my mind brought back every emotion I had felt that day.

I felt something on my leg and jumped, looking down to find Alexei’s hand resting on my thigh. I was surprised by how comfortable the gesture instantly made me, and I gave him a small smile.

“How did you get out of the lab?” Joyce asked, reaching for another cigarette.

“I quit complying. After that, anything they asked me to do I refused. Even small stuff, I wouldn’t do it anymore, I didn’t want to give them what they wanted. I told them I couldn’t do it anymore, that my powers were just gone. Of course, they didn’t believe me. They would beat me, throw me in an empty room for hours, refuse to feed me, but I’m stubborn. After a few weeks I guess they thought I wasn’t worth the trouble anymore, whether they believed I was powerless or not, and I was so naive I thought that they were going to call my dad for him to come get me.” I shook my head and sighed.

“A man I had never met before came and pulled me from my room one night and led me out into the woods. I was so confused and scared, but I didn’t realize he had a gun until we were out there and he pointed it at my head. He said something like ‘I don’t want to do this, but he’ll kill me if I don’t’, and I cried and pleaded, I even ran but he caught me. That was when he actually put the barrel up against my temple, and I was sure I was going to die.” I took one last drag and put out my cigarette.

“I didn’t even know what had happened when I felt the gun and the man fall to the ground, but my nose was bleeding so I knew I had done something without even meaning to. I think I gave him a heart attack because he just fell over, dead. I ran all the way home to my dad that night. I had been gone for six months.. I missed my twelfth birthday.”

“Had your dad tried to find you?” Murray asked after he finished translating the last bit of my story to Alexei.

“Yeah, he called the police and put up missing posters and everything, but they assumed I had been kidnapped and taken out of the state and most likely killed. He did his damnedest to find me, but people were starting to forget about it, believing I really had been kidnapped and killed. It was really hard on him, he didn’t have anyone left.”

“When I got home I told him everything that had happened, even about what I could do. He was so happy I was alright, but I was actually angry at him because I thought he knew I was there the whole time, which of course he didn’t. But when I told him about it something clicked for him, like he already had an idea of what was happening. That was when he told me about one part of my mom’s life he never spoke about before then or after.”

“MKUltra?” Eleven asked. I nodded, remembering that night as if it had just happened.

“My dad told me my mom joined that right after they got married, going on LSD trips and getting fucked up. She had no idea until a little while after she joined that she was pregnant with me, but she stopped after she found out. They kept trying to get her to come back, and my dad said she got a funny feeling and started looking into it more. He ignored it, thinking it was her pregnancy brain making her paranoid, but he still kept everything she found. There were cases she looked into of three other children being stolen at birth whose mothers had done the same thing she had with that group. My dad said she had been so scared as her due date came closer, but he thought it was all a load of bull.” I took a couple deep breaths before finishing, staring down at my wrecked nails.

“My mom went into labor a full month early, she started hemorrhaging and died right after they got me out. The last thing she said to my dad was ‘keep her safe.’ Surprisingly, nothing ever happened until I got kidnapped. All the others were taken at birth, but not me. My dad never could figure it out, but he thought she must have given them a fake name to begin with and not told them she was married to protect herself from the start. So then when she had me early they never knew and being that she died they probably couldn’t figure it out anyway.”

“The next day, we told the police a fake story about me being kidnapped by an older couple and taken to Wisconsin but that they brought me back when they were done with me. They looked into it, but of course they never found anything. My dad kept my return out of the papers and we just laid low. I don’t know if the lab really thought I was dead like they wanted, but they never came looking for me again. My dad enrolled me in homeschool and we lived our life on our own. He died in a car accident two years ago. I still mostly keep to myself, but it’s been better since I heard the lab had to close.”

“I’m sorry about your father, but you can thank us for the closing of the lab!” Murray exclaimed with a smug look of satisfaction. “Those bastards had it coming. But I’m afraid the threat of Russians in Hawkins is real. That’s part of what we were dealing with last night.”

“I think it’s your turn to explain that then,” I said, picking up my pack of cigarettes and leaning back on the couch, ready to listen.

All three of them shared in the storytelling, beginning with Eleven’s escape from the Hawkins Lab a year and a half earlier, and their struggles in the Upside Down world and closing the gate between that world and ours. As crazy as that sounded, what they explained seemed plausible with what I knew of the lab, but I was glad to not have experienced it.

Then they began to explain what brought them to last night, the Russians, including Alexei, coming to Hawkins to reopen the gate, giving someone called the Mind Flayer the ability to communicate with our world and build an army to defeat Eleven so she couldn’t close the gate again. Despite the fact that the majority of those who were fighting were children, they managed to defeat the monster at the mall and infiltrate the Russians, with Alexei’s help, to blow up their machine. They noted two casualties on their end, one being Eleven’s adopted father who I recognized as the Chief of Police. Through it all, it seemed for now that we were safe, or at least more so than we had been.

“Holy shit. To think all that was going on right under everyone’s noses.” I said, letting everything sink in. I still didn’t fully understand, but I resigned to the fact that I probably wouldn’t anyway.

“You have no idea.” Joyce said, sighing. We sat in silence for a moment while we all thought of what to do from here.

“My powers are gone now. I can’t- I can’t use them anymore.” Eleven looked frustrated with herself and on the verge of tears. “Has that ever happened to you?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “But I’m sure it has to do with the trauma and stress you went through. That’s a lot for someone to deal with. Just try to relax and when you’re ready I’m sure they’ll come back.” She looked slightly more reassured than she had before.

“Alright, well,” Murray clapped his hands together as he stood up. “Thank you for keeping Alexei safe last night, but I don’t want to overstay our welcome, being that he is an enemy to the United States as well as the Soviets now.” Murray turned and spoke to Alexei.

“It’s time to go, we can go get supplies at my house before finding another location that’s not compromised.” Alexei looked over to me and a pit formed in my stomach. I didn’t want him to go, but I couldn’t think of any excuse to keep him with me any longer. Alexei, however, didn’t stand.

“Murray, I could stay here. It’s safe, and she can protect me. You even said your house is exposed.” I wasn’t sure what he was saying, but it almost sounded like he was disagreeing with Murray.

Murray took a second to process before he laughed and looked from Alexei to me.

“What did the two of you get into last night?” He asked trying not to burst into hysterics, but I understood what he was implying.

“Excuse me?” I asked defensively.

“He wants to stay! There must be a reason!” The pit in my stomach turned to butterflies; so I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be apart.

“Well, I can assure you it’s not that! But..” I tried not to sound too eager. “He can stay if he wants. I can protect him, as you already know.” Murray continued to look with a wondrous expression from me to Alexei, and when he spoke again it was to Alexei.

“Did you fuck her last night? It’s alright if you did I just-“

“What?! No!” Alexei defended while Murray chuckled. Something told me I knew exactly what they were saying.

“Well, Murray,” Joyce interjected. “You did say that your place is compromised, maybe it’s best for him to stay here while you figure your things out and help Alexei become a citizen.”

He seemed to think it over for a minute before responding.

“Fine, if it’s what they want.” He said as he shrugged. The butterflies jumped up to my throat as a nervous excitement washed over me. “But he is not to leave this house at all, and no one is to know he’s here.”

“Of course,” I replied. Murray turned back to Alexei.

“Look, I don’t know if I believe that you didn’t fuck her, but maybe you should since she’s letting you stay.” Alexei made to interject, but Murray held up his hands and stopped him. “No leaving, and no talking to anyone but her.” Alexei nodded his head, and I assumed Murray was laying down the rules for him.

“I would suggest picking up a Russian-English dictionary and some clothes. I’ll call you with updates and get him fixed up as soon as possible. Oh, and he loves cherry Slurpees.”

“Everything will be fine, Murray. He’ll be safe with me.” I gave him a reassuring smile and we all said our goodbyes. I gave them my number and Joyce gave me hers in case I needed anything. It turned out that she didn’t live too far away from me.

Once they left I decided I might as well start getting things for Alexei while he was staying with me. Glancing at the clock I saw that it was already 11:00 am. It honestly hadn’t even felt like we had been talking for nearly three hours. I grabbed my keys and turned back to face him.

“I’m going to get more food and clothes for you.” I knew he couldn’t understand me, but he still gave me an adorable grin as I spoke. I walked past him to the TV, grabbing the remote and turning it on. I handed it over and motioned for him to sit on the couch. “I’ll be back soon.”

Walking to the door, I turned and saw Alexei watching me leave. He gave me one last smile and a wave before I walked out the door, locking it behind me.

First things first, he needed some real clothes.

#stranger things #stranger things 3 #stranger things alexei #stranger things fandom #stranger things fanfiction #alexei #alexei smirnoff #alexei x reader #dr alexei #alexei deserved better #fanfic #safe with me fanfic #Joyce Byers #eleven #eleven hopper #Murray Bauman #jim hopper

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imagineaworldlike · 6 years ago

Text

Safe With Me

So I wrote this chapter and the one following it all at once, but it is entirely too long to post as one chapter so it’s broken up into two. This one is a bit shorter than the others, but chapter five will be posted shortly after! As always, I hope you enjoy!

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word count: 1448

4: Where It All Began

I opened my front door and stepped aside so the three of them could come in. Murray was first, followed by the young girl, then Joyce. Alexei walked over to sit on my loveseat, and I sat down next to him. The others took a seat across from us on the larger couch. For a moment, none of us spoke.

“Alexei, I trust you’ve had a good night?” Murray asked. The rest of us looked over to them.

“Yes, it’s been nice. Scarlet has been very kind to me.” I turned to Alexei upon hearing my name, and he gave me a small smile.

“I thank you, Scarlet, for taking care of my friend, but I think you have some explaining to do.” Murray turned his attention to me and crossed his arms over his chest.

I had never told anyone my story, but I knew after last night I had to explain myself. And by the looks of it, they had brought the other girl, Eleven, with them. They all wore intense yet curious expressions, waiting for me to explain myself. I took a deep breath before I began.

“What I did last night, healing, that’s only a part of what I can do. It, um.. it goes both ways.” I looked down at my fidgeting hands. realizing I had begun picking at my nails as I did whenever I was anxious.

“I can kill a man without even really thinking about it.” I whispered. Murray began quietly translating my words into Russian so Alexei could understand everything as well. I took another deep breath.

“I guess I’ll just start at the very beginning, back when I first realized something was.. off about me. When I was ten, some kid really pissed me off on the playground at school because he knocked me off the swing. As he and his friends were laughing at me laying on the ground, I just imagined him being in so much pain like I was feeling.”

I looked up at Alexei and then back down. Something in me was telling me not to continue, and I realized that I was scared of what he would think of me more than what the others would once he knew what I had done and still could do. No one besides my dad knew and I was terrified of allowing my secret to be known. But I realized we were already past that point, they needed to know the full story now. I had made that choice last night when I decided to save Alexei. I glanced over and caught him giving me a slight, reassuring smile which was enough to encourage me to continue.

“In a second his nose was broken. I remember just looking at him laughing and hating him so much in that moment. And then his nose just bent up in an unnatural angle and started bleeding like crazy. He started screaming in pain and there was this big scene with the teachers. They wanted to know who did it, and the kid told them it was me but they couldn’t prove it and they never figured it out. I was in shock, and I knew somehow that I had done it but I didn’t understand any of it. I was scared, but I also wanted to know more about what I could do. I was so, so stupid back then.” I whispered the last part as I leaned forward and placed my head in my hands, taking a few seconds before I spoke again.

“I tried out little things; pulling girl’s hair, pinching people, paper cuts, just to do it and test myself. A little over a year after the playground incident, once I started middle school, some girl took my notebook from my hand in the hallway just to throw it on the ground at my feet. Without even thinking I pictured her books thrown on the floor and her arms bent and broken. As she was walking away, she suddenly stopped and all her books fell to the floor. She started screaming and I watched as her forearms snapped. She fell and a bunch of people crowded around to watch.” I sat back up and looked at each of the faces staring back at me. Their faces had gone from apprehensive to looks of almost shock and awe. I looked back down at my nails which were now becoming ugly and sharp from being picked at.

“But I got scared. I ran over crying and held onto her arms as she screamed, wishing they would go back to normal. I guess I wanted it bad enough because her arms snapped right back into place and by the time the teachers got there you couldn’t tell what had happened. That time I did get in trouble. She told the teachers what happened, the truth, but they of course didn’t believe her so I just got in trouble for pushing her down and nearly causing a fight.” I looked up at the girl and I saw a look of understanding in her eyes. I knew that no matter what she had been through, we couldn’t have been all that different.

“That was when I realized I could make these things happen to people and fix them if I wanted to. Healing had never even occurred to me, I just figured I had a great way of getting back at people who hurt me.” I smirked to myself, remembering how happy it used to make me knowing I could overcome anyone who came for me. If only I had known what it would have caused for me then.

“That was also when the lab somehow found out.”

I reached forward onto the coffee table to my pack of cigarettes and lit one up. Murray pulled a pack from his pocket and offered Alexei and Joyce one. They all passed the lighter between themselves as I continued.

“My mom died while she was giving birth to me, so it had always just been me and my dad. One day when I was walking home from school a van pulled up next to me and some men pulled me in; cliche, right? I can remember wanting to hurt them, but they had a bag over my head. I’m still not sure, but I think I have to physically see the person I’m going at for it to work.” I took a drag and quickly blew it out.

“Anyway, they took me to Hawkins Lab, put me in a hospital gown, and locked me in a shitty bedroom for what seemed like forever. Then a doctor came in, Dr. Bennett or Brenner, or something like that. I remember being confused because he didn’t look like a doctor to me.” Eleven instantly stiffened upon hearing his name, which confirmed in my mind that she had suffered the same fate as me.

“He asked me all these questions- about my mom, my dad, what happened at school. I thought I was in jail or an asylum, so I clammed up and wouldn’t talk to him. He told me everything was okay, that my dad even knew I was there, but that I couldn’t see him. He said something about how I needed help and guidance to control my powers, and he told me that I was valuable and that what I could do was more important than anything else. I didn’t understand, but I figured if my dad knew I was there then I needed to listen to these people.” I paused and took another drag of my cigarette, closing my eyes. “I was fucking eleven years old.”

“Papa was a bad man.” Eleven spoke for the first time and my eyes snapped open. I was taken aback by the name she used for the doctor. It quickly came flooding back to me that he had asked to be called that on numerous occasions, but I had always refused.

“I never called him that; I knew who my father was.” I leaned back onto the couch, pulling one of my legs underneath of me. “He asked me to show him what I could do, so I broke his nose. I wasn’t sure why then, but he made me so uncomfortable, and it felt good to hurt him. But then I had to heal him too, and he was astounded. I guess they had their proof that I was what they were looking for because the next day a different man came in and shaved my head against my will and gave me the tattoo.” I absentmindedly touched it on my wrist.

“Then the experiments began.”

#stranger things #stranger things alexei #stranger things 3 #stranger things fandom #stranger things fanfiction #alexei #alexei smirnoff #alexei x reader #dr alexei #fanfic #safe with me fanfic #alexei deserved better

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