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// harrington

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XIMILIA

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[spikedbats]

[ there's a deep sigh from steve as he reminisces. he can't fault some of the adults. without concrete evidence of what actually happened -- with the blatant covering up by the lab and the government, they had no way of knowing what really was happening to their children.

and then there's the harringtons. the low blow that it had been to wake up in the hospital after starcourt to nothing, to nobody. later he would get a half-hearted apology, that they couldn't change their flight but they swear they tried, and steve had been too exhausted to care. ]

There was a lot going on. Only a couple of adults knew the truth, and I -- [ he would never forget henderson roping him into helping him out with his demodog problem. he can't help but wonder if there were a universe that existed in which he didn't help the kid. ] Well, someone had to keep an eye on the kids while they insisted on helping their friends without their parents knowing. Turns out I'm actually a pretty damn good babysitter.

[tochnyy]

[ 'babysitter' isn't a word that exists in ravkan so what malyen understands is that steve is a nanny. it probably paints a picture different than what the other youth intends. mal decides not to prod on that, to nod instead.

it doesn't sound like steve's talking about being much younger than he is now, if he's talking about other children and doesn't consider himself one. then again, he's a man by ravkan standards too.

he wonders what it was that was hidden, frowns and decides to prod there. ] The truth about what? What were you protecting them from?

[spikedbats]

[ steve's childhood paled in comparison to most his age. he's always known there was something lacking, in the way he would watch other children hang off their parents' legs and not be shooed away. steve realized he had been more of an accessory than a part of his own family, so maybe a part of him doesn't want to see that happening to these kids. not that it would happen to dustin; claudia is much too caring for her own good.

but knowing what exists underneath their town, connected only by a thin portal between realms, it feels like steve owes it to these kids, these teenagers to have more of a childhood than he ever had. if they can live to see another day, maybe have one more day at the arcade without worrying about a monster attacking, then steve can sacrifice a little bit of himself along the way. ]

I don't know how it is in other worlds, but in mine monsters aren't just a story parents tell their kids to frighten them into behaving. It's why I carry that bat around. [ he shrugs, as if it's nothing. ] Only a handful of us know about these monsters, I don't know, I guess --

[ he remembers dustin all but demanding steve come along with him to find dart. how the rest of the party had been nowhere to be found, and even though steve just wanted to apologize to nancy and go on living a normal life, there was no ignoring the bitter reality that hawkins had a dark secret and no amount of pretending could make it just go away. ]

I wanted to make up for being an utter douchebag, and I dunno, I never had anyone look out for me, so. I knew if I were in their shoes that's what I'd want.

[tochnyy]

[ 'if only a few know, isn't it exactly the sort of story you'd tell?' mal thinks for a moment. but he doesn't know a world without monsters, without the fold tearing his home in half and turning children into orphans before chewing those orphans up and spitting them back out as soldiers to fight against the creatures in the fold.

so he nods, trying to let empathy speak for him instead of the urge to snort and compare. what's normal for him, a fact of life, is what haunts the nightmares of another. ] It's hard being one of the few to see the monsters and tell the tale.

[ he says instead. after all, mal carries the scars from surviving the fold once. the creature's fangs dug into his sides and into his leg, he's lucky he didn't lose it. ] I know a bit about that.

[ he grows quiet again when steve talks about the kids again and that--- that mal gets. wanting to protect others that couldn't protect themselves; that's why he'd started to fight, to grow stronger to protect alina in the end. ] Not everyone would do that, you know. Look out for kids they don't know.