The Trolley Problem, Part 30
Another thing happens to make Steve realize how much information he's missing.
(master post)
Steve’s alarm went off again. It roused him from a nightmare that was quickly fading away. Something about chasing monsters and flickering lights. At least this time there weren’t any Russians.
He managed not to slap it with his bad hand this time, and he made sure to set it to ring again the next day. He still had to figure out how to deal with El being in his house before his parents came back, so he couldn’t afford to sleep in.
As if thinking about El had summoned her, he heard a gentle tap at his door. She jumped back when he opened it, even though he tried not to look scary.
“Someone is here,” she said. There was a scared little quiver to her voice.
He went across the hall to look out the window from his mom’s craft room. Tommy’s truck was in the driveway and he and Carol were climbing out. “It’s just Carol and Tommy coming back,” he said. “Just like they said they would, remember?”
El nodded and smiled a little, but she stayed in the hallway, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
“I’ll go let them in,” he said. “You just woke up, right? Go, uh, brush your teeth and stuff, I guess?” He pointed at the bathroom, and she nodded and disappeared into it.
Carol and Tommy looked very nervous at the door, and Carol pushed past him to get inside. “El’s still here, right?” she asked once he closed the door. “Is she okay?”
“I think so,” Steve said, suppressing a yawn. “She’s upstairs brushing her teeth. What’s going on?”
“I gotta check something,” Carol said. “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the back of the house, where his parents’ bedroom was. Steve looked at Tommy for answers, but he just frowned and shook his head. Carol came back quickly, holding something yellow. “I was right.” She held it up for them both to see. It was a t-shirt from Benny’s diner.
Steve frowned at it. “What does that mean?”
“There were cops at Benny’s this morning,” Tommy said. “They wouldn’t let us in. Said something about an investigation.”
“Oh, did Benny’s close already?” Steve said. “I forgot that happened this year.”
The stairs creaked, and they looked up to see El quietly coming down them. She looked spooked, as usual. Carol bit her lower lip. “El, sweetie? Were you at Benny’s diner yesterday?”
El nodded slowly. “He gave me that,” she said, pointing at the t-shirt.
“Wait, what?” Steve asked. “Benny did? But he... What happened?”
“Bad men,” El said. She pointed her fingers like a gun at Steve’s head.
“Shit,” Carol said, twisting the shirt up in her hands. “That’s what we thought. The lab, right? They found you? They shot Benny?” El nodded slowly.
Tommy tapped Steve on the arm. “Did that happen last time?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Steve said. “I thought... I mean, I knew Benny died, but they said it was suicide.”
“It’s got to be a cover-up,” Carol said. “The lab would stage it like a suicide so people don’t talk about it too much. I wonder if the cops will be fooled by it. They’re a bunch of bumpkins.”
Steve rubbed his forehead, trying to come to terms with the new information. He wondered what else he’d missed, what else people had failed to tell him or that he’d just forgotten. “Oh my God. They killed Benny.”
“Those bastards,” said Tommy. They had a somber, quiet moment while they all processed it.
El came the rest of the way down the stairs and wrapped her arms around Carol’s waist. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said.
“Yeah, me too,” Carol said, running her hand over El’s peach fuzz. “We can’t stay long, though. We were gonna try to get some clothes for you, but somebody couldn’t figure out how a laundry room worked.” She gave Tommy a little smirk.
Tommy just rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air. “Yeah, and we were gonna get breakfast, too, but... Well, at least Steve’s house has coffee?”
“Yeah, I’ll make it,” Steve said, heading towards the kitchen. “And maybe we’ve got cereal or something.” He stopped short in front of the fridge. “Oh, wait! Eggos! El loves Eggos.” He took the box out of the freezer and held them out at her.
El just looked confused. She was still tucked under Carol’s arm. “What are Eggos?”
Steve stopped short. “You don’t... Okay. I’ll make some for you.” He shook his head and went to put them into the toaster.
Carol said something to El about raiding closets and getting her something new to wear, and took her out of the kitchen. Tommy started making coffee while Steve stared at the toaster. Tommy always put too much coffee in the filter and Carol complained, but Steve wasn’t going to stop him right now. Strong coffee sounded like something he could use.
“You doing okay, man?” Tommy asked. “Like, uh...” He trailed off when Steve looked over at him.
Steve laughed a little bit. “Not really, Tom,” he said. “I’m just fucking this up at every turn, aren’t I?”
“No! No way,” said Tommy. “I mean, this whole thing is pretty messed up. There’s a monster and people at the lab are killing people.”
“I should’ve known what was going to happen to Benny,” Steve said. He leaned on the counter and put his head in his hands. “I just... Like, I don’t know if someone told me and I just forgot, or if no one bothered to tell me, you know? I’m just dumb old Steve, there to watch the kids.”
Tommy hopped up onto the counter next to him and looked confused. “Seriously? Come on, man. That can’t be right. You know all this stuff.”
“Literally, if anyone else came back instead of me, they would’ve done a better job,” Steve said. “Nancy? She would’ve probably exposed the lab in the papers by now. Jonathan would’ve been home to help his brother, or Mrs. Byers would have... Christ, she doesn’t even know what’s going on now. Maybe that’s for the best, you know? So she doesn’t have to worry about her kids this time.”
Tommy let out a low whistle. “Yeah, but you kept Will from getting taken, right? That’s gotta count for something.”
“I don’t know.” Steve felt his voice crack. “Was it worth it to let it get Eddie instead? Why couldn’t it have taken me, huh? I know how to deal with the Upside Down.”
“Shit, man, don’t say that.” Tommy hopped down and pulled at Steve’s shoulders until he was standing up straight and facing him. “If it took you, who would explain all this stuff to us? Munson? We wouldn’t have believed him.”
“Yeah, but...” Steve rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t even know if he’s alive, Tommy. His uncle must be worried sick, and nobody’s telling him anything.”
“We’ll get him back, okay? Kill the monster, all that stuff. You said the girl knows how to open portals and stuff, right?”
“A gate. And yeah, when she’s older,” Steve said. “She’s just... She’s so little right now.”
“Well, maybe she can open a little gate for us, and we can go get Munson and bring him back,” Tommy said.
There was a squeak near the doorway as El appeared, with Carol right behind her. She was wearing one of Steve’s old outfits from middle school, a striped sweater and blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up. She pulled her hands into the sleeves of the sweater and held them up to her mouth, staring at them in shock.
“A gate?” she asked quietly. “No. No gates.”
Steve stood up straight. “That’s not what...” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “No, we won’t make you open a gate. Tommy was just, like, theorizing how we could get Eddie back. We’ll figure it out.”
El looked very serious. “He is trapped there?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “The demogorgon got him on Sunday.”
“Demogorgon?” El asked, confused.
Steve frowned. “The monster, with the...” He held his hands in front of his face and mimicked it opening up like a flower.
El flinched and nodded. “Demogorgon,” she said more confidently. “It got him.”
Carol rubbed her back and got her to sit down at the counter. Steve put some Eggos on a plate for her and got out the syrup. Tommy finished making coffee, and put more Eggos into the toaster. Carol got out the juice for El while the rest of them had some very strong coffee. They ate breakfast mostly in silence.
“We’re going to need to get to school soon,” Carol said. She looked over at Steve. “You’re skipping again, right? Do you want me to call it in?”
Steve shook his head. “Yeah, I’m skipping, but don’t bother calling. It doesn’t matter that much. Just keep an eye out for, like, anything weird. If you hear anything, call me from the payphone, okay?”
“What is school?” El asked.
“It’s like a prison, but for kids,” Tommy said.
“Dude,” said Steve. He gave Tommy a disbelieving look and gestured at El. “Really?”
“Christ, Tommy, you’re so insensitive,” said Carol.
Tommy held up his hands as an apology. “It was a joke!” he said. “I forgot where she came from, okay?”
El frowned. “But, what is prison?” she asked.
“There, see?” Tommy said. “She’s not even offended.”
Steve sighed and dropped his head in defeat. “I just... I’ll tell you later, okay El?”
They wrapped up breakfast, making an extra set of waffles for El because she was enjoying them after all. Carol came over to give her another hug on their way out and told her that she’d be back as soon as she could. Steve thought he heard her whisper something about ice cream again. It made El giggle.
Once they were gone, Steve went back upstairs to get dressed. He came out of his room to find El waiting in the hall for him.
“You know the future,” she said.
“Yeah, some of it,” Steve said. “Only the stuff I was involved with, though. I don’t know as much about what happens to you.”
“You have powers?”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think I lived it and then my mind traveled back. Maybe someone did it to me, sent me back here.”
El frowned and crossed her arms. “You know about the gate.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. “I know about the gate under the lab. About the Upside Down and the monsters and stuff.”
Her lower lip quivered. “I opened it,” she said softly. “You know I opened it.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Steve. “I don’t really know why, though. And I know you close it, eventually, so there’s that.”
She looked down the hallway, towards the window. It was a clear day, and they could see the trees in the backyard through it. “There is no ‘why’,” she said. “There was a monster. Papa made me try to find it. I got scared. Then the gate opened. The monster came out.” She looked back at Steve. “I opened the gate but I did not mean to.”
Steve leaned back against the wall and thought about it for a moment. He didn’t fully understand the situation, but he’d heard enough about the lab and the people who kept El there to know that ‘Papa’ was the person in charge and that she had always been afraid of him. She looked so much smaller now, hunched in on herself, that he just wanted to wipe away any guilt she was feeling about it. “It’s not your fault,” he said.
She shook her head. “But, your friend is gone.”
“Hey, I know,” he said. He slowly reached out to her, not sure if she was still feeling wary of him. She didn’t flinch, and let him put his hand on her shoulder. “That’s not your fault, either. You didn’t know what would happen. You didn’t do anything on purpose.”
She shuffled towards him, just a half-step. He took it as a sign to open his arms and pull her closer. It was clear that she needed a hug, and she wrapped her little arms around his waist and squeezed him back tightly. He shut his eyes and mumbled the kind of things that he thought his mom would say. Things like, ‘it’s okay now’ and ‘it’ll be okay,’ even though he didn’t believe it at all. He wasn’t sure if El did, either.
After a minute of this, she picked her head back up. She hadn’t been crying, just shaking a little. “Can I see him?” she asked. She held her hands up in a rectangle. “A picture?”
Steve frowned and furrowed his brow in thought. “You mean Eddie?”
El nodded. “I can find him,” she said. She matched his expression. “I can try.”
He took her by the hand and led her down to the living room, where his mom had stashed all his yearbooks. He got one every year, and Eddie was a senior and in a club. One of them probably had a picture of him, somewhere. They found one, and El squinted at it for a long time. She asked for a blindfold, so he got her one of his dad’s ties. He’d never seen her do this, but he knew that it helped for her to have some kind of static, too, so he switched on the stereo and turned it to an empty station.
She sat on her knees with the yearbook in front of her and the stereo behind her. She tried for twenty minutes to find Eddie, until the nosebleed covered the top of her lip and Steve made her stop. She looked completely exhausted when she pulled off the blindfold, and he helped her get cleaned up.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was a little hoarse, like she was on the verge of crying. “I couldn’t find him.”
Steve pulled her into a sideways hug again. “I know,” he said. “It’s okay.” There was a small comfort in knowing that, even if she hadn’t seen him, at least she hadn’t seen his body. He offered to make her more Eggos and some ice cream to go with them. Then, they could curl up in the basement and watch television until she felt better, or until school was out and the rest of the kids came back. It was the best they could do.
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Destiel Prompt List, 1. Inner monologue of a classic Destiel scene.
Trigger Warnings: Severe Feels, Co-dependency, mentions of clinical insanity and being in a constant state of anxiety
I'm not leaving without you
Cas throws the water over his face, eyes shifting again between all the most likely places for a Leviathan to pop up, all the best tactical positions for starting a fight with him right now. Still, he's gratefull for this momentary pause, this small piece of calm without fighting, even if it is just the calm before the storm, even if it is riddled with the anxiety of knowing he could and would be under attack again any second. Then he hears rustling. He just has time to figure the thought that he should leave before a voice, a very, very familliar voice calls out his name. "Cas!" "Dean."
Cas is overcome with longing, even more so than every time Dean prayed, because Dean is right there. But he needs to focus. He stays still for a second, fighting for his lucidity, fighting the urge to get up and hold Dean close. He knows he can't be near Dean. Why did Dean come find me? Did he try to find me? That's not logical why would he do that. But, why would he be here otherwise? How did he find me? He gets up, looking to his side for possible exits. He doesn't know why Dean is here, what Dean could want. He does know he needs to get away from Dean again as fast as possible. He cannot, will not endanger Dean. Not again, his mind supplies.
"Cas." Dean repeats, and walks closer. Cas has the urge to walk away now, to flinch back. Dean laughs, as if Cas isn't confused enough, and... embraces him. Exactly what Cas had been trying not to do before. Why did Dean do that? Cas lets himself be grabbed, and... Dean really does grab onto his outer layer of clothing. "Damn it's good to see you. Nice peach fuzz." Dean leans back again. Dean, you can't be here. You're not safe with me. "Thank you" His mouth mindlessly supplies. Huh? Oh right, his the human had complimented him. Not relevant. He needed to leave.
"Want you to meet somebody. This is Benny- Benny, this is Cas." Cas hadn't properly realised there was another person with them. "Hola.", Benny added, looking at Cas the way you do in Purgatory. Cas returned the favor. He was a vampire, that much was obvious- there was still some Angel left in him, at least. Just enough to endanger Dean, he thought bitterly. Why Dean was teaming up with a vampire was another discussion, however. "How did you find me?" Cas asks instead, turning his eyes back to the only thing he actually cares about. And did you try to. He's fairly sure that even with his back turned, he can protect Dean from the vampire, and it also doesn't seem like he needs protecting from this vampire (or any vampire in general, Dean can take care of himself), and this is more important right now.
Dean looks at Cas for a second. How would he even answer that? Because it's not exactly like he can say I tracked, tortured and killed so many different things all over this freakin' hellspawned place just because they might have half a clue of where your holy ass has been hanging out all this time that I can't even count them anymore. Well. "The bloody way. You feelin' okay?" Cas was... well he looked like he'd gone to Hell and back, but Dean's pretty sure he wasn't looking any different. (They had both gone to Hell and back, but this was a different trip.) Cas keeps looking around them though, and Dean can't tell if he's looking out for a fight, if he's lookin' for a way to leave, or if he's... still seeing things that aren't, well, there.
"You mean, am I still..." Cas does the 'finger going in circles besides your head' thing that generally means 'crazy' and raises an eyebrow. It feels just a little too human, but Dean's glad Cas's melon is at least okay enough to read between some lines. He almost smiles. Almost. "Yeah, if you wanna be on the nose about it, sure." Dean wants to smile. Please give me a reason to smile here, Cas. "No, I'm perfectly sane." Comes the immidiate reply, and Dean almost does smile before it turns out that that wasn't the end of the sentence. "But then, 94% of psychotics think they're perfectly sane, so I guess we have to ask ourselves, 'What is sane?'." And that is... right. That is precisely something that both Cas, old Cas, would have said, and exactly the type of thing that koo-kuck bee-loving Cas would rant on about, like asking him about lipstick, or bees. Cas is still looking shifty. Well, that didn't answer the question. "Yeah, good question." He says instead. Because it is. It's the type of thing you can drive yourself crazy over, and exactly the type of thing Dean doesn't have time for here.
"Why'd ya bail on Dean?" Because of course that would be the first thing Benny asked Cas. "-Dude." "The way I hear it, you two hit Monsterland, and hot wings here, took off... I figure he owes you some backstory." Really, Benny? I just got my angel back, lay off 'im. Dean tries to explain what happened, the story he's been telling himself at least, because Cas would abandon him, right, not if he didn't need to.
He yells at Cas. He's actually really sorry about that. Especially when Cas's voice wavers, or breaks- who the fuck is paying attention- as he says, "- to keep them away from you." Because of course Cas, self-sacrificing son of a bitch, only ever left to try to protect Dean. So, of course Dean won't just leave him now. Just got him back. "I'm not leaving without you."
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