runtowardsomething | (no subject)

tw: allusions to sexual abuse

Steady as things have been of late, the nightmares still come most nights. That probably isn't the right word for it, anyway. Steady doesn't exactly describe one of her best friends losing a hand in some weird fucking zombie fight. It doesn't, either, encompass what it feels like to be staring down the barrel of her last semester of high school, without a clue what she wants to do next. In a few short months, she'll be 18. The thought is both thrilling and terrifying.

Maybe that's why these particular dreams come — not ones of a dark future, but of an awful past, rough possessive hands and Are you still my little girl? and she's not, she won't ever be, not again, but in the dreams, she's frozen, and she knows that on some level she always will be. There's no getting away from it, part of her marked indelibly.

When Beverly wakes with a start, it's late, well after midnight and pitch black outside, and she knows there's no sense in trying to get back to sleep. Nights like these, there never is. She gets up instead, putting on a pair of pajama pants and her heavy winter coat, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter already in one pocket. She's careful, as she moves through the house, to be as quiet as she can, letting out a breath like she's been holding it when she finally gets out to the backyard. It probably shouldn't make much difference, but still, the cool, fresh air helps her breathe a little easier as she takes a seat and lights a cigarette, huddled in her coat and waiting to feel halfway present again.

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"Me neither," Beverly says, as solemn a promise as she can make. She doesn't know how much she'd be able to do, really, but it's always been easier for her to fight for someone else's sake than her own, as if some part of her sensed, or just internalized, that she wouldn't deserve it. Against her dad, she has no idea how much good she'd be. Against El's, though, she'd fuck him up if he ever got near her again.

She almost smiles, small and tired but real. "Or Hopper," she adds. "I know he wouldn't."

"He definitely wouldn't," El agrees. She smiles, small and warm. "He's the best papa." She doesn't have a lot of experience with dads, but in the time she's known Hopper, she prefers him to anything she'd ever known at the lab.

"He is," Beverly says, her own smile widening just a touch at that, still small but steadier now, and sure. As far as she's concerned, Hopper is her dad now. She may never be able to erase the father she was born to or the damage he did, but she doesn't have to give him any part of who she is now. "I never knew it could be like that, you know? Having a parent who actually... cares about you. Looks out for you."

She nods, brow furrowing. "I thought Papa cared about me. But he only cared about my powers. What I could do with them. When I met Hop and Mrs. Byers I knew... it could be better." She's angry, a little, when she realizes that both of them went through horrible things, even if, in her own way, she didn't know it was horrible for a long time.

"It was Hop who made me realize it, too," Beverly says, nodding slowly in agreement. Pretty much from the first time they met, he was kinder, more caring, than any other adult she'd ever known. It took her a while to really trust that, to let it sink in, but it did, and she's been grateful ever since. "My dad... he said he cared about me. But he also told me all the time that no one ever would. And the things he did, that wasn't care."

Eleven nods, understanding what she means. "'Care' doesn't hurt," she murmurs. "'Care' doesn't make you afraid, or sad." Hopper cares, and sometimes the way he shows it makes El angry, but he's never hurt her, or made her feel less than, or made her feel like she wasn't good — like she couldn't be good. She can only imagine that he's been the same for Beverly.

"It isn't just about what you can do for someone else, either," Beverly says, a quiet agreement. "What they can take from you." It's different, but not terribly so, similar enough that she thinks El will get what she means. The bullshit they dealt with wasn't the same, but it came from the same sort of place, she thinks, and it's fucked up. No one should have to go through what either of them went through.

Beverly's cigarette is almost done, down to the little colored band where she holds it with two fingers, and El looks back towards the house to make sure Hopper hasn't woken up, yet. She looks at her again.

"Come inside," she says. "I know how to make cocoa. We can have dessert and cocoa."

Dessert, Beverly has probably long-since learned, is usually Eggo waffles with various ice cream toppings on them, and it's way too late to eat anything like that, but Eleven offers, anyway.

Everything around them is dark, quiet. Even the city isn't as loud as usual at this hour, though there's still the steady, persistent hum of white noise in the distance, a far cry from what she was used to before she got here. Beverly likes that, though. Something about it — the stillness but not too much of that — makes her feel safe, which she badly needs when her mind has been trying to make her feel otherwise.

The offer helps, too, a ghost of a smile curving her mouth as she stubs the cigarette out in the ashtray she keeps out here just for this purpose. "Dessert and cocoa sounds good," she says. "Let's do it."