#friends just for the night or maybe for life (ridingwheeler);

[selfregicide]

🔓IM COMIN FOR YA BUDDY

@ridingwheeler //Send ‘🔓’ to find my muse locked in a cell / room after being tortured and missing for weeks or months. (up to receiving mun)

       He’d made a mistake by giving up Dustin’s name and he had been more than willing to pay the price for his failure. Steve knew it wasn’t really his fault. He had been drugged and under duress and he was no soldier. He wasn’t equipped to deal with torture. Being captured by the Russians under Starcourt Mall had been nothing compared to this. They hadn’t been deterred as well as everyone hoped and many of them escaped the American military’s grasp. 

       Steve had been with Dustin on their way to Cerebro because the younger boy wanted Steve to get to know Suzie. It was kind of a cute gesture, and Steve heckled Dustin the entire way. Their drive to the hillside was interrupted when a nondescript black car practically rammed into theirs. Steve remembered hitting his head on the steering wheel. He remembered Dustin screaming. He remembered punching and kicking and yelling at Dustin to run, get the fuck out of here. The stench of strong chemicals over his mouth and nose made him gag and choke. Then nothing. 

       That had been weeks ago. 

       Time didn’t feel real here in this empty cell. He’d fought them the first day. He had said whatever stupid thing came to mind. He had kept talking until his voice when hoarse. He’d pleaded. Told them there was nothing he really knew. He was just some dumb kid who had gotten caught up in this and he didn’t know anything. They didn’t believe him. Just like they hadn’t believed him at the mall. They beat the shit out of him until he couldn’t breathe, and every single inhale felt like fire in his chest. They dunked his head under water over and over again until and woke him with a cold ice water every morning after. There was a growing stain of blood beneath the chair they sat him in each day. 

       Steve thought he was going to die. He almost prayed for it. He couldn’t understand why they thought he had any information and even told them so. 

       And they laughed. Laughed for a while, Steve staring between them with increasing concern and a nervous smile on his face. 

                 We know you don’t know anything. But you ruined our plans last time. You and your young friends.

        Something changed then. Like a switch had been turned now that he knew there was nothing he could do to appease them. Steve was certain they were harsher on him now, worse in a way that they hadn’t shown themselves capable yet. Or maybe it was just the complete and utter lack of hope. Dustin no doubt had gone for help, or maybe he was here with them and never made it far enough at all. Steve couldn’t know. There was no way to know. And they just had him here to play with. He was just some ragdoll to do whatever they wanted. So they did.

        Shouting drew him into hazy consciousness. The pale, horrified gaze that stared down at him was too young. Too, too, young to be here in this place. Too young to be one of the Russians. It took him a little too long to recognize Mike’s face. He’d seen the expression before– just never directed at him. Mike only ever shot the annoyed look, or as had been the case in the past few months, an amused one with a roll of his eyes. Mike was only second to Dustin when it came to how much time was spent in each other’s company. 

         He almost thought he was hallucinating. It wouldn’t be surprising with the fever he had; courtesy of the infection granted by the compound fracture in his right arm. He was littered with bruises and cuts. The fingers of his right were broken. His left knee throbbed. One of his teeth were loose. He wasn’t sure he could get up off the floor from where he was curled up. Steve felt like he was almost dead. 

                   “Mike?” came the guttural croak, the name sounding butchered to his ears. The breath he dragged in hurt, wheezed in his lungs. Hovering somewhere just behind by the metal slab of a door was a familiar feminine figure. Steve’s eyes fluttered and he felt Mike shake his shoulder. Steve let out a sharp noise that sounded suspiciously like a whimper. El’s voice drifted into his consciousness, something that sounded like Mike,  …have to go. 

           He couldn’t help the tears that burned down his bruised face and hoped that, just this once, Mike would ignore it.